Move fast and fix things – how property delivers in an uncertain world

We’re operating in an unsettled world, and have been for a while, but we still need to get things done. How do we find a way through and bring teams, clients, customers, partners and communities with us?

That was the starting point for a discussion held in Leeds recently hosted by our CEO, Mark Bourgeois, with senior leaders from Legal & General, M&G Real Estate, Montagu Evans, McLaren Regeneration, Harworth, West Yorkshire Combined Authority, Leeds City Council, South Yorkshire Combined Authority, Tetra Tech, BNP Paribas Real Estate UK and WSP. Sam McClary, chief executive of the British Council for Offices, chaired the conversation.

Attendees considered the leadership qualities needed to help organisations meet their objectives and realise their property and development plans during times of flux, whether that’s navigating rapid AI advances or shifts in generational expectations.

For the GPA, that means continuing to work towards a smaller, better, greener government office estate and supporting government departments with their workplace needs. It’s a vast and exciting brief, from enabling tech-led working and creating places where teams can come together to tackle complex problems, to boosting the efficiency of an estate that spans buildings from the 1700s to the present day.

Whatever their specific context and business aims, the leaders around the table identified some clear requirements for success.

Stay focused on the vision

Uniting teams around a common goal is paramount, and leaders should keep championing the organisation’s vision. One participant joked that they are the ‘chief repeat officer’, consistently reminding teams of what they are working towards and encouraging them to stay passionate about it.

Maintaining a strong sense of direction helps teams to feel centred and bought into the long-term mission. For some, highlighting the social impact of the organisation’s work and how it improves people’s lives, was just as important to achieving this as celebrating commercial success. As well as delivering savings to the taxpayer, our work, for example, is helping to kickstart regional renewal and opening Civil Service careers to more people across the UK.

Get the culture right

Many around the table talked about working on their organisational culture with an emphasis on building trust, ownership and accountability to enable teams to be high performing. We took a similar approach last year when we introduced the GPA’s new values, shaping them through meaningful engagement and workshops with colleagues.

Unblocking barriers to delivery is key and empowering people to act is one way of doing this. “I want our people to think that if they spot a problem, then they can and should jump in and fix it”, said one person.
Openness and honesty from leadership are also vital, including when things feel tough, with messages tailored to the audience.

Build resilience

Leaders need to create a shared mindset where change is viewed as the norm, and where teams can operate in challenging and agile environments. This is particularly important in property, said attendees, where we are often working on long-term development plans through different political and economic cycles.

Participants agreed that resilience must be balanced with a focus on care and wellbeing, especially when transformation is happening quickly. Building relationships and a sense of camaraderie is a big part of this.
What the conversation also underlined is the power of collaboration, from leaders sharing lessons about their experiences, to businesses working together to achieve property development goals. Mark noted that it was fantastic to see so many of the GPA’s peers and partners around the table. They are a vital part of our mission to deliver a smaller, better, greener government estate, supporting the work of the Civil Service and ultimately improving outcomes for the public.