Development Practices: Creating Collaborative Atmospheres on Apartment Projects

By Dennis Kaiser

Collaboration is a word often used in business settings as a concept teams should aspire to adopt or a way to achieve top performance. Yet, the practice of working together isn’t as easily achieved. Mike Rovner Construction’s Mike Rovner explains how he’s changed the culture of his multifamily, hospitality and commercial renovation business by incorporating best practices that actually foster a true sense of collaboration on job sites.

Not only is Rovner passionate about collaboration, he has the luxury of looking back over 25 years in the multifamily construction industry to see what works, as well as what doesn’t. Collaboration often starts at the first client meeting where it is easy to tell if an owner is looking through a similar lens as the contractor.

“Collaboration is our sweet spot,” says Rovner, noting that for all companies and jobs it has become a critical component for them and the work they do, whether renovating or repositioning multifamily projects or commercial and hospitality properties. He points out the highest level of collaboration requires people to work together toward a common goal and purpose as a team. The end result is worth it, too.

“In my experience, great teams outperform great individuals, always,” says Rovner, who pushes his teams to work in a unified fashion. “When that happens, more gets accomplished. Every successful job has found ways to incorporate teamwork, while all that ran behind, had cost over runs or faced significant challenges were ones that did not work together as a team.”

Examples cited by Rover are two multifamily jobs that were being renovated side-by-side in Marina del Rey, CA. One had 150 units and the other 250 units. The team on the smaller project wasn’t collaborative. Though it started six months before the other, larger job, the project with 250 units got done nine months faster because the team worked together.

“Collaboration allowed us to look at win-win situations and the entire team on the project was willing to compromise and see the long-term vision,” says Rovner, who points out collaboration allowed the larger project to get completed three months ahead of schedule, even though it was 50% bigger.

That also often means starting early on in the pre-construction phase. In the case of the more successful project noted above, Rovner indicates that owner spent 1% of the construction budget on pre-con. That allowed the project team to work out any potential difficulties they saw that may arise during the construction process, while the other job didn’t invest in pre-con planning.

Typically, a main component that fuels success or causes delays is the level of transparency between the developer-owner and the contractor or other members of the project team. When an owner shares what the big picture is it allows the entire team to get behind that goal and work to accomplish it. It also means owners must be open to a wide variety of opinions from architects, consultants, engineers, and the contractor to see what they suggest doing to accomplish what the owner wants. “The key was 100% goal transparency,” notes Rovner on the successful project.

Mock-ups that are done in the pre-con phase with the entire team in place also provide more opportunities to create cohesiveness from top to bottom. A favorite leadership motto Rovner likes to follow is John C. Maxwell’s famous quote “everything rises and falls on leadership.” By getting together the developer and the leaders from the various teams it will work to build cohesiveness, adopt solid planning and create a bond that filters down to the teams on the job site, notes Rovner.

“What doesn’t work is if an owner or their representative aren’t open to others’ opinions,” says Rovner. “Listening to the experts is important and it is easily noticeable when you have that level of collaboration or don’t have it.”

Otherwise it can be a situation where leaders convey a message that they know it all and no one else does. In which case, jobs suffer because workers just follow orders and those with valuable expertise aren’t asked for input on ways to solve challenges that arise. When a team is hired there must be mutual respect and trust among everyone and a key component of that is knowing what each bring to the table, points out Rovner.

Another component of a successful project is frequent in-person meetings. The coronavirus guidelines make that more challenging, albeit no less important. Job issues must be discussed openly and with candor, notes Rovner, who advises getting issues out in the open and advocates for an atmosphere where there’s less worrying about “stepping on toes.”

Rovner says, “Once people start focusing on the issue or situation rather than who is to blame for whatever may come up, it sets up a condition that actually fosters collaboration. That’s when a willingness to compromise in the best interests of others and the overall project finds its way onto the job site. It can completely change the atmosphere of a project to where everyone works together from the top on down.”

Among the other hindrances to collaboration are when people stop talking and rely on other forms of communication to connect. Rovner says, “When people primarily communicate via email, non-verbal cues get lost and it is difficult to read body language.” That can be when finger pointing and blaming emerges leading to a derailed project, he notes. Experienced owners understand collaboration is more productive, allows projects to succeed and helps build fun, long-lasting relationships among the team. Short-sighted developers tend to lose sight of the big picture, whether they see a project as a one-off assignment or aren’t interested in investing in the long-term vision.

“I’ve come to understand the long-term benefits of collaboration pays off in many ways, not the least of which are opportunities to work on multiple projects over time with clients who view us as a valuable extension of their development team,” says Rovner, who made a decision six years ago to only work in collaboration atmospheres and relationships, which has positively impacted the company’s net profits.

“On every successful project across the 100’s of jobs we’ve completed, there has been a component of collaboration. Every job that we’ve done that was over budget, or those where the schedule was negatively impacted, had a lack of collaboration,” he says.

“Life is too short not to collaborate,” says Rovner, plus “you don’t go home feeling like crud.” It is a good feeling being able to advise clients from a position of teamwork that places their interests and the job outcome first. It also allows Rovner’s team to be “truth tellers” and fosters great relationships. The adoption of cohesive job site practices results in projects that are completed faster and with less friction. Those positive outcomes make it easy to see why collaboration is more than a concept at Mike Rovner Construction.

For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Dennis Kaiser