Simple Pleasures

We’ve had a little bit going on, haven’t we? An intense focus on struggle and crisis can have a deep effect on one’s psyche. Just ask the street cop on a tough beat or a firefighter at a busy house that deals with the depths of human misery every day.

As I write this, I sit on my back deck overlooking a nice sunset, birds chirping and all apparently well in the world. Only it isn’t. There are people suffering from sickness and sweltering economic issues. Business are failing and sadness pervades our land like a morning fog rolling on and on.

But what are we to do? Worry and anxiety are destructive emotions that lead to nowhere. If you are reading this, then you are a leader and we have a responsibility to get our own heads and hearts straight. Then we can become helpful to those closest to us. And to those who will become close. Now is a time to make friends of former acquaintances and to draw in deeply to relationships.

As George Burns said once, “If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.”

So, as a thought experiment I reversed “virus thinking” to focus on some simple pleasures that have arisen in my life from the world’s largest work at home experiment. Here are 14 things that came to mind right away:

1)      No commute and the margin this provides

2)      The efficiency of transition from meeting to meeting…clicks instead of steps or drives

3)      A shared bond with fellow businesspeople who are also trying to figure this out

4)      All the meaningful and sometimes unexpected conversations I’ve had with so many about life in 2020

5)      Family dinners, every night

6)      Deepening relationships with neighbors

7)      Time to reflect on life and what we are all doing in it

8)      New and meaningful time with my spouse

9)      Talking with my children about really important things but also having some laughs

10)  Watching small businesspeople in my community rally to the crisis

11)  Watching neighbors in my community support small business

12)  Seeing light at the end of the tunnel on beating this sickness

13)  Admiring and thanking those in my network who are healthcare heroes

14)  Looking forward to a new and better world after Covid-19 is defeated

When people ask you how you are doing, you can certainly speak your mind. It’s OK to be honest.

But give your soul a break as often as you can and recognize that there are many simple pleasures in life. You don’t have to have fancy vacations or big dinners out to be happy, after all. Karen Marie Moning said, “It's funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.” 

I hope you can take a break from the big bad world and focus on happy small things. Then smile.

Those in your life will appreciate it. And your psyche will as well.

12 Things I’ve Learned During the Quarantine

Staying safe on a recent hike

At the bottom of one of my recent blogs during this pandemic I shared a list called 12 things I’ve learned during the quarantine. I got a nice response back so I thought I would republish the list in a stand alone in hopes that it might brighten your day.

My learnings during the great quarantine of 2020:

1.      How to spell quarantine

2.      People say “this time is different” in every crisis. Because they are all different.

3.      Government officials can and do change their minds. Remember when masks weren’t required?

4.      Fear is more dangerous than any virus.

5.      We finally learned how to wash our hands.

6.      Getting out of your PJ’s and athletic wear and dressing for work is essential.

7.      Don’t cuss when your technology fails because we may be able to hear you.

8.      The neighbor’s lawn crew is really loud, and do they really need to come twice a week?

9.     You can be absolutely, positively sure that I am on mute.

10.  You don’t have to turn your camera on. I still respect your meme picture too.

11.  I love your barking dogs across the internet.

12.  Speaking of this crazy economy, WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP.

Friends, don’t allow yourself to worry in the abstract. As my grandmother used to say, “Don’t borrow tomorrow’s trouble for today.”

We will make it through this, I promise. And I’m still on mute.

Asking the Barber If You Need A Haircut

The saying is used in different ways for different industries. Every surgeon sees a scalpel and every contractors’ hammer is looking for a nail.

How does this apply to commercial real estate you might rightly ask? Well in at least two ways. Let’s talk about jobs first. Here are some recent headlines;

“Millions Face Unemployment and Uncertainty” – CBS News

“April Unemployment Rate Rose to 14.7%” – WSJ

“Great Depression of 2020? US Jobless is at Least 20% or Worse” – MarketWatch

But here’s the thing; this unemployment problem and the parallel economic carnage were NOT caused by financial or credit issues like the Great Depression or the Great Recession. The economy was easing before the stay at home orders were issued in March. But the real purchase point of the downturn was caused by a VIRUS that we will defeat.

So those scary headlines talking about record unemployment should be rather obvious and a little less scary with perspective. And yes, I saw the remarks by Fed Chairman Powell yesterday. His call to action is a data point and one I hope our Congress will pay attention to.

If you ask a barber, I mean, an economist, what is going to happen when we shut the whole country for months, you will get a scenario much like the one we see before us now. But listen to what two term Federal Reserve Bank Chair Ben Bernanke said in the Wall Street Journal on May 11th: “Many people are suffering, but if we’re able to get..control of the virus, the economy will substantially recover and this downturn should be much shorter that the Great Depression.”

So, look past the headlines and ask the deeper question and frankly the harder question to answer; what happens when we get back to living life in a normal posture again?

There is no doubt that hospitality, retail, travel and associated industries are going to be impacted for some years to come. I can see a big dip in those industries and then a resurgence like the phoenix arising from the ashes. The desire to travel is not satiated once the need for safety is met.

On the subject of retail and restaurants, Cushman & Wakefield’s top retail economist Garrick Brown told me we were, “The most over retailed nation in the world and soon we will be under retailed.” That sounds like an opportunity for new and different retail concepts to me. Entrepreneurs will spring into action when the coast is clear.

The large blue-collar job losses will soon be followed by an echo with more job losses in white collar industries. But once again, many metrics of consumption are way, way down. For example, Tim Fletcher, a Vice President with GenRE says miles driven are down up to 40% since the crisis began. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis says consumer spending was down 7.5% in March and I’m sure we will see the number plummet further in April. So, CFOs are doing their jobs and protecting EBITDA by cutting cost as revenues are down.

But what do you think will happen when our world of consumers starts to consume again? Yes, the jobs will come back. I realize this will take time and many individuals and families will suffer. But the economy will fix itself once the nasty virus is conquered. Oh, and the government has applied record fiscal stimulus in record time, and zero interest rates to battle the crisis.

What was your second point, you might ask?

As Cushman & Wakefield executive John O’Neill likes to say, “Those of us in commercial real estate are more relevant than we have ever been in our careers.” Real estate issues are one of the foremost issues in corporate America just now. The pause in transactions will abate and those who are working hard to build relationships will reap the rewards.

Have you heard the saying “Dig your ditches to prepare for rain?” The saying emanates from the Jewish and Christian scriptures (2 Kings 3:16) and I think it is a helpful metaphor for our situation. The armies of Israel were stuck in the hot desert and were on the verge of dying of thirst. As the story unfolds, God gave the soldiers a very strange order to dig ditches. When the rain came, it all made sense…the army needed a vessel to hold the rain. Many lives were saved because action was taken in what looked like a hopeless situation.

Friends, we can look out on the hot desert all around us think about our thirst. Or we can do whatever your equivalent is of digging ditches. I bet helping those in need and reaching out to your entire business network is the “shovel” you should use right now.

I like to say your success blesses others. When you use your professional skills to solve problems you help executives and their entire workforces. When you receive the well-deserved compensation from delivering excellent service, then your company, your family and many of those hard-up retailers benefit as well. Everyone wins when YOU win.

Let’s get to digging right. Now.

What Goes Down, Must Come Up

Is it a V, an L, a Nike Swoosh or some other “recovery” shape? I’m talking about the commercial real estate market, which as we all know, is not the stock market.

Let me start with a little story. In early September of 2008 we got the very scary news about the likely demise of the storied investment firm Lehman Brothers. I can remember the fear being palpable. I am not kidding when I say it felt like the world as we knew it was ending.

In the midst of this tsunami of bad news, I called my investment guy and asked him a simple question: Should I sell my stocks and go to cash?

He answered in an odd way. He took a deep breath and said, “Ken, do you believe the United States of America will continue to exist?” I paused and said, “Of course!” He replied, “That’s great, because if you don’t you need to buy protein bars and water. But if you do believe in our country, know the economy – and your stocks – will recover. Hold what you’ve got and just give it time.”

I reflected on that conversation a good bit last year as the stock market rallied to all-time highs. Boy, was he right.

At the recent Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, no less than the man nicknamed the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet, addressed the current Covid crisis. He said it seems unlikely that the world will face the doomsday scenarios health wise as compared to the scary models of earlier this year. The U.S. economy will recover with time, he said. “We’ve faced tougher problems and the American miracle, the American Magic, has always prevailed. And it will do so again.”

In commercial real estate, we can take a much more deliberate approach to decision making because occupier deals take a long time and require large capital commitment. Thank goodness we aren’t day traders. I think of the whole affair as a chess game where one move can impact the whole board – and sometimes with unintended consequences.

I thought for a long time about making my own forecast of what will happen in the future. Like you, I read many articles and a lot of research. I have some preliminary ideas, but there are two unfortunate realities; I’m no economist and there are SO many variables that I’m really not sure where we will be in one year. In fact, I would suggest that no one really knows what is coming as badly as we all want to.

I equate the challenge to picking the winning team in college football at the beginning of the season. You have lots of ideas, but injuries and a million other things can happen to challenge conventional wisdom.

So instead of a risky forecast, I thought I would share with you 12 things I’ve learned during the quarantine:

1.      How to spell quarantine

2.      People say “this time is different” in every crisis. Because they are all different.

3.      Government officials can and do change their minds. Remember when masks weren’t required?

4.      Fear is more dangerous than any virus.

5.      We finally learned how to wash our hands.

6.      Getting out of your PJ’s and athletic wear and dressing for work is essential.

7.      Don’t cuss when your technology fails because we may be able to hear you.

8.      The neighbor’s lawn crew is really loud, and do they really need to come twice a week?

9.      You can be absolutely, positively sure that I am on mute.

10.  You don’t have to turn your camera on. I still respect your meme picture too.

11.  I love your barking dogs across the internet.

12.  Speaking of this crazy economy, WHAT GOES DOWN MUST COME UP.

Friends, don’t allow yourself to worry in the abstract. As my grandmother used to say, “Don’t borrow tomorrow’s trouble for today.”

We will make it through this, I promise. And I’m still on mute.

Atlanta Office Performance in Downturns

The attached is some great work by Christa DiLalo and her Atlanta research team and could be a proxy for the US market. I love her statement at the bottom that the economy is in better shape now than during the Great Financial Crisis. She says we have better economic diversity, favorable population trends and a strong housing market. I would add that our technology is far advanced in the past 10-11 years. Hang tough; we will get through this!

A Soliloquy for the Office

Cushman & Wakefield

The nasty plague had changed everything. Or has it?

The pundits are screaming that we will all work at home, even after the sickness has left our land. The office is toast and huge portfolios of office product will be as devoid of life as a Walking Dead set.

But let me ask you a question…are you prepared to say you will never again go to a restaurant? How about a ball game? Yes, we must be able to safely attend, but when we can, I bet you will. And with gusto.

But what about the office? Well, post virus, there will of course be some changes to how knowledge workers use the office. Don’t think for a minute, though, that it is going away. Prognosticators have been predicting the end of the office market and other breathless “certainties” for decades and every time they are wrong (remember the paperless office?).

Why Office Space?

Cushman & Wakefield economist Garrick Brown says the current Covid-19 pandemic spurned “a trickle up economic crisis, felt first by service workers.  But as the impacts of their financial woes trickle up through the system, …almost every sector of the economy is going to feel an impact.”  Then, as professional firms start issuing layoffs, workers will want to be highly visible. Put another way, Brown says, “out of sight, out of mind, out of a job.”

In the mid 2010s we saw a number of occupiers order people back to the office. This is because innovation is hard to maximize over a video meeting. A friend of mine calls the “aha” interactions that occur in the physical workplace “engineering serendipity.” I’ve made deals in the breakroom and had my colleagues share some fine ideas that they thought were just tossed away; I thought they were brilliant. The key to these interactions is they are unscripted and occur without warning. Hard to just happen by someone’s workspace in a Zoom.

The office projects culture and shared values. As C&W’s John O’Neill told me recently, “You can’t virtually manufacture culture.” To personify this idea of culture, think about an elite military squad vs teenagers in high school. Both have a culture defined in part by their physical environment. We’ve all had the experience of walking into someone’s office and immediately learning much about their company and their people.

Offices help salespeople deliver a message to prospects. The “marketing walk” is part of many presentations, and corporations love to have customers come in so part of the story can be told by their physical space.

Why do you think after the Great Depression many banks built branches with columns in front of buildings that were designed to look like Ft. Knox? The worried bankers wanted to project safety. This issue is still true today, even in light of massive e-commerce world. Especially in high dollar or high-risk decisions, seeing someone’s physical space provides psychological assurances that the sales promises can be delivered upon.

Offices are fun. I’ve had some great friendships develop in the office that will last a lifetime. We are humans and interacting is what we do. We have a deep seated and innate need to be together. If anything, the virus served to emphasize this need.

What Will Change

Let’s skip the return to work discussion for another time. In your mind, fast forward to when we finally have the much sought after vaccine and this thing is past us. Let’s also assume we are talking about “knowledge workers” who have control of their schedule and deliverables. Here are a few early peeks into the future.

Dedensification is going to be the rage. The virus popped up so suddenly and in such a terrifying manner that for some years to come, we will need our personal space and lots of it. Meeting rooms will of course be bigger and huddle rooms are no more. I personally think workstations will look like mini offices with floor to ceiling separations. Plus, high value workers will have one more reason to demand a private office – safety.

Ambiwork comes to the fore. What is this, you ask? Psychologist developed a term for people who present characteristics of both introversion and extroversion – ambiverts. We will indeed work at home more because (a) we can and (b) our remote work technology will improve even faster as a result of Covid-19. Put your capitalist hat on; there are many technologists who rightly see gold at the end of this virus rainbow. But we will continue to head into the office, because (a) we can and (b) see narrative above. We will simply have more flexibility and better tools to work anywhere on the planet.

The coming race to wellness will be like nothing we’ve seen yet. The architects and furniture types stand to make a fortune with new workstyles and all manner of products to clean, clean, clean. The HVAC folks will spin up all kinds of clean air machines, misters and the like, and the elevator engineers’ heads are spinning so fast you can see the steam. Much innovation is happening now and will be rapidly deployed later in 2020. I think 2021 could be the year of Mr. Clean.

It Will Be Fun to Watch

In 1897 a rumor swirled around London that the great Mark Twain was dead. A London based journalist working on a scoop sent a cable to his US colleagues pronouncing the grave news that Twain was passed.

The problem was, he was very much alive. He famously said “The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated.”

The next six  months will bring some of the fastest and most significant changes to how workers physically house themselves ever. Including a new, uber clean and hopefully fun office environment.

The office isn’t dead at all. We’ve got yet another version of the workplace of the future developing before our very eyes. I for one can’t wait to see it.

Play Your Game

The United States Hockey team was slacking off. Coach Herb Brooks could see it; his team was not taking this seriously. Each man was born to be a hockey player and this series of games was the most important of their life. To say Brooks was frustrated was an understatement.

After that exhibition game against Norway, U.S. Coach Herb Brooks, played by actor Kurt Russell in the 2004 movie Miracle, had his assistant coach line the players up at one end of the rink. At each whistle the athletes were required to skate hard the entire length of the rink. This drill, which is known as a “bag skate,” is basically a wind sprint on ice. It ain’t easy even if you’re in tip top shape.

The bag skate went on for a couple of hours till one of the players, out of breath and desperate for a break simply blurted out his name. Then the coach looked at him and said, “Who do you play for?” The player responded: “The United States of America!” Brooks headed off the ice and dismissed the group, saying “Gentlemen, that is all.”

My wife Karen and I watched the movie recently for some positive mental nutrition. Coach Brooks is full of wonderful advice. Watch the locker room speech on You Tube if you get a chance…simply amazing.

At one point in the movie the team is in competition on the ice and Brooks yells “PLAY YOUR GAME!” He didn’t say play the game. He challenged each individual to play their own game. Very smart.

I’ve been thinking about that advice to Play Your Game for a few days now. How can we put that sentiment to work in our chosen career in light of the crisis around us?

Well, I can’t tell you how to skate or how to hold your stick, but there are some themes I see for service providers supporting clients during this crisis:

Creative

We are all immersed on calls addressing our specialty and issues pertinent to what we do for a living. Don’t take your specialized knowledge shared on these calls for granted. As hockey great Wayne Gretzky famously said: “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” Bringing new ideas in this fast-moving pandemic environment can be helpful for service providers and game changing for clients. Be intentional about being a thought leader.

Courage

Remaining calm and being a leader is always in style, but now more than ever. As a service provider you can take a somewhat dispassionate view of business problems. Hard decisions are coming in corporate America and you are in a unique position to help decision makers and firm their resolve.

Caring

I start every call now asking about family. I end every call talking about the individual on the other end of the line. Authentically listening and caring now is so important. Stress and panic are still rampant. People generally assume you know what you are doing…what they really care about is how you make them feel.

Hustle

One of the formative Harvard Business Review articles of all time is “Hustle as a Strategy.” The article was written in September of 1986 but the sentiment is still very valid today. Getting out of bed and getting after it every. single. day. is critical.

“The only way to make the vision real is through superior execution. That’s the key. It’s the resulting hustle that outlasts…and wins against unremitting competition.”

Hope

Every storm runs out of rain. I love that saying. Reminding decision makers of this fact can give them important perspective. When you are pointing the firehose at a structure fire, it’s hard to see the future. We’ve been through wars, pandemics and all manner of crisis before. We will get through this.

Play On

If Coach Brooks were here with us today, I can hear him saying with his Minnesota accent: “The name on the front of your jersey is far more important than the one on the back. You were born to be service providers and this is YOUR time!”

Every morning as you step into your virtual office, you can yell to no one in particular, "Put me in Coach!" I'll know exactly what you mean.

Rally

It was a beautiful Sunday morning at 7:59 AM. Partly cloudy skies, a soft breeze and cool temps as is usual in December. All was well in the beautiful paradise that is Hawaii. The seas were calm and the sailors were already hard at work cleaning their ships – a process that never seemed to end.

Then as one, they heard the sound. As the clock flipped to 8:00 AM the sailors heard what first sounded like a mosquito, then it got louder. In lockstep thousands realized what was happening. Pearl Harbor was under attack. Immediately, terror broke out as the battle ensued. 

The next day, December 7th, 1942, President Roosevelt addressed a nation in panic. The people of the day were absolutely terrified and the economy locked up. It’s hard to understand how terrible things were in the days after the attack – now 79 years later. But make no mistake, every man, woman and child was suddenly thrown into an emotional shock like never before in their lives.

But here’s the thing: they pulled together as a people. Only 6 months later, The Battle of Midway occurred June 4-7, 1942. The battle is profiled in the 2019 major motion picture Midway directed by Roland Emmerich. Military historian John Keegan called this United States win “the most stunning and decisive blow in the history of naval warfare. The win was clearly a tipping point of the war.” The citizens of the US were suddenly jubilant.

As you might imagine, our nation back then was having many conversations similar to the current day in light of the Covid-19 crisis, except there was no Twitter and information was a lot harder to come by.

There are two points to the story I just shared with you. First our battle of Midway is being fought in current day before our very eyes. Health professionals, police and firefighters are on the front lines each and every day. Scientists are the generals and strategists working hard to defeat our common enemy. Sadly, we are losing some good people in the fight.  But know that we will RALLY as a nation – America is strong and has amazing history of resiliency. In fact, we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel in this Covid battle right now.

Secondly, we have to defend our own flank here in 2020. What does that look like for a corporate real estate professional? It means we have to protect our corporate brand and help as many people as we can. Right now, profit is second to the best service delivery of your life.

What is the issue with the brand, you say? There are those at other companies who are being predatory and taking advantage of this crisis. They are leading with fear and false promises. This is a terrible disservice to occupiers who are in great need.

As my friend Johnny Boyle said recently, people will remember how we treat them long after this crisis is over.

Let’s hold our head high and act with integrity. Client first, and act like a Boy Scout…trustworthy, loyal and helpful.

This crisis of 2020 is the battle of our professional lives. Our clock flipped from 7:59 to 8:00 and we were all shocked. But we are going to have a huge victory by investing in people by doing the right thing (whatever that is) now. Scout’s honor.

I’m Not Super Busy; Should I Be Super Worried?

We’ve had a number of tough weeks in a row. Things are constantly shifting and many of us feel like firefighters. In normal times you’d likely have a breakfast, lunch and maybe a dinner with clients and prospects (and I have to be clear, those meals would be in real restaurants…not your kitchen!). But now you wake up at home and go through the same routine day after day.

Your day is likely spent responding to calls for help that are probably investing in relationships (translation, free work). You call people to check in, but have only a few deals advancing.

Then, strangely, on some days, your email slows, the phone calls stop and slots open up. Suddenly, you are not busy. Your anxiety level rises and you wonder what in the world is happening to your career.

Rest assured, this is OK and actually normal for this abnormal time.

I would like to suggest that before Covid-19. you and I were both too busy. And I come with some high level proof. Meet an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). He studied income inequality in England and posited what is know as the Pareto Principle or as it is now widely know, the 80/20 Principle.

In the 1950s US auto manufacturers rediscovered the principle and used its power to improve line efficiency. Then a brilliant business writer named Richard Koch wrote a New York Times Best Seller: The 80/20 Principle; The Secret of Success by Achieving More With Less.

Koch says in his book: “What is the 80/20 principle? It asserts that a minority, a small number of causes, inputs or efforts usually lead to a majority of the outputs, results or rewards. So, most of the output results from a very small portion of the inputs. So, to put this literally, 80% of the outcomes in our life result from 20% of the time we spend. For practical purposes, 4/5ths of our effort, pretty much all of it, is largely irrelevant. 

PEOPLE EXPECT LIFE TO BE FAIR AND BALANCED, BUT IT'S NOT

80/20 is contrary to what we expect which is a 1-1 or 50/50 rule. For each amount of effort, we get an equal reward. 

The 80/20 principle should be used by every high performing professional. You can achieve much more with much less effort. The principle is one of the best ways of dealing with the pressures of daily life – especially life in the time of Covid-19

There is simply an imbalance between inputs and outputs, effort and reward. 

• 80% of outputs result from 20% of inputs

• 80% of consequences flow from 20% of causes. 

• 80% of results come from 20% of effort.

Examples from Koch’s book:

• 20% of customers account for 80% of profits

• 20% of thieves steal 80% of loot

• 80% of accidents are caused by 20% incompetent drivers

• 20% of carpet gets 80% of the wear

• 20% of your clothes are worn 80% of the time

• Auto - 80% of NRG wasted in combustion and only 20% gets to the wheels

Therefore, in any population, some things are bound to be more important than others. There is a big imbalance between causes and effects, 

If you realize that a large proportion of results in your life are accomplished by a relatively small amount of inputs, then you can (1) identify those causes that have a maximum impact - your genius - AND you can (2)  eliminate or minimize things that are noise in your life. 

A few other examples of the 80/20 principle in action:

• 1% of the words in the English language account for 77% of what is said

• When Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company had over 300 products in its line-up. He reduced that number to less than 10.

• Jeff Bezos: "My job is to make only a few very high quality decisions per day."

My personal goal is to pull the right levers and then not be too busy. Cut, cut cut, what can I out of my business life that lets me focus on what I am really good at? Well, Covid 19 accomplished that for all of us. We have the time to focus on the most important things both in our business and in life. I am grateful to get rid of some of the noise in life, at least for a time.

So, you are not so busy? Maybe that is a GOOD thing! Find what you are the very best at doing, and improve that skill now.

When this crisis is over, there will be no stopping you. Vilfredo told me to tell you so.

10 Things We Should Say More Often

1) Stay Positive

2) You Can Do It

3) Please

4) How Can I Help?

5) Thank You

6) I’ve Got Your Back

7) I Believe in You

8) I Love You

9) You Matter

10) The Best is Yet to Come

Stay well, friends and happy holidays to all that celebrate.

This post inspired by Jon Gordon

Practically Positive

“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth” – Mike Tyson

Yes, the black swan happened, and the entire world changed in a matter of a few weeks. Yes, there is fear and terrible sickness in our land. Yes, the markets are a mess. Let’s not even talk about our investments. It’s just a desperate and weird time.

As a result, mental health is front and center and something millions are dealing with now. This component of health is a major crisis that you and I are going to have to deal with head on and soon.

I’m going to make the hopeful assumption that you and your family are physically healthy or on the mend. Based on statistical probability you are likely healthy, for now. If not, prayers for your recovery.

Given the assumption of physical health, what are we to do as business leaders in the coming weeks and months? Do we allow ourselves to be mired in fear and loathing? Do we succumb to the panic and desperation that are ruining the lives of millions? Or, is there another mindset that we could adopt?

I’ve been thinking about this hard for days now and I want to share some ideas with you. Instead of miring in desperation, I vote that we go a different direction and become what I am calling practically positive.

Put a Pep in Your Step

This approach of becoming practically positive acknowledges the rough things that are happening in our world. But my suggested way of thinking allows us to still move ahead to defeat fear and seek out joy and happiness in life.

We start by looking under every rock to find the good things in life. Psychologists call this approach “reframing.” I call it the right thing to do every day, but especially in the days and weeks ahead.

Here are a few tips, partially provided from my friend Tommy Newberry (who wrote a whole book about Joy):

1. Actively seek positive mental nutrition by looking for positive news, great happenings in our world and the amazing human kindness that is springing to life around the globe. There are many resources, but here is just one idea: check out Some Good News by John Kransiski

2. Write down 10 things you are grateful for every morning. Keep the list in your pocket and refresh every few days. The more you do this, the more you will train your brain to look for the good in your life.

3. Do away with the survival mindset and instead shift your brain to thriving in the near future.

4. Use the current difficulty to accelerate personal growth. Purified gold is the result of great heat. Get in top physical shape, get extra sleep and nurture your relationships with those closest to you.

5. Downshift to a short-term focus over the next 30 days. Make peace with your current long-term goals as they will shift; they will be different, but I bet better in coming months.

6. Make yourself more valuable by upgrading your business systems through online training. You should be the ninja of your technology after the virus is over.

7. If you’re a person of faith, now is the time to deepen your relationship with God.

8. Yoga and meditation are proven ways to provide calm and peace.

9. Think of the “OBT” - – One Big Thing you can do during this time, now that time is not so much of an issue. Write a book, learn a language, or learn to ballroom dance with your partner (there are many, many virtual resources to help with these and others).

Practice Good Fact Hygiene

Fear is running through the country and made worse with every screaming headline. I came across the idea of “fact hygiene” listening to one of my favorite podcasts, Fresh Air. Host Terry Gross interviewed virus expert Max Brooks. At the very end of the interview, Max made the following statement which made me sit straight up:

“Be careful who we listen to, because panic can spread much faster than a virus. We have to be careful (with information) just as if it were the virus. We also have to be careful what we put back out, as if we were spreading the virus. We cannot pass along rumors or misinformation. We must be critically careful not to scare people into doing irrational and dangerous things.”

We need to listen to experts like:

• CDC

• WHO

• Dr. Anthony Fauci/ Dr. Deborah Birx

• Local public health officials.

What we cannot listen to:

• Random facts on the internet

• Whispered conspiracy theories, many times about interventions by the US military or trampling of American’s rights.

• Your uncle who knows a guy who knows a guy who heard that something terrible is happening or that “they” are not telling us everything.

Wash your hands and watch where you get your facts.

Down, But Not Out

We are not out for even a minute, people. Let’s do an “audit” of some of the things we, as a society, should be excited about:

• If you live in the United States, we have highly advanced medicine and thousands of healthcare heroes who are standing by our side. The supplies of PPE’s and other tools needed are coming and in days ahead this problem will abate.

• American ingenuity is alive and well. Look at just two examples: Tesla developed a new ventilator in six days and Abbot Labs developed a Covid-19 test that delivers results in 5 minutes. There are thousands of other examples of ingenuity...take a look around and you will be amazed.

• Fiscal stimulus and the CARES Act will invest trillions in our economy. We learned from 2009 and lawmakers are being much more aggressive as “economic firefighters” this time around.

• All of science is focused on Covid-19. This great article from the NYTimes says “Never before, scientists say, have so many of the world’s researchers focused so urgently on a single topic. Nearly all other research has ground to a halt.”

Hope Actually IS a Strategy

We live in amazing times, and we’ve seen the United States survive all manner of wars, attacks, depressions and evil plots. And yet we are the strongest nation on earth.

And you? You and I will be remembered by history and by our community for the choices we make in the coming weeks.

You are a leader in your family, your community and your company. People notice how you react. Strength and leadership now may make you the hero you thought you were when you were nine years old. Be the real hero of 2020.

You will certainly have a story to tell when this virus is all over. And make some extra room in a drawer for your cape.

“Don’t worry, bout a thing. Cause every little thing gonna be alright.” Bob Marley

Note: These are my personal views and not necessarily those of Cushman & Wakefield

Social Distancing Will Change Everything in the Office World

As Social Distancing Enters our Lexicon, Office Use Trends Are Set To Pivot

Much ink is being spilled about how our world will change. Here’s one more data point for you: the densification movement in corporate office space is officially over.

We are working with clients who have employee populations that cannot work from home. Think about folks that handle calls that require sophisticated technology, privacy and monitoring such as financial services. Of course, those people need to be in an environment where they can perform their duties in a safe manner.

Here are two trends emerging right now:

De-densification of office space

Companies with on premise requirements for employees are looking for new space that is ready to go right now. They will move to spread people out in their existing portfolio and when they secure that new space they will quickly move employees to the new location.

Finding the new space is tougher than it sounds because inspecting locations is hard (though virtual tours are happening at an astonishing pace), and also because it could take months to get fiber and technology ready because no one is at work.

If offices are coming back in vogue, and I predict they will, then I want a private bathroom and a big bar. You can come by anytime, but stay six feet away with your drink in hand, please.

A and B workforces

In order to keep workers healthy, some real estate directors are working with HR to divide large groups of people doing the same kind of work into two different physical locations. This pattern of A & B workforces helps solve for quarantine requirements if someone becomes infected and has exposed other workers.

It will be interesting to watch how office space design is changing, yet again. But you can rest assured that the office furniture industry, architects and others supporting this sector are spinning up new approaches as I write this.

Turns out that “benching” is a very dense environment is so 2020. We are on to the next thing and it involves a lot more office space.

Note: These are my personal views and in no way represent the views of Cushman & Wakefield

Bookmarks: 5 Interesting Articles That May Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners:" corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. I welcome your comments on these articles.

1. How Gen Z Influences Your Office Design

iStock

At last year's CoreNet Global Conference in Boston , CoreNet chairman and Ernst & Young's Americas leader David Kamen remarked that corporate real estate spaces are now being designed to suit the generation of Americans that are currently in high school.

It makes sense—considering the fact that landlords are demanding longer lease commitments that commonly stretch from 10 to 15 years. And as office styles change regularly, corporate real estate professionals are wondering which trends are here to stay.

According to market research, the group most likely to influence the next evolution of office design is Gen Z. The youngest members of that group are currently sophomores in high school, and the oldest are 23 years old. They look at the world very differently from millennials.

2. I’ve been designing offices for decades. Here’s what I got wrong

Slack [Photo: Garrett Rowland/courtesy O+A]

I’ve been trying to pinpoint the moment it all went wrong. Or maybe that’s too extreme—the moment it all got crazy. And I keep coming back to the term “24/7.”

It was the year I graduated from high school, 1983. That same year, according to the Oxford dictionary, Jerry Reynolds, a basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks, coined the term “24/7” describing his dunk shot that he claimed he could make 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, anytime, any day. Whatever the merits of this claim, his phrase was a slam dunk—it caught on instantly.

About 10 years later Primo Orpilla and I had just started our interior design practice Studio O+A, and one of our earliest technology clients, a young highly motivated CEO, wanted to get more out of his employees. To that end, he asked us to design an office that would encourage staff to stay longer and get more work done.

Besides creating a cafeteria that could accommodate serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner (the first time we had heard of three squares as an office perk), we incorporated a number of spaces to make the office more comfortable for a long-term stay. This may have been the beginning of the 24/7 office. It was certainly the moment when amenity spaces took off.

Fast forward another decade. Open offices are in full swing, and so are their critics. O+A is firmly established as a creator of work environments with an almost endless variety of amenity spaces.

3. How to Reach Out to Someone Whose Career You Admire

Retales Botijero/Getty Images

We all have professional idols we’d like to meet. Sometimes we might luck into getting to say hello at a conference or having a mutual friend who can introduce us. But often, despite our suspicions that we have a lot in common with and could even be friends with our heroes, they remain out of reach.

I’ve been on both sides of the equation. Readers have emailed me about wanting to connect, and I’ve done my share of approaching people I admire without seeming like a groupie or a stalker. I’ve found four strategies to be effective in connecting with high-profile strangers, even without the benefit of a warm introduction.

Establish your credibility. When you send a networking request, it’s important to immediately set yourself apart as someone worth knowing. For instance, when I recently wrote to a prominent film director, I started the note by citing our shared alumni affiliation and — because I wanted to inquire about adapting one of his films into a musical — mentioning the prominent shows that had been created by graduates of the musical theater workshop I’m in. He responded, expressed interest in talking further, and noted that a composer friend had told him that “many exciting works have come out of this program.” By establishing your credibility up front, you make it clear that the interaction will be fruitful.

4. Seven Habits Of Extra Interesting People

Getty Images

Indeed, anyone can learn to become more interesting, which is a wonderful thing, because being interesting can help you strengthen your network, win more clients, and lead more effectively.

There are several habits that many interesting people have in common. Sometimes these habits form naturally, but they are more often than not the result of conscious effort. Here’s what interesting people do to make themselves engaging, unusual and hypnotizing.

They are passionate. Jane Goodall, a bona fide interesting person, left her home in England and moved to Tanzania at age 26 to begin studying chimpanzees. It became her life’s work, and Goodall has devoted herself fully to her cause while inspiring many others to do the same. Interesting people don’t just have interests; they have passions, and they devote themselves completely to them.

5. The Deeper Significance of the Mall on Stranger Things

Netflix

When Stranger Things’ Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown) sets foot in her town’s brand-new mall for the first time, she is equally overwhelmed and dazzled. Her friend Max (Sadie Sink) steers her to The Gap and watches Eleven touch everything in sight. Finally, Eleven pauses to stare at a mannequin. “How do I know what I like?” the young, telekinetic girl asks. “You just try things on until you find something that feels like you. Not Hopper. Not Mike,” Max explains gently, referencing Eleven’s adoptive father and boyfriend. “You.”

Netflix’s nostalgic sci-fi series introduces significant changes in Season 3: It’s the summer of 1985, and the nerdy kids who once played Dungeons & Dragonshave blossomed into mall-going tweens, albeit ones who face supernatural monsters and Soviet agents along with the typical pains of growing up. Their fictional hometown of Hawkins, Indiana, is changing, too—thanks to a flashy new shopping center called Starcourt, which arrives just as the United States is experiencing a historic boom in mall construction.

Before consumers started flocking to the internet two decades later, Hollywood sought to capture the role that malls played in American teens’ lives. It was inevitable that Stranger Things, a show steeped in 1980s culture, would add to this canon with its own montage.

Eleven and Max’s shopping scenes map onto a rich history of malls in movies and TV shows such as Clueless and Mean Girls. On-screen and off, places like Starcourt served as a rare middle ground between school and home, offering teenagers independence and a chance to experiment, via stores selling clothes and accessories, with self-expression. Most mall montages focus on transformation, and Stranger Things is no different. By the end of the sequence, Eleven has traded her worn button-down for an on-trend jumpsuit splashed with geometric shapes.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great a hugely impactful week!

Bookmarks: 5 Interesting Articles That May Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners:" corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. I welcome your comments on these articles.

1. Duke Long’s Updated 2019 Top 150 Commercial Real Estate People You Must Connect With On LinkedIn and Duke Long’s Updated: 2019 Top 100 Commercial Real Estate People You Must Follow On Twitter

I am humbled to be named No. 38 on Duke’s list of the top people to connect with on LinkedIn and No. 4 on his list of the top commercial real estate people you must follow on Twitter.

2. The Power of One Push-Up

CRISTINA QUICLER / AFP / GETTY

The numbers used to assess health are, for the most part, not helpful.

There are the vital signs: heart and respiratory rates and body temperature. Sometimes blood pressure. These are critical in emergencies. If you’ve been stabbed in the chest, paramedics want to know no numbers more than these.

But in day-to-day life, the normalcy of those numbers is expected. It doesn’t so much grant you a clean bill of health as indicate that you are not in acute danger. What if you just generally want to know whether you’re on pace to live an average life or longer?

Except in extreme cases, no single number gives a good idea of whether a person is functionally healthy or not. The common numbers are not directly or easily changeable. As these numbers continue to dominate health care, however, an emerging body of evidence is finding useful and cheap numbers that anyone can track. If these new numbers aren’t being taken seriously, it may be because they seem too obvious.

3. The Wrong Ways to Strengthen Culture

LARS LEETARU

Compared with some other activities of business leaders, such as hiring the right talent and setting strategy, changing corporate culture can be especially challenging. Culture is amorphous; there are no direct levers for shifting it in one direction or another. Indications are that CEOs are putting a higher priority on this aspect of leadership than in the past.

According to a study by the research and advisory firm Gartner, CEOs mentioned culture 7% more often during earnings conference calls in 2016 than in 2010. In surveys both CEOs and CHROs say that “managing and improving the culture” is the top priority for talent management.

But the data suggests that there’s lots of room for improvement: Each year companies spend $2,200 per employee, on average, on efforts to improve the culture (much of the money goes to consultants, surveys, and workshops)—but only 30% of CHROs report a good return on that investment.

When trying to spearhead culture change, many leaders use the wrong tools. Having surveyed more than 7,500 employees and nearly 200 HR leaders at global companies and conducted in-depth interviews with 100 HR leaders, Gartner has written a report identifying the most- (and the least-) effective ways leaders try to transform culture. To increase their odds of success, the report advises, they should avoid three mistakes.

4. What Startup Employees Can Teach the Rest of Us About Work

STUDIO OMG/ EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES

In the 1950s, the average age of a company on the S&P 500 index was 60. Today, that number is 20. This means that the most successful corporations are growing three times faster than they have in the past. To succeed at this rate of rapid change, employees and business leaders have had to adapt by adopting growth mindsets, learning new skills, and embracing flexibility. Where stability and long-term planning were once the mark of a sound strategy, adaptability is the new competitive advantage.

This need for adaptability is not new, though it doesn’t come easy to everyone. Over the past two decades, many large companies have failed to evolve and seen their business margins, market share, and profitability suffer — sometimes leading to devastating results.

So why are some companies able to evolve while others struggle? I argue that it comes down to who you hire. Fundamentally, leaders with a growth mindset believe intelligence and success can be learned, while those with a fixed mindset believe that these are static traits over which they have little control.

In the context of a large company that is seeing increasingly volatile business results, leaders with a growth mindset are far more likely to adapt, push for change, and encourage others do the same — a skill that is needed to succeed in today’s workforce.

5. How Hot-Desking Will Kill Your Company

(Photo by Photofusion/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Photo credit: Universal Images Group via Getty Images

If you hate your company, its employees and the shareholders then go ahead and introduce the latest management fad: Hot-desking.

It's a better way to destroy the firm than inviting Russian hackers to rob you blind. The bigger the company, the faster the damage will occur with hot-desking.

Hot-desking is a working arrangement where employees have no assigned desk. Each morning you get a workstation based on that old standby, first-come-first-served. If you show up at 5:30 a.m. then you'll likely have your pick. Later than 9 a.m., then probably you'll get what’s left even if that means working apart from your colleagues.

The theory behind this idea is that it provides companies with increased flexibility in managing office space.

With some exceptions, the drawbacks vastly outweigh any benefits. I know this having witnessed decades in corporate jobs, including a role at one employer that implemented such idiocy.

Here’s what you need to know.

Your success blesses others. I wish you a great a hugely impactful week!