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00:00:01
Is Operational Excellence in Construction Possible?
110 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Jason & Carlos are joined by Rupert Shingleton, whose construction experience is pretty unmatched.
With over 30 years leading projects at Costain and now focusing on driving Operational Excellence at Kilnbridge, he stirred up some great discussion in this ep.
The three discuss the differences between leading at a Tier One and Tier Two contractor, the inherent level of conflict in construction contracts, and how to actually achieve Operational Excellence.
Follow Carlos on Linkedin | Follow Jason on Linkedin | Check out Aphex
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, is it cold up north? It was cold. I just like it's like being cozy. There's like that meme where it's like the man was like 700 collars popped. You're listening to the Offsite podcast with Jason and Carlos, where we talk all things construction and technology. Join us for discussions with industry leaders and insights into latest trends in construction.
00:00:30
Speaker
Welcome back to the pod. So today we are joined by Rupert Shingleton.
00:00:36
Speaker
Rupert is a civil engineer by trade and a chartered member of the ICE. He's had a huge career at Costane for over 32 years. He's worked on and managed some of the biggest schemes in the UK, including Thameslink, Crossrail, and High Speed 2. He's got a passion for operational excellence and is now heading up things on that front at Kilnbridge. Welcome to the Pod Rupert. Good morning, Carlos. Good morning, Jason. Or good night, Jason.
00:01:05
Speaker
Welcome, mate. It sounds like you're putting me to bed, so...
First Meeting and Team Culture
00:01:12
Speaker
Oh, what a thought. Rupert, I think it's been 10 years since we first met. I think it was my first day out of uni, turning up at Paddington C405, and I'm pretty sure you were the project manager. 2013. Is that right? Yeah, well, it's been before that, actually, Carlos. 2012, 2013, it was indeed at Crossrail Paddington Station. I was the PM there. That's correct. And it was definitely that sort of time because it was through the London Olympics. Yeah.
00:01:41
Speaker
If you wanted to talk about collaboration, there was nothing better than having a bunch of... There were quite a few Australians on that job as well, and they're quite into their sport. So, two months of Olympic-related sidelines to bring the team together and play silly games and actually have... I think it's the only time that we've actually had to do press-ups and stuff as consequences for not doing your actions in a meeting, but it was all part of the...
00:02:08
Speaker
the Australian sport fanaticism. Yeah. Yeah. Is that why you signed off our budget to do five or side football every Wednesday? That's what you have to do to get it passed. That's what we have to do.
00:02:19
Speaker
But yes, it was quite good. So I'd like to think I did meet you, Carlos, because we were trying to do all the right stuff at that stage and meet people on the first day and have visible leadership and take time to do what was the right thing and allocate a bit of time to new starters for both business and doing well. And this is what your job is, as well as the pastoral
00:02:46
Speaker
you know, personal angle of it, you know, which we're all a bit wiser about these days and have good language for. But at the time, it just seemed like the right thing to do. And there was a fantastic culture and effort at the beginning of Crossrail to do all of the right things. And indeed, you know, time, money, pressures, delays.
00:03:06
Speaker
burden these things, but I think there's a good residual amount across our business and across the industry in the UK that is as a result of those early efforts when we really did try to do everything.
Evolving Project Details and Accuracy
00:03:20
Speaker
I've got this image of Carlos turning up on his first day of the job all fresh at uni looking to get stuck in construction. You're kind of like the sorting hat as people are coming in the door and then you've taken one look at him and given him like a spreadsheet and go,
00:03:36
Speaker
you're a qs right over there what an honor i actually turned up in a full suit yeah i actually turned up in a full suit with a tie as soon as i moved to the door someone's like have you got an interview or something i was like oh shit what have i done
00:03:52
Speaker
And that was probably me. I was a far more aggressive, sarcastic, 10-12 years ago. I think I tried to mellow a little bit in response to some feedback.
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think that project in particular, most people that worked in it do say it was the best job that they've worked on. The culture was really good. We did have a solid team, to be fair, so it was a good one to start on. Yeah, so sorry, go ahead. I think it was because we somewhere in the group said we want it to be like this, and it took effort to make it like that.
00:04:34
Speaker
you know, good, good people. You can have a team of stars or a star team, can't you? So just having great people won't necessarily mean a great team. And there is that deliberate effort to do the right things, have the right behaviours over and over again to build that culture.
00:04:50
Speaker
Obviously we've got to know each other much better recently through things like HS2. And I know you, you're the type of person that likes to dig in, no bullshit, straight talking, just tackle what's in front of you. And Jason and I chat all the time about how hard it actually is to deliver projects. So what is it like? Like if we're taking projects like that as an example, project manager, major scheme, what's the reality of it? I think the reality is that one starts off with a really loose question.
00:05:21
Speaker
I want a railway through there. And as you go forward, you're constantly developing detail, constantly developing accuracy and engaging more and more of the people as you go forward.
00:05:35
Speaker
And of course, you're asking a very loose question, but every person that you meet, every stakeholder you come across, and indeed every little bit of work that you do, needs to be a really accurate answer. And there's a little bit of an oxymoron there, you know, the old thing people say, ask me a dumb question, you'll get a dumb answer. Well, at the beginning it's,
00:05:56
Speaker
I want something, but I don't know exactly what. But before you do anything, you've got to do exactly right, exactly the right detail, exactly the right design, exactly the right stakeholders and all that sort of thing. So for me, it's this constantly conflicting world of
00:06:13
Speaker
a loose question, but to do anything, you have to deal with accuracy. And I think it was Stanley McChrystal that, you know, who wrote Team of Teams that sort of quoted, you know, get comfortable with uncertainty because everything is uncertain. The only thing that needs to not be uncertain is the next step. And beyond that, it will all be uncertain. So for me, it's that sort of trouble. And as we deal with different people at different stages,
00:06:43
Speaker
You'll find different people's horizons or expectations or views on life are all different. So it's about getting that balance to do all of those varying things. But ultimately, as long as the next step is certain, we can move forward.
Balancing Needs and Diverse Viewpoints
00:07:02
Speaker
moving and for me that's the magic. Rupert, I think if I was to put a straw man up for you to tackle, I guess when at previous points in my career in construction and talking to some people on a day-to-day basis, there can sometimes be this feeling from people that are in the contractor, whether it's engineers or construction managers or project managers,
00:07:28
Speaker
that trying to deliver a project in the construction phase is kind of like the, what's the Greek myth about Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill? Like you're trying to hit this target of deadlines and there's a schedule you're trying to deliver and almost everything around you wants to go slower than the rate that you want to go.
00:07:51
Speaker
And so I guess, do you subscribe to that theory? That that's true? Or is there like, is there another view on the world of what it's like to deliver? No, I don't. I think it's, I don't think that people want to go slower. And a bit sort of,
00:08:09
Speaker
connecting to what I said before. These other people have their areas of specialism or their areas of responsibility or whatever it is that they're a stakeholder in. And in their world, that factor is really, really important. And so often when we're building projects, we are having to go through some pain before it gets better. There's a lot of road works before the road is open and better and all of that sort of thing. So people are anxious.
00:08:37
Speaker
Add to that, it's change, it's disruptive. We live in project-based world. We do things that are projects. We go there, we do it, and it ends, and we go somewhere else. But most of our stakeholders, whether they be local authorities or the school or neighbors, they're in a continuum. And for them, we're disrupting it, and they don't like change. So that natural human fear of change
00:09:04
Speaker
is in there. So what I think that the whole empathy and sympathy thing is really important, you know, trying to put yourself in their shoes and understand what it looks like from their world. What one has to try and remember at that point is your stakeholders, those people that you feel are trying to go slow are the experts in their world, whether it be a technical factor or they're the expert in living in that house next to the road. And we have to be very careful that we don't make decisions on their behalf.
00:09:34
Speaker
or judge where their calibration is, we're trying to move people away from 100% suits them. The fact of the matter is, if we're going to collaborate, everyone is at less than 100%. So for us to step over that line and ask that person to move their concern down from 100% is a sensitive matter to them.
00:09:59
Speaker
I don't like to use the word negotiation because that always feels a little bit like you're down the cash bar or, you know, having a haggle and sort of slightly aggressive and adversarial. But collaboration, you guys can probably remember the right word, is it collaboration is when everybody is reasonably happy and cooperation is when nobody is happy or something like that. Yeah. Well, I was going to say there's that saying about like the sign of a good deal is when everyone's a little bit unhappy.
00:10:27
Speaker
That's the sort of fella, isn't it? So we're having to move our stakeholders and you hear about customer satisfaction, look after your stakeholders, are the stakeholders happy? Well, you're very phrased there, Jason, if you want them to be a little bit unhappy and then you can move forward. So it's about understanding them enough
00:10:45
Speaker
to create the space for them to move willingly from 100% is the nudge. And I think that in this modern age of diversity, and there's so many different people amongst our teams, sending the big suit over there to negotiate is actually probably quite an aggressive move, actually.
00:11:07
Speaker
We've got huge teams with loads of different people and you can bet your life there's somebody in your team that has a better understanding of their needs and maybe even is a better person to go and front up with that stakeholder and do the deal and where they sit in the hierarchy is false in
00:11:25
Speaker
in my view. You know it's it's what they're in the team and what that diversity brings to the team.
Conflicts in Fixed-Price Contracts
00:11:30
Speaker
And so to come back to your question Jason now I don't don't believe that you can't go at the speed you want to go. And I don't believe people are trying to go push you to go slower. They're trying to protect what they are paid to or live for or what have you which is their world. And ultimately
00:11:50
Speaker
A good project won't have got off the ground unless it's a good project and something that really does need to be done for the right reasons, whatever those might be, economics, safety, growth and all those sorts of factors. And all of our stakeholders are members of community, of our community. So once they get into that, they go forward and that will come back to
00:12:14
Speaker
the old start with the why thing isn't it you know and so often we don't we turn up sign this form you know we never go why yep certainly and so like you know like you think delivering projects is is difficult on its own
00:12:28
Speaker
And then you add in, you know, so, you know, there's added complexities based on the specific of the project. Sometimes it's the fact that there's a design, you know, you've got to design and construct scope. And then sometimes some projects are more big and complex than others. And that probably leads you when you combine those two together, you get these kind of mega projects, which we've all read the literature about how they're almost never on time, never on budget, never on benefits.
00:12:58
Speaker
Do you think that there is a level of complexity in some projects that are somewhat beyond the scope or the ability of, I guess, humans to actually manage them? I don't think there is.
00:13:17
Speaker
If we really understand the bigger picture, the why, and people talk about those great common goals that we're all heading towards, I think when you get to understand those, we can all pull in the same direction.
00:13:33
Speaker
The difficulty of how one procures it leads to some issues and that sort of thing. We've seen up on high speed too. We've got some huge joint venture contracts which are all joint venture contracts for all of the right reasons that share the risk and create the resources and capabilities to deliver the schemes. But of course each of those is trying to create its own identity and its own sort of
00:13:58
Speaker
common brand that people can affiliate to. So that instantly starts to create some sort of different dynamics. And then we're all here to deliver HS2 back in the early days of Crossrail and even things like the Olympics and that. There was no personal branding, was there? It was all branding for the product. And that
00:14:21
Speaker
was a way at the time of connecting us all to to the greater goal and in due course I think once we understand where we're going and we're all on the same page you know we we can all go in the same direction. Just to jump back quickly I don't know whether it's ignorant to say I was really impressed with your Greek mythology naming there Jason but uh yeah you plucked that name out of the sky.
00:14:46
Speaker
I, someone will know that I've probably mispronounced it. It's probably the wrong Greek myth, I think it's a system and I don't know. I will be firing you a far side meme to send later today, Jason, correcting you or validating you. Rupert, you mentioned the sort of the dynamic and I guess the context was like High Speed 2 where you're the main contractor dealing with the client, who's the ultimate sort of stakeholder.
00:15:15
Speaker
How's the shift from that to tier two working for main contractors?
00:15:19
Speaker
It's different. I think there is a there was a thing a few years back where we started saying don't call them subbies. Yeah. They're supply chain partners. You know and we did a lot of supply chain management you know preferred accredited you know and all of that sort of thing and create some some better worked on better business to business relationships with with this with the supply chain. And I'm quite intrigued
00:15:49
Speaker
to now be working with a tier two contractor that is just by nature of the procurement system a subcontractor and being called a subby is not a nice phrase. It is bad karma. What I've noticed is that it's also very easy to behave like a subby as well. You kind of get what you deserve sort of thing.
00:16:15
Speaker
And that's sort of very much where I've always been from probably going back about 15, 20 years ago when I was probably a bit more aggressive and a bit more obnoxious and that and somebody. I think I had actually pointed at somebody and
00:16:32
Speaker
somebody older and wiser than me scruffed me by the neck and said, three pointing at you, one pointing at them. And I remember who it was, and I remember the event, and I've probably still got a bit of a scale up. But it was very important. I think that that sort of relationship, speaking down, everything has to be done by somebody. And within the detail that we've talked about earlier, about the way that you're
00:16:58
Speaker
your systems and that go right down to the detail. I've become a huge advocate for and a huge respecter of everybody. All work is important. If all work has to be done, then it doesn't matter where in the hierarchy or
00:17:15
Speaker
the apparent importance of that person that it happens. But it has to be done. And every if you excuse the phrase every I must be dotted and every T must be crossed. There is no such thing as just an administrator just document control just the gate man just the traffic marshal. You know everybody and everything.
00:17:37
Speaker
is important. I've learned that the hard way through disrespecting that myself over the years. I find that now in that scheme of things, get the subby to do it, you know, is disrespecting the fact that that is work. We have supply chains. We have tiers of contracting. That's the nature of business. There's no problem with that supply chain.
00:18:00
Speaker
problems you know what with the sewers and and and uh covid and what have you people have been talking globally about supply chain issues i think everyone understands it now but if you want it done somebody somewhere has to do it and we should respect the work be a little bit more respectful of the individual humans that who they're paid for you know really isn't important they are members of the greater team
00:18:28
Speaker
you know, talking about the, I guess, whenever someone starts at AFex, we have this onboarding session that I run, which runs people through the idea of how a project gets delivered and talks through that you've got this contractor and a client and designers and all of these subcontractors or supply chain. And they might even have their own subcontractors and that, you know, by the time I've finished drawing this on a whiteboard, there's, you know, there's
00:18:55
Speaker
you know, hundreds possibly of all of these different parties that are delivering a project. No matter what the sort of head contract or the master contract between the client and the sort of general contract or head contractor, what tier one is,
00:19:12
Speaker
At some point down that line, there's some level of fixed price lump sum contracts somewhere usually. And whenever they kind of exist and you've got uncertainty at the bid stage through design yet to be complete or methodology not fully determined, there is inherently a level of conflict at some point that can emerge because you just have a misalignment of incentives on either side of that contract.
00:19:39
Speaker
Is that conflict solvable through the delivery of the project by either the subcontractor or the contractor in the way that they deliver the project? Or is that a structural problem that is just really hard to overcome once it's ingrained in a contract? I think it can be overcome, but one has to be really quite transparent what the individual motivations of each organization or human being.
00:20:02
Speaker
is and one of the things that I'm quite passionate about these days have been for the last few years is that we employ specialist contractors and that's that's the way it comes down ultimately you know whether it's a human being or an organization the job gets done the person that's best at doing that
00:20:20
Speaker
So, if they're really good at it, it would be really great if they have the opportunity to make their money by being really good at it. If you get to the place where it's really clear what has to be done, and I'm going to pay £10 for that to be done,
00:20:36
Speaker
And that expert, if they do their stuff, deliver their specialist, specialism, and do it well, and they can get it done for eight quid, well, they make an extra couple of quid. Good on them. But when we come on down and start saying, you know, I want to see your open costs and I'm going to do you reimbursable, and a person is going to do a really great job and still only make
00:20:59
Speaker
their 1%.
Managing Mega Projects
00:21:00
Speaker
Well, where is their opportunity to improve? And I have a very strong feeling, which is why I've moved in my career to where I have, that we set ourselves up such that people make that extra buck by exploiting the contract, by exploiting other people's weaknesses, other people's errors, and that sort of thing. Which means we're focusing more on exploiting those for commercial gain rather than collaboratively solving them.
00:21:27
Speaker
And that's why I'm passionate these days about looking down and in to the organization and saying, you know, if we're a specialist supplier and we've got specialist people, skills, trades, then let's give them the best opportunity to deliver their stuff to the best of their ability. If they do that well, we're going to make an extra buck. So let's make sure that the contracts are set up in a certain way that they can make that extra buck, which means
00:21:56
Speaker
at a certain point you fix the price and then the person can go in there and say if I do my stuff I'm going to make an extra buck. But you could also have the flip side as well obviously where you've got like they've you know they've made certain assumptions in that fixed price and you know the reality on the ground is somewhat different and you can have a situation where the person that priced it made certain assumptions that you know might not have aligned with what the person letting the contract. Absolutely and for me that means
00:22:26
Speaker
The decision was to go to a fixed point was too high up in the thing. As I was saying at the beginning about how you develop detail and accuracy, develop too early because you've got those outstanding things. And if you've got an assumption, that means we don't know something.
00:22:43
Speaker
Now, if we don't know something, it means it's a risk. And the theory is that you put the risk with the person best able to manage that risk. If that person isn't able to manage that risk, then you shouldn't be putting that assumption in as a price item. So Rupert, you were talking about the idea that if there is open assumptions that
00:23:06
Speaker
aren't able to be priced that the idea that you've gone and fixed the price too early in the process. That probably if I was to connect that dot with my question earlier about mega projects. At some point there's a level of like assumption management and price and all these contracts that gets beyond the scope of what possibly people can keep in their mind. I used the example sometimes when I'm talking to teams of my experience on Crossrail
00:23:33
Speaker
We would experience something on a station like say a Bond Street or any one of the other stations. They would find some design anomaly. They would need to make some change to a vent shaft for example because of some change regarding a fan. That would have the result of needing some change made on the system-wide contract to accommodate that.
00:23:54
Speaker
which would then have the change of propagating to all of the other stations because the system-wide contract touched all the other stations, and then they might not be able to fully accommodate them, and then you end up with these changes propagating back through. One single design thing that might not have been picked up as an assumption is suddenly like 45 compensation events and design changes and things flying around the universe.
00:24:20
Speaker
And in my head, a lot of that is driven by, well, complexity of project and scale. At a certain point, the scale does really matter. I don't know if you would agree with that preposition. No, I do. I do understand the preposition.
00:24:38
Speaker
For me, it's about making things sensitive to uncertainty or decisions. And as we go forward and various stakeholders or various technical factors come to bear, what are the really important ones and which are the ones that are sensitive and have far, far ranging ripples? Back in my
00:25:04
Speaker
early days of sort of open book contracting. I remember working on a framework in AMP or maybe that shows my age in Bristol Water and open book contracting target costs have risk registers, didn't they? And this was all a bit new to us, risk registers and sitting around with the customer and the stakeholders and you know, is that a one out of five or a two out of five risk and what's the value of it and all that sort of thing. And after, you know, the usual
00:25:34
Speaker
three hours on line one type meeting type event. One of the gentlemen from Bristol water, we had one of those, should we take a break type things. And he was able to articulate, we've got a really low probability, high impact risk here. And that's our problem because we can't have low probability, high impact risks.
00:26:03
Speaker
So how do we either make that more probable or something that we can get a grip of or zero or reduce the impact there of it? And from that point forward, I've had that in my mind, that experience every time we're doing risk registers and people are talking about reducing risks, but reducing probability to very low. Oh, there's a 5% chance of that happening. But if it happens,
00:26:32
Speaker
with snookers, that's got to go to zero then. Or we've got to do something about being snooker because we can't handle that sort of situation. And I think that mindset, Jason, on interfaces or factors or what have you in these complex projects need to be considered more seriously and things either need to go to zero
00:26:54
Speaker
Well they need to be up where you can do something about it and if it does happen well we've got some options over there and some potential mitigations and I think that's sort of where
00:27:06
Speaker
If we all have that mindset, then we can move into that different place.
Setting Red Lines in Collaboration
00:27:10
Speaker
And it brings us then back to how I talk about stakeholders. And we go into that stakeholder and we're setting out to get them to move, as we said, from 100% to something less. Now, if we go in there and influence them incorrectly or inappropriately, they move from 100% to suit us.
00:27:36
Speaker
and actually cross one of their own red lines or compromise one of their own red lines. And then when that occurs, we end up with the situation you discuss. So helping our stakeholders comprehend what are your red lines and don't cross your red lines. Set those out and don't cross them. But if you've set out red lines, then that means there's some other things that we can move on and you can move on. And then we're
00:28:03
Speaker
then we're talking. But if you allow everybody to stay in their red lines and we're working in the buffer zone, then hopefully those big ripples don't occur. Sounds easy, but I do strongly believe that. And triaging, Carlos will know, I do like a good triage. What's really important? Set them out. I think it was Theresa May that really went for red lines, wasn't it, during Brexit? Brexit? Did I get that in?
00:28:33
Speaker
And, you know, but red lines is a thing. If you've got a red line, don't cross it, but don't put it where it's inappropriate and greedy and selfish, you know, put it where it really matters to your particular concern and then the rest of stuff we can collaborate on.
Doctrine of Operational Excellence
00:28:46
Speaker
I'm going to have to jump in there because time's disappearing pretty quickly, but Rupert, I didn't want to have a chat with you on this without mentioning operational excellence, which is something you're quite passionate in. If we go super high level, because operational excellence is something that I'm seeing sort of more of, hearing more of, and I don't know whether it's because people are more sort of active on LinkedIn, but it seems to be sort of more common than it used to feel. What is it? Is it a set of goals? Is it a set of processes and procedures? Is it a mentality? How would you sort of describe it to someone who starts
00:29:16
Speaker
with you on day one. I'd say it's sort of a doctrine. It's a way we do it around here. We talk about values-led businesses and things like that. We talk about standards. When one goes out, it is by nature. We're a project-based business. And so by its nature, every customer, every project, every team, every scope is different.
00:29:40
Speaker
And we have standards and people have to make decisions within those standards to suit their particular individual thing. Now, if one goes and speaks to a project team or an individual in the project, they will offer an absolutely compelling reason for why they've made the decisions that they've made. And from a project perspective, that will seem absolutely perfect if a
00:30:06
Speaker
person reviewing, challenging, managing, leading, that from the business perspective challenges that. They are doing it from a point of low local knowledge and potentially dogmatic corporate position. And we aren't having the same language. So operational excellence is the way we set up some questions, some challenges, some mindsets.
00:30:34
Speaker
to allow us to get that constant balance between immediate local project necessities, but maintaining the highest standard decision making with regard to our company values, our principles, and indeed technical standards. So Phil's kind of like, how do you go about sort of measuring
00:30:55
Speaker
your success in that area because it feels a bit sort of gut feel. You can probably, if you join a company and its operational excellence is apparent and people are really sort of striving towards it, you should sort of feel it, but that's a really hard thing to measure. So do you have a set of sort of gauges that you put in place? You know, we've all got plenty of sets of gauges. And for me, the way that we measure it is by moving away from binary questions.
00:31:20
Speaker
Are you following the processes? Mostly. Well, mostly goes to yes and then yes is okay and it's all okay until it's not. So, you know, it comes back to that sort of red lines type of things. There are some processes and procedures that you need to follow all the time to the letter.
00:31:39
Speaker
And there are some that actually within those processes allow you to make some decisions that the waiver between various standards. I always think something like temporary works procedures is one of the one of the best examples. First question is, is it cap one, two, three or zero? You know, and we go in.
00:32:00
Speaker
And then we proceed in strict accordance with the rules within that category. And very rarely do people stop halfway through and say, oh, I don't fancy this as a, what have you, a one or a two. That's the great. And if someone comes through and says, oh, I'm uncomfortable here. Well, hang on. That's because our original decision to go down cat two was wrong. We need to upgrade it to cat three. So we go back and we go through those rules again forward.
00:32:27
Speaker
But you look at many other procedures and processes across our business. They don't have that entry level.
00:32:34
Speaker
how much are we going to follow these processes? Which means they're either burdensome because the issue isn't that big or they're not really good enough because the issue is quite complicated. And for me, one must follow every process every time, but depending on the complexity or the severity of the matter in hand, it's the intensity with which you follow that process that varies as opposed to skipping around some of those stages.
Governance and Accountability in Projects
00:33:03
Speaker
Rupert, that's triggered something that's really interesting for me because you've mentioned a couple of times that construction is like a project-based business and one of the sermons that I deliver internally is this description of construction contractors as
00:33:20
Speaker
as unlike many other companies where it's not one monolithic thing it's you know the thin layer of management that really sits over these projects that are kind of like their own businesses in some in some sense at many contractors there is there is some head office and project divide where the project wants to run their own show and they sometimes want to tell the head office people to
00:33:43
Speaker
pissed off sort of thing. That's right. Every project. What are your tactics? What are the things that you do or have seen that helps get that sort of cut through of building operational exits or a culture or a doctrine that can cut through onto projects? I think governance is how we undertake that.
00:34:09
Speaker
The concept of governance and gates and forms that have to be signed off is very common and most construction projects and schemes have gates to pass through. My sort of preferred tactic is to
00:34:24
Speaker
beat on the person that's signing that gate off at the bottom, not on the people that are filling out the boxes and presenting it to be signed. Because gates are governance. That's the point at which. The person signing out at the bottom says, I have brought my team to this point, given them all the support and the resources to be ready to go. And from the point that I signed this, the team is on the pitch. But if the team are unsuccessful,
00:34:54
Speaker
It's my bag. However, in modern ways, far too often,
00:35:01
Speaker
Yeah, the signing of the gate is a little bit like the Oliver Twist, isn't it? Please, sir, please, sir, can you sign this? And this is my death warrant if I mock up so you know who to come and hang out. That's not governance. That's bad management. That's poor leadership. And for me, that's the tactic. So I'm looking to increase governance, but not increase bureaucracy.
00:35:27
Speaker
For pressure on the people who are signing gates, do you know what gates you're going to sign next week, the week after, the week after that? Do you know how they're progressing to the point of signing? Because there is only two or three dimensions. The gate gets signed on time with no caveats.
00:35:44
Speaker
or it gets signed late with no caveats. You cannot sign it late with caveats. That's just mocking the system. That's poor governance. So if you as a leader or a manager sign that on time but with caveats, who earns the caveats? It's not the team because you've let them on the pitch. But too often
00:36:08
Speaker
The leaders and the managers sign it with caveats and then expect those people to do the caveats. Well, hang on. They're doing forward of the gate now. That activity was behind the gate. If it was that important, you should have held the line. And that's leadership and management. I think that governance as a concept is a real place that we can go to improve the way that we manage things, to improve the certainty of what's going on.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think someone once told me, actually a previous manager of mine, that good leaders own the actions of their teams, not write little weasel words about caveats on documents. Rupert, given that Carlos is not able to talk because the firearms going off in his office, we know we're at time there.
Conclusion and Farewell
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah. So as much as I have like 15 other questions I would have liked to ask you. I want to, on behalf of Carlos, I want to thank you for joining us, mate. I think you have definitely a really unique perspective. I think your focus on people and principles is unique from a lot of the people that we've spoken to. So, mate, I really want to thank you for taking the time. It was a pleasure to speak to you. It's been great to join you guys and I look forward to seeing you again soon. Thanks, Rupert. Thank you. Thanks a lot.