Leaders Don't Wait Until January!

(DESCRIPTION)

Logo, Performance Construction Advisors

Logo drops into the middle of a blue screen.

Host Wayne Rivers appears in front of a white screen and talks to the camera.

On screen text, Wayne Rivers, Performance Construction Advisors

(SPEECH)

WAYNE RIVERS: Hi everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors where We Build Better Contractors.

This week I want to talk about leaders don't wait until January. Uh-oh. Oh, that's a bit of a problem, Wayne. We're already into January. But this comes from Craig Groeschel's blog, and he talks about six essential year end evaluations.

Now, why am I bringing this to you? We're supposed to do this before the beginning of the year. Why am I bringing this to you now? Because it doesn't matter when you start. It only matters that you do start. People say, "Wayne, when is the right time to do strategic planning? When is the right time to do succession planning? When is the right time to do X, Y, or Z?" Now. If you didn't do it before. What's that old saying? The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.

And I agree with that when it comes to any kind of business planning, business evaluation. If it's on your mind and in your heart to do it, start now. You're going to be better off than you were before. So timing matters a lot less, I think, in business planning than people say. These are things you should have done before January. Too bad. You didn't it. So now let's begin where we are. Let's start where we're planning.

Now what about this is important to you? Business planning and evaluation is part of who we are. That's what we do. And it's just natural to think about what you accomplished in the year previous as well as what you're going to accomplish in the coming year. He says, "Step one, evaluate your successes." I agree 1,000%. Contractors are so hard driven. They don't take the time to pat themselves on the back and say, boy, we really did a good job of that. That's a weekly practice we do at work here. Every week we celebrate our little victories because all those little victories add up to big ones.

He says, "Ask questions like what made this area or product grow when others struggled? What created the shift that sparked new momentum? What contributing factors made our culture get better?" Ask evaluation questions like that. Number two, evaluate your misses. Where'd you screw up? Where could you have done better? In this, boy we really... When we do SWOT analysis in our peer groups, the weaknesses part is always the longest because we're so capable of finding weaknesses in ourselves and in our companies that it sort of crowds out some of the other things. So don't go too deep into this, but at least figure out where you missed some things. Ask questions like what did we overlook? Where did we lead with ego and lack humility? What will we do different next time? Great questions.

Three, evaluate patterns. He says, "Occasional happenings may be circumstance or coincidence. What happens repeatedly is culture." And I agree with that. I remember talking to a contractor that seemed to be successful a number of years ago. And I sat down with them, and it was about the end of the year, they were doing some evaluation. And all of their projects for the previous three years had come in profitably except one project in each of the successive years. And when we drilled down a little bit, those projects sucked all the profit out of the company. They were bad enough to suck all the profit out of the rest of the projects.

And we started to evaluate a little bit one project manager. One person had managed all three of those disastrous projects. And somehow they couldn't see that. They couldn't see that pattern. It was right before their eyes, but because they were so close to the issue, they couldn't see it. But that was a part of their culture. They were allowing that project manager to underperform to the degree he sucked the profit out of the company for three consecutive years. That's really rather amazing, I think. What he says, what Groeschel says in this article is what you allow, you endorse. What you allow, you endorse. And I think that's true for contractors as well as other businesses.

Number four, evaluate your people. Who's thriving? Who can do more? Who wants more? Who's disengaged? Who's sort of coasting along? Who needs a crucial conversation? Those kinds of questions.

Number five, evaluate priorities. He says, "Most leaders have passion, but they lack focus." He says, "Give your attention to your highest impact behaviors." I think if you sat down and you cataloged and you inventoried your very most productive behaviors, you might come up with two, three, five, something. But if you look at your schedule and your day and your week and your month, you find that you are pulled in all these myriad directions and you don't get to focus your power where it would have the most impact. That's what you need to do. Dan Sullivan back in the day said, "If you can focus one day per week, one out of five, 20% of your time, on your main critical strengths, you'll double or triple the value of your company as time goes by."

And the sixth thing, this is the hardest one, evaluate yourself. He said, "The hardest person to evaluate is the one looking in the mirror." And he says in particular that, "No one really is objective when it comes to their own personal performance. We evaluate ourselves based on our intentions. We evaluate others based on their behaviors." So it's a little tricky.

Where's the best place to get evaluation? If we're hard to evaluate, if it's hard for Wayne to evaluate Wayne, where should I go to get that? And it's the peer group. I just looked. My first peer group meeting was the summer of 2012. So 13 years I've been in that peer group. I missed a meeting once and I regret it. The last meeting, which was in December '25, I think I came home with eight pages of notes. I mean, you think about the learning curve being that steep after 13 years being in a peer group. Okay.

Finally, these summarize all the questions. When you look back at the past year, what successes are you most proud of, and have you clearly identified the why behind them? Which leadership pattern, positive or negative, showed up repeatedly in your organization last year? Was it something you created or allowed? What's the one thing you've avoided addressing that could unlock growth for you, your team, your organization, if you dare to confront it now? What's your first step toward tackling it before the new year begins, or in this case, as the new year is underway?

Great questions. I recommend the blog to you. Craig Groeschel's a great thinker, a progressive thinker. And I'd like to hear from you. How do you evaluate the year past? How do you evaluate how to get started into a new year? What are your critical success factors? Share with us [email protected]. This is Wayne Rivers at PCA where We Build Better Contractors.

(DESCRIPTION)

On screen text, Wayne Rivers, Performance Construction Advisors Performance Construction Advisors logo drops into the middle of a blue screen.