As design-build project delivery has grown in popularity, the dialogue about its virtues and challenges has also increased. Proponents laud its efficiency, its resultant cost and schedule advantages and the impact it has had on effectively delivering our industry’s ingenuity and will to succeed to the unique benefit of each owner’s project.
We are an industry populated with incredible talent and skill. Given a challenge — any challenge — we are world-class problem solvers. But the value of problem solving has its limits. In fact, as the world gets smaller and our market gets broader, effective and creative problem solving can be reduced to a commodity. So we seek to differentiate — to stand above and apart from our competition — to be faster, cheaper, global, local, smarter and more productive. We are left to contemplate the other factors of our successes and failures.
Like many things in life, the pluses and minuses of a particular choice cannot simply be measured in technical terms. Beyond dollars, weeks, input and output, a parallel component also contributes to a project’s success or failure: the human experience. We all know projects that have met all the metrics for success and yet have left the client with a taste of dissatisfaction and the designer/builder without a repeat relationship, much less a referral or a recommendation.
Why is that? It’s often a lack of engaging collaboration, trust, leadership and experience.
The advent of integrated delivery is attributable not only to the measurable benefits of its form and function, but to the individuals and firms whose leadership has illuminated those benefits. Such leadership has been critical at the industry level to advance our DBIA mission. But it is equally as critical within each integrated project team. If there is a common denominator to the truly successful project, it is that at least one of the team members has possessed and utilized his or her leadership skills to the benefit of every team member.
So what do we mean by leadership?
In their book The Leadership Challenge, James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner provide a blueprint for leadership for any discipline to follow:
“Challenge the process — First find a process that you believe needs to be improved the most.
Inspire a shared vision — Next, share your vision in words that can be understood by your followers.
Enable others to act — Give them the tools and methods to solve the problem.
Model the way — When the process gets tough, get your hands dirty. A boss tells others what to do; a leader shows that it can be done.
Encourage the heart — Share the glory with your followers’ hearts, while keeping the pains within your own.”
Pretty basic stuff. But how much effort goes into fostering and developing leadership within the members of our own teams? And, for as much credibility as the adage “born leaders” has received over the years, today we accept that leadership is both a chosen and learned characteristic. Thus, we all have untapped potential within our organizations to enhance the capacity of our team members and improve the delivery of our services by cultivating the leadership capability that is right in front of us.
Does the leadership of your projects come from one of your team members? Is there a void of leadership on one or more of your projects today? Is there an opportunity for you and your organization to fill that void, and in doing so, enhance the success of the project and the experience that your customers and business partners have with your firm? These questions are worth reflection.
With DBIA as an association of leaders, our challenge is to continue to serve as the leader of our industry and to make sure that the design-build experience is a positive one. Thank you to all our members who embrace this role and the responsibility of leadership on behalf of DBIA.
Bob Nartonis is a senior vice president at Mortenson Construction and a member of the DBIA Board of Directors.