August 28, 2025 • 63 mins
In this insightful episode of the Learnings and Missteps podcast, host Jesse interviews Kabri Luhrman Schmid, a nationally recognized construction influencer and project superintendent at Hensel Phelps. Kabri shares her 18-year journey in the construction industry, focusing on complex projects and redefining leadership. The conversation delves into her approach to jobsite leadership, emphasizing the importance of creating environments where workers feel valued and empowered to contribute. Kabri discusses the concept of psychological safety, the role of effective communication, and the impact of building trust within teams. She also touches on the challenges and rewards of being a change agent in a traditionally rigid industry. Throughout the episode, Kabri's authentic passion for people and process improvement shines through, making this a must-listen for anyone in the construction field.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Guest
02:32 Diving into Job Site Leadership
04:11 Personal Experiences and Leadership Style
06:59 Challenges and Consensus Building
10:55 Impact of Leadership on Job Sites
11:07 Listener Shoutout and Feedback
12:45 Early Career Lessons and Mentorship
14:27 The Importance of Listening and Learning
21:12 Creating a Learning Environment on Job Sites
27:31 The Value of Human-Centric Leadership
30:12 The Impact of Long-Term Industry Experience
30:41 Championing Mental Health and Wellbeing in Construction
32:00 Building Relationships and Overcoming Friction
32:53 The Power of Small Actions in Creating Change
34:09 Navigating Leadership and Performance Evaluations
47:06 The Importance of Psychological Safety
52:58 Authentic Leadership and Industry Recognition
57:41 Final Thoughts and Connecting with the Audience
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
figure it out, get over yourself, treat people like
humans and you'll have a bettertime at work.
What is going on?
L&m family?
Back at it again, and this timeI got like an ultra, ultra high
status construction celebrityon here, ms Cabry Lerman Schmidt
(00:23):
.
She is a national constructioninfluencer, but not just an
influencer because she postscool stuff, but she is actually
a project superintendent forHansel Phelps and she seems to
have fun spending her time onlike ultra, super complex
aviation projects.
(00:43):
If you've ever done any work onan airport, if you've ever been
to an airport, you know we'redifficult.
She's managing work massive,massive volumes of work on these
projects with massive numbersof people.
She's been in the field for 18years and she's built a career
by redefining what leadershiplooks like and that's my honest
(01:09):
observation the way she rolls.
I've actually shared the stagewith her maybe a couple times.
Now I know one time for sure.
She's the real deal and we'regoing to kind of dive into some
of the goodness that she does.
But first, if this is yourfirst time here, this is the
Learnings and Missteps podcast,where you get to see amazing
(01:32):
human beings just like yousharing their gifts and talents
to leave this world better thanthey found it.
I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and we about to get to know
Miss KB Lerman Schmidt.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
KB.
How are you doing?
Oh, I'm so excited to be here.
Your energy just makes me likeglow and tingle.
This passion for this industryand the people around us.
Let's do this.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Oh, I think, tingly, sparkly, that's exactly how I
feel.
I mean, you and I we've beenworking to make this happen and
we're finally here.
And this time I feel like Ihave an advantage, because the
last time we were on stagetogether was the webinar with
NCCER, and you went first, orrather you went before me.
I'm like, oh my God, this isgoing to be difficult because
(02:19):
you're a baller, and so thistime I have the upper hand
because I get to ask all thequestions.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And I have no idea what you're going to ask.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So let's do this I know, so we'll start with a
super easy one what does jobsite leadership look like?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Oh man, I love that.
So I am.
You mentioned, I'm asuperintendent.
I work for a large generalcontractor, always have so large
commercial, large aviationprojects.
I take the role of leadershipreally seriously.
I'm in the privileged positionto be responsible for the entire
job site.
Right, we set the tone.
We are the role models.
What my team does is set thestandard for how people are
(03:01):
taken care of, what theexpectations are for behavior,
how we can facilitate the use ofresources on a job site.
We are bringing language toevery interaction.
That sets all of those tones.
We are saying this is how weexpect people to talk to one
another.
How can we support you?
(03:21):
And you said you're selflessservant earlier.
That is how I see job siteleadership.
We are clearing out thebarriers.
We are setting the plan.
That is only as good as theinformation people are giving to
us, and so, gosh.
We better create an environmentwhere people are interested and
(03:42):
empowered to give honestinformation and it's information
that makes them feel successfuland that they're contributing
in a meaningful way.
And that's a big ask, becauseyou have to create a place where
people want to be.
You have to create a placewhere people feel like they can
utilize the skills that makethem so proud of the work that
(04:06):
they're doing, because that'swhat drives our industry.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yes, oh, my goodness.
Now would I be wrong in sayingwell, of course this is your
mindset, because everyconstruction leader you've ever
worked with has that samemindset you've ever worked with
has that same mindset.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
No, no, that has not always been my experience.
I don't remember how you wordedthat, but I get what you're
getting at.
I haven't always experiencedthat.
It was something that I think Icame to, born out of a few
different personal and externalexperiences.
I'll be honest, some of themwere driven by negative personal
(04:49):
experiences, some out of theanxiety and the experience of
being a five foot half inchsuperintendent in the industry.
I was very driven by getting alot of consensus built around my
plans because I didn't want itshot to hell when I brought it
up.
I wanted people to believe inthe plan and to know that I took
(05:10):
into account their perspectiveand I wanted them to understand
my schedule and their place init, and so I spent more time
than my peers making sure that Ihad people's feedback and that
my plan reflected that, and sothis idea of consensus building
and perspective taking becamepart of how I lead a project.
(05:31):
I was criticized for that.
At times.
I was told don't pay attentionto the drama of your cruise, but
in reality, my night cruisedriving the critical path right
next to the passengers at theairport were the most successful
, so some of it came out oflearning how to navigate my
surroundings from my perspective, but some of it came from
(06:00):
seeing how the best leadersaround me were able to create a
language that other peoplebought into, or were able to
adapt their language tocommunicate in a way that people
understood and were able to say, ah, I know what's going on
here, and to communicate totheir audience well.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah, they got to be able to put their hands on
the handle.
And languages we're not talkinglike Spanish, english, right
we're talking, or French English, it doesn't matter, we're
talking about English, englishand the language that we speak
and that was part of mypresentation.
Right At the different levelsof the organization create holes
for people to misunderstand andthat leads to other things.
(06:35):
But you've had the opportunityof being around amazing leaders
and I think what I heard wasyour style.
Your approach was informed byboth really painful negative
experiences and some actualinspirational, transformational
type leaders that you said OK, Idon't want to do this, I want
(06:55):
to do this, let me go thisdirection Now.
You said five foot half inchsuperintendent.
You said five foot half inchsuperintendent.
Why in the world did you like?
You and I are in theconstruction industry and
there's a litany of careerpathways.
What was it about thesuperintendent role that you
(07:21):
said like you're killing it?
You are setting a standard thatI think every damn
superintendent, aspiringsuperintendent, needs to follow.
But why in the world would youpick it?
Because it is not like it was.
It's probably the next to theforeman, a trade foreman.
It's the least glamorous job onthe job site.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh, I just love, love , talking to the smartest people
out on the job site.
I mean to be able to.
My favorite thing is being ableto hear pieces of information
and bring the people whounderstand it together, to
understand one another and tomake a plan, and I saw that that
(08:03):
was not always easy for peopleto do.
To get people to talk to oneanother, first of all, and two,
to be able to synthesize a planout of all of the problems and
all of the pieces of solutionsthat were out there.
And being able to talk topeople is fine for me.
I never had a problem with it.
(08:24):
But being able to jump in andsee those pieces and how they
could come together and thenconvince other people to listen
to one another, that that's my,that's my jam and I get to do
that right now.
I'm I'm all fancy because I'm inpre-construction and I get to
do that with the owner and thedesign team and that's that's
(08:46):
kind of the special role I'vebuilt for myself is I started in
pre-con and I roll over to thesuperintendent.
I've done that on a number ofprojects now, which is pretty
cool because I get to understandand I get to tell all of my
crews why they're doing whatthey're doing.
But the reason I love being asuperintendent is because I get
to be out there solving theproblems.
I get to be able to look at itand touch it and really
understand what the challenge isfor the people who are doing
(09:09):
the work.
And then I get to hear theirstories and the stories are the
best you know.
Just the passion and theintelligence is I could go
listen to.
I'm married to an engineer.
I get to listen to that kind ofsmart people all the time, but
it's nothing compared to ourskilled trades people and the
amount of just precise knowledge.
I take it as a point of prideto be able to be that connected
(09:33):
to our people out in the field.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, and I love that because, yes, right, especially
plumbers.
Can you guess what trade?
I was?
Ultra philosophical andintellectual.
They're not all as handsome asme, but they're still pretty
philosophical.
Now, I'm not goofing here, butfor real.
For real, there are some superdamn intelligent folks out there
(09:57):
in the field.
But and I'm just going to leadto a question, but I know me
coming up as an apprentice,journeyman, et cetera, I never
was made to feel like that.
And when I and sure, there's alittle tone of victimhood there.
But I would have an idea andpresent it to the superintendent
(10:20):
or the project manager on thejob site or we'd have a real
situation, a real problem.
And what I got back was stopmaking your damn excuses, just
go put your pipe in.
And I'm like man, I'm trying to.
There's a problem coming, likeI see what you're doing, step
one and step two, but step fiveand six is going to be a
disaster If we go down thisroute.
I don't want to hear yourcomplaints, just do what you're
(10:40):
told.
I'll talk to your office.
Just do what you're told, I'lltalk to your office.
And so when did you discoverlike these people really have
tremendous intellect and valueto achieving the ultimate goal.
What was it that helped you seethat?
Because, again, it's ultra rareKB.
If you don't know it, it isultra rare out there in the
(11:01):
industry, I would say evenwithin your organization.
I've been on a lot of y'all'sprojects.
Let's do the L&M family membershout out.
And this one goes to Daryl DeLa Fosse.
He's attended what is now knownas the Self-First Time Mastery
Workshop and Daryl sent this, hesays, awareness of getting work
(11:23):
habit planning into my personallife, the value of breaking
down large personal activitiesthat are dancing in my head into
detailed to-do list tasks on acalendar to commit to, was
invaluable.
No-transcript Everywhere I'vebeen there are some hotspots of
(12:19):
amazing people, but they are theexception.
And so what was it that helpedyou recognize that, and not only
recognize it, but leverage itas one of your superpowers?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Oh man, you're going to make me cry because I've
never thought about this memoryin this kind of way before.
In fact, I was talking to oneof my managers my operations
managers of my region like threedays ago about this because we
have this one person in commonnow retired.
Like three days ago about this,because we have this one person
in common now retired theperson who hired me when I was
(12:51):
an intern working at thePentagon renovation project.
I was working for the owner'srep.
Yeah Killer, first experiencefor the construction world,
because I don't have a history.
My family has not worked inconstruction.
I was an engineering student,okay, Okay, and.
I.
I lucked into a fantasticinternship and I saw one of the
most successful federal designbuild projects happening and it
(13:11):
was my company, hensel Phelps,working at the Pentagon
renovating wedges two throughfive, and I saw the immense
collaboration.
I saw interns talking aboutrats the size of cats running
under interstitial slabs becausethere's a river under that
building.
Anyway, it was amazing.
And I walked up to the largestsuperintendent I could find and
(13:32):
I said I want to be an internwith you next summer and he said
who the hell are you?
And I said well, I'm an internwith the owner's rep over here.
He said well, put your resumeand your transcript on my desk
by the end of the day.
And we ended up in aconversation and I went to a
pretty good school and he saidkids that come from your school
(13:53):
don't make it.
He said you don't have ahistory of construction in your
family and he said I'll behonest with you.
Because you don't respect thecraft, it's because you don't
understand what it takes takes,it's because you're not willing
to listen, it's because youthink you know more.
And I took it more as achallenge.
(14:15):
I didn't take it offensively, Ididn't know anything at the
time and I had no stigma to belike.
Of course I'm gonna askquestions.
Why would I think I know more?
Like I don't know?
I never felt like I had thatbravado.
It set the basis in the way thatyou just posed it was.
I was told at the very firstday that that was my job was to
(14:37):
listen, learn, respect and serveour craft and trade partners.
And yeah, it was done in ademeaning way.
And yeah, now I've been here 18years and things are great.
But the person who hired metold me that that was my first
and utmost responsibility andfrom then on I just loved
(14:58):
listening to the stories andhearing the whole process.
But thank you for putting thatin a more positive light for me.
My mental health I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I think one thing that our L&M family out there
can take from this is sometimesthe most profound and impactful
direction.
Coaching and advice we getcomes in a sour flavor, and
that's okay.
I think of Ed Mauricio.
He was a pipe fitter and I wasa.
(15:30):
I was his apprentice for liketwo and a half years.
When I found out later that itwas kind of a miracle because
people quit on him and they kindof wanted me to quit and I did
it like he was was hard.
But one of the things he told me, like, jesse, all I want from
you is one thing I just need youto be smarter than the pipe.
(15:52):
And I'm like and so whenever Iwas doing dumb stuff, jess, that
pipe smarter than you right now, ah right.
When I would get stuck on smallthings, Jess, that pipe smarter
than you, Ah it.
So it was.
It didn't feel good, but itstuck and it was impactful.
It helped me think about it,Think take multiple options.
(16:13):
There's more than just one wayto skin a cat.
Get some input, ask forfeedback, ask for help.
Like small things wrapped up inthat you're dumber than the
pipe, Jess.
Yeah, it's a good on you forfor taking that as a a challenge
, right, Cause in my head whenyou're explaining I was like, oh
yeah, I would have been like,oh yeah, well, let me show you
(16:34):
ding dong, but also as, okay,that's what I need to do.
Because, yes, here in SanAntonio we did a reflection.
It was funny Cause the company Iused to work for I was on the
project, like I was hidden rightBecause I wasn't installing
anymore and I would support myteams.
But the deal that I had withthe project teams was like I'm
going to come out there and help, but you can't tell the GC I'm
(16:57):
going to be there and you can'ttell them who I am If they ask
you.
I'm just a day laborer becauseI was responsible for assigning
manpower to all of our projectsand so if they knew they had me
on their job, they were going tocome and tackle me and make and
you know, you know what youwould do.
So that was the deal with myteam Don't tell them.
Anyways, it was a successfulproject, high profile project,
(17:19):
but our experience of their leanprogram was not amazing and I
got to see it like, oh, this iswonky.
Anyways, I then went to the darkside, I quit that company and
went to work for the generalcontractor and I'm hearing them
talk about this project and howawesome the lean program was.
I'm like what world are youguys from?
(17:40):
And they're like what do youmean?
I was like bro, I was out there, it was, it sucked Like.
The job was good, decent, I'llsay, but that lean stuff that
y'all were doing, it was a.
It was horrible for us as thetrade contractors.
So, anyways, I said here's whatI suggest, Cause they were very
open-minded.
(18:00):
That project team was like well, man, if it wasn't that good,
we need to know how can we makeit better.
Because it was good for them,it wasn't good for everybody.
So we brought the framers, theMEP and the framing contractor.
We said we're going to have afeedback session with you guys
and we really want to know whatdid we do well, what do we need
to improve on?
(18:21):
So on and so forth.
And we got some goodinformation.
But the one thing that stood outthe most is this is tied to
what your that firstsuperintendent fed you.
One of the guys said it's the,it's the young.
He didn't use this language,but he said it's the younglings.
He said the biggest problemthat we have out here is you
(18:42):
have these kids that arepretending like they know
everything.
They don't listen, they don'task questions and we know they
don't know.
So what we do is complymaliciously.
We say, okay, you want to dosomething stupid and you're not
going to listen to us, we'regoing to do it.
(19:03):
And so it was.
That was the biggest rub aboutall the things.
And so and I was like, okay,well, how do we handle that?
And again one of the tradeleaders was like man, all they
got to do is ask us.
We're trying to, we want toteach them, we want to help them
, but for whatever reason, theseand I'll say zero to three
(19:25):
years out of university right,that was generally the situation
they are not asking questionsand they are not listening.
All they need to do is we willteach them, we will share, we
will be open.
But when they come at us likethey know what the hell they're
doing, they don't listen, theydon't understand the work, they
don't appreciate the work, andwe know it.
It's a bad situation.
(19:46):
So it's not just you.
I think it's a natural thingand I really feel and this is me
, I have no idea, it's just abig assumption, maybe pretending
(20:06):
overcompensating for what theydon't know?
is them overcompensating fortheir insecurities, and all they
got to do is say I don't know.
Can you teach me, Can you showme?
Can you explain this to me?
I mean, so maybe that's the how.
How do the trades respond toyou?
Or maybe, if we do like apercentage wise, when you, early
in your career, when you askedthem about their work, what was
the percentage that said grab achair.
(20:29):
Let me tell you versus.
I don't have time for you, getout of my face.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
The only person that ever said get out of my face was
with my own company.
Seriously, I never encounteredthat.
It was always like, oh, I needto get back to work, can you get
back to work?
I don't want to ask you to getback to work because I want you
to answer my question in thefuture, but I'm pretty sure
we're both going to get introuble if we don't get back to
(20:56):
work.
I was always met with more thanI asked for in information.
It was asked for in information.
It was, I mean, so helpful.
But to your point about theyoungins and how your trade
partners gave you that feedback,when the onus is on job site
leadership and it's not just toteach the younger employees
(21:18):
about what they can or should doin order to learn because the
pressure they're feeling is alsofrom their own team about how
they need to perform and whatthey're trying to prove and what
they're being asked to do thatmight be beyond their skill set
or where they do and don't knowthey have autonomy or not what
performance looks like.
But it's also like telling ourtrade partners I tell straight
(21:40):
up on this project, I want youto bring apprentices.
I want this to be a projectwhere you want to bring them to
learn, and I end up with morewomen, I end up with more
underutilized zip codes, justpeople who are like, oh, this
superintendent's okay with ustraining people here.
(22:00):
Please let's make that a placewhere this is of value.
And I expect you to answer thequestions of my brand new field
engineers, because they're brandnew.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, yeah, oh, my God, okay, you just opened up a
can of worms.
So there's two things that arekicking around in my head.
One is friction from your peers, the other is KPIs.
So I'm going to code down theKPI idea and then we'll circle
(22:31):
back to friction from your peers, because I think it'll be
valuable for folks that areearly in their career in any
industry, because one, you'reliving proof that if you stay
the path, you can have amazingimpact and influence.
And also, like the practical,how do you deal with it and
overcome it?
But here's what's ringing in myhead and it's something that
(22:52):
just I'm jealous because, likeyou know, I get to meet amazing
leaders now, more amazingleaders now, and, like son of a
gun, like for real KB, if thisconsulting thing don't work out
and my feet picture only fanpage don't work out, I'm going
to come be a laborer on yourproject.
I would love to just work andexperience the leadership you're
(23:13):
talking about.
Now back to KPIs.
I understand schedule, budget,safety, quality, right, that's
kindergarten, if you ask me,those are kindergarten metrics.
You're going to have themwhether you want to or not,
right?
It's just going to tell youwhere you're on target or not,
but what I heard you say isbring your apprentices and
(23:34):
they're saying, hey, this is aplace where we can learn and
develop people.
So the KPI that I'm curiousabout is do you have a sense of
how many careers you haveimpacted with the approach that
you have taken?
And I'm not just talking aboutdirect employees, and direct
reports are a learningenvironment to develop the
(24:02):
skills of the men and women inour workforce.
Am I overreaching here.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I mean, that's what I hope for.
But I know that the leadershipof those trade partners I know
the people on those crews havegiven me feedback in ways that
their experience on my projectshas been unlike on others, that
it's given them an insight towhat the industry could be.
(24:30):
It's given them insight intohow they could run their crews,
like permission to how theycould run their crews in other
spaces.
The kpis any kind ofmeasurement metrics is people
who are coming to your job siteonce Like the waterproofer for
three days, the third partyinspector who's subbing in for
somebody else.
It is well what's going on here.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
This is weird.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Something different and you're like what do you mean
?
What's different?
This is just how I run myproject and the third party
inspectors people are talking toeach other.
I'm like because we have aconcrete placement.
Yeah, yeah, they're talking toeach other and I learn his son
has been the third partyinspector for the last six
(25:15):
months and he said my son hatedhis job and now he talks about
his job like he likes it.
Yeah, like that, when the pile,you know, rig foreman is saying
he went home and decided thathis kindergarten son's class
needed cow bones buried in theyard for an archaeology project
(25:39):
over the weekend, when, insteadof saying my kids will never be
in this, you're doing that.
Like that's what I can do witha job site.
Yes, and anybody can.
You can do that as an officeengineer, project engineer,
calling the structural engineer,saying instead of you got to
change that on the submittal,could you explain why you didn't
(26:02):
do that on the submittal?
Remember, I'm married to astructural engineer.
I hear these stories all thetime.
I say you have to call yourstructural engineer and say
please and thank you, please, soI don't get in trouble.
Yeah, it's easy, it's that easy.
It's literally sharing yourthought process and offering the
resources you have, which canbe like a green checkmark on a
(26:25):
symbol, but that's how youchange people's lives.
You ask how they are and thenyou find out four months later
that you made that weeksomething completely different
for them and they stayed in asan electrician because of you
asking if they're okay.
Yes, yes, not just as anelectrician In many asking if
they're okay, yes, yes, not justas an electrician.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
In many cases on this earth, because they are
nameless, they are voiceless.
Because there's an industry, wetreat them that way and when I
say them, I'm talking about ourtrade, craft professionals and
super intent.
Like the whole industry we arewe largely we have developed
this way of interacting with thehuman beings as if they're
(27:06):
disposable and we can't do thatanymore.
I'm excited.
This is bad and the quickeningexodus of boomers is creating
the perfect conditions forcompanies, decision makers, to
(27:29):
have to do it differently, tohave to do it and, to be clear,
to have to do it like you'redoing it, kbree.
I don't know if you know this,I bet you do.
I know your office does you do,I know your office does.
Is the trades, when they're ona project like yours, you get?
Not only do you get preferredpricing, you get preferred
(27:50):
performance.
I know that for a fact becauseyou're not getting the dummy tax
.
Do you know what I'm talkingabout when I say the dummy tax?
I've been on the side of thetrade where we say, hey, man, we
want to go aggressive afterthis project, we want to put a
0.80 multiplier on the labor.
What do you think, jess, it's atenant, finish out.
I'm like, okay, well, it'salready up, that sounds good.
(28:12):
Who's the GAC?
And they would say these peopleare these.
I said, ah, who's the PM andthe superintendent?
And depending on what name Iheard, I said oh no, no, you
need to mark that that needs tobe a 30% markup on labor because
it's going to cost us everypenny to make money because they
don't know.
First, they treat peoplehorrible but they don't know how
(28:33):
to run a damn job.
Or if I got like a cabri of me,I do 0.75 because we're going
to make money and we're going tobe able to develop our people.
Do 0.75 because we're going tomake money and we're going to be
able to develop our people.
So back to the cape and sofolks out there.
If you think this, like being ahuman and appreciating other
humans on your job site, is weaksauce, there's real money tied
to just being a damn human, likefor real.
(28:56):
And if you don't, it's thedummy tax.
Ask your trades, they'll tellyou, or maybe they won't.
If you're not telling you, it'sbecause you're the dummies.
There's a little secret there.
Now back to the KPIs Again, andI get a lot of sidewinder laser
looks when I say budgetschedule, quality and safety are
kindergarten metrics.
Oh, you finished on time.
(29:16):
You did your job.
Yeah Right, you fulfilled yourlegal obligation in the contract
Like for real.
We're celebrating that.
How many divorces happened onyour project?
How many people are strugglingwith substance abuse?
How many people are on theverge of a nervous breakdown?
How many people got promotionson your job?
(29:38):
How many people grew?
And so?
Those are the KPIs that wedon't pay attention to.
And you have the testimonialsright.
That's amazing.
I don't think it would be verydifficult to say to track
promotions.
How many people got promoted onthe projects that you're on?
(29:59):
How many people built a newskillset or got a raise?
Those are real metrics thatspeak to the culture and the
environment that you aredesigning and maintaining.
And how long have you beendoing it?
2015, 20 years, massive impact,massive impact.
(30:20):
But we don't measure thosethings, so I bet the number is
probably 10x.
What you would guess, kb.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I hope so.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Can you kind of carry ?
Speaker 2 (30:35):
on with this stuff.
It's great.
No, you're right.
I mean, that's how we should bethinking of our people.
I'm passionate about theindustry's mental health and our
personal being.
I'd love to champion the topicsof suicide awareness and
psychological safety, but thereality is that we have people
coming to our job sites everyday that are whole people and
(30:57):
all of the KPIs that youreference and really their,
their life wellness needs to beaccounted for.
Yes, and I do think.
I do think that the industry isin need of a shift, but also
that there's more and moreconversation finding you online.
It's a whole community ofpeople who are talking about how
(31:21):
to treat people right.
It's like my favorite part ofLinkedIn is like people like
don't go to LinkedIn, that'sonly people trying to recruit
other people.
I'm like, but no, there's thiswhole community of construction.
People go like love people inconstruction, Explain it, and
they're like what are youtalking about?
I'm like like superintending2.0.
(31:42):
Like I don't know how toexplain it, but I can send
people for you, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
You know?
Oh no, you're right.
It's turned into a prettyinteresting, weird but amazing
thing and I'm here for it Untilthey kick me out.
I'm going to be a part of it.
Now I'm going to go at thepsychological safety, but first
I already got left peoplehanging with the friction from
your peers thing.
You are a change agent, youknow this.
(32:15):
I don't know if you know it,I'm telling you, but I think you
know it.
You're a change agent, You're acatalyst for change, You're an
influencer, but that does nothappen without friction.
And so I'm curious for theyoung L&M family member out
there, even the experienced L&Mfamily member that has been
(32:35):
apprehensive about affectingchange because of the friction
what do they absolutely need toexpect and what are some tips to
working through the friction?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Sure, I think that the methods that I like to think
I represent, the relationshipbuilding, the how to treat
people, the thinking about howyou can use your resources to
support other people.
I think that anybody canpersonally recognize their
ability to do that within theirsphere of influence.
(33:13):
And what you can recognize isthat it will make a difference
from where you're at.
It will make a difference as aPE.
It will make a difference fromwhere you're at.
It will make a difference.
As a PE, it will make adifference.
As an assistant superintendent,as a foreman, as a journeyman,
as an apprentice, treating thepeople around you better, it
(33:34):
will make a difference and thatwill spread throughout a job
site.
Anybody can create that kind ofenvironmental change, that
feeling of oh, that person isn'tjust treating somebody like
crap because their area is clean, they're actually supporting by
handing a broom.
That change is a dynamic andanybody can be that catalyst for
(33:58):
change.
And so one recognize that thisdoesn't need to be a grand
experiment.
It can be you acting within therealm of your own resources.
So that's one.
Two, because I'm in like I'mhigh leadership now right, like
it's a very different animal nowthat I can talk about it in a
way that I actually can back itup with a change order or
(34:20):
contract terms or whatever.
I can change the job site hours, I can talk to the port of
Seattle or whatever.
It has not always been likethat, but I can still work
towards the same outcomes ofrelationship building.
But to get pushback that yourstyle doesn't match other
people's, yeah, that can come upin a performance evaluation.
(34:43):
That can come up in a.
Well, I think you're wastingyour time, or that looks like
you're too much dramaticinformation with me, which, of
course, goes into stereotypesabout gender.
I'm not a social person.
I'm not sitting there chattingall day Believe me, I'm not, but
yet you're comparing me to that.
You know there's that risk.
And so, of course, as you know,a woman in the industry, I
(35:06):
always need to walk the lineabout whether I'm being compared
to being dramatic or overlyanything.
And so there's the constantmanagement of how are you doing
your job, are you workingtowards the outcomes that are
expected of your position?
And even if I'm disrupting, Iam working towards the
(35:29):
operational outcomes that notonly my company is expecting.
I'm trying to improve onunderstanding and delivering on
what my audience, what my tradepartners, what my design team
members are trying to achieveand maybe that's the thing that
gets misconstrued so often isthat people think that you might
(35:50):
be working in a differentdirection than the project
because they see a differentmethod.
But to explain that, no, I'mliterally trying to make our
teammates successful and toconvince people that that's not
anti our own success.
Rising tide raises all ships.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
It is not detracting from our success.
To make everybody successful,Literally when my concrete trade
partner starts coordinating thedelivery by themselves with the
plumbing contractor is africking win for everybody.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
I don't need that extra call at 4.30 in the
morning.
A text saying it's done is justfine.
So expect that things can bemisunderstood.
But start to develop a languageto be able to explain to people
what your goals are, becauseyou're not going to just need it
to the people who aremisunderstanding around you, who
have influence on your career,but you really need to be ready
(36:49):
to explain it to the people youare trying to impact, Because
you need to be able to say outloud we are trying to achieve.
I'm doing this differentlybecause I want to achieve and
you need that feedback.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, oh, I love it.
I love like two key pointsfolks out there in the omniverse
is you can affect changedirectly where you're at right
now.
You don't need to have thetitle, you don't need to have
the authority.
You can just smile withsomebody else that is affecting
(37:23):
change.
Right, like we can absolutelydo that, right, simple.
Now.
The other part is, even with allthe influence, like you're the
baller superintendent and youstill have friction right like
it's, you gotta expect thefriction, and for me, this was
(37:44):
my challenge or long, long timeago I got over it a long time
ago.
But I expect the friction.
And for me, this was mychallenge a long, long time ago.
I got over it a long time ago.
But I thought the friction wasbecause I was defective.
I thought it was because theydidn't like me.
It's not that People just don'tlike change.
I represented change.
So they were resistant to that.
(38:05):
And once I came to terms withthat, like, ah, I just need to
figure out how to speak yourlanguage and listen, because
maybe I'm a little bit off froma few degrees off, but if I
listen, you're going to get mein alignment, we start speaking
the same language and we canmake something happen, but it
doesn't happen overnight.
And the reason I'm banging onthis is because I know a lot of
people that want to see changeand they think that they need to
(38:27):
talk to the CEO, and then theCEO is going to listen and go
make the change.
Man, I've never been able to dothat.
So if you can do that, go do it.
But when I make change, Ichange my behavior.
I impact and influence thepeople closest to me, make their
situation better, develop abody of work.
(38:48):
It becomes easier for me tostart changing upward instead of
horizontally, but the frictionnever goes away.
So, anyways, what do you think,kb?
Do I just make it too difficult?
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, I mean the example that I gave of the
concrete trade partner talkingto the plumber, real example.
But let me be clear that wasnine months of me working with
that concrete trade partner totrust the different process, and
I don't blame that crew.
(39:21):
They had been beat down by GCsfor freaking years on high rises
, right, and I bring them to mylittle project and they're like
who's this lady?
And I'm like you have to talkto my staff.
I want you to make sure thatyou're training people.
They're like no, we're like ahighly refined team we can do
repeat, we're great at all ofour post tensions.
(39:41):
We are refined.
I'm like I'm so glad you'rehere and also I want you now to
do more, since you're so greatat that.
And it took nine months to gaintheir trust, and when I say nine
months to gain their trust, Imean every single day.
There was some form of theconversation of I am here to
support you.
My field engineer is doingaspects of your reinforcing, to
(40:03):
talk to the engineer for you.
Now, were there some backsides?
Was there me like reallygetting angry about them pulling
a 40 foot trailer onto the jobsite without telling me?
Sure, there were a couple oflittle hiccups in the road, but
after all of that time they leftthat job site and I could call
(40:24):
that superintendent for anything, and we are.
He changed how he coached hisown crews.
The people on his crews whowere unwilling to make eye
contact with the g, with mystaff, are now training teams of
apprentices.
And, like when I did some 360reviews a few months ago I know
(40:47):
it was he that wrote in here hesaid when I visited the job site
before the project started, shewrote down every word I said to
make a plan.
I'm like that's all it takes,folks grabbing a book.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It sounds dumb Like yeah, just take notes.
No, when you take notes,specifically GC to trade partner
or I don't really like the wordtrade partner.
Gabriel, I have issues withthat?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Oh good, Tell me why.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Because when we're partners, there's shared risk
and shared reward.
There is not a.
The power dynamic is absent.
Okay, I understand thephilosophy and I would even go
as far as to say you probablytreat people like partners on
site.
Now, as a subcontractor, when Isubmit an invoice, I submit an
(41:42):
invoice.
It's 45, 60, 90, 180 days tillI get paid and retainage is
being withheld.
How is that?
Like you, I don't want partnersthat treat me that way.
So call me a part, call mewhatever you want, but if you're
not going to treat me like apartner, don't call me a partner
(42:02):
.
And also, there's the kind ofthe technical element of it in
IPD.
That's where the term comesfrom and they are actually
partners because they'resignatures on the contract of
shared reward and shared riskcontractually on the ultimate
performance of the project, theproject.
(42:28):
So for in my head, I get thesentiment, but people use it and
fail to technically deliver onwhat a partnership would look
like A and B, they just use.
It's just another damn word.
I'm better off calling me dumbass because that's how you're
treating me.
What do you think Is that?
Am I too sensitive?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
No, I mean, it's based on your experience with it
.
Right, you have both the idealsituation with IPD and issue
partnerships.
You have the negativeexperience of payment.
I could go on and on about howI'm four months behind here with
my partner of an owner, exactly, but I understand.
All I can say is that when Isay it, it's because I want you
(43:08):
to believe it.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
And I have to.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I need to live up to that in every conversation,
otherwise, otherwise I do thesame detrimental, the same
disservice to the term and it'suseless If.
I use it wrong, then it's doingmore harm than good.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yes, and I'm also going to add that you don't have
to.
I understand the whole paymentand financing.
I get that whatever that's,it's not that hard.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
We don't need to argue about payments.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Right, just freaking, treat me like a human being and
then you can call me.
Treat partner for real, be nice, be cool, and then you can call
me whatever you want.
But if you're going to be thetypical BS, just call me dumbass
.
Don't waste your time callingme partner, that's, that's all
I'm saying.
Now, two things you said againfor for our construction
(43:59):
professionals out there, thatagain speak to the level of
empathy that you have.
Speak to the level of empathythat you have.
One nine months took you ninemonths to get the concrete guy
over the hill right To kind offinally lock, get that puzzle
piece to lock in.
I'm going to say that's kind offast, like for real, for real,
(44:22):
real change in terms ofrelationships and behaviors and
trust.
Nine months, like nice, becauseit takes an enormous amount of
time.
It takes an enormous number ofreps and this ties to the second
part of a point that I want tomake to heal and mend the wounds
(44:44):
that our craft workers bring toyour job site.
And so what do I mean by that?
You already said it, you arethe exception.
You didn't say that, I'm sayingit.
The majority of generalcontractors out there treat the
trades like garbage.
Treat the trades like garbageperiod, disrespectful.
(45:07):
It is horrible.
They have no interest inwhether we're making money or
not.
They don't understand thatwe're the solution or that we
can be the solution to theirproblem.
But they treat us like theproblem all the time, every time
.
And so all of a sudden, ifthat's how I'm getting treated
everywhere I go, and then I cometo your job Guess what?
You're just another one of them.
(45:28):
You could say all the nicewords and have all the sticky
notes on the wall and fancy assfreaking apps.
If I've never experienced areciprocal, respectful
interaction with the GC before,this is alien.
This is all just a cover upbefore.
(45:49):
This is alien.
This is all just a coverup, andit's going to take me a lot of
time to get comfortable notcomfortable, but to build trust
that you are going to treat medifferently, like for real, for
real.
And so your ability to accountfor the fact that they're out
there getting abused anddemoralized project after
project after project and thatis a natural thing that you're
(46:09):
going to be overcoming istremendous, and I think it's the
same thing for everybody else.
Like why do they behave?
Why do we trades behave thatway?
It's because your peers havecreated the conditions for us to
behave that way.
That's what it is Now.
You brought it up and I thinkyou're.
I'm going to say you are anexpert in this area and I know
(46:31):
you.
Pinky promised me that youwould tell everybody, give
everybody the perfect formulaand recipe to make it happen.
Great.
So you remember, right.
You remember how do you dopsychological safety and team
culture.
I know there's like athree-step formula that makes it
(46:53):
happen 100% all the time, everytime, in less than six weeks.
What was it?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
that process.
Oh man, psychological safety.
Okay, let's, let's define thatquick Psychological safety.
It was coined by Amy Edmondson.
We talk about it more in theindustry now than we used to,
but really it's kind of anunderstanding of how team
dynamics work.
If you look it up, you'll getgreat studies about how it
improves team performance.
(47:29):
Team communication it helpswith how people feel about the
work that they do.
Really, it's about peoplefeeling comfortable enough to
share what they need, ask forwhat they need, share ideas and
to express their mistakes aspart of a team.
Now, usually people think it'sall about how people feel.
(47:53):
Right, it's about emotions, andso often it falls into the
realm of well, we need to trainpeople on how to do soft skills
in the industry, and it fallsinto, like, leadership training.
That's one component of it.
But what's missed is that, withall of these outcomes that have
been studied Google's ProjectAristotle, all of the statistics
(48:15):
you can find for the increasein retention, the decrease in
physical safety incidences, etcetera it's actually all about
performance, et cetera.
It's actually all aboutperformance.
And so when I thinkpsychological safety, I think
(48:36):
about how we can embed thetreatment and the experience of
people into our everydayoperations and systems that have
all been created to achievethose industry KPIs you
mentioned.
And so how do we achieve safety, productivity, quality?
We achieve them with thegazillions of fricking systems
we already have.
We're not trying to add on tothose.
(48:57):
We're trying to do them in away that encourages people's
participation.
When a new worker shows up atyour job site, how do they know
that?
They can say I've actuallynever put out a harness before,
so when you just assigned me toclimb that scaffold, can you
train me on that harness?
It's them feeling like they canask for that.
(49:19):
Okay, and the outcome is is asafer situation and somebody
who's better trained and a wholeteam that has a better learning
capacity to see people doingthat.
Okay, and so it's.
How do we create, within ouroperations and existing systems,
a way for people to better seetheir contributions and to know
(49:43):
and trust that those systemswill work for them?
That's psychological safety.
In my perspective as asuperintendent is you need to
get your people on your projectsto trust that all those systems
you're using are actually goingto work for them and that they
can be proud of the work they'reputting into it because they
see their contributions comingout of it.
(50:03):
When you say, hey, let's sitdown and look at this schedule,
they freaking see their wordsreflected in the schedule.
Right, you can say, hey, thisis where you said that window
wasn't getting delivered on time.
Yeah, and that makes them feellike they can contribute more.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
What it means is that when you have a really tight
set delivery calendar with theuniversity campus that you're in
, along with graduation weekhappening, that your concrete
trade partner can say hey, Iknow I'm not on the calendar,
but I'd really like theopportunity, with the truck
(50:43):
available, to take off some ofthe wall forms.
I know the plumber's theretrying to get his fittings in,
but we've already coordinatedand I'm going to use my forklift
to get his fittings out so thatI can pull off my wall forms.
If that's good for you Done,you've developed people feeling
that they can make thosecontributions.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
And that's it's a level of trust, but it's a trust
in systems, not just in peopleyes, oh my god, we might have to
do it.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Part five and part six of this conversation, okay,
the I love.
I love that it's the trust insystems, like a hundred percent.
It's people, right, systemsdon't matter if you don't have
people.
But for some of us that aremore data-oriented which is my
nice way of saying, scared to bevulnerable that are more
(51:39):
data-oriented, a deeperconversation.
A deeper conversation, or yoursecond book after you write the
how to Establish PerfectPsychological Safety in Six
Wolves, the idea arounddesigning the systems to drive
performance with psychologicalsafety.
That's what I heard you say.
I agree 100% because it is asystem.
(52:01):
What are the feedback loops?
Are we listening?
Are we asking?
Are we responding?
That's a system, but we couldget super technical with it and
I'm going to have to leave italone because I'm just going to
nerd out and monopolize all ofyour time.
Ms K and I got to ask thisquestion because I saw these
letters and I figured like itwas a tattoo that only the super
(52:27):
ultra cool people get.
I saw these letters and Ifigured like it was.
It was a tattoo that only thesuper ultra cool people get.
I saw these letters.
It's FAAF and since you'reworking on aviation projects.
I figured there's the FAA, butyou get the F and you get a
super secret tattoo becauseyou've been on these projects.
Am I overreaching on that onetoo?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
So there are a lot of unique acronyms to aviation
projects.
Faaf is not associated with theFederal Aviation Administration
, though I did have a meetingabout a crane and some
requirements we have thismorning.
Faaf refers to the FearlesslyAuthentic Award Recognition that
(53:10):
I was recently involved in, andso that was a super awesome
process.
To be not acknowledgednecessarily personally, but this
award recognition was aboutauthentic leadership across
industries, and I got to be ableto represent our industry on a
(53:32):
stage of general business,healthcare, insurance, people
who are usually where the bookspoint to for how to run
businesses and the summary and Ididn't take this as a negative.
One of the audience memberssaid if the construction
industry can figure out how tolead people with humanity,
(53:53):
anybody can, because we were theexample of success and I was so
proud to be able to showcasepeople who don't know the work
we do, and I was able to givethem a window into things they
didn't know that their familymembers had done, into what was
going on across the street at ajob site, and they were hard.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Yeah, yeah, that's okay, but did you get a tattoo,
an FAAF tattoo?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
No, I didn't.
I didn't.
I need to, I should.
I need to get number 25.
So that's not going to be it.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Number 25.
Damn, all right, so FearlesslyAuthentic AF, which I'm going to
say, yes, right, like you'reamazing, since we first
connected, we did connect onLinkedIn.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm a snob,if you didn't know that I'll
see people post stuff right,like culture, and I'm like, yeah
(54:52):
, let's see how long this onelasts.
And I'm like, oh, she's stillthere.
Oh, like she's for real.
Oh, I need to know her.
And like folks, if you don'tknow, that's what I do.
When I see post stuff aboutteamwork and people, I'm
watching you because there's toomany damn pretenders out there.
That's not to say that I don'tunderstand what people piss you
(55:14):
off, because that's part of it,but sometimes it's just out of
popularity.
But it was clear to me that yougive a damn about people.
And one of the observations Igot to make in my career started
off on the trade side of thebusiness.
I was a trade partner.
I was there for over 20 years.
I went to work for a GC forthree and a half years, got to
serve the century United States.
(55:35):
Then I went.
I had some nationalresponsibility where I got to go
to projects all over thecountry.
The one thing that I got to seeis the number of amazing
projects was this big.
I started my career in 1995.
In the 1900s Don't tell me whenyou were born, kb, please don't
(55:58):
For you the.
The number of projects that Iworked on that I felt valuable
is probably 10.
And I've been on chingos, lotsof them.
(56:18):
And then when I got startedtraveling the country, I got to
see man, the projects that kickbutt, like the client's happy,
the trades they're talkingeverybody's like, getting along
and joking, high perform peopleare getting promoted and like
all of that, they had all hadone thing in common and you have
(56:40):
it they were focused on people.
They appreciated the humanexperience.
Did they put up with a bunch ofcrap?
No.
Did they lollygag around andenable whining and complaining?
No, but they valued people andthey created conditions for
people to thrive and so duh, ofcourse you're a fearlessly
(57:03):
authentic AF.
And that's the other element isyou're doing it your way against
the grain.
Because it is against the grainMaybe not anymore so much in
Hensel Phelps, but I'm sure whenyou started it it was.
Why are you doing it like that?
You don't need to put up withthat.
And then, industry-wide it isagainst the grain.
And also, if we can do it,anybody can do it, and you're
(57:28):
doing it, and there's a bunch ofother folks out there that
really need to just freaking.
Get on board, figure it out,get over yourself, treat people
like humans and you'll have abetter time at work.
Come on and make more money,like for real, for real.
So I know people are going tofall in love with you.
So I don't know if we should orshouldn't, but if you're up for
(57:48):
it, where should we send themif they want to connect with you
?
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, you can look me up on LinkedIn.
I'm open.
Anybody wants to connect?
Please don't be shy aboutreaching out.
I love talking about teaching.
I've had some greatopportunities working at
universities but reallyconnecting with younger students
, telling them about theindustry talking to anybody who
wants to talk about instructionrelated, please just shoot me a
note.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Boom.
So we'll make sure we get thatlink in the show notes.
Are you ready for the grandfinale question Ready?
Okay, I'm expecting, or I'mresponse because and you've been
(58:33):
very gracious and elegant aboutprobably some of the stinky
stuff that you've had toovercome, some bullshit, and you
still maintain a positiveoutlook, investing in everybody
around you, beyond yourresponsibility, within your
organization, within theindustry at large, and so that
(58:56):
gets me excited about what youmight say to this question what
is the promise you are intendedto be?
Speaker 2 (59:05):
I want to be the fridge between how field
operations creates powerfulconnections at the job-sided
level that serves the wellnessand operational goals of
organizations.
There needs to be a champion oflike field leadership culture.
(59:28):
I know culture is an overusedword, but it's somebody who can
understand the link betweensystems and people, Somebody who
can provide that oversight,Somebody who can just champion
that messaging and make surethat people are looking at those
right KPIs.
I'm too proud of my convictionto the job site to just let that
go.
It's going to give me a meetingand just be a general
(59:52):
superintendent and be toocareful to bring a job site.
I want to be that translator.
I want to keep influencing theindustry through job site
leadership law, even if it'slike these massive aviation
projects.
It just gives me the ability totouch your people.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
I got chills.
I got chills.
They're multiplied.
You're amazing, Kate.
Has anybody ever told you thatyou're amazing?
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Oh, well, you have.
So, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Well, thank you.
Thank you for sticking it outall the way to the end.
I know you got a whole lot ofstuff going on and, in
appreciation for the gift oftime that you have given this
episode, I want to offer you afree PDF of my book Becoming the
Promise You're Intended to Be.
The link for that bad boy isdown in the show notes.
Hit it.
You don't even have to give meyour email address.
(01:00:45):
There's a link.
Hit it.
You don't even have to give meyour email address.
There's a link in there.
You just click that and you candownload the PDF.
And if you share it withsomebody that you know who might
feel stuck or be caught up inself-destructive behaviors, that
would be the ultimate.
You sharing.
That increases the likelihoodthat it's going to help one more
person.
(01:01:06):
And if it does help one moreperson, then you're contributing
to me becoming the promise I amintended to be.
Be kind to yourself, be cool,and we'll talk at you next time.
figure it out, get over yourself, treat people like
humans and you'll have a bettertime at work.
What is going on?
L&m family?
Back at it again, and this timeI got like an ultra, ultra high
status construction celebrityon here, ms Cabry Lerman Schmidt
(00:23):
.
She is a national constructioninfluencer, but not just an
influencer because she postscool stuff, but she is actually
a project superintendent forHansel Phelps and she seems to
have fun spending her time onlike ultra, super complex
aviation projects.
(00:43):
If you've ever done any work onan airport, if you've ever been
to an airport, you know we'redifficult.
She's managing work massive,massive volumes of work on these
projects with massive numbersof people.
She's been in the field for 18years and she's built a career
by redefining what leadershiplooks like and that's my honest
(01:09):
observation the way she rolls.
I've actually shared the stagewith her maybe a couple times.
Now I know one time for sure.
She's the real deal and we'regoing to kind of dive into some
of the goodness that she does.
But first, if this is yourfirst time here, this is the
Learnings and Missteps podcast,where you get to see amazing
(01:32):
human beings just like yousharing their gifts and talents
to leave this world better thanthey found it.
I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and we about to get to know
Miss KB Lerman Schmidt.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
KB.
How are you doing?
Oh, I'm so excited to be here.
Your energy just makes me likeglow and tingle.
This passion for this industryand the people around us.
Let's do this.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Oh, I think, tingly, sparkly, that's exactly how I
feel.
I mean, you and I we've beenworking to make this happen and
we're finally here.
And this time I feel like Ihave an advantage, because the
last time we were on stagetogether was the webinar with
NCCER, and you went first, orrather you went before me.
I'm like, oh my God, this isgoing to be difficult because
(02:19):
you're a baller, and so thistime I have the upper hand
because I get to ask all thequestions.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
And I have no idea what you're going to ask.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
So let's do this I know, so we'll start with a
super easy one what does jobsite leadership look like?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Oh man, I love that.
So I am.
You mentioned, I'm asuperintendent.
I work for a large generalcontractor, always have so large
commercial, large aviationprojects.
I take the role of leadershipreally seriously.
I'm in the privileged positionto be responsible for the entire
job site.
Right, we set the tone.
We are the role models.
What my team does is set thestandard for how people are
(03:01):
taken care of, what theexpectations are for behavior,
how we can facilitate the use ofresources on a job site.
We are bringing language toevery interaction.
That sets all of those tones.
We are saying this is how weexpect people to talk to one
another.
How can we support you?
(03:21):
And you said you're selflessservant earlier.
That is how I see job siteleadership.
We are clearing out thebarriers.
We are setting the plan.
That is only as good as theinformation people are giving to
us, and so, gosh.
We better create an environmentwhere people are interested and
(03:42):
empowered to give honestinformation and it's information
that makes them feel successfuland that they're contributing
in a meaningful way.
And that's a big ask, becauseyou have to create a place where
people want to be.
You have to create a placewhere people feel like they can
utilize the skills that makethem so proud of the work that
(04:06):
they're doing, because that'swhat drives our industry.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yes, oh, my goodness.
Now would I be wrong in sayingwell, of course this is your
mindset, because everyconstruction leader you've ever
worked with has that samemindset you've ever worked with
has that same mindset.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
No, no, that has not always been my experience.
I don't remember how you wordedthat, but I get what you're
getting at.
I haven't always experiencedthat.
It was something that I think Icame to, born out of a few
different personal and externalexperiences.
I'll be honest, some of themwere driven by negative personal
(04:49):
experiences, some out of theanxiety and the experience of
being a five foot half inchsuperintendent in the industry.
I was very driven by getting alot of consensus built around my
plans because I didn't want itshot to hell when I brought it
up.
I wanted people to believe inthe plan and to know that I took
(05:10):
into account their perspectiveand I wanted them to understand
my schedule and their place init, and so I spent more time
than my peers making sure that Ihad people's feedback and that
my plan reflected that, and sothis idea of consensus building
and perspective taking becamepart of how I lead a project.
(05:31):
I was criticized for that.
At times.
I was told don't pay attentionto the drama of your cruise, but
in reality, my night cruisedriving the critical path right
next to the passengers at theairport were the most successful
, so some of it came out oflearning how to navigate my
surroundings from my perspective, but some of it came from
(06:00):
seeing how the best leadersaround me were able to create a
language that other peoplebought into, or were able to
adapt their language tocommunicate in a way that people
understood and were able to say, ah, I know what's going on
here, and to communicate totheir audience well.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, yeah, they got to be able to put their hands on
the handle.
And languages we're not talkinglike Spanish, english, right
we're talking, or French English, it doesn't matter, we're
talking about English, englishand the language that we speak
and that was part of mypresentation.
Right At the different levelsof the organization create holes
for people to misunderstand andthat leads to other things.
(06:35):
But you've had the opportunityof being around amazing leaders
and I think what I heard wasyour style.
Your approach was informed byboth really painful negative
experiences and some actualinspirational, transformational
type leaders that you said OK, Idon't want to do this, I want
(06:55):
to do this, let me go thisdirection Now.
You said five foot half inchsuperintendent.
You said five foot half inchsuperintendent.
Why in the world did you like?
You and I are in theconstruction industry and
there's a litany of careerpathways.
What was it about thesuperintendent role that you
(07:21):
said like you're killing it?
You are setting a standard thatI think every damn
superintendent, aspiringsuperintendent, needs to follow.
But why in the world would youpick it?
Because it is not like it was.
It's probably the next to theforeman, a trade foreman.
It's the least glamorous job onthe job site.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Oh, I just love, love , talking to the smartest people
out on the job site.
I mean to be able to.
My favorite thing is being ableto hear pieces of information
and bring the people whounderstand it together, to
understand one another and tomake a plan, and I saw that that
(08:03):
was not always easy for peopleto do.
To get people to talk to oneanother, first of all, and two,
to be able to synthesize a planout of all of the problems and
all of the pieces of solutionsthat were out there.
And being able to talk topeople is fine for me.
I never had a problem with it.
(08:24):
But being able to jump in andsee those pieces and how they
could come together and thenconvince other people to listen
to one another, that that's my,that's my jam and I get to do
that right now.
I'm I'm all fancy because I'm inpre-construction and I get to
do that with the owner and thedesign team and that's that's
(08:46):
kind of the special role I'vebuilt for myself is I started in
pre-con and I roll over to thesuperintendent.
I've done that on a number ofprojects now, which is pretty
cool because I get to understandand I get to tell all of my
crews why they're doing whatthey're doing.
But the reason I love being asuperintendent is because I get
to be out there solving theproblems.
I get to be able to look at itand touch it and really
understand what the challenge isfor the people who are doing
(09:09):
the work.
And then I get to hear theirstories and the stories are the
best you know.
Just the passion and theintelligence is I could go
listen to.
I'm married to an engineer.
I get to listen to that kind ofsmart people all the time, but
it's nothing compared to ourskilled trades people and the
amount of just precise knowledge.
I take it as a point of prideto be able to be that connected
(09:33):
to our people out in the field.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, and I love that because, yes, right, especially
plumbers.
Can you guess what trade?
I was?
Ultra philosophical andintellectual.
They're not all as handsome asme, but they're still pretty
philosophical.
Now, I'm not goofing here, butfor real.
For real, there are some superdamn intelligent folks out there
(09:57):
in the field.
But and I'm just going to leadto a question, but I know me
coming up as an apprentice,journeyman, et cetera, I never
was made to feel like that.
And when I and sure, there's alittle tone of victimhood there.
But I would have an idea andpresent it to the superintendent
(10:20):
or the project manager on thejob site or we'd have a real
situation, a real problem.
And what I got back was stopmaking your damn excuses, just
go put your pipe in.
And I'm like man, I'm trying to.
There's a problem coming, likeI see what you're doing, step
one and step two, but step fiveand six is going to be a
disaster If we go down thisroute.
I don't want to hear yourcomplaints, just do what you're
(10:40):
told.
I'll talk to your office.
Just do what you're told, I'lltalk to your office.
And so when did you discoverlike these people really have
tremendous intellect and valueto achieving the ultimate goal.
What was it that helped you seethat?
Because, again, it's ultra rareKB.
If you don't know it, it isultra rare out there in the
(11:01):
industry, I would say evenwithin your organization.
I've been on a lot of y'all'sprojects.
Let's do the L&M family membershout out.
And this one goes to Daryl DeLa Fosse.
He's attended what is now knownas the Self-First Time Mastery
Workshop and Daryl sent this, hesays, awareness of getting work
(11:23):
habit planning into my personallife, the value of breaking
down large personal activitiesthat are dancing in my head into
detailed to-do list tasks on acalendar to commit to, was
invaluable.
No-transcript Everywhere I'vebeen there are some hotspots of
(12:19):
amazing people, but they are theexception.
And so what was it that helpedyou recognize that, and not only
recognize it, but leverage itas one of your superpowers?
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Oh man, you're going to make me cry because I've
never thought about this memoryin this kind of way before.
In fact, I was talking to oneof my managers my operations
managers of my region like threedays ago about this because we
have this one person in commonnow retired.
Like three days ago about this,because we have this one person
in common now retired theperson who hired me when I was
(12:51):
an intern working at thePentagon renovation project.
I was working for the owner'srep.
Yeah Killer, first experiencefor the construction world,
because I don't have a history.
My family has not worked inconstruction.
I was an engineering student,okay, Okay, and.
I.
I lucked into a fantasticinternship and I saw one of the
most successful federal designbuild projects happening and it
(13:11):
was my company, hensel Phelps,working at the Pentagon
renovating wedges two throughfive, and I saw the immense
collaboration.
I saw interns talking aboutrats the size of cats running
under interstitial slabs becausethere's a river under that
building.
Anyway, it was amazing.
And I walked up to the largestsuperintendent I could find and
(13:32):
I said I want to be an internwith you next summer and he said
who the hell are you?
And I said well, I'm an internwith the owner's rep over here.
He said well, put your resumeand your transcript on my desk
by the end of the day.
And we ended up in aconversation and I went to a
pretty good school and he saidkids that come from your school
(13:53):
don't make it.
He said you don't have ahistory of construction in your
family and he said I'll behonest with you.
Because you don't respect thecraft, it's because you don't
understand what it takes takes,it's because you're not willing
to listen, it's because youthink you know more.
And I took it more as achallenge.
(14:15):
I didn't take it offensively, Ididn't know anything at the
time and I had no stigma to belike.
Of course I'm gonna askquestions.
Why would I think I know more?
Like I don't know?
I never felt like I had thatbravado.
It set the basis in the way thatyou just posed it was.
I was told at the very firstday that that was my job was to
(14:37):
listen, learn, respect and serveour craft and trade partners.
And yeah, it was done in ademeaning way.
And yeah, now I've been here 18years and things are great.
But the person who hired metold me that that was my first
and utmost responsibility andfrom then on I just loved
(14:58):
listening to the stories andhearing the whole process.
But thank you for putting thatin a more positive light for me.
My mental health I don't know.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
I think one thing that our L&M family out there
can take from this is sometimesthe most profound and impactful
direction.
Coaching and advice we getcomes in a sour flavor, and
that's okay.
I think of Ed Mauricio.
He was a pipe fitter and I wasa.
(15:30):
I was his apprentice for liketwo and a half years.
When I found out later that itwas kind of a miracle because
people quit on him and they kindof wanted me to quit and I did
it like he was was hard.
But one of the things he told me, like, jesse, all I want from
you is one thing I just need youto be smarter than the pipe.
(15:52):
And I'm like and so whenever Iwas doing dumb stuff, jess, that
pipe smarter than you right now, ah right.
When I would get stuck on smallthings, Jess, that pipe smarter
than you, Ah it.
So it was.
It didn't feel good, but itstuck and it was impactful.
It helped me think about it,Think take multiple options.
(16:13):
There's more than just one wayto skin a cat.
Get some input, ask forfeedback, ask for help.
Like small things wrapped up inthat you're dumber than the
pipe, Jess.
Yeah, it's a good on you forfor taking that as a a challenge
, right, Cause in my head whenyou're explaining I was like, oh
yeah, I would have been like,oh yeah, well, let me show you
(16:34):
ding dong, but also as, okay,that's what I need to do.
Because, yes, here in SanAntonio we did a reflection.
It was funny Cause the company Iused to work for I was on the
project, like I was hidden rightBecause I wasn't installing
anymore and I would support myteams.
But the deal that I had withthe project teams was like I'm
going to come out there and help, but you can't tell the GC I'm
(16:57):
going to be there and you can'ttell them who I am If they ask
you.
I'm just a day laborer becauseI was responsible for assigning
manpower to all of our projectsand so if they knew they had me
on their job, they were going tocome and tackle me and make and
you know, you know what youwould do.
So that was the deal with myteam Don't tell them.
Anyways, it was a successfulproject, high profile project,
(17:19):
but our experience of their leanprogram was not amazing and I
got to see it like, oh, this iswonky.
Anyways, I then went to the darkside, I quit that company and
went to work for the generalcontractor and I'm hearing them
talk about this project and howawesome the lean program was.
I'm like what world are youguys from?
(17:40):
And they're like what do youmean?
I was like bro, I was out there, it was, it sucked Like.
The job was good, decent, I'llsay, but that lean stuff that
y'all were doing, it was a.
It was horrible for us as thetrade contractors.
So, anyways, I said here's whatI suggest, Cause they were very
open-minded.
(18:00):
That project team was like well, man, if it wasn't that good,
we need to know how can we makeit better.
Because it was good for them,it wasn't good for everybody.
So we brought the framers, theMEP and the framing contractor.
We said we're going to have afeedback session with you guys
and we really want to know whatdid we do well, what do we need
to improve on?
(18:21):
So on and so forth.
And we got some goodinformation.
But the one thing that stood outthe most is this is tied to
what your that firstsuperintendent fed you.
One of the guys said it's the,it's the young.
He didn't use this language,but he said it's the younglings.
He said the biggest problemthat we have out here is you
(18:42):
have these kids that arepretending like they know
everything.
They don't listen, they don'task questions and we know they
don't know.
So what we do is complymaliciously.
We say, okay, you want to dosomething stupid and you're not
going to listen to us, we'regoing to do it.
(19:03):
And so it was.
That was the biggest rub aboutall the things.
And so and I was like, okay,well, how do we handle that?
And again one of the tradeleaders was like man, all they
got to do is ask us.
We're trying to, we want toteach them, we want to help them
, but for whatever reason, theseand I'll say zero to three
(19:25):
years out of university right,that was generally the situation
they are not asking questionsand they are not listening.
All they need to do is we willteach them, we will share, we
will be open.
But when they come at us likethey know what the hell they're
doing, they don't listen, theydon't understand the work, they
don't appreciate the work, andwe know it.
It's a bad situation.
(19:46):
So it's not just you.
I think it's a natural thingand I really feel and this is me
, I have no idea, it's just abig assumption, maybe pretending
(20:06):
overcompensating for what theydon't know?
is them overcompensating fortheir insecurities, and all they
got to do is say I don't know.
Can you teach me, Can you showme?
Can you explain this to me?
I mean, so maybe that's the how.
How do the trades respond toyou?
Or maybe, if we do like apercentage wise, when you, early
in your career, when you askedthem about their work, what was
the percentage that said grab achair.
(20:29):
Let me tell you versus.
I don't have time for you, getout of my face.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
The only person that ever said get out of my face was
with my own company.
Seriously, I never encounteredthat.
It was always like, oh, I needto get back to work, can you get
back to work?
I don't want to ask you to getback to work because I want you
to answer my question in thefuture, but I'm pretty sure
we're both going to get introuble if we don't get back to
(20:56):
work.
I was always met with more thanI asked for in information.
It was asked for in information.
It was, I mean, so helpful.
But to your point about theyoungins and how your trade
partners gave you that feedback,when the onus is on job site
leadership and it's not just toteach the younger employees
(21:18):
about what they can or should doin order to learn because the
pressure they're feeling is alsofrom their own team about how
they need to perform and whatthey're trying to prove and what
they're being asked to do thatmight be beyond their skill set
or where they do and don't knowthey have autonomy or not what
performance looks like.
But it's also like telling ourtrade partners I tell straight
(21:40):
up on this project, I want youto bring apprentices.
I want this to be a projectwhere you want to bring them to
learn, and I end up with morewomen, I end up with more
underutilized zip codes, justpeople who are like, oh, this
superintendent's okay with ustraining people here.
(22:00):
Please let's make that a placewhere this is of value.
And I expect you to answer thequestions of my brand new field
engineers, because they're brandnew.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Yeah, yeah, oh, my God, okay, you just opened up a
can of worms.
So there's two things that arekicking around in my head.
One is friction from your peers, the other is KPIs.
So I'm going to code down theKPI idea and then we'll circle
(22:31):
back to friction from your peers, because I think it'll be
valuable for folks that areearly in their career in any
industry, because one, you'reliving proof that if you stay
the path, you can have amazingimpact and influence.
And also, like the practical,how do you deal with it and
overcome it?
But here's what's ringing in myhead and it's something that
(22:52):
just I'm jealous because, likeyou know, I get to meet amazing
leaders now, more amazingleaders now, and, like son of a
gun, like for real KB, if thisconsulting thing don't work out
and my feet picture only fanpage don't work out, I'm going
to come be a laborer on yourproject.
I would love to just work andexperience the leadership you're
(23:13):
talking about.
Now back to KPIs.
I understand schedule, budget,safety, quality, right, that's
kindergarten, if you ask me,those are kindergarten metrics.
You're going to have themwhether you want to or not,
right?
It's just going to tell youwhere you're on target or not,
but what I heard you say isbring your apprentices and
(23:34):
they're saying, hey, this is aplace where we can learn and
develop people.
So the KPI that I'm curiousabout is do you have a sense of
how many careers you haveimpacted with the approach that
you have taken?
And I'm not just talking aboutdirect employees, and direct
reports are a learningenvironment to develop the
(24:02):
skills of the men and women inour workforce.
Am I overreaching here.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
I mean, that's what I hope for.
But I know that the leadershipof those trade partners I know
the people on those crews havegiven me feedback in ways that
their experience on my projectshas been unlike on others, that
it's given them an insight towhat the industry could be.
(24:30):
It's given them insight intohow they could run their crews,
like permission to how theycould run their crews in other
spaces.
The kpis any kind ofmeasurement metrics is people
who are coming to your job siteonce Like the waterproofer for
three days, the third partyinspector who's subbing in for
somebody else.
It is well what's going on here.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
This is weird.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Something different and you're like what do you mean
?
What's different?
This is just how I run myproject and the third party
inspectors people are talking toeach other.
I'm like because we have aconcrete placement.
Yeah, yeah, they're talking toeach other and I learn his son
has been the third partyinspector for the last six
(25:15):
months and he said my son hatedhis job and now he talks about
his job like he likes it.
Yeah, like that, when the pile,you know, rig foreman is saying
he went home and decided thathis kindergarten son's class
needed cow bones buried in theyard for an archaeology project
(25:39):
over the weekend, when, insteadof saying my kids will never be
in this, you're doing that.
Like that's what I can do witha job site.
Yes, and anybody can.
You can do that as an officeengineer, project engineer,
calling the structural engineer,saying instead of you got to
change that on the submittal,could you explain why you didn't
(26:02):
do that on the submittal?
Remember, I'm married to astructural engineer.
I hear these stories all thetime.
I say you have to call yourstructural engineer and say
please and thank you, please, soI don't get in trouble.
Yeah, it's easy, it's that easy.
It's literally sharing yourthought process and offering the
resources you have, which canbe like a green checkmark on a
(26:25):
symbol, but that's how youchange people's lives.
You ask how they are and thenyou find out four months later
that you made that weeksomething completely different
for them and they stayed in asan electrician because of you
asking if they're okay.
Yes, yes, not just as anelectrician In many asking if
they're okay, yes, yes, not justas an electrician.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
In many cases on this earth, because they are
nameless, they are voiceless.
Because there's an industry, wetreat them that way and when I
say them, I'm talking about ourtrade, craft professionals and
super intent.
Like the whole industry we arewe largely we have developed
this way of interacting with thehuman beings as if they're
(27:06):
disposable and we can't do thatanymore.
I'm excited.
This is bad and the quickeningexodus of boomers is creating
the perfect conditions forcompanies, decision makers, to
(27:29):
have to do it differently, tohave to do it and, to be clear,
to have to do it like you'redoing it, kbree.
I don't know if you know this,I bet you do.
I know your office does you do,I know your office does.
Is the trades, when they're ona project like yours, you get?
Not only do you get preferredpricing, you get preferred
(27:50):
performance.
I know that for a fact becauseyou're not getting the dummy tax
.
Do you know what I'm talkingabout when I say the dummy tax?
I've been on the side of thetrade where we say, hey, man, we
want to go aggressive afterthis project, we want to put a
0.80 multiplier on the labor.
What do you think, jess, it's atenant, finish out.
I'm like, okay, well, it'salready up, that sounds good.
(28:12):
Who's the GAC?
And they would say these peopleare these.
I said, ah, who's the PM andthe superintendent?
And depending on what name Iheard, I said oh no, no, you
need to mark that that needs tobe a 30% markup on labor because
it's going to cost us everypenny to make money because they
don't know.
First, they treat peoplehorrible but they don't know how
(28:33):
to run a damn job.
Or if I got like a cabri of me,I do 0.75 because we're going
to make money and we're going tobe able to develop our people.
Do 0.75 because we're going tomake money and we're going to be
able to develop our people.
So back to the cape and sofolks out there.
If you think this, like being ahuman and appreciating other
humans on your job site, is weaksauce, there's real money tied
to just being a damn human, likefor real.
(28:56):
And if you don't, it's thedummy tax.
Ask your trades, they'll tellyou, or maybe they won't.
If you're not telling you, it'sbecause you're the dummies.
There's a little secret there.
Now back to the KPIs Again, andI get a lot of sidewinder laser
looks when I say budgetschedule, quality and safety are
kindergarten metrics.
Oh, you finished on time.
(29:16):
You did your job.
Yeah Right, you fulfilled yourlegal obligation in the contract
Like for real.
We're celebrating that.
How many divorces happened onyour project?
How many people are strugglingwith substance abuse?
How many people are on theverge of a nervous breakdown?
How many people got promotionson your job?
(29:38):
How many people grew?
And so?
Those are the KPIs that wedon't pay attention to.
And you have the testimonialsright.
That's amazing.
I don't think it would be verydifficult to say to track
promotions.
How many people got promoted onthe projects that you're on?
(29:59):
How many people built a newskillset or got a raise?
Those are real metrics thatspeak to the culture and the
environment that you aredesigning and maintaining.
And how long have you beendoing it?
2015, 20 years, massive impact,massive impact.
(30:20):
But we don't measure thosethings, so I bet the number is
probably 10x.
What you would guess, kb.
What do you think?
Speaker 2 (30:28):
I hope so.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Can you kind of carry ?
Speaker 2 (30:35):
on with this stuff.
It's great.
No, you're right.
I mean, that's how we should bethinking of our people.
I'm passionate about theindustry's mental health and our
personal being.
I'd love to champion the topicsof suicide awareness and
psychological safety, but thereality is that we have people
coming to our job sites everyday that are whole people and
(30:57):
all of the KPIs that youreference and really their,
their life wellness needs to beaccounted for.
Yes, and I do think.
I do think that the industry isin need of a shift, but also
that there's more and moreconversation finding you online.
It's a whole community ofpeople who are talking about how
(31:21):
to treat people right.
It's like my favorite part ofLinkedIn is like people like
don't go to LinkedIn, that'sonly people trying to recruit
other people.
I'm like, but no, there's thiswhole community of construction.
People go like love people inconstruction, Explain it, and
they're like what are youtalking about?
I'm like like superintending2.0.
(31:42):
Like I don't know how toexplain it, but I can send
people for you, you know.
Speaker 1 (31:48):
You know?
Oh no, you're right.
It's turned into a prettyinteresting, weird but amazing
thing and I'm here for it Untilthey kick me out.
I'm going to be a part of it.
Now I'm going to go at thepsychological safety, but first
I already got left peoplehanging with the friction from
your peers thing.
You are a change agent, youknow this.
(32:15):
I don't know if you know it,I'm telling you, but I think you
know it.
You're a change agent, You're acatalyst for change, You're an
influencer, but that does nothappen without friction.
And so I'm curious for theyoung L&M family member out
there, even the experienced L&Mfamily member that has been
(32:35):
apprehensive about affectingchange because of the friction
what do they absolutely need toexpect and what are some tips to
working through the friction?
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Sure, I think that the methods that I like to think
I represent, the relationshipbuilding, the how to treat
people, the thinking about howyou can use your resources to
support other people.
I think that anybody canpersonally recognize their
ability to do that within theirsphere of influence.
(33:13):
And what you can recognize isthat it will make a difference
from where you're at.
It will make a difference as aPE.
It will make a difference fromwhere you're at.
It will make a difference.
As a PE, it will make adifference.
As an assistant superintendent,as a foreman, as a journeyman,
as an apprentice, treating thepeople around you better, it
(33:34):
will make a difference and thatwill spread throughout a job
site.
Anybody can create that kind ofenvironmental change, that
feeling of oh, that person isn'tjust treating somebody like
crap because their area is clean, they're actually supporting by
handing a broom.
That change is a dynamic andanybody can be that catalyst for
(33:58):
change.
And so one recognize that thisdoesn't need to be a grand
experiment.
It can be you acting within therealm of your own resources.
So that's one.
Two, because I'm in like I'mhigh leadership now right, like
it's a very different animal nowthat I can talk about it in a
way that I actually can back itup with a change order or
(34:20):
contract terms or whatever.
I can change the job site hours, I can talk to the port of
Seattle or whatever.
It has not always been likethat, but I can still work
towards the same outcomes ofrelationship building.
But to get pushback that yourstyle doesn't match other
people's, yeah, that can come upin a performance evaluation.
(34:43):
That can come up in a.
Well, I think you're wastingyour time, or that looks like
you're too much dramaticinformation with me, which, of
course, goes into stereotypesabout gender.
I'm not a social person.
I'm not sitting there chattingall day Believe me, I'm not, but
yet you're comparing me to that.
You know there's that risk.
And so, of course, as you know,a woman in the industry, I
(35:06):
always need to walk the lineabout whether I'm being compared
to being dramatic or overlyanything.
And so there's the constantmanagement of how are you doing
your job, are you workingtowards the outcomes that are
expected of your position?
And even if I'm disrupting, Iam working towards the
(35:29):
operational outcomes that notonly my company is expecting.
I'm trying to improve onunderstanding and delivering on
what my audience, what my tradepartners, what my design team
members are trying to achieveand maybe that's the thing that
gets misconstrued so often isthat people think that you might
(35:50):
be working in a differentdirection than the project
because they see a differentmethod.
But to explain that, no, I'mliterally trying to make our
teammates successful and toconvince people that that's not
anti our own success.
Rising tide raises all ships.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
It is not detracting from our success.
To make everybody successful,Literally when my concrete trade
partner starts coordinating thedelivery by themselves with the
plumbing contractor is africking win for everybody.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
I don't need that extra call at 4.30 in the
morning.
A text saying it's done is justfine.
So expect that things can bemisunderstood.
But start to develop a languageto be able to explain to people
what your goals are, becauseyou're not going to just need it
to the people who aremisunderstanding around you, who
have influence on your career,but you really need to be ready
(36:49):
to explain it to the people youare trying to impact, Because
you need to be able to say outloud we are trying to achieve.
I'm doing this differentlybecause I want to achieve and
you need that feedback.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah, oh, I love it.
I love like two key pointsfolks out there in the omniverse
is you can affect changedirectly where you're at right
now.
You don't need to have thetitle, you don't need to have
the authority.
You can just smile withsomebody else that is affecting
(37:23):
change.
Right, like we can absolutelydo that, right, simple.
Now.
The other part is, even with allthe influence, like you're the
baller superintendent and youstill have friction right like
it's, you gotta expect thefriction, and for me, this was
(37:44):
my challenge or long, long timeago I got over it a long time
ago.
But I expect the friction.
And for me, this was mychallenge a long, long time ago.
I got over it a long time ago.
But I thought the friction wasbecause I was defective.
I thought it was because theydidn't like me.
It's not that People just don'tlike change.
I represented change.
So they were resistant to that.
(38:05):
And once I came to terms withthat, like, ah, I just need to
figure out how to speak yourlanguage and listen, because
maybe I'm a little bit off froma few degrees off, but if I
listen, you're going to get mein alignment, we start speaking
the same language and we canmake something happen, but it
doesn't happen overnight.
And the reason I'm banging onthis is because I know a lot of
people that want to see changeand they think that they need to
(38:27):
talk to the CEO, and then theCEO is going to listen and go
make the change.
Man, I've never been able to dothat.
So if you can do that, go do it.
But when I make change, Ichange my behavior.
I impact and influence thepeople closest to me, make their
situation better, develop abody of work.
(38:48):
It becomes easier for me tostart changing upward instead of
horizontally, but the frictionnever goes away.
So, anyways, what do you think,kb?
Do I just make it too difficult?
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, I mean the example that I gave of the
concrete trade partner talkingto the plumber, real example.
But let me be clear that wasnine months of me working with
that concrete trade partner totrust the different process, and
I don't blame that crew.
(39:21):
They had been beat down by GCsfor freaking years on high rises
, right, and I bring them to mylittle project and they're like
who's this lady?
And I'm like you have to talkto my staff.
I want you to make sure thatyou're training people.
They're like no, we're like ahighly refined team we can do
repeat, we're great at all ofour post tensions.
(39:41):
We are refined.
I'm like I'm so glad you'rehere and also I want you now to
do more, since you're so greatat that.
And it took nine months to gaintheir trust, and when I say nine
months to gain their trust, Imean every single day.
There was some form of theconversation of I am here to
support you.
My field engineer is doingaspects of your reinforcing, to
(40:03):
talk to the engineer for you.
Now, were there some backsides?
Was there me like reallygetting angry about them pulling
a 40 foot trailer onto the jobsite without telling me?
Sure, there were a couple oflittle hiccups in the road, but
after all of that time they leftthat job site and I could call
(40:24):
that superintendent for anything, and we are.
He changed how he coached hisown crews.
The people on his crews whowere unwilling to make eye
contact with the g, with mystaff, are now training teams of
apprentices.
And, like when I did some 360reviews a few months ago I know
(40:47):
it was he that wrote in here hesaid when I visited the job site
before the project started, shewrote down every word I said to
make a plan.
I'm like that's all it takes,folks grabbing a book.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It sounds dumb Like yeah, just take notes.
No, when you take notes,specifically GC to trade partner
or I don't really like the wordtrade partner.
Gabriel, I have issues withthat?
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Oh good, Tell me why.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
Because when we're partners, there's shared risk
and shared reward.
There is not a.
The power dynamic is absent.
Okay, I understand thephilosophy and I would even go
as far as to say you probablytreat people like partners on
site.
Now, as a subcontractor, when Isubmit an invoice, I submit an
(41:42):
invoice.
It's 45, 60, 90, 180 days tillI get paid and retainage is
being withheld.
How is that?
Like you, I don't want partnersthat treat me that way.
So call me a part, call mewhatever you want, but if you're
not going to treat me like apartner, don't call me a partner
(42:02):
.
And also, there's the kind ofthe technical element of it in
IPD.
That's where the term comesfrom and they are actually
partners because they'resignatures on the contract of
shared reward and shared riskcontractually on the ultimate
performance of the project, theproject.
(42:28):
So for in my head, I get thesentiment, but people use it and
fail to technically deliver onwhat a partnership would look
like A and B, they just use.
It's just another damn word.
I'm better off calling me dumbass because that's how you're
treating me.
What do you think Is that?
Am I too sensitive?
Speaker 2 (42:43):
No, I mean, it's based on your experience with it
.
Right, you have both the idealsituation with IPD and issue
partnerships.
You have the negativeexperience of payment.
I could go on and on about howI'm four months behind here with
my partner of an owner, exactly, but I understand.
All I can say is that when Isay it, it's because I want you
(43:08):
to believe it.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
And I have to.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
I need to live up to that in every conversation,
otherwise, otherwise I do thesame detrimental, the same
disservice to the term and it'suseless If.
I use it wrong, then it's doingmore harm than good.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yes, and I'm also going to add that you don't have
to.
I understand the whole paymentand financing.
I get that whatever that's,it's not that hard.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
We don't need to argue about payments.
Speaker 1 (43:35):
Right, just freaking, treat me like a human being and
then you can call me.
Treat partner for real, be nice, be cool, and then you can call
me whatever you want.
But if you're going to be thetypical BS, just call me dumbass
.
Don't waste your time callingme partner, that's, that's all
I'm saying.
Now, two things you said againfor for our construction
(43:59):
professionals out there, thatagain speak to the level of
empathy that you have.
Speak to the level of empathythat you have.
One nine months took you ninemonths to get the concrete guy
over the hill right To kind offinally lock, get that puzzle
piece to lock in.
I'm going to say that's kind offast, like for real, for real,
(44:22):
real change in terms ofrelationships and behaviors and
trust.
Nine months, like nice, becauseit takes an enormous amount of
time.
It takes an enormous number ofreps and this ties to the second
part of a point that I want tomake to heal and mend the wounds
(44:44):
that our craft workers bring toyour job site.
And so what do I mean by that?
You already said it, you arethe exception.
You didn't say that, I'm sayingit.
The majority of generalcontractors out there treat the
trades like garbage.
Treat the trades like garbageperiod, disrespectful.
(45:07):
It is horrible.
They have no interest inwhether we're making money or
not.
They don't understand thatwe're the solution or that we
can be the solution to theirproblem.
But they treat us like theproblem all the time, every time
.
And so all of a sudden, ifthat's how I'm getting treated
everywhere I go, and then I cometo your job Guess what?
You're just another one of them.
(45:28):
You could say all the nicewords and have all the sticky
notes on the wall and fancy assfreaking apps.
If I've never experienced areciprocal, respectful
interaction with the GC before,this is alien.
This is all just a cover upbefore.
(45:49):
This is alien.
This is all just a coverup, andit's going to take me a lot of
time to get comfortable notcomfortable, but to build trust
that you are going to treat medifferently, like for real, for
real.
And so your ability to accountfor the fact that they're out
there getting abused anddemoralized project after
project after project and thatis a natural thing that you're
(46:09):
going to be overcoming istremendous, and I think it's the
same thing for everybody else.
Like why do they behave?
Why do we trades behave thatway?
It's because your peers havecreated the conditions for us to
behave that way.
That's what it is Now.
You brought it up and I thinkyou're.
I'm going to say you are anexpert in this area and I know
(46:31):
you.
Pinky promised me that youwould tell everybody, give
everybody the perfect formulaand recipe to make it happen.
Great.
So you remember, right.
You remember how do you dopsychological safety and team
culture.
I know there's like athree-step formula that makes it
(46:53):
happen 100% all the time, everytime, in less than six weeks.
What was it?
Speaker 2 (47:08):
that process.
Oh man, psychological safety.
Okay, let's, let's define thatquick Psychological safety.
It was coined by Amy Edmondson.
We talk about it more in theindustry now than we used to,
but really it's kind of anunderstanding of how team
dynamics work.
If you look it up, you'll getgreat studies about how it
improves team performance.
(47:29):
Team communication it helpswith how people feel about the
work that they do.
Really, it's about peoplefeeling comfortable enough to
share what they need, ask forwhat they need, share ideas and
to express their mistakes aspart of a team.
Now, usually people think it'sall about how people feel.
(47:53):
Right, it's about emotions, andso often it falls into the
realm of well, we need to trainpeople on how to do soft skills
in the industry, and it fallsinto, like, leadership training.
That's one component of it.
But what's missed is that, withall of these outcomes that have
been studied Google's ProjectAristotle, all of the statistics
(48:15):
you can find for the increasein retention, the decrease in
physical safety incidences, etcetera it's actually all about
performance, et cetera.
It's actually all aboutperformance.
And so when I thinkpsychological safety, I think
(48:36):
about how we can embed thetreatment and the experience of
people into our everydayoperations and systems that have
all been created to achievethose industry KPIs you
mentioned.
And so how do we achieve safety, productivity, quality?
We achieve them with thegazillions of fricking systems
we already have.
We're not trying to add on tothose.
(48:57):
We're trying to do them in away that encourages people's
participation.
When a new worker shows up atyour job site, how do they know
that?
They can say I've actuallynever put out a harness before,
so when you just assigned me toclimb that scaffold, can you
train me on that harness?
It's them feeling like they canask for that.
(49:19):
Okay, and the outcome is is asafer situation and somebody
who's better trained and a wholeteam that has a better learning
capacity to see people doingthat.
Okay, and so it's.
How do we create, within ouroperations and existing systems,
a way for people to better seetheir contributions and to know
(49:43):
and trust that those systemswill work for them?
That's psychological safety.
In my perspective as asuperintendent is you need to
get your people on your projectsto trust that all those systems
you're using are actually goingto work for them and that they
can be proud of the work they'reputting into it because they
see their contributions comingout of it.
(50:03):
When you say, hey, let's sitdown and look at this schedule,
they freaking see their wordsreflected in the schedule.
Right, you can say, hey, thisis where you said that window
wasn't getting delivered on time.
Yeah, and that makes them feellike they can contribute more.
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (50:21):
What it means is that when you have a really tight
set delivery calendar with theuniversity campus that you're in
, along with graduation weekhappening, that your concrete
trade partner can say hey, Iknow I'm not on the calendar,
but I'd really like theopportunity, with the truck
(50:43):
available, to take off some ofthe wall forms.
I know the plumber's theretrying to get his fittings in,
but we've already coordinatedand I'm going to use my forklift
to get his fittings out so thatI can pull off my wall forms.
If that's good for you Done,you've developed people feeling
that they can make thosecontributions.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
And that's it's a level of trust, but it's a trust
in systems, not just in peopleyes, oh my god, we might have to
do it.
Speaker 1 (51:15):
Part five and part six of this conversation, okay,
the I love.
I love that it's the trust insystems, like a hundred percent.
It's people, right, systemsdon't matter if you don't have
people.
But for some of us that aremore data-oriented which is my
nice way of saying, scared to bevulnerable that are more
(51:39):
data-oriented, a deeperconversation.
A deeper conversation, or yoursecond book after you write the
how to Establish PerfectPsychological Safety in Six
Wolves, the idea arounddesigning the systems to drive
performance with psychologicalsafety.
That's what I heard you say.
I agree 100% because it is asystem.
(52:01):
What are the feedback loops?
Are we listening?
Are we asking?
Are we responding?
That's a system, but we couldget super technical with it and
I'm going to have to leave italone because I'm just going to
nerd out and monopolize all ofyour time.
Ms K and I got to ask thisquestion because I saw these
letters and I figured like itwas a tattoo that only the super
(52:27):
ultra cool people get.
I saw these letters and Ifigured like it was.
It was a tattoo that only thesuper ultra cool people get.
I saw these letters.
It's FAAF and since you'reworking on aviation projects.
I figured there's the FAA, butyou get the F and you get a
super secret tattoo becauseyou've been on these projects.
Am I overreaching on that onetoo?
Speaker 2 (52:47):
So there are a lot of unique acronyms to aviation
projects.
Faaf is not associated with theFederal Aviation Administration
, though I did have a meetingabout a crane and some
requirements we have thismorning.
Faaf refers to the FearlesslyAuthentic Award Recognition that
(53:10):
I was recently involved in, andso that was a super awesome
process.
To be not acknowledgednecessarily personally, but this
award recognition was aboutauthentic leadership across
industries, and I got to be ableto represent our industry on a
(53:32):
stage of general business,healthcare, insurance, people
who are usually where the bookspoint to for how to run
businesses and the summary and Ididn't take this as a negative.
One of the audience memberssaid if the construction
industry can figure out how tolead people with humanity,
(53:53):
anybody can, because we were theexample of success and I was so
proud to be able to showcasepeople who don't know the work
we do, and I was able to givethem a window into things they
didn't know that their familymembers had done, into what was
going on across the street at ajob site, and they were hard.
Speaker 1 (54:15):
Yeah, yeah, that's okay, but did you get a tattoo,
an FAAF tattoo?
Speaker 2 (54:21):
No, I didn't.
I didn't.
I need to, I should.
I need to get number 25.
So that's not going to be it.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Number 25.
Damn, all right, so FearlesslyAuthentic AF, which I'm going to
say, yes, right, like you'reamazing, since we first
connected, we did connect onLinkedIn.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm a snob,if you didn't know that I'll
see people post stuff right,like culture, and I'm like, yeah
(54:52):
, let's see how long this onelasts.
And I'm like, oh, she's stillthere.
Oh, like she's for real.
Oh, I need to know her.
And like folks, if you don'tknow, that's what I do.
When I see post stuff aboutteamwork and people, I'm
watching you because there's toomany damn pretenders out there.
That's not to say that I don'tunderstand what people piss you
(55:14):
off, because that's part of it,but sometimes it's just out of
popularity.
But it was clear to me that yougive a damn about people.
And one of the observations Igot to make in my career started
off on the trade side of thebusiness.
I was a trade partner.
I was there for over 20 years.
I went to work for a GC forthree and a half years, got to
serve the century United States.
(55:35):
Then I went.
I had some nationalresponsibility where I got to go
to projects all over thecountry.
The one thing that I got to seeis the number of amazing
projects was this big.
I started my career in 1995.
In the 1900s Don't tell me whenyou were born, kb, please don't
(55:58):
For you the.
The number of projects that Iworked on that I felt valuable
is probably 10.
And I've been on chingos, lotsof them.
(56:18):
And then when I got startedtraveling the country, I got to
see man, the projects that kickbutt, like the client's happy,
the trades they're talkingeverybody's like, getting along
and joking, high perform peopleare getting promoted and like
all of that, they had all hadone thing in common and you have
(56:40):
it they were focused on people.
They appreciated the humanexperience.
Did they put up with a bunch ofcrap?
No.
Did they lollygag around andenable whining and complaining?
No, but they valued people andthey created conditions for
people to thrive and so duh, ofcourse you're a fearlessly
(57:03):
authentic AF.
And that's the other element isyou're doing it your way against
the grain.
Because it is against the grainMaybe not anymore so much in
Hensel Phelps, but I'm sure whenyou started it it was.
Why are you doing it like that?
You don't need to put up withthat.
And then, industry-wide it isagainst the grain.
And also, if we can do it,anybody can do it, and you're
(57:28):
doing it, and there's a bunch ofother folks out there that
really need to just freaking.
Get on board, figure it out,get over yourself, treat people
like humans and you'll have abetter time at work.
Come on and make more money,like for real, for real.
So I know people are going tofall in love with you.
So I don't know if we should orshouldn't, but if you're up for
(57:48):
it, where should we send themif they want to connect with you
?
Speaker 2 (57:52):
Yeah, you can look me up on LinkedIn.
I'm open.
Anybody wants to connect?
Please don't be shy aboutreaching out.
I love talking about teaching.
I've had some greatopportunities working at
universities but reallyconnecting with younger students
, telling them about theindustry talking to anybody who
wants to talk about instructionrelated, please just shoot me a
note.
Speaker 1 (58:13):
Boom.
So we'll make sure we get thatlink in the show notes.
Are you ready for the grandfinale question Ready?
Okay, I'm expecting, or I'mresponse because and you've been
(58:33):
very gracious and elegant aboutprobably some of the stinky
stuff that you've had toovercome, some bullshit, and you
still maintain a positiveoutlook, investing in everybody
around you, beyond yourresponsibility, within your
organization, within theindustry at large, and so that
(58:56):
gets me excited about what youmight say to this question what
is the promise you are intendedto be?
Speaker 2 (59:05):
I want to be the fridge between how field
operations creates powerfulconnections at the job-sided
level that serves the wellnessand operational goals of
organizations.
There needs to be a champion oflike field leadership culture.
(59:28):
I know culture is an overusedword, but it's somebody who can
understand the link betweensystems and people, Somebody who
can provide that oversight,Somebody who can just champion
that messaging and make surethat people are looking at those
right KPIs.
I'm too proud of my convictionto the job site to just let that
go.
It's going to give me a meetingand just be a general
(59:52):
superintendent and be toocareful to bring a job site.
I want to be that translator.
I want to keep influencing theindustry through job site
leadership law, even if it'slike these massive aviation
projects.
It just gives me the ability totouch your people.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
I got chills.
I got chills.
They're multiplied.
You're amazing, Kate.
Has anybody ever told you thatyou're amazing?
Speaker 2 (01:00:19):
Oh, well, you have.
So, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Well, thank you.
Thank you for sticking it outall the way to the end.
I know you got a whole lot ofstuff going on and, in
appreciation for the gift oftime that you have given this
episode, I want to offer you afree PDF of my book Becoming the
Promise You're Intended to Be.
The link for that bad boy isdown in the show notes.
Hit it.
You don't even have to give meyour email address.
(01:00:45):
There's a link.
Hit it.
You don't even have to give meyour email address.
There's a link in there.
You just click that and you candownload the PDF.
And if you share it withsomebody that you know who might
feel stuck or be caught up inself-destructive behaviors, that
would be the ultimate.
You sharing.
That increases the likelihoodthat it's going to help one more
person.
(01:01:06):
And if it does help one moreperson, then you're contributing
to me becoming the promise I amintended to be.
Be kind to yourself, be cool,and we'll talk at you next time.
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