Carl J. Cox 8:09

I love it that you have been able to focus on such a discrete region that I think is the hardest thing and you have this passion to keeping it and that that’s part of your secret sauce. It sounds like that. That Yeah, there’s people with bigger money and bigger opportunities, but they you know, and you live with, right the people that are in your community, therefore you have better insights, right? versus somebody who might be even frankly, across the lakes, right? Or, or perhaps they’re a regional player or a national player. You You can you may have the personal relationships and the real understanding the real challenges that the community is facing,

Kelly Price 8:51

right? Yeah, my partner and I both grew up in the, in the greater Seattle area went to the University of Washington, all our employees live in the area. Everywhere that we’re involved in, these are our communities. These are our friends live. This is where our family lives. And this is where where we all live. So the other I guess, secondary factors, we’ve never really wanted to get on a plane and fly to Boise or Portland or anything like that. And there’s been enough to keep us extremely busy, and create a lot of opportunity for all of our employees. So we’ve just been fortunate that for my career, we’ve had for the most part, a, you know, a housing boom. And that’s just been the case around here. And so we’ve been able to stay really busy and do a lot of really neat projects.

Carl J. Cox 9:53

Yeah, there’s that little company I think called Microsoft that’s right in your backyard. And then of course, all the other high tech companies I been doing a little bit traveling back there a little more recently due to some of the work that I’ve been involved with. And I was blown away. I hadn’t been back in some of the areas in Bellevue and Kirkland in about 10 years. And I was like, wow, wow, I had no idea of all the buildings, the skyscrapers that are going up over there. It truly is. It’s like you said something made a lot of sense is that because the market around you has grown so much, it’s enabled you to stay functional, and still be a healthy, vibrant business,

Kelly Price 10:30

right? Well, yeah, we talk about like the city of Redmond and Kirkland and Bothell and Kenmore being secondary cities, but but they’re really not their primary cities. And now with light rail starting to connect everything together. It’s like the east side is kind of merging into, you know, one greater economic engine. But it’s amazing, you know, if you went to downtown Bothell, for example, before we got involved in helping them revitalize their downtown, there was basically not a lot there, there was a two or three block Main Street. And now there’s a vibrant, growing, active downtown area with people walking, everywhere, and dining, and just all the services that somebody would want, in the place that they live are now in that town. And that’s happened in a very short period of time, five or six years as well. And it’s been amazing to be a part of

Carl J. Cox 11:40

when I was doing some research on your company and articles that that talks, some things that you personally had been leading and your firm has been, is this some sustainability efforts? I think at that point, there were six LEED certified platinum buildings that that your firm had helped develop. There was mentioned about trying to replace the water bottles and things of that nature, give me a little bit more insight as to why that’s important to you, and what other things that you’ve done to help create that sustainability?

Kelly Price 12:12

Yeah. Well, I, I’ve always believed that it, especially early on, when in order to do something sustainable, that took a pretty large investment of both both time and money. And in the marketplace, there wasn’t a real recognition of the differentiation between something that’s built sustainably not only built that way, but built to continue to be sustainable. And a project that’s just built using, you know, historical norms that have been in place for, you know, decades, I always thought that the market would recognize, at some point, a value difference between sustainable building a non sustainable building. That was one premise. The other premise was, it’s clear. And now it’s crystal clear that if we didn’t, you know, look at how we could be more friendly and gentle on the environment, and in the community, that’s going to be a problem. And so we very early on, made a differentiation, differentiated commitment to sustainability and doing what we could to build and operate as sustainably as possible. So fast forward in a number of years. With those two premises, there were some kind of systems that that became, you know, generally accepted in the industry about different levels of sustainability. And so there was a, you know, silver gold, platinum level, and we right away, went for the Platinum level. We didn’t mess around with silver, we dabbled in gold, and went right to platinum. And everybody else thought we were, you know, out over our skis because it was going to be so expensive, but the challenge to the team. And it wasn’t just our team, it was our whole architecture and design. And all the people involved in designing the project was how do we build to the highest level of sustainability, yet maintain, you know, an even cost structure with the folks that we knew we were going to be competing against, wow, we were able to do that we would provide a better living environment for our residents. And we do it at the same cost. And so we would have a built in advantage. And we were able to figure that out. Over time. It took a number of projects, but by kind of iterating on the plans and continuing to innovate. Ultimately, we got there. So our focus This is still at the highest levels of sustainability. And even now, we’re looking at at a carbon neutral project where the goal would be that there’s no incremental carbon that’s created, you know, through the construction and operation of this project. We also took it one step further, in everybody that lives with us, we provide specific training about the elements of their living environment that were built sustainably. That’s part of our commitment is passing that along to everybody in our community so that they understand some of the unique aspects of the place that they live, and why it’s a little different, but even just why it’s environmentally friendly. So the industry itself has a long ways to go still dry, we’ve made really good headway. And, you know, we are one of the leaders now in pushing the envelope when it comes to, you know, building in a friendly, environmentally friendly manner.

Carl J. Cox 16:08

I loved it, how you just said there, you’ve almost made it a non argument by getting rid of the cost part, right? Because Because, often, especially in construction, and because there’s pressure on the retail side to deliver lowest least price price as possible, right? So they’re thinking, cost, cost, cost, cost cost through the entire part in and you said no, we’re going to actually deliver value, and a great price. And I can’t understand how any, any reasonable organization could say no to that, right. That’s, that’s the whole run when you deliver that, and I love it, how you said you, you had to go through iterations to learn, it wasn’t overnight. But ultimately, you got their, you know, to get to this, this highest level that I get, I imagine a lot of people tried it, but they just they go back to their norms, right, which is we’re just gonna go back to simple stuff. So in a carbon neutral, that’s so i, this I don’t know. And forgive me, you, I don’t mean to ask you to send on the spot here. But from platinum, it does that talk about carbon neutral, or is just such a higher Is there a certain threshold that that’s meeting as

Kelly Price 17:16

carbon neutral is a whole other level of sustainability. So, you know, you get into solar and wind generation of power, a real real emphasis on electric versus gas cars. And so putting that infrastructure in place is a is a large undertaking, from a kind of design standpoint. You know, there’s, there’s a variety of things that have to happen in order to get to something that’s carbon neutral, this building in particular, we’re going to be implementing what might end up being the largest kind of built environment, urban forest, in the Puget Sound arena. So you know, that in and of itself, using that, that area of the property for, you know, an actual thriving urban forest has offsets, in and of itself. So it’s, it’s a lot of big things. And then a lot of little things that add up to try to try to get back to a neutral. We’re not sure if we can get there. But it’s our it’s our goal to work like crazy to try to make it happen.

Carl J. Cox 18:37

See you when we were talking or talking about top of mind. You you quoted the culture eats strategy strategy for lunch, for lunch by Peter Lynch. And, and we are both is fun talking head tag, because we’re both we love strategy. We love vision and get into there. Talk a little bit about practically, what that means for your organization. You know, how do you get a vision of strategy? And what are? How did you make that unique from some of the basic frameworks and principles you learned in the past?

Kelly Price 19:10

Yeah, yeah. Um, well, our kind of fundamental belief right now is and has been for a long time, but it’s even more important now is that our organization is all about our people and our culture. And we could have the greatest strategy around to be carbon neutral, to provide affordable housing and do all these other things. that are, that would be amazing. But if we don’t have the right team, we call it our band. We don’t have the right people in the right places in our band, whether it’s the tour manager, the lead guitarist, the lead singer, the stagehand, whatever it may be if we don’t have the right people that that The enjoy our culture and want to have a balance, and everything that it takes to have, you know, to be a good fit, we don’t have the right people, and then overlay that and build a culture that’s engaged, then our strategy could be amazing. But it’s not going to be as effective as it could be. And so we spend a lot of time on strategic planning, but what leads our strategic planning first and foremost, number one objective is attract, retain and develop our people. And the number two objective is create a culture of extreme engagement. So that’s also our strategy is is our people. But what we have to help us manage this is what we call our vision for success. And the vision for success has been with us for five or six years. It’s a system that we we created from an amalgamation of a couple management well around one main management system, and then a few ideas, but what we tapped into was the balanced scorecard. So at a couple of my prior companies Emeritus and CamWest, we implemented the balanced scorecard and hired the balanced scorecard collaborative to help us do that. It was a great management system. But when we started Mainstreet and GenCap and insight, we wanted to do things a little bit different. So we took some of the elements of the balanced scorecard, and married it up with the ex football coach at the University of Washington. What he believed in was that his players need to needed to envision their game and their assignments, everything that it was going to take to win a football game. And they spent actual time visioning that, and he would, you know, help them lay out their vision. And so that’s what we do. We imagine what success looks like. And so have created this management system. And what we have is six objectives. And within those objectives are a whole variety of goals. And then we have a few metrics, try to have as you as possible, that help us understand whether or not we’re on track. But the number one metric I look at right now, is when we ask our people, and we we ask them pretty regularly, hey, how engaged are you? One through 10, or you strongly engaged or strongly disengaged, we ask them all the time. And that’s the number one metric we look at is the result from from talking to our folks. We also as a part of this, everybody in our company has an individual purpose statement. So what is their statement? What is it about coming to work and being a part of our company that’s fulfilling to them? And it’s, it’s not just, you know, I, I do my job from, you know, eight to five, it’s like, really, why are you here? What’s your purpose? Why are you engaged. And so that then dovetails into our organizational purpose. And each individual company has a purpose. So that sounds confusing, on one hand, but when you have this broader vision for what success looks like, people can really start to resonate with their individual purpose and with our organizational purpose, and it kind of ties it all together. Last thing I’ll say about it is we’ve got our organization wide vision for success, but then we disseminate that and break it down to each company, so that it’s most applicable to that to that company, based on what’s important for them. This used to be a year to year, we come out with a vision for success every year. Now we’ve taken the time aspect, out of the equation, and it’s no longer a year by year. It’s a constantly evolving vision. For example, if we didn’t have the ability to evolve, when the pandemic started in February or March, we’d be stuck with everything that we thought was important in January in December. The table’s turned and we had to adapt quickly and innovate. And so our framework really helped us kind of sort that out.

Carl J. Cox 24:54

This is this is where I knew this was gonna happen. Kelly, it’s like I want to stay I want to stop. It’s like I get these We need to make this shorter. But Kelly, you provided so much depth there. It’s you talking about this concept of envision future. And Don James, by the way, was the coach that you’re referring to, when they had one of their last national championship. And, and he had this way, but I love how you talk about not only is there the vision for the company, but what is often broken is the connection to the individual. Right? And you’ve taken that saying, How can I would ever position I am at how can I love how you have a band? How am I helping to keep the harmony and play the music for the organization? Right using the same analogy. And that’s often missed. It’s often this executive team strategic retreat, and it dies there. Right? It dies a slow death, and nothing happens beyond it. But you’ve actually taken to hear Listen, because the engagement, which Gallup does surveys all, you know, on a regular basis, and I’m sure you know, I’m actually a Gallup certified coach strength coach. And and that survey comes out of the 34% is like, national average. That, by the way, is like a multi year high. And so I can imagine, I don’t need a direct direct numbers negative magic teach away about that,

Kelly Price 26:14

Mark? Wherever. Yeah, it is a it is a lot of hard work, though. And it doesn’t come easy, yet. But right now, you know, in the pandemic of 2020, and 2021, we kind of had we doubled down on it. And in our latest results, you can really see it, you know, come through. Yeah,

Carl J. Cox 26:41

that is love it absolutely love it. And so let’s and by the way, I’m, I asked you Kelly at the end, but just open up there, I’m working on a book right now. And there’s pieces of here, I want to incorporate we’ll talk more about that later. Let’s pump up the personal side, you are doing a lot. And you have one thing going for us you’re not traveling as much meeting buddy and traveling outside, but you are really you are personally really engaged in this business. You’re not just doing this, for one thing, you care about the environment, you care about the people. And obviously you care about returning a buck, right? Because it doesn’t all work without generate cash flow. You can’t You can’t do that and compete. So let’s talk about the personal side. How How are you keeping yourself balanced, if you may, or keeping yourself energy, and with everything else you have going on and dealing with some real significant challenges that the pandemic has hit, especially in retail, especially in real estate, commercial real estate. Give us some insight how you helped get through that on a personal side? You know, to keep you going?

Kelly Price 27:44

Yeah, yeah. Well, I believe the balance is, you know, just fundamentally important. So I enjoy doing a lot of things outside of work. And that’s one of the things when I’m talking to I interview everybody we hire. And I always ask them, you know, what do you do for fun? And I think that’s a pretty fundamental question. Because that’s what helps create the balance. So I really enjoy road biking. I’ve never been competitive at it, but I spent a lot of time on my bike. And I’ve also thought that if you’re really going to excel at something, you need a you need a coach. So during when the pandemic started, that’s one of the things that I personally invested in was working with a coach on road cycling, again, not to be competitive, but just to, you know, continue to measure how I’m doing and have somebody who’s holding me accountable. You know, we travel quite a bit. And no, it’s been local as of late. But, you know, I think it’s also been important that, you know, when I’m not quote unquote, in the office, I’m still connected to what’s going on. Because I believe that’s part of creating balance, because, you know, if I’m going to go off somewhere and disconnect, everyone talks about disconnecting. I think that’s actually more stressful at times. So again, it’s about trying to maintain the balance, but I think it gives me some freedom to maintain a level of connection, you know, even when I’m away from the work environment. So I try to do quite a bit we’ve got a in the company, we have a wellness program that we’ve created. We’ve teamed up with a wellness coach, and I spend, you know, some time every month with her talking about you know, how I’m doing how the organizations doing my wellness standpoint. So it’s, it’s, I really think it’s, it’s critical to maintain that balance.

Carl J. Cox 30:08

As as fantastic. It is great answer. So, Kelly, we talked about books ahead of time. And I’ll always like to have our guests. And you could do the one esoteric one that but you’re welcome to share with me one of the books that you would recommend one or two books you’d recommend our audience.

Kelly Price 30:27

Sure. Well, I don’t know if I’d recommend it. But right now I’m reading a book called The Red Notebook and kind of genre of books that I like to read, relate back to Paris, France. We live there from 2010 to 2011. Worked remotely, then for that year. So I always like reading books that take us, take me back into Paris, and talk about the sights and sounds of that amazing city. But the book that I would recommend is a book called, I’ve got it here. Oh, Everybody Lies. And it’s by a guy named Seth Stephens-Davidowitz. And he basically, from Google Analytics, pulled down all the data available on some very narrow topics. And through that data set about trying to understand whether or not the common perceptions were actually reality, when you looked at big data, and you uncovered a lot of interesting facts about what what might be true and what maybe isn’t so true. So it’s a that’s a great book. It’s a really quick read, but but you got to be kind of interested in the data side of things, to enjoy it. But it’s amazing how much information is on Google Analytics, unbelievable amount of data. Truly,

Carl J. Cox 32:01

agreed, agreed. And there’s a complimentary book that we had talked about Factfulness by Hans Rosling, that I think I would have read that book. And I actually is now on my list. If you read I heard about this. Thank you for the recommendation. And and I encourage you read Factfulness because it’s same thing of there’s these beliefs and misconceptions that are I would call mainstream beliefs, and they’re actually completely false. Yeah. And and the vast majority are completely false. And they get the data behind it. Hans Rosling x is passed. He’s based out of Sweden and their and their kids have continued up. But so moving on, Kelly, this is a real privilege. How do you Measure Success Podcast? Where can people learn more about MainStreet Property Group?

Kelly Price 32:43

Yeah, so we’ve got a website that’s got a lot of information. Just looking at these statistics the other day, about 50% of the folks that go to our website, go right to our projects, what’s being built, where’s it being built? I want to see what the pictures are and what it looks like. But website is mspgroupllc.com is here. They’re right behind you. You can always just search on Google MainStreet Property Group and and then there there’s also links to GenCap Construction Corp. And Insite our property management company talks all about what, what they’re doing. And so a lot of great, great information about all three organizations there

Carl J. Cox 33:29

Kelly, thank you so much for your time today. And they can the audience for listening to the Measure Success Podcast, wishing you the very best and measuring success. Thanks a lot, Kelly.

Kelly Price 33:40

Thanks, Carl. Appreciate it.

Outro 33:43

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