As soon as you hear that breath sucked in like a collision is about to happen, you know you have one — a backseat driver. Interior Design has its own version! When that worrywart is a client that always seems to be in the way of workers, criticizing and offering “suggestions,” there is no remedy except focused, consistent diplomacy.
We all know it’s sometimes difficult to trust that others do know what they are doing and will remember all the caveats and won’t forget that latest change! It’s easy to get nervous when new and unfamiliar things are happening all around your environment. That’s often the rationale when a client decides to micro manage.
Communication is very important! My respect for it and my requests for it in appropriate formats (and doses) appear throughout my article conversations! Within reason, keeping close tabs on your Interior design team makes perfect sense. Becoming an ever-present source of inquiry, offering un-needed suggestions and advice to the general contractor and the sub-contractors and trying to be “helpful” (outside the context of your own expertise) almost guarantees some undesirable consequences.
As in all enterprises, time is money. One of the easiest ways to inflate your costs is to inadvertently extend labor time and costs by unnecessary questions and interruptions when workers are focused on completing tasks and maintaining schedules. Trouble has a way of rippling down the chain of directives with a snowball effect! (Statistics and studies on efficiency and performance are real eye-openers; they are usually developed to track where time is lost and how costs are inflated. Interruption is a huge factor and minutes add up!)
The best place to make suggestions or get answers to your questions is from your Interior design project team coordinator or manager. (Their time rate may be higher, but their answers are on point, and they don’t stop the workflow!)
You are “the boss” of your project! Remember, when you distract the painter, the plumber or the sheetrock guy, you will have their attention; they are not going to ignore you! And there is another ripple effect: those workers are accountable to their General Contractor and must explain when their time on the job exceeds projections!
There is a huge difference between enthusiastic interest or comment, and the kind of micromanaging interference that defeats your own purpose of a job brought to completion, economically, expertly and on schedule! It is highly unlikely that workers will complain when it is the boss’ client who is the culprit; that’s just human nature.
When you hire a professional Interior design team, you want to get your money’s worth. That team wants to bring your project vision to reality – whether the job is small or expansive. The best way to insure the efficiency and success of that goal is to weigh your choices and decisions when it comes to any intervention that would unnecessarily interrupt or interfere. Your Interior design team will appreciate your cooperation – and your trust! (No one likes a back seat driver!)
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.
