Masonry Magazine May 2006 Page. 53
Article
Never just play "not to lose." Don't ever play "prevent defense."
The application is pretty clear, and you can probably guess where I'm going. But here it is anyway: In the words of Sir Winston Churchill, "Never, never, never give up!" Once you start a project, you mount a great defense. When your scope of work changes, you instantly take action, normally by writing a "Winning RFI." For the uninitiated, this kind of an RFI presumes that you are going to win the point. It is designed to let your client know that, apparently, the scope has changed, and that there are time and money consequences. It also asks the question, "How shall we proceed?"
A lot of you know to do this. But, do you continue questioning changes, late in the project, or do you ease up? Do you think to yourself, "Hey, this job's going OK. I don't need to try and get paid for every little thing." And you start playing "prevent defense." You want to be seen as the good guy. Life is sweet. You do ease up. You pass on a couple of opportunities that you could have capitalized on because you were ahead.
And then-BAM! Something hits your project. Your estimator missed a couple of things on the bid. It's not in your budget, but it is clearly on the plans. You are now going to perform this work and pay for it out of your own pocket, because you are contractually obligated to do so. And while you are doing the "free" work and later when you are paying the bills for this work - it occurs to you that your once-sweet project is no longer that way. Your opportunity to win was surrendered by you before the game was over. And now, when you need it most, it is no longer available to you. Profit has slipped through your fingers.
UCLA was down, but they were not out. They started playing like they had nothing to lose, because, heck, it looked
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like they had already lost. So they played lights-out for the rest of the game. And Gonzaga, which thought it had the game in the bag, played those last few minutes "not to lose." Instead, they lost the game, their 20-game winning streak, and the opportunity to further in the tournament. At the end, their defense was anything but great. All it did was to prevent a win.
Make sure that, on your projects, you don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Never, never, never give up! Gary Micheloni is a project manager, author, consultant and speaker. He can be reached at coachgary@fullcontactPM.com.
Copyright © 2006, Gary Micheloni and Full Contact Project Management
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The Voice of the Mason Contractor
May 2006
Masonry 51