Being the boss of a global business in the best of times is a demanding role. Steering a business through an unprecedented crisis is something else. But Knight Frank senior partner Alistair Elliott is not fazed. While, like any of us, he’d rather we were not in the midst of the somewhat crippling coronavirus crisis, Elliott says he is ready for it. Ready to learn and ready to come out the other side, changed, but hopefully stronger.
“The one thing I have learnt is that every crisis is different,” he says. “But they do inform you as to how you might respond to the next one.”
For the current crisis, Knight Frank had the benefit – for want of a better word – of having a sizeable business in greater China. A business where it could see first-hand the impact that the spread of the virus was having on individuals and businesses. And while in the early days there was hope that the impact would be confined to a single landmass, the benefit of being able to share learnings with a part of the business that has been through the crisis and is now starting to come out the other side is invaluable.
“One of the great things about a group like ours is that we can learn from each other all of the time and never has that been truer,” says Elliott. “What gave me and has given me considerable heart over the past two weeks as the momentum of this has gathered so much pace is getting the input from those who are in an environment where they now feel they are past the worst.
“In Singapore, Kevin Coppel [managing director of Asia Pacific] said to me that the restaurants were returning to normality for the first time in eight weeks. Hong Kong is going back to work and the streets in Beijing are getting busier.”
Elliott says it is those sorts of conversations that enable him to be ready for this crisis.
“Making sure we get this right in terms of looking after our people, communicating with them effectively, making them feel assured and being realistic is incredibly important,” he says. “Learning from those experiences and then articulating those messages as we think best to the businesses around the world and then to our clients is crucial. We need to focus upon learning from it, managing our business to accommodate it and then come out the other end of it stronger for it.”
And while the UK may only be a week into “not business as usual”, there are already lessons being learnt by business that could change the way real estate functions going forward. Lessons that could and perhaps should become the new normal for real estate and business more widely.
For Elliott, one of those lessons is exactly how we work. He says this will be one of the biggest tests in our generation for agile or home working. It will be a global test on how people can, will and want to work.
“I think we’re going to learn some fascinating lessons,” he says. “I don’t know what they’re going to be yet, but we’re going to learn some fascinating lessons.”
Elliott cites his own experience with an Asia Pacific country heads meeting. A meeting that was scheduled to take place in Singapore earlier this month. Instead, 18 countries met virtually for a video conference. And while it requires a different approach, a stronger chairman, more guidance around when to speak and to listen, the meeting worked.
“It prompted me to suggest that we should do those calls more often and when things do return to normality, have physical meetings less often,” says Elliott, adding the caveat that the meeting only worked well because all 18 country heads knew each other well.
“In a people-focused business like ours, there is a getting to know you piece that I’m not sure technology can yet deal with,” he says, “but there is a whole lot more that can be done with effective telephone conferencing.”
More global teleconferencing means less flights. The impact of the drop off in global travel and commuting has already had a profound impact on air quality around the world. Could this be a lesson for global leaders to keep hold of once the crisis is over?
Elliott certainly hopes so. “At a time when our environmental responsibility has barged through our agenda with enormous pace, this may just force the pace of change and may be one of the many upsides that will come of this,” he says. “In addition to the adjustments we were going to make to assist our environmental strategy going forward, this would increase the pace of that change and it will inform us to do business in a different way. That meeting last week was with 18 country heads. If we’d done it in Singapore, it would have cost an awful lot of money. Two nights in a hotel, 18 different flights, etc. Perhaps now, we will do it once a year or once every other year, but we don’t have to do it every three or four months.”
He is convinced the Knight Frank business is stronger than it has ever been and is well placed to navigate the current crisis. That it is better equipped than it was going into the global financial crisis. But he doesn’t say that to crow about the firm. He says it to make a point that as a business coming out of the crisis, it needs to look at itself differently.
“If this adversity is coming through our business, how can we give something back to those people who will almost certainly be 10 times worse off than we are,” he says. “So although we are going to go through a painful adjustment – and I don’t know the full consequences of that yet – the odds are that we will be able to deal with this and will come out of it very strongly. Markets will recover – things always looks bleak when you’re in there – but we’ve got to work out how to make the most of it. Perhaps this is a moment in time to work out how we’re going to give a bit more back.”
It may well be the agent in him, but Elliott is infectiously optimistic. Optimistic about how businesses and people may transform for the better as a result of yet another crisis and optimistic, of course, about the future of Knight Frank as a global and growing business.
“Obviously it’s a bit cloudy now, but if we’d done this two months ago, I would have been effervescent with enthusiasm about the next two years for Knight Frank, and the next two years for real estate,” says Elliott. “I believe passionately that Knight Frank has got a great future. We are in better financial shape and we’re stronger as a business than we have ever have been. We’ve got all the credentials to come through this. What we’ve got to do as we come out of this bump, albeit a big one, is continue our growth. We are absolutely determined that we are a viable global platform as a partnership and one that can thrive going forward.”
Travelling with Alistair Elliott
Q: Describe a typical global trip
A: Whenever I travel overseas, I don’t travel with any buffer. I land, get to the hotel, get changed. My instructions are “keep me busy all day”. I want an hour at some stage for exercise and I want an hour to make sure I can catch up on anything that may need my attention. Otherwise, I want to see clients, I want to see the teams, I want to see the press, and I want to understand your business. When I’ve done all that, whether it takes one day or three days, I want to get on a plane and go to the next country or come home.
Q: What learnings do you bring home from each trip?
A: The absolutely fundamental thing they all teach me is what’s going on in their local market. About where they’re recruiting, what new areas of business they might be looking into, what their experiences of technology are and, really importantly, what support they want from head office. One of my key things is, what is it you want from us? What can we do to help you develop and grow your business? How can we connect better with you and your teams?
Q: If you could open a Knight Frank office anywhere in the world, just so you could go there where would it be?
A: The Amalfi coast or the Maldives, if I can have two choices, but the likelihood of that is zero.
Q: If you’ve got to do a 12-hour flight, what should you set yourself up with to get through it?
A: I’m the most boring person in the firm to travel with. It’s become legendary because I fill my briefcase full of everything I should have done for the trip and make sure I’ve done it by the time I get off the other end. But once I’ve got that done, I have a couple of glasses of red wine and a good meal.
Q: What essential item do you take with you on every trip?
A: I take my running kit wherever I go and the first thing or the last thing I do in the day is go to the gym or go for a run round the city I’m visiting.
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