Mentorship and Mindset: Shaping the Next Generation of Construction Leaders

In this episode of Constructing Connections, Dan Beatty from Constructive Leadership Solutions explores the human side of construction. Sharing his insights on mentorship, mindset, and team culture, emphasizing the pride and opportunity the industry offers—especially to newcomers. Dan also discusses the rise of AI in estimating and the enduring value of human intuition. Looking ahead, Dan advocates for a more inclusive, collaborative, and diverse future in construction.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Part 1 of our episode with Dan, where we explore leadership in the highway construction industry.

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Transcript

Rich Barcaskey: [00:15 – 00:54] Hello and welcome back to Constructing Connections. I'm your host, Rich Barcaskey, and today we're bringing you Part 2 of our interview with Dan Beatty of Constructive Leadership Solutions. In Part 1, Dan shared some incredible leadership lessons from his over 36 years in the construction industry. If you haven't heard it yet, go back and give it a listen. In this episode, we shift gears and talk about the people side of construction, mentorship, mindset, managing conflict, and building a stronger team culture. Dan's insights are honest, practical, and rooted in real-world experience. Let's jump in.  

Rich Barcaskey: [00:54 – 01:20] Going back to something you said earlier too, your background, you obviously had that experience, the hands-on experience with your dad and and doing things with like properties and things like that. One of the things I'd like to know, just your perspective on it, is what's your thoughts on going after young people that might not have that experience, but being able to say, just because you don't have that experience, there's still opportunities for you in the industry? 

Dan Beatty: [01:20 – 04:48] Well, what I would say to them is this. You can go and you can become educated in lots of different things, but the beauty of the construction industry, especially if you want to start right out of high school, is that it offers you training and it offers you the ability to create something meaningful. As I mentioned before, if you focus on values, One of the biggest values that has been determined that the construction industry has in general is that of service. And I give you that information from a gentleman that I'm actually going to meet in person tomorrow. His name is David Allison, and he wrote a book called The Death of Demographics. where he basically said, hey, you know what, let's figure out what motivates people. And from what his research has done, and we're talking about literally over a million surveys internationally, the whole bit, he has decided and determined that in just focusing on the construction industry, that the reason people get involved in it is because of service and because of belonging. So if you're driving along, and in my case, because I've been in the heavy highway business my whole career, I can drive by projects and bridges and overpasses and roads that I had something to do with creating. And there is a sense of accomplishment and pride that's involved with that, that I don't know where else you get. The other thing that's exciting about construction is in the same vein that the military can do logistics, where else can you create a brand new plant remotely in a location logistically get all of the people, the materials, the equipment, everything that's involved to do this project that will be for the benefit of your community. I mean, it's an amazing way of giving back. And I think one of the great things about Generation Z and some of the younger ones that are coming along is they are some of the most activist and traditional folks to come along in a while. And they want to know, hey, is what I'm doing meaningful? Is what I'm doing going to make a difference? And I could argue Construction definitely matters. It definitely makes a difference. And if you just think about the COVID pandemic, construction was deemed an essential industry. Exactly. And it went on throughout uh the pandemic that tells you how important it is to our country and our and our society so that's what i would tap into for the young people and folks are trying to decide whether they wanted to be a part of it or not is that my gosh it is so incredible for our society to even work, getting from point A to point B. Is the road gonna get you there? Is it gonna take you to a hospital that you need to go to? Are you gonna be able to take your children to school? We're the ones that build things. I mean, what better mission could you have? 

 Rich Barcaskey: [04:49 – 07:20] And it's funny you say that because we do at CAWP, we focus a lot on that workforce development Training programs, apprenticeship programs. I always lament that it doesn't matter what meeting you're in and you talk about workforce development, you get off the rails because you talk about young people don't work hard. There's always the. you know, oh, the drugs, that kind of thing. And everybody, all industries have those issues. And then it seems like people want to talk about, well, why construction? And people go to the, well, you can make good money. Even in the union sector that we work in, they talk about benefits. So you have a medical plan, you have good benefits, you have a pension plan. And when you talk about all those things, if you look at it from the perspective of young people, like you said, they don't really know what a pension plan is, nor do they care right now. If you're 20-something years old, you're not worrying about when you're retiring because you're never going to retire, right? Because you think you're gonna be young forever but one of the things that always resonates in construction is that look what i built you know is that you have that ability to see what you did and you can say when you drive by hey i worked on that project and it's funny because the same people that always focus on the money and the benefits you say well what's what's like what pride do you take and it's always why worked on that that project. And that's what I think we have in this industry that other industries, you know, do not have is that that ability to look at pride. Let's switch gears and talk about technology for our listeners. Dan is going to be part of the CAWP Estimating Competition next year that we do with a number of different universities in the area. And one of the things that's very interesting is a lot of the questions that those students ask surround technology. And specifically in estimating, we've had conversations like AI and what will AI bring to estimating and things like that. But with the industry rapidly changing with new tools and technologies, from your perspective, how do you see technology transforming that estimating process? 

Dan Beatty: [07:21 – 11:02] Well, let's talk about what's already working. BIM has been around for quite a while, and there are GPS on machinery. I mean, that happened many, many years ago. So we have been watching technology slowly but surely increase its place in the industry. And in general, construction has probably been out of phase with the rest of industry as far as adopting technology, for the most part. uh as as scary as construction can be as far as a difficult job and dangerous construction companies are also some of the most risk averse uh companies on the planet so it's kind of a a strange dichotomy there so one of the things that ai is definitely a part of what's coming but it is kind of a new shiny object in some respects and it will be a part of what is going to happen but I don't think it's going to obviously fully replace things. It is going to change how work is done and I think what you've got to look at in this in reference to AI is think of it as a very smart intern that you've got working for you over the summer and then you give them these very difficult you know repeatable quality control type checks but then you have to keep your eye on that because it's not infallible it's it's not an oracle it's an assistant you know so keep that in mind don't just adopt tech for tech's sake either make sure that it actually is something that is going to provide you some value. You were talking about other opportunities like in the estimating world. Well, not only in estimating, but let's just say if you're in college, you also might be a data analyst. You might not have fully estimating skills as far as, well, I can tell you how many man hours per cubic yard pouring a deck is going to cost. But you might be able to say, hey, I can take the last 15 jobs you worked on and figure out some metrics that might help you be a little bit more competitive moving forward. And so there's some value in that. You have to think maybe outside of traditional roles. And that's what I think that the technology can do for you. It can basically help you put some guardrails up around what you're trying to do But the human being has to determine what it means. And I don't think machine language has gotten to the point yet where it can just figure all of it out. It certainly can't physically do the work yet, although I have seen robots do rebar tying and masonry work. So there is some things in that arena. But you know what? They're not welding. driving up and down the job site. They're not putting water down on you to keep things moist. Think of it as an assistant, not as your boss. I don't think this is the age where the buggies are going to go out of business because of the car. I think it's more of, oh, this is just an adjacent piece. 

Rich Barcaskey: [11:03 – 11:10] Not a rapid transformation, but sort of an aid, if you will. 

Dan Beatty: [11:10 – 12:31] Absolutely. I mean, and people are going to have trouble with technology. They always have. I mean, way, way back, one of the first jobs I was ever on, there was this greater operator, and we had just gotten this string lined system where you had to put the camera on the blade of the grader and it would take that and it would hold the blade at the exact angle that you wanted for what the grade was. And this gentleman had been in the business for decades. He was an older fella and what he would do at night was after they put the string line up, he would take his grader and he would knock all of them down. And knock the string right off because he wanted to do it the way that we had with wooden stakes and a stick rule and running a string. And he wanted to do it that way. He did not want a string line telling him what he's going to do with his greater. And this is a similar. I mean, people don't. People don't change. You know, it's like it's a. It's a scary new thing, and if you're scared of it, then you're going to either talk bad about it or you're going to, you know, stick your head in the sand. And I would say, hey, embrace it. and use it for what it's good for and what it's designed for, but make sure you check before you accept any of its answers. 

Rich Barcaskey: [12:32 – 13:49] And I think that's a really good point too, because like we talked about that, you know, money not being the catalyst for getting into the industry, but the look what I build being more of a catalyst, there's also that component of you're going to need people. Sure, that you can have robots and different things and certain aspects, but you're still going to need people. It's kind of like talking to young people and saying, your job isn't going to be outsourced to some other country because you have to be able to build it and you have to be able to build it here. That's also a really good point that I didn't think about that I do now, is that while technology is changing a lot of industries and maybe rapidly changing, you're still going to need that human component to make it all work. So it might help you. It might streamline some of the data and things like that. I've heard people say there won't be estimators in the future. It'll all be done by AI. And I just can't imagine that that's going to be the case. I mean, I could probably imagine if you wanted to go that route and then start to build something and find out very quickly that that is not a total solution or an end-all be-all. 

Dan Beatty: [13:50 – 14:15] Well, Rich, I have been in far too many bid reviews to believe that you're not going to have estimators. Why? Because Voodoo is involved. Voodoo and art is involved in estimating. And I'm sorry, machines don't have that skill because people talk about their gut feel. They talk about a lot of different things and that, you know, the computers just don't think of. 

Rich Barcaskey: [14:15 – 15:54] Right. And that's why we started the estimating competition, because our members talked about the fact that, you know, especially in the civil engineering programs, estimating and talking to the professors. They say, you know, we either don't cover that or we only cover it a brief, you know, brief period. So the whole reason for the estimating competition was to get young people to look at that as an option. And when you sit in the room and you hear the judges talk about the proposals that come in or you the next day when the students come up to present, you totally realize right away that it's a science. but there's a lot of art to it as well. And it's really funny because the judges will ask questions like, well, why did you do this? And you totally see, well, my gut feeling was that I thought this was the path we should follow. But that gut feeling is based on someone who's never done it for a living, or maybe did it one other time in the competition. And you start to see that it's a massage of, Following there's a little bit of gut in there and and you know, do I try this? Do I not try that? And it's funny because you see students that are that it's, you know, get from A to Z and there's an answer. There's not really a final answer to it, and I think that that is what makes estimating very interesting because there is. It's more of a philosophy rather than a, you know, math class where you get an answer at the end. 

Dan Beatty: [15:55 – 17:30] Well, it's not only a philosophy, Rich, but one other thing that I think is important to point out is that when you talk about encouraging somebody to get into the estimating world, there is a type of personality that needs to be in place in order for it to work. And it's not just about values. It's about, are you resilient enough to fail nine times out of 10? Right. and do all of this work and all of this due diligence and have it come to nil. But I always like to quote Nelson Mandela here, which is where he said, I never lose. I either win or I learn. And that's what estimating is. Estimating is the eternal uh infinity machine because you take the information you run it through your machine you get your price and then you feed it back into the machine whether you were successful or whether you weren't and that's where best practices come and then you make this whole cycle that over and over and over and then if you do it enough then that gut feel makes sense right because then you will have already spent all of this time learning things and learning from successes, so-called failures, what have you. And then at that point, the gut and the art isn't able to come out. When you're absolutely first starting, you've got no basis for that. It's throwing darts at a board. 

Rich Barcaskey: [17:31 – 18:19] That's what I like to tell my kids when they give me the, yeah, dad, you know it all, we get it. I say, actually, I don't know anything more. The only thing I have that you don't have is experience and experience teaches you a lot. And that's OK that you don't have it. You eventually will get it. And that's sort of the learning process. So I don't know it all. I just have some experience. Oh, no, actually, I tell him I know it all. And because they won't listen anyway. No, I know. So finally, looking towards the future, where do you see the heavy highway construction industry heading in the next five to 10 years? And talk about, you know, what skills and qualities will be critical to success for young people that are getting into the industry? 

Dan Beatty: [18:20 – 22:50] Well, I think that there is going to be strong infrastructure demand for complex and integrated delivery systems. One of the types of jobs, or excuse me, types of procurements that I was involved in right up until I got into Act 3 was the progressive design build. where you've got an owner, you've got an engineer, you've also got the so-called ICE, the Independent Construction Estimating. So you've got somebody over here doing an estimate parallel to you, and then you are the CMAR, the Construction Manager at Risk. And so you're there, you're trying to price things, You're working with the owner, you're working with the engineer, you're working with the ICE, and it's this collaborative thing. So with that in mind, you got bigger, more complex jobs. So I see that continuing. I see that labor is still going to be scarce, that there's going to be material issues. Look what, again, what COVID did to us as far as supply chain. Nobody saw that coming, and you could argue that we are still feeling the effects of it. We don't know exactly what the tariffs are going to do to us, plus or minus. So the thing to do is to remain flexible, you know, make sure that when you are recruiting for people recruit for character you can teach skills right so make sure that you have people that you can trust right you know you can't necessarily teach integrity you can't necessarily teach that but you can teach people how to do a takeoff and you can teach people how to you know run certain computer programs. Be disciplined in your approach and give a lot of credit to the so-called middle manager. And the reason I love to promote the middle manager is they are the, I would call them the hinge point of the whole process. Right. That would be, you know, in the field that would be your superintendent, project manager, that sort of thing. And this person has to communicate in all directions, longitudinally to their peers. Then they have to also talk to the people above them, who are the C-suite people, and then the people in the field. And they have to be translators. They have to be able to say, OK, C-suite, we understand what you're saying. You want us, this is the direction we're going. This is the strategic reason why we exist. So I'm going to filter everything you just said and pass it along to the people in the field. And then conversely, the people in the field need to have their needs and thoughts and desires translated back up to the people at the top so that they understand, hey, the people that are actually making this work, and are actually creating the structures and the money, they have these concerns that you need to address. Command and control is finished. It needs to go away into the dustbin of history. And you have to be able to communicate and trust what you're doing and do what you say you're going to do. And that's where I see construction going. I think one of the things that I'm really excited about what I'm seeing is there are more and more young people and women getting involved in the industry, which I think is a powerful thing to have happen. We need that to have happen. Because right now, I think the statistic is that maybe 11% of the industry is female. And I personally, I'm a fan of the rule of threes. I kind of feel like if we could get that up to about a third, then the entire culture of the industry changes. I think that we need those voices. And if that happens, then some of the macho old boy, you know, that silliness that has gone on for too long, quite frankly, I think it goes away. And I would really love to see that be the future of the heavy highway industry. 

Rich Barcaskey: [22:50 – 23:35] Great. And I think when in February, when you come to the estimating competition, that is one of the The most striking things that you see is, you know, it's 10 or 11 teams from about five or six universities. And it is heavily skewed that there are more women involved on the team. And and and that's just and I say striking because, you know, you're sitting there and you definitely notice that coming from this industry, which is which is still very much, you know, male dominated. You see that and you say, you know, there's there's hope for the future of being more of a integrated industry. So, great. 

Dan Beatty: [23:35 – 23:59] Well, again, that's why I got involved in this third act. I wanted to get back to it. Yep. The industry and that's one of the areas that I want to I want to do. And, you know, so. As I guess it's either the Boy Scouts or 4-H, I'm not sure who said this, but leave the area you were in better than you found it. And that's kind of my mission right now. 

Rich Barcaskey: [23:59 – 24:26] That's fantastic. From mentorship and mindset to managing conflict and building culture, Dan gave us a lot to think about and even more to take back to our teams. If you haven't already, be sure to check out part one of our interview where we talk about Dan's leadership journey and the lessons he's learned over 36 years in the construction industry. Thanks for listening to Constructing Connections. I'm Rich Barcaskey. See you next time.