#1 Source of Project Calamities exposed

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Charlie and Jennifer were in the middle of an amazing home renovation, a kitchen remodel that was going to revitalise the way their whole house functioned. They were planning to reorganise their entertaining spaces, rearrange the kitchen. It was a super exciting project. You know, the kind of project the Property Brothers make look so easy !!

 

And then things started going wrong. One thing after another. It was like dominoes going down.

The electrician ordered the wrong light fittings, then the tiler ran out of tile which delayed the decorator who couldn’t finish the ceilings and wouldn’t be available for another two weeks because of commitments on someone else's project.

 

Their excitement turned to dread. They couldn’t bear the thought of going to site to discover the new disasters waiting for them. What happened to them is an example of a typical project catastrophe - seriously, this happens over and over – and it can happen to anyone.

 

And whenever Homeowners tell stories about their Home Makeover projects, they often seem to be tales of frustration, annoyance and similar catastrophes of one kind or another. Some describe how they've lost money or how the project costs spiralled out of control. Others groan about the time being wasted and missed deadlines.

 

There's a striking similarity to all of their stories. Except they don't usually moan about the bricks or the timber, about door handles or power tools. They seldom rant about ladders and wheelbarrows. Materials and components, equipment and machinery – problems with this stuff, they can mostly control or easily resolve.

 

So it's something else that causes the problems, something else at the heart of what makes Home Makeover Projects so incredibly messy, and complicated and predictably likely to come unstuck.

 

Can you guess what it is ? Can YOU identify the poisonous ingredient that is the source of most project calamities ?

 

Hello and Welcome to Home Makeover Project Secrets, the show that equips Homeowners with the skills and understanding to execute successful home projects, that goes behind the scenes of Home Build Projects to unlock the secrets and share insider tips and strategies to save money and time on any and every home project. What you learn will give you the confidence to embark boldly on your next project and you’ll know what to do so your story has the happy, dream home ending you deserve.

 

I’m your host, Andrew Philips …

 

When I talk about "Home Makeovers", I include renovations, remodelling, alterations, additions, going up into attics and down into basements, redevelopments and even ground-up new builds. Any and every project where you're going to be appointing professionals, designing something, buying materials, carrying out construction work, employing contractors and sub-contractors, suppliers and manufacturers and even if you're doing some or all of the work yourself. All things home build.

 

I'm delighted you've joined me for Season 1 Episode 2.

 

In today’s episode, I'll be exposing the #1 source of project calamities, explaining what makes home makeovers so complicated and how it causes projects to implode - but don't worry, I'll give you some tips and strategies to help you wrestle back control.

 

And if you stay with me to the end of today's episode then I have a very special Free Gift for you to access that will make kickstarting your Home Makeover project much, much easier - you can start using it immediately and you don't need any special knowledge or skills, it's for everyone ... I'll share how to get your hands on it before we wrap up.

 

So, back to the calamity at the heart of most Home Build Projects.

 

Here's the thing ... even though projects have very similar components - like tile and wood strip flooring, wallboard and timber, plumbing and drainage, electrics and furniture - they are not the problem at all.

 

Let's close our eyes and go back in history to ancient Egypt, to the building site of the Great Pyramid of Giza ... probably more than 4,500 years old and still largely intact today ... check out the building site from where you're sitting on your camel in the baking sun. What do you notice ? Now let's take a jump forward in time and make another quick stopover in merry old England on the site of what will one day become the imposing splendour of Windsor Castle - you may have seen it if you watched TV news coverage of the funeral of Prince Philip, husband of Queen Elizabeth who died shortly before his 100th birthday. On the day we're visiting, somewhere around 1070 - just a little under 1,000 years ago - the walls are about half constructed ... once again, check out the building site and please, try to keep your horse from charging at the peasants.

 

Ok, now back to the present day and picture any busy building site in your mind's eye – maybe from the neighbour's porch across the street ... what do you see ... what has been a similarity between all these projects .... exactly, there's a hive of activity ... yes, you guessed it, from the slaves and slavemasters, to the peasants, masons and carpenters of old ... notice all the operatives, the architect and designer, the driver delivering materials and the Planning officer and code inspector from the local council, even you, the Client ... all those wonderful, helpful, often highly skilled people ... who together are turning your dream project into the catastrophe you never wanted it to be.

 

We humans are incredible. Don't get me started on the computing capacity of our brains, the size of our hard drives, the number of simultaneous functions we can perform and the speed at which we process the zillions of bytes of data flowing through our systems day-in, day-out. But despite all this capability, when we come together into groups to collectively deliver a construction project, we have a unique ability to turn an inspiring challenge into a nightmare. We are only human after all.

 

There are, of course, multiple elements that affect any and every project - but when you add the humans into the mix, that's when the trouble starts.

 

I'm guessing you probably weren't expecting to discover that it's the people involved in projects who cause the most problems. So now you know, what can you do to prepare to deal with these wonderful but complex contributors to get the best out of them and keep them from causing the trouble you want to avoid ?

 

There are two perspectives you need to consider that are critical to understand so you can lead your project to a successful outcome.

 

First perspective ... consider this ... Construction in the context of a Home Makeover Project is an art form, not a scientific endeavour. Let me say that again - your Home Makeover Project is art in action, creativity in real-time, rather than a controlled scientific procedure.

 

And it's art because it's a fundamentally creative process. Think about it ... even if every one of your contractors, constructors, artisans, crafts-people have participated in hundreds of projects, they have never built exactly what they will build for you. Multiple tiny factors will be unique on your project. Your bathroom or kitchen or extension ... whatever it is ... will be different from any other bathroom, kitchen, extension they've ever created before. It may have similar components - a shower, tile on the walls, light fittings - but no matter how subtle the differences, nevertheless it will be different.

 

Which means this is their first time doing it. And what makes the first time stand out ... well, typically that's the practice, right ?; the dress rehearsal. That's the time when it's not the end of the world for the lead actor to forget their lines. Everything they don't know they don't know they will discover during this first - but unfortunately only time - they get to do it. And that's the same for everyone on the site. This is why it's such a messy process. Everyone is learning, everyone is finding a unique way to get the job done.

 

When Elon Musk sends his engineers onto the assembly line to make a Tesla car, he expects them to get it right with 100% accuracy 100% of the time ... and they can do this because they are doing the same series of movements at a micro-scale over and over again for each of the thousands of identical cars they manufacture. There are so many repeated actions they can even design robots to do a large number of the tasks. Other than colours and some optional extras, cars of the same make and model are exactly the same.

 

But we don't want our houses to be identical. Even in development housing, planners and developers like to have a variety of different options and the interiors will all be as unique as the owners who live there.

 

Second perspective ... it's likely that many of the people who work on the project will not have worked with each other before - for some they will meet on your project for the first time. You or your general contractor will have employed several expert sub-contractors ... and the combination of teams, operatives and trades mean the plumber may be working alongside an electrician he's never seen before. So not only are they doing this thing the very first time, they’re playing with teammates who they don't know at all.

 

A sports team is the exact opposite. Team members get to know each other so well they can anticipate each other's next move. Their coaches drill them in offensive or defensive plays over and over - those players can do their stuff in their sleep. But that's not what our site crews have to deal with.

 

I can still remember ... from when I was a kid, growing up in the dark ages before electricity was invented ... a song about a home project where the homeowner discovered the gas tap wouldn't turn on so he called the gas man in to fix it. On Monday morning the gas man turns up and while trying to fix the problem he has to rip off all the baseboards. As a result, the homeowner has to call in the carpenter who arrives on Tuesday to replace the damaged baseboards. Unfortunately, he bashes a nail through an electric cable in the wall and so the unlucky homeowner has to call the electrician in on Wednesday to get the lights working again. The clumsy electrician regrettably manages to stick his foot through a windowpane while standing on a bin to reach the fuse box so, you guessed it, on Thursday the glazier is called in to replace the window. Of course, the glazier has his share of misfortune and damages the wall below the window and that needs the decorator to visit on Friday morning to redecorate. By now you know what's coming next ... well, no surprise, the decorator paints everything, including the gas tap which now won't turn on again ... and the song ends "So it was on the Monday morning that the gas man came to call".  You can actually listen to the original 1950's song being sung by Flanders and Swann in a YouTube Clip if you search for "The Gas Man Cometh".

 

If they were singing about this in the 1950s, this is not a new problem. It's not an unexpected consequence of modern technology. I'll bet those Egyptians had the same problems getting the stonemasons and the carpenters to work happily together without offending each other, treading on each other's toes and generally causing mayhem while the Pharaoh was about to arrive on-site to check out how the construction of his tomb was going.

 

So your project is a work of art being delivered by a team who are coming together for the first time with no opportunity to practice or rehearse beforehand – they just get one shot.

 

Can the problem even be solved or are you doomed to have to wrestle your way through the project ? Appointing robots isn't yet a possibility for most of us – although I can't speak for Elon Musk. We have to deal with these contrary humans and their one-time shot to get it as close to perfect as possible.

 

I want to outline three key strategies to focus on that have worked for me over many years:

1. Proactive People Management

2. Detailed Design Planning, and

3. Crystal Clear Communication

 

Each of these are huge topics and multiple expert books have been written about them. But to help you to achieve a successful outcome on your Home Makeover project I want to share a few, easily actionable steps you can take.

 

Let's start with Proactive People Management - three things you must do : Respect, Encourage, Be positive

1. Respect : All the people on site are only human - they bring their imperfections, their good and bad moods, their own daily struggles onto your site with them. So make every effort to make your site a friendly, welcoming and pleasant work environment. As the Client, the way you treat everyone who works on the site will have a huge impact on how they work for you. Treat them fairly and with respect and you will earn their respect and they will give you a better service.

2. Second – Encourage : Human beings respond better to encouragement than to punishment. Praise before blame. Hunting down the culprit and then chewing them out in front of the whole team at a volume the entire neighbourhood can hear will never achieve the result you need even if it makes you feel better in the moment. If you have to correct behaviour or challenge performance or whatever needs resolving, use the sandwich method - it's a well-known strategy but it works effectively : just like a sandwich - you start with the bottom slice of bread ... say something positive ... even if it's hard when you're angry about something ... let's imagine it's the plumber ... "hey, Bob, I noticed you were on-site early today, thanks for your commitment, I appreciate your efforts". Then add the not so pleasant sandwich filling ... and here's the thing that needs them to up their game ... "I noticed some of the pipes in the master en-suite bathroom are leaking – please can you make sure your guys do a pressure test on the pipes and check everything is watertight – its caused some damage to the new tile.” Finally, the top layer of bread ... end with something positive ... "I'm looking forward to seeing that shower installed in the master bathroom next ... it's great you guys are ahead of schedule, that's going to make a big difference to finishing the master suite ahead of time". A reasonable tone, and without unnecessary threats and promised punishments. One more thing on this worth sharing ... a colleague taught me a life lesson on this many years ago which I've never forgotten : he told the story of working with someone who should have completed some tasks by a deadline but had failed to get them done. He was furious and made it very clear how angry, upset and annoyed he was. Later he discovered that the person who had let him down had recently lost their 3-year-old child in a tragic drowning accident while on a holiday. He hadn't known about this but recognised that this was the reason the person hadn't been on top of their tasks and he felt terrible for having been so unfeeling. He'd made an already terrible situation so much worse. Always remember everyone is carrying their own burdens and heavy baggage. Making them feel even worse will get you nowhere. Kindness, sensitivity and reasoned and reasonable interaction get the best results. And it doesn't prevent you from escalating the situation if you don't get the positive responses you need. Imagine how you would like to be treated and then try to behave that way.

3. Third – Positivity. Being positive and bringing positive energy gets better results than negativity. When humans get together in tough circumstances, the tendency is to collectively spiral downwards into negativity. I've sat with multiple project teams in site meetings and listened as the team talk themselves into a storm about the challenges they are facing, how hard it's going to be to solve their problems, how much pressure they're under and blah, blah, unhappy blah.

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I focus on stopping the negative speak as quickly as possible and then I do three things :

1. Validate : I acknowledge there is a mountain to climb - I'm validating their anxiety about a problem that has to get solved.

2. Refocus : Next I remind them that we can waste energy making ourselves feel even more miserable or we can refocus our energy on solving the situation. I don’t immediately go on a witch hunt to find a culprit or someone to blame. Get everyone looking for the solution.

3. Finally, I initiate Solutioneering : I ask them all to work the problem together and we focus on building a solution-oriented mindset. I remind them we're in this together and we'll work our way out, together. And no one's going to be standing alone. This shifts the collective emotion from fear, worry and despair to hope, expectation and brings a "can do" attitude. At least once on every project - as close to the beginning as I can and always when we hit the first bumps in the road, I like to share with them a solutioneering story I heard about a power utility team in Canada who were dealing with the build-up of ice on overhead power lines during winter storms. The team was brainstorming about new ways they could get the ice off the cables before the weight of the ice damaged them. The process they had been using was to send operatives along the lines to climb up the pylons to shake the ice off - a massively costly and time-consuming, risky operation, in terrible weather conditions, especially in inaccessible locations and not very effective. A member of the group had a crazy idea that what they needed was to train bears to shake the pylons. Well, that just sounds silly, right? But in the spirit of brainstorming, someone else asked how they could persuade the bears to shake the pylons. And the solution that was suggested was to put honey in pots on top of the pylons so the bears would shake them trying to get to the honey. This may sound like it was going nowhere sensible but thinking about how to get the honey pots on top of the pylons was the catalyst for the epiphany moment. They worked out that placing the honey pots in position could easily be done by flying helicopters from pylon to pylon. Now you'd be right if you guessed that the power utility isn't actually using trained bears to shake the pylons to clear the cables of ice and there's no honey involved. But they do fly helicopters at low level along the lines and the downdraft from the rotors shakes the cables sufficiently to remove the ice build-up. It's fast, it's effective, it’s less risky and it works when the terrain is inaccessible. When people think collectively and work a problem together, they have great power to solve the challenges that face them. You need to bring positive energy to your team, relentlessly, focus them on problem-solving and inspire them to overcome the challenges.

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After People Management, you need to focus on Detailed Design Planning. This is the #1 Secret for Home Makeover Project Success. I'm not going to talk much about this critical activity on today's Podcast because you can discover much more about it if you download the Free Gift I'll tell you about at the end of the Podcast.

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But I will say this ... more than any other factor on Home Makeover Projects, how well you pre-plan, pre-think what you're going to be building, will pre-determine the success of the project. And I can guarantee it will save you money and time on any home makeover project. I explain why in more detail in the video that comes with the Free Download. But more about that at the end of this episode.

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Finally - Crystal Clear Communication.

There are eight secrets to achieving effective communication in construction contexts. Most are self-explanatory so I'll run through them quickly.

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1. Communication must be effectively targeted - it has to be aimed at the right person. Have you ever had an email that's been sent to like twelve people on a team. The sender is your boss and the subject line says "Urgent - Get This Done Today". It opens with "Hey Guys" and then sets out some critical task that must be completed that day or horrible things will happen. But it's been sent to everyone. So who is going to respond. All of you ? Maybe. But more likely, none of you. Because everyone thinks it's someone else's responsibility. If the issue is electrical, address the lead electrician. If the plumber needs to know, add him as a cc. But if others don't need to know, don't clog their inboxes with emails. The scattergun approach is inefficient and ineffective. It doesn't work. Don't do it. This applies to meetings as well as to emails. Don't have huge meetings with 20 people on site - anyone who is not part of the conversation will get bored, lose focus and stop concentrating. And then they'll miss the one important thing they needed to hear and do.

2. Communication must be direct. If you need folk to focus then don't start with a long introduction about what the weather is like, how they're doing, and anything that's not relevant to the key topic. Busy site teams need laser-focus on important matters.

3. Communication must be specific. If something needs doing in a particular way, by a particular time, on a particular day, then say so. Try to give a simple reason to support understanding. But avoid being over complicated. Just make sure they know what needs doing and by when and why – they can then be relied upon to use their expert judgement to do what needs to be done.

4. Communication must be detailed - but only as much as necessary. Provide sufficient detail to get actions taken and avoid confusion. If the decorator is starting to paint the bedroom walls, re-confirm the colours, the finish, and any other relevant details. Too little information leads to mistakes but be wary because too much information confuses busy people or makes them switch off. Short and sweet is best.

5. Communication must be written down. Never expect site operatives to remember the things they have been told in conversations on site. Make sure they take notes - don't let them come to meetings without a notebook or their iPad or smartphone which they can use to take memos and to make notes. Call them out if they are not focused. It is also imperative, essential, non-negotiable to make notes yourself when it comes to key decisions, significant directions, particularly instructions and then to circulate them to relevant team members afterwards. This is on you. Email is effective but there are other software options and apps you can use too. Slack is great for team communication, but only if everyone who needs to be, is on it and using it.

6. Communication must be shared wisely. I've already mentioned this but it's worth emphasising. If you tell the site electrician you want four extra downlights in the bathroom, make sure you send a copy to his boss or the administrator supervising him. But don't burn through everyone's attention span expecting them to pick out relevant items from amongst a long list of other items. Batching items helps with this - electrical to the electricians, plumbing to the plumber and so on. Where there are overlapping items then send those to relevant team members.

7. Communication be appropriate to the group. Don't discuss project costs and payment information that's relevant only to the team leader or, as is often the case with smaller subcontractors, with the owner or director. If you're having a payment dispute with the millworker, others don't need to know, nor do they need all the painful details.

8. Eight : Finally, make sure there are no barriers to communication. If the site has poor data connectivity for their phones, don't be sending emails all day that site teams can only receive when they get home at night. Make sure the information is available on site. If instructions are being issued, and communication is complicated, then keep a handwritten book of instructions on site so there can be no doubt about what was instructed to whom and when. You can always use an app on your smartphone to scan or photograph the site instruction book and then share with everyone digitally. It is an analogue approach – and a bit dated, but it is effective.

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It usually becomes fairly obvious quite quickly on a project when communication is not going smoothly. So monitor team communication – not everyone is as good as others. Develop whatever system is needed to suit your project and the teams working on it. But do use these tips to help you to make sure you and your team communicate clearly and effectively. Your project can get bogged down if you don't.

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Ok, so I promised a very special free download for those still with me at the end of this episode and as I've already mentioned I'm delighted to offer the opportunity to get a copy of my Free OnePager - The #1 Secret for Home Makeover Project Success. Go to numberonesecret.thediypm.com - you’ll find the link in the show notes. You'll be able to access the OnePager and also find out how to get access to a GoogleSheet tool you can use to superpower your project design planning – it’s also Free and it comes with an explainer video to walk you through how to use it - no expert skills or knowledge required.

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Next week in Episode 03 we’ll be exploring ... the #1 Circus Skill Homeowners must master to achieve home makeover project success.

 

To make sure you never miss an episode, why not subscribe to Home Makeover Project Secrets on our website at https://thediypm.com where you'll also find our blog posts and details about our upcoming Project Masterclasses and Training Courses.

 

If you have a question about a project you're planning or already running, please reach out and email me at faq@thediypm.com. If you have a challenge to overcome then I can just about guarantee others are also facing the same or similar challenges. We'll be answering listener questions in FAQ episodes every few weeks. It’s always reassuring to know you’re not the only one battling away.

 

It's been great to have you with me today and I look forward to having you back for the next Episode of Home Makeover Project Secrets.

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All the best!

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Andrew Philips, Project Management Coach