Lean Leadership Project blog

You need to treat Lean Construction like you treat quality.

Why do you have a program to ensure quality on your construction projects? The answer – to reduce risk and add customer value! Lean is like quality– you use Lean Construction principles and tools to reduce risk and add customer value. You can’t just write a QA/QC plan and put it on the shelf to collect dust. An effective quality program must be integrated into the way the crews do their work on a daily basis and rewards must be offered for excellent work. This will achieve greater levels of customer satisfaction and added value.

The same is true with Lean Construction. Company leadership must make Lean a part of the business culture in order to accelerate and sustain the benefits.

You need to treat Lean Construction like you treat safety.

Ask yourself, why do you have a safety program in your construction company? The answer – to reduce risk! Lean is like safety– you use Lean Construction principles and tools to reduce risk. You can’t just buy the safety vests to have an effective safety plan. A great safety plan must be supported by management, taught to the crew as part of the company’s business culture and rewards offered for excellent performance. This will achieve greater levels of compliance and make a huge difference in losses caused by accidents.

The same is true with Lean Construction. You have to make Lean a part of your business culture in order to accelerate and sustain the benefits.

Lean Construction helps you manage risk on construction projects.

What is Lean Construction and what does it have to do with your company? Maybe you’ve heard of the “Japanese Management System” used by Toyota in the 1940’s and 50’s and that some companies in the United States started using this same system years ago. Well, that system is LEAN! It actually has a strong American pedigree, related to work done by Henry Ford and W. Deming, but that’s another story. Lean is now widely used to achieve efficiencies and cost effectiveness in manufacturing production lines around the world. It has been more recently applied to the construction industry.

Lean Construction will increase your profits because it reduces your risk. By using the tools of Lean Construction, you will be able to plan your projects more effectively, spot rocks-in-the-road before they become deal-breakers, and help your trading partners do their jobs better. All of this reduces your risk.

Is Complacency in your customer service hurting your business?

This is part of a series about how complacency hurts your business. Complacency is a barrier to business success because it stops people from learning and applying new ideas that reduce costs, improve performance and increase profitability. How do you know if you’re complacent?

You could be complacent about your customer service if:

a. You think “value stream mapping” is something your GPS does.
b. You have no idea what people in your company say when they talk to your customers.
c. You think “disruptive technology” is a bad thing.
d. You have no idea what the leaders in your industry are doing to stay successful.
e. When a customer calls you, it is usually to complain.

Adopting Lean Construction principles and tools will break you free of complacency and improve your bottom line. To learn how, call Jan Keiser, Lean Leadership Project, 206-714-8955.

3.  Is Complacency in your leadership style hurting your business?

This is part of a series about how complacency hurts your business. Complacency is a barrier to business success because it stops people from learning and applying new ideas that reduce costs, improve performance and increase profitability. How do you know if you’re complacent?

You could be complacent about your leadership style if:

a. You either don’t have a strategic plan or no one else in the company knows about it.
b. You think coaches are only for sports teams.
c. You’re too busy to read a business book.
d. You think your business problems aren’t your fault.
e. You have no board of advisors.

Adopting Lean Construction principles and tools will break you free of complacency and improve your bottom line. To learn how, call Jan Keiser, Lean Leadership Project, 206-714-8955.

2. Is Complacency about your personnel management hurting your business?

This is part of a series about how complacency hurts your business. Complacency is a barrier to business success because it stops people from learning and applying new ideas that reduce costs, improve performance and increase profitability. How do you know if you’re complacent?

You could be complacent about your personnel management if:
a. You don’t do performance evaluations.
b. Your employees don’t know you have an Employee Manual.
c. Your spouse feels free to call you during office hours to discuss movie selections.
d. You don’t have job descriptions.
e. You don’t have an employee training plan.

Adopting Lean Construction principles and tools will break you free of complacency and improve your bottom line. To learn how, call Jan Keiser, Lean Leadership Project, 206-714-8955.

1. Is Complacency about your finances hurting your business?

This is part of a series about how complacency hurts your business. Complacency is a barrier to business success because it stops people from learning and applying new ideas that reduce costs, improve performance and increase profitability. How do you know if you’re complacent?

You could be complacent about your business finances if:

a. You don’t know what your cost of goods is.
b. You don’t have current reviewed financial statements for your company.
c. You regularly struggle to find the cash to pay your monthly bills.
d. You don’t know what your revenues were last year.
e. You don’t have a revenue goal for this year.

Adopting Lean Construction principles and tools will break you free of complacency and improve your bottom line. To learn how, call Jan Keiser, Lean Leadership Project, 206-714-8955.

I’ve been thinking about the issue of MWDBE business development. Here’s what I’ve observed in my research and travels across the country. Big goals provide big opportunities. Low goals drive MWDBEs out of business. This may not be right, but it’s true. Since I-200 in Washington State, scores of MWDBEs have gone out of business. The only agency that was achieving respectable MWDBE participation was Sound Transit, which had the guts to insist on aggressive goals – 18-24% for various federally-funded contracts. Most agencies in Washington state had wimped out at much less or no goal, even if they had federal funding. When I first started working around the Washington DC area, I ran into MWBE goals that were 3 times what I’d encountered anywhere else in the country; DC Water required 32% MBE and 28% utilization on some recent construction contracts. And they were being achieved! I was also running into good-sized, established MBEs, much larger and with much more capacity than I had been seeing on the west coast. I was astonished. Then, I had this conversation with one of the local business resource advocates who told me that MBE businesses were able to grow in the Mid-Atlantic region because the public agencies created bigger opportunities – flowing from the bigger goals. I’ve thought about this for some time and watched for evidence to confirm or deny the theory. I’ve concluded it’s true. There is societal discrimination in this country. I have no doubt of that. It’s not malicious – it’s human nature. People like doing business with people who look like them – we don’t generally trust people who are different. The most effective and immediate way I’ve found to address this is to have big goals – to force the relationships that do not occur naturally. It’s not a perfect solution, but I haven’t seen anything else that comes close to creating the same degree of positive economic impact for diverse communities.

I recently sat on a hearing panel for a good size WDBE firm in Washington state. The firm outgrew its size standard as a specialty subcontractor and the US DOT tried to get it de-certified as a DBE. Before this happened, the firm had more work than it could handle on WSDOT projects. Every highway prime wanted the company on their team. Once word got around that the firm’s DBE status was being questioned, no prime would touch it. The firm got almost no work for the better part a year and nearly went out of business. Did the firm’s quality of work go down? No. But, the primes couldn’t use the firm as a DBE anymore and so, dropped it like a hot potato. Why? I can’t say for sure – but I think it’s because the owner was different.

So, what should a policy maker do? Insist on inclusion by demanding and enforcing big goals. DC Water and Sound Transit are doing the right thing.