Starfish Coaching · People and Process
For design and construction business owners, anywhere
A construction company organizational chart is not a drawing of who reports to whom. It is a plan for which roles the business needs, who owns each one, and which of them you are still doing yourself. Most owner-run firms start with one box with the owner's name in it, and the job of the chart is to show how that single box becomes several, in the right order.
Most people start a construction business because they were good at the work. For a long time the chart is simply the owner, doing the estimating, the selling, the site, the buying, the paperwork and the payroll, with crews or subcontractors doing the building.
That works until it does not. Work keeps coming, the owner cannot be in every place, and quality starts to depend on one person being present. The problem is not effort. The problem is that every role in the business is still sitting in one seat.
An org chart drawn at this point is useful for one reason: it makes the hats visible. Write the roles down, put your name next to each, and you can see for the first time how much you are carrying.
The chart does not need to be built all at once. It follows the business through the four stages, and each stage asks for a different kind of change.
The owner is the technician. The chart is the owner plus whoever builds, whether employees or subcontractors. The useful step is to list the roles the work already needs, even though you are filling all of them.
There is plenty of work and no time. The owner hands off the role that ties them down most, which is often running the site, estimating or the office. Quality still depends on the owner, so this hire needs the role described in writing before the search starts.
A team is being built. Each major role has a named person, and each person has a number they own. The owner is learning to manage people instead of doing their jobs, which is its own skill and often the hardest part.
Hats are delegated, the core process in each department is written down, and the owner works on the business rather than in it. The chart now shows a management team, not a person with helpers.
You do not need software or a diagram. A plain list of the roles, who is in each seat today, and who should be, is enough to start. For an owner-run construction firm, these are the usual seats to think about, and the order in which they tend to need a separate person depends on what is tying you down.
Two rules keep the chart honest. First, each seat has one clear owner, because a role shared by two people usually belongs to neither. Second, a person can hold more than one seat while the business is small, but the chart should still show them as separate seats, so you can see which to split off next.
Go through a normal month and write down each kind of decision that waits for you.
Several small hats usually add up to a handful of real roles. Name each one for what it has to achieve, not for a job title.
Hand off the role that takes the most of your time or causes the most stalls when you are away. This is the first hire, or the first promotion from inside.
What the person must achieve, what they decide on their own, what comes to you, and the one number that tells you how it is going.
A role is only as good as the way of working behind it. Write down how the work gets done, so the next person, and the one after, can follow it.
Each cycle gets easier, because the habit of writing roles and numbers down is now in place.
This page is about two of the eight components every business runs on. People is about hiring to your vision and values, putting the right people in the right seats, and keeping an accountability chart of what the business has now and what it needs next, so the owner can get their hats off. Process is the written, documented way of working in each department, along with the policies that let the owner step away. A chart without process is a list of names, and process without a chart has no owner.
If one specific system is the weak point, such as hiring and onboarding or project delivery, a Systems Sprint builds that one system in two to four weeks. If several seats need work at once, The Self-Sustaining Business Program builds all eight components with your management team. If you already have a plan and want help keeping it moving, the Master Plan Program is the ongoing option. The free scorecard shows how you score on People and Process in a few minutes.
It should show the roles the business needs, who owns each one, and who each person answers to. In a small company that is mostly the owner, a project lead, an estimator or office person and the crews. As the company grows, the chart adds a role only when a real load needs an owner, and the owner steps out of that role when someone else can carry it.
Yes, even if one person fills every box. A chart of the roles the business needs, with your name in most of them today, shows which hats you are wearing and which one to hand off first. It is a working tool for the owner, not a drawing for the wall.
Most construction companies end up needing someone who owns sales and estimating, someone who owns delivery on site, someone who owns the office and the money, and someone who owns the people side. Which of these you hire first depends on which one is tying you down the most. Roles come before titles: decide what the role has to achieve, then find the person.
An org chart usually shows names and reporting lines. An accountability chart shows the roles the business needs and what each one is accountable for, whether or not anyone is in the seat yet. The second is more useful for a growing company, because it shows the gaps as well as the people.
Write down every decision that waits for you. Group them into roles, hand the heaviest group to a person you trust, and give that person a number they own so you can see how it is going without standing over them. Then do the same with the next group.
It is for owners of construction and design businesses anywhere, from a one-owner company with a few crews to a business with a management team. If you have a large, mature company with a full management layer already in place, you will find it a useful check rather than a new idea.
The free scorecard shows how the business scores on People, Process and the other six components, and Eric is happy to talk it through.
Eric Lee · Starfish Coaching · 1937 Triumph St, Vancouver BC V5L 1K6
Contact Eric
