The Commercial Real Estate Revolution

This week Neocon will showcase the latest and greatest in the contract furniture industry. Many companies showcasing product will come with fewer people anticipating a much lower attendance. Industry veterans will be comparing notes on who has survived while running into other colleagues traveling the halls to network in hopes of finding a job.

I shared breakfast with a colleague who commented that having been through three previous downturns that this one feels completely different. He is asking questions about their business and life in general in a new way. We encouraged each other that this pressure is pushing us to not simply imitate the next new thing but to be our own new thing. We also didn’t want to get too caught up in the spiraling effect of survival conversation. Its easy to do.

There are few moments that represent cross-roads. Economic times like this have and should scare the living daylights out of anyone. We know, at least in our brains, that if retrenchment out of fear becomes the dominant driver then the strategies that follow will be short-termed destructive to the long-term health of an organization.

The counter-intuitive strategy “to not waste a good crisis” is the far more difficult path to take. We have seen some of our top leaders befuddled and blindsided by the economic crisis and openly confess they have no clue on how to solve the crisis. I’ve described this condition previously as “vertigo.”

“All of us lose our alignment to … or placement in … the real world. And the speed and fatigue of life simply hasten the process. Then, like pilots ignoring their instrument panel, our tunnel vision—our denial of reality—is a crash waiting to happen.”

The key to avoiding vertigo is to regain the horizon – the long term vision. This is the counterbalance to the need to address short-term necessities.

One exercise is to “backward cast.” Take a look backward from the future and ask, “What did we do, what was it for and what difference did it make?”

We will no doubt look back and see a positive legacy. We will also look back and see how much more we could have done for others and the world around us.

For the moment, however, few of us have the luxury to look up and see that bigger future picture. I was simply reminded that when I can take a breadth and look up that there is a bigger picture that I will one day look back on.

This video clip from the closing scene of Schlindler’s list is a bit heavy for a normal blog. I’m not trying to draw too many parallels, however, it portrays Schlinder as having used his wit and cunning to survive Nazi oppression and in the process save several thousand who would have otherwise been exterminated. It wasn’t until leaving and looking back that the significance of what he had done surfaced. Even more powerfully, the significance of what he could have further done. I was only able to watch this movie one time – but I’ve fixated on this ending dozens of times.