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Industry Best Practices – “How to Create an Effective Job-Site Partnership”

September 22, 2021

In Kansas, we know how to create effective partnerships on construction projects…kinda…we’re working on it.

Recently a group of 40 plus General Contractors, Sub & Specialty Contractors and Suppliers came together for a quarterly open forum hosted by the Subcontractor Council of the AGC of Kansas to discuss the topic of Creating Partnerships on Construction Projects, this is the result.

Each quarter, the Kansas Subcontractors Council from the AGC of Kansas hosts a roundtable, open forum event to foster open dialogue between all stakeholders in a construction project.  These stakeholders include, General Contractors, Sub and Specialty Contractors, Suppliers and Associate members.  At each roundtable there is a specific topic for discussion, for this particular open forum we decided to discuss the concept of creating effective partnerships on the construction project.  So the project is awarded, the team has been selected, it’s time to perform, and now what?  How do we come together and become true partners in success, with a shared goal and common vision?  If we’re able to accomplish that, we know we’ll find success.

Pictured: a portion of the 40+ contractors and suppliers who participated in the open forum

For the purpose of our conversation, we felt the first thing we needed to do was define what a “partnership” meant to a construction project.  For this purpose, we used the definition created by the Construction Industry Institute’s Partnering Task Force which is:

“A long-term commitment between two or more organizations for the purpose of achieving specific business objectives by maximizing the effectiveness of each participant’s resources.  The relationship is based on trust, dedication to common goals, and an understanding of each other’s individual expectations and values.  Partnering is an attitude that imbeds shared values as a path to excellence and elevates problem resolution to a joint venture based “win-win” philosophy.”

The next step was then to come up with our objectives for the conversation.  For our objective we determined that we wanted to highlight the elements and behaviors that led to positive partnerships on a construction project.  In order to do that we would also need to identify the barriers we faced that keep us from forming these partnerships and potential behaviors or actions that would help to remove those barriers.  Ultimately we wanted to share our thoughts and experiences on the topic with the contracting world through publishing this white paper on our open forum.

“Start with Why” – Simon Sinek

If you’ve been in the construction industry for any length of time then I believe you can think back and remember two very distinct types of projects.  Those in which you were successful, the team operated at a high capacity, the stars aligned and everyone worked well enough together to meet the expected schedule and budget for the project, maybe even beat them.  You will also remember those we’ll just refer to as failures.  On these projects nothing worked well, the team didn’t communicate, in fact they were adversarial, no one hit their goals and as a result all parties walked away with less money in their pockets than when they started and a few wounds to heal.

When reflecting on the failures, it’s easy to point fingers and dodge our own responsibility.  There were too many trades in the way, the schedule was accelerated or there was poor leadership on the project.  Alternatively we’re quick to take credit for success, it was our team that drove the schedule or our efforts led to the win.  The reality is that as Subcontractors, Suppliers and General Contractors our individual success is so intertwined with the success of others on the project team, that we can rarely take credit for success or blame for failures.  This is the very reason why it is important that we find a way to develop positive partnerships on each and every project.

The difficult thing about creating these partnerships from a macro perspective is that our teams are rarely, if ever, exactly the same as the last project.  It’s hard to build positive momentum when you’re still trying to figure out who you’re working with and how they work.  From the micro perspective, each individual potential partner has often placed their team as team #1, instead of the project team as a whole.  This is why identifying elements of a positive partnership are important, and even more important to share.  The more we communicate, and spread this discussion, the more likely we are to end up on projects with the same project teams, pulling in the same direction, with team #1 being that of the entire project team.

What are the elements of a successful project partnership?

As a group, we spent the early portion of our open forum brainstorming on what the elements of a successful project partnership looked like.  As you can imagine, your perspective may vary based on whether you’re a General Contractor, a Subcontractor or a Supplier.  However we were able to identify some key elements that we believed would lead to the development of a positive project partnership regardless of what your perspective was.  Those elements are as follows:

  • Trust
  • Integrity
  • Mutual Respect
  • A mutually agreeable schedule
  • Clear and Realistic expectations from all parties
  • Established quality standards
  • Open & honest communication
  • Personal Communication when necessary (no texting or emails)
  • Effective coordination of all trades
  • A team commitment to safety
  • Shared concern for others success and profitability
  • A clear purpose or objective, and team commitment to each
  • A set of common goals, communicated frequently, feedback often
  • A positive attitude and atmosphere
  • Effective conflict resolution
  • A spirit of team work

While these elements may seem simple or common sense the reality is they are not so simple to achieve and their existence on a typical project is not so common.  So how do we change that, why is it so difficult to achieve the true spirit of partnership on a project?

What barriers do we face in building partnerships on our projects?

Much like identifying the elements of a positive partnership, perspective of the barriers to each of those elements can differ between parties.  Again, however, we were able to come up with a list of barriers for each element that should be fairly universal regardless of what position you play on the project team.  Below are the barriers that often impede each identified element of a successful project partnership.

Trust / Integrity / Mutual Respect

  • The attitude on the job is often adversarial from the beginning
  • Past experiences may bleed into the next project
  • A lack of character in even one team member, impacts the whole team
  • Not keeping commitments “I’ll be there tomorrow”
  • Non-responsive communication or lack of communication
  • Lack of transparency
  • No follow through from leadership
  • No willingness of trade partners to cooperate
  • A shallow workforce with no regard for the team

A mutually agreeable schedule

  • Schedules are often directive in nature and non-collaborative
  • There may be unidentified, pre-existing commitments
  • Owners accelerate schedules, or delay decisions that impact schedules
  • Poor workflow affects schedules downstream
  • Unforeseen conditions rarely impact completion dates
  • Communication regarding schedule can be weak, not frequent enough

 

Clear and realistic expectations from all parties

  • Often expectations are assumed to be understood but not clear and not communicated
  • A lack of understanding for trade specifics lead to unrealistic expectations from others
  • Often expectations aren’t expressed upfront, once they’re not met it’s too late

 

Established quality standards

  • Other trades often don’t respect each other’s work scope / needs
  • Is quality or schedule the top priority for the project, schedule impacts quality
  • Trade partners lack understanding of plans and specs
  • Unclear / Incomplete / “Copy & Paste” plans and specs
  • A lack of trust within the team to meeting quality standards
  • A lack of skilled tradesmen

 

Open, Honest Communication and Personal Communication

  • Parties not keeping commitments or upholding verbal agreements
  • Know when to call, when to text and when to email
  • A lack of follow up communication or confirmation
  • Misinterpretation of the meaning/tone behind emails and texts
  • Making the assumption that other parties understand your intent
  • The language barrier
  • Knowing when to get it in writing / CYA

 

 

 

 

 

Effective coordination of all trades

  • Poor flow of communication, only communicating changes to the trade immediately affected
  • Conflict amongst trades / trade stacking / workspace congestion
  • Lack of experience in leadership of general contractors, subcontractors and suppliers
  • Decision makers are not in the coordination meetings to make commitments
  • Committing to more than can be accomplished
  • Non-confrontational trade leaders, not addressing concerns immediately, avoiding the discussion

 

A team commitment to safety

  • Indifference or lack of training for trades
  • No clear understanding of the benefits of a safety focus or the consequences of not having one
  • Allowing production or schedule to take precedence over safety
  • No safety plan in place
  • Lack of a safety culture on individual teams or the project as a whole
  • Lack of accountability or commitment to the safety requirements

A shared concern for others success and profitability

  • Each party puts their own priorities ahead of the teams
  • There is no transparency between parties
  • Schedule often becomes the top priority over profitability
  • Apathy amongst team members

A clear purpose or objective and a team commitment to each

  • A lack of leadership overall on projects
  • Often an objective or purpose is never defined to begin with, just to complete a project
  • When objectives are communicated, it’s not frequent enough and they can be inconsistent
  • Customer changes and indecision may lead to shifting objectives
  • Trade leadership lacks experience to lead team toward commitments or time to make them a priority

 

 

 

 

A set of common goals, communicated frequently, feedback given often

  • Each team places their individual goals above the common goals
  • Owners and General Contractors may not be on the same page which trickles down to subcontractors and suppliers.
  • A lack of understanding how each trades scope/goals may impact the next trades scope/goals
  • Setting unobtainable goals, no feedback on progress towards goals, leads to low morale

A positive attitude and atmosphere

  • A lack of leadership training or experience in leadership roles
  • It’s not a part of the culture for the project lead
  • Schedule is the only thing that matters on the project
  • Too many changes / too much re-work leads to low morale
  • No celebration of success, only feedback on failures
  • Lack of a clean organized workspace or environment

 

Effective conflict resolution

  • Parties do not know or understand the terms or scope of their contracts leading to unnecessary disputes
  • Parties being non-committal leads to lack of resolution
  • Egos and attitudes get in the way
  • No willingness to accept responsibility for actions / behaviors
  • Not knowing when to “agree to disagree”
  • Waiting too long to bring up issues, not possible to resolve at that point or leads to overreaction to issue

A spirit of team work

  • Egos not being able to put the needs of the whole before their own
  • The Us vs. Them mentality between GC’s & subs, Office and Field
  • Stringent contract language that puts strains on the ability to develop relationships
  • Parties not willing to accept responsibility or fault, or taking unearned credit
  • A focus on individual profitability and success comes first

So what we learned through the process of identifying the elements to a successful project partnership and then discussing the barriers to creating those partnerships is that we’ve obviously got a long way to go as an industry.  But what we know about challenges is that in order to overcome them we must focus on removing the barriers that lead to those challenges.  If we do nothing today, we can’t expect a different result tomorrow, so we just need to get started.

 

“How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time…” – Someone

The concept of positive project partnerships may seem like a utopia to some, depending on your market and your customers or trade partners you may be much closer to or much further from accomplishing this goal.  One thing we can all agree on is that the industry is changing, the upcoming generation is more collaborative and inclusive and our jobsites and organizations will either follow suit or be left behind in a cloud of digital dust.  Project partnerships will become the rule and not the exception as this generation begins taking leadership roles within the industry and in the state of Kansas, we’d like to be on the leading edge of that change.

This is obviously a topic that deserves more than one open forum / roundtable discussion but during our session we decided to prioritize a few key elements, even grouping some together, and trying to identify possible solutions or behaviors that will lead to a greater level of success in creating theses successful project partnerships.  As always, the journey of 1000 miles, begins with the first step:

Priority #1: Trust / Integrity / Mutual Respect

  • We need to understand that developing trust takes time, we can’t give up if it’s not there on day one.
  • We must be prepared to earn trust and respect by proven consistent behavior and communication.
  • We must establish accountability within the team to meeting commitments.
  • We cannot have hidden agendas, all hands must be played above the table.
  • It starts with the hiring process and culture of the team, select the team you have faith in.
  • Communicate reality, don’t tell people what they WANT to hear, tell them what they NEED to hear…the truth!
  • Handle conflict effectively and professionally, don’t be afraid to sit across from each other at the table and work out your differences.

 

Priority #2:  A focus on shared success, commitment to common goals and concern for all partners

  • We must clearly set expectations and boundaries upfront, and continue to communicate those as the project proceeds
  • We must clearly define success on the project, getting it done on time and in budget is not a goal, it’s an expectation.
  • We need to provide frequent feedback regarding performance towards goals/objectives and follow up on progress.
  • We need to strive to understand each other’s individual goals, this starts with communicating our goals with each other up front.
  • We must give and take to meet the common goal, each team member will have their day to shine and their day in the clouds, that doesn’t change we should embrace it.
  • We need to develop our managers into leaders who value the input of other professionals.
  • We need to get back to relationships, remembering favors traded and letting things go when they aren’t worth our time.

 

Priority #3:  Effective, personal communication from start to finish

  • We must learn and then educate on when to call, when to text and when to email.
  • We should prioritize returning phone calls and emails in our daily to do list.
  • We may need to establish a preferred communication method on the project, especially when dealing with vastly different generations in leadership roles.
  • We need to identify the chain of command regarding communication on our projects, who we communicate with for what.
  • We need to “get it in writing” and avoid verbal orders, this only leads to conflict down the road when memories get cloudy.
  • We must expect that all trades are active participants in coordination, we must expect as trades to be prepared to be participants in coordination.

 

Priority #4:  Setting mutually agreeable project schedules and mutually beneficial expectations

  • We need good information in to put good information out, be prepared with input on lead times and specifics, be willing to take input from trade professionals.
  • We need to make honest commitments on durations, if it takes 8 days, don’t ask for 10 just in case, what results from that behavior is ultimately getting 6 days in the schedule.
  • We need to understand the specific needs of each trade and listen to trade professionals for input on means and methods, schedule and quality expectations.
  • We need to embrace Lean Construction Principles, more specifically pull planning or the last planner system.
  • We need to involve all parties in the planning process, from the design team to the trade professionals in order to have a better understanding of what the specific needs of each unique project are.

 

So that’s our first step, we identified 4 priorities from our discussion and communicated behaviors that would lead to improved performance around those elements.  We didn’t solve any problems in this one discussion, we didn’t make any earth shattering revelations but what we did do was start the conversation.  Not only that but we had constructive open dialogue about the barriers we face as an industry, as the people who often create those barriers, but with the understanding that things needed to change.

What’s next?

The next step is simply to continue the conversations.  The information above represents the opinions of a small cross section of Kansas General Contractors, Subcontractors and Suppliers.  We don’t pretend to have it all figured out, we know we’re at the beginning of a very long and winding road.  We’ve done more than most by simply getting together in a room and opening the lines of communication and we’ll continue to keep those lines open in future forums.

Eventually the desired result of the dialogue would be a commitment from AGC of Kansas General Contractors, Subcontractors and Suppliers to behaviors defined by a “Best Practices” document related to developing project partnerships.  It’s going to take several focused conversations including several additional organizations representing General Contractors, Subcontractors and Suppliers to finalize any document and ask for commitment but we’re moving the needle.

If reading this, has sparked an interest in you to get involved in the open dialogue happening within the AGC of Kansas through the Kanas Subcontractor Council, reach out and get involved.  We have an immense amount of talent and intelligence in the construction industry in Kansas and it’s going to take every bit of it to accomplish our goals regarding partnerships.  If you read this and would like to know how you can open the dialogue within your own organization or trade organization we’d love to help.  As the Kansas Subcontractor Council our ultimate goal is to improve the industry we’re so proud to be a part of, for all parties on the job site, thank you for your interest in this discussion and we look forward to future forums on this topic as well as others.

 

Scott Ludwick

Chair

Kansas Subcontractors Council

CEO

Builders Plus Construction