See It. Own It. Fix It.

Fresh Eyes on Modular Construction By Jorie Wisnefski

At BCMC, I noticed a floor mat sticking out into the aisle of a booth.

I stopped, bent down, and fixed it.

It took three seconds, and I didn't think much of it.

Regan Robertson did.

She mentioned that my stopping to fix it had everything to do with being a good leader. I’d never thought of something so simple—or so much a part of the way my brain works—as a useful leadership skill. It’s just me. When I see something that’s off, my first instinct is to do something about it. If I can fix it myself, I do. If I can’t, I figure out who can and ask for their help.

So, with Fresh Eyes, I started digging into what makes a good leader different.

The more I investigated how organizations find or develop good leaders, the more education I found. Companies are building systems around impressive leadership.

McKinsey's latest manufacturing research found that continuous improvement works when insight gets connected to action. In a survey of more than 100 manufacturing COOs, McKinsey found that 74% said their companies had a global production system, but only 29% said it was fully implemented across all sites. To be effective, improvement must be part of the daily rhythm and “owned by people at every level.”

Kind of like the floor mat.

Fixing a mat is not important, but noticing something and taking responsibility for the next step is a behavior that one can develop.

The Lean Enterprise Institute made a similar point about leadership, and I agree with it. Improvement shouldn’t depend on one person at the top having all the answers. When an organization encourages all its employees to contribute to problem solving, more people have a reason to care about the business and feel invested in its success. It gives employees a chance to care instead of just being lambs who show up for work and wait to be told what to do.

And in modular construction, problems don’t stay in one department. Creating a culture where everyone keeps an eye on the whole picture seems smarter.

A purchasing decision can affect inventory. Inventory can affect production. Production can affect transportation. Transportation can affect the jobsite.

Stanford's Center for Integrated Facility Engineering is studying these connections in offsite construction. They are using production system analysis to identify variability, bottlenecks, and opportunities to better align factory production with onsite demand.

I found practical examples of this happening inside factories.

At Resia Manufacturing, lessons from the jobsite were brought back into the factory after an early project. One simple change was testing outsourced plumbing fixtures for leaks before installation. A few minutes of testing in the factory could prevent much more time and frustration onsite. The process changed because the team learned something and acted on it.

Love that!

See it. Own it. Fix it.

“Fix it” doesn't have to mean doing the work yourself. It can mean raising the issue, finding the right people, testing a different process, or changing the way something gets done.

Noticing the problem gets the ball rolling.

I’m paying attention to leaders who aren’t afraid of change when it improves the whole process. I’m happy to have found people who question what isn’t working, even when it falls outside their department, and are willing to change the system rather than keep working around the problem.

I can't teach someone to notice every crooked floor mat, but an organization can teach people what to do when they notice one.

That’s practical leadership.

Fresh Eyes on Modular

by Jorie Wisnefski

Small acts of ownership can reveal bigger lessons about leadership. In modular construction, problems cross departments, so creating a culture where people notice issues, speak up, and help improve the whole process can make a real difference.