Pit & Quarry, February 2018

PITANDQUARRY COM An Inside Look hat kind of leader are you Whats your measure of excellence What tolerance do you have for failure These were some of the questions I pondered while recently reading through Walter Isaacsons Steve Jobs W the page turning account on the late co founder and CEO of Apple Isaacsons best seller is hardly a newcomer to bookshelves but the messages that can be drawn from the Jobs biography and applied to your work life are as pertinent today as they were in 2011 when the book was published Jobs was undoubtedly a visionary one who changed the world as we know it But he was an atypical leader often strong arming his way to victories against employees at Apple At times he could be ruthless Jobs behaved as he did in part because of his nature But he was also hard on others because his bar for excellence was set somewhere in the stratosphere He sought to achieve goals that others deemed unreasonable and he pushed employees to deliver because he convinced them that impossible tasks could indeed be done When employees achieved one impossibility he challenged them to achieve yet another again and again Jobs stands out in history too because of his relentless desire to make products that possess unmatched functionality and user friendliness He considered the end products Apple delivered to be works of art with perfection being the only acceptable outcome You might be hard pressed to find someone who characterizes crushed stone sand and gravel as art But Jobs is someone aggregate Kevin Yanik EDITOR IN CHIEF producers can relate to because of the passion he brought to his work as well as his unparalleled standard for excellence and unwillingness to accept failure Theres an art to the way Jobs went about his business just as there is to the way you go about yours Perfection is the standard Jobs set at Apple and in many ways its a standard you set at your company Is an aggregate operation not in pursuit of perfection when its goal is for every employee to return home safely after each workday Similarly aggregate producers are in a sense in pursuit of perfection as they continuously tinker with their production system and explore opportunities to maximize output The thought Jobs put into Apple Park a 175 acre campus that finally opened six years after his death probably bordered on the obsessive But he was attune to every detail because of his high regard for excellence In your world a detail thats off by a hair in your production system can amount to a slowdown that results in so many dollars lost Or worse it can result in an accident that injures an employee or claims the life of one Be a leader who values the finer details and stress these to those around you Your measure of excellence like Jobs should be high and you should not tolerate failure Failures will happen Where you can one up Jobs is by constructively reacting and positioning others not to repeat their failures P Q North Coast Media LLC 1360 E Ninth St Suite 1070 Cleveland OH 44114 Phone 216 706 3700 Fax 216 706 3711 EDITOR IN CHIEF Kevin Yanik 216 706 3724 kyanik@ northcoastmedia net EDITOR Darren Constantino 330 533 6804 dconstantino@ northcoastmedia net ASSOCIATE EDITOR Joe McCarthy 216 363 7930 jmccarthy@ northcoastmedia net SENIOR DIGITAL MEDIA CONTENT PRODUCER Allison Barwacz 216 706 3796 abarwacz@ northcoastmedia net MSHA THE LAW COLUMNISTS Bill Doran william doran@ ogletree com Margo Lopez margaret lopez@ ogletree com AGGREGATE FORECAST COLUMNIST David Chereb david chereb@ sc marketanalytics com MARKET INSIGHTS COLUMNISTS George Reddin greddin@ fminet com Scott Duncan sduncan@ fminet com WESTERN U S CORRESPONDENT Loretta Sorensen GROUP PUBLISHER Rob Fulop 216 706 3741 rfulop@ northcoastmedia net ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Dino Vitanza 216 706 3744 dvitanza@ northcoastmedia net PRESIDENT CEO Kevin Stoltman 216 706 3740 kstoltman@ northcoastmedia net V P FINANCE OPERATIONS Steve Galperin 216 706 3705 sgalperin@ northcoastmedia net V P GRAPHIC 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