We industry reformers need to get over ourselves

My mission is to change the construction industry and I am doing it tiny little bit by tiny little bit, top down, one leadership team at a time. At current rate I think I’ve got another 900 years of work ahead of me. How about that for a forward order book!

However, I speak with other industry reformers and we share frustrations and solutions in equal measure. I regularly hear, “If they just did X, but they don’t”, and here’s why.

People facing acute aren’t focused on chronic

There’s a project director (PD). His project is eight weeks behind programme and the liquidated and ascertained damages (LADs) are £200,000 per week. The PD and his team are working flat out to recover time and mitigate the £1.6m financial hit for late completion plus the associated prelim costs. The PD is focused on this acute problem.

We industry reformers are talking about important stuff: staff development, skills shortages, diversity and inclusion, net zero carbon, digitisation, right first time, industry productivity and so on. We are talking about chronic skills shortages and chronic low productivity.

To put it another way, the PD is talking about a heart attack and we reformers are talking about a skin rash that isn’t going away.

He’s bothered about the skin rash, but what’s his focus?

The PD knows industry reform is important, but what is he worried about more? Let’s test it.

£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Image of industry
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Net zero carbon
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Staff training
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Modern slavery
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Digitisation
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Modern methods of construction
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Diversity and inclusion
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Building Back Better
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Innovation for the future
£1.6m bill + prelims	Or	Attracting young talent

As a former project manager and a coach working with project directors, I tell you this PD is focused on mitigating £1.6m bill + prelims. He is a super smart person and will agree with the need for industry reform and a whole load of worthy causes out there but they are not for now.

What about the operations director and the managing director?

Roll it up to his boss the ops director and her boss the MD and they are all the same. Their focus and energy are on getting this and other projects sorted and delivered.

We industry reformers will get a good hearing from the HR Director and the Group Training Manager, but their budget for this year is spent. Little joy there.

So, no industry reform this year. No actual response to the latest Government report demanding industry reform at pain of not winning any public procured work in the future. No substantive evidence behind their pre-qualification submissions.

Acute is urgent, chronic is important. How do we attend to both at the same time?

Table stakes, the minimum it takes to be considered a player

The project director, his boss and her boss are all leaders. Leadership is about navigating the ship in stormy seas while at the same time totally rebuilding the ship.

Navigating the ship in stormy seas is running the business and delivering projects.

Rebuilding the ship is changing and modernising the business in response to the evolving market and changing world.

Both are needed, they are table stakes: the minimum it takes to be considered a player in the market.

So, we industry reformers have a role to play. But we have to penetrate the urgency of the £1.6m bill and eight weeks’ worth of prelims in order to engage the PD, his boss and her boss in a conversation about rebuilding the ship. And that is a tough ask.

We industry reformers need to change our approach; banging on the PD’s door, plays for attention, click bait sound bites and threats about future workload aren’t getting through. And waiting till the PD comes to us is a dead in the water strategy.

My strategy as a leadership team coach has been to be incredibly useful; it’s helped me navigate my ship through stormy seas over the last twenty years. Though I am now wondering if I need to totally rebuild my ship, again.

It’s not the PD, we industry reformers need to get over ourselves and take some of our own medicine. Table stakes.