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.
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