“It’s impossible to get the right players on the team these days.”
We hear the frustration from team leaders, and we get it. Deals need to happen. Today’s market is competitive. The need for collaboration is at an all time high, and the barriers to that collaboration are real — and often they are measured in dollars.
When competition is stiff, playing hard ball to capture the most money is tempting. After all, that is how commercial real estate and construction used to be done. But the zero-sum game of yesteryear just doesn’t work anymore.
It just doesn’t pencil to make enemies of:
- architects and designers
- capital partners
- regulatory agencies
- construction teams
So effective developers/construction managers/brokers turn their list of potential enemies into a team roster. Then they gather the team around a table, collaborating efficiently so everyone makes more money.
At CoBUILD, we train our team to turn combative patterns into collaborative ones. We talk about having tough conversations in a constructive way. When we hear, “it’s impossible to get good players on your team nowadays!” we know it’s not true — the proof is in the CoBUILD team itself. We’ve built relationships with developers, brokers, and property managers over years. We’ve seen design and construction teams go from combative to collaborative. It’s:
- difficult
- intentional
- and requires buy-in.
It’s also totally worth it. We believe it all starts with the construction team.
(Of course, as a general contractor, we’re biased. But it’s true!)
Why start with construction? If you’re turning your list of partners into a team roster, the construction team is your catcher. Much like a catcher, construction teams have an undeserved reputation for being reactive instead of proactive, for using brawn instead of brains. But also like a catcher, the construction team brings together the rest of your lineup to work in harmony, while serving as a valuable player in their own right.
Predict Where the Ball is Going
When a pitch is coming at you at 90+ mph, you have to use your experience and intuition to know where to put that mitt in less than half a second. CoBUILD’s Project Managers and Superintendents are expected to predict, identify, and proactively come up with solutions for any problems they might find on the jobsite, early enough to prevent delays or added costs. In order to do this, developers need to bring their construction teams into early collaborative processes with the architect and any future tenants, because that allows them to…
Call the Pitches
By predicting a hitter’s trouble spots and weaknesses, the right calls by the catcher can swing the entire game. Similarly, by trusting the construction team to be a part of a project’s design process, we can start value engineering and optimizing schedules right away. Don’t wait until design is complete to bring the team together — gatekeeping communication between GC and Architect is like making the first baseman run back and forth between home plate and the pitcher’s mound to call pitches. Teams save time, energy, and money by bringing the GC and architect into direct conversation — but this requires trust, and collaboration.
Run the Field
While a GC is obviously expected to manage all their trade partners, the whole construction team can also benefit from a relational GC with experience in certain regulatory and real estate markets. A contractor with technical skill, but no commitment to the vision of a unified team, can get the job done. But CoBUILD’s relationships with inspectors, regulatory agencies, brokers, and property managers allow developers to get current jobs done while paving the way for future successes.
You probably didn’t expect to get a lesson in why the catcher is actually every baseball team’s MVP. But we often get just as much surprise from developers when they realize that, with a bit of trust and a commitment to collaboration, they find a new MVP on their roster in the form of a relationally-focused construction team.
