The agent who spots a flaw in your listing strategy but stays quiet.
The property manager with a better process who assumes no one wants to hear it.
The new team member who sees exactly what’s outdated about your approach but doesn’t want to speak up.
These silences are costing your business.
Mitch Green, Harcourts Head of People and Culture, has spent fifteen years studying what makes real estate teams perform.
His background in psychology and counselling gives him a unique lens on workplace dynamics, and he’s convinced that the biggest untapped resource in most offices isn’t a new CRM or marketing platform.
It’s the ideas people aren’t sharing.
“Sometimes we have ideas that we keep to ourselves or thoughts that we don’t feel safe or comfortable sharing,” Mitch says.
“If we can somehow find a way to break that silence, we can be more successful, more comfortable, show up to work better, get better outcomes, and feel more engaged and accepted in the workplace.”
The unique challenge of real estate
Every workplace struggles with unspoken feedback. But real estate has specific dynamics that make the problem worse.
First, there’s the competition factor. Even in collaborative teams, agents share a client base with potential overlaps.
“I don’t think our people would necessarily say we compete with each other, but there’s always going to be a little bit of an element of that,” Mitch says.
“If I help the rest of the team become too good, what if they end up cutting my grass?”
Then there’s the informal hierarchy that forms around performance. Unlike traditional organisations with clear reporting lines, real estate teams often defer to whoever brings in the most revenue – regardless of their actual position.
“You might be a senior leader in your organisation, but you find it difficult to speak up in contradiction to the lead agent because you don’t want to upset the person who’s paying the bills.”
This creates a double bind. The people with fresh perspectives – newer agents, support staff, those from different backgrounds – often feel least empowered to share them. Meanwhile, top performers may never hear the feedback that could help them improve further.
What goes unsaid
Two categories of valuable input tend to stay locked away, according to Mitch.
The first is feedback that could help colleagues improve.
Agents may notice inefficiencies in a teammate’s approach or spot opportunities they’re missing, but sharing feels risky.
“Depending on the culture of the organisation, it can be tough. If the people around me get too good, what does that say about me, or does that hurt my business?”
The second is innovation.
When seasoned professionals have been succeeding with their methods for decades, it takes courage to suggest change.
“It can be really hard to look at somebody like that and say, ‘Your results speak for themselves. You’re incredible. But I think the way you’re doing it could be better. Or this thing you’re doing doesn’t work anymore.'”
Both represent missed opportunities – for individual growth and for the business as a whole.
The performance case for speaking up
This isn’t about creating a feel-good workplace culture (though that matters too).
The research makes a compelling business case.
“Harvard University puts out plenty of research around this,” Mitch notes.
“Teams that have those psychologically safe environments – where people feel comfortable to create a bit of friction by maybe contradicting an idea or putting forth an opinion that isn’t the norm – they outperform.”
The effect is strongest in high-stakes, competitive environments.
Which describes real estate precisely.
“This is usually the most expensive asset that a person owns, and they’re entrusting it with our people,” Mitch says.
“When it comes to security, safety, and financial wellbeing, the stakes don’t get much higher than selling your home or buying a new one. Taking on the biggest debt you’ll likely ever take on in order to put a roof over your family’s head.”
In this context, the ability to speak up – even when it’s uncomfortable, even when there might be disagreement – becomes a competitive advantage.
Building the framework
Understanding why psychological safety matters is only half the equation.
The other half is creating practical structures that make it happen.
“It’s never goning to work if you just say, ‘Alright everyone, we’re going to feel safe to speak up now,'” Mitch cautions.
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing for a leader to say that, but it’s never going be enough.”
His recommendation is to establish a regular debriefing meeting, separate from your standard sales meeting.
Maybe Friday afternoon after opens and auctions wrap up, or Monday morning before the week kicks off.
The format is simple but specific.
Ask: What went well? But also ask: What went wrong? What almost went wrong? Where did we slip up?
The key is who speaks first.
“If a leader can share their mistakes first – ‘I didn’t call a prospect I met with on Tuesday. I meant to call him last week, I didn’t, and the chances of him coming over to us have been hurt by that’ – then everybody in the office thinks, ‘Okay, I’m alright to let go of my mistakes too.'”
One critical rule is to keep these sessions separate from accountability.
“That’s not a space where somebody says ‘here’s a mistake I made’ and then faces punishment. It’s about debriefing. It’s about observations and improvement, not accountability. Accountability has its own space. It’s important, but it’s not part of these meetings.”
Celebrate what you want to see
Real estate knows how to celebrate.
Ring the bell for a personal best. Hand out trophies. Send top performers on trips.
But if you only celebrate sales metrics, you’re sending a clear message about what matters.
“If at the end of the week you’re celebrating everybody who did sales and that’s it, then you’re telling your team this is all that matters,” Mitch says.
“But if you can celebrate candor and openness and the ability to speak up when it’s tough – ‘Jim this week owned up to a mistake on a contract that would have been really bad if he hadn’t’ – then well done, Jim. Celebrate that stuff if you want it to continue.”
The two questions that matter
For principals and team leaders looking to build a culture where valuable ideas don’t stay trapped in people’s heads, Mitch offers a simple framework.
“Just nail these two things: Why is it important? And how am I going to do it?”
“They won’t work without each other. If you think it’s important but don’t have a structure to deliver it, it’ll fizzle and you’ll wonder if it was ever really important. And if you try to apply a structure without understanding why it matters, you’ll put energy into something you’re not sure why you’re doing. If you don’t know, your team won’t know.”
The goal isn’t to turn every meeting into a therapy session.
It’s to create an environment where the agent who spots a problem feels safe to raise it.
Where the new team member’s fresh perspective gets heard. Where innovation doesn’t die in silence.
In a business built on communication, the conversations happening inside your office might matter as much as the ones happening with clients.