YouDig?

Dear YouDig? Archives

7.20.20

Now batting … baseball, construction and life

Dear YouDig? Readers,

Baseball is back this week. We hope. (Dear Baseball, please make it back as Covid life is feeling a bit heavy). Like any great construction project (and life), baseball seasons are long and full of adjustments. Even MLB’s 60 games planned for the 2020 season without fans will require incredible coordination and strong performances from management, coaches, health experts and the players to succeed. We can hardly imagine major league baseball with few fans but we can remember when we played for the love of the game with a handful of fans in Little League. We know this, there are no fans at a construction site to inspire the grinders building our country. They just do it. In any case, winners keep trying to win every day with or without the fans; with or without glory.

Remember, you win the day by determining what are the best winning habits that respect the intricacies of life, the project … the game. You know that when you develop consistency in your habits you have a greater likelihood of success. Smart teachers or mentors have been communicating that to you for years. Have you been listening?

For construction, we know soooo well that to avoid legal heartache and to succeed on a construction project you MUST have precision in your bidding processes, discipline in your documentation, work together, keep each other safe, expect the unexpected and rapidly adjust, communicate (with the team, your suppliers and your customer) and be doggedly driven to succeed. Such is construction, such is baseball and such is life. In these times, Honor your habits. Smartly adjust.

Home Run = On Time Under Budget – YouDig?

Our wish for all of you is that MLB’s return will provide some much needed hope, enhance community spirit and help form the basis for togetherness in the future. Baseball has been around since… well, a long time. It has survived longer than our oldest elders.

Baseball shows up every year. Every day it battles, it adjusts and then it goes home.

6.30.20

Digging Freedom

Dear YouDig?

Freedom? The laws of construction sure don’t provide “Freedom.” It’s more like law prison.  What gives?

-Debbie Downer

6.22.20

Manage Up the Nowhere Man

Dear YouDig?,

When we say we have a project team, we mean it. We seek input from all of our project players. Recently, we hired a highly recommended and accomplished assistant project manager on the belief that he would become an integral part of our cohesive group. Instead, he is as quiet as a mouse in our project meetings and frankly, everyone sees him as a place holder and there is negative chatter. Any suggestions on how to inspire change here or is a duck a duck?

-The Inspired

6.8.20

Happy 4th Birthday, You Dig?

Happy 4th Birthday to Dear YouDig?
Dear Readers,
Our first bi-weekly release was in late spring of 2016. We have come a long way!

We remain committed to our mission to illuminate important legal issues facing the construction industry with a mix of lightness and fun.

And why not? History (and Twitter) has shown us that life is short and sometimes can be “heavy”… YouDig?

So we had a birthday party.

We celebrated 4 years and 100 Dear YouDig? Releases/Q&A articles in a chaotic ZOOM meeting over the weekend.
There were our imaginary characters and an imaginary cake available for imaginary enjoyment. We documented our celebration with the, now mandatory and cliché’, Zoom screen shot.

A special thank you to my friends and colleagues Jen Carro and Erin Myers of Buckingham’s spirited and amazing marketing team for all the support of some crazy ideas!And readers, thank you for the indulgence.

We look forward helping you navigate the quickly evolving and critical issues in the weeks, months and years to come!

-John

5.26.20

Dear Friend, Frustrated Over COVID?

Dear Friend,
Wow, have I missed you. Sure, I’ve seen you around but YOU are not the YOU I know.

Heck, the fallout from the coronavirus “enemy” has rocked the foundation of well … EVERYTHING. Well, turns out, our construction industry is a critical part of EVERYTHING. Just a short while ago, there was a mountain of construction work. Most of your decisions impacted the bottom line north of the break-even point. Employment shortages were the number one issue you faced. Suddenly, out of the blue, the entire industry faces existential decisions. Literally, all bets are off and you are pissed. Honestly, I hate to see you like this.

C’mon now … shake it off. Don’t forget you build things. You are resilient. You thrive on adversity. At your core, you are a fighter. You have always been aggressive … smartly so. You built an amazing business and life through initiative. When you face challenges, you find, fight and crush your enemy. You declare victory and move on. You are a winner.

For now, you, like many, feel confounded. Your usual tenacity is met with either silence and separation or anger and confusion. You can’t find the “enemy” in order to fight it. You are a problem solver but you have no solutions. You can’t beat the “enemy” on your terms. Your mind spins and you punch the air. Nothing there. No help. No way to predict what will happen. You can’t believe that you are stuck in the middle of an unexpected and horrific sea change. A storm is brewing in your heart.

You are usually self-reliant, but smartly, you are looking for guidance. Damn if you aren’t getting mixed messages. Your elected leaders are not aligned. Agencies designed to protect you have their own points of view. Your trusted advisors are befuddled.

Oh, and let’s not forget that members of your workforce are managing their own fears and viewpoints, adding more stress to the project environment. Of course you want to keep workers and their families safe. You want to keep working. You want your people to get paid. You want your team to get along and work together. You want your projects and life to go forward as normal as soon as possible. You want to compete, make money and help the community. For the first time in your life you feel that there is nowhere to run to and nowhere to hide and you are pissed.

It’s time to drop the anger and rise up like the great pro you are.Show everyone that you have this. Channel your energy to impact your financial and operational fundamentals to establish the foundations for future growth. Look only forward. Remember, avoid the anger and the blame game (self-pity) or all you will get is personal and professional misery.

Beat the grief and WIN. YouDig? #denialbargaining#depression#acceptance