Dan, a project superintendent for a large general contractor in eastern Washington, told Session 5B of the Leadership Development LAB:

“Thirty minutes after I left Session 4 of our Friday morning Leadership Development Lab where we were told to prepare for a presentation the following week about an incident that really, really made you mad, I arrived at a local Pasco pipe supply store. Larry, our instructor, suggested we think of incidents from earlier in our career. I already had a couple of pretty good ideas in mind for my talk. I needed these parts so my crew could get an early start on Monday morning. I was in a hurry to pick up the parts, get home and finish packing so my wife, kids and I could go camping for the weekend. I wanted to get started early enough so that all the good campsites wouldn’t already be taken. I had called ahead on both Wednesday and Thursday to make sure everything on our order was pulled, written up, and on a pallet ready to load on my truck. I had several more stops to make and not much time budgeted at any one location. When I walked up to the counter to sign my ticket, I was shocked to find out that not only was

it not printed out, my order was not pulled, prepped or palleted. In fact no one knew where my special order itemswere. Well my ten minute stop ended up with me being there for an hour and a half. That is 90 minutes! They didn’t seem to know what I was talking about or where to look. I was climbing on their shelves and going through boxes with our supplier’s employees until the parts were finally found. Boy was I mad!

The following week I received two phone calls from the supplier’s branch manager apologizing about the delay. They also called to follow up on additional orders that I received by next-day air at no additional cost.

The lesson I learned from this experience is that I must be on guard. It is very easy to get mad and upset when agreements are broken and I am let down by someone that I am really counting on. The action I call you to take is never assume that everything will go exactly as planned. Be prepared to budget a little extra time cushion into your day for mistakes and missteps, as they will inevitably happen. The benefit you will gain is you won’t get mad as often and you will have a less stressful lifestyle.”