As I work with many different construction teams at the same time, I’ve noticed that most construction project leaders struggle with three things…
#1 Letting fear dictate their mindset and culture.
#2 Bleeding resources from inefficiencies and wasted effort.
#3 Not really knowing whether the project will succeed or not.
Over the years, I’ve seen thousands of project leaders take on these same three challenges. Some strategies helped — but many fell short. Fortunately, having a front-row seat to so many teams in action gave me a unique perspective. I’ve been able to identify what truly works and develop practical, proven approaches to help you reduce — and even eliminate — these struggles on your own projects.
Struggle #1: Letting fear dictate their mindset and culture.
Most construction leaders don’t recognize the fear they have. Ask yourself, do I share fully what I need, share what I see, share my ideas, share my problems? If you say no, then what is preventing you from sharing is FEAR. We know teams reach high performance when there’s enough trust to foster true transparency and that starts with you.
How do you know if you have “fear” within your project team? Fear shows up on projects as poor communication, and then plays out with lack of coordination, and then conflict.
What creates the “fear”? Mostly our past experiences (or stories you’ve heard from others). We are afraid that history will repeat itself, so we try to protect ourselves from having that trauma. The effect of our protection is that we don’t fully share, we aren’t fully open and transparent. So, everyone is trying to build the project in a vacuum of fear.
How can you stop letting fear play out on your project? Learn to create a high trust mindset that creates a high trust project culture and learn how to instill values that create high trust behaviors. This is exactly what the IPI Trusted Leadership Course teaches you how to do. You will be able to drive out fear by setting up a culture of trust.
Struggle #2: Bleeding resources from inefficiencies and wasted effort.
Construction worldwide loses over $1trillion each year to inefficiencies. How much time do you waste waiting for a response, or a decision, or waiting for someone to do their work so you can do your work? This does not begin to consider the loss and stress that individual organizations and leaders experience.
What creates the inefficiencies in construction projects? Mostly it comes down to three things: misalignments, complexity, and lack of a committed focus.
Projects teams that are misaligned over roles and responsibilities don’t agree on what success looks like. Most leaders don’t understand that you can’t just do your part and have an overall successful project. Being unsure about decision making including the level of authority people have wastes many resources and creates enormous inefficiencies. The team ends up working twice as hard just to avoid failure. Achieving success or delivering something exceptional can’t be on the radar. People are just trying to make it through.
How can you overcome the three things that make your project bleed resources? By learning how to align your project team so that it has a clear focus. Then you must realign regularly so the team stays focused and aligned as things change. Measure how your team is doing so you can steer and not just react to what happens. It’s important that you understand the nature of construction so you can manage the forces at work that are making it so difficult to align, communicate, and stay focused. This is what you learn in the IPI Collaborative Partnering Course.
Struggle #3: Not really knowing whether the project will succeed or not.
Project success is different for every project. Some may need to make sure it hits a specific completion date. Another project might need to make sure that they limit the disruption to the facilities’ operations. And still another project might need to be kept within a very specific budget. But for most projects we can say that to “succeed” we need our project to come in on schedule, on budget, safely, with the quality needed for it to fulfill its purpose. However, 50% of all projects are unable to deliver what was promised.
One of the biggest impediments to project success is that most of the project leaders do not know how to negotiate and deal with conflict effectively. Conflict plays out in a growing number of claims, and claims are growing in dollars disputed. Being able to identify a risk and get the team to work through it before it grows into a conflict unburdens that team so it can be more effective and much more predictable. When things become predictable, your project success becomes routine.
Knowing how to negotiate is what I think is the number one skill every project leader needs to learn. In our industry we are very skilled at advocating for our position when we feel something is being done unfairly. We are great at arguing and at creating conflict. We are not great at negotiating. Course #3 of IPI’s Project Leader Certification, Preventing and Resolving Project Disputes, teaches you how to have the mindset of a master negotiator so you can negotiate high trust agreements that stick. A project leader who is skilled at negotiation can stop the conflict and create agreements that build trust.
The IPI Project Leader Certification Training
Project leaders surely learn on the job. But your team can stop struggling and learn these skills gathered over decades from construction leaders. By going through the three courses in the IPI Project Leader Certification together, your team becomes deeply aligned around a common framework, using common tools & tactics, common language, and common intentions. You have a system for operating together that creates a high trust high performing culture.
Struggling is not fun, and it wastes a great deal of our project resources. It sets up a fear-based culture so conflict snowballs into stress and failure. It is my sincere wish for you and your project team to enjoy getting up each day and working together to solve the problems that pop up on your project, where you create innovative solutions that produce remarkable project results.
~ Sue
Sue Dyer, MBA, MIPI is a Master Partnering Facilitator & Founder for OrgMetrics LLC, WSJ bestselling author on Trusted Leadership for construction leaders, Founder of the International Partnering Institute, and President of sudyco® LLC. You can contact Sue at suedyer@orgmet.com or 510 504-5877.