Supply Chain Madness

The Difference Between Pushing and Driving: Why Urgency Without Capacity Is Useless

Jason is out in the front of his house. What time is it? It’s 4:17. It’s going to be a beautiful day. He’s looking at some purple, orange, green, and red beautiful Halloween lights on his tree sitting next to a skeleton in his other front yard, lots of pumpkins on a chair, front yard chair. Got some pumpkins, some scary spooky things, a spider, some spider webs, and he’s got bats hanging above him. Anyway, super fun.

Hope you’re all ready for the holidays. Anyway, he’s out here. He doesn’t know if you can hear the crickets but it’s beautiful. Sometimes he loves to just come out here and have a nice peaceful morning until somebody like him starts up a podcast and starts yammering. But anyway, so beautiful and he’s ready to talk today.

On a podcast the other day, Jason was talking about building capacity and the difference between that and pushing. He realized there was a mistake in his philosophy there that a lot of superintendents really connect with the concept of pushing, but he’d like to define that in two different ways in the sense that the superintendents that really have drive and urgency aren’t pushers, they’re drivers. He likes the two little analogies there.

Japanese Train Attendees Push People Into Trains

Let Jason give you an analogy of pushing if that’s okay. If you look at the subway or the train stations in Japan, it’s kind of funny some of the things that they do. They’ll have guards there or in some cases they’ll have attendees or guards and people will just stack up in front of the train and these guards will push them into that train and just really jam pack everybody in there.

If you ever want to check out a really cool YouTube video, go ahead and type in “Japanese attendees pushing people onto trains” or however you want to search that. It’s really kind of funny. Now Jason hopes it is safe. He hopes it’s not unsafe, but it’s true. It’s like a real thing.

When they push people on there, not only are they having a lot of really strenuous contact, but you’re not really getting too much more bang for your buck and you’re cramming so many people in there. It can’t be safe from just a personal space, a transmission of disease, an appropriate “Hey, who’s doing what” situation and then exiting the train. Jason doesn’t even know if those trains are designed for the capacity there, but he really likes the thought of that when pushing.

Or if you have a bottleneck and you pretend like you have a bottleneck on the side. Jason thinks he did this on LinkedIn. Imagining like a bakery bag that has frosting in it or like a Tapatio bottle. Have you ever tried to push frosting, especially if it wasn’t soft, through a small nozzle? It’s a nightmare. Just imagine that pushing. Then you talk about driving. Driving is where you’re actually at the wheel, focused, looking forward, going the right speed and staying between the lines. You’re staying in your lane.

Now when somebody’s not driving, they’re in the passenger seat. They’re victims of circumstance. They’re going at the pace of somebody else. They’re not actively looking at the road. They’re not actively looking at the parameters. They’re literally just being brought. Jason likes the thought: you don’t want to be a passenger on a project site. You do want to drive, but you don’t want to push.

Pushing Makes You Go Slower

Let Jason go back to the concepts that he talked about the other day and posted on LinkedIn. When you’re pushing, you’re doing things like this:

• Throwing manpower at the problem
• Throwing money at the problem
• Making workers work too fast and too long
• Working with unsafe and unclean conditions
• Working with too much dependency
• Not having enough time in the schedule
• Having too large or too small batch sizes (meaning they’re too large or too small)
• Working in an improper sequence
• Moving start dates up without preparation
• Throwing materials at the problem
• Becoming frantic so you can prove to your boss that you’re working hard

Those are all concepts of pushing and they’re only going to make you go slower.

Now building capacity, this is what Jason would call driving. He had put a list here:

• Removing roadblocks
• Installing it right the first time (we’re between the lanes, we’re paying attention to the road, we got our foot on the gas, we’re going the right speed and we’re moving forward)
• Aligning and managing procurement
• Keeping a consistent rhythm
• Keeping it clean, safe and organized
• Improving team health and stability
• Taking more time to prepare and make work ready
• Increasing communication
• Optimizing bottlenecks and increasing flow

Jason put in here “building capacity” but you just as well could have put in here “driving.” There’s a sense of urgency that we absolutely have to have anywhere we go.

A Superintendent Without a Sense of Urgency Is Ineffective to the Point of Uselessness

Let Jason share with you one more little segment. This is from the book Elevating Construction Superintendents. This is step number 15, Drive with Urgency. This is talking about a superintendent but this could apply to anyone.

A superintendent without a sense of urgency is ineffective to the point of uselessness. Superintendents must keep pace with the project to finish on time. Superintendents are the timekeepers, the drivers and the ones who keep everyone accountable to follow a certain rhythm on the project. Their role is to pull all aspects of the project into the dimension of time. And without that crucial awareness, a supervisor cannot excel.

It is the superintendent’s job to bring everything on the project into the aspect of time. As a director coaching a team, Jason remembers when the team was six weeks behind schedule and finishing concrete. The field director told them they needed to begin a swing shift for concrete crews and rodbusters to pick up the time the very next day.

“Do you have any response from the team why they couldn’t do this?” the field director asked. “If we decide now and implement tomorrow, it will be done. Then we will be on our way to picking up the rest of the time.”

After this suggestion, the team still did not exhibit the urgency to drive the situation but rather focused more on their fears and apprehensions. On the field director’s next visit, he had some choice but appropriate words for the project team when he said “We’re doing this tomorrow. What do you guys not understand?”

As they started giving excuses, the local lead superintendent committed to get the ball rolling and within 24 hours had rodbusters and a crew of carpenters to come in at night with the appropriate rigging and equipment. The project projections immediately went from six weeks behind to two weeks behind with the prospect of also getting back the additional two weeks.

Success in warfare has never been associated with long waiting. The quote from General Patton is appropriate for this topic. A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

We must have a sense of urgency at work. There are things that we overthink, situations that we overanalyze, and plans that we try to over perfect in construction. This means that we frequently lose valuable time, losing days to save hours.

Superintendents who have not found a sense of urgency and do not feel the responsibility to finish on time hinder the project in incalculable ways. These supervisors are among those who fail on their performance reviews, get stuck in their role, and are not ready for the next promotion.

Immerse yourself in your schedule for at least 30 minutes every day. Everything brought to your attention by your trade partners and others in meetings should be checked against your schedule to ensure you have the indispensable sense of urgency to get the work done on time. Also, practice coming out of the ground quickly on projects when you only have a few trades on site. Don’t overthink and overanalyze unless it’s very high risk.

Get the consensus of the group once you have a good enough plan and make sure you move forward with drive and urgency. Intentionally practice this on a continual basis. Become creative on how you can gain ground and move things forward as long as it doesn’t interrupt the flow.

For every question on site, ask if the situation is being given the appropriate amount of urgency. Most importantly, when the problem arises on site, do not delay fixing it. Do what needs to be done. Remove that person, add that other person to the conversation, order those materials, demolish the defective work, do whatever needs to be done, and do not wait.

Expediency is associated with success in warfare and in construction. If you can properly learn how to instill a daily sense of urgency and passion and drive in your role, you will obtain success because you will not be hindered by the consequences of delay. You will have a balanced life and be effective as you supervise because things are not piling up and burning you out. You will finish projects earlier because you authoritatively and intelligently take advantage of certain situations which do not bring the project out of flow. You will gain time and contingencies on the project and it will serve you later when mistakes arrive. You will be able to overcome and adapt.

That’s the end of the section there. And Jason wants to say that he likes that part. He wrote the book but he looks back at it and he’s like “Ooh, I like this author.” A superintendent without a sense of urgency is ineffective to the point of uselessness. That is really just a 100% true point.

Drive with Urgency Means Preparing the Seven Conditions for Sound Activity

When we have a sense of urgency, we are doing the right things at the right time. Going back to another post that was posted the other day on LinkedIn. Jason has it right here. Seven conditions for a sound activity. We need to make sure:

• Prior activities are planned
• Construction design and information is ready
• Materials and components are ready
• Workers are prepared and trained
• Equipment is maintained and prepared
• Workspaces are made ready, cleaned, and they’re safe
• External conditions, approvals, and permissions are given

So when we drive with a sense of urgency, we’re not pushing. We’re not doing those silly things that Jason talked about just a minute ago. We’re not doing the things that would cause the project to delay. We’re actually doing the things that will prepare our work, those seven conditions.

When somebody thinks about going fast, they’re like “Oh, I’m going to push. I’m going to throw manpower, throw money at the problem, make workers go too fast, do out of sequence work, have things scheduled with not enough time, too large or too small of batch sizes, working in an improper sequence, moving start dates up.”

If somebody finishes on Thursday, “I’m going to move the succeeding task up to Friday.” Get them out of sequence and put them into a large amount of variation. Throw materials at the problem, becoming frantic.

No, that’s not what that means. What it means is that if the contractor finished on a Thursday, instead of moving that other contractor, the succeeding contractor up on a Friday, you will drive with urgency, meaning you will make sure that nobody takes that situation complacently. You will lead, you will drive, you will encourage, you will oversee, and you will ensure that this gets done, that the activities happening on Monday have all of the conditions of satisfaction met to start that work.

They have their preparations, they have their layout, they have their information, they have their lift drawings, they have their quality meetings, they have their submittals approved, they have all of their materials stocked and staged and ready to go, the area is clean, contractors are out of there.

Anybody Can Push But Only the Best Can Drive with Urgency

When Jason talks about driving with urgency, it’s not pushing other people. He didn’t say push, he didn’t say cram everybody into that rail car, he didn’t say cram that frosting through that nozzle onto that cake and push. He said create capacity and creating capacity takes that drive, takes that urgency, because only the really true builders can get out there and see what needs to be done to prepare and create that capacity and do it on time.

Here’s the thing: anybody can push when everybody’s frantic and freaking out, but only the best can drive with urgency as a self-motivated system, meaning that somebody is a self-starter, self-motivated, they have that urgency intrinsically within themselves. They don’t need somebody else, they don’t need some external condition, they don’t need some emergency to have that drive.

Jason’s saying the best builders have that drive intrinsically and they use that drive not for pushing but for creating capacity. Meaning let’s make sure that we have that procurement log, let’s make sure we’re finishing our systems, let’s make sure we’re doing defect correction systems, let’s make sure we have the drive and the urgency to stay within the lanes and keep driving forward with cleanliness, organization and safety, that we’re implementing zero tolerance, that we’re grading contractors, that we’re updating the schedule, that we’re following our huddle systems, that we’re following the quality process, that we’re really having great wonderful conversations with our last planners and the last planner system, making sure that work is prepared and that we’re having more intelligent conversations.

The other thing that Jason would say is that great teams are built when they follow those five behaviors of trust, conflict, goal-setting, accountability and performance, that they have a strenuous performance goal that’s magnetizing that team. And that you have a multiplier leader. Now you need that goal for the team because everybody needs to follow that goal, but the leader, the great builders will have that urgency intrinsically themselves.

Why Did We Get All This Time Just to Waste It?

One of the most annoying things that has ever happened to Jason in his career, which he failed at doing until they corrected it, was they started creating Takt plans in preconstruction with the project team, with the superintendent, and they got the team the right amount of time. And then certain teams, without a builder, without that drive and that urgency, they’d get complacent. They’d be like “Oh, we got time. We can eat into the buffers.” If you eat into all your buffers now, you’re going to get into a crash landing anyway. So why did we go get all of this time just so we could waste it?

Jason thinks that’s probably where some of our owners are coming from. They’re like “Yeah, no, you want the six weeks? No, I’m not giving it to you. Just deal with it.” And you’re in this crash landing situation. He thinks they do that because they want to know that people have a sense of urgency and drive.

What we have to do, the current condition, is we have to get out of the situation where people are victims and they are more like animals. They are things to be acted upon and get them into the human victor mindset, where they are things to act. They are humans that will act upon their circumstances and create stability.

Get out of the “I’m a victim. I am only shaped by my circumstances. I have to have an owner push me. And I’m going to use that urgency and drive to freak out.” We have to get from that to “I am a victor. I control the circumstances. I am not acted upon. I don’t need some external force to make me have drive and urgency. And I’m going to drive the right way with preparation, with flow and with capacity.”

Jason definitely wants to demonize the word pushing a little bit and enable and encourage the word drive. He really just prays and wishes and hopes and encourages everybody to have that good amount of drive in life because it really does a lot for us. How we do one thing is how we do everything.

There are times where we need to drive when we’re relaxing and there’s times when we need to drive when we’re at work. When Jason’s driving and relaxing, he’s in Hawaii or on a vacation, having date night. He’s driven the circumstances and created the capacity and the stability to have his phone off and to be totally focused with his wife or doing whatever he’s doing.

When he’s driving at work, they’re encouraging and working with the team, they’re encouraging and creating healthy environments. They’ve got decorations up in the trailer, they’ve got good morale, they’ve got good teaming, they’ve got open office spaces, they’ve got great huddle systems and there’s this time clock, there’s this beat on the rhythm and there’s this energy.

That’s probably the last thing that Jason would say: when people drive with urgency, they do it with positive, wonderful, loving and exciting energy. It’s like Disneyland. And when people push, it’s coercive and negative and just destructive and stressful and icky.

Jason would like to ask all of us to stop pushing and start driving with positive energy. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What’s the difference between pushing and driving?

Pushing is like Japanese train attendees cramming people into trains or trying to push frosting through a small nozzle. When you’re pushing, you’re throwing manpower at the problem, throwing money at the problem, making workers work too fast and too long, working with unsafe and unclean conditions, working with too much dependency, not having enough time in the schedule, having too large or too small batch sizes, working in an improper sequence, moving start dates up without preparation, throwing materials at the problem, becoming frantic so you can prove to your boss that you’re working hard. Those are all concepts of pushing and they’re only going to make you go slower. Driving is where you’re actually at the wheel, focused, looking forward, going the right speed and staying between the lines. You’re staying in your lane.

Q: What does it mean that a superintendent without a sense of urgency is ineffective to the point of uselessness?

Superintendents must keep pace with the project to finish on time. Superintendents are the timekeepers, the drivers and the ones who keep everyone accountable to follow a certain rhythm on the project. Their role is to pull all aspects of the project into the dimension of time. Without that crucial awareness, a supervisor cannot excel. Superintendents who have not found a sense of urgency and do not feel the responsibility to finish on time hinder the project in incalculable ways. These supervisors are among those who fail on their performance reviews, get stuck in their role, and are not ready for the next promotion. A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

Q: What are the seven conditions for sound activity that driving with urgency prepares?

Prior activities are planned, construction design and information is ready, materials and components are ready, workers are prepared and trained, equipment is maintained and prepared, workspaces are made ready, cleaned, and safe, and external conditions, approvals, and permissions are given. When we drive with a sense of urgency, we’re not pushing. We’re actually doing the things that will prepare our work, those seven conditions. If the contractor finished on Thursday, instead of moving that succeeding contractor up on Friday, you will drive with urgency, meaning you will make sure that the activities happening on Monday have all the conditions of satisfaction met to start that work.

Q: Why do teams with buffer time get complacent and waste it?

Certain teams without a builder, without that drive and that urgency, get complacent. They’re like “Oh, we got time. We can eat into the buffers.” If you eat into all your buffers now, you’re going to get into a crash landing anyway. So why did we go get all of this time just so we could waste it? That’s probably where some of our owners are coming from. They’re like “Yeah, no, you want the six weeks? No, I’m not giving it to you. Just deal with it.” They do that because they want to know that people have a sense of urgency and drive. Only the best can drive with urgency as a self-motivated system. The best builders have that drive intrinsically and they use that drive not for pushing but for creating capacity.

Q: How is driving with urgency different from being frantic?

Anybody can push when everybody’s frantic and freaking out, but only the best can drive with urgency as a self-motivated system, meaning somebody is a self-starter, self-motivated, they have that urgency intrinsically within themselves. They don’t need somebody else, they don’t need some external condition, they don’t need some emergency to have that drive. When people drive with urgency, they do it with positive, wonderful, loving and exciting energy. It’s like Disneyland. When people push, it’s coercive and negative and just destructive and stressful and icky. We have to get from “I’m a victim” to “I am a victor. I control the circumstances. I don’t need some external force to make me have drive and urgency. I’m going to drive the right way with preparation, with flow and with capacity.”

On we go.