The majority of large projects now involve an amalgam of owners, contractors and employees. As with mergers (the majority of which lose value for the acquiring company), the success of joint ventures rests heavily on the establishment of trust. It is tough enough to embed trust in a single company with employed staff but when working across mixed ownership, outsourced project management and staffing, this challenge is immense.

Brain research tells us that our capacity to think clearly and relate effectively depends on the thalamus (set in the mammalian "emotional and relationship" part of the tribune brain) sensing in a nanosecond, below our conscious awareness, that the input we are receiving is authentic, safe and familiar. Having people think clearly and relate effectively is crucial for the success of all projects.

In my experience, if conflict arises, attempts to resolve it are often left too late, by which time discord and distrust are fife and the relationship too disrupted to be recovered.

A more recent approach has been to build relationships at the beginning of joint ventures to help all parties build authentic, safe relationships based on knowledge of self and others (intimacy), a shared language, shared expectations and shared vision of the task ahead. When this happens, real breakthrough is possible.

When all parties are committed to building transparent, authentic relationships, everyone concerned can start to release their true potential for personal and common good. The economic value of this is huge.

Budgets and time lines are met or undershot, creative problem solving is the norm and people learn and grow at a rate that often surprises them. In short, the owners win, the contractors win, staff wins, and everybody has more fun.

Technically trained people often think that the secret to success in huge engineering projects is the quality of the engineering. However, good engineering in itself is not enough. Quality relationships not only allow us to think well enough to do our best technically, but they also ensure that we share and understand the expectations of all parties, reveal in timely manner necessary information and boundary constraints and own up to problems and mistakes early enough for them to be solved.

Moreover, when breakthrough is required, the courage to take a risk becomes paramount. We know from neuroscience that courage flourishes in environments of trust, authenticity and emotional safety. Building such cultures is an area of social engineering which is becoming increasingly critical for success in joint ventures.


A version of this article was published in Engineering Australia, January, 2010.