Thirst to be Better

Ace looked over the line of welders with heads down and elbow up and commented, "As long as we pay them by the hour what difference does it make what they do, don't kid yourself they are all here just for the money."  For decades this has been the dominate view of fabrication and construction employees.  But is it the best view?  When our projects are becoming more and more complex, and the need to creatively engaged people is greater than ever? 

What we end up with is a self reinforcing cycle where this attitude breeds a similar reflection in each employee that goes something like this: "Hey, I don't want to think, I don't get paid to think, just let me weld.  If the drawing is wrong that's not my job to fix it, screw the PMs anyway, they think we're all idiots anyway, and on and on . . . "

With this symbiotic attitude going on, let me ask some questions.  Would we want this attitude on our team to climb Mt. Everest?  Is this a sufficient attitude for our team that's scuba diving for sunken treasure in the Gulf of Mexico?  Would we want this kind of sailor on our Americas Cup team?    Is the vitality of our fabrication facilities or construction projects any less important?  Consider all the lifelines connected to our work, families, communities, businesses that depend on us just like our fellow climbers challenging the summit of Everest. 

So maybe we can take a look at something better than Ace's industry wide perspective.  Professor Dan Ariely, Duke University, has produced a wealth of ground breaking work on workplace attitudes, with surprising and hopeful results.  Remember, your Everest summit team will work in the worst possible conditions, under incredible stress, both physical and mental.  And yet, as my friend Mike who has viewed the world from the top of Everest, will tell you, as soon as he had recovered . . . . he wanted to go back! 

OK, this was the set up, next time let's explore some things we can do to feed the desire within all of us to do great things.

Show me the money . . . really?

Zeppo rocked back in his chair, viewed the calendar on the wall and considered his first two weeks on the job.  Then, looking over at our superintendent and his assistant, Zeppo let fly with a tactical comment, "I like working here, this is a great crew, so much better than where I worked before.  Too bad you don't pay a little more so a guy could live right, I'd have this program up to date in no time". 

   

That day a request for a wage increase for Zeppo arrived on my desk.

I gave Ace, our superintendent a call, "What's up with the pay request?  Zeppo has only been here a couple weeks, yes?."

Ace's voice carried an evangelical intensity over the phone, "True, but I'm going to lose him if I can't pay more.  If he was making more money I think he'd be more focused, he'd get this software straightened out, I really need him motivated."

I ran my hand over my face in that time honored self rub of stress relief and replied, "Not a good idea Ace, wage increases work after performance, not before."

Ace replied, "No, really, I need this, I need this guy to be motivated."

I made another run at the truth, "Money isn't a primary motivator, Ace."

The intensity in Ace's voice increased, "Sure it is, get a pay increase and a guy will really buckle down and work."   

Almost every one of us who work for a living wants to believe this . . . but it just isn't true.  To his credit, Ace was persistent, he really believed . . . that's important, so I agreed to Ace's request, not because it would change Zeppo's behavior . . . I was sure it would not, but because it would reinforce Ace's behavior.  Mistakes made while working hard, trying hard, trying to do what's good of the company, are valuable experiences.  Ace was about to have a valuable experience, I just didn't want it to be too expensive.

So I said, "OK, Boss Man, come over and pick up the approval, but when you do, leave on my deck in a sealed envelope, inside put your prediction on Zeppo's performance in 30 days.  I'll do the same, and we'll see who's prediction is most accurate.  The loser buys lunch at Tex-Mex."

I really enjoyed that lunch at Tex-Mex.  My prediction simply stated what overwhelming research has shown, which was that the wage increase would improve Zeppo's behavior for 2 weeks, after which his performance would quickly drop even lower than before the wage increase. 

Well, Zeppo moved on, and Ace, to his credit, quickly understood how he could be using his wage budget more effectively.  No more throwing money at bad work in the hope of a magical, alchemical transmutation of bad performance into good.  Money is a "keeper", if used unwisely it will keep bad workers just as effectively as great workers.  Use it to keep the good ones.

Core Teams are Vital

Singularly lonely, perched on a small Noll, our 14' Wide x 44' Long job trailer jerked and rocked on wobbly tires. No tie downs anchored us into the ground . . . which was nothing but blow sand anyway. But we were set perpendicular to a steady 50mph western wind, so we acted safe and confident, but felt like . . . what are doing here?

Just after dawn on the first day "the team", Mike, site superintendent and myself, had been gazing over our new, raw, 47 acre construction site. No power, no water, no road, no nothin' but blow sand. In 18 months the construction plan required that a new 160,000sf food processing facility to be up and running.

By noon that same day the arrival of the first, of many, sand storms did a vanishing trick on our construction site. Like a TV set that has lost its signal, the view out our job trailer window became brown chaos, flying horizontal. We held onto the trailer wall and stared at the brown out, . . . Mike, in a low, gravelly voice muttered, "Ever see that movie Hadalgo?" I replied, "Ever see that movie Perfect Storm?"

He was referring to the flying sand, I was referring to the project. The real question we were asking each other was should we stay and fight, or do we run? Only hindsight could tell us the best answer.

We chose to stay, and without consciously knowing it, we began to lay the foundation for a successful project. It wasn't a foundation of concrete or steel, but something stronger . . . willing commitment. Sometimes its called "buy in". But the key is that it is not what is said verbally, it's what is felt . . . internally. Commitment isn't found in contracts, speeches, promises, motivational excitement, or money, its found in facing reality . . . and committing to stay. Facing reality and committing to stay is known by another word: integrity.

When faced with a difficult project the first ingredient of success that must be present is integrity. Every project, no matter how big, has at its core a small pack of people. A bond of real integrity must exist in that group. Our core project team, our pack, consisted of only four people, but each one had integrity . . . willing commitment to the project. Consequently, I knew, no matter how tough things got, eventually we would succeed, and we did . . . under budget and on schedule.

Run from projects without it, commit to projects with it . . . a primary ingredient of project success: core team integrity.

Can Language effect Work?

Can how we speak effect how we work?  Some recent research suggests that how we talk can affect our behavior and decision making.  Yale Professor Keith Chen has been studying how language affects behavior in different cultures.  Take the word – rain.  In English rain is time dependent, for example: it rained yesterday, it is raining today, and it may rain tomorrow.  But in Chinese one word, rain, can fill each time phase, such as, past: it rain yesterday, present: it rain today, future: it rain tomorrow, and that apparently is grammatically correct.  Sound familiar to you?  If you are an American who has worked with a Chinese company, it is very familiar.  Yet I never understood that my Chinese partners were fundamentally viewing the world different from me.   I just thought it was a result of learning a second language.  But, think of it . . . because of my American English language I could not think or speak without putting my thoughts within a time framework.  My Chinese partners apparently could.  Looking back, I believe that gave them a distinct advantage in negotiations.  Why?  My language leads me to always consider short term needs, to make things happen “today”.  Come on, admit it . . . if you are in management you know when any group of American construction people meet, what we call the American “Can Do” attitude begins to show.  But another way to look at this wonderful American “Can Do” attitude is as a time prison, making short term needs drive our vision, and pushing us to miss long term wins.

A story:

“As the third meeting for the joint venture between American ABC Steel Company and Chinese XYZ Company came to an end, Andy American motioned for a vote, a decision on the new manufacturing plant.  Andy said, “Look, we haven’t made a decision over the last two meetings, we are coming to a close today without making a decision, and the way things are going I don’t think we will make a decision next time . . . so I’ve had enough.  No action, no deal.”  Several years ago I had a meeting on a big project that ended just that way.  Professor Chen's research has helped me understand why our bewildered Chinese counterparts that day looked so baffled, as we Americans got up and left.  They were thinking, “How strange are these Americans, make decision yesterday, make decision today, make decision tomorrow, we still make decision so calm done you westerners.  And they were correct.  Because we could not get out of our time prison, we make a short term decision based on present needs and missed a fabulous long term win. 

But here is the real win.  The best perspective is found in integrating both views into how we manage our daily decisions, where my American impulses can be freed from the time prison of short term decision making tactics just a bit, so my strategies can reap more long term goals.

Face to face is Best

Ace, hard working estimator/PM, came storming into my office exclaiming, “Those idiots in the shop screwed up again.  I told them we needed 24 connection plates fabricated and they built 48.  I might as well sub my project out, any other shop could do it right.  You gotta make ‘em stop screwing up my projects.” 

The best “tip off” that someone is not telling me the whole story is when that someone starts telling me what I should do to fix his or her problem.  Is there really a problem?  At this point what should I do?   

One of the most effective actions is to simply say, “OK, Ace, lets you and I go to the shop.”  This simple call to action removes 50% of the issues.  Why?  Because few tactics are as efficient at exposing the truth of a situation as face to face, person to person, antagonist to antagonist communication.  And, about 50% of the problems we face in business are emotional not factual, consequently, by quickly taking action to bring opposing sides together several things can happen:

1. If someone is just “venting”, blowing off steam, often the last thing they want is a face to face confrontational meeting, consequently the call for a face to face session reduces many mountains back to much smaller mole hills.
2. When face to face, it’s surprising how many people become reasonable.  Especially if there is someone of higher authority calling for the meeting.
3. And, face to face creates excellent teaching opportunities for people to learn how to become better, more effective . . . listeners.
4. Finally, here is the real gold.  After listening to the issues confronting the shop, Ace now sees what will be required of him to orchestrate his projects differently in the future so that the “problem” simply never occurs. 

In this instance, Ace learned that two unique piece part marks were, in fact, identical steel plates, just called for at different progress points in the project.  The shop was trying to be efficient in fabricating both plates at the same time.  Ace also learned that if he follows up any verbal directions with written directions, such as red lining the changed count number on the drawing sheet, it makes the shop’s job much easier.  But in the end, it was face to face communication that yielded solutions.

Face to face communication, it works.  When a conflict arises, an immediate face to face meeting can solve problems quickly, while teaching everyone better listening skills, and often the meeting uncovers vital information to make future operations smoother.