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Greg: So today we're talking about how do we get more women into the construction industry. We just have a massive problem in construction anyway, with generally a shortage of trades, but particularly with women, there's a huge shortage of not only the trades, but also women in leadership positions. So today's guest is a specialist who's worked on the board of some really large companies.

Gretchen Gagel. Now Gretchen is amazing. She's worked for in the industry for over 40 years and has had clients that we can just reel off clients that you'll know. Ones like Hewlett Packard, Marriott, Intel, Proctor Gamble, United Airlines, Starbucks, we could go on and on. So Gretchen really has been there and done it and has consulted with, uh, some top companies and on some top boards.

But now Gretchen is really passionate about bringing more women into construction and how to level. Them up into leadership positions and she coaches many women on how to do this. 

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So you're gonna find this episode really interesting because if you are a construction business owner and you're looking to take more women on and wanna see the benefits of how you do that, then today's podcast is gonna be useful.

And if you are currently a woman in construction listening to this, well, this is how you can level up as a woman in your leadership abilities and how you can encourage more women to come on board through the ranks. So it's gonna be a fantastic interview. Uh, just a word of warning. When I listened to a bit of this back, for some reason my microphone has made me sound like a chipmunk on steroids.

So I dunno what's going on with my voice here and I don't think we can edit this out. And I was really thinking of just scrapping the episode and rerecording it. But at the end of the day, Gretchen was an amazing guest and I was lucky to get her on. So we are just gonna listen to this. Ignore my Chipmunk voice, try and concentrate on what Gretchen's gotta say. You can have a bit of a laugh about it, but, um, yeah, we're just gonna, I didn't want to take away from the value that Gretchen had to offer, so let's jump in. It's a really interesting episode.

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Hey, Gretchen, great to have you on the show today.

Gretchen: Thank you. Lovely to be here.

Greg: Awesome. Gretchen, I know you you're a bit all over the world. Are you, so you're currently in Denver, did you say 

Gretchen: Kansas City today? Yes. I divide my time between the US and Australia. 

Greg: Excellent. Good. Great stuff. As our listeners are from UK, some Australia and some in the US as well.

So we've got a diverse crowd listening to us. Gretchen, would you like to introduce yourself? Let us know who you are and what you do. 

Gretchen: Yeah. I am happy to. So, I've been in the construction industry for 42 years. It's hard to believe. I was an intern for Lone Star Gas back in 1983. I ran manufacturing plants for a period of time, and then after my MBA I went to work in 94 for the largest investment banking strategy firm in construction. FMI. 

And my career over the last decades, I've done a lot of strategy work for large engineering and construction companies, but then I developed a new business for us advising on the client side. 

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So I would help General Motors, Intel, Marriott, Starbucks, anybody like that, really think through strategically how do we deliver billions of dollars of construction cost effectively.

Greg: Fantastic. Yeah. So you've been in this industry for a long time and I imagine things have started to change or have changed over the years, but what was it like back then getting into construction and maybe being, one of the first women in, that sort of role consulting at a high level in construction.

Gretchen: A lot of unconscious bias and frankly, that, that's why I started the client side consulting, really for two reasons. I could help a contractor be more strategic, but if they're working for a bad owner in a bad contract situation, that's not going to be effective. And really Intel didn't care that I was a woman.

And we I was very lucky, my first boss, Lou Bainbridge, in 1994, we had contractors that said I don't think you're actually gonna send a woman out to do my strategic plan. 

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And his answer at that time was then you're gonna have to go find a new consulting firm because Gretchen's an important person in our team.

And I've had incredible male allies throughout my career in construction, which has been really important. And it's an industry that I love. 

Greg: Good. Yeah. Fantastic. That's really good to hear. Let's just talk about the industry and why this bias might exist. Why we don't see as many women leaders in construction as we probably should.

What do you think the issue is? 

Gretchen: I. In the first chapter of my book, building Women Leaders I delved into two important concepts that I've learned a lot about dominant culture and unconscious bias. And this isn't about a slam on men, it's just that the dominant culture of an industry is developed by the dominant PO population.

And if we look at construction, it's white male in most countries. And so that. What's difficult is that in my love, my male friends that really understand this, when you're in the bubble of a dominant culture, you don't understand unconscious bias. 

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You don't understand that people are having a different experience than you are.

And I'll give you just a really simple example. If you and I were to go out to dinner in the United States and I were to hand my credit card to the waiter, what do you think are the chances that he's going to hand that credit card back to you? 

Greg: Probably quite high. 

Gretchen: Quite high. And I'm talking about years of experience.

I haven't statistically studied this, but it's like, it says Gretchen on it, right? But there's a bias that, oh, a man and a woman out to dinner, the man pays for the meal. Or I play in a lot of golf tournaments and my clubs are never put on the driver's side of a golf cart. In a construction golf tournament.

And it's not like somebody, it's unconscious. It's just oh yeah, the man drives and the woman rides and it's just. It's just it's not outta spite with most people. It's just stopping and thinking, oh, Gretchen, tall, blonde woman. Maybe she has as much experience in construction as the gentleman sitting over there.

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Greg: Yeah, that's really interesting. So first thing Gretchen is one you play golf and you're gonna drive the buggy for me. So that's great. And okay. And you're gonna pay for dinner, so that's that's awesome. There's a reason we've gotta head out in Australia. 

Gretchen: There you go. Sounds like a plane.

Greg: Yeah, really interesting that unconscious bias then.

So how are we seeing this represented in sort of stats in construction? Do you know how many women are in construction or anything like that? I don't wanna put you on the spot there, but have you got any idea around the numbers? 

Gretchen: No, I actually do. So I am, not only am I publishing a book on women leading in construction, but I've started a new global institute to advance women in construction, women thriving in construction.org.

And we just published what I think is the first global status of women in construction report, looking at the 20 countries with the biggest construction spend and what the percentage of women are in total. And China's in the lead at 16%. I think America's at about 11. Australia might be at 13. Most of the South American countries are at four, Indonesia's at 1.6.

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Our next study we're partnering, FMI, is our, I should mention FMI is our generous research partner. We're doing a study with them and the National Center for Construction Education and Research on Trades in the us. And so I just received the data on this two weeks ago. So what percentage of electricians in America do you think are female?

Greg: I wouldn't have a clue, but I imagine it's very small. 

Gretchen: Yeah, 2.4%. And 10 years ago it was 2.1% and plumbers is 1.9. And I don't, the UK is actually doing some really great things around women in construction, and I know that because I sit on the construction industry culture task force for Australia, and I hear a lot about the uk, but.

When I ask people in construction, they'll say, oh, 8%, maybe 10%, and they're shocked by 2.4. And even if the data's off by a little bit, it's a very small number. And these are great jobs that women can perform. 

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Greg: That's really interesting. Interesting you said that about the uk because obviously I've been in the UK now.

I live in Australia. I actually felt Australia was more progressive than what the UK was. In construction, I've got a number of friends that are tradies and a lot of their daughters are working for them or they're encouraging their daughters to get into construction, whereas I just did not see that at all in the uk.

It might. I've just been my circle of friends and I've, not got the data on that, but I did personally feel that the UK was behind Australia in it, but, so it's interesting you hear that there's some good things coming outta the UK that's quite positive. 

Gretchen: I, I think it's more the government pushing.

So the construction industry culture task force developed a culture standard and five projects have piloted that and it's around diversity, wellbeing, and time away from work. And the UK has done something very similar. So I think it's happening at that. At the highest level, people recognising that and unfortunately change usually happens when the client drives the change.

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So when clients got really focused on safety in America and decided how we were gonna measure safety and you couldn't bid on a job if you didn't have a certain safety record. I think that the government in both Australia and the UK is driving a lot of that change around the culture in general, including making it more more attractive to women.

Greg: That's good. And we need it, don't we? Construction interest in industry because there's just a huge shortage of just trades in general, isn't there? It's amazing how there's not really that many that come out of school that think I'm gonna get into construction. So there's just a problem altogether, isn't there in construction with finding decent trades and filling this shortage gap.

Gretchen: Yeah, we're short. 290,000 I think is the last number I saw in Australia and seven, at least 750,000 in the United States. And it's funny, I was flying to Doha to Helsinki from Australia last year and I started taking selfies with broken escalator, moving sidewalks in airports. And I don't know if you've noticed this, but that, they have a little construction sign around them, and I think I saw six in a day because we have a shortage.

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We have a shortage of mechanics that can work on moving sidewalks. And it's really, that's the critical thing about this. This is a societal problem. If we can't find enough people to build things that impacts electricity, that impacts rows. That just took us two weeks to get our elevator fixed.

One of the elevators fixed in one of my buildings. So it, it really is a serious problem affecting the sustainability of the industry. 

Greg: Yeah. And where do you think the main problems lie is it the bias in the industry, or is it that women are just not wanting to get into construction? Where or why are maybe not as many women getting into construction as men are?

What do you think the main issues are? 

Gretchen: I think it's all of the above and it's not just a problem for women. Young men don't wanna come into, we have the highest suicide rate, we're seen as dirty, death, divorce, and dirt is one of the things I've heard said about our and I think that's something that there's two large companies here in the United States that are gonna go to.

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100% flushing toilets on their job sites. And that doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's professionalising the job site and treating people like human beings. And why does the person who opens the gate in the morning have to be the person that closes the gate at night? Why can't we take a 16 hour position and split it into two aids?

Because we're, we really grind people into the ground. So that's not just a gender specific thing, but then you add on top of that, oh, by the way, I'm not gonna see anyone that looks like me. I'm not gonna have protective equipment that fits me properly. I'm gonna have guys making rude remarks to me.

Then you overlay that and it's a double whammy. 

Greg: Yeah, I can see that for sure. What are the solutions to this? It's a big problem, isn't it, Gretchen? So what, what do, how do you think we overcome these barriers? 

Gretchen: I don't, so in starting the institute, I've been telling people I don't have the answers, but I have the passion.

This is my last decade in the industry, and I think. 

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We have to want women, we have to want to solve the problem. And I know people say, oh yeah, we've tried to find women and throw their hands up. Andre Noonan, who is the COO of Axion, Australia, New Zealand, they did a project on a girls school and he said, we're gonna have 50% women on this project.

And everyone threw their hands up and said, we can't possibly do that. But they did it. 53% women. And I think that's that when you know we get serious about things like serious about safety, we're gonna stop killing people. Serious about mental health. I see us getting much more serious mates in construction and all the things that are happening around dealing with our high suicide rate.

So I, I think that's one of the first things is that we have to say, and it's not women at the expense of men, that's the most important message. We have a massive shortage. We need everybody. We need all hands on deck. 

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We need women and men, everyone to be thriving in construction and want to stay and want to come to our industry.

Greg: Yeah, that's great. So any practical tips for a business owner if they're looking to hire now? And like you say, it could be, a man or a woman, but they don't wanna put out that unconscious bias when they're putting that job advert out. Any things they should be avoiding or any things they should be including that might attract more women to, for a position.

Gretchen: You have to educate people about unconscious bias.

So I was actually writing the chapter about it, and I flew to Washington DC and I got in a shared ride car in a suit, and the driver said, oh are you having a busy week? And I said, yeah, Kansas City, Chicago, dc, New York? I don't remember.

And he said, oh, are you a flight attendant? That was his response to me and I said, no, I'm actually a business executive. And do you think you would have asked a man that same question and he probably would've asked him if he was a pilot? Bias. We all have bias. We need bias. 

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It's the file folders that we sort, information that our brain is designed to keep us alive.

So we say, oh, your friend or foe, you're whatever. Bias is an important part. Helping your people train themselves. Be trained in unconscious bias and how to remove that from the hiring process. A friend of mine in the United States went through training with 18 of his leaders. They grew from 200 million to 500 million in three years.

They have a 99 engagement score and women are beating down their door to go to work for them. So it can be done, but once again, just how you have a rigorous safety program where you have a safety moment and at the beginning of every meeting and we inculcate people with safety, you have to take it that seriously and you have to invest in it to make a change.

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Greg: Hey, can I just ask a quick favor? We are constantly trying to bring on the best guests on this podcast so we can deliver as much value as possible, but the only way we can do that is if we get more subscribers, more likes, more comments, and more reviews. So subscribe to this channel and click notifications so you know, every time we've got a new video coming up, give us a review if you're getting any value from it, and give us a thumbs up.

We'd really appreciate that.

Yeah, that's great. So let's talk about. How you've obviously worked for some really top companies and consulted at a very high level, so that's obviously very appealing for a man Alman to be able to achieve that. Tell us about that, how you've managed to lead under pressure in such a high role.

How you've developed your own career and how you would encourage other women to. Be leaders in the construction industry, not just getting into being in the trade, which is still important, but actually to become a leader. How would they do that? 

Gretchen: That's a really great question. I devote a, an entire section of the book on how to build your network around you, your mentors, your sponsors, your allies, your coaches.

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I have a paid coach. I have a PhD in leadership and I still have a paid coach and people are, and I coach CEOs and they're like, why do you have a coach? I'm like, 'cause I'm not done. I'm not done learning. In backing yourself. You have to back yourself, male, female, whatever. You have to have the confidence that I belong here and you have to want to belong here.

And you really have to love the construction industry. The pride that I feel when I work on a light rail or a football stadium or an airport or anything, and the impact that's gonna have on society. And you can't take everything personally. You really have to pick your battles. I don't, I didn't take it personally when that guy asked me if I was a flight attendant that's his unconscious bias, right?

I just politely corrected him and said, no, I'm actually a business executive. Or I'll play the game. Someone will talk to me in an airport lounge and what industry are you in? And I'll say, guess they never. Ever guess construction. It just doesn't doesn't cross their mind. So build the support network.

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Invest in your own development. Take good care of yourself. Everybody needs to do that. Love the industry and find places where your skills are. Are really utilised, like me seeing the opportunity, oh, I've worked for Ralston Purina and Coca-Cola. I have a corporate background. I can apply that and help these corporations where Starbucks doesn't exist to build things.

They exist to make great coffee or bad coffee as the Australians feel, so it's not a usually popular brand and Australia. But their core business is not construction and that I have value to add. I can help them figure out why when they're building 200 stores a year, every store is over budget and behind schedule 20 years ago, I can help them solve that problem.

Greg: Yeah, that's great. Do you think that there's strengths that women bring to a leadership role as opposed to men? Do you think there's extra things that a woman could bring that a man. Couldn't necessarily do a role. 

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Gretchen: Yeah, so I found a research study when I was in my PhD, I think it was actually in Harvard Business Review, and it was someone who did research on the IQ of collective teams of people, and it's not the addition of the IQs of the people on the team.

And one of the number one things is, does it have women on it or not? And it's not. It's only because we think differently. Our brains are different. My neuroscience friend Kristen Hansen, who wrote a great book called Traction Men, women have a 12 lane superhighway between the right and left side of their brain.

Physically I hate to tell you this, but you have an old country road between the right left sides of your brain. Physiological things that are different about us. We have different ways of thinking about things, so it's hard to generalise. It's not I see women with soft skills. I see men with soft skills.

I see women without soft skills and men without soft skills. 

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So it's hard to generalise by gender, but the research shows that whether it's age, economic background, gender, the more different types of people you bring sitting around the table the smarter that collective group is going to be.

Greg: Yeah, that makes complete sense. Yeah, for sure. That's really interesting. Tell us what it's been like in, in your role, obviously a very high pressure role. What skills have you managed to develop and, what have you relied on to, to get you through? You must have been in some, really tense meetings and especially in a male dominated, environment and a meeting.

How have you managed to navigate all of that? 

Gretchen: I was just telling a story about a 12 hour meeting with five men negotiating a $20 million change order on a $40 million guaranteed maximum vice rise project where the contractor did not think a woman could help them. And had the guts to tell me that at the end of the meeting that I really was the right person and how thankful he was.

I learned a lot of analytical skills in engineering, so I apply those. 

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I learned a lot of critical skills in my PhD, critical thinking skills, but I think one of the things that has served me. Really is humility. I don't feel like I have all the answers. Like when you say, how should we get women into construction?

I, but I know how to put really smart people together. I know how to ask great questions. Edgar Schein humble inquiry is one of my favorite books. Great leaders ask great questions and then they keep their mouth shut and actually listen to what people have to say when they ask the question. So I think some people think the more advanced you get, the more you need to have the answers and I think it's actually the opposite.

I think the more you can empower the people that work with you to have the answers, to give them voice and to make them feel like they matter. My good friend Zach Mercurio is putting out a book as we speak, called The Power of Mattering. How do you help people feel really fulfilled at work and they'll go anywhere for you and they'll do anything for you as a leader.

Greg: Yeah. I love that. That's, that, that's really good. 

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Let's talk practical steps then for a small construction business owner. People that listen to this are generally running one to 10 million type businesses, so they're on the smaller side. How do they get started with this? What sort of immediate things should they be thinking about and including?

Gretchen: Yeah, I have a great construction company I'm advising in Australia as we speak, that's about that size and it's so great. When I first walked into, I've only been to their office once their values were everywhere. It all starts with defining how you wanna do the work. How do you want people to feel when they work at this company?

And it doesn't matter if it's five people or 500 people. Do we want people to feel safe in sharing ideas? Do we want people to collaborate? How do we give people feedback? Do we effectively coach people? I meet with every person that works with me quarterly. And I never move it because if you move it, then you send the signal that they're not important.

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I tell my clients, so I'm sorry, I have a meeting with one of my people and I'm not available, but here's another time that I'm available. So I think being really deliberate about what you want, that culture. Of the organisation and then those great dashboards that the cockpit of the airplane.

And in management consulting, we knew if we had a certain billable rate, a certain utilisation and a certain level of customer satisfaction, we would be profitable. And so really helping everyone understand what those dials on the dashboard are because people wanna be on a winning team. It doesn't, and it doesn't matter the size of the team.

So how do you help show them how they put points on the board how they contribute to the success of the organisation. 

Greg: Yeah. Yeah. That's brilliant. So 

where do you see the industry going, Gretchen, with your work in the industry and what you're trying to achieve over the next 10 years or so?

What is your aim with the work that you're doing? 

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Gretchen: I think the work that's being done to impact the culture of the industry, we have to figure out how to make the mega projects profitable. And this oh gosh, maybe 25 years ago I did work with a principal contractor that figured out how to pay their trade contractors within eight days of their submittal to the owner.

We have to treat everybody in the supply chain. With the equal respect and that the trades know what they're doing and they need to sit at the table and they need to solve problems. And it's not just the principal contractor and the, the the primary drivers of the project. And I think I see that happening.

A bit of, it's been a bit of a pendulum, I would say, over the last 40 years between collaborating and not collaborating. Trusting and not trusting. There's a lot of distrust in our industry. But we are a critical industry to society, and I think that's, we need to act in the most professional way, and then we'll be respected as that.
 
 

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Greg: Yeah. That's great. And in particular with getting more women into construction are you doing any more, any work around like grassroots, getting right in at school level or college level or anything like that? Where do you see it from that point? Do you think it comes from there or does it I.

Does it come further up? The chain? 

Gretchen: Yep, all the above. So New South Wales is putting $20 million into getting mid-career women into construction. People are going out to schools. I, with the institute, don't intend to replicate any of that. What I'd like to do though is find these little flames of things that are working.

If it's a welding school in Tennessee that has a female welding instructor and now they've. Increased the number of women and scaling them, because that's the challenge we have. And a little example here and a little example here and an example here, but it's not being scaled and the industry isn't sitting up and saying this is an important priority for us collectively.

So that's that's the impetus that I hope to provide with the institute. 

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Greg: Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. Gretchen a real ton of wealth that I've certainly learned from this. One thing I've taken away that just a really small bit that I just thought was amazing, which just you said about not moving meetings and showing people that they're really important.

I think sometimes sometimes as a business owner, you get so busy. Then you are prioritising what's actually important for me? What's gonna help move the business forward? And you forget about that little impact that it could have on the individual that you move in the meeting forward. Just again, it's unconscious, isn't it, that you can do things and not realise the impact of it.

Some wise words there, Gretchen, and I appreciate all your advice on that. If people wanted to learn a little bit more about what you are teaching Gretchen, where would they find you? What's what's the next step? 

Gretchen: They would find me at gretchengagel.com and that's G-A-G-E-L or on LinkedIn. And Gretchen Gagel or the Institute is women thriving in construction.org as it is a nonprofit.

So any of those places, and of course the book Building Women Leaders of Blueprint for Women, thriving in Construction is available on Amazon in America, Australia, the UK, anywhere. 

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Greg: Love that. That's great. And any last words if construction business owners listen to this? Any last tips on what they should be doing?

Gretchen: Yeah, no, I think I, it's, I'm happy that you picked up on that subtle little thing about moving meetings and it is all the little things that build up to a certain culture, and it's all of those that build up to the culture of our industry. We each play a role in how our industry is viewed. Are we viewed as professional?

Are we viewed as an industry that people wanna come to? What are we doing as leaders? Any size company at any level to make sure that people want to be here and are thriving here. So I would just encourage people to be really present and carve some time out every week to really think about the impact that they're having on the people, on their team, and in their organisation.

Greg: That's fantastic. Gretchen, I really wanna say thank you for your time on the podcast. They really enjoyed having you on. All the best. 

Gretchen: Thank you. Wonderful to be here. Thanks so [00:27:00] much.