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Building More: The Momentum Of Greed

Words: Corey Adams

It starts the same way every time, like someone tightening a valve a quarter-turn past snug. A general contractor decides the bid room’s gotten too cozy. “We’ve been giving that sub plenty of work,” the exec says. “Let’s shave 6 percent this cycle, maybe ten if they don’t squawk.” So the GC shops numbers a little harder, knocks a change order off the ledger with a friendly but firm “not in scope,” and looks at the monthly P&L with a grin. One quarter-turn feels good, so they give the handle another twist on the next job. By the year's end, the GC is squeezing every line like a lemon at happy hour.

For a season, the books sparkle. Labor cost drops, margin pops, upper management brags about “supplier discipline.” What they don’t see, at first, is the ripple at street level. The drywall sub who used to answer the phone on the first ring now quotes three weeks instead of one. The concrete outfit that kept a finish crew on standby starts telling the scheduler to call the new guy down the road. The electrical contractor quietly lifts their best foreman and two lead journeymen and walks to a competing builder that still pays for unforeseen site conditions without a wrestling match. The GC’s project managers fill the gap with whoever will turn up in a van, and workmanship follows the talent out the door.

Five years later, the same contractor is drowning in punch lists, hitting liquidated damages on half their jobs, and praying the bonding company returns calls. The valve that once dripped marginally now gushes cost, quality problems, and late fees. They spent a decade building momentum and vaporized it in half that time because they tried to pocket an extra nickel on every dollar.

What about subcontractor greed? I had an eye-opening conversation with a subcontractor years ago. They had won a project and nailed it. Schedule, Safety, Quality, and decent Margin. The GC loved them, bid them exclusively on the next two projects, and just handed them over. Somewhere inside that success, the sub’s estimator decides loyal clients shouldn’t mind a little uptick. Ten percent over market? Who’s going to notice? We’ve never missed a date. Next bid cycle, they push another two points, and because the GC’s busy, they squeak it through. Victory dance, until it wasn’t.

General contractors didn’t climb the food chain by sleeping through bid review. A sharp precon manager spots the creep, calls three competitors, and finds the same assemblies ten points lighter. An awkward conversation followed, the sub blamed inflation, the GC shrugged, and awarded the job to someone else. The one partner who would have filled their calendar for years was gone, and the profit center was ancient history. Momentum out, tumbleweed in.

The moral is not “play nice because karma keeps score.” It’s simpler: a construction company’s profit engine is a gearbox. Owners, project managers, superintendents, foremen, suppliers; each gear turns the next. A gear that locks up from greed grinds teeth off its neighbor, and eventually the whole box seizes. You can’t hoard torque in one cog and expect the shaft to keep spinning.

Here’s why the quick-grab strategy backfires:

  • Relationships outlive contracts. A job ends; reputations linger. Every bid invitation or subcontract award is a referendum on yesterday’s behavior. Push too hard for one cycle, and you’ve marked yourself as high-maintenance for a decade.

  • Margins follow trust curves. When a GC believes a trade partner’s pricing is fair, negotiations shrink to minutes, paperwork flows, and field crews overlap without drama. Lose that belief, and every dollar requires proof, backup, and a blood sample. Overhead skyrockets while top-line revenue stalls.

  • Quality rides on loyalty. Talented field leaders choose where they work. If they sense their employer, or client, only values today’s cost, they’ll find someone else who values tomorrow’s career. Good hands are the last asset you want walking off at lunch.

Never chase a dime that costs a dollar of momentum. If pinching a change order forces a valued sub to carry work unreimbursed, pay it and chalk it up to the cost of speed. If a loyal GC balks at a spike in your price, show them the math, insurance hike, material jump, new safety standard, and settle on a number you can defend next year.

Don’t forget that it goes both ways, and teach the rule downstream. Do not let PMs, Supers, or anyone forget that momentum is always the goal. They are all representatives and salespeople for your company. Train them to act that way.

Next, remember greed isn’t always about money. Hoarding information, withholding praise, taking credit for someone else’s save; those are the same valve twist on a different pipe. Momentum leaks in attitude as fast as in dollars.

Some owners worry that “fair” means “soft.” It doesn’t. Fair is disciplined. Fair holds the other side to their commitments while honoring yours without games. It’s the superintendent who rejects a sloppy blockout on Tuesday because the schedule can still recover, not the one who green-lights everything then weaponizes the punch list. Fair requires nerve, clarity, and a calculator. Greed requires only a short memory.


About: Building More
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