Masonry Magazine May 2007 Page. 67
The Defense
The defense allows your power play-ers to then swoop in and do their thing. Because you can execute the run, their defense has to play up, which in turn allows you to go downfield without a lot of double coverage. Or it allows a decent hitter to get his pitch, because the other team is panicking about some hit and run ball that they know you can play, simply because you can execute.
Score Early and Often
Every time you touch the ball, you believe that you can score. A little here, a little there, and pretty soon your lead is sizable.
Start to Finish
Your team plays at 100 percent, 100 percent of the time. That's the expectation and that's where you want to be. You and your team are playing both sides of the ball and you never let up. You play hard-nosed ball the entire game and for the entire project.
Black Shoes - No Names
One of the beauties of Penn State football is a winning tradition, while wearing some of the ugliest uniforms out there! They wear black shoes with no logos and jerseys without names on the back the same goes for the stars on the team. And there's only one name on the back of the jersey: the team's. It's a team thing. Funny, I don't especially care for the team, but I sure do like their style, their work ethic and their tradition.
And this is why project management is also a team sport. I'm guessing that you can see it now. You have the title of project manager. You wear the mantle of "leader." You believe in yourself, your mission and your people. And the feeling is likewise. You've learned that persistence overcomes resistance. Your team (i.e., your company) knows that they can count on you to get in there and fight for them, and that just having you on the field always gives your team a shot at a win. It could be a game pass for a touch-down on the first play, or a bottom of the ninth suicide squeeze.
You demand excellence from your team on the field-your clients expect it. You make sure that nobody drops the ball - your company expects that. You deliver on time-your client counts on that. Finally, for all that I've mentioned and more, your reputation rides on it.
Gary Micheloni is a working project manager, consultant, speaker and author of the new book, "Get Paid for a Change!" For further information and insight on the Full Contact Project Management approach, simply send an e-mail to: coachgary@fullcontactPM.com.
Copyright © 2007, Gary Micheloni and Full Contact Project Management
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Getting Through the Ups and Downs of a Business
MASONRY NEWS CONTRACTOR TIP
Have you ever been in a situation that you felt you might never get past? Was it a mountain that you felt you might never be able to climb? Almost daily, business owners are faced with what seems like insurmountable problems; in fact, it becomes part of our lives. The good news is that as your business grows, what seems like a mountain today will most likely only be viewed as a stepping stone tomorrow.
Growing up on the family farm, there were many situations that seemed insurmountable at the time. One such situation was milking the cow by hand each moming. With six boys and three girls in our family, we required one gallon of milk for breakfast. It just so happened that one gal lon was the amount you could get out of the milk cow each moming
Every morning, Dad would pick one of us kids to go milk the cow, a task that took about an hour. Sometimes, after milking for half an hour, the cow would put her hoof in the milk bucket. Talk about stress! Now you had a decision to make. Either dump the half gallon of milk you had worked so hard for and start over which wasn't an option because there would be no way to get a full gallon of milk and Dad wasn't going to be real happy or you could be patient and tap the cow on her hindquarter gently to coax her to take her foot out of the bucket. Then, you could pick the large chunks of hay and stuff out of the milk and finish milking
After getting a full gallon of milk, we would take it up to the back porch where Mom had large, wide-mouth gallon jars. We would put a white cloth over the top of a jar and strain the milk before we used it. The only difference on the momings when the cow put her hoof in the bucket was that "the milk was a little darker in color."
The masonry business isn't any more predictable than that old cow was. Have you ever dumped out a hundred yards of concrete only to have a rainstorm come out of nowhere and wash the top off it? Or have you ever laid up a block or brick wall and had a storm wash all of the joints out? Are we going to tear up the concrete or tear down the wall? Or are we going to cover it up and, once the rain is gone, patch and repair the work already started? We all know that, if we tear down too many walls, we'll go out of business. So, we do the best we can with the conditions that are presented to us.
I can still remember getting nervous after being told Lang Masonry was low on a $25.000 bid. A few years later, it took a $2-million bid to shake me. Now, when a general contractor asks us if we can handle a $3-million job, our response is always, "Of course, that's only two smaller ones."
What's holding your business back? If the reward on the upside is greater than the amount you could lose on the downside, why not go for it? In fact, no one has ever gotten to be a large contractor without a great amount of calculated risk. In fact, that sounds like a great topic for next month: "Taking Chances." Stay tuned!
Damian Lang is the owner of four businesses in Waterford, Ohio, that do combined sales of more than $15 million a year. He is also the author of the book called "RACE: Rewarding and Challenging Employees for Profits in Masonry. To order a copy of his book, or to attend one of his seminars held specifically for mason contractors, call Kerri at (800) 417-9272
Provided by Damian Lang, President of Lang Masonry Contractors, Inc., and EZ Grout Corp.