​Originally published as Powerful Points for your Next Presentation in FM World Magazine, December 6, 2016.

By Jon Isaacson

Getting ‘buy-in’ on a particular project or initiative often rests on how well you present your case. You may also be required to speak to potential clients, or present to an external audience to share best practice with peers. Here, Jon Isaacson shares his tips for creating value rather than wasting time when addressing your audience.

As a facilities manager, you are a salesperson. 

You are constantly marketing your value to the organisation and selling the projects that you know are critical to keeping the lights on for your company. It may not be often that the FM department is invited to make a presentation, but these meetings with executives, department heads, team meetings or even to groups outside of the organisation are a great opportunity to get your strategic message across.
 
However, there’s a fine line between an effective presentation and a waste of time. Here are five key points:

1. Time is money 
Time is critical. Knowing how much time one has is an essential parameter for structuring how many points you will want to focus on. You may have at most 5-10 minutes. Your presentation will have to gain momentum quickly to address a primary aspect of the service. Highlight one aspect of the service and complement it with a story that makes it relatable to the specific audience. If you have the time, pay more attention to tone and pacing to keep the audience engaged. 

2. Who is your audience? 
Is this a general audience? Or people that are familiar with your services? Does this group have specific needs that your company specialises in? Who you are speaking to and what areas you believe would be most effective to highlight are key components in crafting an engaging presentation. Aim to create value for your audience, and by educating it in an area that correlates to your organisation’s services, you can create indirect value for your organisation. 

3. A bit about you
You might be tempted to talk extensively about your history and explain every detail of what your business does, but the value of this to your audience is inversely proportionate to the amount of time you may spend explaining these personal details. Introduce the organisation with enough personal details to relate to the demographic, before swiftly moving on to the main points.

4. Tailor your style 
Making use of time and respecting the audience are key components to a good presentation. Know your goal for the meeting. If this presentation is for broad appeal to reach as many people as possible, then humour is always a friend. Your goal in a generic forum should be to create a knowledge void that draws additional interest from as many people as possible. For broad appeal, leave your audience with at least one nugget of value or piece of information; do this by presenting at least three key points that you believe will connect with as many people as possible. If you are aiming to grab a specific demographic or even a single client, then tailor your presentation to target them.

5. Keep practising 
Work on developing your skills in those soft areas such as public speaking, communication and sales. FMs do all the work behind the scenes, so it is valuable to your organisation to be able to explain operations in a clear, concise manner. You are the first point of contact for marketing the services that you and your facilities team provide to your organisation.  

Originally published as The Cause, Cost and Countermeasure to Conflict in an Organization in The Project Management Times

By Jon Isaacson

If you have dysfunction in your team, the cost may be higher than you want to admit but the cure may also be closer than you realize.
​
Frustration in the workplace, does such a thing exist? In a recent article in Forbes magazine, researchers discussed the primary sources of disgruntlement within organizations. According to the study, most employees noted that they were frustrated by personality differences and incompetence in their co-workers. This is not news to anyone who has worked in an organizational setting, one human plus one human will eventually equal conflict. The potential for conflict, as well as the intensity and duration, are compounded by the number of humans added to the equation. More people, more problems. What is interesting about the Forbes article is that upon further investigation there was an underlying source which contributed to the environment of dysfunction,

“In fact, teams having conflict had much higher levels of ambiguity in three categories of work: their team’s goals, roles, and procedures. So, while it is very human to assign personal motive and blame in times of trouble, there isn’t really anything personal about the core of workplace conflict. If you back up and look at the facts, a lack of clarity is what’s truly to blame.” (Wakeman, 2015)

The need for clarity is foundational to functionality and trust within an organization. Where there is a lack of clarity, there will be conflict. Office drama is costly, CPP Inc. performed a study in 2008 which discovered that employees in the United States spent 2.8 hours per week dealing with conflict which CPP estimated as costing over $359 billion in paid hours or the equivalent of 385 million working days (Lawler, 2010). Every business understands the need to watch the bottom line, so why are mangers unwilling to recognize the high cost of conflict? Think of it, if every employee in your office could increase engagement and efficiency by 7% by only changing one element, wouldn’t that be something a wise leader would be more intentional about?

Recognize the cost of inaction. Managers spend much of their time putting out fires, and yet our discussion to this point has demonstrated that the cure for dysfunction may be closer that you think. By understanding the cost of conflict, we recognize the value of investing in practices that will help our organization to identify and address these hot beds of discordance within our teams.

Realize the need to eliminate the blame game. When employees focus on blaming each other, too often managers are happy to allow them to target their ire upon each other rather than dealing with the core of these issues which creates a negatively recurring cycle. As noted by the author in a prior article - how leaders respond to conflicts can either reinforce cultural values that strengthen the team, or they can respond in ways that destroy morale (Isaacson, 2016).

Reduce conflict by creating clarity. If the research from Wakeman and her team as outlined in Forbes is accurate, then leaders can make a significant reduction in interpersonal conflict by being more intentional about organizational clarity. As a leader, you can alleviate friction between team members by being more clear about team goals, roles, and procedures as quoted above.

If we can sense the frustration in the organization and we can calculate the deep costs, we should be proactive in working towards long-term solutions. Often inaction is caused by an inability to identify the causes or formulate an effective plan, but now that these have been brought to light the only question left is whether we will be intentional about getting into the mix to make the magic happen. There are no shortcuts when working with interpersonal dynamics but progress is attainable through the countermeasures for the conflict we have discussed.


References
Wakeman, Cy (2015, June 22) The number 1 source of workplace conflict, and how to avoid it. Forbes. Retrieved fromhttp://www.forbes.com/sites/cywakeman/2015/06/22/the-1-source-of-workplace-conflict-and-how-to-avoid-it/#32a27f89126e

Lawler, Jennifer (2010, June 21) The real cost of workplace conflict. Entrepreneur. Retrieved fromhttps://www.entrepreneur.com/article/207196

Isaacson, Jon (2016, July 11) Eliminating blame in your organization. Retrieved from http://izvents.weebly.com/words/eliminating-blame-in-your-organization

Originally published as Shared Spaces: Shaking Up The Restoration In-Office Experience

February 24, 2016 by Restoration & Remediation Magazine (R&R)

By Jon Isaacson

Could restoration companies benefit from a non-traditional work space?

​I started my career in property restoration in a shared office with myself, my manager and space designated for our crew to meet and interact. At most places I have worked since, the more normative office is laid out in designated segments of isolation. While I don't dismiss the value of personal space and enjoy my privacy as much as anyone, I have found the value of shared spaced and have worked to create open work space in every team that I have supervised. 
 
Shared Space Equals Shared Experiences
When you share an office, you can feel the pulse of the team. You hear your team, even when you are not conversing with them directly, you are hearing their interactions. While there are times when the noise level has to be managed, when you hire people who are respectful they will likely already understand the dynamics of time and place in an open space.
 
For our teams the benefits of a communal office within our department has far outweighed the perceived negatives. Imposing an open office on people who are not ready for it is a recipe for disaster. Transitioning to a shared space is made much more seamless when you have people who enjoy working together and/or you hire people who understand the culture. Implementing an open office is not of any benefit if it does not reflect your culture or add value to your team. 
 
Open Space Equals Open Communication
Creating a shared space has allowed us to more readily share information at all levels of our department. Having our crew come into our office in the morning creates a natural opportunity to discuss the day's assignments. When the crew returns in the evening, we can debrief and discuss needs for the following day.
 
These organic connection points throughout the day have increased our interactions at professional and personal levels. Combining our open space with making our workloads visible has helped us to elevate our clarity across our team interactions. 
 
Your office is your second home. Arguably, you spend more time in your work space with your work peeps than with your actual family, so making it an enjoyable and functional environment should be a priority. 
 
When drafting the plan for your work space - whether open, traditional or some other system with a fancy name - think about the following:

1. Values: If communication and clarity are important to you, what better way to construct your work space than in such a way that promotes more natural interactions? (See more on scheduling HERE)
2. The Team: You need more face time with your team, your team wants more face time with you; utilizing a shared work space benefits all. If your team members do not value or enjoy each other, putting them in isolation will not solve those underlying issues.
3. The Process: Would your team benefit from having discussions in the morning, check points during the day and being able to debrief in person at the end of the day? Of course all of these things can be done when you have separate offices, but they also can happen more organically when you have a shared space. 

Maybe we are weird. Maybe we are the exception to the norm, but after 14+ years in the restoration industry (a mix of construction and service), I can tell you from experience that having a shared space has been far more valuable than the perceived drawbacks.
 
For our department, we have hired people who bring value to the team, we have been protective of the culture that we have developed and we have enjoyed the benefits of a shared work space.   

Originally published as How To Lead With Empathy
May 4, 2017 by About Leaders

By Jon Isaacson
​
In all of the various words expended on business, entrepreneurship, and leadership, there are few that discuss the role of empathy as a key to the development of emotional intelligence.

Feelings are a component of life. But they are often treated as though they have no place in a professional organization and are of no concern for the successful leader. The truth is that most people in leadership positions make decisions based on feelings, whether they are willing to admit that or not.

A recent study entitled Only Human conducted by Gyro surveyed 720 senior business executives and noted that, “A majority (61%) of executives agree that when making decisions, human insights must precede hard analytics.” Life is theater, business is full of drama, and people are sensitive.

So how do modern leaders elevate their emotional intelligence to address these realities in an organizational environment, especially if they are working to flatten out the organizational chart? Empathy is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Empathy is what separates emotionally intelligent leaders from managerial programmed robots who are following a passionless script.

Consideration and Engagement
Consider the engagement equity in the ability to understand what someone is feeling, to comprehend the perspective of another human and engage with them, whether you agree or disagree with their conclusions. Consideration for others’ feelings, compassion for their trials as humans, and caring when addressing sensitive issues at work are essential soft skills that can elevate a leader to inspire others to buy-in to the organizational vision. We know in principle that empathy is a form of understanding. So we should understand what empathy is as well as what it isn’t.

What is Empathy?
Empathy is listening to others, attempting to see things from their perspective, and making leadership decisions based upon a fuller engagement with team members who can help in accomplishing the mission. Empathy is a skill that must be developed as an essential component in the tool belt of emotional intelligence. This can assist a leader to more successfully work through periods of resistance while working with other individuals. 

Empathy is not capitulation. Listening and understanding does not mean that a leader changes course simply because there are individual(s) who respond negatively to directions and changes within the organization. Empathy is not appeasement. Acquiring perspective does not mean that a leader will seek the path of least resistance by sacrificing long-term success for short-term peace acquired by cowering to demands.

Humanizing
Employees, co-workers and business partners come in all emotional shapes, sizes and shades of complexity. Developing leadership soft skills and emotional intelligence is a process that requires consistent intentionality, which often includes making a fair share of mistakes.

The beautiful side to humanizing the organizational process is that where empathy is practiced and modeled by leadership, it is more likely to be reflected in the interactions throughout the team. When leaders listen, empathize, and demonstrate a hunger to ever improve themselves, they tend to attract team members with the same values who will assist them to build an organization of vision.

As noted, empathy does not make a leader a door mat whom capitulates to negative forces. Conflict resolution by temporary appeasement in the face of resistance is the opposite of emotional intelligence. 

Leaders who listen so that they can understand their teams will unlock the resources that may be hiding within their organization that would otherwise remain hidden under the misguided actions of cut and paste management principles.

Step out of your comfort zone, make some smart mistakes, build a thriving team and be the leader that your team deserves. If you are resistant to change as well as growing as a leader, you will continue to attract and manage the team that you deserve.