John Ruskin was born over 200 years ago in London in 1819 to a wine merchant and stay at home mom. His parents dedicated themselves to cultivating his talents as he was their only child.
He is best known as an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath. Today he might be known as a multi-hyphenate. He wrote about a variety of subjects from geology, architecture, mythology, literature, education, botany to politics and the economy.
Ruskin, similar to Benjamin Franklin and others throughout history, was a man that was ahead of his time.
Leo Tolstoy said, “he thought and said not only what he himself had seen and felt, but what everyone will think and say in the future.”
What is the cost of our modern progress? Today, we have all the tools, tips, tricks, and technology – yet construction projects are still over budget and behind schedule.
Weather delays, unforeseen conditions, design misses, a lack of labor, long lead materials, you name it, people are dealing with it. The delays from any of these items compound the overall delivery date of any project.
Ruskin recognized that progress came at the cost of human welfare and the environment. He believed crafts were becoming a lost art.
“Wise consumption is much more complicated than wise production. What five people will produce, one person can very easily consume, and the question for each individual and for every nation is not how are we to produce, but how our products are to be consumed.” – John Ruskin
What do we as an industry or economy produce? Are we meeting a need or chasing a trend? Where is the art in your business?
No matter all the advances in technology, we still need good people focused on doing good work. It is rare to find individuals or companies focused on producing quality work.
Today we hear the words consumer economy. But what are we consuming, and why?
Rework, capital calls, and budget rebalancing are the new norm in construction. But they don’t need to be.
Think about your work in terms of production versus consumption.
Did you produce a quality plan?
Did you produce a list of likely risks or challenges?
Did you produce a longer list of possible contingencies?
Did you have a strategy to enable a successful delivery in your market?
Did you produce an assessment of your current construction environment?
Better yet, how do you consume new information?
How do you consume quality talent?
How do you allocate and consume budget dollars?
How do you consume soft or hard cost contingencies?
How do you consume the most precious of all resources – your time each and every day?
In the end, we need to make sure we are producing more than we are consuming.
But to Ruskin’s point, we should also consider how much we consume, especially when it comes to our time, energy, and efforts.
The Real Con 037