Management
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…
Commodities Pricing
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
A couple of our customers have asked about the impacts the new steel tariffs might have on construction cost. There will now be a 25% tax on imported steel and…
Read MoreConstruction Trends
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…
Leadership
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…
Management
You’ll Never Get a Second Chance…
First impressions matter. In these initial minutes, maybe even seconds, we sometimes may make unconscious judgments, including whether or not we can trust a person. I’ve read that we tend to…
Continuing Education
A Trip to the Dark Side and Back Again
A break in, or a ransom letter. An invitation to the dark web. It sounds like a movie plot, but it played out here last month. A computer hacker waited until about 7:20 pm,…
Commodities Pricing
The Bigger Picture.
In our business, there are times when the tendency is to quantify by the unit. “Price per square foot” is used to measure all kinds of things, from the average…
Construction Trends
Open Office? Not in Construction.
This morning, I was on the phone with one of our service providers. There was a question about our account that required me to speak with a representative…And after hearing at least…
Customer Relationships
The Art of Listening (Or Paying Attention)
One of our senior managers recently told me about walking a project with our civil site superintendent and a customer. As they toured the job site, the customer asked several questions and shared other thoughts while they walked. Without…
Construction Trends
An Engineer’s DNA
Yesterday, one of our customers stopped by to talk about a new mixed use development that we will start end of the 1st quarter–retail, apartments and condominiums. “You may have…