Turbo Leadership Systems^™

My success is building on your success

Jerry, the senior project manager for one of Oregon's Top 10 general contractors, told Session 4 of the Leadership Development Lab:

"In 1992 we started a $33 million project, Building #8, for Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis, the largest contract our company had ever tackled. I was the Project Manager. Working on a project of this size brings with it a large, diversified group of people who are very strong in their own way of doing business. We were a group with lots of chiefs and not many Indians. To bring this powerful group together, we needed help.

"We hired Larry W. Dennis, Sr., President of Turbo Leadership Systems, to facilitate a Partnering session to help break down the natural barrier to teamwork required for success. The Partnering meeting was made up of a diverse group, including myself, half a dozen managers from Hewlett-Packard, and over thirty managers from our key subcontractors.

"The Building #8 project was a great success as symbolized by the plaque Hewlett-Packard gave our company, which we hang with pride in our office entrance. We have acquired a collection of these plaques since.

"Time doesn't allow for me to fully communicate all of the helpful benefits 'partnering' brought to the project. Larry presented many provocative ideas. You could have heard a pin drop when he said, 'No one in this room can succeed without everyone in the room succeeding.'

"WOW!!! The room came to a dead stop as the message sank in - NO ONE CAN BE A SUCCESS WITHOUT EVERYONE BEING A SUCCESS. We were no longer a gang of unrelated organizations out to do what was best for our own company at the expense of others. The truth sunk in - our success was dependent on everyone else's success. WOW!!! It hit us like a ton of bricks. You mean the subcontractor putting in the ductwork can't get his work done at the expense of the electrician's progress

because the fans won't run without the electrician also being on time.

"Dane did a masterful job of turning conceptual descriptions of the projects into a project budget. Would he have been seen as successful if I did not manage the field operations and expenditures within those budgets?

"MY SUCCESS IS TIED TO YOUR SUCCESS!!!!!! WOW!!!!!! What an important message!!! I could see attitudes change right before my eyes. We're not competing with each other to try to be the successful; we're on the same team. We must succeed together.

"The lesson I learned from this experience is that when I contrast my personal successes - graduation from college, advancements in my career, and the achievement of other personal goals - I realize that my team successes have a special meaning, a quality that is magnified beyond any of my individual successes. Partnering taught me the value of team success and the importance of building consensus with those whose support I need to be successful.

"The action I call you to take is to be aware of the situations where your success is dependent on the success of others, take deliberate steps to build those relationships into partnerships. Remember, team success brings with it a sense of achievement that goes beyond individual success.

"The benefit you will gain is a career filled with the memory of genuine achievements and successes that will hang in the the hallways of your mind for the rest of your life."

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