The Liberation that comes with Limits and Restrictions
Recently over at Presentation Zen, Garr Reynolds wrote about the theory of decreased rather than increased creativity resulting from limitless restriction. It is these requirements and limitations that provide a structure within which the truly creative and successful excel.
In my construction defect investigations I focus on the “what” so much I rarely think of the “why.” However, from having been a builder and a construction company manager, I do understand the “why” really well. It wasn’t until I read the article from Mr. Reynolds that I connected the two.
The article about working under constraints gave me a little flash of enlightenment about why we have construction defects. Tract builders/developers today have the toughest restrictions of anybody if you think about it. They have to have something that “looks different and appealing” but is the same old mass produced product that will compete with the price-per-square-foot that the market will bear. The developer has to depend on superintendents that bring the project in on time and on budget but do it without beating the sub contractors so hard that they become resentful and leave out key components to stay on budget (time and money wise).
The superintendent has to hire the most cost effective subcontractors that move fast enough to keep from slowing down the assembly line but meet the budget. The sub contractors must figure out what materials to substitute to get the job done but still turn a profit and make it faster for their workers to assemble in order to stay on schedule.
The sales staff has to convince the home buyer that they are getting a product “custom designed for them” but that is really the same mass produced product will little changes so; A. it doesn’t slow down production, B. it doesn’t impact the budget, C. the “custom features” are not recognizable to the next buyer when just before the close of escrow they find out the buyer didn’t really have his home sold and can’t qualify for the loan.
None of this makes it OK for homeowners to live with construction defects. The problems still must be corrected. However, maybe we all need to look at our expectations tempered with what is reasonable and find a way to change the system.
If the home developers want to survive, and the companies that insure them want to limit their losses, the answer is in looking at what Nissan did. Nissan, formally Datsun, used to make little, cheap cars that didn’t last long. They changed their perspective, put a lot of pride into doing it right, cared enough about the customers to want to earn the right to sell a select group of people new cars every three years for a lifetime, instead of selling a lot of people one car, one time.
10 April 2007 | Construction, Construction Defect, Construction and Law, General, Inspections, Litigation | Comments
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