Doing What You Don't Want to Do

It is natural for all of us to focus on our strengths and the things we love to do. Things we love to do are usually things that we are good at doing; our strengths.

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None of us were born with great business acumen, people skills or technical competency.  Each of us has developed both mental and physical skills over time. We may not even realize how we got developed so we tend to believe that we were just born a certain way.

Closing the gap between what you want and where you currently are at will require doing things you don't want to do and doing them well.

So far they have not discovered the “Great Contractor Gene.”   More current research on topics such as neuroplasticity have shown that our brains continue to change throughout our lives if we train effectively.  Using techniques such as “Deliberate Practice” while difficult have proven very effective in developing people at all levels.  These techniques are difficult much like a physical workout and require us doing things we really don’t want to do.  However over time as a weakness becomes a strength we usually start to love doing it.  


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As we are helping contractors prepare to take advantage of the opportunities the talent shortage will provide over the next decade we have learned a lot of lessons about how teams develop.  

This is a broad, deep and important topic impacting growth, succession and even viability for all contractors. 


Contact us to discuss lessons we have learned working with many teams. 




Change Order Profit Improvement
A 10% improvement in change order pricing for a $50M per year contractor will add $500K to their bottom line. This is not about simply marking up the change more, but rather, including the many costs that are typically missed or undervalued.
Be Specific About Problems
The business of construction is filled with constant problems. It’s not that great contractors don’t have problems, it's that great contractors have learned how to troubleshoot first, which allows them to learn from their problems faster.
Lead Measures and Outcomes: Starting with the Schedule of Values (SOV)
It is nearly impossible for a contractor to have consistently great cash flow if they have a Schedule-of-Values (SOV) that isn’t loaded properly and integrated with the project schedule, including a projection of the cash flow.