Do you remember when you were in school and your teacher would assign a team project? You either loved or hated team projects because you knew that every group ended the same; there were always a few that led the group and did a majority of the work, the few that contributed, the one that argued every point, and the slacker who did absolutely nothing but still got the same grade. It was bullshit, and…
What would happen if we went back to a barter system? You know, I’ll send out one of our service technicians if you change the oil in his van. Can you image how chaotic our world would become? I have to image that we’d quickly realize our true value in the marketplace as individuals. I further speculate that we would quickly notice how inferior we all are as individuals to cope with the harsh realities…
We’ve learned through our culture to always satisfy our customers. We’ve learned from endless experiences that when we don’t satisfy our customers, someone brings our failure to our attention and we observe the consequences. And those consequences are very expensive. Take acquiring new customers, for example, the costs of gaining trust with someone you just met is quite high. It takes a lot of time and energy for them to accept that you will do…
When I hear the claim “perception is reality” I shudder. In one sense it’s, true but it can mislead us as well. When we begin our awareness of “reality” we begin with our senses like sight, touch etc. The problem is our senses are not how we know the difference between what is real and what is not real. Our recurring experiences and our recurring intentions teach us what we “know” about reality. What this…
In reality, all people can do is manage their commitments. Regardless of what people think and do, time does go on. Do you agree? If you accept the first claim, then you can notice observe and assess that we make endless tradeoffs for one value or concern over all the others in the given moment. For example, many of us at the office are competing in a Biggest Loser competition. In order to be competitive…
One of the most powerful lessons I’ve ever received was given to me by one of my mentors. He told me to commit to ALWAYS saying “I don’t know” when I do not know what to do immediately when dealing with something that needs immediate action. This is because a situation that requires immediate action does not allow for re-work if you “try” something that doesn’t end up working. Here at Jenco, I am out…
“What’s next?” is not the question to ask…if you plan to be a leader. The question implies being orientated to completing one task and looking for the next task to start. While this is somewhat functional, it isn’t strategic or competitive. What powerful managers do is remove Constraints to the flow of work. They anticipate the work 6+ weeks out and begin to identify what Constraints exists which will inhibit the work to be performed. Constraints can…
In this article, I will work to bring forth how important, useful and worthwhile it is to your career or role to “be” Proactive. To help bring forth the value I will make some claims and I invite you to not accept them without rigorous thought and perhaps conversations with people you characterize as successful. Claim #1: To “be” Proactive means you lead rather than follow. Leadership has more worth than following, if the leadership…
Recently I attended a LEAN Construction Institute event where the Last Planner System was being taught with a Pull Session of a restroom building. I found the event to be very well done, and for me it drove home the phenomenon of how knowledge is accumulated. Lean Effectiveness The Last Planner System enables foremen to be engaged in the design of their work environments and to know how their actions affect others. The critical item…
The nature of people in our business is the desire to fix things. This has been one of the pleasures of working in the construction industry; working with men and women that see something that’s not functioning and collaborating together to make it work better. One of the major challenges is to have our solution be more cost effective and valuable to the customer. Ultimately, we all have to satisfy our customers which means we…