Team Talk
Piers Brunner, CEO of Knight Frank Greater China, highlights the success of working together.
When fresh-faced graduate Piers Brunner started work in 1991 at the property company then-called Knight Frank & Rutley in London, little did he imagine he'd wind up running the show as CEO of the firm's Greater China operations. It didn't, of course, happen overnight. From London, he took up a position in Jakarta, Indonesia, with Colliers International and subsequently moved to Hong Kong with the same firm, where he worked for 16 years, managing 30 offices in 14 countries. He took over Knight Frank's Hong Kong helm in 2015 and has never looked back.
“Knight Frank is the largest global partnership in property consultancy, which is important as it means we are independent of analysts and the vagaries of the stock market,” says Brunner. “We can take a longer-term view to the benefit of our clients and, internally, it leads to a very family-orientated atmosphere and a strong culture.”
While Knight Frank's company ethos has stayed the same, Brunner cites speed of communication and transactions as the biggest changes he has witnessed in his profession. “When I first started work, I only had a desk phone, there was a pool of secretaries and a fax machine. I used to have to go on-site with my tape measure to measure square footage manually,” he laughs. “Now, everything is so convenient and we can be in touch 24/7, which has its downsides as well as benefits.”
Brunner feels it is important to keep his team of 260 people up to date with what is going on in the company as a whole. Every six months, he organises a compulsory Town Hall meeting for everyone in the Hong Kong and Kowloon offices at an off-site location. The half-day event starts with a 30-minute presentation by Brunner, updating everyone on where the company is and celebrating achievements. A motivational speaker, such as British adventurer Rob Lilwall, takes the floor, followed by a teambuilding exercise. One year, an orchestra was formed. Each person was assigned a different musical instrument regardless of whether they could play it or not, or put into a choir. They split off into various sections, each with their own tutor, and learnt to play the dramatic cantata "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana. After 90 minutes of practice, the sections reunited and, guided by a professional conductor, the Knight Frank Orchestra made its debut performance.
“I learned the violin as a boy so I would have been happy to play that but I was assigned the trombone. I'd never blown into an instrument before,” says Brunner. “We even had people on the oboe, which is very hard to play. The result was unbelievable. Everyone was on such a high. The essence of it was that we were all a team and that by working together we could achieve things we never thought we could do.”
It's all very well to keep teams motivated when things are going well but what about when corporate fortunes are experiencing a downturn? Brunner feels companies need to keep their vision and mission consistent through good times and bad. This, along with total encouragement and actively demonstrating support, will help to make people feel comfortable, secure and that they are still on point. “You can't change your company values when things aren't going well and you need to tell people the reason they are on a particular journey. You have to give them a purpose—otherwise why would anyone bother getting out of bed to go to work?” he posits. “We promote collaboration and find that when teams work cross department, there is much more success.”
Knight Frank has an annual motto and this year's is “Good to Great”. It seems to be working so far as the company scooped up several accolades at the recent Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) awards including Best Retail Team and Certificate of Excellence for Professional Services.
“Building a real team and helping people to achieve their best is what I constantly aim for,” says Brunner. “It doesn't matter what industry you're in, what product you're selling; the number one quality for a leader is empathy.”
You need to tell people the reason they are on a particular journey. You have to give them a purpose.