Facilities @ Management

3.1 50 Years in the Industry – Leadership Lessons Learned

Alex Lam

In May 2022, I received a congratulatory letter from Don Gilpin, CEO of the International Facility Management Association (IFMA), for my 40th anniversary of being a member. In 1982 I saw an announcement of IFMA. I said to myself, “This is it! This is what we do! We must belong and support this IFMA.” Since then, it was a beautiful facility management (FM) journey of learning and networking all over the world. I can now say I practically have friends all over the world. It reminds me of a presentation I made at the 2017 World Workplace Asia in Shanghai: “50 Years in the Industry – Leadership Lessons Learned.” It was a retrospective of my professional career with an emphasis on the “M” in FM. I thought I would share my experience and my view of the future of facility management here.

In The Beginning

Back in the 1970s, at the dawn of facility management, I transitioned from private architectural practice to joining a corporation and starting my life as a corporate citizen. Canada’s largest telecommunication company Bell Canada (Bell) hired me in 1972 to lead the Interior Space Design department. We were to embark on a process of office redesign and transformation using the open office concept. My introduction from architecture to facility management was through interior design. Reflecting on those early days, my involvement with facility management was just a series of happenstances. These early in-house facilities ...