Leaders Make Things Fun

Leadership has many facets and one of the big ones is keeping the team motivated.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
Share

This is not about “raw-raw” type of cheerleading.  It’s not about about being everyone’s friend all the time. It's not about alcohol, even though the Change Order Beer that Dust Bowl Brewing used to sell was pretty cool.

Leadership Tools: Making Winning Fun. Change Order Beer from Dust Bowl Brewing.

Leaders are always looking for ways to make really challenging things fun.  This stretches teams and builds the relationships that hold teams together in good times and bad.  

I was introduced to this beer a few weeks ago by a client.  They had a bunch of outstanding changes to process at the end of a project.  One of the management team members brought in a case and setup a simple set of milestones with the project team sharing a “Change Order Beer” after each milestone.  The project got closed out successfully with a happy client.   

It should be noted that this leader was not directly responsible for the project managers.  Leadership is leadership - it cannot be given with lines of authority. Leadership can come from any corner and level of the organization.  Leaders align teams.   

Seeing this reminded me of another great leader who setup some friendly competition on a project that had a bid bust in it to boost production.  She leveraged fun and a few friendly beers to help the team have fun while pushing their limits. She is now President of the company.  

Learn more about talent development




Planning for the Continued Decline of the Deep Expertise Age Band in Construction
Strategies and tactics for contractors to thrive despite the 25% decline in the "Deep Expertise" age band between 2015 and 2030. There are no magic bullets but there are proven processes that have been used before.
Resource - 2 Second Lean
Dozens of practical and fun ways to save a few more seconds each day. 3 minutes per day of additional productive time on tools (ToT) equals about a 1% labor savings - or $10K for every $1M in job cost labor. Helps develop a continuous improvement culture.
Using a Vision to Create Desire and Context for Tasks
There is a whole lot of work involved in building projects and building a construction company. It is easy to get mired down in endless to-do lists, processes, and problems. The thing that holds this all together and accelerates performance is the vision.