I believe things can be better for construction people, all the way from the operative digging in the cold dirt to the chief executive dealing with shareholders, and everyone in between.

When things are better for construction people, the construction industry is better. My longstanding mission is to make the construction industry better, to change it for the better.

How do you bring about change? By taking alternative action at scale and over time, top down and bottom up.

Why the need for change? The construction industry is adversarial and suffers from low productivity, although the people in it are mostly brilliant and they come to work to get stuff done. But they are held back … by almost everything.

Over 60 years of Government reports

The government has been demanding change for over 60 years, latterly through reports from Latham, Egan, Farmer, The Construction Playbook and many more.

“Stuff the government!”, I hear you say. Think again: the government is our biggest client, and it’s spending our money, and it’s elected to represent us, so I am happy for it to call us out on waste and inefficiency.

And it’s not just the government saying construction needs to change: people are extremely reluctant to enter the industry, including that half of the population that is female. In 2020, we surveyed hundreds of construction professionals under the age of forty and found that 57% of them would probably not recommend the industry as a career to friends and family. That is a dangerously low level of engagement and job satisfaction

Things can be better for all these people, and for you.

Back then and now?

Back in the 80s and early 90s, I project managed the construction of superstores for a canny UK retailer. Their “professional” team had procured many superstores, knew the construction game very well, and had heavily amended the standard form of contract to de-risk their client’s position, and theirs.

From contract award onwards it was all out adversarialism. In the middle of it, I gave as good as I got, rarely won anything and suffered a heavy toll, personally.

So that was then, what about now? For over 20 years I have been coaching leaders at the top of the industry, big organisations, big projects. While most of them acknowledge business is tough, they go on to say “We have a great organisation” and “We are doing great by our people”. Hearing this so many times, I came to think the industry has moved on for its people. But the people keep leaving and the government reports keep coming.

Recently I’ve been asking people if it is better now than it was then. Mostly, the response is “No, it’s worse”.

The need is evident, my mission continues, bolstered by my experience, my learning, my work and by many conversations I have with people who care.

Three types of thinking

In his excellent book, Vital Conversations, Alec Grimsley explores three levels, or “generations”, of thinking:

1. First-generation thinking is the fight-or-flight response to threat, leading either to hostility or docility in the thinker’s conversations and dealings.
2. Second-generation thinking has “command and control” at its core. Grimsley says it “evolved from first-generation thinking to include a cleverly disguised veneer of interpersonal skills”.
3. Third-generation thinking aims for mutual understanding guided by underlying values such as compassion, courage, curiosity and collaboration.

My thinking as a project manager back in the 80s was mostly first-generation, fight-or-flight, and my management style was second-generation command and control.

The alternative action that I am advocating is to adopt a coaching style of management throughout the industry, akin to Grimsley’s third-generation thinking.

A coaching style of management is geared towards making things better for both manager and managed.

How do you define and measure better?

Regular readers of this blog and my articles will be familiar with my belief that things can be better for construction people and my mission to change the industry; some ask me to define ‘better’ and also how to measure it.

It’s not for me to define better. It’s for individuals to define what’s better for them and to keep redefining it. And when people feel better, you notice it. When people feel better, it shows up in their attitude, actions and productivity. You notice it, and you feel it. There is an upward movement. Would you be happy with that? Do you need to measure it?

If I were to define and measure ‘better’, like all the Government reports do, then that would be me commanding and controlling and I would be ignored, just like the reports.

Here’s an example. John is right at the top of an organisation that employs 1,500 people. During lockdown, he was working from home, in a box room, for months on end. Each day was a series of back-to-back meetings on Teams usually starting at 7am and lasting well into the night. His wife and three children were on the other side of a thin wall, trying to keep quiet because John’s work was the priority. It was a high-stress situation and John’s organisation was struggling. He told me he was on the edge.

I asked what, given the situation, would be better for him. After some thought, he said: “No meetings before 8am, a 10-minute break between meetings, 45 minutes lunch with my family and some fresh air, and no meetings after 5.30.”

Realising that many people felt the same way, he made that the policy throughout the organisation, with immediate effect, which he could do because he was the boss.

At a stroke, things were better for 1,500 people. In the weeks that followed John told me of his surprise at just how big a difference that had made for his staff and that that bit of “better” enabled him to get through to his much-needed holiday.

Top down and now bottom up

As I mentioned, for over 20 years I have been coaching leadership teams, supporting and challenging them to deliver remarkable results. The results are never delivered by the six or so executives I’m working with, but rather the 2,000 people they are leading, who do the actual work, and the focus with the six executives is on making things better for the 2,000. That is within the gift of the six leaders, just like introducing breaks was easy for John. It just needs some thought.

And when things are better for 2,000 people, magic can and does happen. This is scaling the impact of my work, top down.

A few years ago, I realised that top down wasn’t enough to deliver on my mission, so now I’m aiming to train thousands of young construction professionals in the essentials of a coaching style of management, or Alec Grimsey’s third-generation thinking.

With concepts, tools and techniques they can use straight away, they are better in their jobs right now, while over time they become effective managers and ultimately great leaders, and along the way they enable things to be better for all the people around them. Done at scale and over time, this is changing the construction industry from the ground up.

In all of this I’m talking about better: not fixed, not solved, just better – that’s all. And better for hundreds and thousands of people is massive. And it’s not me doing it, it’s them.