Passion and Pride

Dennis Engelbrecht with The Family Business Institute and The CEO Roundtable Program for Contractors. Thanks for tuning
in to this week's session of Digging Deeper.

You know, I've talked in the past a lot about passion and pride and the importance it has in construction. We're really in a
very tough business. One of our cohorts says it's a tough business for tough people who make tough decisions, and I think
that's really true. We have daily challenges. We have people challenges. And as I get around the country and hear different
people, I hear a lot of the same complaints. A lot of it's the generational thing, people just don't have the work ethic they
used to have, or they don't have the pride in their work anymore, or we've lost all the skilled people, or they're just there
for a paycheck.

As I listen to those complaints, I do get a little bit annoyed. And one of the reasons is we go in our peer groups, as we go
from host to host, we're oftentimes interviewing superintendents. Thinking of our most recent peer group, a couple of
these superintendents come in and you can just tell talking to these folks that they've got a passion for their job. They've
got a pride for what they do, and they bring that success to their whole team. It's not just in them. With their leadership,
they bring that to their job sites, to their teams, and it makes everybody successful.

So, I think the point here is that some get it done and some don't. So, all of you who I'm talking to today, all of you either
are or can be or have some sort of leadership role day to day. I was thinking about a movie I saw recently where leadership
went a little bit astray, and one of the leaders questioned, it's the military, they questioned one of the people, and the
response was, "Well sir, attitude reflects leadership." And I thought, "Wow, that's really true. Attitude does reflect
leadership."

So, these superintendents who really got it and then are performing, and they're bringing that passion and pride to their
business, that's changing attitudes. First of all, it's bringing a positive attitude within them, but that attitude then spreads
to the people around. Attitude does reflect leadership, and everybody has the potential to bring that passion and pride to
their company, their team, their job site.

And if not you, who's going to do it? Who is responsible for bringing that passion and pride? If you just leave it to each
individual and all of a sudden you look and then you start complaining, "Well, they just don't have what we used to have
in our day." Well, that doesn't get the job done, and that doesn't impress people with your performance, your quality,
your production, all of that. All right?

So, who is it? It's you. You have to be a leader. I was thinking about people in different positions, project managers,
superintendents, and what creates success. And organizing and implementing, you can be very skillful at those things, and
that's a good thing. It's a good thing in those positions, but that's not leading. That's just doing your job. Leading is bringing
an attitude to the work.

So, be a good organizer, be a good implementer, but also be a leader. Bring that passion. Passion is about bringing
enthusiasm for the work. All right? Pride is about setting high standards and keeping those high standards and living to
those high standards.

So, my encouragement to you today is passion and pride. Bring it. Bring it regularly. I think you'll find it's going to make a
difference in your company, to your job, and probably even more important to yourself, because you're going to feel the
pride of that great day's work done.

Again, Dennis Engelbrecht, Digging Deeper.