‘If you can't measure it, then you can’t manage it'. It’s one of the great management maxims of all time, often linked to Peter Drucker. The issue is, he never said it. In fact, he disagreed with it. But putting that small detail aside, many in management consulting use this saying in strata management.
In strata management we measure things by lots. At any strata conference ‘How many lots do you manage? is a more popular conversation starter than the weather. When bragging about a new management what’s the first thing your colleague will ask ‘How many lots?'. When benchmarking business and identifying high performers we focus mainly on the average fee per lot per annum. When we’re asked for a quote we give it per lot, and it’s on that we are compared to other bidders. We’re obsessed with lots. But what if we’re measuring the wrong thing? What if there is more to strata management than lots?
I’ve now identified that there are 69 tasks that strata managers routinely perform in a year for a strata scheme. My team has written a standard operating procedure for each one. Of the 69, only 14 are lot owner related. Just 20% of the tasks we perform relate to lots. The remaining 80% are done per scheme and little turns on the number of lots within.
City Futures Research Centre this week released the latest strata data on which many of us make important decisions each year. The headline figure is the total number of lots in Australia. In 2025 its 3,191,244. It’s a big number. So is the total insured value, now $1.4 trillion. That’s an impressive number too and signifies we are important asset managers outranking commercial property and fixed income bonds ($1T). But perhaps the figure that should matter more to strata business owners is the lesser figure, the total number of schemes - 368,234.
Why?
· It’s the total number of your possible clients.
· It’s the total number of relationships you must manage to preserve the value of your business.
· It’s the number that matters most to your staff who must hold their meetings and get their insurance and compliance certificates.
When we think about schemes rather than lots, we become more nuanced in our approach to management. Scheme thinking takes us more towards relationships than objects, more towards the intangible than the tangible. It takes us close to what Drucker actually said:
“It is the relationship with people, the development of mutual confidence, the identification of people, the creation of a community. This is something only you can do.” Drucker went on: “It cannot be measured or easily defined. But it is not only a key function. It is one only you can perform.”
(https://drucker.institute/thedx/measurement-myopia/)
As we emerge for our race to the bottom, it’s these words we should be thinking about.
Michael Teys advises strata management businesses on improving profitability through professionalisation and streamlined operating systems.
He has more than 30 years’ experience as a strata lawyer and academic and has owned 11 strata management agencies throughout Australia. He has a Master of Philosophy (Built Environment) and Bachelor of Laws. He lectures and writes widely about strata management issues in Australia and internationally.
