Overrides Are Not Evil — Undocumented Overrides Are: The Real Problem Is Opacity, Not Hierarchy
In real-estate agencies, the word override carries a quiet stigma. To many agents, it feels like a tax on their effort—a slice of commission disappearing into the hands of a senior or team leader who never attended the viewing.
But the friction is not caused by the money. It is caused by the shadows.
Hierarchy is not the problem. Hierarchy is inevitable in any business that scales. The real poison is when hierarchy is informal, opaque, or negotiable after the fact. Overrides are not evil. Undocumented overrides are.
The Anatomy of Resentment
People do not rebel against structure. They rebel against arbitrariness. When an override exists only as:
- a verbal understanding
- a WhatsApp message
- a "we'll see later" promise
it creates a vacuum of trust. In that vacuum, agents don't see a mentorship fee or infrastructure cost. They see a management tax. The psychology of agency friction can be reduced to a simple rule:
Resentment increases as transparency decreases.
When transparency is near zero, even a 2% override feels like exploitation. When transparency is complete, a 10% override is accepted as a professional service fee.
The Handshake Trap: Why "Flexibility" Becomes a Liability
Many principals keep overrides deliberately flexible. They believe this allows them to reward effort, adjust for special cases, or manage exceptions "humanely." In practice, it creates a structural liability.
| Feature | Informal Overrides (The Messy Way) | Formal Overrides (The Systemic Way) |
|---|---|---|
| Agreement Type | Verbal or WhatsApp messages | Hard-coded in the system |
| Criteria | "Let's see how much work you do" | Clear role or volume thresholds |
| Visibility | Invisible to producing agents | Visible before the deal closes |
| Payout Flow | Requires explanation after payout | Calculated automatically |
| Outcome | Produces disputes | Produces certainty |
Informal overrides are the primary fuel for Shadow Labor. Every payout becomes a meeting. Every meeting becomes a justification. Every justification weakens trust.
Systems Don't Remove Power — They Make It Legitimate
There is a persistent myth that flat organisations are fairer. They are not. In flat organisations, power still exists—it simply becomes invisible, political, and personal.
Documented overrides do not protect bosses. They protect everyone. Formalisation:
- Defines what is being paid.
- Defines why it is being paid.
- Defines when it starts and stops.
Power doesn't disappear. It becomes contractual instead of emotional.
The End of the "Evil" Override
An override only feels evil when it arrives as a surprise. In a high-trust agency, an agent should be able to see the full economic stack, every override, and every role-based entitlement before they make their first call.
When truth moves from private conversations to a public system:
- Suspicion evaporates: The "hidden hand" is finally visible.
- Leaders are held accountable: They must provide the value the override represents.
- Hierarchy becomes scalable: You can add layers of structure without adding layers of politics.
As long as the logic is visible and the math is sound, hierarchy is simply leverage.
Why ListingMine Exists
ListingMine was built to be the truth machine for agency economics. We don't take sides on whether your override should be 2% or 20%. Our job is simpler—and harder: To make it undisputed.
We take handshake deals, legacy promises, and "special arrangements" out of people's heads and encode them into immutable execution logic. Because the only way to build a high-trust, high-performance ACN is to bring overrides out of the shadows.
Once the logic is documented, the "evil" disappears. All that remains is architecture.
