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Welcome everybody out to podcast number one zero five two in this podcast. I'm going to talk about diggers. Stay with us.

This is the elevate construction podcast, delivering remarkable content for workers, leaders, and companies in construction, wanting to take their next step, get ready to step out of your comfort zone with Jason Schroeder as he encourages you to do better, live a remarkable life and expect more. Let's go. Welcome everyone.

I hope you're doing well and having a great time. I'm going to get caught up with the other three podcasts, at least by tonight or by tomorrow. Oh boy, I really got behind this week with the robbery and our Airbnb and traveling.

I went from Abbotsford to Langley and then last night flew back here to Phoenix. So I'm back home and I'm excited about this topic. I was meeting with a client or no, no, no, no, sorry, a potential client.

And I got this topic and it was, it was really quite remarkable. And I was sitting there with Kevin. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is, this is such a podcast.

So I'm going to give that to you today. Um, let me first read some feedback from our listeners real quick. Uh, cause I like doing that.

Uh, I've never come across a public figure. Oh, sorry. I've never come across a public figure as unselfish with giving as you are.

Please never stop being you. Your work is appreciated and a much needed breath of fresh air in a demanding and stressful industry. I hope to contribute towards your work and making a difference.

I heard your recent podcast where you mentioned it will take the smaller companies to prove the benefits of the systems you espouse to affect industry change. I recently accepted a position one second at a smaller company and hope to use that opportunity to do just that. You're making a difference and I wish you much success.

Thanks again. Well, that was awesome. Um, you know, I can say that, uh, a lot of the giving attitude comes from, well, I'm, I, I, uh, uh, identify as, as, as somebody who wants to give.

I just also want to give credit to Kevin and Kate and all of the folks over at lean tact and a lot of the mentors that have, uh, taught me. And then obviously Tony Robbins, who says, add value first. Don't worry about the business.

Uh, if you add value, uh, and, and, and help people in life, it'll be, uh, obviously worthwhile and you'll have everything that you need. Right? So I really appreciate that feedback. Okay.

So let me get into the topic right away. Um, I was talking to a potential client and they were talking about, uh, their org chart and we were discussing what we see to be successful with other construction companies that like, uh, project managers and superintendents will have the control of the project. And then anywhere from three to five will be under the direction of a project executive or project director.

And then those project directors or project executives, uh, loop up under the vice president of operations, vice president of a field operations or your field operations director or whatever it is, the basically the integrator that either works with your, uh, uh, main integrator or COO. Or, you know, is the COO, whatever, uh, that oversees the project executives and how that structure would work. And it just as you can't spread out a project manager or superintendent.

Well, let's just say PM for this one. A PM overseeing too many projects, right? Three is the recommended max five is definitely the most, uh, projects that a PM should be running now from a, from a, an active standpoint. Uh, just like you, that's a rule of thumb for project managers.

It's also a rule of thumb for project directors and project executives that they can't get too spread out. And you can't have your director of operations and your, um, or your, your integrator or your director of field operations, uh, spread out too thin because they'll become ineffective. So we were talking about that and I said the second worst thing that you can do to those key positions.

Let's just talk about the project executive project director right now. The second worst thing that you can do to that position other than spreading them out is to hire a, an optimist, uh, for that, uh, position. And I always tell the story of a general superintendent one time in a company that wasn't cutting, cutting it that had to be demoted.

And I remember being in a meeting with him and we were doing this, uh, we had done, so not we, the company had done a project on a lot of land and there was a water, rain, rivers, unsuitable, bad conditions, changes with owner direction, all these horrible things that really tank the project, uh, from a financial standpoint. And literally I was in the room and we were doing a review of the project plan and I, somebody, I'm thinking it was me, but I always remember it was me cause I'm a narcissistic, but the, uh, somebody brought up, uh, no, no, no, I think it was actually me. We, you know, Hey, we had problems with unsuitable and the pawns filling up and these other things.

Um, are we going to have that problem here? And he was like, no, no, I think we should be fine. No, I don't think that'll happen. No, I think that's a good plot of ground right there, right? Oh, the owner shouldn't do it to us this time.

And I was like, what, what in the world is this guy talking about? Like what we, we have historical data showing that 10 feet away, we lost this much money because of these things. And we hope that it's not going to happen over here. Um, and I just remember like he was such a, I think we should be okay.

Wishful thinking, optimist patch on the back, not really dig deep kind of a guy. He couldn't be a general superintendent and had to be demonic. So that's one of my favorite, favorite stories.

If you have a project executive that's going to hold your project managers and project superintendents accountable, they've got to be a digger. Here's what I mean by a digger, um, or a picker or, or somebody who has depth. I don't know how you want to say it, but like somebody who will ask annoying questions, somebody who will dig deep and find the real information, somebody who will actually get the job done instead of just talking about it.

Right. Because, um, regardless of, I think I want to say regardless, regardless or, or irrespective of how honest somebody is almost everything that they say verbally is wrong, meaning like if you say, uh, if you ask a direct report, Hey, how, how, how's this job going? Oh, no, it's going fine. That is not an accurate, uh, uh, statement.

Um, there could be major, uh, black swans. There could be large, bolder roadblocks. There could be a problems with the team.

And when they say just fine, that's just a natural human response. That doesn't mean that they're lying, but a digger or a picker will, or, or somebody who has depth, whatever, however you want to say it, I'm going to call them diggers will be like, okay, well, show me the data. It's like the Ronald Reagan, you know, trust, but verify type, uh, saying, uh, you're, you, you, okay, it's fine.

Let's look at the data. Oh, I respect your opinion. Let's look at the data.

Oh, uh, you're, you're, you say your schedule is fine. Let's go look at your schedule. Uh, let's look at your project plan.

Let's look at your finances. If you say you're on budget, I'd love to see it. How are we tracking for contingency? Diggers will get to the bottom of something and find past human nature, the real, the real deal, the real information, the true data, what's really going on.

And the reason that you have to have, uh, the diggers in those project executive and integrated positions is because they're setting the example. If you have a wishful thinking milk toast optimist, a person as your integrator or COO, you'll have milk toast optimist, um, patch on the back, sympathy voting project executives, and then the PMs will do whatever they want and you won't have any consistency anywhere and your organization will start to flounder. Okay.

So you've got to have diggers and I think you understand my point well enough, or you can call them the 10th man or the 10th woman or digger picker. Uh, the designated asshole, the DAH, whatever you want to call it, the person that will not, uh, the person that asked questions and gets to the bottom of things and is actually able to provide or to make, to affect real change. Okay.

Now here's the epiphany of why the podcast is so crucial. Um, I made the point or no, no, no, no, uh, one of the, the potential, one of the guys with this potential client said, okay, the two of us are that way. And I was like, oh my gosh, that's so great.

That means that they can find the right WHO, the right who to fill that position. But my other point was it hit me in the, uh, meeting because we were talking about, uh, the tech production system, last planner and doing proper project planning, and it hit me, you, if you, you got to have two parts to this, you got to have the digger and you got to have the dirt. Oh my gosh, it's such a good podcast.

You got to have the digger in the dirt. If you, if you got a digger and, and you've, you all have seen this with dogs, like our dog is like, I had a million years. If we tried to get, uh, uh, I almost said hire dogs.

That's so stupid, but buy a dog. I don't think in a million years, if we bought a thousand new dogs or a million new dogs, I don't think we'd have a better dog than the one that we have now, it's, it's kind of a funny story. Actually, I was coming home from a plant, a flight and Katie called me and she said, you just bought a dog.

Uh, you're going to take care of it. I don't want to hear any, any shit about it. And I was like, uh, what? So she got inspiration from the universe and went and bought this dog and then blamed it on me, but it's the best dog on earth.

And just so you know, any of you who are married, that's going to happen to you one day. So you're welcome anyway. So our dog, um, has this cellular instinct to dig and bury bones.

And this is actually a sad little thing. And we stopped it as soon as we saw it, but, uh, we, we got her a bone. She's such a sweetie.

Uh, she's so clean. She doesn't shed like she's just in the house. It doesn't cause any smells.

Uh, it has a restroom out back and, um, we got her a bone and she has this little fluffy pad that I bought her and, uh, she put her bone on it and like mentally, cellularly, she has this instinct to bury the bone. So she's trying to nose this pad over this bone and not getting it done. And I finally walked in the room around the corner and her nose is bloody and there's blood streaks all over this freaking thing because she can't bury the damn thing.

And she's not understanding that it's not dirt that can bury. It's a solid object, right? Or it's a solid weave and it's hurting her nose. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, honey, like we got to get this figured out.

So we got the bone figured out. We got her under a new circumstance. It hasn't happened since I felt so bad because she rubbed her nose like really wrong.

So she's a digger. She's a barrier. She's, she's a picker, but she doesn't have any dirt, right? So it's going to hurt.

Okay. So if you have a, here's the analogy. If you have a chief operating officer officer, uh, who should be an integrator or an integrator or a project executives are in charge of your organization or general superintendents, and you've heard me in my opinion about general superintendents over and over, if you have the right person, which is a digger.

Cause you can't have the milk toast optimistic Pat people on the back place, save your people in those positions. If you've got a digger, who's also a great leader, you've got to have dirt. Now here's your dirt.

You, your dirt on the project site. And I've talked to you about this before is your schedule. It's your zone maps.

It's your logistics maps. It's your financial projections, right? It's your risk and opportunity register. It's the information on your project.

It's your production information. So if you do have those good positions, they've got to dig into information either in budget reviews or monthly field walks or the project check-ins, whatever the case may be, uh, you've got to have the information. So if you don't have a tax plan, you don't have dirt.

If you don't have your zone maps or logistics, you don't have dirt. If you don't have your procurement log and your risk and opportunity register, you don't have dirt. If you don't have the financial projections, you don't have dirt.

If you don't have the information and real life, uh, data that shows you what's going on, especially for trade flow and the real information on your projects, then you don't have dirt. And the reason is problem. It's a problem is because you need a digger and you need dirt to get to the bottom and find the gold, which is the key strategies that you can or tactics that you can implement to really make a change in your job. 

The last podcast, I was talking about how you can't make money by managing a budget. You make money by managing your schedule, right? And so if you've got diggers in those positions that are going to hold your PMS and supers accountable, they've got to be able to see, they've got to be able to dig. They've got to have information to review.

They've got to have a plan that they can see and vet. They've got to be able to see because seeing allows us to see problems and roadblocks. Seeing problems and roadblocks allows us to discuss them and solve them and solving them creates flow and keeps the water from leaking out of our buckets.

So always remember in your organizations and in your jobs at every job, you've got to have a digger and you've got to have dirt or you've got to have that person who will dig deep and you've got to have visual management systems that are covering your schedule, that are covering your quality, that are covering your cost and that are really helping you to find or remove those roadblocks that I had. So remember, you always need diggers and dirt. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. 

On we go. Please join us next time in elevating the entire construction experience for workers, leaders, and companies coast to coast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to share with your construction colleagues and help us spread the word by rating, subscribing, and leaving a review on your preferred podcast listening platform.

We really appreciate it. We'll catch you next time on the Elevate Construction Podcast.

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