Why Making Business Decisions Alone is Dangerous

Imagine yourself stranded in a jungle. Without the help of an experienced survival expert, it would be difficult to determine your next steps for surviving and finding your way back to safety. Business planning is no different.

What value does your company provide that has influenced you to continue working there?

Construction industry employees weigh in on the incentives behind their long-term stays with their respective companies.

Authenticity in Historic Restoration

For those of us interested in historic preservation/restoration, this week was tragic. Notre Dame is an integral part of the Parisian backdrop and a picture of craftsmanship that withstood hundreds of years, not to mention its significance to the Catholic church. On Monday, I watched with my jaw dropped as the flames rose.

Now, as things have settled a bit and the damage has been assessed, we are faced with an interesting dilemma: Can you ever truly rebuild and restore the cathedral?

We have been involved in several historic restorations, including a century-old theater, vintage hotels and a handful of adaptive reuse projects. While these are certainly not Notre Dame, each structure held great significance to the city where we worked, and a handful were partially funded with historic tax credits. We got a primer on what can be replaced and the original parts of the building that needed to remain intact.

We also learned the value people attach to “authenticity,” meaning that the original building materials be preserved. I think the general consensus is that it’s not a possibility in this situation. The cathedral can be rebuilt, but we’ll have to let go of some of our notions of what’s “authentic.”

In this context, I read about the Venice Charter to guide restoration, which says that new materials would be kept distinguishable from the original construction. I’ll be interested to see how things progress.

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Determining a Crane Rental Strategy

How to determine a crane rental strategy that lands your company the right equipment, at the right time, under the right contract.

HR Distress? There's A PEO for That

Having a PEO as an HR partner makes it easier to navigate the complexities of multistate compliance issues and minimizes the risk of costly penalties or lawsuits—no matter how many worksites you have or where they’re located. 

Bucket List Events

For me, April means two things: The Masters and Indy Grand Prix of Alabama, both extraordinary events started by men with a passion for doing something worthwhile and best in class. (Bobby Jones/Clifford Roberts for the Masters and George Barber for the Indy car event.) My spring is off to a good start because both are on my calendar.

Everyone knows about The Augusta National and The Masters, but Barber Motorsports Park is more of a hidden gem. You’ll find the largest private collection of motorcycles in the world and open wheel racing and motorcycle racing.

As I watched this year’s events, with guys doing more than 200 miles an hour, it made me glad to have a day job that is not racing. Takuma Sato, a car owned by David Letterman, won the race, and several of our folks were on hand to enjoy all the festivities, along with visitors from 38 states and 8 countries. The cars are fast, the company is hard to beat and the weather was just right.

As I watched, I couldn’t help but think about what the land was just a few short years ago–an empty field–and how George Barber’s dream played out with the museum and this race. The same goes for Augusta National, which was was not much more than pine trees and pasture right after the Depression. What a win for all who get to visit.

{Image Source: APM Kamal Ahmed}

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How to Increase Profitability With Equipment Performance Benchmarking

How do you stack up to your competition? Every minute a piece of equipment sits idle on your jobsite, it’s robbing you of time and money. That’s why it is essential to optimize the use of your equipment if you want to maximize profits. 

The Keys to a Succesful Construction Planning Process

If you’ve ever said that having construction projects run into roadblocks, blow past deadlines, squander resources and come in over budget is just “the cost of doing business,” consider a new way to address these age-old problems.

5 Tips for Eliminating Rework

You can actually avoid rework by tracking rework—this could be as simple as attaching notes to the schedule wherever rework crops up.

Why the Construction Industry Doesn't Have to Be Disrupted by Technology

The construction industry’s problem resides in systems still separated into silos, where there is no central source of information and no data sharing across all parties working on any given job. But it doesn't need a total disruption to flourish.

5 Tax Articles You Need to Read

Well, it's almost here—the United States is one week out from Tax Day 2019. Whether you have already filed your company's taxes, you're in the process of completing them, or you'll be requesting an extension until October, it's important to stay up to date on all tax changes—especially as they relate to construction businesses.

To help you out, we rounded up a few articles you need to read to keep your company's taxes in check. Find a few helpful articles below.

Millennials: How to Understand, Attract & Harness Their Unique Abilities

Growth & Development Expert Blake Cavignac on how to understand, attract and harness the power of millennials.

We All Work In Sales

No matter what business, it’s the small things that differentiate.

I think this concept can be hard for some to understand. Doing a good job with the technical side or the deliverables is a prerequisite for sales, and if one does not have these, it’s a nonstarter. But when it comes to customers forming an opinion of any organization, it’s not the flash or the gloss, but the boots on the ground. Every interaction between someone in a company and the customer matters. No matter where you are on the ladder, it matters.

I was reminded of this earlier today. I had ordered a pair of golf shoes for my visit to Augusta next week. I had no record of my order and when I called the company all I had was my email address. After locating the order the customer rep said they had not shipped. I explained I need them early next week. He upgraded my shipping to overnight, and when I offered to pay, he said it was his courtesy. He said he would be watching for me on tv as we signed off. When I need another pair of golf shoes I know who I will buy them from.

We are not all closers, and that’s okay. We can all do things with a smile and work to make a solid first impression, putting our best foot forward. This is what sets us apart.

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9 Tips for Safer Excavator Slope Work

5 Tips for Better Lifting With Your Compact Excavator

Avoid project delays and machine instability with these five best practices for lifting with a compact excavator lifting.

3 Lessons from Nick Saban to Improve Your Business Strategy

How to improve your business strategy and processes by taking a few moves from University of Alabama Head Coach Nick Saban's playbook 

How One Documentary Is Advocating for Women in Construction

A star of Hard Hatted Woman tells what it's like for a women in the trades and how you can promote inclusivity and diversity in your own construction business

Why Construction Insolvencies Are Globally on the Rise

Construction business owners don’t have it easy. Even in markets where there is strong growth, firms must grapple with high competition, slim profit margins, chronic late payments and a high proportion of business failures.

Balance?

We are finally entering spring, and the weather seems to be a bit better. The market is in good shape and has been for a while. Perhaps your basketball team is still in the hunt.

Sometimes it’s easy to think we are in balance and all is good with the world. But “balance” is by nature easy to disrupt and never a constant. It’s so easy to teeter off center and lose your balance. We’ve all be on a roll when things unexpectedly take a turn in the opposite direction.

Nothing worth accomplishing is ever easy, and ensuring we stay in balance ranks right up there the best of them. When we are younger, it’s easier to think we think we know all the answers and everything will be just fine. When I hear this type of answer, I remind the person that being cocky is a sure way to fall hard. Never take yourself too seriously or fall into the trap of thinking you are more important than you really are.

The reality is that all of us will be totally out of balance at one time or another in our lives. It could be compared to small wind or a large gust coming out of nowhere, but eventually the wind ceases and we get back up to hopefully try again.

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No Secrets.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a dinner where Alessandro Acquisti of Carnegie Mellon spoke on privacy issues related to the web and how “big data” is changing things for the better…and worse.

Since the Internet and social media came along, it seems we share more personal information than ever before. There are plenty of upsides to this, but it also can open the door to violations. Alessandro gave the example of using facial recognition software to identify a person, find publicly available information, and then infer private information like a social security number. A maze for sure.

He also shared that privacy is not necessarily about having something negative to hide, and even well-meaning transparency policies can be misdirected. I would imagine people had the same kind of fears when the combustion engine was invented for the auto, replacing the horse. To me, it is hard to wrap ones head around, but exciting, and the unknown can be a little scary. I try to approach with the knowledge that nothing is ever really private, and once on the Internet, it seems to live forever. 

If you have 15 minutes to spare, this TED Talk by Alessandro is worthy of your time. And while we’re on the subject of TED, if you do not already support the organization in your city, I would recommend it. We’ve been involved for a number of years, and continue to be impressed with the impact.

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