True teamwork

by Clair D. Urbain

It’s always a pleasure to visit contractors, but it was a special treat to visit one of the offices of DPR Inc. in Redwood City, California.

While contractors commonly build great buildings for clients, this is the first contractor office I have visited that is in itself a great building.

It incorporates green building elements such as reliance on natural lighting in most office spaces. It’s comfortable to meet in conference rooms that are specially designed for various group sizes and properly equipped with the tools that effective groups need to work.

Outside the conference rooms, work spaces are spacious and open, encouraging dialog. Wide aisles empty into open common areas that are conducive to stand-up meetings. Throughout the building, it’s evident that its design encourages employee teamwork and collaboration.

The same is true on the jobsite. Instead of cramped 14'-wide trailers, you’ll find double-wide offices that are set up in the same open style found in the home office. Common areas feature expansive work spaces where plans can be laid out and easily viewed by team members. High-speed Internet access puts information within reach with only a few keystrokes.

While DPR Inc. has a wonderful infrastructure, it would be for naught if the company did not have a teamwork ethic. After all, state-of-the-art ball parks have been built in hopes of improving team performance when solid lessons and a culture shift to a teamwork mentality would have paid much greater dividends.

That’s truly one of the secrets at DPR. They have set a structure in place that encourages team thinking and develops dynamic win-win working relationships with its employees, suppliers, subcontractors and, most important of all, customers.

In the sidebar, “Collaborative process maxims", the company recognizes key operating principles that foster teamwork.

Briefly, they are:
• Integrity and trust are essential for true colloboration.
• The long run is more important than the short run.
• Teams make better choices than individuals.
• Pre-qualify firms, but select people to work on your team.
• True creativity focuses on option generation.
• Change is inevitable, so be prepared for it.
• The basis for decisions should be on facts and reason, not opinion and emotion.

That’s quite a bit to saw off on, but it gives you an idea how the colloborative process at DPR thrives. It’s not a traditional work environment, and it takes special people with training, reinforcement and encouragement to make it work.

When you look at the organization where you work, how many of the above maxims apply? In the end, it’s how you get people to work together that makes the difference.

Published in the September 2005 issue of Contractor Tools and Supplies magazine.

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