Driving industry change: Come hell and high water!
Stephen Blakey FCInstCES FRICS MICW, Commercial Projects Director, Network Rail
IN times of crisis, people will naturally coalesce, pull together and collaborate, particularly when they have either a common goal or a common enemy. This was very much in evidence on Christmas Eve 2020 when, along with almost a hundred neighbours, we battled to defend our homes from the River Great Ouse which had reached record levels and burst its banks.
Our common goal was the defence of our homes, the common enemies – water (too much) and time (too little). In the midst of this crisis, people who have lived in close proximity for years met each other for the first time and shared both their physical resources, in the form of sandbags and effort, as well as their intellectual resources, in the form of insight, experience and advice. From this shared experience a bond was formed, along with an appetite for improved processes and systems for future flood risk management, mitigation and response.
The same is true at a macro level and as we emerged from the pandemic it was clear that in the midst of socio-economic change, collaboration has surfaced as a way of working across all sectors – not just construction – and is a word that is being used in almost every walk of life. This illustrates that the term is being used to describe a host of interactions between organisations and individuals who perhaps haven’t fully considered what collaboration actually is. Is it, for example, a behaviour, value, culture, process, system or even a profession? Or is it simply a network of organisations and individuals with shared values bound by a common crisis, like those that emerged in the NHS and social care sectors? Of course, it is all of these things, but for collaboration to be effective and sustained, a structured albeit agile approach is required; one that functions regardless of the presence of a crisis and is built on shared values – the importance of which are amplified during a crisis.
An example of this emerged in the rail sector where Network Rail drew on a mature capability for collaborative working and a range of long-standing relationships to bring a highly effective response to the COVID crisis. Advocacy from key suppliers and stakeholders alike held Network Rail up as an organisation that role-modelled its response to the pandemic. What is perhaps less well known is that our response included enrolling key suppliers to take an ethical approach on a commercial issue and forego unearned/windfall profit on COVID related costs. This was an ethical proposition that required alignment on the concept of doing the right thing for the right reasons.
... collaborative leadership isn’t just about client or executive leadership. It takes many forms and should not be confused with seniorityThere are numerous similar cross-sector examples throughout the UK and it is clear that a ‘good’ crisis is a catalyst for collaboration and – with the correct mindset – an opportunity to drive industry change. The challenge is to promote consistency of collaborative working and ensure it can flourish after the component parts of a crisis recede. An established framework, alongside effective collaborative leadership, are the keys to meeting that challenge.
A perhaps unfamiliar term, ‘collaborative leadership’, raises questions as to its definition and the skills, competencies and techniques required of a collaborative leader and their relevance to established leadership styles. Indeed these aspects and more are the subject of a cross-industry working group facilitated by the Institute for Collaborative Working (ICW) and I hope to shine a spotlight on its outputs during the course of next year.
What I can say now is that collaborative leadership isn’t just about client or executive leadership. It takes many forms and should not be confused with seniority. Each day, graduates, practitioners, managers and executives from across industry have the opportunity to role-model collaborative working, show leadership in building a collaborative culture and promote core values around which individuals and companies can coalesce. Such leadership at every managerial level will be the critical enabler to embedding a collaborative culture and capability across businesses and their supply chains. The same dynamics apply with regards to the professional institutions and their appetite and ability to collaborate. Finding synergies in areas ranging from technical competencies and training, through to the culture and values of respective institutions is key to establishing a formal collaboration. This is exactly the type of dialogue that has started between ICW and CICES and may well germinate into a structured collaboration during 2022.
Whilst remote and virtual working is here to stay, I believe people will commute to collaborate. Being together in person will always be the best way to build trust and develop lasting and rewarding relationships, both corporate and personal.As many will know, for rail, collaboration is a key component in the consistent, safe and timely delivery of fault and dispute-free – and value for money – rail investment. Our corporate values drive us to ensure our investment is sustainable to our environment, economy and supply chain and is delivered in a way that instils confidence in the capability of our people, processes and systems. Whilst Network Rail will seek to deploy progressive contractual forms and models such as the New Engineering Contract fourth edition (NEC4) and the Institution of Civil Engineers’ Project 13, our values will be consistent, whatever the weather.
Collaboration will also be a catalyst for strengthening rail patronage. Whilst remote and virtual working is here to stay, I believe people will commute to collaborate. Being together in person will always be the best way to build trust and develop lasting and rewarding relationships, both corporate and personal.
We, like many other communities across England, lost the battle to save our homes last December. Our challenge throughout this year has been to retain that new sense of community, harness the collective experience and cement a collaborative approach that is effective not only through hell and high water, but also, perhaps as importantly, on calm and sunny days. The same feels true for our industry.
Stephen Blakey FCInstCES FRICS MICW,
Commercial Projects Director, Network Rail
Stephen.m.blakey@networkrail.co.uk
A version of this article was published by the Institute for Collaborative Working.
https:// instituteforcollaborativeworking.com