Leaders are made, not born, said former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani as he addressed the General Session crowd Monday morning. Giuliani came to Toronto to talk about his six principles of leadership to CoreNet Global Summit attendees. He said these principles carry leaders through all aspects of life, whether they are running organizations, getting through difficult tasks, or dealing with person crises.

The first principle, he said, is "Know What You Believe."

"Why do you do what you do?" he asked. "This is particularly important to know when things go wrong, because that's when people start to question you."

Giuliani cited former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. as leaders who believed strongly in their ideals. Reagan believed Communism was evil and spent his Presidency fighting it, while King believed violence was not the answer to the civil rights question. Reagan and King brought about tremendous change because they never wavered.

The second principle: "Be an Optimist."

Being optimistic does not mean you bury your head in the sand and ignore problems. Instead, he said, face the problem or reality and find a solution -- don't be stopped by it. "People follow the person who has the solution to the problem," he explained.

He also discussed the value of hope. King led people with hope, not dispair."Ronald Reagan used to be criticized because he saw the country through rose-colored glasses," Giuliani said. "Well, if you can't see it, you can't take it there."

His third principle of leadership is "Courage."

"The absence of fear is not courage," he said. "But the presence of fear and the ability to manage it or overcome it in order to fulfill your responsibilities is courage."

Next, he cited the fourth principle: "Relentless Preparation."

Prepare for the worst possible scenarios. Your plans might not fit the situation exactly, but if you prepare wisely, your plans can easily be modified for most events.

The fifth principle is "Teamwork."

He advised, "Ask yourself 'What are my weaknesses and how do I balance those with other people's strengths?' The team can be better than you, not just a reflection of you."

His final principle? "Communication."

"Know your topic," he said, "and communicate it well."

Attendees' responses were very positive to Giuliani's message. Johnson Controls' Hoss Milani said, "What he brought to the conference is the credibility of his personal experiences. We identified with him."

Becky Wingenroth, Executive Director Economic Development, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, moderated this session, which featured case study presentations by Doug Rothwell, Executive Director of Worldwide Real Estate for General Motors; Mary Frania, Business Office Team Leader, Ford Land; and Jim Becker, Managing Director, Jones Lang LaSalle. The session dealt with the idea that sustainable design is a means toward business profitability and job growth in communities, and that economics and the environment are not mutually exclusive. More and more companies are marrying their corporate real estate strategy with community objectives.

Rothwell explained that General Motors targets communities for their sustainable design initiatives that have or will have a long-term General Motors' presence. This is not simply an effort to be “green.” The company is looking at working with the communities surrounding their locations as a means to improve their bottom line. One example he cited is the $500 million the company invested in its Detroit headquarters at the Renaissance Center. The company leveraged the investment to help clean up the entire Detroit Riverfront, which improves the community for GM employees.

Becker said Jones Lang LaSalle works with GM to identify sustainable solutions for sites. An example is a large tract of land next to the Renaissance Center site. The company is marketing the land to developers as a mixed-use residential development.

Frania began with a quote from Ford Chairman Bill Ford: “we are committed to building great cars and trucks and passing along a better business and also a better world for future generations.”

Ford wanted to use the skills of its employees to make a difference in their communities. As a result, the company is producing “greener” products and is more dedicated to good corporate citizenship. One example of the company's efforts is the Ford Rouge Center redevelopment. The 600-acre brownfield site now features about 85,000 perennials and a 22-acre sustainable landscape.

Scott Hunter, founder of The Hunter Partnership Alliance and author of Making Work Work, began this session by dispelling myths people believe will make them successful such as “If you know the right thing to do, you will be successful” and “how smart you are determines how successful one will be.”

Hunter experienced first-hand doubt in the myths in the mid 1980s when his law firm and personal life were failing. He asked himself what could be going wrong? He graduated top of his class in law school and worked hard everyday.

Hunter elaborates on how his downfall, as it is for so many others, was the way in which he was thinking about the events in his life. How we think determines how we feel and then the actions that we take. Hence, the results that our actions produce are caused by programming that occurred early in our lives.

The vast majority of people are programmed to be unsuccessful: Successful people think differently. In order to become outrageously successful, it is up to each individual to change the way they think.

Hunter explored six keys to becoming successful. Two keys prevailed as significantly important to one’s personal and professional life:

Manage your attitude: Start managing the way you think about things. Successful people take risks, have faith, confront their fears and choose to be satisfied at every point in their life Be congruent: Be consistent on the way you think and act.

For more on Hunter’s keys to success and principles to live by visit www.ScottHunter.com.

Politics blur the business rationale driving the oft-controversial - and misunderstood - practice of offshoring.

Both views were conveyed in the Toronto Global Summit education session on "Do You Know Where Your Partner Is? The Offshoring of Corporate Real Estate (CRE) Services," but it ultimately became clear that companies' perogatives to reduce costs, enhance information flow and add other efficiencies will prevail.

A panel of senior corporate real estate executives dispelled the emotional side of offshoring practices in the U.S., placing more emphasis on the creation and retention of higher-value jobs in North America against more transactional, lower-level positions that tend to move offshore more frequently and are increasingly being viewed by management as commodities.

"Offshoring is another example of economic specialization," observed Sandy Goldberg, VP of Corporate Real Estate for WebMD. "It's one example of many that shows there may be some short-term pain associated with it, but history shows balance will be found between the fact that offshored services are a commodity and the need to retrain our workforce to better compete in the global services market."

United Technologies Realty President Ron Zappile also reacted to the question of backlash against white collar job loss in the U.S. "These are lower paying jobs," he stressed. "Our scope also includes higher paying jobs for U.S.-based hires, but we will continue to decide where support services go based on the level of skill and education required to do them. We're looking for a balance between both."

"We're looking at some dislocation of these jobs but not nearly enough to support the claim that offshoring them will hurt the U.S. economy," Goldberg added.

Much of the business rationale behind offshoring is based on a company's ability "to drive client value in ways that we could not do previously," according to panel moderator Rick Bertasi, CEO of United Systems Integrators (USI).

The panel shared a common thread. All are users of a data and information sharing technology platform known as Sequentra that has enabled either outsourced or insourced delivery of client services. For USI, which manages 400-million square feet of client space in 30,000 locations globally, an offshored alliance with Manila-based Software Ventures International (SVI) brings "a constant review of how to increase the value propostion to the business (of the customer) while looking for constant improvement in quality."

SVI's head of Business Services, Domingo Guanio, demonstrated how the firm - the Philippines' largest IT service provider - customized leasing, accounting and reporting systems using Sequentra on behalf of USI, which offers a 100% data integrity guarantee to its clients. SVI scans and directs the flow of information on thousands of leases executed by USI, summarizes or abstracts the leases, documents key dates and clauses, records requests for payments, and performs reporting functions throughout the detailed process management sequence. Guanio made it clear that USI controls the data used to drive the system. "We extract the data provided by USI, but we do not use it; we hand it over to USI for multiple reuse of the data."

For Goldberg and WebMD's 2-million square feet of leased and owned space in 118 locations, the insourced model is the preferred approach. "Sequentra is the focal point of all activities," he related. It offers return on investment through centralization, process and quality control, accuracy, headcount reduction, reporting and closing of communication gaps that could otherwise threaten the company's use of the technology to bring efficiency to the processing of thousands of medical claims each day, the delivery of medical information to doctors and patients, and the management of its business services and medical practice services.

WebMD prefers to insource its information management, not only making the issue of offshoring information support services a moot point, but giving the group control of its own data. "Once it's outside, I lose control," Goldberg commented.

"We know where our partners are," UT's Ron Zapille continued. The company combines a set of decentralized outsourced and in-house models to optimize its 100-million-square-foot portfolio in 5,000 locations housing 210,000 employees in 180 countries. With annual sales of nearly $40-billion, UT is the world's 105th-largest company, so that "having a data base to start from is something that's very important." Zapille leverages the company's portfolio through multiple partnerships starting with USI, Grubb & Ellis Knight Frank, and Jones Lang LaSalle. With a CRE staff totaling only four people, the Sequentra system allows for the smooth coordination of outsourced services beyond the U.S. (where support is delivered in-house). It also provides a portfolio and project management system to address the flow-through of transactions across multiple time zones, bringing economies of scale by automating complex processes like labor arbitrage through which companies locate and secure outsourced service personnel at the lowest possible costs.

Among the lessons learned for each of the Sequentra users, "the difficulty of technology, distance, language and other factors poses greater challenges than expected," according to Bertasi. "There is no short-term return. This is a long-term business investment."

What's the percent of savings back to USI's clients? "We hope to deliver these services for half the cost," Bertasi estimated, adding that total savings are not quite that high yet but that costs do become significantly lower "once you get past the up-front costs to stabilization."

"Corporate real estate leaders need to create technology-related solutions to advance their organizations or risk business failure," said moderator Nick Moore, President of Manhattan Software, in kicking off a Monday afternoon breakout session. Moore’s strong words were taken directly from CoreNet Global’s landmark Corporate Real Estate 2010 research. "The good news," Moore went on, "is that the tools needed to get to 2010 are here today."

Following Moore’s introduction, John D’Angelo, Corporate Real Estate Practice Lead, RealFoundations, described how his company is working with a large client in the financial services arena to deploy a new technology platform for corporate real estate management.

There were numerous reasons why the client needed to invest in a new platform, he said. First, information simply wasn’t available via the former system. The client had numerous disconnected systems, and significant amounts of manual and redundant data entry were required.

In addition, the former technology was aging. Its architecture was not flexible and nimble. The system, originally designed from a landlord’s perspective instead of a tenant’s perspective, was not compliant with Enterprise Standards.

The new system will increase effectiveness by facilitating access to information that supports decision making, plus improve information analysis and reporting capabilities. It will also be more efficient, eliminating the need for redundant data entry.

Next, Bob Sawhill, Program Manager Workplace Solutions IT, Hewlett-Packard, described the high-tech leader’s journey toward creating an integrated technology solution. The driver for the project was the merger between Hewlett-Packard and Compaq and the subsequent need to achieve integration and deliver on economies of scale.

Perhaps the biggest implementation challenge, Sawhill said, was dealing with myriad data standards. "The lack of industry data standardization is a big barrier," he said.

Sawhill demonstrated the latest version of the tool, but he’s not finished with it yet. "This is an evolutionary process," he said. "We still have a long way to go."

Also presenting in the session was Susan M. Hensley, AIA, Studio Principal, FM Strategies, Little Diversified Architectural Consulting. Hensley explained and demonstrated the power of 3-D Building Information Modeling (BIM) Systems. "BIM prevents you from having to use different systems to do all the individual processes," she said. "And it gives you higher quality, greater speed, higher productivity, lower costs and better buildings."