They Talk about what They See!

People Will Talk About What They See

Here’s the deal. I have been doing field walks that have been really impactful on me, and I want to share a lesson I am learning from them. I do not know if I have covered it enough in the podcast format, and if not, I apologize, because it is really killer stuff. People will talk about what they see.

You Cannot Manage What You Cannot See

This is a big thing for me, because if you are going to be on a construction project and manage it properly, you have to be able to see it. You cannot manage what you cannot measure, and you cannot measure what you cannot see. There is a correlation to that, and it is this. People will talk about what they see.

The Train Going 80 Miles an Hour

In the Integrated Production Control System graphics I put together, there is a picture of a train going down the tracks, with the tracks out ahead. I have asked this before. How would you like to be on a train going 80 miles an hour and not see but five feet in front of you? How would you like to drive that train and never be able to get out of the cab and inspect it?

Out ahead are roadblocks, which are items that need to be cleared ahead of the train of trades. Part of the train itself are constraints. These are items that are part of the design of the train, and they can be adjusted to remove constraints and to increase your capacity, flow, or speed.

Now imagine that you can see eighty feet, or a quarter of a mile, out ahead of you, and that you can inspect the train. Now you can control the speed of the train. You can keep the train maintained, and you can stop it if there is ever a problem.

The Cow on the Tracks

Say you only see five feet ahead, and somebody tells you there is a cow a quarter of a mile ahead, around three thousand feet away. If you cannot see it, you do not have all the information. You would want to know the following.

• Whether the cow is standing still.
• Whether it is five feet away from the track.
• Whether it is a herd of cattle heading toward the front of the train.
• Whether it is heading toward you.
• Whether it is on the track, or fifty feet away, and whether it is an issue at all.

If you do not have visibility, you cannot really do anything.

What Happens in a Last Planner Huddle

Here is what I want to say. In Last Planner meetings, I want to say one hundred percent of the time, people talk about what they can see. If you get a team in a huddle saying, I am on level five today, I am on level two, I am doing this, I am over here, I am going to go do that thing that you can already see and read on the schedule, that we have already covered multiple times, that I did yesterday, and I am not doing anything new today, that is all they are talking about.

The reason they are talking about it is not that they are boring, ignorant people. It is that it is the only thing they can see.

Show More, and They Will Talk About More

The more visual you make your system, the more discussion you will have around a team. Here is how it builds.

• Bring the six week make ready look ahead into the huddle with visual zone maps, and they will talk more about make ready.
• Show on visual maps where people are supposed to be, where they are, and how close they are to other contractors, and they will talk about more.
• Show roadblocks on those maps, like I talked about in the last podcast, and they will talk about how to remove them.
• Show the Takt plan, how workers are packaged, and how the pull plan is working, and they will talk about the sequence and the flow of the train.
• Put constraints up on your visual board and teach them, and they will talk about constraints.

You cannot have a good team without that team seeing the plan and anchoring around something. It is absolutely crucial.

Benign Conversation Means Benign Visuals

If you go to a huddle, a briefing, or anything on your project site, and you hear them talking about benign, milk toast things, it is because they can only see and measure milk toast things. If you want them to get down into the meat of the issue, you have to have meat visuals.

When people argue with me about CPM and say, yes, this is a more visual schedule, but what about this, I would say that even if nothing else about Takt were good, and there are a million things, the visual nature of the system alone is a big reason to choose it. The Takt plan, Last Planner, and the huddles are already visual, and they are already good. Last Planner, Takt, visual environments, really good huddles, and roadblock tracking maps where you literally track by zone are great. People start to talk about those things because they can now see them. Once they talk about them, you have engaged the wisdom of the team. Once you have engaged the wisdom of the team, now you can win.

A Schedule That Hides Information

I am at a loss when somebody says they want a seventy-six page schedule that hides the information from people. I believe that is holding on to classical management principles that care about the money and not about the people.

I just want to say one more time, people will talk about what they see. Audit your meetings. If they are not talking about it, they cannot see it. You had better find a way for them to see it, or your project is not going to progress.

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

So here is the challenge. Audit your next meeting or huddle. Notice what people are talking about, and ask what they cannot see yet.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “Audit your meetings. If they’re not talking about it, they can’t see it.”

On we go.

FAQ

What does “people will talk about what they see” mean?

It means the topics a team discusses are limited by what they can see. If the huddle only shows the schedule, people only talk about where they are and what they are doing. If it shows zone maps, roadblocks, and constraints, they discuss those.

Why does Jason use the train and the cow example?

To show that you cannot control what you cannot see. A driver who only sees five feet ahead cannot tell whether a cow a quarter mile away is a problem, and a team that cannot see roadblocks cannot act on them.

How do you get a team to talk about roadblocks?

Show the roadblocks on visual maps in the huddle. Once they are visible, people start talking about how to remove them.

What should you do if your meetings are shallow?

Audit them. If people are not talking about something, they cannot see it, so add the visuals that bring it into view.