Why Builders Should Imbibe Culture Of Team Work, By Bammeke
2 min read
Edith CHUKU
National publicity secretary of the Nigerian Institute of Building, Akin Bammeke has urged builders in Nigeria to stop seeing the profession as an avenue for competition. He wants them to imbibe team work to avert building collapse.
Bammeke who was a guest speaker at the 2021 commemoration of builders’ week, made this call last Thursday, while addressing builders and under-graduate students in the building profession, at the Captain Elechi Amadi Polytechnic, Rumuola, Rivers State.
He told TNN in an interview on the sidelines of the event that “there is bound to be problems when an individual builder, no matter how professional, decides to handle what a team should have handled. When we say team work, I hear a lot of us easily define it, but we don’t practice it at times, we at times behave like individuals for things that are to be done by a team.
“If the builder decides to be the design professional, he will obviously deliver a shoddy job, and vice versa, things will be better when we do it rightly. Team building is very important. By so doing you build trust, network, you will get more, but, you will get frustrated if you don’t build a team, usually it is greed that makes us not to work as a team, let’s collaborate, compliment and not compete.”
According to him, “building is a collective thing, and team work is very effective to avoid mistakes that could lead to not just collapse of building, but, loss of lives, properties worth million and arrest too. Professionals are people who have been trained, licensed, accountable, they carry out responsibilities in an effective and efficient manner, not selfish and grab it all, not careless and manipulative.
“A professional team is a group of builders with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, goal and approach for which they owe themselves mutually accountable. In a building environment you have the architect, structural engineers, services engineers, quantity surveyors, professional builders and professional designers.
“Properly handled teams outperform individuals. What you can achieve when you collaborate as a team, you can’t achieve as an individual, when one decides to do it alone, he will chase a thousand and miss out nine thousand, imagine when they decide to be more.
Appreciating all who honoured the event, Rivers State public relations officer of the organization, Usenobong Emmanuel Atangaedi assured that the institute will continue to create awareness, sensitize the public on the need to engage the services of professional builders when building to avoid building collapse.
Among the activities held was a welcome address presented by the head of department of building technology, Captain Elechi Amadi Polytechnic, A.S Azukwu, a goodwill message from Sir Chief Emmanuel Okas Wike, lecture by Christopher Belonwu, among others.
