December 2025 - Elevate Constructionist

Zero Tolerance

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 13 min

Zero Tolerance: The Standard Your People Deserve

Zero tolerance on a jobsite isn’t about being harsh or power hungry. It’s about accepting that every single thing you tolerate, you approve. The success, safety, and culture of any project are determined by the worst behavior the leader is willing to tolerate. That means if something is happening out there in the field unsafe behavior, messy work areas, bad attitudes it’s because, at some level, leadership has allowed it. When a spouse sends their partner to work in the morning, they’re not hoping we “try our best” with safety. They’re trusting us to keep them safe and send them home. Zero tolerance is how we honor that trust.

What I Learned from Intel About Standards

One of my biggest awakenings around zero tolerance came while working at Intel in Chandler, Arizona. Their orientation was intense long, detailed, and crystal clear. Expectations were not vague. Everyone knew the rules. Everyone knew the consequences. If you violated certain safety standards, you lost your badge and were removed from the site sometimes for a year or more. And you know what? It worked. Thousands of workers on a huge site, and the level of cleanliness, order, and safety was remarkable. It was the first time I realized that all the excuses in construction “that’s just our industry,” “workers won’t get it,” “it’s too risky to be strict” were wrong. It can be done. It has been done. The only real question is: will we decide to do it?

Zero Tolerance on My Own Projects

On my own projects, after seeing what was possible, I stopped accepting the old pattern of endless reminders and “hey, be careful” conversations that never change anything. At one cancer center project, we implemented zero tolerance for safety, cleanliness, and deliveries. If someone violated a clear safety rule they already knew covered in OSHA 10, OSHA 30, or orientation they were sent home to a safe place. If the issue was training, distraction, or a bad attitude, we addressed the root cause. In two years, with up to 380 workers on site at the peak, we only had to send home 38 people. That’s it. And we ended up with one of the safest, cleanest, most organized jobs I’ve ever been a part of.

Respecting People Enough to Act

Zero tolerance is not about punishment. It’s about respect. If someone is violating fall protection, working unsafely, or cutting in front of scheduled deliveries, one of three things is happening: they don’t understand, their head isn’t in the game, or their attitude is off. In all three cases, the most respectful thing we can do is stop the work and address it. Letting unsafe behavior continue is not kindness it’s neglect. Letting one trade steal another trade’s delivery window isn’t clever logistics it’s stealing money from them. Letting messes pile up and make life hard for the next crew isn’t just sloppy it’s unethical. When we send someone home to get trained, to reset, or to correct their attitude, we’re honoring their life and everyone else’s.

Why “Little Things” Actually Matter Most

A lot of people want to skip the “small stuff” and just focus on big-ticket safety items. But how someone does one thing is how they do everything. If they won’t keep their safety glasses on, they won’t clip into fall protection consistently. If they shrug off JHAs, PTPs, or pre-task planning, they’ll shrug off the bigger hazards too. That’s why we start with basics: PPE, glasses, hard hats, vests, pre-task plans, and simple cleanliness. When people prove they can take care of the basics, you can trust them with more risk. Everything on a construction site is trying to hurt us if we’re not ready. We are literally going to war every day we step onto a project. You don’t go into battle in flip-flops.

Answering the Common Objections

There are a few objections I hear over and over again. “What if we lose too many people?” You won’t. That’s a fictional scenario. On real projects with real zero tolerance, we’ve only removed a few dozen people over years. “Isn’t it kind of mean?” No. What’s mean is letting someone continue working in a way that might get them killed. “What if other projects in the company don’t do this?” That’s okay. Every great system starts as a pilot somewhere. You don’t need every job to move at once. You just need one project to decide to lead. Another pushback is this: “Workers just can’t remember all this stuff; we have to keep reminding them.” That mindset is deeply disrespectful. Our workers are smart, capable adults. If I can follow the rules, they can follow the rules. We insult them when we act like they’re not capable.

Incentive, Survival, and Raising the Bar

Some leaders hope they can just “inspire” everyone into excellence. But it doesn’t work that way. Roughly 60% of people will naturally follow the rules and do what’s right. Another 10, 20% will chase excellence if you incentivize and support them. But there’s always a remaining group maybe 15–30% that will not move unless you raise the minimum standard for survival on that job. That’s what zero tolerance does. It raises the floor. It says, “This is the lowest behavior we will accept.” At that point, people either raise their game or step aside. And that’s okay. Not everyone belongs on every project. But everyone on the project must belong at that standard.

Zero Tolerance and Respect for People

All of this comes back to one simple Lean principle: respect for people. Respect for people is nice bathrooms, clean lunch areas, good communication, worker huddles, and barbecues. Respect for people is also sending someone home when they repeatedly violate safety, refuse to follow basic standards, or put others at risk. It’s not an apple in one hand and a whip in the other. It’s a single commitment: we care enough about you to hold the line. We care enough to tell you the truth. We care enough to make sure you live to see your family tonight.

Raising the Standard for Our Whole Industry

Construction is just as professional and just as important as law, medicine, or finance. In a courtroom, there are strict rules. In an operating room, there are strict rules. In a bank, there are strict rules. Why should construction be any different, especially when lives are on the line every day? Imagine an industry where every superintendent, foreman, and project leader refused to tolerate unsafe shortcuts, sloppy work, or low standards where zero tolerance was normal, and workers felt proud to be part of something that kept them safe and respected them as professionals. That’s the future we should be building.

Key Takeaway

Zero tolerance is not about punishment, it’s about respect. When we clearly define the standards and behavior, we prove that construction can be just as professional and high-standard as any other field.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
-Check out our Youtube channel for more info: (Click here)
-Listen to the Elevate Construction podcast: (Click here)
-Check out our training programs and certifications: (Click here)
-The Takt Book: (Click here)

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

Meet Jason Schroeder, the driving force behind Elevate Construction IST. As the company’s owner and principal consultant, he’s dedicated to taking construction to new heights. With a wealth of industry experience, he’s crafted the Field Engineer Boot Camp and Superintendent Boot Camp – intensive training programs engineered to cultivate top-tier leaders capable of steering their teams towards success. Jason’s vision? To expand his training initiatives across the nation, empowering construction firms to soar to unprecedented levels of excellence.

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Worker Huddles

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 7 min

Worker huddles are one of the most impactful systems I’ve ever implemented on a construction project. If you’re struggling to create culture, your site feels chaotic, your workers seem disconnected, or your days are filled with firefighting instead of flow… this is the solution. Huddling every morning with workers builds clarity, connection, stability, and trust in ways that no other tool can match.

Why Worker Huddles Completely Transform a Project

Most of our jobsite problems come from simple disconnects. Workers don’t know the plan. They don’t know what’s changing. They don’t know where equipment is moving or where hazards are lurking. They’re guessing, improvising, and hoping they’re doing the right thing. Worker huddles bring everyone into the same space with the same information, so your entire project can see as a group, know as a group, and act as a group. When you achieve that clarity, confusion disappears and so does most of your firefighting.

Belonging Cues: The Foundation of a Strong Jobsite Culture

In the book The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle describes “belonging cues” behaviors that make people feel safe, connected, and part of a group. Those cues include proximity, eye contact, energy, turn taking, attention, and open communication. Daily worker huddles naturally create all of these signals. You stand together. You talk together. You exchange feedback. You connect. That repeated proximity forms one unified social group instead of separate trade silos that compete, complain, and clash all day.

Where This Started: The Hole Huddle Story

My first true worker huddle came during a high-risk project in Tucson: 33 feet down, heavy excavation, 100 trucks a day, soil nails, lagging, scaffolding, concrete, and constant movement. We needed extreme clarity. We gathered every worker every morning in the “hole huddle,” and the impact was immediate: fewer questions, stronger teamwork, cleaner site, and complete safety. Everyone finally understood what everyone else was doing. After that, I never ran a project without worker huddles again.

Creating a Stable, Boring, Highly Productive Jobsite

The ideal project isn’t chaotic it’s boring. Workers go home at night saying, “It was a good day. Nothing dramatic happened. It was clear. It was safe. It was steady.” Stability creates safety. Stability creates productivity. Stability creates pride. Worker huddles give workers what they want: clear instructions, predictable environments, clean sites, stable workflows, and a sense of respect.

How to Run a Proper Morning Huddle

A good huddle has structure, energy, and intention. Set a time and location. Use a megaphone. Keep it short, clear, and consistent. Start with recognition. Request feedback. Review the plan, safety focus, observations, deliveries, weather, and restricted zones. End with a quick training moment and release crews to prepare their day. If you follow this rhythm every morning, you create a feedback loop that stabilizes the entire project. You stay ahead of problems instead of chasing them.

Sustaining the System: Why Boring Is Beautiful

Some leaders get nervous when huddles become routine and uneventful. But that’s the point. Routine means your site is stable. Routine means you’re controlling variation. Routine means you’re eliminating waste. Routine means your workers feel safe, respected, and connected. Don’t stop huddles when they get boring that’s when they’re working.

Key Takeaway

Worker daily huddles are the fastest, most reliable way to create clarity, unity, safety, and stability on any construction project. If you want a clean, safe, predictable jobsite and a culture where workers feel respected start huddling every morning. It will transform everything.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

Dragon Sickness

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 8 min

Dragon Cities: How Radical Transparency Transforms Leadership

Today I want to share a concept that completely changed the way I lead: dragon sickness. The term comes from The Hobbit, where Thorin Oakenshield becomes consumed by fear, control, and possessiveness once he regains his treasure. He stops trusting his people, isolates himself, and behaves defensively. That same pattern happens in construction leadership more often than we admit. Superintendents, project managers, engineers we can all fall into the trap of hoarding information, resisting accountability, pushing people away, and protecting our “mountain.” It’s fear-based leadership, and it destroys trust.

The Hobbit Story and Why It Matters in Construction

In the movie, Thorin becomes overtaken by dragon sickness, suspicion, control, secrecy, and fear of losing what he has. That metaphor resonates deeply with how many leaders behave on job sites. We hold tight to our schedules, our plans, our authority, our apps, our spreadsheets, and our reputation. We get defensive. We don’t let people in. We avoid transparency because we don’t want to look bad. And just like in the film, this fear poisons relationships and blinds us from seeing the bigger picture: people matter more than control.

My First Experience With Radical Transparency

Early in my career, I came from a culture where transparency wasn’t valued. You didn’t report non-critical issues, you didn’t loop in leadership, and you certainly didn’t copy half the company on emails. When I switched companies, everything felt wrong. The project manager shared openly, copied the entire team, notified leadership of every incident, and embraced transparency at every level. I resisted it hard. I got annoyed. I pushed back. But slowly I realized I wasn’t protecting my job, I was protecting my ego.

The Turning Point

The real shift happened when our safety director confronted me for ignoring her requests. She made it clear: if you won’t act on safety issues, you can’t lead here. That was the wake-up call. Shortly after, a fire truck passed through our site to respond to an unrelated incident. I didn’t report it. Ten minutes later, the project director called asking why he heard about it from the owner instead of me. His words changed everything: “Jason, I’m not the project executive right now, I’m a member of your team. You need to tell me what’s happening so we can support you.” That moment destroyed the illusion that withholding information protects us. It doesn’t. It isolates us.

Radical Transparency Is the Cure

Once I embraced transparency, my stress dropped. Owners trusted us more because they always knew what was going on. Teams improved because everyone could contribute solutions. Problems got solved faster because multiple minds were involved. And I learned that sharing problems doesn’t make you look weak hiding them does. Every project has problems. Every day. Forever. The goal is not to pretend they don’t exist. The goal is to surface them quickly, widen the circle, and fix them together.

How to Kill Dragon Sickness in Leadership

The cure is simple, but it isn’t easy. Share early. Share often. Loop in leadership. Notify owners of anything important. Copy teammates on communication. Walk other jobs. Invite people onto your site. Let fresh eyes see what you may be blind to. Stop worrying about looking perfect. Start focusing on doing the right thing. The leaders who ask for help grow faster, perform better, and carry far less stress. Transparency builds trust, and trust builds winning project teams.

Key Takeaway

Dragon sickness thrives in secrecy and fear. Radical transparency frees you, strengthens your team, and transforms your leadership. Share problems early, widen the circle, and stop carrying the burden alone.

If you want to learn more we have:

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On we go

Learning that Pays

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 8 min

Training That Actually Changes Your Life

Today’s message is simple but powerful: learning must be fun, and it must be continuous. If you want to increase your value, gain skills that matter, and build a career that supports your family and your future, then training isn’t optional it’s your competitive advantage.

Why Learning Should Be Fun

Learning is not supposed to be a dull, white-knuckle experience where you power through material just to finish it. If learning is enjoyable, you continue doing it. You enter bookstores excited. You scroll Audible like it’s a candy shop. You sign up for training because you want to, not because someone forces you. Fun creates consistency. Consistency creates growth.

What Powerful Training Looks Like

There are effective ways to learn and ineffective ways. Basic PowerPoints and lectures create only 3 to 15 percent retention. When we add software, visuals, exercises, and interaction, retention jumps to about 30 percent. But boot camps where we use the EDGE method (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable) consistently hit 60 to 80 percent. Why? Because people learn by moving, stretching, practicing, interacting, and stepping outside their comfort zones. Passive learning rarely transforms anyone. Engaged learning does.

The Problem With Traditional Education

I once taught a university class where it took four sessions just to get one student to speak up. Half the room sat on their phones. No energy. No participation. No movement. And these students were spending $60,000 to $80,000 for that experience. Compare that to a boot camp where people stand, participate, practice, and actually enjoy learning. If learning isn’t engaging, people won’t keep doing it. That’s the tragedy of much of higher education today.

Why Learning Pays More Than You Think

The return on investment of reading a single book is incredible. When you apply what you learn, the value you create is often worth $200–$400 per hour of reading time. That number skyrockets if you start a side business or move up in your career. Every great turnaround in my life — going from nearly being fired to training field engineers nationwide came from learning. One book changed everything. Wisdom multiplies opportunity.

You Don’t Rise to Ambition You Fall to Training

There’s a quote I’ll never forget: “You don’t rise to the level of your ambitions. You fall to the level of your training.” When life gets tough, plans fall apart, or projects crash, you fall back on your habits and skills not your hopes. Strength comes from the foundation under your feet, not the goals in your head. I learned that the hard way as a struggling field engineer until I committed to real study and implementation. Training lifted me out of failure and into leadership.

Choose the Right Books and Implement What You Learn

Not all books are created equal. Excellent companies like Hensel Phelps and DPR curate book lists for a reason they only promote resources that work. When you read solid books on leadership, teaming, habits, lean construction, and personal development, they point you toward more great books, powerful methods, and tested systems. But reading without implementation is useless. Learn, teach, learn that cycle locks the knowledge in.

Whatever Path You Choose, Keep Learning

Whether you take university courses, trade school classes, online certifications, read books, or learn on the job, the key is simple: enjoy learning. A person who loves learning will outperform someone with a degree but no desire for growth. Skills matter. Attitude matters. Ethics matter. Humility matters. And continuous learning elevates all four.

Key Takeaway

If learning is fun, you’ll keep doing it and if you keep doing it, you will outgrow, out-earn, and out-perform almost everyone around you. Training is the fastest way to increase your value, reduce struggle, and build a better life.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

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How To Implement Pull Planning On Your Job Site

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 9 min

How to Implement Pull Planning on Your Job Site

In this blog, I want to walk you through how to implement pull planning in the field with true operational excellence. I’m speaking directly to field leaders, whether you’re a field engineer, project engineer, assistant superintendent, assistant PM, superintendent, or project manager. If you’re responsible for making the work happen, this applies to you.

Before we even touch pull planning, I’m going to assume two things are already in place.

Your Strategic Baseline

You have a visual master schedule that clearly identifies each phase, controls your milestones, and lays out a solid strategic baseline. And when I say baseline, I do not mean a CPM baseline. I mean a strategic plan that creates flow, direction, and clarity.

Your Meeting System

You’ve established a steady meeting rhythm.
Monday through Friday, you cover strategic planning and procurement.
You run your six-week make-ready look-ahead and your weekly work plan meetings.
And then, every single afternoon, you hold a foreman huddle to plan tomorrow.
The following morning, you communicate that plan in a worker huddle.

Make the plan, communicate the plan. Make the plan, communicate the plan. These two huddles are non-negotiable.

When your strategic baseline is clear, your meeting system is stable, you’re removing roadblocks daily, and your team is aligned socially as one unit, you’re finally ready for operational excellence.

Now let’s talk about pull planning.

What Pull Planning Really Is

Pull planning means we don’t guess the sequence. We don’t hope. We don’t plan in a vacuum.
We build the sequence with our trade partners, forward and back, until every activity has:

A clear name.
At least two needs or prerequisites.

As we build backward from the milestone, we check whether each need already exists in the plan to the left. If not, we ask the responsible trade to add it. When every need is accounted for, we know the sequence is complete.

This is a partnership. The job has needs and the trades have needs. Pull planning aligns both.

But here’s the part most teams get wrong…

Pull Planning Must Happen by Zones

You cannot pull plan an entire floor at once. You must pull plan by one representative zone, then map how each trade flows diagonally across remaining zones in takt time.

If your takt plan has four zones, pull plan one zone with your milestone, then confirm that the diagonal flow across all zones still aligns with your strategic baseline.

Done well, you create buffers. Done poorly, you lose all flow.

The Power of Buffers

Your contractual milestone is fixed. But your production target created through the pull plan should land earlier. That difference becomes your buffer.

Buffers allow you to absorb delays without hurting flow. Delays will happen. Critical Chain Project Management makes that clear. Buffers are how we protect the system, the trades, and the flow of work.

When you pull plan correctly by zones, you reduce batch sizes and gain buffer time. Without that, you will always be behind.

Where Most Problems Actually Come From

At Elevate, Anna Louisa and I analyzed the most common constraints and roadblocks on projects. We found 24 recurring issues and over 85% of them traced back to one root cause:

An incorrectly done pull plan:

Improper takt time.
Bottlenecks.
Badly shaped zones.
Prerequisite work missing.
Trades not ready.
Work stacking.

Most of it isn’t “trade issues.” It’s planning issues. Pull planning issues.

Pull planning is the lever. When it’s wrong, everything is wrong.

The Habit You Must Build

If you want a perfect handoff percentage, a PPC above 80%, and a well-run project, here’s the routine you must adopt:

Three months before each phase, do a complete pull plan.
Vent every problem early, optimize your sequence, and build buffers.

This discipline will save your project.

Ask Yourself These Questions

As you read this blog, ask yourself the following:

Are you current with your pull plans?
Have you used the takt calculator to determine the right zone sizes?
Did you pull plan forward and backward, zone by zone, with complete sequences?
Have you examined how each trade will flow diagonally across the project?
Did you optimize enough to create buffers that absorb delays?
Have you reduced system constraints and roadblocks through proper planning?

If not, now is the time to make this a core habit.

Final Thoughts

Pull planning is not a meeting. It’s not sticky notes. It’s not a one-time activity.
It’s a discipline that shapes flow, protects trade partners, and keeps the project off the rocks.

If you need help with pull planning or want resources, reach out anytime. We can support your team through the process.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

The Leadership role

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 5 min

Stand Where You Are and Lift Where You Stand

A Leadership Lesson That Changed My Entire Construction Career

Why This Message Matters

If you constantly feel buried in tasks, rushing from one emergency to another, never able to step back and think, I’ve lived that life. Early in my career, I believed leadership meant working harder than everyone else on the crew. But I eventually learned that being the busiest person on the job is not the same as being the most effective leader.

The Story That Changed Everything

As a young field engineer on the Whole Foods World Headquarters project in Austin, I watched two rod buster foremen who couldn’t have been more different.
One worked with his crew every minute of the day, head down, tools up. The other spent his time ahead of the crew bringing materials, handing out clear instructions, and checking quality behind them.

The difference was shocking.
The “hardworking” foreman’s crew constantly stalled, waiting for direction or materials.
The “planning” foreman’s crew never stopped moving. They had clarity, resources, and flow because he stayed in his role as a leader.

That single observation reshaped my entire philosophy.
Leadership is preparation, clarity, and protection not constant motion.

Stop Doing, Start Leading

In construction, it’s easy to believe that grabbing materials, jumping into the work, or running errands shows commitment. But the truth is the opposite:

People who escape into tasks are avoiding leadership.
Leaders stabilize the environment, mentor their best people, communicate constantly, and stay at their station. They follow the 80–20 rule putting their effort into the 20 percent of actions that bring 80 percent of the project’s success.

When you stay in your role instead of trying to look busy, everything around you strengthens. Your teams move faster. Mistakes drop. Flow improves. And you finally have space to think, plan, and lead.

Key Takeaway

The best leaders in construction don’t run around doing everything. They stay in their role, prepare the work, communicate clear expectations, and guide their best people so the team can move with stability and flow. When you shift from being a “doer” to being a leader, your effectiveness multiplies, your team excels, and your career accelerates.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Cleanliness

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 6 min

Why Cleanliness Is the First Sign of a Winning Project

If you can keep a job clean, you can do anything on it. I’ll say that every day of the week. Cleanliness is not about sweeping floors or impressing the owner. It is the clearest indicator of whether a project, a crew, or a leadership team is actually succeeding. When I walk onto a site, the first thing I look at is not the schedule or the cost report, it is the floor. Cleanliness is the pulse of the project.

What a Dirty Job Really Tells You

When a project is unclean, I already know the rest of the story. Safety is slipping, quality problems are hiding under the mess, the schedule is struggling, and the team is operating in chaos. Dirty sites create learned hopelessness. People stop trying to improve because they’ve accepted the chaos as “normal.”

But when a job is clean, everything becomes visible. Safety hazards stand out. Quality issues can’t hide. Flow problems are easier to identify. A clean environment gives you clarity, and clarity drives effective leadership.

Raising the Standard to Perfection

I don’t settle for “pretty clean.” If you aim for good, you end up with mediocre. If you aim for mediocre, you get bad. But when you aim for perfection, you land exactly where you need to be. Perfectly clean jobs build their own momentum. Trade partners start holding each other accountable, and the culture sustains itself even when I’m not there.

This is why I eliminate composite cleanup crews. They hide the real issue. If you make the mess, you clean the mess. When a crew has to stop and clean together, they quickly learn that staying clean saves time, protects production, and increases pride.

Communication Makes Cleanliness a Habit

Daily worker huddles, clear expectations, afternoon field walks, and simple text reminders all reinforce the standard. The more specific I am, the better people respond. Over time, the team begins to police itself because the standard becomes theirs, not mine.

A clean job communicates something powerful: respect. It tells workers that their safety matters, their time matters, and their work environment matters. If we can change how clean our projects are, we can change almost anything about how they run.

Cleanliness Is Leadership

Cleanliness isn’t cosmetic. It’s control, clarity, respect, and culture all wrapped into one. If you can keep things clean, you can lead. And if you can lead, you can transform your entire project experience.

Key Takeaway

Cleanliness is the strongest indicator of project health and the fastest way to create stability, safety, and flow. When leaders enforce “clean as you go” and aim for perfection, clarity and accountability rise instantly. A clean site isn’t cosmetic, it’s culture and it transforms everything.

If you want to learn more we have:

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Finances

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 14 min

Why Financial Freedom Matters for Every Builder in Construction

Welcome to the Elevate Construction blog, where we elevate construction for individuals, customers, companies, and the industry as a whole with practical insight, solutions, and training. Today we are talking about something that affects every single person in this industry, whether you lead crews, run projects, manage quality, or operate in the trades. Our focus is finances.

This is a foundational topic that determines how far people can go in their careers, how much stress they carry at home, and how much freedom they have to take the next step. I am excited about this one because mastering your finances gives you the ability to invest in yourself, in your family, and in the purpose you are called to live.

If you have ever felt stuck because you do not have enough money, this is for you.
If debt drains your energy, affects your relationships, distracts your work, or limits your growth, this is for you.
If you want to take trainings, start a business, switch companies, or simply breathe again, this is for you.

You need your money to work for you, not against you.

Why Money Matters More Than We Admit

There is a quote that says money does not buy happiness, but people who say that are shopping in the wrong stores. I hear this from my wife often, and it is true in a deeper way than most realize.

Money buys possibility.
Money buys time.
Money buys options.
Money buys service and generosity.
Money buys the tools that allow you to fulfill your purpose.

You need it for your family, for your health, for your business, for your learning, for your future, and sometimes for the gifts and opportunities you want to give others. There is nothing noble about being financially stuck. And there is no strength gained from being in a position where you cannot move, cannot grow, cannot give, and cannot serve because debt has you chained.

This is not about greed.
This is about freedom.

The scriptures do not say money is the root of all evil. They say the love of money is the root of all evil. The obsession with hoarding, coveting, clinging, and worshipping it is the problem. Money itself is a tool, and tools help builders build.

The Debt Story I Wish Someone Told Me Earlier

I learned this lesson the hard way.

When I first started in construction working on a project in Southern California, I met my future wife. I wanted to impress her, buy her a ring, and start our life strong. I did not have six thousand dollars saved. But I had a shiny new credit card with a terrible interest rate, and I made the mistake most people make. I bought the ring I wanted instead of the one she actually preferred.

What followed was twelve years of consequences.

Late fees, penalties, more debt, more charges, more stress, collections, bankruptcy, more financial hits, more shame, more setbacks. By the time we were done, that six thousand dollar ring cost us somewhere between sixty and ninety thousand dollars.

That one decision shaped over a decade of our lives.

And this is how most people in construction start out, especially those coming from the trades, apprenticeships, technical roles, or early field positions. They get married in debt, start careers in debt, have kids in debt, buy cars in debt, and then feel trapped.

Debt becomes the ring in your nose that someone else uses to pull you around.

Debt becomes the reason you stay in a job you hate.
Debt becomes the reason you cannot invest in training.
Debt becomes the reason arguments happen at home.
Debt becomes the reason your potential sits locked inside you.

I know, because I lived it.

When I finally broke free of debt using the Dave Ramsey steps and other financial principles, the emotional weight that lifted off my shoulders was indescribable. It was a turning point for my entire life.

Two Financial Mindsets

The Safe Path and the Advanced Path**

There are thousands of financial philosophies out there, but here is the simplest breakdown.

The Dave Ramsey path

This is the surefire method to get out of debt and get your life under control.

Save a starter emergency fund
Pay off all debt using the snowball method
Save three to six months of expenses
Invest in retirement at fifteen percent
Pay off the house
Build wealth and give

It is stable, structured, proven, and perfect for beginners.
If someone is new in construction, fresh out of school, or stuck financially, this is the path I recommend.

The Garrett Gunderson path

This is for people who already have money and want to build freedom and purpose.

It focuses on opportunity cost
Core purpose
Productivity
Business creation
Investing in what accelerates your gifts

It is more advanced and sometimes more risky. But it is for people who are ready to build, not just get out of debt.

Both mindsets matter. One gets you out of the pit. The other helps you climb the mountain.

Four Steps Everyone in Construction Should Follow

Whether you are a worker, apprentice, field engineer, superintendent, project manager, or operations leader, these fundamentals apply to you.

Give First

If you are religious, pay tithing.
If you are not, give in other ways. Contribute. Serve. Donate. Help.

The principle is the same.
Givers gain. Takers lose.

Money flows to people who add value.
People who bless others get blessed in return.

Stop Consuming Debt

Do not buy clothes, cars, games, or luxuries with debt.
Do not put dinners on a credit card.
Do not finance what you cannot afford.

Use debt only for things that produce value
Education
Tools
Reasonable vehicles
A home that matches your means

Everything else is a trap.

Know Your Numbers

You cannot manage what you will not measure.
You must know
Your income
Your expenses
Your net worth
Your obligations
Your exposures

And if finances stress you out, find a way to make it fun. Use apps, spreadsheets, or reward systems if needed. But do not ignore the numbers.

Spend Less Than You Make and Invest in Yourself

This is the turning point.

You need margin.
You need room to breathe.
You need cash available so you can go to trainings, get certifications, buy tools, and elevate your value.

If you do not invest in your mind, your body, your skills, and your leadership, everything else collapses.

Some of the best decisions I have ever made were expensive
Tony Robbins trainings
Leadership seminars
Certifications
Books
Coaching
Courses

I paid for them myself. And the return has been astronomical. Free learning never hits the same as learning you sacrifice for.
Why Financial Freedom Matters in Construction
Our mission is to elevate the entire construction workforce.

Not just supers.
Not just project managers.
Everyone.

Workers
Foremen
Engineers
Craft professionals
Young parents
New couples
People coming up through the trades
People entering the office
People taking their very first step

If they have money, they have freedom.
If they have freedom, they grow.
If they grow, they elevate the industry.

We cannot elevate the industry while people are drowning at home.

Closing Thoughts

Debt is bondage.
Freedom is power.

If you take control of your finances, you gain your life back.
You gain your ability to serve, to give, to grow, and to lead.
You gain the energy to focus at work.
You gain the confidence to take risks.
You gain the stability to invest in yourself.
You gain the foundation to live your purpose.

Please share these concepts with five, ten, fifty, or a thousand people.
We cannot elevate the workforce unless we elevate their lives.

And as always, message me on LinkedIn if you want to request a topic, share feedback, or connect.

On we go.

Key Takeaway

Financial freedom gives you the power to grow, serve, and take your next step, and the path starts with giving, avoiding debt, knowing your numbers, and investing in yourself.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

The Three Habits of a Builder

Posted on December 3, 2025December 3, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 10 min

The Three Habits Every Successful Builder Lives By

Welcome to the Elevate Construction blog, where we elevate construction for individuals, customers, companies, and the industry as a whole through training, clarity, and actionable guidance. I’m Jason Schroeder, and today I want to share the habits that have shaped every great builder I’ve ever worked with.

These habits are universal. They apply to superintendents, field engineers, project engineers, project managers, foremen, and anyone who wants to grow in this industry. If you do these three things with discipline, I promise you will see a measurable level of success often far more than you expect.

Over the last 20 years, I’ve studied general superintendents, directors, operations managers, and vice presidents. I’ve watched how they think, how they work, and what separates them from people who are merely surviving on projects. The principles in this blog come directly from that observation, and I’m excited to pass them on to you.

Before we jump in, let me give you a quote that has guided me my entire career:

Discipline will always beat mere talent.

Talent helps, but discipline wins. The tortoise beats the hare because the tortoise shows up, stays consistent, and keeps moving. In construction, the tortoise gets promoted, builds great teams, and delivers remarkable work.

And discipline becomes much easier when it turns into a habit.

How Habits Shape Builders

In the book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg explains the concept of habit loops: a trigger that starts a behavior, the behavior itself, and the reward or closure at the end.

Construction professionals operate the same way.
You get to the site, and your brain automatically jumps into a routine you’ve practiced for years.

The trick is to deliberately build routines that drive your success instead of relying on autopilot behaviors that keep you average.

Good routines remove the mental burden of “trying to be disciplined.” They take something difficult, like reading drawings and turn it into automatic behavior you barely think about.

When you turn a discipline into a routine, your leadership and clarity accelerate fast.

Now let’s get into the three habits.

**Habit 1

Study the Drawings Every Day**

If you aren’t studying the drawings, you’re guessing.

A builder must understand the contract documents, specs, details, hazardous materials surveys, soils reports, and design intent at a level that allows them to lead others. When you study for 10 to 30 minutes daily, the project becomes clear. You start anticipating safety needs, information gaps, materials issues, and production sequences.

Studying the drawings will:

Improve your communication with foremen
Strengthen your quality control
Trigger RFIs earlier
Help you teach and lead
Give you complete clarity on what you’re building

Someone who reads drawings daily becomes a builder.
Someone who doesn’t becomes a bottleneck.

**Habit 2

Live in Your Primary Tool**

Every role has a “main tool” that drives success.

Superintendent – the schedule
Field Engineer – lift drawings
Project Engineer – procurement log
Project Manager – financials
Director or General Superintendent – mentoring people

Spend 10 to 30 minutes each day in your primary tool.

When supers live in the schedule, they see the future. They can plan, predict, coordinate, prepare, and communicate before issues show up. They stop being reactive. They become leaders, not firefighters.

When project engineers live in procurement, they’re always ahead of the game.

When field engineers live in lift drawings, layout becomes predictable.

When PMs live in financials, jobs stop slipping.

Your main tool is your superpower, master it every day.

**Habit 3

Take Consistent Field Walks**

This is non-negotiable.

Whether you’re a foreman, superintendent, field engineer, or PM, you must walk the field daily. Construction is too dynamic to manage from a trailer or a laptop.

Field walks help you see:

Quality
Production
Safety
Cleanliness
Material needs
Crew readiness
Upcoming work
Reality vs schedule

Field walks create instant communication.
You see something, you take a picture, you send a text or email, and you close the loop.

This habit alone can elevate an entire project.

Why These Three Habits Matter

Because they turn you into a self-starter.

There are only two kinds of people in construction:

Those who always need a to-do list
Those who already know what needs to be done

The second group gets promoted. The second group earns more. The second group runs great projects.

Studying drawings, mastering your main tool, and walking the field create a builder who thinks ahead, communicates clearly, and leads with confidence.

If you do these three things, you will never again wonder, “What should I be doing right now?”

You will know.

Closing Thoughts

If you implement these habits, you will grow.
Your project will stabilize.
Your communication will sharpen.
Your career will accelerate.

These habits have helped me elevate dozens of builders, and they will do the same for you.

Use them daily. Turn them into routines. Make them automatic.

And most of all, enjoy the success and fulfillment that follows.

Key Takeaway

Success becomes inevitable when you study the drawings, live in your primary tool, and walk the field every day because these habits turn you from a reactor into a builder who always knows what to do next.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

What “Kata” Really Means — And How It Can Transform Construction Training

Posted on December 2, 2025December 2, 2025 by Danny Jiménez⁩

Read 9 min

Kata and Construction Training: How Routines Transform Teams

What kata really means and how it can transform construction training is one of the most exciting concepts we can bring to a project. In this blog I want to walk you through a simple what if scenario.

What if we could train construction teams using repeatable routines?
What if workers could see as a group, know as a group, and act as a group?
What if this could be implemented with the team you already have and the wisdom you already possess?

That is exactly what kata makes possible.

What Kata Really Means

Kata is a Japanese word that means structured routine of thinking and action. It is not a checklist and it is not a tool. Kata is a practice pattern. A routine that shapes how we see, how we think, how we decide, and how we act.

Kata is:

A routine for improvement.
A routine for coaching.
A routine for working shoulder to shoulder.
A routine for building habits and reinforcing excellence.

People often do not need new information. They need reminders. They need repetition. They need consistent patterns that anchor high performance.

I learned much of this during my trip to Japan with Paul Akers, and I am convinced that kata can revolutionize construction training.

Kata Within the Last Planner System

One of the most impactful ideas in construction is the morning worker huddle. When done correctly and paired with the Last Planner System, it becomes a kata. A routine that directs the flow of the day and unifies the team.

Here is how the full routine works.

Weekly: Look ahead planning and weekly work planning.
Daily: Afternoon foreman huddle between ten and three to plan tomorrow.
Morning: Worker huddle for the entire field crew to align on the day plan.

These three routines stabilize the entire project. They allow teams to prepare, coordinate, and commit as one unit.

But we can make this even better.

Transforming the Morning Worker Huddle with Kata

Imagine this.

Workers come in from the parking lot and instead of going through one gate there are two. The first gate leads to the huddle area. The second gate opens only when the huddle is complete.

But instead of forcing compliance we create a space people actually want to be in:

Warm heaters in the winter.
Coffee ready for a couple hundred people.
Music to set the energy.
Clear visuals.
Mockups of bathrooms and cleaning expectations.
Mockups of crew boards.
Mockups of logistics carts and kitting processes.

This is not pandering. This is total participation.

You create an environment that supports neurotypical and neurodivergent workers. You give them clarity, rewards, and predictable routines. You connect them to the project every morning and reinforce the behaviors that bring flow.

Every day they see:

How to maintain bathrooms.
How to use crew boards.
How to stage materials.
How to prepare kits.
How to signal material readiness.

Every day their minds are reminded of excellence. This is kata at its best.

Improvement Kata and Coaching Kata

Mike Rother describes two types of kata.

Improvement kata: small, structured steps toward a target condition using PDCA
Coaching kata: routines that build capability in others through daily guidance

The morning worker huddle becomes both. You guide workers toward improvement while also developing their ability to think and solve problems.

You teach simple concepts each morning.
We build people before we build things.
Why deliveries are scheduled?
How to kit materials for flow?

You reinforce excellence until it becomes the default.

Why Routines Matter More Than Firefighting

Routines create stability and stability creates flow. Without routines projects slip back into chaos.

I once visited a project six weeks after leaving it in perfect order. Everything was chaos. Deliveries were out of sequence. Work areas were messy. People were looking for help while the superintendent was overwhelmed.

Why?

Because they stopped doing the routines.
The foreman huddle.
The morning worker huddle.
The planning sequences.

When routines were removed, problems exploded. This is the firefighter–arsonist pattern. Some leaders subconsciously like chaos because it makes them feel needed. But chaos destroys flow.

Routines prevent chaos. Routines create flow. Routines build excellence.

Kata is the framework that makes those routines stick.

The Core of Kata

See where you want to go.
Understand your current condition.
Identify the next target condition.
Run small PDCA experiments to close the gap.

For behaviors and competencies, kata builds people first. It keeps excellence from being filtered out by the brain. It reinforces what matters every day.

The Path Forward

If we truly understand kata, we will stop fighting fires, stop running treasure hunts, stop reacting, and start stabilizing. We will build routines that lead to better planning, better teamwork, and better flow.

Routines bring stability – Stability brings flow – Flow brings remarkable projects.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

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