How do you hone the skills of millennials in a fast-paced and high-stress environment such as construction? In this episode, we are joined Peter Worhunsky VP of Disney Construction as we discuss an interesting, unique and self-directed process for talent development used in their company which other construction leaders can learn from.
This episode is brought to you by The Construction Leaders Dashboard, an excellent self-development tool. Click the link to download your free copy of the Dashboard. During the show, Peter mentions “The Obstacle is the Way” by Ryan Holiday. I highly recommend this book. Click on the link to get yourself a copy.
In this episode we cover:
- Smashing fallacies about millennials in construction
- An example of a female project engineer millennial being promoted to project manager and excelling on a technical project given to her despite a challenging owner.
- How the new project manager earned respect and confidence from the people she worked with.
- Peter’s role as a leader in helping the manager succeed on a daily basis, stay positive, on track and focused.
- How a leader helps employees see their potential in other positions.
- The breakdown of a unique and self-directed process for talent development including a surprising approach to mentorship.
- The importance of feedback in an organization.
Links:
Transcript
Eric:
Welcome to the Construction Leaders Podcast. My name is Eric Anderton and it’s my pleasure to welcome Peter Worhunsky, Vice President of Disney Construction out of the Bay Area. Peter welcome to the show.
Peter:
Thanks Eric. It’s great to be here. It’s an honor. I really appreciate what you’re doing with the industry and developing the next generation of leaders.
Eric:
Awesome and that’s exactly what we want to talk about here today. You have a specific perspective on Millennials in construction and I’d like you just to speak to that here for a few minutes.
Peter:
Sure we are a young growing company. We are in the heavy civil construction space throughout California highway bridges water wastewater underground projects.
And our company is young and growing and we have a lot of Millennials in some pretty senior positions in our organization. And we’re always attracting and growing more of them.
Eric:
That’s excellent so how would you how would you describe the Millennials willingness to get stuck into the tough world of construction and succeed in that business.
Peter:
I haven’t seen any difference between Millennials and any other generation in terms of good people who want to take on the challenges of this business and do really well I think there’s a fallacy in this industry and probably in a greater economy in general that Millennials can’t do the hard jobs and don’t want to take responsibility for things. In fact we’ve seen quite the opposite.
Eric:
Why do you think that fallacy exists?
Peter:
We have you know we have example after example at our company of Millennials that have done really really well at a young age that are still with us that are. It’s clear that they’re going to be the future of this business and the future of the industry.
Eric:
That’s excellent. So I know we were talking off line just before and we were we were talking specifically about one experience that you guys had about three years ago with a particular project where a Millennial really succeeded on that project. And can you tell me a little bit about that.
Peter:
Absolutely. So we were we are building a very technical bridge project.
We are self-performing the majority of the work on it. It was about $15 million contract. It was for a very difficult owner. The project manager was a Gen X engineer who was already accomplished in his career and left our company after he started having a family. He and his wife both worked and he was able to work from home as a consulting engineer so he left our company to do that and to start raising his family. And on the project we had a young Millennial at the time who was a project engineer who’d been on the job since the beginning. And even though she was young she showed an incredible ability to understand the work technically and also connect with the people that were building the jobs and the crews. And we saw that, and we decided to take the risk and to make the investment and make this person the project manager. And she did an incredible job.
Eric:
So what gave you confidence to instead of going out and bringing in someone who’s old school looks and more experienced what gave you confidence to bump her from that project engineer spot up to the project manager on such a challenging project.
Peter:
We saw that she understood what drives this business. She understood the work and she understood the people that build the work. And in addition to that she had a very keen ability to accurately understand herself and her own strengths and weaknesses. So we knew that when we made that decision that we were going to be able to quickly develop this person that she was probably compared to a lot of other managers. She already exceeded their abilities.
And so it would be an easy transition and it would be a very quick ramp up and it sure was.
Eric:
You know it’s interesting because I know in working with construction pros who are either Baby Boomers or Gen Xers one of the complaints about Millennials is that they’re a little cocky and they’re they seem to be unwilling to sometimes go to other people for feedback and for help. How did you find this particular project manager in terms of the way that she interacted with you and with the client.
Peter:
There was none of that. She knew where she needed help and I got to tell you all of the Millennials that we have that ability. And I again I think this is another Millennial fallacy that they don’t understand themselves that they’re cocky. I don’t see this as any different than any other generation. I remember when I was really young in this business I was definitely cocky. You have to be a little bit cocky to be in construction and I don’t see any difference in Millennials than I do and a Gen X or the baby boomers or anybody else.
Eric:
That’s excellent. So as she got into the project and like you said there was a there was a challenging owner a technical project that you self performed, being a woman, how did she work with the guys out in the field. How does she relate to them. What did she do to earn their respect to be able to communicate with them.
Peter:
What she did more than anything to really earn respect and communicate what she was out there with them. So, when they were having problems getting this work in place when they were having issues with the owner and the inspectors or whatever it may be she was there. She wasn’t in her office behind a computer.
She was out there on the grade in the mud with them talking about it owning the problems just like it was her own. And that very quickly built up a rapport and built up the respect of the crews. And I think the issue of what she was man woman or whatever didn’t matter, it didn’t matter she was highly competent and she cared about her people.
Eric:
That’s excellent. So. So that combination of competency caring and actually getting out there and communicating with people in the mud was what really helped her to gain that confidence and the respect of the people that she was working with.
Peter:
Absolutely. We sometimes forget especially now nobody is talking about the changes in construction technology and everything that’s coming out with drones and BIM and all that other stuff and I actually was speaking to a very seasoned Superintendent yesterday who put it best. He said you know computers never built anything people. People built these projects. That’s right. And that’s never gonna change. That’s never gonna change and as long as you remember that and keep that in mind that it’s people that are putting this work in place it’s not the computers it’s not the software it’s not the drones.
Eric
That’s when you’re going to you see that’s so so critical. It’s interesting I was reading an article today and it was it was addressing something separate but it used this analogy of how we use vitamins as supplements and on nutrition but we don’t replace our diet with those vital. And people think that this technology that’s coming into the industry is somehow going to replace and a face to face interaction or a picking up the phone and actually calling someone and it’s so fascinating too to see that people have their expectations for technology too high because like you said a computer never built a construction project. Now it’s absolutely key there.
So, as you as this person was working on this project what did you focus on as as a leader to help her to succeed on a daily basis.
Peter:
We developed a process with this manager that we still use today and it’s a formal process for development but it’s not formal in the sense that you see a larger company where we put a bunch of people in a classroom around a scripted curriculum that everybody gets. We sat down with this person we knew who she was and we wanted to take a very targeted and strategic view of her development and grow her as an individual. So, what I mean by that is we talked about where does she want to be out in the future. You are a senior person in the industry where are you and then what are your strengths and weaknesses right now. And she did an excellent job of being self-aware and understanding her strengths and weaknesses which we find almost all of our people do. And then we came up with a plan to get her from where she was on that day to where she wants to go. And it was all self-directed. It’s not the company telling the people OK this is how we’re going to develop you it’s actually it’s the reverse. Our people tell us where they want to go and where they’re out and then it’s our job to get there.
Eric:
OK so so this is an interesting let’s just dive into those three things. So you asked them where they want to go. You ask them to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and then you help them to put together a plan for going from where they are to where they want to be. What happens when someone says I want to go here and yet you see in them a potential for perhaps something else?
How do you handle that as a leader?
Peter:
We try to guide them and sort of talk through it and what we find and more than that is we find that people don’t have that picture yet. Oh interesting. And so if I can’t if we can’t get that picture out of them I mean it’s what we do as you say you know what we know you we know where you are. We see that as great potential in you. And how about this is your target? That’s interesting. What do you think about that? And usually they’ll say you know it’s something more than they ever thought they could get to. Or I don’t know if I could do all that and say well unless you tell me something different this is what we’re pointing out and we’re going to start getting you there today.
Eric:
It’s so interesting because sometimes young people they can be they can either be unaware or a little insecure and sometimes even the very best people are the ones who are the most you know unsure about themselves because they you know they drive themselves and they tend to be critical of themselves.
So it’s interesting how you as a senior leader helped to paint that picture for them and perhaps give them some ideas that they need affirmation in a certain way.
Peter:
They do and they have and most of them just have I think they haven’t thought of it or they haven’t put themselves in that position because they don’t know what it takes to get there. And just by following this process with us they can see it. They can start seeing that path develop like we I never thought I’d be able to run a very large project or managed dozens and dozens of people.
Well look at this here’s a clear path. This is here’s where I’m going to overcome some weaknesses here’s where I’m going to grow. Here’s where my leading edges and now I can start seeing that I could see that developed.
Eric:
That’s interesting so let’s just talk a little bit about this idea of strengths and weaknesses.
There’s a lot of thinking behind that. You know some people say just emphasize the strengths. Some people say work on your weaknesses. How do you guys approach the eye of the whole thing of identifying your strengths and weaknesses and working on those things.
Peter:
So the first is usually the self-assessment.
And like I said before most people we find have a very especially younger people who have a pretty accurate self assessment of where they are their strengths and weaknesses. When we first started this we were concerned. It’s like a how. OK we’re going to let these people take it. But you know they don’t really know themselves that we can see this clearly you can’t clearly see yourself. We were totally wrong for the most part. Interest our people were able to see there are major gaps themselves like they knew it. They knew it intuitively or they can see it right. And in terms of what do we do with the strengths and weaknesses it all goes back to the goal. So we’re pointing at the vision we’re trying to get the person from where they are today to where that vision is and maybe sometimes that means working on a weakness maybe sometimes that means growing strength. It all depends on what we’re pointing out. And we’ve done we have various combinations of working on strengths working on weaknesses combining the two. Forgetting some of them whatever it is to get to that goal.
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Eric:
So. So tell me in your experience what are some of the reoccurring weaknesses that come up that affect you know building and projects success.
Peter:
Sure. Especially for young so younger people that we have especially ones that are very technically wanting to come out of an engineering type program. Most of them are very uncomfortable with what you typically see as the soft skills of dealing with people and also working on teams.
So they are there they are uncomfortable leading meetings; they’re uncomfortable with public speaking; they’re uncomfortable with people reporting to them; they’re uncomfortable with all the things that you really need to get good at in order to be a manager. And that’s something that comes up again and again. Another thing that we see.
Eric:
So let me just answer that. How do you help them with that specifically because you know if you’re an engineer you tend to be you know a sort of task oriented. Yeah very sort of objective and and like you said not necessarily people oriented. How do you help them specifically with that particular challenge.
Peter
We will take. So let’s say we’re talking about taking example public speaking. Right. So we have people like right now we have some younger Millennial leaders in the company that have to present to the company on a weekly basis. And when they started doing it they were very uncomfortable with it and they knew that that was something they needed to grow into. So the way that we do it is very targeted we just pick one thing and we work on it and they get direct feedback. So let’s say they have to present at the company meeting we’re gonna give them feedback within that same week. Hey he did the meeting last week. This went really well in terms of what you presented. This didn’t go so well. So next week let’s work on the things that didn’t go well right. And then over time by getting them it’s modeled on the idea of deliberate practice. OK. So you’re there you’re working alongside somebody who’s giving you that immediate feedback and you’re growing just a little bit and over time that little bit really compounds and adds up so we can what you think is these micro moves in a relatively short period of time produce a really big change.
Eric
So. So you’re putting them in practical circumstances in real circumstances where for instance they have to do that presentation and then you’re emphasizing slow incremental development that compounds over time
Peter
Working alongside a mentor who’s been there so it needs to be that somebody who’s been there that can do it. That’s there with them in the trenches giving them that feedback.
Eric
So let’s talk about the idea of a mentor. How do you go about selecting a mentor? Do they select their mentor or do you how do you go about that mentor aspect?
Peter
We when we figure out what it is that we’re going to work on with them what specifically what’s the task What’s the skill what’s the weakness you’re overcoming. We try to match people with that. So we’ve had superintendents working with our technology director because the superintendent really wanted to understand our software systems better. We’ve had engineers working with foremen on things because the engineer wanted to understand something technically that we knew that foreman was really good at. We’ve had different people acting as mentors in different parts of the company it doesn’t matter where you are in terms of quote unquote seniority it’s about who has the skill that this person needs to learn.
Eric
So that’s interesting. So what I heard there is that you have and you don’t typically hear this a lot. This idea of someone in the field mentoring someone in the office and having people who may not necessarily cross pass all the time coming together for a specific learning point. Absolutely. That’s interesting.
So as this this this young woman she was leading this $15 million project what was the biggest challenge she faced on the project.
Peter:
The biggest challenge was definitely on this project the owner. I mean the job is very technical. And again we self performed most of the work but that the building of the work for us especially for her she’s so technically strong and technically oriented. That was kind of secondary.
The biggest challenge we had was dealing with a really really bad owner and lots of changes and doing the administration around that and making sure that we were going to be in a position to resolve all of this stuff. And it was difficult and she was working with people on the owner’s side that weren’t always respectful that we’re always playing what we saw as above board and it was a challenge. It’s something that could really wear you out and grind you down unless you can find a way to get through it.
Eric
And what did you do as a leader to help her to to stay positive and to stay on track and keep focused on finishing the work?
Peter:
So we went when I knew that that environment was gonna be challenging. And so part of what we do or one thing that we often do is our our development process is if we have a book that we’ve read write that we like and say you know this is a great book I want to we’re gonna read this together I’ve read it I want you to read this book. So one of the things I started with her was that was a relatively recent book at the time and stoic philosophy. And I thought it was great because it was teaching that book. This is Ryan Holiday’s the Obstacle is the Way.
Yeah. So yeah. And it was you know for someone who is coming up as an engineer they’re not exposed to this stuff.
So we we went through that. And so the first thing it was to was the teach her to give her that mindset that even if you’re dealing with these hyper stressful situations and people that really should be behaving a lot better than they are and aren’t necessarily providing you that level of respect you deserve what happens to you and how you feel about it.
Most of the time it’s up to you right. And you need to remember that and you need to work on that and you need to develop that space that allows you to say you know what I can’t control how this person is treating me but I can control how you react to it.
Eric
There you go. There you go. That’s interesting. So. So being able to bring to her a resource such as that book and to go through it with her helped specifically with the challenges that she was facing on that project.
Peter
Yeah that was the first two parts of it and the third part of it was just being there with her in the trenches going through that and be able to say to her you know you did a great job in that meeting they were just they were being jerks but you kept your composure you got your point out we got through it and being able to provide that real time feedback so she can she could see hey this went well or hey you know what I still need to work on this part of it.
Eric
That’s interesting. So despite all the obstacles what would give me an idea of how the conclusion of the project how it all wrapped up and what sort of the bottom line for you guys was?
Peter
It ended up in litigation. The conclusion is still unknown. Interesting. And but I can tell you it’s going about as well as we could hope to go. So maybe by the time this airs will be a positive outcome that we can report.
Eric
That’s excellent. But despite the challenges that are even still ongoing. How would you how would you characterize her performance overall throughout that whole project.
Peter
Just incredible absolutely incredible. And we couldn’t have asked for a better manager regardless of age or gender or whatever. She did an incredible job.
Eric
That’s terrific. So, in conclusion here in light of this this idea of your company’s philosophy of self development. Give me three takeaways that a construction leader could really take and use when thinking about developing the younger folks in their organization.
Peter
The first thing is it needs to be self directed so it’s not it’s not the company imposing the development on the people it’s the it’s the opposite. We see it as the opposite the people are imposing the development on the company. They’re saying this is where I want to go in my career. This is where I think I am please help me get there. Then it’s our job to get him there it’s not our job to say these are the things we want to train you. And so it needs to be self directed and it also as much as possible it needs to be very much based around the individual. It’s harder to do. It takes a lot more investment it takes a lot more investment in the leadership to do it because you have to do it in a more customized and personal way. But the results are so much faster and so much larger if you can provide the development that in that way.
Eric
So it has to be self directed and specifically earlier you talked about those three things that you:
- Sit down with them and you have them articulate their hopes and their dreams and their goals and then you provide them some feedback and perhaps give them some perspective that they didn’t have in terms of their potential.
- Then you talk about their strengths and their weaknesses and you begin to identify areas that they could perhaps develop themselves in.
- Then the third thing is you put that plan in place. Is that right.
Peter
We put the plan in place and then we match them with the people that are going to get them there.
Eric
There you go. OK. So yeah. So it’s the
- Hopes the dreams and goals
- The strengths and weaknesses
- The plan in place and then
- The mentoring aspect as well.
Peter
And mentors come from everywhere.
Eric
That was another key right there so you have folks someone in the field can mentor someone in the office and it isn’t based on the seniority in the organization it’s based on how they can make a contribution to that person’s development specifically.
Peter
Yes. And you know we take this so seriously that we do it like like most companies do we have quarterly employee reviews and we go in and we give them the review.
Peter
You’d be surprised what those companies don’t do quarterly reviews.
Peter
So that’s only half our process. So where it’s company and the managers sort of assessing the employee and the goals that we have as the other half of that is they assess US and their development. Oh interesting. So we have their goals we’re tracking their goals are saying how are these goals going right. Are the mentors doing what we needed them to do for you. Are you still doing the meetings? Have you gotten as far as you wanted to in the last three months? Like what’s happening with it. And how are we as the company doing. Meeting your development goals.
Eric
That’s terrific. That’s terrific. And so that’s interesting because then you have to be willing for some feedback yourself as as a leader.
Peter
We do. And now most people are uncomfortable giving now and we change. It takes a little bit to get it out of them but the ones that have been doing it for a while it’s still helpful because it not only you’re gonna get feedback about their development but it’s gonna make them more open to giving you feedback about your company.
Eric
Yeah that’s terrific. And you need that feedback. Sometimes we missed so many things in our organization just because we only have one perspective ourselves.
Peter
Yeah. We’re not there you’re not every especially. It doesn’t take any significant amount of size in the construction business to where the senior managers are out of touch with what’s really going on unless you’re there at the workplace you really don’t know everything that’s going on. So, you’ve got to get out and you’ve got to speak with the people that they’re building network and you need to get that feedback from them.
Eric
That’s terrific. Well Peter I really appreciate your time today and we got some great takeaways here in terms of identifying and then developing talent, particularly young people. I really appreciate your perspective and thanks for joining us today on the construction leaders podcast.
Peter
It was my pleasure.
Welcome to the Construction Leaders Podcast. My name is Eric Anderton and it’s my pleasure to welcome Peter Worhunsky, Vice President of Disney Construction out of the Bay Area. Peter welcome to the show.
Peter:
Thanks Eric. It’s great to be here. It’s an honor. I really appreciate what you’re doing with the industry and developing the next generation of leaders.
Eric:
Awesome and that’s exactly what we want to talk about here today. You have a specific perspective on Millennials in construction and I’d like you just to speak to that here for a few minutes.
Peter:
Sure we are a we’re a young growing company. We are in the heavy civil construction space throughout California highway bridges water wastewater underground projects.
And our company is young and growing and we have a lot of Millennials in some pretty senior positions in our organization. And we’re always attracting and growing more of them.
Eric:
That’s excellent so how would you how would you describe the Millennials willingness to get stuck into the tough world of construction and succeed in that business.
Peter:
I haven’t seen any difference between Millennials and any other generation in terms of good people who want to take on the challenges of this business and do really well I think there’s a fallacy in this industry and probably in a greater economy in general that Millennials can’t do the hard jobs and don’t want to take responsibility for things. In fact we’ve seen quite the opposite.
Eric:
Why do you think that fallacy exists?
Peter:
We have you know we have example after example at our company of Millennials that have done really really well at a young age that are still with us that are. It’s clear that they’re going to be the future of this business and the future of the industry.
Eric:
That’s excellent. So I know we were talking off line just before and we were we were talking specifically about one experience that you guys had about three years ago with a particular project where a Millennial really succeeded on that project. And can you tell me a little bit about that.
Peter:
Absolutely. So we were we are building a very technical bridge project.
We are self-performing the majority of the work on it. It was about $15 million contract. It was for a very difficult owner. The project manager was a Gen X engineer who was already accomplished in his career and left our company after he started having a family. He and his wife both worked and he was able to work from home as a consulting engineer so he left our company to do that and to start raising his family. And on the project we had a young Millennial at the time who was a project engineer who’d been on the job since the beginning. And even though she was young she showed an incredible ability to understand the work technically and also connect with the people that were building the jobs and the crews. And we saw that, and we decided to take the risk and to make the investment and make this person the project manager. And she did an incredible job.
Eric:
So what gave you confidence to instead of going out and bringing in someone who’s old school looks and more experienced what gave you confidence to bump her from that project engineer spot up to the project manager on such a challenging project.
Peter:
We saw that she understood what drives this business. She understood the work and she understood the people that build the work. And in addition to that she had a very keen ability to accurately understand herself and her own strengths and weaknesses. So we knew that when we made that decision that we were going to be able to quickly develop this person that she was probably compared to a lot of other managers. She already exceeded their abilities.
And so it would be an easy transition and it would be a very quick ramp up and it sure was.
Eric:
You know it’s interesting because I know in working with construction pros who are either Baby Boomers or Gen Xers one of the complaints about Millennials is that they’re a little cocky and they’re they seem to be unwilling to sometimes go to other people for feedback and for help. How did you find this particular project manager in terms of the way that she interacted with you and with the client.
Peter:
There was none of that. She knew where she needed help and I got to tell you all of the Millennials that we have that ability. And I again I think this is another Millennial fallacy that they don’t understand themselves that they’re cocky. I don’t see this as any different than any other generation. I remember when I was really young in this business I was definitely cocky. You have to be a little bit cocky to be in construction and I don’t see any difference in Millennials than I do and a Gen X or the baby boomers or anybody else.
Eric:
That’s excellent. So as she got into the project and like you said there was a there was a challenging owner a technical project that you self performed, being a woman, how did she work with the guys out in the field. How does she relate to them. What did she do to earn their respect to be able to communicate with them.
Peter:
What she did more than anything to really earn respect and communicate what she was out there with them. So, when they were having problems getting this work in place when they were having issues with the owner and the inspectors or whatever it may be she was there. She wasn’t in her office behind a computer.
She was out there on the grade in the mud with them talking about it owning the problems just like it was her own. And that very quickly built up a rapport and built up the respect of the crews. And I think the issue of what she was man woman or whatever didn’t matter, it didn’t matter she was highly competent and she cared about her people.
Eric:
That’s excellent. So. So that combination of competency caring and actually getting out there and communicating with people in the mud was what really helped her to gain that confidence and the respect of the people that she was working with.
Peter:
Absolutely. We sometimes forget especially now nobody is talking about the changes in construction technology and everything that’s coming out with drones and BIM and all that other stuff and I actually was speaking to a very seasoned Superintendent yesterday who put it best. He said you know computers never built anything people. People built these projects. That’s right. And that’s never gonna change. That’s never gonna change and as long as you remember that and keep that in mind that it’s people that are putting this work in place it’s not the computers it’s not the software it’s not the drones.
Eric
That’s when you’re going to you see that’s so so critical. It’s interesting I was reading an article today and it was it was addressing something separate but it used this analogy of how we use vitamins as supplements and on nutrition but we don’t replace our diet with those vital. And people think that this technology that’s coming into the industry is somehow going to replace and a face to face interaction or a picking up the phone and actually calling someone and it’s so fascinating too to see that people have their expectations for technology too high because like you said a computer never built a construction project. Now it’s absolutely key there.
So, as you as this person was working on this project what did you focus on as as a leader to help her to succeed on a daily basis.
Peter:
We developed a process with this manager that we still use today and it’s a formal process for development but it’s not formal in the sense that you see a larger company where we put a bunch of people in a classroom around a scripted curriculum that everybody gets. We sat down with this person we knew who she was and we wanted to take a very targeted and strategic view of her development and grow her as an individual. So, what I mean by that is we talked about where does she want to be out in the future. You are a senior person in the industry where are you and then what are your strengths and weaknesses right now. And she did an excellent job of being self-aware and understanding her strengths and weaknesses which we find almost all of our people do. And then we came up with a plan to get her from where she was on that day to where she wants to go. And it was all self-directed. It’s not the company telling the people OK this is how we’re going to develop you it’s actually it’s the reverse. Our people tell us where they want to go and where they’re out and then it’s our job to get there.
Eric:
OK so so this is an interesting let’s just dive into those three things. So you asked them where they want to go. You ask them to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and then you help them to put together a plan for going from where they are to where they want to be. What happens when someone says I want to go here and yet you see in them a potential for perhaps something else?
How do you handle that as a leader?
Peter:
We try to guide them and sort of talk through it and what we find and more than that is we find that people don’t have that picture yet. Oh interesting. And so if I can’t if we can’t get that picture out of them I mean it’s what we do as you say you know what we know you we know where you are. We see that as great potential in you. And how about this is your target? That’s interesting. What do you think about that? And usually they’ll say you know it’s something more than they ever thought they could get to. Or I don’t know if I could do all that and say well unless you tell me something different this is what we’re pointing out and we’re going to start getting you there today.
Eric:
It’s so interesting because sometimes young people they can be they can either be unaware or a little insecure and sometimes even the very best people are the ones who are the most you know unsure about themselves because they you know they drive themselves and they tend to be critical of themselves.
So it’s interesting how you as a senior leader helped to paint that picture for them and perhaps give them some ideas that they need affirmation in a certain way.
Peter:
They do and they have and most of them just have I think they haven’t thought of it or they haven’t put themselves in that position because they don’t know what it takes to get there. And just by following this process with us they can see it. They can start seeing that path develop like we I never thought I’d be able to run a very large project or managed dozens and dozens of people.
Well look at this here’s a clear path. This is here’s where I’m going to overcome some weaknesses here’s where I’m going to grow. Here’s where my leading edges and now I can start seeing that I could see that developed.
Eric:
That’s interesting so let’s just talk a little bit about this idea of strengths and weaknesses.
There’s a lot of thinking behind that. You know some people say just emphasize the strengths. Some people say work on your weaknesses. How do you guys approach the eye of the whole thing of identifying your strengths and weaknesses and working on those things.
Peter:
So the first is usually the self-assessment.
And like I said before most people we find have a very especially younger people who have a pretty accurate self assessment of where they are their strengths and weaknesses. When we first started this we were concerned. It’s like a how. OK we’re going to let these people take it. But you know they don’t really know themselves that we can see this clearly you can’t clearly see yourself. We were totally wrong for the most part. Interest our people were able to see there are major gaps themselves like they knew it. They knew it intuitively or they can see it right. And in terms of what do we do with the strengths and weaknesses it all goes back to the goal. So we’re pointing at the vision we’re trying to get the person from where they are today to where that vision is and maybe sometimes that means working on a weakness maybe sometimes that means growing strength. It all depends on what we’re pointing out. And we’ve done we have various combinations of working on strengths working on weaknesses combining the two. Forgetting some of them whatever it is to get to that goal.
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Eric:
So. So tell me in your experience what are some of the reoccurring weaknesses that come up that affect you know building and projects success.
Peter:
Sure. Especially for young so younger people that we have especially ones that are very technically wanting to come out of an engineering type program. Most of them are very uncomfortable with what you typically see as the soft skills of dealing with people and also working on teams.
So they are there they are uncomfortable leading meetings; they’re uncomfortable with public speaking; they’re uncomfortable with people reporting to them; they’re uncomfortable with all the things that you really need to get good at in order to be a manager. And that’s something that comes up again and again. Another thing that we see.
Eric:
So let me just answer that. How do you help them with that specifically because you know if you’re an engineer you tend to be you know a sort of task oriented. Yeah very sort of objective and and like you said not necessarily people oriented. How do you help them specifically with that particular challenge.
Peter
We will take. So let’s say we’re talking about taking example public speaking. Right. So we have people like right now we have some younger Millennial leaders in the company that have to present to the company on a weekly basis. And when they started doing it they were very uncomfortable with it and they knew that that was something they needed to grow into. So the way that we do it is very targeted we just pick one thing and we work on it and they get direct feedback. So let’s say they have to present at the company meeting we’re gonna give them feedback within that same week. Hey he did the meeting last week. This went really well in terms of what you presented. This didn’t go so well. So next week let’s work on the things that didn’t go well right. And then over time by getting them it’s modeled on the idea of deliberate practice. OK. So you’re there you’re working alongside somebody who’s giving you that immediate feedback and you’re growing just a little bit and over time that little bit really compounds and adds up so we can what you think is these micro moves in a relatively short period of time produce a really big change.
Eric
So. So you’re putting them in practical circumstances in real circumstances where for instance they have to do that presentation and then you’re emphasizing slow incremental development that compounds over time
Peter
Working alongside a mentor who’s been there so it needs to be that somebody who’s been there that can do it. That’s there with them in the trenches giving them that feedback.
Eric
So let’s talk about the idea of a mentor. How do you go about selecting a mentor? Do they select their mentor or do you how do you go about that mentor aspect?
Peter
We when we figure out what it is that we’re going to work on with them what specifically what’s the task What’s the skill what’s the weakness you’re overcoming. We try to match people with that. So we’ve had superintendents working with our technology director because the superintendent really wanted to understand our software systems better. We’ve had engineers working with foremen on things because the engineer wanted to understand something technically that we knew that foreman was really good at. We’ve had different people acting as mentors in different parts of the company it doesn’t matter where you are in terms of quote unquote seniority it’s about who has the skill that this person needs to learn.
Eric
So that’s interesting. So what I heard there is that you have and you don’t typically hear this a lot. This idea of someone in the field mentoring someone in the office and having people who may not necessarily cross pass all the time coming together for a specific learning point. Absolutely. That’s interesting.
So as this this this young woman she was leading this $15 million project what was the biggest challenge she faced on the project.
Peter:
The biggest challenge was definitely on this project the owner. I mean the job is very technical. And again we self performed most of the work but that the building of the work for us especially for her she’s so technically strong and technically oriented. That was kind of secondary.
The biggest challenge we had was dealing with a really really bad owner and lots of changes and doing the administration around that and making sure that we were going to be in a position to resolve all of this stuff. And it was difficult and she was working with people on the owner’s side that weren’t always respectful that we’re always playing what we saw as above board and it was a challenge. It’s something that could really wear you out and grind you down unless you can find a way to get through it.
Eric
And what did you do as a leader to help her to to stay positive and to stay on track and keep focused on finishing the work?
Peter:
So we went when I knew that that environment was gonna be challenging. And so part of what we do or one thing that we often do is our our development process is if we have a book that we’ve read write that we like and say you know this is a great book I want to we’re gonna read this together I’ve read it I want you to read this book. So one of the things I started with her was that was a relatively recent book at the time and stoic philosophy. And I thought it was great because it was teaching that book. This is Ryan Holiday’s the Obstacle is the Way.
Yeah. So yeah. And it was you know for someone who is coming up as an engineer they’re not exposed to this stuff.
So we we went through that. And so the first thing it was to was the teach her to give her that mindset that even if you’re dealing with these hyper stressful situations and people that really should be behaving a lot better than they are and aren’t necessarily providing you that level of respect you deserve what happens to you and how you feel about it.
Most of the time it’s up to you right. And you need to remember that and you need to work on that and you need to develop that space that allows you to say you know what I can’t control how this person is treating me but I can control how you react to it.
Eric
There you go. There you go. That’s interesting. So. So being able to bring to her a resource such as that book and to go through it with her helped specifically with the challenges that she was facing on that project.
Peter
Yeah that was the first two parts of it and the third part of it was just being there with her in the trenches going through that and be able to say to her you know you did a great job in that meeting they were just they were being jerks but you kept your composure you got your point out we got through it and being able to provide that real time feedback so she can she could see hey this went well or hey you know what I still need to work on this part of it.
Eric
That’s interesting. So despite all the obstacles what would give me an idea of how the conclusion of the project how it all wrapped up and what sort of the bottom line for you guys was?
Peter
It ended up in litigation. The conclusion is still unknown. Interesting. And but I can tell you it’s going about as well as we could hope to go. So maybe by the time this airs will be a positive outcome that we can report.
Eric
That’s excellent. But despite the challenges that are even still ongoing. How would you how would you characterize her performance overall throughout that whole project.
Peter
Just incredible absolutely incredible. And we couldn’t have asked for a better manager regardless of age or gender or whatever. She did an incredible job.
Eric
That’s terrific. So, in conclusion here in light of this this idea of your company’s philosophy of self development. Give me three takeaways that a construction leader could really take and use when thinking about developing the younger folks in their organization.
Peter
The first thing is it needs to be self directed so it’s not it’s not the company imposing the development on the people it’s the it’s the opposite. We see it as the opposite the people are imposing the development on the company. They’re saying this is where I want to go in my career. This is where I think I am please help me get there. Then it’s our job to get him there it’s not our job to say these are the things we want to train you. And so it needs to be self directed and it also as much as possible it needs to be very much based around the individual. It’s harder to do. It takes a lot more investment it takes a lot more investment in the leadership to do it because you have to do it in a more customized and personal way. But the results are so much faster and so much larger if you can provide the development that in that way.
Eric
So it has to be self-directed and specifically earlier you talked about those three things that you:
- Sit down with them and you have them articulate their hopes and their dreams and their goals and then you provide them some feedback and perhaps give them some perspective that they didn’t have in terms of their potential.
- Then you talk about their strengths and their weaknesses and you begin to identify areas that they could perhaps develop themselves in.
- Then the third thing is you put that plan in place. Is that right?
Peter
We put the plan in place and then we match them with the people that are going to get them there.
Eric
There you go. OK. So yeah. So it’s the
- Hopes the dreams and goals
- The strengths and weaknesses
- The plan in place and then
- The mentoring aspect as well.
Peter
And mentors come from everywhere.
Eric
That was another key right there so you have folks someone in the field can mentor someone in the office and it isn’t based on the seniority in the organization it’s based on how they can make a contribution to that person’s development specifically.
Peter
Yes. And you know we take this so seriously that we do it like like most companies do we have quarterly employee reviews and we go in and we give them the review.
Peter
You’d be surprised what those companies don’t do quarterly reviews.
Peter
So that’s only half our process. So where it’s company and the managers sort of assessing the employee and the goals that we have as the other half of that is they assess US and their development. Oh interesting. So we have their goals we’re tracking their goals are saying how are these goals going right. Are the mentors doing what we needed them to do for you. Are you still doing the meetings? Have you gotten as far as you wanted to in the last three months? Like what’s happening with it. And how are we as the company doing. Meeting your development goals.
Eric
That’s terrific. That’s terrific. And so that’s interesting because then you have to be willing for some feedback yourself as as a leader.
Peter
We do. And now most people are uncomfortable giving now and we change. It takes a little bit to get it out of them but the ones that have been doing it for a while it’s still helpful because it not only you’re gonna get feedback about their development but it’s gonna make them more open to giving you feedback about your company.
Eric
Yeah that’s terrific. And you need that feedback. Sometimes we missed so many things in our organization just because we only have one perspective ourselves.
Peter
Yeah. We’re not there you’re not every especially. It doesn’t take any significant amount of size in the construction business to where the senior managers are out of touch with what’s really going on unless you’re there at the workplace you really don’t know everything that’s going on. So, you’ve got to get out and you’ve got to speak with the people that they’re building network and you need to get that feedback from them.
Eric
That’s terrific. Well Peter I really appreciate your time today and we got some great takeaways here in terms of identifying and then developing talent, particularly young people. I really appreciate your perspective and thanks for joining us today on the construction leaders podcast.
Peter
It was my pleasure.
Key Takeaways: Self-Directed Talent Development
- Ask them their hopes and dreams
- Identify their strengths and weaknesses
- Put a development plan in place
- Provide a mentor
- Get and give feedback on the process
