I enjoy looking at the incredibly uncertain landscape that is Corporate and Commercial Real Estate. For me, it is a wide-open opportunity to figure out new solutions and implement them. I get excited by change because it presents a challenge I have not yet faced. It is a chance to prove myself against the world.
But most people are not like me. Change and challenge are scary. It is not a Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 topic. It takes staying up nights thinking up new solutions when a business leader has freaked out about what you are asking of them. It takes patient retraining of existing teams to be open to new ideas and concepts; often unproven ideas.
For most people, this is a recipe for stress and burnout. The job that they have finally gotten comfortable in is no longer comfortable. The business relationships that finally turned positive are now back to being uncertain and fearful. Finance is putting more and more pressure on them to do more and more with less and less money. The vendors they relied on for years are no longer bringing the right ideas to the table because the 3rd party experts are no longer experts.
What this means is that now is a time for empathy. Not just for our colleagues getting used to new office concepts, but for the real estate teams responsible for creating them. Sometimes you have to use a soft push (or firm push if the soft version is not getting the job done) to get people out of being stuck on old ideas. But from there, take time to make sure they are holding together. The last thing anyone wants is for the team to fall apart during the hardest part of the hardest project planned for the year. Because that is the time of greatest stress and therefore when it would happen.