Stetson "El Incasable" (Translation: The Unmarriageable)

Shootout at the RE Corral... "Companies continue to prize the lone cowboy, gunslinger, dealmaker image -- creating a disconnect between hiring criteria and the skills companies need to run their businesses." That's the blunt conclusion reached by Equinox Partners in its Human Capital Survey, released last week by ULI.

Wow, that's tough talk. The American Heritage Dictionary defines a gunslinger as "one who is armed with a gun, especially an outlaw." So maybe we're all deviants (see Sep 24 Dispatch). Just kidding. ... Here's more. "Companies place less hiring emphasis on leadership and very little on the ability to manage teams... Formal real estate education at the undergraduate, and especially the graduate, level is considered irrelevant or of insufficient value..."

As I read the Executive Summary, I smiled because so many of the conclusions reflected the commission vs. salary debate framed in two recent Dispatches (Oct 1 and Oct 22). Based on reader feedback, there's simply no single correct answer. Real estate professionals play a wide range of roles in a highly complex business culture. And over time that culture evolves, but only slowly. Human capital marches forward deliberately.

As Lowell Peabody at NAI Hunneman Commercial in Boston wrote, "Teamwork is a cultural issue that transcends how one is paid. Company leadership can encourage the cooperative nature of brokers providing services under either system. At the end of the day, each broker, salaried or straight commission, is measured to the same standard -- performance."

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--Peter Pike