What a Difference a Client Makes!

Two of our people received a note of gratitude by email from their client today. Rare enough as an event, it made its way through the company grapevine. I am always grateful for these expressions of thanks from clients. I am so proud of this company, the people in it and the projects that we do. It makes me feel so good when some of our people are recognized by a client for doing well. Believe me, the muted praise is a much rarer bird than its cousin, the disgruntled complaint.

But this note of gratitude was especially sweet. It was some 15 months ago that I spent more than a few hours in uncomfortable meetings with a very angry client project manager over the failings of these same people. It is seldom that things work out this way, but irony abounds in this instance.

Two projects, just eighteen months apart, for the same client. Two projects, similar facilities, and with the same construction contractor. On the project just finishing, our client expresses gratitude for the excellence of the job done and for the level of service given. On the previous project, that same client made it clear that he thought us to be buffoons, if not worse.

So what happened? Did they learn their craft on that first project and then put that learning to good use on the second? As these folks have long years at their craft, I don't believe that to be the case. While we all continue learning if we are worth our salt, I am more than sure that the quality of the work product and attitude of service were very similar.

In all honesty, the biggest difference on the two projects was the client. The client organization was represented by one individual on the first project and by a different individual on the second project. Both of the client's people were competent and experienced individuals. But there was a human connection, a relationship if you will, on the second project that did not exist on the first project.

To those of us who have experience in the project world, or just in life, this is not all that surprising. We are social animals and form connections with each other. It is how we feel about each other that allow us to work well with each other, or not so well. If you think well of those you are working with, you believe and trust them.

When the people you are working with inevitably make mistakes, you overlook them and understand what they were trying to do. You give them grace. When you are expecting those you work with to make mistakes, you will of course find those mistakes and think the worst of them for fulfilling your expectations. You give them judgement.

This is a world of business, for both ourselves and our clients There are large sums of money at stake. There is the safety of many people depending on the work that we do. We have responsibilities to many stakeholders to be diligent and faithful in the discharge of our work. There are contracts that spell out those responsibilities. There are professional codes of conduct that speak to those responsibilities. We can not, not do we wish to, evade the responsibilities that we have taken up, both ourselves and our clients.

Yet there is more to life than fulfilling contracts and upholding professional standards. The first project, where there was no relationship, was a bitter and vindictive place to work. As they always do, people chose sides and joined the battle. There was anger and many tense meetings. And that anger and tension was not only at the level of the folks doing the work. At every level in both our own, the construction contractor, and the client organization, unpleasantness reigned over that project.

On the second project, life was a lot more worth living.