Sunday, June 9, 2013

The Message You Are Sending

By Marvin Kemp, AIA, CSI, CDT
 
The next several postings to The Felt Tips blog will deal with the umbrella topic of The Golden Rule: Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You. This post deals with the messages that you send in how you handle your business and more importantly the messages sent to employees of companies. In a couple of weeks, please look for a posting on handling construction administration through email and the respect issues associated with that medium. Finally, I'll present some thoughts on how attention to detail, or lack thereof, can affect your business dealings and the folks you hope to do business with.
 
Most of us are highly plugged in these days. Smart phones, laptops, tablets and other devices make our business and personal email and social media accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. I personally have an iPhone, an iPad and a company-issued lap top computer, in addition to several other computing devices in my home. I have w-fi access in my home and office and I groan when I'm in a long meeting without wi-fi to the point where I commandeered our company's mobile hot spot so I can be wirelessly connected most of the time. It's crazy, I know, but I enjoy the connectivity. My volunteer work not only with CSI but with scouting and our church frequently puts me conducting those types of business after business hours but wi-fi access helps me take care of some things during the spare minutes between meetings.
 
I try to draw a clear distinction between my business and my volunteer activities and the time I spend on each. I typically work on volunteer activities at night and on the weekends, but I try to avoid sending business related emails late at night and on the weekends. I do that primarily to avoid having people I conduct business with thinking they can have access to me 24-7. I have some clients and contractors who already feel that entitlement, but I don’t want to encourage it. From time to time, I wind up working evenings and weekends: writing proposals, reviewing RFP's, marking up drawings, reviewing submittals, etc. When I do send emails at night and on the weekends, they are normally related to management tasks and are internal to our company. That seems to be part of our firm’s corporate culture: our leadership manages our teams and the firm after hours.
 
In the last year, I've noticed a dramatic increase in folks sending emails late Friday night through late Sunday night. In one case, a young architect I'm working with at another firm likes to send emails after 10:00P on Friday and Saturday night! That action begs the question: is that a part of the corporate culture at that firm? Or is her personal situation such that she leaves the office early to care for children and needs to make the time up late at night? I have children and I know that sometimes you have to leave your office to pick them up from day care before the job is done. I also know some younger people feel the only way to get ahead is by making it appear that you put in extra hours and work late at night.
 
As a leader in our firm, these activities both leave me curious and cause me to wonder. What is the message our firm leadership is sending to our young staff? Do we give off the impression that it is necessary to get ahead at our firm by appearing to work 24-7? I don't think we do and I personally make sure that the young architects I work with understand they need to take their accrued vacation and they need to put down the mouse and go home at night and on the weekends. I very bluntly tell the youngest staff to not sync their work email to their smart phones. I recognize that we don't pay them enough for that type of access after hours.
 
A different kind of message that was sent can be gleaned from this story. A number of years ago, I was involved in a large project and sat in some scope review meetings. One particular contractor was a bit down on his luck at the time and took some significant discounts off his costs in order to try to win the job and keep his people employed across the winter. As the scope review continued and his discounts came to light, there still seemed to be about a $1.5M gap between his bid and the construction manager’s estimate. Finally, his chief estimator found her mistake and the contractor hung his head and wrote a personal check for the bid bond: $500,000. Just this week, I was in another scope review meeting with this same contractor. The chief estimator, despite a mistake that cost her boss $500,000, is not only still with the company but is now vice-president in charge of estimating. What message does that send to the other members of the company?
 
What messages do you or does your firm send to its employees? Do you forgive their mistakes? Do you expect them to be in contact 24-7? For your firm, does PTO stand for "Paid Time Off" or "Pretend Time Off?" If you can't answer these questions or don't like the answers, go into the office tomorrow and change it. If you need help answering these questions, invite a younger staff member to lunch and pick their brain. If you want to know what others in your position are doing, go to a CSI Meeting and meet your peers. Visit www.csinet.org and click on the “Chapter Locator” button to find the chapter nearest you. The networking opportunities alone will make it worth your while!

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