Leading with Compassion During COVID-19, with Johnny Chappell

SHOW NOTES

Leading a team through the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic is a challenge we’ve never faced before. Everyone is home, there’s potentially less work and hours for your team, and you simply don’t have all the answers. So how can you lead in an authentic and empathetic way?  Kathleen talked to Johnny Chappell from Chappell Residential, who gave some heart-warming and practical tips on leadership.

Founder of Authentic Leadership Advisors and Authentic Leadership Advisors Academy, Kathleen O’Grady is a visionary leadership coach and fearless leader. She supports driven individuals and organizations to achieve the impossible. Her ability to act as a catalyst for people to discover, rediscover, and embrace their unique genius is what makes Kathleen one of the most sought-after global executive coaches. She is a two-times past president of the International Coaching Federation Raleigh Chapter, and her work is featured in web articles by the NYTimes.com, Huffingtonpost.com, Forbes.com, and eFinancialCareers.com.

Her real-world stories, practical tools, and actionable insights help clients step out of their comfort zone to create authentic meaning and purpose in their life and work. By embracing change, Kathleen believes everyone can achieve something extraordinary.

Authenticity is Contagious is produced by Earfluence. Intro and outro music provided by Autumn Rose Brand.

Transcript

Voiceover: You’re listening to the Authenticity is Contagious Podcast with Kathleen O’Grady, where she and her guests discuss what it means to choose your authentic self –to remove negative energy, to live a calmer life, and to become more – a more heart-centered person, a stronger leader, a better partner, and friend. Come join us on this journey of creating the life you’ve been missing out on, one intention at a time. Here’s your host, authentic leadership coach and founder of Authentic Leadership Advisors and Authentic Leadership Advisors Academy, Kathleen O’Grady.

Kathleen O’Grady: Welcome to the Authenticity is Contagious Podcast. This is your host Kathleen O’Grady, and my guest today is the great Johnny Chappell, owner and had broker for Chapel Residential.

Welcome, Johnny.

Johnny Chappell: Thank you for having me, Kathleen. I’ve ever been called the great before, so you’re the first.

Kathleen O’Grady: Well, I think I’m the – I think you called me something very special when I was on your Chappell Chats recently, so.

Johnny Chappell: Yeah. Well, you know, we, we, pay it forward. That’s our philosophy. So, if you do good among others, you know, it tends to come back around to ya’, right?

Kathleen O’Grady: Yeah, I wanted to return the favor. So here we are. It’s, close to the end of April. We’re probably a month and a half into this COVID-19 era of life, and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind sharing with the listeners some of the things that you’ve been noticing about your authentic leadership in this crisis.

Johnny Chappell: Yeah. I mean, I think that first you kind of have to just think differently about a lot of things with COVID, and your leadership style. It wasn’t something that I thought about the first week or probably the first 10 days or maybe even two weeks into this. But then after a while, you start to realize that.

Oh, you know, we have a company of 13 team members and, no one was coming into the office anymore for awhile, and so how do you, pivot and change the way you communicate while not dropping the way you communicate or while not communicating less? Because while we take it for granted that just hearing someone’s voice or being able to talk over the phone or face to face over a webcam. While it’s maybe not face to face and person to person and that close, it still carries a lot of weight. And I think it’s still, maybe even today, it helps people get through their day, which is already different and weird enough a little bit easier. So, trying to do whatever we can to keep communication really dense. We’re trying to densely communicate in our office, I guess, because it’s just a little bit harder right now.

But if you think about it in advance, I think everybody ends up a little bit better off for it.

Kathleen O’Grady: And then what about the customers? What’s it like out there in terms of real estate? I mean, I know from my own personal experiences, you know, I’m in the process of buying and selling. But from your vantage point as the builder, what is it that you’re noticing that’s changed?

Johnny Chappell: Yeah. So, to direct it on two fronts, I guess. From a consumer standpoint, so from someone like you who’s going into buying their next home — which is a really emotional, huge decision anyway — and then you’re looking to sell your current home, which is another huge – it’s one of the biggest financial decisions you’ll make in your life.

We’re seeing people just a little bit more cautious on that, you know, on both ends. Obviously, you had already gotten the, train going before this all happened and there was really no stopping it. But, we’re finding that a lot of people, you know, people still want to live in our area, in the Triangle of North Carolina.

It’s a very desirable place to be. We’re still actually at an inventory shortage, so we have a under supply of homes on the market, but people are obviously, and understandably, holding onto that paycheck and whatever they have in their bank account a little tightly these days compared to in times in the past.

So, while we’re not seeing the market completely come to a stop, it is certainly slowing down quite a bit. And I’ve told my team, you know, if you get a house sold, treat it like you got five houses sold. Treat every one like five. Because every one is a little bit more important when, in our business, we’re completely based on commissions and on selling homes.

And so we know that’s going to be difficult the next several months. But we’re trying to do what we can in a safe way to try to keep it as business as usual as possible.

Kathleen O’Grady: And I’m sure they appreciate your optimism, but also your transparency, cause we talked about that the other day, how you made the decision to be as transparent as possible with your team.

Johnny Chappell: Yeah, because I mean, it’s – everybody has their own daily stuff going on, which is front and center and the most important. But it’s, I think, helpful to know that anyone who’s part of an organization, whether it be a big or a small one, to know what’s going on, you know, with the health of the organization. So, you know, we’re going to be fine. We’re going to make it through this, but at the same time, we’re going to be looking at doing about half of the amount of business in the first half of 2020 than we did in 2019. So we’re looking to be down about 50%, and the majority of that is obviously based on the times that we’re in with COVID. So I told my – I made the choice to tell my team that a few weeks ago because number one, they need to know what’s going on. It’s not a motivational thing to try to go work harder because a lot of the stuff is out of our hands.

But it’s, to your point, it’s just about being transparent and as open and honest as you can be because I think in these times it does no good to kind of, sweep things under the rug and sugarcoat it when everybody knows it’s, it’s difficult.

Kathleen O’Grady: Yeah. And I also remember that you’ve been quite innovative in terms of ways in which you’re attempting to make the buyers more comfortable. So do you want to share what you did to create, I guess like a backdoor?

Johnny Chappell: Yeah. So we’re, you know – we’ve tried to, again, when in early March, late February, started looking at every little thing we did and how could we do it differently? How could we kind of pivot, to use a term that’s used a lot these days, and just do things differently?

So, on the showing side of things, real estate and in our areas still deemed an essential activity, so we have to be out in the field. We have to support our clients, but let’s do it in a safe, manner as possible. Let’s, follow the CDC guidelines and advice from state and local officials.

On the marketing front, we have a full time marketing team in our, company on that front, we switched everything that we did to virtual. So more virtual tours, more 360 videos, more anything that could, if you’re at home and you don’t feel like, or don’t feel safe getting off the couch to see real estate, you can see virtually everything there.

And then the third thing we did was a piece of the contract. So, we basically had an attorney draw up an addendum that we can add to any of our contracts that our developers choose to use  which says basically if you lose your job, if you’re impacted negatively by anything that has to do with COVID-19, we’ll simply give you your money back and you don’t have to buy the house.

Normally buying a new construction home, something brand new, you give the builder a really big check at the time that you signed that contract and that check almost never comes back to you. It’s non-refundable. So we’re simply, taking a nonrefundable part of the contract and making it fully refundable if anybody’s impacted by the pandemic, which we thought was just just the right thing to do.

Kathleen O’Grady: I mean, that’s extraordinarily generous, Johnny. I’m wondering, are you aware of any other companies out there that are doing that?

Johnny Chappell: I’m sure there are. You know, the North Carolina Association of Realtors enacted a similar protection for buyers on resale homes. Like, if you go put your house for sale, someone could submit an addendum to the contract that you can choose or choose not to work with that says again, if I’m impacted by COVID-19, work with me here. Give me either longer to buy the house, or let me out of my contract if you can. This one is actually a little bit more strong because it says, we’re just going to give you your money back. We’re going to try to give you as much time as needed if you’re, if you’re having trouble obtaining a financing for the house, or if you have uncertainties at work.

But at the end of the day if you can show documented evidence that the pandemic has impacted you negatively financially, then we’re just gonna, you know, virtually shake hands or fist bump and let you go along your way because it’s just, again, I think it’s the right thing to do.

Kathleen O’Grady: So let’s switch from business to personal for a minute. If you could see any silver lining or blessings in disguise to this whole scenario of COVID-19. What are you noticing, has it has changed for you on a personal level?

Johnny Chappell: Well, I mean, a few things. Number one, you can’t go outside these days. We’re fortunate that we live in a fairly temperate climate. You complain sometimes it gets too hot for your taste a little bit but right now, maybe that’s not a bad thing, right? For it to be nice and sunny and warm outside occasionally. So, you see, I mean, you can’t walk out your door without seeing people outside and walking the dog and walk in the stroller and running.

I think it’s, at least it’s turned my attention more to, “Hey, maybe don’t worry about those last couple of emails. Maybe take 30 minutes to get outside if you can.” I think just understanding within yourself or letting your team know that while we can’t stop — we have to keep going, we have to keep representing our clients we have to keep the doors and the lights open — it’s okay to slow down a little bit so that, I think, one kind of nice thing personally. If you’re able to, you know, get out of your home office for a half an hour during the day, maybe that’s easier than it was getting out of the office environment.

And just taking a little bit of time, again, to slow down, whether that set up park bench, or you’re walking the neighborhood, or you find a spot in the sun to camp out for a few minutes just small things like that, I think, will hopefully survive this because maybe it got us back to connect with some of the things that are important that we kind of shelve off to the side when we get in a normal, you know, busy routines.

Kathleen O’Grady: Yeah. And that’s –  it’s a really good segue to a topic that’s been coming up a lot lately with my clients is this whole shift has forced us to be so much more vulnerable because so much of what we had, at least a perceived control over, everything’s changed and we’re kind of left just figuring it all out, which can feel very vulnerable. So what, how is that showing up for you right now?

Johnny Chappell: Oh, I mean, I think if you’re, if you’re a – like I’m a small business owner and if you’re a small business owner, like you are you like to be in control there’s a reason. While you are in an entrepreneur, we might have different levels of how much we like to control things.

But, I’m very honest that I like to control everything I can that is related to my business. And on normal days, I think I can do more than I really can, but in days like now, I think you kind of have to be vulnerable. You kind of have to be out there and just – it’s okay to let people understand that so much today that’s going on is, is well beyond our control.

In a normal “economy,” I think in real estate you can do a few things here or there to impact things one way or the other. But, so much is beyond anyone’s control right now. We all think that things will get better and that we will come out of this and be stronger for it and better prepared for the next time something like this happens, when that’s gonna be. I think that the uncertainty of that and how different areas of the country are going to reopen or re-adapt or whatever is the scary part about it because, we don’t know that the timing surrounding that.

So vulnerability I think is, if anything, people like me are realizing it’s all right to not have all the answers because no one does right now.

Kathleen O’Grady: Yeah. I, I mean, my team at Authentic Leadership Advisors and Authentic Leadership Advisors Academy, they’ve. They’ve seen me cry. They’ve seen me in my pajamas, just, I’m like, “I couldn’t shower today, but I’m here in front of the computer.” I’ve also had days where I’m like, I just, today’s the day I’m just going to take to do nothing, and if I only have a couple of non-essential meetings, I’ll move them.

Johnny Chappell: Yeah

Kathleen O’Grady: And I think that that’s really big right now for us to do, is to just practice self care and be gentle with the moments where we don’t have the strength to persevere because this is like a roller coaster.

Johnny Chappell: Oh, totally. And you’re right, there are days where you want to wake up and you want to hear – you follow that advice that you’ve heard, which is, you know, get up and make your bed and get dressed like you’re going into the office and do all the things normal. And then you have those other days where like, literally I caught myself on Friday putting on a decent looking shirt and some jeans to go to an onsite meeting, out in the field, if you will. And I was like, “man, when’s the last time I’ve really gotten ready for work?” Uh, Because it’s – you do get in this rut, or it’s easy, of throwing on what’s ever comfortable and, you know, making the best of the Zoom call that you have to go through, right? So, I think there’s a fine line maybe taking advantage of some of the luxuries that work from home allows, but also not letting it take you too far away from the reality that you have work to do.

Kathleen O’Grady: Yeah. I’m really curious, how does your hair look so good considering all of the barber shops and have been closed for a long time?

Johnny Chappell: It’s really short, that’s the key. So it’s, yeah. I used to cut my own hair a while ago, and even today, it’s nothing but a set of clippers and a cocktail, and you can get it done. So, it’s not, it’s not the end of the world.

Kathleen O’Grady: Well, you’re one of the lucky ones because I’ve seen some attempts to use product like gel –

Johnny Chappell: I’ve caught myself in a baseball hat more often than the normal, and it’s funny, you know, the salon I went to a about a couple of weeks ago, they’re now selling t-shirts and the t-shirt is basically a crazy guy with hair like, all over the place and a long beard.

But, if you buy one of the tee shirts, all the proceeds go to the salon workers who have been out of the job now for going on two months. And so, it’s a good way to think about a different way to kind of give back.

Kathleen O’Grady: So Johnny, as we know with authentic leadership, a big aspect of how we lead is with empathy. How would you say your empathy is showing up right now?

Johnny Chappell: You know, again, thinking about leadership or connecting with your, your folks, your team in a different way I think it’s just, you know, – I’ve tried to be more, whether it’s a client or someone that works with us in our office, just picking up the phone on a random basis and trying to touch base a little bit more often than normal.

And it’s not touching base about a specific transaction or a real estate that we’re trying to sell, or a project that we’re working on, but just a, “Hey, how’s your day going? You know, how’s the home life going? You know, how is it working at home with you and your two-year-old, and your mother-in-law, and things like that.

So it’s just, you know, kind of being empathetic about – that this, while it sounds easy, this situation of virtual work and work from home is not what everybody signed up for. I have a few people who really, really, really want to go into the office every day, and that’s part of their routine and they work better there.

So, it’s understanding that even what – it’s not a snow day, but understanding that if it feels like one, that may have been cool for a day or two, but a lot of folks are really struggling with how to get through extended periods of time under circumstances like this.

So I think it’s just being there, whether it’s talking about something work-related or just checking in.

Kathleen O’Grady: And then what about that? The building process.

Johnny Chappell: I mean, the builders – it requires more patience, I guess, for everybody. Nothing is moving at the same pace that it moved at a couple of weeks ago.

And again, in some respects, that can be a positive, right? If we can slow down what we’re doing a lifewise and have time for ourselves or our loved ones at the end of the day, that’s a good thing. It’s not always a good thing when you’re trying to build a house and you’ve got a loan and a moving truck and another house to sell and to, you know, people who are going into different places.

So, what we’re trying to do also is just communicate a little bit more consistently with our clients and let them know that, “Hey, if the electrician’s kid is at home and they can’t find daycare and the kid is sick, electrician’s probably not going to come in and hook up the ceiling fan today, and that may delay your closing by a few days.”

And so it’s just a matter of and again, it’s a massive investment anytime someone buys or sells a house — it’s one of the biggest ones, they’re going to make period in life. And so it’s understanding that, but making them understand that things are just, just taking a little bit longer and your patience is going to be stretched a little bit further.

But most people have been really good about that.

Kathleen O’Grady: Yeah. I mean, I, I’ve been, constantly curious about from one day to the next, like is something else gonna change? Like, cause my closing date is June 22nd, and there’s quite a bit of, what, like five, six weeks between now and then. And, every day I just wake up and, when I get my updates from the builder and he keeps saying, you know, we’re on schedule. It is reassuring, but I feel like if there was a delay what are we supposed to do? Be entitled and say, well, you know, ” make that electrician come to work?”

Johnny Chappell: Everybody has to to understand that whatever that is, whether it’s the house they’re waiting for or the car they’re waiting for, or being able to get back in their salon to have a day of beauty.

Like, all those things are gonna come when we’re told it’s all right and, everything’s going to come probably on a little bit of a slower timeline right now. So it is, it’s –  you have to even say it though, in a slower, more approachable manner. In the past, we’d be like, ah, your home’s going to be delayed two weeks live with it.

But you really can’t do that now because you don’t know what that is adding to someone who has already gone through seven bits of bad news during the day. So it’s, just being a little bit more cognizant of that.

Kathleen O’Grady: Oh my God, that is such a good point because I, I’ve had a few different, I guess you could call it, the straw broke the camel’s back moments –

 And it was just – I was like, “I can’t take one more thing.”

Johnny Chappell: I think that’s, I mean – but really too, and it’s also the what you’re having to go through, right?

It’s the, in a normal day, you know, taking a half hour, 45 minutes to be on hold with your credit card company or your insurance company or whatever about something that they screwed up may not be that bad, but when you’ve already been on, let’s say five or six calls and conference calls and virtual calls throughout the day, it seems like it’s a little bit more BS at that point to go through.

Kathleen O’Grady: Exactly, and I have to remember like everybody’s a human. Everybody’s life is at risk. Everybody knows someone who’s at risk and that we’re all just getting through it. So when you’re, in your downtime, what are you consuming these days in terms of content, whether it’s books or podcasts or TV shows to just kind of like, you know, relax and not focus on work or not focus on what’s happening outside in the world?

Johnny Chappell: Well, it’s not the news, so I’m trying to stay away from the news because it’s just not that, I mean, I’ll get a minute online maybe of news ones. One day, but I don’t, it’s not appointment TV anymore.

I think if you overdo it with that, then you’re, then my personal opinion is it’s just not good for me. So, you know, what are you consuming when, when you’re not working? I mean, it might just be really silly, completely opposite things for some people, me included, like music that you like or a crazy reality TV show that you normally wouldn’t watch or, or, or something like that, that to tear you away. I’m a big sports fan and right now you can’t watch sports. And so, you know, that’s been difficult. You can go back and watch replays of things or documentaries, but you can’t watch, the games themselves.

So I think, it was tough this spring with the, with basketball. It’ll be tough this summer with baseball and golf and, and maybe it’ll be, it’ll impact most likely the football season in the fall too. So, what else can you find yourself? Unfortunately, I love to work, and so when I listen to a podcast or read a book or listened to an audio book, there’s probably something to do with work or real estate or small business or leadership, in the title or in the content.

But even for me, if I can take time out of my day and spin the wheel a little bit and focus on something that may be related, but maybe also to me, it’s a little bit of a getting away from a zoom call, that’s not a bad thing.

Kathleen O’Grady: I recently came across something really entertaining that’s caught my attention and it’s called Chappell Chats. Have you heard of it?

Johnny Chappell: Yeah, it’s the hottest thing – the hottest new party in Raleigh right now. So, yeah, we started this video series again. We were trying to think of things that we could do as a company that were different and that might be absorbed or engaged with differently during this weird different time.

And what we realized early is that a lot of freaking people are going to be at home on their computer and on their phone, and they’re going to be on for longer and they might watch stuff that they might normally not take half an hour out of the day to watch or to listen to. So we started doing these things called Chappell Chats, where for the first several weeks of the pandemic, it was literally me in my backyard at a six or seven foot distance interviewing people that were small business owners or someone who ran a salon or a Raleigh city council member, or maybe someone,  who thinks Authenticity is Contagious or things like that, in my backyard. And then we’ve done a few since then, over webcam, just because we’re trying to adhere to all the proper protocols and be safe about it.

So, yeah, please check that out if you can. You can go to the Chappell, Residential YouTube channel. It’s also a podcast. You can download it through Apple or find it in a myriad of different ways. So, again, something we could do is not really, we’re not trying to push houses on people or say, “Hey, go buy this,” or we’re not taking commercial breaks.

It’s just a conversation literally in a backyard or over a webcam that is hopefully a little bit of a distraction in the, in the day to day.

Kathleen O’Grady: And Chappell is spelled how? So people don’t –

Johnny Chappell: Good question cause everybody gets wrong. Yeah, it’s a thank you. It’s it’s C-H-A-P-P-E-L-L. So it’s like Chapel Hill with two Ps and two Ls.

Kathleen O’Grady: And, so Johnny, I was lucky to be a guest, so definitely tune into the episode with me and Johnny, ’cause we definitely had some fun and I was the  painful guest who forced him to go back onto Zoom because of my temperature requirement.

Johnny Chappell: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people, you know, some really snobby celebs asked for certain colors of M&Ms and things like that. Kathleen just said, I’m not, I’m not going outside.

Kathleen O’Grady: Unless it’s a crisp 67.

Johnny Chappell: We’ll have you back on in October for sure. Yeah.

Kathleen O’Grady: I mean, I, you know, ironically you think I’m joking, but I’m really not. The summer months are when I hide in my house. When most people hide in their homes during the winter months. When it’s cold out, I’m alive. I am just like, I feel like I could take on the world, but when it starts getting hot, I get seasonally depressed.

Johnny Chappell: Well, that, I mean, that’s, you know, you’re not from here originally, so we can’t hold that against you.

I’m the complete opposite where I hate to leave my house if it drops below 50. So yeah, I can deal with it when it’s, when it’s terrible, terribly hot. But, yeah. I guess growing up here, you get immune to the, to the humidity.

Kathleen O’Grady: Well as we kind of wrap up, I’d love to hear you talk about what are – what property or what project are you most psyched about right now, even amongst all the uncertainty?

Johnny Chappell: So we’re doing actually – and that’s one of the cool things is that as I’ve advised our clients, and on our personal projects, we’re trying to get them out there now, frankly, if they’re close to being ready because people are, again, they’re going online. We make a website for every neighborhood that we sell and we do a lot of, social media and videos. And so we’re finding that people are clicking on that stuff and engaging with it right now. So we’re doing a couple of really cool new projects. One’s called Nottingham, which has seven houses up on a Hill, kind of inside the BeltLine near downtown Raleigh.

We’re doing a really nice high end luxury Clark townhomes, that’s over near Cameron Village. And we’re doing some, you know, on the other end of the scale, we’re doing some kind of first time buyer, very affordable, townhomes that start in the $200K’s that’s over off of Glenwood and Millbrook Avenue in North Raleigh those are called Pleasant Pines. And you can get our website, which is chappellres.com and see everything that we’re doing. But again, while it’s some people are adjusting to things, and we are as well. We’re trying to actually do a little bit more, just in a different way right now. The number of people walking into houses is down, but the number of people looking at them on their laptop is way up. So, we’re trying to take advantage of that.

Kathleen O’Grady: Yeah. And there’s, speaking of taking advantage, there’s always the people who aren’t as effected that want to take advantage of this time to get a good deal or to feel like they have more wiggle room.

Johnny Chappell: Well, and too, it’s a, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s actually a pretty good time to buy because if you’re looking right now, you’re going to be looking with less competition, right? Because just not as many people shopping. And there’s also a little bit more motivation from the sellers that are out there right now because if they still have their home for sale, there’s a reason why, right?

Either, they think they’re going to take advantage of what activities out there, or they really have a strong, they need to get that house sold. So you may be dealing with a more motivated seller. And the interest rates are still super, super low right now. So, the people who are out there right now, we’re seeing that they’re actually finding some good deals and having success, and then those who are choosing to wait, for it to, to “get back to normal,” I think the lid is going to go off the real estate market at that point because there’s just a lot of pent up activity, that maybe the spring market that we normally see might just be delayed until the summer or the fall.

Kathleen O’Grady: Well, I am so grateful again that you took the time to be with us today, and I’m going to celebrate your success because I know it’s pending. And I can’t wait to hear, when is the episode of Chappell Chats coming out that I’m on?

Johnny Chappell: Any day now. So it’s going to come out and be prepared, to receive all kinds of, you know, invitations to fancy virtual parties and endorsement requests and just to, you know, just remember the little people when you continue to take off.

Kathleen O’Grady: Yes. And make sure that your assistant sends me the numbers so I can wire the funds for your time today.

Johnny Chappell: Absolutely. Yeah. It’s a lot of zeros at the end of that check, please.

Kathleen O’Grady: A big check. You’re the best. Johnny. Thank you so much.

Johnny Chappell: Thank you for – no, this has been an awesome conversation. So thank you for having me on.

The things like this are kudos to you because as a coach and as a business owner, like everybody, you’re trying to figure out ways, different ways, to be out there right now. And I think it, it doesn’t take – it’s not an easy thing to do one of these, and so congratulations to you for doing that.

Kathleen O’Grady: Well, thank you, Johnny. As you may know, I had several other podcast episodes prerecorded, ready to roll out when all this started to happen. And so now I’m having to start season one all over again. and so we’re gonna, we’re gonna like drop the mic with Johnny Chappell. Like – 

Oh man, I cannot wait. I’m going to let – myself and my mom will listen to it at least four or five times. So you can count all that.

All right. Well we better wrap this up or we’ll be flouting each other’s egos for the rest of the day. Thanks.