Facilities Management Consulting for Universities, Colleges, and Polytechnics

Just Because You're Necessary Doesn't Mean You're Important

Available Now in All Formats

The structural reasons FM is treated as necessary but never important -- and what institutional leaders can do about it

Facilities management is one of the largest operational functions in most post-secondary institutions, yet it is often positioned downstream of the decisions that shape workload, risk, cost, and service stability.

The result is predictable. Firefighting becomes normalized. Deferred maintenance grows. Teams absorb pressure instead of controlling it. Leaders spend more time explaining operational failures than improving performance.

In this book, Grant Sommerfeld argues that these conditions are not primarily technical failures or people problems. They are the consequence of governance design, unclear decision rights, fragmented operating models, and institutional structures that force facilities teams into reactive behaviour.

Drawing on nearly two decades of executive leadership experience, the book reframes facilities management as a strategic operating system that directly affects institutional resilience, financial pressure, risk exposure, and organizational credibility.

Understanding the Psychology of Facilities Management and Why It Matters

This Book Challenges the Conventional View of Facilities Management

Most facilities management literature focuses on maintenance practices, capital planning, asset systems, or technical delivery. This book examines the institutional conditions underneath operational instability. The book introduces a practical framework for understanding how governance, positioning, workflows, decision rights, and organizational structure shape operational outcomes across the built environment.

This book is written for:

Vice Presidents Administration and Finance
AVPs and Directors of Facilities Management

It is particularly relevant for institutions experiencing:

Rising operational complaints
Budget constraints
Service instability
Leadership fatigue
Organizational friction between departments
Constant reactive escalation

About the Author

Grant Sommerfeld is the founder of Executive FM Consulting and a former university Assistant Vice-President Facilities Management with 17 years of senior leadership experience across post-secondary education, healthcare, and municipal government.

He specializes in diagnosing the structural conditions that create instability, firefighting, and loss of control inside facilities operations. His work focuses on governance, organizational design, role clarity, decision rights, and operating model redesign for universities and colleges.

Grant is President of the IFMA FM Consultants Council and a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Grant Sommerfeld, MBA, CMC, CFM, CEFP, FRICS