| Most of us would be quick to partner with others if doing so helped us to achieve our goals. But what happens if we are asked to join a collaborative effort that doesn’t quite fit in with those goals? Is it worth it? Current information says “yes.” As markets become more demanding, successful firms are leveraging across their entire resource base to win and perform business, and PB is no exception.
When Pfizer, the New York based pharmaceutical giant, needed building programming and design work for a new facility in Italy, it called PB’s New York offices. Within hours, Sherry Rascovar, Buildings Division Manager in St. Louis, Missouri, and Peter Collins, Technical Director in Bristol, UK, agreed to prepare a collaborative response. They discovered quickly that PB had already done an excellent job for Pfizer on building projects on four continents, including an ongoing project in Taiwan and a state-of-the-art medical facility in Uganda. By the next day, Frank Chen, Senior Area Manager in Taipei was on board to provide details on our work for Pfizer in Taiwan. Within a few days, our team presented Pfizer with a persuasive qualifications document showing the excellent work we had done for them and outlining how we would approach an assignment in Italy. That’s collaboration.
The irony of the story is that the Pfizer manager called PB because he had known about our work for Pfizer on the four continents. He trusted our ability to collaborate to give him a winning solution.
Some questions to self-test your “Collaboration Quotient” are, When was the last time:
- You referred a business lead to a PB colleague outside of your market area?
- Someone thought you would be a good collaborator and called you to work together on a project?
- You were part of a multi-business unit team to win and perform work?
We can manage collaborations. Some articles in this issue provide valuable lessons learned from our teams of staff around the world working together. Read, learn, collaborate.
Robert E. Bellhouse, Industry Leader |
