Tag Archives: training

Creating More Participation at Construction Meetings

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As a Construction Leader, if you are having trouble getting people attending your meetings to participate, you’re not alone.  Many of the Leaders I work with across the country have had this same challenge.  While not every reason for those attending your meeting, and NOT participating, is your fault, there are several things you can do to increase the level of participation by those in attendance.

#1 – Create a Meeting Agenda…and Forward it 1-3 Days in Advance

Not exactly “rocket science,” but most Construction Leaders fail here.  Quite honestly, here’s my thoughts on agendas and meetings: NO AGENDA…NO MEETING!

How’s that for bluntness?  In fact, let me punctuate further…

NO DARN AGENDA… NO DARN MEETING!

The agenda is more than a time management tool, it allows each attendee to know, in advance, where it is you want their minds and brains.  If you want them to participate, state that on the agenda.  For example, say that one of your agenda items needs discussion, here’s how you might list this on your Agenda.

6:30AM – 6:50AM  Housekeeping Challenges (Guys, we need you to come to the meeting with 2-3 ideas on how we can better handle this growing problem.)

Now, it’s not perfect, but it lets those attending the meeting to know that you are expecting more from them than just sitting there.

#2 – Start Every Meeting with Some Positive Observations & Recognition

OK, I know that this can be tough to do.  You only have a 30-minute meeting scheduled so you want to get to the meaty stuff quickly.  Slow down, “Mr. I’m In a Hurry,” start your meeting off by verbally thanking your leaders, pointing out anything that any one of them have done in the past week that has been proactive, positive, and deserves recognizing. 

This positive start also encourages the players, confirms really, that you are not just focused on negative issues.  Rather, you are reminding each attendee that you see the positive, collective good that is being done on the project.

#3 – Prepare Select Individuals to Share Their Idea or Challenge

This is an old facilitator’s trick to “priming the pump.”  This tool allows you to have a few guys in your back pocket who can share their experience, or ideas, that they may have shared with you prior to the meeting.  Often, your team only needs one or two individuals to open up about a situation or problem, and then they feel that they too can share.

#4 – Positively Call Out Individuals to Share Their Views, Concerns, or Solutions

Sure, this can be a little embarrassing, but most of the guys you call on will get over it soon enough I’m thinking.  Be positive, don’t pick on a guy who screwed up big time just to embarrass him by having him explain to his guys about his big screw-up from the past job.

This effort can actually be a leadership development technique.  How many times have you had your eye on one of your workers who has demonstrated some potential leadership?  However, that same individual goes “silent” during a meeting, seldom sharing their great insights.  Sometimes we must nudge potential leaders, just a little, before they begin to come out of their cocoon and spread their wings to take flight.

#5 – Thank Those Who Do Share Their Ideas or Concerns

Hey, DO NOT shut down the guy who does volunteer an idea or expresses a concern.  That’s the quickest way to shutting down the entire room.  As bad as an idea might be, or as wrong as it may be, thank the person for sharing, and move on.   You will open the door for more sharing from the other guys if you are more positive when you do receive some input.  This technique is pure and simple a “PR” move to win over the trust of the other individuals who are not saying much.

#6 – Create “Mini-Teams” to Address a Question

One of the best methods I’ve used, with a quiet group, is to ask a question and then have the group break into mini-teams, of 2-4 individuals, to brainstorm for one or two responses.  This hardly ever fails, and takes a lot of pressure off most of the guys who will not talk to save their life.  Try this and you’ll be amazed how successful you will be AND how much more confidence the individuals will feel.

#7 – Follow-up with Those Who Do Share…After the Meeting

Don’t tackle those individuals who spoke in the meeting, but in the next day or so, let them know that you appreciated their input.  This will go a long way to improve their motivation for future meetings and tear down more fear from speaking up.

Another benefit, by following up with those who do share, is that you may receive more information from the individual that can be helpful.  Remember, some individuals, during meetings, will refrain from saying too much for fear that they may be viewed as “brown-nosing” or trying to appear to know more than others.  Seldom are these reasons even remotely accurate, but it is amazing the reasons some individuals will not participate in a meeting.

#8 – Remember, You Do Catch More Flies with Honey…Rather Than Dirty and Harsh Talk

Beating your audience up because they will not speak up is a huge mistake to win their confidence in you and to feel safe to speak in front of others.  Our culture is construction, and as such, many leaders still tend to talk tough.  However, remember that we are not in the 70’s, 80’s, or 90’s. 

Should you shout, talk down to your meeting participants, use an overabundance of foul language, etc., you are merely using the same, and incredibly “non-creative” intimidation tactics of some of the world’s biggest bullies known to man.  In this case, only one of two things will happen, and they are both not good for leaders trying to gain greater participation. 

  1. Some individuals will just say, “up yours’,” and leave eventually.
  2. Some individuals, who you need the most, will “shut down,” becoming even more quiet and remaining resistive to participation.

Construction Leaders lead meetings; it’s a growing portion of how we spend our days and weeks.  Do not use your meetings as your “bully pit,” controlling the agenda, discussion, and even thinking, but instead, create a safe place where those in attendance can share what’s on their brains without fear of losing theirs’. 

As our projects, and many customers, continue to be challenging and desiring more from us as Construction Leaders, it is high time that all Leaders take a new approach to gaining more participation at meetings.  Be more creative, and less impatient with others, to developing greater trust in those attending your meetings.  Trust me, you will gain more participation!

“Would you like to share your thoughts?”

Brad Humphrey

The Contractor’s Best Friend

Employee Development, , , , , ,

[AUDIO] Who’s Educating Your Leaders?

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Most construction owners and leaders recognize the need to keep their leadership team primed and poised.  Yet, the reality is that many owners and senior leaders pay little attention to actually developing their leaders.  In the short run this may not have a negative impact on the business; in the long run, the same owners may run the risk of having poorly developed leaders who are incapable of achieving more profitable results.

In today’s post, learn how you can recommit to educating your leaders!

 

[TRANSCRIPT]

 

Hopefully you have a great group of leaders in your organization.  Whether they are department managers, sales managers, superintendents, or crew foremen, leadership is critical at every level within any company.  But, who’s educating this group of leaders?

The easy answer of course is either the owner or a senior leader.  Yet, when it comes right down to actual development there are few companies that have an organized education program for this very critical level of the company.  Yes, such leaders may attend a conference periodically but there are few business owners and senior leaders who take an active role in the development of their own leaders.  In short, there is a lack of leading the leaders.

Educating your leaders may be the most significant thing you do to bolster the internal operations of your company that directly improves your production.  The investment will pay huge dividends as leaders begin to make better decisions, follow more closely the values and strategic direction set by senior leaders, and cast a better leadership to their reporting employees.  Let’s take a look at a few efforts you can make to strengthen your leader’s performance.

First, Spend Time With Your Leaders.  This is a toughie to maintain for busy and growing companies.  As a senior leader in your company it is often easy to fall into the trap of having to be everywhere else but with your leaders.  I’ve heard owners sometimes say, “They’ve got things under control; they can handle things.”  I fear this is said more in hope than in confirmation of what is actually happening.

Now, while we want our leaders to perform important and needed responsibilities it remains important for owners and senior leaders to spend time with their leaders.  Such time may be spent discussing specific challenges, discussing upcoming jobs, or just talking about each other’s families.  This time spent slowly begins to shape the leader’s values, expectations, and focus along the line of what the owner desires.  In short, it builds strong relationships that are anchored in trust, understanding, and appreciation for skills and talents.

I have found successful construction owners and senior leaders who meet with their leaders, individually, 2-3 times a month.  Certainly the president/owner of a construction company with twenty employees may, on the surface, have more time to spend with their leaders than say the owner of a company with five hundred workers.  In reality, it seems that most owners and senior leaders are all very busy so time spent with their leaders becomes even more critical.

Second, Build 15-Minutes of Education into Your Staff Meetings.   I probably sit and observe some twenty or more staff meetings a year.  While a healthy percentage of these meetings address needed issues there is still a period of time that is just wasted.  (Simply installing an agenda and sticking to it can remedy this problem..)

But another opportunity that most contractors miss with their staff meetings is the educational potential.  For many organizations, a staff meeting is likely one of the few times that all of the leaders are present in one sitting.  As part of your meeting agenda, carve out fifteen minutes and dedicate this to a learning moment.  I’ll share a few ideas about what you can use during this time in the next point but let me provide a few quickies now.

The 15-Minutes of Education could include sharing:

  • A specific technical question that has been challenging workers
  • A customer complaint that is still plaguing our client relations effort
  • Best practice learned from a difficult job
  • What safety improvements need to be made and why
  • How to coach problem employees
  • How to motivate workers

The potential educational opportunities are endless.  Taking any difficulty or lessons learned is always good since it directly relates to the company.  The key here is to always slant the discussion with the following questions:

  1. What did we learn from this?
  2. How do we adjust our efforts to make it right or better?
  3. How do we communicate this change to our workers?

Another good educational “tool” to use during these 15-Minutes of Education is to role-play certain scenarios that leaders may be facing.  For instance, you might engage your leaders in role-playing a coaching situation on the job site with a “challenged worker.”  Another example might include role-playing an interaction between a leader and an irate customer.

This 15-Minutes of Education can become a terrific development boost to your leaders.  The safety of learning among like focused leaders can reinforce your leadership team that you are all about their best, leading their best!

Third, Engage Some Non-Traditional Educational Methods. Taking your leaders away from your company for hours to days at a time is costly, not just in actual travel and class costs but also with the lack their presence on your jobs.  We’ve got to find some other methods then to educate.

Consider a few of the following educational efforts that are much less costly and can be more productive.

  • A Monthly Book Chapter Review & Discussion. This involves selecting an easy to read book, say on leadership, and having all of the leaders read just one chapter a month.  Each month-end then would engage the leaders to discuss what the chapter meant to them and how they can incorporate the principles or techniques presented into their own leadership effort.  I’ve personally seen this effort work nicely with leaders and have led such efforts for several organizations.  The owner could make this part of the 15-Minutes of Education at one Staff meeting a month.
  • Video Your Competitors at Work & Debrief. I actually watched this effort done by a contractor a few years back who would video some of their direct competitors performing work and then replay the tape at a staff meeting.  This was genius!  Not many leaders, including their workers, may feel comfortable critiquing their own performance BUT show the competitor and you will bring the house down with the “experts’ opinions.”  This effort is quite educational and can also reinforce what your firm is doing well or not as well compared to the competition.
  • Engage Your Leaders to Develop a Leadership “Code of Conduct.” This is quite educational as your leaders actually develop the standards and actions that they believe is best representative of the culture of your organization.  Once this is developed take one of the items and build some training time around it at a staff meeting.  Consider a few examples of Code of Conduct standards.

 

  • Treat all workers with respect
  • Follow-up with request made by others
  • Confront wrong performance professionally
  • Insure that every job is pre-planned & prepared
  • Represent the company well even in personal life

Obviously the standards developed will be subject to your company and its leaders.  The key here is to engage your leaders in this educational effort and then leading them on how to live and lead the same.

Fourth, Commit & Execute the “One Minute Coaching” Effort.  A minor adapting of a principle presented in the book, The One-Minute Manager, you need to commit to taking advantage of those coaching moments when they come around.  Nothing has the full impact on any leader’s development than when their senior leader takes the time to provide a coaching moment.  Opportunities appear daily to coach so be prepared!

Fifth, Use the “Hi-Lo” Leadership Report.  This tool is one that I’ve used with my own staff successfully and have introduced it to many in the construction industry.  Simply, your leaders send you a brief (1 page or less) review of the past week by including 3-5 Highlights and 3-5 Lowlights.  These are to be short and in bullet point formatting.  The leader is not to write a long explanation to defend or brag about any Hi or Lo item.  Keeping the Hi-Lo brief doesn’t require much time from the leader completing it and even less time for you to read and keep updated on some of the week’s happenings.  If you want more information you can always follow-up with the leader.

It will take you a few weeks to get some of the bugs worked out but once you do you will begin to see the effort put out by your leaders.  This also becomes another leading the leader opportunity.

Most construction owners and leaders recognize the need to keep their leadership team primed and poised.  Yet, the reality is that many owners and senior leaders pay little attention to actually developing their leaders.  In the short run this may not have a negative impact on the business; in the long run, the same owners may run the risk of having poorly developed leaders who are incapable of achieving more profitable results.

Recommit to educating your leaders.  For a small personal investment of time you will be strengthening your entire organization.  Another side benefit to this effort that I’ve observed is that most owners and their senior leaders also improve their own knowledge and leadership along the way.  Thus, by following the recommendations presented in this article you will be creating a win-win situation!

Educate (Lead) Your Leaders!

Brad Humphrey, A Contractor’s Best Friend

Employee Development, , , , , ,

[AUDIO] The Casualties of Construction

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Every contractor deals with daily problems and challenges that must be adjusted to in order to put his or her crew or company in the best position to win. Like a quarterback in football, construction leaders don’t have all the time in the world to react. You must respond in a timely manner with the best “play” possible to reinforce to your followers that you understand the situation and have the best corrective action possible to execute.

Learn more in today’s Learning While Listening podcast, “Casualties of Construction.”

 

[TRANSCRIPT]

Visiting with a contractor recently I was reminded of some of the not so fun things that contractors and construction leaders must do.  The not so fun things like letting a long-term employee go due to their growing poor performance, or having to hold a customer accountable to what was agreed to in a contract, or to not allowing an employee to take off a few days due to your schedule needs even after you had OK’d their time off.

 

I call these examples, and certainly others that might be more painful or uncomfortable the “casualties of construction.”  These are not illegal, immoral, or unethical type of events but just decisions that a leader is confronted with that has to be confronted or addressed.

 

The realities of construction casualties reminded me how important it is for an owner or leader to have a good handle on their values, their view of business, and their realistic outlook on making their business successful.  Let me share a few insights into what many effective contractors do to handle some of the more unpleasant decisions that must be made.

 

  1. First, be True to Your Personal Mission

No owner or leader can feel like their “life’s mission” or purpose is being trashed.  A leader must be firm, not arrogant, in their commitment to treat people with respect and to understand that not everyone else in their world will agree with their mission.  That’s OK, let the others in your life construct their own mission.

 

  1. Develop a Strategic Plan on Running Your Company

Even non-owners who are still leaders need a clear view of how they want to lead their organization or their part of the organization.  I love the Old Testament perspective of this insight which says “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”  Most “followers” in our companies are drawn to leaders with a vision and a plan.  Having such a strategic plan keeps you grounded and provides a reminder when things get cloudy.

 

  1. Communicate Honestly, Objectively, and as Accurately as Possible

This is a toughie for many leaders.  How do you tell that employee who has been with you for twenty plus years that their performance just isn’t making the grade?  This is tough!  However, it is important to line out to any employee what the need is and how they are doing compared to what is needed.  It is important to be honest and just as critical to be objective.  Objective feedback suggests that you consider all sides to the issue.  Allow others to provide feedback that may not always agree with your perspective.  Just allowing others to sound off to you can strengthen their respect for you.  Finally, being accurate is the last critical piece.  No one likes to be given the wrong information for any reason.  Accuracy implies that you are separating the myths from facts.

 

  1. Deal with Confusion or Concerns Professionally and Promptly

It is amazing how strong the rumor mill can be in most construction companies.  I’ve seen just as much confusion in a small company of ten to fifteen employees as I have a company of five hundred.  What employees don’t understand or are confused about often becomes fodder for the expansion of rumors.  When such confusion is present it is the leader who must address this head-on.  State the truth and facts as clearly as possible.  If the confusion or concern has a touch of confidentiality built in then certainly be sensitive to the confidential issue but if there is no issue here, then clarify the confusion and move on.

 

Dealing professionally and promptly suggests that you never assign blame to an individual, that is, at least publicly.  Stay calm and collected.  Don’t let the confusion or problems of others rattle your emotional cage and begin to lower your own behavior to less than professional.  Such demonstrations often leave the leader looking guilty of covering up some point of interest to others.

 

  1. Look to Turn Problematic Situations into Positive Turn-about

This doesn’t require that you be an eternal optimist but it will require that you consider what good can come out of a difficult situation.  For instance, a better than average worker quits your firm and those who worked with the individual are uneasy about the immediate future.  Immediately consider sharing with those left behind of the opportunities that now exist for someone to step up or for some new approaches to be considered that may have been resisted too in the recent past.  Many employees are drawn to the leader who just doesn’t put a positive spin on a bad issue but is proactive enough to say, “OK folks, let’s quit feeling sorry for ourselves, roll up or sleeves, and get with the program!”

 

Certainly a leader deals with thousands of decisions a day, certainly in the span of a week.  And the manner in which you, as the leader, respond to each and every opportunity is the chance to make a well thought out and prepared decision.  I often refer to construction owners and leaders as quarterbacks who must be prepared to “audible” at the line of scrimmage if faced with a defense that poses a problem to success.

 

You are the quarterback.  The “defense” facing you consists of the daily problems and challenges that you must adjust to in order to put your crew or company in the best position to win.  Like a quarterback you don’t have all the time in the world to react.  You must respond in a timely manner with the best “play” possible to reinforce to your followers that you understand the situation and have the best corrective action possible to execute.

 

Brad Humphrey will be presenting eight different seminars at the upcoming World of Concrete 2008.  Plan on attending one or more of Brad’s sessions and find more secrets and techniques to being the best leader you are capable of being!

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