Failure to change – and the lessons we can learn

Change management is one of the biggest hurdles that everybody faces. This can be in their personal life and their business life. We make many thousands of decisions every day, and as humans, we are creatures of habit. Doing what we know makes us feel comfortable. Most people are risk averse.

In construction, this mentally is magnified because of the way we are educated in a 'passed down' manner. Apprentices and newcomers are trained by our expert tradesmen, and they were trained by those before them. Nobody wants to be different, and the industry is rife with casual bullying for anyone bold enough to do something different. I saw a guy get a load of grief at break time because he had a red hard hat....

When I explain to people outside of construction how a project is typically managed, they wonder how anything ever gets built. Disjointed teams, remote workers and poor information flow has plagued the industry for as long as I can remember. And the change is slow....

Taking a step back, one of my favourite cases of change failure is the story of Blockbuster Video - a company who failed to see the writing on the wall, failed to see a genuine opportunity and added itself to the history books. Here was a company that was by far the market leader - globally! And 2nd place was not even close. Their attitude was borderline arrogant given their dominance.

They failed to see the threat of new disruptive companies like Netflix, who at the time were struggling to establish themselves. So much so, that Netflix approached Blockbuster for an acquisition that would see the brands merged and Netflix renamed to Blockbuster.com for just $50m. Today Netflix has a revenue of $24 billion. And Blockbuster is just a memory.

Construction will face a similar revolution. BIM (Building Information Modelling) is fast becoming the new way of doing things, and most companies are yet to start their digital journey, finding clients who still work the 'old way' - but times are changing. Clients are starting to see the benefits of working in a new technological world, time and cost savings, accurate records, real-time data to improve decision making and better ways of managing a remote workforce. Until now, it is something that has only been available to the elite companies with the deep pockets. But the last few years have seen the emergence of tech disruptors like Fonn who are aiming to target those construction companies who want to change, but do not know where to start.

Fonn features a unique award-winning user interface designed for ease of use by EVERYONE involved with a project. It is totally cloud based, with minimal hardware requirements, a native iOS and Android app that works even when your team is offline and a shed load of features to help take your projects from chaos to control. One monthly fee, for unlimited projects, users, and files. Our expert team has vast experience in implementing this solution into all construction companies regardless of thier tech experience.