Assortment Podcast no. 1

1. Why Isn’t It About What You Like?

This is a common theme. It shows itself in plus/deltas and meetings, in decisions on project teams, in decisions about software, and in hiring. It threads throughout human interaction on construction projects. Nobody cares what you like if doing the right thing is more important. If there’s no decision about core values or doing the right thing, then sure, choose. Where do you want to go to dinner? I don’t care, wherever you want.

But we don’t hire according to who you like. We hire according to core values, according to humble, hungry, smart. When we do plus/deltas on meetings, I don’t care what you liked. We evaluate the meeting on its purpose: did we accomplish it? I’m being a little dramatic with I don’t care. I’m saying we let it enter the conversation too much. You went to a training. Did you like it? I don’t care. Did it help you advance in your career, get you more pay, your next promotion, or home on time to your family? That’s what I care about. Read How to Realize Value from Conducting a Plus/Delta Evaluation.

If we only hired people we liked, we’d have what I call organizational inbreeding. Everyone would look like us, think like us, and talk like us. We’d have a lack of diversity and an echo chamber, which is one of the worst things you can do to a team. You need diversity, dialogue and discussion, some healthy conflict, and different perspectives. You need integrators and visionaries, different personality types, and people with different strengths. Evaluate meetings, trainings, and people according to your purpose and your core values.

2. Why Does What You Measure Drive Behavior?

This is throughout leadership and business books. Whatever you measure is how people will behave. Take finances. If you measure a project team on how well they manage their budget, without looking at contingency or the overall budget for your subcontracts, you incentivize them not to get what they need: not buy the toilet paper, not provide restrooms or hand-wash stations for the craft, not get consulting, and not send people to training.

If you measure the team on profitability and strategy on their project, not just the reports that are easy for you to see, they can make great decisions to improve the job. If you just look at general conditions and general requirements line items and always penny-pinch, the behavior you create is that they won’t take care of their people, won’t get training, and won’t get help when they need it. Measure the profitability of the project.

I thought about this with Lean Takt and Elevate. Most of the time, we measure honey badger behavior and client satisfaction. If those stay our number ones, people will burn themselves out. Kevin, Katie, and I realized we need to start measuring PTO, level capacity, the capacity of individuals, and the happiness of employees. You and your organization may be measuring things that counteract your culture or your results.

3. Why Is It Hard to Be Good Together?

When we were in France, Fabien said, it’s not hard to be good. It’s hard to be good together. That’s so true. It ties into the idea that a person is smart, but people are stupid, because of the mob mentality.

So should we listen? Should we have emotional intelligence and psychologically safe environments? Should we engage in the teaming concepts Patrick Lencioni talks about? Should we implement Last Planner, involve our trade partners, make commitments together, and have a transparent environment? 100% yes, because we don’t need any more difficulty being good together. Don’t compound it by siloing.

You can’t take individual good people and have them automatically become a team. Remember the non-team, the pseudo-team, the potential team, the real team, and the high-performing team from The Wisdom of Teams. See The Wisdom of Teams – Winning Teams.

4. Why Is It Never the Company?

Here’s a pattern I’ve seen over and over. When you hire a company, even Elevate, it’s not about the company culture, and it’s not really about the leader or CEO. It’s about the person they’ve assigned to your project. You could hire a great company with a great track record, and the superintendent they put on your project, regardless of the culture and track record, may go a different direction than you’re used to.

When you interview, you’re not just interviewing a company, its track record, or the CEO you hopefully have a good relationship with. You’re interviewing the person who’s going to be on your job. Don’t ever forget that, or you’ll make a huge mistake and leave yourself open to a possible problem.

5. Is Time Really Money?

You’ve always heard time is money. I was talking to Kevin about it, and here’s the formula. Time is capacity: the capacity to do more work, more value, more continuous improvement, more time with your family, more work on your own career. Capacity enables you to provide value. And value is money. You can spend all the time in the world on something and pretend it’s worth money, but unless your time becomes capacity to add more value, it may be wasted.

There’s no real reason to fear being fired, getting a new job, or any position in life, as long as you know you’ll add as much value as anyone else, value people will pay for. I used to stress: what if Elevate goes under? But the value I could create for a company, working for them directly or starting a new business, is enough that I know I could earn what I need. That’s not arrogance. It’s a determination to add value and earn what I’d ask for. Build your retirement and savings. I’m not saying don’t. But you don’t have to stress or politic for a job as long as you’re always able to add value.

A listener wrote that the General Patton episode sent him down a path of research, and that it’s abundantly clear how much Patton focused on training others: sword training, tank training, and establishing the Desert Training Center. He realized how important training, teaching, and building his team really was. I love that we have heroes like that to learn from, good and bad.

So here is the challenge. Pick one metric your team is measured on. Ask what behavior it’s creating, and whether that behavior matches your culture and your results.

Bottom line: Decide by purpose and core values, measure what drives the right behavior, learn to be good together, interview the person not the company, and turn your time into value.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

On we go.

FAQ

Should meetings and trainings be evaluated on whether people liked them?

No. Evaluate a meeting on its purpose and whether it was accomplished. Evaluate training on whether it helped you advance, got you more pay or your next promotion, or got you home on time to your family.

What does what you measure is how people behave mean on a project?

If you measure a project team only on general conditions line items, they’ll penny-pinch: no toilet paper, restrooms, or hand-wash stations for the craft, no consulting, no training. Measure the profitability of the project, and they can make great decisions to improve the job.

What does time is capacity, capacity is value, value is money mean?

Time is the capacity to do more work, more value, more continuous improvement, and more time with family. Capacity lets you provide value, and value is money. Time spent that never becomes capacity to add value is wasted.

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