Leading with Humanity: Building a Design-Build Team with Inclusion and Support in Mind

The Department of Labor reported that in June, 23,000 new construction jobs were added, and the White House announced more than $2.2 billion for 162 community-led infrastructure projects. 

Those job openings and those projects require people. 

On this episode of the Design-Build Delivers podcast, we talk about the philosophy and strategy of working well with our fellow humans in design-build projects – and across the industry. From meaningful DEI to job-related empathy, leadership self-awareness to bringing out the best in teams, we explore several ways to ensure that, no matter our role, we lead with humanity and, as our guest Kabri Lehrman-Schmid puts it, “create an environment of psychological safety to center team development, information sharing and engagement.” 

Guest:

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid
Project Superintendent, Hensel Phelps
Kabri has worked across project phases throughout her 16-year career and boasts a portfolio of over 1.9 billion dollars of work in place. As a project superintendent, Kabri’s focus on people-centered project management has earned her accolades that include ENR's 2023 Top 20 Under 40, Construction Business Owner's 2019 Outstanding Women in Construction, AGC of Washington's inaugural Rising Star award in 2022, and Washington Women in Trades' 2019 Workplace Leader Award. Kabri often lends her insights into prioritizing workforce health and safety to publications and organizations.

Access all our free design-build resources and learn more about Design-Build Done Right® at dbia.org.

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Transcript

 SPEAKERS

Erin Looney, Kabri Lehrman-Schmid

 Erin Looney  00:09

It's summer, and it is very hot. But that doesn't stop work on job sites all over the country. In fact, the Department of Labor reported that in June 23,000 new construction jobs were added. And the White House announced more than $2.2 billion for community led infrastructure projects. Now, those job openings, those projects, and so many more require people – people who go to work every day and put in 100%. Then they go home and they give another 100% in their lives. 

Erin Looney  00:39

I'm Erin Looney – one of those people – from the Design-Build Institute of America National Headquarters, and this is the Design-Build Delivers podcast. On this episode, we talk about the philosophy and strategy of working well with our fellow humans on design-build projects and across the industry, from meaningful DEI to job-related empathy, leadership self-awareness to bringing out the best in our teams, making sure that no matter our role, we lead with humanity. 

 Erin Looney  01:07

Our guest is a fellow human, too, Kabri Lehrman-Schmid. Kabri has worked across project phases throughout her 16-year career and boasts a portfolio of over $1.9 billion of work in place. As a project superintendent Kabri's focus on people centered project management has earned her accolades that include ENR's Top 20 Under 40, Construction Business Owners Outstanding Women in Construction, AGC of Washington's Rising Star Award and Washington Women in Trades Workplace Leader Award. Kabri often lends her insights into prioritizing workforce health and safety to publications and organizations that, luckily include DBIA, which brings us to our episode today.

Erin Looney  01:56

Thank you for being with us today on the Design-Build Delivers podcast. Before we look at some of the tactics, the experiences and questions around wellbeing and inclusion in the workplace, let's take a minute to get to know you. What is particularly interesting about how you come to this work is the breadth of your experience. So can you talk to us about that path and how that has brought you to well-being and inclusion work and the stuff we're going to talk about today

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  02:20

I've had the opportunity to have roles from design manager, project engineer, project scheduler, and I'm currently a project superintendent. When I became a project superintendent, I started to realize the opportunity and responsibility I have to be a bridge of information between all the different phases and the different stakeholders of the project. There's so much opportunity that I have to connect with people at different levels about the same topics. And so thinking about my work in general and finding the ways that we can build the relationships that connect people led me to a better understanding of what is now a more focused Diversity, Equity and Inclusion conversation in our industry. But it was rooted in how I expect my teams to communicate with one another and how I try to build those cultures on my projects. 

Erin Looney  03:11

In March, you were part of the general session at our Spring Conference where you and the other panelists focused on worker well-being, workforce development and what that looks like in a post-COVID world. Now, one of the aspects of well-being that you talked about was diversity, equity and inclusion – so DEI. Responses to DEI, of course, the efforts in that area vary, presumably based on individuals' experiences. Before we get too deep into our discussion today, there might be someone out there saying, "I don't want to hear about this again," or "no one ever does it right. Why do we keep talking about it?" Whatever the objection might be, it's likely well-intentioned. So for today's show and how we're situating DEI in this context, when someone says that – when they say diversity, equity and inclusion, what do you hope they mean? And what are some characteristics of DEI done well? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  04:02

When I think DEI in the construction context – because coming from the perspective of a general contractor – DEI efforts are about challenging ourselves as an industry to relook at the expectations, the processes and the resources that we have to consider, one, how we can improve our business approach, how we can communicate with people and exchange information for better outcomes, how we can better support our people. We're an industry with historic biases that we're trying to break stigmas on, how we can better give resources to the people that we want to retain, how we can give better resources to our people who were just coming to realize need different support to be successful in their careers in their lives, and then also to make decisions about how we're going to approach the future of our industry. And so that's vague, isn't it? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  05:00

That doesn't relate directly to DEI. So I'll go a little farther. Diversity is about identifying those historic biases in our industry and finding the opportunities to provide education that builds our leaders into people who can understand the people they are leading, understanding the specific challenges people have. Recognizing diversity of experience and background is valuable to the team and how to utilize it, how to be a successful leader that leverages and build the success in their people. For equity, it's how are we assessing our policies? And considering how we're as an industry going to balance what were well-defined old concepts of fairness, which usually came down to how are things applied equally across the board? How are we going to treat everybody and air quotes the same, but now establishing the ways that we can support and welcome new people? What are our parental leave policies? How are we asking for people's personal information when we're trying to get them to be recruited into our industry? Thinking about those policies is the way that we're going to provide equity, which is meeting people where they're at and providing the accessible opportunities for each person.

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  06:19

And then inclusion. I think there's such an awesome opportunity for our industry to be thinking about how we're establishing our values and how we're modeling how we want our people to feel a sense of belonging. It's what we owe our people and what we owe our communities. How do we expect ourselves to engage with our business partners? That's the inclusion aspect. And I think we're gonna get a bit into empathy. But it's creating that culture where people are engaged and feel that nothing is holding them back or that they're not being satisfied because of something about themselves.

Erin Looney  06:56

Yeah, we are going to dig into empathy more in just a bit. But first, in our last issue of Integration Quarterly Magazine, we focused on the flexibility of design-build as a project delivery method, mostly in terms of logistics and execution. But that flexibility extends to shaping a work environment that meets the needs of the team members on any given project. You know, that flexibility, like any flexible situation, is certainly not without its limitations, but it's worth it to invest time and resources into it. So what do you find to be the unique opportunities and challenges design-build presents in terms of flexibility as it relates to DEI and workplace safety?

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  07:38

I love design-build projects because there's typically an expectation of a higher level of performance coming from the team. There is an expectation of an effort of constantly trying to understand the customer and the stakeholders. There's the expectation that there's going to be a quick response in the ability to design and act in an opportunity to get ahead of any issues because you're working together to look at both the constructability and the design at the same time. There's the goal of innovation and better outcomes. You achieve that by bringing people together and by making sure they understand one another. The expectation from the start in design-build is that you're finding ways to do that. I think bringing DEI into the conversation of design-build is the, oh, we're actually going to focus on how to build those teams and create more opportunity for those stakeholders to have voices, for people to bring up a question when they're not quite sure if they should ask it, for people to start to explore what that innovation could be on a team because they feel comfortable speaking up. Having design-build as a delivery method means that you're already shooting towards having those types of relationships that will rely on how people interact with one another. And so when you asked before about what is DEI done well look like, well, it's very aligned with design-build's concepts of having this continuous effort towards improvements, having this overall value and messaging system of what the goals of the project are and that you're embedding that into every step of the way from design processes and defining what the scope of the project is all the way through transition, commissioning, delivery. 

Erin Looney  09:25

Staying on the idea of challenges for a minute, let's, let's talk about a specific challenge you faced in creating an inclusive working environment or being part of an inclusive working environment. You certainly don't have to name names and it's probably better if you don't, but what has been a particularly challenging step for you? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  09:46

A specific challenge that I've faced over the course of my career is really coming to a settled place for myself that it is appropriate for me to consider myself as a five foot half inch female superintendent is that I don't need to put characteristics of myself aside, to do my job, I don't need to blend in and be one of the guys. I have a place advocating for others just by doing my work in my position each day. When I was a younger field engineer, the industry was really in its infancy of taking a look at what it meant to support different people. We did have internally a women's group that had started up. Frankly, who women in the industry struggled with being a part of it because we were being identified and set aside. And our goal was really to blend in. My perspective on that has completely changed as, as the industry is, there is value in harnessing the passion and excitement and community of different communities within our industry. And the challenge that is coming, every time we try to take on a new identity is, are we separating people? 

Erin Looney  10:57

Everybody loves a good story of overcoming an obstacle. But we also love a good opportunity. So let's flip to that for a moment. What is a notable success story that has motivated you to keep doing the work you're doing? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  11:11

I've had some wonderful opportunities to interact at a national, organizational and internal company level, creating content and resources for our industry, whether it's with AGC's Culture of Care program or with Hensel Phelps' internal mental health programs and training efforts. The ability to create change in our industry drives me to share new topics with people. I mentioned I'm a superintendent. Out on the job site, that might look like me providing resources as part of talks. That might be me sharing some additional information about the industry and how things are changing or a new topic about mental health. In a design meeting with my owner, bringing in topics that are new to the industry has been quite exciting because people have responded with interest and with wanting to understand more about how they can create change in the industry.  

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  12:11

And so the success is that the conversation is changing in every part of architecture, engineering and construction and that our owners are driving an interest in new conversations about topics of diversity, equity, inclusion, as well as mental health at a company level. Taking on the topic of mental health was a really big success story over the last four years. Unfortunately, really jumping on that topic took the loss of an employee. But we had been building a effort and momentum of information that was ready to really hit the ground running when it was decided from upper management that, no, we would make sure we were focusing on our people's mental health. And so we were able to pull together a number of resources to be able to share all of our healthcare findings, all of the opportunities that existed for our people to get support. And that has resulted in management training and all employee training on an annual basis on how to identify, support and provide resources for our people if they are struggling with their mental health. 

Erin Looney  13:25

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Erin Looney  14:00

You just talked a little about some of the efforts happening at your firm Hensel Phelps. And this isn't unusual. companies and firms across the nation have designed programs to actively engage their employees, you know, to provide resources to maintain their well-being, to seek help when they need it, to truly foster that welcoming human environment. And like I said, one of those firms is of course, yours – Hensel Phelps. You have this initiative called Building Together. So let's talk a bit more about that program. 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  14:31

Building Together is an inclusion-focused effort that we've been running now for two years, really, because our employees asked for more information and building of a culture that creates belonging. The goal of Building Together is to create new conversations for our employees, provide education and to create an environment where people know they can have discussion about who they are and that they will be supported.  

Erin Looney  15:03

And Kabri, what does that look like? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  15:06

What does Building Together look like? Building Together is a, a monthly topic that we provide education on around the company. And so nationwide 5000 employees. Each region is responsible for creating content. So for example, I am responsible in the Pacific Northwest, to create the content for LGBTQ pride and Juneteenth. And we've had a whole team working on that, which has been incredible. The outcomes of sharing information, education and pulling together resources to share with our our company has been the sharing of stories for our people. That has been the most impactful.  

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  15:49

I could put a toolbox talk together about the history of Pride. But when I have our people sharing the reasons why they're allies, that has been the impact. When people can understand the experience of another employee and relate to it, that drives the impact. And so the Building Together campaign has been most successful in how we have employees who are willing to share their stories and connect with others nationwide.  

Erin Looney  16:17

So now let's look at the other side. Some common opposition to not specifically Building Together but programs like this, a lot of times, these initiatives sometimes can can be, you know, a bit performative. They're– they feel like some glad-handing. Wo how do you get past those concerns and promote real progress? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  16:35

As we developed the Building Together campaign campaign over the last two years, we've gone through our own learning about what's effective and how the information is received by our people and by the communities that we're representing this information in. And one of the challenges that came after the first year was, it's great that you have this awesome content going out internally on our intranet as well as publicly on our social media outlets. But how is this getting to the job site level? And that was a amazing question because I struggled with implementing it at the job site level myself. This year's focus has been on how can we bring the information to our crews. How can we make it authentic and authentically about the entire process, the entire community that we're interacting with on the job site level? So the first lesson we learned was, this needs to be applicable to everybody in our company, not just salaried employees with the privilege of accessing social media.  

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  17:37

The second thing that we learned was, the stories people share are the power here. Having a message from the top is extremely important to kick it off. We value this as a company, we're going to have this initiative for XYZ reasons. That's a strong foundation. But if you're not connecting with the people who are doing the work, if you're not living the values that you say, as a company, then it's not going to land. So while the first year was more focused on publicly sharing stances that we were taking on "this topic is important," the second year has been how can we connect our people around these topics? How can we create new conversations? And how can we take those to the field. 

Erin Looney  18:25

So that sounds like some successes that came out of challenges, which is usually how it goes. But even with that progress and that success, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done, purposeful work across the industry by not just those in charge of a project, but by each team member as well. So how can design-build Owners and practitioners ensure they have the appropriate skills and tools to promote meaningful inclusion on their projects? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  18:50

It's been incredible to see how large Owners that I've had the privilege of working with – transportation agencies, city agencies – have tried to embed the topics of diversity, equity and inclusion into the contracting process. And so usually asking questions, but what does your firm value? How are you going to achieve these participation goals on the project? Do you understand what we as an Owner are trying to achieve in supporting the industry? Asking those questions changes the language in the industry and demonstrates value for those who are trying to do work for that agency. And so changing the conversation has been one of the biggest ongoing success stories for Owners who are starting to talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. As contractors come to the table, as trade partners and design team members come to the table, trying to understand the language that these owners value. It's challenging us to really bring our initiatives to the forefront and to match our values and to say this is how we're going to achieve it on your projects.

Erin Looney  20:01

So truly creating an actively and consistently inclusive environment and promoting the mental health of team members means more than just supporting them when they need time off or they need to attend to personal things. It's also about ensuring they're not uncomfortable or – worst case – feel threatened in their work. All those roadblocks can make it hard for anyone to perform. So what job specific support is important to ensure that team members can bring their whole selves to work and they can be successful with not just their tasks and responsibilities, but also who they are in relation to what they do? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  20:37

As a leader on my project, I feel it is my responsibility and opportunity to make sure that in any conversations, I'm a part of that I am opening the doors for different conversations, and whether that's in a pre-construction meeting, making sure that the third-party inspector is asked to speak and to make sure we're meeting the expectations of the safety manager, I have the obligation to make sure as somebody leading a meeting, that I'm getting those voices.

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  21:06

As a manager of employees, I similarly expect that we're role modeling. How do you engage people in more deeper, more meaningful and honest conversation? By modeling vulnerability, sharing some information about myself, making sure that I'm asking questions that address not just their professional challenges, but their personal challenges. We've changed some of our internal systems for performance evaluation, but also for onboarding, to make sure that people feel comfortable, and they know it's expected to share things like what's the preferred communication style? What are the things that are my pet peeves? How can I best meet the expectations of my role? And similarly, I'm expected to put together information that we discussed about "this is what I expect of your role." These are the things that are important to me in this team.

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  22:04

And so summarizing how we can create that environment and expect people to bring that honest conversation of what their needs are to the table is speaking, speaking out loud, the expectation, that is a value of my project on my team, that I understand what you need, because I have the resources to provide it most likely to we're a team together. And so understanding what you need only makes us stronger. Because that's how we bring value to each other, we bring value to the clients and we make sure that our team is successful. It's a very demanding industry, our teams are constantly working long hours just to make sure that we're doing our jobs well. And that's, that's a decision we make coming into the industry, we know that we need to put in that work. And so making sure people feel that they can achieve that work, that they're supported in that work, that they understand the impact of that work is essential for people volunteering information that we can support from a personal perspective. 

Erin Looney  23:06

So you mentioned much earlier in the episode that empathy was going to come up. Now's that time. So let me get academic for just a second, I'm gonna take a little bit of a left turn, but I promise I'll come back. I studied communication, specifically sport communication, and there was a good body of research coming out during my doctoral program. In fact, empathy has long been a common theme in communication research, healthcare, education, art, interpersonal relationships. Sometimes, though, as much as it's just pervasive, empathy can get overlooked. The point is, it's so important. It's such a unique and vital part of being a human. And humans are the ones on our job sites in design-build and AEC overall. So how would you define empathy as you see it in the industry and in design-build and in you know, roles similar to yours?  

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  23:54

Empathy is about understanding the impact of what you're asking somebody to do. If you understand the impact of what you're asking somebody to do, you're putting yourself in their position and you're understanding a little bit, you've gotten to a point in your relationship where you're understanding enough about what they think makes them successful. And you understand the goals they're trying to achieve. So if I'm taking a look at my logistics plan on site, and I walk up to my drywaller and say, "You can't bring in that delivery, we don't have enough space," I better understand where that delivery is intended to go. And why they think it was important to bring it today. Hopefully, we've had this discussion a week ago, but it's understanding what people think they need to be successful and making sure that you're communicating in a way where they can receive that and acknowledges that you understand what you're asking them to do it go such a long way to, one, figuring out what will make people successful on a project, making sure that we're making a plan that acknowledges how people are going to perform their work. But two, things happen everyday, challenges happen, fire drills happen, and having that basis of relationship where you've now built a level of trust where people know you are prioritizing their perspective. That's what makes design-build so successful.  

Erin Looney  25:14

And you talked a bit when we met to talk about this episode about how actually, I'll admit, corrected me when I said I was thinking of empathy and work life balance in terms of saying, you know, I have to take a sick day, or I have to go see my kids Little League game. And you said, don't forget that this applies to on the job activities as well, which you touched on in your response just a moment ago. Unpack that a little bit more for us. Because I think that's such an important thing to remember that, obviously, can get overlooked.  

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  25:45

Every person on the team can demonstrate empathy to make themselves more successful, more effective with people they're interacting with. They can drive the success of their team partners. What I tell my field engineers and my office engineers is when they're working on a submittal, if they don't understand something, and they have to call the person who created that shop drawing to connect with them. That is where the exchange of information, the opportunity, that connection to the big picture happens. If you treat people with the respect of, hey, you have something to teach me and I have information to share with you, you're building a connection that says, we're in this together, and you're learning something about what it takes for that person to do their job.

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  26:31

That's empathy in terms of our professional obligations and responsibilities, making sure we understand the impacts we're making on other people's work and lives. Recent DEI and mental health efforts in the industry, are bringing the focus you just mentioned on, Well, what if I need a sick day? What is the mental health day? How do I ask that I want to go and pick up my kid three times a week from daycare? Though I don't want to discount that at all. Because that is – that is a topic that we have struggled with as an industry for years and years and years. Overworking, not allowing our people the flexibility to support themselves outside the worksite has been one of the problems that has led us to having challenges with mental health with retention and with having successful teams that are working well together. And so maybe my response was Don't forget that we have to do this in a professional technical context, because that's what makes our work better. But you're absolutely right, that as an industry, the ability to focus on what people need personally is where we need to put in the work. And where we're still trying to figure out what are our policies. We're constantly reevaluating what we think we have the obligation and opportunity to provide our people. I think it was really with COVID that our industry started truly realizing we owe our people more than just the professional context inside the gate of a job site. We have the opportunities and obligation to help them achieve and support them personally so that they're a whole person coming into that job site.  

Erin Looney  28:16

And you talk about covering for each other having those policies and making sure everyone understands them and can avoid that trend to you know, resent when someone says I'm not going to be here tomorrow, and others have to pick up their parts of the project. So how do you think the shifts in mental health support DEI, work life balance, et cetera, are going to impact that next generation of the industry? And I'm not just talking about students and young professionals? Of course I am. But also people coming into different phases of their careers, who've maybe been in the industry for a while. What do we – DBIA and industry professionals – need to do to ensure they're not only willing to enter the field, but they're going to stay once they get there? 

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  28:56

The topics of DEI and mental health in our industry, in my opinion, reflect the greater effort to change the perception of our industry, the negative perceptions of our industry that we're trying to overcome. We want to support our people and retain our people and share with our people the resources that we have. And we're just learning how to do that. And so that is like the broader context. How are we going to get people to come here? Well, we need to change the perception because we need to treat people better. And there are many ways that we're trying to do this, we will only be successful if we're all trying at a more local project level context. To be able to support our people comes from how we're going to welcome them into the team. I usually start this with thinking about how we're going to onboard people and this isn't just sitting down in a room and going through training and understanding what they're, what the policies are and what they're expected to perform as part of their responsibility. But it's what is this team's values? Where's your place within it? What are the expectations for communication? If I have a carpenter out there who's teaching an apprentice, if I don't say, Wow, you're a really great teacher, where have you done this before? and then I get a story about their time in the Navy when they had to teach for five years, I wouldn't make that connection one, but two, that carpenter wouldn't know that one of my currencies on this project is their education of others, like I'm demonstrating value on the project for the work that they're doing. It's not just them putting wood in place, right? It's them teaching is something I want to see them doing. And I have the privilege as a leader on the project to say, this is how you demonstrate success here.

Erin Looney  30:46

So now that we've talked about the industry broadly, and some efforts we need to take, let's tie it all back now to design-build and DBIA directly. Lately, we've had some big changes here at the organization from an update to our best practices, to the continuation of our webinar series, projections from FMI that design-build is becoming much more mainstream. So in your experience, how is design-build positioned to address all these issues we've discussed today? And then the B-side to that: What role can we play at DBIA to help?  

Kabri Lehrman-Schmid  31:19

The growing popularity and use of the design-build contracting approach is attractive for so many, and it's gaining such traction because it's focused on better outcomes, more effective risk management, team collaboration and the streamline processes that are built across different organizations and the work flows that are typically siloed and a challenge on like a design-bid-build project. Pursuing design-build is not just about pursuing one of those, like risk management, it's not just about shifting risks. It's an acknowledgement of an Owner or an organization that they see there will be value in that level of collaboration. So making sure as, as DBIA, that as we're talking about the values of design-build, that we're staying focused on the cultural opportunities and impacts that it's not just about processes and shifting of risk or better outcomes and innovation, but that it's deeply rooted in how people work with one another. Now, that has always been the basis of design-build, but as we talk through with new Owners, who are just trying to understand the systematic responses, or the systematic changes that they need to make in order to implement design-build as an organization, driving forward, the message of you need to define your values. What do you value as an organization that you want to pass on to this team? I had an incredible conversation with a construction leader at Procter and Gamble, talking about when as an Owner, how can I create impact for each employee coming to work on that project? And the answer is you have so many resources. As an Owner, as the general contractor, I have so many resources that I need to understand my obligation to pass forward and to utilize to meet the values that are established by the Owner, by my team on the project. And that goes beyond contracting, it's on my project right now, it's, everybody understands we deliver the highest level of customer service. And we establish in our processes each day the ways to achieve that. It's making sure we're communicating visually, it's making sure that we're rolling up information to share with everybody on the job site. And so, design-build, as an organization as DBIA, as well as a contracting method that is taking, taking over in the industry has to be focused on the values that create a culture where their outcomes are the processes of design-build. You need to start with that culture and establishing the values of an organization that you want to pay forward.

Erin Looney  34:12

It will always be challenging to make sure everyone on a project or at a firm is truly valued. But that's the point, isn't it? If we all fall in line easily as it were, we might have to set aside who we are in favor of what we do. And as Kabri has outlined today, building an inclusive, psychologically safe working environment is not an impossibility. Sure, it's hard, but it's worth it. Because all those projects just announced and many, many in the future. They all affect very real people from those working on them to those who benefit from the final product. Thank you to our guest, Kabri Lehrman-Schmid, for unpacking that with us and thank you to USCAD for their support of the Design-Build Delivers podcast. Learn more at uscad.com/dbia