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Welcome everybody out to podcast number 1306. In this podcast, I'm going to talk about waiting. 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.

Welcome everyone, I hope you're doing well. Ooh, I got three bits of feedback left and then I think I'm done. Hey Jason, I just wanted to reach out and let you know how much your book, Elevating Construction Superintendents, has impacted me.

I've been diving into the construction world and your book couldn't have come at a better time while I'm in my last year of college. The way you break down leadership, communication, and prioritizing people really hit home for me. It's given me a clear picture of what it means to be a great superintendent, not just someone managing a job site.

When you quoted about pushers being a dime a dozen, it flipped a switch for me on what a superintendent really is. It has made me realize that I not only need to study construction, but people. I just want you to know how much I appreciate you sharing knowledge with the younger generation in this book.

Thank you. I really appreciate these bits of feedback and I love reading them. I hope they last and come up for search word optimization for many years to come.

I've got a really neat little podcast here. Let me just get trashy for just a second. I hate the term we're waiting.

We're waiting on drawings. We're waiting on Power BI. We're waiting on an email response.

We're waiting on a decision. I have committed to do less or no cussing moving forward because children listen to the podcast, but if I could cuss, I would say I'm so effing tired of hearing this waiting garbage. Now, I will do a direct quote from one of the speeches from General Patton.

And this is a quote. It's a historical quote, so this is fine for children. This is from General Patton.

I don't want to get any messages saying I'm holding my position. We're not holding a goddamn thing. Let the Germans do that.

We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything except the enemy's balls. We're going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing, regardless of whether we have to go over, under or through the enemy.

We are going to go through him like crap through a groose, like shit through a tin horn. Now, uh, actually, let me read one more thing from time to time. There will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard.

I don't give a good goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we will kill.

The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.

Now I'm at the end of my quote. I want you to know that pushing the way he's talking about it is not the same thing as pushing in construction. I'm very much against pushing in construction.

Um, and I want to, I want to let you know that I feel the same way about waiting for the love of all things holy. What in the world are we doing waiting on anything? Let me just get, grab a couple of them. I'm waiting on a full design to start planning.

That is the dumbest damn thing I've ever heard in my entire life. I can plan an entire project from a napkin sketch. We don't wait for anything.

I can't do the procurement log until I have a full set of specs. Oh really? Well, guess what ladies and gentlemen, not only could I before the advent of chat GPT go on and identify the typical things that would be long lead and how long it would take, even if I had to make some phone calls. But nowadays I can type into chat GPT.

Hey, I'm doing such and such building in such and such region. And I want to know what are the typical long lead procurement items. And I want you to give me a duration for each and do deep research based on an industry aggregate.

And it will give me, if you're a Hensel Phelps, a transmittal and delivery log list and durations, or what I call a procurement log with all of the long lead procurement items. And you plug that in your darn schedule until you have real information. We don't wait for anything.

I can't start the signing up contractors, trailers, testing and inspection agencies, switch gear, temporary power, any of these things until we have an NTP. Oh really? Yeah, there isn't such a thing as an early financial release. Or you can show the owner, hey, these are the timelines and this is what it will do to your project.

I'm waiting on, this is my favorite one recently. I'm waiting on Power BI to give me an overview or a summary or a dashboard for my information. I don't care if you have to hand sketch that damn thing and take art classes.

I don't want you waiting on Power BI to do anything. I'm waiting. I'm waiting on this.

I'm waiting on this person. I'm waiting. Call the gosh darn designer and get the answer.

Don't wait for four days to get the freaking information. Don't wait, don't wait, don't wait, don't wait, don't wait. I wouldn't give a nickel to pay somebody on my job site in my company or anywhere that I was working around for somebody who tactically waited for anything.

I was talking to Kevin. I'm going to probably merge two podcasts into one. There's a macro level tech plan and a norm level tech plan.

The macro level tech plan should take you hours or a few days to create. Five day tack time, high level strategy. The norm level tech plan is done based off of poll plans and zone optimization.

And it's very detailed. I've been talking to our internal organization. I'm like, hey, couple of hours or a couple of days at most a week, and we should have a macro level tech behind.

Now I have the strategy. Everybody can see it. We can review it.

We can align procurement to it. We can start getting everything ready. We can prepare.

Then the next step is to at least get the next couple of phases into the norm level tech plan based off of a poll plan. Not the whole thing, but just the next 120 days, next couple of phases. Now we can start filtering out our look heads and our weekly work plans.

Great. That's going to be great. Step three, finish out the norm.

Now you can export to CPM. We're set. Step number four, implement everything else.

And people are waiting, even our own people sometimes, they're like, I just need to get the whole norm finished. The whole number week after week after week. It's ridiculous.

Patents quote that a good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan next week. A good overall strategic plan from a napkin sketch is better than a perfect plan from drawings next week. A good procurement log from chat GPT violently executed today is better than a perfect procurement log from the specs next week.

You get my point. A good macro level tech plan today violently executed today is better than a perfect macro level tech plan next week or than a perfect norm level tech plan next week. Stop waiting.

The first, yeah, I'm just going to call it that. The first rule of being a good superintendent is do not wait. That doesn't mean you push.

That means you plan, you drive, don't push, but you definitely do not wait. Superintendents are not waiters. We do not tactically wait.

We do not strategically wait. We are advancing all the time. And the main place where we're advancing is in our planning, in our understanding, in our knowledge, in our comprehension of the project site.

And we are not interested in waiting on anything. That's why these large contractors, these major contractors get into big trouble on these massive jobs because people are waiting on design. They're waiting on financial releases.

They're waiting to do their procurement log. They're waiting for additional staff. And they're not figuring anything out.

And then their project gets in trouble. If you wait and you don't have a plan and then you start the project, it will fail. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

It will fail. If you wait to put together your plan, you wait to order equipment, you wait to put together the first 120, 90-day plan, you wait to get your primary control, you wait to move utilities, you wait for your temporary power, you wait for the switch gear, you wait for long lead procurement, you wait to sign up your testing and inspection agency, you wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. And you start the project without a plan, you will fail.

That is a scientific certainty. That is a statistical and historical fact. I don't ever want to hear that we're waiting on anything.

I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. On we go. 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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