Newsletter September 2018

The topic of mental health and wellbeing is an important discussion in making sure leaders figuratively place the oxygen mask on themselves in ensuring they are rejuvenated and energised to continue to do their jobs on their projects and in their organisations.

So what does rejuvenation and reflection look like for a leader?  How do you make the time to engage with activities that achieve this?  For us, we believe this includes some of the following practices:

• Blocking out time at the start of the week to plan out your week, your priorities, making time to think as a key priority in your calendar;
• It is blocking out time to work from home or a quiet area to get the important work done including time for yourself;
• It is knowing that work will be there tomorrow which means you role model to your staff the importance of having outside interests and leaving work on time to pursue them;
• It is using your phone as a work tool rather than being a slave to every email, interaction and social media which takes you away from what matters which is being in the moment with others that you care about;
• It is taking regular days off where you can be completely free from work to truly rejuvenate;
• It is planning out your quarter to set yourself up for success and reflecting on what is important rather than what is urgent and providing that direction to your team;
• It is making time for your mental health, wellbeing and fitness requirements; and
• It is working to live rather than living to work.

This means for us the trialing and consideration of new approaches to our work like a four day week to ensure our people have the chance to do the things outside of work that matter and enhance their work and leadership effectiveness.  It also means supporting our clients who are experiencing challenges around ensuring their businesses and people are focussing on long term sustainability as a key priority.

We look forward to more discussions with our clients around how we approach this important topic.  The long term health and wellbeing of all our people including our leaders is important. We need to make time to think about the small things that will make a difference to all of us in continuing to be effective in our roles over the long game.

This design prior to tender evaluation phase is critical in ensuring you don’t evaluate the team based on their written proposal but place real importance in the procurement interaction.  This means placing as much importance on the team evaluation as you do in the commercial and technical areas of award.

This topic will be a focus of future blogs for BRS as we consider this critical in ensuring that the right teams deliver the right outcomes for their clients.  This requires in some ways a slowing down to speed up by tender evaluation teams but we believe this is important in making the right decisions around the awarding of projects.    We will explore tender evaluation practices, best practice interactive tips and techniques along with providing guidance on how to truly evaluate team potential and collaboration.

Stay tuned for some exciting blogs to follow!

Watch the short video (link below) to understand how Project 13 is seeking to change the traditional infrastructure business model for the better.   In addition to the video, they have come up with tools, frameworks and guides which allow for client organisations to make the shift to becoming a capable and intelligent client.  It includes a diagnostic survey to understand where you are currently at and what you can do to progress your organisation in all the key areas.

We look forward to hearing of other examples of best practice like this from our clients.  For us, learning from others and adapting these learnings to your organisations is critical in ensuring true collaboration and teamwork is happening across our industry.