Cooler air temperatures aligning perfectly with the Labor Day holiday provided most of us with a nice break from the summer grind and a preview of the oncoming Fall season.  Activity in construction historically picks up betwen now and the Thanksgiving holiday and we look for the trend to continue this year.  Taking advantage of any increase in demand while performing to quality standards can be a daunting task in today's business climate.  Most of us in the industry today are having to do more with less in terms of job duties.  Last month's newsletter spoke about the "business as usual" model being a poor model in this economic environment.  I recently an article by Peter Bregman from the Harvard Business Review which expands on this thought.  Here is an excerpt:

  "To really think out of the box - you might be better off starting from a different box than you're in. But that's easier said than done: how can we escape the confines of our own history?
Michael Newcombe is the general manager of the Four Seasons in Dallas.  The recession has hit the hospitality industry hard.  Yet, when I stayed at the hotel recently, I was pleasantly surprised by how little the downturn seemed to affect the hotel's atmosphere. The quality of everything was impeccable, the staff were warm, and morale seemed high.
So I sat down with Michael again, this time to discuss how he's managed to keep morale high in the midst of the downturn. What I learned was a lesson in out-of-the-box thinking.
In the hotel business, jobs are specialized: maids clean the rooms, golf attendants prepare the golf carts, and gardeners do the landscaping. Historically, in a downturn, you cut each of those positions to the minimum necessary to keep things moving at normal demand.
But demand is rarely normal. During a golf tournament, you need more golf staff; during a corporate event, you need more dining staff. When there's a spike, the skeleton staff in a particular area get overworked, and performance, as well as morale, suffers.
Entering this downturn, there were two things that were most important to Michael and his executive committee: remaining fiscally responsible and maintaining a high-quality guest experience. So their goal was to reduce staffing costs while keeping morale high - an almost impossible combination. Almost.
That's where they got creative. Rather than following history, they started from their goal and worked backwards, questioning everything else.
Which is how Michael and his executive committee decided to ignore the silos. They focused on retaining their highest performing core staff - the ones who'd been with the hotel for 15 to 20 years - no matter what department they were in. That left gaps in certain departments. Then, they aggressively cross-trained their core staff. The people in laundry learned to clean golf carts. Housekeeping learned to landscape. And room service learned how to work in the restaurant.  Initially there was some resistance as people moved beyond their comfort zones, but they quickly adjusted. They were happy to maintain their hours, increase the diversity of their work, and learn additional skill sets.                                                       Instead of dipping, morale soared.  Michael didn't evolve his model from current practices. He broke the mold by questioning everything in the service of his objective.
Which, it turns out, is a powerful model for creativity: think backwards from where you're going, rather than forwards from where you've been. Identify the objective that's most important and then question everything else, especially standard practice."