A magazine published an article about the advances women are making in construction. To my surprise the article featured a former co-worker of mine and painted a pretty rosy picture. Reading the article it sounds like women have finally achieved parity with men in construction.
There’s only one problem…all the stuff the article didn’t mention.
A few weeks after I got to my large construction project in the-middle-of-nowhere New Mexico, I walked into the superintendent’s area and found most of my staff deep in discussion about a process. A functional manager within the company distributed the process dictating – It must be followed! No one on my staff agreed with the process. It was clear that the process was written from the perspective of the functional manager and the perspectives from other functional areas wasn’t considered.
I initiated an impromptu meeting to come up with our version of the process. The men who reported to the functional manager were concerned about not following the dictated process but I told them not to worry about it – my job was to sell our process to the larger group of senior managers and explain why it is better.
I then asked what other processes we needed to look at and boy, did I open a can of worms! I decided to formalize my Process meeting.
An article titled “Another Woman Makes It In Construction” caught my attention. The article was about a woman who was retiring after a successful career in construction industry. Cool! As I read further into the article, I learned that her career was not as I expected. She was the Treasurer and financial manager for a construction company and not directly involved in the construction projects. She did not estimate projects or go out to the construction site. I was disappointed in the article.
Even more so, I felt misled. The title said she was “In Construction” instead of “In the Construction Industry”. To me being “in construction” means you have construction expertise.
In the months since reading the article I’ve been experimenting – what response do I get if I say “I’m in construction.” Most of the time I get a surprised look and get asked if I am a trade worker. So I don’t think my response to the article was unreasonable.
This article got me thinking though – How honest are we being about how women are progressing in business? Are we painting a rosier picture than reality?? And if so, why??
As I write my articles I find myself correcting my writing based upon the counseling session I had with a manager many years ago. He did not like it when I referred to my direct reports as “My Team.” He wanted me to say “The Team”. I didn’t like saying that. Even as I write today, I find myself changing “my” to “the” and back again.
So the question I’ve struggled with is – which is correct to say – “My Team” OR “The Team?”
I tell women to learn their company’s operating and management systems as a foundation for building a success career. But most women (and men) have never been taught how to think in terms of systems or how to map out processes so my advice may seem daunting.
If you took the initiative to search the web you may have been overwhelmed. Mapping processes seems complicated! There are symbols that you use to create diagrams to convey specific functions. The experts have names that require you to twist and contort your mouth in an attempt to pronounce. And it seems everyone has a PhD.
But the reality is that you don’t have to make it complicated for most of your purposes. No one needs to be well versed in systems or processes design. Here’s how I got a project started on mapping its processes.
