The First Step is Raising the Bar High Enough So an Earth Worm Can Get Under It
I talked last week about how poorly the construction industry is viewed and the contractor’s unawareness of how low construction standards are. It’s pretty sad when the bar is so low that an earth worm can’t get under it.
We discussed how important it is for a professional builder to –
- Communicate clearly
- Listen intently
- Respect other people’s time
- Be responsive
- Be accountable
And how we should live and work using the “golden rules for construction contractors”
As a general contractor I’ve allowed myself, sub-contractors and laborers the latitude to leave the bar where it is. When this is permitted as acceptable, it leaves the bar laying in the dirt.
Standard is just average. Average should not be what we’re striving for. Currently the industry average needs to be raised. Let’s work together to get the bar out of the dirt. We need to determine what acceptable standards are and then incorporate a process to evaluate performance as compared to the standard.
We should be working to achieve more than average. We should be striving for excellence.
Usually, we have every intention of doing better. Good intentions are easy, actually doing better is the hard part. It doesn’t help when we aren’t even clear on what’s expected. We need an accountability system to be designed and implemented. A process for sharing and explaining clearly what the expectations are and a way to evaluate how well they are being met.
Now the hard part begins…what is this evaluation system going to be, how is it going to work?
If no one knows what the standards are…it’s going to be hard to achieve them.
We need a way to evaluate the performance of everyone involved in the construction process. We need a system to –
- Share what our construction business standards are and what is expected from ourselves, contractors and laborers.
- Assist individuals and companies in making the best possible choices and decisions regarding construction projects.
- Provide positive and constructive evaluation not intended to find fault, but to develop better contractors, laborers and companies.
- Minimize differences in opinions and focus on the work done, not personalities and/or our differing perspectives.
- Evaluate ourselves, contractors and laborers at the completion of each project.
- Provide construction customers with the best work possible by not only working harder but also working smarter.
- Reinforce appreciation for performing above and beyond industry standards while constantly raising that level of standard.
This system needs to have a way to rate each company and/or individual on their performance based on a culmination of events and actions of each project. These ratings then need to be accumulated in an overall performance rating to be used to compare to other companies and/or individuals when choosing who will do future projects.
We need to determine what areas we will be held accountable for and rated and reviewed in? We also need a numerical rating system for doing the evaluating.
We’ll get into these areas in the next post.
As I’m writing these weekly solutions, I’m developing an evaluation system that I’m going to implement at Timber Creek Construction. Once I get it finished, I plan to make it available at Solution Building for other companies that would like to help raise the bar in the construction industry standards.
