It’s time: for Facilities Management to learn from Total Football
Can Johan Cruyff help FM embrace total football ideals?
One reaction to the pressure to save money in the UK business services sector is to bundle services together. For the facilities management industry this is translated as Total Facilities Management. In reality TFM means not a true totality, but an attempt by the bigger players (as smaller organisation just don’t have the scale) to take control of the services normally sub-contracted and self deliver them as much as possible. As with the whole of FM the definition of ‘total’ is easily stretched and manipulated to suit the requirements of the customer. To work properly it has to be done with an open, honest partnership approach – i.e. not hiding what the supplier is unable to self-deliver.
But the key here is that it is not Total FM. Not really.
I don’t have a problem with the business model – it is a great idea, especially if it delivers real value for the customer and the end users of buildings and facilities. What I have a problem with is the definition and use of the word total. There are two reasons for this. One is that I think FM is missing a trick to maximise its position in the built environment hierarchy, but (in a far more anorak frame of mind) because the imminent arrival of the FIFA World Cup puts in mind of Total Football as played by Ajax in the early 1970s, the Dutch teams of the 1974/78 World Cups and that leads me to Dutch planning, design and specifically the planning, design, build and management of Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.
Total means a whole quantity; an entirety; or to put it another way it means complete; utter; absolute: total concentration; a total effort. That was how Ajax and the Dutch national side played. Each player knowing their role in a system that was focused on creating space, moving at speed, innovation, creativity and swapping roles throughout making a total, fluid team effort. The individuals were schooled in the concept – they all knew and accepted, believed in the total football culture. Importantly, it is a system of football that is very efficient. The idea is to move fast, save time, be flexible and innovative.
Dutch design has a similar parallel. The total concept that is Schiphol is an example to FM and the built environment. The complex was created with the end user in mind and designed and built in such a way to make the facilities management – i.e. the operation of the airport – as easy and as fluid and as total as possible. FM needs to push for its skills and experience to heard when new build schemes are conceived and refurbishment and renewal projects are being discussed. If the UK economy is to adapt to the cuts being demanded by George Osborne and his Coalition team then FM needs to play its part.
It might be a stretch to ask the FM industry and profession to adopt the principles of Cruyff, Neeskens and Rinus Michels, but to learn from facilities such as Schiphol and other major buildings might be a good starting point. Ajax and Holland in the 1970s moved fast, used space effectively, were completely flexible and frighteningly innovative to devastating effect. Take a look at the faces of the opposition in this footage . FM has a great chance to play an innovative role in helping the UK economy – particular the built environment – become more efficient in a variety of ways from the way the work place functions to energy saving tactics used in building management to employing new technology to keep buildings clean. To achieve these goals it needs to have total concentration and not be distracted by short term arguments or concerns about costs, but take a longer view.
Why not take time during the World Cup to consider how FM can embrace a true ‘total’ model and raise its game in the UK’s business services sector. To borrow a theme from South Africa – it’s time.
Tags: built environment, facilities management, FM, It's time, total football, World Cup
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This is also the reason why the Dutch are much suited to deliver the Total New World of Work. The Dutch Microsoft site at Schiphol Airport Amsterdam shows exactly what you mean. Its a focus on one of the core strengths of FM in general: integration of processes.