I should not be surprised by the behavior, yet I still find myself astounded by the online commentary from “commercial real estate experts.” They seem to think the only goal businesses should have is to “boost office utilization.” Their fear, uncertainty, and doubt shine through when they opine on the latest company to either support…
The smartest person in the room is rarely the one that gets the job completed.
Let us start by saying I have a healthy ego. It has taken me years to reconcile the fact that being right about a question, subject, or topic does not equate to being effective. Interestingly, it is the smartest people in the room that are most likely to derail an otherwise effective meeting or project…
The future is going to show up for us no matter what we do or say. We may be able to influence it, but we definitely are not stopping it.
None of us are capable of holding back the tides of time. One way or another, we are all in a race to the future. As the line goes, “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” For better or worse, Corporate Real Estate is a world that solely focuses on the future….
Workplace design has never been more important, but overanalysis can be extremely dangerous.
The pandemic is over! The pandemic is over! I’ve heard the cries up and down the streets worldwide from individuals, colleagues, business leaders, and governments. The declaration of freedom has been loud and excited from all quarters. The theory seems to be that by saying it often enough will also mean that it never happened….
I have found myself talking about Communication as a superpower a lot recently
One of my core beliefs is that success, both individually and as a group, begins and ends with communication. Communication is more than just sending emails. It is fundamentally about understanding. If I tell someone to “get the paperwork completed,” I may have told them clearly to do something but it is not a guarantee…
Focus on the outcomes you will achieve more than the features of the solution you are using.
I often find myself guilty of over-explaining strategies and solutions we are trying to implement. When we build a direction from data, facts, and figures, it is easy to want to share that basis with the audience. But the reality is that the audience rarely comes in with the same general knowledge or basic understanding…
The good, the bad, and the unnecessary of workplace surveys.
Workplace surveys may be the single most popular and common way of collecting data about how employees within an office work. When change events impacting an office are planned, you can be nearly certain that a survey will be coming out in advance to gauge employee thoughts on various aspects. Insightful questions often include classics…
Are you stopping to take the time to cut through the noise that is preventing you from being successful?
One of the most important metrics I use to measure success on projects is highly subjective: Noise Ratio. Essentially, it comes down to how much yelling did we expect to happen went we rolled the solution out versus how much did we actually receive. If you hear less noise from leaders, managers, and employees than…
My thoughts on desk booking systems for managing space and occupancy (hint: I don’t like them)
Desk Booking has been the hot item in “PropTech” for over a year now. Sure, most of the systems pretend to be something like the “OS of the Workplace,” but that’s just fancy sales window dressing. The reality is that any time a company begins contemplating having fewer desks in their office than people assigned,…