Market Forces - Surviving vs. Thriving

Construction contracting is a highly competitive business in a rapidly changing market.

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Leadership Tools: Surviving or Thriving. Innovator or Fast Follower.

The “Invisible Hand” of the market is constantly demanding that construction projects are delivered:

  • Lower Cost
  • Faster
  • Higher Quality

Whether you are looking at your individual career, a contracting business or the whole value stream of delivering completed projects to a customer you must constantly be focused on being competitive.

Just to survive you must be adapting faster than the slowest of your competition.  Survival is not guaranteed and just surviving is not fun.  

To thrive you must be in the top 20% of your competition with a team that can rapidly adapt and scale innovations.  There are multiple ways to innovate:

When you are in a business with single-digit net profits every bit of discipline in operations matters.


Learn how we help contractors define the right strategies and improve their operations


Market Forces - Surviving vs. Thriving
Field labor is the often the biggest variable on a construction project - making it the biggest risk and opportunity....

Market Forces - Surviving vs. Thriving
Field labor is the often the biggest variable on a construction project - making it the biggest risk and opportunity....

Lean Principle - Value Stream
A contractor’s value stream is every step required to take raw materials and information then deliver a completed project to the waiting hands of a customer. Deep understanding of this value stream is the foundation for major productivity improvements.
Time-on-Tools and Minimum Required Installation
Labor productivity IS NOT the biggest problem with field productivity. Under similar conditions the variation in how fast two crafts people actually “turn wrenches” is about 2X but there are far bigger problems to tackle. Focus on these three areas.
Seeing the Mountain - Levels of Detail
You will find a clear path to the top of the mountain faster as you build your ability to situationally vary the resolution you see the world in. This applies to the construction of a project, the building of a contracting business and to life in general.