Creating a Culture of Predictable Outcomes

How Leadership, Collaboration, and Decision-Making Drive Architecture and Construction

Barbara Bryson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000299816
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Arquitectura
• Subtopic: Arquitectura general

Creating a Culture of Predictable Outcomes demonstrates the importance of creating cultures in the design and construction industries grounded in sophisticated-caring leadership, high-performing collaborative teams, and master-level decision-making discipline, informed by values, to finally address massive inefficiencies, waste, and unpredictability.

Barbara White Bryson offers specific guidance to industry stakeholders to succeed in achieving project-related predictable outcomes by focusing on culture rather than process. This includes selecting the right team members by hiring and firing bravely, valuing psychological safety, leading with values, practicing respect and transparency, fostering empowerment to make decisions at the right level at the right time, and more.

This book is a must-read for design and construction professionals who want to finally understand how to set goals and meet those goals for their clients as well as for their teams.

1

Predictability Is Power

Unpredictable

What would you do if you could predict the future? Would you bet on the horses, invest in a tech company? Would you befriend a future movie star, or avoid an accident on the freeway? Would you avoid that lettuce at the salad bar, save a life, or marry the perfect mate? Or, would you pick the winner of the World Series three years in the future just as Ben Reiter of Sports Illustrated famously did in 2014? As a baseball fan, that might be my choice.

You see, predictability is power. When trains run on predictable schedules, we make it to meetings or the airport on time. When a stoplight turns from green to yellow, then to red, we know how to react. We stop and then start in a civilized fashion. When Starbucks gets your “Tall, Non-Fat Latte with Caramel Drizzle” perfect every time, even though they never spell your name the same way twice, all is right with the world.

Predictability is power. If those trains do not run on time, you would have to leave for appointments or to catch airplanes hours earlier. You might choose cars instead, further impacting traffic, air quality, accident rates, insurance, and general frustration. If your caffeine of choice is not delivered perfectly every time, well, the world wouldn’t change very much, but an amazing business would not exist, a business built on predictable outcomes.

Predictability is not something we see much of in the design and construction industries. In August 2017, The Economist reported more than 90 percent of the world’s infrastructure projects were not meeting schedule goals, and more than 60 percent of the UK’s building projects were not meeting budget goals.¹ In 2016, a McKinsey report documented “large projects across asset classes typically take 20 percent longer to finish than scheduled and are up to 80 percent over budget.”²

To experienced professionals in the design and construction industries, these reports are not surprising or unique. In 2010, I wrote in The Owner’s Dilemma: Driving Success in the Design and Construction Industry that a Google search with the phrase “buildings over budget” pulled more than 48 million hits, including a hospital over budget by a million dollars and an Olympic village over budget by a $100 million.³ A similar search in 2018 unearthed a Chinese dam with a budget that quadrupled from $8.5 billion to $37 billion, a BBC headquarters with an overrun of 110 million pounds, and a 35,500 square foot, $13 million dream home that cost $20 million before it was complete. These data bolster the argument from the article in The Economist noted earlier, which also distressingly reported on the ill-fated Berlin Brandenburg airport. That project, self-described as a “shit-show,” was, at the time, six times over budget.⁴

Figure 1.1Data demonstrates lack of efficiency of the design and construction industries

The design and construction industries are riddled with these unpredictable outcomes, and, unfortunately, most industry professionals appear powerless when asked to dependably deliver projects within budget and schedule goals. As a result, achieving consistently predictable outcomes has become the holy grail of the design and construction industries. Predictably attaining quality, schedule, and budget goals set at the start of a project should be a minimum standard of performance for any industry. Yet, predictable attainment of goals seems to be an impossible dream in the design and construction industries, known as the least efficient and productive in the world.

This lack of predictability is the most glaring evidence of our industries’ inefficiency, which remains the lowest of any major industry type in the world. It is, however, not the only evidence. Amy Edmondson and Susan Reynolds listed a number of unfortunate facts from multiple sources, including the Modular Building Institute, in their book, Building the Future, a book about complex super teams. The authors noted,

Research on construction industry efficiency reveals “25 to 50 percent waste in coordinating labor and in managing, moving, and installing materials […]; losses of $15.6 billion per year due to the lack of interoperability […]; and transactional costs of $4 billion to $12 billion per year to resolve disputes and claims.”

Edmondson and Reynolds added, “Studies suggest that up to 75 percent of construction activities add no value.”⁵

Where other industries have been able to restructure and reinvent, the design and construction industries continue to slog along, refusing to address their fragmentation, supply chain weaknesses, labor challenges, and communication barriers. The McKinsey Global Institute reported in February 2017 that “Globally, construction sector labor-productivity growth averaged 1 percent a year over the past two decades, compared with 2.8 percent for the total world economy and 3.6 percent for manufacturing.”⁶ Despite technology advances, according to McKinsey, productivity continues to disappoint in the construction industry, yet, if we were able to match the efficiency of the rest of the economy (manufacturing, retail, and agriculture), we could add $1.6 trillion annually to the world economy. This amount would “meet about half of the world’s annual infrastructure needs or boost global GDP by 2%.”⁷ That number reflects impact and opportunity. There is no doubt that Katerra, Convene, UniSpace, and other bright nontraditional companies have their eyes on precisely that target and those opportunities.

When I wrote The Owner’s Dilemma with Canan Yetmen in 2010, I was already aware positive outcomes in design and construction were related to the predictability of those outcomes. You see, owners need to understand what they are getting as far as cost, schedule, and quality at the beginning of each project. The results don’t always need to be the cheapest or the quickest, but sometimes they do. There is no doubt, though, owners always know precisely what product—what building—they need for their business, and if they are not going to get that product, they need to know as soon as possible. That product—that building—impacts their business plan. The need to understand what you are getting as an owner is consistent for universities, hospitals, corporate owners, developers, and other business owners, large and small. COVID-19 has brought this priority into even clearer focus as business plans have critically tightened.

Unfortunately, for most industry professionals, the search for stability and control in the industry starts with the selection of process. By process, I mean delivery processes such as Design-Bid-Build, Integrated Project Delivery (IPD), Design-Build, or GMax. Many in the design and construction industries still mistakenly believe in the magic of selecting the perfect delivery process. We are obsessed with this choice. Inevitably, the very first question I am asked when I speak at industry events is, “What is the best delivery process?” Many industry self-help books spend most of their pages analyzing delivery processes and related contracts that only incrementally improve the industry. Some books are dedicated entirely to a single process like design-build or IPD. This obsession is tantamount to Nero fiddling while Rome is burning.

It’s Not About the Process

I will not argue that some processes do not lend themselves to greater predictability than others through increased communication and lowered risk. I am not saying that process is not essential in our industries. However, it is well documented that a lousy team can screw up a great process, and, conversely, a great team can overcome even the worst processes and contracts. I’ve learned this lesson repeatedly during my career, as many professionals have. I have seen great teams deliver Design-Bid-Build projects successfully, and terrible teams screw up the best collaborative IPD contract. Certainly, good processes can help support a great team, a team with values, and a team actively collaborating. Still, no process can ever overcome the deficiencies of a lousy team or an owner/client that does not take their responsibilities seriously.

Something that significant and progressive architectural firms of the world like KieranTimberlake know, daring and innovative companies of the world like the Broad Company know, as well as forward-looking enterprises like McKinstry know, and emerging property technology companies know, is that a great team can reinvent and create transformational processes. I wrote an article a couple of years ago called “The Future of Architects: Irrelevance or Extinction” as a call to action.⁸ I worry our resistance to change in our profession will be our undoing. It is important to recognize that our professions are not sacred and our places in these industries are not guaranteed. We in the design and construction industries must wake up and understand that incremental change is no longer sufficient.

Do not confuse predictability with the ordinary in the design and construction industries. Predictability in our industries would be extraordinary and remarkably valuable. Time after time, owners and project teams are disappointed by delivery processes and deeply confused by the number of ways projects can go wrong. This confusion stems from the fact that predictable outcomes for projects are primarily a product of culture, not process.

When I read General Stanley McChrystal’s book Team of Teams⁹, about creating new kinds of resilient teams to respond to a new type of warfare, I had a critical moment of insight. I realized many people in our industries approach designing and building...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Predictability Is Power
• 2 Sophisticated-Caring Leadership
• 3 High-Performing Collaborative Teams
• 4 Master-Level Decision-Making
• 5 Aligning Values and Goals
• 6 Embracing Risk and Contracts
• 7 Research
• 8 Twenty Freight Trains of Disruption
• 9 Unpredictable
• Index