Tenets of a winning Construction Mindset

Sometimes getting started is the hardest part. I was struggling to get this post started so I searched “mindset quotes”.  

No single quote did it for me, but I was struck by the list of quotes listed below. With many different people creating many different iterations illustrates that people inherently understand that mindset matters. What is not always clear is what iteration applies to whom.  

• “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” - Winston Churchill 

• “The only thing that overcomes hard luck is hard work” - Harry Golden 

• “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them” - Walt Disney 

• “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” - Winston Churchill 

• “Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful” - Joshua J. Marine 

• “Believe you can, and you are halfway there” - Theodore Roosevelt 

• “Live as if you were to die tomorrow; learn as if you were to live forever” - Mahatma Gandhi 

• “It is hard to fail but it is worse never to have tried to succeed” - Theodore Roosevelt 

• “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take” - Wayne Gretzky 

Prime Directive Training does not have the burden of addressing a country like Winston Churchill, we just address contractors.  

The following tenets are proven to create a winning mindset for contractors. 

• The Prime Directive is planning to have the correct people, tools and material at the correct place at the correct time working within plans, specifications and written SOPs to meet client expectations. | The Prime Directive provides a means to communicate a standard to be executed. 

• Learning Moments | Learning moments are how the standard of The Prime Directive is taught. Learning moments are created when mistakes are made. Learning moments are how value is extracted from mistakes. How knowledge and experience is created. 

• Principal Level Involvement | Learning moments embrace mistakes. By embracing mistakes team members are empowered to continually strive for ways to better execute their roles responsibilities as required by principal level involvement. Principal level involvement creates much less mental demand on team leaders, executives and owners. 

These tenets were born and proven under extreme adverse conditions. We began working with a contractor that was 30 to 45 days from not being able to sustain operations.  

Their QC/QA was non-existent. No one had a clear understanding of their roles and responsibilities. The founding partners had just split the sheets, clients and team members. To say they were working under a dark cloud of extinction is an understatement. 

The Prime Directive was created to focus every team member on execution. The Prime Directive became a mantra to focus and rally the troops. It worked and bought the company time to build an execution centric culture around The Prime Directive.  

Learning Moments was created to teach The Prime Directive and to begin empowering talented trade people the freedom to execute what they know. Team members were empowered because mistakes are acknowledged and embraced. Acknowledged as in the sense recognizing that mistakes happen to anyone that is alive and working. The dead do not make mistakes, nor do people that are not working. The rest of us make mistakes. 

Embracing mistakes as learning moments frees team members from worrying about making mistakes. As we know, humans make less mistakes when we are not worrying about making a mistake. Learning moments also build experience that build confidence. Confident humans win more. 

In business disciplines you often must practice on the job. This is where on-the-job training is derived. Training is practicing for the long term. Practicing is learning how to consistently execute an activity well. Learning moments are how to learn from mistakes that are the by-product of practicing. Learning moments are necessary to improve execution and build experience needed to nurture and support long term growth and scaling.  

With a standard of execution communicated via The Prime Directive, and a winning mindset nurtured by Learning Moments, the company began to focus on accountability without micromanagement with the introduction of Principal Level Involvement. 

Principal Level Involvement states that team members and team leaders are the principal for their assigned roles and responsibilities. As the principal their job is to make sure their roles and responsibilities are consistently and fully executed without excuses. In a more common vernacular “Get r done!!!” 

If you really think about Principal Level Involvement, it is a mindset of execution without excuses. Toolbox talks are about reminding team members to stay in a safe mindset during the day. Athletes and musicians develop routines and superstitions to get them in a mindset of focused execution. Construction leaders should use Principal Level Involvement as a method to create and nurture a winning construction mindset.  

Like piers driven or drilled deeply into the earth to support foundations that support tall buildings, these winning tenets need to be driven deeply into a construction business to create a winning culture that supports consistent sustained growth and scaling. 

Embracing mistakes does not include embracing repeating the same mistakes. Repeating the same mistakes should never be embraced because learning did not happen, and experience was not developed.  

Mistakes are the price of learning and experience. Repeated mistakes are the price of failure. Failure is never acceptable within a winning mindset.