Who’s in charge of making the decisions for your real estate group? If you are like most organizations then it’s the head of real estate (reporting up through the CFO position). Ultimately the decision maker is someone with a financial perspective with little background in what the business units use the space for. Decisions on whether to locate in Class A, B or C space are made based on “market perspective” instead of the ability to recruit.
This has been the trend in businesses in general as departments and groups get more and more specialized. The “experts” in IT, real estate, finance, sourcing, transportation, etc end up making the decisions that their group is in charge of instead of bringing a collaborative team to the table to understand the trade-0ffs around all of the decisions.
Look at small businesses – they don’t grow by creating specialized functions. They grow through managed chaos. People in charge of getting products and services out the door have their hand in every key decision because they understand the impact. They are the group that makes the profits and they are the ones that get screwed if the decision doesn’t work.
How are you going to bring together the deliverers? It will mean more disagreement because more people will be involved. Things won’t be easy (are they ever?). But you’ll end up better for it.