Latest / Wired to Build / The Field Isn't Rejecting the Tech. It's Rejecting the Slowdown. | Rob Sloyer @ KAST

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The Field Isn't Rejecting the Tech. It's Rejecting the Slowdown. | Rob Sloyer @ KAST · Wired to Build

0:00
Hey, what's going on everyone? Welcome to Wire to Build, the
0:03
podcast exploring how owners, operators, and builders navigate
0:06
the system's decisions and reality, shaping the built
0:09
environment. I'm your host, Nick Caravella,
0:11
and as always, I'm glad you're here because this show isn't
0:14
about chasing tools or buzzwords.
0:16
It's about understanding how work actually gets done, where
0:19
it breaks down, and what it takes to build with clarity at
0:22
scale. Season 3, we're leaning even
0:24
harder into that. More systems thinking, more real
0:27
world perspective, more honest conversations about ownership,
0:30
accountability, and the decisions that ripple across
0:32
projects long after they're made.
0:35
So whether you're an owner, a builder, or someone living in
0:37
the space between, you're in the right place.
0:40
Let's get wired to build. Before we dive in, I want to
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acknowledge our founding sponsor, Avocado.
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1:10
Today's episode starts with attention.
1:12
I think a lot of people in this industry feel, but don't always
1:15
say out loud, Not every step forward in construction
1:18
technology is actually progress. Construction is a craft
1:21
industry. It's physical, coordinated, and
1:23
deeply dependent on judgement, sequence and field reality.
1:27
And for the last couple of decades, the industry has been
1:29
asked to absorb wave after wave of digitization, from BIM to
1:33
project platforms to AI, often with the promise of more
1:37
clarity, more control and better.
1:39
Outcomes. But somewhere along the way, a
1:42
fair question keeps surfacing. To what end?
1:44
So today's conversation is about innovation with purpose.
1:48
But technology helps when it creates noise and what it looks
1:52
like to lead modernization efforts without losing respect
1:55
for how work actually gets done. To explore that, I'm joined by
1:59
Rob Sawyer. Say hi.
2:00
Hi there. Rob is the Vice President of
2:03
Innovation and Strategic Services at Cass Construction
2:06
and has spent more than two decades in the construction
2:08
industry, including years deeply involved in BIM coordination and
2:12
broader evolution of construction technology and
2:14
practice. What makes Rob especially
2:17
interesting for this conversation is that he's not
2:19
skeptical of innovation because he's against change.
2:22
He's skeptical because he's lived through enough change to
2:24
know that technology without purpose can make a good process
2:28
worse. So, Rob, before we get into
2:30
where the industry is headed, I want to start with the long arc.
2:33
You've been close to this evolution for a long time.
2:35
What did the industry think when it was getting first into BIM
2:39
and when and what? Started to take hold.
2:42
Yeah, I think, you know my story of being sort of volunt old to
2:46
be the BIM guy during the the Great Recession, 2008, 2009 is
2:51
was pretty typical at the time. People were chasing new
2:55
projects, seeing new project requirements in RFPs.
2:58
You know, the way I got selected for being the the BIM guy was I
3:02
had a bachelor's degree in architecture.
3:04
Architecture equals CAD, CAD equals BIM.
3:06
You're him. You know, I think it was
3:08
somewhat of a knee jerk reaction by some people at first.
3:12
You know, I think, I think where we maybe missed the mark early
3:16
on was it started to be led by the technicians and the
3:20
technologists and kind of the computer guys and less so, less
3:27
so about the outcomes and the purpose and the tools and what
3:30
we were trying to accomplish through the modeling and the
3:32
coordination effort. I, I feel like that brings up
3:35
like the most common theme that we're going to talk about all
3:37
day today too, is just the technology and the tech people
3:41
and their vision for what things can be as opposed to the real
3:45
world practice and how, you know, this is an information and
3:49
a risk management game. You know, right hand has to talk
3:51
to the left hand. And so just being able to create
3:54
a digital model doesn't mean you can create a physical building.
3:58
What were some of the frictions that you found early on, you
4:03
know, with using BIM and how people were using BIM and what
4:06
was originally promised, and how did it perhaps miss that mark?
4:10
Well, the original promise was that it was the great savior,
4:12
right? It was the the thing that was
4:14
here to save us all from ourselves.
4:16
You know, I think I think a key point of what we've maybe
4:19
learned in the ensuing 15 years is that, you know, what we were
4:25
sold was that it was going to eliminate problems.
4:28
And you know, problems just don't go away or solve
4:31
themselves because of technology.
4:33
All BIM and BDC really did was shift those problems earlier in
4:37
the process, especially back then you would see these like
4:40
front end loaded cost curves. You know, they would talk about
4:43
the cost of of the coordination effort on a project all
4:47
happening in the middle and then Ben was just shifting that to
4:50
the left. You know, you don't see those
4:52
curves as much anymore. I think people have kind of
4:54
gotten used to that, but we're not eliminating the problem.
4:57
We're just moving the problem earlier in the decision making
5:00
process so that hopefully it's less costly, less impact of the
5:03
schedule and those things. Does that bring up a, a a
5:06
friction though of, you know, by bringing things early in the
5:10
curve, sometimes you're bringing it earlier than perhaps even the
5:12
builder is engaged. So the people who are
5:15
responsible for building the decisions and and actually
5:18
solving the problems in the field are almost somehow be
5:21
removed from the problem solving.
5:23
Yeah, we've, you know, we're, we're generally a multi family
5:27
builder. We, I have not seen I think in
5:30
10 years at my current company, I don't think I've seen the
5:32
requirement for BIM in any of our contracts.
5:35
We're doing it because we think it's the right thing to do and
5:37
because we think it adds value to the project.
5:39
But what that means is that, you know, until we're able to bill
5:43
for the, that staff, those services, get the trade
5:47
contractor signed up to participate, we can't really
5:49
move forward. In a lot of instances we're
5:52
behind the 8 ball early work packages and things like that
5:55
sort of, sort of have produced the opposite effects of what
5:58
you're describing. You know, there also is getting
6:00
started too early. To your point, we have jobs
6:03
where there's maybe a long drawn out early site work package.
6:06
And so we get involved and you know, multi family developers
6:09
like to change things. They get started with the job,
6:12
they go out and see what the what the, what the job down the
6:14
street is selling. Suddenly they come back with a
6:16
redesigned amenity space or, you know, new, new changes to the
6:20
unit layout or whatever. So we definitely experienced
6:23
getting started too early. The other thing is the the staff
6:26
just may not be there. You know, if we have a project
6:29
that necessitates a lead super, structural super, MEP finishes,
6:33
that MEP and finish super are really who we need involved in
6:36
the process and they may not be assigned to the job until
6:40
sometimes we're done. We've had situations where
6:42
we're, our team is done with coordination and then, you know,
6:45
then the MEP super gets the side of the project.
6:47
So we don't even cross paths sometimes.
6:49
Well, I think that's what's interesting is like moving,
6:51
moving that curve forward and and then realizing those folks
6:54
could have potentially helped influence it.
6:57
And you know, I think yet you put a comment as we were
7:00
preparing, it was about one BIM not being a remote job and
7:05
people needing to, you know, see the projects, but also about,
7:09
you know, the people being close, close to the work
7:12
shouldn't always be the ones making the change.
7:15
And I'm curious if you can kind of expound on that because I do
7:18
think it ties into this design strategy and how people should
7:21
be thinking about BIM and coordination across the
7:25
delivery. Yeah, I think I, I do think
7:28
there is a, a tendency to think of, you know, it right in the
7:32
title, BIM or VDC, it's virtual design and construction.
7:35
And there's this perception that that means that it's, you know,
7:39
somebody in a cave or a basement with Jolt Colas and 17 monitors
7:42
that's like got some NORAD set up and they're out there
7:45
planning, planning the coordination.
7:48
But for me, I think maybe partly because the first decade of my
7:51
career was in project management in the field I've to me into the
7:55
way that we implement it at CAST is it's really, it is a field
7:59
position. You know, this is not a
8:01
construction technology position.
8:03
It's kind of goes to what dim got wrong where we didn't look
8:06
at what we were actually accomplishing.
8:08
You know, we went out there and said, look, we can model, look,
8:10
we can virtually coordinate. We can, we've approached that
8:13
wrong. It should have been about, hey,
8:14
we're coordinating, we're producing logistics, we're
8:17
planning logistics, we're helping to coordinate the
8:20
schedule, things like that. Instead of them becoming this
8:24
siloed thing all by itself. That's where to me it's super
8:27
critical that our our folks get out, visit the jobs.
8:30
You know, we have a requirement that geography notwithstanding
8:34
there at the job at least once a month.
8:36
You know, they're walking the job, they're engaging with the
8:38
project team and you know you can't you can't do that from
8:41
your basement. You got to, you got to get out
8:42
there and put boots on. It reminds me of like a early
8:45
lesson learned in my career was like the difference of how easy
8:48
it is to model something as opposed to actually physically
8:51
install it. And I have the let, it's like
8:54
1:00 PM. He gave me, He was like, Nick, I
8:56
want you to think about what it would mean to actually get a
8:58
light bulb into the pocket that you designed because you're 115
9:02
feet in in the air. And then you got to like hook
9:04
your hand over this thing and get into a light fixture that
9:06
has a complete soffit edge. And there's that aspect of like,
9:10
you know, modeling in the the digital world is easy in many
9:14
ways. You can kind of draw a form,
9:16
pull it, extrude it, do all of these different things.
9:19
But then when it comes into the role of actually fabricating or
9:23
building, you know, someone actually has to install this
9:25
thing. And it even makes me think of,
9:28
you know, the lovingly one of my recent clients I was talking to
9:32
is like, you know, if I could, I'd hire a bunch of left-handed
9:35
short people. That's because they had to in
9:37
the in the scope of the electrical equipment, they were
9:39
building really tight, weird spaces that, you know, being
9:42
right-handed was inconvenient. You kind of need to get up there
9:44
and sneak it around. You know, digital modeling kind
9:47
of separates you from field creation.
9:51
To me, that was like something really funny that kind of to
9:54
learn about is the just the difference of building between
9:56
physical and digital. Do you find that your designers
10:00
are experiencing similar kind of pains and is that why you're
10:03
bringing them out in the field to, to get that exposure?
10:06
Yeah. I mean, I think like I, I,
10:07
we're, we're lucky that we have 32 senior BDC managers and 11
10:12
BDC manager and we're looking to bring on a BDC engineer right
10:16
now. But we're lucky that the three
10:18
people that that are doing the bulk of that work for us have
10:22
done enough and seen enough of our projects that, you know,
10:25
their skill set and their understanding of the way these
10:28
systems are meant to work is, is up there on par with, you know,
10:31
some MEP supers. So what we really want to do is
10:34
get them out and seeing the results of their work, you know,
10:38
and having them engage with the project team, be seen as being
10:41
there to support the team, you know, and do what they see the
10:46
the outcome on the back end and have somebody be able to grab
10:49
them and say, I get that you could model it this way, but we
10:51
couldn't build it this way. And sometimes it's just things
10:54
that we'd, there was no way for us to know and we want to build
10:57
that experience, right. So that's, that's another key
11:00
aspect is some, not every single thing is going to get modelled.
11:03
So and, and sometimes the model can't do what you can do in the
11:06
field. You take like flexible copper
11:09
coolant piping. You can't model all the ways
11:12
that piping can be sort of manipulated and pushed and
11:14
pulled. So understanding how that
11:16
actually gets installed is really important for
11:18
coordinating the next one and the next one and.
11:20
The next one and I think that helps us transition right into
11:22
the like the next theme here, almost break away from them.
11:25
But like you know, when does the field push back and where does
11:29
the digital initiatives fail often when they start to hit the
11:32
job site? Is there common friction that
11:37
you see and observe? Yeah, some folks have have heard
11:40
this analogy for me before and are tired of hearing it.
11:42
But I I one that I like to use all the time is that, you know,
11:45
if you walk up to a guy standing on the deck before a pour and
11:49
you say, hey, I got great news, I got you this leaf blower so
11:52
you can blow all the debris off the deck before we pour.
11:55
If he was using a broom up until that point, you're his new best
11:58
friend. If he was napping in the corner
12:01
when you showed up and gave him the leaf blower, you might get
12:03
pushed off the side of the building.
12:05
I think it's a key thing. Just because you have some cool
12:08
new tool, it's maybe not necessarily improving the
12:12
workflow or the work process of the person that's actually doing
12:15
it. You know, and I think a lot of
12:17
times the field isn't rejecting the tech, they're rejecting the
12:20
fact that we're actually slowing them down.
12:22
You know, we, we create tools that maybe require you to go do
12:26
it physically and then go do it electronically or, or go do it
12:29
electronically 3 times in three places.
12:31
So that's where I see a lot of the pushback is in the, you
12:34
know, either they were giving them a tool to do a task that
12:36
they were not previously being required to do, or we've given
12:40
them a tool that actually made the work worse rather than
12:42
better. This is where I think I would
12:44
love to just spend so much time digging is to me, this there's
12:48
so much, you know, as a data guy and a big believer of like
12:52
information really helping us build better.
12:55
I do think information has also helped made us build slower or
12:59
really encumbered the people who are doing the hard physical
13:01
work. And so you know where you know,
13:05
where does this really like, how do we improve?
13:10
How do we not end up adopting technology that you know is
13:15
almost a shiny object or is creating this extra
13:18
administrative burden on the field employee?
13:21
And how do you know, perhaps you know technology companies who
13:25
are looking at innovating the industry and quote eliminating
13:28
things perhaps need to take a a bigger approach to understanding
13:33
things before eliminating things?
13:35
Yeah, you mentioned my my comment earlier about the person
13:39
closest to the work maybe should not be the one that's doing the
13:41
innovating. You know, often times the person
13:43
closest to the work is they lack the perspective of the context
13:48
that led up to the task and then the context of what's actually
13:52
happening with that information subsequent to the task.
13:55
So somebody could come up with a tool that turns RF is around
13:59
really quickly. But if we're not getting quality
14:01
answers that are there therefore able to be used in the build,
14:05
we're not really accomplishing the goal.
14:07
We're maybe doing the micro task, but we're not
14:10
accomplishing the bigger picture goal that we need to be
14:13
accomplishing. You know, I think that's, that's
14:15
a big piece of it is when we're, when we're trying to develop
14:18
technology is engaging with the team, but also making sure we're
14:21
engaging with the whole team, the right people, you know, And
14:24
if you're coming from industry and trying to build those tools,
14:26
make sure that, you know, having more than just a couple years of
14:30
experience in a single role within the industry is key for
14:34
being able to to actually create innovation that sticks and is
14:37
actually useful long term. Is there anything you're seeing
14:40
right now that actually is making the work cleaner and
14:42
easier, and perhaps improving the quality as opposed to adding
14:47
in this extra effort? Yeah.
14:49
I mean, look, I think we have to be careful that some of the
14:51
tools are replacing tasks that actually have value.
14:55
And maybe we're not seeing the value of the tasks that we're
14:58
that we're replacing, you know, things like creating submittal
15:00
register, submittal processing daily logs.
15:03
But at the same time, I think there's some tools out there
15:06
that actually, you know, prompt the user to go and look at those
15:09
things rather than doing the work for them.
15:12
And I think that's a key aspect as well.
15:14
I think that's like one of the really interesting things of,
15:19
you know, being familiar with the work that's being, you know,
15:24
innovative on. You have to understand not just
15:27
the work itself and the person closest to the work has the
15:30
context for the work that needs to be done, but there's also all
15:33
the people involved in the chain that like needs to understand
15:36
what was done, how it was done, and all the coordination that
15:40
happens behind the scenes. Which to me is like what's
15:42
created the digitization trap of, you know, we need to
15:46
digitize all these work flows. And then that's also then
15:48
divorced. So how have you helped, you
15:52
know, expose the people from perhaps the office or the
15:55
technology people to the field people to help start with that
16:00
translation and maybe getting people to work together a little
16:03
bit better and and, and feel a little bit more coordinated as
16:06
new tools have entered the space.
16:08
Yeah. I, I think one of the things
16:10
that's, that's worked really well for us, we have several
16:13
parts to my department or my group and one of them is the,
16:16
the guys that manage our pro core implementation and the rest
16:19
of our kind of typical construction technology.
16:22
And we, we actually provide services as part of that group.
16:26
So I, I call it insourcing because we're, it's not job site
16:31
staff, but it's, it's my team that's stepping in to help.
16:34
You know, historically has been things as basic as setting up
16:37
the project, setting up locations, getting users added.
16:41
But also we've done as much as stepping in and helping write
16:44
Rfis, helping with the submittal process, you know, helping with
16:48
we've stepped in and done the 360 photo capture for teams when
16:51
they they don't have the staff to do it.
16:53
So that's really between those two guys.
16:56
Everett and Louis are their names that are that are make up
16:58
that department. We're also looking for 1/3 for
17:00
that as well. Give them a little plug in, you
17:01
know, their day-to-day is managing the program
17:04
implementation, Quickbase, some other tools, ignite, some other
17:07
things like that. But they're also out there
17:09
engaging with the teams and getting on teams calls and
17:13
finding out what you know, OK, why isn't this working?
17:16
But they also have that context of having done the work.
17:19
You know, they're issuing submittals, issuing RF is
17:23
posting to drawings, all that kind of stuff.
17:25
So they're they're not doing it day in, day out sitting in a
17:28
trailer in that context, but they're at least doing the same
17:32
work and understanding. Sometimes they correct me, you
17:34
know, we'll be, we'll be on a call.
17:36
Yeah. You know, you just click on the
17:37
thing or you could do that and everyone kind of side eye me
17:39
like that doesn't work the way you think it does anymore.
17:42
Stop talking, old man. You're screwing this up.
17:44
You're actually supposed to click over here now.
17:46
Oh, OK. That that's been really key for
17:48
us, is keeping that that context with contact with them.
17:51
Yeah. And that's to like kind of
17:54
coined this when I was thinking about what the this episode
17:56
would be about. And like the three words to me
17:59
that like would really summarize this conversation is to what
18:03
end? And I think there's been so
18:05
many, you know, a new a new form company is born everyday in the
18:09
construction market. And you know, people are trying
18:12
to eliminate RF is and trying to eliminate, you know, everything
18:16
in in between. And you mentioned like some of
18:19
the work actually has value building the register has value
18:23
building as the middle has value building an RFI even has value,
18:28
especially when you starts to open lines of communication
18:31
across these teams when when you're thinking about leading
18:34
innovation, how do you start to frame like the the two what end
18:39
that helps you decide what needs to be prioritized versus what
18:43
might be noise? Yeah, I think in terms of
18:45
prioritization, the, you know, the the best solutions, whether
18:50
they be we always, we like to I like to say all the time that
18:53
we're here to make the lives of our employees better through
18:56
people, process and technology. The technology's the third thing
19:00
it's it's first the people, which could be training could be
19:02
getting feedback on our standards.
19:04
Then it's maybe we need to change or, or create better
19:08
standards. And then the last thing is there
19:10
a technology tool that actually like enables us to do that?
19:14
This whole idea of I think the other thing is the best
19:18
solutions benefit the individual, the project and the
19:22
enterprise. And so when we have those
19:24
solutions that we see that has benefit to all three, those are
19:28
the things we can start to prioritize.
19:30
And then the other thing is just volume of people, right.
19:32
A a small change that that has a positive impact on a larger
19:37
number of people is, is usually better than a large change that
19:43
only benefits one or two people, you know, and I think
19:46
historically some of the construction technology push and
19:49
we're, I think feel like we're seeing this again with AI now is
19:53
benefit up to the back office only.
19:55
And it's benefit to three to five to 10 people only.
19:59
And it's it's in some cases maybe making things worse for
20:02
the other 200 people that are sitting on the job that now have
20:05
something extra to do. So we kind of try to balance all
20:08
of those things. You know, the other thing is I,
20:11
that's another thing I say all the time, nobody got into this
20:13
business to type numbers into boxes.
20:15
We sure as hell didn't get into the business to type the same
20:17
number into two or three boxes simply because the systems can't
20:21
talk. So a lot of what we're doing now
20:23
and what we're prioritizing now is stuff that is not maybe
20:27
directly readily apparent to the field that it's up to a benefit
20:30
of them. But we brought on a data
20:32
analytics guy last year and so he and I are working closely
20:35
together to get our systems talking, get things integrated,
20:39
get our data into a lake, like getting us ready for that and
20:42
and streamlining that process of not having to type things into
20:46
little boxes all the time. So ideally it benefits everyone
20:49
I and it even better if they can see it.
20:52
But sometimes there's these things happening in the
20:53
background that like we know are going to be super powerful for
20:57
people and all the people that want AI and want all these new
21:00
tools, this is the prerequisite to that.
21:02
Like we somehow we got lost on the way of trying to build a
21:05
better building and started to go down the road of how do we
21:08
build a better dashboard and where I think construction gets
21:11
a little bit of hard burn of like, but we still have to build
21:14
the better building. Right.
21:16
So and the more that we get fragmented and and you know,
21:20
people spread out, that again is easy to forget.
21:23
And so like when I meet with my BDC team, one of the things on
21:26
our agenda is what's the status of the construction?
21:29
You know, our standard meeting agenda for our coordination
21:32
meetings, one of the first items is what's happening in the
21:34
field. Cuz you start talking about
21:37
moving a bunch of pipes around and without the context of
21:40
knowing all of those pipes are already installed.
21:42
You know, maybe they still do need to move, but we should know
21:45
that they're already there. And maybe we need a different
21:47
plan based on where we're actually at with the
21:49
construction progress. And have you seen, I guess
21:52
looking back at BAM and digital workflows where, you know,
21:56
talking about what's happening in the field and even perhaps
21:59
even that pipe example where it's easier to articulate to the
22:04
executives who aren't necessarily on the field all the
22:06
time, the exact impacts of the changes.
22:09
Cuz I, I had to find this many times too.
22:13
Of, you know, you get, you get that last minute change and, and
22:15
things are already underway and you need to kind of go back and
22:19
say, look, you have to choose here, we can do this, but it
22:23
will cost this much effort or this much rework.
22:26
Is that as valuable to you as necessarily maybe not making
22:30
that change and stick into the guns that and decisions that
22:34
were made before? Does the model come into play?
22:37
How are you helping or how are you leveraging technology to
22:41
help, I guess, translate the message to the right people in
22:45
ways that they understand it? Yeah.
22:47
I mean, I think the model does come into play and is is
22:50
helpful. But I also think that sometimes
22:52
we're over reliant on that and we wait too long.
22:55
Because of that, we have a tendency of like, well, you
22:59
know, once we get the design models, we'll start looking at
23:02
that and then, oh, well, we don't have the trade model.
23:03
So once we get the trade models, we'll start looking at that.
23:06
It's like everybody forgot about the light table, you know, or
23:09
blue beam, the, the like the digital light table.
23:12
So I'm, I'm often pushing even RBDC staff to, hey, let's, we
23:16
don't need to wait for all this stuff.
23:18
You know, we can, we can throw a couple of overlays together
23:20
quickly and get ahead of these problems.
23:23
Our our project startup checklist that we go through and
23:26
every, every BIM job includes do so overlays.
23:30
Again, we're multi family, typically high rise builder.
23:32
We get a lot of typical floors. Transition floors are a big
23:35
problem for us. Let's throw those transition
23:37
floors together in an overlay, right?
23:39
Start to look for those problems rather than waiting until we
23:42
have the model. So we, we do use the technology,
23:45
but I think this goes back again to where BIM maybe hinders us
23:51
because we're over relying on the technology.
23:53
We, we want to wait around, you know, it's, it'd be like taking
23:56
a taxi cab from here to the end of my block, but waiting 40
23:59
minutes for the taxi to show up, you know, like, OK, sure, I
24:04
guess I sweat a little less, but I also got there, you know, an
24:07
hour later. I could have just walked it in
24:09
20 minutes. So I I think that's that we want
24:13
to find the right tools, then implement them at the right
24:15
time, and not wait necessarily for the more complex tool to be
24:19
what we rely on. Well, I think that's like the,
24:22
the sequencing aspect is where a lot of the magic happens is, you
24:26
know, there's a lot of, especially in the reality
24:28
capture world, like there's a lot of visibility technology out
24:32
there and there's a lot of the going back to the dashboards of
24:35
reporting. There's a lot of things that
24:36
create visibility into what we're what's being done, but not
24:40
a lot that's creating control into what's being done.
24:45
Anyway, you you hit the nail on the head with that of like, you
24:48
know, going back to checklist, making sure that overlays are
24:51
being done at certain stages of the work, you know, is a really
24:55
great way to start to think about the the second P of
25:00
process as the integrator between the technology and the
25:05
people doing the work. Right, and that that can get
25:08
overbearing too. And I'm I'm probably guilty of
25:10
it. We may have cast employees
25:11
watching this right now that are going he's the he's the damn
25:13
process guy making things hard. We can certainly be guilty of it
25:17
ourselves, but we do we do try to take that feedback into the
25:21
into the process. What is, are the tools better?
25:24
Have they changed or the things that we can do to improve the
25:26
process? You know, even with legacy tools
25:28
that we already use, a lot of these software companies change
25:31
stuff at the cyclic rate. And so things change all the
25:36
time. We, we want to be mindful of
25:38
that and use that as ways to influence the process, but we
25:41
also need to get that feedback from the end user.
25:43
And that can be really tough sometimes, you know, and I'm,
25:46
again, I'm guilty of this as as well.
25:48
People will very rarely take the time to call, text, stand
25:52
outside of the boom box over their head, whatever of some
25:55
problem they're having. But when I go to a job site, I
25:58
inevitably get people grabbing me and saying, Oh, thank God,
26:01
you're here. I want to talk to you about
26:03
this. Oh, hey, I forgot I had this
26:05
problem six weeks ago. I meant to call you, I got busy.
26:09
I want to talk to you now. And so you're making that time
26:12
and being available and open to that is really important to to
26:16
keeping that process flow going both ways.
26:18
I tell some folks like this is an industry of like well
26:22
intended frustrations. No one is out there trying to do
26:25
the wrong thing. Generally there's a couple bad
26:27
apples out there, but most people are just trying to do the
26:29
best at what they have. It's funny because it is like
26:32
people who are on the process side of things are trying to
26:35
build a process that's going to work for 80% of the issues and
26:39
there's always going to be 20% of edge case.
26:41
And that's where the people in the field matter to provide
26:44
feedback and friction on process when appropriate to make sure
26:48
that the right thing is being done on that specific work.
26:51
You, you're like when you talked about like holding the boom box.
26:54
I wish our industry was working toward being more open about
26:59
those things. That's where I think the
27:01
problems come up is like someone and something like, wow, I'm not
27:04
going to see Rob for a week. So let me go and take a swing at
27:08
this and see what I could have done.
27:10
But we have. Phones, we have super computers
27:11
in our pockets. All it needed was that 5 minute
27:14
phone call of dude, I am about to put my head through a while
27:17
here and that's going to create rework in and of itself.
27:20
Being able to just pick up the phone and say, hey, listen, like
27:22
I'm, I'm hitting this this issue.
27:24
What do you think? Or even better, here's what I
27:27
think in being able to like this like common thread of like be
27:32
able to be a little bit vulnerable about the work being
27:35
messy because that's honestly what construction and I think
27:38
delivery is all about is like figuring out what those problems
27:41
are, troubleshooting them in partnership and then finding the
27:44
best way forward. Yeah, and some.
27:46
Look, sometimes work sucks. It's not a utopia.
27:49
It's called work, not play. It's not.
27:51
Sometimes you'd have to do crappy stuff to to get the thing
27:54
done. We try our best to make that
27:56
easier where we can and improve things where we can.
27:59
And we want to hear that feedback.
28:01
It's a little pollyannish in some, in some circles to think
28:04
that we're going to solve all of the problems, you know, and
28:07
eliminate all of the TDM sometimes.
28:09
Yeah, You know what, dude? There's we're a publicly traded
28:12
company. We're not.
28:12
But if you're a publicly traded company, there's a form you got
28:15
to fill out. Sarbanes-Oxley, Enron, like go
28:18
look all that stuff up. We don't have a solution yet.
28:21
We're working on it, I promise. But today you got to go fill
28:24
that form out, you know, and, and even for smaller companies,
28:27
local companies, you, you could be an, owned, a, a $30 million
28:31
company owned by one guy and you need to fill out a cash flow
28:35
report every two weeks. I worked in a company like that
28:37
years ago. That's because the 2 owners want
28:40
to know if they can go buy a boat, right?
28:41
So that cash flow report has no benefit to me, no benefit to the
28:45
job, right? They do need it for, for other
28:47
sort of fiduciary and physical reasons.
28:49
But at the end of the day, they're trying to get a sense of
28:52
like, where's my year going to end up?
28:54
Where is this all headed? I'd like to buy a new boat.
28:56
I'd like to buy a new car or whatever.
28:57
That has no benefit to me at the project level.
29:00
It's just something you got to do because it's part of doing
29:02
the work. So we, we try all the time to,
29:05
you know, make those processes better where we can.
29:08
But sometimes there is just going to be work at the end of
29:10
the day that you have to get done.
29:12
That's a great segue into the the big thing that is going to
29:16
solve all of the world's problems and make all of our
29:18
lives easy and make it so that work becomes play and and nobody
29:23
has to ever sweat ever again in their lives, which is artificial
29:26
intelligence. And I say this jokingly if you
29:29
can't pick up the tone of my voice.
29:30
So, but you know, where are we finding AI to genuinely have a
29:35
place in construction? And maybe where do you think
29:37
people are maybe getting ahead of themselves?
29:40
You know, I can't believe I was the first one to say the a word
29:43
in this interview. I have been pretty, pretty
29:47
reluctant adopter because I do see people applying it in ways
29:51
that are maybe solving problems that that don't need solving or
29:57
like we talked about earlier, replacing certain processes that
30:00
are that are super critical training opportunities for our
30:03
people. The way I'm envisioning it now
30:05
is I'm kind of seeing it coming up, coming to almost like 3
30:09
different ways of looking at it. You know, you've got the
30:13
individual person that's using it like a spell checker.
30:15
They're using it like Google. They're using it to, to rewrite
30:19
their emails. They, they write some nasty
30:21
response to somebody and they go, hey, make this not so mean
30:25
and they copy and paste that back in.
30:26
Not that I would ever use it for that myself.
30:28
So there's that. There's the, the personal use
30:31
case. Maybe it's saving you a little
30:33
bit of time. Maybe it's really not, you know,
30:36
if you, if you really delve into it, but that's, that's one
30:39
component of it. And then I'd say you've got more
30:41
of this like sort of enterprise approach.
30:46
You know, we're going to go build cast AI.
30:48
You know, what are you going to do with cast AI?
30:50
I don't know, but we're going to build cast AI and we're going
30:53
to, you know, it's going to search things and it's going to
30:54
do things and it's going to it's going to cure cancer.
30:57
It's going to solve all these problems.
30:59
The thing that's starting to interest me is I, I heard this
31:01
this turn the other day about world models.
31:04
I think I'm using the right term.
31:06
And that's where it starts to get a little more predictive.
31:08
The thing about that is it's also much more reliant on our
31:11
ability to govern our own data. And that's where we're focused
31:15
really strongly right now, like I mentioned earlier, of getting
31:17
our systems to talk each to each other, getting our data into a,
31:21
a data lake, a data warehouse, having that bronze, silver, gold
31:24
tier of information 'cause, you know, a year ago I asked Gemini
31:29
Chat GPTI think Claude and maybe one other, you know, what's the
31:35
Max code allowable drop from a floor drain to AP trap?
31:38
They all had a different answer and they were all wrong.
31:41
That worries me. They were on, they were all
31:43
confidently wrong, super confidently wrong.
31:46
And yes, if you know the right answer and you go, no, that's
31:49
wrong. Oh, you're right, you're so
31:51
right, you're so smart. It's actually this.
31:52
So to me, what's really going to be an ultimate value is this
31:57
sort of world model idea where there's some predictiveness to
32:00
it. There's some forward-looking
32:02
this to it and there's also hopefully some ability to prompt
32:06
and train our people along the way.
32:08
And that's to me, the the potential for the real, you
32:11
know, we talked about the workforce shortage.
32:14
We talked about the 40% of people in the workforce are
32:18
going to retire and take all this institutional knowledge
32:20
with them in the next 10 years. Building AI tools that we can
32:23
use to train people to backfill that.
32:26
That's super interesting to me. You know, prompts, I talk all
32:30
the time about we need Clippy back, you know, the little
32:32
Microsoft guy, like running around to prompt you and say,
32:35
hey, I noticed that you wrote this change order and it's for
32:38
$0.00. Did you really mean to do that?
32:39
Oh, no, I did not let me fix that.
32:41
You know, or hey, I noticed you're sending this sub change
32:44
order, but the associated owner change order has not yet been
32:48
signed. Maybe we don't want to do that.
32:50
And, and it could just be, I don't necessarily want to put
32:53
stoppers in there. And it could just be that
32:55
somebody forgot to mark the damn owner change order approved.
32:58
But let's go back, close the loop on that and then move
33:01
forward so that we get that, you know, that gold tier data that
33:05
we can actually rely on and start to do more predictive
33:07
models and train the system to to kind of backfill that that
33:12
experience gap that frankly, we're already feeling.
33:15
And we have been feeling since the recession.
33:17
It's just now getting really serious and people are actually
33:19
starting to talk about it. I love everything as you said
33:23
and like how you even broke down like AI application across
33:26
individual, enterprise and role model cuz as an individual I
33:30
definitely use it for almost all of the reasons that you asked,
33:33
if not all of them. Because it's just to me.
33:36
Having a sounding board to bounce things off of and like
33:41
validate and even you know, it's very good to ask it to argue
33:46
with you as much as you ask it to agree with you.
33:49
Something I've learned along the way.
33:51
And then yes, the enterprise level of like, let's go cure
33:54
cancer, even though we're a multi family home builder that
33:57
hit just the aspect tongue in cheek there, but it does it and
34:01
you and you hit the nail on the head.
34:03
Like data becomes the core and, and something that you know,
34:08
becomes a very important focus of like how good is my data and
34:11
how good is the model that the intelligence is referencing?
34:14
Because this even happens like with, with human intelligence is
34:17
like you're working on 20 different projects and someone
34:20
asked you a question about a specific project.
34:22
You're like answer about project B instead of project A because
34:26
that's just it's data noise in your head.
34:29
But then you talked about role models.
34:30
And that's where I, I almost want to dig in a little bit more
34:33
because when you talked about the plumbing example, I think
34:36
you hit the nail on the head of why challenge, how challenging
34:40
it is for AI to be really strong in our space is that there's
34:46
just such regional difference and even some case local
34:51
difference in how, you know, Miami-Dade has their own code as
34:56
opposed to different parts of Florida.
34:58
Then there's the US building code in your manufacturer
35:02
specifications and all of these layers that end up creating a
35:07
very specific answer for a project that best average, which
35:13
is kind of the world of AI that we live in today.
35:16
It misses that context to me. You know, that's where we have
35:21
to be scrutinous and, you know, leverage our own intelligence
35:25
and be able to open these books and go way back to the beginning
35:28
of the episode of understanding that there are some tasks that
35:32
maybe don't need to go away. Because this is what helps us
35:35
create that context becomes so important.
35:39
Because if we go down this road of adopting AI indiscriminately
35:44
almost, we're going to then run the risk of eliminating those
35:48
entry level learning jobs. And then how are people going to
35:52
expose themselves to the context that helps them make sure that
35:56
they're getting it right? Yeah, One thing I've been
35:59
thinking about with, with trying to train the models and even
36:03
just train the data and help fix the governance issues that we
36:07
face. You know, we've been, we've been
36:10
digitizing the process for depending on how you want to
36:13
measure it, you know, 15 to 2025 years and we're missing certain
36:19
aspects. And I, it's like, I want to, I
36:21
want to introduce a CAPTCHA type system to every time you log
36:25
into your computer, it knows what your role is within the
36:28
company. And it prompts you with like,
36:30
hey, which one of these installations meets code?
36:33
This one or this one? And then if you're an MEP super,
36:36
you get like a picture of a pipe and you click on that, the one
36:39
that actually matches, you know, if you're, if you're APM, maybe
36:43
you get asked or PX, even better, maybe you get asked.
36:47
Here's 2 responses to two similar RF is which one of them
36:50
sucks and which one of them is actually going to get something
36:52
done right. And then start training the
36:54
model through that experience of those people so that then we can
36:58
start to have those prompts and have that predictability.
37:00
To your point, that's also specific to us and our our way
37:04
of doing business, our regional area, our market sector.
37:07
You know, you get very narrowed down.
37:10
We're in Florida, we're multifamily, we're in three
37:13
markets in Florida. You know, you get a very niche
37:16
thing and it would be great if there was a way to train it 2 to
37:21
5 seconds a day of just somebody clicking on like, pick the one
37:25
that you like the best and start to train the data off of that.
37:29
Someone's going to listen to this and actually create that
37:31
cuz that to me everything I know about AI is very grounded and
37:34
I've started to experiment with like sub agents and whatnot.
37:37
With Claude, you would effectively be able to train
37:41
specific skill sets for specific agentic AI that I think would
37:48
work in concept. If you were to start to build
37:50
out a model like that and actually train these agents with
37:53
these role types, someone's going to take that idea and run.
37:56
I'm very excited to see what you might do.
37:58
Well, I'll, I'll tell you one of my personal use cases for for
38:02
ChatGPT, as I made an agent that I created a Google sheet.
38:08
I listed out every cocktail making ingredient that I have in
38:12
my bar, which is a lot. I'm a rum guy, so lots of rums
38:14
and tiki tiki hat in the yard. So tiki drinks and stuff.
38:18
And I made an agent that looks at that called the virtual
38:21
mixologist. And I tell it, hey, using my
38:23
ingredients make me a cocktail that is an after dinner drink or
38:27
that is this or that is that it knows what I have on hand.
38:31
If I change that list out right or if I tell it, Hey, I don't
38:35
like that. And I know everybody says AI
38:38
doesn't learn. I get that, but it does start to
38:41
repeat certain things and say, Hey, you responded, you liked
38:44
when, you know, we made a, a fireball martini.
38:48
Yes, great. There's here's something that
38:50
we've made before. And so it's, it's training
38:54
itself a little bit just even off of that initial sheet that I
38:57
uploaded and added. And I get it.
38:58
To me, sitting around getting drunk on the weekend is not
39:00
maybe the best use of AI. But it's an interesting use case
39:05
and an example where you could start to program other things
39:08
and and and bring in these these AB tests to where you could
39:12
actually start to to train it a little bit better.
39:15
Well, I mean, I think that's like being able to play with it
39:18
in those use cases helps you figure out how to translate it
39:21
to specifically different problems.
39:23
I got to ask though, you know, was there a drink that
39:26
encouraged you to make that you really loved?
39:28
And was there a drink that encouraged you that you're like,
39:30
no way in hell am I drinking this?
39:32
Yeah, I'm like I said, I'm big into like the tiki stuff.
39:35
So most of those are good. It's it's kind of hard to screw
39:38
those up I think. I think I asked it for some
39:42
reason to make something with like pickle juice.
39:44
Yeah, my own fault. I threw out a curveball.
39:47
I I sat there and belligerently drank it.
39:50
The wife was like 2 sips and was like snap screw this, I'm
39:53
getting a Coors Light. But I'm a little pig headed and
39:56
don't want to don't admit I screwed it up.
39:58
So I sat and drank my pickle juice drink.
40:00
That's funny. Yeah.
40:01
Then I pickle goes good with whiskey.
40:02
I don't know about rum. So yeah, I have to yeah.
40:06
Sometimes it it can't taste, I feel like.
40:08
So until we figure out how to get the intelligence to build a
40:12
taste profile, I don't know if it's the best at that.
40:16
But to to kind of go back a little bit.
40:19
I think there is, the workforce is something that is talked
40:23
about all the time. I think there's really exciting
40:27
applications of having an AI companion and other solutions
40:31
out there to ride along with people and help upskill them and
40:35
help share the tribal knowledge that this industry very much
40:38
relies on. But to me, you know, what are
40:42
things that perhaps experience builders know that software can
40:47
often fail to capture and where maybe, you know, going back to
40:51
your people, process, technology where people matter the most
40:54
still today? Yeah, I mean, look, the obvious
40:57
answer is still the guy with the tool in his hand.
41:00
You know, we're, we're, I don't think those people are sort of
41:06
expendable, in danger of getting replaced.
41:10
You know, the ironic thing is everybody is worried about the
41:14
trade workers leaving, but then we're also talking about AI
41:18
stealing jobs. But what if we used AI to even
41:20
make the trade workers better at their jobs, right?
41:23
We wait. We lose so much time to rework
41:26
to out of sequence work, to manpower shortages.
41:29
I kind of joke all the time that we're really just passing the
41:31
same like 25 plumbers around between all of our jobs.
41:36
You know, because the the manpower shortage is here.
41:39
You, you go ask any Superintendent or any project
41:41
manager that is on a job full time and they will tell you that
41:45
they spend a lot of their time just arguing about getting
41:49
people to the job. They may not always realize even
41:52
that's what they're arguing about.
41:53
They're arguing about you're not done yet, right?
41:55
Or how come you're not done yet or why haven't you started yet.
41:59
What is starting to emerge is that they haven't started yet
42:02
because they have enough work to use 75 people and they have 50
42:08
people on the payroll and they're passing those 50 people
42:11
around. And you're, if you can pay on
42:13
time, if you can, you know, smooth the skids have a place
42:16
for them to have lay down. You're going to get those 50
42:19
people or your share of those 50 people.
42:21
And so I think the, you know, the use cases of AI is if we are
42:27
not doing that rework, if we are not doing that out of sequence
42:30
work, you know, rework is, is also more safety exposure every
42:34
time. And it's, it's usually more
42:36
dangerous than the original work.
42:37
You've got a tear workout now you're bashing, you're
42:40
hammering, you're cutting. That's more dangerous than the
42:42
initial tasks that you did. You know, rework is really kind
42:44
of three times the safety exposure.
42:47
What if we could use AI and BIM and all these tools that we've
42:50
talked about and just get the damn work right the first time?
42:54
You know, the, the construction joke of like, we never have time
42:57
to do it right, but we always find time to do it again.
42:59
Let's maybe not do that right? We're we're taking people off
43:04
what I would call the leading edge of work.
43:07
Here's something you screwed up down on level 20 crap.
43:09
You're right. We got to come back and fix
43:11
that. Where am I going to get those
43:12
guys? Well, they're currently up on 4
43:14
trying to keep up with the schedule.
43:16
OK, we'll stop. Come back down here, do this
43:19
work now. You're missing now your critical
43:21
pass being affected. So if these, if these digital
43:24
tools, AI included, can actually start to help us get the work
43:27
done on time in sequence, apply some of these lean and tact and
43:32
last planner principles properly, not just, you know,
43:36
it's going to be posts, but yeah, performatively there you
43:39
go. You know, get those tools
43:43
implemented properly in the field so that we can get the
43:45
work right. That's really going to help
43:47
alleviate those labor shortages so that we're we're not doubling
43:51
up. Yeah.
43:53
No, it's the the part of the shortage is the fact that we got
43:56
to do so much rework. And it is interesting because
43:58
coming from the data center market that I've been exposed to
44:01
for a little over five years now, it's like it's the same
44:04
roving band of electricians marching across the country
44:07
doing project after project switching companies, going to
44:10
the highest bidder and a great time to get to trades right now
44:14
because there is so much demand for it.
44:17
But it is also the, you know, there is that risk, especially
44:20
in like the electrical space where doing rework can often
44:25
times result in more exposure to like electrical outcomes,
44:29
especially if people have an uncharged turn something off and
44:33
make sure there isn't a charge and you know, things happen.
44:37
So as I guess you know, we want to attract younger construction
44:41
technologists into the space and and folks into the trades.
44:44
What are things that you would kind of advise them into
44:48
understanding perhaps before they rush to say fix the
44:51
industry? What kind of perspective do you
44:53
think they should gain before they jump to problem solving?
44:59
It's not broken. I don't care what social media
45:01
tells you it's not. It's not broken.
45:03
I would also tell you that if you are, for the most part, if
45:07
you're approaching a successful senior leader, company owner,
45:11
you know, they may be facing the headwinds and they understand
45:14
the challenges that they're facing.
45:15
But coming and telling them that the business that they know and
45:18
love and have been working in for the last 40 years is broken
45:20
and you're here to disrupt it, Maybe not the best way to
45:23
introduce yourself. You know, I would also tell you
45:25
that for me, I don't, I don't really think of myself as a
45:28
construction tech person. You know, you like see what I'm
45:32
surrounded by. This is my happy place.
45:34
I really think of somebody that's we're me and my team and
45:38
my group, we're responsible for making projects go better.
45:41
And the technology is one of the tools that we use to do that.
45:44
So sometimes it works really well and sometimes, sometimes we
45:47
make it worse, right? And I think that's goes back
45:49
again to that key aspect of you had an episode recently you and
45:53
I chatted about a little bit about curiosity, right?
45:56
That is, that is quite possibly the most valuable asset and
46:01
trait in the industry. And, and it's not curiosity like
46:04
a petulant 3 year old, right? Why do I have to clean up my
46:07
room, right? That's not the curiosity we're
46:09
talking about. We're talking about that genuine
46:12
core curiosity, wanting to know why things work, wanting to
46:15
understand the systems. You know, if somebody tells you
46:17
something that doesn't make sense and oh, it's because oh,
46:20
we got to do this stupid thing because this is the way the the
46:22
framer wants it. Great.
46:24
Go talk to the framework, right? Go find the next guy in line and
46:26
talk to him and say, hey, maybe don't dime out the previous guy.
46:29
You don't want to start a fight, but you know, hey, I was, I was
46:32
talking to the electrician. He said he can't do this because
46:34
of this thing that impacts what you're doing in the framing.
46:37
I think we're what's lagging or lacking in the construction
46:42
technology discussion is that that field worker technology,
46:46
the at one point the, the electric drill was technology,
46:50
right? It was innovation chipping
46:52
Hammer, as much as we'd prefer not to use it as often as we do,
46:55
at some point that was that was innovation in technology.
46:58
And I'm really curious about those, those field innovations
47:01
in this field technologies that really start to help those trade
47:04
workers because again, that's going to be the key to the labor
47:07
shortage. You know, everybody's worried
47:08
about tech stealing their job out of one side of their mouth,
47:12
but out of the other side of our mouths we're talking about we
47:14
don't have enough people. Like what are those two things
47:16
came together and they we solved those problems.
47:18
And I love that just brought that up because curiosity, it's
47:22
fascinating us chatting with. I was on a manufacturing site
47:27
and a guy actually use a similar example because the curiosity, I
47:32
think sometimes, you know, you have the seasoned people and
47:35
they've done it the way they've done it forever and it works and
47:37
it's right. Then you have the, the young guy
47:40
or guy out there who hasn't done it forever and they have a
47:43
completely fresh and different perspective or they, they're
47:47
coming from a different industry, even where they,
47:49
they've, they've learned things for different ways to look at
47:51
problems. And they talked about like a zip
47:53
tie bag. And you know, they always had
47:57
trouble. They like, they cut, RIP, cut
47:59
open the top of the bag. And then, you know, the, all the
48:00
zip ties come out and one of the young guys just like, well, why
48:03
don't we just cut a hole in the middle of the bag?
48:05
And that way you can kind of pull one out.
48:07
But now they can't fall because they're still in the bag.
48:09
And it's like you got someone who's been doing this for 30-40,
48:13
fifty years and they've been doing it the same way over and
48:16
over and over again. And of course, like, yeah, you
48:17
open the bag and say you get zip ties out.
48:19
But like this was just like such a novel improvement that just
48:22
like required a different perspective.
48:25
And I think it's that curiosity that being able to createspace
48:28
to ask the dumb question so that you can learn the perspective
48:32
and learn what the framer cares about or learn what the
48:34
electrician needs or learn what the plumber needs.
48:36
That really help shape the the collaboration aspect.
48:40
Because I think being a good electrician means understanding
48:44
the framer. It means understanding the
48:46
plumber, not just being a good electrician.
48:50
And so I think there's a lot of power there.
48:52
And I appreciate you listening to that episode and taking away
48:55
from it what you did because to me that is like part of where
48:58
the magic happens is in that conversation and and
49:01
collaboration. Well, that understanding is also
49:04
just as important on the GC, on the project management side.
49:07
You know, how many times do we we send an RFI in, maybe we get
49:11
a bogus response back or we don't get a response fast enough
49:14
and we just sit in the trailer and go, Oh, this guy's a
49:16
freaking idiot. And maybe on the other end, the
49:18
architects receiving this RFI and he's looking at it and he's
49:21
going, I have no idea what this person's asking.
49:24
What a freaking idiot. You know, and in a funny way, I
49:27
think I put a note in your in your your notes about like, you
49:30
know, what's I forget what your what your prompt was, but a
49:35
process you believe should stay simple was your prompt.
49:38
And I said communication. It's now am I slacking you?
49:40
Am I teams in you? Am I youtubing you?
49:43
Am I instagramming you? Am I what's happening?
49:46
You like how am I supposed to get a hold of you?
49:49
You know, one thing I coach people all the time on is if you
49:52
want to be heard, you should talk to somebody in the language
49:54
that they want to be talked to in.
49:56
If you just want to shout from this mountaintop, you use
49:58
whatever's convenient for you, right?
50:00
Some people are going to respond to text.
50:02
Some people are going to respond to to teams.
50:04
Some people may may only ever answer the phone.
50:08
If you really want to get the issue resolved, you have to do
50:10
that. But all these means of
50:12
communication have siloed us more, have separated us more,
50:16
have caused more of this like, you know, acrimony of because we
50:20
don't know each other. But it's just all through
50:22
e-mail, It's all through, you know, it's all through Teams,
50:25
it's all through whatever, maybe a phone call, maybe a Zoom call
50:29
for an OAC meeting. And so that, that same empathy
50:33
and understanding of the process that you talked about in the
50:35
field is also super true for people in the office,
50:40
superintendents, you know, both internally to our company, we
50:43
need our precon folks to understand what our PMS are
50:46
doing, to understand what our accountants are doing, but also
50:50
across those disciplines. The architect's probably not an
50:53
idiot. I, I went to architecture
50:55
school, maybe I have, maybe that I am an idiot, but I don't think
50:58
that person, given what I went through in architecture school
51:01
is probably an idiot. They just, you don't understand
51:03
their priorities. You don't understand what it's
51:05
like to have to put a timesheet together for like twelfths of a
51:10
minute or twelfths of an hour, right?
51:12
Like people don't understand that and so that they don't get
51:15
it. And if you start to learn that,
51:17
that really becomes a superpower for being able to actually get
51:20
what you need from those people and being able to say, look,
51:23
hey, I understand that you're working on a lot of things.
51:26
Is there a particular day I can call you and we can just talk
51:29
about the RF is for my project, right?
51:31
Just you and me, the owner of these big RFI review meetings
51:34
that we have or like, they're better than not having them, but
51:38
they're, they're really not the best way to get these things
51:41
done. That basic communication.
51:43
Just that's really what we need to simplify is just find out how
51:48
people want to be talked to and what, what medium and then use
51:50
that to communicate with them. But my old man moment, I wish we
51:54
could go back to the fax machine in the Nextel, but you know,
51:57
we're, we're beyond that now. Yeah, there there is an aspect
52:00
of where once communication was slow is more intentional and
52:04
deliberate, and now that it's immediate and in a weird way it
52:07
almost never happens, which I think is kind of hilarious.
52:10
But it made you made me think of like the best cut builders that
52:13
I've ever worked with, best contractors were the ones that
52:17
did come in or, and say like I had one guy, he came in, he
52:20
called me up. He said, look, I, I'm going to
52:22
come in, you know, you got time tomorrow.
52:23
I'm going to just come in and, and go through these stucco
52:27
finishing details with you. So we make sure we get them
52:30
right. Comes in with a giant stack of
52:32
paper. And he's like, OK, like I don't
52:34
want you to feel like an idiot, but there's some things I don't
52:37
think you clearly thought through.
52:39
And we were able to go through it all and like resolve flashing
52:42
and resolve connection moments and like where different
52:45
materials were able to match up. And because he was able to kind
52:48
of meet me where I was at and I was able to meet him where we
52:51
were at, we were able to resolve everything in 1/2 hour and he
52:55
was able to get back to it versus what I think, you know,
52:59
and this was a trope that I, I would fall on.
53:01
It's like, oh, I sent the e-mail and they'll get back to me when
53:03
it matters to them. And three weeks goes later and
53:05
this is like how construction starts to drag its ass, in my
53:08
opinion. It's like because we forget that
53:10
human level of interaction and we're just, you know, throwing
53:13
the grenade over the fence back and forth at each other.
53:16
You know, we need ways to get in person more and build that
53:21
familiarity and and build that camaraderie as a as a delivery
53:24
team. Because half the things that
53:27
make us feel like the other person's an idiot goes right
53:30
back to like that. We just didn't have the
53:32
understanding for what they were caring about at the time.
53:34
If we could reshape and the OAC meeting to just like the even a
53:39
weekly team sync between everybody to just like air out
53:44
what they're frustrated with, I bet projects would move a lot
53:46
more smoothly. Yeah, I think the the that's
53:51
again one of those places where the the technology progression
53:55
has maybe made things you know a little more challenging and and
53:58
not necessarily improve them. Your analogy of throwing e-mail
54:01
grenades back and forth, what we did a training of several years
54:05
ago about one of our now partners to the training for our
54:09
younger folks. What is your value proposition,
54:12
right? I'm not trying to like cast
54:15
aspersions on anybody. And what is your value?
54:17
You know, like what is not supposed to be that
54:19
transactional, but what is your value proposition?
54:21
And this idea of everything that you touch should leave your
54:25
hands better than it came into your hands, right?
54:28
If you're just here passing things through, AI probably is
54:31
going to steal your job, right? Like if that's literally what
54:34
you're doing is left hand to right hand to next person, you
54:37
probably are are going to have a problem if you're improving that
54:40
thing along the way. So we made an analogy of we're
54:45
going to take this box, you're not allowed to look in it.
54:48
We're going to pass it all the way around the room.
54:50
And when it gets to the end of the room, everybody in here is
54:52
going to take a bite of what's in the box.
54:54
Or we can all look at what's in the box and anybody along the
54:57
way that doesn't like it can hand it back and we'll just all
55:00
have cake, right? So that's what we're effectively
55:03
doing with the submittal process right now.
55:04
We're throwing and then we blame the process.
55:07
We're throwing this grenade back and forth across the fence.
55:10
Nobody's looking in the box and we get to the end and we're all
55:13
eating the poo sandwich going well, whose fault is this?
55:15
You know, who put the poo in the box?
55:17
Where'd this come from? I don't want to eat a poo
55:18
sandwich. And I think that's, that's that
55:21
that idea of am I just getting stuff out of my inbox?
55:25
Is that my value proposition? Or where am I looking towards
55:29
the bigger picture of we're trying to build a building here.
55:32
We're trying to, you know, we're trying to get to an end state,
55:36
we're trying to improve everything that we touched
55:38
before we pass it on to the next person.
55:40
And that's a really key distinction that I think that
55:43
value proposition idea really, really sits well with.
55:47
Yeah. And I had to speak of end state.
55:48
We're definitely getting to the end of the the time here.
55:51
I was curious, you know, I always try to wrap up each
55:53
episode with the one question to kind of tie it all together is
55:57
what keeps you wired to build and and excited about the
56:00
industry in the future that that's in front of us.
56:03
You know, look, I've, I, I grew up a Lego and Lincoln log kid.
56:07
I, I stole lumber from job sites to build tree forts in the woods
56:11
by my house. You know, I just the, I
56:14
absolutely love the industry. I love the fact that we're
56:17
ultimately are producing built things.
56:20
I, I'm really excited for a while there, people would ask
56:23
me, what are you excited about in the industry?
56:25
And I would say the labor shortage, because I think
56:27
that's, that's going to be the thing ultimately and it drives
56:31
us to that, that final ultimate improvement right there.
56:34
Not maybe not final improvement, but we are a reactive industry,
56:38
there's no doubt about it. And but we're also an industry
56:42
that's not going anywhere. You know, we're depending on who
56:44
you ask, we're either the first or second oldest industry in the
56:46
world. And and we're not, we're not
56:48
going to not build the, the thing that's ultimately going to
56:51
push that innovation. And that that change is, is
56:55
headwinds like the labor shortage and hopefully we figure
56:58
that out before we get there and it's a problem.
57:01
But if we don't, we'll figure it out when it happens, you know?
57:04
Yeah, Well, it goes to like the. It's the proverb, I've like
57:07
necessity is the mother of invention.
57:09
And so, you know, this is something that's starting to
57:12
become so insurmountable that we're going to have to figure
57:14
out the better way for good, bad and otherwise.
57:16
And. And part of it, I think, is
57:18
feeling that pain. But I just want to, you know, I
57:21
think one of the clearest take away from our chat today is that
57:25
technology isn't neutral in construction.
57:27
It changes the way we behave. It changes the our processes and
57:31
if it's introduced without respect for the people in the
57:33
field, it creates just as many problems as it solves.
57:36
And So what I you know, why I had you on the show and what I
57:39
appreciate your perspective is it's not anti technology.
57:42
It's about being pro purpose and the reminder that progress has
57:46
to earn its place in the work, not just in the technology
57:50
marketing pitch. So I just appreciate you taking
57:53
the time to share your perspective today and and thank
57:55
you for being on the show. Yeah.
57:56
Thanks so much for having me. It's a great shot.
57:58
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow.
58:00
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58:03
working at the intersection of construction, operations, and
58:06
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58:08
episodes on LinkedIn, with more Season 3 conversations on the
58:12
way. Thanks for listening and until
58:14
next time. Stay wired to build.