‘Everyone Needs Deadlines’ ‘First Things First’ and ‘7 Habits of Highly Successful People’ – Pre-Christmas Preview of Manufactured Housing Year in Review; plus Sunday Weekly MHVille Headlines Recap
Activities and “to do” style checklists have limited value if they are not authentically aimed at achieving their higher purpose. Decades before the company that bears his name ‘went woke,’ Walt Disney noted that “Everyone needs deadlines.” For anyone that has sold manufactured homes at the retail level in a community or from a ‘street’ retail center (a.k.a. ‘dealership’), it is likely that the expression “time kills deals” has been heard. What does that mean? And why does ‘time kills deals’ matter? Simple. Because if ‘a deal’ (i.e.: a potential sale) takes ‘too much’ time, it will likely be lost due to the prospective customer’s frustrations and pressures. So, time can in fact ‘kill’ deals. Incredibly, some organizations and professionals in manufactured housing appear to have forgotten such principles. Or perhaps they have never learned them in the first place? Thus, as a pre-Christmas gift to the manufactured home industry – lovingly called ‘MHVille’ by some – and its professionals, this featured topic will review the official “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” which inspired the second key notion cited in the headline.
“Stephen R. Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, continues to be a bestseller for the simple reason that it ignores trends and pop psychology and focuses on timeless principles of fairness, integrity, honesty, and human dignity. One of the most compelling books ever written, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, has empowered and inspired readers for over 25 years.” So says a page on the Franklin Covey website under the following title.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People®
Among the seven habits is the topic inspired in headline for this article. Namely, “first things first.” Franklin Covey says the 7 Habits are as follows. Yet all too often, individuals and organizations, for a variety of reasons, motivations, and possible purposes may put first things last – or worse yet – not at all on their list of things to do. Before proceeding, let’s review Covey’s quoted 7 Habits.
1 Habit 1: Be Proactive®
Focus and act on what you can control and influence instead of what you can’t.
2
Habit 2: Begin With the End in Mind®
Define clear measures of success and a plan to achieve them.
3
Habit 3: Put First Things First®
Prioritize and achieve your most important goals instead of constantly reacting to urgencies.
4
Habit 4: Think Win-Win®
Collaborate more effectively by building high-trust relationships.
5
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood®
Influence others by developing a deep understanding of their needs and perspectives.
6
Habit 6: Synergize®
Develop innovative solutions that leverage differences and satisfy all key stakeholders.
7
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw®
Increase motivation, energy, and work/life balance by making time for renewing activities.”
Each of those 7 Habit bullets are, per Covey and millions who have followed his time-tested advice, the keys to balanced, successful living and improved professional performance.
But for those employed in the manufactured home profession, or those who have business or investment interests that operate in the manufactured housing industry, those 7 Habits – along with Disney’s “Everyone needs deadlines” mantra – beg relevant questions. Here are three ‘inquiring minds want to know’ examples.
A) How are publicly traded firms that operate in MHVille living up to those 7 Habits?
B) Or how are manufactured housing trade associations living up to those 7 Habits?
C) Do the manufactured home industry’s corporate and association ‘leaders’ seem like they are on a clearly defined, 7 Habits-principled, and deadline-driven mission?
Cavco Industries CEO William “Bill” Boor stated during an earnings call with investment analysts a goal that ought to be quite reasonable for a vertically integrated firm that produces and retails HUD Code manufactured homes.
This quoted remark illustration was uploaded by MHProNews on December 7, 2020. Bill Boor was correct in saying that the industry has an opportunity to ‘catch up’ – or even pass – conventional housing builders. But that opportunity existed 2 decades before his apt comment too. That means, that until the root issues that cause manufactured housing to fail to achieve that potential are addressed, authentic progress will not be obtained. That noted, by addressing the root issues robust growth can occur. A sense of urgency – i.e.: deadlines and the 7 Habits could be among the useful principles applied to accomplish Boor’s opportunity for manufactured housing to “catch up with” site built building.
To understand how far the industry must go to achieve that goal is one of our headline reports on MHLivingNews for this Sunday weekly recap of the articles for the week that was. It should be apparent that hard numbers are needed to understand and attain Boor’s dangled promise (i.e.: potential goal) of manufactured housing sales surpassing conventional housing. See that report on MHLivingNews among the others that follow further below.
Boor’s quote, while significant, is hardly a first of its kind.
Some 20 years before his remark to Cavco Industries (CVOC) stock analysts – and through them, to investors – the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) website used to have a document that featured this similar remark from then Harvard fellow Eric Belsky. One should keep in mind that Boor is on the MHI Executive Committee board. One should also keep in mind that MHI’s board chair is essentially in Boor’s hip pocket. Cavco essentially currently holds the two top MHI board spots.
At the time his comment was made, Belsky was at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS). His statements were not made on mere whim, it was based upon research. One reason why Belsky’s research was arguably logical was because the Fannie Mae Foundation had done serious research into manufactured housing. They saw the quality and value, much like Belsky did. See weekly headlines in review for more.
There could be much more, but that is sufficient to beg the next question.
D) How are key manufactured housing organizations living up to those seemingly-lofty goal of surpassing conventional housing?
Another significant manufactured housing corporate leader, Kevin Clayton, sheds light. Clayton is quoted word-for-word in a video that featured him in our Friday report on the Clayton Homes backed, and MHI branded CrossMods® style manufactured homes. See that linked below other headlines for the week that was.
It would be unfair to characterize this site, or MHLivingNews, as so-called “Gonzo Journalism.” That said, let’s briefly go into a more subjective or editorial mode that reflects years of experience involved in personally selling and/or managing the sales of thousands of manufactured homes.
Much of the industry has accepted a ‘new baseline’ of performance that would have been seen as unimaginably low 25 years ago. As the U.S. population grows, one would expect a proven product like manufactured housing to have risen in sales along with the population. That should be a minimum baseline, right? But instead of rising, manufactured housing has overall fallen from its last high achieved in 1998.
MacroTrends said that in 1998 there were “275,835,018” total people in America. MacroTrends puts the 2022 U.S. population at “338,289,857.” Doing the math, the population increased by 1.226%. Taking the official HUD Code manufactured home production in 1998 of 373,143 x 1.226 = 457,473. Yet in 2021, manufactured housing only managed 105,772 new homes. That’s a stunning shortfall of some 351,701 total manufactured homes if there were no difference in the market share or percentage of manufactured housing sales.
Do you see why seasoned MHVille experts might see the corporate and MHI affiliated leaders are a bad joke?
So, what the manufactured housing industry’s data – those cold, hard sometimes seemingly dispassionately cruel fact reveal – is something quite different than the rose-colored glasses that MHI sycophants portray.
Dated and at times inaccurate or misleading information is available on the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) website, which may explain why MHProNews and MHLivingNews has robust traffic and high levels of engagement when new visitors arrive. That is per third-party metrics. Note: depending on your browser or device, many images in this report can be clicked to expand. Click the image and follow the prompts. To return to this page, use your back key, escape or follow the prompts.
Contrary to what Kevin Clayton said in that video posted in our Friday report on the Daily Business News on MHProNews, manufactured housing has demonstrably not been a mere 9 percent of all single-family housing starts for much of its history.
As seasoned and well-informed manufactured housing industry veterans retire, change careers, sell out their businesses interests, closed their business, or die, the ‘next’ generation of manufactured housing industry professionals has obviously taken their places. That next generation of manufactured housing industry pros accepts a reality that prior generation of MHVille veterans would have snorted at, mocked, or might have gone into rant on how outrageously low many of the industry’s so-called leaders have accepted demonstrably poor performance.
The 7 Habits principles and ‘everyone needs deadlines’ to achieve certain goals are seemingly ignored compared to numbers of prior years in manufactured housing.
To use another set of pesky facts to debunk Kevin’s demonstrably inaccurate video remark, see the graphic from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Certified Business Economist (CBE) Scholastica “Gay” Cororaton.
Scholastica “Gay” Cororaton’s research documents that the industry has been underperforming since the Berkshire era began in 2002.
Correction. Kevin wasn’t completely wrong. What that NAR graphic revealed is that Clayton seemed to palter.
What that NAR graphic above by Cororaton uncovered is that the manufactured home industry once produced over 20 percent of new single-family housing starts, and at times produced a far greater market share. Since that was achieved before, it should be doable again.
That new video posted in that article linked below is arguably not the first time Kevin has paltered.
Kevin did so with Congress too, see that linked here. Reflect on Kevin’s apparent paltering on shipment levels and then consider Habits 4 and 6. Let’s quote one here for ease of reader reference: “Habit 4: Think Win-Win® which stated the principle: “Collaborate more effectively by building high-trust relationships.”
If one believes Kevin’s remarks in the video interview with Robert Milesquoted here and above, they conflict with the 7 Habits. They may conflict with the need for MHI to feel any sense of urgency that resembles a deadline. Perhaps more precisely, the deadlines MHI feels must be hit are for their routine profit-generating events.
But where is the urgency to solve the problem created by the very real deadline needed to stop the looming DOE energy rule, that MHI admitted would be harmful to the industry?
Where is the MHI deadline to get CrossMods® out of an embarrassingly low sales level, after their years of hype and promises?
The 7 Habits and classic (vs. woke) Disney “Everyone needs deadlines” are predicated on time-honored moral values. Per the Disney archives: “Everyone needs deadlines. Even the beavers. They loaf around all summer, but when they are faced with the winter deadline, they work like fury.” Where is the ‘fury’ of activity by MHI needed to beat the harms ahead of the DOE regulation enforcement deadline?
It is in carefully monitoring behavior and data, combined with following the money trail, that reality often emerges.
Kevin’s remarks to Miles, recorded on video, bluntly admit that they want to make it ‘hard’ on their competitors.
With that mindset, there is no apparent reason for them to grow an industry that makes it feudalistic contributions to the Berkshire Hathaway corporate treasury.
To Warren Buffett, habits may be seen as something that are something to be taken advantage of in others. The quote on the left below, cited in the linked article where it is examined in more detail, is how Buffett framed it.
When people get into the habit, for instance, of ‘trusting’ MHI, and MHI becomes a mere extension of Clayton (i.e.: Berkshire) and their allies such as Skyline Champion (SKY), Cavco Industries (CVCO), Sun Communities (SUI), Equity LifeStyle Properties (ELS), Flagship Communities (OTCMKTS: FLGM or MHC-U.TO), Impact Communities, Havenpark Communities, RHP Properties (etc.), then the move toward feudalistic behavior complete with unstated – but apparent – lords, vassals, and fealty – begins to come into focus. The MHI that the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform (MHARR) teamed up with nearly 25 years ago to enact the Manufactured Housing Improvement Act of 2000 (MHIA) exists in name. But where is the deadline impetus at MHI? The checklist below, obtained by an insider and provided to MHProNews as having appeared on the old MHI website but which is no longer available on the website visible today is but one example of the apparent loss of a sense of urgency at MHI.
This historic MHI activity and status check list is precisely the type of document that someone or some organization would have to monitor progress on the various items mentioned above. But now, nearly 2 decades later, where is the ‘progress’ by MHI since then? Where are such documents from MHI more recently? Why are they lacking or missing? What happened after the enactment of the MHIA 2000 that might shed light on why such progress reports have since been removed from the public side of the MHI website? An obvious answer, upon examination, is that Berkshire Hathaway more directly entered the manufactured home industry in 2002 and 2003 with their investment in Oakwood and their controversial and litigation marked buyout of Clayton Homes. One should recall that prior to their selling off those shares, Berkshire had a sizable stake in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.https://www.manufacturedhomepronews.com/warren-buffetts-moat-in-affordable-manufactured-housing-examined-through-new-data-from-fhfa-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-sabotaging-monopolies-and-other-related-research/
In recent years, MHI apparently won’t answer such questions.
Nor will MHI, Kevin Clayton, or numbers of the other corporate leaders sit down and do a real interview. Nor will they engage in a real debate on the issues that ought to matter to a nation that is hungry for affordable manufactured homes.
Perhaps more precisely, the nation is hungry for affordable housing and would gladly embrace manufactured homes (factory built homes, modular homes, etc.) if they only understood the full and unvarnished truth about manufactured housing. Is there evidence for that claim? Yes. Even with an ongoing parade of bad news – often demonstrably tied to some of those same ‘leading’ brands at MHI – occurs, amazingly, Freddie Mac’s research linked below revealed that ‘most’ Americans would still consider buying a manufactured home. See the third linked report to see the facts on how many Americans would consider manufactured homes.
There is no apparent urgency for MHI to do what it claims it wants to achieve in their lobby efforts. There is also no apparent willingness for MHI’s staff or its corporate leaders to stand accountable for their lack of performance during an affordable housing crisis. Clayton’s paltering is but one of an array of examples that are found in the headlines for the week in review that follows.
Don’t miss today’s postscript, only about 4 minutes of reading to see what others miss in MHVille.
With no further adieu, let’s pivot toward the headlines for the week that was from 12.11 to 12.18.2022.
Others in what passes as bloggers and trade media in MHVille are often busy brownnosing Clayton, MHI, and those who have led manufactured housing professionals into a dark alley. In that dark alley, as the facts above outlined, thousands of manufactured home professionals have proverbially been mugged and robbed of their true historic performance and even greater possible potential.
That mugging has been done by ‘leaders’ who are quite capable of smiling at their potential victims at various MHI meetings and affilated events even as those leaders may be considering the person they smile at as a future meal to be consumed. Or they may view that person they gaze upon as an opportunity to trip up yet another independent so they can be tipped into insolvency. This is the Buffett way that Kevin proudly said he embraced in the video report with transcript posted below.
Why is manufactured housing underperforming during an affordable housing crisis?
Some-to-many in MHVille have the kind of values that unwoke Walt Disney, or Stephen Covey and his 7 Habits, professed, inspired, and taught.
But others that mouth and posture values or professionalism – as they palter – and substitute a grand illusion for reality. Every con game, from Madoff, to WorldCom, to Enron, to Theranos, to Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF at FTX) is predicated to some extend on creating a believable illusion and making it look real.
In fairness, the case might be made that Lesli Gooch, Mark Bowersox or other higher-level staffers may have come on board at MHI not completely realizing just how corrupt MHI has become since the days when they teamed up with MHARR to enact the MHIA. The argument could at least be advanced Gooch, Bowersox or others as the latest faces required to shovel some degree of paltering, misleading, manipulative messaging. Those MHI staffers are the apparent tools their corporate masters needed to in turn use and abuse thousands of industry pros. Does that scenario mitigate Gooch, Bowersox, Richard “Dick” Jennison, or other’s responsibilities?
Why? Because that argument could only stand up to OBJECTIVE scrutiny for so long.
That may explain why MHI is a kind of revolving door, where staff comes and goes. By contrast, MHARR has the same key people for decades. At MHI it may become too morally difficult to live with the role a person plays in the mugging and unethical if not illegal swindling of the American Dream of so many.
Are the 7 Habits still relevant in an era of Buffett-ism and feudalistic moat building? Perhaps in some contexts.
But the case can be made that the 7 Habits would work far better if Buffett-ism, moats, philanthro-feudalism, and other forms of bottom of the deck dealing and corruption were first rooted out.
Remember. This article is just a preview. The Manufactured Housing Industry’s authentic year in review for 2022 is coming.
When the objective realities and performance data are scrutinized, when prior remarks and lined up with factual realities to see if the statements were honest or merely a line in a modern scam – sobering facts shed a different light than MHI and its feudalistic moat building masters care to account for publicly.
MHI and their leaders can’t have it both ways.
a) If they are smart, intelligent, and honest, they would operate based on measurable performance, win-win thinking, and deadlines. They should operate on the principles of the 7 Habits.
Despite the obvious lack of ethics of so many leaders involved with MHI, some have been led to believe the illusion. But that is the nature of a con game, as Madoff, SBF-FTX, Theranos and other multi-billion-dollar schemes illustrate. Every con creates an illusion.
Every con operates in plain sight.
Every confidence man (or woman) posture one thing but will sooner or later do another.
Yes, some may be aware of this massive con game. But brownnosers who deflect on behalf of MHI and their corporate masters have tried to discount or dismiss such notions as a ‘conspiracy theory.’ Hah!
c) If it were a conspiracy theory, easily debunked, then why won’t MHI, Kevin, Boor, or others stand up and debate their performance publicly?
d) If such notions are easily disproven bunk, then why won’t they or their attorneys provide written answers to written questions?
e) If they have nothing to hide, then why do they hide from MHProNews’ justified inquiries that are based on facts, evidence, trends, and common sense?
There appears to be a race in America. That race isn’t about ethnic groups, although it involves them.
Rather that race is a kind of unstated deadline. Americans are slowly waking up in increasing numbers to the massive scheme that voices across the left-right divide have been shouting for some years.
Meanwhile, the powers that be are buying off – or trying to – voters with taxpayers’ money.
The biggest Ponzi scheme of all time may turn out to be modern American crony-capitalist politics. One can only loot the U.S. and state treasuries and taxpayers for so long before a collapse occurs that would make the crisis of 2008 look like child’s play. These are political issues, but they are also moral issues. Those moral issues are why we must look to the real meaning and lessons of Christmas.
Stay tuned for more of what’s behind the ‘tapestry of lies’ that operates in too many cases in the U.S.A. as Edward Curtin said. Curtin cited English playwright Harold Pinter from his 2005 Nobel Prize address where he used too used the expression “a tapestry of lies.” It would be easy to elaborate, but follow the links and check back for more. Because this is enough fact-packed reality checks for today. ###
MHProNews spotlights granular issues in manufactured housing, but also takes a periodic look at macro issues too. This is to set the concerns of our industry into a broader context. In order to solve our industry’s problems, good existing laws must be properly enforced. There is no need to wait years for legislation that in the past has often led to little or no discernable benefit. https://www.wnd.com/2021/05/solution-big-tech-oligarchs/ Click here to subscribe to the most complete and obviously most read manufactured housing industry news in seconds. Enter your desired email address, press submit, confirm in your inbox. Then You’re All Set for x2 weekly emailed news updates! To report a news tip – either ON or OFF the record – click the image above or send an email to iReportMHNewsTips@mhmsm.com – To help us spot your message in our volume of email, please put the words NEWS TIP or COMMENTS in the subject line.
Our son has grown quite a bit since this 12.2019 photo. All on Capitol Hill were welcoming and interested in our manufactured housing industry related concerns. But Congressman Al Green’s office was tremendous in their hospitality. Our son’s hand is on a package that included the Constitution of the United States, bottled water, and other goodies.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position, and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
