Our industry continues to stagnate in regards to productivity. In many peoples' minds, the solution is more tools which often means technology. Technology that is essentially various apps. We've got more apps on each job than we literally know what to do with. Even still, productivity lags. I think this is because of two things. To truly improve productivity, we need to change things at the craft pro level and/or we need to improve ourselves as leaders. Not since we started using heavy equipment and power tools have we seen significant productivity improvements. A few innovators and investors are pursuing these kinds of things. CAT Ventures has a portfolio with some fairly standard techs but also includes some legit field tools and final products. I'll let the money men and investors focus on those. I'll focus a bit on improving ourselves.
Personal development is one way and a broad term for improving ourselves. When most of us think of personal improvement, we think of self help type stuff which is not totally off base but doesn't paint the full picture. In 2020 we have quite a few fell good options for self help but the best options are structured and actually relatively simple. As noted previously, John Wooden's Pyramid of Success is challenging but brilliant in its simplicity. There are other models from people like John Maxwell and Brian Tracy. No matter what option or model you might use to do things better, the challenge is in the execution. It is difficult for almost all of us to stay disciplined and hold ourselves accountable for doing the right things right and the end results. In spite of this, I think personal development is key to building a better world. During my career, I've seen that the psychology of how I think and how others think and do things is often quite a bit more challenging than the technical aspects of work itself.
While watching the recent events related to the Coronavirus and the US stock market tumble, it is apparent that the psychology of individuals and the masses often matters more than science, reality or what actually matters. Step one in mastering and understanding the psychology of the masses is to understand and manager ourselves. Once we really understand ourselves and why we do what we do, we might be able to understand others and influence their behavior in positive ways. For construction pros, this often starts in The Trailer. We need to understand ourselves and lead by example. We often can control others but we can control what we do and how we do it. It's small but it's a start.
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