Success is Not Final and Failure is Not Fatal

The construction business is TOUGH!

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There will be years that go by where it seems you are on top of the world.  There will be “perfect storms” where you have a bad project, a dip in the economy, lose a critical member of your team and your banker wants to meet with you on Friday to “talk”.  

Quote: Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Winston Churchill.

There are many variables that you can control but there are many more that you can’t.  You will make many great decisions and you will also make bad ones.  

Accept all these as facts.  Realize that ALL businesses are tough in their own ways.  Life is TOUGH!

Don’t fall in love with the summit of the mountain; you have to love the challenge of being on the mountain and improving every day.

Realize that as you climb the mountain you can’t do it alone and that each stage will require different skills and gear.

Realize that it is discipline and not motivation that will carry the day. 




Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act (The OODA Loop)
The OODA Loop is a decision-making framework originally developed for the military to make agility a competitive advantage. The focus on fast, localized decisions in rapidly changing environments aligns well with construction projects and businesses.
Prioritize and Execute
You are simultaneously building a construction project, a construction company and a career in construction. There will always be more problems to solve and potential opportunities to explore than you have the resources for.
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.