Build a Little Better – Drive Forward with Urgency

Urgency in Construction: Why “Now” Protects Your People and Your Project

There’s a moment every superintendent recognizes. You’re standing in the field, looking at something that isn’t right. Maybe it’s unsafe. Maybe it’s out of tolerance. Maybe it’s messy and trending toward chaos. You can feel the job slipping not all at once, but a day here, a day there. And you can sense the fork in the road: Do we act now or do we wait?Waiting feels responsible. Waiting feels careful. Waiting feels like you’re avoiding a bad decision. But in construction, waiting has a cost. And most of the time, the cost is paid by the people in the field.

Jason Schroeder opens this episode with a quote that frames the whole lesson: “A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week.” The line is blunt, but the principle is practical. Construction rewards action aligned with principle especially when the alternative is delay, exposure, and drift.

Why Urgency Matters More Than People Think

Jason uses a warfare analogy because it makes the point impossible to ignore: in war, delays expose soldiers longer to danger. In construction, delays expose crews longer to waste weather, damage, rework, changing conditions, and the slow bleed of “we’ll handle it later.” That exposure is real. The longer something stays unresolved, the more it spreads. A quality issue becomes a rework issue. A housekeeping issue becomes a safety issue. A planning gap becomes a schedule hit, then an overtime push, then a morale problem.Urgency is not about rushing. Urgency is about reducing exposure. It’s about shortening the time between seeing a problem   and stabilizing it. And when you look at urgency through that lens, it becomes a respect-for-people strategy. Because the goal isn’t speed at any cost—the goal is to stop leaving people in the line of fire.

The Wall Story: The Cost of Waiting vs. the Power of Acting

Jason tells a story about a first wall placement that came out wrong honeycombing, bad consolidation, unacceptable finish. The team started doing what teams often do: discuss options, call for opinions, consider patching, consider testing, consider “seeing what the engineer says.” None of those responses are evil. They’re normal. They’re also slow.Jason called a trusted builder for advice, and the answer was simple: get the wall down now. If you know it won’t meet quality expectations and it threatens your reputation, don’t push the decision down the road. Demo it. Clear it. Reform it. Keep moving. What hit hard in that story wasn’t the demo decision. It was the contrast in timelines. With urgency, the project didn’t miss a beat. Without urgency, the same decision would have drifted for weeks, turning one bad placement into a schedule problem, then a cost problem, then a relationship problem. Urgency protected the project because urgency protected the principle: quality at the source. Fix it as you go. Don’t ship defects downstream and hope they disappear.

The Hard Truth: A System Without Urgency Breaks

Jason says something that sounds sharp, but it’s worth hearing correctly: leadership without urgency doesn’t help the project. Not because the person is “bad,” but because the role carries responsibilities that require timely action. If those responsibilities aren’t handled urgently, the team assumes they are and the project quietly falls behind. This is where system-first thinking matters. We can set up great meeting structures, great schedules, great field engineering support, and clear standards. But if the leader isn’t driving the system with urgency holding the line, closing loops, making decisions, removing roadblocks the system decays. That decay doesn’t happen in one dramatic collapse. It happens in abandoned meetings, “zero tolerance” that becomes negotiable, messy areas that become normal, and trade partner standards that become optional. Then the A players get punished because the F-level behaviors are allowed to run wild. The best people carry the weight for everyone else. That is not fair. And it is not sustainable.

Urgency Is Not Yelling. It’s Closing Loops.

One of the most important parts of the episode is what urgency is not. Urgency is not panic. Urgency is not aggression. Urgency is not barking orders and burning relationships.Jason talks about a leader who overcompensated for fear and lack of urgency by yelling at trade partners. That doesn’t create urgency, it creates fear and resistance. It’s chaos disguised as leadership. Real urgency is calm and decisive. It’s the ability to see, decide, communicate, and follow through quickly. It’s the discipline to do the right thing fast especially when you don’t feel like it.

A powerful example in the episode is the “two-by-four on a beam” story. A hazard sat up high. It got pointed out repeatedly. Days passed. Nothing changed. Then the superintendent asked a great craftsperson to handle it and within 45 minutes it was gone.The lesson wasn’t “craft saved the day.” The lesson was: things that should take minutes can take weeks when urgency is missing. The system didn’t need a bigger meeting. It needed a leader to drive action.

Why Perfect Plans Feel Safe and Why They Hurt You

Jason describes leaders who wait for a plan to be perfect before communicating it. They hesitate in meetings. They delay decisions. They hold back early because “it’s not ready.” And the cost is predictable: the team stalls, work drifts, and the project gets exposed longer to weather, waste, and variation. The longer you wait, the more the project deteriorates. That’s why the Patton quote lands. This doesn’t mean you issue sloppy plans. It means you issue usable plans early, then refine them as you learn. In the field, learning requires motion. A plan that never gets deployed doesn’t protect anyone.

What Urgency Looks Like on a Real Project

Urgency shows up in a few consistent behaviors: You respond when safety signals appear. You don’t let messages sit. You don’t “wait and see” while minor incidents stack up into bigger ones. You communicate a clear immediate plan, then report back with what changed. You recover your schedule quickly. You don’t spend three months “thinking about it” while the job bleeds. You get the path to finish within days so the team can align and stop guessing. You deal with destructive behavior quickly. You don’t let one negative voice poison meetings for weeks. You make the hard call so the environment can stabilize. None of this is about being harsh. It’s about protecting the project and the people from prolonged exposure to dysfunction.

Three Ways to Build Urgency Without Creating Chaos

• Make decisions on principles, not moods: when quality, safety, or standards are clearly violated, act fast and close the loop.
• Build a short feedback cycle: communicate an immediate plan, execute it, then report results quickly so the team trusts the system.
• Remove delays from your own habits: reduce overloaded to-do lists, do the thing now when it can be done now, and stop carrying mental inventory.

Where This Connects to Flow and Takt

Urgency isn’t just a personality trait. It’s a production strategy. If you’re using LeanTakt or trying to run Takt on a project, urgency becomes even more important because flow depends on timing. Roadblocks have to be removed before they break the rhythm. Decisions have to be made before they become constraints. Standards have to be enforced before they become optional. Urgency is what keeps the system stable enough for flow to exist.And this is where Jason’s point about passion matters: training can provide tools and ideas, but it cannot manufacture drive. Leaders have agency. Urgency comes from within but it can be strengthened through systems, mentorship, and habits that reinforce action.

Connect to Mission

Jason Schroeder’s mission is bigger than a faster project. It’s an industry where families are protected and workers are respected—where leaders don’t burn people out with chaos and delay. At Elevate Construction, the goal is to build stable systems that allow teams to plan, execute, and improve without heroics. LeanTakt supports that by creating flow and predictability, not panic. Urgency fits because urgency reduces exposure to less waste, less rework, fewer surprises, and more stability for the people doing the work.If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

Conclusion

Here’s the challenge: look at one thing on your project that everyone “knows” needs to be handled and handle it today. Not with panic. Not with yelling. With calm urgency. Close the loop. Protect the standard. Reduce exposure. Because in construction, waiting doesn’t keep you safe. Waiting keeps you exposed. And the quote that frames this whole message is worth repeating: “A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week.”

Frequently Asked Questions:

What does urgency mean in construction leadership?
Urgency is the ability to see an issue, act on it quickly, and close the loop without chaos. It reduces exposure to waste, weather, rework, and safety risk.

How do I show urgency without coming across as aggressive?
Be decisive, clear, and consistent. Communicate the immediate plan, execute it, and follow up. Urgency is about speed of action, not volume of emotion.

Why is waiting for a perfect plan dangerous on a jobsite?
Because delays create exposure. While you wait, conditions change, problems spread, and the team improvises. A usable plan today protects the project better than a perfect plan next week.

What are signs a project lacks urgency?
Abandoned meeting rhythms, slow decision-making, messy areas that stay messy, standards that aren’t enforced, and constant reminders for basic commitments.

How does urgency support LeanTakt and Takt?
Flow requires timely roadblock removal and consistent standards. Urgency keeps the system stable enough for Takt to function and prevents small constraints from breaking the rhythm.