Embracing contradicting ideas is an easy way to engage a team to innovate

The world of Corporate Real Estate is filled with contradictions these days. Businesses want people back in offices but they want to reduce space dramatically. Workplaces need to be more collaboratively focused but all colleagues in the office still want a traditional desk space for most of the day. Flexible working solutions are the hot new way to take on space but employees do not readily embrace using random spaces. Booking tools are all the rage but employees do not want to use them.

These are not simply generic contradictions we can work around when planning for the future. All of these address core components of any real estate strategy. You cannot cut space if everyone is coming back. Providing additional collaborative spaces and also keeping all desks increases space further. Flexible working and booking tools only really work if employees are bought in but you cannot get that buy-in without deploying the strategies first. Nothing is simple.

I have found the trick to dealing with this is by embracing these inherent contradictions and running with them as if both could be true. This means embracing the power of “but.”

For example: “Of course, we can reduce your real estate footprint and you can still have everyone come in, but it means we have to build your space out to look like this and your employees have to do these things.” It may mean working in non-traditional seats or overflowing to flex space, but the options are available.

Or: “Of course, everyone can have a desk and we can increase collaborative spaces, but it means that we are going to have to change the way a traditional desk works.” Maybe desks only have 1 monitor and no dividing panels separating them, but it can tick both boxes.

My favorite: “Of course, we can install a desk booking tool and require people to use it before showing up, but you are going to be the ones sending out the daily emails when employees do not use it according to the rules.” Enforcement is the key to any mandatory technology but enforcement must come from the business itself, with teeth, for it to be effective.

Each of these “buts” makes the contradictions possible to overcome, but may make them unpalatable to the business leaders pushing for them. If the “but” is unacceptable, the question turns to which contradiction must shift until the answer works.

It is easy to look at contradictions and simply assume that they cannot coexist. The reality is that we live in a very flexible world that allows a lot of things to work that should not. Just look at pandas. There is no way those loveable, fuzzy creatures should be able to survive in the wild but somehow they do. So, take this as an excuse to go watch some pandas messing around and realize that contradictions are often the spice of life.