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There’s the
story about the man who goes to church every day to pray that
he might win the lottery. In the final hour of the fateful
selection with the kitty lapping at the $ gazillion level,
he prostrates himself before the congregation and cries out
in a loud voice, “Lord, Lord, please let me win the lottery.”
A hubbub arises as fellow parishioners turn to each other
in consternation, but then fall into stunned silence as the
very walls tremble with the thundering response, “Sam,
meet me half way. Buy a ticket.”
Pretty silly story
of course, but it does make a fairly important point …
there’s a price we have to pay for success. Not only
is the dollar figure frighteningly high just with the obvious
line items that allow you to hang out your shingle—equipment,
salaries, licenses, insurance, bonds, office space, fixtures,
and supplies to name a few—but then you have those intangibles:
your knowledge, skills, and willingness to put your wealth
and reputation on the line in what is a risky business, that
moved you to accept the challenge in the first place.
A Few More Punches
Ok, you’ve got a ticket … but is it the winner?
Maybe … maybe not. After you’ve got all the basics
covered, there are still some known and unknown risks ahead.
There’s not much you can do about the ones without a
name, but there are several areas you need to address if you
want to bring success into the realm of high probability.
Safety. It’s
hard not to look at safety in terms of accidents and from
an accounting standpoint it makes sense because they are the
part of your safety efforts that can be measured. Yet while
it is true that you can’t make a direct count of things
that don’t happen, their absence is what your safety
program is all about. An immediately apparent return on your
investment in a superior safety program is its impact on your
workers comp costs … something you can post to the bottom
line of your balance sheet. But I’d like to suggest that
even more important are the intangible results your efforts
have on the relationship between you and your workers. It’s
not just the rules you lay down but their underlying atmosphere
that is the real bottom line.
Regulations. As
with safety, it is hard to judge your performance in regulatory
matters without reference to violations and their cost in
terms of fines and make-goods. Yet here, as in safety, the
real measure lies in doing things the right way rather than
just meeting the proscribed requirements. While it may be
tempting to say to yourself that if monetary Brownie Points
probably aren’t at stake, “good enough” should
be sufficient, you know that anything short of excellence—even
in areas peripheral to the job at hand—will come home
to roost somewhere down the line.
Technology. For
years, construction—particularly in the dirt-moving arena—was
resistant to technology … but no more. The field has
seen more change in the past decade than in all the years
following World War II, a fact that is most apparent in the
equipment that is being delivered today. But stunning as these
changes have been, the real advances have come in (and as
a result of) computerization. Think back to when you bit the
bullet and took your first tentative steps into the computer
age … and compare that vision to where you are today.
You may not like all the changes that have occurred as a result
of that decision, but your knowledge of and control over the
factors that affect your business are light-years removed
from what they used to be.
A contractor friend
challenged this by saying, “I can still work up a darn
good bid on a coffee shop napkin,” and I don’t doubt
that he can. But his understanding of the factors that lead
to that ability come not from some cosmic vision but from
spreadsheets that allow him to peer deep down into the gizzards
of his business with a precision more reliable than the witchcraft
and superstition of bygone days. The bottom line here, whether
you’re talking about estimating software or machine control
systems, is that if you’re not using the most advanced
tools and your competition is, sooner or later you’re
going to get stomped.
The Other Half
Your ability to access, digest, and apply pertinent information
is the remainder of the equation to which that voice in the
beginning referred. It is what military people call Intelligence,
and it is built on your energy and dedication in exposing
yourself to the knowledge and vision of others, beginning
with the experience of your professional advisors, peers,
and the people whose livelihoods are in your hands. I’d
like you to consider Grading & Excavation Contractor as
a conduit to all three of those categories, but in the final
analysis, it is your desire to succeed that gets you the winning
ticket.
Send
John an Email
GEC - March/April 2005
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