Before You Sign That Lease: The Questions That Change Everything

The Workplace Strategy Most Organisations Skip (And What It Costs Them)

There’s a misstep that I’m observing organisations make, again and again, and honestly, I find it concerning.

The lease is expiring. Seems innocuous enough but the flurry of activity that this provokes sends organisations into a spin.  Procurement springs into action, calculating current headcount, projecting growth, and heading straight to market. Meanwhile, IT is planning new technology rollouts. People and Culture is redesigning how teams collaborate. Finance is looking at cost per square meter. The CEO is talking about strategic direction and cultural transformation.

Everyone's moving fast.  Everyone’s being proactive.  Everyone's solving problems.

But… no one's actually talking to each other. And the reactive decision that gets made in all this chaos? You're going to be living with for the next seven to ten years.

What If You Started Differently?

Here's what I want you to consider:

what would change if you paused before you procured, and started with alignment instead of square meters?

When you bring your leadership team together before anyone engages with the market, and you take the time to answer some foundational questions, everything shifts.

Instead of departments running in different directions, you first create alignment.  Not just around how much space you need, but alignment around who you are and where you're going.

Start by asking yourselves these questions:

• Who are we as an organisation? Not just what we do and the espoused values, but what does it actually mean to work here, in this market, in this team?
• What do we value? And more importantly, what behaviours do we expect to see when people are living those values every day?
• Where are we going strategically? And how does that shift what we need from our physical environment?
• What does it mean to perform well here? What does collaboration actually look like for us?

These aren't theoretical exercises, they're the foundation of every decision that follows.

Your Physical Environment Is Shaping Your Culture Right Now

Most organisations don't realise that their physical environment is influencing your culture every single day, whether you're conscious of it or not.

If you say collaboration is important but your space is all individual desks with no meeting rooms, what message are you sending?

If you value innovation but your environment feels rigid and controlled, what behavior are you actually encouraging?

If hybrid work is your future but your office is designed for five days a week presenteeism, what are you reinforcing?

When we bring leadership teams together early - before anyone talks to agent, before procurement goes to market, before design even enters the conversation - we get everyone in the room hearing each other's perspectives.

What You Discover When You Stop to Ask

By creating shared understanding first, we consistently uncover things organisations didn't even know were there:

• Technology friction that's been feeding employee frustrations to boiling point.
• Cultural misalignments where different teams have completely different interpretations of the same values.
• Process breakdowns that exist simply because your current layout doesn't support the workflow.
• Silos that persist because people physically can't connect across departments.
• Policy gaps between what's written and what people actually need to do their jobs well.

And here in lies the magic… these aren't obstacles to work around, they're opportunities to create something better for the whole organisation, not just solve the immediate problem of needing a new space.

But you can only address these if you discover them before you've already committed to a building, signed a lease, and locked in your constraints.

The Ripple Effect of Getting This Right

When you start with alignment, everything downstream becomes easier:

• You know exactly what you need when you go to market, so you're not wasting time on properties that will never work.
• Your design team has clear direction because they understand the behaviors you're trying to enable, not just how many desks you need.
• Your stakeholders are genuinely bought in because they helped shape the vision from the beginning.
• Your employees trust the change because they can actually see themselves in it.
• And your investment delivers real returns because the space authentically supports how work gets done.

Compare that to the alternative: a space that technically fits your headcount but doesn't support your culture, a lease you're counting down to its expiry instead of leveraging, and a workplace project that becomes a cautionary tale instead of a case study.

So, What Do You Actually Need to Action?

If you're staring down a workplace project, whether it's a lease expiring, growth forcing your hand, or a strategic shift requiring change, here's what to do before you do anything else:

1. Press Pause on Procurement

I know there's urgency. I know the lease clock is ticking. But rushing to market before you know what you actually need will cost you far more than a few extra weeks of planning. Give yourself permission to get this right.

2. Get Everyone in the Room

Not just facilities. You need voices from across the business, people and culture, technology, finance, operations, brand, and most importantly, people who represent how work actually gets done on the ground. Create a steering committee that has the authority to make decisions and the diversity to see around corners.

3. Start With Strategy, Not Space

Before you calculate square meters, answer the foundational questions: Who are we? What do we value? Where are we going? What behaviors do we need to enable? How do we want people to feel when they're here? What does success look like - not just for this project, but for the organization? These answers inform everything else.

4. Uncover What You Don't Know

Dig deeper than the surface requirements. Where are the friction points? What's not working in the current space? What are people working around? What assumptions are you making that need to be challenged? This is where you find the insights that transform a project from adequate to exceptional.

5. Create Shared Language

Make sure everyone means the same thing when they use words like "collaboration," "flexibility," "innovation," or "culture." What does working here actually look like? What are the rhythms, rituals, and routines that define your organization? Get specific. Get concrete. Get everyone aligned on what success means.

6. Only Then, Define Your Requirements

Now, and only now, can you accurately articulate what you need from your space. How much? What type? What capabilities? What location? What flexibility? You'll make better decisions, negotiate better terms, and choose the right solution because you're not guessing. You know.

The Invitation

Here's what I want you to sit with: if you're facing a workplace project in the next 12-18 months, what would change if you started with alignment instead of logistics?

What conversations need to happen that aren't happening yet? Who needs to be in the room that isn't? What questions are you avoiding because they feel too big or too uncomfortable? What would it mean for your organization if you got this right, not just functionally, but strategically?

Because the cost of getting this wrong isn't just financial. It's cultural. It's the message you send about what you value. It's the daily experience of every person who walks through your doors. It's the seven to ten years of living with a decision that was made in haste instead of with purpose.

And the opportunity of getting it right? That's transformational.

So before you sign that lease, before you brief that designer, before you announce anything to your teams, take the time to get clear on what you're actually building and why.

Your future self will thank you.

If this resonates and you'd like to explore what early engagement could look like for your organization, I'd love to have that conversation.

Ps. If you’d like an insight into how getting this right could support your business better, download our latest whitepaper, Leveraging Place and see how optimising your workplace can enhance your employee experience.