Discover the erratic genius of Charles J. Pankow, and apply the practical methods he used to pioneer successful design-build techniques to your own company. Pankow built a construction empire in defiance of management conventions. With the help of this practical guide you can apply his successful secrets to your own business.
Pankow believed in the uniqueness of people -- not management doctrine.Using the "Pankow formula", he attracted platoons of rugged individualists, self-starters whom he motivated and inspired. He taught them to cut costs and schedules, to develop stunningly innovative construction techniques, and to enervate centuries-old design-build methods, thrusting them onto the world of modern construction.
Pankow was a pioneer in design-build, a methodology that involves the construction company in the development of structures and substitutes negotiated contracts for the bidding of architects' plans. The Pankow companies also developed automated construction technologies that helped keep projects on time and within budget.
These are time-proven techniques easily applied to your own projects. While Charles Pankow figures prominently in the narrative, the book also describes how others within the firm adapted the business so that the company could survive a commercial market that changed significantly as a result of the recession of the 1990s.
Extending beyond the scope of most business biographies, this book is a study in industry innovation and the power of corporate culture, as well as the story of one particular company and the individuals who created it.