PDF: Introduction to Executive FM

In post-secondary, Facilities Management operations do not break under pressure. Pressure reveals whether the system was in control in the first place.

When control is absent costs shift, risks surface, staff burn-out, stakeholders complain, and attention gets consumed.

If facilities operations feel reactive, the system is already out of control. More effort will not fix a structural problem.

Start with a Structural Scan to identify what is actually driving cost, service breakdown, and leadership risk, and where to act first.

Facilities Management Consulting for Universities, Colleges, and Polytechnics

Situation: Post-secondary institutions are under financial pressure, and facilities management is one of the first functions placed under scrutiny because of its scale and cost. Expectations do not decline with funding. They remain fixed, or increase.

Challenge: Inside FM, this creates a specific operating condition. Demand does not reduce, but capacity does. The operating model remains unchanged while constraints tighten..

Reaction: Most institutions respond by asking FM to do more with less, or by looking for incremental efficiencies. That does not resolve the condition. It intensifies the problem.

Resolution: The issue is not effort, capability, or intent. It is that the system is not structured to operate under these conditions. Cost rises, service becomes less predictable, and leadership exposure increases. [Clients and Case Studies]

Executive FM Consulting: We apply a specialized skill set drawing on education-sector experience and functional FM expertise to help senior leaders in the post-secondary sector streamline FM operations, solve problems, and improve their operations in a planned, pragmatic, orderly, and sustainable manner.

Leading FM Through Periods of Change and Fiscal Austerity

When budgets tighten, most institutions cut capacity but leave the operating model untouched. The same unclear decision rights, unmanaged intake, and broken workflows remain. The result is predictable: fewer people doing the same unstructured work, more firefighting, more complaints, and rising risk at exactly the moment tolerance is lowest.

Austerity does not reduce demand on FM. It reduces capacity while demand stays structurally intact. When the operating model is unchanged, FM shifts from controlled delivery to reactive absorption.

That shift has consequences leaders cannot ignore.

Service instability becomes visible. What used to be manageable noise becomes executive-level signal.
Cost does not meaningfully decline. It moves. Deferred work compounds, emergency spend rises, and the institution pays a premium for lack of control.
Risk exposure increases. Compliance gaps widen and the probability of a visible failure goes up. When it happens, it is attributed to leadership, not to structural conditions.
Management attention is consumed. Instead of leading, FM leaders spend their time explaining, defending, and reacting.

Leaving the system untouched during cuts does not preserve stability. It accelerates instability.

At that point, there are only two options. Continue to absorb the consequences of reduced capacity, or identify and address the structural constraint driving the condition.If neither choice is made, the system will make the decision for you.

The first step is to identify that constraint and determine where to act. That is the purpose of the Structural Scan.

The Structural Scan

What Happens Inside Facilities Management

What Executive FM Does

Facilities problems in post-secondary institutions are rarely caused by effort or capability. They are caused by how the system is structured.

The objective is not more activity. It is stable, predictable outcomes under pressure.

Executive FM identifies the structural constraint driving cost movement, service instability, and leadership exposure, and defines the right first move to restore control.

This work focuses on where institutions lose control:

Unclear mandate and positioning that places FM downstream of key decisions
Decision rights that are fragmented or undefined, forcing escalation and delay
Intake and workload that cannot be controlled, leading to constant reactivity
Roles that do not align with actual work, creating duplication and gaps
Breakdowns between teams where work is handed off but not owned
Performance that cannot be translated into executive terms, weakening credibility

The result is not a report. It is a clear operating picture and a defined path forward.

Leaders leave with:

A precise diagnosis of what is driving instability and cost
A target operating model that reflects how work actually flows
The decisions required to move from reactive absorption to controlled delivery
A practical sequence for the first 90 days

This is how institutions move from firefighting to control.

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

Case Studies

Role clarity collapse masked as performance issues

A facilities team was under sustained pressure, with missed expectations attributed to individual performance and capacity gaps. The underlying issue was unclear mandates, overlapping roles, and decisions being made in the wrong places.

Clarifying role purpose, decision rights, and interfaces restored accountability, reduced rework, and stabilized delivery without adding headcount.

Firefighting driven by unmanaged intake and priorities

Work was arriving from multiple channels with no control over intake, sequencing, or trade-offs, creating constant urgency and visible instability. Leadership believed the issue was workload volume, but the system had no mechanism to define what mattered most.

Introducing a structured intake and prioritization model shifted the operation from reactive absorption to controlled delivery.

Cost pressure without operating model change

The institution reduced budget while expecting the same service levels, resulting in rising complaints, deferred work, and increased risk exposure. The operating model remained unchanged, so the system simply redistributed pressure rather than reducing it.

Redesigning workflows, decision gates, and service expectations aligned capacity with priorities and restored credibility under constraint.

FM positioned downstream with no influence on outcomes

Facilities was consistently engaged after scope, budget, and timelines were set, leaving the team to absorb consequences it could not control. Performance issues were visible, but the root cause was structural positioning, not execution capability.

Worked with senior leadership to reposition FM into upstream planning conversations which reduced downstream instability and improved cost and schedule reliability.

Activity mistaken for control

Leadership had extensive reporting and oversight mechanisms, yet outcomes remained unpredictable and issues continued to escalate. The system produced high activity but lacked clear ownership of decisions and end-to-end workflows.

Simplifying governance and aligning decision rights to accountability converted activity into control and improved predictability.

Cross-functional breakdown at the white space

Projects and operations were breaking down at the interfaces between departments, with no clear ownership of coordination. Each team was performing within its mandate, but the gaps between them were unmanaged and generating failure demand.

Defining shared processes and interface accountability reduced friction and improved end-to-end delivery.

Burnout driven by structural overload, not effort

A high-performing team was experiencing sustained burnout despite strong individual capability and commitment. The issue was not effort or competence, but a system that continuously generated unstructured work and unresolved priorities.

Restructuring intake, clarifying roles, and removing duplication reduced load and improved sustainability without reducing standards.

Leadership risk without decision-grade visibility

Senior leaders lacked a clear view of facilities performance, risk exposure, and trade-offs, making decisions reactive and difficult to defend. The information existed but was not translated into a form that supported executive judgement.

Implementing a shared scorecard and structured reporting created visibility, improved decision quality, and strengthened institutional confidence.

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 with a Structural Scan and then move to explore whether a broader engagement will deliver the results they need.

If the discussion suggests that a deeper examination would be helpful, Executive FM Consulting will 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 Structural Scan or a Structural 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

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