TRUST, DECISION FATIGUE

AND OTHER ISSUES

AFFECTING BUSY PEOPLE
WHEN BUILDING A DREAM
HOUSE
By Anold Jonathan
 About the Author
I am Anold Jonathan, the Commercial Executive of Atoka
Construction Private Limited. I help chief executive officers other
c-suite officers (COOs, CFOs, CTOs etc) or any other busy person
with tailor-made construction and civil services solutions. These
solutions enable clients to concentrate on their day to day
businesses whilst responsibility for their project is taken care of
from the development stage through design and budgeting;
regulatory approvals; the actual construction to finishing.

Are you having these needs or challenges?

1. You want to build a dream house or any other immovable

property?
2. You are a busy professional with little time for things
outside your work?
3. You are in need of competent construction consultancy
that enables proper budgeting, planning at the start and
assessing the success of your building project at the end ?
4. You are failing to find someone who is trustworthy,
technically skilled and an able advisor to effectively handle
your custom project on your behalf?
 I understand your pain …...
After over two decades working in the construction of large
commercial projects like Joina City Mall in Harare I have gained
extensive hands on construction knowledge in contract
administration, quality control, cost control, project management
in addition to my quantity surveying expertise.

My other projects that provided valuable experience include Refurbishment of

Livingstone House [Harare], Construction of Homelink Westgate [Harare],
Supervision of Kamfinsa Pick and Pay[Harare], Supervision of Kamfinsa George
Square cluster civils work, managing and supervision of civil works [roads, sewer
and water reticulation] at Exodus and Company housing development, construction
of Avondale Engen Service Station civil works and shops, painting work of different
types of buildings like banks and schools, and work on embassies etc.

I was equipped to eventually be the founder and shareholder in

my own construction company. At Atoka Construction we do
have diverse clients we enjoy working with. Our Simple and
thorough processes enable us to create personal relationships
with clients which in turn help us to deliver tailor-made help
customized for their unique construction projects. So this
approach resonate the most with individuals, like CEOs and other
C-Suite executives (COO, CFO, CTO, etc) because these tend to
be busier and have more love for customized houses.
 An example that quickly comes to mind is one client who then
was a young executive at a large agro processing firm. He
contracted us to build his house in a low density Harare suburb
called Highlands. His job was demanding, he himself was very
ambitious (just learnt he recently bought a factory in another
country) and so he had little time for the building of his house.
This was a big problem because a project of this calibre is not
one that could fit in “spare time”. As a result almost everything
was in our hands until completion and we deployed some
solutions in order to deal with various challenges facing our
client.
In this book I will share some of these challenges. As someone
dreaming to build his or her own house or any building you may
be interested to know. So let’s take a look at only three as
follows;
(1) Trust (2) Decision Fatigue and (3) Cost, Time and Quality.

(1) Trust
When one decides to build a customised house, a great dream is
at stake! Relevant house pictures and 3D visuals that gives a fill
of the completed property are downloaded from Instagram.
The person would be really, really excited!
 The person also prepare in terms of financial and material
resources but for people like CEOs one resource they find scarce
is time - this becomes a major drawback.
This necessitates a need for a trusted agent to work on your
behalf but finding one is a great challenge. After all the
preparations this one aspect if it is not taken care of can lead to
heartbreak.
Relatives’ names may pop up as you brainstorm for trusted
people. But remember its not only about being a trusted agent
but also about a technically proficient advisor who gives sound
advice and facilitate good decision making by the project owner.
As we shall see under (3) Time, Cost and Quality a technically
proficient “agent” who can demonstrate this by showing similar
work already done is needed. This makes your decision making
as project owner easy.
Remember at the level of CEO or other C-Suit executives or any
busy person decision making already constitute great work .
Building a custom house and a thousand decisions associated
with it, decision-making will definitely amount to a burden one
will find difficult to bear. For a personalised house you will have
to make decisions even on minute details like choice of mortice
locks. At this point that’s when we talk about Decision Fatigue.
 2. Decision Fatigue

What is decision fatigue? “Decision fatigue is the idea that

comes after making numerous decisions, a person's ability to
make good and sound additional decisions becomes worse.
The psychological effects of decision fatigue can vary, potentially
leading to difficulty making the right decisions, impulse buying,
or other avoidance behaviors.” Medicalnewstoday.com
Decision fatigue comes into play if you decide to do everything or
most of the things yourself or your chosen “agent” be it a relative
or contractor is not doing his job properly because he is
forwarding everything to you. Your project can be affected and
your dream remains unfulfilled or your job can be affected
thereby threatening your bright career.

3. Time, Cost and Quality

You also need to determine the success of your building project.
There are three Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to use, none
more important than the others;
 1. Cost (preferably low)
2. Quality (preferably high)
3. Time (preferably low)

These three play off against each other;

# As Cost decreases, Quality decreases and Time increases

# As Quality increases, Time and Cost increase
# As Time decreases, Cost increases and Quality decreases

This takes us to the point that the person who works on your
behalf must have required technical expertise so that you are
advised from the start in order to be able to assess success at
the end.
Have you ever come across a house with poor workmanship and
it was built by someone on behalf of someone absent? Believe
you me sometimes the problem isn’t misappropriation of funds
as many quickly conclude. The technical details involved are
enormous and obviously any layperson can be easily
overwhelmed!
The need for a technically proficient “agent” cannot therefore, be
over emphasized. Making the right decision here will go a long
away also into mitigating against decision fatigue and its
downstream effects like negatively impacting project quality and
your great career.