A little give and take on the jobsite goes a long way.
I hope the July article regarding keeping score on "that's-not-my-job" attitudes and performance by your own employees helped you appreciate and acknowledge their efforts. Naturally, that appreciation is critical to those deserving employees. Why would anyone continue to give that extra inch if it were not even appreciated?
You should not overlook all of the extra effort exerted by your other business acquaintances. Our construction world is filled with "givers" and "takers." In our family business we called it "horse trading." We always had a very clear established line defining what was owed for what was being paid. This line could be a contract (verbal or written), a subcontract, a purchase order, a set of plans and specs, a written building code or local ordinance, etc.