To effectively delegate when urgent issues arise, contractors and subcontractors need to know their teams’ capabilities well ahead of the crisis, rather than when the need arises. This requires an ongoing, disciplined approach to knowing and shaping the team according to each individual's ability, performance and potential.
Today's contractors face two constant pressures: time and productivity. The very nature of the construction industry is bound by these two pressures. There’s a daily challenge to do more with available resources (productivity) and to do so within project deadlines (time).
Do other industries face these same pressures, yet achieve much better results? As a matter of fact, there are. Studies show that the manufacturing industry has nearly doubled its productivity since the mid-90s (while the construction industry saw no improvement).
In large part, manufacturing’s improvement is due to its dedication to improving resource efficiency over time—to truly understand each component of production (raw materials, machines, outputs and, most importantly, people), and then leveraging each component to optimal capacity as a cohesive unit. Compare this to the common productivity mindset of construction, where production components are viewed, and adjusted, mostly through a “per-project” lens (small picture versus big picture).
So how can the construction industry adopt a productivity philosophy that yields the same success as the manufacturing philosophy? Specifically, how can it commit to truly incremental improvement over time?
One highly effective strategy is time-effective delegation. Simply put, this means becoming a “student” of human behavior and, more precisely, a team's behavior. This requires a dedication, over time, to knowing and understanding how each team member ticks—the same way a tire plant studies the capacity of each machine over time and then (and only then) designs optimal workflow to match production targets.
Once the contractor knows how each of its people ticks, it can better leverage the skill sets (capacity) of its staff, thereby increasing productivity by reducing waste in time and materials (and providing more fulfilling career paths along the way).
So rather than waiting until the moment of pressure or need arises, time-effective delegation requires contractors to know their teams’ capabilities well ahead of the pressure point of need.
This is done in two simple steps.