Construction Trailblazers: Paving The Way to Excellence

[00:00:00] Someone asked me recently, what's something that almost every business and team gets wrong? Oh, am I excited to answer that with you guys today. Welcome to Construction Trailblazers Paving the Way to Excellence, the podcast where we cut through the noise to uncover what truly drives success in the building industry.

I'm Samantha C. Prestidge, your guide in simplifying operations and turning dynamic teams into industry leaders. We're all about embracing people focused, tech forward lean practices that reshape the path of a company, boosting revenue while freeing owners and teams from daily firefighting. So if you're ready to create a team that consistently delivers success, then you're in the right place.

Explore our past episodes at ConstructionTrailBlazers. com and start your journey to excellence. Alright guys, so I know that there are moments where you feel like your problem is an isolated thing and no one else experiences this really [00:01:00] big, overwhelming challenge. And then there's other moments where you're just kind of accepting that, hey, this is a super common challenge, it sucks, but everyone in the industry has to deal with it, so you just kind of accept it.

And it's hard to maybe have a fresh perspective to that. It's hard to understand like, hey, is there a better way to do this? Do we have to accept this? Is this really an isolated issue? And there are moments where a problem is unique to your team. More often though, it's a common challenge and the solution will be unique to your team.

So today I'm excited to dive into what I find most businesses, whether it's the clients I've worked with, whether it's my entrepreneur friends that I'm masterminding with, or just other people I've seen and how they do things, a challenge that. What most everyone falls into is the tendency to overcomplicate things.

Even with the best of intentions, we can [00:02:00] so easily fall into a trap of making things way more complicated than they need to be. And so this episode is all about cutting through that clutter and remembering the value of simplicity in business. Overcomplication is so easy for it to sneak into our day to day.

I'm definitely not innocent of it. I know I, I preach about simplicity all the time, but there's also moments where my operations manager or my husband, who's like my pseudo, business consultant and coach during at the dinner table is even saying like, is that really the best way to go? Like that feels a little clunky.

That feels overcomplicated. And so I'm not innocent of it either. There's so many instances where it sneaks in. Sometimes it happens because we need an immediate solution to a problem. So. We come up with a Band Aid solution, meaning that we're solving a symptom of the problem rather than the root cause, which ultimately results in that issue continuing to repeat.

So then we keep implementing Band Aid solutions over and over and over again. And so we've got this big [00:03:00] ball of complicated processes to solve. And really what we just needed from the beginning was a simple singular solution. if we would have made the time to really dive into that problem and find that solution.

Other times, we overcomplicate things because we maybe need to control something that we want done in such an exact way that we're trying to eradicate every possibility of a variable instead of accepting that there's multiple ways to the same successful outcome. And we can more often benefit from just clarity on that objective rather than controlling every single step to get to that objective.

Other times, we have majorly, majorly confused perceived effort for value. So sometimes there's ego or pride in something that is complicated because then it's sophisticated, right? And if there's a simple solution, it's maybe too good to be true, right? or it's simply not good enough for us. So we want [00:04:00] to pile on additional steps or layers of detail.

This reminds me of a steak. When you have a really good freaking steak, it's great on its own. Like, have you ever gone to a restaurant and seen chicken stand out on its own on a menu without sides? Absolutely freaking not. But if you go to a top tier steakhouse, you're paying good money for For the stake alone.

And the sides are listed totally separate from that stake because it's simply good on its own. And so there is a sophistication and simplicity. And no matter how we've gotten to this place of overcomplicated nonsense, because we've all been there, we've, we have all dealt with it, no matter how we've gotten there, we're now just dealing with some really unfortunate and expensive side effects at every level of the organization.

So starting at the front line, now our employees that are really executing on a lot of that day to day work, they have had Headache inducing processes and nonsense to [00:05:00] deal with in executing this work, which is going to lead to frustration and it's going to lead to turnover. Our managers are then dealing with that turnover.

So it's making hiring harder because they think that they need to find like this diamond in the rough to deal with these super sophisticated processes. They're also dealing with the pressure of missed goals or going over a budget on a project because now with complicated processes and high turnover, we've got a decrease in profit margin.

And on top of that, our managers have less time to dedicate to executing the best freaking project ever or really developing their team or achieving goals because they are now stuck in this constant firefighting. And then at a high strategic level, we've got a lack of clarity on where the real issues are and the best decisions to make moving forward.

Because again, we've just got this complicated ball of nonsense that we've kind of built ourselves. Now, maybe you don't feel this snowball effect in your [00:06:00] organization from employees to managers to the executive level. Maybe your complexities are a little bit more subtle. So I want you to imagine that I'm asking you about, how would you, how do you do this process, and why do you do it that way?

If you have that feeling of like, ugh, this is going to take so long to describe, or you're just not going to get it, or if I were to keep asking you, why do you do it this way? There would be a lot of, well, because of this, oh, oh, and you have to also think about this, and well then we also have this thing over here.

Okay. If that's how you would end up describing things to me, if I were to ask you, or maybe you have actually described things this way when you're onboarding and trying to train somebody, then you likely have some unnecessarily complicated things that deserve some simplicity. And I know that sometimes what feels complicated seems immovable.

It seems like you Or because we've created this complexity trap ourselves, it's hard to see where things could even begin to [00:07:00] be simpler. But I promise you that you can always find simplicity. We've gotta peel back the onion to really find the core objective of something. To find that clarity of what we need a process to do.

What we need from our team. What the point of a goal is. What we're trying to achieve. And when we can get that clarity on that core thing, then we can find that simplicity, that line from A to B. And this is a really common issue guys. I just want to remind you that this is, this is the most common thing I see across every team.

This is not a, hey, you messed up or hey, you weren't smart. You didn't think about this kind of thing. This is not a failure in any kind of way. It's just a common thing that happens as we're trying to innovate or be better or deal with an expanding team. So, this is a common issue. And to get out of this is to, is going to take some real intentionality and embracing some healthy conflict.

You need to have an intention [00:08:00] about finding the most effective, efficient, simple way of getting from point A to point B without losing out on quality. So, for those ego affected peeps that feel like complexity equals sophistication, I want to remind you that simplicity doesn't equal lazy. Simplicity actually requires a lot of sophisticated wisdom.

It's about doing something not with less care, but with less energy by focusing on what actually matters in that process, team, or in the business. So we're stripping away all the excess stuff that you've gotten yourself stuck in and figuring out what's going to get you to that best possible result with the least amount of headaches.

This is where leveraging lean management is going to make a huge difference. The concept of lean is going back to efficiency, but not in a lean and mean way, because unless you've got a fully automated robot manufacturing [00:09:00] plant, then you've got real people executing on real work. So we want to find the simplest way of doing something in a way that supports our people so that they have the space to execute at a high level and have space for creativity or innovation that contributes to the success of the business.

So lean management and simplicity in action is what's going to result in us having clear communication about what needs to happen, why it needs to happen that way, and who is making it happen. This is where that magic happens with collaboration, innovation, and customer satisfaction. This is something that we dive deep with the members in our Trailblazers of Excellence course.

So we work closely with those managers to teach and implement these concepts, to peel back those onions, and determine how they can get their teams to execute and perform at a high level consistently, and avoid this complexity trap. But for now, the simple action that I would encourage you to take today is to identify [00:10:00] just one process or part of your operations that feels overly complicated or frustrating, that feels like if you were to sit down and try to explain this to me, it would just be exhausting for you to try to explain all the nuts and bolts and puzzle pieces.

That's what I would want you to focus on because solving that is going to give you the most relief and the most impact the quickest. So sit down with your team and ask those why questions. Why do we do it this way? What is this really solving? And is there a simpler path to get the same or even better results?

And take note of where things feel tangled up and challenge yourself to trim it down. So, I don't want you to cut corners. Remember the simple way to get from A to B. We want to find that without losing out on quality. So we're not cutting corners. We want to be Wendy's here. Guys, can you tell that I'm a foodie?

A lot of my metaphors are around food, but it's about finding the most effective way to get to that finish line without wasting your time, energy, or impacting that team morale in [00:11:00] a negative way. Because again, we've got lean management with a group of people, not robots. It means we've got to keep morale high to keep productivity and innovation high as well.

So where do those things feel tangled up and how can you simplify and peel back those layers? And we want to remember. Complexity is not going to impress anyone if it ends up leading to chaos. And real trailblazers are those who have the wisdom to simplify. And when you do, you'll not only see improvements in how your team operates, but also in the ease of your day to day.

And if you can do that, then allow yourself to bring the philosophy of simplicity into your daily leadership and management style. How can you continue to strive for more ambitious goals in your team in an energy driving way, not an energy draining way. If you found this helpful, or if you have a story of going from complicated to simple, then I would absolutely love to hear it.

You can reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me [00:12:00] at hello at construction trailblazers dot com. And if you feel like your team could use a little extra guidance to trailblaze your way to simplicity, then let's hop on a call to start peeling back that onion. Until next time, let's keep paving the way to excellence one simple, impactful step at a time.