Mechanicville, New York 2024
Building a strong coaching practice
Steve stormed into the trailer throws his hard hat onto his desk with a jarring BANG!
“These guys just don’t get it” he says forcefully with frustration in his voice.
As the Site Safety and Health Officer for the project, Steve’s daily routine seems to involve having to confront a trades partners regarding them not following the site safety rules.
He elaborates on what it is today that has really got him upset, “These guys know that they aren’t supposed to operate any equipment without doing the inspection first!”, his voice still loud with anger. This daily ritual was both emotionally and mentally draining to Steve and the entire project team. Steve was not wrong, the guys in the field should know better. So why don’t they “get it” is really the question.
Is it that they don’t want to be bothered following the project safety precautions?
Why can’t they see the obvious benefits to themselves working safely?
Every day, all around the world Superintendents and Project Safety professionals ask this very question. Equally frustrated and reacting in the same way that Steve did that day.
As lean practicing Superintendents, we are crafty enough to get the contract verbiage in the front ends of the master contract to say our trades partners must participate in the lean program for the project. But we need to be careful and intentional on how we implement the lean program once the project begins. Admittedly I have made the mistake time and time again on my projects of not thinking about this enough until it was much too late to really set the expectations and get the project lean practice off in the right direction. Most times I feel like I am always playing catch up. I have even excused this shortcoming by justifying that in a lean practice we use PDCA so I will make the adjustments as we get the project rolling. The problem here is that my “Plan” to build a strong lean process for the project was not thorough enough and had lots of holes in it.
Please don’t misunderstand, I feel that every project, big or small, can benefit from using lean construction philosophy and practice. But having the best toolbox in the world, filled with the latest and most updated techniques, still needs to have a plan of how to implement them.
Part of that plan needs to be coaching. Coaching the trades partners, the designers, and the owners on using the lean program you are implementing on the project.
How much coaching is required? A lot of coaching is required. Continuous and consistent coaching is required to truly practice lean construction and bring the most value to all the project stakeholders.
Every project meeting and every daily huddle is where the opportunity is to coach your team on lean construction.
Understanding the lean construction tools like the Last Planner System and Pull planning is really just the start. Where the real mechanism for the lean construction process is coaching others on the use of them. Let them experiment and fail in using the tools, but always returning to the practice. When frustration arise, and it will over and over again, just try to remember that to master anything it requires practice and more practice. Don’t make the assumption that your teams’ lean shortcomings on the project is because they just don’t get it or more importantly don’t want to do it. Try talking with them and coaching them on what lean construction really is, and how it will benefit them if they just buy into the program.
Be a lean construction mentor not an just enforcer.
Take good care of yourself and your lean practice.
Chris