Spiral dynamics is a framework developed to understand the dynamic forces that influence people, businesses, education and organizations. The focus of spiral dynamics is to synthesize and attempt to understand human, organizational and societal problems through strong leadership and management systems, processes and procedures.

Spiral dynamics require changes in thinking and action.

Within facilities management organizations, change is a constant. New regulatory requirements, updated safety codes and sustainability requirements impose financial stresses on already overburdened organizations.

Financial officers must constantly shuffle funds to finance new requirements and initiatives. Additionally, funds must be available to manage the latest facility or infrastructure crisis, such as citations from a fire marshal inspection or emergency flooding due to a broken water line or sprinkler discharge . Add to these the requirement to fund needed capital O&M work.

All of these funding requirements take time to approve, and during the approval process other completely unrelated issues crop up that also require immediate funding.

Delays in funding O&M to maintain institutional facilities at minimum condition levels cause the deferred maintenance backlog to grow exponentially. As deferred maintenance grows, more demands are placed on maintenance staff.

When this occurs, maintenance staff is unable to keep up with the inevitable equipment failures experienced in facilities around the campus. As conditions decline, occupants become dissatisfied with the expected service they are not receiving, and the credibility of the facility management organization is questioned.

Life-cycle maintenance and repairs, when delayed, eventually lead to emergencies. What was considered a normal repair soon blossoms into an emergency. Facility managers may be forced to apply temporary repairs in order to get by with minimal cost and hope a repair holds until a more permanent solution is applied.

This maintenance methodology may work for a while, but over the long term will take a heavy toll on the facility management department and employees. It will negatively influence customer service, require large capital budget expenditures and cost more in the long run.

Because of funding limitations, institution leaders are constantly searching for ways to reduce costs. This ultimately leads to reduced funding for O&M and reduced staff because these are largest budgets within an organization.

The overhanging cloud of possible staff reduction causes uneasiness among employees and compounds an already negative situation. Downsized employees are angry, and remaining employees suffer guilt. These concerns have initiated protests and recriminations by staff and faculty against the administration in some higher education institutions.

Many institutions of higher education have not heeded the recommendation to allot funds for deferred maintenance or renewal of facilities, and these institutions are finding it more difficult and costly to catch up on deferred maintenance. As expenditures for capital maintenance projects are deferred, the O&M costs increase as repairs become emergencies.

Donn W. Brown stated it this way: "The longer maintenance is deferred, the more devastating the recovery cost will be. Facility deterioration can reach such terrible proportions that your once-beautiful facility is a major liability rather than the prime [institution] asset it should be." Repair services and material costs do not decline over time; in fact, they increase.

These spiral dynamics can be seen today in higher education institutions. The underinvestment in O&M combined with aging infrastructure creates staggering funding needs, which will only increase. Facility managers must be persistent when making the case for needed funding.

Reduced O&M funding will have a negative effect, which may ultimately include the inability to fund certification of existing buildings as LEED buildings, employee morale degradation, increased cost of building ownership , potential negative effect on student academic achievement, and the potential negative effect on faculty and researcher recruitment and retention.

Jack Baker, director of operations and maintenance at the University of Maryland, bluntly stated that institutions are undergoing severe financial stress and are having to find funding just to respond to daily crises. Baker acknowledged that little funding is being applied to O&M because funds are going toward new construction and other university programs.

If institutions keep adding new facilities without maintaining what already exists, then they risk running to failure. Deterioration and dilapidation of a facility can happen quickly. Once in the downward spiral, deterioration is difficult and expensive to stop. One major effort of facility managers must be to keep a facility from entering the deterioration spiral at all.

Effective management of facilities must also take into account employee motivation. This includes employee expectations, individual motivation, individual relationships and careful examination of spiraling issues.

The figure below depicts the many challenges that influence a facility management organization. The facility manager must be able to juggle multiple issues concurrently and must be able to implement and incorporate many of the principles discussed here.

Facility managers must have the technical knowledge, financial background, ability to listen, resilience to persist and the leadership skills to lead a diverse organization while continuously being challenged to do more with less. As O&M funding is reduced, morale problems increase.

The workforce slips from conducting proactive preventive maintenance to becoming reactive emergency repairmen. Equipment and machinery that support facilities and infrastructure age and need more attention, and maintenance personnel have little time to conduct normal scheduled repairs and preventive maintenance. Finally, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems begin to loom as major environmental issues.

Deferred maintenance increases to the point that it cannot be funded on a consistent basis. Normal day-to-day operations give way to emergency-response mode.

Students, staff and faculty expectations continue to expand and become demands. Parents using technology, email and cellphones, contact university leaders and facility managers to express dissatisfaction with the maintenance and cleanliness of the facilities, while tuition rates continue to increase.

Another competing issue for funding is the need to meet regulatory and life safety requirements. In addition, the economic situation of the country impacts higher education institutions. In some cases, employees may be laid off or vacant positions may go unfilled.

The remaining workforce takes on the additional workload. This translates to a decrease in overall productivity. Employees grow older and slower with response rates and work completion. In a union environment, work slowdown could occur.

Funding of supplies, materials, contracts and utilities continues to compete for the limited available O&M funds. The demand for technology to manage extensive databases and provide benchmarking information continues to escalate, while the expense of needed software causes the need to be placed on hold.

All of this occurs over time, and risks affecting the education and research missions of the institutions. When a mission impact is identified and the institution attempts to reverse course and fund O&M properly, the challenges become the time it will take to arrest the spiraling situation, the significant funding needed to restore facilities and infrastructure, and the efficient management of those funds.

The bottom line is facility managers must be assertive and persuasive in convincing the organizational leadership of the importance of timely operations and maintenance.