The speed camera at the stoplight
Clients asked why they needed an owner-side representative, and I settled on one image that became my standing answer.
Clients often asked why they should pay for an owner-side representative when they already trusted their general contractor. I chose not to answer with technical talk on scope and change orders. I built one explanation and kept using it: the camera at the stoplight, or the patrol car waiting around the corner.
People do not speed when they know someone will notice. The job of an owner-side representative is not to find each mistake after it is made. It is to keep anyone on the job from cutting a corner to begin with, because a person answering to the owner is looking.
That image became my standing reason almost every project should have one, and it is among the clearest and most repeatable doctrines of my career. The value does not sit in a document or checklist. It sits in a plain human fact: people act differently when someone accountable is truly watching.
Story details
| Type | Insider truth |
|---|---|
| Year | 2004 to 2023 |
| Firm telling | on the Common Ground wiki |