During a meeting with the top management team of engineering and construction firm McDermott’s Jebel Ali operation convened by Sameh Ali (General Manager Project and a Strathclyde MBA alumnus), Professor Colin Eden presented his view of what makes a manager strategic.
Based on his research with top executive teams and interviews of respected CEOs and Nobel Laureates, Professor Eden stressed, among other things, the importance of the dynamics of stakeholder response anticipation. The discussion also covered reflections on how and why complex projects fail, and the importance of understanding the overall context, including customer-client interactions, of the decisions that eventually led to project failures, delays or overruns.