I was looking through my library this week to find some books that a fellow employee wanted to borrow. I ran across a small book from John Maxwell entitled The Choice is Yours (available here). Flipping through the pages I remembered what a great book this is. It’s small, only about 140 pages, and filled with quotes and stories. It’s a good book to place somewhere to read when you only get 5-10 minute blocks of time [like you get when you have three kids running around the house].What a great influence this book is and a reminder of - the choice is yours. It’s your choice to have a bad attitude when you have to do something you don’t necessarily want to do. As Maxwell says “Life is a matter of choices. What will you do for your career? Who will you marry? Where will you live? How much education will you get? What do you want to do today? But another choice is much more important than these: who will you become?

Nobody desires to take the path that leads downward. Each of us aspires to be something more, something bigger. The secret to the uphill path comes in the individual choices we make. …

You can take the high road, the sometimes difficult road that climbs ever upward, the road that forms you into the man or woman of destiny that you desire to become. Or you can take the easy road. You must always make the decision. Never forget: The choice is yours!”

Attitude is a choice,
Character is a choice,
Values are a choice,
Self-Discipline is a choice,
Committment is a choice,
Teachability is a choice,
Initiative is a choice,
Passion is a choice,
Courage is a choice,
Responsibility is a choice,
Growth is a choice,
Relationships are a choice,
Communication is a choice,
Encouragement is a choice,
Servanthood is a choice,
Love is a choice.
Here’s what some have to say about Attitude:

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Let no feeling of discouragement prey upon you, and in the end you are sure to succeed. ~ Abraham Lincoln

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will. ~ Clint Eastwood

Don’t worry, be happy! ~ Bobby McFerrin

Have a great weekend.

Recently, I posted about Guy Kawasaki’s 10-20-30 Rule for Powerpoint. Powerpoint has created a world where all presentations seem to look the same - a title with a bulleted list on EVERY slide. Often, we tend to use 4-8 bullets and sub-bullets to “get our point across.” This leads to our reading the slides to be sure we get all our points across. Yes, I’m guilty! I also recently watched Steve Jobs’ keynote presentation at MacWorld and was amazed by his use of simple but very effective slides to facilitate his presentation. Get that - his slides (visuals) facilitated his presentation instead of him facilitating his slides. So, in my search for “how to create a better presentation”, I found two good references.

Presentation Zen is a site by Garr Reynolds (another former Apple employee). Check it out - alot of good info here about the zen of good presentations. Here’s a post that compares the two extremes of zen vs. bullets.

Another neat site is Slideshare - a site where users post their presentations and other users rate them. Slideshare currently has a “Worlds Best Presentation Contest” going. Maybe you could win a new PC?

So here’s your (our) challenge - go out there and create some slides with wow - without bullets - and practice you pitch.

I have practiced geotechnical engineering for a long time now, and I am amazed by what we don’t know when we sign and place our professional seal on our high quality geotechnical reports that provide the fundamental design recommendations for multi-million dollar structures. The reports will provide allowable capacity recommendations for piles and shallow foundations, settlement predictions, including the time that it will take for the settlements to occur, and the like. And we determined all that by poking 5 to 10 holes in a several acre site! Heck, we typically don’t even take soil samples on intervals any closer than 5 feet, and yet we “assume” that we have completely defined the site conditions. Of course we apply our appropriate safety factors. In the geotechnical profession, a safety factor is comprised of two components. The classical component is the ratio of the calculated ultimate capacity to the recommended capacity. The other component is the factor of ignorance. That is the factor that we must apply to the unknown about the calculated ultimate capacity. But how do we know what we don’t know?

When we predict settlements, we don’t have a factor of safety. When we predict depth to bedrock, or depth to groundwater, we don’t have a factor of safety. When we recommend active and passive pressures, we don’t have a factor of safety. Yet there is an obvious unknown related to these important design parameters. Consider the time rate of settlement. This issue is directly related to the permeability and the thickness of the compressible material. The best engineer out there, with a significant data base, is fortunate to know the insitu permeability of the formation within an order of magnitude of actual conditions, and how many of us have the project budget to determine this anyway? Yet there we are, writing in the report that in 6 months, about 75 percent of the settlement will occur. The truth is, it could be 0.6 or 60 months.

I am of the opinion that we need to do a better job of telling our clients what we don’t know about the site. Then we need to tell them that the geotechnical report is, at best, a preliminary design tool. Let’s tell them that we must (not should) be out in the field during construction, observing the site grading, the foundation installation, etc. to better understand the site conditions. A backhoe can tell a geotechnical engineer a whole lot about a site. A driven pile is the real prediction of the pile capacity. A drilled shaft rig will allow the inspector to get an up close and personal understanding of the stratigraphy.

I have not even mentioned the countless number of times that we have been called in, after the fact, to look at what the contractor did that was contrary to our recommendations, or to correct a design flaw that did not adequately consider the recommendations of the geotechnical report.

The geotechnical profession is losing the ability to complete our exploration of the site during the construction process when the “testing lab” replaces the geotechnical-engineer-of-record. We must do something to fix this tragic decline in professionalism.

At Aquaterra we are trying hard to educate our clients on just how important it is to retain the geotechnical engineer through the construction process. We have had some successes in this regard, but we are often not getting our point across. Are there better ways to accomplish this? Please let me know!

- Vic

One of the keys to successful business development is to know Aquaterra, the services we can provide to our clients and the resources available to help your efforts.  Regardless of whether you are a new employee or a veteran of many years, to really grow and succeed both personally and professionally, you need to know and understand Aquaterra.

Some of you may think, “How can I get up to speed quickly on Aquaterra and what resources are available to help me?”  Below are my suggestions for how to become knowledgeable on Aquaterra, services offered, resources available to help you grow, and the company in general.  (PLEASE NOTE:  The below is not just for new hires€¦many of you Aquaterra “old-timers” would benefit from using the below too!)

1. Aquaterra “service overviews” for our primary service offerings are available in our marketing materials for your review and use.  These overviews provide a basic explanation of what we do and why we do it.  They also define some key terms and language common to the technical side of our business.  All new employees (current employees will benefit too) should read these materials
2. For information on Aquaterra facts and how we are organized, we have a dedicated area that includes corporate facts, organization charts and other important company information.  Please click on Company Information.
3. Aquaterra publishes several newsletters to help keep employees informed of company news, strategies and other important information.  The newsletters include Fellow Aquaterrians (Vic’s weekly email/mail-out), Terratimes (Aquaterra’s bi-monthly publication provided to all employees and offices) and now Building Your Business (emailed to all management and staff weekly).
4. For comprehensive information on Aquaterra’s technical capabilities review the capabilities sheets on all services provided by Aquaterra.  Please click on Capabilities.
5. Aquaterra recently redesigned and launched an updated web site on the Internet.  This site contains general information on Aquaterra, office locations, services offered, and much more.  Visit the Aquaterra web site at www.aquaterraeng.com.

Certainly the above is not all inclusive of the resources available to help you succeed.

I encourage everyone to visit the above sites and use the information to best understand Aquaterra and to grow our business!

Ricky Simon

Vic’s recent post (I Can’t Believe I Get Paid For This) really has to do with attitude or how one approaches life. Here are some of my favorite quotes on attitude:

“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” ~Abraham Lincoln

“If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.” ~Henry Ford

“The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.” ~Martha Washington

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.” ~Winston Churchhill

The list of quotes could go on and on. Point is; attitude matters! Two great, short reads on attitude that I highly recommend are John Maxwells “Attitude 101″ and Jeffrey Gitomers “Little Gold Book of Yes! Attitude.”

Here are 20.5 “attitude gems” quoted directly from Gitomers book:
1. Change your input to change your attitude. If you seek a positive mind and an positive attitude, you MUST expose yourself to positive information and hang around positive people. If you want to achieve positive, you have to surround yourself with it and live it.
2. You were born to win; but, “You must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” (A famous Zig Ziglar quote)
3. “The will to win is nothing without the will to prepare to win.” (Vince Lombardi quote)
4. You will get whatever you want if you help enough people get whatever they want. A quote many claim to have said. It doesn’t matter who said it - just live it.
5. Make every day as productive as the day before you go on vacation. That’s a day EVERYTHING gets done.
6. Ignore people who tell you, “You can’t”. People will try to discourage you for fear that you will pass them. Don’t let it happen
7. “If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing” (A famous quote said by your mother
8. Don’t dwell on (whine about) the problem; concentrate on the solution. Resolve how you can; don’t lament why you can’t.
9. Forgive and go forward. Grudge blocks positive. Until you clear the past, you are destined to repeat it.
10. Self-talk equals self performance. Look at any athlete. Self-talk is a crucial part of expected positive performance
11. What is the picture you have of yourself? That is what you will become. Spend 15 minutes a day focusing on a positive picture.
12. You will hear the word “no” 116,000 times in your lifetime. Try converting just 1,000 of them to Yes! and the world is your oyster.
13. What you do off the job determines what you are likely to do on the job.
14. Strengthen your weaknesses and strengthen your strengths at the same time. Combine positive with negative for better personal development results.
15. Failure is an event, not a person. Think of failure as “it,” not “me.”
16. It’s not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you. Sound familiar? Attitude manifests itself in your RESPONSE to events.
17. Every obstacle presents and opportunity, if you’re looking for it. “Revel” and “lament” are choices. Your choices.
18. Hard work makes luck. Nothing affects positive circumstance and results more than hard work.
19. How many of your problems are cured with ten grand? If money makes your problems go away, attitude can make them go away as well.
20. It’s not what you say; it’s how you say it. The tone of your verbiage determines the atmosphere of your environment.
20.5 Resign your position as general manager of the universe. Don’t try to solve (butt into) other people’s problems until YOU are problem free.

Let me admit to you that I love my job. I don’t know of what else that I could do (given the fact that I can’t sing, act, play music, hit a baseball 300 yards, slam dunk a basketball, etc.) that would be more enjoyable on a day-in day-out basis. Maybe I have already lost you on this message. Maybe you think, “take my place today, and see if you still can say that.” It may be easy for you to see why your job may be less enjoyable. I certainly have the opportunity to feel that way about my job on many occasions. But, more often than not, I have looked forward to a new work week, anticipated the interesting opportunities that awaited behind the Monday morning blahs, and relished the experience that I have gained. I often find myself actually saying “I can’t believe that I get paid for this”.

My children are beginning to reach the point where they are choosing their career paths. I always say to them that they should find a job that they love, and they will never have to go to work. OK, we know that work is not filled with pleasant experiences. Ever since Adam ate the apple, we were doomed to face frustration and problems with our work experience. You know what yours are. I have mine too.

I want to encourage you to ask yourself the following questions: Do you love your job? Is it satisfying and rewarding? Are you fulfilled in your daily endeavors? If you can’t answer these questions affirmatively, then I want to encourage you to not become a victim if circumstances. Don’t blame others, circumstances, or bad choices, on your plight. Look at your daily regime and examine what YOU need to do to make it better. What do you need to do to take charge of your good fortune? Remember last week, I suggested that good folks make their own good luck. When I look at our drillers, technicians, geologists, engineers, CAD operators, administrators, etc, I see a group of very important people who are “good folks”. We are truly a team, and a team with a bad player is a losing team. Well, we are certainly not a losing team, and you are on the team, so you are a good player. I am amazed by the importance that some of you take on in your daily activities. Where would we be without you?

Your employment is a very significant part of your life. And life is just too short to waste too much time doing things that don’t satisfy. One of the goals that we have set is for all Aquaterra employees to feel fulfilled in their employment. That is why I send these words of encouragement and challenge to you today. I ask you to stop for minute. I mean it; take a minute, and think. We will wait. Are you happy in your work environment? Are you contributing all that you can to the success of Aquaterra? Are you confident that your important contributions are understood and acknowledged by those that you work with? Hmmm€¦.. If you can’t respond to these questions with a resounding YES, then its time to change things up. Carpe diem! Seize the day. Make it work. Look! The future just got here! We want to help. What do you want to do? I ask you to give me your personal thoughts along these lines. We will work on it together.
If your response to that interrogative is a resounding YES, and I think that many of you would say that YES is your response, then that is great! I think I know who you are. I see it in your work; it shows. If you can say that you can’t believe that you get paid for what you do, I expect that we would say that we can’t afford to pay you what you are really worth to us. That is when the drive to work on Monday is a pleasant experience.

I apologize if this message is perceived as too “Dr. Phil” to be effective. If you think that it is, then take it home and read it over again this evening when you have some time to digest the thought process. Involve your spouse in this conversation. It is worth the reflection.

Have a great week.

Vic

We just completed a very large project, and things went so well, I thought that we could break down the “whys” for a minute. I can spot 5 things that went right for us here. Let’s examine them.

Right Thing No. 1 - Reputation
Our first “why” must be “why did we get this project?”. That goes back to reputation (one of the keys to our success that I mentioned three weeks ago - remember). Aquaterra has been working for this client for over 5 years. Our work for this client has involved three of our offices and numerous Aquaterra staff. So, based on a 5-year reputation of good quality service for the client, and they looked to Aquaterra to perform this ambitious new task that all knew would be difficult.

Right Thing No. 2 - Planning
Charlie Brown worked with the client during their planning stages to assist them in developing the budget and anticipated duration. Based on our reputation (Right Thing No. 1), the client was comfortable enough to discuss their reservations about our ability to complete this project with a difficult schedule. Charlie discussed the anticipated methods Aquaterra would implement for this project and the anticipated daily productivity. These discussions went a long way towards Aquaterra being awarded this project.

Charlie also worked with engineering and field personnel to develop the fee proposal. He got valuable input from our field exploration team leaders about time and methods necessary to do a project that involved aspects of work that we had never done. The planning team forged a technique and a schedule to perform the general work scope that had been requested by the client.

We were successful in preparing a proposal that was considered by the client to be the best for the project. We then set about our plans to do the work. Gomer Wallace scouted out the appropriate vendors to purchase the tools necessary for the unique tasks associated with the project. We planned a creative schedule that included provisions for minimizing unnecessary travel time in order to keep our field personnel on the ground as much as possible.

We knew that a key factor related to the financial success of this project was adequate documentation of various aspects of the work on a daily basis. Since this work was unusual, we set up the forms that we would need to provide this documentation, and we trained the field staff in the means that would be required for this documentation.

Successful planning is nothing more than putting several key factors together: the right people with the right equipment on the right schedule with the right documentation. However, all the planning in the world will do nothing without a good team to execute the work.

Right Thing No. 3 - Teamwork
The staffing of this ambitious project was difficult because we were very busy on other important tasks. The various office managers collaborated to consider what resources were available. May people made very unselfish contributions to the team to get this work done.

Once the staffing commitments were made, the various individuals were called upon to make this project a success. Many people made personal sacrifices to answer the call. I never heard one compliant. Teams were formed from people who hardly knew each other, but they came together as if they had done this for years. Everyone simply put their proverbial shoulder to the plow in the manner that best moved the project forward.

Good Thing No. 4 - Persistence
Things went well at first. The initial segment involved work that was very similar to tasks that we had performed in the past, so we were not in any trouble there. However, as we began to start some of the more unique aspects of the project, we ran into major problems in the field. Some of the tools that we had purchased were letting us down. Things got bad. I got a call from the client’s management team, essentially putting me on notice that they were very concerned about our ability to get the work done on schedule. They gave me a very stern warning that we had better resolve our issues. I could tell them one thing, and one thing only. I called the client back and said:

“I know that you are concerned about our schedule. I know that you think that we may not know what we are doing. Me too. But, I want you to know this, we have the best people that we can put on this, and we have given them the best tools that we have and they have carte blanche authority to get what tools that they need to get on track.”

I said this because it was all I could honestly say. I knew that we were in an unusual situation. I also knew that there was no one else that I wanted there for us, and if we could get it worked out, we would do so, and we would not let loose until we did.
Team leaders considered variable tool sources, and consulted with the supplier on the shortcomings of the tools we had. Several of the staff began to modify the tools bases on their best hunch on what was not going right. Daily work was complemented by nightly modifications. The other crew members worked at a fever pitch to trip the tools in and out of the holes to help and try the variations.

I will simply say that our persistence and ingenuity worked. We finally modified the tooling to the extent that we could get the samples that we needed, and we got back on schedule with the modified tools. The client was happy.

Good Thing No. 5 €“ Hard Work
Another of those keys to success that I listed 3 weeks ago shined again on this project. Everyone involved worked very hard during the process of finding the right tool setup, but nobody slacked off when we found it. That was when the hard work had to stay there to get the project back on schedule. Everyone turned in their 12+ hour days to make the project successful. If you have never been to a drilling operation of this type, let me say that words cannot express the hard work that must go on to get the project done.

When we finished up, I contacted the previously concerned client. I was pleased to hear the complements that were handed over to us. We had exceeded his expectations.

What’s Luck Got to Do with It?
Ok, so things went right here. We all know that they don’t always. (stay tuned for my “snake-bit jobs” discussion). Maybe we just had some good luck. I don’t buy that reason. I am not a big believer in luck, good fortune, chance. I have two reasons for this. Reason number one is I believe that everything happens for a bigger purpose. Rule number two is centered around this cliché: “Good folks make their own luck”. Planning, persistence, teamwork and hard work create the environment for things to happen that may, at first, seem to be good luck. But when you really examine the situation, as we have done here, you will find that somebody was doing the right thing(s). We had a group of good folks on this project, and that is what I told my client when the “ox was in the ditch”. Those good folks made their own good luck.

Vic

I think I’ve said this before here somewhere. It’s the little things that matter to the experience. I’ve said that before too, I think, the experience matters as much the product. McDonald’s was recently voted the best cup of coffee; so, why do we spend $3.50 for a coffee at Starbucks? Tom Peters reinforces this in his 100 Ways to Succeed - #84.

Pay attention to the details. Is the receptionist EXTRA ordinarily nice and helpful? Are you returning calls as soon as possible. Are you going the EXTRA mile for service?  Are you “in touch” with the client?  Keep in mind the “client” may be external or internal - both are critical.