OneConsult 2022: Collaboration is the New Competition

IN PLANNING THE CONFERENCE AGENDA FOR OUR 70TH YEAR ANNIVERSARY, WE NEEDED A PRETTY SPECIAL TEAM OF PEOPLE TO HELP US. MEET THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE AND HEAR ABOUT THE CONFERENCE THEME THAT INSPIRED THEM.

Next year is a special year for Consult Australia as we celebrate 70 years of association. So, we knew we needed to assemble a special group of people to develop a conference agenda befitting such a milestone. It was important to us that we built an agenda informed by a diverse group to reflect the diversity in our membership. We sat down with our then President Gerry Doyle who immediately put his hand up to chair and discuss the make-up of the group. It was clear that we needed not only to hear from different voices representing the breadth of the Consult Australia membership, but also from perspectives outside the membership.

Bringing the voice of our small and medium business members to the programme, came Frank Carlow from Carlow and Carlow, Jaswant Deo from RP Project Management, and Martin Gamble from Gamcorp. Craig Lee from BECA and Lisa Samways from Arcadis brought in the large business membership representation. Lee Callaghan from Mace joined to provide a view from the advisory business angle. Our young professionals and future leaders were represented by William Bassanelli from Northrop, Meg Panozzo from Arup, and Esther Soon from SMEC.

We were delighted when Kirsten Sayers from RedR Australia joined the team, together with Claire Beattie from School Infrastructure NSW, Mandy Holloway from Courageous Leaders, and Isabelle Phillips from the University of Technology Sydney. Each of them bringing a different point of view of the issues impacting our industry and of the community’s expectations of our industry.

In coming together as a group for the first time, we explored some of the key issues we’re facing as an industry including, capacity constraints, the cost of professional indemnity insurance, adversarial contracting culture, leadership/management challenges, competition, and of course disruption in all its forms (environmental, economic, political, technology…the list goes on). In thinking about solutions and how best we address these challenges to sustain a strong and thriving consulting industry into the future, we talked about how through stronger collaboration we can build a better culture and better outcomes for our clients, communities, and environment. Taking this a step further we identified that the better we collaborate as people, businesses, and as an industry, the more competitive and successful we will be. This is the hypothesis we are excited to explore at the conference.

The programme the committee has put together for you seeks to give you tools that you can use as,

• an individual, whether you’re a young professional or senior leader

• a business, whether small, medium, or large, and

• an industry, whether you’re in advisory, design, or engineering no matter the sector.

With a diverse range of speakers, from people and culture experts to client groups, expect to be challenged, entertained, and invigorated. The conference committee look forward to seeing you at the conference and hearing your feedback on whether you believe Collaboration is the new Competition. n