A summary of this series is provided in this post: Start Right | Stay Right on Construction Projects.
It is important to know who you are working for and how they operate as a business and as a person. Every member of your team can and should build relationships and understand your client. These relationships will pay dividends as you build the project and grow in your career. People you work with today may work at a new company tomorrow. When you build strong relationships from the Project Engineer to the Project Executive you get the call when their new company has something to build.
My intent here is not to write a book with all the ins and outs of building relationships with your client, but to discuss four things that have helped me deliver better construction projects and the two key skills to make it happen.
Values
Values are the concepts that guide a business. Some examples are:
Eli Lilly & Company – integrity, excellence, and respect for people
Amazon – customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking
General Services Administration – Service, accountability, and innovation
General Electric – Act with Humility, Lead with Transparency, and Deliver with Focus
Salesforce – Trust, Customer Success, Innovation, Equality, and Sustainability
Community Health – Patients first, Relationships, Integrity, Inclusion, Diversity, Excellence
Shiel Sexton – Integrity, Enjoyment, Expertise, Relationships
While most value statements are similar you can pick up nuances that tell you a little about a company and how it may operate different than your last client. In my experience, the values of a good company shine through the employees. They embody the mission and values of the company and they operate with these values closely held.
Anyone that has built a healthcare facility knows everything you do revolves around impact to the patient. This would be important for you to understand if this is your first healthcare project.
As you work through planning and construction it is your job to deliver a project that embodies the values of the client.
When you don’t know anything else about a company reading their mission and value statements can tell you who they strive to be.
Needs and Wants
Attend a lot of meetings during Preconstruction. Find out first hand what is important to the client. It will become clear what design elements are flexible and what are critical to the success of the project. They will talk about problems with their last building or construction project they want fixed in this project. They will talk about things that are highly important to the success of the project.
My experience is the design will be embellished as design progresses and it is your job as construction manager to keep this in check and bring it to the Architect’s attention. It is just as important to make sure the design captures critical work the client requested. It can save you both a lot of grief if you work in lockstep through design and deliver a package to the client that closely represents what they are looking for. Your client will appreciate that you listened.
This information can also help during budget updates. You can make sure the budget accounts for the wants and needs of the project and adjust your estimate accordingly. It can also be a guide as you look for potential cost saving ideas. If you know a particular product or scope of work is a high priority need it may be a bad idea to put it on your list to cut from the project …or at least you can discuss it with the client stating you know it is critical but you want them to be aware of the cost impact of that decision.
For example, you may have a client that loves Daikin brand rooftop units and requires you to use them …but you know Carrier is more cost effective. Showing them the price difference may not change the situation, but you show value by bringing options.
Technical
Knowing the technical requirements of your client can be critical to your budget, schedule and construction plan. Some clients don’t have any construction knowledge. Others will have a robust corporate construction policy you are required to follow that may increase your staffing and general conditions and the overall cost of the project.
Clients with very little experience will lean heavily on you and the design team to deliver the project. They will not likely have any existing documents or requirements for you to follow and/or include in your construction plan.
Highly experienced clients will have expectations and you need to learn those as quickly as possible. They may have corporate specifications and bidding documents, standard details, equipment purchase programs, and preferred vendor pricing lists. If you are not aware of these requirements you may have budget busts …or worse, buy a product they won’t accept. They may also have a bidding document you are required to include in your bid packages to cover all the Owner requirements.
Examples:
Design-Build medical office building: This is the first building the group of four Dr’s have built. They don’t have any design or construction experience. They know they want a new clinic that operates more efficiently at the best possible price. Their only requirements are a new building that is comfortable and efficient and appropriately sized for their practice. You have a lot of freedom with this type of client to use your own processes and procedures. You also take on risk that they don’t have experience understanding drawings and specifications so you will need to spend more time reviewing renderings and doing model walkthroughs to assure they know what they are getting.
CM at risk project for Indiana University: IU has a facilities group with robust experience. They have a comprehensive bidding process including bidding documents for you to use and/or incorporate into your bid package. They require all documents go in their management system (eBuilder at the time of the project) regardless of which system you utilize. They pre-purchase mechanical units to assure they get exactly what they want. They require the bidder to take all risk on rock excavation which can be costly in Bloomington, IN. Overall, they have a well developed program and defer a lot of risk to the CM and if you are not aware of these requirements you can quickly blow your budget. In this case you have to align your systems with the client’s needs and often perform duplicate entry.
Personal
I am not suggesting you need to be best friends with your client but you should talk to them and get to know them and build a working relationship and begin to understand their personality type. You need to know how to interact with the people for which you are building and a personal connection can make difficult situations easier to navigate.
It is also important to understand the motivations behind the people you work with. As an example: I worked with a client and we had developed great rapport with each other. This was a multi-phase/multi-year project so we had to work together a long time. Occasionally we had difficult conversations and needed to change things after he had already talked to the Executive Board and made commitments. So long as we worked together and I helped him tell the story about the change so he did not look bad in front of the Board things went very well. This allowed him to go back to the board with a good narrative that left him in good standing and helped the Board make a decision. This would not have been possible if I didn’t know how much it upset him personally when he had to go back to the Board with different information making it look like he didn’t know what was going on.
Key Skill #1 | Listening
Develop your ability to listen and pick up on common threads or themes you hear from your client. Remember personal details you can talk about later. Put them in a notes app or write them in a notebook. These are some keys to good active listening:
- Put your phone away
- Don’t have it on the table or in sight. Just having your phone visible is distracting to you and the speaker
- If you need to take notes use a small notepad and put it in your digital notes later
- Pay attention
- Give the speaker your undivided attention.
- Make eye contact but don’t be creepy about it!
- Watch for non-verbal communication cues
- Don’t prepare a rebuttal or interrupt
- Do not have side conversations in a group setting
- Try to eliminate emotion
- Listen for facts vs. opinions
- Provide feedback
- This includes repeating information back by staring with “What I hear you saying is….”
- Ask questions to confirm what you heard
- This might be an emotional conversation …it is OK to tell them something like this
- “I may not be understanding you correctly, and I find myself taking what you said personally. What I thought you just said is XXX; is that what you meant?”
- Defer judgement
- Interruptions are a waste of time and often received poorly by the speaker and others in the group
- Don’t jump in with counter arguments
- Respond Appropriately
- Active listenings requires a level of respect and understanding of people
- Attacking the speaker by putting them down or having an emotional outburst does not move the conversation forward
- Be candid, open, and honest and share opinions respectfully
- When you are in a highly emotional situation it is OK to tell them you need a minute and walk away before you respond
- It is OK to ask for a few minutes to think through your response before saying the first thing on your mind.
Key Skill #2 | Communication
Your ability to communicate effectively with your client will be a big part of the relationship. Remember these 5 C’s for good communication. Always be:
- Clear
- Know what you want and need from the other person
- Get clarity on the issue yourself before taking it to your client
- Communicate directly and objectively
- Concise
- Keep requests direct, simple, and to the point.
- Don’t embellish, exaggerate, or write three paragraph’s for a simple question
- There can be a time and place for telling a story
- If they respond with TLDR you are not concise enough!
- Complete
- Gather the facts before you engage …try to have the entire story
- Curious
- Listen to the other person
- Be open to their response and be an active listener
- Understand where they are coming from
- Compassionate
- Put yourself in their shoes to understand where they are coming from
- Everyone has difficulties outside of work you may not be aware
- Make sure they feel you have heard and acknowledge them
Summary
I hope you take something away from this …that this helps you on your next project. Please share and comment. What do you find are the most critical things to know about your client and how they operate?
douglas adams 