Elevating Construction Foremen – Part 18

If you were the captain of a ship, would your crew and passengers prefer you down with them sweeping the deck and shoveling coal, or at the helm watching for icebergs and reefs? The answer is simple. Crew leaders look ahead and clear the path.

This is Part 18 of my walk-through of my book Elevating Construction Foremen. If you are just joining, start with Part 1. This part is about crew leaders as roadblock removers, why a crew leader should put down the tools, and why you don’t escape to Home Depot.

Short answer: Projects lose money in stops, restarts, and waiting, not in workers who are a little less trained. So the crew leader’s top priority is removing roadblocks, using the six-week lookahead and every sense to see what isn’t ready. To do that, put down your tools, because no one wearing tool bags sees far enough ahead. And stay on site with your crew instead of escaping to Home Depot.

Why Are Crew Leaders Roadblock Removers?

The superintendent sees the future and targets when something should happen. A crew leader clears the path for the work to actually happen on time by finding, understanding, sharing, and removing the roadblocks ahead of it. Here is why. The least trained 25% of workers on average are slightly more productive than most companies’ bid units, and the top 25% are two times as productive as the least trained. So why do we lose so much money in construction? Stops and restarts. Workers waiting on work or materials. Missed and unmoved roadblocks. We are losing money when work is stopped unnecessarily.

One of your main tools is the six-week lookahead, or weeks three, four, or five of it. For each upcoming activity, ask: do I have the materials, tools, equipment, information, permissions, layout, space, time, and people to do this work? Understand it in a 2D, 3D, visual, emotional, and tactical way, using all your senses. If the answer is no, we have a roadblock. Slowing down or stopping production hurts projects, so the top priority of the crew leader is removing roadblocks. See How To Identify And Remove Roadblocks.

Leadership is solving problems. Colin Powell said, “The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them.”

Have you ever had that crew leader who always has a problem to bring up? It can seem annoying. That’s what I thought until I reflected on it. That crew leader is probably the best asset the project has, as long as the complaints are real and well intended. I worked with one who always brought up the truth about what was in his way. At first I resisted. Then I started writing his comments down and going to work on them. He trained me into a problem-identification and solving mindset, and that habit has blessed my career ever since. God be thanked for your noisiest crew leader.

Why Should a Crew Leader Put Down the Tools?

There are as many types of crew leaders as there are types of work, but as a general rule, crew leaders should not wear or use their tools. The role of a crew leader is to prepare, enable, provide, teach, coach, and plan, and wearing tools is a distraction from that. Would I rather have an entire crew of trained and enabled people, or a crew of followers behind one really proficient worker? The answer should be obvious.

When you become a crew leader, you no longer get your significance from working hard and keeping busy. I realize this is controversial. But I have never seen an effective crew leader who also wore his tool bags. I have seen effective lead persons and senior workers, but none of them saw far enough ahead to plan, prepare, and remove roadblocks. Their work stopped as soon as a roadblock hit, and they became victims of circumstance. As an old-time super told a newly promoted crew leader, “If you put your tools on, I’ll fire you. I hired you to think, plan, and prepare the work.”

What Does Major Dick Winters Teach About Taking the Tools Off?

Major Dick Winters of Easy Company, 101st Airborne, fought the Battle of the Bulge, and he didn’t fire a shot. At Bastogne he served as acting battalion commander, think crew leader, because Lieutenant Colonel Robert Strayer spent most of his time at regimental headquarters. At that level, his job was no longer to fight but to direct others to fight. When the attack on Foy stalled because Easy Company’s commander froze, Winters almost went in himself. Colonel Sink reminded him to command the battalion, not get bogged down with Easy Company. Winters relieved the company commander and ordered Lieutenant Ronald Speirs to take command, and Easy Company won because Winters could observe the whole front line.

It does not take courage to put your tools on. It takes courage to take them off and think, to not look busy, to know your people may think you are lazier than them, and to begin doing tasks you have not known how to do. If you are leading a crew and working as well, you are a lead person, not a crew leader. Sometimes a crew leader may lend a hand on a smaller crew, but that is the exception, and the goal is to get back to the proper order of things. And if you do not have the choice right now, I understand and do not judge you.

Why Shouldn’t a Crew Leader Escape to Home Depot?

A crew leader at Home Depot is like a doctor out buying medical supplies in the middle of a surgery. It just shouldn’t be done. Purchase materials the day before. You deserve runners or drivers to do that for you, and you shouldn’t be driving from location to location to oversee your people either. Being gone is the practical equivalent of escaping your role. What if the project super was at Home Depot when you needed him or her? You would be angry and disappointed, and that is exactly how your crew feels when you are not there.

On a project where I was project director, a concrete crew leader trying to earn a promotion to superintendent kept running to the store for nails, screws, and diesel. One day I spotted a hazard that needed to be fixed immediately and called him on the radio. No reply. A lead man told me he was on a Home Depot run. When he returned, I asked if he was escaping. He admitted he was overwhelmed and was doing anything he felt he could do well. After a few months of coaching, he asked to go back to being a worker.

This is not about humility. There is no work beneath a crew leader or super, and you will see both pick up trash, but they do it on site. It is about focus. Plan, delegate, and get logistics support so you never even have to consider the run. Don’t leave the crew to sit in your truck. Lean in, dig in, learn fast, and take your place as the leader of your crew on site.

So here is the challenge. Go one full week without wearing your tools or leaving site during work hours. Write down every problem your noisiest crew member brings you, and remove at least one roadblock from your lookahead each day.

Bottom line: Your crew wins when you are at the helm looking ahead, with your tools off and your boots on site, removing roadblocks before they stop the work.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

On we go.

Elevating Construction Foremen series:
Previous: Part 17: Guiding Principles: Prepare the Work, the Six Needs, and Training Your Crew
Next: Part 19: Know Your Trade, Safety, Cleanliness, and a Passion for Lean

FAQ

Why do construction projects lose money?

Because of stops and restarts, workers waiting on work or materials, and missed and unmoved roadblocks. We are not losing money when workers have what they need, even if they aren’t that well trained.

Should a crew leader wear tool bags?

As a general rule, no. The role is to prepare, enable, provide, teach, coach, and plan. If you are leading a crew and working as well, you are a lead person, not a crew leader.

Is it okay for a crew leader to make supply runs?

Not during the workday. Runs should happen the night before or by a runner or logistics person. Crew leaders belong on site with their people.

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