A great friend and construction client of mine shared some interesting information with me from the world of track and field. Here’s what he found:
Stats from 2013
High School Record for 400M Men’s Race – 44.69 Sec.
World Record for 400M Men’s Race – 43.18 Sec.
Now, consider the records for the same distance race but throw in 10 hurdles:
High School Record for 400M Men’s Intermediate Hurdles – 49.38 Sec.
World Record for 400M Men’s Intermediate Hurdles – 46.78 Sec.
The high school record for the 400M IMH is about 10.5% slower than the 400M while the World Record for the same race is about 8.3% slower. Hurdles do make things slower.
To punctuate the impact of “hurdles,” consider the 3000M race times compared to the 3000M Steeple Chase (SC) times.
H.S. Record for 3000M Men’s – 7:59.82 Minutes
World Record for 3000M Men’s – 7:20.67 Minutes
H.S. Record for 3000Men’s SC – 8:50.10 Minutes
World Record for 3000M Men’s SC – 7:53.63 Minutes
The high school record for the 3000M is a little more than 10% faster than the 3000M Steeple Chase race and the World Record is about 7.5% faster for the 3000M over the 3000M SC. Again, hurdles do make things slower.
The visual of the two races described — one that is “open field” versus one that has staggered hurdles, even “ponds” to clear in the Steeple Chase — provides some interesting parallels for contractors. Consider some of the potential “hurdles” for contractors to overcome:
- Employees arriving late to work
- Material supplier late in deliveries
- Poorly maintained equipment finally breaks down
- Recently purchased tools mysteriously disappear
- Work site proximity to public traffic areas cause work to stop periodically
- Work site proximity to residential areas requires work to start later and stop earlier than normal work day hours
- Owner waits until your crews show up to inform them that they can’t work on the site that day
- Power for your equipment and tools goes out
- Lack of safety focus resulting in an employee injury that stalls work
- Other contractors on same site interfere with your crew’s progress
- Needed job drawings or schematics are still not available
- Customer failed in getting needed permits for your crews to begin working
- Your best employee quits in the middle of big job
- Police arrive to your site to arrest two workers who have failed in paying their child support
Do any of the “hurdles” above sound familiar? Certainly some are out of your direct control but can still have a negative impact on your performance and profitability. So, how do we work to eliminate the hurdles that we find in our path? And if we can’t eliminate all of the hurdles, how can we at least reduce the impact made by those hurdles that slow our performance?
Well, let’s project what a “Contractor 400M IMH” race might look like and how you might navigate your company over six hurdles that could be on your track.
1. Identify known hurdles
Even before the “starter’s gun” goes off, you had better be prepared for the first hurdle, and that is to be sure to have your crews packed and ready for the day’s effort. This is where checklists are good tools to use to ensure that every piece of equipment, tool and vehicle is ready to go and that such basic information as jobsite addresses, best route to follow and all the needed contact information is provided. If you do not have these basics completed for your crew you ensure that they will fall down trying to jump this first hurdle.
2. Confirm all project information and “intel”
Needed drawings and specifications are a must for most contractors, and all such information must be pulled together prior to the job start. However, not all drawings are always available. Now what?
Well, the contractor may have to push the client to sign off on any work that can be started without penalty to any change that might be found later. This is risky to say the least, but contractors can do it successfully IF they plan to get past this hurdle. Withhold critical project information from your crews or provide such information later rather than sooner and you’re sure to have your crew trip up over this second hurdle.
3. Provide crew leaders with client profile
Ok, the more your crews, especially your crew leaders, know about the customer the better your crews will perform and provide that extra customer satisfaction effort. If your field leaders know what to prepare for in addressing and handling the customer, you have just empowered your people to head off miscommunication, strengthen the owner’s understanding and redirect the customer to you or your estimators when potential changes are hinted at on the job site.
Providing customer information such as what their personality is like, what needs have they expressed, what are their “dreams and expectations” about the job will enable your crew to fly over this third hurdle. Prevent your field leaders and crews from having such insights and they’ll fall flat on their face and have the customer calling to complain about the poor service or quality they perceive to be receiving.
Come on, contractors know better than anyone that our field crews can actually be the primary reason a customer becomes a repeat customer. Prepared and knowledgeable crews sell more work!
4. Ensure that all field workers know their roles and responsibilities
This fourth hurdle is bound to catch up with you if your field workers do not have a clear picture of what their individual roles are and what responsibilities they own. Does each worker know exactly what he or she is to do when first hitting the jobsite?
Are your workers disciplined about maintaining organization of their work trucks, keeping every piece of equipment and tool in the same location to ensure that time is not wasted “looking for stuff”?
There is still too much “I thought you were going to do that” in the field today. Hurdle #4 is very preventable and can empower your crew to clear this hurdle with ease and precision.
5. Educate your workers on safety, quality and SOPs
Teach it and preach it! That is, teach safety and keep preaching the importance and expectation to work safely.
Teach workers what quality is (and isn’t) and keep preaching the need to be quality based in every effort.
Preach about the “sin” of rework and callbacks, which are huge hurdles to clear for those who just want to get the work done fast and without any care about quality.
Teach SOPs (standard operation procedures) for every work process you have. Then, preach the need to comply with “how we do things here.” Work process compliance maintains consistent performance, strengthens quality and increases profitability.
Education is definitely the key to your field crews gliding over this fifth hurdle.
6. Maintain clear, consistent and timely communication
Having cleared each of the first five hurdles in record time is all for naught if we fail to prepare for this sixth and final hurdle. From the beginning of a new project to the final “close-out” activities, maintaining communication among the contractor, field leaders and necessary partners is perhaps the most important hurdle to jump and is one that can easily lead to an end-of-the-race disaster.
Clear facts must be mandatory. Consistent updates and confirmation encourages field leaders that they are operating with all of the latest and known intelligence. And the timely delivery of important communication enables all parties to trust each other, realizing that everyone is truly desirous of completing the project with pride and profitability!
Handling the unforeseen hurdles
Wouldn’t it be great if all construction hurdles were as easy to see and prepare for as a sprinter anticipating the next visible hurdle on the track? But not all of our hurdles are known prior to our job start. How does a contractor handle those hurdles that just suddenly appear, sometimes with little-to-no warning?
Look, there is not one answer to this very real question, but we can consider a few hurdle-clearing techniques.
- Barring a life-and-death situation, STOP and size up the current situation. Nothing too surprising here, but too many contractors, who are often “Type A” personalities who like to conquer and move on, do not slow down and make sure that whatever corrective step they take is done with the best problem-solving effort possible.
- Gain input from your known experts. Many of the hurdles contractors face are not necessarily new to everyone. Power outages, equipment breakdowns, interference from other contractors, late arriving suppliers, customers who want to change the project, etc., are all hurdles that contractors have faced before. The secret is still, be ready for the unexpected-expected hurdle and have some contingency plans ready to go.
- Seek out what the customer wants to do if the hurdle impacts project direction and/or costs. Many contractors, especially the smaller-sized contractor, fail to confirm the customer’s wishes and then fail to follow up with a formal “change order” document that is signed by the customer. If any of your hurdles are customer related in any way, you must get some formal document that captures the change — and always make sure to get that customer’s signature.
- Stay poised and focused on hurdle “resolution.” Another way of stating this is to stay calm and cool “in the pocket” so that any surprise blitzes you pick up are calmly handled. Getting upset and losing your cool often rattles your workers and leads them to take shortcuts to resolve problems. This behavior always leads to tripping over the hurdle and often makes the problem worse. But remaining calm and focused during surprises can allow the best ideas to surface and can re-energize those running the race for you.
Olympic 400M IM Hurdle champions have experienced just about all of the potential causes to tripping over a hurdle…and they know the hurdles are there to start. But like the Olympic World Record Holder, contractors can be better prepared to lead their field and office workers and their leadership team, to recognize hurdles (known and surprises), and then to clear those hurdles in the most expedient, safe and profitable manner possible.
And like those same sprinters, train yourself and your people to keep their heads and eyes up and looking out ahead. It’s often when we have our eyes focused down that we miss upcoming hurdles that could have been easily cleared.
Prepare for construction hurdles and you take off wasted time that can position you to be a “world record holder.”
