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Training is Key to Job-Site Management, Builders Hear at Show Source: Hanley Wood News Service ORLANDO -- "If you can't measure it, you can't control it." That was the message that Steve McGee, CEO of the management consulting firm Unify International, delivered here Wednesday to a packed audience of builders during a seminar on risk management of field supervisors at the International Builders' Show. Many in the audience could relate to McGee's description of a typical field supervisor as someone who comes to the job with little construction experience, but who also has much more responsibility -- for cycle time, on-time delivery, quality control, interaction with buyers, and even litigation -- than ever before. McGee recommended that, first and foremost, builders "control the controllables," by being clear about what their supers need to do to be successful, by providing sufficient operational support for them, and -- perhaps most important -- by holding them accountable. Builders, he said, need to establish quantifiable criteria by which they can assess their supers' performance, and provide training that's based on that assessment. By using measurements and feedback, McGee said, builders can create "great" supers who are result-oriented and deductive thinkers, are fact-based but compassionate, and "who realize that problems are mostly self-inflicted." McGee estimated that "technical skills" account for only about 15 percent of a supervisor's job, and contended that management skills -- particularly in the areas of time management, team building and group goal setting -- are far more important to the successful execution of a home building project. Using an analogy, he said that too many companies operate under an individualistic "golf" mentality, when they should be organized more like a basketball team, in which everyone is interconnected and striving for the same common goal. He also cautioned that too many builders "inflict a ton of problems" on their field supervisors that, in essence, set the supers up for failure. He pointed to one of his clients in the Northeast that found that its contractors were spending 10 percent of their time "decoding" house packages, and 40 percent deciphering options packages. |
