Corporate real estate is not a world where people win or lose. Thinking that way leads to bad outcomes for all parties. There is no better space for examining how projects are done right are win/win for all parties.
Too often, people think that for them to succeed someone else needs to fail. If I negotiate the best deal possible for my company, the landlord is forced to take a bad deal. If I build the perfect office, finance will be unhappy because it cost too much. If I design an office for most employees, managers will be unhappy. This is just not the reality of good real estate projects.
A good real estate project should set out to do right for all participants and stakeholders. Financial goals and thresholds should be agreed and established. Must have lease clauses and requirements should be agreed in advance. A negotiating strategy put together that balances what will likely happen from both sides. Workplace design should be put together that balances the long-term needs of business operations and colleague satisfaction.
Most importantly of all, a definition of what a good project looks like should be established and communicated before any work begins. If you don’t teach colleagues what a good workplace should feel like, all they have to go on is what they’ve experienced in the past. Hand an iPhone to someone in the 1970s and they will likely think it is a terribly confusing device that serves limited practical function because they have no experience that would lead them to use it correctly without a lot of training.
A project done right should make everyone better off once it is completed. The vendors should feel appropriately compensated. The business should feel productive. Finance should feel their thresholds were met. Real estate should feel pride in the new office. The landlord should feel incentivized to provide appropriate on-going support.
You cannot expect people to understand the world you are throwing them into if you do not tell them what to expect in advance. Communication is not an optional exercise, it is foundational to project success. If you don’t do it, the project will fail but it will be you who loses as well as everyone else.