All in a Day’s Work

For most of us, each day holds a number of “to-dos.” Some are thinking tasks that involve strategy, and others are more routine, as in “just do it.” Everything I’ve read says that our minds work in different cycles depending on how we are wired. I’ve written about being a member of the before breakfast club, and I suppose this is the next layer.

Personally, I find early in the morning works best for anything beyond the “just do it” tasks. There are no pressing deadlines, and I am not against the wall to make the right decision, or stressed that I might make the wrong one. In the back of my mind, I know that if I reach a decision, I have the rest of the day to change my mind. Make sense?

Early mornings give me the freedom to be me. I can get in the right mental rhythm to maximize efficiency. For others, it may the opposite side of the clock, but the important thing is to recognize what the clock is saying to each of us and adjust accordingly. Our brain has its preferred time to be sharp, and its best to lean into that instead of trying to overcome your your nature.

 

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A Look Ahead

This week, I participated in an FMI construction conference in Denver, with the goal of discussing the construction outlook for 2018.

A major item, not surprisingly, was the increasing shortage of labor and new talent in construction. The problem is likely a combination of after-burn from all those leaving the industry during the financial crisis, baby boomers retiring and no resolution to our immigration policy.

Those in the civil segment will likely be affected by the results of a comprehensive infrastructure bill passing or not passing later in the year. It may be doubtful if either the house or the senate flips in the fall. I heard that both Florida and California are tackling their own infrastructure revenue streams and programs going forward.

There are huge housing demands this year, and experts are even predicting a historic shortage of new homes. It also looks like energy infrastructure drivers are rebounding as well.

To me, the general feeling was that we will have a “recessionless” economy the next few years. Our biggest challenge might be the labor talent pool, and at the same time figuring out how technology can do more with less.

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Technology Drives Innovation at World of Concrete 2018

Another year, another solid week at World of Concrete (WOC) in Las Vegas. This year’s show was held at the Las Vegas Convention Center, January 22-25, 2018, boasted 58,222 attendees and featured more than 1,567 companies exhibiting across more than 747,411 square feet of space. Of those exhibitors, 302 were new to the event. The show was the largest WOC in 9 years—and doesn’t show signs of slowing down.

The Importance of Inspections & Fleet Maintenance

Recently, a crew working a “tilt-up” job in Austin, Texas, got a frightening reminder of how important regular crane maintenance and equipment inspections can be after an accident on the jobsite. (You can watch live video of the accident at youtube.com/watch?v=Mn6PYOG6sWw.)

How to Hire Top-Tier Talent

Hiring talented individuals has become the latest in a long line of routine challenges for many business leaders. Whether it is exhausting the new channels of social media or tapping old relationships in the recruiting world, firms have made it a full-time job to increase the capacity in their personnel pipelines. Too often, the pull of “just in time” labor seems to take precedence, short-circuiting the need for process discipline and strict adherence to higher standards.

Transforming Operations with Collaborative Cloud Technology

Construction doesn’t happen in the office—it occurs out in the field among the project teams and during collaboration with everyone involved in the project. This collaboration and the timely sharing of information for fast, well-informed decision making is crucial to success. Data and information needs to be delivered to those who need it when they need it. Changes, progress reports and project updates need to be communicated quickly and efficiently. Documentation must be current to stay on top of issues and mitigate risk.

Pushing Your Luck

I sometimes think I used up all of my share of blind luck about 15 years ago, when I played in a charity golf tournament that Coach Bowden of FSU sponsored down in Destin. It was one of those tournaments where they drew five names that evening and each of the five pulled a key out of the fishbowl. If it started the car, you won it. I was fourth in line and ended up pulling the last two keys out, and asked the guy behind me to take one of them. My key started the engine, so I figured that I would never be lucky again the rest of my life.

We all have heard people say something like, “You sure are lucky.” I wonder what portion of success comes from intelligence and smart decisions, and what portion comes from being in the right place at the right time? Or from planning and hard work? I’d say it ends up being some combination of these, but there’s almost always a little luck involved. Perhaps the best way I have heard it described is that, “luck occurs at the intersection of random chance, talent and hard work.”

Sometimes you can make your own luck by seeing a path that others don’t, or by being different to stand out from the competition. There’s one thing for sure: You won’t find any luck if you aren’t taking chances. Sometimes we just plain make our own luck, through hard work and a few other ingredients blended in.

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