Digging Deeper
September 27, 2016 • Now that fall is upon us and the pace has quickened, we are enjoying the immediacy of meeting our clients’ third-quarter leasing goals. Our success in meeting these goals, quarter after quarter, is fueled by a holistic approach to the legal leasing process, which we referred to last month as systemic thinking.
This month, and for the next few months, we’ll delve into the different “systemic thinking” principles and tools we use to move the legal leasing needle closer and closer to peak performance.
Look For The Underlying Structure
The first principle of systemic thinking is that there is a common underlying structure that influences behavior and results across similar types of transactions, notwithstanding that the specific circumstances and participants are different. We believe that access to the underlying structure is a powerful way to work smarter, rather than harder so that desired results can be achieved predictably rather than sporadically.
For example, it doesn’t matter whether we are representing the institutional owner of an industrial property in New Jersey or an entrepreneurial retail landlord with one power center in California, over the spectrum of thousands of leases, we are always balancing two separate axes of conflict: precision vs. urgency, and accommodation vs. getting it all.
We know that if we let negotiations drift outside the sphere of reasonableness for a complicated entertainment lease in a mixed-use building in midtown Manhattan, the transaction will get bogged down the same way it will for a straightforward suburban office lease in Philadelphia.
The moments of truth that come up in small leases with “mom and pop” tenants also come up when we negotiate anchor leases with Fortune 500 tenants. Our ability to recognize them and respond in the moment enables us to increase the odds of success time after time.
Partnering With Our Clients
We use this core concept as a tool to partner with our clients. We help them uncover internal operational structures that get in the way of their leasing goals, such as multiple, overlapping layers of consent, inconsistent or inadequate construction, legal and operational back-up, or those pesky dinosaur form leases.