Who You Do Business With Matters

By Jeff Birenbaum, Partner

In our industry, we spend a great deal of time evaluating the people who will deliver a project—and rightly so.

When organizations procure professional services, they review résumés, project experience, technical capabilities, proposed approaches, fees and schedules. They want to know who will be sitting across the table, attending the meetings and ultimately doing the work.

But there is another question that I think deserves as much attention:

Who stands behind that team?

The answer can tell you quite a bit about the service you are ultimately going to receive.

A great project team does not operate in isolation. Behind it is an organization with its own leadership structure, culture, expectations, resources and priorities. Those things may not fit neatly into an RFQ response or proposal matrix, but they inevitably find their way into project delivery.

Over the course of my career, I have seen the difference this can make. There are moments on projects when the answer is not simply to work harder within the existing team. A client needs additional expertise. A schedule changes. A new challenge emerges. Resources need to shift quickly. A difficult decision needs to be made.

In those moments, you find out very quickly whether the project team is truly supported by the organization behind it.

When that support is there, the conversation changes from “How are we going to manage this?” to “Who do we need, and how quickly can we get them here?” Leadership becomes accessible. Colleagues step in. Decisions get made. The client sees one organization responding rather than an individual team trying to solve the problem alone.

I have also seen the opposite. Talented people can only do so much when they are operating without the resources, authority or organizational support necessary to respond. It does not mean the individuals are any less capable. It simply reinforces that the environment surrounding good people matters.

Culture eventually reaches the client

That experience has shaped how I evaluate organizations—not just as a consultant advising clients, but in making decisions about my own career.

When I considered where I wanted to spend the next chapter of my career and, specifically, where I wanted to build an infrastructure business, I found myself applying many of the same questions I believe clients should ask when selecting their professional partners.

Those questions played an important role in my decision to return to Gardiner & Theobald.

I had the benefit of knowing the organization, its partnership structure and many of its people from an earlier chapter in my career. Coming back to G&T to help build our infrastructure business was therefore not simply a decision about a role. It was a decision about the organization I wanted standing behind the team we are building.

That distinction and operational excellence matter to me.

As we grow our infrastructure presence, my expectation is that the same principles will guide how we build the team: collaboration, accountability, investment in our people and a willingness to draw on the broader organization when a client or project needs it.

It is the same standard I have learned to look for throughout my career—and the standard I want our clients to experience from us.

The organization behind the organization

This becomes particularly important in infrastructure, where programs are often long-term, complex and essential to how communities and economies function. Whether it is transportation—aviation, rail, areo-space, highways and roads—energy and power, including electricity, oil and gas, and nuclear, or water and wastewater systems, these programs often span years, involve numerous stakeholders and disciplines, and evolve well beyond the conditions that existed when a team was originally selected.

Clients understandably focus on the professionals assigned to their projects. But those professionals rely on an ecosystem that is rarely represented on an organizational chart submitted with a proposal.

Human resources and talent acquisition affect our ability to build and retain teams as programs evolve. Finance and operational teams support the demands of long-term delivery. Technology, systems and data influence how information moves across complex programs and how decisions are made. Training and professional development strengthen the people delivering the work. And leadership determines where resources are invested and how effectively an organization can respond when the needs of a project or program change.

None of these functions may appear on the project team chart.

All of them can affect the project.

That is why I believe organizational strength should be part of how we think about selecting professional partners—particularly in infrastructure, where the relationship between an owner and its advisors may need to perform, adapt and evolve over many years.

Ask questions that aren’t in the proposal

Procurement processes need structure. Qualifications, experience, technical approach and commercial considerations will always matter.

But an interview provides an opportunity to go a little further.

Ask how the company supports the proposed team. Ask what happens when the project needs something beyond the people shown on the organizational chart. Ask how leadership stays engaged, how the organization develops and retains its people, and how teams across offices, disciplines and markets actually work together.

Most importantly, ask what accountability looks like when something does not go according to plan.

The answers can reveal something another page of qualifications cannot.

Ultimately, projects are delivered by people. Great people remain the most important component of any professional services team. But those people are influenced every day by the organization surrounding them.

When those two things are aligned, clients can feel the difference.

The next time you evaluate a potential partner, consultant or service provider, consider asking one more question:

Who is standing behind them?

Reach out to Jeff directly at j.birenbaum@gardinerusa.com to learn more.