Market Forces - Surviving vs. Thriving

Construction contracting is a highly competitive business in a rapidly changing market.

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Leadership Tools: Surviving or Thriving. Innovator or Fast Follower.

The “Invisible Hand” of the market is constantly demanding that construction projects are delivered:

  • Lower Cost
  • Faster
  • Higher Quality

Whether you are looking at your individual career, a contracting business or the whole value stream of delivering completed projects to a customer you must constantly be focused on being competitive.

Just to survive you must be adapting faster than the slowest of your competition.  Survival is not guaranteed and just surviving is not fun.  

To thrive you must be in the top 20% of your competition with a team that can rapidly adapt and scale innovations.  There are multiple ways to innovate:

When you are in a business with single-digit net profits every bit of discipline in operations matters.


Learn how we help contractors define the right strategies and improve their operations


Labor Productivity
Field labor is the often the biggest variable on a construction project - making it the biggest risk and opportunity....

Labor Productivity
Field labor is the often the biggest variable on a construction project - making it the biggest risk and opportunity....

Integrated Systems
Poorly coordinated people, processes and technology become exponentially more inefficient as the business grows eroding profits, morale and customer satisfaction.
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.
Impacted Productivity - Fighting Back
Fighting back effectively against labor productivity impacts will significantly improve project outcomes including customer satisfaction if handled properly. There are four interrelated aspects to effectively fighting back.