Competency and Compensation

A large part of sustainable growth for contractors is being able to effectively leverage people with a narrower set of skills to still deliver the same level of value-add to the customer.

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This support structure is called “Enabling Bureaucracy” and is a combination of management time, control systems, QA/QC, workflows, training, etc.

Leadership Tools: Graph representing Value-Add and Compensation with Quantity of people in the workforce, ability to manage ambiguity, and skill level and execution.

As contractors grow they need to refine their organizational structures, workflows, job descriptions  and their talent processes to support this growth.

These support structures must be built over time and integrated with the contractor’s growth strategy.  Once effectively in place these support structures will produce a more scalable organization that can actually deliver the same value-add to the customer at a lower total cost providing a competitive advantage. 

These systems are slow, painful and costly to put into place.  The recruiting focus of a contractor must be in alignment with the levels of support structures they have in place.  Netflix defines this quite well in their culture slide deck and book.  

Are your support structure capabilities and recruiting in alignment?  

If not there will be excessive stress on the team combined with lower profitability.  This just means you are at one of the inflection points on the business growth cycle.




Learn from the Wisdom in the Lessons of History
“Fortune favors the prepared mind.” - Louis Pasteur ---------- How much time do you and your team spend exploring the broader context of our world?
Questions for Continuous Improvement
Construction projects and business are full of unexpected outcomes - some good and some bad. How effectively teams investigate these largely determines the trajectory, sustainability, and profitability of their growth.
Aligning Projects and People
The business of building is largely about aligning projects and people. Contractors exist to build projects. People design and build the projects. The management team, structure, and systems bring it all together.