Mike Pierce's blog

It is interesting how each project develops its own personality.

Some projects have a very positive personality. Communications are great. The project chemistry is great. Everyone on the project seems to click. Other projects are sleepers. They just seem to get done without anyone who is not involved noticing. Then, other projects have more challenges to them. They demand the attention and focus of management and other resources beyond the normal project team.

Quitting something “cold turkey” is very difficult to do, unless the thing you are quitting is no longer available. There are 168 hours in a week. If we get an average of 7 hours of sleep per night, that leaves 119 waking hours. So, if we are working 40 hours per week, it is one-third of our waking hours.

I attended a seminar this past week on Lean strategies. The speaker pointed out that while Lean is often thought of as a manufacturing strategy, it is applicable to any series of tasks that make up a process. So any such process, whether it is the manufacturing process, the process for running a loan application through a financial institution, or the process for designing and building a building, is a candidate for applying Lean principles.

Two unrelated news stories this week have me thinking about what they have in common.

These stories both have to do with Cleveland and show how this town is on the upswing. The Republican National Convention will be held here in 2016, and LeBron James is coming back to Cleveland. In both cases, there is an underlying statement that this area is growing and has a lot to offer. It is, simply said, a desirable place.

The most recent issue of Engineering News Record (ENR) featured two articles that referenced improvements being introduced into the planning of projects. The first article noted changes in the AIA family of contracts, which include terms and conditions that are “designed to protect the Owner’s criteria for a project; [and] enhance the design in design-build, including a requirement for preliminary design by the design builder…”

Recently, an experienced sales professional told me he was focusing on making connections and he wasn’t going to go out on any “milk runs” until he had a live prospect. Email and networking on the phone was his strategy for connecting and prequalifying leads.

For a long time, I have made it a habit to always read one or two books at the same time. My personal formula is a non-fiction book on history, especially biographies, and a business book of some sort. For many reasons, I fell out of this practice the first six months of this year. I had been reading a book on organizational lifecycles that, while very interesting, read like a text book.

Several recent communication issues with some clients have surfaced that have caused me to think about the common link between them. What I have found is that written communications take place with more focus on communicating what the writer wants to say, rather than being empathetic to how the intended reader will interpret the message.

In mulling over a number of issues that are occupying the time and focus of company managers recently, the common thread weaving its way through each of them is communication – lack of, poor or misguided communication. I find it interesting that the thing we each do every day, communicate, can be at the core of what causes us problems most often.

Memorial Day Morning, 2014

Memorial Day is a day, a weekend, in which we typically kickoff summer. Parades, picnics and festivals are all celebrations of the coming months. Yet through it all, we should not forget the solemnity for which the holiday was created. The sacrifices others have made on our behalf to retain our freedoms and our way of life. It is why the United States remains the most desired place on Earth to live.