ELEV8 Video Podcast - feat. Dave Callis (Pt. 1)

In this, part one of the first episode of the Swinerton ELEV8 Podcast, Dean & Danny sit down with Swinerton Chief Executive Officer, Dave Callis.

Dave and Dean chat about everything from the Raiders, to life before Swinerton, to catching an airport on fire, and even Halloween. Get to know Dave and the ways that he learned about himself, to prepare him for taking on Swinerton and the March to 2030 (and beyond).

Episode Transcript

(00:38):
Welcome to the Swinerton ELEV8 Podcast
so welcome welcome to the Swinerton ELEV8 Podcast
my name is Dean Whellams and I'm Danny Howell
there you go we are the co
kind of producers directors

(00:58):
wherever you wanna call it on this thing
um but we are super excited to have you here today
for episode 1 for episode no. 1
we have got the CEO of Swinerton
Mr. Dave Callis our new
our CEO who joined us for
for a couple hours today
this is an entirely couple hours
but here's some of the things that

(01:18):
we got to go through with him
um there
it's kind of a great kind of
thing
about how he got into construction in the first place
um so pay attention for the keg story
but also to like what you know
what matters to him in terms of culture
and he got to see it from a couple different places
with companies that he worked for
and how to find the right culture
find a good culture fit for you
which he definitely has at Swinerton
in his 20+ years that he's been here

(01:40):
so you'll hear about that
um which gets into the people side of it right
right and and
and he talks he talks a lot about um
the power the power of observing other people but
but not just observing
he talks about the importance of relationships
the importance of having the
surrounding yourself with the right people
having the right relationships
and uh
you know mentoring others

(02:02):
and also being mentored in the process of
you know growing with with the right people around you
and one of the ways that he did that was through a
360 review that he will talk about that he had
had participated in as he said
it wasn't wasn't his choice
but it happened for him it was a life changing
a hundred percent life changing 100%
a life changing moment of getting a 360

(02:23):
getting feedback from other people
having to take a good hard look about
i wanna get better at the interpersonal
he'll talk to you about that through this
and just the images like you said
the impact that had that had on him
and then also i'll let you kind of talk to this
kind of his vision that he talks about for
you know what he sees moving forward
and his legacy to leave behind
at Swinerton you know
he addressed this in the in the shareholder meeting

(02:45):
he touched on it for sure in the shareholder meaning
what i what i appreciate about
the time that he spent with us today
is that he goes into
a little more practical detail about what
his vision is for Swinerton moving forward uh
more so than he did at the shareholder meeting
i think this is it's more applicable here
makes more sense to talk more detail here and
and he did that so i can't wait for y'all

(03:05):
to see that yeah
and then the other things that will show up in there is
obviously Dave and i couldn't sit in the room and
you know not spend a little time talking about
our beloved Raiders so
you will hear some really cool stories about them
and
how he even became a Raiders fan in the first place
and then yeah and then the last thing is
what he'll share with you is regarding Halloween
and how it is definitely not

(03:26):
Dave Callis' favorite holiday
hundred percent has nothing to do with the candy
so that be back like i said
sit back buckle up and you're in for a great ride
because this is a fantastic episode
we'll see you after
stoked to have you here um
i wanna i wanna start with this cause i
i know you and i can't go

(03:46):
a few minutes without talking about the Raiders
so i know everybody listen up right now
i wanna hear this but i wanna hear this haha
so
but these are the so i'm gonna ask you three questions
all of them answered whatever
but three things how did how did you become like
why are you so why are you Raiders fan
cause that's always yeah but my grandma
you know my mom's mom was a massive Raiders fan right

(04:08):
um that's
that's why that is literally why my family is
and that's the whole family
you know um
so anyway so tell me a little bit
about why are you actually a Raiders fan
um tell me any
any like super cool memory
i don't know if it's a game
watching a game you know what i mean
but yeah some you like man
i remember this yeah moment
yeah what i always tell is
when they move back to Oakland in 1995

(04:30):
i have a picture of my brother
myself and my 70 year old grandma
sitting in the front row of the black hole
wow like right on the freaking end zone
very cool yeah
that's the thing um
and then and then the third one is
and do you have any cool i don't give a
a Raider memorabilia yeah
do you have anything that's super meaningful to you

(04:50):
yeah mine is my
my grandma tell you her in 1976 my her
my grandpa went to a monday night game in Oakland
and i have a blanket
it was really cold that i say bought this really
really cool blanket i still have it cool
and the funny story there is my grandpa
because he was the we got to leave early
so the Raiders were behind
they left and my grandma's
would still tell the story about how mad she was

(05:11):
cause she heard the coliseum
of course when you walk across the bridge
over to the right station
Raiders would come back to win
yeah she like she classic Raiders
she never she never let him
never let him live that down so it's a funny story
you know
every family has that crazy aunt the aunt that yeah
that gives you your
your kids a drum set or some loud toy

(05:33):
crazy toy so i had this aunt and we lived in Riverside
i grew up in Riverside through about fourth grade
and then i moved to Seal Beach
but when i lived in Riverside
so third grader probably 9 years old
and my aunt had come down to visit us for Christmas

(05:54):
so as um we are always excited about what aunt liz
was gonna give us for christmas
cause it was always something puppy
a drum set something crazy
so i open up this present that she wrapped me and
you know i was too young to become what
to be a big sports fan of anything
just wasn't on my radar screen yeah
but i open up this box and it was a full Raider jersey

(06:18):
the pants the shoulder pad
a jersey helmet
the whole and i forget what number it was
but it was the whole enchilada
and so i thought that was the coolest thing ever
and so shortly after that
my friend we'd all be playing like
touch football in the front yard or backyard
i always roared that Raiders jersey

(06:38):
so that's
that's so that's why i became a Raider fan at once
once that happened
once it's in your blood then you you people are like oh
why are you still a Raider fan
i get it that 9 years old or eight years old you right
but you know that's 50 years later
how the heck are you still
why are you still a Raider fan
but it's in your blood so i i um
i can't kick it and probably 2000...2007 through 2009 um

(07:05):
one of our largest clients when i was running the
when i was seeing the project executive
or ops manager in Orange County
yes and one of our best clients was CHOC hospital
we were doing tons of work for CHOC hospital
i probably had seven
eight nine jobs anyone time for CHOC hospital and the
um the chief administrative officer

(07:26):
i got to know him pretty well
super conservative three piece suit guy and
and randomly one day we were talking about it
and it came up the Raiders came up and go yeah
it's my favorite team the guy goes get out
that's my favorite team because in fact
i have season tickets

(07:46):
three rows back in the black hole
and i'm like get out
so you guys any game you want to go to were there
so i'm like
let's do it so as i was hopping on the airplane
i'm like black hole i'm like
i wonder if this guy
is gonna be one of those guys in the full regalia
you know like really conservative guy
i'm like oh my gosh

(08:07):
what is what is it what's he gonna be wearing
cause i was just gonna wear my Raider jersey
this guy gonna have makeup on
and so i get off the airplane
thank God he all he had was a Raider jersey on
but he wasn't all dressed up but nonetheless
so i was like yeah
yeah spike exactly but nonetheless
i was similar to your experience three rows back
right in the thick of the black hole

(08:29):
first and um we played the Steelers and we won the game
but it was just unbelievable experience
sitting down in the middle of the black hole
that was to me a really really cool experience yeah
it's almost like you take the coliseum and there's like
obviously 55,000 intense people
but then there's these other thousand crazy and so my

(08:51):
my one of my favorite memorabilia i um
um the last two seasons um
that the Raiders are playing in the coliseum
i had the opportunity one of our clients
best friends had season tickets in a suite
so i got to sit twice in the seat
and if you're a suiteholder back in the coliseum days

(09:11):
a lot of um alumni used to come and sit in the suites
so two years in a row
i got to watch two entire games with Cliff Branch
sat right next to Cliff Branch for two full games wow
yeah and um um
so i have a signed Raider helmet signed by Cliff Branch

(09:32):
you know it is it's a it's a curse
i'll forever be stricken with as you are well
let me start with this how did you get in
how did you get into construction the first place
so yeah super funny story okay
um not funny part was my dad was an architect okay
and you know like most kids when you're growing up
you don't pay attention much attention
to your father and what your father does

(09:53):
but he was an architect okay
um and um while i was growing up the last 7
8 years of his career he was um
the head of designing
construction for the County of Riverside okay
so but i didn't get that much thought so park that
park that thought um

(10:14):
so i went to my first year of school
i went to um UC Irvine as a structural engineering major
after one year i decided i didn't like that
i didn't like the school
and i transferred to Long Beach State undeclared
so probably early into my sophomore year
i was at a fraternity party of all things

(10:35):
um standing at a
a keg getting a beer and like
every college conversation starts with a guy was
hand me the the keg thing
and i was filling up my beer
and we struck up a conversation
and like all college conversations
within the first two or three questions is
what's your major and i was like

(10:57):
i'm undeclared and i was talking to him and he goes
well i'm a construction management major and i'm like
huh what's that
so i was just talking to him about it and i'm like
wow that sounds really fascinating
so keep that was saturday
so monday morning i went to the construction
engineering department at the campus
got the brochure read it for a couple days

(11:19):
i'm like wow
that is super fascinating
and in this that was the fall
so the spring semester signed up and that's how i got
believe it or not
that's how i got into the construction business
and so flash forward um
maybe 9 months later you know
like all your parents anxiety of every parent is

(11:41):
what is their
child gonna do for the rest of their lives
so you're like my dad
every time
he's a little tentative about putting pressure on me
on what i want to do so he's like
hey dad our dave
have you figured out what that
what your major is gonna be
i'm like oh my gosh dad
it's funny you say that and i walked in through
you know hey
i'm walking him through this construction
management degree and the different classes

(12:03):
and he's looking at me like
oh my god
i'm describing essentially what he does for a living
cause he was out of architecture
he he
he was just running the entire construction program
so he's hiring contractors
he's doing all the stuff that and leading uh uh
uh for the county of riverside
all their construction programs
so as i'm articulating this program

(12:23):
i'm basically essentially telling him what
you know talking about everything he does for a living
so but super coincidental
but that's how i that's how i got into the business
particularly of your young kid
college kid make sure you go to as many cake parties
that you can in college
because you'll never know what comes out of that

(12:43):
so i'm sitting here i'm sitting here today
having gone to an sae cake party along each state okay
so awesome so then
so take us through c finish
that finish up there at long beach
and then then tell me more than what happens
yeah what happened
yeah so
i graduated college having never sat
step foot on a construction site in my entire life
so that was a bit intimidating

(13:05):
so um
my first job was at kittel contractors
we are a kind of a medium sized regional contractor
headquartered in phoenix we had an office in irvine
and um
so my um
my first job was i was a schedule engineer
i i was actually took donna dares job
don left kitchell to go to work for swinterton

(13:25):
and i was sitting in don's chair
i was literally sitting in don's chair that he left
he left on friday i started monday
you don't know each other at this point
i knew of every i mean
i knew of dawn yeah
but i didn't really know him in college
i knew everyone knew of dawn as you can imagine
so it's another podcast yeah
it's a whole another podcast in itself
but so i sat in his

(13:46):
that my first job was sitting in his seat and
and so when i started there
i did your typical engineer rotation okay
i spent a year in in scheduling um
and then i did a a year in estimating
and then i did a year in the field as a project
engineer okay
and then from there i networked the next uh

(14:07):
three or four years um
out in the field
and worked my way up to a project manager
so i spent about five and a half years uh
working for kitchel which was really um
earlier in your career
having not had a lot of construction background
it was just like this really immense technical learning
you know just immersing myself
yeah and learning the technical aspect of construction

(14:31):
they they self perform concrete and demolition
so uh
it was my first exposure to self perform work
which is really cool coming right out of the shoots
and working for a contractor that self perform work
so and are you are you loving it at that point
i did like this is the man
yeah loved it
you could tell i loved it
i was willing to travel to different places and i i

(14:53):
i'd grown up in southern california in my entire life
so i'd never lived any place else
so
i like the challenge of moving to a new place
where i didn't know anybody
and putting myself out there a little bit
so that aspect of it was was really cool
so it was a really fun five or six years
and which i love traveling

(15:13):
i had a girlfriend at the time that was living in
southern california and she did that
she didn't nearly like the me traveling as much as
as i liked a living in salt lake and skiing
and it was hiking it was fantastic
so
i decided to leave
and move back to southern california
and at the time kitchell was

(15:33):
ramping down their operations in southern california
okay so i went to another firm called mbk construction
an mbk at the time was pretty good size
orange county commercial contractor
pretty good size firm
so i went to work for there as an estimator
because i had estimating background
so and i end up working at mbk for about 10 years

(15:55):
and the first eight years i worked in the estimated
i was an estimator so
i worked from a regular junior estimator
all the way up to chief estimator
so i built a really deep career in estimating there
the last couple years at the request of a client
i seguate over to operations and and

(16:16):
and led some projects for a particular client
but the majority of my career there um
i was an estimator and i can't tell you i
i i can honestly say
i wouldn't be sitting in the seat
i'm sitting here today at swinterton
had i not spent that much time in estimating
it was that impactful on my career

(16:37):
you know learning detective last picks of construction
um how to sell work
you know there's so much
as an estimator of learning how to sell work
um and
and become part of a leadership team
as a chief estimator
all of a sudden you're immersed in a leadership team
so and shortly after i went to work there
they sold the company to mitsui

(16:58):
which is a large japanese trading company
so all of a sudden
i found myself working for a large japanese company
and so um
and they own it for about four years
and it really started hitting me
as i was working for that man
i'm really working my butt off
which is what i wanna do personally
for my career advancement
but you're doing that for somebody you don't even know

(17:21):
that lives in japan and that
it really started i struggled with that
i'm at the point where i really wanna focus on the
the right culture and the right type of company
which led me to
i had a lot of friends that worked at swinnerton okay
um which led me to my to
to come to work for swinnerton
cause i really wanted to work for
an employee owned company that had uh

(17:43):
the right culture
and having gone through all that turmoil
although i learned a lot in that
that 10 year period um
i really wanted to just
settle in with a company that had the right
ownership structure
that was in alignment with what i want
so that's when i came to winterton in 2000
2 2,000 ish

(18:04):
yeah 20
20 20
it'll be 22 years this october
when you were the what was the builder
m m
b k m b k
was there somebody too
that was kind of mentoring you on some of this too
i did have a boss that did a really good job of that
um but you know what
what happened a lot was i got thrown into

(18:25):
you know most construction companies are under resource
and i got thrown into a lot of meetings
i probably i like to get out over my skis
and so my boss let me get out over my skis
so i found myself in a lot of meetings where um yeah
i was probably unsupervised and having a
you know
and have these difficult conversations and go there
and i'm a quick learner and i'm like
well i got to think about this before i roll

(18:47):
walk into that situation again
so i did have one boss that taught me some of that
but a lot of it was just situational
learning how to get in there and watching
i watched you know
before i got myself in position
where i was a senior estimator or the chief estimator
you know i
i i would be sitting in meetings

(19:08):
watching my boss do the same thing
often times not doing a very good job
you know not doing a very good job of it right right
so like i would have done that a little bit differently
and so studying how people
studying how people approach things was something i
i did a really good job of yeah
taking the time to do that
which is a good kind of segue is
i wanna come back to that too
cause i know what the relationship are

(19:29):
we're gonna definitely talk about
but so this you mentioned
so you you
you leave you've been there
you're 31 33 34 yeah
yeah now you join swinterton yeah
yeah right
so you come on here early
early 2000 so you said there were some yeah
you knew some people here yeah
so there initially you know
i only interviewed with
when i would decide to make the change
i only interview with a couple firms

(19:50):
and growing up in los angeles at the time
when i went to college um
you know
swinterton was one of their premier contractors around
so that that
that kind of like
that longevity
and the stability of swinterton was intriguing for me
okay um
i i knew they were an employee owned company
i don't know that
i totally understood and appreciated what that meant

(20:10):
so that
was an intriguing thing for me and my conversation
um but i was really
really focused in on on better understanding
what the culture of the company was
i don't even know if i knew really what that meant
when i went on this journey of my interviewing process
that that
that swinterton was the third
for my interview with the first two is like
instantly i knew just the feel of where that

(20:33):
of how the interview when i felt
i knew it wasn't a good fit um
my interviews at swinterton were quite different
and it was it felt really good
we talked a lot about what the culture
what culture men and how it felt um
and the the thing that i was really focused in on is
i really wanted to work for an organization

(20:54):
that i could move and that i could help improve and
and and have an impact on and
and move is the word i was using i really
i wanna be able to move the organization
so i wanted large enough for a stable
but not so large that you know
you had to do the things
the way that everyone was gonna do
so i wanted to be able to impact the organization and

(21:17):
um uh
you know through that interview process
one of the guys i interviewed with um
frank former you know he's he was like
this is dave if you're looking for the perfect place
i think
lauren mentioned this story at the shareholders me
if you're looking for um
the perfect place to work
this is not the place to work
he goes um

(21:37):
but if you're looking for a place
that you're constantly gonna be challenged and and
and have the ability to improve things because i
you will be tripping over my problems
as they fall out of my back pocket
you walk down the hallway
you'll be tripping over my problems
i need someone to help me
improve the organization and fix it
and that's the type of organization you're looking for

(21:59):
this is the perfect place to come to work
and you'll be in powerful and um
so i bought into it i was like
i'm in man and so um
and a day hasn't gone by that i worked at swinterton
like i i haven't felt like i can't
i didn't have the ability of doing those things

(22:19):
doing those things yeah
did so what did they when you first started swinging
what was your role so this is a really funny story
it shows you how long
how much we've grown as an organization
like my my
i'll give you my first day
swinterton onboarding experience
i've ever told you the story
no okay
no i'm just like
so frank like she said frank former hired me

(22:42):
i hope he doesn't listen to this
cause he'll be mortified
but i show and said good things about himself yeah
i show up to the office in newport beach
that's what orange county was in newport beach
i show up i go to the receptionist
i'm like hey
first day of work i'm here you know
frank former hired me today is my first day like okay

(23:02):
sit you know
go sit over in the lobby and i can hear
so she's calling and leaving messages with frank
on frank and it's like seven in the morning
i was like
you know office was just starting to kick up
so like 45 minutes goes by and the office
you're just still sitting still sitting there
office manager finally shows up and she's like

(23:26):
oh hey
frank's on frank's on vacation for the next two weeks
and she didn't say this
but no one knew that i was starting nobody
no one knew i was starting that day
operations manager no one knew frank had hired me
and no one knew i starting
so that was my onboarding experience was

(23:46):
so i got put into the um um
um conference room and i read the swinterton builders
procedure manual
so that was my first week of swinterton
was reading the swinterton procedure manual
but then he got back from vacation
and i quickly got assigned to new project
to new to a project

(24:07):
and then i quickly started ramping up and um
so i got asked during that first 45 minutes first week
it was ever a moment of like fuck
i get myself into about it right choice
hundred percent hundred percent yeah
it was really funny was um when frank um

(24:27):
when the following monday um
i got assigned to this project executive
and so that whole first week i was telling my wife
oh my god to your point i was like man
this is really weird man
and so the the following monday
frank was he had lives on a second week
so he came back the my second week

(24:47):
my first day of the second week
came to talk to me
and then assigned me to proje executive
this project executive was like
the smartest guy i'd ever met at
so on the kind of like the guy you talked with
this guy knew yeah
smartest guy
i went home that day and i'm like to my wife i'm like
oh my god i am host
i am i am gonna be a senior project manager

(25:08):
for the rest of my life there is no vertical
if this guy is
everybody in this organization is as smart as this guy
i'm hose man this this guy is smart
and so steve the guy is talking about
he was my mentor for the next year i work for him okay
super smart guy turns out that

(25:28):
not everyone at swinterton was as brilliant as he was
thank god so yeah
it was ups and ups and downs in the first time period
you know but it's like anything new um once i
once i got in the rhythm got to know people
got comfortable in my skin in a new organization
i mean i hadn't worked for a new company in 10 years
right was at what point does it
does it or was it
maybe this might just been happened over time

(25:49):
but we were like
you went from the men did i make the right choice
do now i'm i'm
i'm sure i made the right choice yeah yeah
so that happened pretty quickly because um
um we weren't we were a relatively new office
the orange county office um
frank had started it up out of the la office
and great started the office
so it's probably

(26:10):
i'm guessing it was probably 5 or 6 years old okay
we had some pretty good size work
frank had done a great job of picking up some big work
but from a resource perspective
pretty new office it's got a lot
a lot not a lot of deep mature resources
so i hit the organization with scheduling expertise

(26:30):
having done scheduling immense estimating experience
operation experience the ability of selling work
so i was immediately able to get in
and leverage all that stuff and um
people were more than happy
they're like oh
get a let that horse run and so it was pretty quickly

(26:52):
once i felt comfortable in my skin
that i wasn't stepping on anybody
you know getting anybody's lanes
i established the relationships with the
department heads um
say it wasn't but maybe
three or four weeks into my tenure
that i started getting into that stride
so okay
so then take us through like what's that you know yeah
yeah what's that 20 years look like

(27:14):
and you know different roles different things
how did you kind of move through there
yeah i took a
i took a really traditional
having gone through a not so traditional path
up to swinterton yeah
it took a pretty traditional path okay
at swinterton you know operationally
you know speaking
i senior project manager project executive
i started up a orange county special projects group

(27:37):
in that period
i really started focusing on capturing healthcare work
tenant improvement healthcare work and um
built up the mention the chalk client earlier
and i did a bunch of work for saint jude
started off all small projects
and then because of those relationships
next thing i we knew
we were building
80 to 100 million dollar hospital editions

(27:58):
and emergency room additions
and i ended up getting promoted to running operations
for the whole group operations
and we put someone else in special projects
that was the operations manager for the office
for maybe a year or so
and then i got moved up to division manager
did that for about five years

(28:18):
and became regional manager
c 0 0
and then ceo so aside from that year and a half
two years step into special projects
pretty traditional building side growth
although i appreciated the special projects thing
is it really the pace at which that business runs

(28:39):
super fun the thing that's really
an accelerator for people's growth is
particularly when you get in special projects
is the pace in the cycle of a project
you know so project
you get a million dollar tenant improvement job
in in in a ten week period
you're selling the job you're buying contracts

(29:01):
you're building it you're closing it out
you're going to the whole cycle of job
on a building job that could take two years
that same cycle yeah
and so on special projects as a project manager on that
you're doing three of those jobs
and it's just constant
you just the turn and turn and turn
you're learning so much
and so that was something that was and

(29:21):
and what i look back at that time period
and i think a lot of people probably do this
the mount that you're learning
but that you don't even realize you're learning
but you're learning it just like cause you're you're
you're just immersed in it right
the skills that you're learning in that is tremendous
and translate on a much larger scale downstream
you know when you start talk
as you grow up into perhaps a division manager

(29:42):
we were often confronted as like a lot of people go
like well
i wanna do big jobs you know
i don't wanna do small projects
i wanna do big jobs
and what that taught me in my journey of that is like
if you just focus on client satisfaction
you know for us it was like it was like a no brainer
we are gonna not have our building job client do that
because there's no reason to do that

(30:04):
the client like dave and my
the teen that was working on our project
so she was just handing us work and giving us work
and had huge trust in us
and it made no business sense at all
that we would switch it to a different leadership
it was like let
let the organization let our organization
adapt to how our clients wanna do work

(30:25):
was opposed to keep as opposed to saying hey hey
i'm sorry that's not how our company works right
we're gonna we're gonna have
we're gonna hand you off to somebody else
cause that's how we're organized
and and and i mean that
that would not be the right thing to do right
i think as a as a company as a business
we got to adapt
ourselves to how our clients wanna do business

(30:45):
and what makes sense to them
getting back to this
this concept of customer satisfaction
let's make it easy for them to do business with us
versus something else like why
why introduce a new dynamic to what
it's already a challenging business
you know
cause it's all relationships at the end of the day yeah
the people business yeah
and um
you know
it just makes no sense to take the risk of introducing

(31:07):
new people into a situation and uh
there's a there's a
there's a great book in the title of it is
it's got in jeff jeffrey gudimer
he's kind of a sales guru
but the name of the book is customer
you get this right customer satisfaction is worthless
customer loyalty is priceless
oh gotcha yeah
and it's kind of that concept yeah
like you said so they're not gonna go anywhere else

(31:29):
like you said we adopt
we adapted as opposed as opposing well
this is our structure yeah
pass you off to the people that do the bigger jobs
zachary
that's not who she wants to see yeah
just wanted you know
go through some new learning curve
or some new relationship development thing yeah
yeah you know
you don't want his pieces like that yeah
you don't want to put the relationship at risk

(31:49):
like that over something like that yeah
so during so
so during that time there um
kind of got it
here's kind of a three parts kind of a question um
what was it maybe an important learning experience
what was the i'm guessing that you made a mistake
during the 20 years yeah
and i'd like to redo that one yeah
yeah and who is it

(32:09):
maybe some people that like
had a pretty big impact on you
yeah i think about this a lot
there is a reoccurring mistake that i used to make
i'm a people pleaser and as a people pleaser
i had a really difficult time
having difficult conversations okay
was really hard for me still practice a lot at it

(32:30):
it still doesn't come naturally to me
i'm okay i'm good at doing it now
i'm comfortable doing it now better
but i'm better at it i i
i struggled having difficult conversations
and maybe halfway through my earlier part of my career
someone told me bad news doesn't get better with time
and so i think about that a lot

(32:51):
and but it's still
it's still made me super anxious to have
to have a difficult conversation
difficult conversation could be with an owner
could be an architect could be with a teammate spouse
anything it's just it's
it's it was hard
and
it wasn't until probably my second year at swinterton
i did a leader builder program
so patty peters had this phrase that really helped me

(33:14):
and it's kind of a goofy phrase
but it was something that resonated with me
and stuck with me
which was no surprises unless it's a gift
yeah right yeah
yeah so so that made me think about like okay
i cannot surprise if it's an owner
i can't surprise him with bad news
i just gotta no matter how painful this is gonna be
i just it's it's gonna be better sooner than later

(33:36):
even to today sometimes i'll
use that phrase
when i'm having a table at difficult conversation
hey dean under the context of bad news or no surprises
unless it's a gift
i want to talk to you about something
you know so it's like kind of sets the room at ease
yeah so i've gotten better at it
and what's ironic about it is 99% of the time

(33:57):
that difficult conversation is
never nearly as difficult as you thought it was
gonna be sure
it's really harder if you let it drag on right right
and when you're young in your career
and you're working on a project
um it's really
really it gives you a lot of anxiety
you know your projects falling behind
you know you're a 30 year old project manager

(34:17):
and you're the guy that's gonna have to deliver that
news to the owner and
you know the owner just gonna flip out about it
you know those are hard sure
but you know
talking to them earlier than later and talking about
hey we're running up against this obstacle
i just wanted to give you a heads up
we're trying to work through it
but i didn't want this to become a big surprise
three months down the road

(34:38):
where you couldn't help us in this situation yeah
so i throw this on the table
i don't have all the answers right now
but i'm gonna get i'm gonna
i'm gonna come up with the answers
but i just wanna give you a heads up
did you get did you get coaching on it
did you get you're like
i had to figure this out yeah
i had to between just those two phrases
and having to figure it out
yeah um

(34:59):
where the the two things
cause
i can't tell you how many times i let things fester
and you're just like ah god
i knew i knew better than this
i should not have let this go on
sure as long as i did
i should have just nifted in the bud
as far as your other question
like is there been any one person i
i am you know
i've been i've been blessed in my career that i

(35:19):
i there's not one single person i can look
mango man
that guy or gal was transformative in my career right
i i feel blessed to have worked with them
around a lot of really smart people
um
this is probably in 2,010 or so
we were doing a project at john wayne airport
i was a division manager

(35:41):
and um
most of work was at night and um
we we
um through the welding process
we caught the airport on fire
so we we had a major fire in the middle of the night
so i got a call at 2:00 in the
in the morning and um
it was from leah tatibosian
and leah says dave got a problem with beer

(36:03):
john wayne airports on fire
we put it on fire and i'm like
oh crap
so i just got dressed i raced down to the airport
and as i pulled up to the curb
i mean there was hundreds of fire trucks up
so i pull up to the curb
the airport director pulled up next to me and
and larry seraphinia and i larry
he was the airport director

(36:23):
and i had a really good relationship
and i just was dreading opening the door
and how he was going to react to this
sure so
i get out of the door
and he walks up to me and he looks at me and goes dave
let's get inside and see what
see what we got ahead of us
and i'm like wow
he walked in

(36:43):
huddled his crew myself
the fire chief the police chief or head of security
head of facilities
was in complete command of the situation
no motions just manage the situation
and that was just like wow
that was powerful wow
yeah yeah
you know i was just like walking up to him like
oh my god
this guy is going to light me up right

(37:04):
and he's just like hey dave
let's go see what we got ahead of us
it was really powerful yeah
i was cool bill
bill montgomery was a superintendent on the job
and he rolled in right behind me and
and he was like super common collected bill
i need you to do this
i need 50 laborers on this job within and out
and bill was like got it
larry started calling all his laborers got here
i need him to do this i need to do this

(37:25):
i need to get this up
mean they were opening up and the fire was out by then
but he goes
but then this is about it's opening in four hours
i need the smoke out of here
i need the water off the floor
i need this barricaded off yeah
and um all business complete control of his emotions
back to your point you probably observed yeah
the polar opposite yeah

(37:45):
i would have probably handled that situation
a little bit differently yeah
we love to think of myself fucking high starting like
was this really worth yeah yeah
below blowing that up so i
i wanna i wanna talk to
but i wanna come back to this
cause we had to talk a little about just this
family and hobbies stuff like that in leader builder
you've come on
you've talked about the all just called the 3 60 review

(38:06):
yeah yeah yeah
yeah right
so i just i think that's such a i just
it's such a powerful point your career
i think yeah
you know what i mean so maybe yeah
take us through like the it's
it's been something that's been
it's forever embossed on my my brain
you know it was
oh it's probably my second year being a

(38:30):
division manager at centerton
dawn was running so you're 10 years in here
you've been here yeah
yeah yeah
yeah yeah yeah
kind of that time frame yeah
dawn was running san diego
i was running orange county
and frank former was running la
and brenda came down and said hey
we're gonna we're kicking off this new program
we're gonna do 3 60 degree

(38:51):
you know 360 degree reviews with all your
your peers and subordinates
and we're gonna get you that feedback
so like okay great
so um
so it's really some you asked for just some
we're just doing this i didn't ask for it
we're just we're doing this
doing this yeah

(39:11):
so i get my room
i get this three 60 back and keep in mind i
my i was really tight with my department heads
we had a really good team in order yeah
the other time really good relationships
but the feedback um
was pretty haha
devastating and it wasn't coached through
so i get the report back on reading
you know it's like yeah

(39:32):
they just handed it to you yeah yeah
dave dave is um um
oftentimes dave doesn't listen to me
has already made up his mind
he's so he's gonna do it anyway um uh
dave gets emotional i mean
just went on and on and on and on and on um
doesn't seem to have the time and day of the care
you know for my input or care to even ask for my input

(39:56):
that was really really hard for me to read
it was hard for me to read for a couple reasons
one because this was all coming back from people
i really respected
i felt like i had really good relationships with
what resonate with me is that none of them
and it was consistent
the same feedback was consistent across it
and um you know
i felt really disappointed that

(40:17):
people didn't share that with me
but that after after i sat with that for a while
a long drive home yeah
long drive to work i
i i i started really thinking about it
and a lot of it was the pace i
i was doing
i finally realized i was doing that for sure
i was just going so fast and and

(40:39):
and to
draw in all your department heads on every decision
you wanna make it takes time
and i didn't appreciate that tying commitment
and what it meant to team members
i just want i i knew what i thought the answer was
i just want to get there as fast as possible
cause i knew we'd get to that answer cause i
you know had enough experience so i
i kind of knew i'd get there

(40:59):
but having not gone through
the journey of getting people's feedback there
i would have never ended up
perhaps in a different solution
i was gonna end up where i was gonna be
you know yeah
is that really the best place to end up
without going through
and getting input from all your team members
and taking the time to do that is really beneficial
cause now they're bought into it
plus
you might end up with a better solution than where

(41:20):
you're heading
and so um
even today um
i still have to think about slowing down
it's really funny when i worked for eric
eric is a fast twitch eric foster's a fast twitch guy
yeah man dave
i'm like eric
let me just let me
let me get some feedback from people
before we launch on that he's like

(41:41):
come on man
let's just go let's just do this
i'm like give me
give me three days let me
give me three days to get the feedback from people
before we launch on this thing
and i learned that just from having gone through
that experience i use the term people first yeah
culture yeah
yeah meaning that we
we care about people you as people first yeah

(42:03):
end of story
we care about you as a human being first and foremost
yeah and then swinterton perform all the other things
but that
that key partner and a lot of that dean is driven by
at least it is for me although i'm ceo
i don't think of this is and i know this for a fact
that eric and jeff
and any of our predecessing ceos didn't
think of it as their company

(42:24):
they were blessed to be able
to have the ability of leading the company
but it's everyone's company
you know i just happen to be the ceo company
but this isn't dave callis
construction at swinterton builders
or swinterton inc
and as such
everyone that's walking the hallways owns this company
right and
and we just happen to be

(42:45):
you know just running the company
but it's not our company
so that's something that weighs
i think about a lot and weighs on me because um
it's a gift and thinking about
what that means for all the employees
so thinking about is you're making decisions
the impact on future
all our employee owners and their futures
and their families is

(43:06):
is something that all of us think about as you
as you work your way through the company
it's something that it will
as you know
it is part of the culture
seventy five percent of our employees
haven't worked for the company
for more than five years and some of that number 75%
yeah yeah yeah
yeah so it's about that range
wow having everybody really appreciate the legacy and

(43:28):
and and the culture
the heritage of the company
i thought was something that was really important
so tell me a little bit about it
and i said whatever order these will come out in
but family you know
i met you mentioned kids that are
and you get some ages yeah
tell us what about the this other part of dave callis
the other part yeah
the other part of dave callis
yeah yeah

(43:49):
so i have five married okay
five kids and ages
my oldest is 28 okay
i'll probably mess up one of the two of these
i got their name said that he said 28
my son i have a 28 year old son
i have a 26 year old son right
twenty four year old daughter

(44:10):
twenty um
22 year old son okay
and an eight year old daughter
eight year old yeah
i slacker can't get her out of the house
and in the college and out of the house already
she's crushing me oh
i think david
one of my funny stories i would and you told this
so it's not that i whole heard about you
is it that i believe you you're sharing that's

(44:31):
that's your wife and i love you guys still do this
but for halloween there was a dress up
yeah and you get forced to dress up
yeah it's unfortunate
no i can tell by it
i tried it out
i tried not to now not to be home at halloween
but it's the thing so they yeah
they made you dress up as
oh god i can't even
so it's far like a disney thing right

(44:52):
exactly right so it could be that she's
i forget the one she was penelope
so it'll be a disney movie
my 8 year old who now is 8 year old
so this dates back to when she was probably 3 or 4
yeah my wife will dress up someone else in the
in that in the movie
and then they make me dress up as someone in the movie

(45:12):
and so i couldn't tell you any of the characters
i could show you the pictures
cause i try to block it out as quickly as possibly
in my mind my daughter's excited about
she loves it that i do this
but um i was never a costume party
i was a person i mean
and so it's been a fun but painful experience for me

(45:33):
also i had to bring it up
what do you do what do you do for fun
so what do i do for fun
so the things that i that that i really
really enjoy is i like doing things outdoors
so i love mountain biking
i try to mountain bike once or twice a week
i love surfing
so every weekend either one day i'm mountain biking

(45:56):
the other day i'm surfing um
and then during ski season
i try to get out as that as much as possible
yeah um
and then during the week traveling i you know
i'm really passionate about trying to stay in good
physical help so that health
so then on saturday sunday i can mount biking and surf
so that's my those two sports are really good

(46:18):
you know not only are they good physical activities
but mentally just getting out
whether it's in the mountains or in the ocean
it's really really um
puts me in a much better state of mind yeah
i mean
you're saying that what i'm hearing you say is like
you have their kind of good resets for you yeah
exactly right there exactly right way to reset
recalibrate so that you know

(46:38):
come whatever day of the week it is
you're like yeah
you know you can also do this other exactly right
i i'd be happy if i didn't catch a single wave
and just sit in the water
dolphin going by just to your point to reset yeah
wife will ask me when i get how
how was it how it was great ways were terrible
it was still great reset ready to take on next week
how long he is married for

(46:59):
so we've been married i got remarried
so we've been married 11 years okay
previous yeah
okay talk
talk a little bit about like your
you know what do you see
you know kind of even
you talked a little bit on the shareholder's thing too
as well but just from your perspective
legacy wise like what's what
what what stands out about that for for
for for you

(47:19):
for me yeah
so like what's my vision and what yeah
yeah yeah yeah
so you know
i'll answer it two ways one
one of the things i was really thinking about
at the shareholders meeting was um
aside from really refreshing everybody's mind
about the legacy of swinterton
you know i
i'm i'm really focused on continuing this

(47:41):
this vision of the diversification of swinterton
you know yeah
2030 and beyond you know
and i think to do that
we're gonna need to have focus leadership
everything comes with really good leadership
hence the announcement of two coos with tim and ray
i'm super excited about that
tim ray is like the perfect guy to run swinger

(48:02):
from builders to the perfect guy
and tim is gonna be really great at
running and building these other adjacent companies
and their relationship is phenomenal
so bring in that focus leadership is super exciting
that diversification thing
the timberlab business excites me
and that was a big part of what i was trying to

(48:22):
get across there
is that we're going to double down on that
and then the concept of customer centricity
and really getting back to this customer loyalty
we've grown the company our geographic footprint now
where we have a national footprint
and we're getting really close to a place where
all our divisions are super hyperforming

(48:45):
and in my mind hyperforming is
you are the best
provincial contractor in that marketplace
whether that's atlanta san diego
i'll use san diego as example
you know they know every architect in town
they have great relationships with every subcontractor
here in san diego there's not a
job that hits the market that they haven't known about

(49:06):
the people call up and say hey
who should i be talking to in san diego
they go well
you got to talk to swinterton and
and so that to me is a really good example of being a
a a
the best provincial builder in that marketplace
not to be the best but say top three
now you replicate that in 21 markets
so that to me would be ideal
now layer on top of that

(49:27):
and no contractors been able to do this
is then layer on top of that are enterprise resources
you know that whether that's our national sales team
timberlake griffin swinterton
um the talent team
you know you layer all these resources onto these
provincial builders

(49:48):
you're getting the best of both worlds
you're getting the best builder in that marketplace
and he's got the muscle of what will be a 5
10 billion dollar business behind him
with all those resources
but it still feels like a small
local provincial builder right
and as and
and with that

(50:08):
you can really build that brand loyalty that
and customer loyalty that you talked about
that you're not
they don't feel like they're working with this
humongous organization that's
headquartered in new york
or offshores or someplace
that they got this local feel
but they got this massive resource behind them
um so if i can figure that puzzle out
yeah and

(50:29):
and i think the table is set for that
we got the we got the adjacent companies to do that
we got great leadership in our divisions
um and um
so that's that's to me would be
putting a pin in it well
i mean we've used the phrase before this idea
how do you make a big company feel small
yeah exactly right
and it's it's little

(50:50):
it's yeah yeah
i mean it's like how
you know dave
i mean i told the story of like
if i want to reach out to you
i just send you a message
yeah yeah
and you respond you know what i mean
like but that little things like that
you know and then you guys are all of all of you
the leah's and lauren's and ray's and you all
y'all kind of have that thing
and that's
those are little things that have a big impact

(51:10):
i know on the culture how it feels
how do we make this because we had 40
what is the number right now 4,000
how many employees right
about five goes to five yeah yeah
i mean that's a big company yeah
a good example is like
if you think about austin right now
you know great
great group down in austin
they really provincial in that marketplace

(51:31):
and allison our division manager there
needed to pivot her business into new markets
we were able to pivot through in the k through 12 work
you know with the support
of brian mccarthy here in san diego
went out and helped her get that
and then recently
she's won some affordable housing work
from the help of patrick odelini
our leader of affordable housing
so all of a sudden

(51:51):
now she was her own contractor down there
trying to scrape out a business down there
and maintain 150 200 million dollar business
that's hard without having those type of resources
to come in and pivot your business
absolutely
so i think that that's the type of thing i see that
you know i look at it like man
that's that's success starting to happen right there

(52:13):
so i got three more things for you
two of them easy and then um
one thing i've always noticed about you is
very avid reader podcast
i mean all kind of things
so so this kind of a two part question
like just if you know
there's lots of we're hoping some pes listen to this
yeah we're earlier in their career yeah
what would you give him some like maybe advice
just around i don't care if reading podcast

(52:36):
whatever you're doing but i know that some
you're avidly doing reading magazine or yeah
yeah who would you share with somebody around that
so i think that when
when this is a lesson learned from me yeah
when i got out of college
and this is kind of retrospecting
you know i got out of college
i was like okay good
i'm done with my personal element
i got through college bam

(52:57):
now i get my job and keep working and
you know for the first say five to 10 years
um you're so immersed in
learning the technical aspects of your business
um what i didn't do during that time period
um because none of the companies i work for
was kind of focus on my personal development

(53:19):
and it wasn't until i got that 3
60 that you so graciously brought up earlier
that i started really realizing that
i have a blind spot and i need to work on that
and i need to start thinking about that
so that's when i went on a personal journey of
of reading and i always have some book i'm reading

(53:40):
i've have like
there's probably a steady
a steady eight or nine podcast that i listen to
i listen to three or four a day probably
but eight or nine
they come in all kinds of types and flavors
you know i listen to
i think it's important people are conversive
what's happening in the world

(54:00):
whether that's economics political
so i listen to podcasts around that note
not business related you know
new york times has a podcast called the daily
i think that does a really good job of keeping me up
speed on what's happening
lots of business podcasts
you know i focus on
on hbo and mackenzie for for their
their their
they probably have each three or four

(54:20):
different business related podcasts that i listen to
yeah um
you mentioned simon simon cynic and i like adam grant
there's a couple like thought provoking
people out there that i like to listen to
um i'd be lying to you if i
a day doesn't go by
that i don't listen to the locked on
a locked on raiders podcast
got to keep a keep a

(54:41):
keep a praise of what's happening there
but
i used to get overwhelmed
that i had to remember
every single thing that they talked about
on that podcast and after a while
i just kind of realized that yeah
you might not take anything from it
but you end up ultimately
because you're listening to it
and like i just focus on one thing
and there's one thing you took away from that podcast

(55:01):
and you find out as you listen more and more
they layer on top of each other
self awareness is your first step to
to improving yourself right
but you're like ah shit
yeah i knew that
why i saw a graphic recently to talk about
as a leader that you know
had talk about your like
your kind of technical skills
and how important those are
and over time how that bar goes this way

(55:23):
yeah yeah
i drop and then your interpersonal yeah
yeah skills
the imports of that as a lie yeah
yeah is continually going up yeah
you know as
as as you get further yeah
yeah and further yeah yeah
so you know
as a project in jail use project engineer as an example
you know they might find themselves
in their first five years at swinterton

(55:43):
you might have six different supervisors right
as you go from job to job to job
and i think it's critical that you take your own
development in your in your own control
i think part of that is is feeling comfortable
having conversations with your supervisor about
your career aspiration and career growth

(56:05):
but those are difficult conversations to have
when you're 24 years old but you know
it's intimidating right sure it is and
you know it's
it's virtually impossible to have that conversation
if you don't have a good relationship with
your supervisor so
one of the things i'd encourage anybody do
is they move from supervisor to supervisor
is commit the time to develop that relationship

(56:28):
you know and i and and because once you do that
you become friends and it takes time
you know it's coffee it's you're busy at work
but you know
sitting around the coffee pot going to lunch
doing a job walk
but committing that time developing the relationship
cause then it
then it's easier to have those conversations about
career aspirations hey

(56:48):
i'm thinking about this
what do you think about me moving here
um i'm not happy about this
having those difficult conversations
i talked about a little earlier
becomes a thousand times easier
when you have a real relationship with your superior
to critical that
you carve out the time to make those relationships
like you said make it happen
all right so we got
we got 10 lightning round questions about the up here

(57:12):
unprepared easy all yes or no
there there there quick ones there
so um question first one when you you uh
you got something uncomfortable
something that's gonna require courage
what's the first thing that you do
i i always
i always scenario play out
like what are the different outcomes are gonna be okay
i always sit there at scenario play i love that um

(57:33):
breakfast lunch dinner could be a dessert thing
what's one of your favorite meals
um so i'm a breakfast person okay
yeah yeah
so i love going out weekends go out to breakfast
are we talking like pancakes eggs bacon
so healthy yeah
yeah veggie omelet coffee walk egg whites
yeah you had to pick a walk up song for yourself
you're a pro baseball player you got oh my gosh song

(57:53):
what are you going with
what's what's the god this is a hard one for me
i always get popped off when i would raider game
in that one song that
the one that they started at the beginning of the
hells bells hells bells yeah
that's a good that's a that's it
i get used like it and even saying that soon as the
soon as the first one hits yeah
yeah i'm like feels
i'm getting chills right now
just thinking about being in the fans in here

(58:15):
and that go what's a
what's a movie that man
that even if it's halfway through
you stop and watch it
so must watch on the serious side
good fellas okay
on the um on the funny side um
it's probably knocked up
it's fantastic yeah
celebrity crush my biggest crush growing up and so um

(58:37):
was probably cindy crawford
that's probably created as a lot of people
that cindy crawford was we all had a slick yeah poster
yeah yeah right
um if i was gonna give you more money or more time
i'd go i have a good time
if you could put a billboard
message up for lots of people to see
what would you put up for

(58:57):
kind of message to the world from you
hmm
man that's too profound dean
very profound i know right yeah
yeah you know
we're in such turbulent times right now
and it's just so interesting how um
how um

(59:18):
that's you know
just take the time to know to get to know people and
and don't prejudge people and
you know people are people and um
takes good take take the time
takes time to appreciate everyone around you
that's a good well man we
we certainly appreciate you making
making time for this things
i know you don't really have yeah

(59:38):
no great
thank you appreciate you making the time and yeah
i i
i surely appreciated with with the culture part of it
like he said about just getting the sea

(01:00:00):
just different cultures not good
not bad within companies and just saying
you know figuring out which one was a good fit for him
which is he talked about wasn't until he
you know was at
at the second company that he worked for
for for 10 years he was there
but just got to see you know
like he said from a
from a employee owned company
to a family owned company
which was at a corporate owned company
a couple times over yeah

(01:00:21):
you know and then i remember him saying like i
you know at thirty
whatever really 30
just kind of have this realization of
you know there's the work that i do
but then there's the environment that i'm actually in
yeah
and just realizing why that was so important to him
i appreciated that he didn't um
his his uh
reflection now on the
on the idea that he didn't recognize the importance of

(01:00:43):
being in an employee owned company
until he was in a situation where
he was working for somebody
that there was it was a family owned business
it was sold to a large foreign conglomerate
and then he felt kind of passed around in that deal
and didn't feel like that there was
there was any value for him right
um and it's that sort of that
moment where you in hindsight

(01:01:05):
realize what it is you don't have
yeah it's almost that you
sometimes you don't know what you don't know until
you know
until you know that you had that experience there too
yeah and you know
and then kind of taking that to the next piece too
which is the you know obviously
you can just tell
listen to dave talk how important people
relationships and and really

(01:01:25):
you know and he says it in several different ways
like really taking the time to go and whether it's the
over a
over dinner or at a meal or just walking job sites
and just you know
really making sure that that's what your
you know about an important part of your time
or significant amount of your time
yeah is really intentionally building
taking time with those relationships

(01:01:45):
and why that matters so much to him yeah
i actually the first thing that really stuck struck me
dean was even earlier than that in his career in that
that he he didn't really
he wasn't really sure what he was gonna do come
you know coming out of college
i think he was sort of uh
i don't think he was 100% sold on the construction idea

(01:02:07):
and even even as he started college
but then through the story he told over the cake right
and and so that to me speaks to that right there
that moment was a relationship moment right
100% cause you cannot strike up a conversation
that person cause we've all
had that moment where we just pass by somebody

(01:02:29):
and don't think a second of what would have happened
had i talked to that person right
and yet here's a person that literally
change the course of this conversation
at 19 years old right
when he strikes of a conversation with a guy about how
you said what's your major yeah
and also then starts listening in
if that conversation doesn't take place
right who knows right

(01:02:49):
knows what
you know what happens well
and and likes
like many people i think in this industry he was in
he was influenced in some way by his father
and the fact that his father was in the business um
but it wasn't enough
to make him want to necessarily be in the business
or at least he wasn't sure where in that
in the business he fitted

(01:03:10):
and then he in addition to his father
had this interaction over keg and
and that changed the course then of his career
i found interesting yeah
which which certainly segues into the
the part about the and
or laughing about it but the 3
60 review about getting you know
getting input cause i think that's a
you know again
and he's another illustration that

(01:03:31):
you and i get to hear lots of people's careers
where they get really good at the
the technical aspects of of
of whatever they do in this case
construction and then recognize there's all this
you know as we like to say
not soft skills
are people skills or interpersonal skills
and why those become so important though
so for yeah
i just
i'm always so impressed when i hear that story over

(01:03:53):
somebody says yep
i gotta i gotta learn
cause in even in the end when we talked about
he said yeah
you get done with college and you're like
i'm done kind of dumb dumb
dumb developing myself right
i'm i've got that part of it figured out
and then you know
15 years later go oh
maybe i'm not quite done with that part yet
it's kind of like our blueprint right
like we have our our

(01:04:13):
our development blueprint
it's not really a bunch of boxes to be checked
like there are things on our employee blueprint
that we should all be working on
until we're six feet under frank yeah
all the all the time
so it's you know
it's same type of thing like
we should all be
striving to learn as we grow through life always um

(01:04:38):
the other thing based on what you just said
i think we hear a lot is um
and i'm sorry i'm still in the story
but like we hear this a lot like
you know they're great at their job
there's not really good with people
and what do we always say about that
it's just not really good
it's job then how can you be really honest people
that's right your job is is

(01:05:00):
which is why i said we kind of avoided the
it's not so they're not hard and soft skills
there's there's more technical skills
and there's your people skills
that's right how good you get at those things
which you know then you go back to the you know
all things that he shares with the
with the 3 60 review and what he learned about that
and getting input from people
how important that was and yeah
how certain things can come across
which and then
we really highlighted this one in the beginning too

(01:05:22):
but this the story that he shares about the
deal with the airport and the like
just how impactful it is for a leader to come into a
insanely tense and situation
and it'll just be like completely
you know no
not right here emotional about this
we're gonna solve this
here's what we need to do what's going on and any any
you know just that story that you told
about the impact that had on him

(01:05:44):
and he was the guy no
he's right he just tried to observe it and be right wow
like right you know
cause he he even alluded to he said
i if if i'm if the roles reverse
i'm the guy i'm probably coming in pretty hot
is not the words that he said
but that's that's what i that's what i took from it
you watch it from the other
and not only the impact had on people
the impact had on him right

(01:06:04):
you know cause he
like he said
he shows up the airport 2:30 in the morning and
you know we've had a fire and all those things going on
then for somebody to come in just we got this
you know but
it also goes back to
the relationship that he had with that person right
you know that because he said
he said like we knew each other
we had a good relationship with each other
so there was you know
those pieces that played a role in that as well
i think it's interesting that he

(01:06:24):
he felt like he had a solid relationship with the the
i don't remember the person's role
but it was like the
the site manager who had the guy on site
director of whoever yeah
like the director of the airport
right was a big role
a big right
and yet he still was nervous about how
that individual was gonna react in this moment
and so like that frankly

(01:06:46):
as i think about that i thought well
like how really did you
how deep was that relationship
if you weren't sure
how he might react in that situation
of course this was an extreme situation
so maybe hasn't happened yet exactly
so
but the point in saying that is like
we still sometimes don't know
no matter how well we know somebody

(01:07:06):
we're not necessarily sure how people
or ourselves will react
in an extremely tense situation
and in this moment for that director of the airport
to have the wherewithals to just be okay
to be called to say like
my job is to step it up and move these people

(01:07:26):
to get the work done to get this fixed
to do that and the impact that that had on
i'm sure more than just dave around him
yeah that ability
like you said in a tense situation
to be able to emotionally regulate and take a breath
and hey
what what
you know it's the
it's the quote that i share and leader builder about
there is no situation so bad
that you can't make it worse wow

(01:07:47):
so in that in that
in that sitting there so the
you know which
which kind of hits onto the
the what he i love what he talks about
about difficult conversations
you know cause that
you know and i love his thing about like
i even in his terminology
like i'm a people pleaser
and i he's kind of like what
you know we hear brandon share all the time when she's
joins us for leader build around
she talks about most people at some level have a

(01:08:10):
want to be liked huh
you know some
some degree of that right
we wanna please we wanted
it's part of our biological wiring to be a part
of a tribe and fit in and yes
you know so we wanna do those things
and you had to recognize like he talked about like
it's a it's a necessary part of the thing and
and of course as he said by doing him getting better
what was his quote that he talked about like
and it doesn't age well yes

(01:08:31):
it doesn't yes yes
holding on to bad holding on to a different bad image
that's right doesn't age well
and and as i said it in the intro dean
like no one i can't say no one
i say most people
probably do not enjoy having difficult conversations
but it's it's a part of our oh
everyone's growth and development
no matter what career in no matter uh

(01:08:53):
what your role or job or industry is
at some point along the way
you're gonna have to have difficult conversation
and whether that difficult conversation is
you know i've got
i've got to move you from one location to another
for an employee
or you've got to lay somebody off for whatever it is
like at some point along the way
sometimes we've got to have difficult conversations

(01:09:15):
you got to tell a client that you're behind schedule
you gotta tell somebody you blew it with the budget
you know if who knows
well i love his his take on it too was like
like friends we had to get bad news to an owner
like going and talking to the architect first
to getting a partner getting a partner
getting so they understand
make sure you're on the enemy just

(01:09:35):
just all those little begin
that circles back to the people side
the relationship side the communication side
the you know
kind of over communicating those things
i mean he didn't say it
but i promise you
those were face to face conversations
or at least on the phone they were not an email
no they were
you know you know what i mean
there was an actual conversation that took place
yeah around those
around those ideas but i think it's

(01:09:55):
it's important to highlight what you're saying
and really get to the point of what you're saying
which is giving difficult information
or sharing in a difficult conversation
um
doing that in a form that doesn't allow
two way communication ideally face to face
but if you can't be face to face
at least worst case on the phone right

(01:10:16):
um because you wanna be able to hear people out
when you're sharing that information
it's not
because you wanna open yourself up to be yelled at
or berated or for people to blow up on you
but sometimes that may happen
but the it's
it's the risk you take of like
giving people the respect

(01:10:37):
to be able to respond to you in real time
to that information
yeah he said it in different ways
this idea of come in house
you'll be curious not judgmental
it was like come in with questions
come in with i'm seeking to better understand this yeah
i need your help with this
i mean little phrases like that that can be so um

(01:10:58):
you know disarming
you know just just little things like that matter
you know matters greatly
i rose recently reading they talked about like
literally adding words like please and thank you
just stuff we all know
we just forget sometimes just how how
how that can just lower the
did the tension can lower
people's blood pressure can lower yes
you'll bring those things down just simple

(01:11:19):
i need your help with you know
that little phrase i mean
my gosh also most of us want to help of course
and i was you know the one thing i would add to that is
not to mention the fact that
when you send someone an email
a text or anything like that
you we all know this is basic information
but there is no tone behind that so
so what happens is whoever's reading

(01:11:40):
the receiver of that message adds their own tone
and if that's difficult information for them to read
they're going to apply a tone
that is generally negative
to that they're just they're just that's natural
and so if if you're able to
share that information in a way where you can be
the tone behind that um
often times you can share that information with a

(01:12:02):
with a gentleness with a
with a i'm here to support you no matter what
even though this sucks type of tone yeah
which is you know
which is really really
you know really
really important
yeah and then i think
you know the
you know finally to just listening to him talk about
i'm gonna call it vision legacy

(01:12:23):
you know i think what what stood out to me too
was that even though the role that he's in
you did there's a lot of talk about this term
this selfless leadership being a selfless leader
and i guess that was the kind of sum of
that's what i heard a lot of in there
was this idea around he
he really sees himself as serving

(01:12:47):
the the entire company yeah
like that's that that's what i took from it
i mean again
didn't use those exact words
but just sit and listen to him talk that through
i was like you know
you think about if we didn't talk about this some today
but you know the story that um
who we lunch with yesterday with june
you know
the story of june tells about being in san francisco
and i don't even know there were some events
and then he back to the office with five of them
jumped in an uber oh yes

(01:13:08):
and as they're literally ubering back
they see dave callis and eric foster walking
walking with their suitcases
you know and kind of their thing
of like wow
that's the there's the
you know to
you know kind of there's
there's the current at that point anyways
the president ceo right of
of swinterton here they are
you know not

(01:13:28):
not seeing themselves above or anything like that right
just how what the impact that happened
here they are
telling this story that happened several years ago
and they remember it you know
just
just like everybody get it speaks that thing of that
like i said that that humility
that servanthood that like
my job here is to make your job better
how can i support you that for me anyways
that that came a
in various different ways of talking to him today

(01:13:49):
that message came through
yeah i
i think and you're seeing this you
you i think your interpretation there is some
someone like a meta impersonation of that
and um
and what i what i really heard dean was the idea that
uh
the perpetuation of this idea of our company is growing

(01:14:11):
but we don't want this company to lose that sort of
local feel and that's not just for us as employees
but also for our clients
we want our clients to feel like they're dealing with
um their local division
like it's just them in their small division
but the division itself has this mass
company of resources behind it
it's a supporter that the to support it

(01:14:33):
that's right and lesternie tells the story about you
know the ti division down in southern california
so that led to other things
and why were they doing these big jobs
cause that's the people that
had built the relationship in the first place no
you're i'm glad you brought that up that idea
and you could tell for him
it just as important was
for us to feel that we're part of a smaller company
he and his role
wants to feel like he's a part of a smaller company

(01:14:54):
even though it's gotten bigger
so he's doing whatever he can to again
going back to phrase
how do we make a big company feel small right
you know that that kind of things are
you know important to him
and then i think the final thing i'll say is
kind of a summary of all this too
is that is that the
this idea around learning and developing and growing
you know two things
it's an ongoing never ending process
and it's on you to take it's your responsibility

(01:15:16):
it's completely your responsibility yeah
completely your responsibility to go find your mentor
go find things go go go ask for the feedback
go go take
but take charge of your own personal development
as opposed to sitting and waiting for it to happen
for you 100%
and and are the the goal of let's say
talent first here at swinterson is to help

(01:15:36):
to help you engage in those resources right
so but but it's in coming upon us
every one of us is employees to really seek that out
to go out and grab it um
and and it's in coming upon that
the talent first are learning and development team
for example if you know
if you're looking for ways
you know way to grow and develop in a formal way
you reach out to the l&d team to uh

(01:15:58):
to to grow yourself developmentally um
or maybe you're reaching out to um
i don't know just strategic talent partner team
because you wanna understand the division better
or you wanna know
you know what's out there in terms of rules um
or uh
maybe you're a leader and you wanna figure out
you know a succession plan for yourself
as maybe you're starting to think about retirement

(01:16:19):
it's on you it's on you yeah
it's
it's our famous line of that we stole from paul the
you know if you get something
if you get something out of this
it's your fault if you don't get anything
it's your fault on you too
so we can pay a little homage to ted lasso
so grab your cup little tap then down
we hope everybody enjoyed the episode for sure

(01:16:43):
and we'll see you in episode 2
oh oh oh oh
oh oh
oh oh oh oh oh
oh oh
oh
oh oh oh
oh oh
oh oh
oh oh

(01:17:11):
oh bring me up
bring me a higher up
bring me bring me up a higher up i keep thinking of