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.

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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?




Lean Principle - Stop Work (Until Problems Are Corrected)
All construction projects will run into some degree of problems. It is how the project team chooses to manage these problems that ultimately determines the outcome of the project.
Allocation of Management Resources
Most new initiatives that contractors try often fall short of expectations due to poor management time allocation during start-up. We work with a lot of contractors and rarely see truly bad ideas or teams that truly can’t execute.
Development Progression (And Joy Level)
We’re all born with aptitudes waiting to be discovered or developed. From the start, we form preferences. How those preferences become strengths—and how we use them in life and business—shapes both our joy and competitiveness.