Professional Ethics for the Construction Industry

Abstract

When I was approached to write a foreword for this text I quickly agreed. I see no topic more important to the future of our construction industry than honorable, professional practice. We are a service industry as well as a relationship industry and to do our work well we need the complete trust of our clients, stakeholders, and team members. When a builder takes advantage of a client he/she is doing more than damaging a relationship, he/she is also hurting the image of our industry and every builder. Warren Buffet in his book, In The Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life, says it well: Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm and I will be ruthless. Good builders build bridges, develop trust, and look for ways to improve the image of their companies and industry. Our industry has come a long way in the improvement of our technical practices, but still needs to do a lot of work to improve our professional practice. Borrowing Warren Buffet’s analogy for a moment we have a lot of work to do to push the “professional practice snowball” back up the hill since we have a long history filled with hundreds of examples of unethical practices. Unfortunately, some of our employer companies have also “institutionalized” questionable practices that confront our young graduates when they enter the workplace. To succeed our graduates need a very strong grounding in professional ethics to acquire the confidence and the knowledge to handle these pressures and additionally help change our industry. Quite a challenge!