On the podcast: Own The Build Leadership Series

I'm appearing on the Own The Build Leadership Series podcast, out 28 September.

Paul Heming, Co-Founder and CEO at C-Link and the host of the Own the Build Podcast, got in touch after a LinkedIn post I wrote on procurement, following our first Constructing Excellence Hampshire event. The conversation ended up going well beyond procurement: my route from wanting to be an accountant to running a QS team at Ridge, and what changed the day I had to stop doing project work myself.

One line has stuck with me since prepping for it. The real test of leadership is whether you're creating people who eventually don't need you. I've watched that happen with someone on my own team over the past few years, and looking back, I don't think I planned it as deliberately as it might seem.

We also get into procurement, because I couldn't resist. My honest view was that construction talks endlessly about collaboration, then writes contracts that reward the opposite. Clients want certainty. Contractors need to protect margin. Consultants sit under fee pressure. None of that is unreasonable on its own but put it all together and everyone behaves exactly as the commercial model tells them to. It's the same thread running through what we're trying to do with Constructing Excellence Hampshire.

The episode goes live 28 September on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube.