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Supply Chain Madness

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 37 min

The Difference Between Pushing and Driving: Why Urgency Without Capacity Is Useless

Jason is out in the front of his house. What time is it? It’s 4:17. It’s going to be a beautiful day. He’s looking at some purple, orange, green, and red beautiful Halloween lights on his tree sitting next to a skeleton in his other front yard, lots of pumpkins on a chair, front yard chair. Got some pumpkins, some scary spooky things, a spider, some spider webs, and he’s got bats hanging above him. Anyway, super fun.

Hope you’re all ready for the holidays. Anyway, he’s out here. He doesn’t know if you can hear the crickets but it’s beautiful. Sometimes he loves to just come out here and have a nice peaceful morning until somebody like him starts up a podcast and starts yammering. But anyway, so beautiful and he’s ready to talk today.

On a podcast the other day, Jason was talking about building capacity and the difference between that and pushing. He realized there was a mistake in his philosophy there that a lot of superintendents really connect with the concept of pushing, but he’d like to define that in two different ways in the sense that the superintendents that really have drive and urgency aren’t pushers, they’re drivers. He likes the two little analogies there.

Japanese Train Attendees Push People Into Trains

Let Jason give you an analogy of pushing if that’s okay. If you look at the subway or the train stations in Japan, it’s kind of funny some of the things that they do. They’ll have guards there or in some cases they’ll have attendees or guards and people will just stack up in front of the train and these guards will push them into that train and just really jam pack everybody in there.

If you ever want to check out a really cool YouTube video, go ahead and type in “Japanese attendees pushing people onto trains” or however you want to search that. It’s really kind of funny. Now Jason hopes it is safe. He hopes it’s not unsafe, but it’s true. It’s like a real thing.

When they push people on there, not only are they having a lot of really strenuous contact, but you’re not really getting too much more bang for your buck and you’re cramming so many people in there. It can’t be safe from just a personal space, a transmission of disease, an appropriate “Hey, who’s doing what” situation and then exiting the train. Jason doesn’t even know if those trains are designed for the capacity there, but he really likes the thought of that when pushing.

Or if you have a bottleneck and you pretend like you have a bottleneck on the side. Jason thinks he did this on LinkedIn. Imagining like a bakery bag that has frosting in it or like a Tapatio bottle. Have you ever tried to push frosting, especially if it wasn’t soft, through a small nozzle? It’s a nightmare. Just imagine that pushing. Then you talk about driving. Driving is where you’re actually at the wheel, focused, looking forward, going the right speed and staying between the lines. You’re staying in your lane.

Now when somebody’s not driving, they’re in the passenger seat. They’re victims of circumstance. They’re going at the pace of somebody else. They’re not actively looking at the road. They’re not actively looking at the parameters. They’re literally just being brought. Jason likes the thought: you don’t want to be a passenger on a project site. You do want to drive, but you don’t want to push.

Pushing Makes You Go Slower

Let Jason go back to the concepts that he talked about the other day and posted on LinkedIn. When you’re pushing, you’re doing things like this:

  • Throwing manpower at the problem
  • Throwing money at the problem
  • Making workers work too fast and too long
  • Working with unsafe and unclean conditions
  • Working with too much dependency
  • Not having enough time in the schedule
  • Having too large or too small batch sizes (meaning they’re too large or too small)
  • Working in an improper sequence
  • Moving start dates up without preparation
  • Throwing materials at the problem
  • Becoming frantic so you can prove to your boss that you’re working hard

Those are all concepts of pushing and they’re only going to make you go slower.

Now building capacity, this is what Jason would call driving. He had put a list here:

  • Removing roadblocks
  • Installing it right the first time (we’re between the lanes, we’re paying attention to the road, we got our foot on the gas, we’re going the right speed and we’re moving forward)
  • Aligning and managing procurement
  • Keeping a consistent rhythm
  • Keeping it clean, safe and organized
  • Improving team health and stability
  • Taking more time to prepare and make work ready
  • Increasing communication
  • Optimizing bottlenecks and increasing flow

Jason put in here “building capacity” but you just as well could have put in here “driving.” There’s a sense of urgency that we absolutely have to have anywhere we go.

A Superintendent Without a Sense of Urgency Is Ineffective to the Point of Uselessness

Let Jason share with you one more little segment. This is from the book Elevating Construction Superintendents. This is step number 15, Drive with Urgency. This is talking about a superintendent but this could apply to anyone.

A superintendent without a sense of urgency is ineffective to the point of uselessness. Superintendents must keep pace with the project to finish on time. Superintendents are the timekeepers, the drivers and the ones who keep everyone accountable to follow a certain rhythm on the project. Their role is to pull all aspects of the project into the dimension of time. And without that crucial awareness, a supervisor cannot excel.

It is the superintendent’s job to bring everything on the project into the aspect of time. As a director coaching a team, Jason remembers when the team was six weeks behind schedule and finishing concrete. The field director told them they needed to begin a swing shift for concrete crews and rodbusters to pick up the time the very next day.

“Do you have any response from the team why they couldn’t do this?” the field director asked. “If we decide now and implement tomorrow, it will be done. Then we will be on our way to picking up the rest of the time.”

After this suggestion, the team still did not exhibit the urgency to drive the situation but rather focused more on their fears and apprehensions. On the field director’s next visit, he had some choice but appropriate words for the project team when he said “We’re doing this tomorrow. What do you guys not understand?”

As they started giving excuses, the local lead superintendent committed to get the ball rolling and within 24 hours had rodbusters and a crew of carpenters to come in at night with the appropriate rigging and equipment. The project projections immediately went from six weeks behind to two weeks behind with the prospect of also getting back the additional two weeks.

Success in warfare has never been associated with long waiting. The quote from General Patton is appropriate for this topic. A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

We must have a sense of urgency at work. There are things that we overthink, situations that we overanalyze, and plans that we try to over perfect in construction. This means that we frequently lose valuable time, losing days to save hours.

Superintendents who have not found a sense of urgency and do not feel the responsibility to finish on time hinder the project in incalculable ways. These supervisors are among those who fail on their performance reviews, get stuck in their role, and are not ready for the next promotion.

Immerse yourself in your schedule for at least 30 minutes every day. Everything brought to your attention by your trade partners and others in meetings should be checked against your schedule to ensure you have the indispensable sense of urgency to get the work done on time. Also, practice coming out of the ground quickly on projects when you only have a few trades on site. Don’t overthink and overanalyze unless it’s very high risk.

Get the consensus of the group once you have a good enough plan and make sure you move forward with drive and urgency. Intentionally practice this on a continual basis. Become creative on how you can gain ground and move things forward as long as it doesn’t interrupt the flow.

For every question on site, ask if the situation is being given the appropriate amount of urgency. Most importantly, when the problem arises on site, do not delay fixing it. Do what needs to be done. Remove that person, add that other person to the conversation, order those materials, demolish the defective work, do whatever needs to be done, and do not wait.

Expediency is associated with success in warfare and in construction. If you can properly learn how to instill a daily sense of urgency and passion and drive in your role, you will obtain success because you will not be hindered by the consequences of delay. You will have a balanced life and be effective as you supervise because things are not piling up and burning you out. You will finish projects earlier because you authoritatively and intelligently take advantage of certain situations which do not bring the project out of flow. You will gain time and contingencies on the project and it will serve you later when mistakes arrive. You will be able to overcome and adapt.

That’s the end of the section there. And Jason wants to say that he likes that part. He wrote the book but he looks back at it and he’s like “Ooh, I like this author.” A superintendent without a sense of urgency is ineffective to the point of uselessness. That is really just a 100% true point.

Drive with Urgency Means Preparing the Seven Conditions for Sound Activity

When we have a sense of urgency, we are doing the right things at the right time. Going back to another post that was posted the other day on LinkedIn. Jason has it right here. Seven conditions for a sound activity. We need to make sure:

  • Prior activities are planned
  • Construction design and information is ready
  • Materials and components are ready
  • Workers are prepared and trained
  • Equipment is maintained and prepared
  • Workspaces are made ready, cleaned, and they’re safe
  • External conditions, approvals, and permissions are given

So when we drive with a sense of urgency, we’re not pushing. We’re not doing those silly things that Jason talked about just a minute ago. We’re not doing the things that would cause the project to delay. We’re actually doing the things that will prepare our work, those seven conditions.

When somebody thinks about going fast, they’re like “Oh, I’m going to push. I’m going to throw manpower, throw money at the problem, make workers go too fast, do out of sequence work, have things scheduled with not enough time, too large or too small of batch sizes, working in an improper sequence, moving start dates up.”

If somebody finishes on Thursday, “I’m going to move the succeeding task up to Friday.” Get them out of sequence and put them into a large amount of variation. Throw materials at the problem, becoming frantic.

No, that’s not what that means. What it means is that if the contractor finished on a Thursday, instead of moving that other contractor, the succeeding contractor up on a Friday, you will drive with urgency, meaning you will make sure that nobody takes that situation complacently. You will lead, you will drive, you will encourage, you will oversee, and you will ensure that this gets done, that the activities happening on Monday have all of the conditions of satisfaction met to start that work.

They have their preparations, they have their layout, they have their information, they have their lift drawings, they have their quality meetings, they have their submittals approved, they have all of their materials stocked and staged and ready to go, the area is clean, contractors are out of there.

Anybody Can Push But Only the Best Can Drive with Urgency

When Jason talks about driving with urgency, it’s not pushing other people. He didn’t say push, he didn’t say cram everybody into that rail car, he didn’t say cram that frosting through that nozzle onto that cake and push. He said create capacity and creating capacity takes that drive, takes that urgency, because only the really true builders can get out there and see what needs to be done to prepare and create that capacity and do it on time.

Here’s the thing: anybody can push when everybody’s frantic and freaking out, but only the best can drive with urgency as a self-motivated system, meaning that somebody is a self-starter, self-motivated, they have that urgency intrinsically within themselves. They don’t need somebody else, they don’t need some external condition, they don’t need some emergency to have that drive.

Jason’s saying the best builders have that drive intrinsically and they use that drive not for pushing but for creating capacity. Meaning let’s make sure that we have that procurement log, let’s make sure we’re finishing our systems, let’s make sure we’re doing defect correction systems, let’s make sure we have the drive and the urgency to stay within the lanes and keep driving forward with cleanliness, organization and safety, that we’re implementing zero tolerance, that we’re grading contractors, that we’re updating the schedule, that we’re following our huddle systems, that we’re following the quality process, that we’re really having great wonderful conversations with our last planners and the last planner system, making sure that work is prepared and that we’re having more intelligent conversations.

The other thing that Jason would say is that great teams are built when they follow those five behaviors of trust, conflict, goal-setting, accountability and performance, that they have a strenuous performance goal that’s magnetizing that team. And that you have a multiplier leader. Now you need that goal for the team because everybody needs to follow that goal, but the leader, the great builders will have that urgency intrinsically themselves.

Why Did We Get All This Time Just to Waste It?

One of the most annoying things that has ever happened to Jason in his career, which he failed at doing until they corrected it, was they started creating Takt plans in preconstruction with the project team, with the superintendent, and they got the team the right amount of time. And then certain teams, without a builder, without that drive and that urgency, they’d get complacent. They’d be like “Oh, we got time. We can eat into the buffers.” If you eat into all your buffers now, you’re going to get into a crash landing anyway. So why did we go get all of this time just so we could waste it?

Jason thinks that’s probably where some of our owners are coming from. They’re like “Yeah, no, you want the six weeks? No, I’m not giving it to you. Just deal with it.” And you’re in this crash landing situation. He thinks they do that because they want to know that people have a sense of urgency and drive.

What we have to do, the current condition, is we have to get out of the situation where people are victims and they are more like animals. They are things to be acted upon and get them into the human victor mindset, where they are things to act. They are humans that will act upon their circumstances and create stability.

Get out of the “I’m a victim. I am only shaped by my circumstances. I have to have an owner push me. And I’m going to use that urgency and drive to freak out.” We have to get from that to “I am a victor. I control the circumstances. I am not acted upon. I don’t need some external force to make me have drive and urgency. And I’m going to drive the right way with preparation, with flow and with capacity.”

Jason definitely wants to demonize the word pushing a little bit and enable and encourage the word drive. He really just prays and wishes and hopes and encourages everybody to have that good amount of drive in life because it really does a lot for us. How we do one thing is how we do everything.

There are times where we need to drive when we’re relaxing and there’s times when we need to drive when we’re at work. When Jason’s driving and relaxing, he’s in Hawaii or on a vacation, having date night. He’s driven the circumstances and created the capacity and the stability to have his phone off and to be totally focused with his wife or doing whatever he’s doing.

When he’s driving at work, they’re encouraging and working with the team, they’re encouraging and creating healthy environments. They’ve got decorations up in the trailer, they’ve got good morale, they’ve got good teaming, they’ve got open office spaces, they’ve got great huddle systems and there’s this time clock, there’s this beat on the rhythm and there’s this energy.

That’s probably the last thing that Jason would say: when people drive with urgency, they do it with positive, wonderful, loving and exciting energy. It’s like Disneyland. And when people push, it’s coercive and negative and just destructive and stressful and icky.

Jason would like to ask all of us to stop pushing and start driving with positive energy. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What’s the difference between pushing and driving?

Pushing is like Japanese train attendees cramming people into trains or trying to push frosting through a small nozzle. When you’re pushing, you’re throwing manpower at the problem, throwing money at the problem, making workers work too fast and too long, working with unsafe and unclean conditions, working with too much dependency, not having enough time in the schedule, having too large or too small batch sizes, working in an improper sequence, moving start dates up without preparation, throwing materials at the problem, becoming frantic so you can prove to your boss that you’re working hard. Those are all concepts of pushing and they’re only going to make you go slower. Driving is where you’re actually at the wheel, focused, looking forward, going the right speed and staying between the lines. You’re staying in your lane.

Q: What does it mean that a superintendent without a sense of urgency is ineffective to the point of uselessness?

Superintendents must keep pace with the project to finish on time. Superintendents are the timekeepers, the drivers and the ones who keep everyone accountable to follow a certain rhythm on the project. Their role is to pull all aspects of the project into the dimension of time. Without that crucial awareness, a supervisor cannot excel. Superintendents who have not found a sense of urgency and do not feel the responsibility to finish on time hinder the project in incalculable ways. These supervisors are among those who fail on their performance reviews, get stuck in their role, and are not ready for the next promotion. A good plan violently executed today is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

Q: What are the seven conditions for sound activity that driving with urgency prepares?

Prior activities are planned, construction design and information is ready, materials and components are ready, workers are prepared and trained, equipment is maintained and prepared, workspaces are made ready, cleaned, and safe, and external conditions, approvals, and permissions are given. When we drive with a sense of urgency, we’re not pushing. We’re actually doing the things that will prepare our work, those seven conditions. If the contractor finished on Thursday, instead of moving that succeeding contractor up on Friday, you will drive with urgency, meaning you will make sure that the activities happening on Monday have all the conditions of satisfaction met to start that work.

Q: Why do teams with buffer time get complacent and waste it?

Certain teams without a builder, without that drive and that urgency, get complacent. They’re like “Oh, we got time. We can eat into the buffers.” If you eat into all your buffers now, you’re going to get into a crash landing anyway. So why did we go get all of this time just so we could waste it? That’s probably where some of our owners are coming from. They’re like “Yeah, no, you want the six weeks? No, I’m not giving it to you. Just deal with it.” They do that because they want to know that people have a sense of urgency and drive. Only the best can drive with urgency as a self-motivated system. The best builders have that drive intrinsically and they use that drive not for pushing but for creating capacity.

Q: How is driving with urgency different from being frantic?

Anybody can push when everybody’s frantic and freaking out, but only the best can drive with urgency as a self-motivated system, meaning somebody is a self-starter, self-motivated, they have that urgency intrinsically within themselves. They don’t need somebody else, they don’t need some external condition, they don’t need some emergency to have that drive. When people drive with urgency, they do it with positive, wonderful, loving and exciting energy. It’s like Disneyland. When people push, it’s coercive and negative and just destructive and stressful and icky. We have to get from “I’m a victim” to “I am a victor. I control the circumstances. I don’t need some external force to make me have drive and urgency. I’m going to drive the right way with preparation, with flow and with capacity.”

On we go.

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.

On we go

Supply Chain Madness

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 44 min

What We Can Do in Our Current Economy with the Supply Chain Crisis

Jason has good news. Well, maybe it’s just good news for him, but they were able to in a real rush set up their recording studio over there at the Field Verified offices with Brian Milter. They’re starting to record those really nice videos.

Tomorrow afternoon, it’s been a big push for them. They are wanting to reach more people through those videos. By the way, they work with Nicholas Modig with Construction Excellence and the wonderful people at Lean Communications in Norway to scale lean information and specifically training for construction.

If you’re ever interested in Lean Fundamentals courses, Operational Transformation courses, any of the courses they have in construction for Lean Fundamentals or for the Integrated Production Control System or Takt Planning, please let Jason know.

Why he’s telling you this is that not a lot of free time right now. He just got done probably with three months being on the road, as you know, and it’s been nice to be a little bit back at home, back on his time zone and be setting things up. They’re ready to go but he’s now doing a podcast on the way home but he was like “Dang it! They’re not going to take another podcast from me with the background noise.” But the traffic is so bad that he thinks he can pull this off. So if you hear a bump or something, he is driving but it wasn’t so noisy that he thought it’d be a problem.

Really appreciate all of you. The podcast numbers are through the roof. There’s so many people providing positive feedback and listening to these podcasts. Jason attempts to make them quick, 18 minutes to the point. Here’s the information. Go. Please let him know how he can improve them.

But boy, he tells you what, they’re at around on average like 700, 800, 900, sometimes even a thousand people listening a day to the podcast now. It’s because you are sharing this information and really helping them. Boy, does he appreciate it. You’re fantastic and he loves you.

The Panic Is What Causes Supply Chain Problems

This is what Jason needs everybody to do. He wants everybody to listen to him and glean the right things from this and you leave whatever you don’t want. We are in and entering in a supply chain crisis that literally nobody can do anything about. Jason did a podcast the other day on why it was happening. And it’s true.

The franticness, the panic is what causes these supply chain problems, especially when there’s a ripple. Now when you have COVID-19, there’s going to be a ripple because factories shut down. Then once you see a little bit of scarcity, everybody starts to panic and go mad. We saw that when COVID-19 hit with the supermarkets and toilet paper. It’s not just-in-time deliveries that’s the problem. It’s the panic. It’s the attitude.

Jason’s not even saying that we don’t have to respond to it. If everybody’s panicking, you have to panic too to get out the exit door. If everyone else is panicking with materials, you have to panic too. So he gets it. He’s not condemning you. He just wants to make sure that everybody knows what the actual reason is.

Katie also researches the news, not for Jason but for herself, but she always keeps him up to date. She was like “We are about to enter in a supply chain crisis the likes of which we’ve never seen.” Now for people that are wondering about this, dude, there’s nothing you can do about it. It’s just happening. So the question is, should you go push and kill people on construction projects? No, we need to get better at this and we need to get more transparent with the owner.

It’s going to be hard to get steel. It’s going to be hard to get joists. It’s going to be hard to get metal decking. It’s going to be hard. All the things. But some of those are forced errors and some of those are unforced errors. Meaning some of that is inevitable variation and some of that is not inevitable variation.

This is what Jason would really like to ask the entire industry to do right now as a favor to him and as a favor to you and as a favor to the vendors and as a favor to everybody in construction so that we can level this as much as we possibly can. He’s going to give you some practical advice. This is what we need to do.

If you’re a superintendent, a PM, a senior PM, a project executive, a project director, a field director, general superintendent, owner of a business, whatever, this is our plan. Let’s go ahead and sit down and talk as friends.

Your Submittal Register Is NOT a Procurement Log

We need to implement on a mass scale procurement logs in a very intentional way. Now let Jason be clear about something. Your Procore, Prolog, CMIC, whatever other system you’re using, submittal register systems is not a procurement log. Let him just be clear about that.

You can in your submittal register in those applications put a due date, but for the most part it tracks the project management items only. Here are the categories that Jason cares about. He wants required on job. He wants the material inventory buffer. He wants the actual shipment duration. He wants the fabrication duration. He wants the approvals and queuing duration. He wants to know how long the actual approvals take for all parties, including the designers. He wants to know how long it takes to actually submit that. He wants to know how long it takes to actually design and put together the shop drawings and any of the information that’s actually going to queue up the material release. So that is not a submittal register. What he’s talking to you about is a procurement log.

Those procurement logs, really Jason’s never seen better ones anywhere other than Excel. Somebody would be like “Well you can’t run multiples.” Yes you can. Okay, so calm down. Just calm down. If you want to find a software, if you want to do this in Smartsheet, or if you want to program something, fine. Go do it. He’s just saying in Excel it’s a jamming system. If you want to do something better, great. He loves you. Send it to him and he’ll publish it on the Lean Takt YouTube channel for everybody to see and they’ll praise you. What he’s saying though is people think that because they have a submittal register that everything’s fine. It’s not fine. It’s not fine.

What we have to do, whether you’re using CPM, God forbid, or if you’re using Takt planning, thank God, you need to know your required on job dates for everything. You can have a good schedule put together, Jason’s telling you, in schematic design. You can have a Takt plan, and that’s the genius of the system, have a Takt plan put together in schematic design.

So here we go. If you have that, then all you have to do is piece out all the required materials. Now are you going to track drywall? Maybe, maybe not. Are you going to track screws? No, probably not. Okay, but are you going to track light fixtures? Yes. Are you going to track millwork? Yes. Are you going to track exterior curtain wall? Yes. Are you going to track critical pieces of equipment for mechanical and commissioning? Yes. All of those things need to be distilled down from the specifications and in coordination with the trade partners right away.

90% of Projects Have No Idea What Their Financial Projections Are

If Jason goes to a job, first things he asks: Do we have a Takt plan? Do we have our procurement log? Has somebody gone through these specs? Are we queued up with a 90-day schedule ready to go so that we can mobilize this project? Do we have a financial projection sheet so that we know what kind of deal we’re signing up for at a GMP?

Jason swears to you, as God is his witness, without any irreverence, when he travels around this industry, 90% of the projects, the project managers and the PXs, they have no idea what their financial projections are. They have no idea the status of all of their procurement and they have no project controls. Guys and gals, this is project management 101. We have to have these things.

Jason went to a job that was halfway through. “Where’s your procurement log?” “Yeah, we don’t have one. The trade partners take care of it.” What? “Yeah, where are your financials?” “Oh yeah, we do kind of a project status report every month.” “Well, what about your status of your contingency?” “Oh, we don’t know.” “What about potentials? What about your exposure log?” “We don’t know.” “What about the difference between your lump sum self-perform contract and your overall budget? What’s remaining?” “We don’t know, but we have this sheet that tells us.” “Okay, what does the sheet mean?” “Well, we don’t know how to read it.” What? What are we talking about here?

Okay, so Jason needs that procurement log. You need, we need that procurement log up and running. He doesn’t care if we got to work 12-hour days for a couple weeks and go against this whole team balance and health personal organization system thing, we need to get that done. And he needs all of those required on job dates plugged in from the master schedule. You need that, rather.

The Buffer Column Is the Second Most Important

Once those dates are in there, the second most important column is the buffer. Now you can, in short order, in your fresh eyes meeting especially, identify the increased buffer durations for any of these items. So if you’re like “Oh, just-in-time doesn’t work.” Well, you’re wrong. And then second of all, what you need to do is put your buffer time in there and it will increase the overall planning queue and that will give you the overall correct duration when you should release the materials.

Okay, so that buffer column, if you’re dealing with drywall, maybe drywall’s only increased two weeks. Maybe if it’s underground pipe and structures, maybe it’s increased by eight weeks and you put eight weeks in that buffer time. If you have a problem with exterior curtain wall and that’s a real big problem with glazing for some reason, maybe it’s 12 weeks. Whatever it is, whatever has increased from a needed buffer time duration because of COVID-19, buffer time and quantity amount because of COVID-19, we need to put that in that log.

Then comes, and you don’t just guess on this, you ask the trade partners. This is phone calls. This is phone call 101. How long, sorry if you hear Jason’s turn signal here, how long will it take to actually ship that stuff? Does it come through a port? Do we need a buffer for the port?

One quick sidebar here is that a lot of the supply chain delays are still from the Suez Canal, from the Los Angeles ports being understaffed and boats waiting, and from just delivery companies not being able to ship things and because the prices to ship things by boat have doubled, quadrupled, multiplied by 10 or 20 times the original price. So we have supply chain problems not just from freaking out in panic and batching but also from basically just the supply chain logistics not being able to get it where we need to.

We really need to look at each individual time duration and if it used to be like “Okay, we’re shipping this and it took, let’s just say it came from China and it took 10 weeks.” Well, is that still with the Suez Canal and the Los Angeles ports? Is that still the same case or is it literally going to take 20 weeks? Make sure you have the right delivery duration. Make sure you have the right fabrication duration. Do not be afraid to call those people.

You Can’t Do Everything All at Once

Then you get back to the approvals. Now here’s the thing, when somebody says “Let’s just order everything all at once, send it through all at once, get the submittals done all at once, blah blah blah all at once.” Hey, Jason loves the idea of having it done before construction but you can’t do it all at once. You’re going to overburden the designers. You’re going to make a mistake in reviewing the submittals. We have to have some common sense here.

What you’re going to do is put together your procurement log and let Jason go through these categories one more time. If you need this log he’ll send it to you. But you’re going to have:

  • The required on job date
  • The material inventory buffer duration
  • The delivery duration
  • The fabrication duration
  • The queuing duration, which is from the time it’s approved to when it actually starts to be fabricated (what is the queuing duration?)
  • The approvals including the architect and any other owner and contractor approvals
  • The time that it takes to queue that and to design the shop drawings and the submittals

And to get all of that done. So that is the whole system. Jason needs that done for every single submittal with accurate durations and then you’re going to start to see what the earliest ones that should populate are. Best thing to do if you’re using Excel is do conditional formatting. So when the dates populate, meaning you have a column that says the duration and then it calculates the date the next column. Duration date, duration date, duration date. So you’ll have points of release, point of release dates, all through this procurement log throughout the entire system. If you do conditional formatting you can tell the cell to highlight red if the current date is past the targeted date when that point of release should have been happening. That’s really where we are with this.

Build a Realistic Schedule You Can Sell to the Owner

Now when you use that log you’ll have all these cells queuing up red. If this log is done and populated the right way you can actually filter all the items so you know what you should work on first and start working through that at a faster rate than the needed approvals. But it is still leveled. Meaning that you have to work on first things first.

The other thing you can do is if you and your risk analysis and your fresh eyes meeting have identified that certain activities are really high impact because of the dependency the project has upon them or the level of risk, you can highlight the description of those in red and show that to the owner.

Now here’s where it becomes remarkable. If you’ve gotten all the best data, that procurement log will help you build a realistic schedule that you can sell to the owner. It will help you to build a realistic schedule in preconstruction. It will tell you when you can realistically start and so you have data for the owner but you also have a baseline.

So now that you have a baseline, now every week instead of just being like “Mr. and Mrs. Owner, yeah the trade called me and said it’s going to be 14 weeks late blah blah blah we’re behind schedule” and the owner’s like “What?” Instead of doing that and asking them to just blindly trust you, which they shouldn’t because if you don’t have a procurement log you have no idea what the original target was anyway, but really if you have a baseline then you can talk to the owner and say “Hey, we all went through this, we did the research, we knew what the supply chains were doing at the time but it’s fluctuated. So now when I change this buffer duration or the delivery duration or the fabrication duration from 14 weeks to 16, not only do you have an Excel template that tracks these things, proves that we went from the best knowledge and that it changed, but also it’s visible to the owner so they know what’s going on.”

So then you can tell them “All right, these are our options. We can split it out in a cruise. We can expedite. We can change materials.” Whatever. But in the OAC meeting instead of “Oh everything’s going okay, I’ll just absorb the impacts, we have no idea where we are with materials and blah blah blah,” instead of doing that be like you’re going through every list. Here’s what we’re dealing with procurement this week. Here’s where we’re dealing with procurement next week. And you decide and work through it as a team and you do not absorb things blindly together.

No problem with procurement belongs to you alone. It belongs to the entire team. So that’s the case. Now you’re going to get rid of for the most part the unforced errors, the not inevitable variation, so that all that’s left is the forced errors and the inevitable variation, the things that were going to happen no matter what that you have zero control over.

But how much better will the owner look upon you if you have reduced and removed the not inevitable problems, the things that you can control, that you could see, that you could plan, that you could level? Jason cautions you to not just rubber stamp the submittals and throw it out because you’re in a rush. What good is the materials that come at the end of a long supply chain if they come out wrong and you can’t use them anyway? We have to have common sense with this.

This Is Emergency Status: Four Things We Need to Do

These are the things that we need to do. Please, every job, everybody, every contractor, everybody in the United States, we need you right now to have a procurement log on every project up and running. This is emergency status. It’s not “Oh that was a good podcast, I’m going to share it with somebody.” No. It’s sit in your room with leadership and find a scalable method where you can ensure that in two weeks every project has those as tools and that you’ve provided supplemental training and that it is a condition of employment. That is what we absolutely need to do.

The other thing is we have to start weekly procurement reviews with the entire project team that reviews every single item, every single aspect of procurement as it relates to the project. That’s item number two.

Item number three, we need to have 15-minute project manager with the rest of the team, with the superintendent, project management, basically 15-minute daily team standing huddles that are talking about these things and removing roadblocks on a daily basis and aligning procurement as one of the top priorities.

The only other things that you can do is to make sure that in your quality process and your submittal reviews that you install it right the first time. You cannot start pushing and releasing materials that you’re not sure is coordinated and right and let it show up at the last minute wrong and then be in a world of mess. You have to give yourself that little bit of time to review it. You have to swarm when you need to swarm and you have to still level even if the queuing dates will be early.

Now the last thing that Jason’s going to ask everybody to do, because there’s still a bunch more to this procurement system but he wants to give you the bare minimum, is that we have to 100%, 1 million thousand billion percent, we have to get these schedules and procurement logs done as soon as possible, no later than schematic design.

If you think Jason’s crazy, watch this. You will not get your elevator. You will not get your glass. You will not get your tile. You will not get these long lead items unless you know whether or not you have to release those early with design-build or design-assist trade partners early on. If you don’t have a schedule with that procurement log at least high level early on, then you have no idea which trade partners you have to bring on early in preconstruction to actually make the schedule. That’s item number four.

Let’s see if Jason can remember these because he is driving. He’s driving safely but:

One: He needs a procurement log on every project.

Two: He needs a weekly procurement meeting with the entire project management team every project.

Three: He needs every day the teams working in a 15-minute standup huddle removing roadblocks from the field where procurement is a major issue, major item, major topic that we’re covering.

And then finally, four: He needs the Takt plan and the procurement log set up no later than the end of schematic design so that we can figure out our strategy in preconstruction and set up the rest of the job for success.

Jason hopes this podcast has been really helpful because man is it so important, or woman is it so important, like it’s just a big deal. We have to get ahead of this because we’re about to see, we think it’s bad now, we’re about to see a supply chain crisis the likes of which we haven’t even thought of before. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Is my submittal register the same as a procurement log?

No. Your Procore, Prolog, CMIC, whatever other system you’re using, submittal register systems is not a procurement log. You can in your submittal register in those applications put a due date, but for the most part it tracks the project management items only. What you need is: required on job date, material inventory buffer duration, delivery duration, fabrication duration, queuing duration (from the time it’s approved to when it actually starts to be fabricated), approvals including the architect and any other owner and contractor approvals, and the time that it takes to queue that and to design the shop drawings and the submittals. That is not a submittal register. That’s a procurement log.

Q: What are the categories I need in my procurement log?

Required on job date, material inventory buffer duration, delivery duration, fabrication duration, queuing duration (which is from the time it’s approved to when it actually starts to be fabricated), approvals including the architect and any other owner and contractor approvals, and the time that it takes to queue that and to design the shop drawings and the submittals. You need that done for every single submittal with accurate durations. Best thing to do if you’re using Excel is do conditional formatting so the cell highlights red if the current date is past the targeted date when that point of release should have been happening.

Q: Why do 90% of projects have no idea where they are?

When Jason travels around this industry, 90% of the projects, the project managers and the PXs, they have no idea what their financial projections are. They have no idea the status of all of their procurement and they have no project controls. He went to a job that was halfway through. “Where’s your procurement log?” “We don’t have one. The trade partners take care of it.” “Where are your financials?” “We do kind of a project status report every month.” “What about your status of your contingency?” “We don’t know.” “What about potentials? Your exposure log?” “We don’t know.” This is project management 101. We have to have these things.

Q: How does a procurement log help me build a realistic schedule?

If you’ve gotten all the best data, that procurement log will help you build a realistic schedule that you can sell to the owner. It will help you build a realistic schedule in preconstruction. It will tell you when you can realistically start and so you have data for the owner but you also have a baseline. Now every week instead of saying “The trade called me and said it’s going to be 14 weeks late,” you can say “We all went through this, we did the research, we knew what the supply chains were doing at the time but it’s fluctuated. When I change this buffer duration or delivery duration from 14 weeks to 16, not only do you have an Excel template that tracks these things and proves we went from the best knowledge and that it changed, but also it’s visible to the owner.”

Q: What are the four emergency actions we need to take right now?

One: Procurement log on every project. Two: Weekly procurement meeting with the entire project management team every project. Three: Every day the teams working in a 15-minute standup huddle removing roadblocks from the field where procurement is a major issue, major item, major topic. Four: Takt plan and procurement log set up no later than the end of schematic design so we can figure out our strategy in preconstruction and set up the rest of the job for success. This is emergency status. Sit in your room with leadership and find a scalable method where you can ensure that in two weeks every project has those as tools.

On we go.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
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-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.

On we go

Our Industry Improves with Field Engineering

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 44 min

You’re Never Going to Have a Great Superintendent Program Unless You Have This

Jason is driving to set up a recording studio so he can set up and record online videos for clients and for future online courses. He’s been doing a superintendent boot camp for the last couple of days and it was amazing. Now unfortunately he is driving so you get to listen to a little bit of background noise and he really apologizes for that.

He’s just finding less time where he’s sitting somewhere and has just time. But he’s committed to this podcast and staying on schedule. He loves everybody on the other end of this. He’s been researching and thinking about this topic for quite some time. Let him take you through the whole story here.

The Field Engineering Methods Manual Changed My Life

Wes Crawford is a professor emeritus at Purdue University. He taught at Purdue for a number of years in the construction department and he would teach construction surveying and layout and some other courses. He’s also a registered surveyor. Fantastic man. He wrote the book, the Field Engineering Methods Manual. It’s actually called Construction Surveying Layout: A Field Engineering Methods Manual. The company Hensel Phelps, great company, they put a cover on it and they just call it the Field Engineering Methods Manual.

Jason was able to read this book when he was a field engineer at Hensel Phelps and it changed his life. He has told everybody multiple times that he was on the way to getting fired and he read that book in addition to one more, the scriptures actually, to get ethics and morality. And then the Field Engineering Methods Manual to learn how to be a worker, a professional, and it changed everything. He went from almost getting fired to training all the way across the United States like literally within a series of months and it was fantastic. Absolutely fantastic.

Jason gained a love for that book and started a professional relationship with Wes Crawford back at that time, calling him and interfacing with some of the boot camps that he started, quite frankly. They called them more of a mastermind or training than an actual boot camp. There would be somebody, actually a really fun friend of his back in the day, Carrie Cela, used to come out and do a day and a half training. Then Wes Crawford would come out and do another day and a half or two days and then finish it up with some really good concepts.

That’s where Jason learned how to be a professional builder, not just field engineer. That’s where he learned how to be a superintendent. That’s where he learned how to be a construction manager. Fast forward. Jason taught at Hensel Phelps for seven years all the way around the country and focused on field engineering. He taught and actually went to project sites one on one. Then he created a website with online videos. He thinks they still have those videos. He hears people from Phelps all the time saying “Hey, I know you. I went through your training videos” and he’s like “I don’t know you, but nice to meet you.” So the legacy of those videos have continued.

They actually designed a software and paid for it and had it made that did coordinate geometry. Jason made Excel sheets that he still has actually that do radial staking, as-built points, and traversing using the compass rule. They developed a lot of these things and they only got 30% saturation in a field engineering or professional builder or whatever you would call it, an assistant superintendent level saturation from a knowledge standpoint.

The Field Engineer Boot Camp Was Born in the Desert

Jeff Stewart, a general superintendent, said “Jason, why don’t you take these kids out into the wilderness, out into the desert and have them build something and lay it out.” That’s where the field engineer boot camp was born. They’ve perfected that. Jason thinks he’s run that camp like 18 times. They are geniuses at that camp. They have field engineers read three books, go through the Field Engineering Methods Manual, go through online video content, and then do two masterminds and they can be virtual or in person.

Then they come for the week of their life and actually get to lay out a building or at least two footings in a building from two points based on a set of plans. They learn how to be some of the best builders that money can buy or train or recognize. It’s great because they learn team dynamics. They learn how to be a professional. They learn how to get rid of their fears. They learn the basic habits. They learn how to study and learn early and be addicted and love learning early. They learn what it takes to be a master builder and to focus on quality and detail and components and they leave there on fire.

Some of these field engineers, whether they’re at Hensel Phelps or they’re at Oakland or any of these companies that actually do them, the Turners and the Kiewits of the world, the Skanska of the world, these builders that actually get these experiences to get real fundamental training early on, three, four or five years later they’re running jobs and they’re remarkable. Absolutely killing it, crushing it. Jason knows people that in 2018 in the beginning of the year went through a field engineer boot camp. They’re absolutely crushing it now. He knows of a guy right now running an $80 million job because he got the fundamentals as a field engineer.

This is where you learn:

  • Professional development
  • Personal organization
  • How to use technology
  • How to visualize construction plans
  • How to read construction documents
  • How to act and communicate
  • How to keep a to-do list
  • The basics of quality and quality at the source
  • How to create lift drawings and to interpret drawings

Jason could just keep going on and on.

It’s Not Technology or Philosophy That Will Fix This Industry

Here’s why he’s telling you all this. Jason did another superintendent boot camp. He’s done more superintendent boot camps this year than he ever thought he would. Sold more superintendent books and done more talks about superintendents than he ever thought he would. He loves it. People love the Elevate Construction Superintendents book. People love and are raving fans for the superintendent boot camp. People love the masterminds. The one he did in Norway virtually, they love it. And it’s still not what’s going to fix this industry.

Jason keeps telling people that it’s not going to be technology. It’s not going to be some new method. It’s not going to be some philosophy, even lean unless you interpret lean as learning. It’s not going to be anything like that that fixes the industry. It’s going to be the fundamentals. It’s going to be when our builders start keeping to-do lists again. It’s going to be when our builders stop wasting time again. It’s going to be when our builders start creating flow in their schedules again. It’s going to be when our companies, our builder companies, start having superintendents and project managers pre-plan their projects and pre-construction again. It’s going to be when we stabilize our projects again with cleanliness, organization and safety.

This is when it’s going to get remarkable again. How do we get back to those basics? How do we get back to that stability? How do we get back to that respect? How do we get back to the fundamentals of how to actually be a builder? How do we get back to the fundamentals of communication? How do we get back to the fundamentals of quality?

The answer in Jason’s mind, and he’s thought about this a lot, is to correct the situation right out of the gate when somebody becomes a foreman or when they’re transitioning from a foreman to a professional, meaning a salaried position. Foreman is a professional hourly position. Jason’s talking about a professional salary position. When they make that transition, when somebody’s hired out of college, when somebody’s just hired, that is when we need to grab folks and give them the wonderful, beautiful training that they deserve.

Doctrines of Salvation in Construction vs. High Priest Topics

If somebody said “Hey, Jason, I love this podcast. Where did this podcast come from?” It didn’t come from him being a superintendent. It didn’t come from him being a director. He could have started Elevate Construction and could have started training and could have started all of the things he’s doing now 15 years ago. In fact, he remembers his brother-in-law, Jake Wilden, they were down at the Whole Foods World Headquarters and they both worked for Hensel Phelps and they actually had a sponsor. This guy was rich. He was from church and he was a professional entrepreneur. They just happened to meet him and he was like “Hey, I’ll provide the funding. You go get this business started and I want to reap a certain percentage, like 30% once you’re up and running. I believe in this.”

They were going to start a business back then. Why were they able to start a business 15 years ago just like they would be today? Because they had read the Field Engineering Methods Manual and knew all of the successful keys to construction. They knew everything they needed to know. They knew the gospel of construction, meaning the fundamentals of salvation in construction. Those religious people listening will know what Jason’s talking about. There are certain doctrines of truth in the world or in religion. There are certain doctrines of salvation. If you’re a Christian person, you only need to know about faith, repentance, humility, and service. Those are doctrines of salvation. Those are the basics. Those are the fundamentals. When you start talking about other things or the creation of the world or this or that, those might be true but they’re not crucial to your salvation.

There are also doctrines of salvation in construction. The doctrines of salvation in construction are, like Jason said:

  • To-do lists
  • Organization
  • Working with a team
  • Quality control
  • Fundamentals of safety and cleanliness
  • How to create flow in schedules

The other stuff, when we talk about finances, which are an outgrowth, when we talk about negotiation for project managers, when we talk about projections, when we talk about risk analyses, all of these other things, they’re true but they’re not doctrines of salvation.We’re starting to focus more on the doctrines than the doctrines of salvation.

There’s a joke. Back in the day when Jesus was alive, whether you believe in Him or not, He was a historical figure. Back in the day there were these high priests. They would talk about all of these complex things and these issues and how many steps you could walk on Sunday and all of these things. They weren’t talking about the fundamental doctrines of kindness, of charity, of love. They were talking about “Can I walk forward or backwards on the Sabbath day?” They were getting into the weird high priest topic.

Anytime somebody says “Oh, that’s a high priest topic,” that means these are people that are attempting to either make it more complex than it needs to be or they’re focusing on the true but non-essential doctrines, or what somebody would call the advanced concepts, and they might be ignoring the fundamentals. In construction, we’re doing the same thing. We’re taking the high priest route and we’re like “Oh, let’s go talk about continuous improvement. Oh, let’s go talk about IPD. Oh, let’s go talk about all these things.” Jason wishes you would talk about those things but they’re not doctrines of salvation.

This you ought to have done and not to have left the other undone. Meaning that if you have a job that’s engaging in integrated project delivery or if you’re going to go implement Scrum or if you’re going to go implement continuous improvement, all of these high priest doctrines, you need to have the doctrines of salvation implemented first, which is cleanliness, organization, safety, flow in construction, flow in your schedule, how to build the team, quality. These are the fundamentals.

Why Superintendents Should Not Be Doing Layout

When Jason was thinking about it the other day, he laments sometimes because companies call him and they’re like “Jason, I want the superintendent boot camp. I want the learning. I want the lean.” And he’s like “Yes, yes, I love it.” And he cringes a little bit and he says “And what you have to start doing is continually recruiting, hiring and training and start a killer, absolutely murderously killer, wonderful field engineer program.”

Nobody knows what field engineer means. Well, some people do. A field engineer is the equivalent of a really high level foreman or an assistant superintendent or a project engineer with a field focus. A field engineer is somebody that goes out there and learns the fundamentals of building. Let Jason say a couple things. A superintendent should not be doing a few things when they’re actually focused on their projects.

Number one, they shouldn’t be doing the things that a general foreman should be doing. A general foreman, as a part of the general conditions, should be taking care of traffic control, SWPPP, dust protection, the calling off of dumpsters for trash removal, all of the fundamental logistical items that keeps a project running. A superintendent should not be worried about that, especially on larger projects. That is delegated to a very confident foreman who is learning in his or her role that needs that kind of organizational practice.

A superintendent should be keeping the ship in orbit, seeing the future, allocating manpower, aligning procurement, and really managing that schedule and planning and preparing work. That’s what the superintendent does. There’s another thing that a superintendent should not have to do day in and day out because he or she is focused on the schedule. Those tasks that the superintendent should not have to focus on are:

  • The creation of lift drawings
  • Doing layout
  • Double-checking every component on the project site
  • Doing pour checks and in-wall inspections

Now let Jason clarify. A superintendent will come out with a field engineer when we’re ready to pour that wall and pull a tape and check that lift drawing and verify the embeds and do a final sign-off every time. That’s the only way we’re going to start to get things right.

But the legwork, the lift drawings, the research, the integration of the submittals, the actual snapping of the lines on the wall, a superintendent has no business doing that. A superintendent has no business running and getting stuff at Home Depot.

A superintendent has to be seeing the future, planning the work, making sure that everything is in line and ready to go, and making sure that all resources that are needed are actually on the job site: the material, the information, the manpower, the equipment.

How Are We Going to Fix This Industry?

How are we going to fix this industry? Number one, we’re going to get field engineers in a field engineer program and create capacity for our superintendents so they can implement lean and IPD and all of these wonderful systems. The other thing is we are going to train future superintendents and we are going to train all of these construction professionals in a way that they will be able to run remarkable jobs.

If we say “Hey, I don’t like that projects are finishing behind schedule, I don’t like that projects these days are dirty, I don’t like that there’s a lack of respect,” Jason’s not saying that we should blame ourselves and feel guilty, but did we train anybody? In 2007, 8, 9, 10, when the economy crashed, were we hiring? Did we pause and train? Or did we just throw our hands up? Now all of our really great general superintendents are retiring.

Jason’s seeing in most of our companies, and he loves it, like “Hey, if you’re qualified, get it done.” But most of our general superintendents are 36 or 39 or 32. We used to have the really experienced, build the Empire State Building kind of general superintendents around the industry that knew how to create flow that knew the fundamentals of organization that knew that a clean job was a good job.

And they’re gone. They’re mostly gone. They’ve either retired or they’ve done something else or they’ve said construction is not for me anymore. We stopped hiring in 2007, 8, 9, 10 and now we’re in trouble and we don’t have anybody to pass it on.

That’s why Jason’s doing his best to take the distilled information from them and passing it along to you. But the point is, and he’ll just say this: you’re never going to have a great superintendent program unless you have a great field engineer program.

Why Field Engineers Do Survey and Lift Drawings

There’s a couple of things. Why do field engineers create lift drawings? It’s not to provide coordination drawings to the field. It’s literally so that the field engineer and the builder can learn the building and the plans and so they can find problems in the drawings before they build it. And then third and final goal for lift drawings is to actually create a lift drawing for people to use in the field.

Why do field engineers do survey? People are like “Oh, we don’t need survey.” No, no, no. Field engineers do survey for some very specific reasons:

  • So they can mentally, neurologically program their mind to think in a coordinate geometry system
  • So they can in the future interact with BIM and 3D and visualize the plans in BIM and visualize the plans in 3D
  • So they can actually understand the tolerances
  • So they can know the fundamentals of actually piecing something together from a quality standpoint

You’re not going to build anything right in your building unless it’s laid out right. Why do they do survey? So they can learn how to be a builder.

Jason would very seriously question if a superintendent can really be that good of a builder if they don’t understand X, Y, and Z, if they don’t understand the basics of coordinate geometry, if they don’t understand how to translate construction dimensions and measurements into a 3D image, if they can’t visualize the drawings, if they can’t go out there and piece together components and actually know how to build.

You learn that as a field engineer when doing layout and control. Can you be a great builder if you’ve never had to be in the front lines with safety and quality? If you’ve never had to go out there and measure embeds, actually create a lift drawing and then transform that from the spiritual, conceptual world to an actual physical world. Can you be a true builder if you haven’t ever been able to do that?

This Is a Rally Cry: Get These Systems in Place

What Jason’s saying is for companies, this is a rally cry, we have to get these systems in place. You don’t have to use the Jason Schroeder field engineer boot camp method but we have to get back to that book. A couple of recommendations. To get away from the industry norm of us not training great builders, project managers, and superintendents:

  • We have to start using that book, the Field Engineering Methods Manual
  • We have to get down to the basics
  • We have to understand that respect and stability come before total participation and continuous improvement
  • We have to understand that if we’re ever going to be effective, we have to have builders actually have the time to spend time in a builder position
  • We have to have builders actually spend time visualizing plans and learning quality
  • We have to give people time to actually do these things

Because here’s what’s happening. You’re hiring these people from foreman level or from school or from wherever or from the industry. And you’re saying “Go run work.” And they become finger pointers and they become security guards and they don’t know what they’re doing.

A superintendent project manager position is not a builder position. It’s a coordinating and a leader position. How can people coordinate if they don’t know how to be personally organized? How can they coordinate if they don’t know how to build what they’re coordinating? How can they actually lead if they don’t know the fundamentals of what a builder does?

Jason’s not criticizing these people. He’s saying he loves them and we should love them. The first thing we should do is implement fundamental field engineer builder programs inside our companies. That is how we’re going to shift this industry in addition to Takt planning, in addition to lean principles, in addition to everything else. But it starts there.

Jason’s just hoping that we can get our focus back eventually and he can plant a seed and enough people can listen to this podcast for this topic and say “You know what, Jason’s right. I’m going to start dabbling with it.”

And then after you start the program, one, two, three, four years after, he wants you to be like, because it will happen: “Oh my gosh, these are the best builders that I’ve ever seen. They’re coming from the ranks of the field engineering program. We’ve never had builders like this. This is absolutely fantastic and amazing.”

That’s when you’ll get it. You’ll strengthen your programs and things will really start to get remarkable. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What are the doctrines of salvation in construction?

To-do lists, organization, working with a team, quality control, fundamentals of safety and cleanliness, how to create flow in schedules. When we talk about finances, negotiation for project managers, projections, risk analyses, all of these other things, they’re true but they’re not doctrines of salvation. We’re starting to focus more on the doctrines than the doctrines of salvation. If you have a job engaging in IPD or implementing Scrum or continuous improvement, all of these high priest doctrines, you need to have the doctrines of salvation implemented first: cleanliness, organization, safety, flow in construction, flow in your schedule, how to build the team, quality.

Q: Why do field engineers create lift drawings?

It’s not to provide coordination drawings to the field. It’s literally so that the field engineer and the builder can learn the building and the plans and so they can find problems in the drawings before they build it. And then third and final goal for lift drawings is to actually create a lift drawing for people to use in the field. A superintendent project manager position is not a builder position. It’s a coordinating and a leader position. How can people coordinate if they don’t know how to be personally organized? How can they coordinate if they don’t know how to build what they’re coordinating?

Q: Why do field engineers do survey?

Field engineers do survey for very specific reasons: so they can mentally, neurologically program their mind to think in a coordinate geometry system, so they can in the future interact with BIM and 3D and visualize the plans in BIM and visualize the plans in 3D, so they can actually understand the tolerances, so they can know the fundamentals of actually piecing something together from a quality standpoint. You’re not going to build anything right in your building unless it’s laid out right. Why do they do survey? So they can learn how to be a builder.

Q: What should superintendents NOT be doing?

Superintendents should not be doing things that a general foreman should be doing: traffic control, SWPPP, dust protection, calling off of dumpsters for trash removal, all the fundamental logistical items that keeps a project running. Superintendents should not have to do the creation of lift drawings, doing layout, double-checking every component on the project site, doing pour checks and in-wall inspections day in and day out. Superintendents should be keeping the ship in orbit, seeing the future, allocating manpower, aligning procurement, and really managing that schedule and planning and preparing work.

Q: How are we going to fix this industry?

Get field engineers in a field engineer program and create capacity for our superintendents so they can implement lean and IPD and all of these wonderful systems. Train future superintendents and all of these construction professionals in a way that they will be able to run remarkable jobs. You’re never going to have a great superintendent program unless you have a great field engineer program. We have to start using the Field Engineering Methods Manual. We have to get down to the basics. We have to understand that respect and stability come before total participation and continuous improvement.

On we go.

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.

On we go

Everyone has Agency! Feat. Katie Schroeder

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 43 min

If You’re Unwilling to Learn Nobody Can Help You: The Truth About Agency and Cultural Fits

Katie is staring at Jason from the other end of the truck because he just started recording. Is she okay if he keeps going? Yeah, but he didn’t even tell her a topic this time. Okay, it’s about agency. And she has her agency to decide if she wants to keep doing this podcast.

They’re going to talk about agency. Now these two topics have been on Jason’s mind. These podcast topics get filtered. They’re not random. The one they just did before this one, talking about feedback, was a topic that Jason personally desperately needed, which is helping him on his lean journey and everything he’s learning.

This one tonight is specifically Jason getting some advice from Katie when it comes to him internalizing the failures of others and the concept that everyone has their agency. Jason tells this story quite frequently that Frenchie, Katie’s uncle, told where grandpa was watching a horse race and yelling at the jockey and just getting after him and railing on him and stupid, cuss word, cuss word. Frenchie was like “The horse has something to do with it too, right? It’s not just the jockey’s fault.” That story has always stuck with Jason.

Agency, it’s a key term. Maybe that’s too much of a churchy religious term, but Jason would like to talk about what it is because he read a quote the other day. He thinks this is from Zig Ziglar. The quote basically goes: if you are unwilling to learn, nobody can help you. But if you’re willing to study and put in the work kind of generally, then nobody can stop you. The topic has been on his mind and he wants to talk about it today.

The Ability to Act and Choose

Katie’s looked it up. She put it on the Google there. It’s just a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result. Just the ability to act. The ability to act and produce results. And choose. Here’s the reason that it has bearing. Jason’s a teacher. That’s it. He’s not a director. He’s not really even a business owner. He’s not anything. He’s a teacher. He creates content. He distills content down. It bothers him when people don’t respond.

He’ll tell you why. Because at the end of the day, one of their core values is that they’re results driven as a company. They have human beings. Human beings do all of the things that they do. It is their job at Elevate to get as many people as possible to actually respond to training and to want something better so that they will perform at higher levels so that the company, team, or organization, or family, or whatever, will achieve higher results.

Jason knows he’s not getting to a question. He’s just wanting to see if Katie has any insight. That happens to them at church. That happens to them in their family with their kids. That happens to them at work when they’re training a large group of people for superintendents or whatever. They have their agency. Jason’s got two questions for Katie. Number one: how do you affect the most change knowing that human beings have their agency? And what do we do with maybe the frustration when people don’t respond? What would be a productive way to respond in that direction?

When people fly to boot camps, they want training most of the time. Very rarely does somebody come when they don’t want it. If somebody signs up for a certification training, unless it was given to them for free, which is a really bad practice, most of the time they’re there because they want to. They’re ready to take the next step.

Are these people mostly coming from like their companies are paying for it? Their companies are paying for it but it comes at an expense. They know that it’s not an easy thing. The other side of this is when a company says “Okay, these aren’t people that are just hand-selected ready to go to these trainings, we want everybody in the organization to get better.”

The Scarcity Mindset That Keeps Toxic People on Your Team

Back in the day, but now we’re in an economy of scarcity. Somebody comes to a boot camp, they usually want to. They come to a certification training. They’re going to carve out two days. They’re not going to just do that because they were told. And pay money to go do it.

If a company says “I want everybody in the company to head in this direction,” we already know that from a numbers game, generally, and it’s not always this way, but a third of the people are bought in, a third of the people are big old question mark, and a third of the people are not bought in.

The best practice typically is to spend time with your most bought in people, not from an ignore everybody standpoint, but you give them the most attention, your questionable people will be bought in, and your dissenters will at least become questionable. Then there’s usually about 5%, 10%, maybe even 15% of the people that either self-select or have to be removed.

Now we’re in an economy of scarcity where the advice of “Let’s just cull the organization” doesn’t always work. In some situations we have people in positions that quite frankly will do an okay job but we have the company owners and leaders, they want to be remarkable. What do we do? Katie thinks this is a difficult situation where as a company owner, if you’re not willing to incentivize the growth, then you need to be able to be honest about that and scale back unfortunately.

Jason usually uses Paul Akers as an example for this. People will watch his videos and read his books, which Jason loves. That’s the first main book that he ever had. But they’ll say “Oh my gosh, everything just magically works.” But he literally had to toast half of his organization. Katie says Gary Vee is the same way. It was all like hugs and cuddles and then he had to fire some people that were not cultural fits. If you grow slower, so be it.

Let’s stay with that topic. When an organization thinks about what’s going on, half of Paul Akers’ employees, that’s in Jason’s mind 50 people, that means 25 of them left. What they have is a situation where, Jason works with some really top-notch people. They’re willing to do the right thing. The numbers aren’t the same in this instance.

When we’re talking about there are people in these organizations that either quit or get fired, we’re talking like 5 out of 60 or 5 out of 80. The numbers aren’t proportional. Paul Akers lost half of his employees when he did this cultural change. Now he’s in an environment where he has one of the most remarkable lean facilities in the world and people fly all over the world to see it.

Katie was just thinking “Oh, we have this economy of scarcity.” That’s a thought. “Oh, I have to put up with people that aren’t a cultural fit, people that are not good for our brand, people that are not good for our organization, people that are toxic, because I can’t get anyone else.”

And so now you’re willing to infiltrate your team with toxicity. You’re willing to do subpar work for your clients because you’re so scared that someone else is going to get the job or get the bid or get the project that you’re willing to put up with crappy output from workers when that’s your scarcity mindset.

You don’t need to be so “I gotta get the next job, the next job, the next job.” Why don’t you just focus on getting a team that’s highly successful, not worrying about the fact that you’re going to have to fire a couple of people that are not good cultural fits and trust the process that using best practices will be beneficial to you?

Katie’s worked with other companies before that don’t do the right thing. They let people stay on the team that really devalue others and really hurt the organizational health and the morale and the practice and everything. That never works out. She’s worked with companies where they’re like “This is who we are and you’re out.” And it works great. Katie thinks it’s important for anybody, especially if you’re a smaller business owner, don’t live in a scarcity mindset. You don’t have to put up with workers that are not going to fit culturally.

It’s one thing to say “Hey, this guy needs to be trained or this woman needs help and I can see that there’s the potential there.” And it’s quite another to just keep allowing someone to poison everyone. It’s really easy to see. Within a month or two you’re going to see that this person’s not a cultural fit and you need to let them go. Don’t live in scarcity and keep them around like “Oh, well, maybe nobody else will come around and then I’ll be short-staffed.” You’re already stressing, worrying, overthinking it, and overcompensating for them. Get rid of them.

That Dog Ain’t Going to Hunt: When Someone’s Just Not a Fit

Basically the situation that we’re dealing with is that if somebody, and this is what they say in Texas, that dog ain’t going to hunt. Sometimes, and up until now, up until this podcast, Brian was telling Jason that if somebody’s not getting it, it might be the way that we’re training. So they have to look at that. There are good pedagogical, good connecting ways to train where we use techniques that the person wants to connect with from a training perspective.

Jason’s point is if somebody knows what to do intellectually, they’ve had it demonstrated, they’ve been guided through the process, and now they’re in the enabling part and they’re still not doing it and grabbing it and finding a motivation to do it, the best industry advice is they’re not a fit. And that’s Katie’s advice as well.

Jason’s been in the space of “Okay, we’ve got 60% of the organization that will do what’s supposed to be done. We’re going to make a ton of progress but we have this dead space of inaction in 25% of the organization and they’re just not responding.”

His first thought is “What am I doing wrong?” So they keep going and they attempt and they do it differently and they roll in this direction. Then sometimes it just doesn’t stick. What Katie’s saying is it just is what it is. She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with saying someone isn’t a fit.

The Blood Type Analogy: Non-Cultural Fits Cause Inflammation

The other thing is Jason thought of this the other day because he has to donate blood sometimes for medical reasons because his body produces too many red blood cells sometimes. He had to donate blood so he was thinking about blood types. How many blood types are there? Are there four? Are there more than that? There’s probably a lot. Six or seven.

There’s different types of blood. O is the universal one? O negative. So there’s A, B, AB, and O, and then there’s the negatives of those. Jason’s AB negative. If anybody wants to kidnap him and harvest his blood, that’s his blood type.

If Katie were going to receive a blood transfusion, she would have to have the right blood type or else she’d have an allergic reaction. Jason likes this analogy because the allergic reaction would cause inflammation and that inflammation would then cause your cells to have an inability to transfer oxygen. That inflammation would spread. It would cause restriction in your blood vessels and basically you would have a risk of dying and having a really severe reaction.

If you get stung by a bee and you need an EpiPen, why do you need an EpiPen? That’s like the inflammation that would close off your throat. The EpiPen is going to counteract that. When you think about this, when you have a non-cultural fit in an organization, it’s going to cause inflammation. It’s going to cause friction. It’s going to cause dissension. It’s going to cause a hurt for the normal blood cells, the normal employees.

It doesn’t mean that the other blood was bad. It’s just a different blood type. These people that we’re talking about, God love them. Their mother loves them. We love them. They might not be a fit for the organization. They’re just a different blood type. It doesn’t mean you throw the blood away. It means that they have to, you can administer that to a different patient. They can go to a different company. Katie agrees with that.

Recruit, Hire, Train: Never Stop Getting the Right Blood Type

So really when they get to a point, let’s say they have a company right now and let’s say they’re doing training and they’re getting pretty neat results with most of the people. Let’s say they have two or three, or let’s say maybe they even have 15, maybe there’s a ton of employees. They have 15 people that are not responding to their training and there’s a current workload and those employees are needed for their current workload. What do we do? Katie says that’s really tough where you’re dependent on them and their subpar behavior.

The one thing that Jason keeps saying, and he wants Katie to check him on this, see if he’s wrong, but he’s seen this work, so he’s not asking if it works, he’s asking is this morally or theoretically right: focus on your top end people that are doing the training, really beat them up and then continually hire. So recruit, hire and train and start filtering those cultural fits into your organization and never stop. Katie thinks that’s probably the best thing to do.

From an agency standpoint, meaning that people are agents into themselves and they make their own choices, Jason thinks that what they do in boot camps is they help wake people up and just find their passion. Katie doesn’t think that’s what they do. They provide training. Companies will provide benefits in secure environments but at the end of the day, what she heard him say is it’s really not just a job. It’s not the bare minimum requirements. It’s what the vision of the company is.

The last thing maybe advice Jason would give is that the company has to have a vision of what it wants to be because then the ownership, the leadership has to then communicate that or gets to communicate that and then people can either respond or they don’t respond.

Like Jason and Katie are married. If they weren’t heading in the same direction, it would be hard to stay married. They both believe that we’re heading for an eternal union with certain perks. They believe they’ll be with their family forever. They believe they’ll be with their kids. They believe that eventually it’ll all work out. So any of the trials and different difficulties that they have along the way, it’s worthwhile.

But if they weren’t, it would be a lot harder. So in a company it’s like the same thing. Jason thinks the first thing we have to find out and maybe this is something that we consider with hiring is are they headed in the same direction?

This company right here, we are headed for excellence. We are a lean company. We want really good production. We’re going to be safer than anybody else. We want to elevate everybody’s position. We will never stop growing. We will never stop improving. Then we need to find out are those employees on board or are they not?

Katie was confirming that Gary Vee talks about how there was a time when he had to cut some people out because they were not heading where he wanted to go. She was thinking about how Simon Sinek talks about how it’s one thing to have a vision for your company but each individual worker has their own vision too.

Somebody may feel like it’s all about the money and they don’t really care what the vision is. They’re willing to work if they’re compensated even if they hate the job or whatever. Some people may be looking for more of a camaraderie type family. Everybody has a different motivation.

So Katie thinks it does go back to in your hiring processes, it’s not just “Oh, well, you’re a warm body, fill the position.” That kind of thinking gets you into these positions where you’ve got people that are not good cultural fits.

It’s Just Data: Stop Internalizing Other People’s Failures

Really going back to the previous podcast, Jason’s really glad they talked about this because going back to the previous podcast, it’s just data. He doesn’t need to assign an emotional response to how somebody else responded. It’s just data. Is the training effective? Is the response being understood and received properly? And then is it just the way it is? It’s just data. If employees aren’t responding to training, if they don’t have the same vision, then we just take action from there.

Jason was hoping this podcast would turn out really nice. And he thinks it did. Gary Vee said himself, and he’s the most cussing, frank, get rid of people, in your face guy in the world, there was a time where he babied people when his organization was new. Then he got to a point where he’s like “Okay, we’ve grown up enough and this has to stop.” And then he made the cuts.

So we have a couple of options. We can scale more slowly from the start. We can chop off a limb. Or we can be super sweet and identify and get real clear on where everybody is and do it at the right time as we recruit, hire and train and find those cultural fits, basically get more of our own blood type.

Katie thinks the other thing too is with the scarcity mindset where “Oh, I am going to have to hire people,” are you as an employer setting boundaries or are you just like “Well, I’ll take anybody”? If you have those boundaries set and the expectation is clear, then even, Katie’s just thinking, if you have a guy on your team that’s a hard worker and he gets it done but he’s a complete a-hole, that’s not a cultural fit. You need to let him go. It’s not worth what it’s doing to the rest of the team.

You need to have clear boundaries. Jason would say you need to let him go if that’s something you value, is having a good culture. If they prioritize just production, if the company doesn’t care about their culture, they don’t have to fire them. Katie would just say to that company that’s not a very nice culture. Nobody wants to work with a complete a-hole.

Jason was just saying if you value your other employees, one shining star that’s a complete jerk, you shouldn’t be allowed to set the tone. Just to recap, how well the training is, is data. How well the benefits and the culture is, is data. And it’s also something that we can improve on. The processes in our company is data. How we’re bidding jobs, the structure of the systems is data.

If after the training, the systems, the processes, and the environment are shaped, and the culture is shaped, and human beings are choosing, because they’re not a culture fit with the same vision, to not respond, it’s just data. We can either chop off our limb. Scale more slowly. Or we can wait until it’s the right time. Either stay a little bit small, grow a little bit more slowly, or recruit, hire, and get the right people in.

But either way, it’s just data and reaction. Data, reaction, or data and choices and doing the right thing. And the right thing according to what we want our company to be. This has really cleared some things up for Jason. But he’d say what the current condition is, he thinks we internalize the failures of others and we really get frustrated about it. We kind of want our cake and eat it too.

Back to the point of the companies that make a difference in their own desires and the companies that don’t. If you want your cake and eat it too, you’re like “I want to keep all 80 employees but I want to be excellent.” That’s not really, if you’re going to throw a birthday party, you got to share the cake. If we want an excellent company, we’re going to have to make some hard decisions.

Katie thinks it’s not data, reaction. She thinks it’s data, action. Take that data and be empowered to now move forward the way you want to move forward. You don’t have to be reactive to employees that are subpar or not a good fit. It’s about action. It’s about the bold moving forward in an empowered space. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What does it mean that people have their agency?

Agency is just a thing or person that acts to produce a particular result. The ability to act and produce results. And choose. Human beings do all of the things that we do. It’s Elevate’s job to get as many people as possible to actually respond to training and to want something better so that they will perform at higher levels. But people have their agency. They make their own choices. If you’re unwilling to learn, nobody can help you. But if you’re willing to study and put in the work, then nobody can stop you.

Q: Why is the scarcity mindset keeping toxic people on your team?

You think “I have to put up with people that aren’t a cultural fit, people that are not good for our brand, and people that are toxic, because I can’t get anyone else.” So now you’re willing to infiltrate your team with toxicity. You’re willing to do subpar work for your clients because you’re so scared that someone else is going to get the job. That’s your scarcity mindset. Why don’t you just focus on getting a team that’s highly successful, not worrying about the fact that you’re going to have to fire a couple of people that are not good cultural fits and trust the process?

Q: How is a non-cultural fit like the wrong blood type?

If you receive a blood transfusion with the wrong blood type, you’d have an allergic reaction. The allergic reaction would cause inflammation and that inflammation would cause your cells to have an inability to transfer oxygen. That inflammation would spread, cause restriction in your blood vessels and you’d have a risk of dying. When you have a non-cultural fit in an organization, it’s going to cause inflammation, friction, dissension, hurt for the normal employees. It doesn’t mean the other blood was bad. It’s just a different blood type. They can go to a different company.

Q: What are the three options when people aren’t responding to training?

Gary Vee babied people when his organization was new, then he got to a point where he made the cuts. We have a couple of options: (1) Scale more slowly from the start, (2) Chop off a limb, or (3) Be super sweet and identify and get real clear on where everybody is and do it at the right time as we recruit, hire and train and find those cultural fits, basically get more of our own blood type. Focus on your top end people doing the training and continually hire. Recruit, hire and train and start filtering those cultural fits into your organization and never stop.

Q: Why is it data, action instead of data, reaction?

How well the training is, is data. How well the benefits and culture is, is data. The processes in our company is data. If after the training, systems, processes, environment and culture are shaped and human beings are choosing to not respond because they’re not a culture fit with the same vision, it’s just data. Take that data and be empowered to now move forward the way you want to move forward. You don’t have to be reactive to employees that are subpar or not a good fit. It’s about action. It’s about bold moving forward in an empowered space.

On we go.

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.

On we go

How To Receive Feedback, Feat. Katie Schroeder

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 40 min

Your Shirt Is Ugly: Why All Feedback Is Just Data and You Need to Calm Down

Jason’s got Katie Schroeder here with him. He’s asked her to help him with a topic tonight about feedback to kind of balance him out a little bit. In fact, they’re going to do two podcasts because he definitely wants to get a good balanced perspective on this. What’s been on Jason’s mind from a feedback standpoint, and he promises you this is researched, they’re not just winging it here, the thought that’s been on his mind about feedback is based around the kind of feedback that we receive in the industry right now. But this is kind of a broader topic.

Let him tell you what kind of prompted it, to be honest. And he’ll always be honest, but to be honest so that you know that he’s being vulnerable with you: every now and then Jason gets feedback that he just doesn’t like. And sometimes he gets feedback that he thinks is stupid. Sometimes he thinks that in the lean community, we ask for feedback and plus deltas and we get silly little comments that talk about “Oh, I wish the food was better” or “I wish this course was easier” or whatever. And it’s like “Well…” Or here’s a great one Jason got the other day: “The topic is so hard.” And it’s like “Well, what do I have to do with the topic? This is ridiculous.” So knowing that he’s super immature and emotional, he’s got Katie here to balance him out. They’re going to talk about the concept of feedback.

Feedback Is a Gift But Sometimes I Think It’s Stupid

From a feedback standpoint, let’s talk about the basis for it. Katie and Jason have learned in leadership trainings and other realms that feedback is a gift and that feedback from an improvement standpoint isn’t like a punishment or a negative thing. From a feedback standpoint, positive feedback is a jam. And even saying positive feedback is probably weighing into the whole positive and negative. So let Jason find a way to redefine this.

What would you call that, Katie? Would you say positive feedback or would you say like things that people appreciated or just call it feedback? Katie thinks that’s fine. What Jason wants people to get away from, if at all possible, not trying to be the word police, but if we say negative, “Give me the negative feedback,” unless somebody’s just being a jerk monkey, he doesn’t know that it’s negative. If it’s legitimately helpful to help somebody get better, he thinks it’s just feedback for improvement or if it’s just feedback.

Katie was going to say the idea that it has to be helpful is not a real thing. That’s just your thought about what was being said. For Jason, that “I didn’t really like the food” comment he was trying to reference earlier, he’s like “Okay, I’m going to dismiss that because that’s not helpful for me building this course or whatever.” But it is just feedback. It’s not negative or positive. It’s just someone else’s reaction.

This kind of just goes back to coaching. It’s really important for us to be in the proper frame of mind and not be worried about other people’s emotions and worried about other people’s thoughts about us. We take what we can. We take what’s beneficial. Even if it was negative, it could still be beneficial for us. We take that and we move forward. Jason says that’s proving how wise he is that he asked Katie to be on the podcast.

Brandon Montero’s Bright Lights Story: It’s All Just Data

Brandon Montero today was talking about how, and he used a really interesting story. He said “Okay, you come into a room and there’s bright lights and you see the bright lights and you trip and you fall on your face and everybody’s laughing.” Really, “I walked into a room” is data. “I saw bright lights” is data. “I fell” is data. “Everybody laughs” is data. “I start to get all butt hurt” is emotions.

Jason thinks what Katie’s attempting to say in a super sweet and loving and kind way is that it’s what story we tell ourselves or how we choose to feel about something is what we have control over. Everything else is just data. Let Jason go through a couple of these things. If he was on the podcast by himself, God forbid, he would have said “Hey, make it positive. It’s never negative. Give me only useful feedback. Ask the right questions so we don’t get stupid feedback.”

But what Katie’s saying is “Bro, don’t take criticism from people that you wouldn’t take advice from.” Morgan Freeman says this so it has to be true. Don’t take criticism from people that you wouldn’t take advice from. Katie’s emotional argument actually negates that argument too. Why would you invalidate people? That’s all you’re doing. You’re judging like “Okay, you’re not good enough for me to listen to. You have no value. You have no life experience that I could learn from.” You’re basically saying “You’re not qualified to speak to me.”

Which Katie doesn’t think is part of their mission statement where they’re trying to build people and accept people and help people and grow people to just literally invalidate someone. Fair point. So let’s get it down to the root cause of the issue. For somebody super mature and calm like Katie, not Jason, data, data, data, data, non-emotional, never becomes emotional. Jason thinks probably the thrust of the quote about don’t take criticism from people you wouldn’t take advice from, maybe that is dismissive. Maybe it’s just don’t get emotional about feedback period.

Katie thinks it’s all right to dismiss feedback and say “Okay, you criticized the caterer at this event that I’m holding.” But even then, maybe you can glean something from that or “I didn’t like that song.” There’s only so much you can do there. You have things curated for a reason, which is not always known to everyone else, so you might get feedback that criticizes something that you’ve worked on and curated or created even. Then you have to say “Yeah, no, I’m not going to validate that specific feedback.” It doesn’t mean the person isn’t valid. It just means that that’s not helpful in the direction that you’re going. You have to just be mature enough to not take it personally.

So basically don’t take it too emotional. Just process it, bring it in. We don’t have to get mad or sad about it. We’re leading with logic. We’re not leading with emotions. Which is quite rare. Katie’s not joking around. It is hard. She’s not saying it’s impossible but it is hard. Jason thinks what the quote was originally designed to do was to say “Okay, if you’re going to go home and get really bent out of shape about something, don’t take it too personally, especially if it’s from somebody that isn’t benefiting you in the circles that you care about.” But Katie’s message is period, end of story, let’s not put our self-worth into the hands of other people and their feedback.

Felipe Calls My Trolls and I Just Block Them

We’re not really talking about internet trolls that are just trolls for the sake of being trolls. We’re talking about people who are clients or colleagues or whatever. So these are not people that you just want to dismiss like “Oh, you’re not worth my time. You’re not worth the moment it takes to acknowledge or self-reflect for a minute.”

As they say, self awareness was not handed out equally to everyone. So it’s good to have even something that might seem like “Oh, I’m automatically going to dismiss that.” Just take a second. Maybe the food really was crappy. In lean circles, we do a plus delta. Jason quite frankly feels like that’s a very good practice. At the end we say what worked, what’s feedback for improvement. He thinks it works really well.

To dig deeper, he thinks a lot of times we get really shallow feedback. Shallow from the standpoint of he thinks that sometimes it’s just fishing for something. But using Katie’s model, really the feedback is helpful because we’re getting people into the practice. You can hopefully get a nugget here or there and you’ve got people that are practicing over and over, actually giving people feedback and speaking up. So really that’s helpful.

One thing Jason would say is he thinks we could ask better questions. Instead of saying “What’s the plus delta for the meeting?” we could say “Okay, the purpose of today’s meeting was specifically to make a very crucial decision for all the trade partners. Did this meeting solve that problem? Did it create that purpose? So what would be feedback in line with what the purpose of the meeting was?” If we ask a better question, maybe we’ll get better feedback.

Let Jason tell you another embarrassing moment. Felipe Engineer and Jason have this really interesting thing. People will troll Jason on LinkedIn and give him really negative comments and all of them are wrong. But honestly sometimes it’s pretty outrageous. Somebody will say something super negative and Jason will give them like five or six different chances to see it his way. Then if they don’t straighten up, he totally blocks them on LinkedIn.

People are going to say “That’s not cancel culture.” That’s Jason being super imaginary. But anyway, Felipe Engineer will call them and actually have a candid conversation for like an hour and a half. And Jason’s like “I don’t want to talk to you.” Katie says “He calls your trolls?” Jason says “Yeah.” Katie says “Oh my, he is.” So Felipe is the designated troll caller and he ends up actually making pretty good relationships with people sometimes and Jason’s like “I’m done.”

If Jason applied Katie’s method to that, basically she’s saying stop canceling people on LinkedIn. Kind of. If you actually give a call and talk to somebody and connect like Felipe does, don’t get emotional about it. You can glean what you can and hopefully get some common ground. In their mission of helping people, you can hopefully help somebody.

Your Shirt Is Ugly: Katie’s Method of Giving Feedback

Critical feedback that’s aimed to hurt somebody out of anger. Let’s apply Katie’s method to that. If somebody said something that was just really mean, like somebody went to a certification training or a boot camp or went to an event or whatever and they didn’t like a certain topic and somebody said the content was stupid or it was just really mean, what do we glean from that?

Katie thinks first of all, when you take a comment that is mean, that is not real. That’s just your thought about that particular thing. All that’s real is that this particular thing was said. That’s the real part. Then you internalize that based on your experiences and who you are and you decide that’s a really mean thing to say.

But maybe that person is someone like Katie that is like “Oh, by the way, your shirt’s ugly.” That’s not an insult. That’s her opinion. Which is what she says. Jason will walk out the bedroom and she’ll be like “You’re like, that is the ugliest. Or no, you’re not wearing that. That’s stupid.” Or Jason will text somebody something and she’s like “Oh my gosh, this is so stupid.”

Jason gets so mad. Is Katie being mean? So she thinks she is, but does she think she is? No, she’s not. She’s just not. She’s into it. Katie doesn’t think she’s being mean. She thinks she’s being helpful. She thinks it’s helpful to know how ugly your outfit is. Katie’s dad was such a hardass that she has a more blunt approach.

Jason says one time they went out in the shed to record a podcast one night and they started. He can’t even remember what the topic was but Katie was so mean. After comment number three Jason was like “Bruh, all right, we done.” And he literally deleted that. Katie says that’s the subject of this podcast. Which is that even though her method of giving feedback is like picking up a sword and poking people or lopping off limbs, Jason shouldn’t be emotional.

Honestly Jason’s starting to understand it better. Literally it’s just data. It all has a positive intent. Some people just talk differently. Very rarely is someone really trying to just be ugly with you. Or that’s the other thing: hurt people, wounded people hurt people. If someone’s wounded and now you’ve triggered something in them and then they want to give you that criticism because it’s somehow been triggering for them, in the end you can kind of be compassionate and say “Okay, I can see that this really bothered you or you’re really hurt by this behavior.”

Katie’s kind of thinking not so much in a boot camp or whatever setting but like at church or in your family or something. Some feedback that you receive comes from a place of hurt from them. So they have that desire to lash out and then it’s your job to not be acted upon. To say “Okay, I can see.” Or maybe there’s even nothing positive in it but you’re mature enough to say “This is not going to negatively affect me. I can see that this person is wounded.” You’re still not invalidating them and just saying “Hey, you’re worthless. You don’t matter to me because you didn’t give me feedback that I like.” But just from a compassionate space you’re operating.

Leadership and Self-Deception: Get Clarity and Do the Right Thing

To tie this to construction, which applies very much, there’s a book called Leadership and Self-Deception which Jason hopes everybody takes the opportunity to read, especially superintendents. Getting clarity is the key. For instance, the book gives an example where a couple is being woken up by the baby and the husband’s been working all day and mom hasn’t been getting a lot of sleep. He hears the baby, doesn’t get up. This has never happened to Jason. She gets up and she’s like “Why aren’t you getting up?” And he’s like “Well, why don’t you respect my work and I have to work all day?” She’s like “Well, you do not…” Anyway, they start fighting back and forth. Finally she goes and takes care of the baby. Both couples are angry with each other because they are telling themselves stories about the other.

What they say in the book is if you can get out of the emotional realm, if you can get out of the deception, that’s why it’s called Leadership and Self-Deception. The self-deception is the story that people are telling themselves, which is what Katie says all the time. So leadership is let’s get back to the point of clarity where we actually figure out what’s going on. Both people are tired. Both people are working hard. And all we have to do then is do the right thing.

We can use that same pattern with any kind of feedback. Let’s do the right thing. If it doesn’t apply, then you don’t apply it. If it’s legitimate, listen and apply it. Even if it’s hard, unpride yourself for a minute. Step back. If there’s something helpful, even if the person was wounded and said it in a mean way, use it to better yourself. Because at the end of the day, even if you were prideful, what’s going to hurt the other person more? You getting all angry and nasty and rolling around in mud or you becoming better while they stagnate? Whether you’re benevolent or evil, taking the feedback is the best course of action.

Katie was going to say there is some merit to maybe this person is not legitimately qualified to give you feedback or to give you helpful feedback because they maybe just don’t know enough about it. So then you again have to kind of step back and say maybe this person is looking for significance by having input where it’s just kind of over their head or they don’t really understand. Again, that’s all about how you are empowered to move forward rather than just decide “Oh, I’m pissed now.”

Jason realized while he gets upset it’s because feedback is in such a public forum for him. For a lot of people that are on LinkedIn and doing other things, if he takes a course like the superintendent boot camp, Felipe’s boot camp, Felipe’s boot camp has 100% success rate from a feedback standpoint. Superintendent boot camp was 95% raving fans but that 5% makes Jason nervous because that hurts his livelihood. If he would just take it for what it is and use it as a tool, he wouldn’t be as emotional about it. The other thing is he tells people what the feedback is anyway in the podcast so he doesn’t even know what he’s worried about anyway.

Your Value Is Not Determined by Feedback

Superintendents, project managers, people in construction, they’re around a lot of wounded people. It doesn’t mean those people are bad. It just means that they’re wounded. Superintendents will get backed into the corner by a foreman or a project manager or an owner. A trade partner will treat somebody wrong or the GC will be domineering and bossy and unfair. A lot of these things will happen.

Jason has found himself being pulled into the emotional side and then they start rolling in the mud. What Katie’s telling him to do and everybody on the phone call is if we can just calm down, get clarity, go back to what is really going on, maybe even get some insight and then just do the right thing. Doing the right thing might actually have consequences to it but don’t turn it into an emotional situation because then it becomes punishment. What advice would Katie give to anybody considering feedback? Just closing thoughts?

Katie thinks, she doesn’t know if this is a closing thought, it’s just a thought: your value is not determined by feedback. Your value is intrinsic and people will say hurtful things. They’ll say hurtful things when feedback should be a gift. Sometimes it wasn’t meant as a gift but either way, if you take it the right way, you might find use in it. Jason really appreciates Katie being on this podcast. He asks her to help him when he feels like he’s not qualified or mature enough to discuss a topic. That was obviously the case tonight. He really feels like he has a better jam.

His commitment tomorrow, the current condition is we get really emotional about things. His commitment tomorrow, his challenge for everybody is it’s all data. It’s only emotional when we turn it into emotion. Take the hurt, the criticism, the feedback for improvement, the topics, the irrelevant comments, all of the different categories and just turn it into feedback and filter in what’s useful, maybe not useful. Then you can use that to better you, your organization, your teams and everybody else and it doesn’t have to be painful and we can continue receiving it all and keep everybody in the practice of giving feedback.

The only thing Jason would say is that by labeling it either positive or negative, we’re probably, those labels, not that he’s the workplace police, but for him personally, he’s going to stop saying positive or negative because that’s assigning an emotion to it or an emotional tie. He’s just going to call it feedback. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Why is all feedback just data?

You come into a room, see bright lights, trip, fall on your face, everybody laughs. “I walked into a room” is data. “I saw bright lights” is data. “I fell” is data. “Everybody laughs” is data. “I start to get all butt hurt” is emotions. What story we tell ourselves or how we choose to feel about something is what we have control over. Everything else is just data. It’s not negative or positive, it’s just someone else’s reaction. Your value is not determined by feedback. Your value is intrinsic.

Q: What should I do when someone gives me mean feedback?

When you take a comment that is mean, that is not real. That’s just your thought about that particular thing. All that’s real is that this particular thing was said. Then you internalize that based on your experiences and you decide that’s a really mean thing to say. But maybe that person is just blunt. They don’t think they’re being mean, they think they’re being helpful. Or hurt people, wounded people hurt people. If someone’s wounded and triggered, they lash out. Be compassionate. You’re mature enough to say “This is not going to negatively affect me. I can see that this person is wounded.”

Q: How does Leadership and Self-Deception apply to feedback?

The book gives an example where a couple fights over who should get up for the baby. Both are angry because they’re telling themselves stories about the other. The self-deception is the story people are telling themselves. Leadership is getting back to clarity where we figure out what’s going on. Both people are tired, both are working hard. All we have to do is do the right thing. Use that same pattern with feedback. If it doesn’t apply, don’t apply it. If it’s legitimate, listen and apply it. Even if it’s hard, unpride yourself, step back. If there’s something helpful, even if the person was wounded and said it in a mean way, use it to better yourself.

Q: Should I dismiss feedback from people who aren’t qualified?

Don’t invalidate people. You’re judging like “You’re not good enough for me to listen to. You have no value.” You’re basically saying “You’re not qualified to speak to me.” Which isn’t part of a mission to build people and accept people and help people. There is some merit to maybe this person isn’t legitimately qualified because they don’t know enough about it. You have to step back and say maybe this person is looking for significance by having input where it’s over their head. That’s all about how you are empowered to move forward rather than just deciding “I’m pissed now.”

Q: How do I stop getting emotional about feedback?

It’s all data. It’s only emotional when we turn it into emotion. Take the hurt, the criticism, the feedback for improvement, the topics, the irrelevant comments, all of the different categories and just turn it into feedback and filter in what’s useful, maybe not useful. Then you can use that to better you, your organization, your teams and it doesn’t have to be painful. Stop labeling it positive or negative because that’s assigning an emotion to it. Just call it feedback. Lead with logic, not emotions. Calm down, get clarity, go back to what is really going on, get some insight, then do the right thing.

On we go.

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.

On we go

Whacky-Takty

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 36 min

Wacky Takt: Why You’re Using Takt Systems to Push and How to Stop

This is going to be a fun little podcast, but it’s going to be really packed with good information, new information, probably stuff you haven’t heard before. The other thing we’re going to cover is Goodhart’s Law. Let’s get going.

Wacky Takt. This is something Jason kind of coined the term on in Germany. It was because they were thinking about the possible failure to implement Takt in the right way and they actually saw this in one location. Most of the time in their trip they saw really great world class examples of flow and pull. In one facility, which he won’t tell you where it came from, they saw an example of what they call Wacky Takt.

It’s kind of in line with if you’ve ever heard of Laffy Taffy or Wacky Taffy. There’s some really fun little candy that Jason used to eat when he was a kid that was kind of goofy and weird and just off the beaten path a little bit. It was a little bit whacked and kind of out there.

He’s seen and would fear in the future to see some wacky Takt plan implementation that’s just kind of out there. That’s what we’re going to talk about today because there are ways to get this wrong. Before we do that, Jason wants to insert a little section about Goodhart’s Law.

When a Measure Becomes a Target It Ceases to Be a Good Measure

Goodhart’s Law is an adage named after British economist Charles Goodhart who advanced the idea in a 1975 article on monetary policy in the United Kingdom: Problems of Monetary Management, the UK Experience. “Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.”

In a paper published in 1997, anthropologist Marilyn Strathern generalized Goodhart’s Law beyond statistics and control to evaluation more broadly. The phrase commonly referred to as Goodhart’s Law comes from Strathern’s paper, not from any of Goodhart’s writings.

This is what it is: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” One way in which this can occur is individuals trying to anticipate the effect of a policy and then taking actions that alter its course and outcome.

Let’s stick with this one sentence: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Jason’s seen this before when we’re talking about production KPIs, measurements for safety and quality. This is really what he’s talking about embodied in this example.

First of all, let’s talk about what is a KPI. A KPI is a quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success of an organization, employee, etc., in meeting objectives for performance. A target is a measurement state or condition that indicates a predetermined goal has been reached.

What this law is essentially saying is that KPIs become useless when the KPIs also become targets. Let Jason talk about that just for a minute. If you have a production goal and you want to measure, this is a key performance indicator, and you make a goal out of that key performance indicator, maybe on a scale, on that KPI scale you say 10 of a certain something is your target. Well, it stops being an indicator once it becomes a target because once the target is reached then human beings will typically stop.

Jason likes the Japanese concept: perfection is the goal, perfect will have to do. Perfect is the only standard and are we getting better each day, better than the next? Because once we set a target then typically people will stop. It becomes a thermostat. If you set a thermostat to 76 degrees and the temperature gets higher, it will regulate back.

If you have a KPI and then you set a target along that KPI and you go past that KPI to really wild success, it will thermostat back to the target. Jason saw this one time where when you’re doing production tracking and the production target is reached, foreman, workers, superintendents, project teams will stop once the target is reached even though they could make more money. So it thermostats them to a certain level and below because there’s always variation.

Jason likes that concept in Goodhart’s Law: when a measure becomes a target it ceases to be a good measure. The bottom line is we always have to plan for variation and we have to keep going in a lean concept towards perfection, total participation. We have to keep going to where we understand that we’re better every day than we were the day before.

The Manufacturing Plant Where Everything Was Off Rhythm

What we’re really talking about today is Wacky Takt. Jason really likes the title there. It’s hard to say, it’s kind of funny. The conflict is we’re still using Takt systems to push and we have to stop this practice. Let Jason tell you a story. He was in a manufacturing facility and they were looking at the operations. There were areas of excess inventory and there was a lot of waste and people moving around. Things just seemed to be off rhythm.

What they found out was there were some bottlenecks. Jason’s talked to you about this before. There were some bottlenecks in the system and there weren’t pull systems. Meaning when one piece of equipment was completed, they weren’t automatically pulling or creating pull throughout the system. Each piece of equipment, each station, was still pushing material and inventory onto the next system because they were attempting to keep up with a Takt time. Jason wants to be really clear about something. That is not the way we do things.

Takt Systems Create Capacity and Buffers So You Can Pause

In Takt systems we finish on time for one purpose and one purpose alone. Jason wants to tell you what that is right now. It’s because Takt systems create capacity and they create buffers. And those buffers allow us to pause the system and pull the andon or the undon or whatever you want, however you want to pronounce it, and stop the system and absorb the variation. CPM systems do not allow that because they create a critical path, a string of activities where if any one of them are delayed it delays the whole system. Last Planner can create buffers in the system. Scrum creates capacity and buffers in the system. And Takt really creates buffers, meaning days that can absorb variation in the system.

When Jason does Takt trainings and he’s like “We need to stick to a Takt time,” people are like “Oh, so you’ve always finished? You’ve never had a variation?” He’s like “No, heck no, my systems or my projects are just as prone to variation as yours are. It’s just that my system with Takt is that I have created buffers within that system so that I can absorb that variation.” You cannot ever have a schedule. Jason wants owners, he wants superintendents, he wants company owners, he wants everybody, foremen, to hear him on this: the most idiotic thing that we could do in construction, the most idiotic stupid thing that we could do is to create schedules without buffers, to create schedules that can’t absorb variation.

Every single schedule should have buffers in the system to absorb variation. This is one of the things Jason’s been thinking about lately about Takt and the message behind Takt: it’s the only system that allows you to pause when you find a problem.

The Two Pillars: Just-In-Time and Automation With a Human Touch

Let Jason talk about that really quickly. He’s been reading The Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production by Taiichi Ohno. He talks about the two pillars of the Toyota production system. One of them is just-in-time that everything has flow and pull and the other one is automation. When you think about automation with a human touch, what that means is that you have a system, you have a systematic flow, but when there are defects, automatically you can stop the line. Humans can stop the line. The human touch can stop the line. This system will find the defects.

When it happens in a production line just like in Toyota or BMW or wherever, you can stop the line. You can pull the andon, you can pull a cord, push a button whatever and stop the entire line together. But what happens in construction is if we have a delay in one area, typically we just let that area get out of sequence and we keep pushing everybody else and then everybody gets out of rhythm. When you get out of rhythm you’ve entered a push situation. What we need to do is understand that the key to their success was that the entire system stopped.

First of all, they had flow. When they didn’t have flow they had pull. Pull meaning that one area only produced whatever items that they could produce when another system was ready for it or had need for it. It was a pull system. It wasn’t a push system. In a Takt system, if you keep that Takt time going regardless of whether or not one of your areas or one of your trades or whether one of your machines is keeping up with that pace or not, and if you keep pushing everybody according to that Takt time, then you are going to have push, excess inventory, all of the eight wastes, overburden, and unevenness. That’s going to throw your system out of production, out of line, out of efficiency and you won’t have flow efficiency.

Pause the Entire System and Eat Into a Buffer

What Jason’s saying is in summary, the best thing that you can do is have a schedule where if there’s a major problem, and not something small that they can recover from but a major problem, you can stop the entire Takt system and eat into one of those buffers and have everybody stay at the same pace, the same distance apart, and allow everybody on the project site to pause.

Most of the time people are going to say “Jason, you’re crazy. This is the dumbest idea I’ve ever had.” But when you have major impacts, that’s what you’re going to have to do. If you have a big problem with concrete, you’re going to have to pause the entire concrete system. If you have a major problem with interiors, you’re going to need to pause the entire interiors production system. If you have the same thing with anything, but if you let one area or one trade get disconnected then you’re going to overproduce before that scope or that trade or that area.

You’re going to create variation and workers waiting on work after that area or that scope or that trade and it’s going to create ripples of variation throughout the system. If you’re in a factory just like they observed in this factory, if you attempt to keep everybody on the Takt time even though there’s an interruption, you don’t pause the system, then you’ll have 10 machines overproducing, one trying to catch up, and all of the machines after it waiting with workers waiting on work.

But you could pause everybody and here’s the kicker: allow everybody in the system, everybody throughout that project, everybody in that manufacturing plant, everybody to basically prepare for their quality work the next time.

This is the key to Takt planning. When you pause the system, everybody doesn’t just sit around twirling their thumbs. They do these things:

  • Make sure that prior activities are completed
  • Make sure construction and design information is ready
  • Make sure materials and components are prepared
  • Make sure that workers are trained and ready to go
  • Make sure that equipment is maintained and ready to go
  • Make sure that the workspace is safe, ready, and clean
  • Make sure that any other approvals and permissions are given
  • Make sure that materials are queued up and stacked and ready to go
  • Make sure that they do training with their employees
  • Clean their stations

That is the genius of a Takt system: within our cycle times if we get done early we prepare the next task instead of moving it forward. If there’s an interruption in the system and we have to enter a buffer, we don’t keep pushing everybody and moving things forward. We pause and we prepare the next activity so it can hit right on the rhythm.

Flow, Pull, and When to Pause: The Rhythm of Takt

A Takt system just one more time has a rhythm and it has flow and it has pull. And when there’s major variation we pause the system. We pause the schedule and we allow for that interruption to be absorbed into a buffer and we keep everybody the same distance apart going the same speed, not overproducing. We allow everybody to get back onto rhythm.

We spend our time in that pause preparing for work again, doing those key things which are called the seven conditions for a sound activity: prior activities finishing as you go, quality at the source, any design information and preparations, materials and components stacked ready prepared for the work 100% ready to go, workers trained oriented extra training done, equipment maintained and ready to go, the workspace is clean safe and organized laid out, and any approvals and permissions are given. And that we are finishing as we go with limited work in process, quality at the source. We’re making sure 100% that we’re doing it and the right batch size is according to the right Takt time.

Wacky Takt is where you have a rhythm and even if there’s an interruption you keep pushing everybody through it, which causes overproduction, which causes waste, which causes unevenness, which causes overburden. It will interrupt and create variation in the system. But normal Takt planning is where you create an optimized schedule with buffers. And those buffers allow you to pause the system or stop the entire project of work or the entire phase of work and say “We all are going to pause for a minute, get this problem fixed. We’re going to eat into a buffer day. We’re all going to make sure that we’re staying on that same rhythm and we’re going to make sure that we have the capacity to absorb this variation together.” So that we don’t create a scenario of push.

The Electrician Example: Pause or Push?

Let Jason just give you one example. If you’re working in a phase and you have a two day delay in interiors and you want to keep everybody on Takt time and you have a three day Takt time and every three days that drum beats but you get one, let’s say light fixtures are missing and you have a real big problem. Do you then create a pause and eat into a three day buffer with one of your Takt times to let the electrician catch up? Give everybody else an additional three days for their deadlines. Allow them to spend their time preparing and get everybody back on sequence according to the beat.

Or will you just let that one area with that one trade with the electrician with their light fixtures basically slow down, keep everybody going at full speed with their deadlines and cause a ripple throughout the system which is hard to recover? When you’re in a manufacturing plant and you have a Takt time and you have one area that has slowed down for some reason, are you going to keep all the machines overproducing even though the whole system needs to pause? Flow is a superior system to pull. We first flow, then pull, and we never push. But if you are flowing with a Takt system and you have an interruption, if you don’t pause you will be pushing.

Remember: flow where you can, pull when you can’t, and stop pushing. You can get into a Wacky Takt kind of situation if you use Takt systems where you don’t pause and eat into your buffers when there’s a problem. At a minimum, Jason needs you to please consider this concept because it’s pretty powerful. Where are you on your projects or your manufacturing floor or in your company using a Takt system where you’re still pushing and where you haven’t created buffers? Where you don’t have buffers in the system and you’re actually using the Takt system like a push system and not a flow system?

Are you using it like a push system instead of a pull system? Are you stopping to fix problems as you go and stopping the entire system together so that all of the trades can stay the same distance apart and go the same speed?

Jason will leave you with this. Hopefully he’s explained it well enough. When people say “Jason, why have you always finished projects on time with Takt?” The answer is because he always has buffers and he always stops the system. And he always fixes things as they go and he always keeps the trades the same distance apart going the same speed. Because he has buffers and CPM does not. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What is Goodhart’s Law and why does it matter for construction KPIs?

Goodhart’s Law says “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” KPIs become useless when the KPIs also become targets. If you have a production goal, a key performance indicator, and you make a goal out of that KPI, it stops being an indicator once it becomes a target because once the target is reached human beings will typically stop. It becomes a thermostat. If you set a thermostat to 76 degrees and temperature gets higher it will regulate back. If you have a KPI and go past that KPI to wild success, it will thermostat back to the target. Plan for variation and keep going towards perfection.

Q: What is Wacky Takt?

Wacky Takt is where you have a rhythm and even if there’s an interruption you keep pushing everybody through it, which causes overproduction, waste, unevenness, and overburden. It will interrupt and create variation in the system. It’s using Takt systems to push instead of pause. You attempt to keep everybody on the Takt time even though there’s an interruption. You don’t pause the system. Then you’ll have machines overproducing, one trying to catch up, and all the machines after it waiting with workers waiting on work.

Q: What’s the genius of a Takt system when you pause?

When you pause the system, everybody doesn’t just sit around twirling their thumbs. They make sure prior activities are completed, construction and design information is ready, materials and components are prepared, workers are trained and ready to go, equipment is maintained and ready to go, workspace is safe ready and clean, any other approvals and permissions are given, materials are queued up and stacked and ready to go, they do training with their employees, they clean their stations. Within cycle times if you get done early you prepare the next task instead of moving it forward.

Q: Why are buffers the most important part of Takt planning?

The most idiotic thing we could do in construction is to create schedules without buffers, to create schedules that can’t absorb variation. Every single schedule should have buffers in the system to absorb variation. Takt systems create capacity and buffers. Those buffers allow us to pause the system and pull the andon and stop the system and absorb the variation. CPM systems do not allow that because they create a critical path where if any one activity is delayed it delays the whole system. Takt creates buffers meaning days that can absorb variation in the system.

Q: How do you stop the entire system when there’s a major problem?

If there’s a major problem, not something small they can recover from but a major problem, you can stop the entire Takt system and eat into one of those buffers and have everybody stay at the same pace, the same distance apart, and allow everybody on the project site to pause. Big problem with concrete? Pause the entire concrete system. Major problem with interiors? Pause the entire interiors production system. If you let one area or trade get disconnected then you overproduce before that scope and create variation and workers waiting on work after that area. Pause everybody, allow everybody to prepare for quality work the next time.

On we go.

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.

On we go

It’s Fall Y’all! How to Crush the Holidays, Feat, Katie Schroeder

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 44 min

It’s Fall Y’all: Why Your Construction Trailer Needs Pumpkin Spice Right Now

Katie and Jason just went to the temple this morning. It’s Wednesday, like eight o’clock in the morning. They just got back and were having a good conversation and Katie’s like “What else?” So Jason literally just hit the record button and said “We’re doing a podcast.”

Where are they going right now? Katie says they’re going to Home Depot to pick up a Halloween skeleton demon guy that is in a boat and he is carrying people, dead people. It’s some kind of Greek mythology kind of guy. The kids are into Percy Jackson and stuff so she thinks it’s basically he’s shuttling the dead from where they need to go. Maybe like River Styx.

To give you a little bit of insight, if you’re anti holiday, Halloween, Thanksgiving, this podcast is not for you. You might want to sign off right now because they’re those people. Like when you see Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram posts making fun of people when they’re heading to Walmart and Home Depot and other stores picking up holiday decorations and they’re like “It’s August people, it’s September people, it’s not October,” that’s them.

What Jason wanted to do this podcast about is the holidays because we’ve been so cooped up for so long for COVID-19. Holidays are such fun traditions and it creates something that we can look forward to. If you’re a part of a company, if you have a project site, if you own a business or if you have a family or even if you don’t and you’re just kind of empty nesters, you can make the holidays fun.

When Jason Hated Holidays and Now Calls Halloween First Christmas

Jason’s going to put Katie on the spot. What do the holidays mean to you like as a kid and now that you have a family? Katie says to be honest it can be a little stressful. They’re in a unique situation because they have a big family. So that load is a little heavy sometimes as far as the expectations of kids at Christmas. She’ll have a kid that will say kind of offhandedly “Oh, my favorite thing is stockings, opening all the little fun things that are in my stocking.” So then she feels super stressed to make sure stockings are on point. She definitely puts some stress on herself when she does stuff like that.

But holidays when she was little, she just remembers fun. She doesn’t remember obviously any of the stress or any of the chaos that was involved. She just remembers having fun. Now as a mom, she really tries hard to create that opportunity, create that space for fun. The funny thing is Jason, when they first got married, he hated all holidays. He was super Grinchy, Scrooge-y. He did not want to decorate. He’s still a little bit like that as far as if you’re like “Well, my birthday’s coming up,” his first thought is resentment that he has to do something. He doesn’t like the obligation.

But somewhere along the way, he adopted that. They call Halloween first Christmas and they call Thanksgiving second Christmas. Now when Katie says “we” she really actually just means him. He calls it that. He went to Germany and Sweden a few weeks ago. He wanted to decorate for Halloween before he left. He left August 30th. So he wanted to decorate for Halloween at the end of August. Katie put her foot down. She was like “We’re not doing that this year. We’re going to be more rational.” That’s why it’s the 22nd of September and they’re just going to start decorating for Halloween now.

He wants to leave Christmas up until he gets sad. So when Jason enters a state of depression and needs some quiet time and some counseling, that’s when it’s time to take down Christmas. Sometimes that’s earlier and sometimes that’s later but it’s always in January.

They always leave it up at least through Noel, which is January 6th. Sometimes he says he wants to leave it up through something in February that has to do with maybe Catholicism where you leave your nativity up. But they never make it that far. He always gets depressed looking around at these kind of tired Christmas decorations and he’s like “Okay, I’m done.”

January is a hard time for them when there’s no other holidays on the horizon. They’ve got little ones like Valentine’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day. Those are little but they’re not the big joyous holiday season. So he really tries to get his bang for his buck starting as soon as he can in the fall. You have to hit it early. That’s what all the Facebook haters don’t understand. Once New Year’s is over, the feeling of Christmas is gone and the magic is gone. It’s just sad.

So how can you get more Christmas? It’s just like we do it in construction. We do more preparation. We put it ahead of the actual activity. So absolutely, we’re starting now everybody. It’s fall y’all. It’s time for Halloween. It’s time for Thanksgiving. It’s time for Christmas. Jason literally works the entire year and exists and takes breath just so he can get to the holidays. This is his time. Winter is his time.

In Tony Robbins Business Mastery, there’s a saying that says “We are gladiators. This winter is my season.” It’s basically saying like in a recession or a depression, as a good business owner, this is my season, I can still thrive. But Jason’s taking that as also winter is his season because of the holidays.

Pumpkin Spice in the Research Laboratory Trailer

Why does Jason mention this on a podcast? It’s because you can have a lot of fun. He’s encouraging you, nay, he’s asking you to have some fun with this in your families with the holidays. Let him tell you a quick little story and then Katie’s going to tell you some ideas on how they celebrate at home.

At the research laboratory, when it would get around this time, Katie would start to get orders. In case you didn’t know, Katie’s the purchasing agent for everything. She kind of likes it and they get Amazon packages like six a day. Maybe that’s an exaggeration but they at least get 12 packages a week and two or three Walmart grocery orders to their front door. It might start being Target orders if Walmart doesn’t straighten up their act a little bit with the deliveries.

At the research laboratory, Jason was like “Okay, Katie, we’re ready for Halloween lights. We’re ready for decorations. We’re ready for the fall leaves. We’re ready for pumpkins. We’re ready for all this.” In the research laboratory trailer starting in September, Jason had pumpkin spice scents. Pumpkin spice candles. Probably not sure that’s very legal in a trailer but they still had it.

In fact, Katie was kind of funny. People would come in the trailer and they’d be like “What the hell is that smell? That’s god awful.” And Jason’s like “It’s pumpkin spice. I love it.” Anyway, he didn’t care. He just kept it plugged into the wall. In the conference rooms, in case you didn’t know, here’s your free education: Halloween is purple and orange. There’s black. There’s like black lights and stuff like that.

So they put orange and purple lights up at the top of the conference room lining all the way around the top. They had pumpkin spice scented candles. They had pumpkin spice wall flowers. They had leaf decorations. Katie bought Jason a bunch of little pumpkins that he could put around the office. They had Halloween decorations. They had food. They had pumpkin pies. Jason would bring stuff in. They would actually share some of these things with the workers as well.

It was like a full out blast. When it came to trick or treating, they had candy bowls. They had all kinds of stuff in the trailer. So it just felt like a good, happy place. Now back to Jason’s integrated project delivery podcast where he talks about open office spaces. If your trailer or your office space sucks with a lot of stupid offices where nobody feels connected, Halloween might be sad. You might put up lights and then people associate Halloween with siloed, negative, non-connected feelings. So you have to have a nice office for this. But it was a jam. It made the month of October amazing.

What The Nightmare Before Christmas Did For Halloween

What are some of the things Katie does at home? For Halloween, they decorate the front yard and the house a little bit or a lot, mostly a lot. This year they just finished at Home Depot and apparently they were decorating the backyard too with one of the coolest things ever: the Nightmare Before Christmas with Oogie Boogie. Lock, Shock and Barrel. What the Nightmare Before Christmas gave them was music and theme and traditions and food. Like the green worms or snake and spider stew. There’s all kinds of fun tradition stuff from the Nightmare Before Christmas. They have their kids watch that.

They also have these little favorite YouTube videos. They’re going to bless your life for Halloween. When it’s Halloween, and for Katie this starts on like maybe this weekend or possibly next weekend, they have movies that they only watch at Halloween time. Just like they only have Christmas movies or whatever. Then there’s like one or two Thanksgiving movies that they watch because there’s not a lot there. They wait all year.

They have all of the little Silly Symphonies that have to do with the Skeleton Dance and Mickey Mouse where he’s like the grim reapers kind of bossing him around. They have all of these little traditions where they’ll watch them like a little thing every night. The Shrek ones. Those are called Spooky Stories. It has Monsters vs. Aliens, Shrek. There’s really cute little videos. If you search on Netflix or YouTube Spooky Stories. Something else they do is they put the kids in the back of the truck and drive around and look at spooky Halloween decorations. Like you would at Christmas time. It’s a lot of fun.

Now in Arizona, right now it’s 87 degrees out and it’s 8:30 in the morning. So when Halloween hits them it’s a big deal. If you’ve ever been to Bavaria for Oktoberfest and seen how many people are in the streets minus the drunk people, it really is that busy. It is a big thing.

Jason knows some of you in colder climates don’t have the same kind of a feel because it’s freezing and you’re wearing jackets with all your costumes. But they drive around. The other thing is they play the Nightmare Before Christmas playlist. Emily always says “Play Oogie Boogie” and she’ll just sing that song with her cute little voice and their little kids love singing and hearing those songs. They just have a great time with it. So it’s a lot of fun. Jason thinks it’s something to look forward to. Katie, why do you think it makes the month fun?

Katie thinks it has that spirit of celebration. You can kind of extend that all month long and anytime you’re celebrating it automatically feels like a party. It brings family. It’s a purpose. It’s a reason to bring people together. Halloween just is a perfect example at work. Lights, fun stuff, candles, pumpkin pies. It’s just a reason to bring the team and the foreman and the workers together. It’s a reason to have some fun. It’s a reason to have a worker barbecue slash Halloween fall kind of a party.

And pumpkin carving. Katie forgot about that which actually used to be a nightmare. But now that the kids are older it’s a lot of fun. Jason’s pumpkins are always the best. It’s still kind of a nightmare. They have 11 kids. So that’s 11 pumpkins minimum. But the hard thing about Phoenix is that you can only carve your pumpkin like the day before because it’s so hot during the day that the pumpkin just wilts and dies. But if you live in a colder climate you can kind of stretch that longer. Katie remembers being able to carve your pumpkin quite a few days in advance. So what they’re saying is it’s a reason to bring people together.

Even Just a Trip to Spirit Halloween Is Fun

Pretend you’re one of the Schroeder kids and Halloween starts in October. Go ahead and get your decorations. Put it on the credit card if you have to. Jason didn’t say that. Just don’t do that. Even just a trip to Spirit Halloween. Like so fun. Ava, she’s a 15 year old, said she really wants to take Kevin, he’s like her baby. He’s three. But not her real baby. She’s their baby that she takes care of and has taken ownership of. Anyway she wants to take the three littles with the three oldest. They want to take them to Walmart because they figure Spirit is probably a little too intense for the little ones and just walk around and help them find their costumes and pick out candy and find some decorations.

Even just something little like that you turn it into an event like “Hey we’re going to go get costumes or we’re going to make costumes.” They’ve done in the past themed costumes for the whole family. Now those were like rare events because it’s hard to get 11 people. It wasn’t probably 11 people at the time. One year they did pirates. Everybody was a pirate. That was quite a few years ago. Another year they’ve done Star Wars. Last year all three of the big kids were newsies and they were super cute with some friends.

It’s a lot of fun. Even if you can’t go buy decorations yet, why not get a little strand of lights? Jason got a strand of lights and a pumpkin for his desk at work. It was super fun. It made it just a joyous little thing. Katie says go back to the Dollar Tree and you can have a cute little display that will honestly make you a little bit happy. And for all of us religious people out there, Halloween has nothing to do with Satan or the devil or anything negative. You can just let yourself enjoy it. Let the kids have fun. Do some trick or treating within whatever parameters you have for COVID-19 and whatever you’re doing keeping your kids safe.

But like whatever, we can just have fun with this. If we’re being prudish about holidays and like what we celebrate, then let’s get all uppity about Christmas being on the 25th, December 25th, which is a date that came originally from paganism and all of the pagan traditions that tie into these holidays. If we get real literal with this we can get real uppity and negative about things. But like forget about that. It’s just an American tradition. It’s a holiday. It’s nothing different than in Bavaria having Oktoberfest or Cinco de Mayo or the Day of the Dead or just fun places. What do they have in Rio? The big carnival? It’s just what we celebrate. So let’s have some fun with it.

Jason’s Challenge: Lights, Scents, and Worker Barbecues

Jason’s thoughts are why not challenge you. He’s going to give you a challenge. Why not throw up some lights? Why not throw up a pumpkin spice or pumpkin candle in the trailer? It doesn’t have to be pumpkin. Bath & Body Works has lots of scents that are fall. Why not get a bowl of candy like COVID-19 sanitized, individually wrapped? Why not get some pumpkins? Why not throw some leaves up on the wall? Why not bring a pumpkin pie one day? Like why not? It would be super fun. Or be like “Hey, next conference meeting that we have on the project site, we got pumpkin pies and treats and fun stuff like that. This is our Halloween candy team meeting in the conference room.”

Katie was going to say any time you add that little touch of whimsy it just lightens you. You don’t have to be so serious which is the thing. You guys work in a really stressful industry. So maybe just lighten it up a little. A little levity goes a long way. The other thing is right now Jason will challenge you to this. Why not right now even if your project is intense? The U.S. Military like he said before found out that if you give soldiers a 10 minute break every hour they can march 50% longer.

So if you’re in the heat of the battle, why not go ahead and do a worker barbecue fall Halloween love fest? Or like Pie Friday or something like that and give everybody a break and be like “It’s fall y’all, let’s go ahead and celebrate.” Get it done. It’s a lot of fun and decorate your home. Have some fun memories for the kids. And if you don’t have kids, why not? There was this old man on their street that used to run around the neighborhood. He didn’t have any animals in his own house so he got dog treats for everybody else.

On Halloween if you don’t have kids and you’re not taking them trick or treating, why not do a little trick or treating candy stand for somebody? Go to the nearest park or something. Make it fun. Create that environment on your neighborhood street.

At church, the previous church leaders didn’t like trunk or treat because it was all about candy or this or that or whatever. It’s like no man. This year they’re going to have a chili cook off. They’re going to have a hayride. They’re going to have trunk or treating. They’re going to have a little haunted house inside the church building. It’s going to be a jam and they’re going to have a lot of fun with it because the holidays should be a time to relax a little bit. Have fun with family. Do little things that are off script and anchor it with the music and the scents and the food and all the wonderful things. It’s just really a lot of fun. Katie, any advice or challenge to anybody?

What just made Katie think of is Friendsgiving, which they’ve never done. It’s not like Thanksgiving dinner but you do with your friends. There are so many communities out there. If you feel like you’re alone, find a community. Whether it’s some people from work that you’re friends with or church or whatever. Don’t be alone. Don’t use this time to be like “Well I’m sad.”

It just makes Katie sad to think that there’s somebody that maybe feels like there’s no reason to celebrate it because they’re alone. It would make you happy if you decorated a little and you’re worth the effort basically. Jason agrees. The other thing is he loves that Walmart starts in August. He loves that people start selling this stuff. He loves that holidays are commercialized. He loves that on Peanuts every year when Charlie Brown is like the commercialization of holidays and Christmas. Jason loves that.

He loves the grumpy people criticizing him on Facebook right about now. He loves the discussion, the thoughts, the music, the posts, the costumes. Heck one time at the research laboratory they did a Christmas post where they all dressed up in costumes and they had a lot of fun with it. Like why not? This is culture. This is fun. Jason just challenges you to have some fun with it.

He’s going to ask you a question: on a scale of 1 to 10, how prepared are you for Halloween? On a scale of 1 to 10, how well are you doing with the holidays? Then his next question is what are you going to do tomorrow to amp it up?

Katie says honestly if you’re taking your kids trick or treating, you just strongly consider at least some face paint or something so that you’re not just the dad in the back or the mom in the back that’s like “I guess I got to do this thing.” Get in on the fun a little bit. Decorate or get a costume. Have somebody paint your face. Be part of it. Be a part of the Elevate mission to elevate holidays because it helps people and families.

If you’re a podcast listener, here’s Jason’s minimum expectation: that you have some kind of scent somewhere, that you have candy or a pumpkin somewhere, that you have orange, purple or green lights somewhere in your trailer, and that you do a barbecue or something for the workers that’s fall-ish. And then they’re going to do another podcast as they near Christmas because that’s a whole other thing.

The other thing is they’re taking requests. If anybody wants to do for Thanksgiving what the Nightmare Before Christmas did for Halloween, they really need Thanksgiving music, themes, characters, movies, food. Well actually they already have the food. The only thing Thanksgiving really has is food. So they need somebody to commercialize that holiday as well. If anybody has any suggestions or ideas or has a playlist, Jason will share that playlist on the podcast, on their website, on their YouTube channels, and on LinkedIn because they need to elevate the holidays.

Why is this relevant? Because life is about living remarkable. And when if there is a heaven and when we get to heaven we’re going to be celebrating holidays people. We’re going to be having family gatherings. We’re going to be doing decorations. We’re going to be having barbecues with workers. These are the types of things that we would do in heaven. So let’s not do them later. Let’s live heaven on earth and do them now and have some fun. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Why should construction projects decorate for Halloween?

It’s a reason to bring the team and the foreman and the workers together. It’s a reason to have some fun. It’s a reason to have a worker barbecue slash Halloween fall kind of a party. Any time you add that little touch of whimsy it just lightens you. You don’t have to be so serious. You work in a really stressful industry so maybe just lighten it up a little. A little levity goes a long way. The U.S. Military found out that if you give soldiers a 10 minute break every hour they can march 50% longer. In the heat of the battle, do a worker barbecue fall Halloween love fest or Pie Friday.

Q: What did Jason put in the research laboratory trailer for Halloween?

Starting in September: pumpkin spice scents, pumpkin spice candles (probably not legal in a trailer but he kept it plugged into the wall anyway), orange and purple lights at the top of the conference room lining all the way around, pumpkin spice wall flowers, leaf decorations, little pumpkins around the office, Halloween decorations, food, pumpkin pies. They shared these things with the workers. It was a full out blast. They had candy bowls and all kinds of stuff. It just felt like a good happy place. It made the month of October amazing.

Q: What are the Schroeder family Halloween traditions?

Decorate front yard and house (mostly a lot). Watch Nightmare Before Christmas (gives them music, theme, traditions, food like snake and spider stew). Watch Halloween movies they only watch at Halloween time: Silly Symphonies with Skeleton Dance, Mickey Mouse with grim reaper, Spooky Stories with Monsters vs. Aliens and Shrek. Put kids in back of truck and drive around looking at spooky Halloween decorations like at Christmas time. Play Nightmare Before Christmas playlist. Pumpkin carving (11 pumpkins minimum for 11 kids). Trip to Spirit Halloween or Walmart to find costumes, pick out candy, find decorations. Sometimes themed costumes for whole family like pirates or Star Wars.

Q: What’s Jason’s minimum expectation for podcast listeners?

Have some kind of scent somewhere. Have candy or a pumpkin somewhere. Have orange, purple or green lights somewhere in your trailer. Do a barbecue or something for the workers that’s fall-ish. If you’re taking your kids trick or treating, strongly consider at least some face paint or something so you’re not just the dad or mom in the back like “I guess I got to do this thing.” Get in on the fun. Decorate, get a costume, have somebody paint your face. Be part of the Elevate mission to elevate holidays because it helps people and families.

Q: Why does Jason love commercialized holidays?

He loves that Walmart starts in August. He loves that people start selling this stuff. He loves that holidays are commercialized. He loves the discussion, the thoughts, the music, the posts, the costumes. This is culture, this is fun. If we’re being prudish about holidays and what we celebrate, then let’s get all uppity about Christmas being on December 25th which came from paganism. It’s just an American tradition, a holiday, nothing different than Bavaria having Oktoberfest or Cinco de Mayo or Day of the Dead. Let’s have fun with it.

On we go.

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.

On we go

Where is Elevate Going?

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 28 min

The Treehouse Training Center and the Vision You’ve Never Heard

This is the second podcast in a quick little series about Elevate Construction and the journey. Jason hopes you enjoyed the last little podcast he did about where Elevate Construction has been. Now he’s going to talk about where they want to go. Let him first talk about some of the big goals and then work backwards and see if he can explain some of these things in good enough detail to where it sounds as remarkable as he has it in his mind.

We Will Build for St. Jude Children’s Hospital

First of all, Elevate will build a building for St. Jude Children’s Hospital. They will help them with consulting. Jason is going to, when he’s older and can’t work, sit and watch YouTube videos, if YouTube’s even around, of the little kids that that hospital is able to help in fighting cancer and these catastrophic diseases. And he’s just going to sit there and weep. That’s his thing. He’s always had a connection with St. Jude Children’s Hospital helping kids. That’s one of their big goals.

The Treehouse Training Center in the Woods

The other big, big goal, and Jason thinks that sometimes people don’t take him seriously on this, but he’s dead serious: they’re going to have a training facility in a wooded area that’s going to be called the Treehouse Training Center. They’ll call it whatever they want. They’ll come up with a more professional name.

But if you’ve ever seen these resorts like in Mexico and in the Polynesian Islands where they have these huts built of sticks and these wooden walkways and things that are indicative of these treehouse, fort, hut kind of beautiful resort type places in these really beautiful parts of the earth, think of that.

Another image Jason would like to give you: if you’ve ever seen the Lord of the Rings, the elven forest kingdoms. He’s remembering a scene with Lady Galadriel and she has this kingdom and everything’s up into the trees and there’s stairways up to the trees and the houses are in the trees and they have walkways back and forth. That’s what he’s imagining. The other thing would be Avatar, where everything’s up top in the treetops.

Jason wants a place where there’s a bit of an elevation change where you can drive up. He doesn’t think he’s talked about this on a podcast before. Where you drive up and there’s an elevation change and you go into the training facility and then his kids and him will live there in a separate house. But big enough to where all of their kids can come and there’s little rooms for their families, restrooms, a gathering area, and they’re able to come and help with the training facility.

The training facility you come in, it’s welcoming. There’s an area there to go to the kitchen. It’s really open and inviting. There’s maybe a waiting room. That’s where the buses pull up. That’s where there’s parking. You go into this training facility and Jason’s imagining something with really beautiful glass and it’s open and it’s inviting and it’s just really got this kind of community feel.

Then you go out and there’s the training facilities looking out to where you can see through the back glass out into the forested area. On the back porch where you’re able to reflect ahead of some of the really hard processes they do in training, there are these walkways, these wooden walkways that are 10, 20, 30, 40 feet up in the air that lead to other trees where there’s literally like a treehouse or a tree fort where there might be multiple bunks there in that house where people can bunk up and there’s a restroom there and the whole nine. That’s where people stay.

All of these walkways and these huts are lit. They’re lighted and at night you can see your way around and it’s just this beautiful, remarkable environment. Jason imagines it being in a place where it has all four seasons where there’s like actually a winter, actually a spring, actually a summer, and actually a fall. You have that different type of weather. But the scenery is so surreal that you’re able to elevate your mindset and really want better things.

He imagines a beautiful concrete and glass office where they have this Google type wonderful environment where there’s fun things and bean bags and really neat conference rooms and really neat walls with pictures and memory walls. There’s conference rooms and there’s video recording areas and it’s just this really happy, wonderful, beautiful place to work where somebody can go outside and look at the scenery, where they can go get a hot chocolate or coffee or what they call in Sweden a fika and go take a little break and just have a wonderful environment.

When they go into the training center, they’re working with people that are changing their lives and improving themselves and their set points are elevated. They would have like a small crew of people that really like working there and they’re always building new walkways. They’re always building new aspects to the training facility. They’re always helping.

There’s a gourmet chef. One of Jason’s buddies, Jake Smalley, he loves to cook and to entertain. Jason wants to have it to where they’re not getting rich off of this deal, but they have a training facility that’s actually serving a purpose in person. Say “Jake, hey, you ready to start cooking for the facility and also coming and doing some training and living your passion and your dreams and taking some people through their processes?” Him being able to cook some wonderful gourmet meals for the people that are there at the training camp. Now here’s the best part. This is what would be cool. When they don’t have trainings going on, you could Airbnb some of these things out to make a little bit of money to supplement the cost.

Bringing Foster Kids and Elevating Their Set Point

But whenever they have the opportunity, how cool would it be to bring foster youth or youth camps or underprivileged youth to this training facility and take them through these things and set them up for life and hook them up with opportunities for jobs in construction and to really leverage some of the networking and the training and the resources and the food that they have.

One of the things that Jason really likes, and he hasn’t proven this with psychology yet, but he’s always had this thought: if they could take underprivileged kids or even kids that are privileged but that just need to be awesome and serving out there in the world, take them and get them so used to those high standards and that good food and that high living and the feeling of almost being rich that they elevate their set point to where when they go back home, they have a disconnect between where they are and where they want to be. Hopefully that motivates them to live a better and more remarkable life.

Jason doesn’t know if that’s backed up by any kind of psychology, but he literally wants to addict the younger generations and especially the older foster care kids who’ve had a hard life to a higher way of living, to learning, to progress, to growth, to wealth, to mental wealth, to spiritual wealth, to friendship wealth, to all of those things. And to be able to use the resources to do those really cool things.

Now they’d have to have really good insurance, lots of adult supervision or else you can get in trouble with things like that. Because there’s always drama that happens with any situation where you involve kids in a camp. You have to have real good supervision. You’ve got to keep all kids away from any alone time with any one single adult. You’ve got to protect the innocent. There’s a lot that goes to that.

But Jason thinks if it was done in a short enough amount of time, he thinks it could be done legally with the right insurance, with the right adult supervision, two, three, four, five deep leadership at all times, nobody ever alone. He thinks it could be really good.

The Fastest, Most Addictive Training in Construction

Then the vision for that would be, how cool would it be for people in the industry to live in a beautiful place, to have the technology, the internet, the office space, the teams, to create the fastest, most useful, most addictive training in construction. Whether it’s online or in person or wherever, to where anybody, a worker, a foreman, or a project manager, or a VDC professional, or a surveyor, all of it was at their fingertips.

They can go to college if they want or they can take these courses as they’re ready and they get certifications and it almost guarantees them a job. That would be really remarkable. Jason has this vision in his mind that they can get this done and with the right people, with the right engagement, in the right environment, doing the right things, with the right synergy, with the right business deals and the right business structure, according to inspiration and the right vision for where they can head, they could literally transform the way training is done in this industry.

That’s another one of the main visions they have at Elevate Construction. Jason figured he would share that with you. One of the things that they want is for people to be able to, anytime they want to, attend a boot camp, attend a mastermind, get the help, have the templates and resources, expand their website. And then also to have any online content that they want access to in a remarkable way. Really engaging, pedagogical, online content at the tip of their fingers, always updated with the best practices.

The Vision: Lean Takt, Lean Survey, Lean Office, Lean Field

Jason has this vision where Elevate Construction would have other companies: Lean Takt, Lean Survey, Lean Office, Lean Field, Lean VDC, Lean Business. These companies will each have directors and they will grow those businesses to create training and YouTube channels and LinkedIn channels and free resources and masterminds and boot camps and all of that so that each of those can grow.

Then all of those directors will be advisory board members to Elevate Construction and expand their influence throughout the industry and choosing the best experts for each of those areas. Jason is looking forward, and he doesn’t know if it’s one year or five years or whatever, having the best website with the most resources where literally construction professionals can get on, it’s like a candy store and you see Elevate Construction graphics and free content and outlines and guides everywhere in the industry. You’re like “I saw your guide on this job. I saw your sign over there. I saw this over there.” That is where they’re headed.

Workers Respected, Leaders Trained, Families Preserved

Jason will just close out with this because he doesn’t want to needlessly take your time on a podcast, but workers are not respected. Leaders are not trained. And families are going uncared for. That is what Elevate will do. When Jason dies, they will have made a huge dent in the disrespect and the dysfunction of families in construction by providing training and knowledge and wisdom.

If you go back to the podcast Jason did just before this, he got a couple of things. He got his eyes opened. He got his expectations raised. He got morality and ethics. And he also got information from the best books in the industry. How can they get that distilled into an addictive, useful, and fast form for everybody in construction? Because ignorance is what’s holding us back. But it’s education and light and knowledge that will lead us to where workers are respected, leaders are trained, and families are preserved. That’s where they’re headed. If you have visions or thoughts or ideas of how they could do better or expand their vision or reach even higher or meet those goals, let them know.

Jason does want you to know that any time they do these podcasts or these trainings or these videos, they are thinking of you. They’re hoping that these are helpful for you. He doesn’t feel like it’s trite or insincere for him to say that they love you. They hope that you have everything good in life that you deserve and want or could have. They just wish you the best. He just wanted to take this time to do that and say this, and it’ll be interesting to see where they go and especially where they can go together. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: What is the Treehouse Training Center?

A training facility in a wooded area with all four seasons. Beautiful glass and open inviting spaces. Wooden walkways 10, 20, 30, 40 feet up in the air leading to treehouses where people bunk up. Think Lord of the Rings elven forest kingdoms or Avatar treetops or Mexican resort huts. Lighted walkways at night. A Google-type office with bean bags, conference rooms, video recording areas, memory walls. A gourmet chef. A small crew always building new walkways and aspects. When not training, Airbnb it out. When possible, bring foster youth and underprivileged kids to elevate their set point.

Q: Why bring foster kids to a luxury training facility?

To addict the younger generations, especially older foster care kids who’ve had a hard life, to a higher way of living. Get them so used to high standards, good food, high living, the feeling of almost being rich that they elevate their set point. When they go back home, they have a disconnect between where they are and where they want to be. Hopefully that motivates them to live a better and more remarkable life. Set them up for life, hook them up with opportunities for jobs in construction, leverage networking, training, resources, and food.

Q: What’s the vision for online training content?

The fastest, most useful, most addictive training in construction. Anyone, a worker, foreman, project manager, VDC professional, surveyor, all of it at their fingertips. They can go to college if they want or take these courses as they’re ready and get certifications that almost guarantee them a job. Really engaging, pedagogical, online content at the tip of their fingers, always updated with the best practices. Transform the way training is done in this industry.

Q: What other companies will Elevate create?

Lean Takt, Lean Survey, Lean Office, Lean Field, Lean VDC, Lean Business. Each will have directors who will grow those businesses to create training, YouTube channels, LinkedIn channels, free resources, masterminds, boot camps. All those directors will be advisory board members to Elevate Construction, expanding influence throughout the industry and choosing the best experts for each area. The goal: best website with most resources where construction professionals see Elevate Construction graphics and free content and outlines and guides everywhere in the industry.

Q: What is Elevate Construction’s ultimate mission?

Workers are not respected. Leaders are not trained. Families are going uncared for. When Jason dies, they will have made a huge dent in the disrespect and the dysfunction of families in construction by providing training, knowledge, and wisdom. Ignorance is what’s holding us back. Education, light, and knowledge will lead us to where workers are respected, leaders are trained, and families are preserved. That’s the mission.

On we go.

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.

On we go

Where has Elevate Been?

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 36 min

The Story You Don’t Know: How I Helped Destroy My Father-In-Law’s Company

Jason was flying back from Nashville, Tennessee to Phoenix thinking about what podcasts he could do, what he could record to really add some value. He was going through all of his lists and there’s so many different topics to talk about, but tonight he’s not feeling passionate about speaking about a specific topic. So he figured he’ll find a heart connection. Let’s talk about Elevate and business and things like that. Just to give you a little bit of context, Jason is really working to get out of flying so stinking much. And he doesn’t need anybody to feel sorry for him, he’s just telling you, he flies in so much and he’s not home very much and he’s going to fix that.

He found himself downloading, his wife Katie called him and she’s like “Why did you put on our family plan the Game Center or the arcade on an Apple phone?” Jason was like “Katie, my mind is so fried. I’ve gone through and made so many outlines and read so many things and prepared so many speeches. I’m just fried. I downloaded Angry Birds on my phone and I haven’t done that in a long time, but I’m just feeling myself exhausted.” Jason was thinking about that and the fact that he wasn’t feeling passionate about a specific topic and he was like “You know what, let’s talk about why. Why am I flying home on a plane on a Tuesday night when I should be home with family? What are we working for?”

He figured he would talk to you about where Elevate has been and how he started this business from a standpoint of how can he help other people. Hopefully the story is helpful. Maybe it’s helpful from just a business perspective. But then, where are they going? And why is all of this worth it? Even if it’s really impossibly hard. Even if it’s just hard but for a small moment. Let Jason take you through that little journey and kind of take you through the mindset he’s had in starting this business and why it’s important to him.

How I Helped Put My Father-In-Law Out of Business

Jason helped put his father-in-law’s company out of business. He thinks he’s told you this story before. But he was working for a large general contractor and he was documenting the things that he perceived his wife’s father’s company was doing wrong. The things that he perceived there. It may or may not have been true. In a prison, which is where they were working, every security electronics device, the critical ones, have a home run back to the security electronics room in the core of a prison from the wings, from the prison cells.

They were in charge of installing the conduit, the pathways for the security electronics. Whether the concrete was rushed or vibrators hit the conduit or the conduit glue wasn’t properly fastened or whatever went wrong, there were a lot of these conduits that went bad and got filled with concrete in the walls, which took massive chipping to fix it and to finish it. Jason blamed everything on them. So they got charged. They supplemented their work. It was really a nightmare.

Jason remembers he started to ask this man’s daughter out. And they eventually, he proposed to her and they ended up getting married. He remembers on the way back from California to Texas, as they’re closing the doors of the business and going back, not with their tail between their legs but in a really bad mood, Jason’s father-in-law came by to say congratulations for getting married at their reception. Jason remembers him showing up at the door, not very happy and excited. He just married his daughter.

Here’s the most, and this is before Jason found religion in his life, here’s one of the most dishonest persons he’s ever met in his entire life, marrying his daughter. Just kind of being sad, out of business, feeling like a failure and heading back home. Jason remembers the look on his face.

Then Jason moved to Texas as well, Austin, and got to help build the Whole Foods World Headquarters. After a couple of years of that, he was on the Round Rock facility for Texas State’s campus. He prayed about it and decided to go live where Katie grew up in Seymour, Texas. So he was there with her family. He ended up joining her church with them and working with his father-in-law. Jason was his clerk. He was the administrative arm of what he did at church. That was his calling. That was his responsibility.

Over the years, he warmed up to Jason, taught him about religious things, mentored him kind of like a second father. And they really got close. Jason thought to himself over those years, he really had the opportunity to reflect on how he treats people and how he treats subcontractors, which he now calls trade partners.

When somebody wonders why Jason does podcasts, that’s a defining moment in his life of why he takes care of trade partners so much. Because he was a part of putting a contractor out of business. He was a part of being dishonest and unethical. He was a part of not taking care of other people. He was a part of watching that happen and seeing the looks on their faces. So he vowed that he would never allow that to happen or do that to anybody ever again. To know Jason, you have to know that story and know that he takes care of trade partners.

The Books That Saved Me From Getting Fired

The second one is when Jason was in Texas building the Whole Foods World Headquarters, or at least being on the team, he almost got fired. He’s told you this story before. Bear with him. He was so bad at his job, made so many mistakes, offended so many people, was so stubborn that he was about to get fired. He got scriptures in his life from a religious standpoint. And then the other thing is the Field Engineering Methods Manual.

It was literally a matter of months from the time that he was about to get fired to then when Hensel Phelps started to pay him to travel throughout the country and pay for plane flights and hotels and cars and all the things to train other field ops roles. It was quite remarkable to him.

The other thing that you have to understand about Jason is that he really believes in education. Those books saved him. Those books saved him from a lot of pain. Those books started him on a lifelong love of learning and attempting to be better. To understand Jason, you have to understand that he believes in learning and training at the core of everything that he is and everything that he does.

Over the years, he’s always liked distilling and putting material into a more consumable format, understanding concepts, sharing concepts. He remembers when he was working with Hensel Phelps, he would spend weeks upon weeks creating video after video after video, watching himself and then correcting the speech and then saying ums and ahs and things like that and then having to rerecord the video and creating websites. He actually designed software and things like that. Over the years, being in the field, that’s always been in his blood.

My Flesh Was Weak, My Blood Ran Chill, But My Free Spirit Cried I Will

Katie once bought Jason a book called EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey. He read that book and then another book. Unbeatable Mind by Mark Devine. He read that at a scout camp up in the woods when he had some free time and the kids were doing merit badges. He was thinking about the question: when you are deceased, what would you want to look back upon in your life and say was your legacy.

At that time, he realized he wanted to start a business and really scale good things throughout the industry. He didn’t know exactly what it was. A man named Kevin Rice, a really good friend of his over the years who’s really good at business and helps actually Elevate with business consulting and lean business, coached him on how to create the clarity of what he wanted to do over a number of years. It was about 10 years.

Jason knows sometimes he gets on these podcasts and he’s all bold and brave and like “Hey, go live your dream.” But it took him about 10 years to decide to do this. It got to the point where he really had to be willing to give everything up and let go of the fear. He’s going to read you some words to one of his favorite hymns. He thinks it’s really special. This is the point that he got to. It’s called A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief. It’s hymn 29 in their hymn books.

The verse that really struck him says: “In prison I saw him next condemned to meet a traitor’s doom at morn. The tide of lying tongues I stemmed and honored him mid shame and scorn. My friendship’s utmost zeal to try, he asked if I for him would die. The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, but my free spirit cried, I will.”

The real important thing in this hymn for Jason was when it says “The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, but my free spirit cried, I will.” That’s always been really impactful to him because literally that’s how it felt to him to start a business. He’s got 11 kids. He doesn’t have the money. The security freaks him out. He’s super scared. His flesh was weak, his blood ran chill. But his free spirit cried “If this is something that’s inspired that I’m supposed to do, I will.” He relates to that really well. That’s the feeling that he had. Maybe you’ve had that same feeling when making a hard decision or having to make a hard life decision or get married or quit a job or whatever the case may be. We all have those moments.

But for Jason, starting a business was like that. When he got to that point where he was willing to give everything up and get past the fact that there wasn’t any security and get past the fact that he was super scared and get past the fact that he had no idea how he was going to make it and get past all those things and say “You know what? My purpose is more important than the concern. And I’m just going to let it go.”

Then his flesh is weak and his blood is running chill and he’s freaked out. But his free spirit, the human, the person, the leader that he is will cry out and say “I will do this for other people.” That’s where we all have to get with whatever our mission is in life. Jason hears, and don’t get me wrong it took him 10 years so he’s no example to follow, but he hears a lot of people all the time say “I can’t do this” or “I could never do that” or “It’s too hard” or this or that or whatever. The answer is we just have to get to that point. We have to get to that leverage.

The Third Week of February: When the Money Started Coming

An interesting thing is once Jason had made that decision, the plan for how to execute the business really kind of came into view. He feels like it was inspiration. But literally the information, the feelings that he had was that he would start a podcast and that was something he knew he should have been doing for a couple of years. Start a podcast, start marketing and building and get the business and start researching about it.

Then the timeline kind of unfolded itself really nicely. In the first part of December, he would give notice. First of January, he would leave. And he knew, he believes again through divine sources, that the third week of February they would start making money. And then he wouldn’t have to worry after that. That they would always be able to make money.

Literally that’s what happened. He gave his notice the first part of December. January 1st he left normal employment. Then literally he looked back at the books and he should have saved whatever check or whatever would have put them over the top. But they started making money and getting above the line, what they call being in the black, the third week of February.

When he cashed out his retirement, which some people wouldn’t consider wise, but if you listen to Garrett Gunderson, he says it might be worth it when you consider the opportunity costs. He basically took all of their savings to start the business. It got to a point where they didn’t get super low. They still had $45,000 in the bank. But they stopped paying to start a business. They stopped that the third week of February.

It was really good that he had that focus of helping people and what the mission was, because sometimes you just have to hold on to things like that. When Jason does these podcasts, he thinks about you. He thinks about the workers. He thinks about your families. He thinks about how much good we can do together as we learn from each other. And it keeps all of us going.

The Brutal Truth About Year One

Fast forward a little bit. Hard times work. By the way, Jason’s never worked harder in his life than this year. So somebody’s thinking about starting a business, absolutely go do it. Just be prepared that for the first year you’re going to work so hard you won’t even know how you survive.

Just as he comes back off of a flight, and now he’s recording a podcast on the way, he paused to go to In-N-Out real quick to get something to eat. And then literally in 57 minutes, not to complain, but it’s eight o’clock and in 57 minutes he gets to go on to another international call, business call, to make sure they’re advancing efforts on their online learning platforms. It just never ends. The requirements to run a business and to stay with it and to do the right thing and to do a podcast and to show up and to fly places, it just never ends.

One of the hardest things for Jason has been keeping positive cash flow. They do a lot of work. They have great customers. They have people that pay them. They have raving fans. They’re doing a lot of great things. But man, when they told him when he was younger about cash flow, he should have paid a lot closer attention. Because cash flow is just a big deal.

He may have like outstanding invoices to the tune of, and this sounds like a lot of money but it’s not a lot of money, to the tune of like 60 or 70, $80,000 of accounts receivable. But payroll has got to go out every week. Expenses have to go out every week. All these things have to happen.

It takes about $100,000 to have at least $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 in the bank to stay out ahead. So it’s not like anybody’s getting rich, although paying for consultants and training sometimes seems a little bit expensive. That’s like a little peek under the curtain.

One of these days, if they create a software or do something, get an online learning series and sell it to like 5 million people, maybe that’s when they’ll get rich. But up until now, it’s pretty much just paying the bills. Jason thought that was pretty interesting.

But he can say that it’s really rewarding. The recent information he’s been given, at least from the universe, from God, intuition, whatever you want, is to pivot a lot of what they do onto online learning platforms that are really engaging. So that anytime he flies around or he’s with somebody one on one or they’re coaching or they’re doing in person events, it’s special. It’s focused. And there isn’t a lot of burnout with that.

His summary: it took him 10 years, had a lot of coaching up into that point, had to be willing to just give everything up and just let it all go to be literally like “Hey, if we get to the point where we can’t eat, I’ll move into my parents.” Scary stuff.

And then to just say that the timeline has unfolded in a beautiful way. He remembers when they hired Spencer in August, the end of July. They didn’t know how they were going to sustain him. That’s expensive to have somebody that high caliber on payroll. But it all worked out. He’s been able to add so much value to people and to the company of what they’re doing.

Jason just has to say that if there’s a purpose, when there’s a will there’s a way. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Why does Jason care so much about trade partners?

Because he was a part of putting a contractor out of business. He was working for a large general contractor documenting things he perceived his wife’s father’s company was doing wrong on a prison project. They got charged, work was supplemented, it was a nightmare. They closed the doors of the business. Jason remembers the look on his father-in-law’s face: sad, out of business, feeling like a failure. He was a part of being dishonest and unethical, not taking care of other people, watching that happen and seeing the looks on their faces. He vowed he would never allow that to happen or do that to anybody ever again.

Q: How long did it take Jason to start Elevate Construction?

It took him 10 years to decide to do it. Katie bought him EntreLeadership by Dave Ramsey and he read Unbeatable Mind by Mark Devine. He was thinking about his legacy. He realized he wanted to start a business and scale good things throughout the industry but didn’t know exactly what. Kevin Rice coached him on creating clarity over those 10 years. Sometimes Jason gets bold and brave saying “go live your dream” but it took him a decade. He had to get to the point where he was willing to give everything up and let go of the fear.

Q: What was the timeline from quitting to making money?

Once Jason made the decision, the plan came into view. He felt inspired to start a podcast, start marketing and building. The timeline unfolded: first part of December give notice, January 1st leave employment, third week of February start making money. That’s exactly what happened. He cashed out retirement, took all their savings to start the business. They still had $45,000 in the bank but stopped draining it the third week of February. He knew through divine sources they would always be able to make money after that point.

Q: How hard is the first year of starting a business?

Jason has never worked harder in his life than this year. If you’re thinking about starting a business, absolutely do it. Just be prepared that for the first year you’re going to work so hard you won’t even know how you survive. He comes back off a flight, records a podcast on the way, pauses for In-N-Out, then in 57 minutes at 8 PM gets on another international call for online learning platforms. It never ends. The requirements to run a business, stay with it, do the right thing, do podcasts, show up, fly places, it just never ends.

Q: What’s the reality of cash flow in year one?

When they told Jason about cash flow when he was younger, he should have paid closer attention. It’s a big deal. He has outstanding invoices of $60,000 to $80,000 accounts receivable. But payroll goes out every week, expenses go out every week. It takes about $100,000 to have $20,000 to $40,000 in the bank to stay ahead. It’s not like anybody’s getting rich. Paying for consultants and training seems expensive but it’s pretty much just paying the bills. One day if they create software or sell online learning to 5 million people, maybe that’s when they’ll get rich.

On we go.

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.

On we go

I’m Fine…

Posted on by Danny Jiménez⁩
Read 27 min

Stop Saying I’m Fine: Why This Lie Is Killing Construction Workers

Have you ever heard somebody who says “I know, I know”? You told them to do something or you ask them politely to do something. “I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.” And then they don’t do it because they’re not freaking listening and they’re unteachable and they do it wrong. And they’re like “No, no, I know. No, you should have done this.” “I know, I know.”

If you hear somebody say “I know,” they don’t know. That is not fine. That is not good. If you are growing in construction and you’re being raised in construction right now and taught and nurtured and watered and mowed every day, do not say “I know.” Because you don’t know. Because “I know” means “I’m not listening.”

That’s Jason’s example. And you’re probably like “Yeah, Jason, I agree with that.” Let him add one more. “I’m fine.” BS. You’re fine? Bull’s sheet. You are not fine. Stop saying “I’m fine.” “How are you doing?” “I’m fine.” “What’s going on?” “I’m fine.” “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.” Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Not true. You’re not fine.

If you hear people say “I know” or “I’m fine” they’re not telling the truth. That’s what we’re going to talk about today. We have to get an awareness of what’s really going on. Data. In lean systems we bring all problems to the surface. We’re transparent. We deal with problems and we fix problems.

If you are saying “I know” you’re not learning. If you’re saying “I’m fine” you’re not being transparent and bringing problems to the surface which means you’re not getting the help that you need and deserve. So you are not lean if you say “I know” and “I’m fine.” You’re not lean.

The Awareness of Mental and Emotional Health

Jason is excited about the awareness of mental and emotional health. Felipe Engineer and a group of people did a little webinar podcast cohort talking about mental health and emotional health. Jason thanks God and literally praises Jesus that these people are out there doing these wonderful things.

We’ve got people that Jason really enjoys throughout the industry talking about psychological safety. We have people talking about suicide. We’ve got people talking about just the effects of construction, the effects of the pandemic. Jason really appreciates those people out there that are doing it.

Caitlin is doing it with Iman. She’s talking about this quite a bit. Kaybrey is talking about this. Felipe is talking about this. Adam Hoots is talking about this. We’ve got Jennifer Lacey talking about this. Jason’s excited about all the awareness there.

When I’m Fine Means I’m Dying Inside

Let Jason tell you a little story. He was once working for a company, great company, and he had a really great project executive. Jason would get in these emotional fits where he’s really high and then he’s really low. Imagine his hand doing this curve where he’s high and he’s low and he’s high and he’s low. Anytime Jason would get low he would get dark and start telling himself stories and get really bad in the head. When people asked how he was doing he would say “I’m fine.” He wasn’t fine.

Jason was talking to this project executive and he actually left. He put in his resignation. The project executive was like “Jason, if you had told me that something wasn’t fine a couple months ago we could have gotten you what you needed and this wouldn’t have happened.” He put his arm up and he said, no he drew this on a whiteboard: “You’re either really high or you’re really low and what you have to do is find a way to speak out, speak up, and let somebody know that you’re really low so you can get help.”

Jason thought that was really neat. Ever since he told him that, he’s been focusing on leveling those out. The solution is to speak it out loud and tell somebody. Here’s the principle. How powerful would it be that when somebody asked how you’re doing they actually really cared enough to find out? Jason just thought that was really true. So when you’re asking somebody how they’re doing, keep pushing and asking. But if you’re being asked, tell the truth.

The System That Leads to Death or Hell

Here’s the system: “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. No one wants me. This is hopeless.” Then you die by suicide or you live in hell. That’s the system. Jason’s wife was complaining about the other day: “No, I’m fine. I’m fine. No, I’m really fine. No, I’m fine.” And then when you’re in your alone moments then you’re like “Nobody really wants me. Nobody really cares about me. This is hopeless. I can’t get out of that.”

And then you find somebody hanging in the backyard or they’ve blown their brains out or they’ve overdosed or they’ve jumped off a bridge somewhere because we didn’t get the help. They’ve died by suicide. Jason appreciates Kaybrey for telling him instead of saying “committed suicide” they died by suicide.

We have no idea what somebody’s going through. When they die by suicide, when they end their own life because of their suffering, if we were in that circumstance would we feel the same way? Would we get out of it? Would we pass the test? Jason doesn’t think we would. Die by suicide. These people whether they had something to do with it or not are victimized by a really bad circumstance. Or if they don’t die by suicide they live in hell.

If you’re like “Oh Jason, this sounds like social justice warrior stuff, dude calm down,” this is real stuff. Imagine right now that you go in and you find your little six year old girl or your 12 year old son hanging himself or shooting herself and that now your little baby is gone and dead. Would you say “Oh man, I judge you. You just committed suicide”? Or would you be like “Oh my gosh, what the hell just happened? I’m so devastated”?

When you get judgmental about this, think about would it be your own little girl? Jason cannot think about what he would experience if one of his kids died by suicide or if they didn’t and continue to live their life in hell. It would be absolutely devastating.

When Jason Was Clinically Depressed

Let Jason also say one thing. There was one time where for about two weeks Jason was clinically depressed. He was bad. As soon as he realized that he didn’t care if he lived, he didn’t care if he got up for work, he just had a chemical hormonal something was wrong with his body feeling. Some people will just retreat. Jason freaked out because he knows what normal feels like. He started jogging. He went to the doctor. He got help. He started talking to his wife.

Some people are vocal. Jason was trained to be vocal. If something’s wrong with him, he’ll tell you. Sometimes when something’s wrong with people they won’t tell you. Sometimes it’s to preserve them or to preserve other people and to attempt to be kind even though it’s misguided. Jason just wants you to know as soon as he felt clinically depressed he immediately went and got help and freaked out. What about the people that don’t?

You have to be able to say “I’m not fine.” Jason does want to say that people who do not allow you to help, there is a better way. People who are not telling the truth and aren’t coming forth with actually how they’re doing, there’s a better way. Letting people help you is a gift that you can give to other people. Letting people help you is a gift that you can give yourself. It’s okay to not be okay. Just be nice about it.

If you’re not okay, don’t go around killing and murdering people and being mean. Obviously be nice. But just be like “I’m not okay right now everybody. I need help.” There are sometimes where Jason comes in and he’s been at work and he’s like “Hey everybody, I’m struggling today. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m working on it right now. If I seem a little bit grumpy I apologize. I need your help. Please lift me up. I’m not okay today and I don’t know what’s wrong. I have to go do a couple things. I don’t have a minute to talk about it but as soon as I do I need help.”

Just say not okay but be nice about it and just know that it’s okay to not be okay. If you’re feeling sad, depressed, down, low, negative self-talk, if you’ve said anything in your mind like “Nobody wants me” or “This is hopeless” or you’re in a bad spot or you’re angry or you’re in any of these negative emotions meaning they’re not serving you well, you have to get help. You have to speak it out loud. You have to say something about it. Because the current condition is everyone is saying “I’m fine” and they’re not fine.

The 30 Day Challenge: Tell the Truth

Jason wants to challenge you. He told you this would be a short podcast. He’s almost done. He wants to challenge you to practice for the next seven days at a minimum but he would hope for at least a month. Every time somebody asks you if you’re okay, Jason wants you to practice intentionally telling them the truth.

Here are some examples:

  • “You know, I appreciate you asking. A little bit grumpy but I’m on the upward climb.”
  • “Hey man, I’m just feeling great and I don’t know why I’m feeling great. No, I’m doing good. Everything’s kind of good right now and I’m really good.”
  • “You know, I’ve been dealing with some stuff at home and I’m trying to rein it in at work but man I’m having a hard time. I’m not doing okay. I think I’m okay. Keep checking in with me because I’ll let you know if I’m not but I’m not okay.”
  • “Man, I’m freaking down. I don’t have time right now but as soon as I can talk I’d love to tell you what’s going on because I am not doing well. I need help.”

Any of these things are okay.

Jason doesn’t know what ignorant SOB somewhere back in our history said that we all had to say “I’m fine” but it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard. If you’re not fine, say you’re not fine. Probably most of the time we don’t tell the truth is because we live in fear and we have to get out of that place and understand that human beings were intended and designed for connection and that we need to get help.

So “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. No, I’m fine. I’m fine. No really, I’m fine. No one wants me. This is hopeless. Die by suicide or live in hell.” Or when we’re not fine we can tell somebody and get help from the wonderful people out there in this world.

Let Jason testify to you like he would testify before a court of law: there are so many great people on this earth. We’re just not organized and we’re just not talking to each other and we’re just not telling each other the truth. We have an opportunity to get the help. Everybody has hard times. So why not get it fixed and get the help and live a remarkable life? If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: Why is saying I’m fine when I’m not so dangerous?

Because here’s the system: “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. No one wants me. This is hopeless.” Then you die by suicide or you live in hell. When people ask how you’re doing and you say “I’m fine” when you’re not, then in your alone moments you’re like “Nobody really wants me. Nobody really cares about me. This is hopeless. I can’t get out.” Then you find somebody hanging in the backyard or they’ve blown their brains out or overdosed or jumped off a bridge. Or they don’t die by suicide and they live in hell. Either way, saying “I’m fine” when you’re not kills you or destroys you.

Q: What should I say instead of I’m fine?

Tell the truth. Examples: “I appreciate you asking. A little bit grumpy but I’m on the upward climb.” “I’ve been dealing with some stuff at home and I’m having a hard time. I’m not doing okay. Keep checking in with me.” “Man, I’m freaking down. I don’t have time right now but as soon as I can talk I’d love to tell you what’s going on because I’m not doing well. I need help.” “Hey everybody, I’m struggling today. If I seem grumpy I apologize. I need your help. I’m not okay today.”

Q: What if I don’t want to burden other people with my problems?

Letting people help you is a gift that you can give to other people. Letting people help you is a gift that you can give yourself. It’s okay to not be okay. Human beings were intended and designed for connection. We need to get help. There are so many great people on this earth. We’re just not organized and we’re just not talking to each other and we’re just not telling each other the truth. Everybody has hard times. Get it fixed, get the help, and live a remarkable life.

Q: What should I do if I’m clinically depressed?

Jason was clinically depressed for two weeks. As soon as he realized he didn’t care if he lived, didn’t care if he got up for work, had something chemically or hormonally wrong, he freaked out because he knows what normal feels like. He started jogging. He went to the doctor. He got help. He started talking to his wife. As soon as you feel clinically depressed, immediately go and get help. Don’t retreat. If you’re feeling sad, depressed, down, low, negative self-talk, if you’ve said “Nobody wants me” or “This is hopeless,” you have to get help. Speak it out loud. Say something about it.

Q: How do I help someone who keeps saying they’re fine but clearly isn’t?

When you’re asking somebody how they’re doing, keep pushing and asking. Don’t accept “I’m fine” as an answer. How powerful would it be that when somebody asked how you’re doing they actually really cared enough to find out? If you had told someone that something wasn’t fine a couple months ago, they could have gotten you what you needed. The solution is to speak it out loud and tell somebody. Keep asking. Keep caring. Don’t let people retreat into “I’m fine” when they’re dying inside.

On we go.

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.

On we go

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    Calumet "K"
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    faq

    General Training Overview

    What construction leadership training programs does LeanTakt offer?
    LeanTakt offers Superintendent/PM Boot Camps, Virtual Takt Production System® Training, Onsite Takt Simulations, and Foreman & Field Engineer Training. Each program is tailored to different leadership levels in construction.
    Who should attend LeanTakt’s training programs?
    Superintendents, Project Managers, Foremen, Field Engineers, and trade partners who want to improve planning, communication, and execution on projects.
    How do these training programs improve project performance?
    They provide proven Lean and Takt systems that reduce chaos, improve reliability, strengthen collaboration, and accelerate project delivery.
    What makes LeanTakt’s training different from other construction courses?
    Our programs are hands-on, field-tested, and focused on practical application—not just classroom theory.
    Do I need prior Lean or takt planning experience to attend?
    No. Our programs cover foundational principles before moving into advanced applications.
    How quickly can I apply what I learn on real projects?
    Most participants begin applying new skills immediately, often the same week they complete the program.
    Are these trainings designed for both office and field leaders?
    Yes. We equip both project managers and superintendents with tools that connect field and office operations.
    What industries benefit most from LeanTakt training?
    Commercial, multifamily, residential, industrial, and infrastructure projects all benefit from flow-based planning.
    Do participants receive certificates after completing training?
    Yes. Every participant receives a LeanTakt Certificate of Completion.
    Is LeanTakt training recognized in the construction industry?
    Yes. Our programs are widely respected among leading GCs, subcontractors, and construction professionals.

    Superintendent / PM Boot Camp

    What is the Superintendent & Project Manager Boot Camp?
    It’s a 5-day immersive training for superintendents and PMs to master Lean leadership, takt planning, and project flow.
    How long does the Superintendent/PM Boot Camp last?
    Five full days of hands-on training.
    What topics are covered in the Boot Camp curriculum?
    Lean leadership, Takt Planning, logistics, daily planning, field-office communication, and team health.
    How does the Boot Camp improve leadership and scheduling skills?
    Yes. You’ll learn how to run day huddles, team meetings, worker huddles, and Lean coordination processes.
    Who is the Boot Camp best suited for?
    Construction leaders responsible for delivering projects, including Superintendents, PMs, and Field Leaders.
    What real-world challenges are simulated during the Boot Camp?
    Schedule breakdowns, trade conflicts, logistics issues, and communication gaps.
    Will I learn Takt Planning at the Boot Camp?
    Yes. Takt Planning is a core focus of the Boot Camp.
    How does this Boot Camp compare to traditional PM certification?
    It’s practical and execution-based rather than exam-based. You learn by doing, not just studying theory.
    Can my entire project team attend the Boot Camp together?
    Yes. Teams attending together often see the greatest results.
    What kind of real-world challenges do we simulate?
    Improved project flow, fewer delays, better team communication, and stronger leadership confidence.

    Takt Production System® Virtual Training

    What is the Virtual Takt Production System® Training?
    It’s an expert-led online program that teaches Lean construction teams how to implement takt planning.
    How does virtual takt training work?
    Delivered online via live sessions, interactive discussions, and digital tools.
    What are the benefits of online takt planning training?
    Convenience, global accessibility, real-time learning, and immediate application.
    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. It’s fully web-based and accessible worldwide.
    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. It’s fully web-based and accessible worldwide.
    What skills will I gain from the Virtual TPS® Training?
    Macro and micro Takt planning, weekly updates, flow management, and CPM integration.
    How long does the virtual training program take?
    The program is typically completed in multiple live sessions across several days.
    Can I watch recordings if I miss a session?
    Yes. Recordings are available to all participants.
    Do you offer group access or company licenses for the virtual training?
    Yes. Teams and companies can enroll together at discounted rates.
    How does the Virtual TPS® Training integrate with CPM tools?
    We show how to align Takt with CPM schedules like Primavera P6 or MS Project.

    Onsite Takt Simulation

    What is a Takt Simulation in construction training?
    It’s a live, interactive workshop that demonstrates takt planning on-site.
    How does the Takt Simulation workshop work?
    Teams participate in hands-on exercises to learn the flow and rhythm of a Takt-based project.
    Can I choose between a 1-day or 2-day Takt Simulation?
    Yes. We offer flexible formats to fit your team’s schedule and needs.
    Who should participate in the Takt Simulation workshop?
    Superintendents, PMs, site supervisors, contractors, and engineers.
    How does a Takt Simulation improve project planning?
    It shows teams how to structure zones, manage flow, and coordinate trades in real time.
    What will my team learn from the onsite simulation?
    How to build and maintain takt plans, manage buffers, and align trade partners.
    Is the simulation tailored to my specific project type?
    Yes. Scenarios can be customized to match your project.
    How do Takt Simulations improve trade partner coordination?
    They strengthen collaboration by making handoffs visible and predictable.
    What results can I expect from an onsite Takt Simulation?
    Improved schedule reliability, better trade collaboration, and reduced rework.
    How many people can join a Takt Simulation session?
    Group sizes are flexible, but typically 15–30 participants per session.

    Foreman & Field Engineer Training

    What is Foreman & Field Engineer Training?
    It’s an on-demand, practical program that equips foremen and engineers with leadership and planning skills.
    How does this training prepare emerging leaders?
    By teaching communication, crew management, and execution strategies.
    Is the training on-demand or scheduled?
    On-demand, tailored to your team’s timing and needs.
    What skills do foremen and engineers gain from this training?
    Planning, safety leadership, coordination, and communication.
    How does the training improve communication between field and office?
    It builds shared systems that align superintendents, engineers, and managers.
    Can the training be customized for my team’s needs?
    Yes. Programs are tailored for your project or company.
    What makes this program different from generic leadership courses?
    It’s construction-specific, field-tested, and focused on real project application.
    How do foremen and field engineers apply this training immediately?
    They can use new systems for planning, coordination, and daily crew management right away.
    Is the training suitable for small construction companies?
    Yes. Small and large teams alike benefit from building flow-based leadership skills.

    Testimonials

    Testimonials

    "The bootcamp I was apart of was amazing. Its was great while it was happening but also had a very profound long-term motivation that is still pushing me to do more, be more. It sounds a little strange to say that a construction bootcamp changed my life, but it has. It has opened my eyes to many possibilities on how a project can be successfully run. It’s also provided some very positive ideas on how people can and should be treated in construction.

    I am a hungry person by nature, so it doesn’t take a lot to get to participate. I loved the way it was not just about participating, it was also about doing it with conviction, passion, humility and if it wasn’t portrayed that way you had to do it again."

    "It's great to be a part of a company that has similar values to my own, especially regarding how we treat our trade partners. The idea of "you gotta make them feel worse to make them do better" has been preached at me for years. I struggled with this as you will not find a single psychology textbook stating these beliefs. In fact it is quite the opposite, and causing conflict is a recipe for disaster. I'm still honestly in shock I have found a company that has based its values on scientific facts based on human nature. That along with the Takt scheduling system makes everything even better. I am happy to be a part of a change that has been long overdue in our industry!"

    "Wicked team building, so valuable for the forehumans of the sub trades to know the how and why. Great tools and resources. Even though I am involved and use the tools every day, I feel like everything is fresh and at the forefront to use"

    "Jason and his team did an incredible job passing on the overall theory of what they do. After 3 days of running through the course I cannot see any holes in their concept. It works. it's proven to work and I am on board!"

    "Loved the pull planning, Takt planning, and logistic model planning. Well thought out and professional"

    "The Super/PM Boot Camp was an excellent experience that furthered my understanding of Lean Practices. The collaboration, group involvement, passion about real project site experiences, and POSITIVE ENERGY. There are no dull moments when you head into this training. Jason and Mr. Montero were always on point and available to help in the break outs sessions. Easily approachable to talk too during breaks and YES, it was fun. I recommend this training for any PM or Superintendent that wants to further their career."

    agenda

    Day 1

    Foundations & Macro Planning

    • Introduction to Takt Production System® principles
    • CPM vs TAKT comparison
    • Macro planning, zoning, and density analysis
    • Quantities and production rates
    • Hands-on application to participants’ projects with LeanTakt PM experts

    day2

    Norm Planning & Flow Optimization

    • Review and refinement of Day 1 work
    • Pull planning and sequence optimization
    • Work packaging for balanced flow
    • Project integration session with LeanTakt PM coaching

    day3

    Advanced Tools & Comparisons

    • Macro work packaging and example walkthrough
    • Calculator Norm for production optimization
    • Stacking comparison to avoid trade conflicts
    • Hands-on application to participants’ own schedules

    day4

    Buffers, Controls & Finalization

    • Review of Day 3 implementation
    • Buffer management strategies and placement
    • Takt control principles and steering methods
    • Project plan finalization with expert guidance

    day5

    Control Systems & Presentations

    • Takt steering, control systems, and real project examples
    • Participant project presentations with LeanTakt PM feedback
    • Wrap-up, feedback, and action planning for post-training implementation

    faq

    UNDERSTANDING THE TRAINING

    What is the Virtual Takt Production System® Training by LeanTakt?
    It’s an expert-led online program designed to teach construction professionals how to implement Takt Planning to create flow, eliminate chaos, and align teams across the project lifecycle.
    Who should take the LeanTakt virtual training?
    This training is ideal for Superintendents, Project Managers, Engineers, Schedulers, Trade Partners, and Lean Champions looking to improve planning and execution.
    What topics are covered in the online Takt Production System® course?
    The course covers macro and micro Takt planning, zone creation, buffers, weekly updates, flow management, trade coordination, and integration with CPM tools.
    What makes LeanTakt’s virtual training different from other Lean construction courses?
    Unlike theory-based courses, this training is hands-on, practical, field-tested, and includes live coaching tailored to your actual projects.
    Do I get a certificate after completing the online training?
    Yes. Upon successful completion, participants receive a LeanTakt Certificate of Completion, which validates your knowledge and readiness to implement Takt.

    VALUE AND RESULTS

    What are the benefits of Takt Production System® training for my team?
    It helps teams eliminate bottlenecks, improve planning reliability, align trades, and reduce the chaos typically seen in traditional construction schedules.
    How much time and money can I save with Takt Planning?
    Many projects using Takt see 15–30% reductions in time and cost due to better coordination, fewer delays, and increased team accountability.
    What’s the ROI of virtual Takt training for construction teams?
    The ROI comes from faster project delivery, reduced rework, improved communication, and better resource utilization — often 10x the investment.
    Will this training reduce project delays or rework?
    Yes. By visualizing flow and aligning trades, Takt Planning reduces miscommunication and late handoffs — major causes of delay and rework.
    How soon can I expect to see results on my projects?
    Most teams report seeing improvement in coordination and productivity within the first 2–4 weeks of implementation.

    PLANNING AND SCHEDULING TOPICS

    What is Takt Planning and how is it used in construction?
    Takt Planning is a Lean scheduling method that creates flow by aligning work with time and space, using rhythm-based planning to coordinate teams and reduce waste.
    What’s the difference between macro and micro Takt plans?
    Macro Takt plans focus on the overall project flow and phase durations, while micro Takt plans break down detailed weekly tasks by zone and crew.
    Will I learn how to build a complete Takt plan from scratch?
    Yes. The training teaches you how to build both macro and micro Takt plans tailored to your project, including workflows, buffers, and sequencing.
    How do I update and maintain a Takt schedule each week?
    You’ll learn how to conduct weekly updates using lookaheads, trade feedback, zone progress, and digital tools to maintain schedule reliability.
    Can I integrate Takt Planning with CPM or Primavera P6?
    Yes. The training includes guidance on aligning Takt plans with CPM logic, showing how both systems can work together effectively.
    Will I have access to the instructors during the training?
    Yes. You’ll have opportunities to ask questions, share challenges, and get real-time feedback from LeanTakt coaches.
    Can I ask questions specific to my current project?
    Absolutely. In fact, we encourage it — the training is designed to help you apply Takt to your active jobs.
    Is support available after the training ends?
    Yes. You can access follow-up support, coaching, and community forums to help reinforce implementation.
    Can your tools be customized to my project or team?
    Yes. We offer customizable templates and implementation options to fit different project types, teams, and tech stacks.
    When is the best time in a project lifecycle to take this training?
    Ideally before or during preconstruction, but teams have seen success implementing it mid-project as well.

    APPLICATION & TEAM ADOPTION

    What changes does my team need to adopt Takt Planning?
    Teams must shift from reactive scheduling to proactive, flow-based planning with clear commitments, reliable handoffs, and a visual management mindset.
    Do I need any prior Lean or scheduling experience?
    No prior Lean experience is required. The course is structured to take you from foundational principles to advanced application.
    How long does it take for teams to adapt to Takt Planning?
    Most teams adapt within 2–6 weeks, depending on project size and how fully the system is adopted across roles.
    Can this training work for smaller companies or projects?
    Absolutely. Takt is scalable and especially powerful for small teams seeking better structure and predictability.
    What role do trade partners play in using Takt successfully?
    Trade partners are key collaborators. They help shape realistic flow, manage buffers, and provide feedback during weekly updates.

    VIRTUAL FORMAT & ACCESSIBILITY

    Can I access the virtual training from anywhere?
    Yes. The training is fully accessible online, making it ideal for distributed teams across regions or countries.
    Is this training available internationally?
    Yes. LeanTakt trains teams around the world and supports global implementations.
    Can I watch recordings if I miss a session?
    Yes. All sessions are recorded and made available for later viewing through your training portal.
    Do you offer group access or company licenses?
    Yes. Teams can enroll together at discounted rates, and we offer licenses for enterprise rollouts.
    What technology or setup do I need to join the virtual training?
    A reliable internet connection, webcam, Miro, Spreadsheets, and access to Zoom.

    faq

    GENERAL FAQS

    What is the Superintendent / PM Boot Camp?
    It’s a hands-on leadership training for Superintendents and Project Managers in the construction industry focused on Lean systems, planning, and communication.
    Who is this Boot Camp for?
    Construction professionals including Superintendents, Project Managers, Field Engineers, and Foremen looking to improve planning, leadership, and project flow.
    What makes this construction boot camp different?
    Real-world project simulations, expert coaching, Lean principles, team-based learning, and post-camp support — all built for field leaders.
    Is this just a seminar or classroom training?
    No. It’s a hands-on, immersive experience. You’ll plan, simulate, collaborate, and get feedback — not sit through lectures.
    What is the focus of the training?
    Leadership, project planning, communication, Lean systems, and integrating office-field coordination.

    CURRICULUM & OUTCOMES

    What topics are covered in the Boot Camp?
    Takt planning, day planning, logistics, pre-construction, team health, communication systems, and more.
    What is Takt Planning and why is it taught?
    Takt is a Lean planning method that creates flow and removes chaos. It helps teams deliver projects on time with less stress.
    Will I learn how to lead field teams more effectively?
    Yes. This boot camp focuses on real leadership challenges and gives you systems and strategies to lead high-performing teams.
    Do you cover daily huddles and meeting systems?
    Yes. You’ll learn how to run day huddles, team meetings, worker huddles, and Lean coordination processes.
    What kind of real-world challenges do we simulate?
    You’ll work through real project schedules, logistical constraints, leadership decisions, and field-office communication breakdowns.

    LOGISTICS & FORMAT

    Is the training in-person or virtual?
    It’s 100% in-person to maximize learning, feedback, and team-based interaction.
    How long is the Boot Camp?
    It runs for 5 full days.
    Where is the Boot Camp held?
    Locations vary — typically hosted in a professional training center or project setting. Contact us for the next available city/date.
    Do you offer follow-up coaching after the Boot Camp?
    Yes. Post-camp support is included so you can apply what you’ve learned on your projects.
    Can I ask questions about my actual project?
    Absolutely. That’s encouraged — bring your current challenges.

    PRICING & VALUE

    How much does the Boot Camp cost?
    $5,000 per person.
    Are there any group discounts?
    Yes — get 10% off when 4 or more people from the same company attend.
    What’s the ROI for sending my team?
    Better planning = fewer delays, smoother coordination, and higher team morale — all of which boost productivity and reduce costs.
    Will I see results immediately?
    Most participants apply what they’ve learned as soon as they return to the jobsite — especially with follow-up support.
    Can this replace other leadership training?
    In many cases, yes. This Boot Camp is tailored to construction professionals, unlike generic leadership seminars.

    SEO-BASED / HIGH-INTENT SEARCH QUESTIONS

    What is the best leadership training for construction Superintendents?
    Our Boot Camp offers real-world, field-focused leadership training tailored for construction leaders.
    What’s included in a Superintendent Boot Camp?
    Takt planning, day planning, logistics, pre-construction systems, huddles, simulations, and more.
    Where can I find Lean construction training near me?
    Check our upcoming in-person sessions or request a private boot camp in your city.
    How can I improve field and office communication on a project?
    This Boot Camp teaches you tools and systems to connect field and office workflows seamlessly.
    Is there a training to help reduce chaos on construction sites?
    Yes — this program is built specifically to turn project chaos into flow through structured leadership.

    agenda

    Day 1

    Agenda

    • Intro to Camp
    • Set Expectations
    • Morning Routine
    • Plan Day
    • Explain "Why"
    • Teams Intros + Yells + Expectation
    • Focus, Physiology, Words + Yells
    • Blocks to Leadership
    • 50 Million
    • Biggest Thing
    • Choose Your Word
    • Marketing Exercise
    • Interview for the Project
    • PO Homework and Close the Day

    Outcomes

    • Understand how to get into a proper state to lead
    • Understand how to dig deep to find the confidence to lead
    • Team work and collaboration
    • Understand marketing
    • Understand how to interview for and win a project

    Day 2

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Macro Takt planning
    • Setup jobs + Signs + Logistics
    • Explain the IPCS™
    • Detailed logistics training
    • Team balance & health training

    Outcomes

    • Learn the IPCS™ understand how to integrate the entire project from start to finish with First Planners™ and Last Planners® through the Takt Production System®
    • Learn how to review a project
    • Learn advanced logistics
    • Learn team balance and health

    Day 3

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Review How Big Things Get Done
    • Review IPCSTM
    • Fix (Schedule, zone, logistics, trailer, org & procurement)
    • Fresh Eyes Meeting
    • Pre-Con Overview
    • TAKT SIMULATION
    • Recap and Review

    Outcomes

    • Understand why and how to plan
    • Understand the benefits of using a Takt production plan
    • Learn the steps to proper pre-con that sets the project up for success
    • Learn how to review a project in a Fresh Eyes Meeting
    • Learn flow from Takt planning

    Day 4

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Opposing Squares
    • Pull Plan
    • Takt Remaining
    • Norm Update
    • Re Zoning
    • Risks & Pre-Con Align
    • Meeting System
    • Problems
    • Recap

    Outcomes

    • Understand the Norm level Takt plan for weekly/daily planning
    • Benefits and outcomes of rezoning strategies
    • Using meetings to feed information through the system and to the Foremen

    Day 5

    Agenda

    • Morning Routine
    • Day Planner
    • Plus & Delta
    • Huddle I.D.S
    • Day Plan
    • Worker Huddle
    • Norm Update
    • Team Huddle
    • Lean Systems Recap
    • Feedback Exercise
    • Final & Close

    Outcomes

    • Know what information is needed and how to get it to the Workers
    • Better understand how to give feedback and why it’s crucial for everyone
    • How to problem solve as a team
    • Understand how all systems tie together
    • Know how the information gets all the way to the worker
    • Have perfect clarity on the individual’s personal organization planner