Joy Crimmins recently joined CBRE Group Inc.’s Kansas City office as a sales manager covering the Kansas City and Omaha markets.
Crimmins previously spent seven years as executive director of the Urban Land Institute’s Kansas City District Council. While at ULI, she and her team launched the Real Estate Diversity Initiative (REDI) program to jump-start real estate careers for women and people of color.
Crimmins described commercial real estate as an industry that promotes creativity and pushes people to visualize how the current and future community members move through a city, what is deemed valuable, what’s not.
The Kansas City Business Journal talked to Crimmins about her career and the industry. This conversation was edited for length and clarity.
What I gravitated toward at ULI was setting up systems and structures for implementing all of our strategic initiatives, because a lot of my focus went into processes and building that framework to support our robust volunteer pool. We wanted our volunteers to feel that their time was rewarding.
I work best in a defined framework and, really, as a wingman for other people. I’m not looking to be out front. That’s not my goal. It’s to work with other people in a team, share information and knowledge to help other people accomplish what they want to accomplish.
When I was living in Phoenix, Arizona, I worked at State Farm Insurance in a very similar role to what I’m doing at CBRE. I was an agency consultant and we worked as the liaison between our corporate headquarters and the field offices.
I just kind of fell into that position, I’m not sure how or who was guiding me to it, but I was good at it and I loved it. I helped organize our agents to be successful, was responsible for staff training and office efficiency.
Then, my experience at ULI helped me clarify how much I enjoy being in the lane to coach and mentor others and be the person behind the curtain — and I can carry those aspects of the job in this new position at CBRE, too.
What I learned working at ULI with people that are literally at the top of their game is that I’m not at the table because I know more than them or as much as they do. That is not why I’m there.
Once I recognized that, it took pressure off of me. I don’t have to know everything. I have to know how to ask questions and I have to be a good listener. I’m never going to know everything, but people can rely on me to find the answer or make the connection for them to people that do have the answer.
When I started, I went into it thinking that I have to be the expert on everything and that was way too much pressure. I learned I just have to be reliable and follow up on what I said I was going to do. I don’t have to know it all and, to be successful, it was just giving myself that space and that frame of thought. Sometimes I have to remind myself about that, and that’s OK.
One of the really nice things about that role, and one of the big challenges about it, is the tremendous amount of creativity you need to develop the direction and the implementation. You’re working very closely with the district council chair and other members to come up with the strategy. But, really, a lot falls on that person to implement it and make sure that they stay true to that.
I don’t want somebody to come in and feel like they have to do what I did. I hope that whoever gets in there feels total ownership of the position and just embraces what can be done with that platform. There are so many positive things that can really improve the city, the community and the industry. It’s a great opportunity, so I hope whoever replaces me seizes that and just owns it.
What’s really important to me is that everybody has a seat at the table and that we hear from a broad spectrum of voices. It’s important to me that we’re just not hearing from people that think exactly how we did. I’ve always been passionate about elevating other people and inviting everybody to the table so that we’re all part of the conversation. We’re all equally part of the solution.
I hope CBRE will continue in that direction. I just love commercial real estate and I’m so excited that it’s more inclusive. There’s so much that can be done in that industry that it affects everybody’s lives and how we experience the city.
I trust (Kansas City office Managing Director Leah FitzGerald‘s) leadership, from all the work that Leah does through ULI and at CBRE, she’s super-creative and I’m kind of her wingman. It’ll be fun to see where she takes us.
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