Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Joe M Powell is the Executive Director of the Rice University Building Institute, an interdisciplinary collaboration of industry, community and academic leaders. A registered architect, he has spent his 36-year career researching the relationship between corporate strategy, human behaviour and the built environment.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

What is it that keeps professionals in the AEC industry up at night if it is not their ability to design and build good buildings? It's their never-ending search for a competitive advantage - their ability, on a daily basis, to effectively compete for new work. The main concern of the millions of companies, large and small, engaged in creating the built environment across the world is their capacity to not only survive, but to also thrive, at a time when the global economy is dauntingly complex, constantly changing, and overwhelmingly competitive.

Drawing on a three-year research project conducted by the Rice University Building Institute, Joe M. Powell incorporates the experience and wisdom of over 80 international market leaders.

This book answers the following two questions:

1. What are the critical performance characteristics of the world's most competitive companies?

2. What will be required to join the next generation of global market leaders?

Aus dem Klappentext

What is it that keeps professionals in the AEC industry up at night if it is not their ability to design and build good buildings? It's their never-ending search for a competitive advantage - their ability, on a daily basis, to effectively compete for new work. The main concern of the millions of companies, large and small, engaged in creating the built environment across the world is their capacity to not only survive, but to also thrive, at a time when the global economy is dauntingly complex, constantly changing, and overwhelmingly competitive.

Drawing on a three-year research project conducted by the Rice University Building Institute, Joe M. Powell incorporates the experience and wisdom of over 80 international market leaders.

This book answers the following two questions:

1. What are the critical performance characteristics of the world's most competitive companies?

2. What will be required to join the next generation of global market leaders?

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

The New Competitiveness in Design and Construction

John Wiley & Sons

Chapter One

competitiveness?

Several years ago, an international executive search firm surveyed 1500 senior corporate leaders from 20 countries.

The question: "When selecting a CEO, what performance characteristics do you consider to be the most valuable?"

The answer: "A clear vision and the ability to rally people to it."

The subject of corporate vision has gotten plenty of attention over the past 20 years and as is typically the case, it has spawned a cottage industry of consultants, authors, facilitators, and tricksters. These days, most companies, even small ones, have written vision statements, values statements, and strategic plans. Obviously, some of these documents serve as the basis for energizing and focusing superior performance, while others are nothing more than frilly window dressing at which employees snicker when the boss's back is turned.

What constitutes an effective vision statement?

The next generation of market leaders will use motivational vision statements to add bandwidth to all of their marketing and communication programs. We identified five characteristics shared by the more successful ones.

1 It addresses the future

A good vision statement is about the future. Properly formulated, it will become your group's most powerful organizing force. An effective vision is an emotionally compelling portrait of what you intend to become. It acknowledges the past, is cognizant of the present, and describes a passage to a more fulfilling tomorrow.

Our vision is simply to work with people, through architecture, to evoke the world to which we all aspire.

CHRISTOPHER RATCLIFF, PRESIDENT AND CEO

RATCLIFF ARCHITECTS

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

2 It is emotionally compelling

Business is not only a game of the intellect. Even though we spend enormous energy discussing and admiring our intellectual prowess, most business behavior has an overwhelmingly emotional component. This perhaps is due to the large number of human beings involved. Here's the good news about studying the human emotional condition: it isn't changing. Business environments change, practices change, customers change, employees change, technology changes, but there has been no measurable evolution of basic human emotional drivers in the last two million years. OK then. Here's the "so what":

Companies that emotionally engage their stakeholders can simply ask more of them-more of their customers, more of their employees, more of their consultants.

Our design consultancy is dedicated to the reintegration of architecture, landscape, and the civic arts. We are committed to a significant restoration of the storytelling qualities of architecture.

ERIC KUHNE, MANAGING DIRECTOR

ERIC R. KUHNE & ASSOCIATES

LONDON, ENGLAND

Effective leaders have always known how to exploit this reality. An emotionally compelling vision will be one of your most powerful assets for motivating employees beyond simply doing their jobs. And it may serve as an unusually powerful point of differentiation between you and your competitors.

3 It is reality based

Vision statements are intended to motivate. There is nothing quite so pitiful as a group of people who pretend they are committed to a set of goals which they know are clearly out of reach. Your vision must be aggressive yet achievable. So how do you find the sweet spot? It's clearly a matter of negotiation and one of the most important elements of your vision development process.

4 It describes a meaningful/deeper purpose

We found several companies led by owners who believe the free enterprise system supplies all of the meaning any company needs. "We're here to make money for our investors and ourselves. What else do you need to know?"

In the 1960s, when General Motors began to feel the initial indicators of what may have become its inexorable decline, its board decided that they needed a new CEO to provide a spark of creativity and energy. On his first day, James Roche held a press conference where a reporter asked, "How does it feel to be responsible for making more cars that any other company in the world?" Mr. Roche's response: "I wasn't hired to make cars. I was hired to make money." Wow. That's a pretty clear sign of the vision he intended to implement.

Here's how it typically goes: "We intend to provide our investors with a superior return, our customers with superior service, our employees with a superior place to work, while being good corporate citizens." How's that for a statement that's cool-gray, vapid, and powerless?

There are many people who believe our lives are not about a search for happiness, but a search for meaning. If that's the case, there will be many rewards for any management team that can make a clear connection between the work of their company and the personal meaningfulness for their workers.

Seventy years ago, the founders of Perkins & Will described a vision for their fledgling architectural practice. "We intend to produce ideas and buildings that honor the broader goals of society." According to Greg Hughes, Principal, "Every associate here knows that our work is not about us. It's about how we impact society."

5 It permeates everyday work

We found several examples of companies run by executives who were personally guided by a clear vision. Unfortunately, they were the only ones who knew about it. So is it better to have no vision whatsoever, or one locked between the ears of people in senior management? Who cares? The results are the same.

Meaningful visions that actually impact operations aren't hard to identify. All you have to do is spend a little time at the company. It will be readily apparent that everyone is aligned on a few salient concepts. That doesn't mean that all leaders are the same or that all employees are the same. In fact, a great deal of personal diversity can and probably should be present, but everyone needs to know why they're there and what role they play. Company visions that don't live in the hearts and minds of all key players simply can't materially impact the way things get done.

So, how do most competitive companies achieve this?

First, the bad news.

Your mouth will be your least effective instrument in communicating your company's vision.

The most effective practices that we observed were very simple. First you tell them about it (not very difficult) and then you live it (harder).

At Linbeck in Houston, every new hire spends four hours with Chairman Leo Linbeck, III, and President Chuck Greco. According to Mr. Greco, "This kind of personal attention is expensive for the firm, but it's where we begin the process of drilling our company vision and values."

We teach a wide curriculum at Jacobs College; but by far, the most valuable thing we teach is our company DNA.

ROBERT M. CLEMENTS, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT

JACOBS ENGINEERING GROUP INC.

PASADENA,...