The Construction industry is littered with important-sounding words that seem clear until people are asked what they mean. Dave Stitt MICE FCIOB MCC considers what it takes to turn words such as ‘collaboration’, ‘accountability’ and ‘leadership’ into useful tools for action – and offers a practical CPD exercise for readers and their colleagues.

I’m a bit nerdy about words. When I come across a word being used in a significant situation, I like to dig into it: where it comes from, the root of it, what it means and, as a coach, how we might use it in a useful, substantive way, so that it becomes a tool to guide behaviour and get things done.

In Construction, you’ll often hear words like collaboration, partnering, transformation, alignment, accountability, responsibility, cohesive, integrity and leadership. We use them as if everyone understands and agrees what they mean, though when I ask people what they mean by them, that is often far from clear.

It’s as if we expect the word to do the work. Keep mentioning collaboration and somehow we expect to find ourselves collaborating, even though the actions, behaviours and expectations that would make it happen haven’t been agreed.

Better communication

In my work as a leadership team coach, there are always calls for better communication. That makes sense. NEC’s 2026 global study of construction supply-chain relationships gathered the views of more than 1,000 industry professionals across five markets. When respondents were asked what mattered most in minimising disputes, effective communication was the leading answer at 48%.

But what is effective communication and how can we communicate effectively when we unwittingly have different understandings of the words being used? The word communication comes from roots concerned with sharing, imparting and making common. Sending the same words around a room, putting them in a strategy or repeating them at every project meeting does not mean that the meaning has become common.

A simple word such as drive can mean motivation, operating a car, the paved area in front of a house or a golf shot. Context usually sorts that out for us. The difficulty comes with words such as collaboration and leadership. Everyone recognises the word, everyone can join in the conversation and everyone can leave the room believing they’ve agreed something, when perhaps all they’ve agreed is the word.

I remember seeing an extraordinary piece of art in Edinburgh some years ago – Christine Borland’s L’Homme Double. Six sculptors were given the same two photographs of Josef Mengele and the same written descriptions from Auschwitz survivors, and each was commissioned to make a clay bust. The six interpretations were remarkably different.

I was fascinated by that. The source material was the same, yet what each artist saw and created was different. I think the same happens with words. We hear the same word and form different pictures of what it means. Those differences can add richness to communication when we make them visible and talk about them. Left unexplored, they create an illusion of agreement.

What I thought I said

I know from experience how difficult communication can be. When I was a manager, I sometimes struggled to articulate what I wanted to get done. Some more experienced people just knew what was needed and responded immediately to my rather vague and poorly communicated expectation. If anything, they were frustrated with me for even asking them; they knew what they were doing and didn’t need me to tell them.

Less experienced people, or the moderately experienced people facing something novel or different from their norm, needed a better explanation from me. I’d worked it out in my head but often found it difficult to explain clearly. I was always under pressure and in a rush, so I would sometimes resort to the polite equivalent of “just effing do it”.

Poorly briefed, they would go off and get into activity, wondering what they were supposed to be producing, whether they were on the right track, hesitating, procrastinating and working with low confidence and low productivity. After the due date, I’d ask, “Where is it? How are you getting on with it?” They would deflect or sheepishly show me, and I’d tell them, “That’s all wrong.”

My communication is the response I get. It took me a long time to understand that. The more experienced people had been compensating for my poor communication; their experience enabled them to fill in the gaps. The less experienced people, or the experienced people facing something new, exposed what I’d left unclear.

I hated being a manager. I love being a coach. I don’t have to be right, know all the answers or explain difficult things. Communication is difficult, and words having multiple meanings makes it more colourful and even more difficult. Then everyone says we need to improve communication.

Definition and distinction

A dictionary definition is a useful start, though I am reaching for something deeper: distinction. A definition gives us the meaning of a word. Distinction enables us to see more in it. An experienced golfer does not simply see a golf shot; they distinguish a drive, draw, fade, topspin, backspin, hook, slice, shank, chip, pitch and putt. Those distinctions affect what they notice and what they do.

The same applies to collaboration. A dictionary may tell us that it means working together to create or achieve something. A richer distinction asks what we would see people doing, how they deal with competing interests, whether they trust each other enough to raise difficult matters, what they share, what they create together and what happens when the work comes under pressure.

Knowing the definition of collaboration does not mean we know how to collaborate. For that, we need a richer understanding of what collaboration is, what it requires and how it shows up in our situation.

The word accountability is a good example from my own life. Earlier in my construction career, accountability was the noose around my neck by which I was going to be hung if the project I was leading didn’t work out right. My first coach, 30 years ago, got me to look at how the word was made up and I got to a meaning that worked for me: counting on. My boss was counting on me to deliver the project according to agreed success criteria, and he would hold me to account for my progress, which meant I’d give him an account of how I was getting on.

With that understanding, accountability moved from being a huge burden to clarity and liberation. I knew what was expected of me and was happy to explain my progress at regular intervals. I’ve since asked leadership teams many times about the difference between responsibility and accountability. The question usually leads to confusion and disagreement, followed by a useful conversation about what each word will mean in their situation.

A CPD exercise

CIOB members are now required to complete at least 25 hours of CPD each year, including three hours in each of four core themes: professionalism; quality; health, safety and wellbeing; and sustainability. Informal, self-directed learning, such as reading and personal research, can count towards this, and members complete an annual reflective statement on what they’ve learned, how it was useful and what they need to develop next.

This article offers a starting point. To turn reading into learning and learning into practice, choose one important word currently being used in your project, team or organisation. It could be collaboration with your supply chain, leadership of your team, accountability for an outcome or becoming more cohesive.

Write down what the word means to you, why it matters now and what you’d expect to see happening if it were being lived properly. Go beyond the definition and identify the distinctions that matter in practice. Then ask two or more colleagues to do the same without first sharing your answer.

Compare what you’ve written. Notice the differences without rushing to resolve them; they are the material for a richer conversation. Agree what the word will mean in your situation and the actions, behaviours and expectations that will give it substance. Finally, record what you’ve learned, what changed through the conversation and what you’ll do differently. You can record the actual time spent reading, thinking, discussing and reflecting as informal CPD where it fits your learning needs and CIOB’s requirements.

What’s the important word in your organisation, team or project, and are you expecting this word to do the work?