What Constitutes Abandonment Of Construction Project?

Posted on April 27, 2026April 27, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 21 min

Construction Project Abandonment: What Every Builder Needs to Know Before Walking Off

There is a moment that happens on troubled projects where someone reaches a breaking point. The owner isn’t paying. The contractor isn’t showing up. Communication has completely broken down. And somebody, in a moment of frustration, makes a decision that feels justified and turns out to be catastrophic. They walk off the project. They stop funding it. They disappear from the site and stop returning calls. In that moment, the person making the decision believes they are standing their ground. What they are actually doing is triggering a legal process that can cost them far more than the dispute that started it.

This is a conversation the industry does not have often enough, and when it does have it, the language gets buried in contract terms that most field people and many project managers never read carefully. The goal here is to bring it down to field level what abandonment actually is, who it applies to, what the consequences look like, and how to protect yourself before any of it becomes necessary.

What Abandonment Actually Means

Abandonment in construction has a specific legal meaning, and that meaning matters. Abandonment is the intentional and unjustifiable stopping of work on a project. Both words carry weight. Intentional means it was a choice, not a circumstance. Unjustifiable means there was no contractually valid basis for making it. When both conditions are present a deliberate choice to stop work, made without legal standing abandonment has occurred, and the consequences follow from the contract, not from whoever was right in the underlying dispute.

This is not just something that happens to contractors. Owners can abandon a project too. An owner who stops funding the work, fails to provide required approvals, denies site access, or suspends work indefinitely without contractual cause has entered abandonment territory just as much as a contractor who walks off the site. The dynamic runs in every direction it can happen with or to owners, with or to general contractors, and with or to trade partners and subcontractors. The legal exposure is real regardless of which party triggers it.

A Story That Makes the Stakes Concrete

Here’s a story that stays with me. An acquaintance of mine did contracting work small jobs, foundation work, residential scale. An owner started paying late, then inconsistently, then not at all in the way that had been agreed. My acquaintance got frustrated, got angry, and walked off the project. He told the owner he was done and stopped showing up.

He did not talk to a lawyer. He did not issue formal notices. He did not follow the contractual provisions that would have given him a legal path off the project. He just left.

The outcome was brutal. He was contractually on the hook to finish the scope of work regardless of the payment dispute. The owner pursued legal action. By the time it was over, my acquaintance was down around $120,000 for a small contracting business, that is a recovery that takes years. He learned the hardest way possible that walking off the project because the owner made him mad is not a legal strategy. It is an abandonment, and the contract owns the consequences.

How Abandonment Shows Up in the Field

Abandonment rarely announces itself. It usually looks like something else first slow deterioration that becomes a crisis. The practical signs are recognizable once you know what you’re watching for.

On the contractor side, abandonment typically shows up as crews disappearing from the site, work slowing to a crawl or stopping entirely, no coordination or supervision remaining, and a contractor who has stopped responding to communication. On the owner side, it shows up as funding stopping, approvals being withheld, access being denied, and decisions required for the project to move forward going unanswered.

The critical point is that none of those behaviors are self-justifying. No matter how legitimate the grievance on either side, unilaterally stopping performance without following the contractual process is what turns a business dispute into an abandonment claim.

The Contract Provisions That Govern This

Every prime agreement contains clauses that address how the parties can legally exit, pause, or restructure the project when things go wrong. These are the provisions that lawyers spend most of their time in when an abandonment situation develops. Understanding that they exist and where to find them is the first protection. The specific clauses to know include termination for default, termination for convenience, suspension of work, notice and cure periods, force majeure provisions, and payment clauses.

Each of those provisions establishes constraints and parameters. Termination for default says under what conditions a party is in default and what the other party can do about it. Notice and cure periods define how long a defaulting party has to fix the problem before termination becomes valid. Suspension of work defines when and how work can be paused and what obligations accompany that pause. These are not formalities. They are the difference between a legally protected exit and an unjustifiable abandonment.

You do not need to memorize contract law. You need to know these provisions exist in your contract, know where to find them, and commit to involving your legal counsel before acting on them.

Why Documentation Is Your Best Protection

Before any abandonment situation reaches the point of legal action, the record of what happened becomes everything. Lawyers, arbitrators, and courts work from documentation. They cannot work from what someone intended, what someone remembered saying, or what the right answer clearly should have been. They work from what exists in writing, in photos, and in the formal record.

This is why daily reports matter. Not as administrative overhead, but as the factual record of what was happening on the site and when. Accurate daily reports, site photos, schedule updates with a clear path to finish, payment records, proper emails, and formal notices are the documentation that protects both parties in the event that a dispute escalates. Without them, everything becomes hearsay. With them, the record speaks for itself.

The documentation discipline that good projects run every day as standard practice is the same discipline that protects those projects when things go wrong. It is not separate work. It is the same work, done accurately, consistently, and with the understanding that it may eventually matter in ways that nobody hoped it would.

Warning Signs That Abandonment Risk Is Building

These signals, on either side of the table, indicate that a project is drifting toward abandonment territory and that intervention is needed now:

Payment is chronically late, disputed, or being withheld without formal written notice or contractual basis.
Communication from a key party has slowed dramatically or stopped, and requests for information are going unanswered.
Crews have reduced without explanation, and measurable progress has stopped while the schedule continues to slip.
Required approvals, decisions, or access needed to continue work are being withheld without a formal process.
Threats even informal ones, even in passing have been made about stopping work or walking off the project.

That last one matters more than most people realize. An email that says “I’m done” or a phone call where someone says they’re walking off can trigger abandonment even if the person intended it as a frustration expression rather than a legal declaration. Be careful with language when disputes are active.

What the Consequences Actually Look Like

When abandonment is established, the consequences are significant and can compound. The party found to have abandoned the project may face termination and replacement contractor costs which is exactly what Jason’s acquaintance faced, and which are often the most immediate and largest financial hit. Beyond that, back charges and damages can be pursued for costs the non-abandoning party incurred as a result. Liquidated damages for schedule delays may apply and may compound with every day the project remains delayed. Performance bond claims can be filed, which trigger their own legal process. Litigation or arbitration follows, which consumes time, money, and organizational energy at a scale that dwarfs almost any field dispute. And behind all of that sits the loss of reputation and future work, which is the cost that doesn’t show up in any settlement but affects revenue for years afterward.

None of those consequences require the abandoning party to have been wrong about the underlying dispute. A contractor can be completely right that the owner failed to pay properly and still lose badly on the abandonment claim because they did not follow the contractual process for responding to that failure.

What to Do Instead

The path that protects every party is consistent, and it starts well before a situation becomes critical. Intervene early when problems develop payment issues, coordination failures, and schedule concerns are all easier to resolve before they become crises. Always involve legal counsel before making any decision that touches the contract, including what you put in emails. Issue formal notices before considering any form of work stoppage the notice and cure process exists precisely to give both parties a path to resolution that does not trigger abandonment. Bring on additional support where it is needed rather than letting a performance gap compound. Maintain a path to finish on the schedule and communicate it clearly. Negotiate a reset if the relationship can support one. And if termination becomes unavoidable, prepare for it properly through the contract process rather than through a unilateral decision to stop.

Everybody is negative about lawyers until they need one. When a dispute involves the contract and the ability to perform or get paid, that is the moment legal counsel earns everything they cost. Talk to yours before sending the email. Before making the call. Before saying anything that could be characterized as a threat to abandon.

If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow and build the documentation discipline and communication standards that protect projects before disputes ever reach the contract clause level. We are there to build and to have relationships and to improve the industry. Not to fight.

A Challenge for Builders

Walk your current project this week and ask honestly whether the documentation is accurate enough to protect you if something goes wrong. Are daily reports being filed? Are site photos being taken? Are formal notices going out when they should? Are payment records clean? If the answer is weak, the fix is simple and immediate. Start the discipline today, before you need it. Because the time to build the record is not after the dispute starts. It is every single day before it.

As W. Edwards Deming said, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is construction project abandonment and who does it apply to?

Abandonment is the intentional and unjustifiable stopping of work without following the contractual process for doing so. It applies to all parties owners, general contractors, and trade partners and triggers legal consequences regardless of who was right in the underlying dispute.

Can a contractor walk off a project if the owner stops paying?

Not without following the contractual process. Payment disputes must be addressed through the notice, cure, and termination provisions in the contract. Walking off without following those steps constitutes abandonment, which can expose the contractor to replacement costs, back charges, liquidated damages, and litigation even if the owner was genuinely at fault.

Why does documentation matter so much in abandonment situations?

Because legal proceedings work from the written record, not from what someone intended or remembered. Accurate daily reports, site photos, formal notices, payment records, and proper emails are what protect both parties when a dispute escalates and they are built through the daily discipline of good project documentation, not as a crisis response.

If you want to learn more we have:

-Takt Virtual Training: (Click here)
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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 Save Money On Construction Projects

Posted on April 27, 2026April 27, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 22 min

How to Save Money on Construction Projects: The Counterintuitive Strategies That Actually Work

Every project team under budget pressure eventually reaches for the same tools. Cut the soft costs. Trim the team. Compress the schedule. Reduce the scope of preconstruction. Speed up procurement. And every time, those cuts feel responsible in the moment and show up as expensive mistakes in the field. The real strategies for saving money on construction projects are counterintuitive. Nobody naturally thinks of them first. They run opposite to the instincts that budget pressure tends to produce. But they are tried, proven, and supported by some of the most rigorous research done on project outcomes anywhere in the world.

Here’s the deal. Money is saved upstream, not downstream. It is saved in planning, not in cutting. It is saved through integration, not through isolation. And it is saved by designing systems that protect the work instead of systems that push harder against a schedule that was never right to begin with.

The Pain: Budget Pressure Produces the Wrong Instincts

When a project is over budget or trending that way, the instinct is to reduce. Reduce the team. Reduce the preconstruction investment. Reduce consultant involvement. Reduce the scope of design reviews. Reduce the trade partner engagement. Reduce the training. Every one of those reductions looks like responsible stewardship on the day it gets made. Every one of them produces downstream costs that are larger than the savings that triggered them.

The pattern is predictable. A team compresses preconstruction to save three weeks and spends six months in the field chasing design gaps. A PM cuts the Lean consultant to save a fee and loses the production rhythm that would have saved five times that in rework. An owner skips the design assist process with trade partners to move faster into documents and discovers six months later that the routing decisions made without trade input are costing a fortune to correct. The savings happen on paper. The costs land in concrete, steel, and labor.

The Failure Pattern: Cutting What You Should Be Protecting

Here’s how teams drift into this trap. Budget pressure is real. Schedule pressure is real. And when leadership asks for a number, the fastest place to find one is in the soft cost column the preconstruction line items, the consultant fees, the training budget, the integrated planning time. Those numbers are visible, they feel controllable, and cutting them rarely produces an immediate crisis. The crisis arrives three months later, when the gaps they were designed to prevent start surfacing in the field.

The book How Big Things Get Done analyzed a database of over sixteen thousand representative projects from around the world. Its finding is unambiguous. A failure to plan in preconstruction with the right trained team and the right systems is the main root cause for project failure. Not field execution. Not trade partner performance. Not external risk events. Upstream planning failure. That finding is not a theory. It is the distilled pattern from thousands of projects across every major construction type. The teams that saved money at the front of the project paid far more at the back.

What Actually Reduces Cost: Preconstruction Done Well

Preconstruction is where money is saved not recovered, saved. Done well, it does several things simultaneously. It designs the project thoroughly enough that the field team can build from a complete set of coordinated documents rather than RFIs. It plans the build with real input from the people who will execute it. It runs feasibility studies not just from a development standpoint but from a build standpoint looking at the schedule, the installation sequence, and the logistics before any of them get locked in by circumstances. It brings in the team early enough that cost-reduction strategies can actually be implemented instead of just identified too late to act on.

The mitigation of black swans those large, unpredicted problems that derail projects and blow past contingency also happens in preconstruction. Chris Voss writes about black swans as the unexpected information that changes everything. In construction, the equivalent is the risk that surfaces mid-build and rewrites the budget. Good preconstruction finds those risks on paper, where they cost almost nothing to address, rather than in the field, where they can cost everything.

Lean Implementation at Scale

The second major cost-reduction strategy is implementing Lean properly at scale throughout the project. This is not a cultural initiative or a philosophical overlay. It is a production system decision with direct cost implications. When Lean is implemented correctly not for the first time on a learning curve, but with genuine competence built through repetition the financial outcomes are measurable: better pricing from trade partners because the coordination environment protects their production, better materials sourcing through Lean logistics staging, reduced contingency draw because the risks that trigger contingency never materialize, and a more streamlined team because the system does the coordination that headcount is usually hired to manage reactively.

Good quality from the start means no rework. No rework means the trade partners make money on the project. Trade partners who make money perform at a higher level, collaborate more openly, and price the next project more competitively. Flow on the jobsite means trades are not being stacked or rushed. Flow protects margins because rushed work produces defects, and defects are one of the most expensive wastes a project absorbs. Lean implementation is not a cost. It is the system that prevents the costs that blow the budget.

Design Optimization as a Cost Strategy

Design optimization is one of the most underused cost-reduction tools available to project teams, and it operates primarily in preconstruction. Here’s how it works. A bottleneck in the schedule is pulling the end date out, increasing general conditions and general requirements costs for every additional week the project runs. Rather than accepting that bottleneck as fixed, the team redesigns to it narrows it, sequences around it, or selects building systems that eliminate it. The same logic applies to material selection, structural systems, MEP routing, and enclosure strategies. Every one of those is a cost variable that can be optimized in design and locked in as a cost saving before the work begins.

The key is that design optimization requires time and the right people in the room. It does not happen in compressed preconstruction. It does not happen when the design team is working in isolation from the people who will build the work. It happens when the team has enough time and enough integration to ask “is there a better way” before “is this buildable” becomes the only question left to answer.

Trade Partner Involvement: The Most Undervalued Cost Strategy

There is no GC anywhere that is sharp enough to drive project costs down without trade partner involvement. That is not a soft statement. It is a recognition of how knowledge actually works in construction. Frederick Taylor’s segregation model designers design, GCs manage, trades execute created an information silo that costs projects money every single day. Trade partners carry the knowledge of materials, routing, installation methods, and sequencing that can meaningfully change the cost of a project. When they are brought in during preconstruction through design assist efforts, that knowledge becomes available at the point where it can actually be used.

Bring trade partners in early. Work with them on material type selection. Let them weigh in on how systems are routed through the building. Give them the chance to identify cost reduction opportunities in real time, before the documents are locked. The results include schedule acceleration, less rework, stronger team buy-in, better coordination, and direct cost reduction that no amount of GC-only value engineering can replicate.

Procurement, Delivery, and Logistics

A rigorous procurement, delivery, and logistics system is the fourth major lever. Most budget overruns have a procurement decision somewhere upstream of them equipment that arrived late and required expensive expediting, materials that were sourced locally when global sourcing would have reduced cost significantly, bulk purchasing opportunities that were missed because procurement started too late to leverage them. A well-designed procurement system buys from the right places, sources globally where it fits the project, buys in bulk where the economics support it, and selects equipment early enough that expediting costs never enter the equation.

Logistics design is equally important. Materials that are staged incorrectly, transported multiple times before installation, or delivered to the site before the zone is ready to receive them are all waste direct cost that shows up in labor hours and schedule slippage rather than as a line item anyone can see and challenge. A Lean logistics system delivers the right materials to the right zones at the right time, minimizing unnecessary movement and protecting the production rhythm.

Warning Signs That the Wrong Cost Strategy Is Running

Before the budget damage compounds, watch for these signals that your project has defaulted to the wrong approach:

Preconstruction was compressed to save time, and the field team is now managing design gaps reactively.
Trade partners were not brought in during design, and value engineering is now happening at a point where most of the savings have already been designed out.
Procurement started late, expediting fees are climbing, and equipment availability is affecting the schedule.
Lean is being talked about on the project but not implemented at scale tools are present, but the production system is not running.
Budget conversations are defaulting to cuts instead of investments, and the soft cost column keeps getting attacked.

Any one of those is a warning. Multiple of them together means the project is paying downstream for decisions that should have been made differently upstream.

The Path That Never Saves Money

It is worth naming directly what does not work, because these are the instincts that budget pressure tends to produce. Savings never come from rushing rushing produces rework, and rework costs more than the time it was supposed to save. Savings never come from cutting the investments that protect the work. Savings never come from panicking and making reactive decisions that trade long-term cost for short-term relief. And savings never come from the classical toxic management model of pushing people harder against a plan that was never buildable to begin with. If the plan requires burnout to succeed, the plan is broken, not the people and burnout never saved a budget.

The money is upstream. The planning, the integration, the trade partner involvement, the Lean production system, the procurement discipline all of it lives before the work starts. Protecting that upstream investment is the most cost-effective decision a project team can make. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow and build the upstream discipline that protects every downstream dollar.

We are building people who build things. That includes building the project leaders who understand where money is actually saved, and who have the discipline to protect the investments that make it possible.

A Challenge for Builders

Open your current project’s cost trend this week and trace the biggest variances back to their source. How many of them started in preconstruction a design gap, a procurement miss, a trade partner coordination failure that better early involvement would have caught? If the answer is most of them, the fix is not downstream. It is upstream. On the next project, protect preconstruction. Bring the trades in early. Implement Lean at scale. Build the procurement system before it becomes urgent. The money is there. It is just upstream of where most teams are looking.

As W. Edwards Deming said, “It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your best.”

On we go.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does preconstruction save more money than cutting costs during construction?

Because money is saved when decisions are still cheap to make in design and planning, before resources are committed. Every gap left in preconstruction gets resolved in the field at dramatically higher cost in labor, rework, schedule slippage, and contingency draw.

How does Lean implementation actually reduce project cost?

By eliminating the rework, stacking, waiting, and waste that silently inflate labor hours and schedule duration. When trades flow without interruption, make money on the project, and operate from a clear production plan, the financial performance of the project improves as a direct result.

Why does involving trade partners early reduce cost?

Because trade partners carry the installation knowledge that drives real cost reduction material selection, routing decisions, sequencing strategies. No GC can access that knowledge without early engagement, and by the time documents are locked, most of that savings opportunity is already gone.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

Respect For People!

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 29 min

It’s Not About Obedience: Why We Don’t Understand Respect for People

We do not even come close to respecting people or understanding what that concept means. Jason’s not being insulting. He’s not trying to criticize. He’s just saying we have a long way to go. And this is what hit him the other day.

First, there was an LCI presentation on respect for people. They got into in-depth concepts about really seeing people and how the Japanese look at respect for people and what that means from a cultural standpoint. It was on Jason’s mind. But then something happened at church. One of Jason’s children put his head into his hands and slumped down because he was bored or disinterested or whatever. Jason sent him a text: “Hey, Schroeder, sit up. Please sit up. There’s a speaker up there.” Then he thought about it for a second and it hit him all of a sudden. We in the United States are like “Dad, why are you punishing me? Why are you trying to take my freedom? What’s the big deal? Why can’t I do what I want?”

At the end of the day, it’s about respect. Why do we not put our head in our hands while somebody is speaking? It isn’t because we’ve lost freedom. It isn’t because we need to obey. It isn’t because we’re constrained. It’s because we respect the human being who has put their heart and soul into that talk and is prepared. That’s why we show them that respect and provide that energy.

Jason realized his son, because of him and because of our culture, and he’s not blaming someone else, the first person responsible is him, if his son had been taught to respect people, he wouldn’t have done that. Then Jason was watching Pacific Rim with his kids. There was a part where the character Mako wants to co-pilot one of these Jaegers that fight the Kaiju with somebody else. She keeps being told by the commander no, that she can’t do it. She pushes a little bit, but not too much. The other co-pilot says “You don’t have to obey all of these orders. You don’t have to just do what somebody else says.”

And she says: “It’s not about obedience. It’s about respect.” Immediately, again, that was another warning to Jason’s mind that says we do not understand respect. In the United States, we just think it’s about being constrained. It’s about obedience. It’s about these things. No. It’s about respect. We need to explore and start our journey to understand what respect for people really means.

What Respect Actually Looks Like in Practice

In Japanese culture, Paul Akers has talked about how they will receive your credit card on a little plate. They handle your payment with reverence. They bow. They show honor to the person in front of them, not because they’re forced to, but because respect for people is woven into the culture.

Here’s where it gets practical in construction and in life. Jason was talking to his wife Katie about welfare and about people that come and ask for help. And Jason said he has a rule. His rule for giving welfare, for helping people, is that he has to give them a hand up, not a handout.

When somebody comes to them and says “I need help with this or that,” he doesn’t just write them a check. He’s never done that. When people come to him for finances, they go back to the fundamentals. They say “Okay, let’s pull up your budget. Let’s look at a debt repayment schedule. Let’s see where every single dollar goes. Let’s get you on a path to success.” Katie asked him why. She said “Why are you so much of a hardliner on that? Why can’t you just, you know, help them, make them happy, send them on their way?”

And it hit him: respect. If Jason had a family member or if he personally was going through difficulties, which they have, they drove old vehicles, they lived in crappy houses, all the things. If it wasn’t good enough, or if it was good enough for him to do with his family, why isn’t it good enough to do with somebody else? He would never just write his family a check.

So why would he do that and disrespect somebody else? The reason they go back to fundamentals and they debt stack and they budget and they ask family for help and they see what government resources there are instead of just cutting somebody a check with welfare is because they respect them. It’s not about punishment. In the United States, the disease, the non-medical pandemic that we have in this country, is this disease of thinking that everything’s about punishment and that we’re victims. It’s not the case. We need to get back to this concept of respect.

Every Decision Can Be Answered With Respect for People

Let’s go through a couple of examples. Why do we build nice lunchrooms on site when back 10 years ago they didn’t do that? Because we respect people. Why do we get nice restrooms or at least porta potties where we clean them three times a week with hand wash stations? Because we respect people. It’s not a business decision. It’s not a money decision.

Well, Jason, if you’re going to do those nice things, why do you send people home for safety violations? Because I respect people. I’m not punishing them. Why do I turn people away from the hoist or the delivery access ways if they’re not on time? Because I respect the other people who are delivering their materials on time and are in the queue in the schedule. Why do you make crews clean up right away with perfect cleanliness and shut down the crew if they don’t? Are you punishing them? No. I respect them and the people around them and I want them to be taken care of.

Every single decision that we make, there’s no question you could give Jason anywhere, any shape or form. He doesn’t care how long the question was. He doesn’t care how complex. You couldn’t give him a question that he couldn’t properly answer, and he’s saying me, you, any of us, you couldn’t give us a question that we couldn’t properly answer with the concept of respect for people.

It’s just not possible. You can literally do that with anything that you come up against, anything you face. Usually we’re like “Let’s decide this or that based on whether or not I should punish this person or feel guilty about it.” No. “We should base this on whether or not it’s profitable.” No, that’s not a good decider. “We should base this on whether or not I want to do it.” No, that’s not a good decider. We should base this on what, at the core base, bottom, at the fundamental level, respects other human beings. And that will always lead you to the right decision.

The Hard Decisions Become Easy With Respect

If somebody’s not a cultural fit in a company, do I fire them or do I keep them? Well, what would be the most respectful thing for them? It would be to let them go and to go somewhere else where they could be happy and become a cultural fit. What’s the most respectful thing in that situation for the people that are cultural fits? It’s to make sure that we only have cultural fits and that we don’t have people that are cancerous or destructive to our environment.

So I am going to terminate that employee once I’ve gone through Adam Hoots’ phases of development where I’m teaching, I’m coaching, I’m giving warnings, I’m setting clear expectations. Literally, no decision is too tough. You can say “What would Jesus do?” You can say “Let’s pray about it.” You can say “Let’s go through this decision making process. Let’s counsel about it. Let me ask my wife, my husband, whatever.” But at the end of the day, if you aren’t asking the right question, you’re not going to get the right answer.

Asking the Right Question Gets the Right Answer

Here’s a little pet peeve of Jason’s that illustrates the point. Sometimes in trainings, they ask people for feedback. Quite frankly, they get really good feedback. And every now and then they get 5% that’s really dumb feedback. Like somebody will say “Oh, I wish I had this kind of topping for the food.” Or “I wish you would have told me days ahead of time how hard this was going to be” when they obviously already did that. Or somebody complaining about some silly little logistical thing. Or “I didn’t like the training because on my end, my computer internet didn’t work.”

That’s not really good feedback, but Jason asked a stupid question. He just asked for general feedback. But if he had asked a different question, it would have gotten a different answer. The question he should have asked was “Was this training impactful to your understanding of [specific topic]?” And he’ll get a better answer. He’s been doing that more often and it works.

Here are the questions we should be asking ourselves in different situations:

When praying: am I being very specific and asking the right question so I get the right answer, or am I asking vague general questions?
When talking to parents, family, or children: am I asking a specific question so I’ll get a specific answer, or am I being unclear?
In any situation: are we very specific about the parameters of success and are we asking the right questions?

The question we should ask ourselves is: what in this scenario ultimately ends up respecting other human beings the most? That will always get us back to where we need to be. All decisions should be made out of respect for people instead of the current United States culture of punishment. It’s not about obedience. It’s not about punishment. It’s about respect.

We Use People as Tools to Be Expended

Usually we accidentally use people as tools to be expended. If you don’t believe Jason, check this out. When is the last time that your company just dispatched a bunch of people into a barn burner project at the expense of their families? When is the last time in our industry you saw workers working without adequate facilities? When was the last time you asked a crew to work past their capacity in unsafe situations? When was the last time, and you can just go example after example after example. We do not respect people. We use them as tools to be expended, to be exploited.

If we’re even going to begin to take our Takt journey, our lean journey, our Last Planner journey, our scrum journey, our continuous improvement and our flow journey, and just our operational excellence journey, if we’re going to take any of our steps forward, then we have to do it based on the fundamental principle of respect for people. The definition of lean is: one, respect for people and resources; two, stable environments that create flow; three, total participation with visual systems; and four, continuous improvement and fanatical quality.

But at the base, all of this, the whole structure falls without the foundation of respect for people. And Jason will level with you: he doesn’t even understand it the way he should. He hasn’t even begun to understand it. This isn’t a “Jason thinks he knows something” podcast. This is a “I just don’t think that we are where we need to be.” He’s going to take a step forward. He’s asking you to take a step forward. Let’s take these steps together to ultimately respect people.

What Respect for People Actually Requires

If we respected people, we would not ever come to a job with bad porta potties. We would never come to a job without a lunchroom. We would never come to a job where the company dispatched people into an impossible last four months of the project.

We would never overextend workers and crews. We would never hesitate to send somebody to a safe position or location or off the job when they were unsafe. We would never allow people to come into our culture and do bad things that affect other trade partners whom we’re supposed to protect.

We would never just go give people things and give them fish when we should be teaching them to fish. And we would never put our head down when somebody’s speaking in a church meeting or in a public meeting. And we would never be on a Zoom meeting where we’re messing around and not paying attention.

These are the things that will warn us that we have a problem and we just need to get to those basics. This is not a criticism of you. This is not a criticism of Jason. He hopes this stands out as a helpful point: it’s not about obedience. It’s about respect. 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 obedience and respect?

Obedience is compliance under constraint or threat of punishment. Respect is honoring another human being because you value them. When you sit up while someone is speaking, it’s not because you’re forced to obey. It’s because you respect the human being who put their heart and soul into preparing that talk. When Japanese culture receives your credit card on a little plate and bows, it’s not obedience. It’s respect woven into the culture. In the United States, we confuse the two and think everything is about being constrained. It’s not. It’s about respect.

Q: Why is giving a handout instead of a hand up disrespectful?

Because if you wouldn’t just write your own family a check when they were struggling, why would you do it to someone else? When Jason’s family went through difficulties, they drove old vehicles, lived in crappy houses, went back to fundamentals with budgets and debt repayment schedules. They didn’t just get handed money. Going back to fundamentals, debt stacking, budgeting, asking family for help, checking government resources instead of just cutting a check is respectful. It gives people a path to success, not just temporary relief. It’s not about punishment. It’s about respect.

Q: How can respect for people answer every decision?

Because every decision can be filtered through one question: what in this scenario ultimately ends up respecting other human beings the most? Fire someone or keep them? What’s most respectful for them (letting them find a cultural fit elsewhere) and for the team (protecting culture)? Send someone home for safety? You respect them by protecting them. Clean porta potties three times a week? You respect workers. Turn people away from the hoist when late? You respect the people who showed up on time. Every single decision can be properly answered with respect for people.

Q: What does it mean that we use people as tools to be expended?

When’s the last time your company dispatched people into a barn burner project at the expense of their families? When’s the last time you saw workers without adequate facilities? When’s the last time you asked a crew to work past capacity in unsafe situations? We use people as tools to be expended and exploited. We dispatch them into impossible projects. We don’t provide lunchrooms or clean bathrooms. We overextend them. We hesitate to send them to safe positions. We allow bad culture that affects trade partners. We do not respect people.

Q: What would our industry look like if we actually respected people?

We would never come to a job with bad porta potties. We would never come without a lunchroom. We would never dispatch people into an impossible last four months. We would never overextend workers and crews. We would never hesitate to send someone to safety or off the job when unsafe. We would never allow bad culture to affect trade partners we’re supposed to protect. We would never give fish when we should teach fishing. We would never put our head down during meetings or mess around on Zoom calls. Respect for people is the foundation of lean, flow, continuous improvement, and operational excellence.

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Construction Is War!

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 28 min

Pick Up a Weapon and Stand a Post: Why Construction Is Exactly Like War

Some people don’t like the war analogies in construction. Jason has heard it a few times. They think it’s cheesy. Not sure. Maybe people think it’s some kind of cliche thing or branding gimmick to make it more popular. But here’s Jason’s passion and opinion: we really need to consider this concept.

Construction is exactly like war. And people who don’t get that construction is like war don’t get the following things. They don’t get that we’re fighting against an enemy. They don’t get that we’re here protecting the innocent. They don’t get that we are here building and the workers are out building at a sacrifice. They don’t get that construction teams must be disciplined like a trained regimented group of people, like they have to be in a troop or platoon or regiment. They don’t get that construction is all about strategy, tactics, and logistics. And they don’t understand the passion. Let’s cover each of these one by one. Because if you think construction is just a day job, you’re missing what makes this industry worth fighting for.

We’re Fighting Against an Enemy: Waste and Variation

In construction, just like war, we’re fighting against an enemy. We’re not actually fighting against human beings. We’re not fighting against countries. We’re not fighting against dictators. But we are fighting against waste and variation.

If we don’t look at it like it’s war, we run the risk of not understanding who the enemy is and why we have to fight against it. We are fighting against waste and variation. That is the enemy. We have to stop it. We have to fight against them to create flow and to gain access because waste and variation cause all of the fallout of everything else that we have.

It causes the waste, the unevenness, the overburden. It causes starts and stops. It causes overproduction. It causes too many flow units. It causes all of the bad things, all of the bad things. And we need to get really clear about where we’re headed. Jason remembers in Paul Aker’s book, there was a guy who was learning lean. He put on a helmet and said “We’re at war. We’re fighting against waste.” In construction, it’s waste and variation. And we have to fight against it.

Think about what waste and variation actually do to your people. They create chaos that forces overtime. They create rework that steals pride in craft. They create unpredictability that destroys family time. They create unsafe conditions that put lives at risk. They create dysfunction that burns out your best workers.

When you understand that waste and variation are the enemy, you stop tolerating them. You stop saying “That’s just how construction is.” You start fighting. You start systematically eliminating every source of waste and variation you can find. You weaponize Takt planning. You deploy Last Planner. You attack with flow systems. You fight like your people’s lives depend on it. Because they do.

We’re Protecting the Innocent: Workers and Families

In war, when people go to war, they protect the innocent. They protect our freedom. They protect the people back here in the States. They protect their families. We are protecting people: men, women, and children, anybody, the elderly, those who might be of lesser circumstances, those within our protected borders. People fight for something. They think of their husbands. They think of their wives. They think of their children. They think of the people that they left at home. We are protecting the innocent.

And people who don’t get that construction is like war don’t get that we are protecting workers and that we are protecting families. We absolutely have to get that. We have to get our minds wrapped around that or else we’re not going to have the passion to go out there and lead these projects the way that we really want to.

Construction is like war because we protect the innocent by creating flow, by creating stability, by creating good work balance, by having good project teams, by having good overall project durations. We really are protecting people. And if we keep that in focus, we’ll do a better job.

Because at the end of the day, if a superintendent says “Well, I’ve been doing this for years, why would I change?” Here’s why you would change: because for the people that actually have to work on your job, it sucks. They have nasty bathrooms, no lunchrooms, it’s all garbage. There’s very little safety and they’re rushed and you’re making them work six, twelve hour days and they’re burnt out and you’re ruining their families. People say “We’ve always finished on time. Why would I improve?” You would improve because you’re protecting people and you’re protecting families. That’s the bottom line.

Our Workers Are Sacrificing Themselves

If we don’t think that our workers are sacrificing themselves, their lives, hanging off a 10 story building on the side of a column, being in very dangerous, cold, and hot circumstances and giving us their best years, then we don’t respect people enough yet. And we can get there. But we in construction sacrifice a considerable amount of time, effort, health. We put our lives on the line.

That sacrifice must come with a life of meaning and purpose and companies and projects and owners that respect that and value that sacrifice. We’ll take away anything that is unneeded by way of variation or danger and make the most safe, enjoyable, happy place to work that anybody could possibly imagine so that the sacrifice can be reduced while those workers and the people on those project management teams live a life of purpose and value as they sacrifice their time and sometimes put themselves in dangerous situations.

Construction is a very dangerous industry. The least we can do is honor that sacrifice by fighting the enemy that makes it more dangerous than it needs to be. Waste and variation kill people. Not always directly. But they create the chaos that leads to shortcuts, the rushing that leads to accidents, the fatigue that leads to mistakes. When you understand your workers are sacrificing, you stop accepting marginal. You demand excellent. You fight for systems that protect them. You go to war against anything that puts them at unnecessary risk.

We Must Be Disciplined Like Soldiers

People who don’t get that construction is like war don’t get that we must be disciplined. When Patton took over in World War II, when he went from Morocco to Tunisia, fixing the problems the United States had with lack of discipline, he started to have them salute. He had them get up on time, go to breakfast and lunch and dinner on time, dress sharply, wear their helmets, train over and over. The language they use, he was very disciplined.

The American forces started to whip butt on everybody because they were disciplined. Jason tells people on construction sites: we’re not going to win if you don’t look like a construction worker, train like a construction worker, act like a construction worker. Just like Patton said, you don’t look like soldiers, you don’t act like soldiers, you don’t train like soldiers. Discipline and rigorous training, just like they do in the military, is the key to success. And people who don’t think that construction is like war don’t get that.

Here’s what discipline looks like in construction:

Show up on time every day because your team depends on you and delays cascade through the entire system creating waste.
Follow the quality checklist every single time because shortcuts create rework that steals profit and pride from everyone.
Attend the morning huddle prepared because coordination prevents the chaos that burns people out and destroys flow.
Maintain your tools and equipment because professionals respect their craft and sloppy work reflects sloppy thinking.
Study the drawings daily because you cannot lead what you don’t understand and ignorance creates dangerous conditions.
Complete your daily reports accurately because documentation protects the team and creates the learning that prevents future problems.

Discipline isn’t about being rigid or militaristic for its own sake. Discipline is about creating the reliability and predictability that makes flow possible. Undisciplined teams create variation. Variation creates waste. Waste destroys people and families.

Strategy, Tactics, and Logistics Apply Perfectly

The same kinds of strategy, tactics, and logistics that you find in war apply to construction, every one of them. The only things that don’t transfer over are like espionage, spying, dishonesty, things like that. However, if you could apply any of those things against waste and variation, non-human things or non-entity type things, Jason is totally on board with it.

If you take a book like The 33 Strategies of War or The Art of War, it ties to construction perfectly. And people who don’t think that construction is like war don’t get that. Here’s how the parallels work:

Strategy is your master plan, your Takt plan that creates flow and protects your people by designing stable work from the beginning.
Tactics are your daily execution, your morning huddles and afternoon foreman meetings that coordinate the team and eliminate roadblocks.
Logistics are your material management, your just-in-time deliveries and inventory buffers that keep crews working without delays.

Amateurs study tactics. Armchair generals study strategy. But professionals study logistics. That’s a military quote that applies perfectly to construction. Most builders focus on tactics, on putting out fires daily. Some think about strategy, about the overall plan. But the professionals understand that logistics wins wars.

In construction, your logistics are your supply chain management, your material procurement, your labor planning, your equipment coordination. Get logistics right and tactics become easy. Get logistics wrong and no amount of tactical brilliance will save you.

The Passion That Makes It All Worth Fighting For

When you watch a movie like We Were Soldiers or Braveheart or Saving Private Ryan, you feel something. There are these battle scenes where they’re coming over the hill and beating the enemy. You’re like “Yes! I love this. I feel the passion. I want to be a part of something like this.” Well, you can in construction. And people who don’t think that construction is like war don’t get the passion. We have to get that.

There’s an interesting thing Katie sent Jason. A YouTube link talking about how back in the day, historical figures like Greeks and Romans wouldn’t ever write about the color blue. People asked, did they have the color blue back in the day? Scientists determined they had the color blue, but they didn’t have a word to describe it. As soon as you have a word to describe it, your mind is more likely to pick up on it.

Here’s the word: marginal. The definition of marginal is when something is minimal or barely enough. Literally, the word comes from the Latin word meaning edge. Marginal means it’s barely good enough. And most projects are marginal. Most behaviors are marginal. Most discipline is marginal. Most training is marginal, meaning it’s just barely right on the edge. It’s mediocre. It’s not good enough. It’s milquetoast.

Marginal. We have to get away from marginal schedules, marginal project teams, marginal training, marginal approaches, marginal operational control, marginal everything. We have to get to excellent. We need to set our set point to excellent.

The Challenge: Pick Up a Weapon and Stand a Post

The current condition is we are way too passive in this industry about things. It’s just because we’re not paying attention. We don’t have that passion. We’re like “Oh, I’m going to work. It’s my day job.” No. Get out of the industry if this is your day job. Go to work. We are at war. We are conquering the enemy. We are protecting the innocent. We are here to sacrifice in a disciplined way using strategy, tactics, and logistics with full passion, full on, just like Braveheart, like We Were Soldiers, like any of these movies.

We have to find that feeling, find that passion. The challenge is we need to pick up a weapon and fight. Like A Few Good Men: “I suggest you pick up a weapon and you stand a post.” That’s exactly how Jason feels about it. If somebody doesn’t think construction is like war, he suggests you pick up a weapon and you stand a post. Either way, he doesn’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to because you are here 100% to protect the innocent and to protect our customers and to protect people’s families and to protect these workers. That is why you’re here.

If it’s just a day job, you’re invited to leave because we are here and we are a part of our own remarkable story with our own remarkable speeches with our own remarkable moments. We live a life of meaning according to a code. 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 it matter if I view construction as war or just as a job?

Because your mindset determines your actions. If it’s just a job, you tolerate marginal. You accept waste and variation as “how construction is.” You don’t fight for your people because you’re just collecting a check. But if it’s war, you fight the enemy (waste and variation), you protect the innocent (workers and families), you demand discipline, you deploy strategy and logistics, and you bring passion. The difference between marginal projects and excellent projects is whether the leader views it as war or as a day job.

Q: Who is the enemy in construction if we’re not fighting other people?

The enemy is waste and variation. Waste and variation cause all the bad things: unevenness, overburden, starts and stops, overproduction, too many flow units, chaos, rework, unsafe conditions, overtime, burnout, and destroyed families. When you understand waste and variation are the enemy, you stop tolerating them. You weaponize Takt planning, deploy Last Planner, attack with flow systems. You fight like your people’s lives depend on it. Because they do.

Q: How are we protecting the innocent in construction?

We protect workers and families by creating flow, stability, good work balance, good project teams, and reasonable project durations. Workers sacrifice themselves hanging off buildings, in dangerous conditions, giving us their best years. If we make them work in nasty bathrooms with no lunchrooms, rush them into unsafe situations, and force six-twelve hour days that ruin their families, we’re not protecting them. We’re abusing them. Fighting waste and variation protects people by removing unnecessary danger and creating environments worthy of their sacrifice.

Q: What does discipline look like in construction?

Show up on time because your team depends on you. Follow quality checklists every time because shortcuts create rework. Attend huddles prepared because coordination prevents chaos. Maintain your tools because professionals respect their craft. Study drawings daily because you cannot lead what you don’t understand. Complete reports accurately because documentation protects the team. Discipline isn’t rigid militarism. Discipline is creating the reliability and predictability that makes flow possible. Undisciplined teams create variation. Variation creates waste. Waste destroys people.

Q: How do I move from marginal to excellent?

First, understand what marginal means: minimal, barely enough, right on the edge, mediocre, not good enough. Most projects, behaviors, discipline, training, and approaches are marginal. Then reject it. Stop accepting marginal schedules, marginal teams, marginal training, marginal operational control. Set your set point to excellent. Pick up a weapon and fight. Bring passion. Deploy strategy, tactics, and logistics. Protect the innocent. Live a life of meaning according to a code. Stop treating construction like a day job and start treating it like the war it is.

On we go.

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Quality, Feat. Brandon Montero

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 27 min

Your Name Is On It: Why Quality Is the First Line of Defense

Brandon Montero’s appearance is well put together. His beard is trimmed and combed to perfection. His clothes are nicely hemmed and washed and cleaned. His tool bag is put together with all of the tools in the right spot, labeled. His truck with all the survey equipment has everything exactly where it should be. Everything has a box and a place for it.

Everything Brandon does is 100% quality control checked from the very beginning. Everything has a double or triple check. All work is put out to the most perfect quality. You don’t find Brandon making quality mistakes. It’s put in right. If you dispatch Brandon, it’s right.

Why? How does this happen? Because we want to scale this mindset to everybody in construction. If our crews could follow a quality process and our project sites could follow a quality process where we distill down owner expectations and know what we’re building, and then each crew follows those guidelines and signs them off and does these double checks before backfilling or closing in a wall or whatever, we would make more money than even if we went out and got more work.

Here’s what most construction leaders miss: quality isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s not something you do when you have extra time. Quality is the first thing that creates flow and increases profit. And it starts with one simple question: is your name on it?

Why Your Name Being On It Changes Everything

Brandon explains the why and then the how because they’re very closely related. The why is because his name is on it. And he wants to clarify that’s not an arrogant thing to say. It’s as if any time he did some work, right next to it there was a little note that said “If anything is wrong, please call Brandon Montero at [phone number].”

It’s not “Oh, hey guys, I’m so great. I could never do anything wrong.” No. It’s that if something is wrong, it’s a direct reflection on him, on his work, on his knowledge, on his effort. He views everything he puts in the ground that way.

And Brandon knows that not everyone might automatically take so much pride in the work that has their name on it. But then he would say, why not think of it in terms of there’s a note right next to your work that says “If anything is wrong with this, please call the owner of the company. Here’s his name and here’s his phone number.”

Just understand that everything that happens from a work standpoint or even in life is a direct reflection on someone. Brandon takes that very personally. It’s a reflection on himself and he wants the things he does to stand for something that is well done, well put together, and well checked.

What that means is Brandon has to do his quality control processes and checks every single time he does anything. The exact same way he would teach a complete beginner to check, double check, triple check, and do work using best practices so they’re unable to make a mistake. He has to do things that same way every single time.

He’s not allowed to think that he’s too good or too smart or too experienced to skip those checks. He has to do it that way every time because the reason he preaches those methods is that they’re bulletproof. And he and his reputation have to stay bulletproof and clean. To do that, he needs to go back to the very same best practices and quality control methods he would teach an absolute beginner because he knows it’s the way to make things absolutely right every time.

The Paradigm Shift That Fixes Quality Problems

Jason remembers helping a very large general contractor one time when their field engineering was not going well. They were making mistakes all throughout the nation and they were about to farm out most of the survey work to surveyors instead of continuing to train their builders in house.

They found out what the root cause of the problem was: people thought they could install the work right the first time without double checks. And they were wrong.

They immediately set out to brainwash people into the concept that they were human and that they could not without double checks install it right the first time. It was a statistical impossibility. Everything they installed, they should assume it was wrong. Once they switched their paradigm from “Oh, I’m good enough, I can get it done right the first time without double checks” to “I’m a human and I’m definitely going to get this wrong or there’s a high statistical probability that this is wrong,” that then led them to believe they had to follow the fundamental steps of quality standard work and double checks, double, triple check.

That company’s progress and success and quality started to change immediately over the course of months. They were able to bring that program back to the field engineers, keep that in house, and head down a path where everything was done according to culture. They were still maintaining and building builders and they also had good quality work. It was fantastic.

Here’s the key: you have to assume you’re wrong. Not because you’re incompetent. Because you’re human. And humans make mistakes when they skip the checks that prevent mistakes.

The Four Types of Double Checks That Make Work Bulletproof

When you double check, you need to use different methods to catch different types of errors. Here are the four approaches that make quality control bulletproof:

Use a different person so fresh eyes catch what you missed because you’re too close to the work and your brain fills in gaps.
Use a different technology so if your first measurement was with a tape, your check is with a laser or total station to catch instrument errors.
Use a different direction so if you measured left to right, you check right to left to catch reading errors and transposition mistakes.
Use a different approach so if you calculated one way, you verify with a different method to catch formula or logic errors.

For survey specifically, there are the typical field engineer commandments. Traverse your primary control. Three wire level. Estimate to the nearest thousandth with your level loops. Never burn a foot. Always run forward and back. Do direct reverse angle checks.

There are basics in surveying that will make sure you’re not only doing those four different types of double checks, but they’re basics. And there are basics in building construction that create the same bulletproof quality.

What Do You Stand For As a Builder?

Brandon asks a fundamental question: what do you stand for as a builder? Are you there to collect a check? That will reflect in your work. Are you there to work hard and do damn good work? That will show up in your work. Are you there to leave a beautiful product behind? That will show up in your work.

Because Brandon is setting himself up to be a trainer and a mentor, because he teaches surveying at ASU, because he’s teaching field engineers in boot camps, if he wants to be an example then he has to act like an example. He has to do exemplary work. That’s what he’s standing for when he teaches someone else. He has to be and reflect all of those things in the way that he works.

So he would ask you: what do you intend to stand for in the building industry? What do you stand for in your trade? Is it quality? Can somebody look at you and say this person represents quality? This person represents hard work? This person represents a beautiful product constructed with pride?

If you can train yourself to represent quality, safety will come with it. A lot of other great things will come with it. Costs will come with it.

The Dollar-for-Dollar Profit of Quality

Here’s a quick note on costs. If you run a business and you want to make $5,000, you can either cut expenses by $5,000 by doing things right the first time, which is dollar for dollar, or you can go get $15,000 or $50,000 worth of additional revenue, additional work, to make that $5,000.

Jason’s grandpa used to say “Boy, do you know what it takes to make a dollar?” Jason was like “Gosh, this old man, leave me alone, he’s teasing me over here.” But he thanks God for that man and that concept because what his grandpa meant was it takes $5 to make a dollar. It takes $3 to make a dollar. Sometimes it definitely isn’t dollar for dollar when you make it, especially with taxes.

Even if you got 100% of money you made, it would at least take $2 to make a dollar by the time you have overhead and taxes. So if you go out and get work and you get more and more work and you keep installing it in a shoddy manner, you’re not making more money.

What you need to do is start doing it right the first time. Every dollar you make from doing it right the first time is dollar for dollar. Every expense you cut is dollar for dollar. Everything you don’t have to rework is dollar for dollar.

That brings us back to what is the measure of success. We get to 100% install it right the first time with our quality checklist, double checking with a different person, technology, approach, different direction. We get to, even if we’re super hyper experienced, make sure that we know the expectations every time. We get to make sure that quality is our first line of defense.

It’s a mindset. It’s a thought process. It’s how we work. And if we aren’t establishing quality out in the field, it’s because we haven’t trained our mind to do so and that’s a wonderful opportunity for us.

Why Field Engineering Is the Grand Daddy of All Training

Jason was talking to a business owner the other day about boot camps. He said field engineering boot camps, the survey boot camps, are the grand daddy of all training, all boot camps. He challenges everybody right now: he believes that boot camp is the best training in the world in construction and he challenges somebody to show him a training that’s more quality and better than the field engineer boot camp.

Someone said “Well, my people don’t really need to do survey. We don’t do a lot of self perform work. Why would we need that?” Here’s why. Even if somebody just went to the boot camp and came back and didn’t have to go survey on their project, the act of being a field engineer is quality. If somebody wants to learn a quality mindset, they need to go through that field engineering program.

If you’re a builder, what better place to learn quality than to have to do survey and do the double checks? What better place to learn quality than to have to do lift drawings and have to do the double checks? What better place to do quality than to actually install and build the components in the field with your craft? What better opportunity? The answer is there isn’t one.

Superintendents are not a builder position. You have to be a builder to be a superintendent, but field engineering is the only, or foreman in some cases, or survey are the only builder positions because you get to piece things together. If you’re out there wanting to be a general superintendent or field director, do not miss the opportunity to be a field engineer because it will teach you quality. It will brainwash you and program you into that mindset and it will set up the rest of your career.

Brandon’s closing advice goes back to the concept of taking pride in your work. Literally after everything you do, whether it’s setting a nail or stake in the ground or pouring or finishing something, can you step back and look at it and ask yourself: am I proud of this? Is that a constant practice in the way that you work? Or is your mind turned off and you’re just accomplishing things and moving on?

He challenges you to take that step back, look at your work, and ask yourself constantly: am I proud of this? 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 I assume my work is wrong even when I’m experienced?

Because you’re human and humans make mistakes when they skip checks. It’s a statistical impossibility to install work right the first time without double checks. Once you switch your paradigm from “I’m good enough to get it done right without checks” to “I’m human and there’s a high probability this is wrong,” you’ll follow the fundamental steps of quality standard work. Experienced people need checks just as much as beginners. The reason you preach those methods is they’re bulletproof. You and your reputation have to stay bulletproof, so use the same best practices you’d teach an absolute beginner.

Q: What does it mean to have your name on the work?

It means viewing everything you do as if there’s a note right next to it that says “If anything is wrong, please call [your name] at [your number].” It’s not arrogance. It’s understanding that if something is wrong, it’s a direct reflection on you, your work, your knowledge, your effort. Everything from a work standpoint is a direct reflection on someone. Take it personally. Make the things you do stand for something that is well done, well put together, and well checked.

Q: What are the four types of double checks and why do I need all of them?

Use a different person because fresh eyes catch what you missed. Use a different technology because if your first measurement was with a tape, checking with a laser catches instrument errors. Use a different direction because if you measured left to right, checking right to left catches reading errors. Use a different approach because if you calculated one way, verifying with a different method catches formula errors. Each type catches different kinds of mistakes. You need all four to make your work bulletproof.

Q: How does quality create more profit than getting more work?

Every dollar you make from doing it right the first time is dollar for dollar. Every expense you cut is dollar for dollar. Everything you don’t have to rework is dollar for dollar. But getting more work requires $3 to $5 to make $1 after overhead and taxes. If you go get $50,000 worth of additional work to make $5,000, you’re working harder for the same result. If you cut $5,000 in rework by doing it right the first time, that’s pure profit. Quality is the first thing that creates flow and increases profit.

Q: Why is field engineering the best training for learning quality mindsets?

Because the act of being a field engineer is quality. Even if you never survey on your project after training, you’ve learned the quality mindset. What better place to learn quality than having to do survey with double checks? What better place than having to do lift drawings with double checks? What better place than actually installing components in the field with craft? Field engineering is the only builder position besides foreman because you piece things together. It brainwashes you into quality thinking and sets up the rest of your career.

On we go.

If you want to learn more we have:

Discover Jason’s Expertise:

On we go

Feedback for Improvement!, Feat. Brandon Montero

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 24 min

Stop Calling It Negative: Why Feedback for Improvement Is a Gift

Brandon Montero and Jason were talking about the concept of negative feedback versus feedback for improvement. And right away, they want you to understand something: there’s no such thing as negative feedback unless someone is attempting to hurt you.

You’ll often hear the word criticism. Rather than thinking about criticism or the root word critical, think about feedback for improvement. Feedback that allows someone to grow or gives someone a directive where they can change something to have success in the future. Not just “Hey, this is bad” but “What is good? What would be the right course? What would be the direction to go?” Instead of just “This is what you’re doing wrong.”

Jason hears it a lot: “This is criticism. This is negative feedback.” But unless somebody was attempting to hurt him, he doesn’t know of any negative feedback. And he thinks this immediately goes back to when we were kids or in high school or in other situations where we took the feedback as being negative. This chopping and nipping and correcting and sculpting and hitting the rough parts of the stone off. This really hard process.

However, if we continue to look at it like that in companies and in our careers, then we lose the life changing magic of the improvement that can come from receiving feedback. We need to change our paradigms. We need to look at this differently.

How to Receive Feedback Without Taking It Personally

Brandon offers coaching for anyone receiving feedback. Rather than thinking that everything you hear has to be taken to heart as a description of what you are, think of it as someone describing to you the outside experience that people other than you might have with you.

What does that mean? Sometimes there’s something you intend or an experience you intend that other people are having, but that doesn’t mean it’s the experience they’re actually having with you. When somebody communicates and says “Oh, I notice this about your personality” or “I notice this about your actions,” that’s the experience they’re having with you. It’s not a reflection on what you intend necessarily, but it helps you understand how it’s coming across to other people.

Brandon likes to look at it as an outside view or a snapshot of how someone outside of him might view his actions or his attitude. We do have to disconnect the shaming of “This is who I am is defining me” versus “These are my actions and I’m inherently a good person but these actions may or may not be suiting me well.”

That shift changes everything. Your actions are not your identity. Your current performance is not your potential. Your blind spots are not character flaws. They’re just areas where you haven’t received clear feedback yet.

The Gap Between Who Wants Feedback and Who Gives It

When Brandon and Jason do certain processes in boot camp, they actually encourage feedback for improvement and feedback of appreciation. It’s very difficult for 80 to 90 percent of people to provide either one. They have people do that in an active setting and get practice with it, and most people are very uncomfortable.

But here’s the interesting part. Brandon also asks the question: “How many of you actually hated or disliked or felt uncomfortable receiving the feedback for improvement?” Nobody’s hands raise. Nobody.

The feedback is viewed as a gift. It is welcomed. It is something people want. Some people haven’t received feedback in one or five or seventeen or thirty years because nobody will give it to them. But they want it.

There’s a huge disparity between how many people will provide feedback of appreciation or feedback for improvement versus those who want it. Why? We have a fear that someone will take offense with what we have to say. We have a fear they’ll want to argue their way out of it. Maybe we have a fear of defending our opinion in a particular matter.

But if the feedback is truly delivered in a way that offers something constructive, if it offers a directive that might allow somebody to grow, it makes the content that much easier to swallow for the person receiving it. Oftentimes we don’t necessarily have to worry about how it’s going to land. It’ll land in the way that’s constructive if the intent behind it is genuine care for their growth.

Why the Compliment Sandwich Kills Your Credibility

Brandon and Jason feel strongly about this: the compliment sandwich is playing into the whole “feedback is negative” concept. The idea is you compliment somebody, then criticize them, then compliment again. You sandwich it. You’re dampening the blow.

But what blow? Why is there a blow? There shouldn’t be a blow. Feedback isn’t negative. It’s not critical. It’s not criticism. So why would we have to sandwich it?

It needs to be direct. And we’re saying it in the first place because we respect people. That’s one of the things that throws Jason. He doesn’t think we fully understand this concept of respect for people. Because if we did, we would know that if we really respected somebody, we’d have high expectations and we’d provide that feedback for improvement. And it’s a gift.

We also would know on the other end that to give feedback can be somewhat difficult and to even do so is an act of love. So Jason doesn’t love the concept of the compliment sandwich. We need to get really good at knowing what feedback is for, getting it to be palatable and direct, and getting it to be communicated with the sincerity and love that we mean it.

Brandon adds to this. When you are giving feedback, it’s usually worth someone’s attention. When you water it down with a compliment first, it takes the acuteness or the point off of what you’re delivering. But then what does it do for the compliment either? “Oh wait, I’m being complimented. Oh no, actually there’s something else falling behind it.” It takes that sincerity away and brings your sincerity in general into question.

Do I only get compliments when something else is coming right behind it? That’s what people start to think. If you had a boss who was always compliment sandwiching you, every time they said something nice you’d be like “Okay, where’s the shoe gonna drop?” You’d get accustomed to that pattern. You’d get programmed to “Okay, every time they say something, something’s behind there.”

And it’s not necessary because feedback means we care about somebody’s career, their progress, their development.

What Real Leadership Requires

Great leaders, or actually to even be a leader, you have to build the team first, have hard conversations, provide feedback for improvement, manage and coach and mentor direct reports, hold remarkable meetings, and scale communication. If we’re in any leadership position anywhere and we have direct reports, that’s a part of our job. We get to do that.

It’s interesting when Brandon and Jason do feedback exercises in boot camp. There are a number of them in their arsenal of teaching and coaching and mentoring. People squirm. Literally you can sit next to them while they’re attempting to do this, and Jason says “attempting” intentionally. They’re squirming and giggling and just doing anything they can to get away from giving feedback for improvement.

They’ll inherently go into compliment mode or they’ll attempt to criticize themselves instead of providing feedback. Human beings will just do anything to get out of it. Brandon and Jason literally have to stand there and coach people: “No, this is how you give it. No, this is how you give it.” And they just feel like if we really had the proper understanding of how welcomed and wonderful and needed feedback for improvement is, we’d get out of our own way.

The Practice Guide for Giving Feedback That Lands Well

Here’s the clinical psychological answer and the practical coaching. Practice with this as much as you can. Make sure you’re following these principles when you give feedback:

Talk about their actions, not their identity, so people understand this is about what they did, not who they are as a person.
Give suggestions for a path forward so they know exactly what to do differently, not just what to stop doing.
Make it direct without watering it down with false compliments that dilute the message and kill your credibility.
Communicate it with love so the words you use matter less than the care they can see on your face and know from your actions.

That false compliment doesn’t matter. You can say what you need to say as long as they can see on your face and know from your actions that you care about them and you’re simply providing that coaching for them to live a happier and more remarkable life.

Brandon adds final thoughts on intent. When we’re choosing the words so they aren’t misconstrued as some type of criticism, make sure that intent is truly there for “How are we going to build someone up? What exactly am I telling them or teaching them right now so they can have success in the future?”

There are negative words out there. There are words that might make somebody feel bad and not necessarily want to continue in their path. So make sure that the words you’re choosing are words that are meant to build, direct, and admonish someone in the right direction.

The people squirming in boot camp exercises aren’t scared of giving feedback. They’re scared of doing it wrong. They’re scared of hurting someone. They’re scared of being misunderstood. But the person receiving the feedback? They’re not scared. They’re waiting. They’re hoping someone cares enough to tell them the truth. They’re hoping someone respects them enough to have high expectations.

Feedback for improvement is a gift. Stop treating it like a punishment that needs to be wrapped in compliments to make it palatable. Start treating it like what it is: an act of love from someone who cares enough about your future to tell you what you need to hear. 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 the compliment sandwich a bad approach to giving feedback?

Because it waters down both the feedback and the compliment. When you compliment first, it takes the point off what you’re delivering. It makes the feedback less acute, less direct, less impactful. But it also ruins the compliment by making people suspicious. They start thinking “Do I only get compliments when criticism is coming?” It brings your sincerity into question. People get programmed to wait for the other shoe to drop. Just be direct. If the feedback is truly delivered with intent to help someone grow, it doesn’t need to be cushioned.

Q: How do I receive feedback without taking it personally?

Think of it as someone describing the outside experience people have with you, not a description of who you are. Sometimes there’s an experience you intend that other people are having, but that doesn’t mean it’s the experience they’re actually having. When someone says they notice something about your actions or attitude, that’s the experience they’re having with you. It’s not a reflection on what you intend. It helps you understand how you’re coming across. Disconnect the shaming of “This is who I am” from “These are my actions.” Your actions are not your identity.

Q: Why do so few people give feedback when so many people want it?

Because we fear that someone will take offense, argue their way out of it, or force us to defend our opinion. But 80 to 90 percent of people are uncomfortable giving feedback while almost nobody is uncomfortable receiving it. Some people haven’t received feedback in one, five, seventeen, or thirty years because nobody will give it to them. But they want it. The feedback is viewed as a gift, welcomed, something people are waiting for. We just need to overcome the fear and give it.

Q: What makes feedback constructive instead of critical?

Constructive feedback offers a directive that allows someone to grow or change something to have success in the future. It’s not just “This is bad” but “What is good? What would be the right course? What would be the direction to go?” It talks about actions, not identity. It gives suggestions for a path forward. It’s delivered with genuine intent to build someone up and help them succeed. The words matter less than the care behind them. If they can see on your face and know from your actions that you care about them, the feedback lands constructively.

Q: How do I practice getting better at giving feedback?

Practice as much as you can in real situations. Make sure you’re talking about actions, not identity. Give specific suggestions for what to do differently going forward. Be direct without watering it down. Communicate with love so your intent is clear. Choose words that build, direct, and admonish in the right direction instead of words that shame or tear down. Remember that giving feedback is part of leadership. If you have direct reports, it’s literally your job to build the team, have hard conversations, and provide feedback for improvement. The more you practice, the more natural it becomes.

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It’s NOT about Technical Skills, Feat. Brandon Montero

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 28 min

The Problem Isn’t What You Know: It’s What You Want

Brandon Montero and Jason were driving to a boot camp talking about professional development. Not technical skill development. Not learning how to read plans or manage schedules or run CPM software. They were talking about the developing of who somebody is, the accentuating and making more alive of who somebody is, the development of their emotional range and their non-cognitive skills.

David Goggins calls them the non-cognitive skills. Grit, determination, discipline, accountability, things like that. The skills that separate the superintendent who knows what to do from the superintendent who actually does it. The skills that separate the project manager who understands flow from the project manager who creates it.

Brandon made the correlation clear. We all know that person who has years and years of technical skill but doesn’t know how to mentor. He doesn’t know how to train. He doesn’t know how to pass that information on. Somehow he’s never gotten to that level of management. He’s that genius guy out in the field, but for some reason, he hasn’t been able to grow.

Here’s why this matters. When Jason and Brandon train people on personal organization, team balance and health, keeping a field book, being disciplined with procurement logs, whatever it is, everybody knows what they should be doing. It’s very infrequent that they run across people who don’t know the intellectual what.

In the book Switch there are three parts to change. One is directing the intellect of a human being. Two is motivating their wants and desires. Three is shaping the path and making it easy for them. A lot of times, people know what to do and they have a clear path. The issue, the opportunity, is motivating their desires. And that’s what most construction leaders completely miss.

Why Dirty Sites Aren’t About Circumstances

Jason was writing a section in Elevating Construction Senior Superintendents about desire. He remembered this phrase: to every man is given according to his desires, whether he chooses good or bad, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.

Here’s what that means for construction. If a superintendent’s job is dirty, that’s because that’s where their set point is. That’s what they desire. They have low expectations. If their project is behind schedule, it’s a lot less to do with technical skills and circumstance and more with that’s their mental set point. That’s where their expectations are. That’s where their desires are.

If they’re not keeping a to-do list, if they’re not filling out a field book, if they’re not studying the drawings, there are so many people who come up and say “Can you just teach more technical skills?” and they ignore the personal part of it. But it really comes down to desire. That’s their set point. That’s what they’ve come to expect.

Jason hears from people all the time: no, just technical, just technical. We don’t need to teach anything other than that. But he thinks it’s zero percent technical skills and one hundred percent professional development desire skills or elevating somebody’s set point or getting them to expect more. That’s the problem.

Brandon agrees. The technical information is pretty widely available out there in the world. You can go find a YouTube video that will show you how to do almost anything. But whether you believe that you can do it, whether you believe that you can figure it out when things get complex, whether you have the belief that you can be successful, that’s another story.

Along with drive and desire, you need belief. Do you have the belief that you can be successful in a certain way? Do you have a belief that your job could be really enjoyable and satisfying to you? If you had that belief, what would you back it up with from an action standpoint or a desire standpoint?

Because we can figure anything out. There’s nobody in the construction industry who doesn’t know about lean or scheduling or finishing projects on time or doing it right the first time or achieving flow. These aren’t new things. Everybody knows they should do that. So how do we get that passion, that desire, that grind like Eric Thomas is talking about? By raising our mental set point.

What Raises Your Set Point and Elevates Your Desires

Jason was writing in the book about the things he does to elevate his desires. Here’s what works for him and what might work for you:

The moral and ethical foundation from church and religion that provides purpose and accountability beyond just getting a paycheck or hitting metrics.
Professional development from programs like Rapport or Tony Robbins or leadership trainings that challenge you to grow beyond your current capacity.
Reading books that elevate desires and give a mental set point that’s higher than the default you’d settle into without intentional input.
Getting a mentor or role model who’s always asking you to be better and holding you to standards you might not hold yourself to naturally.

The point Jason wants to make, and it’s a little bit forward and might even be offensive, is this: if a job is dirty, it’s not circumstance. That’s how that super and PM think. If the job’s unsafe, it’s not circumstance. That’s what’s in that PM or super’s mind. If a business is disorganized with bad financial records or a lack of control and chaos, that’s what’s in the business owner’s mind. Everything outside is a physical manifestation of the inner mental condition of the human being.

So what is our challenge? Our challenge isn’t “Hey, you should go clean the site” or “You should go organize your business” or “Hey, you should be safer.” They already know that. How do we get them to want to do it and to get the discipline and the grind and the determination to get there?

The Belief That Changes Everything

Brandon identified the really big concept he took away from Rapport leadership: belief in self is huge. What do you think that you deserve as yourself? Do you deserve to work for an employer who treats people well? Then are you part of that? If you weren’t, can you seek other employment at a place that more closely matches your set of goals and ethics?

If you feel that you deserve to work on a clean job, then would you take part in cleaning it up yourself? Would you take part in motivating others? If you’re a super or a PM and you feel like “If this job represents me, it’s going to have this particular look or feel to it,” then you’re going to follow through on that. Why? Because you deserve to work on that job and you deserve that it will represent you.

If you have that system of beliefs, there’s going to be something that comes along to back it up, and that’s going to come out of the work of your own hands. But if you don’t have that belief, if you just think things will turn out how they will, the job will run you over to some extent. You’re not really directing it. That’s a belief about your ability. That’s a belief about how much you put into place will actually stick with other people. And that’s a negative belief.

If you think that things will just run you over and turn out as they will, that’s probably what’s going on in your life in general. That’s probably a component of what’s there in your mind at all times. Jason loves this because when there’s a disconnect, when someone says “I’m not holding the line or holding people accountable on my job and setting high expectations,” the answer isn’t “I need more technical skills.” That’s silly. You’re dealing with other human beings. This is an interpersonal problem. This is a professional development, motivation, set point, expectations problem.

Would you want to put your name on that project? Because ultimately whatever that project is, that is you. If you’re the leader, you’re the super, you’re the PM. And Jason’s not letting anyone else off the hook either. If you’re an assistant super, a field engineer, a foreman, a director, anybody, and you’re like “The job’s not going well, it’s a bunch of circumstances,” first of all, you have to stop believing that.

With a lowercase g, you are the god of this world. You are the god of that world. You control everything if you’re the general contractor. And even if you’re a trade partner, you can affect a ton. We have to get our minds wrapped around the fact that you’ve got to own that.

The Two Choices When You’re On a Bad Project

Here’s something Jason wants everybody to hear. You’re getting out of school, you’re transitioning from being a foreman to being a field engineer, or an assistant super, or wherever you are. The worst thing you can do is to go be a part of a bad project. You’ve got two choices, and two choices only. You change that project to be successful, or you go somewhere else. You cannot stay on a bad project and not end up with a certain amount of learned helplessness.

People get out of school, they’re on a barn burner, then they’re on another barn burner, and then another barn burner, and then finally they just get used to it. They think “That’s how it is.” That shapes their desires. It shapes their set point. It shapes their expectations.

Jason and Brandon have seen people who have been on barn burner after barn burner after barn burner. To attempt to reprogram that out of them is possible. But it’s difficult. The people who get used to excellence also find it similarly difficult to accept substandard projects, because that shapes their desires.

Brandon adds an important point. We’re talking about ending up on these types of projects or being a part of a certain type of project. But this isn’t that the project was wonderful when you got there and it’s wonderful without you. It’s what is it that you’re bringing to it individually.

The Soft Skills You Can Add According to Your Desire

Maybe you don’t have the skill to make this project run smoothly yet. What is the skill set then? Here are some of the emotional and professional skills you might need to develop:

The ability to deliver more direct, clear feedback so people know exactly what you expect and where they stand instead of vague niceness that doesn’t create accountability.
The ability to hold authority in a way that’s more impactful so when you set a standard people take it seriously instead of treating it as a suggestion.
More compassion or listening skills when dealing with trade partners because they haven’t bought into your plan and you’re unaware of that fact.

Brandon feels like a lot of people have the view that whatever set of professional skills, or emotional skills, they show up with is all they have. “Oh, he’s just like that. I’m just like that. I’m impatient. I’m this and that.” But just like a technical skill that you have the desire to learn and you take the time to go learn it, you can grab onto these professional skills if it’s what you want for yourself, if it’s part of your desire. You can grab those skills, change the way that you manage, change the way that you lead, and then change the outcome of the projects and teams that you’re leading.

Jason adds one final thought that sums it all up: desire finds the technical skill. The technical skill doesn’t find the desire. You start with setting your expectations and then somebody with the desire to get better will go find those technical skills. Somebody that desires to get better will go find the information. Somebody that desires to get better will go YouTube the information, whatever they need to do to get it done, and they’ll grind.

Don’t settle for less. Don’t ignore the human side of it. If you have a problem, we need to raise our set point. Remember, it is given to him according to his desires, whether he desires life or death, good or evil, joy or remorse of conscience.

You can either live a remarkable life or a horrible, learned hopelessness kind of life depending on what your desires are, your mental set point, and your expectations. 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 isn’t more technical training the answer to most problems?

Because the technical information is widely available. You can find a YouTube video for almost anything. The issue isn’t that people don’t know what to do. It’s that they don’t want it badly enough to actually do it. If a job is dirty, it’s not because the super doesn’t know how to clean. It’s because that’s where their set point is. That’s what they desire. If they’re not keeping a to-do list or studying drawings, it’s not a knowledge problem. It’s a desire problem. Desire finds the technical skill. The technical skill doesn’t find the desire.

Q: What does it mean that everything outside is a manifestation of the inner mental condition?

If a job is dirty, that’s how that super and PM think. If the job’s unsafe, that’s what’s in that PM or super’s mind. If a business is disorganized with chaos and bad financial records, that’s what’s in the business owner’s mind. Your external circumstances reflect your internal set point, your expectations, your desires. The challenge isn’t telling people they should clean the site or be safer. They already know that. The challenge is raising their mental set point so they want it badly enough to actually do it.

Q: How do I raise my set point and elevate my desires?

Get a moral and ethical foundation that provides purpose beyond paychecks and metrics. Invest in professional development from programs that challenge you to grow. Read books that elevate your desires and give you a higher mental set point. Get a mentor or role model who’s always asking you to be better. Surround yourself with people who have high expectations. Work on excellent projects, not barn burners, because what you experience shapes what you come to expect. And ask yourself: what do I deserve? If you believe you deserve to work on clean, safe, well run projects, you’ll create them.

Q: What should I do if I’m on a bad project right now?

You have two choices and two choices only. Change that project to be successful, or go somewhere else. You cannot stay on a bad project and not end up with learned helplessness. People get on barn burner after barn burner and finally just get used to it. They think “That’s how it is.” That shapes their desires, their set point, their expectations. It’s possible to reprogram that, but it’s difficult. Don’t let bad projects shape you into someone with low expectations. Either fix it or leave.

Q: Can I really change my soft skills and emotional range?

Yes. A lot of people think whatever professional skills or emotional skills they show up with is all they have. “I’m just like that. I’m impatient. I’m not good with people.” But just like a technical skill you have the desire to learn, you can grab onto these professional skills if it’s what you want for yourself. You can learn to deliver direct feedback, hold authority effectively, listen with compassion, manage conflict. You can change the way you manage, change the way you lead, and change the outcome of projects and teams. But only if you have the desire.

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The Change Model!

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 29 min

Why Your Change Efforts Die: The Chaos You’re Not Willing to Endure

Jason works with companies in very scary situations. They say “Jason, we need your help. We’re going to do some really crazy, wonderful things. We need to change the culture, implement field operations, do some training, recover a project.” It ends up being a situation where the people have to do the work.

And here’s where it gets hard. Jason doesn’t blame the people, but we do have to train the people. There’s a little character in Madagascar named King Julien who says “I love the people. Not a very lively bunch, though.” It’s funny because it’s true. The people have to get this done.

Jason likens it to a story he heard. His wife’s uncle was watching a horse race with other people in the family. The horse they were wanting to win was losing, or the jockey was, and they’re yelling at the jockey. Finally, the uncle said “You know, the horse has something to do with it too, right?”

The jockey is on top doing his best, encouraging, spurring him on, guiding, being the leader. But at the end of the day, the horse has to run the race. The jockey is too short, too slow, too human to get them past the finish line. The horse has to run the race.

We’re talking about workers, foremen, superintendents, PMs, employees, whoever. These people have to run the race in a changed environment. The leadership, the trainers, the consultants can only do so much. But there are some very key things we can do to bring about change. And most importantly, there’s a model that shows you exactly where your change effort will die if you’re not prepared to endure the chaos.

The Change Model: Why Most Efforts Fail in the Chaos Phase

Ryan Schmidt from Petty Coach Schmidt shared a graphic with Jason that’s been on his mind lately. It’s the change model, and it explains why most construction companies start change initiatives and then abandon them three months later when things get hard.

Here’s how it works. You start with the old status quo. Everything is familiar. People know the routines. The system is broken, but at least it’s predictable. Then something happens. A catalyst. Maybe you lose a big project. Maybe safety incidents are piling up. Maybe your best superintendent quits and tells you exactly why on the way out. Something forces you to realize change is necessary.

So you make a plan. You get excited. You launch the initiative. You bring in training. You implement new systems. And then what happens? Chaos. It’s going to suck. You’re going to have people leaving. There’s going to be grumbling. You’re not going to see effectiveness. You’re going to spend a little bit of money. You’re going to say “Well, I’m not making a ton of progress.”

This is where most companies quit. They hit the chaos phase, decide the change isn’t working, and retreat to the old status quo. They tell themselves “We tried lean and it didn’t work.” They tell themselves “Our people aren’t ready for this.” They tell themselves “Maybe next year.” And they die in the chaos phase.

But here’s what happens if you stick with it. If you grind and you stay and you drive and you’re determined, if you stay with it, the organization starts to get it. They start to see what you want them to see. That’s when these concepts start to get integrated. Then they start to get good solid practice with it. And then you have a new status quo. A better one. A status quo built on flow instead of chaos, on respect instead of blame, on systems instead of heroics. The problem is you have to stick with it. You have to endure the chaos. You have to press the attack exactly when you want to give up.

When You Live or Die on the Hill

Jason was talking to a great company the other day during a training. There was an assignment and the people needed to do the assignment. Some of them hadn’t done it. And they were sharing with each other, realizing something crucial: we live or die on the hill right now.

The change isn’t going to go anywhere unless we hold our people accountable and unless we sift through the wheat and the tares. And Jason is talking about the cultural wheat and tares, because every human being is a stalk of wheat. But from a cultural standpoint we have wheat and tares in our organization. Some people belong, some people don’t.

We live or die right now based on what we do. Once it gets hard, once you’re to the point where “I want to give up, I don’t know if I should have spent this money, I don’t know what’s going on,” that’s when you have to press the attack. It’s too late to turn back. You have to press the attack because that’s where people are going to start to see. That’s when you get out of the chaos area. That’s when you get into the integration, into the solid practice, and you have a new status quo.

Here’s what most leaders don’t understand: your people aren’t wanting you to fail. Your people that are pushing you are seeing how serious you are about this so they know if they should leave or buy in. They just want to know where you stand.

At the end of the day, most of your people are waiting to see if it’s real. They don’t want to waste their time. Every human being is trying to save time. So a lot of times when they’re pushing you, they’re just testing you. They’re not even asking you to give it up. They probably in most cases don’t want you to give it up because they want the bonus. They want the money. They want the improvement. They want the stability. They want the lean.

But they’re going to push you and they’re going to test you. Part of this whole thing is that when you finally stick with it and you see the change, then they’re going to thank you. But you have to be the one that’s out there alone. Leadership is lonely.

The Loneliness of Leadership

President Gordon B. Hinckley said it perfectly: “Your position, the responsibility on your shoulders came as a result of the position of leadership which was imposed upon you. And when that declaration was made concerning your responsibility, you were immediately put into a position of loneliness. The loneliness of leadership from which we cannot shrink nor run away and which we must face up to with boldness and courage and ability. Our history is one of being driven, of being winnowed and peeled, of being persecuted and hounded. And we must walk fearlessly even though you walk in loneliness. And you know in your hearts that peace will come of the squaring one’s life with principle.”

You have to stick with it. You absolutely have to stick with it. When everyone is grumbling, when people are leaving, when you’re spending money and not seeing immediate results, when your board is asking why the numbers aren’t better yet, when your superintendents are complaining that the new way takes more time, that’s when you hold the line.

Because what comes after the chaos is transformation. What comes after transformation is integration. What comes after integration is solid practice. What comes after solid practice is a new status quo that’s actually better than the old one.

The Steps to Organizational Change That Actually Sticks

Here are the steps you need to take if you want change that lasts instead of change that dies in the chaos phase:

Determine the goal by defining exactly what you’re trying to accomplish and why it matters for workers, leaders, and the company.
Assess the situation by gathering the cold, hard, brutal facts about where you actually are right now, not where you wish you were.
Identify who is going to take this journey with you and who are your influencers and leaders, because you can’t do this alone.
Draft a plan that outlines the specific steps, timeline, resources, and milestones for the change initiative.
Direct the rider, motivate the elephant, and shape the path by educating people’s minds, motivating their hearts, and making it easy for them to execute.

That last point comes from the book Switch. You have to work on three levels simultaneously. You have to educate minds so people understand why the change matters and how it works. You have to motivate hearts so people actually want to do it instead of just complying. And you have to shape the path so the new way is easier than the old way.

Most change efforts focus only on educating minds. They do training and expect behavior to change. But knowledge doesn’t change behavior. Motivation changes behavior. And making the new way easier than the old way sustains behavior.

Cultural Creation Principles That Make Change Stick

In cultural creation, there are principles you have to keep in mind if you want the change to integrate instead of dying in chaos:

Spread a mindset by engaging everyone in all of their senses so they see it, hear it, feel it, and experience it, not just read about it in an email.
Let people win with short term milestones so they experience success early instead of waiting months to see if it’s working.
Add new things to the culture but also subtract old things so you don’t overwhelm people with too many changes at once.
Don’t be afraid to go slowly because lasting change takes time and rushing creates resistance instead of buy in.
Allow people time to decide if they’re in or out by setting minimum standards and standards of excellence they can grab hold of.
Leave artifacts like documents, posters, checklists, and tools that people can anchor back to when they forget why the change matters.

Sometimes those artifacts are a 20 mile march document or a thematic goal or a clarity document or a standards doc or an operations manual or core values or your secret sauce or your guiding documents. Whatever it is that explains the change so it can constantly be assessed and the gap between where we are and where we’re going can be measured.

The current condition is we don’t let change stick. We don’t let it. We’re like “Oh, old status quo, catalyst, change, I want results tomorrow.” We don’t go through the old status quo, catalyst, chaos and nightmare, then the transformation of people’s vision, integration, concrete practice, and then a new status quo, let alone do that again and again and again to get better as an organization. The future belongs to those who are willing to take the time, spend the money, and make the hard decisions. Be consistent and drive forward because change is not easy and you will never make it easy.

You Can’t Have Greatness Without the Hardness

In teams, there’s the forming, storming, norming, and performing phases. There’s the five behaviors of a cohesive team: building trust, having conflict, setting goals, holding each other accountable, and performing. In change efforts, there’s always going to be the part where the culture, the existing culture, pushes back.

You can’t have greatness without the hardness. You’ll never have a great team without the storming phase. You’ll never have a great team dynamic without the conflict phase. You’ll never have a great organization without the cultural pushback.

So go through the old status quo, the catalyst, the chaos, the transformation of vision, the integration, the practice, and get to your new vistas of success. Take these marches forward steadily. Be consistent and drive forward.

When you finally stick with it and you see the change, your people are going to thank you. But you have to be the one that’s out there alone first. You have to endure the loneliness of leadership. You have to press the attack when everyone else wants to retreat. You have to hold the line in the chaos phase when every instinct tells you to quit.

Because that’s where change dies or lives. Not in the planning phase. Not in the catalyst phase. In the chaos phase. When it gets hard. When people are leaving. When you’re spending money. When you don’t see results yet. That’s when leaders either create lasting change or retreat to the old status quo or tell themselves “We tried and it didn’t work.”

The horse has to run the race. But the jockey has to stay on through the chaos. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: How long does the chaos phase typically last in a change initiative?

It varies, but expect the chaos phase to last several months. You’ll spend money, people will leave, you won’t see immediate effectiveness, and there will be grumbling. This is normal. Most companies quit here because they expect results in 30 to 60 days. Real change takes longer. The transformation starts when the organization begins to see what you want them to see. That’s when concepts get integrated, people get solid practice, and you reach a new status quo. If you quit in the chaos phase, you never get there.

Q: How do I know if people are resisting change or just testing my commitment?

Most people aren’t wanting you to fail. They’re testing how serious you are so they know if they should leave or buy in. They just want to know where you stand. Many times when people push back, they’re not asking you to give it up. They probably don’t want you to give it up because they want the bonus, the money, the improvement, the stability, the lean. But they’re going to push you and test you. When you finally stick with it and see the change, they’re going to thank you. The key is holding the line when it gets hard.

Q: What does it mean to “live or die on the hill” during change?

It means the change isn’t going anywhere unless you hold people accountable and sift through the cultural wheat and tares. Some people belong in the new culture, some don’t. Once it gets hard and you’re at the point where you want to give up, that’s when you have to press the attack. It’s too late to turn back. You live or die based on what you do in that moment. That’s when people start to see you’re serious. That’s when you get out of chaos and into integration, practice, and a new status quo.

Q: What are the biggest mistakes leaders make in change initiatives?

The biggest mistake is quitting in the chaos phase. Leaders expect results tomorrow. They want old status quo, catalyst, change, immediate results. They don’t go through the full cycle: old status quo, catalyst, chaos and nightmare, transformation of vision, integration, concrete practice, then new status quo. The second mistake is focusing only on educating minds through training. You also have to motivate hearts and shape the path so the new way is easier than the old way. The third mistake is overwhelming people with too many changes at once instead of adding new things and subtracting old things gradually.

Q: How do I sustain change once we get through the chaos phase?

Leave artifacts that people can anchor back to. Documents, posters, checklists, tools that explain the change so it can constantly be assessed. Let people win with short term milestones so they experience success. Don’t be afraid to go slowly. Allow people time to decide if they’re in or out by setting clear standards. And most importantly, keep going through the cycle again and again. You don’t reach one new status quo and stop. You use that as the foundation for the next change, the next improvement, the next march forward. Consistent improvement over time creates lasting transformation.

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People & Process, Feat. Adam Hoots

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 24 min

The Foundation You’re Ignoring: Why Respect for People Changes Everything

Adam Hoots almost got fired early in his career at Hensel Phelps. He was the worst employee they had until two things happened: he found the Field Engineering Methods Manual, and he found the scriptures. The technical manual told him how to do things. The spiritual part taught him the people respect, the why part of things.

That combination changed everything. The technical gave him capability. The spiritual gave him the foundation. And together, they created something neither could do alone: a builder who knew his craft and cared about his people.

Jason Schroeder admits he’s made the same mistake for years. He teaches morning worker huddles, afternoon foreman meetings, Takt planning, integrated production control. He teaches tools and systems and processes. But sometimes those tools fail. Not because they’re wrong, but because the person using them doesn’t yet respect people.

They go out and deliver a morning huddle with no connection. They stand in front of an owner with no connection. They use negotiation tactics without the right motive. No connection. And it fails. Every time. Because systems without respect are just manipulation with better organization.

Here’s what most construction leaders miss: the foundation for every good thing that happens in your career isn’t Last Planner. It isn’t Takt. It isn’t Scrum. The foundation is respect for people. And if you skip that foundation, everything you build on top of it will eventually collapse.

Why Technical Skills Alone Will Destroy You

Jason was vulnerable about his early career failures. He ignored the people part. He focused on technical excellence, job site productivity, getting things done. And he failed. Not because he didn’t know his craft. Because he didn’t know his people.

The Field Engineering Methods Manual gave him technical competence. The scriptures gave him moral and ethical grounding. Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People gave him relational wisdom. Jason reads the scriptures every day. He reads Carnegie’s book every year. Not because he’s trying to be a better person in some abstract sense. Because the giving of people, the respecting of people, is the foundation for every good thing that’s happened in his life.

Think about what he’s saying. Last Planner didn’t change his life. Takt planning didn’t change his life. Those books changed his life. God changed his life. Respect for people changed his life. The tools came later. They worked because they were built on the right foundation.

Adam makes the same point differently. He talks about the feeling he gets in his belly when he connects with change makers, with people fighting for the worker. His buddy calls it the river of living water, from the scriptures. Some people call it the Holy Spirit within you. Whatever you call it, it’s about being yourself, being authentic, putting good into the world.

When you put out good in the world, that energy takes over. It’s our responsibility as humans to put out more good than bad. And once we have that, everything else flows. The tools work. The systems succeed. The projects finish on time. Not because the technical execution was flawless. Because the foundation was right.

What Changes When You Get the Foundation Right

Jason found three things that transformed his career from failing field engineer to successful builder. Each one addressed a different part of the foundation problem he was ignoring:

The Field Engineering Methods Manual gave him technical competence so he knew how to execute his role properly and deliver quality work consistently.
The scriptures gave him moral and ethical grounding so he understood the why behind treating people with dignity and operating with integrity.
How to Win Friends and Influence People gave him relational wisdom so he could connect with people authentically and build teams that wanted to work together.

Without all three, he was incomplete. Technical skills without moral grounding creates competent people who don’t care about their impact. Moral grounding without technical skills creates good intentions that can’t execute. Relational wisdom without the other two creates manipulative people who use connection for selfish ends. You need all three working together.

The Danger of Teaching Tools Without Teaching Why

Here’s the problem Adam and Jason are wrestling with. They teach tools. They certify people in Takt. They train superintendents on production laws and capability. They spread lean thinking and flow systems. And sometimes it works beautifully. Sometimes people implement the tools and projects transform.

But sometimes people take the tools and fail spectacularly. They deliver morning huddles with no connection. They implement Last Planner with no collaboration. They create Takt plans with no respect for the trades who have to execute them. The tools become weapons. The systems become control mechanisms. And everyone involved gets burned.

Why does this happen? Because we’re teaching what without teaching why. We’re giving people production laws without giving them the foundation of respect for people. We’re training technical competence without building moral and ethical grounding. We’re creating capable builders who don’t care about their workers.

Jason is changing this. When he invites someone to learn at the superintendent level, he doesn’t just teach morning worker huddles or daily check-ins or reflection walks. He teaches the foundation first. He teaches that if you don’t respect people, the tools won’t work. If there’s no connection, there’s no transformation. If the motive is control instead of support, you’re not leading. You’re manipulating.

Adam learned this through a kidney transplant. That profound event pushed him into the lean journey. It taught him that being yourself, being authentic, being real is enough. You don’t need to be anything for anybody. Just be who you are. Put good into the world. Respect people. Fight for the worker. The tools will work when the foundation is right.

What Respect for People Actually Looks Like

Respect for people isn’t soft. It’s not about being nice or avoiding hard conversations or lowering standards. Respect for people is a production strategy. It’s the foundation that makes everything else work.

Adam isn’t ashamed of his beliefs or his spirituality. He’s not ashamed of praying with people. He makes little plastic cross bracelets and sends them to people who mean something to him. Jason keeps breaking them accidentally, but he wears them until he does. Adam has prayed with Jason on the phone. He’s taken him on walks. He’s shared his spiritual journey openly.

Some people might think that’s weird or unprofessional or too personal for business. But here’s what Jason sees: Adam is connected to the universe, to spirituality, to his purpose in life. And we need more of that. We need more people being more of who they are. Even if it’s something somebody doesn’t think they’ll like or connect with, we have to be tolerant, open, transparent, and share the beauty.

Jason says it’s refreshing and healing. Not because everyone has to believe what Adam believes. Because Adam is being himself authentically. He’s not hiding who he is to fit into some corporate mold. He’s bringing his whole self to the work. And that authenticity creates connection. That connection creates trust. That trust creates teams that can do remarkable things.

Respect for people means being yourself and inviting others to be themselves. It means putting good into the world instead of just extracting value. It means fighting for the worker, not just optimizing the schedule. It means creating environments where people are respected and fulfilled, not just productive.

What Construction Looks Like When Respect Wins

In two or three years, construction will be a whole different business. The snowball is rolling. It’s coming fast. Here’s what projects will look like when respect for people becomes the foundation instead of an afterthought:

Takt planning will be everywhere creating flow and stability instead of chaos and firefighting on every project.
Teams will buy lunch on site because taking care of people’s basic needs isn’t an expense, it’s an investment in morale and productivity.
Projects will dedicate Fridays to learning together because continuous improvement requires dedicated time, not leftover scraps.
Real restrooms with music will replace porta potties because workers deserve dignity and basic human comfort.
Clean lunch areas will be standard because respecting the space where people eat signals respect for the people themselves.
Workers will go home happy every day feeling respected because they have decent bathrooms, decent lunch rooms, the best equipment, and flow to everything they do.

This isn’t a pipe dream. It’s already happening on projects run by people who get the foundation right. The companies that figure out the foundation first will be the ones still standing when the economy of scarcity forces everyone else to adapt or die.

The Challenge: Inspire Someone to Join the Skilled Trades

Adam’s closing challenge is simple and profound. Inspire somebody to go join the skilled trades. Go find somebody who’s historically underserved. Inspire them to pick up a hammer or drill or concrete finishing tool. Build the next generation of skilled trade workers.

Why? Because we’re driving respect back. Because the future belongs to companies that treat their people well. Because the new generation doesn’t refuse to work. They just refuse to work for disrespectful employers. They want purpose. They want connection. They want to build something that matters. They want to be part of something bigger than a paycheck.

The United States is now firmly in an economy of scarcity when it comes to our construction workforce. Here’s a warning from a loving place: learn Takt planning, Last Planner, and Scrum, or you may not weather the upcoming storm. The future belongs to those who can do more with less, and that will only be done with real lean and real scheduling systems.

But more importantly, the future belongs to companies that treat their people well. Companies built on the foundation of respect for people. Companies where leaders read How to Win Friends and Influence People every year. Companies where spiritual journeys and authentic selves are welcomed, not hidden. Companies where the foundation comes first and the tools come second.

It is not the strongest species that survives. It is the species most adaptable to change. The companies that adapt fastest are the ones that get the foundation right. They respect people. They put good into the world. They build teams on trust and authenticity. And then they layer on the tools, the systems, the processes that multiply that foundation into remarkable results.

The foundation for every good thing in construction is respect for people. Get that right first. Then teach the tools. Then implement the systems. Then scale the results. But never, ever skip the foundation. 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 do tools like morning huddles fail even when implemented correctly?

Because technical execution without the right foundation is just manipulation with better organization. When someone delivers a morning huddle with no connection, when they stand in front of an owner with no connection, when they use negotiation tactics without the right motive, it fails. The tools work when they’re built on respect for people. They fail when they’re used as control mechanisms by leaders who don’t care about their workers. Fix the foundation first, then the tools will work.

Q: What does it mean to have respect for people as a foundation?

It means being yourself and inviting others to be themselves. It means putting good into the world instead of just extracting value. It means fighting for the worker, not just optimizing the schedule. It means creating environments where people are respected and fulfilled, not just productive. It’s not about being nice or avoiding hard conversations. It’s a production strategy. It’s the foundation that makes everything else work. Without it, your tools become weapons and your systems become control mechanisms.

Q: How do I know if I’m teaching tools without teaching why?

Watch what happens when people implement what you teach. If they deliver morning huddles with no connection, if they implement Last Planner with no collaboration, if they create Takt plans with no respect for the trades executing them, you taught what without teaching why. You gave them production laws without the foundation of respect for people. You trained technical competence without building moral and ethical grounding. Go back to the foundation. Teach respect for people first. Then layer on the tools.

Q: Why does authenticity matter in construction leadership?

Because authenticity creates connection. Connection creates trust. Trust creates teams that can do remarkable things. When leaders hide who they are to fit into some corporate mold, they create distance. When leaders bring their whole selves to the work, whether that’s spiritual journeys or personal struggles or authentic beliefs, they invite others to do the same. That openness creates the foundation for respect. And respect creates the environment where tools and systems can actually transform projects instead of just controlling them.

Q: What’s the warning about the economy of scarcity in construction?

The United States is firmly in an economy of scarcity for construction workforce. The new generation doesn’t refuse to work. They refuse to work for disrespectful employers. They want purpose, connection, and to build something that matters. Companies that don’t learn flow systems like Takt, Last Planner, and Scrum won’t survive. But more importantly, companies that don’t treat their people well won’t survive. The future belongs to those who can do more with less, and that requires both real lean systems and real respect for people. Get the foundation right or get left behind.

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The Takt Production System – Part 20

Posted on April 26, 2026April 26, 2026 by Jason Schroeder

Read 27 min

The Culture That Kills Takt: Why Your System Fails Before It Starts

Culture is the common beliefs and behaviors of a group. These micro-actions and beliefs drive the outcomes that determine the success of the team. There’s a best-in-class culture that will support Takt. And there’s a toxic culture that will destroy it before the first zone is complete.

Most construction leaders think implementation failures are technical problems. They blame the schedule format, the software, the training quality, or the complexity of the work. But the real killer isn’t technical, it’s cultural. You can have perfect Takt plans, flawless zone maps, and precise buffers. But if your culture is built on blame, silos, and secrecy, your system is dead on arrival.

Here’s what most people miss: CPM thrives in toxic cultures. Takt dies in them. And if you try to implement Takt without fixing the culture first, you’re not just wasting time, you’re proving to everyone that “this lean stuff doesn’t work” and making it harder for the next person who tries.

The Beliefs That Make Takt Work

People thrive in a Takt system when they believe certain fundamental truths about how construction should work. These aren’t platitudes or motivational posters. These are working assumptions that show up in daily decisions, conversations, and actions.

Design is difficult, and the team should make provisions to work past it. Not blame it. Not use it as an excuse. Not wait for perfection. Work past it. The team that succeeds with Takt accepts that design will be incomplete, uncertain, and changing, and builds buffer and flexibility into the system to handle it instead of pointing fingers.

The team should schedule together and attempt to understand the plan. This is radical in construction where schedules are typically created in isolation by one person who “knows better” and then handed down to people who are expected to execute without question. Takt requires collaborative planning because flow only works when everyone understands the rhythm and their role in maintaining it.

The team should take ownership in the whole schedule. Not just their piece. Not just their trade’s work. The whole schedule. When the electrician sees that the drywall crew is behind and offers to help identify the roadblock, that’s ownership. When the GC and trades huddle together to solve a sequencing problem before it becomes a delay, that’s ownership.

Bringing up concerns and solutions is crucial. In toxic cultures, bringing up problems gets you labeled a complainer or troublemaker. In Takt cultures, bringing up problems early is your job. The mantra is simple: problems are not a problem. Thinking there are no problems is a problem. We all know every project has problems. Teams who identify them and remove them are the most successful.

Trades should go to other trade partners to coordinate and solve problems and only bring up problems to the GC when necessary. This is peer accountability. This is adults solving problems together instead of running to the general contractor every time two trades need to coordinate. Takt creates geographical ownership that makes this natural, when you know which zones you’re working in and when, you know exactly who to talk to.

Keeping the project 100% clean all the time for crews and areas is the foundation for all success. Not cleanup day on Friday. Not when the owner visits. All the time. Clean sites create flow. Messy sites create chaos. This belief shows up in how people leave their work area at the end of every day.

Treating other team members like customers and appreciating them is the only way to interact. This is respect made actionable. The drywall crew is the framing crew’s customer. The mechanical rough-in is the drywall crew’s customer. When you think of the next trade as your customer instead of an obstacle or competitor, everything changes.

The Toxic Beliefs That Kill Takt

People do not thrive in a Takt system when they bring their old guarded and siloed behaviors with them. These toxic beliefs don’t just slow down Takt implementation—they actively destroy it. And here’s the critical part: most construction cultures are built on these beliefs. That’s why CPM has survived for 60 years. It thrives in this environment.

Blaming everything on design and never learning from job to job is normal. This is victim mentality institutionalized. Design is always going to be imperfect. If your response is always “design screwed us again” instead of “how do we build buffer and flexibility to handle design uncertainty,” you’re not solving problems, you’re collecting excuses.

They should schedule only their work and think nothing of what benefits the project. This is the siloed mindset that treats every trade as an independent contractor optimizing for their own profit at the expense of project success. It’s transactional instead of collaborative. It’s zero-sum thinking where one person’s win requires another person’s loss.

They don’t need to understand the schedule, buy in, or use it. This is the “just tell me where to go” mentality that treats workers and foremen like labor units instead of thinking professionals. When people don’t understand the plan, they can’t help improve it. They can’t identify problems early. They can’t coordinate proactively. They become order-takers waiting for instructions.

Always going to the GC to coordinate work and expecting them to solve their problems is acceptable. This is learned helplessness. This is trades treating the GC like a parent who will fix everything instead of peers who collaborate. It creates bottlenecks where the GC becomes the limiting factor because everything flows through them.

Lean is a fad and they only need to learn lean out of necessity. This is cynicism masquerading as pragmatism. This is the belief that all this “continuous improvement” and “respect for people” stuff is just corporate window dressing that will blow over eventually. When people believe lean is a fad, they comply minimally until leadership moves on to the next initiative.

Cleanliness is not a priority. This shows up everywhere. Trash left in place. Materials scattered randomly. Work areas that look like disaster zones. When cleanliness isn’t a priority, it reveals a deeper truth: we don’t respect the people working here. We don’t respect the craft. We don’t respect the system.

Rules can be broken and loopholes will be tolerated. This is the culture of workarounds and shortcuts that values cleverness over integrity. When people believe that finding loopholes is smart and following the spirit of agreements is naive, trust collapses. And Takt requires trust.

Why CPM Thrives in Toxic Cultures

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: CPM isn’t just a scheduling method. It’s a cultural enabler. The siloed, fearful, non-collaborative culture that we have been taught in schools and societies strongly supports CPM because CPM is secretive, non-collaborative, and deceptive. It is the dark environment in which a bad culture can thrive.

Think about what CPM allows. It hides the plan in complexity so only the scheduler understands it. It creates information asymmetry where knowledge is power. It masks problems in 50-page printouts that nobody reads. It gives plausible deniability when things go wrong because the logic ties are too complex to trace. It calculates float that justifies random movement and broken commitments.

If you want to run a siloed, blame-heavy, secretive project where the GC hoards information and trades protect themselves by hiding problems, CPM is perfect. It was designed for that environment. It enables dragon sickness, the possessive, non-transparent superintendent who hoards over his schedule like a dragon hoards over his gold, coveting the power and security that comes from being the only one who knows the plan.

Takt only thrives in the light, in good cultures, where transparency and teamwork are important to the collective group. You can’t hide in Takt. The plan is visual. Everyone can see it. Commitments are clear. Problems surface immediately. There’s nowhere to hide poor performance or broken promises.

That’s why toxic cultures reject Takt. Not because it’s technically difficult. Because it exposes dysfunction.

The Three Reasons Trades Will Fight You

It is certain that some trades will fight against Takt if it’s the first time they’ve experienced it. Not because Takt is bad for them, long-term, it makes their work easier and more profitable. But initially, they’ll resist for three main reasons.

First, no one likes change. People who are used to a system do not easily give it up. People like and crave certainty, stability, and the significance of knowing the norm. Even if the norm is dysfunctional, it’s familiar. Takt is unfamiliar. It requires learning new terminology, new planning methods, new ways of coordinating. That creates short-term discomfort even if it creates long-term benefit.

Second, unaccountable people do not like the sunlight that shines in an accountable system. They prefer the hidden dark secrets of CPM that keep them safe from being accountable to anyone else. If you’re a trade that consistently delivers late, overcharges for changes, and blames everyone else for problems, Takt is terrifying. It makes all of that visible. It creates peer pressure and clear commitments that are hard to weasel out of.

Third, some want the system to fail because they need that as a reason to backcharge, deliver late, or cover their own mistakes. Takt does not allow them that because the system works. When projects run on CPM and chaos, there’s always an excuse. Design was late. The GC didn’t coordinate. Another trade was in our way. We didn’t have access. Takt removes most of those excuses by creating visibility and stability. If you profit from chaos, you’ll resist stability.

You must be strong through this pushback. And if you are, the decent trade partners, and that is the majority, will applaud the use of the system.

How to Build the Culture That Supports Takt

Cultural creation is our first priority. You cannot bolt a collaborative system onto a toxic culture and expect it to work. You have to build the culture first, or at least build it in parallel with the system.

Start by bringing problems to the surface. Make it safe to identify roadblocks. Celebrate people who raise concerns early. Punish people who hide problems until they explode. Create the expectation that problems are normal and hiding them is unacceptable. This action is similar to the old Nintendo game Duck Hunt. As the ducks, or roadblocks, rise up, we shoot them and remove them. This is the game we play.

In a Takt system, problems arise to the surface easily because people, crews, trades, and companies must meet commitments, and when people are asked to hold commitments they find the problems for you. Once people feel obligated to follow a flow, they will begin to find reasons why they can’t. They help you identify roadblocks.

Model collaborative planning. Don’t create the Takt plan in isolation and hand it down. Bring trades into the planning process. Ask for their input. Adjust the plan based on their feedback. Show them that their expertise matters and that the plan is better when they contribute to it.

Separate accountability from punishment. Accountability means clarity about commitments and follow-through on promises. Punishment means consequences for failure. You can have accountability without punishment by focusing on problem-solving instead of blame. When commitments aren’t met, ask “what roadblock prevented this?” not “who screwed up?”

Invest in cleanliness as a cultural signal. A clean site says “we respect the people working here.” A messy site says “we don’t care about you or your work environment.” Make cleanliness non-negotiable and you send a message about the culture you’re building.

Treat trades like partners, not vendors. Use language that reflects partnership. “Our electrical team” not “the electrician.” “How can we support you?” not “why aren’t you done yet?” Create mechanisms for peer accountability where trades coordinate directly instead of always going through the GC.

Be patient with resistance but firm on standards. Expect pushback. Expect some trades to test the system. Expect some people to claim it won’t work. Don’t back down. Hold the line. And watch as the decent majority, the trades who want to do good work in a stable environment, rally around the system and help it succeed.

Ultimately, systems implemented on site must come with a culture, and no system will succeed unless it is accepted by the culture. That is why cultural creation is such an important consideration when implementing Takt or any other system. If your project needs superintendent coaching, project support, or leadership development, Elevate Construction can help your field teams stabilize, schedule, and flow.

FAQ

Q: How do I know if my culture will support Takt or kill it?

Listen to how people talk about problems. In cultures that support Takt, people say “here’s a roadblock we need to remove” and propose solutions. In toxic cultures, people say “design screwed us again” and stop there. Watch how trades coordinate. In good cultures, trades talk directly to each other and only escalate to the GC when necessary. In toxic cultures, everything flows through the GC because nobody trusts peer coordination. Observe cleanliness, clean sites indicate respect and systems, messy sites indicate “not my problem” mentality.

Q: Why do you say CPM thrives in toxic cultures?

Because CPM is secretive, non-collaborative, and deceptive, and toxic cultures need those features to function. CPM hides the plan in complexity so only the scheduler knows it. It masks problems in 50-page printouts nobody reads. It creates logic so complex that blame is hard to assign. It calculates float that justifies random movement and broken commitments. If you want to run a siloed, blame-heavy project where people hoard information and hide problems, CPM enables that perfectly. Takt only works in the light, with transparency and teamwork.

Q: What should I do when trades push back and claim Takt won’t work?

Expect it. The three reasons trades resist are: change is uncomfortable, unaccountable people hate transparency, and some profit from chaos. You must be strong through this pushback. Don’t back down. Hold the line on the system. And watch as the decent majority, trades who want stable work and clear commitments, rally around it. Separate legitimate concerns (which you should address) from resistance rooted in preference for dysfunction (which you should ignore).

Q: Can I implement Takt without fixing the culture first?

You can try, but you’ll fail. Systems implemented on site must come with a culture, and no system will succeed unless it’s accepted by the culture. If you bolt a collaborative system onto a toxic culture, people will comply minimally or sabotage it actively. You have to build the culture in parallel: make it safe to raise problems, model collaborative planning, separate accountability from punishment, invest in cleanliness, treat trades like partners. Cultural creation is the first priority.

Q: How long does it take to shift from a CPM culture to a Takt culture?

Expect meaningful shift in 6-12 months with consistent leadership. Culture is common beliefs and behaviors, and both take time to change. The beliefs shift when people see that the new way actually works. The behaviors shift when the old ways stop being rewarded and the new ways get reinforced. You’ll know you’re making progress when trades start coordinating directly, people bring up problems early, cleanliness becomes normal, and collaborative planning sessions generate real solutions instead of complaints.

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