From Transactional To Transformational: How Appreciation Elevates Construction Teams | Ep. 251

An effective team has the strongest bond and connection. Appreciation is the sugar that sweetens the relationship within your team. In this episode, Jesse Hernandez, the Author of Becoming the Promise You Are Intended to Be, tackles how a systematized appreciation helps elevate construction teams. Building your relational capital requires a mindset shift to move away from being transactional to being transformational. Jesse shows us how he spends time with his team without being transactional. Today’s episode brings so much wisdom on leading your people with a heart. So, let’s dive right into this conversation with Jesse today.

Buy Eric’s Book, Construction Genius: Effective, Hands-On, Practical, Simple, No-BS Leadership, Strategy, Sales, and Marketing Advice for Construction Companies: https://www.amazon.com/Construction-Genius-Effective-Hands-Leadership/dp/B0BHTRDY1T/

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From Transactional To Transformational: How Appreciation Elevates Construction Teams

One of the things that’s lacking in many construction companies is appreciation. We tend to be transactional in nature. You get stuff done because it’s your job and then pick up your paycheck at the end of the week. All of those things are true. We should get stuff done, but we are dealing with human beings in our companies, and human beings require appreciation. Many of us are engineers by trade. By nature, we’re more transactional with bits and bytes or spreadsheets and plans as opposed to relational in nature but we need to strengthen our ability in terms of building relationships with people. That is the topic of conversation with my guest, Jesse Hernandez.

Jesse is the Principal Depth Builder at Depth Builder LLC, which is a consulting company. The good news about Jesse is that he has a lifetime of experience in construction, starting in the plumbing trades, going all the way up to a production manager working for a large GC, and then opening his consulting company a number of years ago.

In this episode, we have extremely practical examples of how you can systematize appreciation and build relational capital with the people in your organization. You’re going to walk away with an exact idea of how much time you need to spend or budget with each person to build a relationship with them without seeming transactional in your attempt.

Jesse shares stories about how he began in the trades as the one whom the leader abused to become a leader and abuse other people. You know what I mean by that in terms of how people get treated on job sites, and then having an epiphany where he began to understand that was not the way to treat people. That was not the way to build projects effectively, profitably, and sustainably. We talk about that shift and that mindset change and get into practical examples of how you can build relationships by showing appreciation to your people. Enjoy my conversation with Jesse. Feel free to share it with other people and thank you for tuning in.

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Jesse, welcome to the show.

Thank you. I’m happy to be here, Mr. Eric.

I’m excited to have you on the show because I know one of your great passions is leaders showing appreciation to the folks in the field who are putting in the work and making money. I would like to dive into that in some detail. What do great leaders understand about appreciation that average leaders don’t?

It’s exactly that. It’s a demonstration of appreciation and a way of life. It’s not an event or a scheduled quarterly performance review. It is an intentional way of living, thinking, and interacting with people. An indicator that I look for is a leader who is intentionally meeting people and going out of their way to introduce themselves to somebody. The magic is not that they’re glad-handing. It’s that they put in time to learn something about the individual they’re shaking hands with.

I’m sure you’ve met these leaders or people. When you talk to them, it is a profoundly different experience. You feel like you are the core or the center of their universe at that moment. You cannot see them for 3, 6, or 9 months, and then the next time you see them again, they remember you and the details about you. The feeling that you get is that they appreciate you. I’ve met several folks like this. I’m still not at that level where I can remember the name and all the details, but I remember the energy of the person and the spirit of the conversation.

That’s tough but that’s where the great leaders start. The effort they put into connecting with the individual that is directly in front of them and the fact that they’re listening demonstrates appreciation, “I value you.” They don’t have to say, “I appreciate you. We’re going to have an appreciation lunch.” The average leader is on the, “Let’s have an appreciation lunch or a quarterly appreciation.” They’re these tactical and mechanical attempts at showing what appreciation is.

I like those words. They’re tactical and mechanical, “We should do this because people tell us that’s what we should do. Therefore, we go ahead and do it in that way.” This idea of intentionally meeting people, give me a picture of what that looks like. Let’s say I’m the president of my company. How often should I be visiting job sites and talking to the laborers out there?

I think of it in cascading terms. The people that I spend most of my time with or that I have direct access to on the regular are the people that I need to connect with. If I’m working in an office building and I walk in and there’s a security guard that I see on the regular, I need to introduce myself to that person and get an understanding of who that human being is. It’s because, one, they’re protecting me, and two, they’re a human being that brings tremendous value.

Keep walking down the corridor of the office with whoever you run into in the elevator all the way up to the cleaning staff that comes through. It’s a lifestyle. Within your staff and direct reports, there’s a thing. I used to be stuck in this thinking, “They never come to the field.” The leader’s work, depending on what level of leadership or what level in the organization they’re in, is not necessarily to be out in the field, but when the CEO, the VP, or the department head does go to the field, then there’s an intentional act. It’s on their mental agenda to go and meet some people that they don’t know, introduce themselves, and learn something new about them.

I mentioned the tactical stuff. Going and meeting people is not a natural behavior for a lot of people. I was facilitating a whole bunch of training. We were flying people in from all over the country to do this training. A big element of it was we were going to be interacting with the folks doing the work. We’re going to be studying them with video cameras all up in the middle of their stuff. It was critically important that we formed a bond and a connection with them because it was invasive. We were coming into their space. Right out of the gate, I made the mistake of going and doing that.

The installers or the people who are delivering the value had a reaction that was less than awesome. We instituted an agenda item that we called visible leadership. What you had to do was pick up three pieces of trash and demonstrate the behavior you seek. If you want a clean job site, pick up trash when you see it. Meet at least one person you don’t know, come back, and report to the group what you learned about them, which seems to me a very simple thing. For a lot of the participants, it was a very abnormal thing. It’s like, “There’s something bigger here.”

In getting out there and making those connections, we start forming relationships. The first line is to meet the people you come into contact with at a high frequency. Learn something about them. Whenever you’re in a different venue, make it an intentional practice to go and meet the nameless and faceless people who are making the wheels turn on this thing that we do.

Tell me a little bit about your background and what led you to make this emphasis on appreciation.

I entered the construction industry back in the 1900s. In 1995, I graduated high school. My dad was a plumber. I’m a second-generation plumber. I started my apprenticeship working in the field. I completed my apprenticeship and got my journeyman license and all that stuff, which I failed to maintain. I haven’t touched tools in decades. I haven’t always thought this way. I’m sharing this stuff not from a judgment perspective but I know the value because I’ve lived it.

Early in my career, as I got into the foreman level and superintendent level, I had zero appreciation for people. People quit on me regularly. This was when I was a foreman. One of my leaders, Jim Jones, who has passed since, pulled me aside. He’s like, “You’re making money on your jobs. You make a schedule for your projects. You’ve hit a limit in terms of earning capacity and the influence you’re going to have in the organization. If you keep doing it this way, it’s fine, but if you want to grow in this organization, you need to learn how to deliver financial results, which you can do, and develop people.”

I said, “Why are you changing the rules of this game here?” The truth was I did want to grow my influence. I put in a ton of effort. Luckily, I worked for a great company that provided resources for me to learn and expand my thinking. Through that process, I got introduced to continuous improvement and lean construction stuff, and because I practiced some of those ideas and principles, my bandwidth continued to expand. However, when I was doing that continuous improvement stuff, I did it from the perspective of, “Let’s optimize the work to optimize profits.”

However, I was doing very little to develop the people around me and remove the burden that I was putting on them. The burden inherent within the work, and then the pressure and stress that I was putting on them. It’s funny because when I was an installer, I hated all my supervisors because all they did was make my life hard, and then I became one. I’m a hypocrite.

I continued my learning. Luckily, I got exposed to Bryant Sanders, who’s a coach of mine. He described it, and it felt like being pulled through a keyhole. He pulled my brain through that keyhole and helped me understand all this continuous improvement thinking, lean stuff, leadership stuff, and people development stuff. As a leader and a facilitator, my responsibility to the people I serve is to make their day easier or their work better for them. I was able to change and apply all of the thinking in my experience and knowledge to make work better for people instead of optimizing production.

The outcome is the same, except when I’m doing it in service to others, I get invited back to the party. People want me to evaluate the work, study the work, and do some stuff so that we can put things in place so that their work is better. Whereas before, it was the same thing, lingo, and technique but when I showed up on a job site, people avoided eye contact because they knew I was going to say, “This is what you’re doing wrong. Here are some improvement ideas. You have three people, and you only need one person. I’m taking that person to the other project.” All I did was compound the stress and pressures that they were dealing with.

In the evolution of my thinking, I was that guy who felt abused, neglected, and taken for granted, and then I became the abuser. I got it wrong. The pivotal moment was when I was learning this new way of studying work and the shift in philosophy. We were studying an electrician. He was about six months away from retiring. We put some stuff into place that improved his work. He did it. He came back the next day, and we were like, “Ruben, how did it go? We want to get your feedback.”

He was like, “I went home last night. For the first time, and I don’t know when, I didn’t pass out on my La-Z-Boy. I was awake. I helped my wife wash dishes. I played with my grandkids. If I had been doing work like this my whole life, I would have ten more years of my career.” We were in tears. It was so moving that I knew at that moment, “I have to do this because I can add life to the men and women doing the work. It’s rewarding personally because I’m contributing to the enhancement of their quality of life.”

Full circle, I started in the field. I was complaining. I was abused. I became the abuser. Now, it’s like, “This is so important.” We all know about the labor shortage that we can’t avoid. We need more people. We need to do a better job of marketing the construction industry. However, we have this pool of people that we are neglecting. We are failing to remove and redesign the work that they’re doing. There are tons of production sitting there. You don’t need more people. Make the work better and then bring the people in. It’s all mixed up in all of that, but it’s a super important thing for me.

You made a good point there in terms of the shift that was taking place where you understood the way you were doing things as a leader wasn’t effective. As you began to make that shift and practice new behaviors, what was the initial response of the people that you were leading to the change you were trying to make?

Folks who came up with me through the trades knew me when I was an apprentice and journeyman. When I started making the shift, they didn’t trust me, rightfully so, because it was a big shift. For a long time, it felt like I had this enormous shadow. People couldn’t see the new me. They could only see the shadow. No matter what I did, I couldn’t overcome the shadow. I couldn’t predict how long it would take me to overcome the shadow or shrink the shadow.

Internally, it was super irritating and disappointing. I’m like, “I’m working. I’m trying to change, and I’m still being judged for stuff that I’ve done way back when.” The evidence or the volume of data that they had access to was that I was a jerk. The volume of data about me being a good guy or at least less selfish was very small. My expectation was unrealistic.

That was a part. I had to come to terms with that. My leaders and the people I reported to could see my actions, my effort, and the things that I was doing. They were very supportive. They motivated me or nurtured that pathway for me because it made sense for the business. It made sense for me as an individual. Eventually, the scale tipped. I was overdrawn on the emotional bank account.

All social currency I have had been expended. If I think of it in terms of that, I had to earn all that social capital from people I knew. With the new people that I would meet, it was a pretty smooth road. From then on, it was a matter of how I got better at understanding how to better serve the person in front of me. It took a lot of time to learn how to do that, but that’s what the transition was like.

As you began that transition, what conversations did you have with people who knew you about your previous behavior versus what you were going to try and implement?

A very common one was, “Why are you being a sellout? Why are you trying to be somebody you are not? I know you. Stop pretending. Who do you think you are?” There was a lot of that.

Did you talk to your guys and say, “This is the old Jesse. This is the new Jesse. I’m going to try and be the new Jesse.”

Once I figured through the funkiness, I finally started having conversations. I was extremely clear with the guys. I said, “I am working on developing this new habit, this new skill, or this new way of communicating. You give me a lot of feedback, and I like it. Can you please give me feedback on this specific thing?” That helped me partner up with them and shift that negative judgmental energy into positive energy. A lot of the conversations were that.

With my peers, I started building a network outside of the organization. Those conversations were me asking questions, “How do you do this? What am I doing wrong? Why is it taking so long? Is there another resource or another book?” On one end, it was like, “How do I harness energy, negative or positive, to help me accelerate my learning and my transition and tighten up those feedback loops.” On the other end, it was like, “Where can I learn? It never happens fast enough.”

You made a good point earlier about this idea of social currency. I’m sure some people are familiar with the idea of deposits and withdrawals in our relationships with each other. The way you were describing it, you were socially bankrupt with the people you were leading because of the way you were behaving. You had to come out of bankruptcy. As we know in business, that doesn’t happen overnight. It’s something that takes a lot of time and patience.

I was working for a trade. I was a plumber at that time. Even the economies of scale in terms of my responsibility and the things I was going through back then, I’ve been able to support or be a part of a lot of leaders who manage billion-dollar portfolios. They have the same problem, especially now. Since the pandemic, there’s been a huge shift in terms of what people will tolerate about how they are treated or appreciated. A lot of leaders are like, “The rules have changed. I have to change with it.” Regardless of their level of education or dollar volume of responsibility, the problem is the same. They are socially bankrupt. To overcome that, it’s going to take significant effort and practice.

That’s interesting. Let’s talk about that a little bit then. You’ve given some examples of that. How can leaders systematize the appreciation they show the people they interact with?

I’m going to give some super simple examples. People can listen and do the thing. I’ll reference some of the training that I’ve cobbled together as a result of observing people. A simple example is to become a better listener, but what does that mean? I used to think that being a better listener meant me not talking until you stopped talking but I wasn’t listening. I was just waiting to speak. I was waiting for my turn to go and take up the airtime.

Here’s an easy thing. Pay attention to the amount of airtime that you consume. If your voice is heard more than anybody else’s voice, you may not be listening. Also, ask. The types of questions that we ask indicate that we are listening. What I mean by that is when I ask somebody, “What do you think about us going to the steakhouse?” I might be tricking myself into thinking that I am showing Eric respect and appreciation and allowing him or inviting him to provide input on the matter of where we’re going to eat lunch, but I’m not.

I’m covertly telling Eric what I want to eat. The appropriate question is, “What would you like to have for lunch? What do you recommend we eat?” That’s a different question. When we ask these types of open-ended questions, not the close-ended or the leading, what we do is provide a venue for people to participate and dance with us in this human experience that we’re having.

Let me make a note of that real quick because we’re familiar with this idea of close-ended questions or yes–no questions. You have to practice open-ended questions over the years, but you made a distinction here with the leading questions. I would like to explore that a little bit more. Why is it that leading questions are a losing tactic for a leader?

Here’s the deal. It’s not an absolute negative. There is an appropriate venue. I call it solutionizing. When you ever have somebody, you say, “I’m working on this thing. I’ve been thinking about it.” They say, “You need to read this book. You need to check out this podcast.” You didn’t even get to finish the thought. That is solutionizing. It feels like people are shanking you with unsolicited advice.

As leaders in the workplace, we have been conditioned to default to that behavior. In the workspace, within our responsibilities, we’re constantly negotiating and trying or guiding everybody and everything in a particular direction, which lends itself to always asking the leading questions. In the workspace, it’s 100% appropriate. The problem is we’re human beings, too. When we have a normal human interaction, we solutionize and ask leading questions.

It’s me constantly bombarding you with what I think, what I want, and what I wish, never opening the door to understanding what Mr. Anderton cares about. That’s the difference. It’s not an absolute negative. You’re a host. You’re asking phenomenal questions, and I keep flapping my gums because I believe or you’re indicating that you’re interested in what I think as opposed to saying, “Why don’t you do this?” You’re telling me what to do. My responses get smaller and less rich, and then it’s transactional. How do we transition from transactional interactions to relational interactions? We do it by asking curious and interested questions, but I first have to be interested in the human being in front of me.

How do I become interested in human beings that I have zero interest in?

First off, it is reasonable to cancel, evict, and eject people from your life or your space. I’m not a proponent at all of let’s tolerate everything and everybody. That’s a question of values. You mentioned practice. It takes intense practice and rep after rep to get a handle on the open-ended, interested, and curious question. I practiced that.

I’m flying around. I’m at the airport. I’ll ask an interesting question, and then it’s like, “I opened Pandora’s box because now I’m learning everything about them, and they’re consuming my time more than I expected. The burden is getting bigger than I expected.” It’s reasonable to say, “I appreciate everything you’re sharing with me. I don’t have time for this. This is the end of the conversation,” and move on. A part of that is how we get direct about what our limitations and our boundaries are.

Let me ask it a different way. There are some people in this world who are transactional in nature in the way that you’re describing. They’re a business owner. They have people working for them who do things for them. It’s not that they don’t necessarily appreciate people, but they’re not necessarily adept at developing strong relationships with them and demonstrating that appreciation and value. How can someone who is transactional shift to being more relational? What should they be thinking about and what perspectives should they be taking on?

I’m going to steal this one from Covey. We can be efficient with processes but not with people. In terms of a thinking model, and I’ve been hyper-transactional for most of my career, I was thinking of things in terms of, “How long is this going to take me? How quickly can I get this done?” Interacting with other human beings fell under that umbrella. It’s ultra-transactional.

When I’m going to be interacting with people, there’s probably a 3X ratio to what I want it to be versus what it’s going to be. If I’m going to speak with someone, it’s like the break room. The break room is the ultimate space for time bandits. If I’m in a rush, I’m going to avoid the break room, but if I’m going to the break room, I need to be prepared for human interaction.

I can set the limits of what that is. I can say, “I have about nine minutes before I need to start the next thing. I’m going to go to the break room, talk with somebody, and learn something new about them.” If the conversation continues to grow, it’s very fair for me to say, “I have a 2:00. I love the conversation. I’m just giving you a heads-up.” The person can manage their response.

First, I like what you said about increasing the amount of time that it’s going to take if you’re going to go from transactional to relational. That’s an important thing because I do think that some of the transactional folks miss that. That’s a good insight. The other one is setting the parameter of the conversation, understanding how long you have, and then communicating that.

There’s no problem in communicating that and then being able to have an interaction with someone based on the parameters you set. I like that. That’s very helpful. You answered my next question. Let’s say I’m the president of the company and I decide I’m going to visit a job site. I’m talking about the systemization of this appreciation. How much time should I set aside for a job site visit to make sure that I can be as relational as possible?

I’ll give you a formula. If you want to meet one person, budget twenty minutes per person that you want to learn something about. Those twenty minutes account for the walking time from the job trailer or the office to find somebody, have a little dialogue with them, and come back. If you feel like you want to meet two people, give yourself 40 minutes. If you want to meet three people, give yourself an hour.

That’s probably a generous amount of time. The reason it’s a generous amount of time is so that the pressure is down so that your body language and jawline don’t communicate to the person in front of you that you are in some mood because here’s the other fact. The only time anybody with authority or shiny boots comes to talk to the men and women out there that are doing the work is when there’s a damn problem.

If you’re the president of the company and you’re walking out there, they can tell you’ve got authority and influence. They are terrified because no one has ever asked them, “How are you doing? Why did you pick the trade? How is this project different than the last project you were on? Where do you live? Do you travel?” Nobody has asked them those questions.

The body language, the stress, and the energy need to be in a nice Zen space so that the person in front of them can also open up. I remember very few times when I talked to the VP of SpawGlass. I was an apprentice. If we had a quick conversation, it would be super awesome. I went home and told my mom, my dad, and my friends. It was a significant experience, provided the factors and the conditions were such that all he did was demonstrate appreciation or interest in me. He didn’t ask me about my PPE or pre-task safety plan. He asked me about me. I took that and told everybody about it. It was like I talked to a celebrity.

First, I appreciate the idea of budgeting twenty minutes per person and the effect it has on your body language. I want to make a note. Discipline yourself. If you’re going to visit the field, it’s almost like less is more. If you have that budgeted time and have an excellent conversation with someone, it’s better than having 3 or 4 transactional conversations where you’re halfway moving down the road as you’re shaking the guy’s hand. Let me go back up to some blocking and tackling. I’m in that conversation, and you mentioned a few of them, but give us 3 to 5 questions I should be asking in each one of those relational types of conversations.

An easy question, especially for craft and trade workers, is, “Why did you pick this trade? How did you get into this trade? What do you like about the work? Where are you from?” I was born and raised in San Antonio. Only recently have I done a whole bunch of traveling. I always assumed everybody was from San Antonio on a job site. That’s the truth and that’s a whole other thing.

This one is going to push the twenty-minute budget, but the important question is, “Can you walk me through what you’re doing? Teach me or show me what you’re doing. What is that thing? What do you do with it?” Avoid the question, “Why?” because it has an accusational tone often. You’re not doing a root-cause analysis. You’re trying to be interested in this person. Ask them to describe or walk you through the work that they’re doing or the system or the building and sit back because it’s coming.

“Why did you pick this trade? What do you like about it? Where are you from? Walk me through what you’re doing.” It’s excellent. You’ve given us some real insights here about how to go from transactional to relational, how to budget your time, and what kinds of questions to ask. Let’s say I’m looking in the mirror and saying I am transactional. I’ve perhaps withdrawn more from that emotional bucket than I’ve deposited. When I come on the job site, people are wondering, “There must be a problem. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be there.” How can I now begin this shift? Give us a summary of what you’ve said or any other additional insights into how I can start showing appreciation as a leader in my organization.

In terms of the general audience, I’m referring to the people on-site, make it a regular practice, maybe not daily. At first, daily feels enormous. Weekly is good, but put it on your calendar, go out there once a week for twenty minutes, and meet somebody new. That starts shrinking the shadow. For the people that you work with directly, and I promise that people are going to say, “What in the world happened to you?” ask your people, your direct reports, and the people that you have contact with in high frequency, “What makes you feel appreciated?”

Find a way to do that to some degree. That’s a regular thing. How do you build it into your cadence? How do we build habits? We have to test them out. It’s uncomfortable. It’s scary. Be ready for people to look at you with deer in the headlights, “Nobody has ever asked me that. No one has ever talked to me.” If that’s their reaction, that’s proof positive you’re guilty.

Can you give me an example of an answer to that question, a real–life one you’ve heard from someone you’ve talked to or heard?

When somebody has asked me, “What makes you feel most appreciated?” my answer is, “It’s easy. It’s undivided attention.” If I’m talking to you and you’re looking at this or that, hurry up. Do your thing. That’s how I feel. For me, it’s very easy. I know what makes me feel appreciated. Practice it as an icebreaker in a group meeting. There’s safety in numbers.

There you go. That’s very good right there.

If you want to build your tolerance for these types of questions, do it in a group. I’ve heard people say, “It’s being recognized for the effort that I put in.” That’s a little different than getting an award. I’ve heard somebody say, “I appreciate when people recognize all the unseen things that I do, like the setting up of the meeting, putting the email together, and ordering the lunch.” I love it when people can say that. I’ve heard people say, “Getting my check on Friday makes me feel appreciated.”

I like this idea about the regular practice of these questions that you’re asking. Give a couple of more things, you can summarize or add new, about how I can begin to show appreciation.

I’m going to tie it back to the listening part. One indicator that somebody is listening is that their mouth isn’t moving. A more advanced indicator that somebody is listening is they are asking interested questions. The ultimate indicator that you were listening that connects directly to demonstrating appreciation is taking action on what you heard, meaning it doesn’t have to be a direct request for you to do something cool or nice for somebody else.

It’s excellent. Tell the audience a little bit more about what you do and how they can get in touch with you.

I’m now a full-time independent consultant. I started my career as an apprentice and then worked on the trade side of the business. I went to work for a GC and an owner, and now I’m a consultant. I’ve slid down the slide of credibility in my career. Fundamentally, the thing that I get the most joy out of is delivering a shift in mindset and helping teams and organizations understand that they can accomplish their goals and provide a meaningful experience to everybody in their charge.

Here are some other things I do that are super awesome. I have the livestream, No BS with Jen & Jess. Jennifer Lacy and I do that every other Saturday. I’ve got the Learnings and Missteps Podcast. I’ve got some online stuff like the Emotional Bungee Jumpers, which is a community. We practiced all the things that we talked about like asking interested questions, not solutionizing, etc. That’s exactly what we do once a month for about 90 minutes. It’s a group of us. We continue doing that. It’s causing shifts in the way they think and show up. That’s what I’m about.

How can people get in touch with you?

There are two places. I’m on all the socials but LinkedIn is where I spend most of my time in terms of engaging on social media. My website is DepthBuilder.com, where there are links to all my socials and the different communities and stuff that I’m a part of.

I appreciate your time. I’ve got one more question for you. I’m in San Antonio. I’m on the River Walk. What is the one restaurant I need to hit up?

It’s not on the River Walk. Tito’s Mexican is right off of Alamo, which is a jaunt down from the River Walk. It’s not the high-end fancy touristy thing but they’ve got great food. Eddie’s Taco House is nowhere near the River. It has the best tacos in the country. There are two spots.

We’re going to make sure that the next time they’re in San Antonio, they avoid the tourist places and go to the good places. That’s beautiful. Jesse, I appreciate your time and your generosity. These insights are super helpful for my audience. Thank you for coming to the show.

Thank you, sir.

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I enjoyed that conversation with Jesse. I hope you did too. Feel free to connect with him on LinkedIn and at his website. If I ever get to San Antonio, I’m going to Eddie’s Taco House and Tito’s Mexican Restaurant. Feel free to share this interview with other people. There are some significant insights in this discussion that will help you to become a better leader. I encourage you to take them and to be much more intentional in the appreciation that you show to the people in your organization. Thanks for reading, and we will catch you on the next episode.

Important Links

• Depth Builder LLC
• No BS with Jen & Jess
• Learnings and Missteps Podcast
• Emotional Bungee Jumpers
• LinkedIn – Jesse Hernandez
• Tito’s Mexican
• Eddie’s Taco House
• https://www.Amazon.com/Construction-Genius-Effective-Hands-Leadership/dp/B0BHTRDY1T/

About Jesse Hernandez

Jesse was born and raised on the Southside of San Antonio Texas.
The landscape of his Career ranges from grading ditches to counseling Executives. His trek through the Org Charts has helped him appreciate that we are more alike than we are different.Jesse is committed to Enhancing the Image of Careers in the Trades. His message is one of Contribution, Ownership, and Vulnerability. This message is visible in his books Becoming the Promise You are Intended to Be and Lean & Love.