Are you working in a high-performing team? Can you afford not to be?

There is so much talk about productivity at the moment. Governments are asking: How can we raise productivity growth? Businesses are asking: What can we do to make our people more productive? Both are asking about productivity, but they are looking at it from completely different angles.

Government sees productivity growth as a key indicator of rising living standards across the population. Businesses see productivity growth as a key driver of profitability.

What is productivity?

Before we go any further, what is productivity? Simply, it is a measurement of how many units of output are produced per unit of input. The current focus is on labour hours/cost vs. the value of goods or services produced.

The challenge for a modern services economy is that the value of services produced vs. the labour costs is not so easily measurable. Productivity is somewhat intangible for service industries. So how then can it be measured and improved? The short answer: not easily.

Proposals currently on the table include:

• Tax reform – purported by businesses to incentivise investment in capacity building and productivity-improving technologies.

• 4-day work week – promoted by labour unions as a way to increase workforce productivity through a happier workforce; though ironically, it could increase labour costs per hour worked (through fewer hours).

• Cutting red tape – pushed by developers and investors to make it easier to bring projects to market more quickly.

These measures might help productivity, but they are also being driven by vested interests to advance their own aims. What if the answer is none of the above?

Firefighting and old-school thinking

Having worked across numerous businesses in the construction and engineering sector, I see wasted productivity daily: inefficient processes, staff near burnout, firefighting the latest crisis, unnecessary meetings, and general frustration all round.

Over time, the size of teams needed to deliver projects has grown significantly. Projects now have 3–4 times the number of engineers but are still delivering the same outcomes. It’s easy to point the finger at the ever-increasing bureaucracy and compliance requirements of government agencies. The truth, however, is that many of the issues come back to outdated thinking around ways of working.

From my perspective, businesses can solve a lot of these efficiency problems themselves without lobbying government to reduce bureaucracy and red tape. They can do this by implementing a strengths-based culture.

In a strengths-based culture, employees work in roles aligned with their unique combination of talents. Gallup’s research shows that when people use their strengths on a daily basis, they are more energised — and thus more productive. This is because using your natural strengths energises you, while forcing yourself into areas that don’t come naturally drains you.

The problem is that we still shoehorn people into rigid roles as part of the pre-defined career progression of the construction industry: Graduate, Site Engineer, Project Engineer, Senior Project Engineer, Project Manager, Senior Project Manager, Construction Manager, Project Director, etc.

Those who don’t fit the rigid expectations of what a role “should” look like inevitably get stuck in their careers and move on. Sure, some people may not be suited to your organisation, or construction generally, but through a strengths-based lens there was probably a role in the organisation where they could have operated at their best for longer.

How do things look in your business?

Take a moment to think about the project you are currently working on. Who is frustrated? Who is a fish out of water? What are you struggling with daily? You’ll likely find that the reason for these struggles is that the person is not using their strengths in those situations.

Think about the person who complains about attending company updates – they likely aren’t inspired by the big picture or the future (Strategic Thinking themes) and instead prefer delivering (Executing themes).

What about the person who loves following the processes and procedures of construction (strange as that may seem to me)? This person likely has Consistency and Discipline as strengths. The same person may fall apart when the foreman walks in and drops a significant issue on the table because it breaks the plan. Meanwhile, another person in the team may light up at hearing about this problem and jump straight into problem-solving mode (Adaptability, Restorative, or Analytical as strengths).

I expect I’m not telling you anything new here. You probably know intuitively the things each team member is good at. The problem, however, with the current paradigm is we try to make the disciplined person more adaptable, and the adaptable person more disciplined. Why? We all know you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole, yet we do it constantly with our people.

Applying a strengths-based culture can improve productivity

How about instead we put all our people through the CliftonStrengths assessment and connect each person with what they are naturally great at? Tailoring the roles of your team around their strengths will unlock the research-backed productivity gains of a strengths-based culture.

Imagine this scenario: the foreman walks in with a major issue. Your problem-solving engineer jumps straight into solutions, speaking to designers, suppliers, etc. Once a solution is agreed, the problem-solving engineer hands things off to the process-and-procedures engineer for documentation. If both are working in line with their strengths, both will be energised by this. Over time, they will also learn to appreciate and respect each other for doing the things they themselves don’t enjoy.

This is just one small example of how a strengths-based approach to building roles in a team can maximise the potential of each person. Adopting this approach also builds a team of highly autonomous, efficient, but interdependent people.

This is quite a change from the typical approach of “Engineer A looks after services, Engineer B looks after structural steel, Engineer C looks after fit-out.” In that typical model, engineers are forced to draw on a wider variety of strengths, which drains them over time.

In the strengths-based scenario, it looks more like this: Engineer A looks after procurement and cost control, Engineer B looks after QA, Engineer C looks after planning, scheduling, and on-site construction. In this setup, engineers are highly interdependent for success. Because they are specialised, they are more productive and efficient. But most importantly, because they are working in line with their strengths, they are energised and thriving in their roles.

“But my business is different – we need to wear many hats.”

Managers may push back on this approach, particularly in small to medium construction businesses where staff tend to wear many different hats. Due to staffing levels, this may always be a requirement. Even so, these organisations will still benefit from realigning roles to suit strengths as much as possible.

Everyone thinks their organisation is unique and special. But the truth is, businesses are much more similar than they are different. For the most part, your business will be just another construction or engineering firm. Which isn’t a bad thing; it means you can learn from what others in your sector (and beyond) are doing to lift performance.

Conclusion

There’s a lot of talk about improving productivity across the workforce. My view is that productivity can be improved at the business level by implementing a strengths-based culture.

A strengths-based culture connects people with their natural talents and abilities. It tailors roles around those strengths to maximise the potential of teams. When people use their strengths daily, they are energised – which improves engagement and helps people thrive in their roles.

If you are struggling with staff recruitment, development, retention, or productivity, the CliftonStrengths framework is the answer. Start with yourself and one of your teams. See the results, and I guarantee you’ll want to roll it out across the entire business.