Tag Archives: building

Great Team Building Creates Competitive Advantage

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I am asked constantly what it takes to create competitive advantage, and not just from clients. Just about everyone I come into contact with is looking for the elusive answer. “How can I set myself apart from my competitors? How can I take business away from them?” The answer is easy: competitive advantage is created by people. Capable people put into strong teams. The internal behaviors of your organization are how companies set themselves apart from the competition. The attitudes, the level of commitment and motivation, and the resulting culture are what create competitive advantage.

I sometimes get blank stares when I give inquirers that answer. It’s not the answer people expect, and often not the answer they want. The “people” answer involves culture, and rah-rah, and touchy-feely, and that makes many managers and business owners uncomfortable. They would rather hear that the answer is buying into new technology, or re-arranging their office or store, or changing vendors. But consider that your competitors all have the same access to technology, the same access to vendors, and the same access to facilities as you do. The only difference-maker is your people, and the team culture, and how well that culture is able to innovate and think creatively. It’s how deeply the teams are committed to push the product envelope, the quality envelope, and the customer-service envelope. It’s how well your teams are positioned to connect with the customers and the markets you compete in.

Great teams create products and services that connect to customers at an emotional level. They create products and services that exceed the expectations of the customers. Great teams will take a customer transaction and turn it into a pleasing buying experience. A customer experience that is positive in every aspect is how the organization develops a relationship with the customer, a relationship based on credibility and trust. That relationship results in a loyal customer, one that recommends your products and services to friends and family. The organization then sees customer growth, revenue growth, and long-term success.

The notion that team cultures provide competitive advantage is not new by any means. Many organizations have created exceptional success this way, such as Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Disney, Google, McDonald’s, and General Electric. These companies have achieved success by creating teams that performed at levels far beyond what is typical. This is also how small companies outgrow their competitors and become world class market leading companies. Every large Fortune 500 organization started out a small business, and created great teams that were committed to the vision and focused on creating excellence.

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How to Plan a Corporate Outing

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Corporate outings and retreats can be a great way to motivate employees and reward those for a job well done. They can be ways to build team unity and promote retention. No matter the reason, there are a few steps to follow when planning a corporate outing.

The first step is to determine the purpose of the outing. Once you know the reason you’re planning an outing, then you can start to look at locations secondly. A team building outing should be different from a reward outing and a full company outing. The reasoning is just as important as anything else in the decision making process.

The location comes next. Once you know the reason, you can begin picking a location for your corporate event planning. There are many different companies that cater to corporations looking for retreat locations. Some can be parks or in the mountains, others are cruises and beach locations. Are you taking the whole company? You might want to go to a location in town for a day or two. Is it a reward? A cruise to the Caribbean may be a great way to reward top employees for reaching certain benchmarks. Small team building? Maybe a cabin in the woods is the right location for your company. Location matters.

The total cost is the next issue. Depending on where the outing is going to be held and how many people are attending, the price can vary greatly. If you have to work on a limited budget, there are companies that can help plan a corporate outing for a specific reason and work within your budget. The company itself can plan their outing by making phone calls to various locations to determine the right combination of scenery and price. They can even help with booking all the arrangements without huge deposits.

The next step is to find out who is paying for it. Is the company paying for everything for everyone? Are people expected to pay to participate? Is it a reimbursement for the employees to pay now, get paid later? These decisions factor into the budget for the outing and figuring out how many people will be in attendance. If a company pays for the outing, it can allow more employees to attend. If the employees are asked to pay for hotels or travel, that can reduce the total number of people in attendance, thus creating a situation of the company overpaying for the outing. Knowing who is funding the outing allows the company to know how much to budget and to estimate total expenditures.

Planning a corporate outing is not difficult but it can take some time. Allow yourself a lot of time to setup the outing and give people as much information as possible when you inform the employees. The more time and information the company provides when the decision is finalized, the easier it is for the company to ensure they are getting the most bang for their corporate event planning dollar.

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Avoid Costly Commercial Roof Repairs

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One of the most costly repairs for a commercial building owner to face is having to repair and sometimes replace their entire roof systems as well as other structural entities due to a leaky roof. It is important to regularly check your roof for evidence of leaks or water entry to minimize your chances for costly repairs later. Brown spots, developing on ceilings, paint cracking or wallpaper bubbling and falling off in your home or place of business are all good indications you may have a leak in your roof. Many times leaking roofs can be corrected with a simple fix.

Once you have confirmed you indeed have a leak in your roof, immediate action is needed to minimize any further damage to the rest of your structure. Placing a string near the stream of water into a bucket is a good start if it happens to be leaking at a slower steady rate. This is good only to minimize on any further damage to other elements of the building.

Drilling a hole is a much better option than the string if your leak is much more serious. Usually downed limbs or strong winds during storms cause this type of damage. Cutting the hole allows the water to pass through freely preventing the ceiling from becoming saturated with water greatly reducing the danger of a collapse.

When you are ready to fix your leaking roof, take measurements from inside to give you an idea where you should look. Using binoculars or a ladder, look for places where there may be obvious signs of a damaged roof. You want to make sure to follow common sense safety precautions anytime you work or inspect your roof.

Debris, such as leaves and other materials that could be impeding the downward motion required to avert any water away from a roof, should be removed. Snow and ice dams could cause water to back up under roofing materials as well. If able to safely reach these ice dams they should be removed.

Look for corrosion on metal flashing, whether it being in a valley or connecting to the chimney, this can be patched but the only long-term solution is to replace it. Pay close attention to any spots that may be covered in black flashing when you’re looking for leaks. This usually indicates that there were pervious leak repairs and the problem could be due for a more permanent fix. Attachment points for satellite dishes, antennas and other objects are also common places for water to leak into your roof.

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Different Types of Construction Equipment

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The topic of construction equipment is just so fascinating, once you consider it. Just take a moment to look around you and the fact is that the very building you’re sitting in as you read this was made possible by construction equipment.

Not just advanced in terms of the tasks that the various items of equipment can perform, but also advanced in terms of its size. In short, equipment that needed to be made bigger, is becoming bigger and also there’s a new shrinking trend in equipment as well. Equipment like the mini skid steer loader.

This is an amazing machine and if you haven’t yet seen one, you will soon because they’re coming to homes near you soon. What they are is a miniaturized version of a standard multi-purpose commercial tractor – built almost to the same manufacturing specifications.

Trenching, earth moving, post hole digging, materials handling, and the list just goes on, and, on, and on. All tasks that you can do with this one piece of equipment that can easily fit in the back of a compact pick-up truck. Also it’s available with wheels, or tracks.

Then one more type of construction equipment that has been shrunken down and is also now more affordable to buy, is the common crane. Now it really wasn’t all that many decades back when there was really only three sizes of crane and those were big, bigger, and huge. It just never even crossed the average persons mind that they would ever own a crane.

Well now you can own your own crane, although the greater majority of people out there really don’t have a use for one. For those who do need a small portable crane though there’s a large assortment of them to choose from including miniature cranes that can be mounted on the back of a pickup truck.

Construction equipment used in home building has also gone through a huge number of advancements and this in turn has had the effect of keeping housing prices down. Newer, and more advanced equipment also allows home designers and builders to produce a more attractive product as well.

Advanced pneumatic tools are everywhere on the residential job site now and they allow one man to do the work of three. Tools like air powered nail guns that sink nails like a machine gun. They’re now smaller, lighter, better balanced and contain more integrated features that make for a safer tool to operate.

New high tech laser tools are also now in common use on the home construction site. Tools like laser transit levels that do away with the scope on a tripod. Also new laser measuring devices that use a beam of light in instead of a tape to deliver far more accurate numbers, and also don’t require a second person to hold the end of a tape.

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