Collaboration is tricky business — no one knows this better than those in construction.
The construction industry relies on strong collaboration to get things done, because the way a team works together can make or break a building project. To stay on-time and under budget, every single worker must coordinate and cooperate.
Average teams are a dime a dozen. To build a great team, construction executives need first to remove collaboration barriers by implementing the right field software solution. Next, they should focus on these three factors: strong leadership, a forgiving environment and cooperation skills. To help you improve in these areas, check out these three TED talks from top leadership and mediation experts.
Strong Leadership
Perfect cooperation between workers is about as rare as a four-leaf clover. That’s why every team needs effective leadership to succeed. With large groups of employees tackling high-stakes tasks, employees need a leader they can trust. So, what separates the good leaders from the bad?
For Simon Sinek, author and leadership expert, the military is the perfect case study. In this compelling talk, Sinek explains why military heroes consistently put their own lives at risk for the benefit of others, and compares modern tech leaders with military captains. He looks at where some organizations go wrong and outlines the key to creating a circle of trust and security.
Here’s Simon Sinek on Why Good Leaders Make You Feel Safe.
The Work Environment
Whether employees are in-office or on-site, your construction team should enjoy their workplace. Sinek’s talk briefly discussed how the social environment of a company contributes to successful cooperation, but Tom Wujec, a thought-leader in collaborative creativity, takes this idea a step further by analyzing the “marshmallow challenge.”
He explains the drawbacks of closed-minded collaboration and outlines how to achieve collective success.
Do recent graduates of kindergarten have stronger collaboration skills than recent graduates of business school? Does the freedom to make mistakes improve performance? Find out in Build a Tower, Build a Team.
There’s No “I” in T-E-A-M
No matter how forgiving your collaborative environment may be, individual team members are always under some level of pressure to perform. When this pressure becomes too intense, employees get stuck in a “survival of the fittest” mentality — leading to intense conflicts that prevent teamwork.
Jim Tamm has resolved more school district labor strikes than anyone in the United States, so he knows a thing or two about conflict. As an expert mediator, Tamm sees conflict resolution is a core competency that all businesses should have. In this talk, he explains that managing defensiveness among your employees is essential, because “…you can’t compete externally if you can’t first collaborate internally.”
Find out how to reduce conflict by up to 70% in Cultivating Collaboration: Don’t Be So Defensive.
While the advice in these videos is universal, the construction industry offers its own unique challenges. Project managers are stretched thin, team members are scattered across locations and project restraints are tight. To address these and other issues, construction executives need to digitize. Construction management software allows seamless collaboration between project stakeholders. And mobile solutions give everyone real-time access to essential tools. Find out the 3 reasons your peers are upgrading to the most advanced mobile software.