If you are serious about being part of the commercial real estate revolution, you know there is no magic bullet.  Changing deeply ingrained methodologies is a process.

Kyuzo Mifune (1883-1965) is considered one of the great judo masters of the modern era.  His seven rules of judo practice are on the walls of many dojos.

1. Do not make light of an opponent.

2. Do not lose self-confidence.

3. Maintain good posture.

4. Develop speed.

5. Project power in all directions.

6. Develop self-control.

7. Never stop training.

Reading the seven rules in light of transforming a business–there is application.  However, probably one of the most striking applications is a quote, “Do not place hope in finding a secret technique.  Polish the mind through ceaseless training; that is the key to effective techniques.”

Kaizen isn’t just for manufacturing–or the dojo.  Kaizen is the only path to transforming our industry.

1. Use the book. The Commercial Real Estate Revolution can begin and facilitate dialogue at many levels. The book was written to give to non-technical readers. At the same time most industry stakeholders only know well one or two of the areas covered in the book. They too are finding that it helps them connect the dots. Perhaps the biggest benefit is to understand the owners experience and the fundamental causes for late and over budget projects.
2. Create forums for multi-stakeholder dialogues. One comment from our 2007 kick-off session for Mindshift in Houston came from the AIA representative. She said that hearing the problem through the different stakeholder experiences gave her a new understanding of the nature of the problem. Multi-stakeholder forums will also help accelerate the learning curve by providing different vantage points.
3. Conduct several low-cost experiments with sales, marketing, distribution and key clients. Look first for internal early adopters and then look for early adopter and fed-up clients to partner through the collective learning curve. The goal is to begin logging 10,000 hours of “flight time.”
4. Join and participate in the key forums that are leading the charge. CURT, AIA, AGC/BimForum, EcoBuild, Construction Institute and Greenbuild. CoreNet and IFMA are just beginning to explore IPD, BIM and other emerging practices. There is a tight informal network of early adopters that is important to break into.
5. Begin the culture shift process. Interview firms like Cameron & Quinn and The Armstrong Group to develop a change management strategy.
6. Go forward with some kind of Beta experiment. The goal is to understand the learning process needed, the change required, the different sales strategies developed and the results. The kind of market is irrelevant to achieving the goals. The profile of the early adopter dealers is the key criteria.

Are you ready to be part of the revolution?

I attended an AGC BIM Forum this summer and heard that very sentiment. These contractors and subs said, “If architects don’t begin to behave more collaboratively then all we really need them for are schematic design models, we’ll be to do the rest ourselves.”

Those sentiments were precipitated by a frustrating presentation by three architectural firms to a forum of contractors and subs. During this presentation the architects presented a traditional role of controlling the design process, owning the documents and keeping clear separation between providing design intent and the contractor providing means and methods. In addition, when an architect in the audience shared their expanded role with BIM, the blurring of roles and the positive benefits it provided their client – this panel challenged both the validity of their claims and questioned why they ventured into collaborating deeply on the means and methods of construction.

This exchange represents a crossroads for architectural firms that could determine the industry’s future.

Architectural firms can view BIM as an opportunity to expand their domain, provide better solutions for projects and improve their margins by delivering higher value to clients. Or, they can hide behind the traditional separation of roles and try to ward off other stakeholders using BIM and encroaching on design and the design process. They can point to liability issues, problems with insurance, the challenge of charging more and added risk as reasons not to change. By doing so, however, architects will narrow their boundaries and influence.

The architects who have fully embraced BIM and make it part of their standard practice have somehow found answers to liability, insurance and risk questions. They do not see BIM as an added cost that they must find a way to convince owners to pay more. They earn more because these architects shorten the schedule, reduce the cost and nearly eliminate change orders.

The traditional firms who feel a sense of encroachment and loss of influence due to BIM are at a disadvantage to contractors when adopting BIM. I’ve heard from many that it is hard to make the investment in BIM when clients are resistant to pay a premium for the added cost. This logic makes perfect sense when the mindset focuses on the added time and cost, not the added value.

Contractors, on the other hand, are no more progressive or smarter when it comes to BIM. But the traditional contractor can find immediate financial value using BIM simply by removing trade collisions, more accurate quantity take-offs, more detailed means and methods and tighter coordination.

This is why McGraw Hill sees contractors adopting BIM at a faster rate, using it at a deeper level.

I’m rooting for the architect because they offer something that no one else can. They see the whole and are able to translate concepts and vision into something tangible and meaningful. However, here is the choice I see:

1. Adopt BIM to the greatest level possible because of enlightenment self-interest.
2. Adopt BIM to the greatest level possible because if not, you’ll become marginalized as providers of concept and style.

The slide show below is embedded from a website called Slideshare. Marc Goldman created the presentation. He provided an excellent overview defining BIM and illustrating many of its applications and value. I’m providing this because for every 2 architects I hear fully embracing BIM technology I still hear 8 that are debating the many challenges I referenced above.

Mindshift began as a simple dialogue about the current and future state of design and construction. It took a little time for our conversation to get beyond the thinking that the current state was a simple fact of life. When we looked outside our current system we arrived at the following conclusion:

Conventional design and construction is broken. It seems obvious. We all say it to ourselves and express our exasperation at our various networking gatherings. The odd dynamic is that when you get a room full of stakeholders together – for the first time – we talk as if we came from some alternative reality. Our projects all go smoothly, on-time and within budget.

I like to quote one of the executives from our first Mindshift gathering; “We all have good companies, good people and happy clients. We begin each projects with good intentions and high hopes. For some reason there is something about the system that gets in the way of all of our best efforts.”

The system clearly creates a lot of waste and conflict. That seems obvious. What was less obvious is that this waste and conflict is the result of a system that is fragmented, assumes distrust and is designed to defend against that distrust.

So here was our “aha!” We asked, “How do you create a system that assumes trust and is designed to foster it and lead toward integration?”

That is the story told in The Commercial Real Estate Revolution.

This video enhances the theme – innovation through developing a capacity for the obvious. This is Paul Bennet presenting at the TED conference.