My biggest fear about the industry is that architects are no longer drawn what needs to be built.
Welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today I'm joined by Chris Butler, a stalwart in the construction industry and the managing director of water lily. Chris' journey with water lily began in 1998 where he became firm's very first sponsored undergraduate student from Loughborough University. From 1998 to 2002 he honed his expertise in construction, engineering management, laying the foundation for a remarkable career. Upon completing his degree, Chris transitioned seamlessly into a full time role as a surveyor with water lily over the years, he demonstrated a steadfast commitment to excellence, steadily advancing through the ranks. By April 2015 his contributions were recognized with his promotion to surveying director, and just a few years later, in 2018 he assumed the role of managing director. Bruce's passion extends beyond his own career. He is deeply invested in the future of the industry, sponsoring students at Loughborough University and championing young talent through day release programs. It's an honor to have Chris fuss today to share his insights on leadership development and the future of construction. In this episode, we will be discussing the leadership of design and construction teams on complex projects. We look at the challenges the construction industry faces with diminishing skills in both the trades and with architects and with their knowledge of construction science, we also look and consider the architect in the past as the master builder and their role today. So sit back, relax and enjoy. Chris Butler, this episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architecture's flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smartpractice method.com or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how he might be able to help you. Please follow the link in the information. Hello, listeners. We hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it about the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month. Interested in becoming a sponsor, please send us an email at support@businessofarchitecture.com Chris, welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you? I'm very well. Thank
you. Thank you for the invitation. My pleasure. Now
I've been a fan of waterlily for for quite a while, and have been looking at the sort of incredible work that you do right across the the UK, particularly as you know as as contractors in the high end, super prime world of property in London. But you also work on a lot of site science facilities and higher education, landmark and heritage buildings, as well as some some other, you know, complex construction typologies. So I was very pleased to get your acceptance of our invitation to come on the podcast and be able to sit down and and talk with you a little bit about water lily and your career and actually working with with architects. So why don't we start with you've been at water lily for about 26 years or so. Is it
to say? This must be my 26th year? I think I I started, well, really, I started as a work experience student from school where I've sent for two weeks in the summer holiday to do some work experience work out what I was going to do for a living. And I never really left after that. I I worked holiday, work when I could, as a 1617, year old. And then, I suppose, in all honesty, my dream was to play sport. That was my, that was my dream as a 17 year old. I'm gonna, I'm going to university to play sport. Best place for that is Loughborough in England. So I was go over. Had my heart say, I'm going to Loughborough. And then, unfortunately, on the careers day, when we went to see the Loughborough Stanford sport, they announced that they were changing the rules for entry that year, and you needed to be county standard at two sports and not just one. So it kind of put a bit of a nail in my coffin in terms of what that was. And then I, as you can imagine the grumpy 17 year old dragging their knuckles around the floor with their parents. My mother, from a distance, spotted that there was a Loughborough logo on the Construction Management degrees at Loughborough University, right? So she said, Well, why don't we have a look at this? So I went over to look. I'd actually done a survey before that said that I'd be naturally suited to be a quantity star, right? But, you know, wasn't even in my sphere, because it was all about sport. What was, what
was your sport of choice?
So I was, it just so happened. Six months later, I became county standard at tennis and rugby. Oh, wow, rugby in the. Into a tennis in the summer. So it was good. I just I'm a competitive human being. I like, yeah, and I like keeping fit. So anyway, part of that, and thank God I did, because my body fell apart soon, sooner. But um, so I looked at a degree course, and it so happened that luck with did too, and they were both sponsored courses, and you couldn't get onto them without sponsorship before you went right. And one, one was a commercial management and quantity surveying, and one was construction engineering management. And I thought the Construction Engineering Management sounded more like me. That was site management. That was a downside dealing with people using your hands. That was much more me than sitting behind a desk. And so I went and looked at that, got my A levels, and ended up being sponsored by a company called Lovell. And Lovell was the group name that owned water lily, right? And once water lily knew that I was being sponsored by Lovells, they said, Well, hold on a minute. He came to us for kind of work experience and holiday work. Can Can we take it over from you? So that was how that relationship properly gathered pace. And I got a contra I was sponsored by Walter Lily now to do a construction engineering management degree. And four years through it, it was a, what they used to call a thin sandwich. So you had six months in your second year out in industry, and six months in your third year out in industry, and then you went back for your final year, and then you hopefully went and joined your your sponsoring company. Quite amazing,
really, that that you've had your career pretty much in in one place for that long
I was gonna say. So I got to the end of my degree. It was Easter time, graduating in the June, July time, and my line manager, stroke, I think he was a director at that point, came to see me and said, This is the contract we want to offer you. She's a big moment for him. So okay, I've got a contract. I don't need to worry about going and looking for a job or anything else. And they offered me to be a quantity so that, which is what I did all my work experience in anytime I heard a placement, anytime I did holiday work. And actually, I think if I added up the time spent working for water lily in the four years I was at uni, I think there was more weeks worked at Waterloo than there was at spent at university, but every day was as a Qs, and I was learning how to be a manager. And when I came back to uni, and everyone was like, Oh, I was playing on a crane, and I was playing with a dumper truck and a roller, and I was like, you know, I sat at a desk and used a spreadsheet. It's kind of missed out a little bit. Anyway, they offered me a position as a quantity surveyor, not a trainee, non assistant, straight in fully fledged conscious of which I thought, Well, do you know what that's that's a that's a good start. And and I was way, I weighed it up for a while, because, again, I played sport on a Saturday, and site managers were expected to work on a Saturday morning. So I thought, You know what I could be a Qs means I don't have to work weekend. Is that kind of what? Of works for me. Get a bit of both. So I accepted the offer to go towards a Lully beer Quantity Surveyor. And I'm going to say out the 13 people to finish the course, all bar one went to their sponsoring companies. So it's a very good rule into industry. It's a very good it works for both parties. Yeah, so I joined waterlily, became a surveyor, and did my first couple of jobs. And it wasn't until probably five years into my experience that I got enough courage up to ask the director who offered me the contract why he thought I was better suited to quantity surveying rather than site management. And his response was, because that's the degree you did. And I took five sessions and gently reminded him that that's not the degree I did at all. I did a construction engineering management degree, so it's complete fluke. They just didn't know. But I actually think it's done me the world of good, because I've learned that understand and understand how to be a site manager and what's important and and the items of it. But I've got experience of being a Qs and in the industry, site management is all about building to program and qsing is all about doing it for the right money. And those two things don't often go together, so people want to get quicker. So
what was it that that's had you then stay at water lily and not kind of bounce around or go to other firms, they must have been doing something right, or that you felt that your career progress was was best suited going deep into one organization.
I think, if I'm honest, I'm gonna say I was never driven and looking and looking around, but I've always been driven. I've always known from the very early on, I wanted to be managing director of waterlily. If you go back to my reviews, it all said, you know, future literature and. It would dilute. I think, if I'm honest, I think they just looked after me. I never had to approach them for any money. Money was never a driver for me. Yeah, it was, and it wasn't necessarily about title, it was just they looked after me. So I never really thought about anything else. I just that and the opportunities and the jobs I got to work on, yeah, you just don't get to work on, whether it's very old listed buildings, whether it's some very high level containment lab labs or research facilities, or for universities, or whether it's for multimillionaire billionaires who you never get to see behind their front door, sort of thing. So it's just there's always something of interest and actually it worked very well as well, because every two or three years I move divisions, move sectors, do three years of high end resi, and then you've kind of gone, okay, had enough of that, and then went into another two or three years of science and found enough of that, and then, and so all of a sudden I've got a I've got a good experience of all The different divisions. So again, I think that's probably luck. I don't think I can pretend that they saw something in me at 22 or 19, they went, you know what? We need to give him all the training and get make sure he understands it. Or, I think it was pure luck, but at that precise moment, there was a job that came in. They wanted me to do it, and it just happened to be something different. So in the last 26 years, or let's say six years previous, the first 20 years, I got a really good experience of all the different industries. I got good experience. I have a head office works just and I'm local. I'm a local boy in a local company. We've moved twice in my in my work time. But I'm going to say that twice has been no more than two miles. So we've always been kind of based in Croydon, which, yeah, South London, yeah,
I'm in purley right now.
Okay, so just, it just works really well. It just works really well. So I've never really had my head turned. I've got to be completely honest, I wasn't expecting to become MD quite as quickly as I did, even when we're not even when I was a board director. I thought, okay, I could. I'm going to be a board director for 10 years, and then it'll be a chance to step up. But the current MD at the time had some luck, had some premonitions about what he was doing when he was younger, buying land, buying houses, and he had the opportunity to retire at 50, which was probably seven years earlier than I thought he was going to retire. So being offered the opportunity of being MD of water lily at 38 I think I was, was it was a bit of a wake up call, because if I'm completely honest, I sat down and went, what that's never gonna happen, yeah. And he, he actually said, no, no, it's yours. Go and take it. Go and go and take that. And he, to be fair, to that. MD, he was my mentor. He was my line manager. He was a director that I followed all the way through from 16. I was shadowing him at 16 years of age. So maybe there's always been a little path being torched in the grass. For me,
what would you say are the kind of what? How would you describe what the role is of being the MD of of water, Lee, what? What are your kind of the main responsibilities, and how? And how has it? How is it like, different from being a Qs? Okay, that's
an interesting question, because I will take you back about 12. 12, maybe 15 years, and we were Andrew Crispin, who was the previous MD, I've just been speaking about he and I were interviewing the new sponsored students for the for the next intake at Loughborough. Because we've kept that up. That's a big thing, right? And it's bringing people through, and it actually gives me the most enjoyment from the job is seeing people grow. I really dislike people that take the limelight from other people's work. For me, it's all about watching people grow and giving them the opportunity to spread their wings and become better. But we were interviewing this young chap. He can't have been more than 18, maybe even 70, and he sat there, and at the very end of the interview, and he'd done quite well, very in the interview, we asked him if he had any questions, and he had a couple, and his last question were, do you enjoy what you do? And I looked at Andrew, and Andrew looked back at me, and he said, You go first. And I went, Oh, I love it, you know. And I whacked lyrical for about 10 minutes about Qs. And it's people, it's making money, it's it's on site, it's behind a desk. You'd never do the same day twice. You're on a different construction site every couple of years. You know what's not to like? It's brilliant. And I finished, and I looked at Andrew, and I said, Georgia. And he looked at this young chap, and he went, No, not really. And even this young chap could have walked out, we wouldn't have noticed, because I just turned to Andrew and said, What are you talking about? What do you mean? You don't like it. This is what I want to do. Why don't you like it? What's the problem? And he said, Well, everything you just said, I don't do anymore. And that's the fun part. He said, all I'm doing. Dealing with is trouble. All I'm dealing with is either human beings who are either in house and having problems, or human beings from a consultant side that are having issues or we're struggling to deal with, or human beings on the client side who are unhappy or or whatever disappointed. She said, All he's ever dealing with, all he ever does is fight, fights. And in my in my world, my world is a young, mid 20 year old, maybe, well, I'll do it differently. It'll be different. For me. It's not so different. But I would, what I would say is, I'm, I'm a big fan of psychology. I in my head when I get to a point where I can't do this anymore because just burnt out, or I'm too old and too grumpy, psychology is something that interests me, understanding the mind and getting people, getting people to do things without them realizing you're getting them to do it. It's an artful and that's kind of how I pitch it. So in back in my mid 20s, I was No, I do it differently, because I'm all about people. I'm not necessarily all about the Qs, measurement and making money. I'm about people. The biggest part for me is making sure my staff are happy, because if I have happy staff, they're going to try their best for me. So it's all about the people for me. So I suppose that's my role. My role is people. I have. I have a pre construction team who try and win the work. I have a delivery team that try and deliver the work. I have an SM team that look after the work when it's finished. I probably have, I probably have the relationships in the network. So I probably need to go out and understand what's going on in the world and see what's going on, but the rest of the time it's making sure people are being looked after properly.
It's interesting, actually, kind of what you're talking about as well, with your previous career as a rugby player as well. And I imagine, like just, there's a lot of psychology that goes in from being a high performance sports person and knowing kind of either it's even if it's just intuitively that you're paying in a you're playing in a team, and you'd get a very good sense of what it takes to make sure that everyone is performing to performing together. And I see that a lot with sports people who kind of move into and business, and they're very good at kind of taking hold of like leadership and being able to get the best out of a group of people. What's the kind of culture that you like to you know, or how, what are the sorts of things that you like to do to make sure that the team is operating well together, and what, and what sorts of mistakes would have you seen other leaders make that perhaps you would like
that I was gonna say so I think something that I picked up from a very early age was recognizing the positive traits of individuals and recognizing the negative traits individuals and just trying to, trying to implement the positive parts and leaving the negative parts away. And I've done that throughout my whole career in terms of team sports. I mean, I'm trying to convince my son to play a team sport because, not because I want to live my sport through him, but because I think it's so important to understand how team works. Because when you come to work, you're working your team. Yeah, doesn't matter, doesn't matter what you do in life, you'll be working in a team in some form or other. Because even if you're a sole trader, self employed, you won't be sitting on your own in a room doing nothing. You'll have people to talk to. You need to understand people's personalities. And again, going back into the theory of, you know, Maslow's theory, and all the different leadership styles, all the different management styles, teamwork and how you can't have five of the same characteristic, some of the same five of the same people with the same characteristics, because you need those opposing views. You need those those conversations that might feel a bit difficult, you know, that feel a bit confrontational, or they'll fill up conflict. But really, all it is is people with different opinions. And if you, if you're open to listening to other people's opinions and not just feigning interest and pretending to listen, then just go and fall Steve ahead with your own ideas. That that that would be probably one for me, that you know, always willing to listen, and I always thought I was a good listener. My wife's a talker. I'm a listener. But it so happens that over the last few years, I've realized that I talk too much. And maybe it's because I talk too much at work that actually I go home and go I don't want to talk anymore, or maybe I just don't get a word in edgewise. I'm not sure, but I think, I think what I do struggle with, and the mistakes I make, is that I sit in a room with 10 people and I hear a question come across from one of the 10, and it's not directed at me, and I try really hard to stay quiet. You. Yeah, but I listened to the answer that's given, and I sit and go, Well, that's not the question they asked. And I I know what they asked, and I've heard what they've asked, I understood what they mean, and it might not be a really pinpointed question, but I can somehow pick up the tone and the facial and movements, expressions and the words, and find I know exactly what they're asking. And I kind of have to jump in and say, well, that's not what they what they asked. What they asked is this, and put it in a different way, and and then I still don't hear this right answer coming back from my team, and they get and I'm going to have to jump in here. And I really don't want to, but I do, but that's not giving them a chance to learn and have that conversation, to try and get to the point where they understand each other well enough that they create relationship, that they know what I'm picking up. So that's definitely some. One of the learnings I've got is to just try and hang back. And it's very difficult to watch people make mistakes that you know are going to happen.
Well, this, this, this is something I, you know, I talked to a lot of business owners, and, you know, one of the their fears, if you like, as they become, you know, higher up in their leadership is to not, either not micromanage other people, and to allow people the space to make mistakes. And then there's obviously the fear of someone making a mistake on your watch, or, you know, it's your business and they're going to cost you money, and you're going to have to be the one that that clears, cleans it all up. But also you need to be able to give people the space to be able to go through the to learn it, actually properly learn something. And you know, if you can mitigate that their mistakes, then great, but that's so that's a really difficult I see people, business owners, business leaders, struggle with that all the time of just being able to let go and allow a little bit of chaos to happen, but in a controlled manner so it's not damaging anything.
It's interesting. You use the word control there, because I'm going to say them people that I've met and listened to, in terms of successful people, they're control freaks. Yeah, they're in control of everything until it's too big for them to control on their own, and then they've got to let go, and that's really hard. So even to the point now where people say, Do you want to be invited to this meeting? And I say, Of course I do, but I'm not going to. I'm not having I don't need to be there. I trust you go and go and go and do it. But in my in my soul, in my thought, in my heart, yes, you want to be involved, yeah, be there. But also because it also takes me back to what I enjoyed doing. You know, being part of that fun part is enjoyable. So anytime I get to touch that side, you kind of, yeah, I want to do, but no, gotta sit back. And I also don't have enough time to in my life to be able to do everything that I want to do, let alone go to the meetings up I'm not invited to and shouldn't be at.
How big is water lily these days? How many employees do you have that are kind of directly working in the in the core group?
So in the company we have, I'm gonna say it must be 160 364 at the moment. Are we growing? We're growing because it's got busy over the last month, so we are positively employing at the moment, I expect it to get up to probably about 175 in the next month or two. So it's, it's, and they're, you know, the rule book says no more than seven direct reports, because you can't give them all the time of day. You need to give them, because they're more than that, but it's difficult because maybe your seven direct reports don't quite deal with their seven direct reports as you would, right? And you kind of know, and you've grown up with them, and they've worked with you for the last 20 years, you kind of know how they should be treated and what they're going to need to make sure they're successful and positive, but you have to just stand back and say, No, that's your lookout. Biggest problem, I suppose, is because our company, we we have an average length of service of about eight years for construction. It's massive. We have people that have been with the company 40 odd years. So a lot of us have grown up together and learn together and know each other really well. So asking someone to report to their line manager rather than skip a level or two, and they come straight to me, really difficult, because I have to sit there. No, no, don't talk to me, Chris. I know it's going to come to you in the end, so why can't I just, I'll ask you and you can answer. I said, No, no, you've got to go through that. Gotta go through the process. I'm really sorry, but it's gonna take longer, I know. But just, you gotta go and do it, that's right, and it's gonna, you're gonna annoy your line manager by skipping
them out. What does the internal organization look like? So you're talking here that there's seven people that you you kind of speak with, and then they've got seven people, and it's kind of like a tree that's spreading out. And a lot of businesses aren't that well organized, and we see kind of flat hierarchies, and you've got the managing director, and they're getting they're getting themselves sucked into stuff that's happening, you know, on site, and dealing with too much stuff, it takes a lot of discipline and organization. What's the kind of internal structure of water lily and where did that come? From so
far from perfect. Let's not pretend that we are seven and seven and seven and seven and then far from perfect. But the way it's set up is, you have me as the MD, you then I then have two Operational Directors, one construction biased, one commercially biased, but they both overlap on the necessary projects. And then I have a pre construction director. So there's three directors below me. So the pre construction director has his team in the office that deals with all the pre construction and then the operational construction bias looks after all the production, site managers, project managers, project leaders, division, divisions. And then you have the Operations Director commercially bars, who looks after all the commercial teams, and he also has the it, and he has design management. And then below that, we've actually got divisional directors employed to head up each division, right? And I, and I introduced, so that's 25 years ago. We had divisional heads, Division of directors, and then those divisional directors became very good, and they got invited to join the board. But then, as the board, they didn't introduce new division directors. They just looked after their divisions from a board level, rather than a divisional director level. And I'm going to say, three years ago, I've been thinking about it for a while, but three years ago, I said, No, I want to introduce that level back in and the bit the penny dropped for me. I'm going to say, within a 345, months of being MD, one of my staff members, I'm bumped into them on a construction site, and they said, Chris, this is coming to an end. Where's my, when's my where's my next job? I said, Why are you asking me? Oh, you know. Because you know everything's going on. You know where the next job is. You know how we're going to win it. You know it's going to be and I was a bit like, okay, but there's 130 is in the business. One person going, doing the networking and finding the new jobs, as opposed to all 130 of us talking to the people we know and finding out what's going on. Surely there's opportunity here to grow everybody's net and it will, and it will benefit everybody. So we did all that. We introduced our business development to the business. And I'm going to say 15 of them said, Yeah, I'm interested in doing that. I'd like to do that. And so we bought 15 in we trained them because it's black magic to a lot of people, but it's right, very difficult, really. And then it got to the point where we were trying to grow. And again, the four directors with these 15 people have been trained, but they're new at it, and they're starting their networking journey. So still, four board directors trying to win work for a growing business that just constantly needed feeding, but also having to concentrate on delivering it and and managing it and making sure it's delivered. It was just too much we were we were breaking at the scenes. So I I introduced another layer of divisional directors whose responsibility it was to deliver their work in their division, plus find their new work for their division, which left the board of directors to steer the ship. If the division of directors are putting the fuel in, we can then steer it and make sure we're going in the right direction and we're not dropping the ball anywhere. And we've got a higher level, higher level view which has, which has worked very well. What it's done is it's cost us a bit more money, which means we're not making as good a profit as we probably should be, because we are giving ourselves a chance to to grow, which probably means one step backwards to go two step forwards, sure, but it's a good thing. It's working. It's working really well.
That's that's a really interesting that you actually kind of spend a little bit of time identifying people who had an interest in wanting to learn about business development, and rather than just kind of, you know, because you've got the risk there if, if you had too many of the directors being the sole people that were doing business development, and then they start to retire or leave, then you've you've got a problem. You've got that as exactly, it's
exactly what happened to me my first networking lunch when I became a board director. So 10 years ago, no 11 years ago, time flies. I sat at I sat in a restaurant with 12 gentlemen, 12 men, 85% of them had gray hair. I and I looked around and I just went, where's my network? All these people are going to retire before I get there, I need to create my own network. So I I then went out and talked to three or four friends and said, should we create our own little future, future network? You know, we're the, we're going to be the next, the next big thing. We're going to be the future of the construction industry. Let's go and, and I was looking for the for the mid 30 year olds, the early 30s, you know, and it, it took me two years to get it off the ground. And by the time I'd done that, I'd become, you know, think I was a board director for, I was MD, three. Or four years later, and it was like, Oh, actually, I'm the here and now. I'm not the future. And actually, it turned out that I think a lot of the decision makers are now the my age, the late 30s, early 40 year olds and 56 year olds are, are, are still there in a big corporate way, but not in the not in the way what it used to be. It used to be a very old, old boys brigade, old boys club, and it's and it's not anymore. I think, I think there are so many entrepreneurs out there. I think it's become much more popular to set up your own business and do your own thing. So now, when there used to be five architects that you deal with, and on general basis, there's now 55 architects, and you've got no idea which one's going to get the next job. So you just gotta, you just gotta make sure you increase your shit so to as many people as you can, but have really good relationships with probably a slip for you that you know what's going on. Do you when it
comes to kind of winning work? Have you been very kind of thoughtful in making sure that you're kind of going deep in certain sectors, like the high end resi and your higher education and science facilities. Or have you kind of looked outside of those sectors which you've already got expertise in and want to do different building typologies? Or is it too risky? I mean, that's that's one of the things with construction is different from, say, an architect, in many ways, is that you could get yourself involved in a specialist type of construction and get it wrong, and it's there's a lot of risk.
So having been in the same company for 25 years, I've seen quite a lot right in the 2000 2008 2008 2009 recession, as a company, we look to branch out and do other sectors, where could we use our our skill set in other sectors? Didn't work. Didn't work. One, we didn't really get a sniff of anything. And two, we did pick up one, and it was a it was a disaster, just so different to what we're used to, so different to what we were expecting. And that's, that's the risk. So definitely one once, bit and twice shine, right? I've learned from others. I think what I've probably concentrated on is trying to build better relationships, that they're the ones that pick up the phone and talk to me every time there's an opportunity, rather than someone else. I think that's probably where I've gone. And try to consolidate, and, sorry, consolidate our place in those divisions, but HQ are from about 2009 to 2018 19 was booming, but the others were not, or we weren't really making a big effort in them. So I made them my my first point, of course, six years ago, was and we need to rebalance the rebalance the books, too much, too many eggs in one basket, in one in one sector. Let's see if we can not, not depress the hqR world, the high quality residue world. But let's try and see if we can bring up the science and bring up the landmark and heritage. Because I also think, my humble opinion, having worked across all the sectors, hqR is really, really difficult. Construction is difficult, whatever happens. But when you dealing with an individual who it's his own wealth, and it's his own wealth creation, and it's his own emotion, and there it says, is his own house, you go to a different level. So the emotional turmoil that happens on on a high quality resi job is is amazing asking someone so, asking someone to do that for 40 years of their working life, or now 50 years of their working life, I think, is too difficult, right? Having that change up, having that ability to go and swap from sector to sector. So going back to your question about the structure under the division of directors, we have a pool of resource so project managers, commercial managers, site surveyors, site managers, design them. They all can. They can all cross between sectors, so no one is pigeonholed. That's
interesting, yeah, so no one gets siloed. You're kind of making sure people are getting that experience in different sectors?
Yeah, we're trying to grow our people round our people. Now, don't get me wrong, there are specialists in each division. If they want a chance to come and do something else they can, but some of them are just so specialist that you can't really move them. And that's their chosen career, and that's what they wanted to do. But generally, it's a, it's a good, it's a good place to be, where they got a variety,
and now waterlily is quite an old company. There's a lot of heritage there. I've I mistakenly thought, and you can correct me if I got this wrong. I thought that the the legacy, or the heritage, had always been in the hqR world. But you my right thing. You've been doing a lot more education prior to hqR or
difficult. Okay, so we, this is our 100th year. We've earned 100 in April. Amazing, yep, so it's been a long time and a successful company that's absolutely, absolutely amazing 100 years ago. And actually, I. Think, if I'm honest, I think 100 years ago, the company existed before that, but a gentleman called Walter gent Lily won a won a construction company, stroke builders merchants yard in a game of poker. So the day he won it in a game of poker, he took it away and he and he renamed it Walter Lily, right? So that, so there must have been a company before. That is where I'm got to so he was a, he was a general builder. But I'm going to actually say, if anything, in the first, let's get this right. 1924 we were so and they sold the family, sold the company in 1955 so in those first 30 years, they were known for listed old buildings, right, more than anything else, right? When I joined in the 1990s we had old buildings, we had science, we had retail fit out. Okay? Tesco, Tesco stores fit up those sort of things, and probably so old buildings and a bit of resi, but not a lot. In the late 1990s I think the first proper high quality resi job happened, which was for Ringo, start of the Beatles and that, and that was the star. Took this actually, people want to spend some serious money on their houses that we recognized. And then it took off from there. You know, we were doing million pound apartment fit outs at that point, which are now 10s of millions of pounds. I think the largest high end resi house we've done is 61 million for one single dwelling. So it's just, it's gone to a different stratosphere, which is fantastic for us. We love it. But sometimes it is eye water, eye watering.
So that's that's quite fascinating as well you you've seen the mature, the maturing, if you like, as well as the kind of super prime property market in in London, in the UK, and how it's kind of what, what kinds of changes have you seen in the in that in that market in
itself, just in that market on its own, the probably biggest changes is the change that people want. So it's the pushing the boundaries of possibility. You know, can we do that? And some clients really do want to stretch the bounds of possibility. So curving a piece of glass in three different directions to have a look that's a certain way. It's not been done before, and it's definitely not been done before, in a construction site, in a construction melee of lots of bodies, lots of people. So it's just, it's probably pushing the envelope. Is probably the biggest change, because it's just always pushing that envelope to see what can be done next. No, no, none of the clients that are very wealthy want to see what they've got somewhere else. You know, it's got to be unique. And interior designers and architects love that. It's an it's a real opportunity to be creative and not just have to do the same old, same old design.
And do you work primarily, you know, only in the UK, or do you have international work, or I'd imagine that kind of clientele as well. This is not their only house, and they've got a number of houses, and they might be all over the place, and they want to keep the same teams if it was successful.
So we're even more limited than the UK. We're London and the home counties, right? Okay, that's, you know, round round the M 25 really, because two, two reasons, I've always thought about it. Michael here thought, Well, what can't Why can't we go further further than I remember a client asking us whether we'd go to Dubai to do his house in Dubai, right? And we said, and we and this is way before my time, and we immediately said, No. And I looked at them and why? Why not? And the reason why now is the staff. We've employed them to work locally and our supply chain work locally. So when I became MD, I the first thing I did is I sent an email to all of my staff, saying, are any of you interested in traveling for work? Would any of you work abroad? Because client that asked us to go and do it in Dubai, I found out a year and a half later that he paid for everybody to go from England to Dubai to do the job. So order, supply chain, he paid the premium. So the risk, the risk of going working somewhere else is, you don't know anyone there to trying to find a bricklayer or a plasterer, or that's good, can have the quality you need to do it to the program, and if it is too big a risk to go and just tip your toe in the water, but if a client's willing to go on that journey with you, then what an opportunity that is. So now I don't say no to anything until I know the absolute understand full and fully understand what the client's looking for, but I've not had that opportunity. Two things, which is disappointing. So it's all about supply chain and who's willing to move and travel and give you the reassurances, because you go and dip your toe, even if I said I wanted to go to the Cotswolds and I spoke to supply chain the Cotswolds, when I'm saying, Come on, you need to bring some labor here, please. They'll be like, who are you? This is first job we've done with you. I've got another client around the corner who I always work for, and my Labour's going there today because he's more important to me. It's just it's building that up slowly. It's probably under getting an understanding with all the supply chain before you find your job. One thing you really wouldn't want to do is go and find your job and then desperately try and find the right people to do it, because you're just not going to deliver the program
that's that's really interesting. It's in, particularly in today's, today's world where businesses are so kind of more international and spread out all over the place. It's actually quite refreshing to hear that your expertise has been really localized in in a in a particular area, and
this might also be really conservative and risk averse, and that that is our business. We've been 26 years. I've been trained in risk averse. So it's, you know, I don't want to be the person that busts water lily, so just be risk averse, conservative and deliver what we good at. You know, you know what you're good at. Just deliver it. Yeah, try and but, but that's not very entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial is, yeah, go make a difference. Go and grow. Go and grow. Go and be different. Go and do something different. So I'm definitely in the six years being Managing Director, I've definitely grown into the role. I remember that one of the best recommendations I was given was Be yourself, okay? And I heard it, I listened to it, and I didn't do it for at least nine months, I spent nine months trying to imitate the previous two MDS. It just wasn't me. Just didn't work, didn't feel comfortable, hard work. So I just kind of and then I saw the same person. You went, just be yourself. You can do this. Just be yourself. And then I did, and it's gone from strength to strength and scent. So I couldn't, I couldn't recommend being yourself more more more strenuously
in terms of working with other consultants in particular. Let's talk about working with with architects you've you've been in the industry for a long time. What's the change that you've seen in the relationships between architects and kind of contracting firms like your like yourself. So
I can say this hand on heart. When I first joined the industry, I worked on a job in Sloan square, middle of London, and architect was King, oh, because it was God, what they said, when, what they told you to do, you did and you didn't do anything different, completely turned on its head. Now, wow. And I'm not quite sure why I've been, I've been doing some research on this in the last few years, trying to understand what's changed. And I think there's probably a few things that have changed. I think there's not enough fees to do it properly. I think the competencies of what the architects are now taught are not or contractors need. It's it's probably more conceptual. It's about how it's going to look, or making sure they've met all the regulations they need to meet. But actually, can it fit together? I mean, an up master builder, it was about drawing on a piece of paper so someone could put it together. And it's no longer seen as how does that go together? It's now lines on a paper because it ticks a box in terms of a detail be delivered. But had they actually thought it through about how it goes together, but they don't teach that. And so I'm not blaming the architects for that. They just don't teach it. And I think I was talking to someone 510, years ago about architectural technicians. We're the ones that draw it and actually work out how it goes together. But even that's a dying art. It doesn't seem to be many people joining that world. So it's, it's difficult. I think, I think the competencies drifted a little bit. I think it's quite I don't know how many people going into it anymore. I remember being 15 years of age and thinking I wanted to be an architect, and I was told by an older gentleman that I wouldn't bother doing that, mate. It's all going to be done by a computer. So I just wonder, seven years at university, it's a long time, yep, that the salaries aren't particularly good until you make it to partner, or you make it up to the top of the tree. So it's a really hard profession to to help to succeed in. But also this, the profession has changed its changed its ways a little bit in terms of what a contractor needs. And too many times recently, we get told, come on, water lily, you're really good at what you do. You know what we want. Can't you just build it? And you can't sit and go, Well, that's not really the point. The point is, you do a drawing under your professional indemnity, and we build it, and then when anyone asks why we built it, it's because it's like that, or it's not like that. And there's a reason for it. There's a reason why it all goes together, but that seems to have drifted. And I don't know if it's time, resource competency, it's probably a bit of everything.
And so do you do you find now that you, then you guys are taking on more design responsibility. There's more contractor led design aspects to to a project, and the architects are doing more of a kind of design intent. And then you're then you'll take, you're taking on more of their liability as well,
100 100% which we did a we did, I'm not going to name the gallery, but we did a very nice gallery, and it won the Sterling prize. And I'm going to say there was 50 something CDPs, and you kind of sit and go, hold on a minute. We We designed that because actually there was a concept from the architect, and they knew exactly what they wanted to look like, but we were responsible to make it work, to bring it all together, when we had to employ architects ourselves. Wow, I often speak to the architects and say, Do you want to finish the designer for us? We'll pay you. We'll pay you the speed that you're obviously not getting from the from the client. We'll pay you, and we could get so I'm trying to find a way that I can partner up with architects and say, Look, I just need somebody to finish the design. I need a technical design so so people can build from it. Because my biggest fear about the industry is that architects are no longer drawing what needs to be built. Main contractors the building, the management are now graduates from university that don't know how to build, they know how to
manage. Oh, you've just lost a lost a massive art here. Yeah. And
then if you go one step further, how many 16 year old, 16 year olds do you know that are joining the trade? Because at the moment, we are absolutely reliant on subcontractors and the tradesmen knowing how to put things together, and that is dying out as well. Now the tier ones I understand are looking at robots. They see the future being robots, not in my world, not in a grade one listed building where we're having to refurbish it and find uncover things and work out what we're going to do. And the answer I thought, was no, no, because once that robot knows how to do what you taught it for that building, then he can send that to all the other robots, and they will then, or they will then know how to do it. I said, that's great, but we won't come across that again. That's bespoke, that's unique. We'll have to do that on every occasion. And it's a it's a dying art that the bricklayers that can do knit, NiP, tucking, you know, there's probably about five or six left in the country that know how to do it. Once they're done, that's it. It can't be done anymore. So it's a worry for me that we are getting to a point where we're going to have people looking at people go, Well, how do we put this together? How does this work? If there was a drawing that explained it, you could teach someone that, okay, look, these two bits go together, and we can see that we can work it all out. And maybe AI is the future. Maybe there's a 3d model where it gets projected, and people just have to put things next to each other so it all fits together like a flat built type, you know, flat pack type building, but I don't see it. We really need to bring more people into the industry. And
that's, and that's, that's really a very astute observation that you know, that architects, you know, architects in the industry, complain as well, that they're, they don't have people who can do detailing that. People don't know where how to get the comp. They don't. It's difficult to find expertise and competency. And you know, what comes out of university is it's, it's very questionable what the skills are. I mean, we've just been look at what's happened recently with with grain fill and the kind of accountability there, which is, you know, there's a massive lapse in basic competency across the board, across the board, and the architect has really, you know, they've been very responsible there for just lack of nobody was taking any responsibility for what was, you know, whether this thing was actually suitable. And we're seeing that right across the construction industry, this kind of diminishing of knowledge and skill. And it's, yeah, it's like, well, if we don't preserve it, or people aren't interested in entering the trades, or architecture profession is not training these kind of construction competencies, there's a problem.
So that's 100% agree. Add to that you're getting post every second of every day. So 20 years ago, the post used to arrive at 11 o'clock in the morning. You'd read the letters in the post file, you digest them, you'd work out who's dealing with what, and then you go back on your day job. Now. Now everything is so immediate, is so is an email on your machine, you now know what to do. Get on with it. So back, back, back in the good hope days you had time to look at stuff. You had time to make sure the installation was the right installation to go in the right hole. Okay, now you haven't got time. No one's got enough time. Everyone wants everything tomorrow. Instant gratification clients, everybody, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow, and people just don't have enough time to do their job properly. So add that back to competency and ability and professionalism. It's, yeah, there's a lot of what the answer is, a lot
of challenges. A lot of challenges. I
asked my team within a year of being MD, because people said, you know, sit tight. Don't change too much in your first year. And at the end of my first year, I said, Okay, I want to make one change and one change only. I want to turn emails off between 10 and four and they wait. You can't do that. That's ridiculous. You can make changes, but small ones, you can't do that. That's out this question. And I said, What? Why? What's the problem? What happens if there's an emergency? I said, I mean, don't get me wrong, but I think if there's an emergency, the phone was a wonderful invention. You know, people can use the phone. You know, I'm not asking them to go completely silent. I'm just saying, don't sit at a computer for 678, hours of the day reading post that's coming in, because you'll never get anything worked up. But apparently I was told I still would do it six years later, I still think it's the right thing to do, yeah, read it in the first hour of the day, and need it. Read it in the last hour of the day. Because I think if you read all your emails in one go in one hour, it's quicker you get, you get, you're more efficient in that way?
Well, I think, you know, there's this is protecting people's ability to focus, or have a 10, you know, place attention onto one thing, and in these sorts of things that you're talking about as well, like the the ability to solve complex construction problems requires that. It requires focus. It requires deep thought.
It used to require people standing around a drawing table looking at a drawing. Okay? And you'd flip through four drawings before you found the one you wanted. And then you sit there with people and go, so how are we going to do that? And you'd brainstorm it on a screen one person, and they zoom into one little part and go, How am I building that they don't now see the big picture, to the point where I've looked into just television screens to become the new drawing boards and make them touch screen and see if we can draw on them. And as a group, I we insist that our teams sit together once a week looking at all the new drawings over at that week, so they can brainstorm them together, because one will see one thing, one will see another thing, and they work together, but it's hard work trying to drag them away from now what they're used to, to try to do something different.
Have you guys dealt with the kind of work from home challenges? So you've got more team members who want to work from home, and again, in construction, I mean, architects have really struggled with this, where you've got people wanting to work from home, and the exact scenario that you're describing of a team working around a drawing of figuring stuff out that suddenly gets lost when you're working from home. And add into that distraction, add into that there's just a lack of the core competency. Again, it's kind of compounding something. How have you guys kind of managed the sort of work from home? And construction being even more you've got to be on site.
Yep. So interestingly, before covid In the January, before the March 2020 we introduced flexible working, right and working from home, because we were actually trying to treat our head office staff better, because our construction staff, do you know what that? I'm not gonna say they do flexible working, but they cover each other. If one of them's got a dishwasher engineer coming out and he's gonna be a little bit late in, the others will cover for him, and we would never know, but the office staff have to book half a day or a day off for a dishwasher engineer to come around, when they could actually just sit at home and do some work while they wait for them, they do their work, and then they come in, or they do the rest of the day at home. So we thought it was a good thing, and thank goodness we did it, because we were set up ready to go. And it was, it worked brilliantly. We, of course, had the construction workers. It was in ago. Well, I want to work from home. Like, really sorry you chose a career that endured site full time. I We will occasionally let our project leaders work from home if they need some quiet time to look at a program and just shut themselves away from the hustle and bustle of the site. My biggest thing is the learning when people are working from home, whether they're senior or junior, the juniors aren't listening and hearing and watching and picking things up to what I've done. We've actually just moved offices, and we've improved the offices because I was told by somebody, a WeWork person, do. Some top of the WeWork said, entice them back in. You're never going to be able to force them back in, because the world's changed, and if you won't offer them it, someone else will. So you can't force them, but you can entice make it a really nice place to work. So I've made it a really nice office. We do first Friday of the month. We do a group lunch last Friday of the month. We have, I think every Friday, actually, half past four, the beer and wine fridge starts
just to try and entice people in on a Friday, because we all know what happens on a Friday. So
it's just making them loved a little bit more, making sure they feel respected and loved and looked after means they've got the opportunity to come back in and I only for the business, not only for training, not only for learning and improving this business people's own well being, spending their whole lots in their house. It's no good. No good. Yeah, they need to get out. You the London is amazing how busy London is now, because I think people have realized that there's no social life at home. The social life is out and about, meeting people, talking to people, but it is the the older generation that enjoy it a bit more and say, Well, do you know what? I'm better at home than I am hidden, so I'm staying out. You shouldn't go, well, I need you to teach these people. And you could either do that for coming in, yeah, and that's a that's a nice pool, because there's not many human beings that don't like teaching others what they know. Yeah, brilliant.
Love it. I think that's a perfect place to conclude the conversation there, Chris, that's been absolutely fantastic. So insightful to hear about your career and your, you know, working with architects and just the inner workings of an amazing construction company. So thank you for sharing, and perhaps we'll do it again one day. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank
you. Thank you very much the time. It was good to talk,
and that's a wrap. Hey, Enoch
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