Masonry Magazine December 2017 Page. 96
BUSINESS BUILDING
ost construction business
owners are very impatient,
impulsive, and don't like to
have a set rigid schedule every week. When job problems come up or a customer calls, they want to have flexibility to jump immediately on the issue and take care of it. And because owners like to be in control and micro-manage their people and projects, putting out fires becomes their way of doing business. Therefore, they especially don't want to schedule regular weekly or monthly meetings with managers and supervisors. And when they finally decide to put regular meetings on their calendar, owners always find several better urgent reasons to cancel or postpone these meetings until next week or never, whichever comes first!
MEETINGS MAKE LIFE BETTER!
Well managed contractors are well managed by the business owner and management team. These top contrac�tors have regularly scheduled manage�ment meetings that allow them to stay in touch with their estimators, project managers, field supervisors, and fore�man. Meetings allow managers to leverage their time and be the leader instead of the 'make every decision' supervisor, constant decision-maker, and full time problem-solver. Meetings allow owners to delegate and keep people accountable and responsible to achieve results they want. As the business owner and manager, meetings make life much better as you create a better run company, free yourself to do what you should do, and allow for time to plan, strategize, sell, and focus on making more money.
MEETINGS MAXIMIZE BOTTOM-LINE RESULTS!
Can you imagine a baseball game with�out a scoreboard and player statistics to see who is winning and does the best out on the field? Without scorecards and weekly feedback, results don't mat�ter much to supervisors. Therefore, the meeting leader must create a scorecard tracking system to record each attend�ee's performance on every job for all to see every week. This will improve job performance and allow your foreman and supervisors to know, track, and hit their goals rather than working blindly without anything to aim at.
I,
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company, the owner and management team must set a series of mandatory meetings that meet every week and month. Set them at the same time and never postpone or cancel them. When you cancel meetings, it shows they're not a top priority, and it's OK to miss for supposedly more important reasons like bids, inspections, customer de�mands, field issues, or any other weak excuse that can and will come along. And when the owner can't make a meeting, still hold them by delegating the meeting leadership to a key man�ager to handle the agenda.
''MEETINGS ALLOW OWNERS TO DELEGATE AND KEEP PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE AND RESPONSIBLE TO ACHIEVE RESULTS THEY WANT.,,
When you hold regular field supervisor meetings for example, each foreman and supervisor is challenged to achieve specific results, track progress, report on last week's progress versus their weekly target, and then discuss plans for the upcoming week. They report on their job schedule, crew-hours, equipment hours, safety, quality, and performance. Every attendee is then committed in front of their peers to hit weekly goals. This teamwork approach creates a competition amongst peers to be the best and beat their project budget and targets. To help you get started improving your meetings, email GH@HardhatPresentations.com to get a copy of 'Field Tracking Systems For Contractors!"
MAKE MEETINGS MANDATORY!
In order to take back control of your Start and end every meeting on-time within a set amount of allotted time. This allows attendees to plan their calendar around these regular manda�tory meetings. Use a written agenda or template to keep the meeting moving, and assign someone to take notes to document what was agreed to and who is accountable to make things hap�pen. If your company has projects and jobs spread out long distances away from your office, use a conference call service or conferencing software to still hold meetings on the regular schedule.
MANDATORY ANNUAL MANAGEMENT MEETINGS
� STRATEGIC PLANNING SESSION -Every year your management team must take a day or two to sit down and plot out the strategy for the upcoming year. Engage a facilitator to help your
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