Smoke Signals or Fire Extinguishers

Words: Corey Adams

Ever watch a hot-potato game break out on your jobsite? It usually starts small. Somebody spots a crooked door frame, mutters, “I’ll make a note,” and flicks the issue to the next trade like it’s radioactive. By the time that frame comes back around, drywall hung, trim delivered, and the fix now means demo, patches, and a schedule slip big enough to drive a truck through. And sometimes that truck is rework or liquidated damages.

You can feel the temperature rise. Radios crackle with “Wasn’t me,” text threads fill with pictures of the gap, and the general asks for an “action plan,” which is code for who’s paying. All because the first person to see the problem treated it like mail they didn’t want to open.

Passing problems is easier than solving them—at first. Solving means thinking, risking, maybe sweating in front of your peers. Passing is a shrug and a swipe on the phone. But the jobsite, and the business, pay compound interest on every shrug. A spark ignored becomes a bonfire no one budgeted for.

Why does that shrug keep winning? Fear tops the list. If I own it, I might wear it, so I slide it to the next clipboard. Then there’s the crush of the schedule. “I’m already behind—let somebody else deal,” we say, as if time magically appears later. And finally, there’s the habit we’ve trained into crews: stay in your lane, do your scope, keep your head down. Turns out lanes merge, scopes overlap, and problems jump lanes faster than anyone you have ever seen trying to get around rush hour traffic.

There is a reality that no one wants to hear: every problem you punt costs about three times what it would have cost to fix on-site—once for extra labor, once for extra material, and once more for the credibility you burn while explaining the delay. I’d rather spend fifteen minutes with a cordless saw than three days rewriting the schedule. And I’d rather back an employee who swings at a fix and whiffs than one who never lifts the bat.

So what does a solution-minded crew look and sound like? First, they move within the famous “first five minutes.” Whoever spots an issue takes a crack—kill the breaker, tighten the strap, pull the drawings and confirm dimension—anything more helpful than “Heads-up.” Ninety percent of sparks die right there.

Second, they arrive at the boss’s door carrying options, not problems. When escalation is truly needed, the carpenter walks in saying, “We can sister the stud and keep rolling, or swap the panel and lose half a day. Which do you prefer?” Leaders can green-light faster when the legwork is already done and often make better decisions.

Third, they close the loop in daylight. Nobody should have to wonder all afternoon whether the leak got capped. A quick note on the whiteboard—shut-off valve replaced at 1:30—lets the whole site relax and keeps the problem from resurfacing two levels up.

Culture like that doesn’t appear just because you hang a safety poster. It’s built one small reinforcement at a time. Try carrying a stack of ten-buck lunch cards around with you. Anyone who knocks out a problem before it can turn into a fire gets a card. Costs less than a service call and speaks louder than a toolbox talk.

Give your team the ability to fix it as well. Nothing kills initiative faster than chasing a requisition form for a fifty-cent part.

And when someone’s first swing isn’t perfect? Do what any good batting coach would do, teach, train, repeat. If the attempt was safe and aligned with the intent, applaud the courage, then fine-tune the technique. Crews will gamble on improvement when they know the penalty for a clean miss is a lesson, not a lecture.

None of this sticks unless it starts at the top. If you, the leader, spend more airtime cataloging problems than carving paths around them, so will everyone else. Next time a supplier short ships you, model the behavior: make the backup call, secure the part, and walk into the afternoon huddle announcing the fix, not the crisis. Momentum is contagious.

Finish with this picture: two jobsites, same scope, same weather. On the first, radios buzz all day with “Heads-up, we’ve got an issue.” On the second, you walk the floor and see fresh shims, new hangers, patched cuts—problems solved so quickly nobody bothered to broadcast the smoke. Which project do you want your name on?

Too many people think that pointing out problems makes them look better and gives them an edge for advancement. This cannot be further from the truth. Give me a team that puts out every fire before it gets to me, and I will show you a company that has sustainable and unlimited growth.

Teach, and allow, your team to put out the fires and not just point out the smoke.

Smoke Signals or Fire Extinguishers

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