Construction industry professionals often focus on the technical details of projects and personnel. After all, they’re all technically trained, and those details must be properly coordinated and executed to complete a project successfully. However, there is another key driver to project success that the construction industry often doesn’t value highly enough: project culture.
The singular focus on the technical details of projects can come at the expense of identifying and cultivating a successful project culture—and this might be one of the greatest reasons many businesses have fewer and fewer truly great project experiences.
For example, different delivery methods certainly set the tone for what type of cultural elements may make their way into a project. Hard bid brings a different potential culture than negotiated GMP, which sets up a different culture than Integrated Project Delivery. However, construction professionals rarely talk about delivery methods this way. There is talk about the delivery method in technical contractual terms, or financial management terms, but it should also be considered for its role as a launch pad for a project’s culture.
Why? Because the people, and more importantly the dynamics between the people, on each project are what most affect whether a project will achieve its greatest success or not.
The construction industry has become better at making people a priority in recent years. Most procurement processes now take into consideration the individuals on the project teams and evaluate them as part of a team selection process. Many general contractors consider the qualifications/skills of proposed employees when they develop their internal project team. Yet this entire effort is typically framed via looking for “the best,” “the most qualified,” or “the most experienced” individuals to participate on each team, with little consideration given to how those individuals will interact or how the dynamics between them can impact the project.
Construction company owners should ask themselves the following:
- When was the last time that you or your company specifically identified a desired project culture and then assembled your project team to positively contribute to that culture?
- When was the last time you talked with the owner or designer about project culture in the initiation of a new project?
- When was the last time you suggested altering the culture on an existing project that was experiencing challenges?
- If you have been carefully monitoring this on your projects, do your efforts extend to communicating with your subcontractors on their role in making positive contributions to the project culture?
Company Culture Does Not Directly Equal Project Culture
Many in the construction industry have accepted the important role that culture plays in an office environment. It has been well researched and documented. Pick a business book, class, or even just Google “company culture,” and you’ll see ample acknowledgement that culture is paramount to company success.
The best organizations have well-defined and often-communicated cultures. They only hire people that align with that culture, they make investments that cultivate that culture and they remove personnel from the company that are not aligned with that culture. The construction industry needs to take that mindset further and apply it toward projects, because culture in an individual company does not necessarily translate to a well-defined or communicated culture in projects.
Defining a Project’s Culture
Construction projects can last for years and become a satellite workplace for many teammates. As a result, the culture experienced in a project might be the only staff members encounter on a day-to-day basis for years. The industry is somewhat unique because the lifeblood of each company is based entirely on projects and these projects always include many different participating companies, all with their own different cultures coming to the table.
In one particular project, there might be a culture of expediency that dominates, another may be of quality and design and yet another may focus on cost minimization. With these differing client priorities, the team is subjected to cultural shift after cultural shift.
The starting point for defining project culture can be those technical pieces with which all industry professionals are all comfortable: budget, schedule, risk goals and environmental criteria. They need to be defined and communicated to all project team members. Then, the next step is defining and communicating how those technical details will be addressed on a project when they run into challenges, which they inevitably do.
- Will it be the responsibility of one team member to determine a solution?
- Will it be a collaborative effort?
- Is there a culture of claiming responsibility when mistakes happen, or finger pointing?
- Is the culture one of open communication with written documentation, or one of only internal company communication and all verbal?
The way each of these details is expected to be approached by the project team is important to defining the culture. They need to be considered, defined, and communicated to everyone on the project team. Many projects can claim to do this part, but it can’t just stop there. Each company on the project team needs to communicate it to their own project personnel, and in the case of general contractors, also communicate to each and every subcontractor and subcontractors’ personnel as well.
Finally, the culture needs to be nurtured. Behavior that aligns with the culture will need to be recognized and any behavior that doesn’t align needs to be addressed immediately. Culture isn’t a passive thing. All-hands meetings or daily toolbox talks need to make culture cultivation front and center. Following are some tips to try:
- Include a project culture mission statement on the top of OAC meeting minutes.
- Hang a poster with the project’s mutually shared cultural mission in the job trailer or in project meetings rooms.
- Reiterate this cultural goal not just at the beginning of a project, but throughout the life of the project.
Leaders and participants in construction should demand that every project have an explicitly defined, communicated and nurtured project culture, because without one, they are just leaving culture development to chance. By extension, that means leaving dynamics between the people on the project to chance, which means leaving key parts of project success to chance. By eliminating the development of weak cultures within projects, industry professionals can better ensure every project goes from good to great.
