Collaboration in property should not always be partnerships “between friends” if the sector is to shake its exclusive reputation.
Speaking at Estates Gazette’s Collaboration as a catalyst for investment debate at MIPIM UK last week, Ross Bailey, founder of pop-up enabler Appear Here, said the industry needed to be careful it does not only join forces internally.
“It can’t just be about existing friendships. The worrying thing about the property industry is that it can be very closed to those outside,” he said.
Bailey added that the best collaborative business relationships were the ones where there was confrontation.
“You actually want someone to leave the room furious sometimes,” said Bailey. “Better that than a vanilla person who does not even care. Frictions show real passion. And that’s what you need.”
Stuart Anderson, head of commercial asset management at Transport for London, agreed. The pair are working closely together after a successful project at Old Street Underground that has seen the central London station transformed from under-used, grotty but prime space into a major attraction for both shoppers and retailers.
“There have been times when we have not always agreed,” said Anderson, “but that forces people to think. What a company like Appear Here does is make the property sector see things through its eyes – so differently. We say ‘it doesn’t work that way’ and they say ‘why not?’ And I think sometimes we can really do with being challenged to ask, and answer, those questions as an industry. Disruption is not always a bad thing.”
But Susan Freeman, partner at law firm Mishcon de Reya, argued that “a shared vision” was required at the very least to ensure a successful partnership.
This caused some debate on the panel, with JLL UK deputy chairman Andrew Hynard agreeing with Freeman, while Bailey and Anderson argued that a shared vision in the first instance was not the only way to collaborate, so long as the two sides of the partnership came to an agreement eventually.
Clair Rickaby, senior underwriter at CRS, added that as well as partnerships between property and non-property firms, collaboration should also be focused on what the property industry can deliver for the general public. However, she argued that for this to work “the outside world needs to see a benefit”.
Talk turned to communication – or lack thereof – between collaborations and the rest of the industry and the general public. Freeman said that the property sector needed to be “much better at getting its message out there” in terms of the partnerships being forged and the benefits they are aiming to deliver.
The panellists agreed that social media was a powerful tool to air new ideas and communicate collaboration, so long as it is authentic.
“People can tell very quickly when something is just propaganda,” said Anderson.
