Discipline

Good morning, everybody. Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper.

Today, I want to talk about discipline and more specific, the best organizations in construction that I've seen are disciplined
organizations. And in fact, discipline may be the most important key to construction success that I've witnessed in my time
working with the industry. And when I say discipline, I'm not talking about slapping somebody with a ruler for something,
get your hand out of a candy jar. I'm talking about being disciplined, doing the things you have to do, you're supposed to
do to get things done. And kind of a disciplined organization if I were going to define that, I would say a disciplined
organization is one where the mission, vision, and goals are achieved through everyone using the designated processes,
everyone following the proven procedures, everyone obeying the important rules and everyone living to the established
values of the organization. So, getting things done while doing them the right way, essentially.

And a disciplined organization, usually the culture has evolved to where compliance is the norm and the expectations. So,
if you have somebody that's deviating from the process and procedure, it really stands out because everybody does what
they're supposed to do in a disciplined organization. In a disciplined organization, some of these following things happen.
This is how you could recognize a disciplined organization, say, first of all, the vision, mission, values, goals, all of these are
well-established and well-communicated. Thus, people understand the why, why they should follow organizational norms.
They see the value and get the connection between the activity and how you do it and the success that the organization
achieves by doing things that you're supposed to do and doing them the right way. I think you would see that new people
are onboarded and all people are trained and mentored, so they know what to do and how to do it properly and efficiently.

And I think that's one of the big obstacles if you have an organization where people aren't trained, sometimes these
processes and procedures don't seem efficient because you're not doing them the right way or taking advantage of the
software or whatever is the best way to use it. But with some training and mentorship, people get that, so they get the
why again, we do it this way. In disciplined organizations, there's a checking mechanism or multiple checking mechanisms.
And what do I mean by that? We follow up on the important activities. We don't just assume that everybody's doing what
they're supposed to be doing. We check because ultimately, I think this saying applies, if you don't inspect, don't expect.
So, in disciplined organizations, they inspect, and they expect.

I think other evidence that you'll see in disciplined organizations is things happen on a timely basis. If reports are due on
Friday, they come in on Friday. If you're supposed to do buyout in 30 days, buyout occurs within 30 days. Daily reports are
done daily. What a unique idea. But things happen on a timely basis and time is important. Meetings are efficient. They
start and end on time. There's an agenda, which by the way is distributed in advance. There's preparation. If there's
something going to be discussed, we make sure information gets out to folks so that they're prepared for the discussion
and the discussion can be effective. And there's follow up. There's follow up to these meetings to make sure that action
items are followed up upon and done.

Thus, there's oftentimes checklists. Along with agendas, checklists make sure that you touch all the bases that you do all
the important activities that you have to do. In disciplined organizations, checklists are very common, and they're used.
They don't just sit in the book. They're actually used, and they're followed up on to make sure, again, that people have
followed up and done the action items that came out of any meeting where you're using that checklist. Lessons learned
are actually documented and learned and again, communicated throughout the organization so that learning takes place.

There's more of a preparation and planning mode versus a crisis and problem-solving mode. And I think you just see that
in the way that people operate in a disciplined organization. People are individually organized and they're good at setting
priorities. Again, I think just one of the things you see in a disciplined organization, they know what to do and they know
what to do first. There's teamwork. People work together well in a disciplined organization because roles are well-defined.
Everybody's sort of a rule follower, and that makes it easier. You can trust your teammates, you can rely on them because
everybody knows what needs to be done and again, they do it. In disciplined organizations, important information and
data is measured, and again, after it's measured, it's also distributed and discussed so that we can see if data indicates
that something's going wrong, we're not achieving something we're supposed to be achieving, we can get a quick change
of what we're doing or some kind of intervention to get us back on the right road.

So, data is very much used in a disciplined organization. So, look in the mirror, I've sort of described this organization and
as you look at your organization, is it a disciplined organization or are there some holes or is it pretty loosey goosey where
everybody sort of does their own thing, their own way and you're relying on their talent and hope, I guess, to make sure
that things get done. And if it's not, maybe get on the road, get some help, do whatever you can, and become one of those
disciplined organizations because I guarantee you, those are the ones that have success year after year, week after week,
project after project.

Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper.