5 Tips to Be a Status Quo-Busting Solutioneer

On June 17th, Dog Eat Hog touched down at the “first of its kind” Autovol pre-fab building factory in Nampa to hear tips on how to crush it from the visionary CEO and cofounder, Rick Murdock. Rick gave us a field guide to being a game-changing solutioneer—as seen through the lens of his work in affordable housing.

Affordable housing is a pressing issue nationwide. Over 33% of Americans say the lack of affordable housing prevents them from living near their jobs. As Rick says, “We can no longer see housing primarily as a financial instrument or investment vehicle, but as a basic human right!” So he asked, why is the construction industry still painstakingly doing everything by hand?

Automated volumetric construction exists in every major manufacturing category (think: making vehicles) except for the housing industry. Due to high labor costs over extended timeframes, it costs more to build one affordable two-bedroom apartment in a Northwest city than to buy a comparable home in the US. The solution of prefab construction opens up breakthroughs in time, cost, and quality. Machines can do the heavy-lifting that often injures or shortens the careers of construction workers, and the end result can be consistently superior.

Autovol is the home of the solutioneer: “A person who is among the first to explore, design, and rebuild innovative ways to solve problems that overcome new challenges and situations.”

 

Rick’s 5 tips to being a solutioneer:

#1: Be passionate about what you do, why you do it and who you do it for.

#2: Be real, not rude. And think of people as people, not workers or customers.

#3: Don’t accept “that’s the way it’s always been done” as an answer.

#4: Make breakthroughs in time, cost, and quality.

#5: Collaborate with others, use creative ingenuity, and invent solutions to improve lives around the world.

 

 
Catch the next Dog Eat Hog for more ways to challenge the status quo and bring home the bacon.

 

CLM | Jul 2, 2020