Welcome to issue #006 of Under the Surface. Each week, I share one thoughtful piece to help you grow, lead and thrive in the messy reality of project work. If something lands - or misses - I’d love to hear your thoughts. And if you’re exploring what’s next, you can join the Pathfinder waitlist to go deeper with others on the same journey.

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What follows is a lightly satirical reflection on project team dynamics, particularly those found in high-pressure, male-dominated EPC environments.

If you’re familiar with Patrick Lencioni’s The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, you’ll notice this version bears a passing resemblance - albeit through the cracked lens of site cabins, strained tempers and passive-aggressive meeting invites.

To Mr Lencioni: apologies in advance.

Project may never end

A few years ago, I landed on a major EPC job. Big contract. Big reputations. Big men shouting in meetings. I remember thinking: Wow. These guys don’t mess about.

They didn’t collaborate either.

We had all the right words on the posters… “One Team”, “Shared Success”, “Open Communication”, but when it got tough, it was every contractor for themselves.

By then, I just thought this was how it worked.

We all did.

“That’s just the game.”

“Get it in writing.”

“Don’t be the one caught short.”

And so, the dysfunctions played out…

1. Absence of Trust

AKA: “If it’s not in an email, it never happened.”

Ah, trust. The mythical unicorn of EPC delivery.

We were all “one team” in the posters, but in practice? If you didn’t back it up with a timestamped email, it didn’t count.

People guarded information like trade secrets. Even asking a question felt like requesting state secrets from MI5. Every update came with more qualifiers than a legal contract. Every conversation ended with, “Best send that over in writing, just to be safe.”

It wasn’t personal. We just didn’t fancy being stitched up at the next progress meeting.

2. Fear of Conflict

AKA: “Let’s pretend we agree, then raise a concern in the car park.”

On paper, we encouraged open discussion. In real life? Not so much.

Nobody wanted to rock the boat, especially when the water was already knee-deep. We smiled, nodded and said things like, “Good point” while quietly updating our issues log and risk register under the table.

True conflict was outsourced to email threads… where brave warriors in middle management CC’d their way to vindication. And if things really got heated? We’d call a meeting to discuss whether we should have a meeting.

3. Lack of Commitment

AKA: “We need more alignment before we commit to being aligned.”

We had plans, beautiful, multi-coloured Gantt charts that looked great in the boardroom for sponsor meetings and bore no resemblance to reality on site.

Everyone agreed. Nobody committed.

It was safer to stay vague. Make decisions provisional. Add “TBC” to anything slightly risky. That way, when things inevitably slipped, there’d be plausible deniability all round.

In fairness, we were extremely aligned on one thing: not wanting to be held accountable.

4. Avoidance of Accountability

AKA: “That’s not actually in our remit.”

Deliverables were communal. Blame was bespoke.

Nothing was ever just late. It was “constrained by predecessors” or “awaiting interface clarity.” Issues floated from one workstream to the next like a game of logistical hot potato.

We tracked actions. Re-tracked them. Held meetings about them. But pinning anything on a specific person? Unthinkable.

In many ways, it was a masterclass in shared evasion.

5. Inattention to Results

AKA: “We delivered what we were supposed to… eventually.”

We measured success in slides, not outcomes. Progress meetings became rehearsals for client Q&As. And if the site was still a mess? Well, at least we had a tracker to prove why it wasn’t our fault.

No one made money. No one slept well. But we survived. Mostly.

And hey… we learned a lot. Like how to annotate PDFs under pressure and how to smile politely while being undermined in front of the Asset Owner.

Why did it get this bad?

Not because we didn’t care. But because we were scared.

Scared of blame. Scared of looking weak. Scared of being exposed in an industry that rewards bravado and punishes vulnerability.

So we built walls. Wore masks. Protected ourselves.

And we called it professionalism.

But it wasn’t.

It was fear. Culture. Habit.

And it cost us… dearly.

Missed milestones. Lost trust.

Good people walking away broken, disillusioned, or both.

A new way (yes, even here)

Towards the end, I started noticing the outliers, the ones who didn’t play the game.

The ones who admitted mistakes early.

Who shared credit.

Who picked up the phone instead of building a paper trail.

They weren’t loud, but they were consistent. And things worked better around them.

I remembered a quote from Patrick Lencioni:

That stuck with me.

Try this

Ask yourself:

– What conversations am I avoiding?

– What behaviours am I quietly accepting?

– What would trust look like - in practice - right here?

And the harder question:

– Am I doing what I say I want others to do?

Because this isn’t just “how it is.”

It’s how it fails.

And if anyone can break that cycle - one honest conversation at a time - it’s probably you.

Quietly. Persistently. Humanly.

Yours,

Gerwyn

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