Conventional Wisdom Be Damned: Part 3

THE ZEN OF CONSTRUCTION:

The long gone Superintendents roll over in their graves, and lots of current ED people roll their eyes at the argument that, at EllisDon, we are not builders.

It sounds ridiculous of course; we have many great people who live (and travel all over the world) for the challenge and thrill of building, and the tougher the challenge the better.

But let’s be honest, most of them don’t have calluses on their hands. We don’t build, we lead and manage the building process. We direct, we influence, we work together with the actual builders and the designers and the clients – and the buildings always get built, one way or the other.

And when our clients, consultants and contractors get asked about working with EllisDon, they don’t think about the physical building, they think about the building experience – the portion of their life that they spent working with EllisDon’s people, and whether that experience was enjoyable, rewarding, successful. They don’t think about what it was, they think about how it was.

Arguably, we need to stop thinking about the physical, and think instead about the ‘life experience’ that EllisDon provides. This is what we bring to the table, it is what we sell, it is what we do. And, in turn, the experiences that EllisDon people provide to everyone else that we work with (including other EllisDon people) will determine the life experiences that come, in return, to us. It’s kind of a zen thing, I think.