How owner awareness drives construction innovation — and mitigates risk

By

Chris Chopyak

and Jonathan Greene

Last Updated Apr 20, 2026

By

Chris Chopyak

and Jonathan Greene

In the past, "adoption and management" opportunities arose infrequently in construction — often dictated by organizational watersheds such as new leadership, industry-wide advances, or mergers and acquisitions.

But within the past several years, the industry has seen an upheaval which has cemented a new normal: change as the only constant.

This presents willing owners a unique opportunity. Those ready to embrace change and invest in forward-thinking initiatives are leading an organization of the present but ready for the future. 

Risk mitigation involves a series of change actions that are delineated as  A, B, C, or D that are deployed  in order to be able to avert risks. Leaders need education in change management and if they are not familiar with change they need to get better people on the team who can help guide them and work through the ever evolving changes with them. 

Chris Chopyak

Founder

Arlosoul

Change is innovation.

In her book Innovation is Everyone’s Business, Tamara Ghandour defines innovation as “taking something that’s right in front of you and repurposing it to create an advantage.” With the majority of mechanical innovations in the past, it becomes time to turn that innovation mindset inward.

Where companies are really gaining an edge is when they’re applying that innovation mindset to the services they provide. 

Applying change initiatives to services isn’t about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Change is not about overhaul, it's about investment.  That investment starts with asking the right questions.  

Change is part of risk mitigation.

Reducing risk is a major part of any project as mitigation hopes to foresee and address problems. Change initiatives are another step in that story. Occasionally, problems need to be addressed more directly and proactive leadership can start asking these questions: 

• What is the problem that needs a solution?
• Why does it need solving?
• Does this problem have a material effect on the ability to advance the business?
• How much time must be spent on it, can be spent on it, are we willing to spend on it? 
• What’s the runway, and what resources are available to do that? 

Answers to these questions open the door to a subset of questions that leadership can use to hone their plans for change. Consider these examples:

• How does a company innovate around decreasing jobsite injury?
• How does a company better manage supply chain issues, expedite product services, improve timely delivery, and more?
• How does a company better track their time? 
• How proactive is our communication with customers? 
• What’s the company mindset needed to encourage these changes?  

Change is an investment in time and people.

People, not the product, make an organization. Implementing changes to incorporate better care, safety, and ease for people yields increased motivation with minimal effort and has a lasting effect on a project’s functional life. 

Employee improvement through training, certifications, and other advancements helps encourage buy-in. Steps like these take time, which is as valuable a commodity as anything else in the industry.

Change is built around strong relationships.

Technology streamlines an overall process, but without a collaborative approach, success remains out of reach. Expressing needs and support is a key step for transparency and trust in relationships. 

Facilitating an experience that gets people to change means understanding that people excel differently. An adaptive leader remains flexible and creates teams to best support the process. 

Change requires thoughtfulness.

Diving headfirst into new technological options may be right for an organization, but it can create some initial additional work for the people involved.  

The decision to embrace change falls on leadership, but it does not happen in a vacuum.

The best path forward is one in which an owner asks the right questions and possesses the right mindset to best utilize the company’s time, people, and relationships to enact the changes desired.

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Written by

Chris Chopyak

Founder | Arlosoul

Chris Chopyak is the founder of Arlosoul: Visualize Innovation, which uses visual facilitation/strategy to inspire growth. As a facilitator and visualist, she weaves together robust and challenging content, quality conversations, and storytelling to produce ideas to test and solutions to try. Building on years of interviews, experiences, and conversations with leaders across the world, Chris wrote Picture Your Business Strategy: Transform Decisions with the Power of Visuals (2014 McGraw-Hill Professional) and is listed as a best-selling author across business strategy platforms. For the past 20+ years, Chris has brought clarity, hands-on experience, and focus to the challenges facing many organizations. This focus translates into engagement that sticks and where growth that happens. With a passion for designing, teaching, learning, facilitating, and supporting people and organizations of all types (from construction and agriculture, to law firms and global commercial businesses), Chris thrives on tackling today’s challenges working with others to imagine a brighter and successful future. She does this using solid facilitation, human-centered programs, co-creation with her clients, organizational best-practice, and drawing. Chris is certified in change management, Appreciative Inquiry and has an MBA from Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. She has worked across public, private and nonprofit sectors across 5 continents. You can learn more at www.arlosoul.com and www.pictureyourstrategy.com

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Jonathan Greene

Writer

16 articles

Jon Greene is a freelance educator, writer, and award winning theater maker. As an educational writer he has created content, lessons, and led seminars for Young Audiences of Louisiana, Hynes Charter System in New Orleans, Centre Stage School of the Arts in Singapore, 'Friends of The Museum' Docent Workshop in Singapore, The Prague Public High School System, Moleac Pharmaceuticals, and with the Grand Portage Ojibwa Tribe. His work and writing for theater has been featured in Howlround and American Theater Magazine and he is the recipient of 2 regional theater awards in his home of New Orleans. He is a BFA Graduate of Boston University and a previous Kennedy Center Fellow.

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