Are you an Ideal Facility Manager ?

(First, my apologies to the Property Managers out there – your function and role is much clearer and has a much more obvious and measurable impact to your company)

The demands of the job are intense, the stakes high and the credit often elusive, but we all know how important the job is and I believe the industry is continuing to make progress to get attention and respect in the organizations you serve.

As costs increase, both for the real estate and the cost of operations, not to mention the cost of the human resources we house, Facilities Management becomes more and more important.It doesn’t happen on its own, however. You need to strategically remind your organization of the impact of what you do and why it matters. Don’t do it in isolation. Join an association where you can learn leading practices you can implement, along with how your colleagues sold it to their organizations. Get magazines where you can read about success stories and how they brought the projects to fruition. Network with colleagues and share appraoaches. Learn about the latest hot buttons and put a wedge in the C-Suite door with solutions to timely, critical issues they are concerned about.

To help, I’ve started a collection links to associations as well as magazines, many of which are free to qualified FM and PM professionals. If you know of any I should add, from anywhere in the world, please let me know.

Since I have written about this issue before, I won’t repeat it here, but if interested, you can read my article “What is an FM?” which was prompted by IFMA’s definition which states that Facility Management “… is a profession that encompasses multiple disciplines to ensure functionality of the built environment by integrating people, place, process and technology.”

And while you are looking over the references, consider the quote below. It pretty well sums up what it takes in this profession, so print it out, blow it up and put it where you can see it each and every day for motivation:

“An ideal facility manager must have Aristotle’s logic and Solomon’s wisdom, a priest’s discretion and a gambler’s poker face, a lawyer’s shrewdness and a marketing director’s charm, a gladiator’s guts, a marathon runner’s perseverance and a sprinter’s speed, a leatherneck’s toughness and a dancer’s agility, lots of good luck and 30 hours per day.”

And, if anyone out there knows were this quote orignated from, I’d like to hear from you so I can give credit where credit is due.