Make it priority
DO NOT NEGOTIATE QUALITY
Quality is not an item on the shelf to be priced, it is not something that shrinks with budget, it is the foundation upon which our lives and social standing is built. To negotiate quality is to slowly and deliberately weaken the foundation on which we stand. We can be flexible with timelines, we can adjust to changing scopes, but toning down on quality should not be something we should consider.
In construction, there are different elements that makes up a building, and each elements have their unique responsibilities, any attempt to reduce quality or shift the function of one to the other puts the entire structure at risk. A wall cannot do the work of a beam, and a column cannot do the work of a wall. A beam is meant to be load bearing, anything short of that makes it useless. You are either in or out, you cannot be in between.
When you negotiate quality, you are not being smart, you are borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today. You are trading the unseen, and lasting asset of trust for the immediate, temporal relief of convenience. The work you refuse to put in today, will become the pain you will have to bear tomorrow; the damage you refuse to arrest and repair today, will cost you a huge price tomorrow; whatever you bury half-dead will come rising back to life to haunt you.
Quality is not about luxury, it is about respect. Respect for those you serve, those that depend on you, their time, your time, and ultimately yourself. Sometimes, you don't have a say in what happens, you just have to understand how or why it happens. Gravity does not need your input to be effective, whatever you throw up will always come down. Quality is a condition for success, not a variable within it; it is the non-negotiable parameter to which all other conditions must bend.
To a better you, Kamikun John.
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