Building a Stronger Relationship With Change in Construction Leadership

Summary

Mini Series Part 6: Most industries — especially the construction industry — struggle with change fatigue caused by new technologies, evolving project delivery models, and shifting market demands. Construction leadership must navigate this ongoing transformation effectively through strong change management and fostering resilience.

In this episode of Activating Curiosity, Ryan Ware explores how construction leaders can build a healthier, more resilient relationship with change by applying the Five C’s of Change: Choice, Control, Clarity, Commitment, and Curiosity. These concepts help leaders better understand their past change experiences, manage current challenges, and lead construction teams with confidence.

Whether you’re implementing digital construction tools, embracing modular construction, or focusing on leadership development and change management strategies within the AEC industry, this episode provides valuable insights to reduce resistance, build trust, and cultivate a culture of adaptability. If you're a construction leader, project executive, architect, or engineer looking to enhance your construction leadership skills and lead change with confidence and curiosity, this episode is essential listening.

Chapters

• 1:04 - Building a Stronger Relationship with Change
• 3:27 - Change as a Two-Way Street
• 4:02 - Human-Centered Change in Industry
• 5:14 - Empathy and Leadership Development
• 6:29 - Change as an Experience, Not an Event
• 7:35 - Industry Resistance to Change
• 8:16 - The Five C's of Change
• 16:51 - Building a Stronger Relationship with Change
• 18:26 - Leading Teams Through Change

Transcript

Ryan 0:00

I know in our personal lives, like there are a lot of changes we want to make, I'm sure, on a daily basis. These things run through our heads. We are human. That is what happens. We see more and more things being put in front of us, trying to grab our attention that we want to take on, we want to implement, or we want to try. And then we see it in our company. And it just goes into that change fatigue of like, well, we're just not going to change, or this person's not going to change, or I just don't want to lose what I've already put into place. And the more those things are happening in our industry, the harder the change resistance. And over some of the past bonus episodes, we've began to explore what we were terming building a stronger relationship of change through the lens of sort of stepping back and reflecting on the five C's of change, something that I've been utilizing to help peel back layers as we think about change beyond being this enormous thing, regardless of what it is that whether it's in our personal life or within our business that we want to take on, when we do step back and reflect on some key areas and think through those of how in our journey of life and those life experiences that we've had, how they they sort of impacted us and impacted others. When we look at our relationships personally, we can often see that it's sort of a ring. They're in the group chat. You're you're spending numerous hours within a week or month to see one another. And then there's another ring that potentially you see them once a quarter, once in a while at an event. And your friend, you could go hang out, you can go spend a lot of time, but you're not seeing each other, and you're not giving that same attention and investment that you that you do with your inner circle. And then there's another layer of circle that is just sort of a you run into them, you recognize them, they're an acquaintance, they're in the network or in the industry. And they're not, you're not giving that as much attention. Well, change is similar in that. Like we can't look at change as this thing that is constantly happening to us. And in relationships, it is a two-way street. That if you want to become better at it, you have to invest time to understand how change impacts you. And the reason I want to even have the dialogue is because if we reflect back on episodes since we started the podcast with the guests in the those things that they're aiming to solve, the big problems that they've stepped back and began to kind of try to work with the construction industry and the AEC industry on these are some things that we can help you with. We've we've heard some of the barriers and the obstacles be brought up. And over and over again, it's that human piece of it. No matter what we're discussing, whether it was accounting processes to leadership development to technology within our businesses or something in the industrialized construction area. No matter what the conversation was, that human-centered piece around the change was constantly boiling up as our mindset towards the change. And that is primarily why building upon these past episodes to just, you know, take a progress look at how we started to think about, you know, our relationships with change, but also beginning to think: how do I apply this into my leadership development? How do I sort of think about this when a change is happening within my business? How can I provide more empathy during the process? So today isn't really to deep dive back into all five of the C's. But we do want to, again, kind of regain our, you know, our navigation around them because this is not meant to be sort of this playbook or even a framework. It is meant to be something that we can pause and again use as sort of a self-reflection in a mirror, if you will, on how we see change and something happening within our lives. What I hear constantly is we just need to manage the change. Just manage it. Think about all those things that we've started over and over again in our lives that we gave up on. And we just we don't remember why we did. So managing isn't really a word and a term that I think is as powerful as looking at change as a relationship. And where you constantly are giving it that attention. You're being intentional about those areas of the five C's of why they're important to reflect on. Again, one of the most critical things that we can we have to remember when it comes to change is that change is not an event. Change is an experience. It is not one and done. You can't go through change in your own personal life and think that I make one move and it's going to be a complete change. That's just not how most things work if the goal is something that we're wanting to obtain, if we're wanting to stay committed to it. So again, that's one of the most important things and why this reflection point, why stepping back and thinking about these five C's of change can help you build a stronger relationship is that it isn't an event. You're not going to meet this person one time and move on. Change is going to be constantly coming around, and you want it to feel like it's a two-way relationship, not a single one-way direction. Something that is always happening to you. You want it to become something that is happening along with you, that experience, that change that you want to see happen. So that is what today is about, stitching it all together, if you will, and back towards why it's important for us as individuals, but also for the industry to be thinking about this relationship. Because we've heard over and over again that this industry is slow to change. Guests have said it, I've said it, I hear it everywhere that I'm having conversations with people and I see it constantly in the feed. And we we can't keep throwing technology and solutions at this anymore. So we need to get to the root of the issue, which is a huge undertaking because, again, there's eight to ten million of us in the industry. Like, you can't change all eight to ten million, but you can begin with yourself. And you can pass the information on of how you've been thinking about change as you've reflected on it in order to get more individuals to be taking little steps towards helping us all become better, building stronger relationships with change. So thinking back towards even kind of why I went into the five C's and how I came to this as sort of these reflection points are that, you know, when we think about change, we we sit in our own personal life and we we have what kind of pre-contemplation? We're do I want to do this? I know this is good for me, or I know this is bad for me, and I need to quit it, or I need to start it. And then we'll we'll sit there and then we'll move into contemplation mode. And that goes a little deeper into okay, am I going to really do this? Am I going to start to plan how to take action? So that area is it's really about making the initial choice. And that's why I want everyone to sort of reflect on that is that we can choose in our own lives as well as our families and then and to business, like we can be making that that initial choice to improve upon a situation. Or, you know, and that could be an additive thing or it could be a subtractive thing. Like you may want to stop doing something that isn't serving you anymore. Again, it it's a change, but it has to start with that initial choice. And and choice is this thing that if we didn't make the initial choice, if we were sitting into the area of second choice where someone else has made it for us, that is where we're we're trying to decide if we're going to become a willing participant in that change, or are we going to resist and and what does that mean? How do we start to define that? Because you want to know if you're going to participate or if you're going to influence uh to get the change to move forward, or you could influence for the change to to slow down inside of a firm or inside your own life. Once you understand how choice has kind of been working in your life, you're you're then starting to take a look at that control area. And I think a lot of times we think that control is is more so that we want to be doing everything. And more often than not, it is more about protecting what we've already done. We become defensive, like we'll hold our ground because we it's become so much of who we are that we're afraid we might lose identity, that we could lose, you know, sort of how everyone sees us as an expert in a in a subject because suddenly this new thing is not exactly something I enjoy or something that I even want to do, or depending on where we are in life, it's just not something that that we think we can understand. So again, we feel like this discomfort is just, it's just easier to, again, make the choice to resist because I need to control everything. And the reality is we're probably protecting ourselves and we're protecting those things that we have thought were important. And then once we continue to reflect each stage sort of on choice control, then we're starting to try to get an understanding of what does clarity mean to me and what does clarity mean to my team. And I know I've defined this before is that clarity in any change, it's difficult to see all the way across the distance. You can map out smaller steps and bigger chunks, but generally, because situational things happen, getting every play down is just it's difficult to script. And in the fog is there because you just don't know what is on the other side of some of those decisions that you need to make. And I think clarity is just we're we're missing an opportunity when we think that 100% clarity is what we need. And the reality is what we need to be thinking about is we we want the end goal and what are my beginning action steps to move towards that. How can I start to move through this change in this area of messy middle to make sure that I am doing those things that are aligned with the goal, they're still maintaining importance to me and they're meaningful steps that each day I am taking those actions to move through it. And yeah, we're not gonna know what everything is all of the time. We cannot predict it. Um, but when we reflect on moves that we've made in our lives and things that we just weren't, you know, maybe we thought in the moment we knew everything that we needed to know, like a change of a job or a new relationship or moving into a new location, like we only know in that moment what is clear. We we don't know how everything else is going to evolve. But we can start to think about little changes in our life around how much clarity do I need as an individual and how much clarity does the team need and being able to communicate that in a way that is connecting everybody to the change. It's keeping everybody invested in it. So those three areas, they're they're the foundational piece to change. They're, as we strengthen those areas, we can get an understanding that we are starting to build a stronger relationship with change. And the reason we need to think about that as foundational because the next C is that commitment area. That is where we're going to either follow through with the maintenance that is required in that relationship. And meaning that those check-ins against the gold, that we're checking our progress, that we're checking with others, and constantly reinforcing the importance and the meaningfulness of this change, whether it is an addition or subtraction, whatever it is that you're doing in your personal life as well as your professional and then your business. But commitment is where we waver. That is, again, that is where we think that we have made that choice and we're going to do this, and you just start working through it. But because you weren't pulling back into clarity those intermediate steps to the steps you need to be doing each day or each week based on the timeframe to meet the goal, like you become uncommitted. You allow other noise to come in and take over. And again, that is why it's so important to constantly be reflecting on these things and using them as a mirror and a check-in point for yourself. These are not, again, not a framework piece. They're just parts of change to be constantly checking in with. Because when you have that foundation and you get into the commitment level and you're moving through it, you don't need a full script. Again, 100% clarity isn't going to be there. You are writing the script. You are having an experience. You're going through change as a journey and a life experience to grow as an individual, to grow as a team, and to grow as a business. And that means you need curiosity. And that curiosity is where you can question things, you can test things, you can try things. And because you don't need 100% clarity on how everything is going to go, you're providing yourself that space, that empathy, the psychological safety with yourself. So you're not down talking yourself, you're not creating limiting beliefs, you're not doing that to others. And once you have an understanding of that area with curiosity, that's where you're growing. That is the beautiful, messy middle part of change where there's no judgment. You just get to become that person that you were aiming to become, a team that you were aiming to become, and the business that you wanted to move forward with this change in order to get to your ultimate goals. And that is how you can begin to build a stronger relationship with change. You can begin by just breaking it down into those five C's and exploring how you have navigated those in your life to this point. You can start to journal it, you can write them down, you can start to name those things. Like, why was I in protection mode during this process? What was it that I was really wanting from holding on to that more than I needed to? Why did I think 100% clarity would exist in this moment when I've never done it before? I've never been there. I've never seen this. So again, each of those are it's not a process. And it's not like you can you can just keep going through it like it's a ladder. The reality is, is that as you're progressing through it, you're going to have to go back and re-question. You could be in the middle commitment and and and suddenly you're trying to figure out the control piece again. Or you could be in the middle of uh of clarity and you're trying to understand, well, I made this choice to do this, so how much clarity do I need? You're still asking yourself the question. And again, you're still staying into kind of what question, open-ended questions, no judgmental why questions, just reframing them into an area where once you answer them, you feel like, okay, that has reset me back to staying committed into this change, to actually moving through it. I'm providing myself the empathy and the time that's required to achieve this goal. And when you're leading a team or a business through a change, if you've done this for yourself and you understand some of these things as it relates to other humans, you're not going to ask questions like, why are they resisting? I gave them everything that they needed. I have told them the direction. You're really starting to ask much deeper questions. You're asking, what is it about the change that they're struggling with? What can I do for all of you to provide enough clarity to begin to take this step? What will we do as a team when we start to see ourselves or maybe as a group, we're we're not as committed as we thought we were? How can we do more progress check-ins on our relationships with change as a team rather than just the change itself? When we're starting to reframe some of those questions as leaders, we're taking the judgment out of the room. And that's always one of the hardest things to do as a leader is to be looking for the person or the thing that isn't in the room. And that means that it's the past relationships with change that we can't see that's built within others. And until we explore those, it's just this hidden thing that is still having presence in the room. And you want to try to remove that. You want to try to understand those individuals, those humans, how have they had a relationship with change and how can they strengthen that relationship? So this whole journey, again, isn't it isn't a framework. But what I'm hoping is that as we're continuing our journey through bonus episodes and And guest episodes and having conversations about some of the biggest innovations and solutions and problems that the guests are aiming to solve that were peeling back some of those conversations, whatever it is that they're aiming to solve, that we're starting to kind of reflect on those. Like, how have I experienced that topic before? What is it that I'm thinking about it? Do I think that I have been able to lead that kind of change within my own life or within within the business and the team? And it will just help us continue to kind of again activate curiosity within ourselves and others by reflecting on it through some of these lenses. I know that some of the conversations with guests, like they may not align with something you feel you have control of or that you are even involved in. But by taking those conversations and starting to think about them a little differently, even through some of these, you know, the lenses of the five C's, it just gives you a new perspective on how the industry sort of thinks about change and how leaders can start to implement change a little differently in their businesses. Because every solution that's going to come into your office is going to have an implementation and an integration process. Whether it's a new project, um, delivery model or uh method of construction or technology or software or AI, like any of those things, like it's going to have a human impact. And it's just accelerating more and more. And that is why I wanted to have these bonus episodes and this conversation. And it's why I've been studying and learning about our mindset and our the neuroscience behind change, not to come in here and just give you a prescriptive plan because that's not gonna stick. The only thing that will help us is our own individual willingness to become a participant in creating a stronger relationship with change. And when we start to do that, we can start to help others, but we can't go into forced compliance because if you end up in forced compliance, it isn't going to be good for you and it's not good for anyone else. But I know in our personal lives, like there are a lot of changes we want to make, I'm sure, on a daily basis. These things run through our heads. We are human, that is what happens. We see more and more things being put in front of us, trying to grab our attention that we want to take on, we want to implement, or we want to try, and then we see it in our company, and it just goes into that again. What I talk about is that change fatigue of like, well, we're just not gonna change, or this person's not gonna change, or I just don't want to lose what I've already put into place. And the more those things are happening in our industry, the harder the change resistance is coming. And I'm hopeful, again, not prescriptive, but that it these reflection points, this mirror that we can put up in front of ourselves are helpful little daily things that we can do to strengthen that relationship so that it becomes something that we want to give our attention to and we're intentional about what we're doing with the relationship. I'm thankful for everybody who's stuck with these episodes. And if you haven't, you can go back and listen to each 5C and breaking it down in much more depth. But as we move forward and think about conversations with guests, like this is a helpful way to be thinking about our relationship with change as well as those within our firms or within our daily lives, that we can help each other slow down, provide the empathy, no judgment, to build stronger relationships with change. So until next time, I hope you stay well. I hope you continue to look at those things in your life that you're saying, hey, I really have been contemplating this for a long time. I want to make this change, or something in your business that you're able to step back, run through these five C's to better understand your relationship with change, and that you're able to continue to solve those problems. I hope you're also able to activate your curiosity as well as curiosity within the Activating Curiosity podcast is brought to you by Connected Consulting Group, Connecticut Coaching or the Curiosity Culture. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe. Share the podcast with the network to help us bring more curiosity into the interested in becoming a guest or sponsor.com for more details. Until next time, keep leading with curiosity.