25 - How to Avoid Losing Money (Lessons from a Construction Giant)

According to a recent Bloomberg article: "Last year was a tough one for the Swedish construction giant, with operating income hit by project writedowns, goodwill impairments and restructuring charges totaling 3.1 billion kronor ($327 million)." To put it another way, they took on projects that they couldn't execute profitably. This damaged their reputation, and caused them to take a hard look at themselves and make some changes.  What can you learn from the failures of one of the world's oldest, largest and most successful construction companies?  Your profitability depends on:  Picking the high-quality people, using excellent processes, to build the right projects safely, efficiently, with high quality.  Highlights from the Show What caused Skanska's struggles Your profitability depends on: people, processes, projects Your people must be energetic, smart and ethical  3 ways you can maintain your energy  Why technical, relational and strategic intelligence is essential How to build great teams by blending people with different behavioral and thinking styles  How to identify and fix a broken process The importance of picking the right types of projects (and project partners)  How to innovate (and minimize risk)  What you can learn from the success of In-N-Out  How Skanska is recovering from failure How to identify your "sweet spot"  A simple tool to help you clarify "right project, right client, right location"  Your Next Step:  Take time to evaluate your "sweet spot"  Step 1: Define the CriteriaList all of the criteria that, from your perspective, define the "right client", "right job" and "right location"  Step 2:  Rank the CriteriaRank by importance to the success of your company.  1 is low, 10 is high.  Step 3: Score the CriteriaUse any number between 1 and 10.  1 is low. 10 is high.   Here's a tool to help you: www.ericanderton.com/sweetspot Click on the link and download the tool. Use it to define "right project, right client, right location".   This will help you avoid the mistakes Skanska made, and ensure long-term success and profit.