I recently saw the newly released movie “Air,” about the Nike agent who signed basketball great Michael Jordan to a jaw-dropping promotional deal fresh out of college. The film got me thinking. Um ... had Michael Jordan been five-foot nine, like his brother Larry, rather than six-foot six, would he have become an otherworldly wizard on the basketball court, the best player of all time and a global phenomenon loved by millions?
What Do Michael Jordan and a Construction Manager Have in Common?
At first glance, probably not a lot. But let’s take a closer look and compare the notion of "height” between the two. One could argue that height, or lack of it, may have played a role in the story of Michael's older brother Larry's basketball career. According to Michael, Larry had just as much talent as him, but at five-foot nine lacked his brother’s obvious height advantage. Larry Jordan ended up playing for the Chicago Express, a minor league professional basketball team. But if Larry's basketball skills were truly equal to Michael's, then it might be fair to say that his height had something to do with him not making it to the NBA.
So, it may be an odd comparison, but in different ways, height plays a significant role in the life of basketball player and in the life of a construction manager, who serves as critical liaison on a construction site, among other things. In Michael Jordan's case, height helped shape the future of a generational talent. And for a construction manager who corrects "height differences," on a job site, he won’t win world championships, but he'll certainly eliminate headaches for construction crews and save developers time and money.
For example, on one of Concore’s recent CM jobs the contractor was set to build a room based on a faulty architectural drawing. The drawing depicted a room four inches shorter in height than the correct drawing. But by overlaying the original drawing onto the one the contractor was using, Concore's team found the error. Thankfully, this error was caught before construction began. Had it not, it would have set back the construction schedule for months at a cost of more than half a million dollars.
Ready? Let's Huddle and Review Things
Success "on court" or "on site" often comes with experience, determination, talent, and paying close attention to details. And yes, it's good folly to think that we can ever control our height and bloom into a sports megastar. But what is in our control, you guessed it, are things like noticing the correct dimensions of an architectural drawing to stop a construction project from derailing. Paying close attention to things makes the construction process more hassle-free, and like MJ on the court, often results in a slam dunk.