Act like a start-up."

You may wonder if that means you. It does. A brief explanation follows.

When I first met Cory Boydston, she sat at a conference table in the modest Roswell, GA, corporate park offices of Ashton Woods Homes, next to 39-year-old "freshman" CEO, Ken Balogh.

It was February 2011. The U.S. homebuilding and residential development landscape had barely started to show signs of recovery from the Global Financial Crisis. In that very room, where Cory, then Chief Financial Officer at Ashton Woods, Balogh, and their brain trust shared the framework of Ashton Woods' five-year plan, a pivotal moment unfolded that carries forward compelling relevance and insight into the challenges homebuilding's business leaders face in mid-2024.

What was gelling then – not just in those Ashton Woods offices where Cory and Ken and a lean team of operations leaders and doers road-mapped a turnaround, but also in similar survival, recovery, and forward-planning sessions going on among homebuilding organizations around the country at that time – was a nexus that would transform homebuilding's business and operations capability.

Before the GFC and the mid-2000s housing crash, private homebuilding operators thrived on character, cunning, experience, trusted relationships, and common-sense financial rigor. Professional, sophisticated, tech and software systems-supported business practices and platforms? Not so much. The bootstraps, entrepreneurial era, characterized by clipboards and hard-hats, began to fade before the housing crisis of 2005 and 2006. Coming out of the wreckage meant crossing a bright line into a more professionalized, sophisticated, data-enabled way forward. There was no turning back.

Jerry Patava, CEO of Ashton's major shareholder Great Gulf Group of Toronto at the time in 2011, gave Cory and Ken a high-level directive as they worked through a plan that would reignite their company and drive it to a quantum leap growth within that five-year span:

Act like a start-up."

Companies, even local, privately capitalized homebuilding operators, had to professionalize, and many of them — Ashton Woods being an example — adapted by literally splicing the DNA of homebuilding's publics together with more human-scaled, character—and relationships-driven private organizations. Those adaptations led to light-year improvements in financial management, tech and data systems and practices, people, and operational processes, not to mention more competent land and capital investments.

To this day, asset-light, data- and tech-powered organizations that strike a balance or hybrid of "the best-of-public-and-private-company" operations, business cultures, and professional systems stand as models peers strive to be like and move ever forward.

Cory, whose pedigree included serving as senior VP, Finance and CFO at Starwood Ventures, and had been both VP-Finance and CFO at Lennar, and Senior VP-Finance and Treasurer at Beazer Homes, and Ken, who'd soared up the ladder at Centex to division president and moved in that role to PulteGroup division president after Centex combined with Pulte, found themselves jammed together in a room with a lot to lose and a lot to win.

Again, their boss and major shareholder at the time, Jerry Patava, had this to say a few years after they proved they were winners.

When someone has handled significant responsibility without having significant years of legacy issues clouding the picture, that person usually proves to be talented beyond his years. That's what we're finding with Ken Balogh."

These "best-of-big-and-small" adaptations are why so many organizations show resiliency and durability today, despite convulsions that have shaken economic and housing market foundations repeatedly over the past four-plus years.

Now is a moment where business leaders need to solve a new realm of adaptations homebuilders – both private and public – must fuse into the way they focus and build teams, uncannily similar to that period coming out of the GFC, where again the thrust of Patava's direction applies:

Act like a start-up."

Seat wisdom, experience, and the learning from many, many mistakes at the table, but also seat those for whom legacy issues do not cloud the picture.

This makes it exponentially more exciting for us to have Cory Boydston with us to help kick off and catalyze our Focus On Excellence leadership summit and workshop, Oct. 28-30, at the Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort, in Austin.

• Learn more about Focus On Excellence.

Today, Cory serves as Independent Director for New Home Company, Rosburg Forest Products, Builders FirstSource. Scores of leaders in the business community count Cory as a valued mentor and partner in building both businesses and the teams that power their success. Here's what Cory has to say to homebuilding's leaders, owners, principals, and key strategists about what to expect at Focus On Excellence:

The Importance of Gathering and Learning

Cory Boydston:

With everything going on economically and politically both in the US and abroad, there has never been a more critical time to collaborate, brainstorm, network, and learn. Everything in our industry is so hectic—taking a step away from the storm for growth has never seemed more urgent. Back in the day, we used to be able to rely on regional geographic diversity and local and regional environments... but now national and global events and forecasts affect our businesses as a whole. And technology, for better or worse, is going to impact and affect us more and more as time goes by."

Developing Next-Generation Leaders

Cory Boydston:

Oh my goodness, this is so critical at this point in our industry! All of our companies have very seasoned, experienced, mature leadership. Still, we are all 'aging out' (myself included), and focusing on the next generation of leaders (and the one after that) is the key to our industry's flourishing. And the older generation needs to hand over the reins! A critical concern for all of us is our industry's labor and personnel shortage. We all need to focus on recruiting, training, and retaining new folks into our industry, but also into our companies and our trades and subcontractors."

Embracing Change and Technology

Cory Boydston:

I'm not in the best position to advise on this, but it's obvious that all of these are critical factors influencing our industry."

Boydston acknowledges the importance of understanding the accelerating changes in consumer household demographics, tech adoption, and data applications, including the coming impact of AI.

Unique Learning Environment

Cory Boydston:

Is there anything else out there like Focus On Excellence in the community? Interestingly, no. There are several other events in the space, but none like this. The small-ish, more intimate events are primarily by invitation only, and the more significant events are too big to allow for collaboration and brainstorming. This one is right on the mark."

Boydston highlights Focus On Excellence's uniqueness. It balances intimacy and scale, making it ideal for deep, collaborative learning.

It's where homebuilding leaders can get together for a couple of solid days and work without legacy issues "clouding the picture" and with a fully energized, younger peer team of digital and data natives in one direction.

Act like a start-up."

The Builder's Daily could not produce and host Focus On Excellence without the support of our partner sponsors: Constellation HomeBuilder Systems, audience town, Boise Cascade, Builder Advisor Group, New Home Star, and Westwood Insurance Agency.