Anyone Can Be a Leader (ft. Wally Adamchik) | #16

Information is power. So how about we empower our people Hey everybody, thanks for joining us today you are listening to the real MF first podcast. I am Scott peper, the CEO and co founder mobilization funding. With me today I have a great guest someone that is very popular on all different social channels has been in and around the construction world for the better part of almost three

decades now. We met on LinkedIn specifically I loved his content and so much so that I just wanted to bring him here on our on our podcast so I can help share with you guys some of the nuggets and wisdom that I've been able to pull from him and I know some of our clients have to

So Wally at am check. He is the president of Firestarter speaking consulting and you can find him at construction leadership.com amongst also finding him on LinkedIn where I did so Wally Welcome and thank you for joining us. I'm grateful for the opportunity to officially be an MF are so happy to be here. You are You are now officially an MF er maybe not combat for the typically called exactly right. I've been on officially won for years.

Anyway, well, I loved your content on LinkedIn, particularly some of your videos what I what I liked most about it is your your interesting, you know, I mean, that's the best part about it candidly, you have topics that everyone loves, and who doesn't want to talk about culture and being a good leader and doing the things that need to be done. But what I really appreciate about you is you're interesting in communicating

with them. And in the process of doing that you you captivate the audience now I haven't been part of your individual consulting or some of the seminars you do. But talk to me a little bit about how you got into construction. Where did your passions come from? And how did you end up doing this for 25? plus years? Yeah, well, it really goes back more than 25 years, my dad and brother were Teamsters, working in the trades in New York City.

So you know, he was a General Superintendent, by that time, my brother, I don't know if he was running work, but he certainly did, you know, got into it very quickly. But I remember being 13 years old, working on jobs in New York City as a helper, you know, running out in the middle of the Bronx to go get, you know, coffee breaks and, and of course, the whole the menial work. So, you know, when I hang out with construction people, these are my people, right? It's as if I'm with Family. And I, I

think they get that, right. I'm not some guy with an NBA part of the family who has an opinion that may be relevant. Yeah, I get that. I think the term I used to call the job that you described, which I also had, I was called the gopher boy, you know, go for this, go for that. Go get that out of the truck. I forgot. Yeah, go get us coffee, go get one. I was just doing whatever it took with a group.

My dad had a commercial contracting and glazing company, which you may know I've talked about many times before, but I used to peel. This is back when you made your own insulated glass with the hot talks, I'd be in fabrication shop doing that. And then once once we bring them out to the side, I had to peel all the little stickers off and kind of get them ready and prep them and then get just clean,

clean everything really well. I mean, I've had some of the worst jobs and it was in upstate New York, which is freezing cold. And so I get it. You're right, but you build a you build a cadence and a habit to who you're with and it comes across that makes perfect sense to me. How did you pivot that though, into saying, Oh, I cool. I want to do it in a consulting way. Like why didn't all suit and just stay right on this job sites? Well, you know, I was I was the product of the American dream,

right? I mean, I went to college, which my dad obviously didn't Well, obviously, but you know, he was volunteered for World War Two in Korea and got into construction. You know, my brother tried it a little bit, but it didn't work out for him. So, you know, I like I said, I was the American dream and that, you know, my parents made it better for me than it was for them. So I went to college graduate of Notre Dame but

couldn't pay for it. So commissioned in the Marine Corps, ROTC when did that for 10 years. And oh, by the way, there's a lot of applicability to what we do in the Marine Corps and what we do in construction, with the nature of leadership, distributed workforce, out in the field, equipment, etc. So that entire piece of my life, once again makes me directly relevant to what's going going on in the

industry got out. While I was getting my MBA got when I worked for Arby's restaurants for a couple of years, I was a regional manager. Now, you know, once again, p&l responsibility understanding the business understanding growing a business. The fast track back into construction was I spent a little bit of time with FMI, many of your listeners would know them as management consultants to the construction industry. Good bunch of guys,

still a good bunch of guys. We had some philosophical differences, in addition to my wife giving me the ultimatum that said, you're traveling way too much. So that was that was the impetus to start the business 20 something years ago, was the ultimatum. But it's been a good ride since then.

That's cool. Man. I think, you know, when you did you, did you think about how you'd help engage the construction world to solve the problem of not traveling as much as it did come to you right away, I'm just gonna do consulting, or I'm gonna not have to travel. I'll do this. What other ideas of things you want to do? Well, there were three, you know, when, when, during that fateful dinner with my wife, we had three basic choices, right? I had three

basic choices. One was continue what I'm doing get divorced, yeah, not good option at that time, still not go get a real job, whatever the hell that looks like, right, nine to five or whatever the heck that was, and then go back in the rates. And that clearly, that wasn't as good an option. And then it was like, Wait a second, maybe I could do this on my own. And, and, again, worked through some things, and was really fortunate enough to get some clients early

on. And I'm proud to say they're still clients. That's awesome. So you say you start Firestarter, that's what you started. Right? That was? Yep. And what was your? Like? What was your focus on them? When you originally started? Like, what did you know, you and I had some conversations prior, and I understand and hear from you, as you're a problem solver, you know, and so, you got into consulting, and you went into solve a problem? Well, I would call myself I was

a trainer, right? I would come in and train on, like, whatever you wanted me to train on, right? Because I was starting a business. And I said yes to a lot of stupid things meant, like many of your LinkedIn posts that talk about some of the stupid things you guys have done, yours just cost you a hell of a lot of money when you do them. Right. And, you know, but I was with my people trying to deliver, you know, information that was relevant to them. And what it evolved into was leadership

development. Now, that's a big umbrella underneath that is communication skills, you know, change management, supervision, morale, leadership, motivation, etc. But it's all really around leadership development. And that involves into some culture, and stuff like that. Nice. So let's talk on that topic for a minute. You know, so I'm, we're, I'm a construction owner, I'm listening to this, I'm in all different types of trades, or different avenues that might even support

construction. And quite frankly, we have a lot of clients and listeners that don't, that aren't a construction, but they still leadership and culture is an important thing. Talk to me about your philosophy and leadership and culture. And if you are a business owner and construction, how do you cater to them specifically, so that they can understand like, why is that important? You know, is it just doing your job? Or is it more than that? You know, like, what, what is it? Like,

tactically? How do you? How do you build a culture? How do you be a good leader? Like, why? Why do you do that? Yeah. So you asked me two questions there. One was philosophy, and then you know, all the rest of that, you know, I wish I could tell you my philosophy is x, because I think it evolves every couple of years. But I think it's always been Don't be a jerk. You know, if I look back at some of my writing over the years, just don't be a jerk. Right? What are

you doing from now? Leadership, two kinds, right, interpersonal and organizational. Right. So obviously, they're totally related. But as we've talked about interpersonal leadership, don't be a jerk. And when to really get down to it, what are you doing? How are you behaving? How are you engaging people so that they will quote take the bullet for you? Right, that they will show up early, stay late double check the quality and actually care. You know, I think if leadership is working, we

create people who care. Now, context construction industry, what does that look like? So leadership is leadership. Yeah, to a point, we have to understand the context in the first context we have to understand is personalities are one of the first contexts we have to understand as personalities that this is a task oriented get her done in industry, right? If we look at the DISC profile, which many people are familiar with, and, you know, there's tasks versus

people orientation. And we've done nearly 20,000 discs over the last 25 years or so. So I'm very comfortable in what I'm about to say that when you step into a room of construction professionals, you depending on the balance of field and office and stuff like that, but let's go with 70% of the folks in that room plus or minus are task oriented, meaning they're hardwired to get the thing done. That's wonderful. Except they're hardwired not to tend to the

relationship first. Right? So if I'm talking about how do we create trust, and how do I get people to take the bullet for me? Well, the relationship part really matters, right? So you have to understand that context. You know, if I walk into an organization, and say, hey, it's all about, you know, apple pie, and teddy bears, and you know, all that stuff, I'll get shown the door, right, this is a low margin, bottom line focused, schedule driven industry. And if my solutions don't appeal to

that person, I fail. More importantly, they fail. And I think that's the real issue. So understanding the people context, the only thing you understand, in me delivering what I do well, is you have to understand the context of that specific business. Is it a $50 million company? And if we bring in every superintendent, we shut them down for a day? Is it a billion dollar company within Atlanta, for example, where we can do leadership development, like once a month for five

months? Or is it $5 billion company where we can bring people into a common geography for five days? Or maybe we have to bring them in to the common geography for five days? Because they're distributed otherwise, if we don't understand and, by the way, virtual has enabled some other cool things. But if we don't understand that, if I don't understand that, and if I don't tell her my offering, to that specific context to that organization, I failed and way too many consultants, that's

exactly what they do. They come in with their their textbook answer, the only thing they do is change the PowerPoints from, you know, my company to you know, company A to Company B, and they deliver the exact same content, good content, but not tailored content. And there are nuances across the trades, there's nuances across union, merit, non union, whatever, there's nuances across

geography. I actually had saw a consultant, a new consultant to the industry, a year or two ago, come out and say, Could somebody explain the difference between union and non union to me? And I was like, Are you freaking kidding me? But those are the pretenders that are out there. And regrettably, you and I have to deal with them all the time, because they give all of us a bad name.

Yeah, they do have union generalizing, of course, people, and rightfully so you're going to their their experience, past expecially is going to carry weight and what they think about the rest of the war, the rest of the people in that trade. And so it's very important to differentiate yourself, which is why I think it's important doing things like this, or having a great LinkedIn profile, so you can differentiate yourself versus just having to do it in a

live call. Okay. So getting to something you said, and I want to be able to make this tactical for our listeners. So I'm a construction business owner. I'm thinking yeah, consulting is great. I don't know if I can I can't shut the world down. How do I know? Yes, of course, I want to be a good leader. Yes, of course, I want to have a great culture. But here's what here's what's happened. And I've learned in the construction world a lot of times similar to

others. Usually, you are already feeling some type of pain for managing some type of problem that you then ultimately, like, I need a solution. Right? And of course, that's not the ideal time to bring you in, but that's when you come in. Okay. So let's just assume that's the case.

What are the problems? If I'm a business owner right now and I'm experiencing or what pain Am I feeling to whereas Oh, hey, man, I should be looking to Wally, to bring in now to help me fix this versus just just suffer through it like I normally do. Yeah, well, there's a number of pains obviously, but the one that I'm gonna get involved in today is turnover and retention. Right. You know, now that extends to safety, quality, production, etc. When you really

get down to it. What did I see the other day the homebuilder said 750,000. People needed turnover. I'm losing folks retention. I'm not keeping who I have to Yeah. And so what do you do? In those instances? What what is the fix? What's the solution? Well, really depends on the organization like you, there's a good bit of due diligence involved, to see if, if they're a fit for me when I'm a fit for

them, right? You know, I learned this one a long time ago that if you're going to bring me in to do the, quote, annual training, annual training on a Saturday, you're really not committed to leadership development. Right? Now, that's an extreme example, but you get the point. I had a guy a couple of weeks ago, say, Hey, you did a seminar? How come things haven't changed? I'm like, Well, have you done? The XY and Z that I suggested you do

after the seminar? Right? Did you I noticed that the video that I sent the reinforcing video that I sent, which we bundle as part of our training, you know, it's no cost, it's just there, I noticed that nobody watched it to do actually send it out. You know, I mean, so changing culture, leader development takes time, right. And really, I'm not generally in a situation where I'm changing culture, if it's a bad culture, they don't want me or they don't

know they need me. I work with good firms and get them to be better. And I work with great firms to help them stay Great. Now, that's not arrogance. That's just the reality of it. When you look at quality initiatives, and those kinds of things, across manufacturing, actually, where this comes from people who are good, want to get better. People who are bad have no frickin idea, or they don't

want to get better. So I'm generally working with folks who clearly understand that they have a need, and they clearly understand what they need to do, but they don't know how to do it. True or false. If I'm a bad leader, I'm at the top, is the rest of my leadership going to be good or probably going to be bad? I guess it depends on how you define leadership. In my first book, no yelling, the Ninth Circuit's and Marine Corps leadership, you must know to win

in business. One of the chapters was make new leaders, right leaders make new leaders. So to your point, if they're good, they're creating new ones. Yes, right. But some people don't. Some people have a really hard time letting go. So they may be able to develop a crew. And it's phenomenal. But they can't scale that across five crews. Right? So no textbook answer what you said. Yes, good leaders have good leaders in the organization. The reality of it is there's there's more to it.

Yeah. Do you think leadership starts at the top? Yes, comma, but that doesn't mean that there's bad leadership at the top, you can't have good leadership in the ranks. In fact, I don't care what your leadership is at the top. If you're running a crew, you're responsible for the crew. Right? So but yes, yes, I want senior leaders to be role models. And regrettably, I hear it all the time. You know, this would be really good if the boss would do

this stuff, right. But yes, leadership, ideally does start at the top of the organization and cascade down. But then no matter where you are in the organization, you know, if you're running a paving crew of 10, guys, you're the leader of that crew. So that is the top right, you know, you bring up a good point because I love you will think all leadership is the executive leadership and you know, okay, yeah, they're

leaders. But I believe and subscribe to the philosophy that everyone's a leader, you're either leading yourself and the talk that you have with yourself every day you're in your own head. Or you're leading yourself like I said, when other people to towards a common goal or mission and I think I think everyone's a leader, you just develop into different aspects of leadership based on where you are in your experience or progression or time. And that

doesn't mean age. I mean, tends to go with age but doesn't have to mean it. But I think when people say Oh, I'm not I'm not I'm not a really good leader. So I'm that's I just like doing what I'm doing well, you you're leading yourself, no matter what, there's a path you're taking yourself out every single day with every choice you make. And so do you find that those

conversations come up? Or do you think that's a philosophy most people agree to or believe or see, or what's your what's your thoughts on that? I think the one about anyone can lead is a phrase that many people hope is true. And you hear it Yeah, everybody and your point about self leadership is

absolutely true. And there's a lot of people that abdicate and push off for a lot of reasons and that's one of my favorite definitions of leadership, which I can tell you where I stole it is a leader creates and sustains and somebody the belief that they can do something until they can sustain that belief themselves. A leader creates and sustains the belief in somebody that they can do something until they can sustain that belief themselves. You can do it no, I can You can do it, you know, I

can You can do it. Well, maybe I can do it. You can do it. I can do it right now, that took some time. But let me go back to the craftsman, right the person who is just really good with his or her tools, right? And they're a craftsman, right? And, and they don't, they don't want to leave, right? They I just love doing what I do. Right? There's nothing wrong with that, right. And regrettably, we often throw that guy into a leadership position. And it goes horribly,

right? Because now the leader creates a stain somebody's belief that they can do something right now maybe we have an obligation to help that person evolve into that role. But some folks were put on this face of theirs to be a craftsperson to be an operator, right to move a multi ton piece of equipment as if it were, you know, a feather. So we really

have to understand that. But that means I have to get to understand my people get to know my people have a relationship with my people, which oh, by the way, takes time. And oh, by the way, 70% of the folks in the organization don't have that in their DNA in the first place. Yeah, no, it's not there. These are skills you can learn. You're not Yeah, these are skills that you can absolutely learn and develop. So question, how do you learn to develop those skills?

That if that's true, how do you learn and develop those skills? Well, education, right. So when I, if I were to do a personality profiling, you'd say, Hey, dude, you're task oriented. And this is really good about that. But here's the things that are really bad about that. And if you want X people to do, if you want people take the bullet for you, you need to like actually make them feel like they matter. And, you know, obviously, I'm giving you the Reader's Digest

version. But if I made you feel insignificant, if I did, all right, well, here's the basic motivation, and the concept of inclusion, right? Inclusion is you're on my team, right? If I were to, you know, put my arms around the team, right, you're included, or you're not. If I include you, you psychologically feel significant, you feel like you matter, because I included you. Well, if you feel like you matter, then what I think is important may actually matter to you, right? Because I've made

you feel like you matter. But flip it around, you're the new guy, and you come on to the job site, and everyone's going out for lunch, or sitting around having lunch, and we treat you like you're the new guy in a war movie, like don't get to know Joe Blonsky. He's going to be dead in two days. Right? And I hold you at arm's length and keep you on the outside. I make you feel in significant. Well, how's that for motivational

strategy? And I'll tell you what, Scott, there is no person on the face of the earth that I've ever given that example to that doesn't get it immediately. Because at one point in our life, we were all in or out, right? We were included or excluded. We've all been there. Right? So when you put it in, and when you put it when I put it in terms like that, right? People get it, right. They're like, Oh, that's what leadership is. And oh, by the way, I never said lower the standard.

That's why, you know, you bring up a good point, because I think that's how everybody can be a contributor to good leadership and a culture. If you have a culture as as the leader at the top, you made a great point. So are you getting your point there as an individual, but as a leader at the top will you want to do as a leader on top is foster those kinds of interactions by speaking and communicating people, Hey, to Blonsky is new guys taking the lunch with you. Don't leave them

hanging. Don't assume that he doesn't want coffee, or once we get him on, include them, bring them on the truck, put him with your best guys that are the most personable, like you can do things as a leader. That's good leadership by creating an atmosphere, an environment where to Blonsky, the new guy, which I love, by the way that name

Blonsky comes on board. And you've you've given guidance that you're sending it off in the right direction versus letting everyone trying to figure out what the direction is no, like, guide it. That's good leadership at the top. So then extend that right that so we were in a training session or program with 25 foremen. And I say this, but now the vice president of operations is in the room, or the President comes at the end and says, Hey, hope

you guys had a great time. And then the President is out on the jobsite at two in the morning. And he goes Hey, Scott. You know, I know you graduated from the leadership program last week. How are you doing with and he picks a subject from the class Right, that is when you create culture. And by the way, that's a specific example for one of my favorite people in the world with one of our programs that he goes out there, he talks

about it. Yeah. You know, and the other thing, and I'm curious what your thoughts is, how much of leadership is done by action and how much of it is done with words, the majority is done with action. You know, I've written two books on leadership, one was marine based, and one was construction leadership from A to Z. And I swore to myself that the second one was not going to be like derivative of the first, like, you know, Wally 1.0. Well, a 2.0. And I really did everything I could, because many

books simply are derivative. And I really said nothing's gonna be the same, right? There's gonna not gonna be any content that is the same. Yeah, well, there's a couple of pieces that I couldn't get around. In my Marine book, it was called set the example. Right, and in A to Z. M is model, as in be a role model.

And that actually came from the industry because I put out a survey and with all these A to Z words, and the industry said, model matters, I couldn't give you a percentage, Scott, what I can tell you is up to 70% of the culture of a workgroup comes from the leader of the workgroup. Now the workgroup could be a, you know, a crew, or a division or something like

that. And, you know, so when you, if you don't like what your team is doing, the next place you look is in the mirror, because up to 70% of the culture, that work group is because of what the leader has put in place. Yeah, yeah, it's funny, because, you know, again, ashes dictate

the most leadership, right? So if you, I believe two things, if you just come to work every day, and you lead with great action, and don't communicate anything verbally, you'll have some people follow and you might, you won't get as much as if you combine the two. But if you verbally communicate things you want people to do, but your actions are 100%, the other direction, no one's gonna follow you, people will look at you as disingenuous and just not normal. Like you're just not

natural. And it's just not someone I want to follow, because we call that a lack of honesty and integrity. So we call it hypocritical, we don't know, you're absolutely right. But to your point about being a role model, you know, that's one way of one philosophy of leadership, right? There's coaching, right? You can, you know, there's watch me get over the wall, there's just putting it out there, you need to get over the wall, there's, let me help you get over the wall, put your foot

here, put your foot here. So there's, there's several pieces, and the best leaders would have a little bit of all of that. Yeah. And to the to the folks there that are on the team, judging the executive, we were leaders, or other leaders, I would say, you know, like, it's very easy to critique the leader, terrible leader, they can do that I can do this. Yes, granted, no doubt, and some of

them justify it. I don't even want to say but I'm gonna say and when you though, are saying you're going to do something in your own head. Whether it's show up on time, go early, whatever it is, you say you're going to do or know that you should do but you choose not to. You don't have the right to judge them either. Because if you can't read your own self to do what you know, you should be doing

right or wrong. You don't really get the you don't really get to judge the the leader you're both equally as bad just because they have a title that makes them a leader doesn't mean they're any more of a leader less leader. Yeah. Yeah, you know, call it accountability or whatever. But yeah, and isn't that we want in our employees, we want employees

to be accountable. Right. So as a leader, I'm wanting to behave and speak in such a way that encourages people to be accountable, then if they're not well, there's a conversation we have and it could like you said, start with an internal dialogue in that person as to why they are they aren't. Yeah, so I'm gonna switch gears a little bit to things there's a lot of issues out there and construction are always is it's a complex business and industry. We touched on labor a little bit

now already. What other Edge Hot Topic, real urgent issues are there right now in construction and what are you seeing out there? And then second part of that question is what do you see in folks do to manage that appropriately? And how can they do better? Yeah, I can I usually have a notepad because there's six things that went through my mind when you ask the question. First one was supply chain, that self explanatory these days. Next one is technology and leveraging

technology correctly. Next one, and these are no in no order, by the way. Next one is environmental. You know, decarbonisation and sustainability and those kinds of things right. Next one is the whole dei diversity, equity inclusion thing. And then one near and dear to your heart is cash. because interest rates are in a place, we haven't seen them in quite some time. And then you tie that into increasing costs,

right? So your contractors are more on the edge financially than they have been in quite some time. So take your pick which one one of those you want to do? Well, let's pick one that is a little bit, um, people don't like to talk about maybe it's uncomfortable. So I'll pick let's pick Dei. So we're talking about teams, we're talking about leadership to me, a team and a leadership, a team specifically as you have a group of people working towards one goal, one purpose, in unison for the

betterment of the team. At the end of the day. That's my definition of a team. Yeah. Okay. So let's just say if that's we can all agree on that. And we don't have a way to pull our audience right here right now. But let's say that's a general philosophy, and most people can buy into what do you think about creating separate groups within your team based on DDI? Let me back up for a second. Because people will say, well, well, a lot, you know, and I'll go, here's my di philosophy,

right? How are you going to lead and manage people that don't look and act and think like you? Right? Because the workforce is more diverse than it's ever been. So you're going to have to lead and manage people who don't look and act and think like you, which means I need to get over some baggage that I've been carrying for 20 3050 years. Right. So there's the leadership

component to that. To the point about, first of all, if you're talking about just creating the team, right, then the team is the team, but creating what I'll call support groups, or peer groups within the team, so that they can commiserate? Like, you know, and maybe, and but they've been taken to extreme whether it's the, you know, the people of color are the women, right, but what about veterans, right? You know, each of these constituencies, has some unique

challenges. And for them to create a create a forum to support each other, so that they can function more effectively out on the job. I have no problem with that. But clearly, some of these groups in some places have become, you know, counterproductive. But if we go back to your quote, your point about your definition about, hey, we come together to do something, that's what a team

is. If this, if this networking group or support group helps me get people on the job to succeed and be more successful, I'm all for it. Yeah. So you know, I have, I don't know if moms say it this way. I have a philosophy on this, that I've learned over time and years of just being in and out of great teams. I think you can have subsets of teams, obviously, if you're one large company, I work in large medical device companies. There's a marketing team, there's a sales team, okay, we're all going

towards one goal. So you can have subsets of teams. However, the difference between those are you have departments of teams. But when I think if you create teams that are based purely on someone's skin color, or whether they're a male or a woman, man or a woman to commiserate with one another, or two, because you feel like that's the the the part that makes that group is purely based on something that people were born with from God. I just don't I just think that's totally counterproductive to a

team and environment. Now, I do think people need support groups. And I think that support groups should come from the whole team. And everyone should do that. And that's part of why culture is so important and

leadership in that. But I think if you have little groups within so that they can commiserate each other, but those groups are based on just the color of someone's skin, or the fact that they're a man or a woman or or they identify as something else, you know, whatever that may be, we the whole team should be kind to everybody. Yeah. And not

that's my personal belief. And so I think those teams are actually actually part of the problem that even though they probably were created with good intent, I think you're actually creating part of the leadership problem. Well, and the difference here is, is and I think we're saying the same thing is, you know, operational teams doing work support groups, providing a place like the bowling team as a support group, right, you got a bunch of people that go like the

ball, right? operational focus, as opposed to support group, right, if you're creating teams based on some stereotypical, whatever, the hell no, right. So yeah, I think we're on line with that. Yeah. Because if the thought process is to unite everybody in one Mission. But yeah, part of uniting everyone is to create separate groups underneath that mission, it's totally makes no sense and counterproductive. So I would just caution leaders out

there. If you're leading construction for us, you know, when you get on that, when you put your hard hat on, and you go out on that construction site, it doesn't matter who you are, or what you are you guys all pay attention to safety first, you know, look out for your teammate. I mean, nothing about that, to complete permission to the job, nothing about that should have anything to do with any physical characteristic. No, regrettably, in our society, a lot of this has been, I'll use

the word politicized. But, you know, my philosophy is, hey, once we get inside these four walls, as long as it's not illegal, I don't care what you're doing outside the four walls, four walls, right? You know, so let's, let's go. Yeah, and because we got it, this is for leaders, right? We're talking about leaders. So if you want to lead your team,

that's why you're listening. And especially if you're listening to this this far, and look, be kind to everyone, but lead by creating an environment that everyone is part of and aligned on your team. That doesn't mean you need to include the noise from the TV set, or the noise of how someone needs to tell you what to believe it's your team, you're going to be accountable to your business. Lead, everybody has one collective group towards one collective goal. That's what a team.

So this is where we get to the latest buzzword in my business, and it's called values, right? Is there a clearly articulated set of values that have value, ie, we follow them, and people care about them in the organization. Now, it's a buzzword, because everybody says this, right. And if you go 20 years ago, every contractor had the same for value, safety, quality, integrity, and customer service. And many of those contractors still have it on their 1999. website template,

separate issue. So I think we're seeing a revitalization, or a rebirth or 2.0 3.0. of values in in business, but values in construction, where we've moved from safety, quality, integrity, customer service to my own words, right? Now, integrity could be, hey, we deal direct, or we do it, we say, but it's more than four buzzwords that were that there's some substance and depth added to these things, and then we train on them. And we align the entire

organization. Because I cannot assume that your definition of integrity and customer service is the same as my definition of integrity and customer service. Now, we can certainly hope that you're, but you and I come from a different place. Right? You grew up. Economically disadvantaged, I grew up economically advantage. You're not a college graduate, even a high school grad, I'm an MBA, right? Whatever, right? So we, and this is where diversity gets

us in trouble, right? Because we say, we come in the room and go out, we're all going to be the same. Well, we're not all the same. We all have different backgrounds. But we can quote a line around the values. But you have to train to the values, you have to explain what those mean, and you have to make them real. And that takes time. And it will Why don't have to train one Tegrity as they should just know that well. Not necessarily, oh,

why would they? Well, if they grew up in my home, they would have the same values, but they didn't. You know, Scott, you didn't grow up with my home. Right? So it seems like this stupid step we have to take. It's one of the most important steps we have to take. I agree. Well, you and I can beat that section up. I think we did a good job of that. Let me move to a different one. You mentioned technology. Talk to me about the technology that's in and around construction today.

When should it be used versus regular human beings? What how does it help the humans that are in your organization? Like what problems does it solve? You know, where are you seeing tech? And just in general, you mentioned technology. So I guess, yeah, broad question, but just give me a give us an overview of how technology in construction can and should be used and cetera?

Well, I think we're going through a generational shift in that the technology associated with bandwidth and computing power really has gotten really freakin good. However, if you have crappy processes, ie the fundamentals, if your business aren't very good, all you're gonna do with technology is do crappy stuff faster. So, you know, automation for the sake of automation, right? Not. So but here's what happened 1015 years ago, let's use this as an example. You and I are on a zoom

call. And if we had tried to do this five years ago, with a construction audience, would have been really hard to do because they're like, how the hell do you do that? Right? I got a Skype account. But bandwidth has gotten better. better. And facility ease of use has gotten better. Just two hours ago, I was on a call. And I had five foremen across the country sitting in pickup trucks, on their iPads. And we're doing in Lunch and Learn, right? So the technology has

gotten so much better. However, there's a lot of scar tissue, right from 510 15 years ago of, oh, well, we and we tried that. And that didn't work. Yeah, well, it works better. Now. You need to give it a try. So if you don't have a robust IT strategy, to include social media, by the way, which may be a communication strategy, you're going to be you're gonna be left behind. Yeah,

there's no doubt about it. And, you know, again, think about this in technology where I was thinking about marketing and technology, and we've done some podcasts webinars we brought people on. If you're a subcontractor or a general contractor, and you're trying to

present yourself out there. We all know what the stigmatism is our stigmas around construction are, you know, whether you show up on time or don't the quality of your work, oh, I'm a plumber, they're going to show up my house with the plumbers crack all the stuff that people think, you know, what if you were out there showing people in real ways with video, with your words with pictures and actions of your work and the quality of it like, Hey, by the way, when we put something on the ground,

this is how we put in the ground. Let me show you how we level this pipe. Let me show you how we make sure we do this. Because you're not just showing up after you pour dirt all over it. But you got out there on the images. Why you did it that way, why it matters. And you're showing that you think those contractors, developers aren't going to look at that and call you first versus somebody else. I mean, yes, you're telling your story.

My Toyota dealer does it. Right before he pulls off that piece, he sends me a picture of it and says, This is what it looks like. Now, I may or may not know what hell what I'm looking at. Right. But my Toyota dealer has it figured out, right? Why can't you right? I mean, there's an there's an entire strategy out there by a guy by the name of Marcus Sheridan called, they asked you tell they being the customers, you being the supplier, and he says put it all

out there. And, and that's what you see in a lot of my content online and yours to about where we're putting out information. Our content is not selling anything, it's providing information, you know, if you want to give me a call and talk about it, you know, that's that's free, no charge. Right. But we're trying to educate folks. Right and and there's no secrets. Right? And yeah, you're right that the for the marketing aspect. For client acquisition,

it's huge. But marketing for employee acquisition, it's huge as well. Yeah. You know, build wit is a cool company around the stretch they do a great job and when I saw a post by Aaron wet and so if you guys don't know where and what it is, please go follow that in there. And I know you're not on the show. Maybe you're watching not but I just giving you props this right now. He put something out there yesterday or today's I saw and it was everybody's going to have a

story. They're going to talk some junk, they're going to say bad things. They may say good things. And you know what, if while you're out there all the way, putting stuff out there showing people who you are, and someone comes across it just doesn't like it. And they happen to be talking to their neighbor

whenever they like Yeah. Wally's Jeric Mahi while he's big aihole Whatever this that, you know, but those other people are like, well, I know while he actually I've seen Brentuximab wise I don't have that impression up. And they're that's their opinion, boom. But if that's a trusted person have their as a friend, they don't know you wildly. But they just talked about you. And the other you're

not out there. And next person, you know, for all they know you call them up one day and you guys bumped past because it is a small world, they automatically are going to remember that you're Renee Hall and an MF er, you're overcoming that for which you didn't even know you're you

are overcoming it. And you know, and so it's important to go tell that story, especially in a world with construction where stories are told, and broad brushes are painted across the whole industry, construction contractors, plumbers, subs, GCS doesn't matter, including GCS. If you're a GC and you you're out there subs, you're gonna think you don't pay well. Right? Well, you should show pictures of how you just received a check from your owner and you're

paying all the subs today. I want to bid your jobs and in a labor market where a bunch of subs don't want to work for folks, the right folks. I mean, there you go. So I think it's exactly the story to tell to your point. Well, in the marketing thing, you know, in there's a technology component to it, but it's a whole strategy thing as well. You know, the concept of our work speaks for itself is

crap. Right? It does not speak for itself, the people who speak for their work, and what build wit, you know, build wi TT and I've collaborated with those guys on some things. What they have done is they have created an industry around marketed construction services. And you go on LinkedIn now and I can name five off The top of my head of people that are involved in quote, marketing, construction

services. And how many of your clients have a marketing department, a marketing consultant or a social media person. And we're seeing we, I, you the industry, and you can outsource some of this stuff, right. But if you're not telling your story, it will get told for you. That's right. That is the name of it. That is the exact point. supply chain issues and, and cash. Of course, those are some

big issues. You know, I think everyone's kind of ham and egg and their way around supply chain, a lot of that is out of our control, but reinvests you talk to lots of different companies. So is there anything specific you've seen has worked really well with supply chain managing that handling that the pricing of it getting it? I mean, what do you what have you seen? Is there a golden nugget out there or two?

Yeah, I don't, I think the golden nugget is agility, and being able to first creating vendor relationships where you may have more than one or two options. Now clearly, in some things, that's not possible. And it's too late to start that today. For today, but it's not too late to start that for tomorrow. Right? So building some flexibility into your, into your supply chain, I think we're seeing that across the board. But just mental agility, right?

of, you know, I've tried a I've tried B. Well, I'm going to create C, I'm going to create D, I'm going to create E and construction organizations by nature, although they it's a dynamic environment, and not necessarily agile, right? They tend to be stuck in old ways. And a lot of people are going to push me on that. But you know, means and methods do evolve, but often only if the script prescribed by the owner. So

mental agility. But if I'm task focused, it's tough to have mental agility because I'm not thinking beyond the task. Yeah. Now you're you make a good point with that. And look, a construction project is a big complex thing. It's done one task at a time. So there's nothing wrong with being task oriented. Matter of fact, that suits really well. Just the awareness, though, that there's times where you need to have

some mental agility. The fact that you can be aware that you maybe I need to be thinking like that way will help serve you really well doesn't mean you have to become an expert at mental agility. But just be aware that you'll need it, I think is a key point you're making.

And depending on where you are on the food chain, right, so if I'm a superintendent, a foreman, two days out superintendent, two weeks out, project manager, two months out President two years out, if my President is looking at cost reports, he's doing the wrong thing. And you know, and I know that there's a lot of presidents looking at cost reports, as you deal with them. And you're like, I don't know if I want to give this guy money. Yeah, no, you're, you're on a job site as the president in a

business, that's a law. It's not brand new, and you're driving the truck. Okay. And if you're there for show, just to show the guys a new crew that you can do it great. But if you're there, because you're actually trying to do that work. I mean, something's wrong. You're the most overpaid guy we got? He's exactly. And cash. What do you see people doing to make cash work on these projects?

Well, first thing we have to go back is to the classic E Myth, you know, the entrepreneurs myth, right, that I was a great doer. So I'm gonna go do it myself. My boss is an idiot. So I'm gonna go do it myself. You know, and people go out and they're not business people. Right? I see this in the speaking industry, too. People don't understand margin. They don't understand profit. They understand putting the lights on. But you know, what they do is they take a salary instead of

build a business. Right? So let me give you this one. If I were standing in front of a bunch of construction foreman and say, what's the average net profit of companies like ours, the we should all know that that's the single digit number, often under 5%. Maybe in the 4% range these days across all trades. The average number you would see from a room of construction, commercial construction foreman

these days is 16%. Well, if our primary production resource, thanks for making 16% When we're only making 4%, there's a disconnect from an education perspective, right? So there's a lack of education, there's a lack of financial acumen. There's a lack of business savvy, you know, generically across the industry. And I suspect that's why you run into a lot of folks looking for money. Because they that because of that lack of acumen and savvy, we take the best doers and hey, I'm gonna do it myself

and create my own company. This is where leadership comes in. This is where delegation comes in. This is where use of functional staff comes in. So And do people understand the velocity of cash right that says, If I I can increase my accounts receivable from 45 days to 40 days. What does that really mean to my organization? Right? Because what that really says is you're financing the owner or the Gen, or whoever is not paying you, right? And

people don't get that. And I don't know, maybe that's a little harsh, but, you know, the money side better than I do. But what I what I can tell you is my experience, you know, particularly in the small room, you know, what I'm doing with the big guys, this isn't an issue. But understanding profitability at the at the crew level, remains an issue. Oh, but I don't want people to know how much I make. Right? Look, dude, it's your name on the side of the truck. They're gonna respect

you either way. How about you explain to them that you made 2% on that job? Yeah. And by the way, contrary to popular belief, nobody wants to work people. Let me phrase it the right way. People want to work for winners, okay, they wouldn't go there working on a job site and winning, they don't want another word for a job site for some guy that's losing. And don't be afraid that you made money, like, okay, yeah, we made

money. And But the worst thing you can happen is we're making money someone thinks you're making four times the amount of money you're making is a catastrophic failure, because now you're being judged, like you're living at 4x, what you've put what you actually are doing.

And so you got to make sure your key management P folks know, hey, now our budget on this job is x, we talk a lot about taking project managers and superintendents and blending them with your accounting team, if you're large enough to do that, but if not, make sure most importantly, what we're saying is make sure your project manager knows exactly what that

budget is. They know what their line items are, that they know that what an extra day at this phase means to the profitability of the project, you have routine meetings with that. So they're making good decisions that kind of just run off to Home Depot, grab five extra things, and when they really only need three, just because if they don't feel like going back, like they'll know, you know, I mean, like

they'll do the right thing. But you have to empower them, you can't just tell them and hope it works. You want to like share that info, I think you make a great point there. And if they'd really done the short interval schedule correctly, they would have gotten it from your own warehouse and not gone to the Home Depot, which would have had an even more of a cost savings. So yeah, there's a lot in there. But here's one of my

favorite phrases. One of the biggest problems we have with people in construction is they like to build things. Well, if you like to build things and put a lathe in your garage, but this is a business of construction, which means you have to understand cost. And oh, by the way, as a business owner, if you're afraid about sharing dollars, I respect that is your name on the side of the truck, then share units. We thought we were going to do 500 yards, we

did 50 yards. We got to get a whole bunch more tomorrow, or we're going to do work on the weekend. Information is power. So how about we empower our people? Yeah. You know, you speak a cash flow we we see it all the time. Yes. 100%. Big picture wise, you want to know, if you're stepping on a job, you want to know what your real margin is? You want to know your velocity of cash, you want to how much cash? Are you investing into that project in order to actually make the margin you

anticipate? And when do you make that? One of the things we did for education is we built a cash flow tool. So it and then we put it on our website for free. And why did we do that? Because I'm sick. So I feel sick. And when I talk to a customer that says oh my gosh, I wish I knew you guys X money years ago, I just lost $700,000 on that job or $4 million on that job. That's a conversation I had this week I lost $4 million in that job. Why

did they lose it? They didn't bid it, they didn't understand how much cost was in it. I'm sorry, let me rephrase that they knew the cost, they didn't understand how quickly it was going to be spent. And what they ended up having to do is and realize they had to invest five times the amount of money they thought they did. And then they had to go borrow cash, which ate up all their money and margin. And then they ended up doing a job for free with all that extra

risk. And so we took the cash flow tool and put it right on our website. Anybody can use it, you don't We don't market to you, we take your email email to you can fill that tool out 100 times a day for every one of your projects. And we deliver to you a very specific spreadsheet. That is a cash flow tool, it tells you exactly when you're going to be cashflow positive, what your costs are, how much cash you need to invest, and then they can go make the decisions on how they want to

manage that. And we of course can help them. But we can also be a source of lending but more importantly, it's just a cash flow tool. It's there for them to know exactly how to run that job. So they're going in eyes wide open. Yeah, that's, that's so cool. I mean, that's that kind of information that we need to get out there more and it's the acumen that you know people can now make better business decisions. Right. So cool. Love

it. Yeah. Well, I know we're running up on our time and I wanted to know is there anything you have that you want to add or we didn't touch on that you would love to make sure we do or questions or anything at all? I you know, we've covered a lot of ground and you know the I think the the broad thing today is that things are happening that have never happened before. Are we are seeing challenges we've never seen before. And it doesn't mean we're doomed it just means we need to get a

little smarter. There are suppliers and supporters and consultancy I you know I'm here give me a call. I'm like your cash flow tool give me a call. I love having those conversations. If you want me heal by me that's a separate issue right? I just, I love what I do. I love who I'm doing it with. And I hope to continue to be doing it for a long time. Love it. So everybody, thank you very much for joining Wally and I while I thank you so much for being our guest. You can see it

by Wally on LinkedIn. And you can also go to construction leadership.com where you can find any and all of Wally's content you can reach out to all directly hills, happy to speak to you. And everybody I will say thank you very much for joining us on The Real amount first podcast while I thank you so much for joining us again. I really appreciate you man. Thanks. Thanks, man. Bye, everybody. Have a great day. Take care. Hey, everyone, thanks for

listening. If you enjoyed the show, please consider subscribing and leaving us a review. reviews help more people find the show. If you'd like to learn more about mobilization funding, visit us at mobilization funding.com Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next one.