Competencies vs. Confidence vs. Success

Confidence in what you are doing at all levels in the company is critical; especially for the high-risk businesses of construction contracting.

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Sustainable success comes when this confidence is kept in alignment with the competencies required to effectively serve the customer.

Leadership Tools: Competencies, Confidence, and Success.

COMPETENCIES

  • Know clearly what competencies are required to effectively serve the customer at an individual level and aggregated team level.    
  • Rigorously look at your workflows and where you can reorganize them to close some of the competency gaps at the team level through work reassignment.  
  • Relentlessly work on closing those competency gaps individually and as a team.  

CONFIDENCE & SUCCESS

  • Many times your competencies are actually much higher than your confidence and that will impede success because you are afraid to take risks that you are more than competent enough to take.
  • Success breeds confidence and that leads to more success - up to a point. All decisions carry risks and as long as you are 15% confident in an outcome that has a 15% chance of success all reasonable people will act appropriately. If however you are 30% confident in that decision you. This is when failure starts to creep in.  

"There's nothing like biting off more than you can chew, and then chewing it anyway. "

Mark Burnett

Remember Icarus and flying too close to the sun…


An outside perspective is a critical tool for helping you keep your team’s confidence and competencies in alignment.




Four Steps to Sustainable Growth (10+10=0)
Growing contractors face an overwhelming number of problems and opportunities as they move through the different stages of growth. Prioritizing these, aligning the team, then executing becomes progressively more difficult and important.
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.
Succession Planning at All Levels
If a construction company is growing at 15% per year, then it will double in size about every five years. Therefore, in general, every position must be training at least two people that will be capable of succeeding them within five years.