Welcome to the 8 Questions, where we ask senior figures in the sector the questions every business leader and ambitious professional wants answered. In this edition David Hart, Director, Momentum Transport Consultancy, is asked about effective teams, what skills are needed, what leaders need to be thinking about now and much more.
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The judge's commented on the entry;
"This entry highlighted how the team in a diverse young consultancy reacted to the challenges in the last year on a number of fronts and did so successfully, maximising the opportunities it presented."
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Now that’s a really tough question to answer, and in honesty I’m not sure we could narrow it down to just one thing that’s essential! But there are certainly a handful of things that we believe are crucial at Momentum, and identifying and working hard on these have helped us to outperform our collective expectations in the very challenging circumstances of the past 18 months.
They include open, honest and transparent communication and clarity of direction, within our project teams and with the company’s directors and senior leaders; understanding what makes us all different; and fostering an inclusive environment where we hope everyone can be themselves and we can all express ourselves authentically. Our culture of collaboration and feeling that we are 'all in it together' has also been massive for us this year, and I'd say that it's really shown how the team can be greater than the sum of its parts.
It’s been an interesting time over the past few months to reflect on what a successful team looks like. At the end of our 2020/21 financial year, which had been completely different to how we expected it to be, we had hit our revised business targets; gained new clients; been appointed to TfL frameworks and helped our clients succeed in gaining planning consent for some of the most-talked about projects in the City.
We’d collaborated on research reports with universities and transport operators; sponsored academic research; won awards and been shortlisted for our efforts in championing women in the transport industry. We’d also welcomed ten new people, including our new graduates, and continued to invest in training, staff development and the team’s health and wellbeing.
But above all, despite our geographical distance from one another as we all worked from home, our team demonstrated values that are important to both us and the CIHT - professional, inclusive, collaborative and progressive. I couldn’t be more proud of the whole team which worked together so effectively to make that happen
Collaboration and teamwork is at the very heart of what we do, as we’re an integrated team where our planners, analysts, cartographers, designers, modellers and engineers work side by side one another, and not in sequence. So, you could say that all of our business ‘wins’ – for example helping clients to achieve planning consent; designing spaces which enable the safe movement of crowds of people; or more recently recommending road space reallocation strategies as a result of the pandemic - come as a direct result of effective teamwork.
But, I think that one of the most impactful outcomes we have had came as a result of the murder of George Floyd in mid 2020. As an already diverse team, the shocking events in the US led to us prioritising a number of sessions looking at diversity, equity and inclusion and the impacts (professionally and personally) that inequality and discrimination have had on many of the team. Those sessions have in turn cemented our belief that our work can only be successful when our team reflects wider society across the many dimensions of diversity and, really importantly, I believe they’ve paved the way for closer bonds and friendships, and increased trust, respect and support within the team.
At the start of the pandemic our team was working from three offices in London, Montreal and Dublin. Whilst people from the three teams already supported each other on project work, when we became more geographically distanced from one another our Dublin and Canada offices somehow become closer – our UK team has worked on more ‘Canadian’ and ‘Irish’ projects than ever before, and vice versa. Essentially I believe this shows the strength of our company culture and way of working.
As we now look ahead to the opening of our fourth office in Edinburgh (in September 2021) we will take everything that we’ve learnt from this way of working, so that new Scottish projects can benefit from our local expertise as well as our wider international experience and knowledge. This also helps with staff retention by enabling diversity of project work and ensuring no two days are ever
the same.
Additionally, on a macro level, I think there are also a number of important lessons for all of us transport professionals to take from ‘Covid times’, including thinking about how some of the changes we’ve seen, advocated for and implemented can also serve us well as we continue to address the challenges which existed before Covid, such as climate change and social inequalities.
Almost paradoxically, being able to work as part of a close team became even more important when we closed the doors to our offices. Working remotely is a skill in itself, but the situation we all found ourselves in back in March 2020 amplified just how important the essential skills for team success are. Great communication, engaged team members, being open to new ways of working,
adaptability, flexibility, organisation and planning and - really importantly for our board of directors – understanding what makes good leadership and the impact that it can have in motivating, inspiring, developing and retaining team
It’s perhaps a mark of the passion and engagement of our team members, and our strong company culture, that the challenges we all faced last year were embarked upon with significant buy-in from the team. Equally, I believe the successes we’ve achieved together through exceptional teamwork bear out our recruitment, training, professional development and career progression programmes that we began putting into place several years ago.
Perhaps ultimately we've seen high levels of engagement through clarity of objectives - and where each role fits within this - and the passion and interest for the projects that we do.
In the world of transport the two challenges of diversity and climate change have been on the agenda for some time. But now has to be the time that leaders really step up to the plate and address the issues seriously.
We have the responsibility of designing and building cities and towns for people – regardless of their age, physical ability or disability, gender or sexual orientation. We’ve worked hard at Momentum to improve career opportunities for under-represented groups and, for example, our approach to improving our female/male ratio has been consistently proactive. We’re proud that women make up nearly 50% of our team, but the transport sector average is just 20% so as a whole we can do better. Alongside this is the importance of wellbeing and its links to psychological safety and enabling people to be themselves.
It’s also essential that we address the climate crisis now. The transport sector is the biggest contributor of carbon emissions in the United Kingdom. In 2017, greenhouse gas emissions from road transport made up a fifth of the UK’s total and so reducing emissions from road transport remains a significant challenge as the UK looks to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Progressive transport planning and urban design involves understanding the link between transport and land use, and the future shape of our towns and cities. It’s critical to the future of the economy, our environment and how we tackle climate change.
Like many businesses, we’re looking carefully at what the transition back to ‘business as usual’ looks like – for ourselves and our clients. From a team perspective there are certainly many working practices that will remain in place post pandemic, although it’s fair to say that I think we’re all looking forward to seeing as many of the team as possible, in person, at our 9th birthday celebrations this year! Ultimately, the pandemic has shown us that a strong company brand, culture and set of beliefs, alongside a focus on wellbeing and support can really make a huge difference when asking a team of people to continue delivering exceptional work in some of the most challenging personal and professional circumstances.
I’m also confident that, from a transport perspective, many of the changes that took place in our sector – such as bus, train, tube and car journeys being replaced by active travel, and the acceleration of the introduction of new modes such as shared e-bikes and e-scooters – will remain and grow, and form part of our strategies to help tackle post-pandemic recovery as well as longer-term challenges including climate change, public health and dispossessed communities.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CIHT or its members. Neither the CIHT nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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