Thrive In Construction with Darren Evans

Ep. 77 Why BIM Never Delivered What It Promised, And How To Fix It

• Darren Evans

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BIM was meant to transform construction. So why did it stall?
In this episode, Graham Kelly breaks down the real story behind BIM’s rollout. From poor client understanding to bloated consultancy models, learn what went wrong, what’s still worth salvaging, and how new tools like AI could finally unlock the potential BIM was meant to deliver.

We discuss:
• Why BIM’s promise didn’t match the outcome
• What’s useful about the BIM process today
• How international markets are doing it better
• What AI could fix — and what it can’t
• Why clients, not consultants, hold the key

If you’ve ever wondered why this “revolution” stalled, this is your inside look.

If you want to see our other insightful podcasts, click here:https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOHI_yaqB2U8KWbsfJDPCoYEfOh-TTnip 

Find us on: 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0dDkxLWZ25nT0krYWaTiIT 
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thrive-in-construction-with-darren-evans/id1726973152 
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTrzqei7gttB8WB5wM6hUpw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/thrive-in-construction-podcast/ Our Website: https://darren-evans.co.uk/

Links:
Okana Website: https://www.okana.global/
Graham's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamkellybim/

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Speaker 1:

So I came in starting to understand BIM around that 2010-2011 period, when it was introduced into the construction handbook in May 2011. And it was introduced as this idea of a 3D model with data, and then it was almost. The industry had to kind of work out what that meant and then the guidance sort of came secondary. The guidance naturally, in its very nature, is quite complex. Um, and there was a lot of sort of deciphering, um, and even though it was mandated, and it's still mandated in terms of public sector projects, it was kind of um, there was a bit of a a lack of understanding of what it all meant from the people who were meant to mandate it, which was the clients ultimately. And so you had a lot of consultants. You know, and I'm I'm a consultant, but hopefully we we didn't over complicate it. You've got a lot of consultants over complicating it for various reasons. You know, everyone's trying to do their best but ultimately overcomplicating what is a relatively straightforward process of defining what you want at the start and what format you want it from a data perspective, working through a competent team to deliver it and then getting a hand over at the end. But there's a lot of competency and complexity in trying to do that. I getting a hand over at the end, but there's a lot of competency and complexity in in trying to do that. I think that's what happened and it's what's really interesting now when we see the the age of ai and the democratization of ai. So the fact that you know everyone uses chat, gpt, you know you'll use it for anything um in your daily lives and you know people like my wife who are a vet, who you know tend to not use computers almost at all, um loves it because you know it's better than google. It does this, it does that, it breaks stuff down, it talks to you like a human um, everyone now thinks that's the answer and I think this it does have a chance of like de make simplifying the complex. But I think there is, uh, there is an opportunity that it's going to miss the mark with regards to sort of managing those expectations of. Actually, we've got to get the process right, we've got to get the bedrock right.

Speaker 1:

So I think for me, the, the challenge we made was it wasn't marketed right. So government came in, said you're going to do this, it's. It looks like a complex process, brother and um, it took the industry a little while to work out. Actually it's not. It's relatively straightforward, um. So yeah, in terms of the horse and the and the night, it was probably um, quite a few children all on the horse, all fighting about what it all meant meant at the same time as trying to roll it out to the industry. So I think that's probably where it so the process, I think, is it stands true and it's still used today.

Speaker 1:

I think it was just the way it was rolled out was probably the bit that we learned lessons from, and now looking at the work that we do in America or Australia or Canada from, and now looking at the work that we do in america or australia or canada. You know we're trying to take the best bits of what is now a mature process in the uk and implement it in a relatively simple, less complex methodology around, you know, rolling it out, which has worked really well. So they have less baggage around the complexity of the, of the standards and and more energy around driving value through. What is it? What is ultimately a great process. So, yeah, it's quite an interesting one, do you?

Speaker 2:

think that ai you mentioned about ai do you think that ai will simplify bim? Do you think that there could be a connection or a bridge that's made?

Speaker 1:

there? Yeah, 100%, I think, just in terms of manipulating, managing, understanding complex data, I think there's a huge amount that can be done. Then I actually think AI has got a chance to redefine a lot of the sort of process and administrative non-creative tasks that we do. So you're talking about the repetitive. Yeah, absolutely. We'll see the biggest value in making sure that we've got more opportunity to be more creative, to be, you know, able to think, to make, to problem solve.

Speaker 1:

I think in taking out a lot of the repetitive tasks that can be automated and spending more time in the sort of creative space around problem solving, I think, is where is where the biggest opportunity is.

Speaker 1:

And then, I think, making sense of rubbish data. Ai has a much better chance of doing that than what we've been trying to do for the last 15 years within construction. So, from an asset management perspective, facilities management perspective, there's been a huge gap in quality data, which has held organizations back from managing their buildings most effectively. It takes a lot of time, money emphasis, energy to get all of that data in the right structured way, whereas now, actually, with AI, you could look at it the other way, where you can start sorting, start and categorizing, start tagging and fairly poor quality information into something that is a bit more structured, and so I think there's there's opportunity there to like take out some of that, um, grunt work, if you like, to make sure that we can then manage buildings more effectively as well do you think there's a risk in doing any of this that's going to be related to people's jobs or quality of building something that's hidden or lurking somewhere that gives you a worry?

Speaker 1:

so I love the quote um, your job's not going to get taken by ai, it's going to get taken by someone who knows how to use AI. So I think I definitely agree with that. I think everybody has to get on this bandwagon, has to understand it. The point of entry for AI is so much lower than it was for, say, bim and understanding BIM. So I think we need to get everyone utilising it.

Speaker 1:

I think at the moment we're in this sort of area where there's a lot of expectation that it's going to solve everything and I think that will sort of slowly mature into something around an understanding of what it can do.

Speaker 1:

So I don't think it's going to take jobs. I think there's a risk around the expectation side of things and just trying to do too much too quickly. And then it's an interesting point around quality of design, quality, because I you can see even quality of written work in terms of reports. As you know, ai taken that over. I think we're gonna quite quickly get to a point where people realize when someone's put some real thought into something and they may have started with a chat, gpt report, but they're prompting their ability to use research, the ability to use agents, the ability to go back and circular and use that as a way of driving better value rather than just doing stuff quickly. I think we're going to quite quickly see good reports and bad reports that are just written with AI. So I think again it's that point about humans who know how to use AI are going to be the ones that succeed, and that is that interplay between using it as a tool rather than using it to do a job.

Speaker 2:

And just going back to the point you made before with reference to leaving the human to do the creative bit, I think that that's where the AI, with the human, actually increases the capability and capacity of creative, not just thinking, but also application. Is that joint force as opposed to, and that joint force adds value as opposed to the. I just want something done this quick because it improves my margins. I think that that will stand out like a sore thumb for sure, because both are trying to improve your margins, add more value, improve your margins as a you know. I think that that, yeah, will stand out like a sore thumb for sure, because those are trying to improve your margins. Add more value, improve your margins. Just do it quicker. Yeah, improve your margins.

Speaker 1:

One of them is more sustainable than the other yeah, I think we've got a research project at the moment knowledge transfer partnership at the moment where we are looking at AI and non-design tasks.

Speaker 1:

So you know, whether it's supporting proposals, whether it's managing financial tasks, whether it's managing information filing and document control, and you know all of the stuff that is outside of the creative process is outside of the creative process.

Speaker 1:

That's where we're trying to focus, where I ai fits in, because if you can do that part of the process quicker and and um and more efficiently, you can spend more time. So it's doing more with more with the same, ultimately, is what we're trying to, is what we're trying to strive towards, and I think you will see that that curve almost happen at the minute, um around around those sorts of elements, because you, because that that craft of being able to design a building or being able to control you know how that that process of building is is not going to go away and it's not going to get replaced. So it's like, how do you maximize or optimize that part of it? By taking away a lot of the burden of, of administration and the like. I I guess the the challenge is always going to be new, shiny stuff to play with versus, you know getting on with, you know the important stuff.

Speaker 2:

I suppose it is where do you see the future of the construction industry then, when it comes to the mix of AI, sustainability, climate change, increase in prices, issues potentially with workforce we had a conversation earlier on to say about how the world and how people have changed because of the likes of teams and how that's related to covid. So when you put all that mixed together, what, what do you think the future looks like for you?

Speaker 1:

I think it's a really interesting question and it's a massive question as well, isn't it? In the sense of I? Um, you can already see where people are using technology to improve quality and, and that could be with a human interaction, it could be with robots, it could be built off-site, it could be, and all of those things are going to play a part in what we do. I think we're going to gain a massive understanding of um the sustainability side of things. So energy, so operational carbon, um embodied carbon, that understanding of, product, of, of um mep solutions, of you know it's going to just grow and grow and grow and and they're going to be more and more uh opportunities to specify products or specify methodologies that reduce output, carbon output in buildings, which is going to be very important moving forward, I think, and that will build into retrofit, refurb of the existing building stock as well as the new building stock. I think we've got a way to go with regards to understanding help people use buildings versus collecting data on them.

Speaker 1:

So a lot of my PhD was all about you know. We design a building. How is it then used? It's probably used very differently to the way it was designed or the way it was emphasized, people use informal meeting spaces a lot more than they do in a design. You know you have meeting rooms that everyone complains that they can't get into, but that you know there's an awful lot of activity happening in an awful lot of different areas within buildings and that's just one example. You know there's all sorts of different examples of how people actually use a building once they're in it. So I think there's a bit of a disconnect there at the minute.

Speaker 1:

If you look at smart buildings at the minute, it all about throwing tech at it. It's all about getting um, taking the autonomy away from the user. As soon as you take autonomy away from opening windows, some people feel cold, some people feel hot. You know you can't. You can't succeed with regards to sort of taking that autonomy away.

Speaker 1:

So I think there's a bit of understanding there happening um, and I just think all of that will improve over time and we'll get slowly get closer and closer to, you know, great buildings that are energy efficient, net zero, you know, and are making the right impact on the world. We're talking about the rise of AI but at the same time, knowing that how much water that uses to cool the data centers it's using how much energy it uses. Now, energy is probably a relatively straightforward solution, in the sense that you use solar or wind or renewables to make that work. Water is another interesting one around. How do we look at novel ways of cooling that make it easier? So there's a huge amount of stuff going on here that we kind of just add layers and then it's like we've got to think about the whole proposition, I suppose, in order to make it work.

Speaker 2:

So I think we'll slowly and cyclically work towards better solutions, but I think it's going to take a long time are you familiar with that story that, um, when, um, the uk had colonized, uh, india, um, there was a an issue with the cobra snakes biting people. Have you heard this? Have you heard the story before? Okay, so the story. So the story is. It's posed as a true story. Whether it is true or not, I don't know, but I like the story.

Speaker 2:

So the British are out in India and they're being plagued by these snakes, by these cobras, and so what they decide to do is incentivize the locals to catch these snakes and bring the snakes to them and exchange it for money. Great, so that's what happens. The locals then think this is really good, I can start breeding these snakes and I can get a really good income. So they set up these farms, hidden away from the British, that are paying them the money for catching in inverted commas these snakes. The British then get wind of these farms that had been set up and it's like no, that's not what we wanted. So they say, right, the deal's off, we're no longer giving you money for snakes. And everyone that has created these snake farms like, okay, then we'll just let the snakes go. So all the snakes go off into the wild.

Speaker 2:

So what started off, as this is what we're trying to do to solve a problem, yeah, inadvertently turn into making the problem worse? Yeah, and I do think that that's what we do in the industry a lot, especially when we hone in on carbon, is it? And just get really, really fixated on that. One thing is we just create another problem. Yep, further down the line. Do you think or have you thought of that concept before, and is there a? Okay, let's zoom out, let's look at this. This is what the bigger problem is, so that we're not inadvertently creating the proverbial snake farm.

Speaker 1:

I think you perpetually think about it in the sort of line of work that um, that I, that we do within okana. I think you know you're constantly thinking about, um, that sort of strategic transformation of of what's uh, what the industry is, how the industry is reacting, how it industry is reacting, how it's working. I think it's a really interesting story and you can immediately look at modern methods of construction and off-site housing. There's been a number of high-profile cases of large factories going under because they have solved the problem of building the house but then they haven't solved the problem of the supply chain, of getting it out, planning, you know land, all of the other side of things around that you know, getting to a point where they can sell enough houses to make enough money to keep this factory running. So you know, that's again just one small example of what's there. So I think, in terms of levers, in terms of taking a step back, in terms of looking at how we drive better solutions, I think we do a really bad job of learning from best practice. So we just continually kind of reinvent the wheel or we continue to think something's a good idea without looking at different propositions in different places around the world and I think there's a huge opportunity to look at best practice globally and really start to understand what works, what doesn't, you know, and really start to provide a bit more of an emphasis around that trickle-down effect of you know, if you set the right levers, the right policies, then you're going to be able to drive this through.

Speaker 1:

You know, another example of certainly in the UK, without getting too political, is you know, we have a great ambition of driving large-scale programs, whether it's a new hospital program, whether it's HS2, whether it's, you know, resur, pneumocular. Yeah, we perpetually pause them and perpetually try and do a rethink or reinvent. You know, the new hospital program that I'm quite familiar with. You know, they're constantly at the minute trying to look through how we develop the hospital 2.0, which is a kit of parts. Then, you know, the ambition is fantastic but we're constantly um trying to work through and delaying um the projects which then the original budget isn't enough because of the levers within the world, around inflation and around costs around. So you're constantly chasing this here's your budget, here's the cost now, as you delay these projects.

Speaker 1:

And I think if we can find stuff that enables us to provide momentum, that's the most effective and for me, momentum is the key to everything, certainly in productivity terms, and if we look at productivity graphs in construction, which is well renowned as well, that we haven't, we're just above agriculture and we've missed out on everything else. Productivity, for me, is momentum. So if we can find ways of gaining momentum which is easy for me to say, hard to do I think we'd be in a much better place, and I think that's where you've got to zoom out, look at the levers and then drive from there. But if we can get momentum, then a lot of the problems would certainly go away mmm, that's an interesting thought, on momentum especially.

Speaker 2:

I've mentioned quite a few times on the podcast that the downside of a democratic electorate system that we have at the moment is that politicians are only forced to look at things within a five-year window. Yep, because all they're interested in doing is positioning themselves so that they can be re-elected for the next term, and it and it's not pointing a finger at any one person or any one party, it's just it's across the board and it happens in every democratic society. But I think, in order for with these large scale operations, they're going to be across multiple terms of leadership. So, yeah, I've not yet worked out or even come up with an idea of how to how to transcend that. When you talk about having things trickle down, when you pull these levers of actually how that like a sensible suggestion of how that could actually happen I think it.

Speaker 1:

For me it um. It takes really strong leadership to bring in other parties. But cross-party groups that look at huge challenges is the only way we're going to do it, Because as soon as we take it out of politics and make it about all views so the NHS, one of the biggest challenges the UK has and also one of the biggest strengths you can't make that political. You shouldn't, in my mind. You should cross-party it, so it doesn't matter who is in charge at the time. There is a 50-year plan around the NHS and its facilities, which there's a £9 billion backlog in facilities maintenance within nhs. That's not going to be solved in the next five years in one term of a party or even two terms. You've just got to look longer term and the only way you do that is by by creating cross-party groups. Certainly, but I think.

Speaker 2:

The thing that I see, though, is whatever goes across that term, so, whether it's nhs, whether it's infrastructure, whether it's power, whatever it is, it goes across that, and then it becomes a political football, or a lever or a rod, or whatever, because there are groups of people that think how much is this costing? No, we should put that money into there. And then the party will say, well, that's really good. Yeah, we won't do that, we'll do this instead. Yeah, and so it just becomes that. It becomes that football, because the numbers become headlines. Yeah, as opposed to, this is an investment and this is what we're going to get at the end of it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's really challenging.

Speaker 2:

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I don't see a pathway.

Speaker 1:

We've got to find a way of taking longer-term views on things, and I think that's the only way you can do it. And then it's looking at the greater good or for the benefit of the uk. In that instance, you know, if we look at it through that lens, we've got a better opportunity to get there. But it's not easy because, because of the world that we live in now, it's hard to take long-term view because memory is shorter, information overload, you know there's only so much we can, you know, put in place. So it's it's. It's very challenging, but we have to think about how we take longer-term views in order to maximize some of these hugely ambitious, brilliant projects.

Speaker 2:

But they just you've got to take that over to view or this never happened you made reference to not learning lessons from the past and I'm wondering have you thought much about stretching that concept to learning lessons from other industries? So I'll give you an example um, kodak don't exist anymore because they've just been taken out completely by the smartphone market, which was started by apple, yeah. Um, do you think there's a lesson there that the construction industry can learn? Yes, do you think that we do that or do you think that we could do that? I'm talking here private institutions, here within the industry, as opposed to, you know, legislation being mandated or compliance or anything like that.

Speaker 1:

I absolutely think we can, and but I also think it's impossible to predict what's gonna win out. So for years we've talked about this. You know the high-profile case of Katira, for instance, which and we've been taught for years that Amazon and Google are going to take over the construction industry and it, you know, it hasn't happened for various reasons. Katera was the all singing, all dancing. This is it's a technology company, not a construction company, you know, and it went pop because you know they got. They either misunderstood what the construction industry is, or they just got their market wrong, or there wasn't the supply chain and the levers to allow them to do it. So I think there is swathes of technology and companies and finance that are already looking at various different ways of winning out in this.

Speaker 1:

It's impossible to predict where that um comes from. You know, the other classic is blockbuster versus netflix or love film at a time, yeah, and and you, no one could have predicted at a time where that was going to go. And I think, um, we've got to just continually push the curiosity and absolutely learning lessons from other parts of other industries in order to maximize the opportunity to make drives towards different ways of doing things. And then I think the flip side of that is understanding the landscape of construction and why the way it is. So the long tail, the number of one-person bands, two-person bands, the number of very small architectural practices, the number of very small supply chain, the very few tier one contractors in various different markets, you know, and that that the, the craft is in individuals of how we build and the money is in very few. And it's like how do they interplay and how do they interrelate and how do you?

Speaker 1:

You can't take these out. It's sure, time and time again with MMC, with Cotero, with, you know, legal and general, when they did their modular homes, that went bust as well. That's been tried and tested a number of times and failed. You can't take out this craft. So how do you elevate that craft to make better solutions about what we're doing? And I think that's the bit we need to kind of continually learn lessons from other industries, be curious about what we're doing, and I think that's the bit we need to kind of continually learn lessons from other industries, be curious about what we're doing, learn lessons from the past, when, when it's worked, when it hasn't, um, and just strive for, for better, I suppose, and in in general and that, and then, if we're doing that as a collective, we've got an opportunity so the word, uh, collaboration is, in my opinion, overused, but there's an approach that you appear to have which appears to be more authentic and genuine than than the other kind of versions of collaboration.

Speaker 2:

I think, kind of the reason I think is overused is because it's a bit disingenuous, I think, when, when sometimes people use the word collaboration. But I think you've kind of got a little bit of a different yeah, I think things.

Speaker 1:

So okada was born um, out of two initiatives ultimately bim academy, which was a, which was a digital construction consultancy. That was um, which was founded by northumbria university, and rider architecture 5050 joint venture. Let's see where this goes, the industry's changing. That grew up. I joined a couple of years after it started. That grew up into delivering some amazing projects around the world for Sydney Opera House, bmw, lego, royal Household, in digital construction, in BIM and and training, which is where the name came from um. So that grew up.

Speaker 1:

At the same time as doing that, we had this, what we called the rider alliance, which was an alliance of organizations around the world that shared values, became mates, wanted to do stuff together, happened to be in different regions and different places, and so both of those are 15 years old. We relaunched as O'Connor June last year and combined those two together. So you had the digital consultancy, which also then by that time, had got sustainability consultancy in it, placemaking, safety. We'd sort of grown up anyway. We joined that with this community that had been going for 15 years of people who genuinely liked working together and wanted to share and never wanted to grow and understood that reciprocating meant that they could get better value, not just in terms of cash, but in terms of learning from others, in terms of driving out.

Speaker 2:

So the whole outcome as opposed to just the financial outcome.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, and ultimately about learning from others and about enjoyment of working together, and I think that's what we've tried to harness. And it doesn't happen overnight. So you, you know there's people in that community that we now have that have been there for 15 years, you know that continue to work in them with, of course, we bring in new members and new people that you know we think are doing interesting things or, you know, got a really interesting niche part of the industry that they're focused on and are best in class or are, you know, driving the market in different ways. But the real interesting challenge from for me has been about how you um build cohesion around fairly diverse mindsets and and different parts of the industry and different parts of work. Now, place shaping and how we manage master plan, urban design kind of glues a lot of that together. Certainly, sustainability, landscape design, master planning and digital AI all feed into that. So that has helped in terms of the lens there.

Speaker 1:

And then the other thing was a real desire to do things a bit differently. So there are some big multinational, multidisciplinary organizations that we all know and all love, and you know some people that you know I've worked with over the last 20 years. Some of the smartest people in the in the world work at those, at those practices, um, but they are relatively bureaucratic, relatively slow um you. A lot of clients tell us they don't enjoy the process of working with those large, multidisciplinary organizations because of, because of how slow and sort of hard they are to move and because you get who's available rather than those great people some of those great people that were there um, and so we wanted to do something different that was agile, was flexible.

Speaker 1:

By having a number of different people and organizations working on the same project, you can um be more flexible and more agile. Within that, you have to be more focused because you have less capacity, um, but you have less of a machine to feed as well, because everyone's doing their own work as well as combining. So it's built on that effectively. Shared values, um, shared desire to change what we do, which is where let's shape tomorrow comes from. It's ultimately about that shared value of wanting to change how we do it and enjoyment of working together and being able to share knowledge, share best practice, share what we do with a wider audience across the world. So I think that's hopefully what comes across as authentic and genuine, because that's what it's all about, and it's really not about sort of driving the bottom line. It's about you know how do we make this better, because everyone's, you know, feeding their own machine so we can be a little bit more focused about what we go after.

Speaker 2:

I mean, how long has that organization been going?

Speaker 1:

you say 18 months so yeah, so june last year is when okana started started, which is the consultancy arm and this community sort of combined together, but then it's built off 15 years of these other two initiatives that sort of came together and where do you see the future of that?

Speaker 2:

What is the overall objective? Because it doesn't sound like you want to be a large multidisciplinary consultancy to be a large, multidisciplinary consultancy.

Speaker 1:

No, I would love it if we could organically grow as a built environment consultancy in our own right that delivers the services that we deliver but then broadens our reach with regards to who the partners are and bringing in partners that are genuinely at the top of their game with regards to how they're driving the industry. And they could be relatively small one, two person teams or relatively big multidisciplinary teams, but they all have this sort of desire to do things a bit differently. I think. For me, it's about organically growing both of those and um. Effectively proving the model on projects I guess is is the key driver.

Speaker 2:

Um, if we can do that, then, um, you know, we'll succeed, succeed good, good, when we had our kind of pre-podcast chat, I gave you this, this image and this concept of, if I cut you into what would be the, what would be the words written inside so, start of my career, the passion was all about how we maximize, uh, efficiency of buildings that have been built, both from a sustainability and digital data perspective.

Speaker 1:

Um, and you know, that's where you know I I joined bim academy 2013. Nine months later, we won a job with the sydney opera house, you know, and it and it's shaped my career, uh, today, and it and it shaped my passion around managing great buildings, um, and so there's that side of it, and then there's the sort of other side, which is managing a company that is trying to do things differently. Um, and I suppose that that is the interest, focus, drive, energy at the moment is it is around, um, all right, how do we, how do we do great work, bring great value and bring people along for the journey at the same time? So it's I think it was those, it's those two things, if I remember so the two separate skills?

Speaker 2:

yeah, aren't they? One of them is more um, technical, um, when it comes to elements that can be acted upon, and what I mean by that is if you've got something that is made of wood or crafted of steel, you tell it what to do and it does it. And then you've got other people, which are made up of lots of moving parts, that you tell them to do something and they maybe don't understand you or maybe don't want to do it, or whatever. So how do you balance those two very different skill sets in order to have that passion inside of you?

Speaker 1:

So I think the first thing I'd say was, although it's technical, I think what I learned really early on was, unless you bring the people along on that journey of transformation, which is ultimately what you're talking about, when you take something like the Opera House, which is does 1800 shows a year, it's got six different venues within it, you know, doesn't know quite what its power output is, so brings in generators all the time to make sure that they've got enough energy so that they don't um, there's no, there's no blackout during a performance. And you know there's this whirlpool that's constantly going on and people are trying to, you know, because they love it and they do, you know they're trying to get it all moving all at the same time. You're trying to get them from that. Take a step back out of the whirlpool, make it, make positive changes that make with the data that they've got to make. So it's all about the people still for me, in that, in that sense, you're just doing it, you're wrapping it in a technical layer, I suppose. So you've got to bring the people along. So we talk about culture eats strategy for breakfast. You know, um a lot, which is the peter trucker or a a sort of uh abbreviation of what peter trucker said um, so it is all about the people.

Speaker 1:

Still, although you know it's got a technical layer, um, I think you, for me, I'm constantly learning um about that management of people within the organization, people within the community.

Speaker 1:

You know collaborators outside of that, you know clients.

Speaker 1:

You know, you're absolutely right, it's just a melting pot of interesting opinions, diverse thought and I just I think you just got to stay curious, be empathetic and just understand everyone's trying to do something for a particular reason and generally it's about doing better for whatever, whether it's a building, whether it's a project, whether it's, you know, a company, and trust that people are doing it for the right reasons and then, if we can do that, we've got a chance to make things work. I think you know the challenge is and I'm still, you know, relatively new at this I think when I look back in 10 years, you know I've learned even more. But it's about it's just about remaining you, remaining in open-minded, that growth mindset around what we're doing, and I genuinely shaped through that technical wrapper. But you know you learn pretty early on that if you tell someone that you, by changing to led light bulbs, you're going to stop the guy from having to change all the light bulbs if you tell him that he's going to think well, what am I going to do? Where's my job?

Speaker 1:

you know, whereas if you take them along for the journey and say, actually if you're um, you know you can broaden your skill sets away from just replacing light bulbs to then start maintaining other elements, you know you're taking them in that transformation journey around understanding, and so that taught me pretty early on that you have to take people along whatever you're doing, you know. So I think it's relatively similar.

Speaker 2:

Where did you learn that from? Because this is not something. What you're talking about here is not something you're born with.

Speaker 1:

It's always collective experience. You know from playing sport in the past and understanding. You know, just being around lots of different people and lots of different ways of doing it and understanding success and failure pretty early on. You know, and what that does. And then it's all collective experience through university I was, you know, I was at university for longer than most people through the undergrad and then PhD. Phd was really helpful because you basically just get to talk to people and think about a proposition and a challenge. So you get to really sort of challenge your own thoughts around what you're trying to say and why you're thinking it and then going through what we do now and what I was doing back then in 2013 when I did the opera house work. You get mentors along the way, you get people that tell you where it sits and you just I think you just stay open-minded and listen and if you can do that which is what I think I've done reasonably well at you just learn along the way. That's what people take best from what people tell you.

Speaker 2:

If you're talking to someone that has just come out of university, looking to have a career where they will have management or oversight of a team, what advice would you give them from a, from a starting point, don't be in a hurry.

Speaker 1:

Too many people just want to get to the top straight away. Instagram, tiktok, generation of all these business people that are like immediately billionaires and it's not reality for most of us. There are some that get lucky, which is great, but go and do those different things. Go and broaden your worldview of what you're doing. Travel, go and work for different companies. Go and do those different things you know. Go and broaden your, your worldview of what you're doing. Travel, you know. Go and work for different companies. Go and do different things.

Speaker 1:

Go and understand different projects, different ways of doing, different mindsets, different cultures, because only by doing that does that collective experience allow you to sort of drive through in your own thought process and in the way that you can authentically manage people. That would be my, my point of view and my advice, I guess is, is just don't. Don't just go. Don't look for that, look at squiggly careers or look at like ups and downs. You know, some of the best people I've worked with have done all sorts of different things over time, you know, and I think that's it's so important, because it just gives you such a different perspective than someone who's just on one path and helps you just decipher what you want to do as well, I think the more we could open our mindset and the more that we can be curious about what we're doing and always ask why. I think if we can do that more, I think we'll be in a great place. I agree.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there was some. I don't know if he's classed as a motivational speaker or what he is, but a guy called Tony Robbins I'm sure you know him.

Speaker 2:

He gave an account once where he had managed to help this person stop smoking and, um, he saw this person again, however, many years later, and this guy came back and said I'm back on the cigarettes now.

Speaker 2:

What you said didn't work. It didn't work and started then ranting on him and, and he said his initial reaction was to go on the attack and say you're responsible for what you do, it's not my fault that you're back smoking. But he said here's an opportunity here for me just to learn and just to get curious. And because I get curious, I can then understand another perspective which can help me in something that I haven't even thought of. And so it was that first, the first time I listened to that story from Tony Robbins, I thought actually, all information is is an invitation to learn, and then you can take that learning and go and improve something somewhere. And sometime that learning is is in the form of a rant, sometimes it's in form of whatever you're seeing on a screen, but when someone's presenting you with something, just Darren, just be open, graham, just be open, just learn.

Speaker 1:

And I think that's where I totally agree. I think that's where we're all guilty of reacting or responding to everything immediately, because we're just bombarded with information all the time now, right, whether it's teams, whether it's whatsapp, whether it's emails, whether it's and you, you're constantly just reacting. And I think the more we can take a little bit of a step back and like, take time to think about these things that don't need think, don't need an immediate reaction, the better. The better we can respond, the better we can teach, the better we can respond, the better we can teach, the better we can learn.

Speaker 2:

And that's what we did when we were younger, right, when we were children. We just, oh, I wonder what happens if you do this. Yeah, I wonder what happens if you do that. Just constantly just micro experiments.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I tell my kids all the time. It's like, why aren't you listening to me? Then you have to think. Think, well, they're just trying, right, they're just trying it. It's like I know that that's wrong, but they don't, so they need to learn it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I get it. I get it, it's all the same, that's good, good. Well, graham, it's been great having you on the show, appreciate your, your wisdom, your perspective, and I also appreciate you doing what your mum said and going to do that PhD instead of hanging out on the ski slopes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I do most of the time. No, thank you for having me. It's been brilliant. Thanks very much, good.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for watching to the end. I think that you'll like this. But before you do that, just make sure that you've commented and liked below and also that you subscribe.