Construction Informer

A little bit of fear goes a long way. It is priceless when you are in an immediate life-threatening situation. Beyond that, fear is a huge impediment to living, to learning and to creating.

In a construction business environment there is one fear that is reinforced a lot. That’s the fear of making a mistake. People in construction are often dealing with large events that threaten lives and cost a lot of money. So, when mistakes happen the entire system is focused first on finding out WHO to blame, and second on finding out why the mistake was made and how to fix it and prevent further mistakes of the same kind.

The fear of making mistakes is an ingrained part of the culture in many construction businesses. So much so that people avoid trying new things and taking well-thought-out chances that could net some long-term benefits. There is a big difference between taking calculated risks and just taking risks, but in the end if no one is taking any chances, of any size, then the business is stagnating and probably repeating the same inefficient or even self-defeating practices over and over.

Getting a fear-based culture to turn around and operate from a position of confidence takes some doing. After all, people are not trusting themselves and are probably relying on just a few people, or even just one person to do all the thinking.

I witnessed a prime example of this recently. While on the phone with a senior manager our conversation was routinely interrupted as he fielded questions from and barked orders to subordinates. I wondered how the business managed to operate if he was sick, or wanted to take a day off. But more disheartening was the realization that there were probably at least a few people there who lived with the implied feedback every day that they were less than competent, and not trusted to make even basic decisions related to their jobs.

Some managers shouldn’t be managing at all and that’s the first place you have to make changes if you are going to get people to start thinking for themselves and to begin throwing off the mantle of fear. Managers that have every decision elevated to their level are dooming the business to only the narrow results of one person’s abilities and imagination. Worse yet, they are keeping the business grounded in fear and robbing subordinates of opportunities for more meaning in their work lives. In the end they are robbing the business of what should be its lifeblood, the creative energies of all its employees.