Four Steps to Sustainable Growth (10+10=0)

All contractors go through different stages of growth.

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Leadership Tools: 10 + 10 = 0

Growing contractors face an overwhelming amount of problems and opportunities as they move through the different stages of growth. There will never be enough resources to work on all of them, especially with the shortage of talent facing the construction industry.  

"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."

Abraham Lincoln

The equivalent for the leadership teams of growing contractors is to spend a significant amount of time truly identifying the #1 bottleneck or opportunity in their entire value stream.  Then breaking it down into an actionable objective with key results that everyone can align around rather than a broad vision.   

This seems simple but in reality is VERY challenging, especially as a business grows. This is an area where experienced 3rd parties can add significant value because they don’t have all the biases that are inevitable with management teams who are looking at the myriad of problems and opportunities every day.  

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The Journey (Length, Complexity, Ambiguity, and Guardrails)
Nearly everyone can get in their vehicle and drive to a destination at the end of a two-lane road. No single person can look at open land, select a place to build a city, build that city, build the infrastructure including roads, and build the vehicles.
Learn from the Wisdom in the Lessons of History
“Fortune favors the prepared mind.” - Louis Pasteur ---------- How much time do you and your team spend exploring the broader context of our world?
Coachability and Capability Matrix
Sustainable growth over time in your career and as a company has to do with being coachable and capable. Optimum growth occurs when we are stretching ourselves and others just beyond our current capabilities and then developing the needed capabilities.