Construction Industry

Things can be better for people in construction, from the person digging holes in the cold and dirt to the chief exec dealing with demanding shareholders and at every level in between. Though when the project is late things invariably get worse for everyone. Here are five useful tips…

A frightening question hit me as construction disasters mounted at the end of the last decade: Edinburgh schools, the catastrophe of Grenfell and the collapse of Carillion: they each stemmed, all or in part, from issues of poor quality.

My strategy in business is to be ‘incredibly useful’. 20 years in it still seems to be working. Every now and then the Government publishes something that changes things but few execs have time to wade through it cos they are busy working the bottom line. Case in point – The Construction Playbook. In this week’s post I explain five things to know about the Playbook. Hope you find it useful.

How can a black belt throw someone twice their size? How can you change your project or organisation? Here, we are talking about the hierarchy of levers in living systems. Beware of novices promising quick turnarounds…

What do you do with James? He’s not getting on with his boss and he has made it very clear he doesn’t want your advice. You’d normally bang their heads together and tell them get on with it, but from bitter experience you know that’s not going to work. And if he doesn’t want advice then what does he want from you?

In this coaching demo see how James works it out for himself and how he leaves empowered and energized to try a different approach based on his own insight.

“Kevin’s mother is worried there might be something wrong with him. His Dad insists Kevin is a normal little boy. Kevin grows up and does something terrible. The film, one of my favourites, is “We Need To Talk About Kevin”. Every now and then I get a platform to talk with people about my work; it’s a great privilege for me given all the claims on their attention. Inspired by the film, I called the session “We Need To Talk About Collaboration”. Here’s my overview and the video of the talk…

Collaboration might be back on the government’s agenda following publication of The Construction Playbook, but how prominently does it feature in the typical project director’s mind? It wasn’t on my mind 30 years ago when I was a project manager. There wasn’t a name for it back then, I probably wouldn’t have thought it was important, nor known how to do it and I wouldn’t have had time for it. Things have changed since then, or have they? Who’s got time for collaboration or even The Construction Playbook?