Manage Contractors with These Battle Tactics from Napoleon

TLDR
By age 35, Napoleon had conquered half of Europe. Seven tactics ran every one of his campaigns. The same seven run a contractor-managed rehab: control the supply (money), focus your effort (critical path), prepare for chaos, show presence, move fast, keep them honest, and know the terrain.

Table of Contents

Tactic One: Control the Supply

Napoleon said armies march on their stomach. At Ulm in 1805, the Austrians had taken the city. Napoleon stretched his army quietly around and arced it around the entire city. He cut off the food supply. Nobody could get food in. Nobody could escape. Roughly 60,000 people were captured and almost no blood was shed.

For contractors, the supply is money. Control the payment and you control the schedule.

A lot of people get talked into paying the contractor ahead. If you have paid ahead for work that is not done, you have removed the incentive to finish it. The work is not going to get done on the schedule you want.

The flip side is the starving contractor. Starve them completely and you get two things. Corners cut on the work. And the contractor black hole where they are on the job one day and gone the next.

Answer is the pay schedule. We set it up front. Once this amount of work gets done, we pay X. Once this gets done, we pay Y. All agreed on before anyone swings a hammer. That is part of the scope of work process.

Never pay ahead. Never starve them. Set a pay schedule up front.

Tactic Two: Focus Your Effort Through the Gauntlet

At Jena in 1806, the Prussians had a massive wall of troops. Bigger army than the French. Napoleon found the weak point. Instead of attacking headon with all his troops, he focused everybody into that single spot. Busted through the line. Once he was on the other side, he cut off the food supply. Same move as Ulm. He won.

In construction, focus your effort until you get through what I call the gauntlet. The gauntlet is structural repairs, framing, mechanical, electrical, plumbing roughins, and getting the drywall on the walls. By then you are through the rough inspections with the city.

Getting there takes what project managers call the critical path. On any project there are multiple paths. One path is drywall, then paint, then floors, then doors. A second path is gutters outside. A third path is fence repair. Each one is dependent internally but separate from the others. The critical path is the longest one.

Until you are through the gauntlet, do not worry about the other paths. Everything non-critical is a distraction.

Pro Tip
Write the gauntlet tasks on the top of your weekly expectations every week until they are done. Only then does gutter work earn space on the list.

Tactic Three: Controlled Chaos

At Marengo in 1800, the Austrians ambushed Napoleon. He was forced to retreat. He held long enough for another general to arrive. He regrouped. Attacked. Won. The line he is quoted on: “The battle is completely lost, but there is time to win another.”

Construction chews up and spits out the spreadsheet warriors. People who plan every step and get frazzled the moment something goes wrong.

After 15 years doing this, I can tell you there is no perfect plan. When the wall opens up and you find termites or structural damage you did not budget for, what are you going to do?

Have a plan. Have your north star. Have a general agreement with your contractor about direction, but accept that it is blurry at the start and sharpens as you go. The scope of work is the guide, not a contract with a life of its own.

The scope gets built three ways: verbal, written, and media. Before the bid comes in, have your written notes. Walk the house with the contractor. Agree. Change anything on the notes. Walk the job again with a video. Send everything via text. Then they come back with a price.

That is the guide. Things will come up. Plans will change. You adapt.

We build our scopes from the jobs menu. Every job breaks into the same six phases. Each phase has the same kinds of jobs. That keeps us from going upstream, like doing drywall before the rough electrical inspection. Six phases prevent those kinds of mistakes.

Key Concept
Plan to adapt, not to execute a plan. Your scope is the north star, not the law.

Tactic Four: Presence

In 1796, early in his career, the French are paralyzed by heavy Austrian firepower. Napoleon grabs a flag. He runs across the bridge. Everybody follows him. They storm. They win. Leadership story.

Presence builds morale. That is why I think out-of-state investing is broken. I do not know how it works long term. Seeing the issues that come up on a regular basis, the things that happen if I am not on the job site from time to time, I do not understand how corners would not get cut.

Not a micromanager. I do drop by. I show that I am present. I hold accountability face to face.

There is really only one place to invest. In my backyard. If the town you live in is too crappy to invest in, go 2 hours away and drive there once a week. If 2 hours away is not good, go 5 hours. Drive there once a week. If that is not good, move.

Common Mistake
Thinking remote management of contractors scales as well as remote management of a knowledge job. It does not. Physical jobs need physical presence.

Tactic Five: Speed and Mobility

1796 in Italy. Napoleon faces a combined Austria and Piedmont force. Outnumbered. The French were small, well-trained, and agile. He hits the enemy in five different cities in sequence. So fast they never unite. Two weeks later he had taken all of northern Italy.

Rehabs like speed too, but not how most people think. I am not saying you have to finish a project in 30 days. I am saying you are not running a commercial job. These are not that complicated.

When I ran a general contracting firm, one customer wanted red lines on my contract from his attorney. I went back to my attorney. Months later we still had not started the project. I was built to deal with that kind of back-and-forth. The average contractor you hire is a guy working out of his house or a sole proprietor with a small crew. Do you think he can deal with that? No. He walks. He finds somebody who hires him on the spot.

So no long contracts. Do the scope of work three ways. Get a pay schedule. Get a price. Get a start date. Send it all via text so you have a record. Start as soon as possible.

Get them on the job. Go.

Tactic Six: Keep Them Off Balance

Austerlitz, 1805. Napoleon’s masterpiece. He made his right flank look weak on purpose. Acted nervous. The Austrians thought they had the opening. They split their army and went for the kill. Exactly what he wanted. His real forces were hidden on the other side. He took their main army apart, then turned and took out the flanking force.

Do the same thing with contractors.

I do not want to talk about contractors as the enemy. But sometimes you have to look at the dynamic that way. Alignment is great. Everybody has to feed their family. It is a double-edged sword. You want to build relationship capital with these guys. Long-term trust saves you money. But the bad side of trust is complacency. Prices creep when people think nobody is watching.

What I do from time to time is get a bid and deny it. No reason given. I hate wasting people’s time. But you have to keep people in check. Otherwise you start getting taken advantage of.

We manage over 1,200 doors on the property management side. Contractors hired there start creeping prices the moment they think nobody is paying attention. It happens everywhere.

Keep them honest. Alignment without accountability becomes drift.

Tactic Seven: Know the Terrain

Italian campaign. A marshal tells Napoleon the road is impassable. Napoleon’s line: “Nonsense. I’ve ridden it myself.”

He rode dozens of miles ahead of his own army every day. He learned the terrain personally. Knowledge prevents exploitation.

The same goes for contractors. You have to understand the terrain they play on. The business they run. The challenges they face. If you understand those, you can work with them instead of against them.

A guy running a small crew is not in the same position as a large general contractor. He needs cash flow. He needs a steady next job. He has fewer resources to absorb a bad week. Price him, pay him, and schedule him accordingly. That is not softness. That is seeing the terrain.

FAQ

How often should I actually be on the job site?

A few times a week on an active project. More on transitions between phases. Presence is not micromanagement. It is visibility.

What is a fair pay schedule structure?

Break the project into your six phases. Attach a payment to the completion of each. Payment size should roughly match the labor and material cost of that phase, not a flat percentage.

Should I really deny a bid with no reason?

Occasionally. Not as a regular tactic. The point is to keep them from drifting on price. If you do it constantly, you destroy trust and you are not building relationship capital.

What if my contractor refuses to text or sign a written scope?

Pass. The three-way scope documentation protects both of you. Anyone who refuses is telling you they want wiggle room later.

I am just starting out. Which tactic should I learn first?

Presence. Be on the job. Ask questions respectfully. Watch. You will learn more about your contractors and your projects in your first month on site than from any book.