After yesterday’s post about speed, price, and quality, a friend of mine from Rotman emailed me and said: but what about integrative thinking?

When I was doing my MBA at Rotman and Roger Martin was the dean, integrative thinking was a significant part of the curriculum and the messaging for the school. 

Here’s how Roger explains it:

Over the past six years, I have interviewed more than 50 such leaders, some for as long as eight hours, and found that most of them share a somewhat unusual trait: They have the predisposition and the capacity to hold in their heads two opposing ideas at once. And then, without panicking or simply settling for one alternative or the other, they’re able to creatively resolve the tension between those two ideas by generating a new one that contains elements of the others but is superior to both. This process of consideration and synthesis can be termed integrative thinking. It is this discipline—not superior strategy or faultless execution—that is a defining characteristic of most exceptional businesses and the people who run them.

So what my friend was getting at is why – when it comes to speed, price, and quality – do you only get to “pick any two?” Doesn’t that go against the rules of integrative thinking? Isn’t that a failure to look for a more holistic and integrated solution?

It’s a great point. And it’s a thought that crossed my mind while I was writing yesterday’s post. The fact that “something had to give” made me second guess myself.

In general, I’m a believer in integrative thinking. I think there are lots of opportunities to create new hybrid solutions and models that are superior to what might exist today.

But what I was getting at yesterday was perhaps a bit more low level in thinking.

Let’s say for instance you’re a developer constructing a new building and you and your construction manager are in the process of tendering for curtain wall. You receive 3 bids back and 2 of them are roughly the same, but one them is $5 million cheaper.

My immediate thoughts would be: Why is that one bid so much lower? Did they bid on the same scope? Are they missing something? Will the curtain wall arrive on-site on time? And if it does, is it going to leak like a sieve?

I’ll be the first to admit that the construction process is fraught with inefficiencies and ready for integrated solutions. I’m certain that the trade-offs between speed, price, and quality could be better managed.

But more often than not, a rock bottom price usually means that something did in fact give. After all, great integrative thinking is a pretty rare trait.

One of the most common questions I receive from readers is about what to study in school in order to become a real estate developer. Here’s one of those questions:

“Thank you so much for your insight into the real estate development process! I was wondering if you could do a post on what educational degrees you think would best prepare someone for a career in real estate development?”

I’m not surprised that a lot of aspiring real estate developers have this question on their mind. Compared to many other career options, the path to real estate development has traditionally been pretty informal. It’s much less structured compared to other professions such as law or medicine.

But as the real estate industry continues to institutionalize (transition from rich families to institutions), I’m sure we’ll see recruitment become more structured as well.

Already the MBA and Master in Real Estate Development (or some other permutation of that degree) have become — for many large real estate organizations — the prerequisite to getting in the door. So if you’re looking for a simple and safe answer, just get one of these degrees.

To more fully answer this question though, I thought I would just share my own strategy for getting into real estate development. Because at the end of the day, there’s no one way to become a developer. Lots of people start out in other industries, only to fall into real estate later on.

The way I started was by first identifying the skills that I thought I would need as a real estate developer and that I felt employers would be looking for. And I assembled this list by going on lots of informational coffee meetings with developers to make sure I was headed in the right direction with my assumptions. 

In the end, this is more or less what I decided I needed to know:

Planning: An understanding of local planning policies, zoning, and so on. For this one, it’ll help if you can pick a particular place and commit to learning it (which is what I did with Toronto). There are a lot of local particularities that you’ll need to grasp. Real estate is very much a local business.

Finance & Economics: The ability to understand markets, build models, and crunch numbers just like a banker. That was my goal before I got an MBA. This includes discounted cash flow analyses, net present value calculations, internal rates of return, and so on.

Sales & Leasing: There are a lot of people who think that this is the best way to start in real estate (particularly on the commercial side). Learn the nitty gritty of leases and deal negotiations and then figure out where you want to be in real estate. Because at the end of the day, development projects are only viable when you have sales and/or signed leases in place.

Design & Construction: This was the easy one for me because I was coming from an architecture background. I could “read plans” and I didn’t need to convince people that I understood how buildings worked and how they were built. Instead, I needed to convince people that I had all the other skills.

And I knew this because that was the feedback I received my informational coffee meetings while I was in architecture school. One CEO (of a large publicly traded REIT in the US) told me flat out: “I need to feel comfortable that you can negotiate and that you won’t fuck up the numbers.”

And that stuck with me. I realized that I had an image to shed.

To round out my skill set, I decided to specialize in real estate in my first masters and then get an MBA. And given the chance, I would do it the same all over again. But even if you don’t have the opportunity or inclination to do that, there are a lot of other things you can do to shore up your knowledge base.

I took a number of ARGUS and Excel classes to learn how to build robust real estate models. You might be surprised at how much you end up learning about the real estate business by doing that. I also became involved in organizations like the Urban Land Institute and started going to every real estate panel I could find. And before committing to doing an MBA, I even thought about taking some accounting classes at a local College.

So my point is that I think you should identify the skills and strengths that you have today and then figure out some way to acquire the missing ones. Go buy a real estate textbook. Take an online class. Go to industry events. Do whatever it takes to round out your skill set so that you can sit in front a prospective employer (developer) and tell them that you’re able to create value for them and their organization across every facet of the development process. That was my goal when I was trying to get in.

Of course, those aren’t your only options. 

You could also just work your way up by taking any job with a real estate developer. One of my closest friends did exactly that and today is doing incredibly well with no formal training in real estate or even a related field. You could also just go out and buy your first property and have a go at it. Many great fortunes have been created by doing exactly that.

Either way, real estate development is an exciting business to be in. It can often be hard to get your foot in the door given the size of most development teams, but if it’s truly what you want to do and you work on acquiring the skills, I think you’ll eventually find your path.

Most of you have probably heard of the STEM subjects. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. These academic fields have been the focus of many federal governments around the world as they have been seen as the key to driving innovation.

But what you may not have heard of is something called STEAM. I hadn’t heard about it until this morning. STEAM is an initiative being led by the Rhode Island School of Design to integrate art and design into national agendas pertaining to STEM. STEM + Art = STEAM.

Here’s a snippet from RISD:

The goal is to foster the true innovation that comes with combining the mind of a scientist or technologist with that of an artist or designer. RISD offers endless examples of how art and design education teaches the flexible thinking, risk-taking and creative problem solving needed to solve today’s most complex and pressing challenges – from healthcare to urban revitalization to global warming.

I couldn’t agree more with this initiative. As somebody who thought a lot about how to combine design and technology in my own career, I believe that there are huge benefits to a multidisciplinary approach to problem solving and innovation. In fact, it’s one of the reasons I decided to go to Rotman for my MBA (see Business Design).

So if you feel the same way, I would encourage you to add yourself and/or your company to the “STEM to STEAM map” that RISD has created. Click here to do that.