When construction contractors first begin any new project, there are a few mental prerequisites that need to be in place to get things going. First and foremost, there is optimism. You have to believe that the undertaking is possible, that you can make it happen and you need to be able to visualize both the long-term outcome and the short-term next steps with confidence. Contractors in general are pretty good at this. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. The second thing that needs to be fundamentally at work in contractors’ minds is humility. Nobody knows everything. It’s unlikely anyone has ever done what you’re about to undertake in exactly the same way or with the same team. Think before you act. Contractors are not necessarily so good at this. We know, we know. But you have to have both things, optimism and humility and they need to be in that order. If you’re not optimistic, it’s possible the undertaking won’t even happen. If you’re optimistic without any humility, you are driving blindfolded. I’ll let that image sink in and have you reflect on whether you’ve ever been exposed to that kind of construction project. So of course, the key to success is to hold those things in the right balance for any given condition and type of construction.
In preservation contracting, we have to do everything that an optimistic mindset requires – visualize the outcome, quickly build a conceptual plan to execute the work that will get refined and improved over time, put a team together, mobilize on site, put your foot on the gas and start building momentum. But you need to be extremely humble about all of the above. Every historic building has more questions than answers, and if you assume you know all the answers (too optimistic), you are not doing it right and you will be sorry. If you can embrace the spirit of humility while maintaining your optimism and confidence, you are doing it right. And that’s what we call doing slow work, fast.
OK, so how do you do that? First, there is no substitute for experience. Get your experience on a team with somebody else who already has it. Everyone that has worked on at least one historic building renovation has been through this learning curve.
A group of inexperienced people working on a preservation project are going to do slow work even more slowly. Experience is gained in two ways. First you learn by doing or watching things get done. Cutting the pocket for a stone dutchman, removing a section of plaster without breaking all the keys off, installing needle shoring, bringing manlifts through historic door jambs without damage, bringing the temporary heat on slowly to avoid thermal shock, etc.
That is relatively straightforward and we’re all used to learning that way. And there is a tremendous amount to learn about traditional building methods, hacks and best practices. But the second way you gain experience is learning how to approach your project and its tasks in the first place. Again, watch somebody that’s done it before – they approach with a mindset of caution and humility. Just because you’ve learned 100 repair techniques does not mean you can whip one of those out and slap it on the current problem.
It is extremely dangerous to assume that the building or condition that presents itself to you today is exactly like what you’ve seen before, or even worse that it resembles modern steel/concrete/plywood/drywall construction and that assumptions from mainstream construction ideology can be applied. If you’ve been through the learning curve and retained any of what you learned, it’s that you can’t assume very much of anything and you need to start with theories and then investigate to build confidence in each theory.
In reaching the goal of doing slow work, fast – not only do you need experience (technical skills and mindset) but you are going to need partnership. If you have enough technical skill to be dangerous and you have shifted your mindset in favor of investigation and away from assumption, you now need all the 20 or 200 other people on the project to do the same thing, or to trust your leadership, or both.
It’s tough to pick whether approaching your project with caution or really focusing on team partnership is more important for successful preservation work. The best teams do both well. Suffice it to say that your project will inevitably be crewed with a variety of workers on a vast spectrum of understanding and awareness about working on historic buildings. You need your electrician to understand that plaster is going to take 30 days to cure so he actually needs to be complete in June, not July. You need to have your blacksmith understand if his helper and only employee is writing a book and can only help part time on this project, that that is not OK.
There is a real weaving together of niche preservation tradespeople and modern commercial tradespeople and they all need to understand they’re in a unique situation that demands flexibility and adaptation and that they will be proud of what they accomplish. It’s a difficult harmony to achieve. Everybody has their habits and a pace and way of doing things and in order to turn a group of individuals into a team, you need to be good at creating common goals and being a good coach and cheerleader. This is true of modern commercial work as well, but there again, assumptions can be your friend in mainstream work.
Everybody can apply their last project to the current one to a much greater degree. Trades understand how they dovetail with each other without a lot of explanation and micromanagement. In a historic building you can’t make the mistake of assuming that is going to happen because depending on the level of authenticity of your preservation work either nobody is going to dovetail with each other or at the very best you will have a few that need awareness and flexibility management to get to that point. Back to the first point about experience, your experience and how you present situational awareness to the team goes a long way to being acknowledged as a good coach and thus getting to a unified team more easily.
There’s a lot to it and not everybody has the patience to study the technical skills and spend so much management energy on their team. But as those of us who work on historic building renovations know, it’s challenging and rewarding work and we’re glad to have careers doing slow work, fast!
Optimism + Humility + Experience + Partnership = Doing slow work, Fast