High-Performing Contractor - NEWSLETTER - Feb. 2008

This e-newsletter is dedicated to supporting High-Performing Contractors and all contractors working to become one. Written by Dennis Sowards

Leadership & People

George Hedley, an owner contractor and popular speaker on construction Leadership, has some great thoughts on leading through people.

“Over 90% of employees rate their company leadership below excellent. Only the top 10% are effective leaders who look for new ways to improve, motivate people, find new customers and seek new business opportunities. The common denominator to achieve business success is PEOPLE - influencing, motivating, managing, giving them a vision, getting them committed and getting them to achieve what you want. Their output equals your input. Leaders realize they get what they expect. When leaders control or talk down to employees, they're held down and not allowed to be or do their best. Most people perform below their ability because leadership needs to improve.

“When leaders treat employees as responsible and accountable adults they respond in a positive manner and take charge. When managers do their worker's job for them or don't trust them to make decisions, people don't become the best they can be. The problem is not your people, it's your leadership. When you have people problems, it's a reflection of leadership effectiveness. People don't want to follow the boss. They want to follow the leader. Leaders put people first. They listen, inspire, motivate, care, teach, coach, train, encourage, help, and respect others. Rather than focusing on day-to-day activities, leaders set the vision, set goals, track targets and then get their people to follow.

“Make people your priority!
Remember the old management style of management by wandering around? Leaders lead people by spending lots of time with them coaching and inspiring them to become the better, responsible, accountable and valuable. Leaders trust others by delegating everything except vision, values and setting targets. When people are not responsible for results, they'll never grow to become excellent managers you want them to be. In most construction companies the boss is responsible for everything and the only one accountable for bottom-line results. Who in your company is responsible to hit your profit goals, keep customers happy, make sure you have enough work to keep everyone busy, order the right materials, finish jobs on time, open and close the office, get change orders signed, read and review contracts, find new customers, or make sure quality is acceptable? When you take responsibility for everything, you are not leading others.

“When the boss owns the problem, only the boss can solve it. Do people constantly line up outside your door or consistently call your cell phone to ask you to solve their problems? When you solve other people's problems, they bring you MORE problems. People responsible for nothing are responsible for NOTHING! Do your people depend on you to make their decisions for them? Let go to grow! How can you lead when you're doing everyone else's job? You don't really want to give up your power, do you? It feels good to rescue people put out their fires. This keeps you in control and unable to grow your company. This is not leadership. You'll have to let go to grow and step up to leadership. Why don't you trust them? Afraid they'll make a mistake? Can you do it faster or better? Maybe it just feels good to be a control freak. Maybe the solution to your people problem is you!

“Your leadership challenge is to get people responsible, for what they're responsible for! Transfer ownership to those who do the work. Go through your in-basket, phone messages, faxes, e-mails and 'to do' list. For every item, ask yourself who can I delegate and trust with this task or responsibility? Leadership is not about control or power. It is about people and getting them to want to do what you want them to do. You can tell people what to do and only they decide if they'll do it. Your leadership job is to lead, coach, encourage and keep them on track. The more control you take the less they do for you. Get in the opportunity business!

“Once you decide to step up to leadership, get out of your 'do' role and let go to grow, you'll find business becomes fun. You have time to seek better business opportunities, spend time with other visionary business owners and look for ways to expand your bottom-line. Make it your priority to spend at least twenty-five hours every week focused on activities that will grow your business, improve your people, enhance your management team, build customer relationships, or take your company to the next level.”

Source: Hardhat Hedlines, 11/01/07: George Hedley owns Hedley Construction and Hardhat Presentations.

**************** Customer Focused - Killer Customer Surveys
Kristy Dunphey recommends some key questions and details to include on your next survey.

“Contact details. Ask for email address so that you can add them to your email database and confirm mailing and phone so that you know you’re up to date for the future. Also ask for permission to email to them in the future.”

“Rate 1 – 10. I like to ask clients to rate their overall experience on a 1-10 scale (10 being the best experience they could imagine). This allows for more flexibility and honesty - anything other than a 10 you know you could have done better – now you just need to find out how.” I agree with her on using the 10-point scale. Research shows that any rating that is not nine or ten is not a loyal customer.

“Method of attraction. If you aren’t already aware of the reason the customer first came to use your services, these surveys are a great spot to find out how your clients found out about you. This gives you an opportunity to either thank the person who referred them or find out what method of your marketing is working best (ie great shop front, smiling staff, excellent advertisements etc.)”

“Improvements required. Ask what you did right - but also ask what could have been better (it's as important to get this information.) Consider phrasing the question: Describe three ways we could have looked after you better, or list three things we could have improved upon. By asking for three things - you often get more than by not specifying a number. (Don't forget you can use this technique with finding out what they liked as well.)”

“Recommendations. I personally like to ask if they would recommend your services to friends /family.” Research shows that this is a very key question for predicting future growth of your company. I recommend using a 10-point scale to allow the degree of willingness to recommend your company (10 meaning most enthusiastically will recommend you.) Follow this question with a Why/Why Not question to learn the reasons behind their answer.

“Follow up. If you're going to ask the questions on this survey - be prepared to get some negative responses, that’s a part of life, but ALWAYS let the people who fill in your surveys know what you're going to do to either fix the issue, or ensure it doesn't happen again in the future. Always follow up surveys with a thank you for a completed survey in some way (email, phone call, card etc)”

Source: Jeffrey Gitomer's Sales Caffeine Issue 304, 09/04/07

Process Management

All work is a process and yet process management is one of the weakest areas for most companies. Maybe because we work in processes all the time that we fail to learn how to work effectively on the processes. Here are some critical elements of effective process management:

1. Know your customer’s requirements. All processes are done to meet some need. Be sure to periodically validate the actual needs of the process’ customer. Often we think we are doing what is needed only to discover that the needs have changed but the process hasn’t.
2. Map your process. Identify the steps of the process. Field validate that these are the steps the workers in fact do follow. You cannot achieve consistent results without a consistent process being followed.
3. Know the process key requirements. Every process has some things that must be done right to be successful. This may be accuracy, first time quality, on-time delivery, technical expertise, etc. While quality, cost and schedule tend to be the requirements of all processes there may be other requirements for certain processes. A material delivery process that provides the material to the job in a just-in-time approach has a more critical time requirement than shops that send product to the yard randomly in advance. The process for collecting on invoices is tied to schedule pr timing than to the quality of the invoice.
4. Measure for results and process improvement. Measure how well you are doing to meet the customer’s needs (outcomes) and to meet the process’ key requirements.

Winners News

The winners of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award for 2007 are:

PRO-TEC Coating Co., Leipsic, Ohio (small business)
Mercy Health System, Janesville, Wisc. (health care)
Sharp HealthCare, San Diego, Calif. (health care)
City of Coral Springs, Coral Springs, Fla. (nonprofit)
U.S. Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC), Picatinny Arsenal, N.J. (nonprofit)

This award recognizes world-class performance in the quality of how the organization is managed. This is the first year that public sector organizations were eligible to apply for the award. Note that two organizations received it the first year. There were 85 applicants for the award in 2007. Studying how these organizations manage will provide great benchmarking and learning opportunities. If you live near them you may be able to participate in an overview at their facility.

Learning Opportunities

You may be interested in attending one of these training seminars by Dennis Sowards:

Lean Newsletter – Did you know that I also write a monthly e-newsletter focused on Lean & 5S’s applications in the Construction Industry? If you are not already receiving your Free issue, send me an email and I will add you to that distribution list. Send to dennis@YourQSS.com

Thought for the day

Dale Carnegie, author of the timeless How to Win Friends and Influence People said, “If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.”

For more information about the High-Performing Contractor assessment process contact Dennis Sowards at 480-835-1185 or at dennis@YourQSS.com or visit www.YourQSS.com