How to Achieve High-Performance in Your Construction Company | Ep 4

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How can you achieve high-performance in your construction company? High-performance comes from concentrating on the few tasks that if done with excellence will really make a difference in the results of your job and in the performance of your company. In this episode we dive into a simple three step framework that you can use to identify your most important outcome, the most important task that leads to that outcome and how you are going to improve your performance of that task.

In this episode we cover:

  • High performing athletes vs. high performance in construction companies.
  • How to perform in situations when things don’t go your way.
  • Reality of construction projects.
  • Outcomes and tasks that a Project Manager is responsible for in bringing a project on time and on budget.
  • Breaking down the High-Performance Framework.
  • Client example using the High-Performance Framework.
  • Choices that high-performers make from The Mental Game of Baseball

Links:

High-Performance Framework Download

The Construction Leader’s Dashboard Download

The Mental Game of Baseball: A Guide to Peak Performance by Harvey Dorfman

YouTube Recording of this Podcast

Kick Ass Meeting Report Download

Eric Anderton Website

Eric Anderton LinkedIn

Transcript

Hi this is Eric Anderton. And welcome to this edition of the Construction Leaders Podcast. Today we’re going to talk about how to escape mediocrity and achieve high performance in your construction company.

Today’s podcast is brought to you by the Construction Leaders Dashboard. The dashboard is a tool that I’ve used with my clients for many years to help the leadership in their company get crystal clear on the critical items they need to focus on in order to achieve high performance on a regular basis. If you’d like your own copy of the Construction Leaders Dashboard go to my web site: www.constructiongenius.com/cld.

Once you’ve downloaded it. You’ll be able to follow step by step along with the instructions. Fill it out for yourself get clarity and focus so that you can perform at the highest level possible.

As we kick off, we want to ask the question what is high performance?Here’s a very strong definition:

Concentrating on the few tasks that if done with excellence will really make a difference in the results of your job and in the performance of your company.

Please keep that definition in mind as we go through the process here today.

Name the Player:

I’d like to begin with a little game because we’re going to use the example of high performing athletes to help us to understand how we can achieve high performance in our construction companies. The game is name the player and the sport is Major League Baseball. I hope you like baseball and if you don’t I’m sure you’ll be able to follow along. This player has three World Series appearances. He has a 4-0 lifetime record in the World Series and 0.25 lifetime ERA. In other words he kicks butt in the World Series.

In 2014 he pitched one complete game one shut out and he had one save and he was the World Series MVP. Who is this player?

If you live in Northern California you know that the player’s name is Madison Bumgarner. In 2014 he had a historic pitching effort in the World Series when the San Francisco Giants played the Kansas City Royals.

A Hostile Environment

And here we have him entering the game in game seven of the 2014 World Series. Now the World Series is a best of seven format. That means that it was a win or go home game. Whichever team won the game they won the World Series. Now what’s interesting is that three days prior to Game 7 Bumgarner had pitched a complete game shutout and it was extremely unusual for him to come in in game seven and pitch again. And what’s interesting is here if you’re looking at the video version of this he’s entering the game in the fifth inning of nine innings with the Giants clinging to a 3-2 lead. And what kind of environment is he entering in where he will be expected to perform at the highest possible level? Well, he’s in Kansas City. They’re playing the Kansas City Royals and he stands on the pitcher’s mound surrounded by forty thousand plus people who have one intention for him and that is for him to fail miserably. And in this environment pressure packed. He was expected to perform at a high level. How did he manage to perform at a high level in this kind of environment? What did he concentrate on? Well you see him here doing something very simple in a certain way and that is throwing the ball or pitching the ball. And what he concentrated on was one simple action the outcome that he was seeking was to win the baseball game. But in order to achieve that outcome he had to focus on one simple action and that action was throwing hard strikes.

[00:04:27] He concentrated again and again on simply throwing hard strikes. And he got to the bottom of the ninth with two outs. In a baseball game. If you get three outs you’re out of the inning. Professionals Playing Like Kids

He was one out away from winning the World Series. He pitched magnificently. The Giants still clinging to that 3-2 lead. And he made a pitch and one of the guys who was up to bat he hit a looping line drive to left center field. And if you if you see if you remember the game which most of you probably don’t but I do since I’m a Giants fan what happened is there was this looping line drive to left center field the center fielder came in on the ball and he was caught between two minds.

Should I field the ball on a bounce and limit the guy to a single. Or should I make a spectacular dive and catch the ball, and be the hero and record the final out and win the World Series for the Giants. And you can see that he was caught between two minds and he did neither. The ball went by him and bounced all the way to the fence where the left fielder. His name is Juan Perez came to get the ball and he kicked it.

It’s an amazing thing. These guys are professional baseball players playing at the top of their game. And here they are making rookie Little League mistakes in these high-pressure environments. And so this guy who hit a looping line drive that should have been no more than the single. He got all the way round to third. If your Bumgarner and you’ve just pitched the fifth sixth seventh eighth and most of the ninth inning without giving up any runs at the top of your game, completely controlling yourself doing your very best. And then two of your teammates make these stupid mistakes. How would you feel. Well if you remember the Charlie Brown cartoon Peanuts, whenever something went wrong for him in the baseball game, he would stand all alone on the top of the mound and he would let out a big cry of despair. So how do you perform in pressure situations particularly when things don’t go your way?Think about how a construction project should go. At the beginning you get the plans and you begin to study then you get familiar with them. You get to the job site you build the project you then put a bow on the project at the end of it and it’s supposed to go just so nice and easy and clean and smooth right. It doesn’t go like that at all does it. Because in a construction project the reality is that there’s multifaceted things going on. There are uncertainties there’s unknowns. There’re many people involved:subcontractors, owners, suppliers, general contractors, construction managers – all these people involved in a project and there’s only so much that you have control over. And despite all of that you’re supposed to perform at a high level and there’s some things that you have absolutely no control over like the weather. There’s some people some things that you have some control over and then there’s some things that you have complete control over your job as a construction professional is to identify the things that you have complete control over and focus on doing your very best job of those things so that you maximize the possibility of you achieving the outcomes that you’re looking for.

Remember high performance defined as:

Concentrating on the few tasks that if done with excellence will really make a difference in the results of your job, and in the performance of your company.

Let’s take a project manager for instance. What are the outcomes that the project manager is responsible for?One pretty simple one is to bring the project in on time, and ideally under budget.What are the tasks then that the project manager must focus on in order to achieve that? Well there are tasks around schedule, cost,safety and quality. There are tons of tasks that the project manager is responsible for in order to achieve the outcome of a project on time and under budget. And he has certain tools to. He’s got email he’s got visits to the job site, he’s got negotiations with his project partners, he’s got communication from the field to the office. All of these tasks that he is responsible for in order to achieve the outcome of bringing a project in on time and under budget.

The 3 Step High Performance Framework

So, let me ask you this what are the top three outcomes that your expected to achieve in your position. Whether you’re an estimate or whether you’re a project manager or a project engineer superintendent a foreman, or perhaps you are the President of the company. Reflect for a moment and if you’re not driving write down the top three outcomes you’re expected to achieve in your position.

If you are driving by the way you can go to the website and download a PDF with this very simple framework so that you can work through it afterwards.

Now I’d like you to pick the most important outcome. In your position what is the most important outcome that you are expected to achieve. Next think about the top three tasks that lead to that most important outcome. In other words what do you need to do in order to achieve the outcome?

And then I’d like you to pick the most important task that leads to the most important outcome. Going back to the Bumgarner illustration the baseball won right. His most important outcome was to win the game and his most important task that led to that most important outcome was controlling the quality and the consistency of his pitching throwing hard strikes.

  1. So after you have you’ve picked your most important outcome. Identify your most important task and then ask this question “In what specific ways can I improve your performance of that task?”

That is a powerful question.

[00:11:20] And let me explain why.

It has the word specific in it and it’s designed to focus your thinking on practical, concrete, straightforward things that you can do to improve the performance of the most important task that leads to the most important outcome.

High Performing Quality Control

Let me give you an example. I have a client who does a lot of pre-fabrication before they go to the job site and one of the guys who is in their organization his name is Dave and he is in charge of the quality control in the fab shop.

I was doing a leadership development class with the leadership of this construction company. Dave was in the class and by the way if your construction company needs any help with leadership development contact me go to my Web site and get hold of me.

I’m happy to chat with you about a very powerful program I put together specifically for construction companies to help them with leadership development.

Dave identified three outcomes that were most important to him as the quality control expert so to speak in the fab shop.

Outcomes:

  1. Good quality work
  2. Educate fitters and welders in building codes
  3. Have inspectors onsite when they are needed

I then asked him to pick the most important outcome.Dave picked “good quality work”

Next I asked him to pick his top three tasks that lead to the most important outcome.

Tasks:

  1. Accurate measurements
  2. Attention to detail
  3. Spreading knowledge

The next step Dave took was to pick the most important task that leads to the most important task.  Dave chose “accurate measurements”

So, in order to achieve his most important outcome:  good quality work he chose to focus on his most important task: accurate measurements.

Next I asked: “in what specific ways can you improve your performance of that task of accurate measurements?”

Dave spent just two minutes writing down as many ideas as he could come up with to answer that question. This is what he wrote:

  • Take time to read and understand what I’m measuring
  • Establish running dimensions (this is a technical term)
  • Ensure my equipment is up to par
  • Have the correct equipment for the job

 

Then I asked him to pick the most important one of those ideas and he picked: ensure my equipment is up to par.

In a few minutes Dave was able to build a simple framework identifying his most important outcome, most important task leading to that outcome and how he was going to improve his performance of that task.  Here’s what the entire framework looked like:

What is my most important outcome?

Good quality work

What is the most important task that leads to my most important outcome?

Accurate measurements

How I can improve my performance of this task?

Ensure my equipment is up to par

How can you use this format in your position? What can you do that’s measurable and concrete and specific to achieve high-performance?

Back to the bottom of the ninth

The guy hits the lead looping line drive to left center field. He gets all the way to third base. Madison Bumgarner had a choice. He could despair and freak out.He had done his very best to achieve the outcome by throwing hard strikes and focusing in on controlling his performance. He could blame the other people for their failure or he could simply go right back to throwing hard strikes and concentrating on the things that he could control in order to achieve the outcome that he was looking for and what he did is he began to throw strike after strike to the next batter and the next batter eventually popped up to the third baseman. Good old Pablo Sandoval and the Giants won their third World Series in five years.

[00:17:31] Now I submit to you that regardless of whether or not Madison Bumgarner would have won that game because he didn’t have complete control over the outcome, he focused in on the things that he could control. He focused in on performing at the highest level the tasks that led to the most important outcome of winning the game. And his most important task was throwing hard strikes and he achieved that at the highest possible level.

Now let me give you some choices that high performers make as we wrap up this podcast and this is from a gentleman named Harvey Dorfman. And he wrote a book called The Mental Game of Baseball which I will link to in the show notes. I encourage you to read that book. It is brilliant.

  • High performers choose to be early rather than just on time or late.
  • High performers choose to want to learn rather than want to explain or excuse.
  • High performers choose to do more rather than just enough or less
  • High performers choose to be mentally tough rather than mentally lazy or intimidated
  • High performers choose to concentrate on what to do rather than what may result
  • High performers choose to be aggressive rather than passive or submissive.
  • High performers choose to know their limitations rather than try to do more than they’re capable of
  • High performers choose to think about solutions rather than worry about problems
  • High performers choose to accept adversity as part of the game and of life rather than magnify the adverse conditions and seek sympathy.
  • High performers choose to share with and help others rather than be selfish.
  • High performers choose to think and act positively rather than negatively.

(Click here to get your pdf:Click here to get the PDF)

So now it’s time for you to get to work. How can you use and apply this podcast?

A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. That’s the classic George Patton quote.

So think about the top three outcomes you’re expected to achieve in your position. Pick the most important outcome. Ask yourself what are the top three tasks that lead to that outcome. Pick the most important task. Ask yourself in what specific ways can we improve. Can I Improve My performance of that task. Identify some specific ways. Pick the most important way and build an action plan around that.

[00:20:07] My name is Eric Anderton I hope you enjoyed this presentation of how to achieve high performance in your construction company. If you’d like to contact me feel free to my Web site is Eric Anderton dot com. I’m on Linkedin. If you go to my Web site Eric Anderton dot com slash podcast and look up this podcast episode you can get all the resources that I mentioned all the PDX and things like that. And again this is brought to you by the construction leaders dashboard. If you’d like to get a copy of the construction leaders dashboard simply go to my Web site. Eric Anderton dot com slash C as in cat L as in Larry D and David and grab your construction leaders dashboard I tell you I really appreciate you listening to this podcast today. If you could please share it with other construction professionals. I would be deeply appreciative and give you some reviews there on I. I need some reviews so that the it gets up on the i tunes review board and all that good stuff. Anyway it’s been a pleasure hanging out with you here today. And if you have any questions again contact me. My name is Eric Anderton. Thanks for listening.

To get download the 3 Question HighPerformance Framework, click this link.

To watch and share the video version of this podcast, click here: https://youtu.be/lVoJITeXnzg