Client Spotlight:
Balfour Beatty
An interview with Mark Konchar, Chief of Innovation
Mark Konchar
LEARNER | ACHIEVER | ARRANGER | ANALYTICAL | INDIVIDUALIZATION
Mark, a Certified CoreClarity Facilitator and Balfour Beatty’s Chief of Innovation, joined us to talk about how they are using CoreClarity, how it’s impacting their culture, and why he became a certified facilitator.
What was your motivation for going through CoreClarity facilitator certification training?
Mark Konchar: Selfishly, I have a passion for learning and finding unique talents of others. Because I have Individualization in my top 5, I like to spend time contemplating what an individual is dealing with and who is involved. Oftentimes, individuals find themselves in a role that’s not the best for them. When they explore that, they understand their talents aren’t being leveraged. I’m keenly interested in helping people get through that.
The CoreClarity work also helps me with my Empathy talent, which is low for me. This work has brought an awareness, not just to me but the company. We can be smarter about the people dynamic now.
In what ways are you using CoreClarity at Balfour Beatty?
MK: Currently, we’re using CoreClarity in 3 ways:
Any new employee that comes through the door takes the CliftonStrengths assessment, and we debrief a conversation with them. Younger employees who have recently graduated love it because it’s all new to them.
We use the CoreClarity workshops as part of our leadership development program which gives people more context and confidence in developing their people.
Last but not least, we have a program called SmartStart® that has four parts to it, one of which is Behavioral Alignment and we use CoreClarity in that part of it.
Tell us more about SmartStart.
MK: At its most basic level, SmartStart is a comprehensive framework for developing a high-performance team and a customized, but quickly-deployable project strategy. It represents the next evolution of what construction project teams and project strategy can be. We bring together a full project team which includes 10-12 Balfour Beatty people and 20-30 designers and engineers. We put them in a room and do their alignment process. During the Behavioral Alignment section, we use CoreClarity.
How has this impacted the culture of Balfour Beatty?
MK: It’s been a transformative force because of SmartStart. Conversation can affect other people, and everyone is getting more comfortable having conversations. In the past, the Behavioral Alignment segment has been the least favorite and most contentious. Now it’s the one segment where people want to go deeper and spend more time on it. It helps them approach different situations. Everyone understands Gallup, but what CoreClarity has done for Balfour Beatty is given them a language that’s repeatable. For a culture, you need a language.
What are individuals most excited about during the program?
MK: People love learning about themselves. They see it in print and become anxious to share it with a loved one. If they are having hot spots with another person at work or at home, they can often find a start of an answer to address the issue. That’s an eye opener for people.
What has been the outcome with your teams?
MK: CoreClarity is an entrée to bigger and better conversations, whether it be a challenge at hand or a strategic business conversation. It really helps people get into a conversation about culture. Once they have the language and awareness, they can actually have a conversation about what is needed to get to where they want to go.
About the Company:
Balfour Beatty is a leading international infrastructure group with more than 26,000 employees. They finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, and social and commercial buildings that supports communities and enables economic growth.