Building resilience and capability: Shaping the future of Morgan Sindall Construction

I’m much more comfortable now sitting with a situation for a while and understanding that you don’t always have to jump to a solution then and there. I liked the flat structure we had on the programme. I was the most senior person in the group and two of the other members report to me in their day-to-day roles but, for this purpose, there was no hierarchy. I’ve tried to keep that going forward too, as I’ve never been a particularly hierarchical person – if you’ve got something to say that is of benefit, it doesn’t matter what job role you’re in, I’d like to hear it. We were looking at how we, as main contractor, get closer to our public sector partners – either to do more repeat work or to serve them better. Of the six that were in our project group, five of us have gone forward to be part of the new working group looking at implementing our recommendations within the business – and I think that says a lot about the conviction behind those recommendations. I’m pleased Morgan Sindall is doing this, because there’s an argument to say that we’re not broken, so why would you try to fix anything? Whether people agree with our current approach or not doesn’t really matter, because the numbers will tell you it is successful. But I like that the business isn’t standing still and taking that for granted. We are trying to work out what’s next and living its values – seeking to challenge the status quo. I believe in what we’re doing, and I think if we can really get under the skin of how we get CEOs of different local and national authorities to understand our broader offering beyond construction and how we can support their strategic agenda then we will really be making a positive difference to local communities. Aside from the fact that we will get more work out of it as a business, that seems like a positive thing to be involved in.

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