Recently, I had the opportunity to join the Construction Bros Podcast to discuss some key topics that are vital to success in the construction industry. From managing risk to fostering work-life balance, and the often-overlooked importance of soft skills, we covered a lot of ground. In this conversation, we explored everything from relationship building and communication to time management strategies and the value of prioritizing people over technology.
You can listen to the full episode here and read the transcript below for a deep dive into our discussion.
5 Key Insights
Shifting from Blame to Solutions
In the construction industry, it’s easy to point fingers when things go wrong. However, true progress comes from focusing on solutions rather than blame. Shifting the mindset from assigning fault to solving problems can lead to more productive teams and better outcomes.
Risk Management: A Critical Element
Risk is an inherent part of construction, and managing it effectively is vital to success. By anticipating potential issues and planning accordingly, teams can minimize disruptions, ensure safety, and keep projects on track.
Building Strong Relationships for Success
Strong relationships are the foundation of any successful project. Whether it’s with clients, contractors, or team members, trust and collaboration drive outcomes. Prioritizing relationships ensures that everyone is aligned and committed to shared goals.
Soft Skills: The Unsung Heroes
While technical expertise is important, soft skills—like communication, empathy, and teamwork—are often the hardest and most valuable to cultivate. These skills enable effective collaboration, problem-solving, and conflict resolution, which are critical to the success of any project.
Prioritizing Personal Development
Training and development aren’t just organizational responsibilities—they’re personal commitments. By investing in continuous learning and self-care, individuals build the skills and resilience needed to thrive in a demanding industry. Physical and mental training play a major role in handling stress and staying sharp.
Transcript
Are you finding blame? Are you finding solutions? It is, you know, the bad drawings are the problem. Well, no, it’s the people that put those together and then the people that took them and didn’t ask any questions. There’s a lot of people involved in that process. It’s pretty crazy when you’re walking, I don’t know, 400ft in the air and, like, you’re on this, like, balance beam, like, carrying your slack with you.
You go out and, like, tapping around like, yeah, this is good. Like, I’m gonna go back down now. And everybody on the sidewalk, like, oh, you guys climb in the building. No, we like the elevators to go up.
I’ll date myself a little bit here. But I remember wanting the Jordans. Like, like the first generation Jordans.
If you had got some and kept them in the box. Oh, yeah, you’d be worth, like, a lot more money now.
Well, watching the movie Air, when they’re like, developing the Jordan, I’m like, I don’t know. This is supposed to be a historical movie, but I remember this firsthand, and it was really kind of coming home a little bit too much, dude. Like, I remember wanting the, the black and red pair, like, really bad.
That movie was flipping awesome. It was good movie. So, so good. Have you seen that yet? Uh, Air. It’s. It’s. Yeah, it’s about the development of the Jordan. I love, I love that movie. And, and this is probably a fun place to start because it starts with taking this humongous risk that may or may not pay off.
And in a world, in a world where we’re extremely risk averse and like, we’re constantly trying to shed liability and all these different things. Yeah, like, it’s just. I feel like it preaches to the construction industry pretty, pretty hard. But this is a little bit of a tangent. Michael, how about you introduce yourself?
First of all, risk is actually a good way to transition into it.
Yeah.
Okay, there you go.
Funny story. Like, talking about risk. When I was in, uh, I was in undergrad and I was in engineering school. But, uh, I had worked in a couple firms and I realized I was like, I don’t think I want to do design engineering. You know, which is ironic because we’re in school for this.
And, uh, so I went to grad school and I was like, you know, I don’t know what I want to do, but engineering doesn’t feel like the right thing. And I heard of this thing called forensics. And everyone in my graduate program was like, you don’t Wanna be a design engineer?
Why not? I was like, I’ve been d at one of those places. Have you done that yet? Cause I know I didn’t enjoy the work. And, uh, they were laughed. And so I got into forensics out of grad school where, I mean, it was risky. Nobody else was doing it, nobody else was talking about it.
And all we did was go out and fix problems. My formwork collapsed, and we don’t know how to fix it. We have seven days to get back on track with our schedule. My balcony leaks. My roof blew off in the rainstorm. And so it was really cool to see, like, all the risks that come up in, you know, engineering and construction.
Yeah, well, it was in forensics, too. I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but, like, you would be. We’ll say somebody like you would be deployed out to, like, look into, like, the hard rock and all the issues that happened everywhere. Like, it. It fell down, you’re coming in aftermath, and you’re going, what the heck just happened?
And trying to piece it back together and figure out where it went wrong for sure.
So when. When I started my career at the company, I was at the Minnesota bridge collapse on I35. And, um, the company I worked for at the time, I didn’t realize, like, we had a lot of smart people, learned how to read and write really well, to explain complicated things in a very simple way.
Within three days, they had figured out why the bridge had collapsed. I wasn’t on that team, but, uh, um, just talking about risk. They sent out an email one day and they’re like, hey, we want to know who wants to join the Difficult Rope access team. I was like, very young.
I was like, I do. We’re going to send eight people to Colorado to do training. And so I went out to Colorado for a week. They called it. It was spratt, like the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians. And so I was like, one of eight people on this 400 plus person company that was certified to go rappel off of buildings and bridges.
Oh, geez.
So, like, I did okay.
Okay. I was going to ask, like, go into more of, like, what that entails.
So what the company at the time, we would do a lot of historic, um, facade inspections in Chicago, New York. And I went up to Chicago one time. The Chicago Tribune tower has these, like, huge flying buttresses. Yeah. And so we hook up our gear, we’d rappel down to the buttress, and you’d have to walk with your slack out to the end of the Buttress to inspect these davits that were supposed to be structurally rated to hook, uh, up all the window washing equipment and stuff.
Yeah.
And like, it’s pretty crazy when you’re walking, I don’t know, 400ft in the air and like, you’re on this like, balance beam carrying your slack with you. You go out and like, tapping around like, yeah, this is good. Like, I’m gonna go back down now. And we would go down to like the next balcony and go in the building.
Sometimes we go all the way down. But what’s funny is everybody on the sidewalk like, oh, you guys climb in the building? No, we like the elevators to go up.
Fair enough. Fair enough. So is that like the tallest one that you ever did or is like. What was the craziest one that you had to.
That was the crazy one. Yeah, that was the craziest one. We did the, uh, the Kodak tower in Rochester at the time. This is when Kodak was sort of winding down its business. And, um, it was w. Wild because this huge terracotta building. Super nice.
Yeah.
It’s like empty.
Yeah.
And. But we were going down this terracotta tapping, looking for, you know, spots. And, um, there was actually a. I can’t remember if it was a hawk or an eagle or something. It was mad that we were messing around his nest in the top of the building.
Oh, gosh, dude.
So like, we had a little wildlife there.
That’s one of those things like dad always taught us, like when you’re on the ladder and like a wasp or a bee comes at you, you just gotta. You just gotta take it. It’s just one of those where you just hold on and just, just be a man about it.
If you’ve got an eagle flying at you, that’s like a whole different element. I feel like. Don’t freak out. Just don’t freak out too much.
Have you had it happen?
No, I haven’t had that happen. I haven’t had a bee fly at me or an eagle for that matter.
I was on a fully extended extension ladder painting the side of a house and I had a yellow jacket hit me between the eyes. Like, hit me right there. I mean, I swole all kind of up because you know how I do.
Yeah, yeah. Mildly. Yes. It’s called take Benadryl and go lay down for a day or two.
That’s it.
Mildly allergic.
Yeah, but yeah, just kind of grip the ladder and come down slow. That’s. It takes a lot of self control for sure.
Uh, yeah, yeah. Forensics that’s, that’s interesting. That. So that’s as I. Is that your day to day right now or.
No, that was kind of early in. Uh, talk about risk. Like, you know, I got, um, a little jaded with fixing the same problems over and over. Flashing details, balconies, like, I mean, we’re helping a lot of different people. But for me as a young guy in my career, like, it was the same thing over and over and over again.
I was trying to figure out how to do more, contribute more. Um, I went to some crazy places overseas. One of them ended up being Afghanistan. Um, adds a whole new element when you’re inspecting culverts and trying to make sure there’s no ied. Yeah, we were part of the provincial, uh, reconstruction team is what I was on.
And we would help build small scale projects, you know, schools, clinics, bridges, roads.
Yeah.
And we’d go into areas where it was, you know, tell us where the bad guys are. We want to help your village or your, you know, your neighbors and stuff. And that was pretty awesome. Best job I ever had. Um, coming back, I still did the engineering stuff, but I really, it was on the path to be an expert witness, you know, more in the courtroom.
And I just, I didn’t like the idea that you could sit up on a witness stand and say I’m right because I say so. And you know. Yeah, it just, it didn’t feel like I was actually fixing the problem. And so what I’ve transitioned to now probably over the last 10 years or so is do more work on the owner side.
Yeah, a lot with investors and developers. Um, we work as an owner’s rep. Uh, I call it. I’m a fixer for anything. Construction. Um, because a lot of groups will build, ground up. Some people go buy buildings and fix them up and then sell them. So, uh, usually it’s two different types of developers or investors.
And so that’s what we do now is try to sit next to the people with the money, most money at stake and help them think about risk and construction and make better decisions.
Yeah. Ah, is that often like serial builders, like people that are just constantly building stuff, or do you have like, is that more kind of like your clientele now or is it the one off builder, like, hey, I’m one and done sort of routine with what they do?
I think we’ll probably, uh, you know, we’re very big in the relationship game. I think I learned that working overseas. And so for us, maintaining a relationship is more important than kind of a One and done. I’d say. A lot of our clients have been with us since the beginning, and we want those people that are doing it over and over again.
Because you build a rapport. You build kind of a. I mean, think about a team. You talk about Air, you know, air and Michael Jordan. Like. Like any team that’s worked together over and over and over again, like, you kind of start learning what everybody’s doing before they even do it.
Yeah.
Um, and so I think that’s. That’s something that we try to focus on the relationship first. And so usually it’s a group that does it repeatedly.
Man, that was a heck of a segue right there. I got to applaud you for that.
We were going to talk about how the relational side of things, like, it can be difficult with hard bid, uh, because we. I mean, I would love to work again and again, uh, with same, like general contractor customers. We have repeat fabricator customers. We enjoy those relationships. Um, but hard bid makes it pretty tough.
Yeah. And I think depending on the types of jobs, too. Right. Like, if it’s some sort of public or institutional work, a lot of times they’re just kind of required to do that. And that’s what’s tough, is, like, they don’t care about the relationship they care about. Like, here’s the rules we have to play by.
Um, I’d say a lot on the private side of things, you know, investors, uh, and developers. There is a benefit to kind of getting the band back together and having an architect, engineer, contractor that work well together. I think anybody that’s dealt with problems in the construction industry knows how important it is to have somebody that you have a relationship with because they have your back.
Um, and so you can make that phone call to the engineer and say, hey, your guys are really slow on submittals and RFIs. And it’s kind of comical every time we’re on the OAC call. You know, it’s the same guy that is not prepared or doesn’t have an answer.
And so that is a huge deal that I think earlier in my career, I never understood the value of. Um, and now, I mean, as a guy with a lot of gray hair and more coming, I want to work with people that I know and trust, and it’s a lot easier.
But, yeah, I mean, when you’re on that kind of vendor side, uh, it’s almost like, how do you build a relationship with the people awarding the work to the point where, like, they’re kind of writing you into their. Their contract. Right. And maybe say, hey, look like we’re going to do this work, but we need these guys involved because they always have our back.
Yeah, that’s the dream shot, right? Like, everybody would love to have that kind of annuity for their company where they can just go back to the same relationships. It’s difficult, though, for sure.
Yeah. I mean, I think. But you have to think about it. You know, the. We’ve talked to architecture firms, engineering firms, contractors. Like. Like, at a certain point, there’s a basic level to what you have to do for your job. You got to do the work. You got to do the work well.
But are you easy to work with? Are you responsive? Are you helping your customer think about things they’re not even thinking about? And, like, all those kind of intangibles is where you can set yourself apart, where they are just awarding you work because they don’t want to bid it out, because they know you’re going to go above and beyond.
Every time you had a little phrase about soft skills, what was that?
I do? Uh, the soft skills or the hard skills?
Okay.
Yeah. I mean, I think that that’s the hard part. Right? Like, I could go sit on any OAC meeting and tell you real quick how well that project’s going. I could go walk on any job and tell you within an hour on any job how well that’s job going.
That job is going. I think, you know, how clean is the site? Does everybody work well together? Are they angry at each other? Like, you can feel stress when you walk into a room. I mean, I had a project in Pennsylvania where every time we went to the field office, like, it felt like we were on the verge of a fist fight.
Like, every time, not me, but, like, you could feel the other trades and everybody in the room versus you go to another job, and everybody’s gripping and grinning with the superintendent. They’re super happy. They’re relaxed. They got Their lunch break, they’re working together, trades are helping other trades that they shouldn’t even be helping.
And so I think anybody, um, that that works in enough environments, you see that. And I mean, I kind of learned that inadvertently when I worked overseas. I’m working in all these places where there’s. I don’t speak the language, so I’m reading body language. I’m watching what people do because I can’t understand, you know, Farsi and Dari and all these other things.
Like. So that’s how you kind of learn.
Yeah. We just, uh, had the opportunity to sit down with Nick Burnt, who was a guest on the show, and he was talking about how he could read, uh, maybe read a job by the job trailer. Like walk in. If the job trailer was organized, things put away, he could almost walk in, just feel that, uh, and could have a pretty good indicator from that how that guy was about to run his project too.
And I would say it’s interesting when I talk to owners and architects and engineers, once the job is in construction, once you have that permit, no offense to everybody else, the contractor is the most important person on that job. I mean, hands down, look at any budget, hard cost construction or 70% of any development budget, almost always.
Yeah. So as soon as that shovel goes in the ground, like, you don’t really need the architect, you don’t really need the engineer, you don’t even need the developer. Like, the contractor is the one that has to build it. And so, like, that leadership from the superintendent is very important.
Um, um, we had a job where the concrete guys were kind of all over the place, super messy. Oh, well, it’s concrete guys. We got into framing and then all of a sudden it was the framing, then it was the drywallers. Well, no, the superintendent and their team. Their, their field team the whole way.
Yeah.
And you kind of learn that after the fact. But yeah. Um, no, I mean, like cleaning every day, helping each other out, being disciplined, watching out for safety. Like all those things are important.
I love that concept of the, uh, trades helping each other out. Like, that’s. We’ve actually seen that, um, Kevin Sell, um, was a part of a team that was putting a group together that they were on purpose doing that. Like, they put everybody in the same uniform to try to reinforce.
We’re building the job first. So if you got extra men, go over there and take care of it, you know. But, uh, it’s interesting that you see that kind of ad hoc.
Yeah. I mean, think about like the trades that are really good. They probably all have like a standard with their, their PPE and their uniform. Right. Like, they work as a team. They, they act like, I mean, military and sports are very similar to business in life. And like, think about the top performing athletes, the top performing military, you know, the special forces, soldiers of the world.
Like, they, they are always thinking, how can I help out my teammate?
Yeah.
Like, like, if you’re in the trades and you’re not doing that, you probably need to work on your job a little bit more and how to be better.
Yeah, if you’re helping out your teammate, you’re helping yourself totally. Right? Like, uh, you are helping yourself ultimately. And like, I did. I had this experience a month or so ago where I visited a site and. Yeah, same thing. Like, you walk in the trailer and you’re like, oh, my goodness.
Okay. Yeah, it’s, it’s one of those, like, you can just, you can smell it from a mile away.
Like, good or bad?
Bad. It was bad.
Just kind of disorganized or.
It wasn’t even really. It wasn’t disorganization. It was the way people talked about each other. Uh, that was a big one.
Right?
It’s like, I just met this guy, like five minutes go by, and immediately he’s complaining about this and that and all the other stuff and this sub and that sub and this and this, the owner, whatever. And I’m like, holy cow. Like, you’re, you’re just that open with this?
Yeah.
And I’m like, are you just, like, just wanting, like you’re just crying for help, like, what’s going on? And he’s like, yeah, this is like the worst job that I’ve been on in seven years of my time in industry. Like, this worst one. This one’s.
But I mean, going back to the like, soft skills or the hard skills thing, it’s, you know, are you finding blame? Are you finding solutions? Right. It’s like having that mindset of like, uh, this may be out of my control, but how do I, how do I think take more on or how do I get more help or how do I ask for help?
I mean, I think those, those things are not talked about enough, especially in construction. Oh, it’s, it is, you know, the, the, the bad drawings are the problem? Well, no, it’s the people that put those together and then the people that took them and didn’t ask any questions. There’s a lot of people involved in that process.
Ownership is a big part of that too. Like, if we’re talking like, spec, uh, ops, or any of these other. Like, of course, like, we have to go to Jocko a little bit. Right? But, like, I mean, taking ownership over your part of the problem is something you don’t ever see.
It’s just, push it back, push it back, blame everybody else. And, like, that was, um, evident to me when I stepped out on that project is like, yeah, but what role are you taking in this? Like, what role have you had in making this job a living hell for everybody that’s on it?
Right.
You know, like, we’re just completely oblivious to the fact that we play a part. And so I love that mindset of, like. And I’ve yet to see that where trades are going out and helping the other company just being like, yeah, let me give you a hand with that.
You need some extra people to help you move this stuff over here. You just don’t see that.
Just clean it up. I mean, I think I’m a huge. I love reading history and old things and not a lot changes. And I think there’s, um, Epictetus quotes like, the true man is revealed in difficult times. And I think about that a lot. When things get hard at my house, um, at my work, when I’m traveling, it’s like, how do you kind of step up and make sure you’re taking care of business?
Like. Cause now is the time. Not when it’s easy. Anybody can go run, um, do stuff when it’s easy. It’s like, when it’s hard.
Yeah. I think sometimes people can take that. And that goes in touch with your soft skills, being hard skills. Right. So a lot of times I feel like people will hear that and be like, I gotta take charge. And they just start screaming and yelling and like, that’s not at all what we’re advocating.
It’s like, no, no. Take charge in the right way. Step up and do what’s right.
Go start picking up the trash. Everybody else will start picking up the trash.
That just shuts your mouth, right? Just stop talking. I think that soft skills, they are the hardest thing to cultivate in the industry, too. And kind of coming back to the team dynamic, because you’ve seen so many teams out in the field, what are some of the things, like, some of the leaders out there are doing to cultivate better teams?
Can you give us some insight into that, just based off of observation?
Yeah, I mean, I think, um, in my experience, communication is a big thing. Um, communicating what you’re doing, when you’re doing it, what you’re not doing. Uh, who you need help from. M. I think that that doesn’t happen enough. And if you think about there’s all these separate teams in the construction industry again, owner, architect, engineer, contractor, all the trades.
Yeah.
And so being able to communicate what’s going on, I think is a hugely underappreciated skill. Um, you know, reporting is something that we push heavily on with our clients in terms of getting information from the field. It doesn’t matter how it’s coming. You want everybody’s perspective. And. And the more perspectives you see, the more you can kind of mitigate risk and think ahead and plan for whatever’s next.
Um, you know, a lot of the teams, especially the guys in the field, they get hung up on what they’re working on now. They forget to think about what’s next and what’s, like, the big problem that nobody’s talking about. Um, and so I think those are things that. Just making sure teams are really working well together to communicate and provide their perspective.
Yeah, communicate the whole vision, not just the specific thing that you are doing in that moment.
Right.
And that’s. Yeah, I see that all the time. Where it’s like, what the heck are we actually building here, man? You’re just. Just stacking bricks, you know, that’s all we do all day. But we’re not seeing the cathedral that we’re actually putting together, um, we’ve talked about before. And it’s.
I mean, that is so critical for getting people motivated, I think, um, is conveying that vision to them.
All right, so we were going to talk about how, um, people are a more important. Key to things than say like tech processes and software. So I want to get you queued up on that. I will say before that I have seen the longer I’ve been in the industry, the thing that makes the biggest difference on my bottom line for a project is my ability to take something that doesn’t want to move and through, uh, good people skills, move it.
Take an RFI that didn’t want to come back. Take a problem that doesn’t want to get solved. Take, take people that don’t want to put their heads together and push them through that breakthrough. Then I can keep moving.
Yeah, I would say there’s two things about that. One, um, the clock never stops. Right. Like we don’t get more time. Time. And like the older I get, I mean I got young kids. Like, I, um, am like. I can tell you one of the best things that happened to me that I realized not everybody does.
Out of grad school, when I was doing my forensic engineering, I tracked my time to the 10th of an hour every six minutes. I knew where I was spending it. And like you do that for a couple years, you get real good at managing your time. And so nowadays people get hung up or they think they have time when they don’t.
Right. Oh, we need to go through this change order. Well, but what about this change order? Do you need an answer on today? Right. And like trying to bifurcate the two. So time is, is very important. And then the other thing that I, uh, you know, that I was thinking about when you were talking about, that is usually the thing you need to do the most is the thing you’re procrastinating or not doing.
I feel that too.
I have a report I gotta send out right now. I’ve been putting it off for about ten days now. Uh, it is the one thing I need to do. And so that’s like a sign. I mean I tell it to my kids all the time. It’s like, you know what the right thing is to do.
You’re just putting it off. Go do that.
We weren’t at megaphone question yet.
That’s some good stuff.
I feel slapped in the face, uh, because I know that I’m guilty of that constantly.
Oh, you watch it too.
You watch it nonstop.
You watch it.
And I know. Well, I mean, procrastination hits me like a flipping freight train. I feel like a lot of times and it’s that 20 minute task, you know, it’s not going to really take that long. It’s just like you can’t Find the energy to get yourself to do the thing, you know, and it feels like you’re climbing Everest when in fact it’s just like, dude, you just got to fill out a couple things and you’re done.
Yeah, no, I think. But you were talking earlier too about like, you know, human, you know, the high speed military operators, special forces of the world, humans over hardware. Right. And we see this a lot in construction where everybody gets so excited about whatever app they’re using to send their drawings or track their information and submittals and this and that and email and Slack and I mean, you name it.
At the end of the day, you’re building with people out in the field and so you’ve got to do the basics very, very well. And, and the people in the field, if they’re not getting trained by their company, they need to train themselves. They need to train themselves on how to communicate better, on how to manage your time better, on how to read drawings better, on how to ask for help better.
Like all those things don’t require, uh, an app or software, uh, status, the.
Industry a little bit there. How are we doing on training personnel, things like that?
Oh, I mean, I always look at like stats and I know, you know, back in 2008 we lost a lot of, lot, um, of labor in the construction world. And I think only recently did we get back to that level after the whole Covid shutdown. I’d say as an industry, like, we do a very poor job of, of kind of bringing up the next generation.
I mean, I was, I was that guy, I grew up on a farm. It’s like, hey, you want a real job? Go be an engineer, a doctor, you know, an accountant, an attorney. And I, uh, love being outside. And so like that I’ve kind of shaped my career to where I can be outside.
But the trades and construction in general don’t have enough young people coming into the business. And I think partly because a lot of companies fail to create like a winning culture where like going back to the sports thing, like you want to win, uh, you want everybody on your team to win.
And like having that feeling is something that’s missing from a lot of companies. And then training like, hey, we’re going to take care of you whether you leave here or not. We’re going to teach you and teach you to do your job well or, or at least give you the freedom to go do your own training where you can pick what you need to work on and we’re going to support you doing that.
I don’t think enough businesses, not just on the construction side, I mean owner, architect, engineer as well, that they don’t do that.
Yeah, for sure. We, we hesitate because if the, the people leave, we lose the training. And I get that. I mean, you invest a lot in the training of people.
Yeah.
Where they’re at now, you know, but at the same time, uh, as we’re doing that, we’re kind of cross pollinating the industry.
Right.
You know, at, uh. Yeah. That trainee that I had might not be with me anymore, but I’m hoping that I can continue to staff. And as I staff, I hope that I can continue to staff with competent people. We’ve all got to be training. Like, we all need to be doing that.
Personnel, uh, is hard to find. I mean, that’s one common thing. People all the time.
And like, even though people are hard to find, you know, thinking about having worked with the military overseas, it’s like you don’t need a big regular army to do a lot. I mean, that’s why all the special forces are very selective and very hard to get into. Like, there’s a recruitment process.
And so if every company had highly trained people and a high standard, like, you don’t need a big team to do a lot of work. And I think that gets lost in just the industry in general, where, oh, we need to throw bodies at it. We need more people.
Where and how.
Yeah, yeah, I see, I see that a lot. Uh, I’ll kind of pick on film just a little bit. They kind of do the same thing. And like, I’ve been seeing this again and again and again where it’s just like, ah, we’ll just throw people at it. We’ll just throw people at the problem.
We just need more, more, more, more, more, more. I’m like, hold up a second. Like, why are we, why are we just doing more, more, more, more people isn’t gonna fix a bad process.
Right?
Like, it’s just not right. Like, it’s only gonna confuse a ton of people much quicker.
Yeah. More technology. Right. Well, where do I go to get this document? What am I doing? Like, where am I communicating with these people? Like, I mean, I’m gonna pick up the phone.
Right, right. Let’s cut through the noise and yeah, I see, I see a ton of that. Where it’s, we lose where the freaking information actually lives because we have so many different options of where it can be housed. You know, it’s like, where is this? Oh, it’s over here and it’s over there and Also, it’s a little bit over there too.
It’s so freaking tough. But back to kind of the trades aspect of things. Like we were talking earlier about uh, your, your daughter’s boyfriend. So shout out if uh, he’s listening to this. He started working in the industry and uh, I saw him over at Chick Fil a the other day.
I was like, hey man, how’s it, how’s it going? How’s life in construction? And he just was like, yeah, just, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s unique. It’s, it’s good, it’s good, it’s good, like what’s up? You know, and you know, just, you could hear just already he was drained. He’s been there what, two months?
Yeah, it’s been long.
Like he’ll suck the life out of you.
Yeah.
I’m like, guys, like. And I know that’s not just an isolated incident. I know that’s the case in so many different areas across our industry. And I’m like, for one, I know that’s a leadership problem. I know that is also a training problem. Um, and, and it’s, it’s a very complex thing cause you gotta take people one at a time in order to fix the problem.
But oh my gosh, I feel like we’re so freaking busy right now that we don’t have the time to take the like. Yeah, it’s just this self fulfilling prophecy. It just keeps happening over and over again, you know, and I wanna fix it, but it’s, it’s very difficult to come up with a solution.
Yeah, I mean, I think the more I got into my career, the more I realized like training is probably more my responsibility than my company’s. And so like, I think that’s something like I kind of took, took more of a lead to make sure I’m learning the things I want to learn.
Um, um, I think the other thing is like training is not just, again we talked about soft skills and hard skills. It’s not just about what you’re doing at work. It’s about training your body, training your mind. Like to deal with stress, to deal with, you know, what to do next, how to prioritize and making sure, you know, are you eating well, are you sleeping well?
Like those, those things are way more important than my 25 year old self, you know, realized. And so I think that’s, that’s kind of undervalued as well in just any industry, not just construction.
Yeah, I’m starting to realize that more and more Too. Like, I feel like 30 hit me like a sack of bricks. And I was like, oh, uh, man, I actually need to. I need to start taking care of myself more now because, like, yeah, like, I don’t handle stress as well as I used to be able to handle stress.
And it’s just. It’s just different. It’s just different. And, uh, yeah, if you get lax on, uh, some of your training, like physical training, like, it impacts your mental state, uh, and it impacts your jobs and everything that you’re doing.
I mean, the most stressful job I ever had was when I worked overseas with the military, but I was the most relaxed I’ve ever been in my life because, I mean, granted, I didn’t have a wife and kids at the time, but I was physically training so hard that it didn’t matter what happened around me, I could handle it.
And, and it, like, I think about that now when I start getting, well, you know, chippy at work or at home, and I’m like, oh, I. I haven’t been working out and sleeping well. Like, I need to get back on that consistent train.
Unfortunately, that lesson gets learned the hard way way too often. And when we come to the industry, I mean, I remember the first instructions I got was kind of like, yeah, we wake up at 5:00am um, you know, when I’m in the middle of grad school, you know, that means five hours of sleep, a lot of nights.
Right. Uh, you wear thin and then you learn that the hard way.
Yep.
I want to talk about, uh, we’ll use more military language because I love it. But how can we do a better job of thinking about what’s going to happen downrange before we get there? Thinking tactically, um, thinking strategically before we get there?
Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, there’s. There’s a couple things, I think because of my experience in forensics and solving problems in reverse, you sort of see the dots that connect a little sooner than maybe people that are used to doing it in one. One direction. And so, you know, for the folks that have not had, uh, experience overseas or experience in forensics, it’s like, well, just put yourself in that perspective.
Like, how would I, you know, coming from, like, what problems am I trying to avoid? Well. Do the opposite. Right. I think um, being, being able to step back, like, you know, talk about thinking strategically. Strategically is like your long, long range plan, right? Like, what are you trying to accomplish tactically is like, what do I have to do day to day, week to week to get there?
And it doesn’t need to be complicated, it needs to be the basics. Right? Like, am I doing the basics really well? Um, you know, and I think we try to provide that ability to anticipate and, and thinking about how are, what are you anticipating is the next problem I need to solve.
I mean the job I was on earlier today, you know, they’re framing right now. Great, when do elevators show up? When’s roofing get going? Like when are we gonna start closing in the building? Like, like you’ve gotta start talking about those things even if they’re not happening. And that goes back to communication, right?
Are we, are we communicating? Like, hey, I’m working on this. These are the next three things that I need to happen.
So what we really need is uh, as long a schedule as we possibly can have it.
I think that goes back to technology. Right. I think I would say in my experience, this is just my experience, projects and construction schedules, they’re inversely, proportionally related. Where the longer your schedule is, the less likely I think you’ll hit that date. Um, if I got a two page schedule from a contractor or owner, I’m like, yeah, this looks good, like they’re going to hit this.
It probably has 200 pages behind it. But I mean, I can’t tell you the number of times we get a schedule and it’s out of date immediately. And ah, oh, but the end date hasn’t changed or this milestone hasn’t changed. But, but you were supposed to set power three months ago.
Like where, when is that going to happen? Or your elevators are now four months later, your cabinets are showing up two months late and now you have no fronts on them. It’s like there’s all kinds of things that, that I think get into that. But yeah, the more complicated the schedule is, again, thinking about tactic, basics, simple.
The harder it is to make sure everybody’s like on track.
Yeah. When you talk about like running thin in life and you know, you’re not getting enough rest, you’re not eating right, you’re not doing the basics, somewhere along the way, if you do hit that point where you are like, man, I think I found the end, um, the end of my ability to just muscle.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, it’s amazing. You come Back. And you’re like, as humans, we want to reach for, like, a pill or something, you know, easy. Um, you know, give me a vitamin, give me something, you know, something immediately I can do. And then you find out, like, I need to get good rest.
I need to eat right, I need to exercise and make sure I’m working my body out. Um, I need to look after my mind. I need to consider what I’m taking in. And my inputs, my outputs, it’s basic stuff they taught you in health class. And you’re like, oh, well, this really did matter.
So you’re saying I can’t survive on coffee? Is that why?
Maybe I should know.
Humans have been doing it for a long time.
I am not in that state right now.
Coffee and water.
That is the day. More coffee than water, if we’re honest. It’s funny, though. I mean, you just, you boil it back down to do the basics and.
Uh, I mean, stop making things so hard. I mean, like, it doesn’t need to be complicated. You don’t need to worry about, like, am I eating in a fasting window? What am I eating? What am I eating? What am I drinking? What vitamins am I taking? It’s like, just exercise and eat well every day.
Like, it’s amazing. Like, okay, if I spent less time in my email at my job, which some people, they say, like, spend two and a half hours in their email, like, you could probably do a little bit better of, uh, organizing your day and your work. You probably have an hour to go work out, right, where you’re not answering emails for two and a half hours.
And, like, everybody will say, that’s your job. No, that’s not. Your job is not to answer email. Your job is to go build something. Your job is to work with other people to build something. And so I think that gets lost, right?
How many calls can you make to reduce the amount of emails that you have in your inbox? To me, it’s like, most of the time you can just make three calls and then you’ve just completely wiped your inbox clean. You’re like, oh, yeah, I just got it done. Cause you’re able to talk it through.
Because a lot of times it’s the same people or like, the same couple people that are asking you questions and you just go, yeah, what’s up? How are we gonna solve this? Um, but, dude, I’ll be honest. Like, that’s a hard pill for me. Like, that’s in the moment right now where life is just super busy, where, like, we’re traveling a ton.
Like, we got family stuff going on. And I feel like that’s a lot of the industry right now where it’s just like we’re so busy and, um, at the end of it, you’re like, golly, when do I work out? Right? Like, do I. Do I slip this in the beginning of the day and then something else comes in and wrecks it?
It’s difficult.
Yeah. But I think some of the things too, though, you know, one of the skills nobody teaches you. I mean, I love asking people, like, what’s the hardest part about your job? And I asked this young guy at a construction company, like, what’s the hardest part about your job?
He said, well, you know, I got all these subcontractors I’m dealing with, but I don’t know how to prioritize which one to deal with. And I don’t get enough guidance from my bosses. And like, I’m trying to figure out what is important and worth me spending my time on.
And so I think today, you know, we have endless options of things we can do or should be doing, but the skill we don’t practice enough is like, prioritizing what is important to me, what is important to my boss, what is important to my team, and what should I say no to?
Because if it’s not in those three buckets of it’s important to me, my family, my boss, my company. Like, it’s a no. It may sound nice to do, but like, it’s a no. And like, by saying no, people don’t. They’re not used to saying no. They’re not used to disappointing people.
And I think that that’s a hard thing where, I mean, I get invited to lunch meetings all the time. And like, nine times out of ten it’s a no. If I’m home, I’m going running, I’m going to Jiu jitsu. I’m doing something outside where it’s like, it’s for me.
And like, that is, uh. I’m lucky enough to control my schedule in that way. But like, when I’m on the road, I can’t tell you how many times, like, I’ve been by myself in the gym at 7:00 at night or 6 in the morning. Like, my hotel is not empty.
And it’s hard. It’s really hard.
I run into this a lot. Is that analysis paralysis? Right? It’s like, yeah, what is the priority right now? And there are 50 fires burning and you’re like trying to sort through it and cut through the noise and say, that’s where I need to focus my attention.
There’s a, uh. You know, I. Like. Like another Epictetus quote is, like, when you find your direction, check to make sure that it’s the right one. And, like. Like, a lot of times we don’t stop to realize, like, are we going down the right path? Are we, like, going the direction we should be going?
I mean, we talked about earlier, you know, forensics, doing something twice, reworking a problem you created in the field. It always costs more. It costs more time, it costs more money, it costs more labor, uh, like, everything. So, like, how do you make sure you’re not doing something twice?
Or how do you make sure, like, the path you’re going down is the right path? Um, and those things, like, nobody stops enough to think that. And I think that’s hard. It’s really hard because everybody else is running around and you’re like, oh, I gotta. Everybody else is busy.
I gotta do something to be busy. And sometimes stopping is the best thing you can do.
I think ego can play into that sometimes, too, where it’s like, I’m not gonna stop because this is the way forward. This is what we’re doing. And not taking the time to just stop and think. And, um, hate to make the example of the submarine, but I’ve been seeing a lot more of the footage being released of that, and I’m like, this is a result of ego and, um, somebody not stopping and thinking for a second.
And you see the ramifications of that. And I’m sure you saw that a ton in forensics, where you were like, yeah, we have to fix it twice. So, yes, it is expensive, but also, there’s like, people get hurt, or even worse, they die or whatever. Taking the time and focusing in on the problem kind of matters.
And we’re moving so fast and loose across the board, um, in our industry, it’s bound to happen. We’re going to have something tragic go. It’s hard.
I mean, and I think for all those companies that are dealing with staffing issues, it’s like, what would happen if I stopped and trained my staff a little bit better or if I thought about what our process looks like? I mean, we get documents, we save them a certain way.
We change the file name so we’re not looking, clicking on every document. It’s like, oh, we know. Like, we’re missing that report. That report. That report. Yeah, because you can see the file name. Like, that takes a little bit longer up front, but it is A simple thing that doesn’t require a lot of skill, right?
It’s like, you know, what is document A452? Oh, is that an RFI? Is that a submittal? Is a drawing? I don’t know. I mean, you know, but I think that’s, it’s very hard. And to your point about ego, it’s like, just, should I be doing more? Yeah, we could all do more.
But, like, is it the right stuff to do? Like, I think, I think that gets lost.
So if we gave you a megaphone, um, you had 60 seconds to speak the whole industry and you could say something really profound, what would you want to tell them?
Um, I mean, look, construction is hard. It’s not getting any easier. I think I really do believe, like, the soft skills are the hard skills. And if people focus more on their people and making sure they were doing the right things well, and it doesn’t mean, you know, you know how to, you know, detail a certain thing or you know how to, you know, run pro core and run the submittal process.
It’s like, are you really trying to contribute to the mission of the team? Right? Like, and the better our people are trained, the more time we give people to take care of their health and train themselves, the better the industry is going to be. And like, like, if you create, being outside on a construction side is fun.
I mean, I got a nine year old. It’s like, like, I show pictures. Like, when can I go with you to work? Like, I mean, like, like, if you like being outside, like, you need to be good at your job and find ways to improve and just, uh, I think the soft skills are highly underrated and it should be a focus people first.
It’s good. Dude, thanks for joining us this week. Thanks for driving all the way down here.
Yeah, keep on driving.