Last week, EllisDon was recognized – in confidential surveys among over hundreds of companies and many thousands of employees across the country – as the Best Company To Work For In Canada. Yeehaw! It’s a terrific honour (especially as it’s the second year in a row we have come first) and also very gratifying; everyone here works very hard.

Then you have to stop and think about it: What’s it really mean?

I think it simply means - more than anything else - that the people who work at EllisDon really like one another. Simple as that. And they expressed that mutual affection and respect when they filled out the survey. When you really enjoy the people you work with every day, when you can trust and rely on them, it makes coming to work each morning a pleasure. They gave this award to each other, up and down the line.

Secondly, it means that EllisDon people love what they do. These surveys measure how ‘engaged’ people are in their jobs and at EllisDon, virtually everyone is engaged. Really engaged.

And lastly, I think it means we have a lot of very generous people work here. No-one here is anywhere near perfect, lots of mistakes are made, but I think people recognize that everyone is doing their best, trying their hardest, and therefore they are willing to forgive the mistakes and keep going down the road together. As long as we are all imperfect together, I guess it’s OK.

A long time ago, I quit being a lawyer to work at a construction company. I can’t imagine spending my career anywhere else. There are no better people to work with, not anywhere on this globe.

So, to everyone who works here, on behalf of everyone else who works here: Thanks.

Great leadership, just perhaps, is proven by doing precisely nothing. Put another way, every time that you have to provide strict instructions to someone, that is evidence of a failure of leadership somewhere. That is, either you screwed up or they did, and if you have surrounded yourself with strong people, that should happen rarely.

If that is right – just give me a minute here – then a lot of what we read and are taught about leadership is suspect.

Intro: Several months ago, we interviewed several Learning and Development consultants in order to choose one to help us develop EllisDon’s own Leadership Development programs. Right from the start, it didn’t feel right (and it wasn’t just the enormous fees they wanted). It was because the entire pitch was about identifying the (relatively few) people in the company who would go into leadership positions, and then giving them a lot of attention so they would know what to do and how to behave in order to lead everyone else. In my humble view, that's all wrong. They kept asking how many leaders we were talking about training. I kept responding: About a thousand.

Argument: I believe fervently that people, for the most part, can lead themselves. It is a constant, internal struggle for each of us; every day, but most of us master it. Just to be clear: We all need skills training; we need to keep improving our skills and developing new ones throughout our lives. Leaders do need to provide a clear context: the goals, the 'why', the strategy, the values. But if you, as a leader (or as a capable individual within a group of capable individuals), have done everything possible to surround yourself with people with the right skills and the right values, then what is there for you to do, really, except to follow through on your promises?

There is this: You can help people. You can mentor them unselfishly, give them a perspective they have not seen, show them how to acquire the skills they do not yet have. Don’t order people around, rather explain things carefully, and then obtain the commitments you require.

You can and must give people (including your boss) positive, constructive, frequent feedback: suggest a bit of this, a dose of that, tell them what worked for you.

Some old guy gave me this advice some time ago: Try not to tell people what to do (that’s the failure outlined above). Try to avoid telling them how to do it, unless they ask (they usually know, or can figure it out if you let them). Tell them instead why it needs to be done – completely, the whole picture - because that is usually the disconnect. Once they get that, you usually can’t hold them back; that is all the information they need. If information is power, now they are on the inside, as powerful as you. (If they can't deliver, it's an issue of skills or values.)

Conclusion: We did not hire a consultant, and I am not interested in focusing on 50 ‘leaders’ (among the 1200 people building their careers at EllisDon) who will lead the rest of us. We can and will all lead ourselves, thank you very much, and we will build a great company together. We will all accept help and a broader perspective whenever we can. We will all continue to improve our skills and learn new ones, especially in this fast changing world. Hopefully, every one of us will help and provide feedback to anyone - from the coop student to the CEO - who wants to benefit from it.

I believe that you are (mainly) surrounded by capable people – the EllisDon people, the consultants and the subs. They can lead themselves, just give them the information they need, and hold them to their promises. Just make sure you keep yours.

(By the way, I know that I often tell people what to do; we all do it. The key is to recognize that when the need to do that arises, it is often your failure, not theirs. Look in the mirror first, then take the necessary steps.)

And of course, I am happy to get feedback on all this (preferably after the new year) so feel free to let loose. Have a great holiday, a great 2009.

Portal Message: Great Leadership

I saw Neil Young this Thursday. I watched him play Cinnamon Girl, probably for only about the ten thousandth time in his life, and I couldn’t stop looking at his face, clear as ever up on the giant screen. It was absolutely intense, absolutely determinedly pounding away on every note, completely and entirely into that moment. How does he do that? Every single note, every song, every city, every tour. He’s sixty-three, for crying out loud.

Two years ago, he came through with Crosby, Stills and Nash. As immensely gifted as those three are, they more or less stood around like stooges for a couple of hours, while Neil carried the entire show. He obviously ditched them for this tour, and I was wondering what Stephen and Graham and David might have been doing Thursday night. Watching TV?

A week earlier, I was privileged to be able to give a 50 year employment Service Award to an EllisDon Superintendent named Ron Munro. Ron started with ED in ‘58, when Eisenhower was the US President, as a carpenter apprentice, and has probably put up over billion dollars in every kind of construction. Talented, dedicated, humble, he is also very determined: About five years ago, at 63 years old, Ron broke his ankle on a very challenging job. He refused medical attention on the site, went to the hospital that evening, came back with a cast on his foot the next day, and didn’t miss a single moment of work.

That, for me, is why these discussions about ‘work/life balance’ are completely bogus. They presume not just that work cannot be entirely enriching, but that it is in fact bad, and must be balanced off with good stuff which is in fact, your life. What a bunch of hogwash.

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