Leadership, Without a Playbook

By: Catharine Barnes

How do you build something that’s never been built before? How do you step into a role that has no blueprint? At Northcrest, and in my own career, there was no playbook—only possibility.?

I was Employee #2 at the company, with no real estate background, a career in business and politics, and a 10-year gap in my resume?to raise my family and take care of my ailing mom.

And just like there was no manual for how to enter back into the workforce of an industry I had no experience in, there was also no map for shaping a company from scratch. But leadership, like city-building, is about navigating uncertainty, collaboration, engagement, listening and learning as you go. There are a million pieces to juggle, and things change daily, but you have to learn to lean into that uncertainty, trust your curiosity, instincts and experience and use those as your compass.??

Here’s how I got there.??

The Early Days—Following My Curiosity

If you’re hungry for more information, I think it makes you work better—and I’ve always used my curiosity to fuel me.

I took a decade away from the working world to raise my three?kids and look after my ailing mom. When they grew up, I ended up re-entering the world of work by going back to school; getting back into that school environment really lit something inside of me. Of course, it isn’t always easy, as your confidence can take a hit when you’re away for so long.??

I looked into and took various post-MBA courses. Then, I felt compelled to get involved in municipal politics to try to help shape my city. I walked in off the street and volunteered on John Tory’s campaign—they started me off with data entry but soon learned I could do more, so I switched to policy and research and began volunteering full time. When Tory was elected, I was approached by his transition team?to join the Mayor’s office in stakeholder management and ended up managing some key files. Essentially, I followed the things I was genuinely interested in—I saw a situation I wanted to get involved in, and I made it happen. It was less driven by me saying I needed to achieve a particular goal, and more about leaning into my curiosity as my guiding force, and rolling up my sleeves and putting my heart into the tasks at hand.

The Northcrest Introduction

It all started with a phone call from Chris Eby, Employee #1 at the company. We’d known each other from our time working together in the Mayor’s office, and he explained this incredible opportunity to me. I think he saw that I had a broad enough set of skills to be able to execute on a pretty vague job description.??

Despite no real estate background, the prospect of being at the ground floor, right at the starting line of a project like this was really exciting. Not to mention, the opportunity to build a city within the city and the challenge of drawing people to a place that has been off everyone’s radar for so long.??

When I joined Northcrest,?it was really a start up situation. There was no office at the time. There was no name. And so, we had a blank canvas to work with in terms of setting up a development company that was going to oversee this massive 370-acre development in Toronto. In my first year on the job, I wrote our business plan and a budget, I worked on marketing and comms and community engagement, I was a driving force behind our Responsible Development planning, and I drove corporate governance—I find it really energizing to have worn all of these hats.??

From the start, the?project and my role have constantly evolved in tandem. There’s no roadmap on how to continually adapt and react to a changing job. Take the early days of 2020, for example, when COVID-19 had just entered the picture, and Northcrest was working with CLC and our consultants on the launch of our very first community engagement event. The in-person sessions we had announced were cancelled and the flyers that were to be delivered by Canada Post had to be picked back up by our consultants from the postal outlets.??

So, like so many, we embarked on what we called a "digital pivot"—quickly adapting our engagement strategy to be fully remote. This was nowhere near the norm for community engagement, but we actually found that we could reach more audiences remotely that may not have participated in person—like young families. No pandemic playbook, and no playbook at all could have necessarily prepared us for that moment, but the team needed to innovate and be flexible so that’s exactly what we did.??

I could have been intimidated in the startup phase of this work, and at points I was, but I followed my own advice and let the curiosity reign, rolled up my sleeves and just started doing what needed to get done.??

Curating a Culture that Thrives?

Great places, like great careers, are not static—they are built in phases, adapting to new realities over time. We’ve been very intentional about trying to find team members who are a true fit—passionate about the City, the project, and keen to roll with the punches. We didn’t over hire too quickly, yet, when we bring people in, you are just so appreciative of the skills and value add they bring.??

From two people on a phone call, to approaching 50 employees, it’s been incredible to watch this company grow. It might sound clichéd, but I truly didn’t even know it could be this good. Northcrest is a place where people want to come to work and I know the project is a big part of that obviously, but it’s not everything. It’s who we are, it’s how we work. Beyond the interpersonal relationships that are being formed here daily, there’s so much more that fits into place. There’s always openness to hearing about how things can be improved, and learning is constant. I take that success personally, to some extent, because I’ve had the opportunity to play such a big part in hiring and culture setting for this organization.?

What’s Next at Northcrest

Much like YZD, my role continues to evolve every day. From laying the groundwork of developing a company name and the first budget, to now helping lead the business and mentoring those around me, I’m passionate about ensuring the next phase of the project has the right foundation.?

Part of my role is really focusing on having a listening ear, keeping the team happy, and optimizing their ability to get their work done. I’m always looking ahead to getting everyone ready for the next phases of this development—it’s going to be quite different when we have shovels in the ground.?

I also know—I’m not done yet. I’m coming up on my sixth anniversary with the company later this month and I know this will be tough to eventually walk away from. With my kids all grown up and my husband now retired. I have a lot of latitude with my time and my ability to dedicate a lot of brain power and time to this project. Because I love it, I do that willingly.??

What I always come back to though is that leadership isn’t about having a perfect plan—it’s about making the best decisions with the information you have, trusting your instincts, and building as you go. That’s exactly how we’ve shaped Northcrest, and it’s exactly how we’ll keep growing YZD.?