Being a Leader - SODOTO

Construction is an industry centered around crafts people and tools they use to bring projects to life. There are some basic tools such as hammer, tape measure, screwdrivers and wrenches.

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Beyond that there are many more that have specialized purposes for each situation. Crafts people take great pride in acquiring, mastering and caring for an ever growing set of tools for their toolbox.

Leadership Tools: SODOTO. SO see one. DO do one. TO teach one.

"Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others."

Jack Welch; Retired CEO of General Electric

The apprenticeship model of training has worked for thousands of years in the crafts with someone constantly moving between the roles of student and teacher on their “Journey” to Mastery.  

For the leaders of construction companies we must not forget these valuable lessons from the field.  

  • We must work every day to learn new “tools” for training and development - these are the tools of leaders.  
  • We must always engineer SODOTO cycles into the daily work throughout the company to help everyone accelerate their development.  
  • We must design the “Deliberate Practice” that we get at the craft level into our daily work as outlined in books such as Peak by Anders Ericsson.

Contact us to learn how we help teams accelerate their development




Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (The OODA Loop)
The OODA Loop is a decision-making framework originally developed for the military to make agility a competitive advantage. The focus on fast, localized decisions in rapidly changing environments aligns well with construction projects and businesses.
Lean Principle - Value Add vs. Non Value Add
For specialty contractors the field workforce represents most of their competitive advantage as well as their biggest source of variability. Making improvements to field productivity requires deeply understanding what truly adds value to the customer.
Field Productivity Grand Slam
When contractors are truly successful at improving their field productivity it is like Mickey Mantle’s pivotal Grand Slam during game 5 of the 1953 World Series. The bases are loaded. You are at bat. The Big Four productivity home runs: