Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

Responsiveness is underrated

We have spoken before about the importance of speed and rapid decision making in real estate development. But in practice, it’s obviously a little more complicated than just being good at making quick and high-quality decisions. And that’s because building a building is complicated and it requires teams of people, all working toward the same goal. Some of these people will be internal to your organization, but many will be external, which is a feature that further complicates matters. Because it means that, to varying degrees, there are critical path items — items that control your overall project schedule — that are not fully in your immediate control. This is one of the things makes development and construction so challenging.

Now, ordinarily, when a team is being assembled people will talk about their project experience, their systems and fancy tech, and perhaps some of the awards they’ve won because of their extreme talent. But what doesn’t often get talked about is the simplest and most basic of things: You want people who will do what they said they would do, when they said they would do it. In other words, you want responsive and reliable people. This sounds pretty banal, which is maybe why it so often goes unspoken, but it’s fundamental to the success of a project. The other nuance to this is that, most of the time, it’s less about the company itself and more about the individual human who will be working on the project. Is that person good?

Just being responsive, reliable, and on top of things goes a long way. These are the kinds of people you want on your team and it’s how you move fast.

4 responses to “Responsiveness is underrated”

  1. Jp Antidormi Avatar
    Jp Antidormi

    It’s 75% of the battle. Just being responsive.

    Underrated, not taught, hard to determine at interview stage.

    Completely agree with you.

  2. Marc Lafleur Avatar
    Marc Lafleur

    Can I extend this analogy? I feel like this would go a long way towards medning some of the animosity between developers and the neighborhoods they make their proposals in. Let me provide an example. Here in the Junction we have a long-standing proposal that is working it’s way through various amendments etc. The developer always talks about trying to neighbourly and, indeed, begins all its communications with the word neighbour. At the same time, they have allowed their empty lot to become a dumping ground for all sorts of junk, garbage, old tires, unwated paint, furniture etc. This, of course, is not the developer’s fault, but one of the burden’s of ownership is maintenance. Despite the neighbourhood asking for clean-up we rarely get it and I feel that if the developer just showed a little more responsiveness and responsibility than they might not receive such animosity when it comes time to ask for the additional variances they want. I know this is an oversimplification, but in many ways I feel like we have forgotten the simple things, the foundations, of what it takes to live and work side-by-side.

    1. Brandon Graham Donnelly Avatar

      Hey Marc, thanks for your comment. I think this is a reasonable request. Responsiveness and staying on top of things cuts in multiple ways. Mind if I ask which project?

      1. Marc Lafleur Avatar
        Marc Lafleur

        Craft Residences.

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