Name: Ricardo Oliveira

Title: Founder / Managing & Operations Director

Organisation: RCO Projects Architecture & Engineering

Founder Partner and Managing Director, Ricardo Oliveira, is an Automated Systems Designer Engineer, Architectural Technologist, and Project Manager, specialized in BIM level 2 with a Master´s Degree in the relevant area. He brings over 25 years' experience in the architectural design, structural engineering and construction in healthcare, working throughout the years in projects for markets in Europe, USA and in the Latin America, having designed, built, project managed, installed and commissioned hundreds of specialized projects for hospitals, integrated operating rooms & critical cares, designing and providing architectural systems focusing in ergonomics, mechanical and electrical infrastructure for power systems, surgeon control panels, safety alarm systems and mainly in the automation and telemedicine ( A/V ) which is his main area of expertise, the Turnkey Design & Build for Integrated Operating Theatres for the major University and Teaching Hospitals in Europe and worldwide.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

We’ve gone through the interviews and asked the best of the best to come back and answer 7 MORE Questions on Leadership.

I hope Ricardo's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. As a leader, how do you build trust with employees, customers and other stakeholders?

I have always been very truthful, not only to myself but also in all my relationships, whether professional or personal. That way, anyone who either already knows me or is around me knows exactly what to expect. By being truthful, we build trust and honesty so the employees, customers, stakeholders, or anyone else know you are a reliable person they can trust, count and believe in

2. What do 'VISION' and 'MISSION' mean to you? And what does it actually look like to use them in real-world business?

Again, I will have to mention being truthful. To ourselves, to others, to our values, to our companies, employees, families, relatives, and simply to life and all our relationships. That way, when talking about our company´s vision and mission, we are also truthful to our values, to our clients, partners, to what we want to achieve in the short, medium, or long term and therefore to what we need to do now to achieve our goals and objectives in future.

Having said that, we keep our Vision and Mission Statements always as a live document because with experience and daily lessons learned, we not only grow together as a team, as a company, but also we grow our values, and why not, if required, update in fact our vision and mission statements. They refer and translate in practical terms our company´s culture and who we are.

3. How can a leader empower the people they're leading?

As a leader, we have, before anything else, to value people. By giving our employees their value and trusting them, we can delegate responsibilities and authority so they can take ownership of their work and tasks.

We have to mentor, guide, teach them, and provide opportunities for their growth and development. We have to provide training and challenging assignments, recognizing their abilities and rewarding their achievements to keep motivating them so they can keep performing well and feeling welcomed and valued as a person and a professional.

4. Who are some of the coaches or mentors in your life who have had a positive influence on your leadership? Can you please tell a meaningful story about one of them?

I remember once, whilst I was still an intern at a giant American multinational company, many of us were working until very late in the day as we had to achieve our sales targets in that particular quarter. At some point, I was already in the office for at least 15 hours, it was late evening, and the CEO, who was also working beside us, approached my engineering department asking where my colleagues were. I was working on my own, and I simply replied to him that I did not know where they were, as I did not want to cause harm to anyone. It did not matter anyway at that point, as I had a lot to do and focused only on completing my work on that day.

To my surprise, the CEO kind of told people off, took me to the main departments and pointed to me, mentioning the work I was doing and that everyone should mirror my attitude towards commitments. He mentioned not only the fact that I was there working until late, but the quality of my work and, most importantly, my positive attitude, as most of the people around me, he could himself hear complaining and moaning. Seriously, I did not even have the time to notice he was there, and in fact he was around all of us also working hard, but also observing his employees.

Obviously it felt good being complimented by him, but I was more impressed with him at that time, working harder than possibly all of us there. I was always used to arriving and starting work a lot earlier than I was supposed to, due to the traffic in the city I come from, and to be fair, the CEO was always the first one to arrive and the last to leave the company. For me, he was truly a leader whom I was inspired by.

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5. Leadership is often more about what you DON'T do. How do you maintain focus in your role?

We certainly can not maintain focus 100% of the time in our lives, and for sure, we miss a lot. For this reason, I like sharing my responsibilities and having constant follow-up meetings with my teams. By having an open and constant communication, we can mitigate the fact of overlooking situations which, in many cases, require a prompt intervention, so problems do not escalate. And yet on the other hand, we can intervene, provide the necessary feedback, and motivate or assist people in need.

6. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Everyone plans differently. How do you plan for the week, month and years ahead in your role?

I believe that due to my project management background and working in such an area as the AEC ( Architecture, Engineering, and Construction ), planning comes a bit more naturally for me, as this is our daily routine. In my case, every project is separately well documented, no matter whether the project is an external or an internal one.

Communication is one of the most important factors in my routine as well, so my planners are strictly triple-checked, changed, or updated. What we do which is very important is to keep the information and documentation on our centralized common data environment platform and as projects take long time, I am always on top of every single detail having all the necessary overview information yet touching basis constantly with my team no matter whether the tasks are weekly, monthly or yearly we can check all outstanding or closed tasks as well as all present or future events assigning the responsible teams to each project yet planning for situations not only expected but also for the unexpected ones having always plans B, C or D in standby.

7. What advice would you give to a young leader who is struggling to delegate effectively?

In my experience and most of the time, leaders struggle to delegate because they are very centralized people and do not trust that their team can achieve and complete what is necessary. At another time, they simply do not trust their team, and therefore, it is tougher to delegate.

Having said that, I would say that they should improve in their communication skills and ability to trust and believe in the team around them; otherwise, the effort is pointless. In many cases, they should also not be ashamed of themselves and, for sure, look for an external resource able to work within the company´s environment, providing consultancy.

Let´s remember that the most important fact for any company is to correct what is wrong and improve also on what is already well, maybe there is still room for improvements and growth in situations where things are already going strong. Keep your business and marketing plans updated, keep the focus on your competitors; however, remember the most important assets you have, the people that work for your company, who make your engines turn!