"Aim small, miss small"

I was talking to one of my guys today about why we attempt perfection in all we do. Now don’t misunderstand. I don’t think we are perfect in what we do, I just want my crew to put perfection in their sights, aim for it and attempt to achieve it. This is why I believe we need to do it.

In the movie “The Patriot” with Mel Gibson, there was a line in it when he was instructing his boys how to shoot at their target. It was this line, “Aim small, miss small”. ...

Essentially what that means is this. When you aim at something and you are putting everything you have and know into it before you pull that trigger, your results will be near perfect. You may not hit the mark right where you wanted, but it was so close, nobody will know the difference and you may as well have been dead on.

That’s the same for us as we start a project.

If I insist that my excavator shoots for perfection in what he is digging, I know the end result may not be perfect, but it will be so close to perfect that my concrete wall guy will have very little to do to make it so.

Same with the concrete walls. If they aspire to perfection in their footings and walls, their end result will be more then acceptable for us when we start the wood frame process. The adjustments we would have to make to true everything back up will be minor, and easy to achieve. We know then we will be starting on a foundation that is level and square. Makes for a happy Carpenter.

We then can get to the building end of things, with the same philosophy of “Aim small…miss small”. As the building goes up, the slight discrepancies we may encounter, will be so insignificant that nobody will see, nobody will know except our crew. Adjustments will then be so minor and easy, we will have no worries.

On the other hand, if I were to let things get out of control from the very beginning, all problems telescope.

The excavators footprint is 2” out of level. That means the footing contractor has to either dig out the high spots or fill in the lows. That all takes time and time is money. He wants more money. He also has the feeling that if I accepted an out of level pad, he may be okay with an out of square foundation, and the just "a bit off" trend escalates. Attitudes are not right, and by the time we get up to the roof sheathing, our plywood does not lay right, we have to add all sorts of lumber to give us our proper nail backing, and this all takes time. And before you know it you have lost a day or two in time trying to fix, time trying to find out who and why, and time wasted that just didn’t have to be wasted at all if only everyone would have "Aimed small to miss small."

I have talked about starting strong many times on this blog. Starting strong will help you finish strong. It may not be perfect, but its very close!

~ the Carpenter