Every organisation can benefit from a steward’s enquiry
“Global property” is a phrase that was never uttered 10 years ago. Yet, with astonishing speed, people’s knowledge of overseas property markets has spread throughout our industry – and the influence of these markets has spread too. One might suppose that this is because buildings represent something typical, and professional knowledge can therefore translate easily from one country to another. However, in practice, the differences in the design and usage of buildings are profound and, when compounded by different languages, laws and cultures, they have confounded many unwary investors.
Nevertheless, my own interests have always been in what unites rather than what divides, and this article concerns something of universal applicability – stewardship. It may be an old-fashioned concept but it is undergoing a renaissance. It is timeless and especially appropriate today. The word itself might be uniquely English but, detached from its property origins, it can relate more generally to business and life as a whole.
I confess to a momentary high during my teenage years when I overheard an older woman describe me as “toothsome” – the closest anyone has ever come to calling me sexy. In the modern business idiom, stewardship is not “sexy” either. Whereas any young person in real estate would be delighted to be described as entrepreneurial or a “go-getter”, I can’t pretend that the term “good steward” would be quite so appreciated or even understood. However, with stewardship, there is a lot to get your teeth into.
Pioneering spirit
I would always argue that our industry, like any other, depends on the entrepreneurs, the pioneers, the mould breakers. These are different to speculators, who trade for the sake of it, and to crazy risk-takers.
In some ways, stewardship might seem less suited to a faster world, but my view is that it becomes more important as we face a constant bombardment of ideas and opportunities. Our instant world camouflages or trivialises important things and idolises the less important. Stewardship can be a guide to help us distinguish between all these things and, at the very least, can show us when we are doing something purely for the thrill of it.
We all do deals, often in situations that appeal to our base competitive instincts. The desire to “win” is ever present. Yet we are told, and soon understand from our own experience, that the best deals leave all parties satisfied. Crushing victories are rarely satisfying beyond the instant, taking advantage is of dubious merit, and exploiting power and privilege might be high-earning but is unattractive.
So what exactly is a steward? Boats and wine both have stewards, and they hardly seem relevant to property. The shop steward in the UK is a trade union official who is caricatured as belligerent and narrow minded. There are stewards at clubs and events who keep order and control. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a steward as “a person employed to manage another’s property”, but this misses the point as much as the definition of wine as “an alcoholic drink”.
The distinction is that a steward looks after something for someone. This is not the same as caretaking. A caretaker has a strict brief and should not stray outside it or show any particular initiative. Caretaking implies something temporary, whereas stewardship is a more permanent state. A steward has the authority and freedom to act but with an acknowledgement of wider interests.
Stewardship is the exercise of responsibility in a manner that earns the trust placed on behalf of another.
The freedom to act is fundamental, because inaction is certain to lead to failure in our changing world. The action actually taken by a steward is conditioned by the interests of that “someone”. A steward might be an individual, but it can just as easily be a group of individuals – and the same goes for the “someone”.
This is simple but profound at almost any level. “We” now number about 7 billion on this planet, and we are its stewards. We have control of all the levers and although we may convince ourselves that we live for our own satisfaction, we really live for the following generations. Those who scoff at any sense of individual responsibility for the world do so because there is nothing any individual can do to make a difference. A single supporter’s yell at a football match is irrelevant, but collectively the fans can change the game. This sense of shared responsibility and connectivity between one generation and another is lost in the clamour of daily life.
Wherever there are social groupings – in our cities, villages, our institutions, offices and in our homes – all activity can be understood as preparation for the future. We do our bit and then hand over to others – the next crew.
The not-for-profit business research organisation Tomorrow’s Company is one group that has developed stewardship as a key concept of its corporate governance.
Responsible for their actions
The directors of any company have responsibility as stewards of the business in conjunction with its shareholders. In publicly listed companies, we can see that boardrooms are defined as much by power and personal liability as by collective responsibility for current, let alone future, shareholders. Ideally, the actions of the board should be no different, regardless of whether the shareholders are a faceless collective or two individuals.
The Grosvenor Estate can be seen as an effective ownership model because it is set up as a series of trusts where the equivalent of the board – the trustees – have a legally defined responsibility to others. The fact is that every business has a life of its own and, as soon as there is more than one employee, stewardship principles apply.
The issues are exactly the same in a whole business, a single department or within an investment portfolio. To apply stewardship principles, there has to be an explicit timeframe. Investments rarely perform consistently over time and requirements change. There must always be a planning horizon so that decisions can be made and judgements can be exercised.
Some things can be managed separately within a short timeframe – to the extent that anything outside the timeframe really is irrelevant. The challenge is to imagine beyond our own timeframes so that we each become secondary to the broader interests we serve. Countries, businesses and teams should last indefinitely, unless they are failed by their stewards. This is why responsible judgement has to be exercised.
I find that applying business principles to life at home invariably brings trouble. Similarly, using the tools of home in the office is the equivalent of going to work in pyjamas. However, this probably says more about the crassness of “business speak” than the principles of sensible behaviour. Certainly, what lies behind stewardship is just as relevant in the family – where there is a more obvious sense of generational change, of educating for progression, of individual contribution and achievement, as well as collective responsibility.
Stewardship enables us to find the right perspective within which we can form strategy, determine tactics and measure results. Results and performance are very important. Whatever we do, we should always be able to answer the stewardship questions: whose interests are being served, what is the appropriate timeframe and are we being responsible?
