Construction business owners must get a huge return on their time based on the risk they take. Every year, contractors sell, create, perform, build, produce, and install materials. So, you don’t have much extra time to waste sweating the small stuff. But you need great people who do! When entrepreneurs start their companies, they take care of everything themselves including hiring, supervising, purchasing, marketing, selling, pricing, managing, paying bills, and doing the work. You name it, if it has to be done, they do it! Often until the wee hours of the night.
Can’t find any good help?
To allow their companies to grow, many small business owners hire the best people they can find: their family and friends! Not the best idea, as it’s hard to build professional companies with inexperienced people who don’t respect their bosses. As they continue to gain more customers, more people are added to the staff. With more employees, they soon learn how hard it is to find anyone who’ll do work exactly the way they want it done. Nobody seems to care, be accountable or accept responsibility – except the boss.
When this happens, pressure mounts and many companies have trouble hiring and keeping good people. To make matters worse, often you put them to work and then watch them leave within a year. Not a good thing for the bottom-line! Your job description changes from business owner to worker and personnel complaint department. The business owner continues to search for answers to their people problems and look everywhere for the magic fix. Then fully frustrated, they try a new approach: let go of daily decisions and attempt to delegate. But this is too uncomfortable, so they likely take back control again.
Look in the mirror!
So, what’s holding your company back? Is it you? Perhaps you’re the real problem as you continue to micromanage, plus control everything and everybody. This poor leadership style holds people back from accepting responsibility and becoming accountable. When you make every decision, people can’t and don’t take on more responsibility. When you fix or solve problems for employees, they aren’t accountable for the outcome. When you lead every meeting, managers don’t grow. When you approve every purchase, contract or strategic move, good people don’t have to think or become their best.
The more you control, the less employees perform. When you solve other people’s problems, they bring you more problems. But it makes you feel powerful when you control everything for everyone and wear a sign that says: “Bring me your problems!”
When a customer calls with an issue, do you immediately handle it yourself and get right back to them? A better solution would be to listen and then turn your customer’s concern over to a supervisor or manager. When it’s time to make a major purchase or award a large contract, do you get right in the middle of the negotiations? Instead, ask your project manager to review the proposals, analyze the inclusions and exclusions, negotiate terms with the lowest responsible company, and then get your final approval. When a supervisor asks you to call a supplier who isn’t performing, do you jump in and take charge? Train your supervisors to plan ahead, use written procedures, checklists, schedules, team meetings, and manage their workflow. A simple delegation strategy is to increase the maximum spending limit for all employees. Delegate by allowing them to spend at least $1,000 or more before they have to get the boss’s approval. The key is to stop making decisions for them!
The more you do, the less you’ll make!
Performance and getting results are the top indicators of effective leadership and management. No performance or low results equals poor leadership. When you control the work, hold your people back, and constantly tell them what to do, you hurt your company’s growth and profit potential. An effective leader’s role is to inspire others to perform at higher levels and maximize results. Your job is to lead, not do. When you worry about every little detail and do the work yourself, you waste a valuable resource – YOU.
What’s your time worth? When you do $20 per hour work, you aren’t even earning $20. If your company needs to bring in $4,000,000 annually, you only have 2,000 hours to make it happen. Therefore, you’re responsible for creating at least $2,000 per hour doing significant tasks that will impact your bottom-line. Stop doing work. The more you do for your people, the less they’ll do for you. The more you do, the less you’ll make! Focus and prioritize your time leading your company; building customer relationships; seeking new business opportunities; and motivating, inspiring, mentoring, coaching, and leading your people.
By following these tips, you’ll get the results you want: more profit while doing less, loyal customers, and employees who love to work for your company. Email GH@HardhatBizcoach.com to get a BIZ-Org Chart & Position Description workbook. Make it your goal to increase your employee performance by looking in the mirror. Build a great place to work where people can grow, take responsibility, and be accountable. The only way to grow is to let go. What will you let go of?
George Hedley CPBC is a certified professional construction business coach, consultant, and popular speaker. He helps contractors build better businesses, grow, profit, develop management teams, improve field production, and get their companies to work.
He is the best-selling author of “Get Your Construction Business To Always Make A Profit!” available on Amazon. Watch his educational videos on YouTube.
To get his free e-newsletter, start a personalized BIZCOACH program, download online courses, or utilize his contractor templates, visit www.HardhatBizcoach.com or email GH@HardhatBizcoach.com.
