LEADERSHIP COUNCIL REMARKS
H. C. BISSELL
August 23, 2010
Good morning and welcome to our quarterly meeting. Today we are talking numbers and financials which are very, very important. They are a part of our evolutionary cycle of crawling, walking and running. Let me set the stage for you in terms of crawling, walking and running. Fourteen years ago today had we been sitting on this site we would have been in a field next to a creek. We would have been batting bugs, watching field mice and perhaps seeing a snake sunning. In the 1,750 acres which make up Ballantyne there was not a resident by day or by night. There were no homes or apartments built although they were under construction and we had just broken ground on August 15 for the first office building in Ballantyne. Evolution is important and you will see evolution today. You will see some numbers that are growing and you will see some numbers that are not growing, but they will grow if we exercise our responsibility as leaders. We are the memory makers and we are the people that make this place and don’t forget the important role that each of you as members of this Council and members of the Operating Committee have in getting us to where we go in our evolution which is to run.
Where were we financially 14 years ago? Fourteen years ago we had not one nickel of revenue coming out of the 414 acres that we purchased. We had $20 million in debt which is more debt than I ever knew there could be. Since that time, we have gone from 414 acres to 535 acres through three purchases. We have almost 3 ½ million square feet of office space constructed and we have just short of 600 hotels rooms. This brings me to the question as to where we are in the cycle. We are walking and it has taken us 14 years to walk and we are slow coming on line, but we will get to the point that we can run.
Let me point out a couple of recent wins. Next week we will top out which means the last piece of steel will go into place on a new 140,000 foot, six story office building on the 12th hole. Last week the sign went up across from the Lodge on Ballantyne Corporate Place for Premier on the Boyle Building monument. Also, last week if you picked up the paper you saw a Japanese insurance company transferring its New York office to Ballantyne adding to the 25,000 feet which Sompo presently has at the Hixon Building and doubling to 50,000 feet in the Hayes Building where they will be in occupancy before the end of this year. This all happened in one week and it is a part of walking, but we will continue to push on.
Last week I read in the Wall Street Journal where in the 12 months ending June 30, 161,300 million square feet of office space has been leased which is up 5.7% from the 12 months that ended in March. The indication is that the office market is picking up.
I haven’t done our trailing year on our June 30 numbers, but if 160,000 million square feet in the US was leased in the last year, I think when I check it out with Barry today, we will show 800,000 feet which is ½ of 1% of all of the office space leased in the last year right here in Ballantyne. This is a fairly staggering number and remember we are not running yet.
We need to continue to push to get the critical mass together to make this Park go and we need to create business demands in those almost 600 rooms. We want people fighting to get reservations here every night. We need people calling you up asking you to help them get a reservation if they didn’t call until it was too late.
What specific charge do we each need to accept to reach our goal of “running”?
The first charge involves “tough love”. If you can’t get a Top 5% performance out of a team member, it is your obligation to help that team member find some place in the organization or in the world where they can achieve at a level that is satisfactory to them in whatever area they are going to “career adjust” to.
You have to demand that you get Top 5% performance or we will not have people in the pipeline for our office space and we will not have people standing in line for our hospitality venues. This is your first charge.
The second charge is also specific. If you observe in your daily work something that is not Top 5%, do something about it. You must communicate and let somebody know about it. None of us in this room as a leader has our feelings on our sleeves so if you observe something that I am doing that isn’t Top 5%, I would like to hear that. When you see something that is not Top 5%, it immediately becomes your problem until you transfer it to me, Ned or to someone else.
If we can do these two things, we can get to the point where we are moving at a pace that we want to. Our numbers will get better. We have to innovate to make our numbers better. We cannot use economic clouds on the horizon as an excuse. We must make it happen. I urge you to accept these two charges. Charge 1: Make sure each team member you have is a Top 5% performer.
Charge 2: If you observe something that is not Top 5%, take action.
Thank you.