Leading Growth through Building People

Southwest Airlines disrupted the airline industry by a relentless focus on building their people around a culture of fun, hard work, and hands-on leadership.

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
D. Brown Management
January 19, 2019 2 minute read
Share

The contractors who truly have that same level of focus on their people and culture will dominate the industry tomorrow. 

Leadership Tools: Leading Growth Through a Focus on Building People. Quotes by Mikel Bowman, General Manager and Safety Specialist at Turner Mining Group and Herb Kelleher, Founder of Southwest Airlines.

Mikel Bowman from Turner Mining Group in an excellent video by Aaron Witt commented:

“We are more of a people company that does mining services.” 

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan in the book Execution comment that:

“Leaders need to commit as much as 40 percent of their time and emotional energy, in one form or another, to selecting, appraising, and developing people.” 

You can see through the daily posts by leaders like Keaton Turner what spending this kind of time on people really looks like. These posts aren’t marketing fluff and can’t be faked. There is no way that doesn’t translate into long-term sustainable growth.  

We are at a major inflection point in the industry, including a major shortage of talent along with evolving project delivery methods and rapidly accelerating technologies.  

How much of your time did you spend on developing people last week? What’s your plan this week?

Alignment and Ownership and Creating Value
As a construction company grows, it becomes increasingly important to align everyone on the team. Alignment comes from being transparent with your guiding principles or values and living them every day, starting with ownership.
Related Article
Integrating Metrics and Organizational Structure
Having a high-level scoreboard for a contractor is just the beginning. The much more valuable part is breaking these high-level scores down into specific and prioritized metrics at each level within each functional area of the organization.
Related Article
CFMA: Talent Pipelining
Contractors will face continually worsening talent shortages through 2030. Those that want to continue sustainable growth must manage every aspect of their talent management processes with extreme rigor.
Related Article