Depending upon circumstances (and egos), the communications leader may embrace your willingness to partner, or may try to marginalize your desire to do so. Here’s a starting point: How closely do you work with the communications leader within your organization? Not only must they be your partner for outreach within the organization, but also outside the organization, into the realm of local government, media, cultural and charitable organizations, etc. Today’s facility executive must certainly possess business acumen, but more important, he or she can engage the External (capitalized because this is an all-encompassing apparatus of networks and community) through leadership in thought and action. By external MO, I mean more than a studied view of the business environment. This is easier said than done within a profession known for largely working backstage with occasional heroics displayed during facility emergencies.
The essential characteristic adopted by the facility executive polymath is an external modus operandi (MO). Yet, there are individuals, many of whom are featured in the pages of Facility Executive, who exhibit elements that can be exemplified into a profile. There is no polymathic composite for success therein lies the beauty of the notion as it can cast itself to the needs of the enterprise and the capabilities of the executive.
Reddit polymath full#
So what sets apart the facility executive who has the ear of those on the executive committee in aligning workplace and real estate strategy to the planks of organizational vision? Or, in the case of the service provider facility executive, who instills full confidence in comprehensive service delivery, enabling clients to focus on high impact strategy? I posit it is the facility executive who displays the attributes of the modern day polymath. Further, ever since the advent of workplace strategy as a competitive linchpin to recruiting talent in the high-tech industry, the job of facility executive within leading enterprises has catapulted to the forefront of business planning. Likewise, aging infrastructure poses an even greater array of challenges for facility professionals to maintain because both the investment to fix and the risk of deferring repairs can be huge. Ongoing advances in design and construction result in buildings impressive in appearance and functionality, yet complicated to maintain and operate. The term originated in Europe during the Renaissance period, the cultural movement that triggered a redevelopment in interest in classical learning, when society began to prize people with multiple skills and a wide range of knowledge.įor the contemporary facility executive, the challenge to keep pace with the complexity inherent in the built environment is daunting. The term “polymath” comes from the Greek roots poly-, for “many,” and manthanein, “to learn.” A polymath, in other words, is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different disciplines.