Power Reads: 5 Interesting Articles That Will Help You This Week

Each week, I select a few articles that rise above the fray and hopefully help you on your journey in leadership and the CRE world. They pull from one of four "corners": corporate real estate, technology, management science and anything positive. Each day we can become a better version of ourselves.

1. Building A Workplace People Want to Come Back To

Despite how quickly the nature of work is changing, for many, there’s one point of view on physical spaces that will always hold true: the strongest interpersonal relationships are developed, well, in person.

“It’s like sports,” said Brett Hautop, VP of Workplace for LinkedIn. “Going to a game in person is completely different than watching it on television or listening to it on the radio. It just doesn’t compare.”

In a recent episode of WorkSpaces’ webcast series, Office Hours, Hautop joined us to discuss how companies can bridge that gap between virtual and physical as they safely emerge from the pandemic. He took us through his vision of the workplace of the future, emphasizing why in-office experiences will remain important — while unpacking the ways offices have failed workers in the past, and how a well-designed hybrid work strategy can prime them for success.

2. Morgan Stanley Raises $3.1 Billion for Global Real Estate Bets

Morgan Stanley has raised $3.1 billion for a new fund dedicated to global real estate bets, eclipsing the $2.7 billion it raised for a predecessor vehicle in 2018.

The vehicle, known as North Haven Real Estate Fund X Global LP, or ‘G10,’ garnered backing from investors including sovereign wealth funds, U.S. and international pension funds, insurers, high-net-worth individuals and family offices, John Klopp, head of global real assets for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said in an interview. Maryland State Retirement and Pension System is among the fund’s investors, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

“We’re playing the same tailwind sectors as the vast majority of others,” Klopp said, citing the firm’s bets on warehouse and multifamily properties. “The fundamentals are extremely strong and have been exacerbated by Covid. There’s an enormous opportunity that’s going to continue for a while in these two areas.”

3. Let’s Redefine “Productivity” for the Hybrid Era

The boundary between work and home has never been a clear line. Even when I’m in the office, for example, I’m on call if any of my four kids needs me. I remember how hard it was to get things done in my early days at Microsoft when they were babies — I had a lot of free time while they napped or played, but I couldn’t use that time productively because I might have to drop everything to attend to them at any moment.

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and as a mother and researcher, trying to manage the boundary between work and home brought a lot of invention into my life. For example, while most productivity research tends to focus on eliminating distractions, I began to imagine what we could do if we used the micro-moments we have each day productively.

This led me to develop approaches to algorithmically break tasks down into microtasks that fit more easily into the fragmented way we actually work. The resulting concept, which we call microproductivity, expanded the way we think about productivity at Microsoft.

4. Remember Todd Beamer of United 93

My hometown is on the edge of the New York City area, where dense development ends and soybean farms begin. The 9/11 memorials around here are a reminder of our proximity to the city, but some are easy to miss. The one at the post office in nearby Cranbury is particularly inconspicuous: “This Building Is Named in Honor of Todd Beamer. ”

There’s some beauty in the humility of such a memorial. But when I learned a few years ago that Beamer had lived in the town next to mine, I was ashamed. Why hadn’t I known that this hero of 9/11 was a local guy? My region, the state of New Jersey, and the country as a whole ought to know more about Todd Beamer.

A 32-year-old software salesman for Oracle, Beamer was among the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 who attacked the hijackers and prevented them from crashing the Boeing 757 into the U.S. Capitol. His rallying cry, “Let’s roll,” rests in America’s memory. It is exalting to think of what he and his fellow passengers did on that short flight, and the people they saved on the ground.

5. Condoleezza Rice: We Are More Secure Than We Were on 9/11

‘A plane has hit the World Trade Center,” my young assistant shouted. “What?” I asked. “Was it a small plane?” “No,” he replied. “A commercial airliner.” Within minutes there was a second plane. Then a third. America had been changed forever.

Twenty years have passed since that horrific day and nothing is the same. I remember the day after, President Bush told us that he wanted Americans to feel safe and get back to normal. We have done that, but normal is different. From the way we go through an airport to the names of institutions that we now take for granted: Homeland Security, TSA.

To this day I wonder how this could have happened. I still feel great remorse that it did.

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

Ken Ashley