(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)

Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1414. We have Steven Shannon with us today, who is a, well, absolutely an amazing human being, one of the individuals that stayed back and helped us at bootcamp pack up in our, when was it Steven? Was it May or April? April. April.

Before bootcamp and Kate has been reaching out and coordinating. We have Kate Schroeder here as well. And we're going to have some really neat discussions about not only his path, but the things that are most impactful to him. 

So if you're interested in that, please stay with us. As he encourages you to do better, live a remarkable life and expect more. Let's go.

Welcome everybody. I hope you're doing well. And Steven, thank you for being with us today on the podcast.

Thank you. We're going to be learning a lot from you. I know Kate's original, one of the original intentions from Kate was to get feedback and to learn a bit about how we can improve training.

So I think that's fantastic. So Steven, will you give us an intro and help people on the other end of the podcast to learn a little bit about you? Sure. So my name is Steven Shannon. 

I work for Sky Blue Builders. We're a small to mid range firm in the Denver area, the Colorado area. I have been involved in construction for about seven years. 

Actually, Sky Blue was my first construction job. Started as a laborer, just pushing brooms and then kind of worked my way up into more leadership roles and am currently a superintendent for the company. That's awesome. 

And we're excited to talk to you. So Kate, I'm not going to put you on the spot too much. But I really would like a couple of the questions to be driven your way. 

Will you tell everybody what was your initial intent? By the way, I love that Steven's here and this is going to be one of the best episodes. What was your intent and what's maybe one or two of the questions that you have for him and that will help us with our outcomes? My intent was to just check in and see. Did anything that was said make a difference? Was it a value to you and see maybe if we have gaps in the boot camp? And also, just hear what it is that you're struggling with or that your company is struggling with. 

If there's anything we can talk through or dissect a little bit. Okay, well then, Kate, just feel free to interrupt me at any time as we're going through this because if you want to take priority for anything. And so, Steven, another thing that Kate and I have been, I'll say, vigorously debating is whether or not we should just keep the current Super PM boot camp or do some smaller ones around the country.

There are like one and a half days that talk about the three habits of a builder, the three long term habits, like some of the quick hitting stuff. And so, this is going to be super helpful for us. So, let's start with her first question. 

Was boot camp helpful? What are your insights? What are your thoughts there, boss? Yeah, no, boot camp was a remarkable experience. It was really eye opening for me. Like I said, I had started as a laborer and worked my way up through construction.

So, kind of had this idea that of how things were and, you know, I was kind of like, okay, well, this is construction. It's stressful and you're always late, you're always redoing stuff and, you know, just stuff like that. So, having the privilege to go to the boot camp and kind of see these new systems and different ways of thinking was super beneficial for me in realizing that we could be operating so much better and cleaner.

I love that. And so, Kate's second question, what are, oh, two, let me give you two and you can answer, by the way, that was perfect. What are some things that really stood out to you and maybe was there anything missing that you wanted to see more of? Well, really, I don't think anything was missing. 

I'm still kind of diving into your books and stuff that was given to us from the training. Sorry, I lost my train. I thought it was a part of that.

So, most impactful, well, you already answered that it wasn't anything missing. I think Kate's point is like, did it help? What were you able to implement? Was it, hey, training or did you go back and actually be able to do something with it, merge it with your brilliance and accomplish key things, right? Sure. Yeah. 

So, for me, it was the self-care aspect of it was a really hit home for me. I think that I would tend to overwork myself or take on items that weren't my responsibility or do things for other people instead of holding people accountable. But it all starts with you, right? So, having that like box breathing and morning routine, afternoon routine, getting yourself into state was perfect for me so that I could be ready and present, not only at work, but also once I get home.

That's fantastic. And so, implementing, so it sounds like being able to get to a place where you can control the job site instead of letting it affect you. Do you mind me asking, do you have family at home or people that you go home to or animals, extended family, core family, anything like that? Any feedback from them? Have you been able to spend more time? Any comments about your new system that you've been able to implement? Yeah, definitely. 

And I've also tried to persuade or get other people in my family and not even family and friends just to start kind of thinking that way and focusing on yourself first so that you can make sure that you're there for the people that you love. I like that. And I'm going to kick this over. 

I'm going to see if Kate has any questions here in just a minute. You made a comment. Additionally, attack planning, meeting cadences, pull planning, lean systems and concepts have really set me up for success with my future projects. 

Would you talk a little bit more about that? Because if I can find what was helpful there, or Kate and I can find it, we can continue to reinforce that, right? It's really helpful to know where it may have stuck. So can you tell me more about your comment there? Yeah, so the meeting systems is another big takeaway from it. Michael Chavez, I believe you're doing a podcast with him as well. 

We were at the boot camp in April and we are going to be on a new project starting in November. And we were already implementing the meeting systems. We did a pull plan with the design team because it's a design build job. 

So we pulled them into the office and put up the sticky notes on the board and now we have a set schedule for the design portion of it. And that was really cool to experience and do live in person in talking about the project and what needs to happen, what steps need to take, or what predecessors, successors. And it's working out really well for that pull plan. 

And then, like I mentioned, the meeting cadences and meeting sequence. We've moved our internal meetings to Monday, our OACs on Tuesday. We got trade partner meetings Tuesday, Wednesday. 

And it seems to be flowing in the right direction so that we're getting the information to the foreman and to the people on site at the right time. That's awesome. That's awesome.

It's really fun when you can pull in a group of people and be on the same page with that. And I'm super good. So Kate and I are always working on the meeting system.

And it's really nice. You know, it's not easy, right? Like the meeting, the having a meeting, setting up meetings and visuals is probably one of the hardest things that anybody can do. I'm wrong. 

But meeting in my estimation until I finally get a good cadence. But then it's like the trades are like, oh, that's value add. That's value add. 

But you know, like anything, it takes practice. Kate, what did, what do you think? Did you get the feedback that you want? Any other questions, Kate? I think I, well, I thank you for sharing your experiences. I have other questions, but not really about bootcamp, really more just about you in general, like.

Let's do it. Sorry. I just said, let's do it. 

We don't have to make it only about bootcamp. Oh, yeah. I know. 

Sorry. Ava was texting me. I'm just curious for your own career.

You said you started out pushing broom. And then did you have a mentor at your company? Yeah, there's been a couple. Can you just tell me what mentorship has looked like for you specifically? Yeah. 

Yeah, for me, it's so they've been there for me through my mistakes, been there to coach me, teach me up, providing their past experiences. There's been quite a few, as we all go through, quite a few mistakes on the job that have happened. But those learning lessons and having somebody there to kind of show you or open your eyes to new ideas and new aspects that you didn't know before has been real beneficial.

Actually, Michael, who went to the bootcamp with me, has been a mentor of mine since I started with Sky Blue. Awesome. Do you have at your company? I'm sorry, the trash recycling is here. 

Do you have an official mentoring program or was that just people stepping in to help you as they saw fit? Yeah, not official, but just kind of happen genuinely. Okay, got it. Or organically, rather.

That's really cool. When you were being promoted to super, was that something that you asked for? Or was that something that the company just like, we need another super? How did that happen? Kind of a bit of both. I'm always interested in improving myself. 

I think I made some good relationships with people and kind of, I guess, took initiative on certain items and kind of organically happened that way. I guess. These are, Kate asked better questions than I do. 

We should turn this into the Kate Schroeder podcast. Well, I just wanted to get a feel of what your path has looked like. What has been, and you know what? I'm just going to put the question out there, and if you're not comfortable talking about it, we can just cut that part out.

Is there a mistake that you made that was like huge where she found people being compassionate with you or maybe conversely, you haven't been in construction outside of the company you're with, so maybe this wouldn't apply. Tell me about a mistake you've made and like what you've learned or how you grew. If you don't mind. 

And if you don't want to, I totally understand. Sure. And you're talking construction specific, like job specific.

Yeah. Like Jason one time, he put some piece of equipment in the wrong spot. He has like huge fuckups, like big ones. 

Oh, I probably can't cuss on your podcast. Usually we say earmuffs. So a lot of dads have their kids in the car when they're listening, and we usually just say earmuffs. 

But hey, hey, we're good. Go ahead. Well, here, Jason, why don't you tell us about your biggest mistake and then maybe he'll feel more comfortable because his probably wasn't as big as yours.

How can you choose among so many? Well, like my two, like one that seems small but was big. One time I was farting around a forklift at Mahinsel Phelps site on a prison in Victorville, California. Shouldn't have been on it, just hopped on it. 

And I had the forks down too low and I literally stabbed the ground with it and bent the forks and shut down all concrete operations for Monday because I was like, they'll just bend it back. You're not bending back two inches thick steel, you know what I mean? And I don't know. It's pretty impressive actually. 

Yeah, it was bent. It was messed up. I don't know. 

I remember seeing one of the laborers out there trying to hit it with a sledgehammer and they're like, no, Jason, mess this up. We gotta get a new forklift. It's not funny. 

I shouldn't laugh. But then another one was I coordinated. I was all into BIM and everything and I actually helped model the duct bank for APS and took their drawings which are in 2D into 3D and I routed them and I'm like comparing it with the sewer lines that came out of the building and I'm like, there's a conflict. 

We're going to have to drop it here. And so you sent that back to APS and I was so proud of myself and everything. And when the field crews came out, the APS crews had older drawings. 

They didn't have the drop in the duct bank and I didn't check it. So I literally did everything I needed to do, but still let them install it right in the way of the sewer line and we had to spend $380,000 out of contingency to put in a lift station next to the building. It was ridiculous.

So that's one of 50. I don't know if that helped you or not, but go ahead. Did that do okay? Well, I guess, sorry, go ahead.

No, it seems like you just want to mourn my losses instead of telling your losses. No, I'm just kidding. Go ahead.

I'm going to pick on you somehow. So yeah, I guess the first thing that comes to mind was one of the major mistakes that I made somewhat recently, about a year or two years ago, we had a project at the Denver Federal Center where we were just doing a small tenant improvement. Long story short is I had the fire suppression and fire alarm guys start their work without getting official approval for the fire alarm panel.

So Fire Marshal made a surprise, stopped by and was like, what the heck's going on? Why are people working on my panel? You don't have sprinkler heads covered. You don't have fire watch and just all of this stuff that was missing and ended up shutting down the job for a good month, two months, which is a lot of lost dollars. But that was a huge experience or learning lesson for me into not only having your quality control lined up and making sure that you have the proper approvals and documents to support your work, but just knowing the building systems and having pre-con meetings before anything happens so that everybody's on the same page and that everything moves smoothly.

So that was a big mess up of mine that I'm not so proud of, but it was a great learning lesson for me and everything that I'm doing going forward is, are we approved? Do we have drawings? Do we know what we're doing? You know, just real quick, I'm not trying to take too much of the time here, but I remember multiple stories in books where somebody makes a mistake like that and then they're like expecting to get fired and the leader, enlightened leader will say, you know, let's say those couple of months cost $150,000 or mine costs $380,000. So like you will, you will always know the importance of quality control from here on outright. And I'm not saying I love the idea that we make mistakes, but there's so many people, like even when we do podcasts like this, you can hear people talk about excellence and then it's like, I can't do that.

It just sounds so unattainable and Kate has us do this thing in our company where it's called failure normalization, where we go around with the team and people share how they've failed. And really it's, you know, if people are so afraid to fail, they will be afraid to learn. And so I think that story and Kate asking us to do this will help people to realize it's okay to be imperfect. 

People make mistakes. We get up, we learn, we do better, right? So I love it. Kate, what else are you kicking it back to me? Um, no, I think I really appreciate you being vulnerable and sharing that story. 

Like I, like, I definitely think even with both of your companies that you didn't get fired for that is like, I don't know, like you just think like, I don't know. I think maybe I just have this image of like people getting fired for, for making mistakes. And I think a lot of times that's not really what's going on. 

So I like hearing that. Yeah. Yeah. 

And to add what you were saying, Jason and Katie, my company's was really good about, you know, mistakes and they almost encourage you to be vulnerable and go out there and don't be afraid to make a mistake. You know, just as long as you're not like doing it without any thought, right? We're hiding it, right? Trying to hide. Yeah.

You know, real quick, this is probably weird. Can I read? Well, I guess it's my podcast. I can do whatever you want, but I just wrote a little thing.

I'll just read it real quick. People are not lazy. After reading The Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Taylor, I was horrified by his descriptions of workers as lazy, stupid, and even like dumb animals. 

I hate that book. In 30 years of construction, I've never once seen a lazy or ignorant trade crew. Never.

Our problem isn't that trades don't work hard. It's that they try too hard sometimes. They're late to start, miss units or fall behind, not because they don't care, but because they're exhausted from finishing the last job, rushing the switch directions or spending their own money, fixing broken systems.

If anything, they're overexerting themselves. What we need isn't more push, it's rhythm. We need to slow them down, plan with intention and align their effort.

Our people already care and work hard. And I know that doesn't exactly tie to what we're talking about, but like there's I've never it just like I've never seen a lazy person in construction. They're working hard.

Maybe there's a lazy person. Fine. Fine. 

I'll get. But I've never seen lazy crew. I've never seen it be the aggregate. 

I've never seen it be the average. I've never seen it be a problem in our industry. Also, people don't want to make mistakes, right? People don't want to. 

They didn't wake up that morning and say, I'm going to go screw this up. I didn't wake up and say, I'm going to go cost the company $380,000. So when we get into this mindset, why did you do that, right? What do you mean? And I've done it. 

Kate's probably thinking right now, Jason, you're such a hypocrite, but like I've thought that, but like nobody attempted to do that, right? Everybody cares about their career, looking good, wanting to do the right thing. So it doesn't even make sense to punish people for making mistakes. So we're so glad to hear that your company was fair with you and kind. 

We've got three minutes left. I have one more question right now under duress. Meaning in the next 30 seconds, if you could wave a magic wand and all of a sudden elevate like in the cartoons, the group grows muscles and like we ate spinach.

We're popeye. Like we have everything we need. And you could tell us to do one thing to improve the way we train and share information with the industry.

What would you have us do to get it to the most amount of people to help brilliant people like you? Well, I guess the first thing that came to my mind would be traveling, but I'm not certain if you already do that already. Just like your boot camps, like traveling to different states or different companies or something along those lines or in-person trainings with companies at their house. Because I know a lot of people can't travel to certain things. 

So I don't know. That was the first thing that I thought. Well, I love that.

Overall, I thought you guys really crushed it, to be honest with you. Well, thank you. That's awesome. 

And traveling, I don't mind traveling as long as Kate goes with me. So yeah, here's what I think. I think you probably have an email coming from Kate digging deeper into your suggestion.

And when you reply, just say, yeah, Kate, just go with Jason. Anyway, but, Stephen, this has been remarkable to be with you. Any final words, either of you, before you sign off? Just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate the offer to be on your podcast and appreciate all the effort that both of you guys put into this.

It's really making a difference in my life and I'm sure a lot of other people. So it is greatly appreciated. Thank you so much. 

Kate, we'll give you the final word. Oh, no, I don't have a final message. Thank you for coming on. 

I still would love to know, like, from a day-to-day basis, like, what is your biggest struggle that you face? And is there a way that we can support you? I would say the biggest struggle would be kind of getting people to buy into the system, into operating this way, like, meeting cadences. There's so many people who are like, we don't need to have meetings and we don't get anything from this meeting and, you know, stuff like that. But the effort that you put into it is what you get out of it.

But I guess the second part of that is a little tougher for me to answer as far as what you could do for us. I guess what other resources are available for that type of improvement? Meaning, how can we get the teams on board instead of one individual having to go back and fight for it? That's brilliant. I'm going to think about that. 

Thank you for sharing that. I love that. Stephen, thank you, Kate. 

Thank you so much. Everybody, I hope you've enjoyed this podcast and on we go. Appreciate it. 

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

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)