We all need mentors and others to look up to. Fortunately, for Dow Smith Company, we have an entire network of mentors. Last week, a couple of our team members attended the Construction Leadership Network (CLN) conference in Tampa, Florida to practice win-win sharing. The CLN membership is comprised of a diverse group of entrepreneurs, commercial contractors and construction industry providers from throughout the U.S. and Canada.

Our membership in the CLN enables us to exchange information, share both successes and lessons learned, and form life-long relationships with like-minded construction professionals. The CLN was formed on the principal of bringing together top construction entrepreneurs to exchange ideas and share best practices to improve the construction industry and companies like ours. The mission is simple: Share…Learn…Build.

President Dow Smith and Field Operations Manager Gary Grisham spent three days in Tampa at the annual CLN conference. And, although it was sunny and warm in Tampa, they were inside learning about company differentiation, performance management and how to find and develop the next generation of leadership.

They attended focus groups on marketing, business development, and time management. “I probably would have been out of business more than once if I didn’t have the information or guidance that I received from the Construction Leadership Network,” says Dow.

Our team also learned about creating a positive company culture and mastered seven actions for ensuring workplace safety. They met within peer groups and listened to panel experts talk about project management and C-Suite leadership. Dow recalls his favorite events of the network meeting as being "…the peer group discussion with others who are responsible for business development and marketing. I learned from that discussion that I have to be intentional and persistent in getting feedback from my clients on what we do well and where we can improve.”

Throughout the year, we are connected to the CLN membership by a web-based tool that enables us to communicate in forums, share documents, learn about each other’s capabilities and strengthen our bonds. 

We value our membership in the CLN because it makes us better contractors and we can use the information we learn in our businesses as well as on the jobsite.

We are already looking forward to next year’s network meeting where we will have the opportunity to connect with our friends and mentors who share the same values and out-of-the-box thinking that we enjoy. Dow values his relationship with fellow CLN members.

“CLN membership is important to me for many reasons. It has been a place where I have received so much helpful and maybe even life-saving information. A place where I can hear from other colleagues on what has worked and—even better—what has not worked.”