August 13, 2025 • 48 mins
Meet Adam Hoots, founder of Construction ACHE Solutions and a change-maker in the realm of construction. His dedication to shifting the perception of skilled trades and craft workers is awe-inspiring, and our discussion today promises to shed light on this, and the fascinating world of lean construction principles. A man of many languages, Adam emphasizes the power of words in building trust with colleagues, a trait that's been instrumental in his success. In fact, it was Adam's remarkable journey that inspired the creation of Uncommon Communicators podcast.
Join us as we dissect the complexities of lean construction with Adam. He guides us through his unique approach to making construction projects more efficient, through the application of lean principles. The conversation broadens to include the importance of visual communication and respect for people, both within and outside the industry. For those eager to understand lean construction better, Adam provides a sneak peek into his book, a comprehensive thesaurus of lean terms and visuals, simplifying the concept for all.
We conclude with an exploration of the impact and influence of visual communication in lean processes. Adam shares his experience of launching a superintendent-only network, influencing the NCCER's leadership program, and his preparation for a TEDx talk. We celebrate the power of communication, specifically in construction and how it shapes our world. Walk away with a new found respect for the trades, the importance of thorough preparation, and the invaluable role of communication. Join us on this enlightening journey and gain valuable insights from an industry expert.
Check out Adams Tedx talk here : Changing the way we think
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I want to talk right down to earth in a language that
everybody here can easilyunderstand.
Do you understand the wordsthat are coming out of my mouth?
Say what again.
Say what again.
I dare you, I double dare you.
What we got here is a failureto communicate.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Uncommon Communicators Podcast,
where we are here to bringenlightenment to the topic of
communication.
Today I've got Adam Hoops withme.
Adam is a lean constructionshepherd and founder of
Construction Ache Solutions.
He's an author, kidneytransplant survivor great on you
.
Tedx speaker, graduate studentand professor at Clemson
University.
He believes that constructionis full of aches and pains and
(00:47):
is ultimately broken.
His mission is to change theway our skilled trades and craft
workers are valued andrespected by all project
stakeholders on constructionproject sites.
Adam, welcome to the program.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thank you, mr Gable.
Mr Uncommon Communicator, Iappreciate that as a heck of an
introduction and I'm just I'mhappy to be here on one of my
favorite podcasts, thank you somuch.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You must have a small list.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I do.
It's a small and exclusive list.
I promise you that much.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, thanks so much.
Well, tell us a little bit moreabout yourself.
Did I cover everything?
Is that it?
I know there's more to Adamthan that.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, there's a little bit more.
I think you nailed kind of thehighlights, though, of who I am
and kind of what makes me whatmy icky guy is, as the Japanese
say.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You speak Japanese?
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Un poquito.
I can communicate in a fewdifferent languages.
Yes, sir, I can communicate ina few different languages.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, sir, I love that I'm actually learning
construction Spanish, so Ilearned.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Spanish, now with a Japanese accent.
That's such an important skill,though.
I mean, there are so manySpanish speaking professionals
on our jobs, and I think it goesa long way to build trust when
they take notice that, hey,you're investing time to learn
my language and speak to me inmy native tongue, and I think
that's huge man.
So bravo to you, and hopefullyyou can inspire others to do
(02:17):
that, because I think that is asuper important skill.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And I do too.
It's actually one of my goalscompany goals that I'm working
on, and I saw it because there'ssuch a need on the construction
side.
There's days when I have beenthe only guy that spoke English
on the construction side, and insome cases there were not very
many.
I've always had guys that youknow.
I had one guy that translatespretty well, but you know, I've
(02:41):
had guys come up and they'lljust remain silent and go.
It's like no English, I'm likeun poco Espanol, so let's
communicate what we want to dohere.
So that is a very important key, and those are some of our best
people on the projects arethose that maybe lack a little
bit of that communication.
So that's just.
Another barrier that we have onour projects is language, and
(03:05):
it's overcomable even with and Iuse Google Translate there's,
you know, apps that help us getthere and he's like, oh sorry,
you can't talk to me, I don'tspeak.
I'm like, oh yeah, you know,here's a phone that helps us get
there and that has helped, Ithink, clarify some things on
the projects as well.
Not, you know, not being lostcompletely in translation.
I'm not sure what Googletranslates saying and then I
(03:27):
read it right, then I'm workingon my accent, but anyways, it's
not about me, it's not aboutconstruction Spanish.
I do need to say this thoughAdam, thanks for coming on this
podcast.
I'm glad to hear it's one ofyour favorite podcasts, but you
inspired me, and a lot of ourlisteners don't know that.
You know, the reason I startedthis podcast was a post that you
had made a year and a half ago,two years ago and it's when you
(03:50):
made your step intoConstruction Makes Solutions,
when you left your day job, wentinto your consulting and you
talked about just the bravery,and you know I'm going to go in
there and I'm going to do it,and we don't often realize the
impact that those type of wordshave, those type of posts have,
and between that and also alittle bit of nudge from Jesse
Hernandez, between both of those, I mean and there's another
(04:13):
story behind why I wanted to gointo podcasting listening to him
podcast, but the whole thing isthat that was the nudge that I
needed, and thank you for that,because I think it has made a
huge difference in my life beingable to grow through the,
through the podcasting, but youwere a key to that.
So welcome to the show andthat's what you've been long
(04:33):
coming to.
The came here.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
That's so freaking cool and I think it's a
testimony to Jen's ripples ofimpact, right, like you never
know.
But when the story gets back toyou, it just makes it all worth
it, because so much of what wedo with this podcast stuff and
just getting out with webinarsand on meetings and hosting lean
coffees and all the stuff we dothere's really, when you turn
(04:57):
around and look at the return ontime invested, um, you don't
always get that immediate impactand and so to hear stories like
that it it's like man thatmakes everything all worth it.
So thank you for feeding thatback and I know you're inspiring
others just the same, andthat's what it's all about, man.
So thank you, thank you, thankyou for that feedback.
(05:19):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'm thanking you.
Stop taking my thanks away.
So a couple of things we wantto talk about and you know this
is a podcast on communication,and that's one thing that has
really drawn me to.
Lean construction is lean isreally at its root communication
and feedback loops.
I mean it's just, it's bringingthat circle through.
(05:40):
There's other aspects to itthrough.
There's other aspects to it,but as I kind of dive in just to
even all of the different fishbones, everything you look at is
some form of communication islacking and we all know that on
our sites, in our offices,anywhere that we work, that
communication is, and seems tobe the biggest hurdle that we
have, or hindrance or evenstopping point of a lot of our
(06:04):
problems that we have arecreated because of how we
communicate.
Now you wrote a book here let'ssee if I can get that in the
camera the Old Dog, lean,thesaurus.
Now, of course, I had to haveyou on the show.
You wrote a book with words init, thesaurus.
You even used a big dinosaurword, my favorite dinosaur words
that you use, but I love it andyou wrote it with Buddy Brley,
(06:28):
who is a, you know, friend ofmine.
Love that guy and uh together.
What inspired this book?
The old dog lean thesaurus well, I'll tell you this.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It was always a thought in my head, back to my
whiting turner days, andactually this is a little known
fact about me because I don'toften talk about it, but
speaking to your communicationis everything.
Comment a second ago.
My undergraduate degree is inpublic and cultural
communications and when I gothired at Whiting-Turner they
(07:00):
actually started me lower than aproject engineer because I
didn't have a construction orengineering degree.
I was an assistant projectengineer and so I was called the
great ape on the project site.
In fact, my intern that workedfor me or with me, uh, got hired
on and then I was working forthat person and so it was a very
(07:21):
interesting world where Istarted in construction.
Um, but that aside, talkingabout the book, I mean I did
co-author it with the OG leanbuilder, mr Buddy Brumley, the
old dog himself, which, again, Iwas not too fond of being the
lean geek, but he definitelyqualified for the old dog more
(07:45):
than I did, so I went with it.
What inspired the book?
It's really simple.
There are a lot of people thatare spreading bullshito on what
lean is throughout the industry.
There's people just takingadvantage of it and making money
and going out and you know,showing the tools and showing
(08:06):
all these awesome things and thesparkly, glittery side of
construction, but when it comesdown to, like what you're
talking about the communicationskills, the facilitation
abilities, the trust buildingthings and the starting with the
people side of it before we getinto the tools, like that,
that's where you really get theW's when it comes to lean
(08:27):
construction.
And so we really authored thebook to be able to help people
understand like, hey, some ofthis lean stuff, it's not even
new, right?
Like, if you're a great builder, chances are you've got two
thirds of those terms alreadyfigured out.
And so what we wanted to do iswe wanted to put a book out
there for the superintendentswho are in the day-to-day grind,
(08:50):
who are like I don't have timeto learn that new lean bullshito
.
I'm good with what I'm doing,like that's okay, let's take
some of what you're doing andhelp you understand what the
lean term is for it, and thenyou can start communicating and
understanding from some of thesepeople who are also practicing
these things.
Right, we're establishing somelean terms, terminologies, some
(09:14):
really just again like helpingto spread some better ways of
building by just making leanconstruction.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
And that's what's needed.
I had a superintendent on myproject when we really first
started talking about lean andhe's like I'm already doing that
, which was true, and so thatwas kind of my selling point is
you are doing it but you're notdoing all of it.
And I said, how late are youworking?
And he actually didn't work toolate.
He's really for a guy whodoesn't work, you know wasn't
completely into lean.
He was very efficient on hisprojects and very forward
(09:47):
thinking, so he was halfwaythere with it and when he ran
into issues, he ran into issueson the visual communication side
, on some of the other thingsthat would have been tools that
would have helped solve problemsfor him.
So you're right, you're doingsome of this, you're just
learning some new terms and tipsand what I look about.
Let's talk about formats,especially on the communication
(10:08):
side of your book, very simplywritten.
I love the idea that it's athesaurus, because we have to
understand the words and you'rebreaking the words down into
something very simple.
And I do notice like the stylebetween the lean geek and the
old school old dog, because yourbuddy is like hey, guys, this
is how you do it, and then yougo in with just the technical
(10:30):
terms, which I love hearing aswell.
Yeah, push those glasses up.
You have your tape on yourglasses, but the idea is you're
offering those both sides of itand bring a lot of value.
But simply, you know, put theword.
I mean, buy the book, folks,and we're going to put a link to
buy the book in the show notes.
But you need to take a look atit's.
Simple enough to say, oh, youknow what I do need to work on,
(10:52):
poll planning, or I do need towork on you know we're going to
talk about respect for people orvisual management.
You know, these are things.
It's not a lot of information,but it's a great information to
say you know, hey, there's,there's, there's tips here to
help you here.
Let's understand the words,especially when you know, just
in every construction interviewthat we're at, we prep to not
(11:12):
use the acronyms with everyonethat's in the room, because
we're such an acronym heavybusiness.
And it's the same with the lean.
Lean started to do the samething.
It should have been simplifyingand creating.
Like, what is lean Creatingflow?
Right, if you can create flow,at the end of the day, then
you're successful at doing itand then we add in a million
(11:34):
complicated factoring to do andyou don't need all that.
It helps, I think, if you're alean geek, maybe.
Maybe I don't want to offendthe lean geeks, but the numbers
are important.
But it's all about whatultimately we what, what
ultimately are you trying to doRight, and you're bringing it, I
think, with this, with thisbook.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, Trying to synergize between the lean geeks
and the old dogs, right, Like Ithink there's this, this stone
wall there, where some of theold dogs are like I'm not doing
that shit, Excuse my language,but that's how they talk, Right,
and then you got lean geeksthat are like you know, you got
to do it this way.
And this is like go read thewhite papers.
And so trying to bridge thatgap, like hey, there is a happy
(12:15):
medium.
No, don't read the white papersand no, don't apply every
single thing to your project.
But yes, like, try to getbetter.
And like I love what you justsaid, Lena's creating flow.
Because guess what, when youcreate flow, that means that
you're respecting people, thatyou're continuously improving,
you're learning from what you'redoing, you're focused on value,
(12:35):
you're pulling people.
Like all of the principles arenailed if you just create flow.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, make it simple.
And so you jumped on respectfor people, and that's something
that I've heard you talk about.
You know long, uh, for a longtime.
That's one.
I think one of your marqueethings that you bring to this
industry is really bringingrespect for people, for
construction workers.
I'm going to read a littleblurb from your book
specifically on the respect forpeople and if you can see that
(13:02):
within the book there is a, didyou get to choose?
The lean geek guy even hasglasses on too.
That's a little icon, but Iunderstand.
So let's talk.
Before I do that, I want totalk about the flow of the book.
Like it's it's simple and ithas visual monitors in it.
Like it has a picture of thelean geek in it and then it has
a picture of an old dog and theidea is you get to know who's
(13:22):
talking where.
I mean, just all of thosethings are important in somebody
to understand the book withouthaving to uh, you know, read,
you know read the addendum.
Figure out how to do it, but letme read this little bird this
is great what you put in here,can?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I just shout out miss jennifer lacey for her
illustration skills oneverything except for the new
geek.
The lean, lean geek wasdesigned by her daughter, alex,
believe it or not.
So she nailed that one and soit.
And without those visuals thebook just wouldn't be the same.
So shout out to the Lacey's.
That was huge.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, the Lacey's.
Yeah, both of them.
Yeah, we've had Jen Lacey onthe show as well too.
She's an incrediblecommunicator, a master
facilitator and also a brilliantartist.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I can do whatever I can Sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
When we talk about respect for people, this
principle emphasizes creating anatmosphere that encourages open
communication, active listeningand meaningful engagement.
Rfp involves promoting teamwork, trust and empowerment,
enabling workers to activelyparticipate in decision-making
processes and contribute theirexpertise to problem-solving and
(14:34):
innovation.
So a blurb from the book.
It's on respect for people,which you think is just kind of
a feelings thing, but isn't thatthe very basis of moving
forward with really anycommunication in your project?
It starts with respect forpeople.
What can you add to that?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, well, for starters, it was the first term
that we defined and it's theonly one that's out of order,
because without that termapplied to the job, none of the
other stuff works, and so Ithink that's really important to
know and understand.
Again, we communicated that theimportance of respect for
(15:13):
people by putting it first,which is exactly what we need to
do on job sites.
I will add that I think, inconstruction specifically, when
you walk by a worker on a jobsite and you don't engage with
it at a minimum, just a smile, Ithink there's something wrong
(15:33):
with you as a person.
And it happens every single day, and I've been guilty of it
just myself, because I'm on amission to go write this RFI and
I go by eight people on my wayto the point of failure on the
job site and then I startwriting the RFI and then I got
to get back to the trailer and Ijust I'm ignoring people and
(15:57):
that hurts every single timethat it happens, and so I would
love for people to think aboutjust that alone.
And so I would love for peopleto think about just that alone.
Like, how many times have youwalked by a worker and not
engaged with them, and I think alot of the sting still comes
(16:22):
from my days as a plumber, wayback in the day, where I did
some pretty nasty jobs, to thepoint where I didn't really
respect myself, and I know damnsure industry didn't respect me,
nor did society, and I knowdamn sure industry didn't
respect me, nor did society, andso there's still kind of that
chip on my shoulder.
That's like I'm going to changethat, because I remember being
a stinky plumber riding home ona hot day in Florida with no air
conditioning and it sucked andlike, no, nobody should have to
experience that.
(16:42):
It's just, it's wrong.
And so, or, if they do, at aminimum they're valued by the
people that put them in thatsituation.
And um, and so, again, respectfor people's huge Uh, it's when
people start to feel includedand will actually be more
productive and add more value tothe job and speak up when they
know there's something that'sincorrect, even if it's not with
(17:04):
their own work.
And so, um, it's really thereason I think all of my
projects have just been run alittle bit different than others
is because I never really tookthat authority to be in charge,
as like the reason that I'm here, and so I've always empowered
and interviewed people and triedto understand what like like.
(17:25):
The more knowledge I have, thebetter decisions we make as a
team and so, yeah, I mean,that's everything right, like,
if we do that thing right, allthe other things are simple from
there.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, about 10 years ago I had this talk with my
project manager I won't throwhis name out here, but maybe
I'll make him listen to thepodcast.
But about 10 years ago he wouldshow up on the job site we're
working up in the mountains at amolybdenum mine doing a dirty
hot work.
Everybody up there is workingout of town and he would come in
the job site and walk throughwith kind of a grumpy cat face
(18:03):
and would walk through andeverybody is always what's going
on here, you know, is he upset?
What does he think?
And so they would ask me thesequestions.
And then finally I said hey,hey, bobby, I'll call him Bobby.
Hey, ryan.
I said why don't you, you know,why don't you engage with the
guys when you go through there?
It would really mean a lot tothem.
And he's like well, I didn'twant to stop them from what they
(18:26):
were doing.
So he had a purpose in his mindof I don't want to interrupt
the process and the flow of thework.
And I said please for me,interrupt for like the two
minutes that you're going to do,because they want to hear from
you.
So I learned really twoimportant things from it.
One is some people don't know.
So bring it up and say you knowyou need to.
It's going to mean a lot foryou to talk to them.
(18:47):
And then also how important itis as a leader, walking through
a building, like they're lookingat his face I mean, these guys
are looking from 50, 100 feetaway.
It's like what's going on withthose guys.
So that smile that you talkedabout, some kind of engagement,
goes, you know, miles and miles.
And so the next time he came upthere and I, after we talked,
(19:08):
I'm like you need to come backup.
So he came up about every twoweeks.
So he came up and went throughand glad handed and shook hands
and he didn't care.
And he's a fan.
I always call him fancy pants,uh, and also shiny shoes.
Um, he was one of those guys,but I mean he was a very, very
good PM, a great PM, and so whenhe did that, it made such a
change in the guys.
(19:29):
Morale went up from him justwalking through there, and
that's the importance that Ilearned from doing.
What you're just saying isgiving a little bit of respect
and acknowledgement for thosethat we're working with.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah Well, think about how you feel as a leader
when you know the vice presidentor the CEO comes to your job
and acknowledges your presence.
Right, it's the same thing.
Right, the leader isrecognizing that I'm adding
value to the company or theproject or the task or whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It goes a long long way, and it's in any
organization, anywhere, anytime.
When I went to the Toastmastersconvention in the Bahamas the
next year it's going to be inAnaheim I went to the
Toastmasters convention in theBahamas I don't know, next year
it's going to be in Anaheim butwhen we went there, the
president you know, every yearthere's an elected president.
These are all volunteerpositions, like every one of
(20:17):
these people are doing this.
You know, as their secondary,you know, volunteer for this
organization that we reallybelieve in Toastmasters and,
anyways, the internationalpresident-elect.
When I showed up for district,you know, cause we had
leadership training prior tothat, and he's like, and I did
not, I went to sign up, I didn'thave my name tags on or
anything.
He's like hey, good evening,james, glad you could make it.
(20:39):
Wow, yeah, this is a, you know,the CEO of an organization that
has, you know, over 300,000members Of the leaders.
There's hundreds of leadersthat were there.
He took the time to know myname and that made you feel.
Oh, you just could not believethe feeling in that and
impressed that he had theability to do that too, and I
thought this is an importanttrait of a leader, and so those
(21:03):
things are important at anylevel, any organization that
you're in, that's for sure.
Another part in your book Iwant to jump into is visual
management.
There's so much stuff in herethat we could talk about Kanban.
How do you say that in Japanese?
Help me, I'll go with yourKanban, sure, kanban, okay, is
that how you say it in SouthCarolina?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, got to add a little twang to it.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So the idea I mean that's something I use visual
boards, but visual management ingeneral.
Right, that's talking aboutKanban.
Let me read this statement thatyou had in here.
This is from Buddy Buddy man,he knows how to just keep it
simple.
Another one of my favoriteparts of lean processes is
removing the information fromthe drawings.
I like how he worded that youknow you take the, that remove
(21:48):
the information from the drawing, specs or computer, and that
that's an old dog.
It's like get it out of thecomputer and put it to where I
can physically.
I want to feel it.
Think about it this way If apicture is worth a thousand
words, then a well-designedvisual management system is
worth a million.
By making the information easyto see and understand, you can
(22:09):
help everyone on the team stayon the same page and avoid
misunderstandings, and that'sprobably one of the biggest keys
of a visual management board.
But what are some experiencesyou've had with visual
management?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
So for one, when you can actually visualize what
you're thinking, you're morelikely to understand it better
and people will automaticallygravitate to it and try to
correct it.
It's kind of something withinhuman nature that when we see
information that's not right, wetend to speak up, versus when
(22:46):
we hear information that's notright, we tend to speak up,
versus when we hear informationthat's not right, we don't
really tend to speak up.
And so I was taught back in myday like communication is like
putting everything into a box,pushing the box across the table
, and then your receiver, thereceiver of that communication,
should be able to unbox thecommunication and understand
(23:06):
exactly what your message was.
And so the visual like I alwaysthink about that when I'm
trying to visualize somethingfor somebody else, it's like I'm
putting information in theorder in which I put it in the
box or on the wall matters Right, as well as the quality and the
detail and all of these otherthings to make sure that the
(23:28):
receiver of the communication isunderstanding the message that
I'm trying to receive.
Because, let's just be honest,in construction you can't really
say what we mean, because wemight think we are saying the
right thing, but the words thatare coming out of our mouth
aren't always being received inthe right order or in the right
(23:49):
manner, and so you know, we'renot linear creatures, right?
We are very much, uh, chaotic,kind of circular thinking, and
so when we're trying tocommunicate a message, that
message doesn't always come out.
Like even people that arelistening to this podcast, are
(24:10):
you really getting the messagethat I want you to receive right
now, and or how many differentversions of this message are
being comprehended right now?
And so, um, that's why, evenlike you know, just you doing
the video now is huge, becausepeople can see me and see what
words I'm emphasizing and itadds, and I think so, when we
(24:37):
can visualize things, we're moreapt to get the message across
that we're trying to deliverExactly On a couple of my
projects.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
they're like oh, picture time.
Because sometimes it's assimple on the whiteboard, you
know, drawing a couple of lines,like I've said it a couple of
times, and he's like I'm notquite getting it, and literally
draw a square and a circle andwe're right here and this time
needs to go here.
It's like boom.
You know, it takes driving itdown visually for a lot, a lot
of our guys, you know, in anycommunication, because sometimes
(25:10):
our words aren't enough andI've been poor at this in the
past of just repeating the wordsagain.
You know, if you didn't get it,I'm like all right, I'll say it
again.
All right, now I'll say it inan angry voice.
It's very effective ways ofdoing it and I still would
oftentimes repeat myself.
In fact, the guy on my projectcurrently he'll catch me he's
like I heard you the first time.
(25:31):
I'm like did you?
I just want to make sure thatwe're understanding each other,
but it's that drawing, thatpicture, the visual, that gets
us there.
Absolutely.
I'm a big visual communication.
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well, there's a great exercise that we do in some of
these learning sessions is, youknow, I will read the
instructions to folding a paperairplane and maybe one out of 50
people will pick up on it byjust hearing.
And then I show pictures of howto make the airplane and it's
like everybody nails it, and soit's an interesting exercise to
(26:09):
understand the power ofvisualization.
That when you can actually seethe things happening versus
hearing the directions and thinkabout what we do in
construction all the time, right, it's like here's your drawings
or here's your specs, now gobuild it and here's your 80-page
detailed line item schedule ofall words in a CPM schedule and
(26:32):
we expect people to put thattogether and go build it.
Versus a tax plan per se orlast planner system and being
able to break that down and seeit on the walls and see it in
real life in a format that'sreally easy to understand, in
real life, in a format that'sreally easy to understand.
And I think you know the way wecommunicate.
The expectation of gettingthings done has got to change in
(26:54):
our industry.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
You can't expect somebody to get the CPM schedule
and say, here's your schedule,we expect you to show up.
Then.
There's been a couple and I'vebeen on both sides of this world
as a trade partner, as amillwright and working, you know
, as a subcontractor for otherGCs.
You know I've seen that sidereally for a majority of my
career and now I get to see itfrom from both sides.
(27:16):
I thought I was hitting thelevel that was now Teflon.
But everybody has a boss, likewhen you, when you're the GC,
then you now have, you know, theowner and the architect.
The owner, the architect, has aboard like there's always,
there's always a bigger fish.
But the idea was that I couldn't, I couldn't take that schedule
and find my stuff in there.
It wasn't even clearlycommunicated to me.
(27:36):
You know here, go figure it out.
That's what the GC would handto us.
And you know some schedules are, at least you know, broke out
by division and then by division.
You know, whatever task of workyou've got, then you could see
all your items together.
But a lot of times it's, and wewere doing miscellaneous metals
.
All right, you know you're,you're over here in the atrium
and then you're now, you're overhere in the stairwell and then
now you're over here in theelevator shaft.
You know on that schedule andthey don't give it to you broken
(28:00):
out into something that youknow all of your tasks.
Where they put you right that'san important thing too is it's
where we were put, which at thetime was fine, like we didn't
have time, we weren't asked toparticipate in it it's probably
a better way of saying it andthis is where the schedule laid.
So it's really understandingthat.
So what do people do?
(28:20):
They wait for the four week tocome out and some companies do
six week schedules and if I'm inthe six weekweek then I'll show
up.
We're planning that far aheadfor that work and sometimes if
we were on the four-week, someof the materials were six weeks
out.
We needed to know when we weregoing to order them.
So, yeah, it's a huge misnomerthat the schedule is enough for
(28:43):
all of our partners, becausethey're very hard to understand
for some people.
They're not looking at it, theybarely look at four-week
look-aheads and that's why, forme, a phone call.
You know you have especiallyyour assistant supes, you know
that are covering differentdivisions, looking out ahead and
making sure they're makingthose phone calls.
You know you've probablyalready covered your long lead
(29:06):
items.
Now you're talking aboutscheduling and there's some
companies like right now I'vegot a sign company that I was
told they're at least two weeksout and we were, you know,
considering shifting the dateand now they're a month out
before they have their nextopening four weeks and all a lot
of the sign companies arerunning that way.
So you don't know right.
You can't assume you can makethe phone call and somebody's
(29:27):
just going to show up tomorrowto do whatever discipline
they're going to do.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I do like your willingness to go back to analog
communication versus everythingwe have from a digital
perspective now.
Yeah, like, hey, let's justtalk about it because we're able
to um, we're able to get somuch more clarity, we're able to
adapt in the moment and askquestions and truly understand
when, when that versus digitaltypically is.
(29:53):
Let me send this box to you.
You can send the box to me.
Shoot, I didn't put this inthere.
How about like, and this isback and forth versus hey, let's
just hop on a call?
I tell my kids all the timewouldn't it be awesome if this
little black thing could, likeyou could call, call and
actually talk to somebody on it?
Versus oh, my goodness, what aluxury.
(30:14):
That would be right.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
It must be a dad thing.
I've done the same thing.
I'm like, hey, I just got thisthing and it makes phone calls
like the old ones.
And that's, I think, importanton a project as well too, is to
discover what's the best form ofcommunication.
Always want to pick up a phonecall, but not with everybody.
There's a couple of my tradepartners that I will text
because I know they're busy andthey're not going to answer, and
(30:37):
they know I'm busy, and thenthere's work that's been planned
that way, whether it's text ora phone call.
Some people you know you haveto phone call.
Some people have gatekeepers,like there's one particular
trade partner that I cannot gethis cell phone, so I can't text,
I can't call and I've got tocall the office and he's never
(31:00):
there and she doesn't send methe voicemail.
She takes a message and handsit to him.
You know which send me thevoicemail.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
She takes the message and hands it to them, which in
today's day and age seems soarchaic to have that gatekeeper
in there and you have to knowhow to work.
The gatekeeper as well and Ithink you bring up a good point
is you, as the communicator,need to learn how does the
message get through mosteffectively, and then,
unfortunately, you have to adaptto each person if you truly
want to communicate properly.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, you have to.
Everybody has their differentstyles and you need to find out
what it is.
Some people you know, like myforeman said, I heard you the
first time.
Other people don't right.
They need it three, four timesand I'm I'll even say I'm one of
them.
It's like remind me uh, youhaven't heard an email from me
in a couple of weeks.
(31:51):
You're probably not going to.
I don't have a list of emailstwo weeks old that I'm going
through, so I recommend thatpeople reach out to me if they
think something got missed,because I've heard that before.
It's like I haven't heard fromthem.
I shot them an email like twoweeks ago and that's it.
There has an email like twoweeks ago and that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You know there has to be other ways to uh try to
reach those individuals.
Yeah, you sent me a textmessage last night confirming
for this morning, butunfortunately I was passed out
me yeah, and that's so.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And for me, I I felt like I had failed in that
communication because I I wantedto send it out a day earlier
and I would have should have,you know, sent it at a time when
you weren't sleeping because Iknew it was late.
It's only 8 30 my time and Iwas not sure we're here, baby
you're here, there's no issues.
I didn't doubt it, but I justwanted to send a reminder right
and say, hey, you know lookingforward to this, cool.
(32:40):
Well, is there anything elseyou want to add to the book,
because I've got one, uh otherarea that we're going to dive
into.
Is there anything you want toadd in regards to the book?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yes, it's more than a book.
Right, it's a community.
It's a community of people,primarily old dog
superintendents, and, james,you're a huge contributor to
that.
We do lean coffees once a month.
We're starting to experimentwith some leadership via
transparency, or, as Jesse callsit, emotional bungee jumping,
where we're just gettingvulnerable.
We're starting to experimentwith some leadership via
transparency, or, as Jesse callsit, emotional bungee jumping,
(33:10):
where we're just gettingvulnerable.
We're sharing lessons learnedand we're becoming better
leaders.
And so, yeah, again, it's acommunity of people who want
more for the constructionindustry, and so I would urge
you to come and poke around andsee what we're all about and
bring some of that value thatsome of your listeners have,
because we'd love to have youagain, primarily superintendents
(33:32):
, and so if you get offended,easy, don't come.
I would love to have a stronger, more well-built community as
we move forward with changinghow construction does business.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, and I love being a part of that group.
It doesn't always fit within myschedule, but you have let's
talk about that because youcreated a community of people
who are talking, communicating,solving problems, asking
questions of superintendentsthat are pretty much across the
country at high levels, seniorsupes, and it is superintendent
only, which I love that becauseyou're like no, if you're not a
(34:07):
superintendent, we need to havethese conversations, and you
don't record them.
So it's one of thoseopportunities for us to really
bounce ideas across other peergroups within our group and
we're finding we all have a lotof the same issues and we're
finding that you know somebodyhas the answer and those have
been.
It's a great.
(34:27):
It's almost like a mastermindof construction leaders, which
there needs to be more of, andyou spearheaded that.
You know you initiated that andI know it's going to continue
to grow.
Hopefully it branches out toother groups because those are
things that have made an impacton everybody.
I think that participates.
So that's a big influence thatyou've had in communication
(34:50):
across multiple companyplatforms, which is an amazing
facilitation.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, and our team even influenced the NCCER's
leadership program forup-and-coming superintendents,
which I think is just super coolMs Patty Stephan and all her
work over the last year or twoyears really putting in for this
new program and I think all ofus had influence on that.
So that's just again anotherkind of wave of the initial
(35:21):
ripple of impact.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, absolutely, yep , all right.
Well, let's talk aboutsomething.
I know a guy only one guy who'sa TEDx speaker that I've ever
shook his hand with before.
I think it's amazing that youare and you did a TEDx talk, I
think at Clemson right, it wasClemson TEDx talk and I would
(35:44):
love to know that process.
I mean, as a guy who loves andembraces public speaking, I'm in
a public speaking organization.
There are people that shootafter that, and to me that just
seems like you know, that's agoal a ways off and you jumped
right into it.
So first tell me, I want tolearn a little bit about this
whole experience, but first yougot to come with a message,
(36:06):
right?
What was your message?
Speaker 1 (36:08):
So my message was really respecting the trades and
changing the way that we think.
Right, I'm tired of societyteaching to test in lieu of
teaching people to think, and itstarts early on from school and
we're just kind of like drivenin this way, like hey, just like
(36:29):
even spelling words, how do youspell this word?
Well, in the hoots household, Idon't care if you can spell the
word.
Can you tell me what the wordmeans?
Like that is 10 times moreimportant than being able to
write it down.
Now, don't get me wrong, mykids are literate, they can
write, they can read.
But guess what?
You better know the definitionof that word, not just how to
(36:51):
spell the word.
And so it's really changing theway we think, changing the way
our trades are respected.
Right too often it's the samething in construction, like I
don't care what the workerthinks, I just need to test them
if they can get these 10 sheetsof drywall hung today.
Well, guess what?
If you cared what they thought,you might get 15 sheets of
(37:13):
drywall hung today and theymight have an easier.
You know, they might be able towork five years longer because
they know how to save their ownbacks.
And so I think it's.
It's very important from amessage standpoint that we need
to use the whole worker and notjust three quarters of the
worker.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, so did you start with the message and get
drawn in?
Like tell me that, connect thedots for me.
How did you get connected to aTEDx talk?
Drawn in Like tell me, connectthe dots for me.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
How did you get connected to a TEDx talk?
So a gentleman named TaninHaddari, with DPR, actually put
on the whole event, and so thiswas right.
Before he graduated with hisPhD from Clemson, he was a
co-worker at DPR Construction,so I knew him very well, I'd
presented to him several timesand I just reached out to him
and said, hey, I heard you'redoing this, I would love to be a
(38:04):
part of it.
And then I think you had toapply and get references and all
of this stuff, and so it was apretty intense process to get
connected.
And then, once I did, we weresupposed to do the TEDx talk in
2020, and then it got pushedlike four or five months the
(38:25):
whole COVID thing and they hiredus a coach who also has done
several TEDx talks before.
And I'll tell you this I don'tthink it was my best performance
, if you will, because I didn'ttake the process as serious as I
probably should, because Ioftentimes just show up and talk
(38:47):
right, I do that all the time.
And so, yeah, they're like oh,we want your speech six months
ahead of time and we only wantvideos each month so that we can
critique.
And I was like, yeah, yeah,okay.
But I tell you what, when youget up on that stage and you got
so much information to deliverin 15 minutes, it was
(39:07):
challenging, and I spent thefirst one minute of it singing
happy birthday to Charlie Dunn,who was also doing a TEDx talk,
and in the audience.
So, yes, it was.
Again, it was an intensepreparation process that I
probably didn't take as seriousas I should have.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
You said they hired you a coach.
Who?
Who did that?
Who got involved in gettingthat TEDx coach?
Support for you.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I guess it was Clemson in some form or fashion
and his name was Michael, andI'm struggling to come up with
this last name, but he wasexcellent.
I can hold on.
I can hold on.
I can find him for you.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, well, you're pulling that up.
The one thing that is important, I think, in any presentation
is we.
There's plenty of people thattake that preparation.
You know it's like I'm used totalking all the time, but when
you're presenting in anorganized fashion like that, it
is different.
And you know I'm a huge fan ofof practice, practice, practice
(40:08):
on any of it, and a lot of it.
This is practice, right, thisis helping us speak and
communicate.
But standing in front of acrowd of people is a different
practice as well too.
It's a different energy.
It's a different presentationstyle.
You know there's there's theenergy that within yourself that
you've got to monitor.
You know your excitement level.
You know all of those thingscome into play as different.
It hits differently when you'reon a stage as well too.
(40:28):
So all of those you know leadinto practice.
It's kind of cool that theyhave you do the uh, you know
monthly video check-ins andstuff like that and kind of
critique that.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, michael Arnold was his name and he's right here
in Clemson, south Carolina and,yeah, he was absolutely
fantastic, definitely knew whathe was doing, um, and I wished I
would have taken a little bitmore of his advice.
So shout out to Michael, causehe he freaking, he rocked it,
man, uh, and he made my storythat much better.
(40:59):
You know talking about some ofthe specific details, you know,
and I told the story of me beingin a nasty ditch with corn
floating in it and having towork through that as a human,
not respecting myself,understanding where I was and
the stench of that day lingeringwith me like helping me
(41:19):
visualize what I was goingthrough.
Yeah, michael was amazing.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
We'll put a link up in the show notes to that.
I'd love to have that on mywebsite and, if you're good with
that, I'd like to pop your linkinto that.
I'll add that in there to ourwebsite as well as a link in the
show notes.
So at the end of that sopreparation you had a message.
They prepared you, which isgreat to hear.
I love hearing.
I wish I had prepared more,because we all say it.
(41:46):
I mean it's not like nobodyever said I overprepared and you
overthink, and I think that issomething that is a problem.
You can overthink it, but youcan't overprepare.
And so I love hearing thatadvice.
I think that's great advice forour listeners, especially of
this podcast.
But what were the results?
What outcomes did you haveafter giving that speech?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Well, for one, you can't wear a logo when you do it
, apparently, so I had to putelectrical tape over my Lean
Builder hat, which really droveme crazy, and I was the first
one to present a TEDx talkwearing a construction vest and
a hard hat, so that was prettycool as well.
(42:28):
But as far as the results, Ithink I mean we've had almost
2,500 people watch it, and sothat's pretty impressive in
itself, I think.
Anyway, that's better than anyother videos that I've put out
there.
Anyway, that's better than anyother videos that I've put out
there.
And so just to know that, we'veimpacted that many folks to go
and, you know, listen to thetrade worker and hey, maybe are
(42:48):
you really valuing trade workersthe way that you should?
And we've seen a significantshift in the value on college
versus the skilled trades.
I think we're starting to seesome of the fruits of those
labors come to light, and so I'dlove to say like, hey, I was a
part of that change, right.
Like I think some of the thingsthat we're doing are helping to
(43:09):
impact that, by just bringingawareness that, hey, we need
skilled trade workers, but inthe same breath, realizing that
we also need to change theconstruction industry's current
conditions, because if we wantto keep those new workers, then
we've got some work to do.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, yeah, and that's that respect in general.
You know you go back or I goback 30 something years in the
trade and you think about youknow working around
professionals millwrights,ironworkers, pipefitters, you
know plumbers all of those therewas at times and it depends on
the area and the location acertain respect for that trade.
It's like you were aprofessional.
(43:47):
You know, specifically likesome pipe fitters and depends on
which region that I was at,like they all kind of wear the
same stuff.
You know jean shirts orwhatever it might be in it.
You know specifically aroundhere, tan.
You know some of these tanCarhartt.
You know long sleeve heavy dutyshirts, but there is several of
them that would come with ironshirts to work like they.
(44:08):
They, you know, knew that thatwas their protective layer as
well.
But they didn't come in allraggedy looking.
They came in because they werea professional and they got paid
well and they were very proudof their work, were a
professional and they got paidwell and they were very proud of
their work and just like aclean job site, going in with
that type of, you know, respectfor themselves and for the trade
.
Their work showed it as welltoo.
They were fantastic craftsmen.
(44:29):
So that's what I think it'sabout is bringing back that
professionalism to the trades isyou don't have to, just you
know, show up and I still haveto turn them around shorts and
or sweatpants and tennis shoes.
I'm like I can't let you onthis job site in sweatpants.
You know what other jobs areyou working on that you can wear
sweatpants at?
(44:50):
And you know, because I don'thave any steel-toed boots.
Well, you know, we don't, onsome of our projects, require
steel-toed, but it has to be asturdy boot, so you have to at
least wear a boot, not a Niketennis shoe of some kind.
So, you know, in respect forthat, like you know, show
respect for your own profession,you know as well too.
That's going to help go a longway as well.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Absolutely, and you, being a Colorado guy, I know
what Coach Prime says If youlook good, you feel good.
If you feel good, you feel good.
If you feel good, you play good.
If you play good, they pay good, and so I would urge people to
take some of that advice.
And then I agree with you thatthere was a sense of kind of
pride and ownership ofsomebody's work.
(45:34):
Maybe not, I don't know, about30 years ago, but 20 years ago
for sure.
No question, meaning I I can'tattest to 30 years is what I
meant by that, but 20 years agoI certainly can, and we do.
You know, today, when you talkwith an electrician about their
career, it's kind of like, yeah,I'm in construction, but when
(45:55):
you talk to them on a job siteand they just finished running
these 90s, that come and turndown the wall and go into the
panel and then the terminationsare all like perfectly straight
lines, right, like they careabout their work but they don't
have pride in their career.
And so, again, we've got tochange that as an industry, and
(46:17):
it starts with just respectingthe people inside our gates
before anybody outside the gateswill respect us.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, absolutely Well .
Thanks so much, Adam.
I've been looking forward tohaving you on the show.
This has been perfect timing,because everybody gets to see
your face.
You know, if we'd done this afew years ago, then they're like
what does this Adam look like?
Oh, that's right, I got to gofind him on the TEDx stage to
find out what he looks like.
But thanks for coming on theshow.
(46:47):
We always sum it up in a UCmoment, the Uncommon
Communicator moment, because,after listening for the nearly
50 minutes or so of this podcast, what are they going to walk
away with?
One thing what do you think isthe one thing that you'd want
listeners to walk away fromtoday's conversation you'd want
listeners to?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
walk away from today's conversation.
How about this?
You cannot not communicate?
Right Like everything and Iknow that's bad English,
whatever, I don't care buteverything about you says
communication, right, whetherit's your hat that you're
wearing, or your shirt thatyou're wearing, or whether or
(47:24):
not you shaved, or like how bigyour eyes get, or how you're
controlling your tone of yourvoice, it all is communicating
something.
And so I would ask people, orchallenge people, to think about
what messages they're sendingand be more intentional and
(47:44):
strategic about those messages,because everything about you is
communicating, so you cannot notcommunicate.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I love it.
That's the perfect UC moment.
You cannot not communicate.
Well, that's all we got for youtoday.
See you, bye.
I want to talk right down to earth in a language that
everybody here can easilyunderstand.
Do you understand the wordsthat are coming out of my mouth?
Say what again.
Say what again.
I dare you, I double dare you.
What we got here is a failureto communicate.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to the Uncommon Communicators Podcast,
where we are here to bringenlightenment to the topic of
communication.
Today I've got Adam Hoops withme.
Adam is a lean constructionshepherd and founder of
Construction Ache Solutions.
He's an author, kidneytransplant survivor great on you
.
Tedx speaker, graduate studentand professor at Clemson
University.
He believes that constructionis full of aches and pains and
(00:47):
is ultimately broken.
His mission is to change theway our skilled trades and craft
workers are valued andrespected by all project
stakeholders on constructionproject sites.
Adam, welcome to the program.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Thank you, mr Gable.
Mr Uncommon Communicator, Iappreciate that as a heck of an
introduction and I'm just I'mhappy to be here on one of my
favorite podcasts, thank you somuch.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You must have a small list.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I do.
It's a small and exclusive list.
I promise you that much.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, thanks so much.
Well, tell us a little bit moreabout yourself.
Did I cover everything?
Is that it?
I know there's more to Adamthan that.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Yeah, there's a little bit more.
I think you nailed kind of thehighlights, though, of who I am
and kind of what makes me whatmy icky guy is, as the Japanese
say.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
You speak Japanese?
I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Un poquito.
I can communicate in a fewdifferent languages.
Yes, sir, I can communicate ina few different languages.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Yes, sir, I love that I'm actually learning
construction Spanish, so Ilearned.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Spanish, now with a Japanese accent.
That's such an important skill,though.
I mean, there are so manySpanish speaking professionals
on our jobs, and I think it goesa long way to build trust when
they take notice that, hey,you're investing time to learn
my language and speak to me inmy native tongue, and I think
that's huge man.
So bravo to you, and hopefullyyou can inspire others to do
(02:17):
that, because I think that is asuper important skill.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
And I do too.
It's actually one of my goalscompany goals that I'm working
on, and I saw it because there'ssuch a need on the construction
side.
There's days when I have beenthe only guy that spoke English
on the construction side, and insome cases there were not very
many.
I've always had guys that youknow.
I had one guy that translatespretty well, but you know, I've
(02:41):
had guys come up and they'lljust remain silent and go.
It's like no English, I'm likeun poco Espanol, so let's
communicate what we want to dohere.
So that is a very important key, and those are some of our best
people on the projects arethose that maybe lack a little
bit of that communication.
So that's just.
Another barrier that we have onour projects is language, and
(03:05):
it's overcomable even with and Iuse Google Translate there's,
you know, apps that help us getthere and he's like, oh sorry,
you can't talk to me, I don'tspeak.
I'm like, oh yeah, you know,here's a phone that helps us get
there and that has helped, Ithink, clarify some things on
the projects as well.
Not, you know, not being lostcompletely in translation.
I'm not sure what Googletranslates saying and then I
(03:27):
read it right, then I'm workingon my accent, but anyways, it's
not about me, it's not aboutconstruction Spanish.
I do need to say this thoughAdam, thanks for coming on this
podcast.
I'm glad to hear it's one ofyour favorite podcasts, but you
inspired me, and a lot of ourlisteners don't know that.
You know, the reason I startedthis podcast was a post that you
had made a year and a half ago,two years ago and it's when you
(03:50):
made your step intoConstruction Makes Solutions,
when you left your day job, wentinto your consulting and you
talked about just the bravery,and you know I'm going to go in
there and I'm going to do it,and we don't often realize the
impact that those type of wordshave, those type of posts have,
and between that and also alittle bit of nudge from Jesse
Hernandez, between both of those, I mean and there's another
(04:13):
story behind why I wanted to gointo podcasting listening to him
podcast, but the whole thing isthat that was the nudge that I
needed, and thank you for that,because I think it has made a
huge difference in my life beingable to grow through the,
through the podcasting, but youwere a key to that.
So welcome to the show andthat's what you've been long
(04:33):
coming to.
The came here.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
That's so freaking cool and I think it's a
testimony to Jen's ripples ofimpact, right, like you never
know.
But when the story gets back toyou, it just makes it all worth
it, because so much of what wedo with this podcast stuff and
just getting out with webinarsand on meetings and hosting lean
coffees and all the stuff we dothere's really, when you turn
(04:57):
around and look at the return ontime invested, um, you don't
always get that immediate impactand and so to hear stories like
that it it's like man thatmakes everything all worth it.
So thank you for feeding thatback and I know you're inspiring
others just the same, andthat's what it's all about, man.
So thank you, thank you, thankyou for that feedback.
(05:19):
That's huge.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I'm thanking you.
Stop taking my thanks away.
So a couple of things we wantto talk about and you know this
is a podcast on communication,and that's one thing that has
really drawn me to.
Lean construction is lean isreally at its root communication
and feedback loops.
I mean it's just, it's bringingthat circle through.
(05:40):
There's other aspects to itthrough.
There's other aspects to it,but as I kind of dive in just to
even all of the different fishbones, everything you look at is
some form of communication islacking and we all know that on
our sites, in our offices,anywhere that we work, that
communication is, and seems tobe the biggest hurdle that we
have, or hindrance or evenstopping point of a lot of our
(06:04):
problems that we have arecreated because of how we
communicate.
Now you wrote a book here let'ssee if I can get that in the
camera the Old Dog, lean,thesaurus.
Now, of course, I had to haveyou on the show.
You wrote a book with words init, thesaurus.
You even used a big dinosaurword, my favorite dinosaur words
that you use, but I love it andyou wrote it with Buddy Brley,
(06:28):
who is a, you know, friend ofmine.
Love that guy and uh together.
What inspired this book?
The old dog lean thesaurus well, I'll tell you this.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
It was always a thought in my head, back to my
whiting turner days, andactually this is a little known
fact about me because I don'toften talk about it, but
speaking to your communicationis everything.
Comment a second ago.
My undergraduate degree is inpublic and cultural
communications and when I gothired at Whiting-Turner they
(07:00):
actually started me lower than aproject engineer because I
didn't have a construction orengineering degree.
I was an assistant projectengineer and so I was called the
great ape on the project site.
In fact, my intern that workedfor me or with me, uh, got hired
on and then I was working forthat person and so it was a very
(07:21):
interesting world where Istarted in construction.
Um, but that aside, talkingabout the book, I mean I did
co-author it with the OG leanbuilder, mr Buddy Brumley, the
old dog himself, which, again, Iwas not too fond of being the
lean geek, but he definitelyqualified for the old dog more
(07:45):
than I did, so I went with it.
What inspired the book?
It's really simple.
There are a lot of people thatare spreading bullshito on what
lean is throughout the industry.
There's people just takingadvantage of it and making money
and going out and you know,showing the tools and showing
(08:06):
all these awesome things and thesparkly, glittery side of
construction, but when it comesdown to, like what you're
talking about the communicationskills, the facilitation
abilities, the trust buildingthings and the starting with the
people side of it before we getinto the tools, like that,
that's where you really get theW's when it comes to lean
(08:27):
construction.
And so we really authored thebook to be able to help people
understand like, hey, some ofthis lean stuff, it's not even
new, right?
Like, if you're a great builder, chances are you've got two
thirds of those terms alreadyfigured out.
And so what we wanted to do iswe wanted to put a book out
there for the superintendentswho are in the day-to-day grind,
(08:50):
who are like I don't have timeto learn that new lean bullshito
.
I'm good with what I'm doing,like that's okay, let's take
some of what you're doing andhelp you understand what the
lean term is for it, and thenyou can start communicating and
understanding from some of thesepeople who are also practicing
these things.
Right, we're establishing somelean terms, terminologies, some
(09:14):
really just again like helpingto spread some better ways of
building by just making leanconstruction.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
And that's what's needed.
I had a superintendent on myproject when we really first
started talking about lean andhe's like I'm already doing that
, which was true, and so thatwas kind of my selling point is
you are doing it but you're notdoing all of it.
And I said, how late are youworking?
And he actually didn't work toolate.
He's really for a guy whodoesn't work, you know wasn't
completely into lean.
He was very efficient on hisprojects and very forward
(09:47):
thinking, so he was halfwaythere with it and when he ran
into issues, he ran into issueson the visual communication side
, on some of the other thingsthat would have been tools that
would have helped solve problemsfor him.
So you're right, you're doingsome of this, you're just
learning some new terms and tipsand what I look about.
Let's talk about formats,especially on the communication
(10:08):
side of your book, very simplywritten.
I love the idea that it's athesaurus, because we have to
understand the words and you'rebreaking the words down into
something very simple.
And I do notice like the stylebetween the lean geek and the
old school old dog, because yourbuddy is like hey, guys, this
is how you do it, and then yougo in with just the technical
(10:30):
terms, which I love hearing aswell.
Yeah, push those glasses up.
You have your tape on yourglasses, but the idea is you're
offering those both sides of itand bring a lot of value.
But simply, you know, put theword.
I mean, buy the book, folks,and we're going to put a link to
buy the book in the show notes.
But you need to take a look atit's.
Simple enough to say, oh, youknow what I do need to work on,
(10:52):
poll planning, or I do need towork on you know we're going to
talk about respect for people orvisual management.
You know, these are things.
It's not a lot of information,but it's a great information to
say you know, hey, there's,there's, there's tips here to
help you here.
Let's understand the words,especially when you know, just
in every construction interviewthat we're at, we prep to not
(11:12):
use the acronyms with everyonethat's in the room, because
we're such an acronym heavybusiness.
And it's the same with the lean.
Lean started to do the samething.
It should have been simplifyingand creating.
Like, what is lean Creatingflow?
Right, if you can create flow,at the end of the day, then
you're successful at doing itand then we add in a million
(11:34):
complicated factoring to do andyou don't need all that.
It helps, I think, if you're alean geek, maybe.
Maybe I don't want to offendthe lean geeks, but the numbers
are important.
But it's all about whatultimately we what, what
ultimately are you trying to doRight, and you're bringing it, I
think, with this, with thisbook.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Yeah, Trying to synergize between the lean geeks
and the old dogs, right, Like Ithink there's this, this stone
wall there, where some of theold dogs are like I'm not doing
that shit, Excuse my language,but that's how they talk, Right,
and then you got lean geeksthat are like you know, you got
to do it this way.
And this is like go read thewhite papers.
And so trying to bridge thatgap, like hey, there is a happy
(12:15):
medium.
No, don't read the white papersand no, don't apply every
single thing to your project.
But yes, like, try to getbetter.
And like I love what you justsaid, Lena's creating flow.
Because guess what, when youcreate flow, that means that
you're respecting people, thatyou're continuously improving,
you're learning from what you'redoing, you're focused on value,
(12:35):
you're pulling people.
Like all of the principles arenailed if you just create flow.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
Yeah, make it simple.
And so you jumped on respectfor people, and that's something
that I've heard you talk about.
You know long, uh, for a longtime.
That's one.
I think one of your marqueethings that you bring to this
industry is really bringingrespect for people, for
construction workers.
I'm going to read a littleblurb from your book
specifically on the respect forpeople and if you can see that
(13:02):
within the book there is a, didyou get to choose?
The lean geek guy even hasglasses on too.
That's a little icon, but Iunderstand.
So let's talk.
Before I do that, I want totalk about the flow of the book.
Like it's it's simple and ithas visual monitors in it.
Like it has a picture of thelean geek in it and then it has
a picture of an old dog and theidea is you get to know who's
(13:22):
talking where.
I mean, just all of thosethings are important in somebody
to understand the book withouthaving to uh, you know, read,
you know read the addendum.
Figure out how to do it, but letme read this little bird this
is great what you put in here,can?
Speaker 1 (13:36):
I just shout out miss jennifer lacey for her
illustration skills oneverything except for the new
geek.
The lean, lean geek wasdesigned by her daughter, alex,
believe it or not.
So she nailed that one and soit.
And without those visuals thebook just wouldn't be the same.
So shout out to the Lacey's.
That was huge.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
Yeah, the Lacey's.
Yeah, both of them.
Yeah, we've had Jen Lacey onthe show as well too.
She's an incrediblecommunicator, a master
facilitator and also a brilliantartist.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
I can do whatever I can Sorry.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
When we talk about respect for people, this
principle emphasizes creating anatmosphere that encourages open
communication, active listeningand meaningful engagement.
Rfp involves promoting teamwork, trust and empowerment,
enabling workers to activelyparticipate in decision-making
processes and contribute theirexpertise to problem-solving and
(14:34):
innovation.
So a blurb from the book.
It's on respect for people,which you think is just kind of
a feelings thing, but isn't thatthe very basis of moving
forward with really anycommunication in your project?
It starts with respect forpeople.
What can you add to that?
Speaker 1 (14:52):
Yeah, well, for starters, it was the first term
that we defined and it's theonly one that's out of order,
because without that termapplied to the job, none of the
other stuff works, and so Ithink that's really important to
know and understand.
Again, we communicated that theimportance of respect for
(15:13):
people by putting it first,which is exactly what we need to
do on job sites.
I will add that I think, inconstruction specifically, when
you walk by a worker on a jobsite and you don't engage with
it at a minimum, just a smile, Ithink there's something wrong
(15:33):
with you as a person.
And it happens every single day, and I've been guilty of it
just myself, because I'm on amission to go write this RFI and
I go by eight people on my wayto the point of failure on the
job site and then I startwriting the RFI and then I got
to get back to the trailer and Ijust I'm ignoring people and
(15:57):
that hurts every single timethat it happens, and so I would
love for people to think aboutjust that alone.
And so I would love for peopleto think about just that alone.
Like, how many times have youwalked by a worker and not
engaged with them, and I think alot of the sting still comes
(16:22):
from my days as a plumber, wayback in the day, where I did
some pretty nasty jobs, to thepoint where I didn't really
respect myself, and I know damnsure industry didn't respect me,
nor did society, and I knowdamn sure industry didn't
respect me, nor did society, andso there's still kind of that
chip on my shoulder.
That's like I'm going to changethat, because I remember being
a stinky plumber riding home ona hot day in Florida with no air
conditioning and it sucked andlike, no, nobody should have to
experience that.
(16:42):
It's just, it's wrong.
And so, or, if they do, at aminimum they're valued by the
people that put them in thatsituation.
And um, and so, again, respectfor people's huge Uh, it's when
people start to feel includedand will actually be more
productive and add more value tothe job and speak up when they
know there's something that'sincorrect, even if it's not with
(17:04):
their own work.
And so, um, it's really thereason I think all of my
projects have just been run alittle bit different than others
is because I never really tookthat authority to be in charge,
as like the reason that I'm here, and so I've always empowered
and interviewed people and triedto understand what like like.
(17:25):
The more knowledge I have, thebetter decisions we make as a
team and so, yeah, I mean,that's everything right, like,
if we do that thing right, allthe other things are simple from
there.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah, about 10 years ago I had this talk with my
project manager I won't throwhis name out here, but maybe
I'll make him listen to thepodcast.
But about 10 years ago he wouldshow up on the job site we're
working up in the mountains at amolybdenum mine doing a dirty
hot work.
Everybody up there is workingout of town and he would come in
the job site and walk throughwith kind of a grumpy cat face
(18:03):
and would walk through andeverybody is always what's going
on here, you know, is he upset?
What does he think?
And so they would ask me thesequestions.
And then finally I said hey,hey, bobby, I'll call him Bobby.
Hey, ryan.
I said why don't you, you know,why don't you engage with the
guys when you go through there?
It would really mean a lot tothem.
And he's like well, I didn'twant to stop them from what they
(18:26):
were doing.
So he had a purpose in his mindof I don't want to interrupt
the process and the flow of thework.
And I said please for me,interrupt for like the two
minutes that you're going to do,because they want to hear from
you.
So I learned really twoimportant things from it.
One is some people don't know.
So bring it up and say you knowyou need to.
It's going to mean a lot foryou to talk to them.
(18:47):
And then also how important itis as a leader, walking through
a building, like they're lookingat his face I mean, these guys
are looking from 50, 100 feetaway.
It's like what's going on withthose guys.
So that smile that you talkedabout, some kind of engagement,
goes, you know, miles and miles.
And so the next time he came upthere and I, after we talked,
(19:08):
I'm like you need to come backup.
So he came up about every twoweeks.
So he came up and went throughand glad handed and shook hands
and he didn't care.
And he's a fan.
I always call him fancy pants,uh, and also shiny shoes.
Um, he was one of those guys,but I mean he was a very, very
good PM, a great PM, and so whenhe did that, it made such a
change in the guys.
(19:29):
Morale went up from him justwalking through there, and
that's the importance that Ilearned from doing.
What you're just saying isgiving a little bit of respect
and acknowledgement for thosethat we're working with.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah Well, think about how you feel as a leader
when you know the vice presidentor the CEO comes to your job
and acknowledges your presence.
Right, it's the same thing.
Right, the leader isrecognizing that I'm adding
value to the company or theproject or the task or whatever
it is.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It goes a long long way, and it's in any
organization, anywhere, anytime.
When I went to the Toastmastersconvention in the Bahamas the
next year it's going to be inAnaheim I went to the
Toastmasters convention in theBahamas I don't know, next year
it's going to be in Anaheim butwhen we went there, the
president you know, every yearthere's an elected president.
These are all volunteerpositions, like every one of
(20:17):
these people are doing this.
You know, as their secondary,you know, volunteer for this
organization that we reallybelieve in Toastmasters and,
anyways, the internationalpresident-elect.
When I showed up for district,you know, cause we had
leadership training prior tothat, and he's like, and I did
not, I went to sign up, I didn'thave my name tags on or
anything.
He's like hey, good evening,james, glad you could make it.
(20:39):
Wow, yeah, this is a, you know,the CEO of an organization that
has, you know, over 300,000members Of the leaders.
There's hundreds of leadersthat were there.
He took the time to know myname and that made you feel.
Oh, you just could not believethe feeling in that and
impressed that he had theability to do that too, and I
thought this is an importanttrait of a leader, and so those
(21:03):
things are important at anylevel, any organization that
you're in, that's for sure.
Another part in your book Iwant to jump into is visual
management.
There's so much stuff in herethat we could talk about Kanban.
How do you say that in Japanese?
Help me, I'll go with yourKanban, sure, kanban, okay, is
that how you say it in SouthCarolina?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
Yeah, got to add a little twang to it.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
So the idea I mean that's something I use visual
boards, but visual management ingeneral.
Right, that's talking aboutKanban.
Let me read this statement thatyou had in here.
This is from Buddy Buddy man,he knows how to just keep it
simple.
Another one of my favoriteparts of lean processes is
removing the information fromthe drawings.
I like how he worded that youknow you take the, that remove
(21:48):
the information from the drawing, specs or computer, and that
that's an old dog.
It's like get it out of thecomputer and put it to where I
can physically.
I want to feel it.
Think about it this way If apicture is worth a thousand
words, then a well-designedvisual management system is
worth a million.
By making the information easyto see and understand, you can
(22:09):
help everyone on the team stayon the same page and avoid
misunderstandings, and that'sprobably one of the biggest keys
of a visual management board.
But what are some experiencesyou've had with visual
management?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
So for one, when you can actually visualize what
you're thinking, you're morelikely to understand it better
and people will automaticallygravitate to it and try to
correct it.
It's kind of something withinhuman nature that when we see
information that's not right, wetend to speak up, versus when
(22:46):
we hear information that's notright, we tend to speak up,
versus when we hear informationthat's not right, we don't
really tend to speak up.
And so I was taught back in myday like communication is like
putting everything into a box,pushing the box across the table
, and then your receiver, thereceiver of that communication,
should be able to unbox thecommunication and understand
(23:06):
exactly what your message was.
And so the visual like I alwaysthink about that when I'm
trying to visualize somethingfor somebody else, it's like I'm
putting information in theorder in which I put it in the
box or on the wall matters Right, as well as the quality and the
detail and all of these otherthings to make sure that the
(23:28):
receiver of the communication isunderstanding the message that
I'm trying to receive.
Because, let's just be honest,in construction you can't really
say what we mean, because wemight think we are saying the
right thing, but the words thatare coming out of our mouth
aren't always being received inthe right order or in the right
(23:49):
manner, and so you know, we'renot linear creatures, right?
We are very much, uh, chaotic,kind of circular thinking, and
so when we're trying tocommunicate a message, that
message doesn't always come out.
Like even people that arelistening to this podcast, are
(24:10):
you really getting the messagethat I want you to receive right
now, and or how many differentversions of this message are
being comprehended right now?
And so, um, that's why, evenlike you know, just you doing
the video now is huge, becausepeople can see me and see what
words I'm emphasizing and itadds, and I think so, when we
(24:37):
can visualize things, we're moreapt to get the message across
that we're trying to deliverExactly On a couple of my
projects.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
they're like oh, picture time.
Because sometimes it's assimple on the whiteboard, you
know, drawing a couple of lines,like I've said it a couple of
times, and he's like I'm notquite getting it, and literally
draw a square and a circle andwe're right here and this time
needs to go here.
It's like boom.
You know, it takes driving itdown visually for a lot, a lot
of our guys, you know, in anycommunication, because sometimes
(25:10):
our words aren't enough andI've been poor at this in the
past of just repeating the wordsagain.
You know, if you didn't get it,I'm like all right, I'll say it
again.
All right, now I'll say it inan angry voice.
It's very effective ways ofdoing it and I still would
oftentimes repeat myself.
In fact, the guy on my projectcurrently he'll catch me he's
like I heard you the first time.
(25:31):
I'm like did you?
I just want to make sure thatwe're understanding each other,
but it's that drawing, thatpicture, the visual, that gets
us there.
Absolutely.
I'm a big visual communication.
Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Well, there's a great exercise that we do in some of
these learning sessions is, youknow, I will read the
instructions to folding a paperairplane and maybe one out of 50
people will pick up on it byjust hearing.
And then I show pictures of howto make the airplane and it's
like everybody nails it, and soit's an interesting exercise to
(26:09):
understand the power ofvisualization.
That when you can actually seethe things happening versus
hearing the directions and thinkabout what we do in
construction all the time, right, it's like here's your drawings
or here's your specs, now gobuild it and here's your 80-page
detailed line item schedule ofall words in a CPM schedule and
(26:32):
we expect people to put thattogether and go build it.
Versus a tax plan per se orlast planner system and being
able to break that down and seeit on the walls and see it in
real life in a format that'sreally easy to understand, in
real life, in a format that'sreally easy to understand.
And I think you know the way wecommunicate.
The expectation of gettingthings done has got to change in
(26:54):
our industry.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
You can't expect somebody to get the CPM schedule
and say, here's your schedule,we expect you to show up.
Then.
There's been a couple and I'vebeen on both sides of this world
as a trade partner, as amillwright and working, you know
, as a subcontractor for otherGCs.
You know I've seen that sidereally for a majority of my
career and now I get to see itfrom from both sides.
(27:16):
I thought I was hitting thelevel that was now Teflon.
But everybody has a boss, likewhen you, when you're the GC,
then you now have, you know, theowner and the architect.
The owner, the architect, has aboard like there's always,
there's always a bigger fish.
But the idea was that I couldn't, I couldn't take that schedule
and find my stuff in there.
It wasn't even clearlycommunicated to me.
(27:36):
You know here, go figure it out.
That's what the GC would handto us.
And you know some schedules are, at least you know, broke out
by division and then by division.
You know, whatever task of workyou've got, then you could see
all your items together.
But a lot of times it's, and wewere doing miscellaneous metals
.
All right, you know you're,you're over here in the atrium
and then you're now, you're overhere in the stairwell and then
now you're over here in theelevator shaft.
You know on that schedule andthey don't give it to you broken
(28:00):
out into something that youknow all of your tasks.
Where they put you right that'san important thing too is it's
where we were put, which at thetime was fine, like we didn't
have time, we weren't asked toparticipate in it it's probably
a better way of saying it andthis is where the schedule laid.
So it's really understandingthat.
So what do people do?
(28:20):
They wait for the four week tocome out and some companies do
six week schedules and if I'm inthe six weekweek then I'll show
up.
We're planning that far aheadfor that work and sometimes if
we were on the four-week, someof the materials were six weeks
out.
We needed to know when we weregoing to order them.
So, yeah, it's a huge misnomerthat the schedule is enough for
(28:43):
all of our partners, becausethey're very hard to understand
for some people.
They're not looking at it, theybarely look at four-week
look-aheads and that's why, forme, a phone call.
You know you have especiallyyour assistant supes, you know
that are covering differentdivisions, looking out ahead and
making sure they're makingthose phone calls.
You know you've probablyalready covered your long lead
(29:06):
items.
Now you're talking aboutscheduling and there's some
companies like right now I'vegot a sign company that I was
told they're at least two weeksout and we were, you know,
considering shifting the dateand now they're a month out
before they have their nextopening four weeks and all a lot
of the sign companies arerunning that way.
So you don't know right.
You can't assume you can makethe phone call and somebody's
(29:27):
just going to show up tomorrowto do whatever discipline
they're going to do.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
I do like your willingness to go back to analog
communication versus everythingwe have from a digital
perspective now.
Yeah, like, hey, let's justtalk about it because we're able
to um, we're able to get somuch more clarity, we're able to
adapt in the moment and askquestions and truly understand
when, when that versus digitaltypically is.
(29:53):
Let me send this box to you.
You can send the box to me.
Shoot, I didn't put this inthere.
How about like, and this isback and forth versus hey, let's
just hop on a call?
I tell my kids all the timewouldn't it be awesome if this
little black thing could, likeyou could call, call and
actually talk to somebody on it?
Versus oh, my goodness, what aluxury.
(30:14):
That would be right.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
It must be a dad thing.
I've done the same thing.
I'm like, hey, I just got thisthing and it makes phone calls
like the old ones.
And that's, I think, importanton a project as well too, is to
discover what's the best form ofcommunication.
Always want to pick up a phonecall, but not with everybody.
There's a couple of my tradepartners that I will text
because I know they're busy andthey're not going to answer, and
(30:37):
they know I'm busy, and thenthere's work that's been planned
that way, whether it's text ora phone call.
Some people you know you haveto phone call.
Some people have gatekeepers,like there's one particular
trade partner that I cannot gethis cell phone, so I can't text,
I can't call and I've got tocall the office and he's never
(31:00):
there and she doesn't send methe voicemail.
She takes a message and handsit to him.
You know which send me thevoicemail.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
She takes the message and hands it to them, which in
today's day and age seems soarchaic to have that gatekeeper
in there and you have to knowhow to work.
The gatekeeper as well and Ithink you bring up a good point
is you, as the communicator,need to learn how does the
message get through mosteffectively, and then,
unfortunately, you have to adaptto each person if you truly
want to communicate properly.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah, you have to.
Everybody has their differentstyles and you need to find out
what it is.
Some people you know, like myforeman said, I heard you the
first time.
Other people don't right.
They need it three, four timesand I'm I'll even say I'm one of
them.
It's like remind me uh, youhaven't heard an email from me
in a couple of weeks.
(31:51):
You're probably not going to.
I don't have a list of emailstwo weeks old that I'm going
through, so I recommend thatpeople reach out to me if they
think something got missed,because I've heard that before.
It's like I haven't heard fromthem.
I shot them an email like twoweeks ago and that's it.
There has an email like twoweeks ago and that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
You know there has to be other ways to uh try to
reach those individuals.
Yeah, you sent me a textmessage last night confirming
for this morning, butunfortunately I was passed out
me yeah, and that's so.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
And for me, I I felt like I had failed in that
communication because I I wantedto send it out a day earlier
and I would have should have,you know, sent it at a time when
you weren't sleeping because Iknew it was late.
It's only 8 30 my time and Iwas not sure we're here, baby
you're here, there's no issues.
I didn't doubt it, but I justwanted to send a reminder right
and say, hey, you know lookingforward to this, cool.
(32:40):
Well, is there anything elseyou want to add to the book,
because I've got one, uh otherarea that we're going to dive
into.
Is there anything you want toadd in regards to the book?
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yes, it's more than a book.
Right, it's a community.
It's a community of people,primarily old dog
superintendents, and, james,you're a huge contributor to
that.
We do lean coffees once a month.
We're starting to experimentwith some leadership via
transparency, or, as Jesse callsit, emotional bungee jumping,
where we're just gettingvulnerable.
We're starting to experimentwith some leadership via
transparency, or, as Jesse callsit, emotional bungee jumping,
(33:10):
where we're just gettingvulnerable.
We're sharing lessons learnedand we're becoming better
leaders.
And so, yeah, again, it's acommunity of people who want
more for the constructionindustry, and so I would urge
you to come and poke around andsee what we're all about and
bring some of that value thatsome of your listeners have,
because we'd love to have youagain, primarily superintendents
(33:32):
, and so if you get offended,easy, don't come.
I would love to have a stronger, more well-built community as
we move forward with changinghow construction does business.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah, and I love being a part of that group.
It doesn't always fit within myschedule, but you have let's
talk about that because youcreated a community of people
who are talking, communicating,solving problems, asking
questions of superintendentsthat are pretty much across the
country at high levels, seniorsupes, and it is superintendent
only, which I love that becauseyou're like no, if you're not a
(34:07):
superintendent, we need to havethese conversations, and you
don't record them.
So it's one of thoseopportunities for us to really
bounce ideas across other peergroups within our group and
we're finding we all have a lotof the same issues and we're
finding that you know somebodyhas the answer and those have
been.
It's a great.
(34:27):
It's almost like a mastermindof construction leaders, which
there needs to be more of, andyou spearheaded that.
You know you initiated that andI know it's going to continue
to grow.
Hopefully it branches out toother groups because those are
things that have made an impacton everybody.
I think that participates.
So that's a big influence thatyou've had in communication
(34:50):
across multiple companyplatforms, which is an amazing
facilitation.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Yeah, and our team even influenced the NCCER's
leadership program forup-and-coming superintendents,
which I think is just super coolMs Patty Stephan and all her
work over the last year or twoyears really putting in for this
new program and I think all ofus had influence on that.
So that's just again anotherkind of wave of the initial
(35:21):
ripple of impact.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Yeah, absolutely, yep , all right.
Well, let's talk aboutsomething.
I know a guy only one guy who'sa TEDx speaker that I've ever
shook his hand with before.
I think it's amazing that youare and you did a TEDx talk, I
think at Clemson right, it wasClemson TEDx talk and I would
(35:44):
love to know that process.
I mean, as a guy who loves andembraces public speaking, I'm in
a public speaking organization.
There are people that shootafter that, and to me that just
seems like you know, that's agoal a ways off and you jumped
right into it.
So first tell me, I want tolearn a little bit about this
whole experience, but first yougot to come with a message,
(36:06):
right?
What was your message?
Speaker 1 (36:08):
So my message was really respecting the trades and
changing the way that we think.
Right, I'm tired of societyteaching to test in lieu of
teaching people to think, and itstarts early on from school and
we're just kind of like drivenin this way, like hey, just like
(36:29):
even spelling words, how do youspell this word?
Well, in the hoots household, Idon't care if you can spell the
word.
Can you tell me what the wordmeans?
Like that is 10 times moreimportant than being able to
write it down.
Now, don't get me wrong, mykids are literate, they can
write, they can read.
But guess what?
You better know the definitionof that word, not just how to
(36:51):
spell the word.
And so it's really changing theway we think, changing the way
our trades are respected.
Right too often it's the samething in construction, like I
don't care what the workerthinks, I just need to test them
if they can get these 10 sheetsof drywall hung today.
Well, guess what?
If you cared what they thought,you might get 15 sheets of
(37:13):
drywall hung today and theymight have an easier.
You know, they might be able towork five years longer because
they know how to save their ownbacks.
And so I think it's.
It's very important from amessage standpoint that we need
to use the whole worker and notjust three quarters of the
worker.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, so did you start with the message and get
drawn in?
Like tell me that, connect thedots for me.
How did you get connected to aTEDx talk?
Drawn in Like tell me, connectthe dots for me.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
How did you get connected to a TEDx talk?
So a gentleman named TaninHaddari, with DPR, actually put
on the whole event, and so thiswas right.
Before he graduated with hisPhD from Clemson, he was a
co-worker at DPR Construction,so I knew him very well, I'd
presented to him several timesand I just reached out to him
and said, hey, I heard you'redoing this, I would love to be a
(38:04):
part of it.
And then I think you had toapply and get references and all
of this stuff, and so it was apretty intense process to get
connected.
And then, once I did, we weresupposed to do the TEDx talk in
2020, and then it got pushedlike four or five months the
(38:25):
whole COVID thing and they hiredus a coach who also has done
several TEDx talks before.
And I'll tell you this I don'tthink it was my best performance
, if you will, because I didn'ttake the process as serious as I
probably should, because Ioftentimes just show up and talk
(38:47):
right, I do that all the time.
And so, yeah, they're like oh,we want your speech six months
ahead of time and we only wantvideos each month so that we can
critique.
And I was like, yeah, yeah,okay.
But I tell you what, when youget up on that stage and you got
so much information to deliverin 15 minutes, it was
(39:07):
challenging, and I spent thefirst one minute of it singing
happy birthday to Charlie Dunn,who was also doing a TEDx talk,
and in the audience.
So, yes, it was.
Again, it was an intensepreparation process that I
probably didn't take as seriousas I should have.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
You said they hired you a coach.
Who?
Who did that?
Who got involved in gettingthat TEDx coach?
Support for you.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
I guess it was Clemson in some form or fashion
and his name was Michael, andI'm struggling to come up with
this last name, but he wasexcellent.
I can hold on.
I can hold on.
I can find him for you.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
Yeah, well, you're pulling that up.
The one thing that is important, I think, in any presentation
is we.
There's plenty of people thattake that preparation.
You know it's like I'm used totalking all the time, but when
you're presenting in anorganized fashion like that, it
is different.
And you know I'm a huge fan ofof practice, practice, practice
(40:08):
on any of it, and a lot of it.
This is practice, right, thisis helping us speak and
communicate.
But standing in front of acrowd of people is a different
practice as well too.
It's a different energy.
It's a different presentationstyle.
You know there's there's theenergy that within yourself that
you've got to monitor.
You know your excitement level.
You know all of those thingscome into play as different.
It hits differently when you'reon a stage as well too.
(40:28):
So all of those you know leadinto practice.
It's kind of cool that theyhave you do the uh, you know
monthly video check-ins andstuff like that and kind of
critique that.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, michael Arnold was his name and he's right here
in Clemson, south Carolina and,yeah, he was absolutely
fantastic, definitely knew whathe was doing, um, and I wished I
would have taken a little bitmore of his advice.
So shout out to Michael, causehe he freaking, he rocked it,
man, uh, and he made my storythat much better.
(40:59):
You know talking about some ofthe specific details, you know,
and I told the story of me beingin a nasty ditch with corn
floating in it and having towork through that as a human,
not respecting myself,understanding where I was and
the stench of that day lingeringwith me like helping me
(41:19):
visualize what I was goingthrough.
Yeah, michael was amazing.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
We'll put a link up in the show notes to that.
I'd love to have that on mywebsite and, if you're good with
that, I'd like to pop your linkinto that.
I'll add that in there to ourwebsite as well as a link in the
show notes.
So at the end of that sopreparation you had a message.
They prepared you, which isgreat to hear.
I love hearing.
I wish I had prepared more,because we all say it.
(41:46):
I mean it's not like nobodyever said I overprepared and you
overthink, and I think that issomething that is a problem.
You can overthink it, but youcan't overprepare.
And so I love hearing thatadvice.
I think that's great advice forour listeners, especially of
this podcast.
But what were the results?
What outcomes did you haveafter giving that speech?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
Well, for one, you can't wear a logo when you do it
, apparently, so I had to putelectrical tape over my Lean
Builder hat, which really droveme crazy, and I was the first
one to present a TEDx talkwearing a construction vest and
a hard hat, so that was prettycool as well.
(42:28):
But as far as the results, Ithink I mean we've had almost
2,500 people watch it, and sothat's pretty impressive in
itself, I think.
Anyway, that's better than anyother videos that I've put out
there.
Anyway, that's better than anyother videos that I've put out
there.
And so just to know that, we'veimpacted that many folks to go
and, you know, listen to thetrade worker and hey, maybe are
(42:48):
you really valuing trade workersthe way that you should?
And we've seen a significantshift in the value on college
versus the skilled trades.
I think we're starting to seesome of the fruits of those
labors come to light, and so I'dlove to say like, hey, I was a
part of that change, right.
Like I think some of the thingsthat we're doing are helping to
(43:09):
impact that, by just bringingawareness that, hey, we need
skilled trade workers, but inthe same breath, realizing that
we also need to change theconstruction industry's current
conditions, because if we wantto keep those new workers, then
we've got some work to do.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, yeah, and that's that respect in general.
You know you go back or I goback 30 something years in the
trade and you think about youknow working around
professionals millwrights,ironworkers, pipefitters, you
know plumbers all of those therewas at times and it depends on
the area and the location acertain respect for that trade.
It's like you were aprofessional.
(43:47):
You know, specifically likesome pipe fitters and depends on
which region that I was at,like they all kind of wear the
same stuff.
You know jean shirts orwhatever it might be in it.
You know specifically aroundhere, tan.
You know some of these tanCarhartt.
You know long sleeve heavy dutyshirts, but there is several of
them that would come with ironshirts to work like they.
(44:08):
They, you know, knew that thatwas their protective layer as
well.
But they didn't come in allraggedy looking.
They came in because they werea professional and they got paid
well and they were very proudof their work, were a
professional and they got paidwell and they were very proud of
their work and just like aclean job site, going in with
that type of, you know, respectfor themselves and for the trade
.
Their work showed it as welltoo.
They were fantastic craftsmen.
(44:29):
So that's what I think it'sabout is bringing back that
professionalism to the trades isyou don't have to, just you
know, show up and I still haveto turn them around shorts and
or sweatpants and tennis shoes.
I'm like I can't let you onthis job site in sweatpants.
You know what other jobs areyou working on that you can wear
sweatpants at?
(44:50):
And you know, because I don'thave any steel-toed boots.
Well, you know, we don't, onsome of our projects, require
steel-toed, but it has to be asturdy boot, so you have to at
least wear a boot, not a Niketennis shoe of some kind.
So, you know, in respect forthat, like you know, show
respect for your own profession,you know as well too.
That's going to help go a longway as well.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Absolutely, and you, being a Colorado guy, I know
what Coach Prime says If youlook good, you feel good.
If you feel good, you feel good.
If you feel good, you play good.
If you play good, they pay good, and so I would urge people to
take some of that advice.
And then I agree with you thatthere was a sense of kind of
pride and ownership ofsomebody's work.
(45:34):
Maybe not, I don't know, about30 years ago, but 20 years ago
for sure.
No question, meaning I I can'tattest to 30 years is what I
meant by that, but 20 years agoI certainly can, and we do.
You know, today, when you talkwith an electrician about their
career, it's kind of like, yeah,I'm in construction, but when
(45:55):
you talk to them on a job siteand they just finished running
these 90s, that come and turndown the wall and go into the
panel and then the terminationsare all like perfectly straight
lines, right, like they careabout their work but they don't
have pride in their career.
And so, again, we've got tochange that as an industry, and
(46:17):
it starts with just respectingthe people inside our gates
before anybody outside the gateswill respect us.
Speaker 2 (46:25):
Yeah, absolutely Well .
Thanks so much, Adam.
I've been looking forward tohaving you on the show.
This has been perfect timing,because everybody gets to see
your face.
You know, if we'd done this afew years ago, then they're like
what does this Adam look like?
Oh, that's right, I got to gofind him on the TEDx stage to
find out what he looks like.
But thanks for coming on theshow.
(46:47):
We always sum it up in a UCmoment, the Uncommon
Communicator moment, because,after listening for the nearly
50 minutes or so of this podcast, what are they going to walk
away with?
One thing what do you think isthe one thing that you'd want
listeners to walk away fromtoday's conversation you'd want
listeners to?
Speaker 1 (47:01):
walk away from today's conversation.
How about this?
You cannot not communicate?
Right Like everything and Iknow that's bad English,
whatever, I don't care buteverything about you says
communication, right, whetherit's your hat that you're
wearing, or your shirt thatyou're wearing, or whether or
(47:24):
not you shaved, or like how bigyour eyes get, or how you're
controlling your tone of yourvoice, it all is communicating
something.
And so I would ask people, orchallenge people, to think about
what messages they're sendingand be more intentional and
(47:44):
strategic about those messages,because everything about you is
communicating, so you cannot notcommunicate.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I love it.
That's the perfect UC moment.
You cannot not communicate.
Well, that's all we got for youtoday.
See you, bye.
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