“I wish I had learned some of this shit 25 years ago, I would have been a lot better at my job.” General Superintendent for a $300MM per year General Contractor.
Forgive the language, we have been heavily engaged in the construction world for the last 5 years. A competitive, high-stress industry with many unique challenges for leaders.
- Teams form and reform every 6-24 months around the key leadership roles of Project Manager (PM), Superintendent, and Project Engineer (PE). Many times, the leadership partners on a project are assigned randomly based on who is available from the team. What could go wrong?
- In the world of the General Contractor, almost all the work on a project is done by subcontractors. Imagine being responsible for the performance of dozens of people from different companies with a wide range of cultures and standards. Most leaders are challenged enough just to keep their in-house teams collaborating effectively.
- Many of the construction industry’s customers are moving away from the highly contentious world of hard bid work, to a more collaborative model called Construction Management at Risk (CMAR). The same short-term leadership team has the additional challenge of managing strategic customer relationships as well as a safe, under budget, and on-time construction project.
Here’s the takeaway:
High performance is achieved when these technical, process-focused construction professionals realize that real power for new potential is derived from the evolution of their people skills.
The same is true for our other professional clients (law, medical, engineering, IT). They have spent decades mastering technical work; the future growth and impact of their business are now completely dependent on building and leading teams of people to deliver results.
“Our day jobs get in the way of mentoring and coaching our leaders,” Executive VP of a multi-billion dollar electrical contractor.
This is the reality for almost every small and medium business, too. Good news, we can help. Everyone wins when leaders get better.