PDF: Introduction to Executive FM

Facilities Management Consulting for Universities, Colleges, and Polytechnics

Facilities Management does not underperform. It performs exactly as designed.

In most institutions, FM is positioned after scope is set, budgets are fixed, and timelines are committed. The result is predictable. Costs rise, complaints follow, pressure increases, and FM is asked to stabilise outcomes it did not shape. Teams respond with effort. More effort creates temporary relief, but not control. The cycle repeats.

Inside that cycle, strong internal leaders are not absent. They are overwhelmed. Time is consumed by incidents, escalations, and explanations. The work that would actually change performance, clarifying decision rights, redesigning workflows, resetting priorities, is continually deferred.

Most responses make the cycle worse. More oversight. More reporting. More systems. More pressure. Different people. None of these change how the system produces results.

Executive FM works with post-secondary institutions to break this cycle. The focus is not on adding activity, but on changing the conditions that drive it. Working alongside internal teams, we identify what is structurally creating instability, cost pressure, and service failure, and define the right first move to restore control.

What Executive FM Does

Executive FM does not provide general advice or incremental improvement. It identifies where the system is breaking and restructures how it operates. This work focuses on:

♦️ Clarifying FM's mandate, strategy, and positioning within the institution

♦️ Defining decision rights and ensuring role clarity

♦️ Establishing intake and workload control and redesigning work processes for optimal efficiency

♦️ Aligning roles with actual work in an organizational structure that reflects actual operations

♦️ Fixing coordination and handoffs across teams and functions

♦️ Translating performance into executive terms and elevating FM's ability to communicate across the institution

The objective is not activity. It is stable, predictable outcomes.

Our strength is seeing structural misalignment faster than most people, turning ambiguity into an intelligible operating picture, and giving leaders a practical sequence for restoring coherence.

The result is not a report but an executive decision package that includes a current-state diagnosis, target state, gap analysis, roadmap, risks, sponsor decisions required, and first-90-day priorities.

Root Cause

Structural Control System

At Executive FM we've walked in your shoes and we understand the pace. We've refined a system that consistently delivers results and is fine-tuned to meet each client's specific situation. Our model, the Structural Control System is:

♦️ Delivered on a fixed cost-basis for budget certainty

♦️Guided by a clear scope with defined outcomes and timelines

♦️ Aligned with our clients own workload and availability

The Structural Control System can be deployed as a end-to-end full project, customized to tackle specific initiatives, or split into phases including a quick win option for clients who want to proceed on a step-by-step basis.

Discovery: It begins with focused discussions to establish institutional context, surface visible pressures, and determine whether a structured diagnostic is warranted. Early signals of instability and constraint are identified.

The Structural Scan is a quick win designed to answer one question: Where is the system breaking, and where should you start?

This is a bounded entry point that creates clarity without requiring a full engagement. This produces a decision, not a report. It requires 6 to 10 participants and the results can be delivered in two to three weeks.

Quick Win Scan

End-to-End Project

The current state diagnosis includes interviews, organizational design, budgets, planning processes, service performance, and governance arrangements are assessed together to isolate the patterns driving rework, loss of control, reactive workload, and stalled improvement.

Targeted surveys or focus groups are used where additional validation is required.

The target state definition addresses governance conditions, decision rights, role clarity, service model structure, and management disciplines are defined as an integrated system designed to restore control and stabilize performance.

The gap analysis and priority decision making is a critical strategic and operational planning phase that leads to the roadmap which is the gateway to actual change. It is a sequenced, decision-ready action plan that enables leadership to stabilize operations, redesign critical elements, and move forward with clarity, control, and measurable progress.

Leadership and Consulting Experience in Complex Institutions

Executive FM Consulting draws on senior leadership and consulting experience across universities, colleges, polytechnics, healthcare, and municipal government. That experience provides a practical understanding of how governance, decision-making, and operating conditions shape Facilities Management performance inside complex institutions.

Experience includes senior leadership, advisory, and transformation work in institutions where Facilities Management performance is shaped by competing priorities, constrained resources, and complex governance.

Understanding Deliverables

Grant Sommerfeld

Founder and President

Grant Sommerfeld brings 17 years of Chief Facilities Officer experience, including nine years as a university Associate Vice-President, leading complex facilities operations across post-secondary, healthcare, and municipal environments.

His work focuses on a specific problem: why Facilities Management functions become trapped in reactive service delivery despite capable people and significant investment.

Across institutions, the pattern is consistent. Facilities teams are positioned downstream of the decisions that drive workload, cost, and risk. They are then held accountable for outcomes they did not create and cannot fully control.

Grant’s approach is to diagnose and correct those structural conditions. This includes clarifying decision rights, redesigning operating models, and aligning roles and workflows to how work actually moves through the institution.

His work is practical, phased, and grounded in lived executive experience. It is designed to restore control, reduce failure demand, and stabilize service performance without defaulting to additional staffing, systems, or capital.

Credentials

MBA
Certified Educational Facilities Professional (CEFP)
Certified Facilities Manager (CFM)
Chartered Facilities Management Surveyor (FRICS)
Certified Management Consultant (CMC)

Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. President of the IFMA Facilities Management Consultants Council.

Grant Sommerfeld

MBA, CMC, CFM, CEFP, FRICS

Text Message

Start the Conversation

Institutions typically begin by discussing the context they are facing and exploring whether a structured diagnostic would be useful.

If the discussion suggests that a deeper examination would be helpful, Executive FM Consulting can outline how a structured diagnostic would proceed and what the institution could expect from that process.

What Happens Next

If you reach out:

We schedule a short introductory conversation.
We discuss the institutional context and current challenges.
If appropriate, we explore whether a structured diagnostic would be useful.

There is no obligation to proceed beyond that conversation.

Contact Grant Sommerfeld

Email: contact@executivefm.ca

Mobile: 1-587-226-1205

Call

Send a Text

Book a Meeting