A year ago, in a land free of enemy Covidians, the topic was the failed resolution.

We suggested a new attitude and new way to tie intent to results.  Simple.  Do yesterday to change today!  Then know that today becomes yesterday in a blink.  Blink.

So today we suggest certain steps.  These involve unlearning (as was suggested at an Appraisal Institute national conference).  But this is not the first step!

The first step is the recognition that something is not fully ok.  Admit that we had lost power over our own fate, and that we lost control at the helm of the ship.  We did not build the ship.  We were trained in turning the wheel and the engine room control.  But the new ship had RADAR!

Two paths:  1) Ignore the new-fangled radar; 2) Learn about radar to avoid collisions.

For appraisal, the ‘profession’ has avoided the data-radar, and continued to rely on the old ‘trust me’ way of identifying data (comparables we call them).  No need to look at all the data when we are so smart and able to magically pick the ‘best’ comps.

Problem.  Clients want something different.  They are tired of opinions.  They need input for risk, for investment potential, or for justice.  For iceberg awareness.

So the first step of unlearning is to admit that there is a problem.  The second step is to awaken to the reality that there may be a better way.  The third step is simple:  Just decide.  Decide to look.  Decide to allow new knowledge and new technology.  Decide to allow new facts and new potentials to enter the mind.  Decide to take action.  Decide to clear the mind and body of old assumptions and old habits.

The next, the action step requires an inventory.  Be willing to actively look at what is not working so well.  Be aware of personal internal resistance.  The human brain, the primal nervous system resists.  Our groups and organizations and rules all serve to resist.  Organizations turn from enthusiastic creative energizers to self-serving defensive effort.  “The established body of knowledge” versus what works better today!  Do things the way we’ve always done them!  It is proven.  It is in the standards.  It is in the education.  It only requires strongly defending the old way of doing things.  Why rock the ship?

Why rock the ship?

But why are people sitting in the lifeboats?  Orange life jackets in hand?  Why has the captain set the engine room telegraph to ‘full speed ahead’?  Why is the ship’s complement, the crew, rearranging the deck chairs?  Why is the radar turned off?  “Who needs it?”

Full speed ahead.  We are the professionals.  We know what you need dear client!  Our opinion is supreme.  Believe it.  Who needs science when you have years of “accepted practices.”  Tested with the clear, hard line of “credible.”  Work that is acceptable when it meets client expectations.  Acceptable when everyone does it that way (peers’ actions).

We need a resolution revolution.  In our profession.  Of our convoluted regulatory structure.

On a personal level, this blog next week, will provide a step-by-step path to recovery from the burden of “how we’ve always done it.”  An optimistic, forward-looking, practical path toward a constructive, service-oriented, and profitable plan for appraisers, agents, and regulators

Those who wish to dig deeper, may consider our paid journal TAAR (The Asset Analyst Report).