Is Self-Accountability Dead?

I get it. “Inspect what you expect” is an important leadership principle. Likewise, “Measure what matters” embodies a similar concept. If an outcome is truly important, simply stating its importance isn’t enough – it puts that outcome at risk. That’s why we establish systems—often through people and processes—to ensure these outcomes are consistently achieved.

The benefits are obvious: Quality improves. Productivity increases. Costs decrease.

I firmly agree with the statement: “When people feel that their work is appreciated and valued, they are more likely to stay motivated and engaged, leading to greater job satisfaction and morale.” Similarly, I’m aligned with this idea: “When employees feel empowered, equipped, confident, and respected by both their peers and leadership, their job satisfaction and enthusiasm for their work can grow significantly.”

But here’s the question: Do we inspect or trust? What’s the right approach for the homebuilding jobsite?

You might say it's about balance, and I agree. But how do we recognize when that balance is off? Over my 30 years in this industry, the trend I see is less trust and more inspection. At the same time, our industry is delivering far better homes than we were 30 years ago. Yet, I’m not convinced that simply adding more inspection, more oversight, and more layers of overhead automatically results in better homes.

At some point, trust must be part of the equation OR we must fundamentally disrupt an organizational foundation of production homebuilding – the General Contractor who hires specialized trades to design, build, inspect, and oversee the project.

To be transparent, I’ve never been a General Contractor myself, and I’m not suggesting the relationship between trust and inspection in homebuilding today is inherently out of balance. However, I do worry that we’re heading down a path where we’re inspecting the inspectors who are already supervising, inspecting, and presumably self-checking the work of those actually doing the job. Let’s be cautious before we go too far down this road.