Peter Lohmann's Newsletter - Issue #172

You Need to Throttle the Release of Work

I’m getting REALLY into the Theory of Constraints (TOC), which is ancient wisdom from Dr. Eli Goldratt. The canonical text is The Goal, written in 1984. TOC is related to concepts like Lean and The Toyota Way. The core idea is that you need to identify and manage the single most limiting factor (bottleneck) in your company, in order to drastically increase throughput. This is called the constraint. Everything else is irrelevant. Optimizing non-constrained resources is a complete and total waste of time.

The historic texts that explain TOC mostly concern themselves with a production environment, eg the factory floor. Since none of us run factories (except my buddy Reg Zeller), it can be difficult and time-consuming to translate what is discussed in the books into practical takeaways that are applicable to knowledge work, home services business, property management companies, etc.

[I was first turned onto this entire way of thinking by Jordan Muela, during his 2018 podcast interview with Justin Roff-Marsh. Justin references TOC quite a bit in his own book, The Machine, which talks about applying it to the sales function. Shoutout to Jordan for yet again being way ahead of the rest of us. Speaking of podcasts, Jon Matzner and I are digging into a lot of this TOC material with current and upcoming episodes of Lazy Leverage, our weekly podcast.]

Anyway, an important concept I recently learned from TOC is the importance of throttling the release of work into your organization. As the leader, it’s natural to do these two things:

1. Tell your team about every new idea you have, as soon as you have it. This feels natural because you want feedback on the idea, and you think maybe someone will appreciate how great the idea is and immediately implement it in your business.

2. Give you direct reports lots of lead time on every project so they have as much time as possible to complete it. This means you tell them about every project as soon as you know about it, “so they can get a head start on it.”

Both of these, it turns out, are counterproductive. They create too much Work In Process (WIP), which slows everything down due to multitasking and lack of focus. What you should do instead is carefully monitor the workload of your team and only release new projects/work when they are genuinely ready to start on it immediately. This will drastically increase the throughput (speed) of projects and work in your organization! Give it a try.

AI Broke the Job Market. Now What?

Cover letters are dead. Legal threats are cheap. And employers are drowning in copy-pasted resumes. Do you agree?

In this episode of Lazy Leverage, Jon and I dive into the chaos AI has created in the labor market - especially in how it’s gutted traditional “costly signals” like personalized job applications. (Turns out, it only takes 6 seconds to generate one now.)

We pull from a fascinating academic paper and connect it to real-world examples in hiring, property management (yes, fake rental apps are everywhere), and even legal disputes. Check it out:

(Check out other episodes on Apple Podcasts or Spotify)

Property Management Companies For Sale This Week

• This PM company is for sale in Washington State (asking $2.5M, 659 units across a total of 72 buildings)

• This PM + Construction company is still for sale in Portland, OR (asking $750k)

• A PM company for sale in Western Wisconsin (asking $2.5M, ~1,000 doors - mixed residential portfolio)

• This PM company in Fontana, CA is still available (asking $350k)

• Here’s an HOA management company for sale in Austin, TX (asking $950k)

Rentvine is the all-in-one platform for property managers who want clean accounting, connected workflows, and zero feature paywalls. This winter, get 3 months free + Apple AirPods if you manage 150+ units and enroll in our screening services (terms apply).

Industry News & Events

• Here’s an interesting take from Nicholas Lares on who gets to keep the extra revenue from renter’s insurance programs. Multifamily owners are slowly applying pressure to property managers as property performance tightens.

• We just launched a private podcast feed for Crane members. Catch up on everything that happened around the community once a week. More here.

• Slow news week!

Closing Thought

A few quick things before you go…

• Last week’s issue went to 19,495 readers (72% opened, 3.4% clicked)

• The most popular link was the article Top 100 Property Managers in America for 2025 List (200 clicks)

• Interested in sponsoring this newsletter? Q1 slots are full for the Friday Newsletter, but we just launched a Tuesday Edition with more availability.  Message me for details.

• Property managers: Your professional trade association is NARPM. You need to join if you’re not already a member.

• Did someone forward you this email? Subscribe here.

Software I’m using to scale my 700+ door property management company:

Note: These are affiliate links, but I’ve been recommending all these companies long before any financial arrangements came into place.

The content of this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not constitute professional advice. I may have consulting agreements with, or financial interests in, companies mentioned in this newsletter. Additionally, some of the links included in this newsletter are affiliate links, meaning I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through these links. Always perform your own due diligence before making any financial or business decisions.