Its All About People
A few years ago, a colleague made a flippant comment that became one of the most profound and thought-provoking statements I’d ever heard. She said something like: “Wasn’t it great years ago when we could just tell tenants to take a hike”. As with most thought-provoking things, it got me thinking…
I’ve been in property management for around 38 years. I just sort of drifted into it following sojourns in publishing, snack food manufacturing and advertising. I didn’t go looking for it, I just followed up an advert and there I was – in what I thought was the easiest job ever. Easy, because back then, we didn’t actually care much about what tenants thought as long as the rent was paid and the values grew.
This was a refreshing change from previous roles, where what I did was directly linked to success: if the crisps didn’t taste good, people wouldn’t buy them. If the copy wasn’t well written and the articles weren’t appealing, people wouldn’t buy the magazine. If the advert was boring, people wouldn’t buy the product. All of a sudden, I was in a world where what people thought was secondary to making money. Just imagine that – I thought I’d landed with the old posterior firmly in the beaten cream.
Sure, it was bull-market back then, good city space was scarce and tenants were, quite frankly, a-dime-a-dozen. We used to say property management would be great if it weren’t for the tenants.
Now those eagle-eyed among you will no doubt have noticed that I’ve re-used the word “people” in a somewhat tautologous and repetitive manner. This is by design and not as a result of a questionable education. Because as it turns out, people won’t come to your pretty building if they don’t like it. You can have gold-plated taps in your bathrooms and still, they won’t come (unless they’ve figured out how to appropriate the taps for their own purposes).
It became apparent as the years rolled by that property management is all about people. About relationships. I once again found myself in a role that depended on what people thought of the product. Shock and horror!
Unfortunately, during those years, tenants too had begun to realise that they had some power. They could withhold rent or vote with their feet if they weren’t happy. They could move next door, if next door’s doors opened an hour earlier and shut an hour later. I found that I actually had to talk to tenants and not just issue them stern written warnings when the rent was late. I had to negotiate. (I had no idea how so I was sent on a course. Of course.)
I had to learn how to talk to people and even more importantly, I had to learn a completely foreign concept: how to listen to them. I had to work with them, collaborate with them, even partner with them. The people against whom I used to conspire suddenly had to become co-conspirators in a war against mediocrity, against inertia. We had to become a team.
It dawned on we property professionals (some earlier than others), that If we looked after our occupiers, they would look after us. Eureka! They’d collaborate with us, they’d plan with us, we could become a family of sorts and enter a future that actually worked for both of us. And all of a sudden, it became fun. No longer an adversarial relationship but one enjoyed in a climate of mutual respect and prosperity. Heck, we even let people bring their dogs to work.
We began to understand what property management teams should look like in order to look after our occupiers. We began to bandy terms such a “customer focus” and “service charter” about – much as the rest of the world had been doing for years. We were suddenly Quality-Circling and Six-Sigma-ing merrily forth into a brightening horizon We were catching up. Our management strategies changed in response to attracting and retaining the best occupiers, and allowing them in turn to attract the best talent to their organisations. Hey Jim, come work for us. Our building has a gym, Jim.
The next revelation was that if we had a deep understanding of what people wanted from the space they spend most of their lives in, we could design and build it just for them. An lo and behold, when we spent more money building something that suited their needs, they actually rewarded us by settling in the space, sticking around and paying us a decent rental. Can you see the progression: happy people -> happy occupiers -> enhanced valuation -> maximised ROI?
And ultimately, while we’re designing buildings for people, we’re already looking at how they can be managed with the minimum of fuss and cost – yes, you guessed it: Design for Management. So why not focus at the same time on the efficiency of the design from an operational perspective: DfM -> less downtime -> longer lasting -> cheaper to run -> happy people.
Design for Management is not just a pre-emptive strike against the operational ills that can befall a building. It is, like property management itself, inspired by people, anticipating their needs and ensuring the places we create for them are both in line with what they expect and at the same time, efficient to run.
It turns out that pleasing people and making investment decisions are not actually mutually exclusive concepts, but rather mutually dependent!
