Mmm, it's always better when we're together

If you spent the early noughties in a slightly musty hammock during a backpacking trip you’ll remember the omnipresent strumming of Jack Johnson’s Better Together album. It felt right as a soundtrack to my voyage of discovery but, perhaps more surprisingly, it’s become the soundtrack to a lot of my work here at Forum.

This is a reflection on how we work with our partners; how we look for true partnerships that go beyond just shared objectives. Not only are we better when we work in these partnerships, but the change that we create together is far better too.

Take our latest Engineers of the 21st Century (e21c) project, for instance, which developed a new method of assessing the sustainability of different construction materials. The organisations involved, including the Environment Agency and British Waterways, are about to trial it and as it gets used through their supply chains we hope it will become an industry standard. Click here to learn more.

Right at the start Lorna Pelly, the e21c programme manager, told me that in six months people from organisations up and down the normally competitive and contractual construction supply chain would be acting as one team – trusting and open with each other, reaching for one common goal. I nodded – she’s wise, but my internal sceptic was rattling in its cage.

But, lo and behold, looking back at the project as it comes to fruition, she was right. Seven engineers and eight senior managers from the Environment Agency, British Waterways, Halcrow, Interserve Plc, Morrison Construction and the Royal Academy of Engineering have:

• learned, built upon and applied knowledge on sustainability;
• developed a toolkit that will make a tangible difference in selecting the most sustainable construction materials;
• and built trust that will foster productive, creative collaboration between their organisations in the future.

In doing so, they broke through the cultural and operational barriers that often occur in formal contractual relationships where huge amounts of money are involved – taking it one step beyond the good but not yet optimised traditional framework model.

We mostly work in partnerships here at Forum because we believe this is the most effective way of realising our vision of a more sustainable world. We’re 70 people – we can’t do it alone, so we ask partners with real ambition and commitment to join us in collaborative projects. They are often pretty guarded when it comes to sharing with rivals in their industry, but it is our job to build trust in these situations, fostering a true sense of shared purpose – allowing creativity to spark.

The latest e21c project team and steering group worked together as equals.

It’s the rattling cynic in me again, but I’ve always had the view that traditionally the consultants would have been the well-paid Premiership football players, the clients the financially strapped owners and the constructors the boot boys who get everything done. They might all want the team to win but they each have their own traditional role to play and official hierarchy to work within that can get in the way of true collaboration.

The e21c model works at removing those barriers in a number of ways. We:

• facilitate the process independently, so no one organisation has more sway than another;
• start with a challenge to be solved but no set solution, which gives the individuals involved the space to be creative and build something together;
• work to ensure we have a multidisciplinary steering group and project team, so a variety of different perspectives can be thrown into the pot;
• and, almost without anyone noticing we encourage people to leave job titles and seniority levels at the door.

We also make sure everyone gets to know each other and how they work. We help them to find their own personal, as well as organisational, benefit from being involved. This helped this year’s team to understand and use each other’s strengths. The steering group could act as mentors not managers for once, allowing the project to develop in a way that would not be possible under a contractual framework and inspiring the project team. Yes, we had a few heated debates but, like all relationships, this made us, and the outcome of the project, stronger. Each engineer left January’s showcase event as a more qualified, more recognised and more sustainability-literate rising star.

Brian Francis, a member of the steering group and planning and resources manager with National Capital Programme Management Services (ncpms) at the Environment Agency, summed up his experience: “We set out with the aim of getting sustainability into the psyche of our engineers and project managers. But this approach has helped us to go much deeper. It will enable us to have effective discussions with the whole integrated supply chain about how the materials that we use impact upon the world.”

I think Jack Johnson was right – we are better together.