I was recently asked to give a speech exploring the recommendations from the Building the Future Commission’s final report, and also those contained in the CLC productivity report. I wanted to take the opportunity to start a conversation about the role of the client in a project and their relationship with the other parties involved. I call this “clienting” and I would like us, in particular, to embrace the idea of the “incomplete client”.

In my view, our current understanding and approach to clienting is two-dimensional in what is a multi-dimensional world. Clienting has become outdated and is not well matched to today’s complex environment and all its rich possibilities – especially the pace of change, challenges and ambiguity.

We spend too much of our time and energy in this industry focused on the problems of today, highlighting poor performance and lamenting the lack of supply chain investment, when we should really be upping our clienting game.