Abundant thinking is a mindset that many people apply in their personal lives. Can it have a role in the construction industry?
Bringing an abundant mindset to business is an approach that prioritizes creating value for all stakeholders. It’s a belief that there are ample or abundant opportunities for success and growth, and that mutually beneficial outcomes can be achieved through collaboration and cooperation. In contrast to the transactional model of creating profits for shareholders, which has underpinned business strategy for the past 100 years, abundant thinking looks at how to make business relationships transformative.
Bringing abundant thinking to life in the construction industry
Chandos Construction is a 100 per cent employee-owned Canadian company working to bring abundant thinking to the construction industry. Chandos believes that prioritizing purpose-driven impact and building an abundant future are key to positively influencing society and building long-term financial sustainability.
Companies that embrace abundant thinking tend to be better at talent retention and acquisition, customer loyalty, and risk management. It’s also a strategic way to respond to the trends or “signals” that are redefining the business landscape, such as climate change, artificial intelligence, diversity, conscious consumers, activist employees, and impact investing.
Thinking through the future
At a broad level, Chandos is working to transform the construction industry to be more sustainable and inclusive, inspired by the possibility of an abundant future. The construction industry lags in the areas of vision, purpose, and transformation, but through knowledge-sharing and an array of outside perspectives and partnerships with future-oriented industry leaders, Chandos hopes to change that.
Chandos recently partnered with the Ontario College of Art and Design University’s executive design studio (OCAD U CO) to explore design thinking needed to drive innovation and change. In their early work together, Chandos and OCAD U CO hosted the Futures Lab AEC Foresight Workshop. The Futures Lab brought together a cross section of 40 architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry stakeholders from across North America to have conversations about signals of the future and how they affect everything from society at large all the way down to specifics in the AEC space.
Helping to harness an abundant mindset in construction
A report from the workshop captures the outcomes of these conversations, along with recommendations and relevant signals for the future of the industry. Some outcomes were expected: participants viewed climate change as one of the challenge signals that will have the strongest impact on the AEC industry over the next 10 years. Surprising discoveries included the impact of the metaverse on training and employee retention and the challenges that a growing social polarization will present when tackling important social and environmental issues.
Building on this work, on June 15, 2023, Chandos gathered 50 Canadian leaders from 30 firms to a first-ever Abundance Summit exploring how to transition businesses from transactional to transformational. Since cross industry collaboration and partnerships are key to driving change, the summit was an opportunity for Chandos to bring together potential partners and clients and to build a community of people within the construction industry.
Chandos wholeheartedly believes in the collective power of abundant thinking, and its leadership team seeks out new possibilities to collaborate and create new approaches and business models with customers, partners, and communities.
Chandos wholeheartedly believes in the collective power of abundant thinking, and its leadership team seeks out new possibilities to collaborate and create new approaches and business models with customers, partners, and communities.
Along with co-hosts from Conspiracy of Love, a world-leading purpose consultancy, Chandos challenged participants to harness an abundant mindset and build new collaborative approaches that could benefit all stakeholders and identify areas where the construction businesses can make a strong impact. Leading thinkers from outside the industry shared their experiences and advice on how to unlock the power of abundance within their organizations.
Summit participants received a copy of Chandos’ newly launched FUTURE/READY strategic foresight toolkit, developed in partnership with OCAD University, to help them explore the future and its possible impact on their industry, enterprise, and the community and to continue the conversation.
Navigate the future with a free strategic foresight toolkit
In keeping with its commitment to collaboration, cooperation, and sharing within the industry, Chandos is now making this FUTURE/READY strategic foresight toolkit available free of charge to anyone interested. The toolkit contains a set of signals and prompt cards to help your team navigate an uncertain future. In addition to the toolkit itself, you can access templates to help support and structure your conversations.
Visit chandos.com/abundance to learn more and to access a free copy of the FUTURE/READY toolkit.
