Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

Are your Facilities Decisions Uninformed? It’s time for a Change

No Information to make decisions with for Facility Management For some reason. I’ve been seeing a lot of articles recently about using information for decision making. Some in our industry, but lots in other areas as well.

What this confirms to me is that the Facility Management industry is a business function in addition to a technical or tactical function. The methods, approaches, skills and knowledge used in other business functions also apply to Facility and Property Management.

It’s one of the reasons I suggest Facility Managers get training in other business related fields as well as read books in other business areas. These types of skills are also a key theme of my book “Managing Facilities & Real Estate”

Posted by Michel Theriault Jan 30, 2011

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FM Leaders Take Care Of Their Own Facility Management Department With Efficient, Effective Space

University of Toronto Facility Management Department Facility Managers often give themselves and their departments the worst space in their facility. It’s sort of like the shoe maker’s children not having shoes. We give good, productive space to other departments, including other support groups like HR, IT, finance and others. Yet we often neglect the needs of our own staff.

In one example, the Facilities department of a major organization who both owns their own property and occupies leased space relocated to basement space in one of their corporate offices to give the better space to other departments. They actually resorted to mounting televisions throughout the office connected to surveillance cameras outside the building so the facility staff could get a glimpse of the outdoor conditions.

In contrast, Ron Swail, AVP University of Toronto, made his Facility department’s forced move –to make space for another department – into an opportunity.

Posted by Michel Theriault Jan 18, 2011

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Now Available: “Managing Facilities & Real Estate” Book by Michel Theriault

My Facility Management book is now available.
It’s written for both new and experienced facility professionals, regardless of level, function or the type of facility managed, who want to leverage existing skills and advance their career with leading business practices, strategy, management and leadership in FM.

$39.95 US Soft Cover 7″x10″ 532 pages ISBN 978-0-9813374-1-8
$59.95 US Hard Cover 7″x10″ 532 pages ISBN 978-0-9813374-2-5

(Ships worldwide. Standard service up to 6 business days for NA and Europe, 12 days elsewhere. Email for other options. Corporate, Wholesale, Educator or Academic pricing also available.)

66 Page Random Preview or More Information or Ask me a Question

Posted by Michel Theriault Oct 31, 2010

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Facility Managers Don’t Have All The Answers.

FM is a complex, issues based role. I’ve learned along the way that nobody in the industry knows it all, and the best way to be successful is to leverage the knowledge and great ideas of others, including your staff, colleagues and suppliers.

Recently, I delivered a 3 day workshop on Strategic Facilities Management in Dubai. The location was spectacular, naturally, and the audience was diverse, interesting and most importantly, keenly interested in enhancing their skills and knowedge in the profession, which is quickly emerging in the Middle East.

While the 3 day workshop had many individual modules, the last session was on developing FM skills. This included an example from my past, dating over 15 years ago from a teamwork exercise while working in the Facility Management department of a major company.

It was so compelling about the the value of teamwork, I still had the exercise booklet.

Posted by Michel Theriault Nov 23, 2008

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Top 10 Issues

These Top 10 issues come from an association that focuses on educational facilities, but as you can see, they can apply to anyone managing properties.They confirm that managing physical space is essentially the same regardless of whether you are managing corporate facilities or commercial properties.

The list was put forward by APPA, the North American association for educational facilities in their ’2007 Thought Leaders Series’ report:

Posted by Michel Theriault Jun 15, 2008

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