You’re Either Growing or Dying
The Choice to Improve
As construction executives and even as humans, we face the daily choice of whether to try to improve or merely subsist. In business, choices like pursuing revenue growth, training our people, implementing operational processes, or rolling out a new software product all represent decisions to be better today than we were yesterday.
Improvements like these hold the potential to make things better, but nothing is promised, so choosing to improve involves some level of failure risk. They also require effort above and beyond you and your people’s daily workload, which means improvement is also hard. The drawbacks of risk and hard work often put construction executives into a negative pattern of procrastinating and justifying the status quo.
From my experience, the risks and discomfort of maintaining the status quo often outweigh those of pursuing positive change. Moreover, choosing not to improve can erode the sense of accomplishment and pride in progress that is inherent in all of us. I urge you not to succumb to the voices within your organization (or your own mind!) that resist growth and change. Make the decision to improve for the sake of your business and your personal growth.
Progress and Happiness
In their decades-long work about human happiness, researchers Sonja Lyubomirsky, Kennon M. Sheldon, and David Schkade have definitively proven that the single greatest driver of happiness under our control is our actions. Think about it: how do you feel when you finish a hard workout, call your friends or family to tell them you love them, or write a thank you note to a team member who has been working hard? Doing things we deem “good” makes us feel good. Happiness also builds on itself, giving us more energy to do good things and creating a positive cycle.
This is precisely what I’ve seen with the hundreds of companies and thousands of people I’ve worked with in their efforts to improve their construction businesses. It is the striving toward, not the attainment of, a particular goal that matters. Certainly, goal attainment gives them an incredible high, a cause to celebrate, and improvements in morale, but these effects wear off! In his book With Winning In Mind, Lanny Basham, a former Olympic gold medal winner, describes the incredible sadness he felt only hours after celebrating his first gold medal. The reason for this sadness, his wife helped him to discover, was that all his happiness was tied to his daily efforts of striving toward his goals, and now, without goals to strive toward, he felt aimless.
You won’t be happier when you attain your goals. You’ll be happier doing hard things that make you feel proud. Those hard things are best done in the service of goal attainment, but make no mistake: Your daily positive action creates the greatest and most sustainable sense of wellness. Obviously, it’s also important to see positive results along the way to reinforce the value of your efforts.
Getting Others On Board
You may be reading this article feeling personally excited about tackling the business improvements you’ve been putting off. However, you may also be thinking about the resistance you’ll get from your people when you announce the planned changes.
Follow these simple steps to get your team as excited about things as you are:
Confirm the team sees the same problem or opportunity you do. They must be motivated for their own reasons, not yours.
Enlist their ideas in developing the business improvement action plan. You may go with your initial idea, but people must feel heard to commit to a course of action.
Get the plan documented down to the task level in a place that allows you to monitor commitments publicly.
Celebrate progress regularly and recognize the individual contributions your team makes.
Consider ways to further incentivize goal attainment. Perhaps you’ll hold your company retreat in the Bahamas if you successfully launch your new ERP system by December.
Following these steps, the right people will jump on board with both feet. Those who don’t will be easily replaced. Do not manage to the lowest common denominator, and you’ll attract more of the right people who also want to be their best rather than accepting the status quo.
The Spark Notes:
As construction executives, we face the daily choice to either pursue improvements like revenue growth and training or to merely subsist, understanding that improvement involves risk and hard work, but ultimately outweighs the comfort of the status quo.
Researchers have shown that the actions we take, rather than the attainment of goals, are the greatest drivers of happiness, reinforcing the idea that striving for progress generates a sustainable sense of wellness and pride.
Personal satisfaction comes not from reaching goals but from the effort and challenges faced along the way, making daily positive actions essential for long-term happiness and morale.
To implement business improvements, ensure your team sees the same opportunities, involve them in planning, document progress, celebrate achievements, and incentivize goal attainment to foster a motivated and committed workforce.
