Five Stages of Adult Behavior

To build a project effectively you have to have a deep understanding of the building materials, tools and installation methods.

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You need to understand what works best in which situations and that is your value-add.    

Talent Tools: 5 Stages of Adult Development. Book: Changing On The Job by Jennifer Garvey Berger.

Leading a construction business is about leading people.  The larger your team gets the more important it is to learn as much about talent development as you have learned about construction means and methods.  These are not skills that can be delegated to someone in HR.  

A couple things to consider as you go on this journey:

  • As a whole we are much further down the road to understanding building materials.  You cannot expect to find the same level of prescriptive formulas about how the human mind works as you can find about engineering calculations.    
  • At first there will seem to be dozens (or hundreds) of different models about how the mind works, how we learn, team dynamics, etc.  As you study more you will see a lot of commonalities and this will help you develop your own style of leadership.  

Changing on the Job is one of many great books on the topic of adult development in a professional context




Setting Standards and the Feedback Loop
Set the standard. Train to the standard. Certify to the standard. Plan the work to the standard. Execute to the plan and the standard. Check against the standard. Make prioritized improvements to the standard, training, planning, and execution.
Field Productivity - The Improvement Pyramid
An improvement of a few minutes per day to actual installation time compounded monthly is worth about $800K per year for a $25M contractor. What is it worth to you? Improvements to field productivity can be viewed as 4 major stages of a pyramid.
Definition - Discipline
Consistently Doing what needs to be done even when you don’t want to do it. Motivation is doing what needs to be done when you want to do it – related to desire.