Building Leaders Who Build Communities with Ian Baird and Tim Gonsalves

Pressure is rising on today’s job sites—and promotions often arrive faster than the tools needed to lead well. We sat down live at BuildX Vancouver with Ian Baird and Tim Gonzalez of Caliber Projects to unpack a practical solution: a cohort-based leadership program built inside the industry, for the industry. From the first foreman promotion to the seasoned superintendent, they show how sharpening the saw can beat “just grind harder,” and why clear frameworks turn chaos into consistent wins.

We get candid about the human side of construction. Ian shares how a career shift exposed the gap between technical training and real leadership, while Tim breaks down why mental health struggles spike when responsibility grows but support does not. Together, we explore IQ, EQ, and the often-missing AQ—the adversity quotient—and how to build it through guided reps, direct feedback, and shared language. Purpose becomes the hinge: connect the work to community impact and patience returns, because the wait serves a vision, not just a paycheck.

You’ll hear why smaller, mixed-role cohorts accelerate growth, how conflict resolution changes when examples match life on site, and what happens to safety, quality, and schedules when trades stop acting like rival tribes. We even try on a hunter-versus-villager mindset to understand social friction, job site cohesion, and the leadership behaviors that align everyone around the same “hunt.”

If you’re wrestling with burnout, fragmented teams, or the hidden costs of poor leadership, this conversation offers a workable path: invest in people, teach the tools, and scale capacity from within. Learn how to join cohorts in Vancouver, Langley, and Chilliwack, or host one with your partners. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with your team, and leave a review with the one leadership skill you’d train first.

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the Site Visit on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-site-visit/id1456494446
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Transcript

Live From BuildX Vancouver

SPEAKER_02 0:00

All right, here we are with Ian Baird. Baird, right? Baird, yep. And Tim Gonzalez. Hey, how are you guys doing? Super good. Glad to be here. Build X?

SPEAKER_01 0:10

It's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've been down here a few times over the years. I think, you know, for it was great to come to the uh the CEO breakfast this morning. Oh yeah, that was good. Uh good networking thing. You know, heard some very interesting uh discussions around um this whole undrip drip of thing. Oh, yeah, that's a radioactive uh radioactive topic. Radioactive, but you know what? I think the message was there's so much untapped potential in British Columbia. If we could just get out of our own way, I know we we would be the most prosperous province and and country in the world. I know.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Well, that's uh podcast number two. There you go. Yeah, exactly. Welcome to the Site Visit Podcast, leadership and perspective from construction with your host, James Baldman.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Recorded live from the dope floor at BuildX Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Okay, so um you guys are with Caliber Projects, and I I'm mostly interested in I think uh our our um uh fellow caliber person, Christian Hamm, he's I've worked with for years, amazing guy, was just on before you guys. Um put us in touch. So uh you you guys have this initiative, uh the foundations of leadership. So let's just either of you can give me an overview of sort of what this is all for, the intent, how it all works, who you're doing this with. So, Tim, you're the the head coach of this, and Ian, you are the the sage uh advice person with all the wisdom that Tim can deploy out there into the brains of uh of the people who are in these cohorts.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Let's to be clear, that's a nice way of you saying I'm in the old guy. I did not say old. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:07

Not once. Well, we're probably similar vintage though.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Well, well, maybe maybe I'll start with kind of the the vision or the the why behind this, and then and then Tim can kind of go into like who it's for, our target audience, the you know, what we're doing and why we're doing it, how we're doing it. Um so so for me, you know, I think I've shared this with you before, James, but like I have my PhD in chemistry and came from the pharmaceutical background and you know spent a lot of time in university taking a lot of courses, learning a lot of things. And uh when I transferred from uh pharmaceutical industry into the construction industry, um to be honest, it was a bit of the wild, wild west. Um didn't seem like there was a lot of organization, a lot of structure compared to what I was used to.

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:02

But what I what I realized um going through my career over the past 20 years, uh, but immediately when I got into construction, was there was this real lack of leadership. And uh, you know, I remember the owner of our company, Don Voth at the time, who's my mentor, sharing with me, he's like, I said to Don, like, what is the best part of your day? And he's like, Oh, I love our people. It's the people. Yeah, I'm like, so what is the worst part of your day? Describe me the worst part of your day, and he's like, oh, dealing with the people problems. Right? And and that really just got me thinking from day one. It's like, it's like in this industry, we do a really good thing of teaching young people technical skills. They go to BCIT, they come into a trade, they get technically trained, and they're an A player, and they drive and they work really well, and then their boss, Jim, goes, Hey Bobby, I'm gonna promote you. You've been so good. The kid's 25 years old, he he's just got his red seal, and now he's being asked to manage a job site, lead a group of people, and he has no tools in the toolbox on how to do it. And and poor Jimmy just fails at it, and he feels bad about it. He doesn't know how to deal with conflict resolution, he doesn't know how to deal with negotiations, he doesn't, he doesn't know how to manage his time properly, right? He doesn't know how to delegate and all this. So as as as I started seeing all this, I started just making some notes and jotting some things that you know this this this industry really needed. And uh then I Tim and I met, you know, Tim Tim joined our company about three years ago now as an HR manager, but really Tim's true gifting is is teaching and and coaching others, and he comes from a background in that. And when I shared Tim the vision I had for or putting together a university.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

I see, okay.

Launching Caliber’s Foundations Of Leadership

SPEAKER_01 5:06

You know, that you know, I spent a lot of time in university, but putting to a university to create best in class excellence teaching around leadership and technical stuff within our industry, but starting with the leadership and leading with leadership training, uh, we started brainstorming spitballing, getting excited, and we started putting together an outline framework for it. And then we launched it two years ago. We did it.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Two years ago, wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

So two years ago in-house. Okay. And we did a we've put two cohorts through it now, two years with our own caliber people. Right. And we started to see transformative uh results with our people. And they were now, not only were they better employees, uh, but they were now becoming better leaders uh with the people they were leading. Uh there was less people problems in our company, as well as they were being better fathers, husbands, community members, contributing to their community. And so this whole vision really ties in with, you know, what Calibre had created is of their just cause. Uh, this exercise that we did a few years ago, right? Which is we imagine a world of inspired people who have a deep desire to serve and build others to effect generational change in their communities. And so the vision behind this is to live out that just cause through Caliber University and the foundations of leadership. Building others with a service-minded attitude to transform communities that last generations beyond where we're gone. When we're gone. Very cool. So that's the vision behind it. Okay. Right? And then, Tim, if you want to share kind of like the program.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

Well, maybe let me just ask you, um, Tim. So on the for those who are who are listening to this who might think, well, that'd be a great thing for me to do. Maybe they would even do it in their own company, whether or not they'd be using uh, you know, being part of one of your cohorts or not, I think one of the things that business people think about is okay, well, how do I, if I'm on fire all the time, how do I A find the time? And A, let's say that I can find the time, but the time is also the money, even and this is an investment. Um but in the very short term, it seems like, well, I gotta pull either A, I gotta pull someone off a job where they're actually making me the money, or I've got to get them to come in after where uh I'm expecting them to come in for free. Or I pay them, or whatever it is. There has to maybe just speak to that a little bit for those who probably are looking at the uh reason not to do it, or there's no way I could do it, or and why it is worth doing. Yeah.

Time, Cost, And Sharpening The Saw

SPEAKER_00 8:00

We literally had this conversation yesterday in one of our cohorts, and uh I've I kind of joked about how constantly in construction we say things like, well, that's just construction, it's it's so busy, and this is or we'll say things like this is just a season, right? We're really busy this season, and so therefore we can't go and improve ourselves, we can't develop new processes. And I always reflect back to Stephen Covey's uh seven habits of highly effective people, and he talks about in chapter seven, if you were given, you know, eight hours to cut down a tree, most people would spend, you know, one hour getting ready and then seven hours trying to chop the tree down. And uh and Stephen Covey says, you know, the the story goes that the other guy says, hey, I'm gonna spend seven hours sharpening the saw.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Ah, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 8:43

And so what we're doing is we're flipping on its head because everybody is so busy in construction, right? It's just how we run and it's chaos all the time, and sites are running frantically, we've got foremen and superintendents and general supers that are running from site to site, and everything's just putting out fires, and we'll say things like, Well, that's just normal for construction. And we want to flip that on its head and say, Well, what if we took a moment and took a pause to invest in ourselves to sharpen our saw, then maybe we can begin to have a hope at winning at work and winning in our lives. Because here's the thing, we all know that people are taking work home with them. Guys are working on weekends, they're on the edge of burnout. Construction's known for uh being one of the highest industries of suicide, self-harm, depression, anxiety, addiction, all of these things are rampant in the world.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Can you dig into that for a minute? Because I've I've I've been thinking about that specifically for quite a while now in terms of why that is.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Um is it the burnout or is it um the there is so in the past, and I've seen signs changing a lot, let's say uh no on-site hiring, you've seen that on hoarding. Like I saw one on Gramble the other day, I'm like, wow, so if somebody can't even be like, excuse me, couldn't do you have any work? Yeah, but it's always been the case where somebody uh can show up at a job site and at least at the very least establish a relationship with somebody for work at some point, even if it's not at that point that day. Now the the fact that that exists uh as opposed to other industries that have sort of iron curtains, you can't do that. Like I can't just like show up and you know, tell us, or I can't show up somewhere else and say, hey, can I have a job? It doesn't really work that way, they cut all the whole process. Yeah. So maybe it's the fact that there are jobs in the past which are general labor jobs, sweeping a job site, or these I have to get a job. People are in certain life circumstances that creates this downward pressure on people having a complicated life. I think that is the one main notion that pulls people pulls that um mental health suicide quotient in. Because I don't actually think it's writ large the main problem. I think it's just there's used to be this cohort that came in because of life circumstances and added to it. Yeah. But it's but the broad level, I don't know if it's actually there.

Mental Health, Pressure, And Site Stress

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Well, and I think that's exactly it, is that you know, let's take that laborer, for example, all of a sudden he starts to improve and do better, he gets promoted and works his way up in the in the ecosystem. But all along the way, what's being added to him is more pressure, but without the skills to actually deal with that pressure.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

So no no saw sharpening has been happening in the past.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

And we love the stories of of Jimmy who worked his way up through the company and is now the superintendent. Yeah. But Jimmy is dying because all of a sudden now he's got way more pressure than ever before and never been taught on how to deal with those situations and even how to lead himself. But he's excited because he's making 150 grand and has a nice fancy truck, but he's also very stressed out and his wife doesn't want to work there anymore. So I don't know if it's very hopeful in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Well, and I I think too, like a lot of a lot of our companies have really done a disservice to the people that they've promoted and that they brought up through their companies because they haven't invested in their people and given them this you know the tools in the toolbox and the ability to deal with this pressure. Yeah. And also the ability to say, I'm struggling. It's okay to like have a conversation with your with your boss. I don't have it all figured out. I'm struggling and just to have that open conversation, right? And uh so I I think that this really helps uh encourage people to also really communicate and communicate with clarity. And I think I think a lot of a lot of the pressure, people have never been taught how to deal with this pressure in their life as they grow in their life and grow in responsibility, right? And it all has to do with us internalizing this pressure and putting it on our own shoulders instead of sharing the burden, right? As a team, as a collective team, as a collective group of leaders in the company, as an industry, quite frankly. Like we said in the innovation summit, right? And we heard Kevin Bieksa and Michael Landsberg talk about it this at length, right? And you got to hear the raw stories of the struggle, right? And I remember Michael saying, like, it was it was like breakthrough moment when all of a sudden he realized it didn't have he didn't have to do this journey alone, right? He could do it with others, and I think it's just about communicating and and and giving people the tools to deal with that.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

So me uh one advantage I had before this podcast was being able to chat with Christian, and uh he was saying that you guys could dig into this quite a bit. So he gave me a little bit of a leg up here.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 13:51

Um the the the different um classifications we have around intelligence, or so so-called intelligence, um IQ and then emotional intelligence, EQ, and this new one, AQ, which is the adversity quotient. And I was talking about you know me being a Gen Xer, what that it developed the adversity quotient. That generation was hardened by by that.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

And so is this something in the do you obviously talk about that in your uh in your coaching and how to build um uh your adversity muscle without it seeming like personal conflict?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, definitely. I think you know there's been a lot of talk about resilience, especially in the next generation. You know, a lot of people say uh younger workers, they're not resilient, they're snowflakes, they don't know how to work hard. And that's a common, I would say, misnomer. I think where we're seeing the differences is that people are lacking, are desiring purpose in their work. And so when we say they want meaningful work, uh they're saying they want meaningful work, we're saying you just don't want to work hard. The other thing is we talk a lot about how the next generation uh doesn't want to wait until they grow to their next position. They, you know, they they're impatient in their growth and development. And so we just help leaders say, hey, it's not really about just building resilience or making them wait, it's about actually giving them the tools to take on the next steps that they need to take in their leadership growth. So I I don't know if if you know we're necessarily building resilience, but I think we're building self-leadership, which helps people actually work through hard times and challenges that they face. And I think we're seeing a huge uh benefit in that because I think if you have a purpose and a vision for your life, things like burnout and struggle and and difficulty all of a sudden have a hope because you've got a vision for where you're going in your life. That's a theory at least.

Purpose, Patience, And Next-Gen Growth

SPEAKER_02 15:47

No, that's uh that seems that seems like that makes perfect sense. It g is there um when you t we you you mentioned um the patience. So isn't it today's world, because of instant gratification, I mean it is a thing. It is and the cycles seem to be very, very quick. Right now we move on to things very quickly, we move, you know, the younger generation moves on relationships by just swiping. Um they don't have to learn the skills of going to a bar and feeling uncomfortable with each other and be like, oh, I don't know what this feels like. This is awkward. Um is there something to be said for how can we provide some kind of a framework, maybe you've done this or not, is a framework to uh I'm gonna say frame again, but reframe what patience means. Because there is this feeling like I'm gonna lose out, and there's this sort of downward pressure of now the AI stories that you know one day I won't have to work because there's gonna be everyone's gonna get in. I mean, Elon Musk is out there saying this stuff. I mean the messages are, and you got influencers that are doubling down on this just to get clicks and pushing this narrative out there.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

And so to s to a lot of the younger generation, they're probably going, oh, like, what is should I just like phone it in for now? Because apparently it'll should be fine later?

SPEAKER_00 17:12

I think it's a great question. I I think it we're gonna feel like we're beating a dead horse here, but it comes down to purpose. And we spend a lot of time in helping people cultivate purpose for their life. And I think you're right. There's a generation now who is wondering, hey, why would I go work for somebody when I can just go make YouTube videos and make thousands of dollars and build a viral thing? The reality is that we need to help people know that we're on Earth here to make a bigger difference and just collect a paycheck. And if we can instill that, then things like patience make sense because now I wake up in the morning not just for a paycheck, but because my team needs me. We're building meaningful projects, we're building infrastructure in my local community, we're making a difference in the world around me. And I think that's actually what the next generation longs for, is they want to sign up for jobs that actually have purpose and meaning in their life, and here we are saying just be patient. And it's like, I don't know, let's actually flip it and say, what if we gave them a vision? Maybe then they'll be patient because they know what they're waiting for, at least in the life. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

Well, and I I think too, you know, this incident gratification thing, like you have to go through, you've got to be battle-tested in life to have resilience. Yeah, right? Yeah, and and the problem is what we're seeing is is that the you know that the attitude is that these people don't have resilience because they're not battle tested because they just want to jump, jump, jump, and skip, skip all the steps, right? And so I think take like at Caliber, we we give we give our team vision on how they will progress. We're very clear, right? If you if you make this, if you accomplish these things and you do these courses, and you will move on to the next level. There's core competencies, there's also leadership competencies. There's IQ, EQ, and AQ measurements, right? And it's that AQ, that adversity, like how do you deal under pressure? And we will come alongside and help you and coach you. And guess what? The first time you get into a conflict on site, it's probably gonna be hard because you didn't know, but then come to us, we'll help you coach through it. The next time, we will give you a tool that you've got to now deal with that, and that creates with those battles, those small battles, it creates resiliency, right? And that gives them confidence to go out in the world and make an impact. But you have to have a lot of people.

Hunter Vs Villager Mindsets On Site

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Well, the out in the world thing is something that I I really want to dig into this. And and you guys are the perfect like uh uh your knowledge is is is perfect for this question I'm gonna ask you guys, or this theory anyway. Is so I've been I've been really interested in trying to find a evolutionary psychologist or evolutionary biologist to know how how many generations does it take for us to change our behavior. And the reason I ask that is that there is something called hunter behavior and villager behavior. It's a different deal out there when you are uh in hunting grounds that you're not protected within the confines and the protection of the village, let's just say. If you're gonna open those village doors and then you're out in the wild, you have things that want to kill you, you have competing hunting grounds from other village people that want to kill you, or at least stop you from taking the game. And then on top of that, you have the tools that you need to be able to come home with pride to the village, and on top of that, you have the competition of who is the of prowess of bringing things back to the village. Who carried that on their back? Who is the one that is now revered by the rest of the town or the rest of the village? And the behavior, this is something that I find very fascinating, and I'll let you guys talk in a sec, but I want you guys to just see what you think of this, is the arguments and conflict that happen out in the hunting grounds with the hunters is different than the arguments that happen in the village. Because if we all go and argue out in the hunting grounds, someone might not be coming back with us, which is gonna not make us look good back in the village. So we can't do that. We can't fight like that because we A, we're not as strong to be able to get the game we need to be able to sustain the village, and B, we don't want to have to be ousted by the rest of the village saying, well, so and so didn't make it back because we Gotten an argument, that's not gonna work either because there's children involved, they're miss mating companionship, there's a whole bunch of other stuff. So, what do you guys think of that paradigm of the villager and hunter mindset mindset?

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Well, from for someone who is a hunter-gatherer like me, um you have survival instincts that kick in when you are outside of the confines of the village, right? And there are things that you have to overcome, problems you have to solve, fears you have to face. Like you said, somebody's good, you could be the hunted. Yeah. And so I think over the years, like being outside the confines of a safe space, controlled space, yeah, is a good thing for people's growth, right? It helps you face your fears. It it means you have to plan properly. You have to plan your route properly, you have to you know plan your food and your you have to be able to source water and everything, right? So it just creates a mindset of planning, it creates a mindset of facing your fears, it creates a mindset of dealing with adversity, right? Weather can change, all this stuff, but when you're in this little bubble, right, you don't have any of that. You don't, so it teaches you nothing. Well it's different arguments.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah. Different arguments when you're not. Different arguments, right? More emotional warfare. Yeah. Rather than physical warfare. Yeah. What do you think, Tom?

SPEAKER_00 23:35

Yeah, I mean, I I'm I'm trying to picture the the contextual crossover into construction. You know, I think that oftentimes our construction sites don't always feel um, they can feel like they're there's a lot of uh challenge, like it's in the wild, you know, and so then people are kind of fending for themselves. And I think what we're trying to say is it's kind of a race to the bottom right now with our leadership on our sites, and what would it look like for us to be more of a team on our on our site so that we can hunt together. Yes. And uh and so that's where my mind goes, and I I see a lot of um infighting, I see a lot of trades, like you know, disagreeing. A lot of our issues on site are them just you know trying to survive their own people, right? They're just trying to hunt for themselves. And that's not doing anybody good because there's limited resources, everybody's being pressured by the same schedules and budget restraints and procurement issues. And so here we have our sites that are actually very inefficient because the hunters aren't working together, and we've got multiple tribes all trying to hunt the same thing. And so that's where my mind goes. I don't know if that's the exact same contextual example, but I'm like, it is. How do we not help them work together and and actually hunt the same thing? And and there's enough, there's actually enough for everybody out there if we work smarter, not just harder.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

So here's the interesting part about all social media and social media communication is all village behavior. It is not hunter behavior, none of it. Because it's in fighting, it is like this is how this all works, because um there is an element of fighting out there in the in the hunting grounds usually turns into physical conflict. We're gonna beat the crap out of each other if we if we're not gonna get along. Whereas in the village, it's not. It's it's like I'm gonna cancel you, uh, you're not gonna be able to operate in the village like you used to. We're gonna make sure you're ostracized and no one gets to talk to you anymore. That is that. And construction is but when we see I see a lot of that behavior moving its way up when we have to deal with real hunter issues. Yeah. It's kind of a cool concept. It is very interesting. Yeah, it's very interesting. That's why I wanted to I I I don't know if you know, like an evolutionary psychologist who can say, like, no, we've we're kind of past that now. The these these instinctual, as you were saying, Ian, like these instinctual things that come over us when we get this point in the hunting grounds where we're like, oh, okay, there's that feeling. Well, how many generations is it until we don't have that feeling? I don't think we're gonna, I don't think that's gonna go away for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yeah, I think we're in it for a while. I think those things are gonna continue to be repeated, unfortunately. But then we have to then we have to learn from them, right? And begin to understand them, which is why that's a fascinating.

Cohorts, Curriculum, And Real ROI

SPEAKER_02 26:28

But it it is it is a pendulum swim swinging thing though. And I think it seems like it is coming back to, I mean, your timing is perfect for what you guys are doing because people do need to sharpen their saw before they go cut that tree down.

SPEAKER_03 26:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

Um so what else um have you so can we just talk about the the the cohorts you so you did them internally with caliber first? Yep, yeah. And then you're doing some work with Andrew Hansen at site doing some of these, uh, the filming of some things.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

And then uh, so with your new program, um, how many people in each cohort?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, so we're we're the the groups are run between 10 and 20 participants, and we want them to be intentionally uh intimate. Everyone's kind of learning from each other. You know, we by no means uh pretend that we've got the corner market on leadership content. It's really just a collection of some of the best that we've learned that's been helpful for us. We curated that, and then there's also a lot of group learning. You know, people are gonna sharpen each other and they're gonna challenge each other to hold each other accountable. And so we've got anywhere from uh you know owners of different subtrades all the way down to foremen from general contractors. And in the room, everybody's learning from each other and and uh sharpening each other, which is pretty inspiring.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Well that's pretty cool because you know, it's especially from your side, Ian, is that um with the the dovetailing of your two skill sets in the sage wisdom of years of years experience, and I mean you're not that young either, sorry. Um but uh there's a lot of coaching out there I've seen over the years where it's kind of you know, you get the coach and you know they have some good things, but I don't know, there's a there's an old um Dennis Miller, do you remember him, a comedian? Yeah. He's like, you know, if somebody's gonna tell me something, I want to see proof of purchase, it's like getting a sex talk from our priest. I want to see I want to see a zipper on the pants. Like I want to know you've been there. Because otherwise I don't I don't know that you have the experience. So when it comes to that's Dennis Miller, but I was quoting, it's not my joke. But but in terms of you guys have practical knowledge within the industry is my point. It's not just some coaching company uh like a McKinsey thing or something like that comes just, oh, maybe we can work in construction. You guys are grassroots and it's sort of bubbling up the right direction.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Well, and I think all of the like all of the applications and all of the different examples that we work through when we work through group like conflict resolution, like the the examples we use are real construction examples that these guys would be dealing with, right? And you know, it's it's interesting you kind of start at the beginning with, you know, you're kind of going along the the lines of like, well, if I invest in this, why would I do it? Right? I got to, you know, send my guys for four hours once a week, they're not gonna be on site producing for me. And, you know, I think it'd be very short-sighted to think like that. And you know, when I think of return on investment, you know, like our core purpose at Caliber is building people, right? And we invest a lot of money in that and time, but the return on investment is huge. It has allowed us to expand our business by building within. And what's what's cool about this story is you know, I have assistant supers in carpenter foreman who have gone through this program over the past two years and are going to be up for promotions shortly. Well, guess that what allows me to do? Is now I have a new superintendent. I now have a whole new project team that I can do work for. Well, that just created a whole new revenue stream I didn't have before because I created a whole new team, right? And it's because these guys have learned how to manage people, manage the stress of the increased responsibility and all these different tools, now they can do something to create, you know, something for our company as well as for themselves, right? Um, so it's a win-win, really.

How To Join And Where To Find It

SPEAKER_00 30:34

And on the other side, too, you know, there's obviously an investment, but the question I always come to is what is it costing you to not do these things?

SPEAKER_02 30:41

Yeah, well, that's the that's the long-term impact for sure.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Right? And so people, people don't realize the impact that poor leadership is having on their teams and on their sites, and it is costing. That costs a lot of money when you have turnover staff, you got safety issues, you got quality issues, you're not meeting deadlines. Um, and so there is a cost. So either way you pay. This is a question you want to pay now or pay later, is kind of how we think of it.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

I like it, I like it. So it's very, very cool. So, how do people get involved with this? I mean, is uh do you guys have a I saw some stuff on Instagram, but is there a separate website?

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yeah, we got a website uh connected to our caliber projects website right now, caliberprojects.com slash foundations of leadership. Okay, cool, yeah. And uh we're running cohorts out of Vancouver, Langley, and Chilliwac. Uh launching in, there's a few launching in April, and we're gonna launch a few more in the fall. So are you doing that at Andrew's place in Chilliwack? No, at a different spot in Chilacock. Yeah, yeah, we're partnering with different subcontractors and trades outside. So you guys have the different venues you guys have. Yeah, different venues. And that's a key part of what we want to do is we want to do this with the industry. Right. And so we're partnering with other general contractors and people that want to host. And so you can be a GC in a region and you want to host some of your sub trades, we're happy to come and do that as well. Um or if you're uh a subtrade and you want to join us in one of our existing cohorts, we'd love to have you.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

So well, very cool, guys. It's exciting stuff. Very cool.

Closing And Listener Resources

SPEAKER_02 31:58

Well, this has been a pleasure for me. Thank you very much for coming in. I know that you guys are busy doing this and you got a booth over there and doing all your stuff. So thanks for the time and the invitation. I appreciate it. Okay, guys. 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. You can also sign up for our monthly newsletter at SiteMaxSystems.com 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. SiteMax is also the engine that powers this podcast. All right, let's get back to building