Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1153. In this podcast, I'm going to talk to you about some of the things that you should start to do when you start getting behind. Stay with us. This is the Elevate Construction podcast delivering remarkable content for workers, leaders, and companies in construction wanting to take their next step. Get ready to step out of your comfort zone with Jason Schroeder as he encourages you to do better. Live a remarkable life and expect more. Let's go. Welcome everyone. I hope you're doing well and staying safe out there. I'm excited to do this little podcast with you. The I really do just love these because you like this is when we do LinkedIn content, YouTube content, you know, anywhere out blog posts, things like that. It's all very, very filtered. This is a podcast is a great way to just talk and just share one on one. So I just love it. I'm actually heading to a YouTube video shoot this morning. So I'll go through and do 20 topics today and they're all, you know, OK, so like how to audit a construction company, how to evaluate a construction company, how to manage a construction company, how to manage construction. Can superintendents get fired? These are all these are all topics that I get to go cover and they're they're very well researched, very well done. The editing company is really, really great, but I don't get to just kind of talk, you know, so I just love podcasts and I love interacting with the rest of you, it really is quite fantastic. And I want you to know that nothing on the YouTube channel is duplicated on the podcast. Like all of the topics are completely different. So if you want more content, the YouTube channel is definitely a place to go. So I want to give everybody an update. There is just a couple of things because it's been a couple of days since I recorded a podcast. Kate and I are jamming on the tax steering and control book. We're doing great. We're already two sections in. I think if I had to calculate, we're already 60 pages in and and rocking. And we've been developing the visuals and the things for this book for quite some time. So while everybody's enjoying the first planner system book, which got its first five star rating on Amazon and got some really good feedback today, actually, on on how well the person liked it. I'm really excited about that. Um, that, that first planner system book will show how to, how to prepare a project. Then the tech book means how to plan one with rhythm, tax steering and controls, how to create the flow. And then the last planner book with our, our peeps over there at the lean builder, like that's just a winning formula when you put them all together. Because those systems all work well from start to finish, if implemented as a whole. Now, one quick thing from a news perspective on the on tax steering and control. I've seen some really disappointing LinkedIn posts about tax steering and control, what it means and what it doesn't mean. And I'm just, uh, it's just really incoherent. Uh, if you know, you know what I'm talking about, but there was a blog post done about a tech control and production control. And it referenced the research paper and just in the first five minutes of looking at it, uh, like every single thing that the author said it, tact control was not, was actually what the research paper that he was referencing said it was. And it's just very disappointing how disconnected, contentious and, um, inaccurate these posts are. So I'm really excited about the tech steering and control book to come out because we don't need to get all uppity about the names of things. Uh, tax control is basically implementing production control on site. And tax steering is the steering of the train of trades through the project. And tech control is the control of production at the worker level with the foreman on site and daily check ins and the control of the environment. And so, um, I, a little update is, I'm really excited that this book is going well. We can dispel some of the nastiness that's currently out there in the industry. That's just super distracting. For those of you who have to experience it, I want you to know that it makes me nervous. I'm sorry that you have to go through it and we're doing our best to get caught up. Okay. So let me go ahead and read some feedback from our listeners here. I'm going to just start from top down. This is a long one, but, um, here we go. I'd love to hear your thoughts about how to police a meeting. So often you'll get people starting to go off on tangents and you've got to bring them back respectfully. Sometimes that means interrupting them and saying the thing that needs to be taken offline because the meeting is getting bogged down and everyone's starting to disengage. One thing I've seen used before, but the whole company had to already know what this meant was to have a rule that someone could only be mentioned two times. Once to explain the issue and have an initial discussion about it and if it can't get resolved right away and the topic comes up again a second time, it's a scientist, someone had taken offline so that it doesn't derail the rest of the meeting. And then if people start going back to that topic and debating a third time, everyone would start holding up two fingers as an indication, Hey, we've already talked about this twice. We've assigned it and we're moving on. I wonder if there are other tips for respectfully cutting off branching tangents. Finally, keeping an eye on the clock, we book a lot of one hour meetings with a bunch of topics that we hope to cover and 45 minutes in. You're not even halfway through the topics. I always try to save the last 10 minutes of the meeting for a recap as you talk about here to make sure actions are assigned and everyone understands what they're supposed to do. Sometimes that means amputating some of the topics in a meeting and pushing them to the next meeting, curious to hear your thoughts on that. Okay, so I don't know. So the policing and meeting, I understand the concept there and I don't fault you for saying anything in that direction. But I will say I'd probably look at it as facilitating a meeting and keeping everyone on rhythm. I love this concept that all of the trade partners are professional musicians and the superintendent is the choir or the orchestra conductor. Meaning that you're not leading, you're not bossing them around. You are leading them. You're not bossing them around and you're not telling them how to play their instrument, but you are attempting to keep them in sync. And it is your job to do that on the job site and in a meeting. And so I would say my response to the first paragraph there would be to create standards around how meetings are run and post them on the wall. I used to love it when DPR did this with their meeting guidelines. It just gave everyone someone to anchor to and I would use whatever tool you want to do, whether it's calling a sidebar, throwing an Elmo doll. It's probably a stuffed animal more than a doll, but like the Lean Builder folks do, which I love that idea, we're saying, Hey, can we set something up later just one on one? I found it best to show the framework of the meeting is to start out positive with a good framework, do a lightning round where everybody gets to announce their topics, then we actually order the meeting, go through the actual topics. And if somebody starts to go on a sidebar, I will just gently interject and say, Hey, I really think this topic is important, but I think it's probably too expansive to be discussed right now. Can we set something up separately or sidebar? And usually people feel dejected or rejected or whatever the word is. Unless I write it down and say, I will personally help that interaction to get set up. Then they're like, OK, he's serious. He's not just telling me to shut up. So I don't know about the rule. I think it would be a really hard thing to implement the two fingers thing. I think it's really going to work in my personal opinion. If you set the culture and find a way to respectfully deal with their issues, people want to be listened to. And if I'm like, Hey, let's sidebar this. And I write down the action item to actually schedule a meeting or a little huddle or something later, most of the time they feel listened to as far as the clock, your post got me to start reducing the duration of meetings with a buffer instead of an hour, scheduling them for 45 minutes or 30 minutes. And when I talk to the folks that schedule meetings over here, I'll usually ask them for a shorter duration on purpose and then say, Hey, please leave a buffer at the end of it. And it seems to be working as far as the topics and how to run the meeting, you can give yourself a range or be really strict. But the lightning round is key for that because the lightning round is where everyone brings out their topics and you're able to rank them. So if you do run at a time, then you know you've gotten the most important or urgent topics first. So I hope that helps and that that's a little bit of a boost to something that you already know. You know, most of the people that write in already know what they need to do. They just need a confirmation. And so I just think your plan is pretty great. And I appreciate the opportunity to respond. Okay, let me cover the topic today when you start getting behind. Think about right now, what would you typically start to do if you got behind on a project? Okay, typically in the industry, you would say you need to hurry. You would need to start to panic and you would share that with other people. You would start to get angry. You would start to ask for more labor for crews. You would probably start to work overtime. You would probably start to push the project management team. You would probably start to order materials and stalk them so that you weren't waiting on materials because that's really frustrating. You don't want to see workers waiting on materials, right? You would increase your work and process, right? Because you're like, hey, more things being worked on, more things getting done. It's a one for one, which it's not, but you would think that, right? And you would start to add like like throw money at this situation, right? You would start to do all of these things. You would start to get stressed. You would start to think about work when you get home. You would start to let things go, right? So maybe not keep an eye on safety, quality, you know, cleanliness, things like that. You would start to maybe ignore things like trash piling up, right? Or systems breaking down. Maybe the bathrooms are dirty and you need to be on top of it, but you're like, I don't have time to worry about it, right? These are the things that human beings naturally start to do when they get behind. I don't know if this is nature, nurture, design, or evolution. I don't know what it, where it comes from, but what we should start doing. And this is the habit that I want to encourage everybody about. And if you ever get into a spot, we can text every morning and I can encourage you, whatever you want to do. Oh, by the way, we do have a Discord chat for LeanTact, where if you ever need help with these things, you can just text in. I check it all the time. It's an access, it's access to our entire 50 person team. Anytime you want, it's free. You just hop in, take care of it. It's great. Okay. So we already know what human beings typically do. Now, what you should be doing is, is pull back and do more planning. Make sure the next tasks are going well. I would even say, Hey, Assistant Superintendent, you manage these two or three current fires that we have. Let me get ahead and start properly planning. Let me start to really dig deep in the precon meetings. Hey, let me pull plan the next portion of the phase. And you can involve the Assistant Superintendent or let us, let me just change it to that. Pull plan, precon meeting, do look ahead planning. Let's go ahead and simulate how the work can go in. Let's really dial in the sequence so it works for you. Let's really start spending good time managing the supply chain. Let's really, really get good team buying in our form and huddles and really dig in there. Let's form a rally cry of stability and focus on the project site. Like, let's slow down, let's slow down and do things right and plan and prepare. And you will be able to recover your project better than anything else. And I was thinking about that, like that works in personal life and in relationships as well. Like when things start to go bad in your relationship, you shouldn't panic and yell and get pissed off. It's, that is the exact time to stop, slow down, calm down and get present. Right? If you're in an emergency, you don't start running around and freaking out. If people are in a manhole and you think they're dead, you don't hop in there. That is the time to stop, slow down, think it out, think it through and be present. Right? On a project site, we start getting behind. Yeah, that is the time to calm down. The Navy SEALs have it right. Slow is smooth and smooth as fast. So if I was, here's my advice. If I was starting to get behind on a project, I would really make sure that I have a great pole plant. I would huddle with the foreman and trade partners and get their input. We would create a rally cry together. We would double down on look ahead planning. I would spend more of an effort managing the supply chain. I would make sure pre-con meetings were remarkable. I would double down on cleanliness, which is hard because I would make cleanliness perfect. I would double down on safety. I would double down on worker care. I would keep the morale high. I would slow down and get present. So I just, this came up the other day or sorry, came up the other day and it just happens. It's just human nature. I don't fault anyone for it, but we do have to make sure that we keep that in mind when we start getting in trouble if you want to finish well. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. On we go. Please join us next time in elevating the entire construction experience for workers, leaders and companies coast to coast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to share with your construction colleagues and help us spread the word by rating, subscribing and leaving a review on your preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate it. We'll catch you next time on the Elevate Construction Podcast. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
