A Foundation Gets Little Attention Until There’s an Issue

I’d just about bet that unless you were involved in some aspect of the building process or can actually see your home’s foundation, you don’t know if it consists of 8” cinder blocks, 12” cinder blocks, poured concrete walls, or built directly on a concrete slab. And even if you can answer that, there’s far less chance you know how wide the footers were or how many places required a step-up to adjust for grade. To that end, I’d bet most folks know even less about everything that’s between their ceiling and the exterior of their roof - be that metal or shingles. Just like all that went into your foundation, the trusses, sheathing, insulation, vapor barrier, and tar paper are all critical to the sustainability of your home - and most people have no earthly idea what each of the things I’ve listed even are or why they’re important. 

Just to be sure you’re tracking with me, I’ll emphasize once just how much work goes into each of these. Physically, I don’t know that I’ve ever done harder work than digging and pouring footers, mixing mud for block and brick layers, setting trusses, or putting on shingles or metal roofing. Near the end of my first summer in construction, I have a very clear recollection of trying to show the crew I worked with how tough I was by attempting to carry two bundles of asphalt shingles up an extension ladder to the peak of the roofline. Remember, I weighed around 130 pounds at the time - and each bundle of shingles weighed around 70 pounds. Just in case you’re not very good at math, those shingles were heavier than me. Just for good measure, add in the 25 pounds or so of tools in the nail bag around my waist and I’m guessing I was beyond the weight capacity that ladder was rated for. Had the 40 year old safety and human resource manager version of me been around to see the 15 year old accident-waiting-to-happen me, who knows what would have happened!

You know when those things I’ve detailed here hit a home owner’s radar? When there’s an issue! Do you have any guesses as to what would likely cause any of those to ever be on the home owner’s radar? Having water somewhere we don’t want it - be that in our basement or crawlspace, or showing up as a wet spot on our ceiling - is probably the most common reason we’d learn the intimate detail that went into our foundation or roofing system. But regardless of the issue behind this new focus, it’s rarely at an ideal time or something we’re excited to deal with.

Now think about the business world; when do core values generally get the most attention? That’s rhetorical… Aside from when executives pound their chests for the media or investors, I can only list a handful of companies (many of which I’ve referenced throughout this process) that I’ve ever seen do more than list their values in a handbook or briefly mention those values in an occasional staff meeting. Far more frequently, a company’s core values make the headlines after something has gone very wrong (as we looked at early on). In so many cases, the folks with responsibility for leading their organizations and exemplifying the values that should serve as a strong foundation don’t take the time to build them into their daily routines - talking about them or modeling them - and task the HR or marketing departments with creating some flashy slogan with hopes that this will be all it takes for the values to cascade down through the ranks. If we take shortcuts or get too fancy in the hardest parts of building a home, be that in laying the foundation or installing the roof system, we can expect big issues at some point down the road. The same holds true for establishing the foundation for our organization around our core values; as difficult as it will be, taking shortcuts or getting fancy WILL lead to trouble. It won’t likely be all that exciting, but we’ll need to keep this very simple as we build those values into our routines - and that’s where we’ll pick up soon!