THE CHANGE ORDER – FOR GENERAL CONTRACTOR WHO BUILD DIFFERENTLY

---

I’ve heard this line so many times it makes me want to pull out what’s left of my hair, “We treat our employees like family here” or “We are all family here” or other ridiculous platitudes that link everyone in the organization as family. I get this impulse. You as the owner care about the people that work for you and their own families. I understand the pressure you feel of having that many people’s livelihoods on your shoulders everyday. 

But here’s the truth, families shit on each other. If you really do care about these guys, here’s a better way to look at this: stop treating everyone like family, and start treating them like you are running a championship team. 

Most construction companies fail long before they run out of work. They fail because the owner refuses to do what it takes to build something dominant. 

That might sound harsh but after years of working in construction, sales, ownership, leadership and consulting the one common thread I have found in struggling construction companies was a weak owner who treated his employees like family. 

---

“FAMILY IS A PLACE FOR WARMTH AND PROTECTION. A CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM IS A PLACE FOR WINNING.“

---

And isn’t winning the endgame anyway? Look, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t love these guys like family. But if they truly mean that much to you, then turning them into champions will do way more for them than the shirt off your back.

Take the 1990 Chicago Bulls, the 2000s Lakers, the Patriots during their 7-Super-Bowls run. The one thing that they had in common was that accountability was off the charts and each team had a leader that was willing to put it all on himself to achieve greatness. 

I’ve worked around those “family” companies many times before. Here’s what I always notice happens:

Why does this happen? Well, because we are all family and we care about our people more than doing what it takes to turn this situation around. 

To make this problem worse, top producer employees notice this. That guy who is always late and never gets fired no matter how many times he’s been warned. He becomes the catalyst for bad morale in the company. And I don’t care how many multimillion dollar contracts you have on the books, nothing will poison your company more than bad morale. 

But what if you decided one day that you wanted to turn this situation around? To raise the standards of excellence in your company. How would you start? 

Here are 5 ways to begin breaking up with the idea of family and start building like you’re going to the Super Bowl.

01

Stop Rewarding Loyalty Alone And Start Rewarding High Producers.    

---

I have found that one of the fastest ways to get promoted in construction today is to keep your head down and be loyal to the company. You know the guy who has been there for 15 years and is now the crew lead but has never done anything exceptional? He’s not a bad employee and in fact he’s a faithful old dog. He gets his job done but there never seems to be anything extra behind his work.

While at the same time you may have a high producer in your ranks. He’s younger, faster, stronger and is putting in extra hours trying to learn new ways to be more efficient. He is a producer, he solves problems, he makes up for those who are never around, and he makes everyone around him better at what they do. He is the guy your competitors would love to steal from you. 

This guy is the one creating impact. Your pay structure, bonuses, praise, promotions and opportunities should all flow towards impact and not just seniority. And don’t forget to rally the rest of your troops by this guy’s example. Be sure everyone else sees that this guy is getting more because he’s not there just for a job, he wants to be on a championship team.  

02

Build a Culture of Accountability. 

---

Most construction companies have organic cultures that evolve over time based on the personalities of those who work there. The employees rule the culture. This situation avoids discomfort or difficult conversations. 

Nobody wants to confront the lazy foreman, call out the salesman that is wasting time, fire the goldbricker, or admit the estimator is costing the company good projects. And so the standards begin to slowly collapse.

A championship team not only protects the standards that they value, they raise their standards of excellence. But to raise the standards of excellence in your company, you must raise your standard of excellence in yourself first. 

Remember, your employees will never do what you say, they will only do what you do. You create a championship team by example. Be the consummate leader of a winning team by setting high standards of punctuality, communication, hitting deadlines, owning mistakes, solving problems, and protecting the company’s reputation. In other words, clean up your own house first. Be the example of accountability and reinforce it daily to your crews. 

---

HIGH PERFORMERS HATE ENVIRONMENTS WHERE WEAK PERFORMERS ARE PROTECTED

---

The key thing to remember when raising your standards of excellence is that high performers hate environments where weak performers are protected. If your killers see that dead weight is not being fired, they will eventually leave. 

03

Recruit Like a Sports Franchise 

---

Most construction companies hire like this, “Well, he has a pulse and says he can frame.”

That is survival hiring.

Think of hiring as Draft Day and start building your bench. You know your competitors and you know about some of their great talent. Find ways to get that talent’s attention. A lot of your employees are friends with other companyies’ employees. This is a great way to start scouting. Talk to your guys, ask who they know that we should know.

The best way to recruit top performing talent is to become the company that top performing talent wants to work for. Remember, everyone wanted to play for the Bulls in the 1990s. It made recruiting and trading very easy. If you want the best you have to be the best place to be. 

A-game players want to be with other A-game players. They do not want to join a team of excuse-makers and babysitters. 

Your company should feel difficult to get hired at because your standards are so high. That rumor needs to get out to other companies’ employees, especially their top producers. 

Your hiring needs to create an air of attraction. Like when you get hired here, you have just joined something diabolical, not just another run-of-the-mill general contractor. The stakes are high in your world so make sure that the ones that are wanting to work for you know they will be challenged in ways others won’t. And in turn, they will get paid like others can’t.   

04

Create a Scoreboard Everyone Can See

---

Championship teams don’t hide the score. Every player knows exactly where they stand; wins, losses, stats and rankings. It’s all visible. It’s all real. And it creates an environment where performance is impossible to fake. 

Most construction companies operate like the scoreboard is broken. Nobody knows who’s actually producing. Nobody knows which jobs made money and which ones bled out. Nobody knows where the company stands against its own goals. And when nobody knows the score, nobody plays to win. 

Start measuring what matters and make it visible. Job profitability, compensation rates, callbacks, safety record, bid-to-win ratio. Whatever drives your operation, put it up where everyone can see it. 

This does a few powerful things. Your high producers will compete harder when they see the numbers. Your weak performers can no longer hide behind a fog of vague expectations. And you as the owner stop running on gut feeling and start running on reality. Don’t be affraid to call out your high performers in front of the crew. use them as an example of what you are looking for in job performance.

A scoreboard is accountability made visual. When the numbers are visible, the culture shifts from “I think I’m doing okay” to “I know exactly where I stand.” That shift alone will raise performance faster than any pep talk or consultant coaching ever will. 

Don’t make it complicated. A simple weekly or monthly dashboard shared with your key people is enough to start. The habit of measuring and exposing the score is what matters, not the sophistication of the system. 

05

Develop Your Coaching Culture or Die Slow

---

Every great dynasty had great coaching. Phil Jackson, Bill Belichick, John Wooden. These weren’t just managers, they were developers of men. They could spot potential that players couldn’t even see in themselves, and they had the discipline to build it out over time. 

Here’s the hard truth that most owners don’t want to face: if everyone around you is underperforming, that’s a coaching problem, not a people problem. 

Championship organizations don’t just recruit and fire the way to greatness. They develop. They invest in their people not with paychecks but with knowledge, mentorship and real professional growth. But it doesn’t stop there. They raise the standard of excellence for everyone else to meet through high expectations. These leaders create an environment where getting better is the expectation, not just a perk. 

This doesn’t mean you need to run a formal training program. Not everyone in your company is going to respond to formality. You don’t have to bring in an expensive consultant to “change behaviors.” It can be as simple as pulling aside one of your best foreman after a job and telling him exactly what he did well and what he needs to improve on next time. It means you stop assuming your crew leads know how to run the job and start actively teaching them no matter how long they have been with you. 

The companies that develop their people build a reputation. Word spreads that this is a place where you actually grow. That reputation attracts more A-list players, reduces turnover, and builds a bench deep enough to scale. 

You either develop your people or competitors will and they’ll do it with your former employees. 

The Bottom Line

There is nothing soft about caring. But there’s a world of difference between caring for your people and coddling them. 

The best thing you can ever do for the people who work for you is build something worth being a part of. A company with standards that never get complacent. A company with a visible scoreboard. A company where excellence is not the exception – it’s the fee for entry. 

Your people don’t need family. They need a leader who believes in them enough to push them past what they think is possible. 

Stop building a family and start building a dynasty.

About the Author

Daniel Bockman is a contractor, business owner, sales professional, and consultant focused on helping contractors, tradesmen, and blue-collar entrepreneurs build stronger companies through through unconventional strategies of leadership, accountability, and operational excellence. Through Trade Secrets, he shares practical lessons on business growth, culture, recruiting, sales, and high-performance leadership drawn from real-world experience in the construction industry.