When Gwen McKenzie recently went after a new piece of business, she pulled together a team. Realizing the need for a number of capabilities, she brought in a financial whiz, a broker with strong retail and market relationships and another who had worked with a national grocer. Some expertise came from in house and some from outside her company.
McKenzie, a senior vice president with Sperry Van Ness, represents the new breed of broker: one that is not afraid to collaborate and even embraces being part of a team.
While the team approach is not new, not every broker values it, and lone wolves can even find it tough to relate to a team, according to Jerry Porter, vice chairman of CRESA Partners L.L.C. in Los Angeles. Even among those that recognize its value, many are not comfortable making non-broker professionals part of the team, such as property managers, financial services experts and so forth. Yet those are the types of experts needed to provide the consultative approach to business many clients, especially corporate clients, want today.
"Clients are demanding more from their providers, and a lone wolf cannot meet those demands," said Ken Krasnow, executive managing director of the New York region at Cushman & Wakefield Inc.
Ultimately, of course, it is up to a firm's executive leadership to make sure its brokers buy into teaming up. The easiest way to achieve that is through recruitment. "In general, a manager should look for a person with above-average capabilities who is a team player," said Stan Ross, chairman of the University of Southern California Lusk Center for Real Estate.color> "Managers shouldn't cultivate a culture that is focused on superstars either."
But do not rush to get rid of lone wolves just because they cannot immediately adjust to a collaborative environment. Chances are, the lone wolf has a lot of strong skills to offer. "A broker brings a combination of enthusiasm, positive attitude and good people skills to the table," Ross said. "Because brokers interact with a lot of people, they know how to accommodate differences of opinion and compromise." They might just need to understand how teaming adds value--and can benefit them.
One way to win them over is to assign them to team-oriented mentors, Ross advised. "If a broker can see the positive aspects of teamwork, if he can see it being practiced by someone he likes and respects, then teamwork won't be so difficult."
If they are self-aware, they may be made to understand the value of filling in gaps in their expertise and bringing together complementary skills. That does not have to mean admitting to shortcomings. For instance, if Steve Schlegel, COO for the New York region of Jones Lang LaSalle Inc., were pitching agency leasing business, he would put a tenant representative on the team to show the client they know what tenants want, he noted. "The test of whether a team model works is how satisfied are the clients," he said.
Jim Reid, president of the eastern U.S. division for CB Richard Ellis Inc., added: "I don't care how talented a specific broker is. ... If all they do is isolate themselves, they won't be able to successfully meet their clients' needs."
Of course, self-awareness is not a trait everyone possesses. But managers can point out when teamwork can be beneficial. With a team, "the client will get better value, more creative thought and redundancy," said Elysia Holt Ragusa, COO of The Staubach Co.
In striving to become more team-oriented, some brokers have mistaken quantity for quality. Experts warn against confusing collaboration with chaos. "It's not a function of having strength in numbers," said Kevin Danehy, senior managing director for CB Richard Ellis. "It's critical to have people with collective expertise that complements one another."
For a broker who has never been part of a team or hesitates to collaborate, try placing that person in a group with different backgrounds and personalities to expose them to the value of diversity, suggested Greg Biggs, a branch manager in Julien J. Studley Inc.'s Dallas office.
Showing them the big picture might also help. "In order to be successful long term, you need the bigger brain of collaborating because you learn more and get better at what you do and can serve the clients better," Porter said. That can increase the chance of becoming involved in complex, high-profile deals or improve access to clients that would otherwise be inaccessible.
Short-term benefits range from gaining new business to improving the broker's own bottom line to affecting quality of life. Ragusa, for example, believes that being part of a team has the ability to elevate a person's self-worth. "When people are learning more because they are learning from each other, that makes people feel better about themselves."
Moreover, teaming up allows brokers to leverage time and effort. For example, they can be involved in more deals if they are not devoting 100 percent of their time to working on one.
Additionally, being part of a team means that a single broker is not the only person accountable. "When you're a lone wolf, you can't even take a vacation," said Greg May, a managing senior vice president with Transwestern Commercial Services. "It becomes a quality-of-life issue. A team gives you some breathing room to do whatever--play golf, entertain clients, work on another assignment."
It might be tough to work through a broker's distrust and desire to control their environment. But, noted Ragusa, a manager can help if he or she can articulate what the lone wolf is going through. "If someone is used to depending on her own resources, trusting that another person won't drop the ball can be a challenge," she said.
Another concern is whether the team will make the broker look better or worse. "You're only as good as your team," said John Crossman, a senior vice president with Trammell Crow Co. who has worked with both dysfunctional and successful teams. "(But) I don't see people not be successful as part of a team because of incompetence. ... Pride and a lack of self-awareness lead to their downfall."
That can certainly make collaboration difficult. "You have to make sure that each team member is viewed as equally important in the client's eyes," Ragusa said. Viewing that as a crucial element, she advised bringing in a coach if team members are trying to eclipse each other.
It is also important that team members recognize their roles within the team and who is the leader. Even with coaching, many brokers have trouble finding their place within a team. Real estate managers should encourage their brokers to be flexible about the role they play--leader, strategist, financial person or background support. The role will depend on the project and the chemistry between the team and the client.
"The common problem with brokers is that they want to lead the team but they don't want to have the responsibility and accountability of the role," Crossman said.
Once those problems are ironed out, though, collaboration can reap some real rewards. McKenzie's team, for instance, won the listing it was pursuing.