Transcript: 4 Key Rhythms for Developing Healthy Communication and a Flourishing Culture // Pete Kelly, Apartment Life

The Flourishing Culture Podcast Series

“4 Key Rhythms for Developing Healthy Communication and a Flourishing Culture”

April 25, 2022

Pete Kelly

Intro: Today our conversation is about flourishing leaders leading flourishing workplaces. What are some of the key rhythms a leader must practice to flourish, and what are some of the key rhythms an organization must practice to flourish? Listen in.

Al Lopus: Hi, I'm Al Lopus, and you're listening to the Flourishing Culture Podcast, where we help you create a flourishing workplace. The problem employers are facing today is that more of our employees are quitting than ever before. Some people are calling this the great resignation. And now with millions of open jobs, how can churches, Christian non-profits, and Christian-owned businesses face this tidal wave of resignations while attracting new, outstanding talent? And we know that having a flourishing workplace with fully engaged employees is the solution. I'll be your guide today as we talk with a thought leader about key steps that you can take to create a flourishing workplace culture.

So, now let's meet today's special guest.

How do you create a flourishing workplace that features healthy communication and strong employee engagement? In today's episode, we will highlight some key factors that will help you as a leader on the road to flourishing. You'll learn principles that apply to both employees and volunteers as you strengthen relationships in your organization.

And I'm delighted to welcome Pete Kelly, the CEO of Apartment Life. Pete's been leading Apartment Life, a unique business-as-ministry organization, for several years, and prior to that, he was with Cru for 24 years, developing leaders and also doing frontline ministry in several different settings.

So, Pete, thanks for joining us here on the Flourishing Culture Podcast.

Pete Kelly: Al, thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure talking with you.

Al: It is a great pleasure, indeed, and I thank you for your leadership.

But first of all, can you tell us a story about the impact of Apartment Life? I don't think—there's probably a lot of our listeners that don't know much about Apartment Life. Help us understand how your organization meets a felt need for community for people living in apartment complexes.

Pete: Yeah. So Apartment Life is a faith-based nonprofit that's been around for 22 years. I came in six years ago. But we help apartment owners with a couple of their greatest needs, which is resident retention and resident satisfaction. And so in our traditional model that we started 22 years ago—we have some newer models—but in our most common, traditional model, we place two people who live in the community, on behalf of management, and they're like the welcome wagon. They welcome every new resident when they move in. They throw all the parties and events. They look for opportunities to care for people. They'll even do a renewal visit 90 days before a resident’s lease is set to renew. And as they do that, it takes these communities that are pretty lonely and disconnected, and it creates this stickiness, this sticky community, where people are like, “I know my neighbors, I like my neighbors, and I want to stay here long term.”

Now, all the people that we recruit to do this are people of faith, and so they're also seeking to have a spiritual impact in people's lives. But the owners are really paying for the community-connection portion, which is not strictly faith oriented. They know we're faith oriented, but they're paying for that community connection because it makes good business sense. And so the business model underwrites 95 percent of our cost, which enables us to be more effective with Kingdom dollars.

Al: Wow. So a sticky community. And that’s really important these days with COVID. And then you also really impact the retention. You’re able to provide a financial incentive because greater retention means greater profitability for these communities, right?

Pete: Yeah. That, and another thing that we're helping with is the online reputation, which is increasingly a bigger and bigger deal, whereas the higher the star rating on Google or other websites, the more traffic they get, the easier it is for them to lease up. And so they can command greater rents. And so that's a big portion that we help with.

And the other thing that we discovered that we are helping with is actually the employee retention. The actual onsite staff that work in the apartment community are happier, and they stay longer, which is a big deal right now in the midst of the great resignation that we're in.

Al: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, that's one of our big issues that we're helping ministries address is the great resignation. But, yeah. So happy customers bring happy employees, right?, in that regard.

Well, you know, Pete, you've been at Apartment Life now for six years, as you said, and you've taken over from visionary leader Stan Dobbs. And, you know, we started working with Stan—I guess, you've been in business for 22 years or ministry for 22 years. Probably it was about 19 years ago that we started working with Apartment Life and with Stan. So, you know, some of our listeners might be facing a leadership transition or have recently taken over from an entrepreneurial, even dynamic leader. From your vantage point, what are a few keys that helped you have a successful organization transition as you took over from Stan?

Pete: Well, I would affirm your observation because I had several board members say they've never seen a healthier transition between a founder and that second generation. And a lot of that I attribute to Stan and his character.

Two things I think that Stan did really well: one is he was very affirming to me personally but also publicly. So I felt like he imputed his, like, the satisfaction on me, and so that kind of helped position me very well. But the other thing he did really well, which is hard for founders sometimes, is he let go, and he very quickly turned over the reins, deferred to me on all decision making. And those were two things that as the founder, he did really well.

If I were to say one thing that I did well, it was not to change too much. And that would be my advice to anybody coming in as I did, is you want to, because you want to have wisdom to know what not to change, and you want to stay true to the spirit of the organization that you're stepping into and the history of the organization. And there are certain things that are just kind of sacred almost to an organization, its culture, its mission, its values, and so you just want to be very mindful to be in sync with those very deeply felt core things that are really the fabric of the organization and not tinker with the special sauce, if you will.

Al: Yeah. Well, and Pete, you've done that, for sure. And I actually did a workshop with Stan, and I want to say it was a Christian Leadership Alliance conference in maybe 2003 or 2004, and, you know, years ago. And I just was impressed at that point with how important culture was to him.

Now, for many years, you've been surveying employees with BCWI and with our Employee Engagement Survey, and you’re consistently high and well above the sector average. I mean, you're a flourishing workplace and have been year after year after year. So why do you keep surveying your people, and what do you learn that provides new information each year?

Pete: Well, culture itself is one of the foundational pieces of who we are. So I know that we're on an audio podcast, and listeners like to visualize this. We have a pyramid that illustrates what's most important to us. So at the top of the pyramid is total kingdom impact. How many people are being spiritually influenced through the work that we're doing? That's the most important thing at the end of the day. Under that, total kingdom impact is influenced by two other things, which is how many mission fields you have, how many apartment communities are you serving?—so the number of programs—and the average impact per program. So that's the middle of the pyramid. But the bottom of the pyramid, the foundation that holds it all up, is healthy culture and healthy finances.

And so that's one of the things that we build even to our incentive-compensation plans for all of our leaders is—and this really came from Stan—is that they're really balanced on all four of those areas that support the top of the pyramid. We compensate based on growth, impact per team, healthy culture, and healthy finances. And so if you're going to really prioritize something like that, you have to have a way to measure it. You need an objective source. And just intuitively, “Hey, is everybody happy?” Not a bad to question to ask. But people are, if the boss asks, the people are going to say, “Yeah, I'm happy.” But what you really want to know is, what do people really think?

So having at least a once-a-year anonymous feedback loop, what you're doing well that you want to keep doing and what you're not doing well or could do better that you want to change. And that's where BCWI survey has just become so important to maintaining that culture. And we don't just look at it once a year. We talk about it throughout the year, and we think about the different areas of engagement and how are we doing in those. So it's just historically been a very important part of Apartment Life.

Al: Yeah. Well, you've had just remarkable, consistent reflection of a flourishing culture. And you know, my impression, Pete, is that you've continued to experience growth year after year after year from an apartment community, geographic, as well as an impact standpoint.

Well, Pete, I'd like to focus on healthy communication. That's one of our eight drivers of a flourishing culture and one of the eight keys. And that really impacts employee engagement, no question. Are there some particular processes that you use to communicate effectively, or does something in your structure help you with great communication? What ideas can you offer to someone who's trying to improve communication across their organization? And I think it's interesting for our listeners to know. I mean, you're a completely remote organization. You let the lease on your office space go a couple of years ago. So you've got a flourishing culture. You're remote in terms of a workplace. What are some of the key things that you can share with our audience?

Pete: Sure. Well, hmm. I'd probably break it into two areas. One would be the tools that we use and then the rhythms that we use. So in terms of tools, I mean, we use email. We use Zoom. I think those aren’t very unique. But in addition to those, we use a video-messaging tool called Marco Polo that we require every employee to be on. And we use a task-management tool called Asana that many people will be familiar with. So those are kind of some of the key tools. Obviously, phone calls, texts, stuff like that. But I think, more importantly, it’s kind of the rhythms that you put in place. And so, really, thanks in large measure to the feedback we've gotten from BCWI and the coaching that we've received from you guys, we've tried to put in some rhythms in place that would really help reinforce our core values, what's most important?

But in terms of rhythms, we have weekly rhythms, which one of the things we do is using that Marco Polo video conferencing, at the beginning of every week, we send out a short video message to all of our employees, reinforcing some aspect of our organizational identity. And we have eight areas that we go through. So over an eight-week period of time, we cover everything from the organizational identity document, which starts with the vision and then our core values, our aspirational value of excellence. We talk about the pyramid. We talk about some of the priorities for the year, a fifth-year vision, 10-year vision.

So we kind of basically each week go through one different item, and we rotate, who does that, and we involve all of our employees in that process. We start with our leaders. But I just got done inviting eight of our employees to do the next round of these. And that's been really neat because it gets everybody engaged and representing what's most important to the organization and then talking about it and reinforcing it every Monday. They're not long videos, three to five minutes. And the nice thing about Marco Polo, if you have a paid subscription, you can listen at 1.5 times speed or two times speed. So that's a very important weekly rhythm.

We have, twice a month, so every other week, we meet with all of our key leaders in the organization on Zoom. And we have standard processes we go through likewise with our executive leadership team.

Monthly, we've got newsletters. One of the things we started doing is town halls. So every quarter we have a Zoom town hall. We've been doing that for several years, where we just get everyone together. We celebrate all the new employees. We talk about what's going on. Here's where we're at with the strategic plan.

And then, we have annual things that we do. We have an annual strategic-planning process, annual 360 feedback. And BCWI is part of our annual process, too.

And so all of those together really help reinforce all the things on our organizational identity document that are really important to us. And again, a lot of this thinking, we really got from the coaching we got from BCWI.

Al: Well, that's great, Pete. Yeah, weekly, twice monthly, monthly, quarterly, annual, having a rhythm throughout the year. That's great advice.

You know, one thing that's interesting about your structure is that you have an employee team, but you also have volunteers in the field who are front line for Apartment Life, and they get a reduced rent to facilitate or to work in the community, in the apartment complex that they're assigned to. And you've surveyed your volunteers through BCWI, and they rate communication also very high, saying that they get timely information to help them perform their role and that you actually then act on their suggestions. So how do you keep this level of communication and connection out in the field with volunteers?

Pete: Well, it's harder to do with volunteers, honestly, because they're busier. And so a lot of times, the times that they are available are nights and weekends, and we want to be very careful about not we're going to call them on the phone or get them on a Zoom meeting that it's not too much of that. So I'm glad to hear that there's been positive feedback on that.

But I was on one last night, actually. And what was neat is a lot of the things that we do with our employees, it was fun to see our employees do that with the volunteers, where they're talking about our core values and what's really important and here's where we're at and telling stories of the impact that's going on in these apartment communities. But it is challenging, I would say. And one of my long-term visions is to shrink the cultural gap between our employees and our volunteers so that there is really not two types of culture or two cultures, but it's one unified culture. But it's really hard to do with volunteers.

Al: I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Al: And now, back to today’s special guest.

So in addition to communication, you're intentional about the idea of belonging—I mean, that's a word that you use—making sure that everyone is kind of the part of the vision of Apartment Life. So what are some practical ways that this works out for your staff? You know, how do you bring together people from different backgrounds, different life experiences, and then help them feel like they belong as you all move towards your common goals?

Pete: Yeah. Back in August of 2019, we began a discussion with our executive leadership and with our senior leadership, which is kind of that next tier down. And we just identified one of the weaknesses of our organization is that we weren't very culturally diverse. We were all white, middle-class leaders, and that's a real issue on a couple of levels because when you look at the picture of the body of Christ in Revelation 7, you see people from every tribe, nation, and tongue worshiping the Lord. And we weren't reflecting Revelation 7, and we weren't reflecting, honestly, the constituents we're serving in apartment communities. In America, 60 percent of the population would be Caucasian white, 40 percent would be ethnic minority. But in apartment communities, that number is reversed. It's 60 percent ethnic minority, 60 percent non-white, 40 percent white. And so we just felt like we need to begin to grow in this area. And then, of course, you know, the pandemic hit, and sadly, you know, a lot of the events of George Floyd being killed and the racial awakening, the awakening in terms of people in the white community starting to grasp how it's felt historically to be an ethnic minority in the U.S.

That accelerated our work. And we went on a listening tour and met with our black staff, our black coordinators out in the field, to say, “What's it like to work with Apartment Life? What's it like as a black American to do what you're doing in the apartment communities?” And it was eye opening to hear people say, “It's harder for me to be a coordinator in these communities because I'm viewed differently. I’m viewed with suspicion sometimes. I might be dropping off a package at somebody's door, but I got to be careful because somebody might think I'm actually stealing the package,” or “When I show up to do a welcome visit, I got to make sure that I don't look threatening.” And these are things that we realized that we, as white leaders, never experienced. And so I think deeply listening has been important to us.

What we did is we basically did a couple of things. We tried to anchor a long-term vision for the organization that the leadership of Apartment Life at every level would reflect Revelation 7 and the diversity of the residents we serve. And to do that, we realized that we needed a place where everyone felt safe, that they could bring their full selves to work. They didn't have to code switch, that they felt like, “I've got a seat at the table, I've got a voice at the table, and I'm heard at the table. So I really belong here.” But to do that, they need to be able to see, everybody needs to see, somebody in leadership that they feel like, “They get me, culturally.”

And so we, in addition to anchoring this in our long-term vision, we had to look hard at our hiring processes and realize a lot of the hiring that we do in an organization is very reactive, like, “Hey, we need to hire somebody yesterday.” And you go to your networks, and if your networks are all white, we just keep perpetuate this kind of white organization. So one of our commitments is we always want to hire the best person, but we want to be deliberate to make sure one of the three finalists is a person of color, somebody of diversity, somebody that's going to bring something diverse to our culture, and then we're going to hire the best person. And so just that simple act of saying the final slate and the final slate of three, at least one of those final candidates needs to be a person of color or somebody of diversity. That alone really shaped things. And I would say in the last year to 18 months, we've seen a great deal of diversity as we've begun to talk about these issues and began to be a lot more deliberate in our hiring practices.

Now, we've got a long ways to go. I would say we're probably went from 90 percent white to more like 74 or 75 percent. So we've got a long ways to go still, but we're committed to it for the long haul.

It's a tricky thing, and sadly, the body of Christ is all over the map as it relates to these issues. You can see some people feel, in the church, very defensive when things of racial injustice are brought up. But we’re committed to facing reality and really creating a great culture for everybody.

Al: That’s really helpful, Pete. And your approach, you know, having one of three finalists as a person of color, and kind of like the Rooney approach with the Steelers of making sure that a finalist is a person of color. But that's very practical for our leaders who are listening to understand and begin to say, “Hey, is that something that we should do?” And, you know, again, I really respect, how did you come to that? Well, you went out and you listened and learned, and that's the first step. But creating a safe environment, no code switching, yeah. So, yeah, great. Thanks.

Pete: If I can give a shout out to Vanderbloemen. We had a wonderful consultant from Vanderbloemen, Chantel McHenry, who just has walked through a process with our executive team, which was super helpful. So, a little cross promotion, there.

Al: Yeah, there we go. Okay, yep.

Well, you know, I hear that Apartment Life is also a fun place to work. I not only hear it; I see it when I look at your Survey results. People love to work at Apartment Life, and they're not just helping Apartment Life residents have fun and community, but you do this with your staff. So how would you encourage our listeners to incorporate fun into the workplace? And do you get any pushback from people who tend to be more serious at work when it comes to this? I know this has been a core Stan has really kind of started this fun-at-work thing, and it's a core of Apartment Life. But how do you do that?

Pete: Well, yeah. I think you got to say playfulness is one of our core values, and we are careful to say that we don't prescribe exactly what that looks like. We realize that there’s introverted people, some people who tend to be a little bit more serious by nature. But one of the simple things we do is we just try not to jump too quickly into work when we start meetings. And so when we have a Zoom call, sometimes it's only five minutes on the front end; sometimes it's even 20 minutes on the front end, where we're just catching up, and we're laughing, and we're talking about what's going on. And I think especially as we've gone all remote, it's extra important not to jump too quickly into the task side of things, but to leave some margin, leave some spaces to catch up what's going on, just chit chat. And then fun happens in the midst of creating that space. We don't set out to be funny or fun. We just create the margin. And I think safety’s a big part of it. When they feel safe, their humor and who they are just shows up. But it's hard to be playful if you feel like you're going to lose your job. Or if people don't approve of you, and you don't feel safe, you're not going to be playful.

Al: Right.

Pete: So I think if you just create the right environment and create a little bit of margin, playfulness shows up.

Al: Yeah. Well, Pete, you know, again, also leading a remote organization. And oftentimes, you know—and we've learned this in COVID—I know a lot of organizations, as they aren't face to face, aren't around the water cooler, they've created that space. That's something for us to learn about and also to keep going in the future.

You know, pouring into your team and leading your organization forward and flourishing takes time and energy as a leader. So how do you fill yourself up, personally? You know, can you share some practices that keep you going? I mean, leadership's an inside-out job. You know, you can't lead if you don't have anything inside, any strength inside, to lead from. So how do you fill yourself up as you work at leadership?

Pete: That’s a great question. Well, I'd say every leader needs to be able to answer that for themselves, what fills their tank.

Al: Mm-hmm.

Pete: And so that's going to look a little bit different for every leader. So I’ll just tell you some of the things that fill my tank. Certainly starts with regular rhythms of connecting with God in the morning. And just like you would want to have a regular date night with your wife, you'd want to have something like that with God. And for me, every morning, I just look forward to it. I genuinely do. Spending time in the Scriptures; spending time in prayer; thinking; reflecting; sometimes even journaling, although I don't do that all the time.

Another thing that fills my tank is just having relationships. So relationships through my church fill my tank and then relationships at work, and just bringing my full self to both of those. And so, again, to go back to what we we're saying, not being all business-y all the time. But you’re going to spend a third of your life at work, you know, eight hours a day at work. You're sleeping a third, and the last third you got margin to do. You know, that third that you bring to work, you want it to be relational, and so that it fills your tank. So I'm blessed to be part of a church that really has a high value of spiritual family and making sure people aren't just showing up for a worship service, but they're in small groups and connected.

Other things I do, I mean, I need a lot of physical activity to fill my tank, and I love a lot of mental stimulation, so I love listening to podcasts. Lately, I've been really hooked on Henry Cloud's Boundaries podcast, which is outstanding. So, yeah, those would be a couple things that fill my tank, spending time with my family.

Al: Yeah. Yeah. I just got back from a week of sun and beach. That's one way that I fill my tank. But yeah. And same. Great patterns for us all to reflect and get back on track if we've just fallen off. And it's so important, you know, those rhythms are so important to our own character development and to finish strong.

Wow. Well, Pete, we've learned so much from this conversation. I mean, it's really been enriching. You know, I think about, first of all, starting back and just the transition conversation of if you're a transitioning leader on the way out, to affirm your next CEO, both publicly and personally, and then to let go. And so I know that's not easy. But also, your respect, the way you respected the foundation, just not to change too much too quickly. And again, you took over a flourishing workplace, a flourishing organization to start with and didn't need a lot of change. So that's great advice. And then, I love the pyramid idea. You know, total kingdom impact at the top of the pyramid, with the middle being, in your case, apartment communities and healthy impact. And then kind of these pure foundation points, healthy culture and healthy finances. And of course, you measure the finances with income statements, but you measure the culture with the Best Christian Workplace Survey. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that. Your tools and rhythms around healthy communication was just great, and I love your rhythms, particularly. Gosh, it's just been a great conversation. I think as leaders, we should really think about our hiring process and how it is that we can be and bring in more diversity. And I love what you said about you really want the best candidate, but have one of the three finalists be a person of color. So great work there. All continue to have fun at work and being playful, that’s a value that you've got at Apartment Life. And again, let's have rhythms that fill ourselves up so that we can continue to lead in a healthy way. So, boy, this has just been great.

How about, is there anything that you'd like to add? As you reflect on what we've talked about, anything you'd like to add, Pete?

Pete: Well, Al, just thinking a little bit more about your last question about filling the tank, and it just strikes me how important of a question that is for leaders. It's one of the things, and I know not everyone listening is in ministry, but one of the things that's very unsettling to me is that it's possible to be very good at ministry and become increasingly disconnected from Christ. And that is a scary thing, and I think that happens in any profession because ministry is a profession like any other profession. And sometimes what happens is we have these unmet needs in our life for approval or recognition or to prove that we're really somebody special. And what happens is when you get really good at any profession—it's not just ministry. It could be being a doctor or being a businessman—you're so busy trying to fill that void of being really good at your profession that you get your identity from it versus where God would want you to get it from a relationship with Him. And what I see in ministry, sadly, is that happens easily in ministry. And it's just not different; it's just more ironic that people who could even have very large and very thriving ministries could become increasingly disconnected from God. So I think the last thing I'd say is that last question you asked, what fills your tank? like, yeah, think about that and think deeply about that, because it would be a shame to labor in ministry for years, help people discover a relationship with God, but to find out at the end of your life that you were pretty disconnected from Him, that would be a shame.

Al: Pete, thanks. And thanks for your contributions today and particularly that encouragement for all of us, to be sure that we're drawing near to God, knowing that He will draw near to us and to have that vibrant relationship. So I appreciate your commitment to shepherding an organization that creates community and offers a tangible way of loving our neighbors in a unique business model. And of course, that's the great commandment, isn’t it, to love God and love our neighbors. So thanks, Pete.

Pete: Al, thank you. Thank you for your investment in Apartment Life and making us a better organization. We really appreciate you.

Al: Yeah. Thank you, Pete.

Outro: Thank you for joining us on the Flourishing Culture Podcast and for investing this time in your workplace culture. If there's a specific insight, story, or action step you've enjoyed, please share it with others so they can benefit, too. Please share this podcast with friends on social media, and show your support by rating, reviewing, and subscribing wherever you listen.

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