The construction industry is ‘Built to Last’ with Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals

Shutterstock 109920725How awesome is this?

I just learned that well-known book author Jim Collins is one of the keynote speakers at the 2013 National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) Annual Meeting set for Feb. 9-13, 2013. Collins is known for the books “From Good to Great,” “Built to Last” and “Great By Choice.”

I remember reading Collins during graduate school and loved what he said about how to succeed and built something that is meant to last — you need to have Big Hairy Audacious Goals, or BHAGs.

I’d say the equipment and transportation construction industry certainly has BHAGs! We were fighting for a half-trillion dollar transportation bill. We didn’t get it, but we didn’t give up. We kept our BHAGs and finally now have Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century, a.k.a. MAP-21, the 27-month, $105 billion reauthorization of SAFETA-LU. It’s not exactly what we wanted, but we stuck to our BHAGs and got a reauthorization.

Climbing out of the economic mess is another BHAG. It’s tough and we’re all struggling, but agencies and contractors are adapting to keep afloat and not giving up their big goals.

Shutterstock 60965239We get knocked down, but we get up again. (Yes, I too, now have that Chumbawumba song from the 1990s going through my head.) We do this because we’re a hardy industry — one that is built to last.

Thank you Jim Collins. I think we have this “In the BHAG.”

And thank you Grateful Dead who wrote the song, “Built to Last.” (Click here for the song’s lyrics.)

There are times when you can beckon
There are times when you must call
You can shake a lot of wrecking
But you can’t take it all
There are times when I can help you out
And times when you must fall
There are times when you must live in doubt
And I can’t help at all

………………

Built to last till time itself falls tumbling from the wall
Built to last till sunshine fails and darkness moves on all
Built to last while years roll past like cloudscapes in the sky
Show me something built to last or someone built to try.

The construction equipment and construction transportation industry is certainly built to try.

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Click here for YouTube video of The Grateful Dead’s “Built to Last.”