Investing for Sustainability - Growth Hurts

“I can’t afford to invest more in talent development or process streamlining because we have a bunch of bad projects.”

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This may come from the different levels - for instance a crafts person who is too focused on individual productivity to train their apprentice.  It may come from the Project Manager who is too overloaded with work to train their Project Engineer.

Leadership Tools: Growth Hurts. How effectively are you investing your dollars?

The only way a contractor can truly grow sustainably is to build a culture that is focused on continuous personal-development and teaching others.  Truly great development hurts - it stretches our brains to grow the same way physical exercise stretches our muscles. Most of your team will resist this level of exertion and insist there is an easier way.  Most of your team will rationalize away performance problems and downplay the need for training.  

The management teams of growing contractors systematically lead their teams through extremely rigorous training building them to dominate tomorrow’s construction environment.


Look at your business and the stage of growth it is in.  

Is your team prepared (or preparing) for the next stage of growth?

What pain are you avoiding today that will be 10X worse in the near future?  




TOOL: Leader Standard Work (LSW) Template for Field Managers
Excel format that you can use to standardize work across your field managers and synchronize that work internally and externally for optimal effectiveness. This tool will help develop your team faster and deliver projects more consistently.
Balancing Health and Wealth
There is no bigger variable in our general health - physical and mental - than having a good, stable income. As more states go into lockdown, please make sure that all leaders in your company are effectively weighing this balance.
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.