Yesterday I spent part of my afternoon picking up trash on one of our job sites.
Not because I’m the cheapest person to do it.
Not because it’s the highest and best use of my time.
Simply because it needed to be done.
Our carpentry crew was busy knocking out finish work. The project was moving quickly, but there were pieces of lumber, water bottles, packaging, and construction debris that had accumulated around the site.
The client shouldn’t have to see that.
So I grabbed a trash bag and started cleaning.
I’ve never believed that a leader should be above any job.
If I expect someone else to care about the details, I have to be willing to care about them too.
Culture isn’t created during meetings.
It’s created by what people see their leaders doing.
But as I was carrying debris to the dumpster, another thought crossed my mind.
If I’m doing this today, what failed in the system that allowed it to become my job?
That’s an entirely different question.
The answer isn’t that I should stop helping.
The answer is that I should improve the system.
Because if I find myself doing the same task over and over, I haven’t solved the problem.
I’ve become the solution.
And that’s a dangerous place for a business owner to be.
Good leaders are willing to do any job.
Great leaders build systems so that every job has an owner.
Yesterday, the right answer was for me to grab the trash bag.
Tomorrow, the right answer is to make sure we have a cleaner job site without me ever needing to pick one up.
That’s how businesses scale.
Not because the owner refuses to get his hands dirty.
But because he learns from every time he does.
I’ve found that almost every problem on a job site asks two questions.
What needs to happen right now?
And…
What needs to change so this doesn’t happen again?
The first question gets today’s project across the finish line.
The second question builds tomorrow’s company.