Construction Informer

We never really know how well we are communicating if we don’t show that we welcome feedback. People are often afraid to speak their minds if they perceive what they are thinking may not be in line with what you are thinking. Instead, you just get a weak agreement with your thoughts.
Unfortunately, while that might [...]

I put up a basic poll in the sidebar earlier in September and it just finished up. There really weren’t enough responses to make it significant. This blog is getting 12,000 page views a month so it’s kind of surprising that there weren’t more votes. Of course the topic was probably kind of lame. I [...]

You only have to look at main street USA to see examples of how adaptation allowed some to survive. In city after city when a Wal-Mart store was about to move in small businesses and governments would band together to try to prevent it. But the consumers voted with their wallets, as they will most [...]

If you read enough reports and company explanations about why profits are up or down you are reminded that there are cycles in business and to expect them and work with them. But you have to be careful about making assumptions.
It might be tempting to think that with a slow down in home construction there [...]

I’ve often thought there is a broad tendency in general to separate the employee’s success from the success of the organization. This is formalized by labor laws for example that require a set amount of pay per hour rather than requiring a set amount of pay per completed task. The effect is to stimulate a [...]

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to plan in a hurry. Worse yet trying to plan when you are already behind is even more frustrating. In order to put short term plans into action you need to have long-term plans in place. That’s the strategic plan.
So now is the time to tackle some of [...]

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 [...]

All of us get customer feedback when things don’t go according to plan. When the wrong color of tile is being installed, or the front door doesn’t have the stained-glass sidelight, we certainly hear about it. But what about all the other things that only go a little wrong, or all the things that go [...]

A number of years ago on a single-family home project I contracted with a company to install the drywall. I dealt with the company owner as we worked out the details and nailed down the price. I drew up the contract, we signed it and a week later the drywall was installed, on time, to [...]