We weave through the nuances of leadership and trust and uncover the pivotal roles they play in nurturing team dynamics. Gone are the days when sports naturally instilled these qualities; today, leaders must intentionally cultivate a culture that champions teamwork and recognizes every ounce of effort. In our dynamic exchange, we grapple with the challenge of balancing praise with the need to foster a workforce that appreciates the grit behind success.
Our conversation takes a turn into the digital realm, where fleeting online connections have reshaped the fabric of trust in transactional relationships. Angus and James ponder the evolution of leadership in engaging a generation that's grown up in a world where likes and shares are the currency of connection. They delve into how a shift from high-octane sports leagues to less glamorous work can alter motivations, and why embedding corporate altruism might just be the secret ingredient for profound employee engagement and loyalty.
Strap on your hard hats as we venture onto the construction site, where the intricacies of team dynamics rival the complexities of any sports team. We dissect how the digital barrage of negativity can spill over into professional life and the significance of communication, consistency, and fairness in building a robust team culture. Finally, we leave you pondering the future, as we stress the importance of mentoring and instilling a long-term perspective in the workforce of tomorrow. Join us for this exploratory session where we lay the groundwork for understanding the multifaceted approach to leadership, trust, and team dynamics.
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
We weave through the nuances of leadership and trust and uncover the pivotal roles they play in nurturing team dynamics. Gone are the days when sports naturally instilled these qualities; today, leaders must intentionally cultivate a culture that champions teamwork and recognizes every ounce of effort. In our dynamic exchange, we grapple with the challenge of balancing praise with the need to foster a workforce that appreciates the grit behind success.
Our conversation takes a turn into the digital realm, where fleeting online connections have reshaped the fabric of trust in transactional relationships. Angus and James ponder the evolution of leadership in engaging a generation that's grown up in a world where likes and shares are the currency of connection. They delve into how a shift from high-octane sports leagues to less glamorous work can alter motivations, and why embedding corporate altruism might just be the secret ingredient for profound employee engagement and loyalty.
Strap on your hard hats as we venture onto the construction site, where the intricacies of team dynamics rival the complexities of any sports team. We dissect how the digital barrage of negativity can spill over into professional life and the significance of communication, consistency, and fairness in building a robust team culture. Finally, we leave you pondering the future, as we stress the importance of mentoring and instilling a long-term perspective in the workforce of tomorrow. Join us for this exploratory session where we lay the groundwork for understanding the multifaceted approach to leadership, trust, and team dynamics.
PODCAST INFO:
the Site Visit Website: https://www.sitemaxsystems.com/podcast
the Site Visit on Buzzsprout: https://thesitevisit.buzzsprout.com/269424
the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
the Site Visit on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5cp4qJE5ExZmO3EwldN1HH
FOLLOW ALONG:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesitevisit
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesitevisit
Angus, thank you very much for joining me today. We're going to be together in Whistler at the CLF event coming up this week. You looking forward to that. Fired up, can't wait, of the things, the themes that you're taking from team sports into how we operate throughout our lives, and motivation, trust, being able to battle through things. Do you think today, to some degree, we're losing that a little bit and you think we need to get it back?
Speaker 2:I think we're losing it, and I think we're losing it and I think we're losing it from two ends of the equation.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure enough leaders today maybe recognize the importance of being intentional about it and or know exactly how to be intentional about it, and because I think we're losing, on the back end, the organic growth of our workforce having gone through it traditionally, because we just don't have as many people engaging in the team youth sports environments like we used to, where it was basically a rite of passage you played some form of team sport, you went out with your friends, you tried things, you fought hard together, you got in trouble, you figured it out. Those don't happen as naturally anymore, and so I think you're getting a younger workforce that comes in where it's not already embedded in them. So you need leaders now to be very intentional on creating those environments and you need to be careful with it too, because it's going to be new for a lot of people and that can be scary. But without the abilities to do those things, I don't think businesses have a chance of solving problems, sticking together, retaining employees.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think it's more important than ever because it's not as embedded in our upbringing as it used to be. I would say Welcome to the Site, Visit Podcast. Leadership and perspective from construction with your host James Faulkner.
Speaker 2:Business as usual, as it has been for so long, now that it goes back to what we were talking about before and hitting the reset button.
Speaker 1:You know you read all the books, you read the email, you read Scaling Up, you read Good to Great.
Speaker 2:You know I could go on no-transcript out front of the site show.
Speaker 1:yesterday I was down in Dallas and a guy just hit me up on LinkedIn out of the blue and said he was driving from Oklahoma to Dallas to meet with me because he heard the Favourite Connect platform on your guys' podcast Home.
Speaker 2:It crush it and love it and we celebrate these values every single day.
Speaker 1:Let's get down to it. Let's do it. Was there something to be said for using an example of? I mean, you know this from being in team sports. You know that there were some star players that might've come onto a team where you might've experienced this throughout your not even your just your professional career, but even when you're coming up and playing football from an early age.
Speaker 1:Um, kids that knew how good they were and were kind of bratty on the field and you're and the rest of the team is like look, we can't have this kind of thing where you're entitled just because you're talented. Everyone here has to work hard. We have to work as a team. Would you say that all a lot of today's younger generation and we don't want to attack them because my generation did this to them, so I'm complicit in this whole thing did this to them, so I'm complicit in this whole thing Um, do you think that we have created people who constantly think they're all star players and no one wants to play with the team or doesn't is too dysfunctional to know how a team dynamic works?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know we always have to be careful to generalize, but I coach youth sports now too, so I see the downfall of our generation, failing our youth in terms of constantly praising everybody, without the challenges and the understanding of reality that everybody needs to contribute. Everybody's not perfect, everybody's not the best, and that's good and that's okay. So, on two levels, I think you know you have to have that environment where peers navigate each other. You know peers sort of police each other, but you also and this is where we failed and this is where leaders become very important what gets praised gets repeated and what gets allowed gets acknowledged as fine. So if you, if you let a kid run around and think they're the best and think it's okay, then how do they know they're not? And if you only praise natural gifts and talent, they're automatically going to think they're better than needing to work hard. So, once again, it's up to the leadership and the adults to set what reality is about. Everybody's at different levels, and that's fine, but everyone's expected to contribute, be a part of something and work to get better wherever you're at in your scale, and that, to me, is a baseline at leadership, where here's our collective goals Everybody has to contribute, and contribute means supporting everyone else in moving forward to their goals. So we win as a team.
Speaker 2:And what's going to get praised here is your effort to contribute, your effort to improve, your effort to do the things that are going to require to help the ball move forward for the team. And if you praise anything other than that, that's not the player's fault, that's the coach's fault, because we are again setting expectations. You know, we only know what's good by what we're told, and that's again why I talked at the beginning. I think it's more important than ever for leadership to be very intentional on our expectations and then not just saying you know, this is our expectations, but on a daily basis, what are we praising, what are we rewarding, what are we allowing? Because that's what's going to get viewed as good and bad. And you know, if you're allowed to get away with stuff, then you think you're special and if you're fair with people, I think you're going to gain a lot of respect. If you play favoritism or pick favorites based on other things, your culture will dictate that I don't think you'll have a long-term success as a leader.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point. Would you say that you talk about trust a lot, and I love that acronym. You had to resolve unusual situations together. That is really awesome, I mean, when I hear that it's such a great thing to have. Everybody likes sound bites, everybody likes things that are short and succulent, and you can usually remember those salient points where everyone can just sort of rally around, and that trust acronym is really good. I think you were given that example by somebody, I believe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my great coach, my positional coach, dan D'Orazio. I mean, I wrote a book about the man and he taught me all the things that matter in life, and he did it through coaching football. And that's where my big message to leadership is, and I don't care if it's big business or sports. We're there to get that. That's the micro level of what we're doing, but there's a greater influence. You're always teaching bigger principles to people right Within the given of your day and and and hopefully they're taking your messaging and being able to apply to more than just work.
Speaker 2:And so trust isn't just you know, you don't just want to trust them on the football field, but never trust them anywhere else or trust them in the day job. But you know out in the world, no, no chance, because then they don't build congruency and credibility as an individual. There's someone you actually can't trust because you know they're one way here and they're a different way over here. You want to build yourself around people that they are honestly trying to bring their best to help solve problems, not honestly trying to bring their best to make sure they look the best and to get what they can get out of the situation and leverage everything for themselves. Because you know it's one thing to trust yourself, that's fine. But very few of us, if any, in this world, if you really look at it, operate in silos. We're always working with somebody else somehow, we're always doing things together and your team can only move at the speed of trust.
Speaker 2:And the level of trust will dictate, not the level of talent, not the size of your budget, not even your credibility in the marketplace. That will eradicate very quickly if trust. Trust will always be the barometer that people will do business with you. That's it. Everything else is subject to how you feel today and what I really think you're trying to get out of this. And the nice thing is that's a controllable. You can decide how to act. But that's got to be led, that's got to be taught, that's got to be coached, that's got to be praised, that's got to be modeled intentionally. You can't just kind of hope and I spoke about that too a lot. Hope isn't a strategy and you can't just hope. You have a good trust environment. That's got to be really diligently built.
Speaker 1:With the word trust when I think of let's just talk about the younger generation, because that's really who we're trying to attract here, correct? Because the labor force is super short and we got to get this going. Um, I think the younger folk trust in things that they take for granted, that they don't have to think about. They trust that their phones are going to work. They trust that you know the police are going to show up if something goes wrong. They trust traffic lights. They trust things that they just don't think about.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to trust of themselves and trust of those around them, we're seeing a kind of a crumbling of trust in government trust in, you know, the police, the corporation, the foundation, leadership Seeing trust in leadership, yes, but also trust in the foundations of our country's history, like we've done everything wrong. So there's this sort of boiling of I don't trust the man or the person, or the person that is paying me or the company that is paying my company that is paying me, like that waterfall effect of trust all the way down from the stream in order for that person to show up on the job site on time. Listen to people, make sure that when they're in that huddle we'll talk about that in a bit that they actually have some consciousness around that job site and it's not just a job and realize that the opportunity they have, if they focus, can be a fantastic career for them. What would you say to what I just said there in terms of having more of a holistic macro philosophy around trust?
Speaker 2:I agree with everything you said and I think it's very lazy and naive and wrong for this generation's leaders. The now and I'll speak about this on Saturday at the convention. My big message is you know you can't now lead with, just trust us. It doesn't make sense and you can't even trust them first because that's not based on anything. Everything is transactional until it's not, and this generation is very transactional with relationships because they live online Not that we don't, but they're raised online first.
Speaker 2:A lot of us have come to online already, having buddies that we got in trouble with and had a hold of secrets with, and all that good stuff, right, Raised online. So everything is transactional first. Make 10,000 friends on whatever social media site they live on, and people defriend them or unfriend them or refriend them in two seconds and like or dislike by clicks of buttons. There's no depth to it, right and and that's a baseline for how they view the world. It's in, it's out. It's no big deal. There's always something. Tomorrow, we'll just, we'll just roll through things.
Speaker 2:And my big question now, you know, principally, to get anyone from zero to one to even begin this journey of even thinking about trusting. My big message to all the leaders in the environment I talk about creating is how do you get somebody to care, how do you get someone to care about the job they've signed up for, to care, to show up tomorrow, to care, to even want to trust? And my big message back to us as leaders are you know, I don't believe you can make somebody care or tell someone to care, but I't believe you can make make somebody care or tell someone to care. But I do believe you can care about them first as an individual and you can be hyper-intentional about little things to make it not transactional. And there and our youth isn't that used to that Everything's a text, everything's a social media message, everything's an emoji. There's not as much face-to-face human interaction to let someone know hey, message Everything's an emoji. There's not as much face-to-face human interaction to let someone know, hey, we really, really are grateful you're here today and that eye contact that is missing from today's world. And you say it tomorrow. And then you point out something they did really good yesterday Go, that is outstanding work. You are really making a difference here and those don't happen very often in today's world and it doesn't cost much.
Speaker 2:But you might say, hey, I've never heard anyone say that before. I like this person. Why? Because they took interest in me and they did five more seconds than most people have to make me realize I matter. James, wow, you noticed it, and that might be enough to go. This place is a little different. Usually no one cares about anyone, so why would I care? And if you can give someone a reason to maybe care by caring first, maybe they stick around by tomorrow. And you know, we talked about the talk, about my Ted talk. Trust has to be built over time. It has to be repetitions of interactions. So the trick is how do we get someone to stick around long enough to trust?
Speaker 1:Yeah, the time is hard right, you need the time.
Speaker 2:So if you're quitting every two weeks because it's not fun or you just don't like it, you'll never get to first base and you can never round the bases, you'll never score. And so can we buy time by making it a caring culture, which is, you know, opposite of the old sports world, opposite of the construction world where it was just tough, macho and toughen up kid. How do we make someone realize, hey, we're really value, showing up to them? I really appreciate trust. And then, once they trust, now you might be able to coach them, now you might be able to develop them. But if they won't stick around because it's transactional, everything's viewed as you're an ass Screw, you, you don't know me, you don't care about me, because it's viewed as negative connotation If you're coaching them or critiquing them. So you got to kind of flip the script.
Speaker 2:I think and I've seen it with our young athletes that will quit football at a heartbeat because it's hard and it sucks and they look like they're always getting yelled at. If you can make them realize you care about them for real and I'm very, very appreciative you showed up today they might stick around. And if they stick around you might be able to get them realize there's some value in this belonging. There's some value. People do care, but if you're not intentional, they won't buy it. They won't buy it. So you know, I don't think there's a perfect answer, but we we need to do what we can instead of blaming blaming our youth for being the way they are because of the, because of the reality that we, we constructed it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we, it is true, we did uh construct it. However, there has been, you know, the influence of technology, which only some people constructed. That, you know, isn't the, uh, the workings of every Gen X or baby boomer person. They, you know we didn't all create an Instagram or tech talk. You know other people did Um so, but it's.
Speaker 1:It's almost become the, the, the perfect storm, if you will, of entitlement and then suddenly, specialism. A kid has to feel special, so it's whatever they can do to feel special at that time. What I find interesting about I've got a friend that plays in the CFL now and plays for the Lions, and you know, I kind of understand the dichotomy between NFL and CFL. You know, just in terms of, you know pay scale, for instance, and how much money is in it, and just have an example, just a question for you is does it feel like, if you were to come from the kind of pay scale that in the NFL or some of these large college teams, like coming from NFL to the CFL?
Speaker 1:In terms of the reality of? You know, a construction job has a budget. It only can go so far. It can only do so many programs. It can only do so many things, and it isn't necessary. Not every construction job is the latest. You know big hospital in Vancouver it's, you know it could be a commercial TI. That's only, you know, $500,000. You know it's not everything's a $2 billion project. So you know what. Do you think there's something to be said for? That, in terms of construction, has its limitations on how far it can get. And the reason what made me think about this is when you were saying how much time do we have? Well, time is money in construction. It just is, and we have to play the long game in order to invest in the time with people. Sometimes the owners may feel I don't have time for this, like this job, is the schedule here, if so-and-so is not going to, like you know, give me the kind of attention that this job needs in this timeframe, like I got to get someone else.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:So I think that's a very fair point. And you know I my response. I work with a lot of businesses, some in construction, some in manufacturing, you know, all in very process oriented time, money, like you know, everything is on the clock and and I and I can appreciate that. And then my response is always the same Do you have, do you have, time to keep looking and rehiring people? Which one takes longer?
Speaker 2:If you're constantly looking for new people and everyone's quitting every two weeks, is that efficient? Is that the efficient mode here? Or the little extra time and space to potentially keep longer people? And I don't know the metrics of every answer, but everyone's complaining about turnover. Everybody right, we can't get people for the jobs and they're quitting so fast. So I'm not going to spend any more time than they want and we'll just keep going down that road. And so you look at you know what is the upside to spending a little extra to try to retain, versus the constant cycle of trying to find more people all the time.
Speaker 2:And then that is your culture. Your culture is always never ending change of people. You have nobody that's embedded instead of some people, and again, there's got to be trade-off. To how much time do you spend? But to me, it's you know, are we going to start trying to solve the problem or are we going to keep complaining about it and being upset that people aren't what we wish they were?
Speaker 2:And I think you used a great word there, james, and I think it's probably the most real word of the crux of all the problems on both sides of the equation, and that's expectation. Right? Young person has high expectations of what they expect. Everything else sucks. Owners have expectations. You could be like us. You should be like me. Like why aren't you committed to the work and we're paying you good money? Neither side kind of understands the other side's reality anymore and we expect it to be what we know it to be. And our old business owners are like you should be lucky, you have a job. Well, they don't feel lucky. That's not their reality anymore. They get a job anywhere. They really can't. They'll get a job tomorrow. Everyone's trying to hire the same people. So you can think they should be appreciative, but they're not. Because they don't know what to be, because you said, they've grown up never needing to realize it's impossible to get work. They're on the other side of the equation and our youth needs to understand.
Speaker 2:Here's the other thing I learned too at at the default of anything else or at the default of anyone emphasizing anything else. Most people just lean on money as good, right, so if I don't know anything else, then more money means I'm winning. Bigger project means better because I don't know anything else, and and and. Not that there's an ultimate win here. But like NFL is better than CFL. Why they get paid more like that? That's the default argument to anything. Until you, till you maybe learn nuance to be like I didn't know that, I didn't appreciate that.
Speaker 2:So you know, if we leave things without any type of story or narration, money always is the answer. Small, oh, this project's stupid because it's not much money. Bottom line is you and I both know you line up and put your hand on the ground and play football. You're putting your hand on the ground and play football. You're doing construction. You're building something, whether it's deemed a small or big, in the absence of any understanding or appreciation how great it is what you're doing. You're going to be like it sucks because I'm not getting paid. The same, it's the same thing. It's the same job.
Speaker 2:Scale, scale is scale, but there's also the emphasis of making people realize what we're doing here is special. And again that you're right, james, that takes time. Time is money. But if you can let some, why do we go to the movies? Because we think it's more impressive than our normal life, Our life's boring. If you can make things a bigger deal by how you treat the environment and does it get everyone on board? No, but some people are like I didn't realize this, so it's a stupid little job. This is like what we're doing is a big deal here. Okay, it takes. This is like what we're doing is a big deal here. Okay, that it takes more time.
Speaker 2:Or you can have people that think this job sucks and they'll act appropriately. You get an NFL guy to the CFL not getting paid very much comparatively, so I'm not going to give you very much. If you don't make it a bigger deal to them, you'll get the appropriate labor out of them. And so, again, you know we can lean on them and say you should think it's a bigger deal. Can lean on them and say you should think it's a bigger deal you should bring on why? Why should I care about your company? You're paying me X. I'll just give you this until you fire me?
Speaker 2:I believe we can if we want to give opportunities for our youth to realize this is pretty cool. I am going to be more. This is kind of a cool company. They actually care. Maybe I'll give a little more effort than I need to. Maybe I'll stick around longer because today I don't feel like showing up. But hey, these are good people. I'm going to show up today Instead of rolling on knee-jerk feelings of like I don't want to do this and who cares about this job? Because no one cares about me. Maybe we can create environments where you get the discretionary effort. You win the tiebreakers when they can quit tomorrow but they decide not to and yes, that will take a little more, but I'm going to argue is that more than constantly having to find and replace workers forever and that is your culture? That's not a culture I'd want to have as a business owner. We just have transient workers forever and that's what we got, and we have people that are proud of their work and they quit all the time. I don't want that as my brand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no-transcript. So you hit on something that just made me think that when there's a moral framework, I think with some people and you see this with a lot of people who have a religious background, who have a moral framework that they follow about being kind, not thinking about themselves serving other people, and that's more of a community thing. I've seen that here. But aside from that, but aside from that, is it almost as though you have to foster a sense of corporate altruism that the employee has to deploy, which would be considered over and above the transaction of employer-employee hourly wage. So let me just clarify, make my point more clear. So if someone's getting paid let's just call it $20 an hour Someone does the job, does the hours, there's the transaction. That's what the job description was.
Speaker 1:But now we have this, okay. Well, now we want you to do a huddle before. Now, we want you to think about your job for the next day. Now we want you to think of the company and I want you to have a good attitude. I want you to do all these other things that the employee might consider altruistic. This is extra, this is something that suddenly I have to find an interest in a company that I don't know if I will be at for a long time, so that altruism is an investment that I actually, as the employee, have to put forth. So what are your comments to that philosophy?
Speaker 2:So I think it comes back to and I agree with you again if we look at and this is where expectations and just general principle-based thinking is. I, if I'm a business owner, I want to move the people. I want to shift the perspective of who we're looking for beyond simply a transactional employee-employer relationship. If so, then my business name means nothing, nothing matters except for your check, and if that is the only thing that matters, then I don't matter. Then, of course, you're going to look for a buck more an hour every moment of your life. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you? Right? I'm irrelevant. What name my company is and what we stand for and our core values, all that stuff's garbage. It's just 20 bucks until someone gives you 2050. And, and, and if I asked you a little bit more, because we care more, of course, I would tell you leave, because I don't care about you. I'm telling you I don't care about you. I, you are somebody that is $20 an hour labor for your, for your body. You move on, good riddance Like you're irrelevant as a human being. That's what you're saying. So if you write your core mission statements and values and stuff, why? Why we give $20 an hour for if we can train a dog to do it, just come do it.
Speaker 2:We want people that believe in whatever we believe in, like whatever you guys stand for, and if that matters, you better give them a reason to care about. You Comes back to the beginning, then I better care about you, james, if I want you to care about our stuff and here's the thing Then you allow people to vet themselves. That's what I've always said. You don't kick people off the bus. You invite people that actually want to do more than transactional. And the problem with today's youth is their baseline is just transaction, because they've grown up in transactional relationships friendships, online social world. But you know, and I know deep down, human beings were tribal by nature. We need to belong to somewhere. Nobody wants to wander this earth alone. It's terrifying. It's been embedded in our DNA. We want to know we matter, we're part of a group. Someone's got our back right. That's why so many kids these days grow up with anxiety because everything's online A million friends they've never met commenting on them. They're freaking out. Who's got my back? Who actually gives a damn about me?
Speaker 2:And if you can build an environment, a work world where you show them, you're actually important here beyond your $20 of human labor force, which I don't even know your name. I don't want to know your name. I don't need to know your name because you are irrelevant. You work for 20 bucks. Make someone feel a little bit more important. You'll get people. That kind of matters to us and deep down, it matters to most. Just, some people don't gravitate to as much, so you keep the people that matters, which is nice. You're not forcing it on someone. So, james, that doesn't matter to you. Maybe we're not the company for you, that's okay, but we want people here that want to matter a little more and we're going to make you matter more. So you'll probably give a little more, because now you're part of something and you're right.
Speaker 2:Some people are just sweeping up the site, but I've been in football organizations the highest organizations where some people treat their secretaries like platinum gold and some people treat them like $20 an hour secretaries. And the ones that get pleaded like platinum gold answer the phones better, they stay longer, they're not on LinkedIn looking for other jobs. The other people are looking for a buck more because if that's all they are, let's see if I can squeeze another dollar to somebody else, and that's a subtle difference between how you're treating them and it's intentional. And so then you're known as that culture, and so better people want to work for that company because they care a little more. Oh, but you got a buck more over here. Yeah, I can get a buck more, but this is a cool place.
Speaker 2:You're not going to get everybody, but you're going to get people that want that and the people that want that. If they find it, hey, maybe they stay a little longer, maybe they want to grow. I'm invested in trying to make you grow. We're going to treat you really well here and we're going to push you hard. That's big and that's the trick.
Speaker 2:Even in the football world, no different than the construction world, we can't make life easier because it's brutal out there. We have to be better than everyone trying to beat our ass right, and we need you to be tough and hard and firm. But that's wrapped under the guise that we care about you and that's why we're going to help you become really good, and I want people that want that, and I saw it in the sports world, where it's cutthroat. Certain coaches push people under the guise of caring and certain people push them under the guise of fear You'll lose your job if you don't do it. People are terrified and anxious because I got to feed my family Other people the threat of getting cut is always the same, but at least people care about me. That doesn't mean I got a job tomorrow, but people actually care about me as an individual. So now when they're pushing me, it's because I know you want to help me get better, not because you don't care about me one little bit. And there is a difference.
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Speaker 1:So if you're looking for a change, book a demo at sitemaxcloud and let one of their fantastic people be there to help you through your software needs, again, that is sitemaxcloud. Now let's get back to the episode. It seems as though there's this current, that's like this river of confirmation bias that in the employees' off time that they're continuously being inundated with and they're constantly being inundated with that is, is, is this so? Just imagine, it's just sort of a visual metaphor. For instance, let's just say that, as a leader like as I'm listening to you, angus, I'm like man. If every leader in a construction company sounded like you and had the charisma and the communication skills and the energy and I mean you you crush it because you just you I mean everyone everyone would hope that they sound and and, uh, they sound and emit this kind of energy that you have like which is another whole conversation you're almost pulling them out of the river of this confirmation bias, this negativity, this constant instant feedback that they want online, and you're pulling them out of the river onto the shore for a minute. They're drying off and they're realizing what the real world is like on land. And on land is what's really going on, like in construction, and you can, as they're drawing off, you can go look, do you need something to eat? You've been paddling for a while. You were up here like up land 20 minutes ago. Now you've flown all the way down here. This giving people a reprieve.
Speaker 1:My worry is is that, even though every time that they show up at the job site today, it's like the leader is pulling them out of the river, getting them to dry off, but every night they go jump back in the river again and it makes it difficult. So what's probably tiring for the business owner or leader is that they're like I'm tired of pulling these people out of the river. They go in it every night and there's a reason why. You know this latest legislation where they're saying that kids can't have cell phones in schools. There's a reason for that. The reason it's super dysfunctional. I watch it with my family. Downtime is not reading. Downtime is not even watching TV anymore. It's screen time, and it's so bad, as much as I love it and I'm a technologist, don't get me wrong but death scrolling for that next algorithm that's going to give you that confirmation bias of the last 10 things that interested you, that you waited on that extra video or it played twice. Man, it's like we got. Like we have to find some way of providing some huge uptick for the people in construction. I've got some ideas around this and we can talk about this at Whistler. I look forward to meeting you in person, by the way.
Speaker 1:Now let me just ask you another thing. So when you talk about teams, for instance, now teams, obviously, when you're on the football field and, uh, you know you were playing offensive line, I mean, as you say, you're like the smallest guy there, even though you're 300 pounds. Um, one thing that you said on your tech talk, which I thought was really cool, that the trust that you had, like you're one of the only positions in any sport that your back is to the ball. Yeah, never see it. You never see it, which is so crazy. Like what an amazing observation that is, because if you actually just sit there and think for it, like you think tennis, you think golf, you think the ball's always in front of you.
Speaker 2:You kind of playing blind almost. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:It. Oh, it's crazy. It's such a great metaphor. I love it so, um, but when you, when you're talking about teams, obviously you know in football you are, you have a, you have a clear adversary. Other Jersey color, that simple other side of the field, they're trying to do what they're trying to do, you're trying to do what they're in. It's complete clash of energy.
Speaker 1:Now, with construction, you have teams. However, the time the budget is, the other team is the adversary. That is what you're fighting against. So what's interesting is that?
Speaker 1:So, let's say, with the first team that's on the field, the weird thing is that you have a whole bunch of other little teams, micro teams, that show up, and these are the sub-trades. Yep, Now, the game that your coach might have played. They've drawn it on the board for you, you guys. Okay, this is the play we're going to be doing today. This is the culture of the team, and that is the primary team. Let's say that's the general contractor's team. Maybe they have some self-performing people there. They got superintendents, they got foremen, they got all these site supervisors, all that kind of stuff. But then the sub-trades come and they have their own team game too, and they have their own culture as well, and they might be going through player changes.
Speaker 1:There's a whole bunch of stuff going on there and when you think of how many sub-trades there are on a factor from one to 20, 30, 40 different sub-trade, different types of companies that show up on a job site to finish a building, you are talking about a ton of nuanced, crazy dynamics, social dynamics, business dynamics, procedural dynamics that are all very different. So what would you say to that? With the huddle mentality, how do you get a philosophical macro huddle together without having everybody like a toolbox? Talk with every single trade is impossible, because they're not all showing at the same time. You know they're not all there at once. Yeah, just because of the progression of a build.
Speaker 2:I think you've raised a very interesting point and you know I'll speak on this on Saturday. But when I speak about elite teams and elite groups, I share kind of a thing that was shared by me by our sports psychologists and it was all about you know, elite teams are teams, are, are teams that solve problems better than other teams. They solve problems. And then to you spoke of most people intuitively think the problem is the external public, we. We beat opponents better than our people and then our opponents can beat opponents and you know we can beat the clock better than than the, than the opponents can beat the clock like. We always think of the external opponent. But deep down we talk about elite teams. They solve internal problems better. And that's where the huddle is interesting, because the best teams deal with our own internal personality, clashes, egos, emotions, better than our opposing teams do. And and that's when we talk about how well do we sort through our internal issues, my expectations versus your expectation j, we're on the same team.
Speaker 2:I want to save face. I'm going to throw you one of the bus so I don't get cut tomorrow when a problem hits, which in football is, every single play that doesn't score a touchdown was a problem. Something went wrong, but that's true. So think about our toolbox talks. We do one in between every single play. So that's why I did the frequency of trust, like we collaborate every five seconds for 20 second bursts and we have to assess what went wrong. What's what just went wrong? What are we going to do about it? What are we going to do next? Is everybody on board and clear about our roles, ready Break? And if one factor of those don't work? Well, if everyone's not on board, if everyone's still beefing about the decision being made, or if we're still arguing about who to blame when it went wrong and who we're mad at and who screwed up. My, we're not elite. Your talent's irrelevant, your skill's irrelevant, your budget's irrelevant, everything's irrelevant. So it's a good message and it's a little more complicated. Like you said, you know we would have our team like your normal team and then you'd have your sub-trades. Just be like we're bringing in mercenary players every three plays from who knows where.
Speaker 2:I can appreciate that very complexity. So there's no perfect answer. But can we have sort of clear codes of conduct with how we engage each other? And I'm going to run through some things on Saturday that were taught to us as a team. That became our best practices within the huddle of modes of communication on a professional level that hopefully, intuitively good people do it, but I've never heard people articulate it as it was to me where they became rules and there were ways to avoid emotionally blaming, ways to avoid us versus you conversations and screw them. They're screwing up us, them, they and it was always collectively agreed upon modes of communication.
Speaker 2:So we're always trying to assess problems, not trying to blame people, not trying to us versus you mentality, because that, as you said, that creates longer time to solve the problem, which is our biggest adversary. Right? How efficient are we at identifying the issue, solving the problem, removing blaming individuals so they now want to argue back and get out of it and scapegoat. That's time, that's money and it's also destruction of relationships and culture. So how do we make it a fair treatment where we're here to solve issues and discuss problems, not beef, wh wine, complain and argue? And I'll bring to the table sort of ground rules that we had that I was on teams that didn't have it and it was just a cast of egos trying to shelter their egos and make sure no one got blamed and screw you, yelling, screaming and there were horrible huddles and then you leave the huddle less trusting and it would just erode and everybody became an independent contractor because, for lack of cohesion, everyone's covering their own butt.
Speaker 2:Because football, unlike the other team sports and unlike almost every job out there, we don't have guaranteed contracts. So think of that. You're trying to build a team culture where I want you to care about this and we'll cut you any second. We have no HR, we have no severance, you leave tomorrow and you never get paid, but please give everything to us and we'll give nothing back to you. That takes very intentional coaching. I was on a team that we went to five straight Western finals and we had a retention ratio of about 85%. Every year in the league that has about a 50% retention ratio and we didn't pay anybody anymore. So I'll speak on things we did intentionally.
Speaker 1:That made a difference because it's cutthroat really rough yeah, that's um, yeah, you bring up some good points there in terms of that like code of conduct. So I was on the um contact crew podcast with uh jonathan and jeff uh shout out to those guys and uh, the interview they did with me. Um, there were three things that we talked about. I mean, you know, two of these are, you know, fairly obvious we've heard these for a long time which, which is, you know, iq, you know someone's intelligence, and then you're, you're, uh, the intelligence quotient. Then you have the EQ, which is their emotional intelligence quotient. But the third one that we discussed was the DQ, which is not Dairy Queen, it is the, it is the decency quotient.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:And the decency quotient is something that I think can be further developed in terms of a paradigm that we could really expand of how do you treat people, how decent are you, and with people who are interacting from different places in the world. We have immigration, we have lots of different complexities, we have how people think, where they've come from. There is one thing we can all rally around if we are providing a moral framework of a decency quotient, and I think that that is really something that can be the foundational concrete to build a structure of understanding on top of concrete, to build a structure of understanding on top of James.
Speaker 2:I love that and I love that you lean into this. Because the decency I think that's the premise of where we need to move to, because there's been so much talk in the last 10 years on empathy, right Empathy, empathy for the individual here's the problem. You can't have empathy in a group environment because that means I'm choosing your emotional needs over everybody else's, I'm making you more important than everybody else, and you can't do that in a group culture. You can do that individually, no problem. But you can't show empathy in a team culture environment, because now you're more important than everyone else and I'm choosing you over someone else. So that right, right away, I've lost.
Speaker 2:What I'm going to lean to is the most important thing fair and fairness. Is this decency right? This is fair, this is the way we're going to treat people fairly, not individually, because then we have to choose you over you and your more. Your needs matter more than your needs, and that's to me destruction of culture, because we've individualized everyone, which is where our culture is heading. To right, everybody's special, fine, no problem. But here we're treating everybody fairly and that has to be outlined, articulated. And then the most important thing on trust, that has to be consistent. You have to be unbelievably consistent. So people then go I'm going to treat it fairly here and I think then that becomes your culture and as long as you do your very best to be consistent with it, I don't know anybody that can't be liked. That's understood as they're fair and they're consistently fair Because unfortunately today's generation, they want to like everything.
Speaker 2:They don't like it. It's mean, it's unfair if they don't like it, and that's a total change in understanding what fairness really is. Fairness doesn't mean you're happy. It means this is fair and that has to be identified, outlined, articulated and then kept consistent. You know heavy criticism towards you because you've outlined an expectation on the front end and you're and you and you do your very, very best to to be uh, to be consistent while treating everybody fairly, so decently, like this is everybody is going to get the same treatment. Cause if you go down the empathy road, you're picking how how much I should make you important than that the expense of your importance. Cause if everybody, we want everyone to feel really, really, really happy and good, good luck with that. Yeah, good luck. And that's where I think a leader's now thought. This is where we're at now and if we play that game, you're screwed and you're not going to be fair and it's a mess. And once again we're feeding into the problem where people all want to be special.
Speaker 1:You'll never have a team environment if everybody wants to be special. Therefore, we'll never get anything done in this world. Right, yep, when you talk about the consistency and then you dovetail that within with culture. Let's just make an example of this. Let's say you had 20 people. Let's just go with the IQ for a second.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you wanted to know what the average intelligence was of a group of people. You got 20 people and they got super high IQs. You do the average and to the outside world they go wow, a crazy group of super bright people. Fine, do that with EQ. Wow, great, a number of people who understand empathy, understand how to communicate, et cetera. Decency quotient If you can have some kind of a metric on that. Where you go? Okay, these 20 people are all very decent people. The reality is, is that transcends then into wow, the culture of that company is amazing. Yeah, fair, I agree. Do you know what I mean? So you know. The problem with the word culture is everybody expects us to deliver it as business owners and leaders, when the culture is the net behavior of everyone in an organization.
Speaker 2:It's how everybody interacts with each other, it's the standards of interaction of everyone, right, and, particularly when no one's watching, it's the baseline, accepted way that we interact with each other. That's what your culture is going to be right how people communicate, how people resolve, how people interact, how people come, how people act, not what the leadership is doing and making you do right. Obviously, modeling matters, reward matters, what gets tolerated matters, but the repetition of that spills into the normalization of the everyday person there. How they roll, they just they. This is what we do here and they self, as you said the very beginning of our of our chat.
Speaker 2:Then self-policing kicks in, because you don't have to have owners always doing it sooner or later, and that's why you got to do the front-end work though. You got to outline it, you got to model it, you got to reward it, you got to be super consistent right at the beginning. I think you got to really be aggressive with it. So you're squatching everything early. So ideally, we conform and we just start acting like this and new people come in and they just adapt to how everybody behaves here and then you get self-governance because if you fall in line, you look really awkward, really quickly, like you're out of step right away and nobody wants to be the awkward one for very long. So you know you kick back in or you leave, and and it does take work on the front end by the leader they do, but the long-term result is you don't want, you should never be the one having to do it forever. You gotta, you gotta, you gotta design it on the front end. You need, you need relevant um. You know, as you said, not everyone's like me, not everyone's going to be vocal and out there. You need champions within your organization that have characteristics that people follow, that people look to. You got to find your natural leaders.
Speaker 2:You said I think we said we'll get into this another time but you need your role model, people in your company, the ones people are going to look to and go yeah, but this is who really moves the needle here. You got to get your buy-in from your key people that people are always keeping their eye on going. Okay, you say this, but look at, look at so-and-so, this is who it really is and you got to get them to buy in and then it gets much easier. Right, people will follow the people that are getting rewarded in the company, the people that are seen as important in the company, the people that are looked up to, and how do we get them to make sure they're modeling more of this? And you see it shift and no perfect answer, as you said. But what's the alternative? Right, we fall back on hope, and that's the absence of strategy, and we're getting beat down with hope right now because we're not winning that game. We've got algorithms kicking our butt on that one.
Speaker 1:We do. We do when you talk about modeling. What's actually very strange here is that each time that I bring up one subject, it turns into another note that I have, and you've just said it, which is this is why the conversations like this can be so organic and great. The word model Now. I think we're having a power dynamic issue now based on two things. One is patience. Now, younger generation let's call this again they've got they've. They're used to getting things very quickly. Now.
Speaker 1:The second part is the modeling. Now, if the younger person looks at the person at the top and goes that's actually the only job I want. I want to be the owner, I want to be able to have the flexibility. And that owner then has to be able to also say they might have been working for 20 years. They used to worry about money, they used to worry about all the stuff. They've worried. They've gone through all of these headwinds over time to continue to be successful and have been warriors in business and in construction. It's really tough. It's not for the faint of heart. So if you have become that person over 20, 30 years and now the model, the young person doesn't even want that job. Right, the role model doesn't exist in the company. That's the hard part, because there's a lack of and we see this today. If you look at Japan, for instance, how they treat their elderly, they treat them with respect. In those blue zones in the world, they celebrate the birthdays of people who are 100, 102, 103, 100.
Speaker 2:They're involved in things forever too. They have a significant, important role.
Speaker 1:So today, what we do is we go. I mean, I'm 52. People think I'm ancient. Okay, I'm ancient, I still run like I'm 30. And people are like, oh, I don't believe you. Well, just wait, that's all I can say. Just wait until you're my age and you'll go. Oh, my God, I can't believe. I actually thought like that when I was young. But the reality is that we now have this lack of patience and the model of I would like to be that one day doesn't exist, because you're not a TikToker, you're not a YouTuber, you're not-.
Speaker 2:You're not a millionaire at 19 sitting in your basement.
Speaker 1:Well, the problem is that now we have the, it's the B word. Now it's no longer millionaire, it's billionaire.
Speaker 2:Millionaire is nothing, yeah.
Speaker 1:Everyone's a millionaire who's got a house, right. So I mean, that's not even winning, it's not, it's table stakes, right I mean. So we're kind of like, okay, well, this is kind of hard now. So kind of hard now. So if we don't have these role models that people aspire to be like within companies, that used to be like in the old days and what makes it even more complex is that an owner will it's hard for them to have their own leadership boundary narrative with the people that work for them, which could go as the following Listen, I've worked for 30 years in this company. There's a reason that I work from home in the morning. I take Fridays off. I spend X amount of time with my family. I'm going to let you guys take this meeting. You don't need me there. These are all things. They don't understand what that person is doing.
Speaker 2:They don't understand what that person is doing, they don't understand Everybody wants to start at the finish line. They have no idea there's a long marathon in between the two.
Speaker 1:Exactly. But business leaders are finding they can't have those conversations because the younger, younger people are like no, no, no, no, if I'm going to work hard, you're going to work. You're going to do the exact same things Like he's like listen, yeah, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Expectations right, it comes back to mismatch expectations and it's really difficult and I can appreciate it. And one thing I can say is I have pretty good insights now because I'm really in line with our coach high school football. So I'm every day around 16, 17, 18-year-olds now boys, and I've been doing it for a few years now. So now they're 19, 20, 21 year old boys and they're getting into parades or they're going to school. So I've been and now I'm in, I'm in the okanagan, so I'm in a smaller town other than the big city, so there's a. Even though social media is all over the world, there's a little skewing difference in terms of just general culture in the area. But I I mean now you can't expect every leader to do this but the downside I see from athletes which again, these are going to be a workforce in three years, whether they're playing sports or not, just so you understand. You know, I know they grew up with with the billionaire Tik Tokers and the problem with, I see, with my young athletes, they're there. You know some kid is working his butt off in the weight room which, again, no different, takes years to get. You can't get a huge and strong in a week program, but they're always looking at some kid from Texas and Florida that is a million times better than them and they're getting discouraged going. I want to be like that now, and so what's the point? And they get the what's the point? Defeatist mentality because you'll see everyone, that's unbelievable. Unless I can have it tomorrow, what's the point? Now? I can't expect business leaders to do this. But what's been really cool in my own little tiny world is and I'm 47 years old, I played a long time pro, so I'm not just their coach, but I'm a kid that they're like. I want to be like you one day, coach like play pro and this and that. And so I, you know, I have a little gym in my garage and kids come up. You know three or four of these kids will come over Anyone's invited before school, six, 30 in the morning, and I lift with them and we work out with them of searching for, like that secret workout what's the one I'm going. You've seen it. This is every day, and so I'm trying to teach them early. It's every single day. You get up and you put in that work and don't, and it'll come and they're getting discouraged and I take pictures of them and then a month later they'll be like I haven't got any work. Yeah, you have. Look, you forget, cause it's every day. Never, and I show up with them, I do it. They're like you're an old man doing this. I'm like, yeah, but I got to keep going too, and and so I'm trying my best to teach those lessons which, unfortunately, most people don't learn.
Speaker 2:I think we've and as you said, james, one of the hardest things in terms of um modeling, what we've lost in our culture. You spoke of the japanese culture, which is interesting. We've lost that mentor, apprentice model, right where the apprentice was a valued position you were honored to take, to be taken in by somebody and knowing. There's a. There's a 10 year runway now of learning. We we have. We have removed the significance of learning. Learning is stupid right now, it's just winning, right. Nobody ever wants to cheat code. Everybody wants to go to the final. Nobody wants to learn, they just want to get it, you know, find a way to get it done faster, and that's why everything's about a shortcut and life hacks and all this other nonsense people talk about. There's no mastery anymore, because mastery, as you said, day after day after day, learning fundamentals, principles.
Speaker 2:I was a great line from I don't think it was Nick Saban, one of the great college football coaches. They're at some conference and it's up at the hundredth floor or 50th floor or whatever, and he's about to get an elevator and one young coach asked him the secret you know secret to getting to you. He goes I'll take the stairs and see up there. He goes why are you taking the elevator? It took me 30 years. It took me 30 years of stairs. We'll take the elevator stairs 30 years, like that's, that's the long road. Then then you, like you said the owner, then you get to take the elevator, but I don't think you're going to shift youth perspective in general.
Speaker 2:But there needs. I think by not even in trying, you have no chance. You need to. You need to. You need to somehow make it realize that the real value is in the learning, the, the, what you deem is winning, making the big. That comes after this, and I know it's impossible because the algorithms are stacked against us and they go home and scroll again. Like I said, they jump right back in the water and this is stupid. What am I wasting my time for? I don't have the simple answer to that and that's why, even on my little world, I do everything I can to keep people playing football, because I said, if you, at 16, can decide to do a hard sport where no one sees your face and no one praises you and all you do is difficult and tough, you've got a chance. You're understanding what it means, but without it, it's really, really hard.
Speaker 2:How can we do our best to catch them doing something good early and praise them for it? That doesn't look like their normal winning to them? Because if they look up to somebody, they go. I want to be like you one day and if I can tell you what you're doing here is important, no, that's stupid. No, that's what matters. And if we can do that a few times, maybe you can go. What do you mean? This matters, this is stupid. That's how I got here. You want to get here. This is what it is. No, no, you look up to me. I think the people that can model have some leverage and we got to try to use it with our voice and with our actions of catch them doing something good that they don't think is worthwhile. That's stupid. It's a waste of it's below them and remind them.
Speaker 2:This is how you'll get here. This is the stuff that's going to matter. I don't think you're going to get everybody, but maybe you'll get a few that go. Really, there's no way. And how do you have that five-minute conversation from this older person that's made it to help our younger instead of just going? You youth are lazy. You don't get it to try to communicate them, try to connect with them, and maybe they'll come back and ask a few more questions.
Speaker 2:I don't know how else to do it, because the glaring reality is I make this. You want all these boats and houses. I want that. Okay, then this is what it's going to take. That's going to take a long time, I know, yes, we're not going to lie to you, we're not going to sugarcoat it, but you know, my story is I'm I was undersized under everything. I worked my butt off. If you wanted to, you could do it, but this is the answer. This is the cheat code, this is the life hack Every day, getting really good at stuff that people don't want to do. That's the secret. I don't know if everyone's going to listen to it, but at least you're being honest, you're being fair, you're being encouraging, you're being positive, you're trying.
Speaker 1:Man, that is awesome. I can't wait to you and I have another conversation because, man, this was just the iceberg. I think we're still on the surface of the water. We got under a little bit. That's pretty good, man. Good.
Speaker 2:This is not a one-hour fix right.
Speaker 1:No, it's not a one-hour fix.
Speaker 2:We have a fix. But I will refuse to throw my hands up and say we're done, because then you and I know that's terrifying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it is Okay. So I've got a. I used to do something called rapid fire questions, and instead of that I've replaced it with this. So you're the guinea pig.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, I've been called worse, let's do it.
Speaker 1:This is the big question what are we missing in construction relative to our conversation today?
Speaker 2:Young workers that care.
Speaker 1:So we got to cultivate that, we got to sow some seeds.
Speaker 2:You got to give them a reason to.
Speaker 1:I know you and I can talk about this offline. I got some things that I'd like to chat with you about politically on how to get this done. So, yeah, maybe you can get involved. Uh, this has been a pleasure, angus.
Speaker 2:Love it, so I'll see you on this weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sounds great man.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your time, james, you're welcome.
Speaker 1:Well, that does it for another episode of the site visit. Thank you for listening. Be sure to stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. Stay connected with us by following our social accounts on Instagram and YouTube. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter. At sitemaxsystemscom slash the site visit, where you'll get industry insights, pro tips and everything you need to know about the site visit podcast and Sitemax, the job site and construction management tool of choice for thousands of contractors in North America and beyond. Sitemmax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building.