January 10, 2024 • 44 mins
Ever found yourself in the thick of a construction project, where every voice has the potential to build or bulldoze progress? Lance Ferriyama from Trade Partner HQ joins us to hammer down the significance of communication in the trade industry, offering a blueprint for turning monologues into dialogues that construct rather than constrain. Together, we're chipping away at the old-school 'sizing-up' culture and reengineering it into one of collaboration and respect – because, in this field, a solid foundation isn't just about the concrete.
Navigating the complexities of the construction site is much like calling a truce in a high-stakes standoff – it calls for tact, strategy, and a willingness to listen. We lay out the tools for construction managers and superintendents to become architects of inclusivity, ensuring every voice is heard from the ground up. And just when you think the blueprint is clear, we tackle the frustration of silos and the art of breaking them down, sharing a personal tale from a San Jose project that could've used some serious demolition in the communication department.
But what happens when the hard hats come off? Lance and I dissect the raw, unfiltered essence of communication, extending beyond the job site to social media and beyond. Discover the power of authentic communication as we reflect on a 'UC moment' where staying true to oneself isn't just good for morale, it's good for business. Join us, and let's build bridges with words, one authentic conversation at a time.
Connect with lance and Check out his website: https://tradepartnerhq.com/
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LinkedIn :https://www.linkedin.com/company/80960291/
Website : theuncommoncommunicator.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
The UnCommon Communicat (00:06):
Welcome to the Uncom communicator
podcast, where we bringenlightenment to the topic of
communication.
Are you ready to take ownershipof your conversations?
Are you looking to possess theskills to navigate and
facilitate conversations to amutual understanding?
What are you waiting for?
Grab your growth mindset andlet's go?
Welcome to the Uncomcommunicator podcast, where we
(00:32):
bring enlightenment to the topicof communication.
I am really pleased to haveLance Ferriyama, the rising star
of Lance, on the podcast today.
We're going to talk about kindof his dive and his take on
communication and where he hastaken his business.
I feel like he has been avehicle of communication trade
(00:55):
partner headquarters HQ.
Why don't you jump in and tellus a little bit more about
yourself?
Lance Furuyama (01:02):
Yeah, hi, james.
First of all, thanks for havingme.
I'm a big fan of the show, sothis is a little surreal for me.
I live in the Bay Area,california.
I do work for an electricalcontractor on the operations
site.
Still, I started trade partnerHQ earlier this year primarily
to help business owners,consultants, get their voice out
(01:24):
.
I didn't so much of a salesyway, but really telling their
story and differentiatingthemselves.
The UnCommon Communicato (01:30):
That's what really made my first
connection with you as well, too.
You used all the right words,which is getting your voice out
there.
That's something that I'verefined, probably over the last
few months.
I even had this in aconversation with Jen Lacey,
where I really began tounderstand what is my real
purpose.
I'm like what am I doing here?
Why am I giving this podcastaway like this?
You give a ton of content awayas well, too, but it really
(01:54):
comes down to giving people avoice.
That's what initially made thatconnection with you is you are
giving people a voice.
I didn't realize it had onlybeen this year.
We're talking 2023.
I don't know what year we talkRight now in this week.
What week do we talk about?
What year are we in it?
Lance Furuyama (02:10):
was about 2023.
Yeah.
The UnCommon Communicato (02:13):
That's amazing what spurred the
birthplace of Trade Partner HQ.
Lance Furuyama (02:19):
It was really just a part of me that wasn't
being satisfied in my job.
I'm completely on theoperations then.
Unless my communications withpeople aren't great, they're
usually kind of running as thegoon at the end of the day.
That's really what my role isas far as communicating there.
I don't enjoy that route.
I've been really working oncommunicating before there's an
(02:42):
issue.
I enjoy getting to know people,but those circumstances weren't
allowing for me to really getthings off on the right foot.
The UnCommon Communicator (02:53):
You just said giving people a voice.
Is that the true mission ofTrade Partner HQ.
Lance Furuyama (02:59):
It is what is the mission.
The UnCommon Communicator (02:59):
Yeah.
Lance Furuyama (03:01):
My mission is really to help.
At first it was just TradePartners, but now I've found
myself working on the GC sideand a lot of the construction
tech companies as well.
The thing is, we don't say alot.
People listen to response.
I found that there's a lot ofgap in there where, if you
(03:23):
create the platform and createthe environment for people to
have curated speech, I'd ratherdive deeper into a question than
just hit all the boxes andcontinue moving with my
pre-rehearsed questions.
The UnCommon Communicator (03:37):
Yeah, I love that.
Let's talk about the format ofthis, because what you're doing
is I don't want to say it'sgroundbreaking because I haven't
seen it.
If I haven't seen it and ithasn't existed before because
I'm as old as dirt it appears tobe very groundbreaking where
you're giving really a businessand a trade.
People who don't communicate onsocial media very well, which
(04:01):
is where we're not in newspapersanymore, people we can't hand
flyers out on the street and getpeople to go.
We're curating which I lovethat term these conversations
with people.
What spurred that idea likethat need?
How did you see that needdevelop?
Lance Furuyama (04:19):
Well, it started off as something that was a fun
project for me, which is thatbusiness and beyond livestream
that I do on LinkedIn.
I don't share the questionswith anybody beforehand, I just
want to have conversations Inconstruction.
We all say we're best in classand this or that.
At the end of the day, cody48says you remove the name and
(04:42):
look at the stats and everything.
He looks the same.
So I figured an advantage forsomebody is to.
If you do an interview with meand people relate to you, you're
going to track them.
If your style rubs in the wrongway and you repel them, that's
even better, because it's betterto be finding that out now than
when you're under contract andfinding out that you guys are
(05:04):
not are oil and water to them.
The UnCommon Communicator (05:07):
Well, and that's very true, and I
love the fact that you give aplatform for people to talk
about those things.
But there is that part aboutmaking that fit happen.
And on the general I'm on thegeneral construction side
sometimes we get to choose whowe partner with based on
relationship, based on you know,however, the project.
(05:29):
You know pricing is structured,but other times, on some fixed
price situations, we're havingto go in with the low bid, which
is always still the wrong wayto go about any type of business
, especially if there's norelationship.
But we're not afforded thattime to develop that
relationship.
And that is the same as ifyou're hiring new employees.
(05:51):
They're in construction.
There is such a you know emptypool, like if somebody wants to
get in to construction, rightnow is the time to do it.
It's been that time for thelast probably five, 10 years.
The pool is wide open and youcan pretty much go anywhere that
you want to go and the money isstarting to climb because those
needs, because there's such aneed for it.
(06:12):
But because of that need thereis, you're not taking time to
get to know that person.
You're trying to fill a hole.
You're trying to fill that spot.
There was a story that goes back.
My dad was a generalsuperintendent or general
foreman on a project at NUMI.
In fact, out there by you inCalifornia, he was at NUMI and
(06:32):
the superintendent that NUMI isthe New United Motors.
It was the partnership betweenToyota and General Motors.
My dad had worked at GeneralMotors.
My grandpa worked at thatfacility as well too, when it
was General Motors.
So a history going back Lanceand I from similar routes out in
the California Bay Area, but hewas on this job and they called
for 50 mill rights to come outon this job.
(06:54):
And so, as they showed up thatsuperintendent at the time, he's
like no, you don't have theright coveralls on, you don't
have enough tools, you don'thave enough this.
And my dad was in therephysically writing that's back
when he had to write the checks,writing the two hour show up
time for that guy because theywere weeding through their pool
of people that they had to dothis construction job, and so he
(07:15):
ended up with 30 people andthey knew that they were gonna
get rid of 20 out of thosepeople.
And when you do that, you'regonna get I don't wanna say the
best of the best, but you'regonna get the better guys.
I've been on projects where youhave five to 10 open spots of
work to do because they're notthere.
So that's the same thing Ithink we see within our trade
partner world where we're notgetting to know them, we're just
(07:40):
trying to fill those spots, andI think the platform that
you're bringing which is saying,hey, let's talk about, let's
talk about, you get to know, youget to know the person, cause I
think that's the move in ourtrades Do you see that as a
change in construction right now?
We're not my dad's old schoolstyle and this was 40, 50 years
ago is that's not the stylewe're doing today, is it?
Lance Furuyama (08:03):
Yeah, I feel like it has to be intentional.
Like every time I go to like akickoff meeting, I always tell
people I'll wait till you finishdrink your coffee before I tell
you this.
I always tell people.
If you step back in the roomand all of the trades are there,
it looks like dogs are sniffingeach other's butts at a dog
park.
You know, like nobody's really.
Everybody's kind of a chest out, kind of eyeing up and down
(08:27):
like who are you, who are youwith?
And they leave it at that.
They don't even try to get tothe point where, hey, we're
about to work together.
Let's find out a little moreabout each other.
And you know, people put thaton the construction manager or
the superintendent, but that'snot their, it is part of their
role.
But we need to be more activein being approachable.
(08:47):
Like I feel like everybody'sjust staring each other down,
looking for scope, overlap andalready like chomping at the bit
to getting each other'sbusiness.
The UnCommon Communicator (08:57):
Yeah, well, and sometimes they're
well.
It could have beenrelationships earlier, but in
other times it's just thepositions of the role, right?
You know that somebody you'reready to fight with the
electrician because you knowhe's not gonna sweep up after
himself.
So there's some of that, justalready knowing that going into
the role.
But I like your analogies and Ido love analogies as well too
(09:18):
but the and thank you forletting me put my coffee down,
because I would have spittledall over the screen but that is
exactly it.
I mean, that's a perfectanalogy of assessing people in a
room and how they're gonnabegin to interact with that.
But I'll disagree with you.
I think it becomes the role ofthat leader, that superintendent
or whoever's facilitating thatroom to break those walls down.
And that's what we haven't beendoing in every situation is to
(09:42):
break the walls down incommunication, to get past it,
let them.
You know what, though, then?
Because I just got a new puppy,the sniffing's very important,
so it's a very important socialaspect in a dog.
It may not necessarily be inhumans, but what we're doing is
exactly it.
We're sizing each other up,we're checking each other's
health, we're seeing how we'regonna get along with each other.
(10:04):
So a little bit of that is okay, and you do know sometimes who
you're not gonna get along with.
Right then you know it, rightthen.
And at that point for me thatbecomes, that becomes the focus.
If I'm no, I'm gonna get alongwith Joe, then that's great,
we're gonna be fine.
Then I have to make anothereffort, a deeper effort, to get
(10:25):
to meet whoever.
That other person seems to be alittle bit of the top dog, and
there's always a top dog inevery pack.
Lance Furuyama (10:34):
Yes, so in your role I mean the superintendent's
listening to this what would besome ways that they could help
facilitate?
I mean, if we're not gonna likeeach other, that's cool.
At least let's get that out ofthe way and figure out how to
work together.
What are some ways to help themNavigate that?
The UnCommon Communicator (10:52):
And so I appreciate that question,
lance, because I've heard you'rereally good at turning the
questions back onto theinterviewer and you nailed it.
So I was waiting for thismoment.
So thank you so much for askingme that question, because that
collaboration is something thatI've been thinking about a lot,
especially in my role, but justas something that I want to help
(11:15):
teach a little bit more aboutis the ability to run a
collaboration, and that word isjust a fancy word for stuff
we've been doing for years,which is really getting
everybody in the room to beacknowledged.
And so how would I facilitatethat?
First off, I identify who's thequiet one and I always ask.
So anytime I'm in a Zoommeeting or anytime I'm in an
(11:37):
in-person meeting, I want tomake sure that I'm acknowledging
somebody.
And one thing that I like to do,especially just even in a small
group, if there's three of usand I'll word it this way so you
and I are chatting, and ofcourse I'm doing all the talking
, I won't shut up, right, it'slike, and you're just barely
listening, hanging on listeningto me.
Somebody else just shows up andwe ignore that person.
(11:59):
As soon as somebody else drivesup, I get a knot in my stomach
If that other person is not evengoing to acknowledge that,
because I've been that personbefore too.
Where you've walked up, you goto this.
Sometimes it takes a little bitof confidence to come up.
Hey, I want to be part of thisconversation, you get excluded.
So, narrowing it down to eventhat small group, I think deep
(12:19):
inside me is going to say I'mgoing to bring that person in,
introduce them, at least getthem part of that conversation.
If that other person won'tsteer it that way, I know if I'm
leading that, I am.
But if I'm leading a group oftrade partners, construction
workers, then I want to makesure that we're bringing out.
Everybody gets a voice,everybody gets to say something.
So a lot of times it can bethrough like an icebreaker or
(12:41):
just an icebreaker question hey,what do you think about the
parking lot?
It's just some question to getsomebody to stay something and
then begin that human route.
So that's one way that I liketo facilitate a collaboration.
Do you have any more questions,lance?
Lance Furuyama (12:58):
No, not yet.
The UnCommon Communicator (12:59):
OK, we'll get there.
Lance Furuyama (13:04):
I like that approach Because a lot of times
the super will just sit back andwatch the dogs bite each other
and be like, oh well.
The UnCommon Communicator (13:14):
So that what you just said is
really an issue withinconstruction, Because in some
cases and I've seen it and it'snot in the organization I'm in
right now, but I've been on thejobs.
I've been a trade partner formost of my career.
I started in the trades as amillwright.
I worked for trade partners,for GCs, so I've been on that
(13:36):
side for almost over 30 years ofmy career and so the last six
years I've been with a generalcontractor.
So I've seen that side of it andI've been that where that
superintendent is doing it onpurpose, he's doing that to
create some of that aggressionon the job, he's promoting it
and that's one of the worstthings that we can do because it
(13:56):
makes that project moralemiserable.
It makes it bad for individualtrade partners and then they're
not there to support you, andthat's, I think, the key that
we're seeing in the turn towardslean construction on the
general construction side isthat collaboration and that
creating of the flow.
No longer is it theresponsibility of that trade
(14:17):
partner to go figure out theirwork.
You're coming in and you'recollaborating together just to
see how your work fits withinthat flow.
And that general contractor,that superintendent, wants to
get you in and out as fast asyou can so you make money.
So the mindset has shifted andI think in that shift it had to
have come through bettercommunication.
Lance Furuyama (14:37):
Oh, that's actually pretty interesting.
So it's like before we wereworking in siloes on the same
property, but now we're all kindof integrated in together.
The UnCommon Communicator (14:45):
Yes, no, that's exactly it.
The silo, your silo, shows up.
You show up with your couple ofgang boxes and you're not given
any space and then you'reinvited to a.
This is one particular job forme.
You're invited to a giganticmeeting where they talk at you
and then, when you're done, youguys have to go to work, where
you just killed an hour and ahalf because they have safety
(15:07):
requirements to train you on.
This was a project that I didactually down in San Jose and we
were there for four weeks.
I had just a small job.
We're putting in some elevators, these kind of two floor one
man or material loaders tofloors for, at the time, one of
those data centers, a secretdata center downtown San Jose
(15:29):
nobody, the data centers werenew At that.
This is in the 90s.
I don't even want to tell youhow long ago it was.
They're starting up thecomputers with a hand crank back
then, but it was at thefoundation of data centers and
anyways.
So I had tons of questions andI had multiple superintendents
on the project and I'm trying toget information from him and
(15:50):
I'm asking him questions andthen at one point he goes.
You know what?
I spend more time.
You're the smallest trade,you're sub, you're the smallest
sub that I've got and I'mspending more time with you.
You need to go figure it out.
So at that point I went andfigured it out and that's where
I realized that it's that goesback to that silo.
Right, go back to your silo, goget your work done and when
(16:13):
you're done, get the heck off myjob.
Because I got all these otherand they were firefighters right
.
They kept putting out fires,they didn't plan the work, they
were in over their head becausethey didn't plan it.
And those are part of theproblems is bringing those silos
together.
How did my work integrate withthe other trades?
Because on that job, guess whathad to come through and I had
(16:33):
to stop my work, fireproofing.
So they had to bring in thefireproofers and they had to get
the beams right above where wewere working at the same time
that he knew we were gonna showup for our two weeks worth of
work.
So it's just that and that'swhat I'm trying to communicate.
So, definitely, breaking downsilos is a key, I think, in our
construction and incommunication as well too.
(16:55):
What inspired the business andbeyond, live streams, that's
something that, because yourbusiness is.
Trade Partner HQ is aboutcurating and helping businesses,
and you provide that at a priceSome services which I think is
super low price to help thempromote their business.
You interview them, they gettheir platform put out there and
(17:19):
I'll put a link in the shownotes for it.
But the business and beyondlive stream seems like you're
doing the same thing and youjust I don't even know how you
get your mix of people together.
So tell me a little bit aboutthe planning that goes into
putting together that businessand beyond.
Lance Furuyama (17:35):
Yeah, so that was pretty interesting.
As I was growing my network, Iwas like I don't really.
I know of these people, but Idon't really know them and I
have limited time to do a lot ofone-on-one calls, so I thought
it would be fun to get a bunchof people together that have
never met.
For the most part, live streamis involved the audience so that
(17:58):
everybody feels like they'reall getting something out of it,
and initially the idea was tobe talking about your business
or your projects or whatever itwas, but I found that that's not
what interests me.
It's more about who you are,the person.
I've bought a lot of books or alot of authors on LinkedIn in
the construction space, so Ibought a lot of books and for me
(18:19):
I'm a little starstruck becauseI'm a big reader and when I get
to meet the person like HenryNutt was one of them, for me
that was super cool to get tomeet them and talk to them.
The UnCommon Communicator (18:33):
Yeah, so that's that is the advantage
of hosting and inviting peoplein, because I've had that same
scenario.
I've had a couple of people andhaven't jumped on this podcast
yet.
When we started, I invitedChris Voss because the whole
foundation of this podcaststarted with going through Never
Split the Difference by ChrisVoss, and if you haven't read
(18:54):
that book, it's a book onnegotiation, but it's more a
book on listening and he's a FBIhostage negotiator assisted a
great book.
I probably read it half a dozentimes before it really
connected with me because hisline of thinking and how he
processes that is so different,and so that's what.
So we took the foundations ofthat.
(19:15):
That's what we started.
The first nine episodes of thispodcast was in that book and
then so there's some goodinformation in there that we
drew from dissecting that book.
But of course I wanted to getChris Voss on, but we didn't.
We haven't met the listenercriteria yet, so hopefully I'll
get there one day I can haveChris on.
I would actually love to havehe's got some other people on
this team that are fantastic aswell too, but maybe I'll work my
(19:38):
way up to that one.
Lance Furuyama (19:40):
So then later, yeah, it's just natural
curiosity, right?
I'd love to get to know peopleand that's it's for me, the wild
card in the live streams thatI've really enjoyed.
It's a question that theaudience are without there.
The UnCommon Communicator (19:52):
Yeah, it's because you don't.
You're planning some questions,right, you have some planned
questions, but I think one ofthe things that works so great
with that is you are bringing topeople that together, that
people that don't know eachother.
Right, it's not, they're noteven in the same state or
country, even and I don't knowif you have anybody out of
country yet.
I wasn't sure, Not yet you willguarantee a worldwide lance,
(20:15):
but it's the interaction youstart getting between the people
and I think that's what reallybrings those depths of
conversation in as they startplaying off of each other.
Because that's what you getwhen you have, you know, four
people in a conversation versusjust you and I.
You start building a deeperconversation.
They don't even they're helpingthemselves by learning from the
(20:38):
other people, and I thinkthat's something that you've
developed through that to thatprocess, which has really been
kind of need to see evolve.
Have you seen it grow andevolve in how you present those
things?
Lance Furuyama (20:52):
I have.
I've learned I have myquestions ready in case the
conversation stalls out.
But a lot of times you knowI'll probably six ready and
we'll make it through one or two, because you know, naturally
conversation takes twists andturns that you weren't expecting
.
And that's really what makes itexciting for me, because as the
(21:12):
moderator I have no damn ideawhat's happening.
And here we go, like sometimesI forget to check in with the
audience, sometimes I'll forgetto introduce myself at the
beginning of it.
I'm just so excited to do itand have fun.
The UnCommon Communicator (21:25):
And that's the having fun right,
that's the most important thing.
If you're having fun, it's funfor everybody.
But what I haven't seen happenin your live streams is is
people going off the deep end.
And I've even heard this.
I'm part of some, some smallgroups that talk about
podcasting and more and host andhow do you host and stuff like
(21:45):
that?
And they, you know, how do youkeep your guests from going off
the rails?
And they talk about having badcontent and all this other stuff
.
And I'm like, well, you pickedthe wrong people and maybe
you're facilitating it wrong,but you know all of that can
happen, you know, because thishappens on our job sites and
that's something it's anotherskill to work on as well too.
You get the guy who just wantsto grandstand on your projects
(22:07):
and try to control it and run it.
I haven't seen any of that atall in the live streams that
you've facilitated.
But that is.
That's always that kind ofyou're on the edge of.
It could happen.
Right, you could go on the mon,somebody could go on the
monologue, and it's going to beup to Lance to have to steer him
off of it in a in a kind andpolite way.
Lance Furuyama (22:27):
Well, you know, I think a big part of that is
behind the scenes, right, orsomebody's on the show.
Or as soon as they accept theinvitation, I send them a
document with expectations andyou know, kind of the prevent
marketing and the format thatwe're going to be using.
And it's a loose format, that'sa given, but there is something
(22:47):
there and I'm when I open upthe show, I'm saying, you know,
to be respectful of people'stime, blah, blah, blah.
I'm talking about me, but it'simplied that it's for all of us.
So it's an expectation that'sbeen set.
The UnCommon Communicator (22:59):
Well, that's a great way to do it too
.
You imply it about yourself,but you're like I'm going to
hold you accountable to it.
But I think what you're doingshould happen at every meeting,
every conversation.
So what you're doing is justreally, really good,
foundational have a meeting.
You're showing people how tohave a meeting because you set
those expectations up front.
Then you don't have to worryabout derailing it later.
(23:22):
You know the whole thing withLean is they talk about this
Elmo?
Have you heard anybody talkabout Elmo?
I have.
I have Enough.
Leave, leave it alone orsomething.
I should know what it means.
But anyways, they physicallybring an Elmo doll in, but it's,
it's not fleet alone.
It's like you've gone on fortoo long.
But there's an expectation inthese meetings, because they are
(23:42):
formatted to be as efficient aspossible, to say okay, that's,
that's a later conversation, butthat's about setting
expectations, which is exactlywhat you do when you do that.
Lance Furuyama (23:55):
Yeah, you know, for me the biggest thing has
been expectations put on me thatI wasn't aware of and that I
never formally accepted.
So for me, I always, wheneverI'm in charge of something, I'm
always carrying that in the backof my mind, because there's
nothing worse than busting yourbutt and finding out you're
going in the wrong direction,that you know the person in
(24:15):
charge wasn't expecting.
So that's double, double thefrustrating.
The UnCommon Communicator (24:20):
Yeah, that's very true.
Now you.
So when we talked about havingyou on the show, you talked
about your communication beingraw and I thought this.
So your communication stylelike and I've studied
communication styles and that'sone of the goals of any uncommon
communicator is to understandthe styles of other people,
because you have to adjust yourstyle to fit people, to make the
(24:41):
right mesh, and that's that'sthe key.
Actually, I called acombination lock.
When you're communicating withsomebody, you got to find out
what the combination of oftechniques, style, attitude,
tone I mean there's whole bunchof different things and making
and connecting with people andyou, you're an incredible
connector and I think it's justbecause you're the cool
California kid from Hawaii.
That's what I think it has todo with.
(25:02):
You don't come across and Idon't want to offend anyone from
the East Coast, but East Coastbut you can be more direct but
you consider your communicationstyle raw.
Tell me a little bit more aboutthat.
Lance Furuyama (25:13):
Yeah, I mean usually I don't hold back.
I mean fortunately I'm notdropping F bombs left and right
on this one, because it's theend of a very chill week for me.
So you know, it was justprocess review and haven't had
to really interact with too manypeople that have gotten under
my skin, so I'm just chilling.
It's nice, but you know, as faras raw.
(25:35):
So here's, here's a fun storythat happened earlier this year.
I bought a book.
It was kind of like a thesauruson steroids.
You know, I wanted to improve myvocabulary and do this and that
, which is cool.
I like to do that.
But I found myself like very.
I tried dropping some words inand people were just kind of
looking at me like I don't evenknow what that means and I'm
(25:58):
like neither do I really.
I kind of have to look at mycheat card over here and that's
not authentic communication.
And you know if To me,communication is you have a
point to get across or aquestion, the other person
understands it clearly and youcan have a have a conversation.
So for me to throw all of thatwindow dressing on it, it didn't
(26:20):
add value and actually detractit from the conversation.
So that's kind of been a weirdthing in 2023.
The UnCommon Communicator (26:27):
I wouldn't call that weird.
I think that's Anybody who'swilling to build their
vocabulary as well.
I think that's cool that yougot a Arnold Schwarzenegger
thesaurus so you can.
I mean, to me any thesaurus is,is is gonna be a challenge,
because trying to learn words sono, I think that's.
I Think that's pretty cool.
(26:48):
But when you talk about raw, Ihad to look that up because
that's not one of my categories.
Like you're gonna have acommunication style, but it's
certainly one that connectedwith With Tony Robbins,
apparently, because and he doeshe comes across as raw and
that's one thing that doesattract me is Having people
Speak with candor.
(27:08):
That's a conversation I've hadwith Adam Hoots.
That's something that I'mworking on because I tend to
want to facilitate in a, in asofter mode.
I guess is what I tend to do.
I tend to diffuse.
I am, by nature, I'm a mediator, so I will want to mediate,
something like that.
But I find that those that comewith the raw communication now
(27:28):
I'm craving that.
Now I want something that'sgoing to be more direct.
You know could be around thebush, which I do a lot myself,
but this is so this cave, thisis a deaf.
There's actually a definitionRaw, a raw communication style
is a type of communication thatis without finesse, and I'm like
that's not Lance.
So I don't think Lance lookedup the definition of that,
because you've got Plenty offinesse.
(27:50):
It is direct, and I thinkthat's probably what you're
talking about, is, you can bevery direct and this is this is
interesting.
It stings and creates tensionbeyond what anyone normally
desires in a relationship, andso again there's another
negativity.
But then I love this is howthey clarify at the end.
Sometimes raw communication canbe unexpectedly effective, but
(28:11):
I think in general we need moreRaw communication that is
curated properly, as you do.
You know coming in and bringingthat type of communication with
.
You know it's not unfiltered,but it's, it's open, and so this
is something.
Is this how you grew up?
Is this how you learned tocommunicate growing up?
Lance Furuyama (28:33):
You know, like for a lot of my life I
communicated like a phone, behonest.
You know I'm from Hawaii and wespeak a lot of like pigeon
English.
I'm not sure if you've everheard that, but it's.
It sounds it's it's English,but not really.
There's a lot of twists on it,like broken English in a sense.
And that's cool, like everybodyI just it wasn't my thing.
(28:56):
So I felt like kind of theoutsider because I refused to Do
that if that's not how I spoke.
So you know, I joined like anexecutive association when I was
30 back in Hawaii and I wasdoing like a presentation on a
waste aversion and and this wasa room of like very accomplished
(29:18):
people and you know basicallywhere I'd want to be even now in
30 years.
So you know I was, I was likecrossing my teeth and donning my
eyes and had a weird specialphone voice ready for the
presentation.
It was so fucking weird, man,like I Couldn't believe it.
Like as I was doing thepresentation, I was getting
(29:38):
distracted because I was alsohaving to think about how to
talk and and what I was gonnasay and what I was presenting.
So in the middle of I said, heyguys, you know, man like Sorry,
this isn't me, but we're justgonna get it done.
I'm gonna ditch this slide deckand we're just gonna talk.
The UnCommon Communicator (29:55):
From there like.
Lance Furuyama (29:56):
I Think it gave me the space to be myself.
The UnCommon Communicator (30:00):
Okay.
Lance Furuyama (30:01):
I could.
I could see that I was losingthe room and I could feel like
you know you're not even givingyourself a chance to present.
They brought you here for areason Like do it got you here?
The UnCommon Communicator (30:12):
Yeah.
Lance Furuyama (30:14):
And that's kind of where the raw, where I look
at it that way because you knowit's dropping in some so
colorful language and it's notexactly a setting.
We're in some fancy Countryclub ballroom and I'm like you
know what, let's just go likethis is what's happening and
they ate it up.
Right, because it stood out inthat room.
It was so different, sodifferent from the way that
(30:37):
people communicated that it gottheir attention and it wasn't
Intentionally to get their theirattention.
It was just because I couldn'tget through the way the
presentation, the way that I wasdoing it.
The UnCommon Communicator (30:47):
You'd prepared it and you couldn't
even get through your ownpresentation, and I thought I
applaud you for doing that,because that's one of the things
in and I work with a nonprofitorganization, toastmasters and
there's, you know, there's astyle of speech that goes along
with some practice.
There's definitely some peoplewho are really developing their
skills to bring it out into thereal world, but there becomes
(31:09):
some form and practice thatreally helps people get out of
their bubble, get them out oftheir they're kind of confines,
there's their fear of publicspeaking, so there's so much
value in doing that.
But there's also some things inbridging pass out, like what
you just talked about.
You know, there's sometimessome very fake hand gestures
where I see you and I hear you,and, but all of these things are
(31:30):
things to get what they'redoing.
Those are getting peopleoutside of their whether we call
it t-rexing when somebody'sgiven a speech and they only,
you know, keep their hands justlike a t-rex.
But there's there's skills thatare applied.
But taking that beyond to thenext level and I've been in
hundreds of hours of training,through construction, through
anything, right then, havingbeen through all of those styles
(31:52):
of training, the ones that andI've been killed.
I think I've died several timesby PowerPoint, and what you
just said is, if you go in therewith this business voice
without any inflection, you'regoing to go through your
PowerPoints.
People felt accomplished, givingthe information the way that
they presented it, which is whattheir goal is, but they
(32:13):
completely lost the audience,and that's what I applaud you
for is you saw it.
You saw it and pivoted, andthat's something to do.
You know, take some peopleyears of going through that to
realize it, but you saw it andthen you made a pivot.
And you made a pivot and youconnected with it, and because
that's what people want, ourbrains cannot handle More than
one page of bullet points, andI'm not against them, although
(32:34):
if I give a speech, if it's anentertaining speech, I like to
give them in a TEDx style with apicture, and then I.
The picture relates somewhat towhat I'm talking about, but
there's stuff in what you and Ido in presenting information.
We have to present theinformation in a way.
There's a lot of data thatwe're trying to give, but
there's a point where You'vegone too far, and so I love that
(32:54):
you have approached that, andso that was kind of an aha
moment.
I'm always looking for momentsof enlightenment, and it sounds
like for you.
That was a my chip.
That was an aha moment that youpivoted in right then, and this
was how many years ago.
Lance Furuyama (33:11):
Uh, it's been about 11 years ago.
The UnCommon Communicator (33:13):
I'd see even got down to 11.
I love that.
I'd be like.
That's fantastic and so that'staking that kind of raw Going.
Turning it raw is basicallywhat you said, because you saw
some value in Doing that.
How do you practice that inyour Communication now?
(33:35):
Is it hard for you, since yousaid that you were Kind of, were
you sugarcoat and things, or isthose?
Lance Furuyama (33:41):
those were my yeah, I definitely was, and I
was afraid to have toughconversations beyond the surface
and I found out nothing.
No business gets done at thesurface, right, you got to get
deeper than that.
If there was a problem with,you know, tools being left all
over the place and people notcleaning up, like that's the
(34:01):
issue, isn't that there's adrill on the ground?
It's like, why is your standardnot up to the stuff?
Like, like, let me talk tosomebody a little further up and
see if there's a root cause.
That's that this is okay.
Yeah because if you notice atrend amongst their crews, what,
no matter which job you're on,that's.
That's not.
It is a cruise issue, but it'smore of a cultural issue, right,
(34:23):
and I'm not afraid to ask anddrive down a little deeper.
The UnCommon Communicator (34:26):
Yep, no, I love that and that's I.
I tend to ramp it up.
That's kind of my style,because I don't.
I've worked around thosegeneral contractors, those
superintendents that Just goingat a hundred miles an hour every
time, yelling, screaming, youknow, and that's their style to
get it.
I like to ramp it up is what Ilike to do.
First I'll ask and then I'll askstrenuously, you know, and so
(34:49):
you, you'll get to the pointwhere you know it's probably not
a great style, but I'll, I'lltend to, you know, you know,
laying on a little bit of theguilt trip thing.
It's like, man, we talked aboutthis, can't you remember this?
So then you get to the pointwhere you ramp it up.
I'm never gonna yell on the job, that's just not who I am.
But I will at some point haveto ramp it up to somebody, to
(35:10):
who will fix it.
And that's what I have found isthere's, there's always somebody
in the company, at least youhope and you don't know that
right until you know that tradepartner that's willing to fix
that situation.
And I think what you talkedabout tools all over the place I
think that's one of the worstthings.
That shows somebody's abilityto provide quality work and
efficient work is that theydon't take care of their tools,
if they don't take care of theirjob sites, if they're working
(35:32):
and filth.
Those are things.
If, as we continue to help ourtrade partners become better, a
cleaner job site provided forthem and then to provide it as
well too, are all things thathelp foster that environment.
But we do it throughcommunication, like we we're
setting expectations of those,of those type of things.
Lance Furuyama (35:53):
Yeah, and you know one thing I'd like to speak
on while I have a have aplatform.
Everybody gives superintendentssuch a hard time about being
shitty communicators.
But if you think about it, whatother role are you in?
We're 24-7.
Whatever phone call you'regetting probably isn't a good
(36:13):
one.
It's always some unexpectedthing.
You may have everything figuredout and then One thing down the
chain throws everything off andyou're all out of alignment.
I mean, that is I was trying tothink about it Right.
So there's like the military,there's first responders and law
enforcement who have to be ononce they're on.
They're on like there's nodowntime in their brain mentally
(36:36):
.
And you have a superintendentwho has a PM, who has a project
executive there's, you know,finance coming down, say, hey,
we need to hit this milestone.
What are you doing?
And you have 27 trades workingthat you really I mean if you're
being real about you have noreal control over the.
I Mean you can try and you canyell to your blue in the face,
(36:57):
but they're gonna move.
How they're gonna move, I meanjust based on who you hired.
So when you're in a low bidsituation and you're just
getting bad news after bad newsand you come up with hey, hey,
james, how's it going?
It's like what are you talkingabout?
Terrible.
What the hell are you talkingabout?
I think people need to be alittle more aware of the
responsibility that they carry,so don't come to them with dumb
(37:20):
shit.
Like you know, hey, did you?
Did you see the game last night?
It's like no, I was here.
Like, what are you talkingabout?
Like I think there needs to bea little more grace given, and
you know they're trying theirbest, man, it's tough.
The UnCommon Communicator (37:34):
Yeah, the role of the superintendent
is one of the toughest jobs thatyou can have.
On that job site and a PMwithin my organization we're
definitely superintendent driven.
All the responsibilities of allof the project, you know
deliverables, fall on thesuperintendent as well as
executing the project site.
I mean there's in some othercompanies, organizations, it's,
(37:56):
you know, the PM might drive theschedule even which not my
organization, and so you prettymuch own everything.
And that's one of the reasonsit drew me to the company that
I'm working with right now,because that I'd love to having
that idea.
I don't want to say that amountof control, but that amount of
influence on how the projectgoes falls on that
superintendent.
(38:16):
But you nailed it and I thinkthat's something that I am.
I'm working on some.
I might be working on a book, Imight just throw that out there,
but the idea is there's themindset of stoicism, is
something that has helped me andI'm not some weird philosophy
guy who is unemployed which is alot of times the philosophy
(38:39):
guys are unemployed but there'sa mindset that says that you
basically you're not going tolet the outward forces change.
You know is are going to affectyou.
You have to manage yourselfEverything that's going on
beyond you.
You know I can't let thosesituations me take them home
anymore, and I I'm learning thisover the last few years, but I
(38:59):
did.
I was one of the worst of them.
For two I could not leave workat work, and I made a mind shift
years ago to do that.
Because, just what you said,you got a million different
decisions that you're makingevery day for everybody, and so
there's skills that we can adaptand use at any level of
leadership to share that load ofdecision making, to not let
(39:22):
those problems get affect you towhere you're going to take
those things home.
It is a very tough andchallenging job, and that's
where I my passion, is workingwith the trade partners to
better their skills, to bebetter trade partners, because
sometimes, just like in anyrelationship, we, they, they got
to know how to be good tradepartners with good expectations
(39:43):
as well.
So are we giving them goodexpectations?
And most of the time, the tradepartners aren't given the
training that they should begiven because back to this, we,
the pool is small.
We're throwing so many peopleinto these things, into form and
leadership roles that are notready for it, because there's
nobody else to step into it.
(40:04):
So now we owe them the training, and that's what I want to see
in the next 10 years is andthat's what you're doing by
sharing through your platform.
There's several of us, throughthis no BS tribe and through
some other connections, that aresaying we're going to take this
information and we're going todo our best to get it to this
young generation, becausethere's no reason they need to
go through everything that wewent through, because they're
(40:27):
smarter, they have a betteraccess to information that we've
ever had in our life and youknow, being able to connect
those dots and I see you doingthat as well, too, by just
getting getting it out there andshowing the human side of
construction, the human side ofcommunication, really.
Lance Furuyama (40:45):
Thank you.
Now in your company dosuperintendents have a say?
I mean maybe not the final say,but a say in the selection of
trade partners?
The UnCommon Communicator (40:53):
Yeah, so, depending on the, the
contracting style, there aretimes.
But yeah, there we're alwaysbrought in and we're given a
little bit of choice.
But because we're also theresponsibility, the budget is
ours as well too.
We have to look at that andthink and I've done this, it's
like, okay, this they're $20,000less, I will.
I know the challenge that thattrade partner is going to bring,
(41:15):
but I want to make sure that wehave the right budget to be
able to go in there.
So you'll make those decisionsknowing that.
So, yeah, there is that decisionnot always, sometimes a lot,
when you, when you said 27 tradepartners, trades on the job,
that's real and you're talkingsometimes, like the project I
was just on, I think at 25, Ithink it was, and it was a small
(41:39):
.
Well, it was a small project.
We did a larger project downthe road, say, I mean I was
working on a $4 million project.
There was one down the roadwe're doing at 50 million.
It had 26 trade partners.
So it's not indicative of theside of the project, it's still.
The complexity is there.
But are we given the choice?
For the most part yes,sometimes no, and then you
(42:00):
realize who are going to be yourchallenges and then, when you
know it, then you can approachthem with a plan to kind of as
as it was worded to me as likewe need to, we need to drag them
across the finish line.
And so my word was because thisis the trade partner we had to
go with and had to to finishwith, and I said, okay, I'm
giving you some rope too.
So we're all going to do it.
(42:21):
And we all did.
We all pulled them together.
They actually the one that I'mtalking about in particular they
did up the performance thatthey were tough at the beginning
, very hard to communicate with,hard to get responses out of
their.
Finally, once they were engagedand involved, they ended up
being one of the more successfultrade partners on the project
and their work was stellar.
I mean, it was beautiful.
Like they were a perfectionistthen.
(42:42):
That was part of the problem intrying to get them to commit
early on.
So to try.
So you have to dive a littlebit deeper into know that.
You know, at the end of the dayI'm looking at how are you
finishing?
You know there's always goingto be a problem along the way,
but how are you going to finishit up?
Lance Furuyama (42:59):
Nice, I like that because you guys own as
super tenants, own the projectfor the most part, you know.
It made me think of that oldbill for ourselves quote if they
want you to pick the dinner, atleast say I'll let you shop for
some of the groceries.
I like that.
The UnCommon Communicator (43:12):
Say that again, say that again for
me.
Lance Furuyama (43:14):
Oh yeah, it was.
If they want you to pick thedinner, at least they ought to
let you shop for some of thegroceries.
The UnCommon Communicator (43:20):
I love that.
Oh boy, that that should be ourUC moment, which that's what
we're going to move into now.
Lance, thanks so much forjoining me this morning.
This has been a greatconversation.
I really have enjoyed watchingyour, your communication style,
and really watch how you'veleveraged a lot and we didn't
get too far into this, butyou've leveraged social media.
(43:41):
You've been able to reallyconnect with people who you're
you're not meeting in personeither.
People are connecting with thestuff that you're putting out
there and you're plus, you'regiving a voice to people.
But through our conversationhere, what do you think is the
UC moment?
The UC moment is the uncommoncommunicator moment, the one
thing we're going to sum it up,because they're going to be fun,
they're going to have beentertained.
(44:02):
But what are they going to walkaway with today from my
conversation with Lance?
Lance Furuyama (44:06):
I think it's be yourself Like.
Nobody can speak your voicebetter than you can.
The UnCommon Communicator (44:12):
Well, I love them.
Lance Furuyama (44:12):
They'll try to be somebody else.
The UnCommon Communicator (44:15):
Oh, man, that's, we have to end
there.
Be yourself, I love that.
Well, thanks so much, lance.
That's what that's all we'vegot.
See you and come to the UC.
(44:36):
Children jumpers мотр lightly.
Welcome to the Uncom communicator
podcast, where we bringenlightenment to the topic of
communication.
Are you ready to take ownershipof your conversations?
Are you looking to possess theskills to navigate and
facilitate conversations to amutual understanding?
What are you waiting for?
Grab your growth mindset andlet's go?
Welcome to the Uncomcommunicator podcast, where we
(00:32):
bring enlightenment to the topicof communication.
I am really pleased to haveLance Ferriyama, the rising star
of Lance, on the podcast today.
We're going to talk about kindof his dive and his take on
communication and where he hastaken his business.
I feel like he has been avehicle of communication trade
(00:55):
partner headquarters HQ.
Why don't you jump in and tellus a little bit more about
yourself?
Lance Furuyama (01:02):
Yeah, hi, james.
First of all, thanks for havingme.
I'm a big fan of the show, sothis is a little surreal for me.
I live in the Bay Area,california.
I do work for an electricalcontractor on the operations
site.
Still, I started trade partnerHQ earlier this year primarily
to help business owners,consultants, get their voice out
(01:24):
.
I didn't so much of a salesyway, but really telling their
story and differentiatingthemselves.
The UnCommon Communicato (01:30):
That's what really made my first
connection with you as well, too.
You used all the right words,which is getting your voice out
there.
That's something that I'verefined, probably over the last
few months.
I even had this in aconversation with Jen Lacey,
where I really began tounderstand what is my real
purpose.
I'm like what am I doing here?
Why am I giving this podcastaway like this?
You give a ton of content awayas well, too, but it really
(01:54):
comes down to giving people avoice.
That's what initially made thatconnection with you is you are
giving people a voice.
I didn't realize it had onlybeen this year.
We're talking 2023.
I don't know what year we talkRight now in this week.
What week do we talk about?
What year are we in it?
Lance Furuyama (02:10):
was about 2023.
Yeah.
The UnCommon Communicato (02:13):
That's amazing what spurred the
birthplace of Trade Partner HQ.
Lance Furuyama (02:19):
It was really just a part of me that wasn't
being satisfied in my job.
I'm completely on theoperations then.
Unless my communications withpeople aren't great, they're
usually kind of running as thegoon at the end of the day.
That's really what my role isas far as communicating there.
I don't enjoy that route.
I've been really working oncommunicating before there's an
(02:42):
issue.
I enjoy getting to know people,but those circumstances weren't
allowing for me to really getthings off on the right foot.
The UnCommon Communicator (02:53):
You just said giving people a voice.
Is that the true mission ofTrade Partner HQ.
Lance Furuyama (02:59):
It is what is the mission.
The UnCommon Communicator (02:59):
Yeah.
Lance Furuyama (03:01):
My mission is really to help.
At first it was just TradePartners, but now I've found
myself working on the GC sideand a lot of the construction
tech companies as well.
The thing is, we don't say alot.
People listen to response.
I found that there's a lot ofgap in there where, if you
(03:23):
create the platform and createthe environment for people to
have curated speech, I'd ratherdive deeper into a question than
just hit all the boxes andcontinue moving with my
pre-rehearsed questions.
The UnCommon Communicator (03:37):
Yeah, I love that.
Let's talk about the format ofthis, because what you're doing
is I don't want to say it'sgroundbreaking because I haven't
seen it.
If I haven't seen it and ithasn't existed before because
I'm as old as dirt it appears tobe very groundbreaking where
you're giving really a businessand a trade.
People who don't communicate onsocial media very well, which
(04:01):
is where we're not in newspapersanymore, people we can't hand
flyers out on the street and getpeople to go.
We're curating which I lovethat term these conversations
with people.
What spurred that idea likethat need?
How did you see that needdevelop?
Lance Furuyama (04:19):
Well, it started off as something that was a fun
project for me, which is thatbusiness and beyond livestream
that I do on LinkedIn.
I don't share the questionswith anybody beforehand, I just
want to have conversations Inconstruction.
We all say we're best in classand this or that.
At the end of the day, cody48says you remove the name and
(04:42):
look at the stats and everything.
He looks the same.
So I figured an advantage forsomebody is to.
If you do an interview with meand people relate to you, you're
going to track them.
If your style rubs in the wrongway and you repel them, that's
even better, because it's betterto be finding that out now than
when you're under contract andfinding out that you guys are
(05:04):
not are oil and water to them.
The UnCommon Communicator (05:07):
Well, and that's very true, and I
love the fact that you give aplatform for people to talk
about those things.
But there is that part aboutmaking that fit happen.
And on the general I'm on thegeneral construction side
sometimes we get to choose whowe partner with based on
relationship, based on you know,however, the project.
(05:29):
You know pricing is structured,but other times, on some fixed
price situations, we're havingto go in with the low bid, which
is always still the wrong wayto go about any type of business
, especially if there's norelationship.
But we're not afforded thattime to develop that
relationship.
And that is the same as ifyou're hiring new employees.
(05:51):
They're in construction.
There is such a you know emptypool, like if somebody wants to
get in to construction, rightnow is the time to do it.
It's been that time for thelast probably five, 10 years.
The pool is wide open and youcan pretty much go anywhere that
you want to go and the money isstarting to climb because those
needs, because there's such aneed for it.
(06:12):
But because of that need thereis, you're not taking time to
get to know that person.
You're trying to fill a hole.
You're trying to fill that spot.
There was a story that goes back.
My dad was a generalsuperintendent or general
foreman on a project at NUMI.
In fact, out there by you inCalifornia, he was at NUMI and
(06:32):
the superintendent that NUMI isthe New United Motors.
It was the partnership betweenToyota and General Motors.
My dad had worked at GeneralMotors.
My grandpa worked at thatfacility as well too, when it
was General Motors.
So a history going back Lanceand I from similar routes out in
the California Bay Area, but hewas on this job and they called
for 50 mill rights to come outon this job.
(06:54):
And so, as they showed up thatsuperintendent at the time, he's
like no, you don't have theright coveralls on, you don't
have enough tools, you don'thave enough this.
And my dad was in therephysically writing that's back
when he had to write the checks,writing the two hour show up
time for that guy because theywere weeding through their pool
of people that they had to dothis construction job, and so he
(07:15):
ended up with 30 people andthey knew that they were gonna
get rid of 20 out of thosepeople.
And when you do that, you'regonna get I don't wanna say the
best of the best, but you'regonna get the better guys.
I've been on projects where youhave five to 10 open spots of
work to do because they're notthere.
So that's the same thing Ithink we see within our trade
partner world where we're notgetting to know them, we're just
(07:40):
trying to fill those spots, andI think the platform that
you're bringing which is saying,hey, let's talk about, let's
talk about, you get to know, youget to know the person, cause I
think that's the move in ourtrades Do you see that as a
change in construction right now?
We're not my dad's old schoolstyle and this was 40, 50 years
ago is that's not the stylewe're doing today, is it?
Lance Furuyama (08:03):
Yeah, I feel like it has to be intentional.
Like every time I go to like akickoff meeting, I always tell
people I'll wait till you finishdrink your coffee before I tell
you this.
I always tell people.
If you step back in the roomand all of the trades are there,
it looks like dogs are sniffingeach other's butts at a dog
park.
You know, like nobody's really.
Everybody's kind of a chest out, kind of eyeing up and down
(08:27):
like who are you, who are youwith?
And they leave it at that.
They don't even try to get tothe point where, hey, we're
about to work together.
Let's find out a little moreabout each other.
And you know, people put thaton the construction manager or
the superintendent, but that'snot their, it is part of their
role.
But we need to be more activein being approachable.
(08:47):
Like I feel like everybody'sjust staring each other down,
looking for scope, overlap andalready like chomping at the bit
to getting each other'sbusiness.
The UnCommon Communicator (08:57):
Yeah, well, and sometimes they're
well.
It could have beenrelationships earlier, but in
other times it's just thepositions of the role, right?
You know that somebody you'reready to fight with the
electrician because you knowhe's not gonna sweep up after
himself.
So there's some of that, justalready knowing that going into
the role.
But I like your analogies and Ido love analogies as well too
(09:18):
but the and thank you forletting me put my coffee down,
because I would have spittledall over the screen but that is
exactly it.
I mean, that's a perfectanalogy of assessing people in a
room and how they're gonnabegin to interact with that.
But I'll disagree with you.
I think it becomes the role ofthat leader, that superintendent
or whoever's facilitating thatroom to break those walls down.
And that's what we haven't beendoing in every situation is to
(09:42):
break the walls down incommunication, to get past it,
let them.
You know what, though, then?
Because I just got a new puppy,the sniffing's very important,
so it's a very important socialaspect in a dog.
It may not necessarily be inhumans, but what we're doing is
exactly it.
We're sizing each other up,we're checking each other's
health, we're seeing how we'regonna get along with each other.
(10:04):
So a little bit of that is okay, and you do know sometimes who
you're not gonna get along with.
Right then you know it, rightthen.
And at that point for me thatbecomes, that becomes the focus.
If I'm no, I'm gonna get alongwith Joe, then that's great,
we're gonna be fine.
Then I have to make anothereffort, a deeper effort, to get
(10:25):
to meet whoever.
That other person seems to be alittle bit of the top dog, and
there's always a top dog inevery pack.
Lance Furuyama (10:34):
Yes, so in your role I mean the superintendent's
listening to this what would besome ways that they could help
facilitate?
I mean, if we're not gonna likeeach other, that's cool.
At least let's get that out ofthe way and figure out how to
work together.
What are some ways to help themNavigate that?
The UnCommon Communicator (10:52):
And so I appreciate that question,
lance, because I've heard you'rereally good at turning the
questions back onto theinterviewer and you nailed it.
So I was waiting for thismoment.
So thank you so much for askingme that question, because that
collaboration is something thatI've been thinking about a lot,
especially in my role, but justas something that I want to help
(11:15):
teach a little bit more aboutis the ability to run a
collaboration, and that word isjust a fancy word for stuff
we've been doing for years,which is really getting
everybody in the room to beacknowledged.
And so how would I facilitatethat?
First off, I identify who's thequiet one and I always ask.
So anytime I'm in a Zoommeeting or anytime I'm in an
(11:37):
in-person meeting, I want tomake sure that I'm acknowledging
somebody.
And one thing that I like to do,especially just even in a small
group, if there's three of usand I'll word it this way so you
and I are chatting, and ofcourse I'm doing all the talking
, I won't shut up, right, it'slike, and you're just barely
listening, hanging on listeningto me.
Somebody else just shows up andwe ignore that person.
(11:59):
As soon as somebody else drivesup, I get a knot in my stomach
If that other person is not evengoing to acknowledge that,
because I've been that personbefore too.
Where you've walked up, you goto this.
Sometimes it takes a little bitof confidence to come up.
Hey, I want to be part of thisconversation, you get excluded.
So, narrowing it down to eventhat small group, I think deep
(12:19):
inside me is going to say I'mgoing to bring that person in,
introduce them, at least getthem part of that conversation.
If that other person won'tsteer it that way, I know if I'm
leading that, I am.
But if I'm leading a group oftrade partners, construction
workers, then I want to makesure that we're bringing out.
Everybody gets a voice,everybody gets to say something.
So a lot of times it can bethrough like an icebreaker or
(12:41):
just an icebreaker question hey,what do you think about the
parking lot?
It's just some question to getsomebody to stay something and
then begin that human route.
So that's one way that I liketo facilitate a collaboration.
Do you have any more questions,lance?
Lance Furuyama (12:58):
No, not yet.
The UnCommon Communicator (12:59):
OK, we'll get there.
Lance Furuyama (13:04):
I like that approach Because a lot of times
the super will just sit back andwatch the dogs bite each other
and be like, oh well.
The UnCommon Communicator (13:14):
So that what you just said is
really an issue withinconstruction, Because in some
cases and I've seen it and it'snot in the organization I'm in
right now, but I've been on thejobs.
I've been a trade partner formost of my career.
I started in the trades as amillwright.
I worked for trade partners,for GCs, so I've been on that
(13:36):
side for almost over 30 years ofmy career and so the last six
years I've been with a generalcontractor.
So I've seen that side of it andI've been that where that
superintendent is doing it onpurpose, he's doing that to
create some of that aggressionon the job, he's promoting it
and that's one of the worstthings that we can do because it
(13:56):
makes that project moralemiserable.
It makes it bad for individualtrade partners and then they're
not there to support you, andthat's, I think, the key that
we're seeing in the turn towardslean construction on the
general construction side isthat collaboration and that
creating of the flow.
No longer is it theresponsibility of that trade
(14:17):
partner to go figure out theirwork.
You're coming in and you'recollaborating together just to
see how your work fits withinthat flow.
And that general contractor,that superintendent, wants to
get you in and out as fast asyou can so you make money.
So the mindset has shifted andI think in that shift it had to
have come through bettercommunication.
Lance Furuyama (14:37):
Oh, that's actually pretty interesting.
So it's like before we wereworking in siloes on the same
property, but now we're all kindof integrated in together.
The UnCommon Communicator (14:45):
Yes, no, that's exactly it.
The silo, your silo, shows up.
You show up with your couple ofgang boxes and you're not given
any space and then you'reinvited to a.
This is one particular job forme.
You're invited to a giganticmeeting where they talk at you
and then, when you're done, youguys have to go to work, where
you just killed an hour and ahalf because they have safety
(15:07):
requirements to train you on.
This was a project that I didactually down in San Jose and we
were there for four weeks.
I had just a small job.
We're putting in some elevators, these kind of two floor one
man or material loaders tofloors for, at the time, one of
those data centers, a secretdata center downtown San Jose
(15:29):
nobody, the data centers werenew At that.
This is in the 90s.
I don't even want to tell youhow long ago it was.
They're starting up thecomputers with a hand crank back
then, but it was at thefoundation of data centers and
anyways.
So I had tons of questions andI had multiple superintendents
on the project and I'm trying toget information from him and
(15:50):
I'm asking him questions andthen at one point he goes.
You know what?
I spend more time.
You're the smallest trade,you're sub, you're the smallest
sub that I've got and I'mspending more time with you.
You need to go figure it out.
So at that point I went andfigured it out and that's where
I realized that it's that goesback to that silo.
Right, go back to your silo, goget your work done and when
(16:13):
you're done, get the heck off myjob.
Because I got all these otherand they were firefighters right
.
They kept putting out fires,they didn't plan the work, they
were in over their head becausethey didn't plan it.
And those are part of theproblems is bringing those silos
together.
How did my work integrate withthe other trades?
Because on that job, guess whathad to come through and I had
(16:33):
to stop my work, fireproofing.
So they had to bring in thefireproofers and they had to get
the beams right above where wewere working at the same time
that he knew we were gonna showup for our two weeks worth of
work.
So it's just that and that'swhat I'm trying to communicate.
So, definitely, breaking downsilos is a key, I think, in our
construction and incommunication as well too.
(16:55):
What inspired the business andbeyond, live streams, that's
something that, because yourbusiness is.
Trade Partner HQ is aboutcurating and helping businesses,
and you provide that at a priceSome services which I think is
super low price to help thempromote their business.
You interview them, they gettheir platform put out there and
(17:19):
I'll put a link in the shownotes for it.
But the business and beyondlive stream seems like you're
doing the same thing and youjust I don't even know how you
get your mix of people together.
So tell me a little bit aboutthe planning that goes into
putting together that businessand beyond.
Lance Furuyama (17:35):
Yeah, so that was pretty interesting.
As I was growing my network, Iwas like I don't really.
I know of these people, but Idon't really know them and I
have limited time to do a lot ofone-on-one calls, so I thought
it would be fun to get a bunchof people together that have
never met.
For the most part, live streamis involved the audience so that
(17:58):
everybody feels like they'reall getting something out of it,
and initially the idea was tobe talking about your business
or your projects or whatever itwas, but I found that that's not
what interests me.
It's more about who you are,the person.
I've bought a lot of books or alot of authors on LinkedIn in
the construction space, so Ibought a lot of books and for me
(18:19):
I'm a little starstruck becauseI'm a big reader and when I get
to meet the person like HenryNutt was one of them, for me
that was super cool to get tomeet them and talk to them.
The UnCommon Communicator (18:33):
Yeah, so that's that is the advantage
of hosting and inviting peoplein, because I've had that same
scenario.
I've had a couple of people andhaven't jumped on this podcast
yet.
When we started, I invitedChris Voss because the whole
foundation of this podcaststarted with going through Never
Split the Difference by ChrisVoss, and if you haven't read
(18:54):
that book, it's a book onnegotiation, but it's more a
book on listening and he's a FBIhostage negotiator assisted a
great book.
I probably read it half a dozentimes before it really
connected with me because hisline of thinking and how he
processes that is so different,and so that's what.
So we took the foundations ofthat.
(19:15):
That's what we started.
The first nine episodes of thispodcast was in that book and
then so there's some goodinformation in there that we
drew from dissecting that book.
But of course I wanted to getChris Voss on, but we didn't.
We haven't met the listenercriteria yet, so hopefully I'll
get there one day I can haveChris on.
I would actually love to havehe's got some other people on
this team that are fantastic aswell too, but maybe I'll work my
(19:38):
way up to that one.
Lance Furuyama (19:40):
So then later, yeah, it's just natural
curiosity, right?
I'd love to get to know peopleand that's it's for me, the wild
card in the live streams thatI've really enjoyed.
It's a question that theaudience are without there.
The UnCommon Communicator (19:52):
Yeah, it's because you don't.
You're planning some questions,right, you have some planned
questions, but I think one ofthe things that works so great
with that is you are bringing topeople that together, that
people that don't know eachother.
Right, it's not, they're noteven in the same state or
country, even and I don't knowif you have anybody out of
country yet.
I wasn't sure, Not yet you willguarantee a worldwide lance,
(20:15):
but it's the interaction youstart getting between the people
and I think that's what reallybrings those depths of
conversation in as they startplaying off of each other.
Because that's what you getwhen you have, you know, four
people in a conversation versusjust you and I.
You start building a deeperconversation.
They don't even they're helpingthemselves by learning from the
(20:38):
other people, and I thinkthat's something that you've
developed through that to thatprocess, which has really been
kind of need to see evolve.
Have you seen it grow andevolve in how you present those
things?
Lance Furuyama (20:52):
I have.
I've learned I have myquestions ready in case the
conversation stalls out.
But a lot of times you knowI'll probably six ready and
we'll make it through one or two, because you know, naturally
conversation takes twists andturns that you weren't expecting
.
And that's really what makes itexciting for me, because as the
(21:12):
moderator I have no damn ideawhat's happening.
And here we go, like sometimesI forget to check in with the
audience, sometimes I'll forgetto introduce myself at the
beginning of it.
I'm just so excited to do itand have fun.
The UnCommon Communicator (21:25):
And that's the having fun right,
that's the most important thing.
If you're having fun, it's funfor everybody.
But what I haven't seen happenin your live streams is is
people going off the deep end.
And I've even heard this.
I'm part of some, some smallgroups that talk about
podcasting and more and host andhow do you host and stuff like
(21:45):
that?
And they, you know, how do youkeep your guests from going off
the rails?
And they talk about having badcontent and all this other stuff
.
And I'm like, well, you pickedthe wrong people and maybe
you're facilitating it wrong,but you know all of that can
happen, you know, because thishappens on our job sites and
that's something it's anotherskill to work on as well too.
You get the guy who just wantsto grandstand on your projects
(22:07):
and try to control it and run it.
I haven't seen any of that atall in the live streams that
you've facilitated.
But that is.
That's always that kind ofyou're on the edge of.
It could happen.
Right, you could go on the mon,somebody could go on the
monologue, and it's going to beup to Lance to have to steer him
off of it in a in a kind andpolite way.
Lance Furuyama (22:27):
Well, you know, I think a big part of that is
behind the scenes, right, orsomebody's on the show.
Or as soon as they accept theinvitation, I send them a
document with expectations andyou know, kind of the prevent
marketing and the format thatwe're going to be using.
And it's a loose format, that'sa given, but there is something
(22:47):
there and I'm when I open upthe show, I'm saying, you know,
to be respectful of people'stime, blah, blah, blah.
I'm talking about me, but it'simplied that it's for all of us.
So it's an expectation that'sbeen set.
The UnCommon Communicator (22:59):
Well, that's a great way to do it too
.
You imply it about yourself,but you're like I'm going to
hold you accountable to it.
But I think what you're doingshould happen at every meeting,
every conversation.
So what you're doing is justreally, really good,
foundational have a meeting.
You're showing people how tohave a meeting because you set
those expectations up front.
Then you don't have to worryabout derailing it later.
(23:22):
You know the whole thing withLean is they talk about this
Elmo?
Have you heard anybody talkabout Elmo?
I have.
I have Enough.
Leave, leave it alone orsomething.
I should know what it means.
But anyways, they physicallybring an Elmo doll in, but it's,
it's not fleet alone.
It's like you've gone on fortoo long.
But there's an expectation inthese meetings, because they are
(23:42):
formatted to be as efficient aspossible, to say okay, that's,
that's a later conversation, butthat's about setting
expectations, which is exactlywhat you do when you do that.
Lance Furuyama (23:55):
Yeah, you know, for me the biggest thing has
been expectations put on me thatI wasn't aware of and that I
never formally accepted.
So for me, I always, wheneverI'm in charge of something, I'm
always carrying that in the backof my mind, because there's
nothing worse than busting yourbutt and finding out you're
going in the wrong direction,that you know the person in
(24:15):
charge wasn't expecting.
So that's double, double thefrustrating.
The UnCommon Communicator (24:20):
Yeah, that's very true.
Now you.
So when we talked about havingyou on the show, you talked
about your communication beingraw and I thought this.
So your communication stylelike and I've studied
communication styles and that'sone of the goals of any uncommon
communicator is to understandthe styles of other people,
because you have to adjust yourstyle to fit people, to make the
(24:41):
right mesh, and that's that'sthe key.
Actually, I called acombination lock.
When you're communicating withsomebody, you got to find out
what the combination of oftechniques, style, attitude,
tone I mean there's whole bunchof different things and making
and connecting with people andyou, you're an incredible
connector and I think it's justbecause you're the cool
California kid from Hawaii.
That's what I think it has todo with.
(25:02):
You don't come across and Idon't want to offend anyone from
the East Coast, but East Coastbut you can be more direct but
you consider your communicationstyle raw.
Tell me a little bit more aboutthat.
Lance Furuyama (25:13):
Yeah, I mean usually I don't hold back.
I mean fortunately I'm notdropping F bombs left and right
on this one, because it's theend of a very chill week for me.
So you know, it was justprocess review and haven't had
to really interact with too manypeople that have gotten under
my skin, so I'm just chilling.
It's nice, but you know, as faras raw.
(25:35):
So here's, here's a fun storythat happened earlier this year.
I bought a book.
It was kind of like a thesauruson steroids.
You know, I wanted to improve myvocabulary and do this and that
, which is cool.
I like to do that.
But I found myself like very.
I tried dropping some words inand people were just kind of
looking at me like I don't evenknow what that means and I'm
(25:58):
like neither do I really.
I kind of have to look at mycheat card over here and that's
not authentic communication.
And you know if To me,communication is you have a
point to get across or aquestion, the other person
understands it clearly and youcan have a have a conversation.
So for me to throw all of thatwindow dressing on it, it didn't
(26:20):
add value and actually detractit from the conversation.
So that's kind of been a weirdthing in 2023.
The UnCommon Communicator (26:27):
I wouldn't call that weird.
I think that's Anybody who'swilling to build their
vocabulary as well.
I think that's cool that yougot a Arnold Schwarzenegger
thesaurus so you can.
I mean, to me any thesaurus is,is is gonna be a challenge,
because trying to learn words sono, I think that's.
I Think that's pretty cool.
(26:48):
But when you talk about raw, Ihad to look that up because
that's not one of my categories.
Like you're gonna have acommunication style, but it's
certainly one that connectedwith With Tony Robbins,
apparently, because and he doeshe comes across as raw and
that's one thing that doesattract me is Having people
Speak with candor.
(27:08):
That's a conversation I've hadwith Adam Hoots.
That's something that I'mworking on because I tend to
want to facilitate in a, in asofter mode.
I guess is what I tend to do.
I tend to diffuse.
I am, by nature, I'm a mediator, so I will want to mediate,
something like that.
But I find that those that comewith the raw communication now
(27:28):
I'm craving that.
Now I want something that'sgoing to be more direct.
You know could be around thebush, which I do a lot myself,
but this is so this cave, thisis a deaf.
There's actually a definitionRaw, a raw communication style
is a type of communication thatis without finesse, and I'm like
that's not Lance.
So I don't think Lance lookedup the definition of that,
because you've got Plenty offinesse.
(27:50):
It is direct, and I thinkthat's probably what you're
talking about, is, you can bevery direct and this is this is
interesting.
It stings and creates tensionbeyond what anyone normally
desires in a relationship, andso again there's another
negativity.
But then I love this is howthey clarify at the end.
Sometimes raw communication canbe unexpectedly effective, but
(28:11):
I think in general we need moreRaw communication that is
curated properly, as you do.
You know coming in and bringingthat type of communication with
.
You know it's not unfiltered,but it's, it's open, and so this
is something.
Is this how you grew up?
Is this how you learned tocommunicate growing up?
Lance Furuyama (28:33):
You know, like for a lot of my life I
communicated like a phone, behonest.
You know I'm from Hawaii and wespeak a lot of like pigeon
English.
I'm not sure if you've everheard that, but it's.
It sounds it's it's English,but not really.
There's a lot of twists on it,like broken English in a sense.
And that's cool, like everybodyI just it wasn't my thing.
(28:56):
So I felt like kind of theoutsider because I refused to Do
that if that's not how I spoke.
So you know, I joined like anexecutive association when I was
30 back in Hawaii and I wasdoing like a presentation on a
waste aversion and and this wasa room of like very accomplished
(29:18):
people and you know basicallywhere I'd want to be even now in
30 years.
So you know I was, I was likecrossing my teeth and donning my
eyes and had a weird specialphone voice ready for the
presentation.
It was so fucking weird, man,like I Couldn't believe it.
Like as I was doing thepresentation, I was getting
(29:38):
distracted because I was alsohaving to think about how to
talk and and what I was gonnasay and what I was presenting.
So in the middle of I said, heyguys, you know, man like Sorry,
this isn't me, but we're justgonna get it done.
I'm gonna ditch this slide deckand we're just gonna talk.
The UnCommon Communicator (29:55):
From there like.
Lance Furuyama (29:56):
I Think it gave me the space to be myself.
The UnCommon Communicator (30:00):
Okay.
Lance Furuyama (30:01):
I could.
I could see that I was losingthe room and I could feel like
you know you're not even givingyourself a chance to present.
They brought you here for areason Like do it got you here?
The UnCommon Communicator (30:12):
Yeah.
Lance Furuyama (30:14):
And that's kind of where the raw, where I look
at it that way because you knowit's dropping in some so
colorful language and it's notexactly a setting.
We're in some fancy Countryclub ballroom and I'm like you
know what, let's just go likethis is what's happening and
they ate it up.
Right, because it stood out inthat room.
It was so different, sodifferent from the way that
(30:37):
people communicated that it gottheir attention and it wasn't
Intentionally to get their theirattention.
It was just because I couldn'tget through the way the
presentation, the way that I wasdoing it.
The UnCommon Communicator (30:47):
You'd prepared it and you couldn't
even get through your ownpresentation, and I thought I
applaud you for doing that,because that's one of the things
in and I work with a nonprofitorganization, toastmasters and
there's, you know, there's astyle of speech that goes along
with some practice.
There's definitely some peoplewho are really developing their
skills to bring it out into thereal world, but there becomes
(31:09):
some form and practice thatreally helps people get out of
their bubble, get them out oftheir they're kind of confines,
there's their fear of publicspeaking, so there's so much
value in doing that.
But there's also some things inbridging pass out, like what
you just talked about.
You know, there's sometimessome very fake hand gestures
where I see you and I hear you,and, but all of these things are
(31:30):
things to get what they'redoing.
Those are getting peopleoutside of their whether we call
it t-rexing when somebody'sgiven a speech and they only,
you know, keep their hands justlike a t-rex.
But there's there's skills thatare applied.
But taking that beyond to thenext level and I've been in
hundreds of hours of training,through construction, through
anything, right then, havingbeen through all of those styles
(31:52):
of training, the ones that andI've been killed.
I think I've died several timesby PowerPoint, and what you
just said is, if you go in therewith this business voice
without any inflection, you'regoing to go through your
PowerPoints.
People felt accomplished, givingthe information the way that
they presented it, which is whattheir goal is, but they
(32:13):
completely lost the audience,and that's what I applaud you
for is you saw it.
You saw it and pivoted, andthat's something to do.
You know, take some peopleyears of going through that to
realize it, but you saw it andthen you made a pivot.
And you made a pivot and youconnected with it, and because
that's what people want, ourbrains cannot handle More than
one page of bullet points, andI'm not against them, although
(32:34):
if I give a speech, if it's anentertaining speech, I like to
give them in a TEDx style with apicture, and then I.
The picture relates somewhat towhat I'm talking about, but
there's stuff in what you and Ido in presenting information.
We have to present theinformation in a way.
There's a lot of data thatwe're trying to give, but
there's a point where You'vegone too far, and so I love that
(32:54):
you have approached that, andso that was kind of an aha
moment.
I'm always looking for momentsof enlightenment, and it sounds
like for you.
That was a my chip.
That was an aha moment that youpivoted in right then, and this
was how many years ago.
Lance Furuyama (33:11):
Uh, it's been about 11 years ago.
The UnCommon Communicator (33:13):
I'd see even got down to 11.
I love that.
I'd be like.
That's fantastic and so that'staking that kind of raw Going.
Turning it raw is basicallywhat you said, because you saw
some value in Doing that.
How do you practice that inyour Communication now?
(33:35):
Is it hard for you, since yousaid that you were Kind of, were
you sugarcoat and things, or isthose?
Lance Furuyama (33:41):
those were my yeah, I definitely was, and I
was afraid to have toughconversations beyond the surface
and I found out nothing.
No business gets done at thesurface, right, you got to get
deeper than that.
If there was a problem with,you know, tools being left all
over the place and people notcleaning up, like that's the
(34:01):
issue, isn't that there's adrill on the ground?
It's like, why is your standardnot up to the stuff?
Like, like, let me talk tosomebody a little further up and
see if there's a root cause.
That's that this is okay.
Yeah because if you notice atrend amongst their crews, what,
no matter which job you're on,that's.
That's not.
It is a cruise issue, but it'smore of a cultural issue, right,
(34:23):
and I'm not afraid to ask anddrive down a little deeper.
The UnCommon Communicator (34:26):
Yep, no, I love that and that's I.
I tend to ramp it up.
That's kind of my style,because I don't.
I've worked around thosegeneral contractors, those
superintendents that Just goingat a hundred miles an hour every
time, yelling, screaming, youknow, and that's their style to
get it.
I like to ramp it up is what Ilike to do.
First I'll ask and then I'll askstrenuously, you know, and so
(34:49):
you, you'll get to the pointwhere you know it's probably not
a great style, but I'll, I'lltend to, you know, you know,
laying on a little bit of theguilt trip thing.
It's like, man, we talked aboutthis, can't you remember this?
So then you get to the pointwhere you ramp it up.
I'm never gonna yell on the job, that's just not who I am.
But I will at some point haveto ramp it up to somebody, to
(35:10):
who will fix it.
And that's what I have found isthere's, there's always somebody
in the company, at least youhope and you don't know that
right until you know that tradepartner that's willing to fix
that situation.
And I think what you talkedabout tools all over the place I
think that's one of the worstthings.
That shows somebody's abilityto provide quality work and
efficient work is that theydon't take care of their tools,
if they don't take care of theirjob sites, if they're working
(35:32):
and filth.
Those are things.
If, as we continue to help ourtrade partners become better, a
cleaner job site provided forthem and then to provide it as
well too, are all things thathelp foster that environment.
But we do it throughcommunication, like we we're
setting expectations of those,of those type of things.
Lance Furuyama (35:53):
Yeah, and you know one thing I'd like to speak
on while I have a have aplatform.
Everybody gives superintendentssuch a hard time about being
shitty communicators.
But if you think about it, whatother role are you in?
We're 24-7.
Whatever phone call you'regetting probably isn't a good
(36:13):
one.
It's always some unexpectedthing.
You may have everything figuredout and then One thing down the
chain throws everything off andyou're all out of alignment.
I mean, that is I was trying tothink about it Right.
So there's like the military,there's first responders and law
enforcement who have to be ononce they're on.
They're on like there's nodowntime in their brain mentally
(36:36):
.
And you have a superintendentwho has a PM, who has a project
executive there's, you know,finance coming down, say, hey,
we need to hit this milestone.
What are you doing?
And you have 27 trades workingthat you really I mean if you're
being real about you have noreal control over the.
I Mean you can try and you canyell to your blue in the face,
(36:57):
but they're gonna move.
How they're gonna move, I meanjust based on who you hired.
So when you're in a low bidsituation and you're just
getting bad news after bad newsand you come up with hey, hey,
james, how's it going?
It's like what are you talkingabout?
Terrible.
What the hell are you talkingabout?
I think people need to be alittle more aware of the
responsibility that they carry,so don't come to them with dumb
(37:20):
shit.
Like you know, hey, did you?
Did you see the game last night?
It's like no, I was here.
Like, what are you talkingabout?
Like I think there needs to bea little more grace given, and
you know they're trying theirbest, man, it's tough.
The UnCommon Communicator (37:34):
Yeah, the role of the superintendent
is one of the toughest jobs thatyou can have.
On that job site and a PMwithin my organization we're
definitely superintendent driven.
All the responsibilities of allof the project, you know
deliverables, fall on thesuperintendent as well as
executing the project site.
I mean there's in some othercompanies, organizations, it's,
(37:56):
you know, the PM might drive theschedule even which not my
organization, and so you prettymuch own everything.
And that's one of the reasonsit drew me to the company that
I'm working with right now,because that I'd love to having
that idea.
I don't want to say that amountof control, but that amount of
influence on how the projectgoes falls on that
superintendent.
(38:16):
But you nailed it and I thinkthat's something that I am.
I'm working on some.
I might be working on a book, Imight just throw that out there,
but the idea is there's themindset of stoicism, is
something that has helped me andI'm not some weird philosophy
guy who is unemployed which is alot of times the philosophy
(38:39):
guys are unemployed but there'sa mindset that says that you
basically you're not going tolet the outward forces change.
You know is are going to affectyou.
You have to manage yourselfEverything that's going on
beyond you.
You know I can't let thosesituations me take them home
anymore, and I I'm learning thisover the last few years, but I
(38:59):
did.
I was one of the worst of them.
For two I could not leave workat work, and I made a mind shift
years ago to do that.
Because, just what you said,you got a million different
decisions that you're makingevery day for everybody, and so
there's skills that we can adaptand use at any level of
leadership to share that load ofdecision making, to not let
(39:22):
those problems get affect you towhere you're going to take
those things home.
It is a very tough andchallenging job, and that's
where I my passion, is workingwith the trade partners to
better their skills, to bebetter trade partners, because
sometimes, just like in anyrelationship, we, they, they got
to know how to be good tradepartners with good expectations
(39:43):
as well.
So are we giving them goodexpectations?
And most of the time, the tradepartners aren't given the
training that they should begiven because back to this, we,
the pool is small.
We're throwing so many peopleinto these things, into form and
leadership roles that are notready for it, because there's
nobody else to step into it.
(40:04):
So now we owe them the training, and that's what I want to see
in the next 10 years is andthat's what you're doing by
sharing through your platform.
There's several of us, throughthis no BS tribe and through
some other connections, that aresaying we're going to take this
information and we're going todo our best to get it to this
young generation, becausethere's no reason they need to
go through everything that wewent through, because they're
(40:27):
smarter, they have a betteraccess to information that we've
ever had in our life and youknow, being able to connect
those dots and I see you doingthat as well, too, by just
getting getting it out there andshowing the human side of
construction, the human side ofcommunication, really.
Lance Furuyama (40:45):
Thank you.
Now in your company dosuperintendents have a say?
I mean maybe not the final say,but a say in the selection of
trade partners?
The UnCommon Communicator (40:53):
Yeah, so, depending on the, the
contracting style, there aretimes.
But yeah, there we're alwaysbrought in and we're given a
little bit of choice.
But because we're also theresponsibility, the budget is
ours as well too.
We have to look at that andthink and I've done this, it's
like, okay, this they're $20,000less, I will.
I know the challenge that thattrade partner is going to bring,
(41:15):
but I want to make sure that wehave the right budget to be
able to go in there.
So you'll make those decisionsknowing that.
So, yeah, there is that decisionnot always, sometimes a lot,
when you, when you said 27 tradepartners, trades on the job,
that's real and you're talkingsometimes, like the project I
was just on, I think at 25, Ithink it was, and it was a small
(41:39):
.
Well, it was a small project.
We did a larger project downthe road, say, I mean I was
working on a $4 million project.
There was one down the roadwe're doing at 50 million.
It had 26 trade partners.
So it's not indicative of theside of the project, it's still.
The complexity is there.
But are we given the choice?
For the most part yes,sometimes no, and then you
(42:00):
realize who are going to be yourchallenges and then, when you
know it, then you can approachthem with a plan to kind of as
as it was worded to me as likewe need to, we need to drag them
across the finish line.
And so my word was because thisis the trade partner we had to
go with and had to to finishwith, and I said, okay, I'm
giving you some rope too.
So we're all going to do it.
(42:21):
And we all did.
We all pulled them together.
They actually the one that I'mtalking about in particular they
did up the performance thatthey were tough at the beginning
, very hard to communicate with,hard to get responses out of
their.
Finally, once they were engagedand involved, they ended up
being one of the more successfultrade partners on the project
and their work was stellar.
I mean, it was beautiful.
Like they were a perfectionistthen.
(42:42):
That was part of the problem intrying to get them to commit
early on.
So to try.
So you have to dive a littlebit deeper into know that.
You know, at the end of the dayI'm looking at how are you
finishing?
You know there's always goingto be a problem along the way,
but how are you going to finishit up?
Lance Furuyama (42:59):
Nice, I like that because you guys own as
super tenants, own the projectfor the most part, you know.
It made me think of that oldbill for ourselves quote if they
want you to pick the dinner, atleast say I'll let you shop for
some of the groceries.
I like that.
The UnCommon Communicator (43:12):
Say that again, say that again for
me.
Lance Furuyama (43:14):
Oh yeah, it was.
If they want you to pick thedinner, at least they ought to
let you shop for some of thegroceries.
The UnCommon Communicator (43:20):
I love that.
Oh boy, that that should be ourUC moment, which that's what
we're going to move into now.
Lance, thanks so much forjoining me this morning.
This has been a greatconversation.
I really have enjoyed watchingyour, your communication style,
and really watch how you'veleveraged a lot and we didn't
get too far into this, butyou've leveraged social media.
(43:41):
You've been able to reallyconnect with people who you're
you're not meeting in personeither.
People are connecting with thestuff that you're putting out
there and you're plus, you'regiving a voice to people.
But through our conversationhere, what do you think is the
UC moment?
The UC moment is the uncommoncommunicator moment, the one
thing we're going to sum it up,because they're going to be fun,
they're going to have beentertained.
(44:02):
But what are they going to walkaway with today from my
conversation with Lance?
Lance Furuyama (44:06):
I think it's be yourself Like.
Nobody can speak your voicebetter than you can.
The UnCommon Communicator (44:12):
Well, I love them.
Lance Furuyama (44:12):
They'll try to be somebody else.
The UnCommon Communicator (44:15):
Oh, man, that's, we have to end
there.
Be yourself, I love that.
Well, thanks so much, lance.
That's what that's all we'vegot.
See you and come to the UC.
(44:36):
Children jumpers мотр lightly.
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