Shayne Daughenbaugh  00:04

What are the things when the pressure’s on that, you know, the stickers won’t come off, you know? What are those? Those value things,

Jason Schroeder  00:12

finding your mission, your vision, your purpose, and then specifically the importance of core value. So experiment year after year after year. And finally, when we started the business, I realized that it was important to come up with our core values. Did that for myself when we started elevate it was transparency. Is our is our number one, respect for people, which you could probably say respect and love for people, the more I dig into it, drive real results, do the right thing, in real employees,

Patrick Adams  00:41

it’s what’s underneath and the values that that come out. But I’m a firm believer in experiences that we’ve had helped shape our beliefs and our core values. Hello and welcome to this episode of the lean solutions podcast, joined by your host, Shane dauphinbaugh and myself. Patrick Adams, Shane, how’s it going? It’s

Shayne Daughenbaugh  01:10

going well, sir. As you can tell, I am feeling the vibe right now. You know, as always, as always. I mean, that’s true, but transitioning into kind of the, you know, the second quarter here, I’m very excited about what we got going on with the podcast, especially all the great guests that we have and and I have to say that I have noticed, Patrick, even though we are in separate places, we’re still supposed to be from the same country, but I noticed you haven’t been in the same country recently.

Patrick Adams  01:45

No, I’ve been traveling quite a bit. Was recently back with my friends in Kazakhstan, doing some work over there on a few construction sites. So it’s been, it was a good couple of weeks we had, we had some fun.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  01:58

That’s very exciting. I mean, I was scoping out the pictures. I mean, yeah, I could read what you said, blah, blah, blah, you know, in your posts. But really in LinkedIn, it was about the pictures that get me, because I wanted to say the people you’re working with. I wanted to see how well you’re in there. And I noticed that, I don’t know if you brought the hat with you. Did you? Did you bring a hard hat with you?

Patrick Adams  02:18

I did not. They always provide that. So it’s always something that we have to have, obviously, for safety reasons on the site. But, yeah, always, always have the hard hat on. And

Shayne Daughenbaugh  02:28

one of the, one of the things that that I noticed, or that I noticed with hard hats, because, as you can see, I have my own that I have, you see that mostly to South America, probably, I think it’s been to Africa once, but it’s always about, you know, trying to, you know, a little bit of flare, a little bit of stickers here and there, but there wasn’t a lot of stickers on, on, on the hard hats there in the pictures, at least, that I saw. So, no, I’m going to ask a question, but I don’t know. Okay, you know, if it’s going to kind of, like, go with it, but, but I’m curious, throw it out there, and let’s do it. You know, you’ve seen, as I’ve seen in many construction sites, you know, the hard hats covered with stickers, whatever it might be. Maybe it’s union pride, you know. Maybe it’s a safety ward. Maybe it’s their favorite team, or just silly things like a pickle and sunglasses, you know, but, but those, those those slogans on there, you know, they oftentimes kind of reflect a little bit of the personality, and that’s what I was looking for to see, like, who they’re true that you’re with, you know, the personalities that they are, yeah, very true.

Patrick Adams  03:33

It’s like, like a walking billboard for their for what they value, or, you know, says something about what they value, definitely, right,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  03:42

right? So, you know, this is a great tie in to what we’re talking about here, because of the guests we have and because of the topics we have. But you know, when the pressures on, you know what we value, you know what this, this kind of covers up the brain. But you know, what is it that we value that’s kind of where we’re looking to go? What? What are the things, when the pressure’s on that, you know, the the stickers won’t come off, you know? What are those, those value things that that we have?

Patrick Adams  04:13

Yeah, that’s so true. It’s, it’s what’s, it’s what’s really underneath. Yeah, yes, it’s what’s underneath. And the the values that that come out in how you treat how they treat each other, how you treat the people that report to you, your your peers, those above you. That’s definitely it sometimes is reflected in what you see on the outside, but sometimes it takes a little bit of digging to get there, and I’m excited to talk about that today. So Shane, do you want to introduce our amazing guest? You know,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  04:46

it just all worked. It’s like this, this fantastic, serendipitous. So we have today on the guest, Jason Schroeder is coming to us, a former field operations and. Project Director. He’s worked as a construction leader for over 26 years, working in positions that range from field engineer to project superintendent to General Superintendent and field operations director. He’s the owner and lead trainer of Elevate constructions, a company focused on elevating construction throughout the world by providing insights, solutions and training. His mission is to create respect in the field through trained leaders, which ultimately preserves and protects families in construction. He’s the creator of the field engineer and Superintendent boot camps. Very exciting name there. Yes, boot camps, which are immersive courses that train field leadership, which I love that idea. Jason Schroeder also hosts the Elevate construction podcast. He has a blog through elevate constructionist.com he trains consults and coaches throughout the world. Jason, we are super jazzed that you’re here, and if you have a hard hat handy, you know, go ahead and pull it up and show us your

Jason Schroeder  05:59

stickers. Well, thank you for having me here. Yeah, welcome. Thank you for having me. I don’t have a hard hat with me, but it is really nicely designed with with branded stickers. So nice. Yeah, Jason,

Patrick Adams  06:11

I gotta say, Man, you are super active on LinkedIn, and I think a someone that so many people look up to in the construction industry, the impact that your company is having and and just you as an individual, that the posts, the things that you put out, and you know, the stuff that you say, it reflects so much about who you are and your values. You know which, which is what we’re talking about today. So, you know, we’re just super excited to have you here, and excited to have you know, we don’t, we don’t talk about continuous improvement in construction very often. It’s, it’s a it’s something that you don’t see a lot, but it is happening, right? Can you tell us just a little bit about kind of what, what your experience in the construction industry, and what you guys at Elevate construction are working on,

Jason Schroeder  07:05

yeah, and and again, thank you for having me the the topic of continuous improvement in construction. It’s, I do think we’re in our infants infancy, and we’ve, we’ve been able to, and when I say we, I’m going to primarily attribute it to all the wonderful influences out there that are, that are doing that and that, who I learned from. But we’re really trying to right now. We’re at the grass basic principles stage right as an industry, right? One Piece flow, one process, flow, visual systems, you know, simple things like that, even respect like you all know, in construction, even in North America, respect for people isn’t a huge deal, and that’s not that’s not to criticize anybody who’s leading teams. It’s just a part of the system, right? We all probably believe in blaming the process or the system, not the people. We are heading in an exciting direction, though, that I think you’ll be really excited about. We are stealing and adapting, much to the chagrin of manufacturing experts, stealing and adapting the concepts to start implementing tact, time, one piece flow, one process flow, on projects to really engage people with total participation with visual systems on the site, and we’re actually to the point now where it’s all looping into an overall system that can actually support the people. We’ve got quite a ways to go. I would say probably the biggest thing that’s holding us back is that we’re incentivizing construction to shed risk and to make poor decisions. And so this, this the systems thinking, part of this whole lean implementation is probably the biggest focus for us, because we have a lot going against us, and a lot of contention out there. Um, I people tease me all the time, but there’s this concept of the ninth waste, which would be lack of alignment, unhealthy conflict. In addition to not using the genius of the team, we have a lot of that. So we have a large mountain to climb. We’re making great progress. And I would say one last thing, it’s taken a mindset shift. And I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the not debates, but the healthy arguments, back and forth between Nicholas modig and me about what the flow unit is in construction, even simple things like that will be the basis for us being able to translate it to construction. So that’s my thoughts for you.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  09:30

Yeah, and I can appreciate that. Jason, I did a little stalking you online and watched some of your YouTube videos, just to kind of get it get a sense of and if you’re interested, ladies and gentlemen, you’re interested in, you know, wanting to know, hey, what does lean have to do with construction? I mean, go, go to, I can’t remember if, what, where would I find it on, on YouTube. Where did I look? They just look under you. Yes, elevate construction. No,

Jason Schroeder  09:57

it’s under Jason Schroeder, the are, are you? YouTube consultant said it needed to be under my name. I’m not actually that arrogant, but it’s, it’s under Jason Schroeder. And we have, I think we’re what, like, 520 videos. And, yeah, we attempt to cover as much as we can there.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  10:13

Yeah, some great snippets, just to see, you know where, where Lean is in there. And so Jason as, as we’re, as we’re rolling into this conversation about, you know, core values. I’m curious for you, having all of these different leadership positions and growing through the construction, you know, for the last 26 years, the construction industry, owning your own company, what are some of the values that you would say are the core to who you are, and how did you develop those? Did those come from trial and error to those come from, you know, trying to emulate, you know, great leaders that you saw. But, yeah, so, so, two parts again, sorry, what are your core values? And then how’d you get those as a leader? Where’d they come from? Yeah,

Jason Schroeder  10:59

I I love that question. If I get to talking too much, just kick me on the shin and I’ll, I’ll stop the So an interesting background was that I went, I was able to go to work at DPR construction as a superintendent, and I think it was around 2015 something like that. And that’s before Myers Briggs was a little bit debunked, but we did the MBTI DISC profile, like all of these personality profiles, and that was, that was the first trigger for me to say, who am I? And that’s not a that’s not a great question, in the sense that, like we’re not fixed, like it’s not an end all, but it is a for me, like, personality profiles are a starting conversation, right? Like, right? And so starting to dig into who I am at that time, digging into and learning as much as I could about the Lean world and what I believed at that same time, got in touch with Patrick Lencioni books and the Yeah, absolutely fantastic. So the which is the one with that talks about business strategy. Gosh, I just lost it. But anyway, there was the anyway, one of one of his books talked about clarity documents. So based off of the work of Jim Collins, yeah, I’m

Patrick Adams  12:20

trying to think is that five dysfunctions of a team or no, it’s a

Jason Schroeder  12:24

different one. The the advantage, sorry, the advantage. It’s it’s the advantage. So I don’t know what’s wrong with my brain. Over 40, I’m having a hard time remembering things. But anyway, he talked about finding your mission, your vision, your purpose, and then specifically the importance of core values. So like that, topic has been on my mind for a while, and we actually adapted that framework for construction leaders to say, what is your individual clarity document. So experiment year after year after year. And finally, when we started the business, I realized that it was important to come up with our core values and mine, so that’s how we developed them, is kind of through this self discovery and understanding the importance of vision documents for businesses and for people, because, and I’ll just make a quick note, the vision document for us with individuals, probably much like y’all. We merge David Allen’s how to getting things done with kind of the Patrick Lencioni, Jim Collins, Gino Wickman, traction, like, you know, here’s your here’s your vision statement. So we say, what’s your 100 year goal? Five to 10 year goal, next milestone, and then five, like Patrick Lencioni says, Five defining goals. So I’ve used that in my career, and that’s when it started to, like, really skyrocket. Then we trend, and I know you’ll be geeking out over this, then we translate those five defining goals into the Leader Standard Work and into a leader, Leader Standard Work Week. So if those five things aren’t plugged into the Monday through Friday as standard work, we know that we’re just taking care of the company, not, you know, not the person’s career, their personal life, anyway. So did that from did that for myself when we started Elevate, it was transparency. Is our is our number one respect for people, which you could probably say respect and love for people, the more I dig into it, drive real results, do the right thing, and real employee enjoyment. I know that Jim Collins would probably keep us away from five and more towards three, but transparency, respect for people and drive real results are our base. And when you look at, and I don’t mean this in a negative way, but the folks who have lasted with us or haven’t, and clients that really do well with us and search us out, it’s centered around those core values, like it’s pretty fun. It’s pretty remarkable how that worked out. So I was fortunate to go down that journey. Was. Was that good? Yeah,

Patrick Adams  15:01

that’s amazing. Love it, yeah. I mean, transparency is huge. I love that. That’s one of your core values. And it’s it’s crazy to me that in this day and age that we have to talk about transparency, because we would just think that everybody is transparent and but at the same time, I think it’s important to embed that in your core values, to make it, make it just a statement that listen whether, no matter who you’re talking to at this organization, and whether we’re with a client, whether we’re talking to each other as peers on a job site, we can be transparent about how we feel about things that are happening. And I just love that one. I think that’s a great, just a great value to have embedded in your organization.

Shayne Daughenbaugh  15:44

You know? What else I really love, Jason, about what you just mentioned is you also mentioned that these, these values, these defining goals, make it off the page. Yes, like that. I love that almost more than what the values are. These aren’t just a list of things you just mentioned, two ways. One and I wrote these down. One is these defining goals need to be folded into your Leader Standard Work. Like, that’s like, Hey, these are the daily things. Like the these are our values, our goals. They’re going to be right in our leader. Standard Work, also just the way you you shared the clients that you have, the you know, the teammates that are still on your team, that have been with you long. It’s because the alignment of your goals and their goals and how they mesh, you know, you just get, I just love again. Love being able to see these put in the real and not just, Hey, what’s your vision statement? What’s your mission statement? What are your goals? Broken down, right? Yeah,

Patrick Adams  16:45

real, real, actionable steps that are embedded in in everyday work. Love it, yeah, yeah.

Jason Schroeder  16:51

And I think that’s great. And I learned that from Oakland construction. They did a great job of putting it on the wall and then also remembering that it’s gotta come off the wall and into people’s hearts like, like you’re saying. And you know, if you look at us, and this is not anything other than just data for anybody that’s wanting to set their core core values out there it is. It isn’t bragging or anything else like that. But you can tell by watching us that we’re transparent, like anything that we don’t have to fly to. We give out for free our information, the books, the videos, the podcast, like anybody people call us all the time. You can have whatever we have, right? We are transparent, and so it has helped us maintain our identity. Because one of the things that I think the biggest problem in construction is, is the the siloing, and we have to keep it on our servers. We can’t share where, you know, that’s proprietary, right? And, and it’s just held our progress up so much. And we’ve tried Toyota’s what? Well, let me say this, my perception of what Toyota is, because I wouldn’t claim that. I know, but my perception is that they share. And if somebody’s like, well, they’re going to steal, hey, I’m just going to keep going and and nobody’s going to catch me. You know what? I mean, like, we’re going to keep going. And so that has really, that’s really helped us out real quick. I know we got to move on. But the other thing that was a huge realization for me, and I’ve got a long way to go on my Lean journey, but I realized that, like, I can’t think of a single lean tool, philosophy, theory, process, system that isn’t a seeing system. Like, if you think about it. A three is a seeing system. Going to the gemba is a seeing system. Pull planning is a seeing system. Visual environments is a seeing system. Like every I can’t think of anything that’s lean that isn’t a seeing system. And so the transparency has allowed us to actually become, or no, no no, not become head in the direction of being lean. Because that quote that says you can’t manage what you can’t measure, it hit me one day while I was visiting Germany, but you can’t measure what you can’t see. Yeah, yeah. Love it. So transparency is huge for us. It’s

Patrick Adams  19:13

huge. And I have to imagine Jason that in all the years of construction, that and, and with, with those being your core values. And you did actually kind of allude to this a little bit when you said, you know, people that have been with us for a while, and those that have left, I’m assuming that you’ve had to make some tough decisions, some difficult choices over the years, you know, and, and I wonder if you could share with our listeners, maybe a moment when staying true to your core values required you having to make a difficult choice. And whether you can, I don’t know if you can do one or multiples, but whatever, you have to just share some examples. That’d be awesome. Yeah.

Jason Schroeder  19:55

Well, it Yes, I can without being too specific. Uh oh, real quick. Let me back this up by saying in the book traction by Gina Wickman, which I know you all are very well familiar with, he talks about doing okay. I keep forgetting these terms, but basically an assessment according to your core values. And you have to do, you have to have, if you have five core values, three pluses and two plus minuses, if you have any minuses, or if you don’t have three pluses, then that person is not a cultural fit. Netflix has the Netflix has the keeper test, right? And so what we have done with every employee a keeper test, according to that evaluation, and it, it almost always comes down to the it’s, yeah, it’s always those three. It’s transparency, respect for people, or drive real results. A couple of situations, which I don’t want to get too specific, but the individual is great, but they, they wanted to stay home and work 35 hours a week and really not be that focused. And so, hey, that’s fine. That’s not a You’re not bad, right? It’s just that doesn’t align with us. It’s not a big deal, right? And and we, we’re kind of interesting over here, I would say, probably odd to most people. But we take, whether somebody considers, considers it prayer or meditation or just connecting with the universe. We usually take like, 30 seconds ahead of the meetings, and we just, like, try and listen and get because quiet our egos and our mental processes and, like, unthink, right? The you the universe, the information I kind of felt from the universe when we were like, taking 30 seconds one day was that there’s actually not a such a thing as, like, firing somebody. It’s like, there’s plenty of work out there, plenty of companies, plenty of places for people to go. It’s really just about alignment. It’s like, if you’re going to unplug from one outlet and into another, you’re like, if you think I’m going to fire somebody, it’s like, you’re unplugging them from the outlet and they have no power. That’s not actually the way it is. They’re going to plug somewhere in, somewhere else, where they fit, right, right? So we don’t, we don’t actually look at it like it’s a negative thing to let somebody go. It’s really like, Hey, you will be better off. You will be happier. We will be happier. Hey, and we’re going to support you on your way. So sorry about my loss of memory there. But the point there is, is that really, in order for us to make the traction, we’ve got to be going in the same direction, and you already know that?

Patrick Adams  22:26

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that’s such a good point about you know that the fact that some people will self select themselves out because they just know that they’re not a good fit, right? And sometimes, as leaders, we have to make tough decisions because someone isn’t willing to make that decision themselves, and and there’s not not a good fit, but at the end of the day, you have to, you can’t feel bad about that. You have to know that that person could probably be a value. They will probably add a ton of value to another company if they’re in the right position, if they’re in the right seat, and it’s just not here. And sometimes that’s the case, and that’s a tough decision. I wanted to stop real quick, though, because I want to go back to you said about this 32nd quiet time at the beginning of every meeting, and I wanted to sit on that just for a second. Have you read the book The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod?

Jason Schroeder  23:18

No, I’ll definitely check it out. You

Patrick Adams  23:22

got to check it out the Miracle Morning. I’ll send it to you. It’s a it’s a great, great book, but it talks about starting your day out the right way, and the beginning of that is spending time in quiet and in reflection, in quiet, whether it’s prayer or whatever it might be. So it may made me think about that, and I wondered if maybe you were embedding some of that into your business system. But I’ll send you the book. It’s a good one, and for those that are listening, you got to check it out. Keith.

Jason Schroeder  23:50

Sorry, I didn’t mean So Keith Cunningham wrote a book called The Road Less stupid. And he Yeah, and and he says, the book, that’s awesome. He says, Do thinking time every morning. And that’s kind of a merge between Keith Cunningham and, like Eckhart Tolle and loving what is. And, you know those thoughts. So I would, I almost wonder if Keith Cunningham may have read Miracle Morning. So that’s, that’s fun. But yeah, yeah. You know when we’re when we’re overthinking As humans, we just find that we’re not listening. So the listening, you know also, you would you Patrick and Shane, you probably teach your clients all the time that listening is a lean skill in and of itself, right? Yeah, it is. Whether somebody is, I don’t want to be controversial, but whether somebody’s religious or an atheist, or whatever, there’s something out there talking to us. Like, even if you just go to the gemba and, like, observe and listen right, you’ll just get sudden waves of information. And I just think that’s beautiful. So that was the center for us. But I will read that book that’s awesome. I

Patrick Adams  24:55

love it. Love it

Shayne Daughenbaugh  24:56

and and it’s interesting. Um. You’re kind of bringing in a personal, I don’t know, it’s belief system, into how you’re working, you know, in the idea of, hey, I believe we should all stop and just listen for a bit. So I’m curious, you know, how your personal values, how you allow them to shape how you lead teams and make decisions like is, is because what I’m what I’m trying to do is even blur the lines a little bit more from Hey, there’s the business me, and then there’s the personal me, you know, we want to be about, hey, this is just about business, okay, but we take ourselves from our personal things, from our family, we take all of that with us. You know, I don’t know that there’s this sharp dividing line. So your personal core values, again, we’re talking about core values, but your personal values, how do they shape how you lead teams and make decisions, like, what are some specifics for that, or some examples for

Jason Schroeder  26:02

that. I like that. Let me start out by saying so that kind of takes me to, like, aspirational core values. I Okay, it’s interesting, just a little bit of a background. So, like, I’m, I’m a huge fan of General Patton’s tactics in war, as far as an as far as an individual, and how he treated humans, probably not, but like, as a war strategist, like, very, very like a huge fan, and I’ve learned so much from In fact, it’s so interesting. If you download patent standing tactical orders, it does not sound a whole lot different than lean theory. Wow. Going, going to the front line, taking care of your people, arresting using data, using visual maps, like it’s just quite remarkable. Recently, I’ve had a couple of individuals saying, Hey, Jason, you should check out general Bradley as well. General Omar Omar Bradley. General Bradley created some of the military standards when it comes to welcoming soldiers, helping them to feel at home, to make you know, help them to feel not as stressed he was, the soldiers general, right? The soldiers leader. And could and wasn’t as good as Patton, tactically and strategically, but knew how to get the same things done with his men in a positive way. And so one of the the way I want to answer this is, is one of the things I’ve realized, is that we just have to realize sometimes what our natural tendencies are, right? Like genetically or nature, nurture, whatever. I’m kind of more of a general pattern, like, if you put me, if you go back and analyze me in my earlier years, I’m more dictatorial, more command and control, more like I already know what I want to do, and I’ve realized that that’s not the way to Lead, meaning like collaborate, collaboration, you know, providing the clarity and letting people figure out, on their themselves, how they want to do things. And so the way the core values come in for me, respect for people is something we do, but it’s also an aspirational goal. And so the self reflection for myself, of like, this is kind of my natural tendency. This is my ego. This is my genetic wiring. This is like, who I am, naturally I am using, I’m using these core values to rewire myself almost, or overcome those natural genetic that natural genetic wiring. Or, like I said, if somebody’s from a religious background, fallen man or woman, or if you’re an evolutionist, like your genetic wiring, right? And so like that, 30 seconds is specifically put in there as a quality, quality at the source mechanism to override my natural tendencies to say, No, we are about this as a team. We are all listening. All of our opinions are are valued, and if I don’t do that, then I haven’t put myself into a system, into a process, into an environment that helps me to succeed. I don’t know if that helps, if that answers the question, but let me say one quick thing. I’ve shifted from early on in my life to we can blame people, fire people, get rid of people. It’s people’s fault. Mindset to almost radically to the we don’t blame people, and that most of the problems in life is the system, the process, and then sometimes people are like, like, Jason, people are bad. They go to prison. Okay, so system, process, behavior, culture or genetic wiring, right? And if we focus on those five, and we don’t blame who the person really is, like their true self, their identity, their conscious, whatever you want to call it, you know, Eckhart Tolle would call it the watcher, right? We will. We. Um, we’ll actually be able to solve the problem, and we’re able to elevate honor and respect people, and never do anything that would hurt them. But as soon as I would let myself believe that it’s a person’s fault, like I can, I could. It’s not a long stretch to where now I’m doing things that hurt people. So those are kind of the two frameworks that I’m coming from is I know myself, and I’ve shifted to a fully like I do not blame people mindset. I hope that

Patrick Adams  30:28

it does, and I want to expand that this just a little bit, or maybe dig in a little bit deeper on this, because I agree with you that there are definitely some innate behaviors or values in us, but I also in you mentioned this, but I’m a firm believer in experiences that we’ve had helped shape our beliefs and our core values, and it sounds like you had some core some values or some behaviors that you’ve intentionally worked to change, knowing that Those were not going to develop the culture that you wanted to create at Elevate construction and with your clients, or whoever it may be. So what are the specific experiences, or what are the intentional actions that you’re taking, or that you did take in order to change those beliefs or those behaviors? Like, what was it that happened that said, this isn’t, this isn’t the right approach. We need to change, or I need to change to this. What like, what happened, and what did you do to start to create that new belief system?

Jason Schroeder  31:34

I i like that and and I am right, by the way, if I look down, I’m writing things down because I don’t want to have a brain skip anymore. So first of all, it’s really helped me to really, I once heard a speaker take a concept that we loop into, loop into one concept, naturally as human beings, and just split it apart and really help to understand it like, for instance, lean thinkers appropriately demonize command and control, and there are very good examples of how command and control has worked historically. And I’m like, this does not make sense. And I finally, after researching learning, learning from x, I don’t want to say that learning from the wonderful people out there that are sharing is that I was able to split that from we don’t command and control people, but we, in construction, must command and control the environment. And then I, when I look at those two people, we’re collaborative with, we work with the what they figure out, the how it’s about learning. They need to take their own journey. You know all these beautiful, lean concepts, but what I learned in construction is, if there’s a chaotic environment, they can’t do anything, and this is just as disrespectful to people as command and control. So what I realized on construction projects, I must provide a perfectly clean environment, I must provide a beautifully organized environment. I must provide a safe environment, a transparent environment, and there is no negotiating with me about that. You will you will never be on a Jason Schroeder job and be unsafe, unclean, unorganized or disrespecting. But I’m not open to opinions. I’m not going to take anybody’s feedback. It. That is how it will be. So I am like, patent firm on this, but when it comes to treating people right, and this is why I do this, right, I’m like, Simon Sinek all the way right, like I am just like, I will welcome you like you’re coming to a restaurant. You We will support you. We will we will share back and forth, like this is a truly collaborative environment. And so one of the things that like that’s just one example. And in understanding that paradigm that love or respect for people, it’s all the same thing, it answers all the questions, right? Why do we have nice bathrooms because we respect people? Why do we have a clean environment because we respect people? Why do we do barbecues to celebrate because we respect people. Why do we shake their hand? Because we respect people. Now here’s the key, and I hope I don’t make anybody mad. Why do we not tolerate safety violations and literally stop the work until we get it right, because we respect people. Why do we require it to be clean? Because we respect people. So what? In one area, I’m firm, and the other area like I’m just as loving and collaborative as my grandma, right? But they’re all centered around this concept of respect for people. Now, I wasn’t always like that. The two other answers that I have is, in order for me to overcome those things, I’ve had to be open to learning so that’s kind of like a secret weapon for me, and not be fixed mindset in and then apologize like even in the company today, as as as good as I think I am, and as much as I know, every now and then I’ll get a little grumpy, or I’ll be like stressed out, or I’ll accidentally hurt somebody’s feelings unknowingly, and I just feel like for me. Hey, it’s okay that I’m not perfect. My North Star is I’m heading to, I’m heading towards these core I’m doing the core values and heading towards these aspirational core values. And if some if I say to somebody, Hey, I am sorry. I got a little bit like, if I get into a team meeting, for example, and I’m like, we need to do A, B, C, D, let’s go. Like, come on Jason. Like, that’s not, come on, man, you know, like, that’s not the best leadership. And I’ll be like, Oh, hey, team, I’m sorry. I’m in my fear brain right now. I’m in my alligator brain, right? All right. Let’s just pause. What do you think? Let’s do this the right way? So apologizing a lot has been huge for me, and I think that, I think that those three things, understanding, like really digging in on concepts to where I truly understand, the differentiation, continuing to learn and apologizing when I get wrong has been my way of shaping those experiences. So for what it’s worth,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  35:57

yeah, you know it, it reminds me, and I’ve said this multiple times, and I’m quoting you, Patrick for this, that that Lean is a practice, you know, it’s not an end event. It’s, it’s not, you know, a reached goal. Lean is, is how we practice life. And Jason, that sounds like that’s what you’re doing. So I’m just to go off of that just for a little bit, you know, or to sit on that. As you said, Can you think of people that kind of shook you up just a little bit? Because, you know, what we’ve just talked about is transitioning from that which I’m typically, I have preference to this is how I typically behave and act. But because we are, we are thinking beings and reflecting beings that we can actually stop and go, Okay, did that really serve me well? Can you think of people along the way that might have shook you up just enough or showed you something just enough to make you go, Ah, maybe that doesn’t sit so well, you know, because I have, as I met this question, I have these faces. I don’t even remember names anymore, but I have these faces, you know, on construction sites or in class or, you know, on a project for whatever. But there’s faces that did something, that said, something, that made me go, Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I took this away, took this, yeah, this respect, or I took this core, you know, whatever it is. So I’m curious if you have that as well.

Jason Schroeder  37:30

I think I have too many to pin, pin it down, but I’ll give you an interesting experience. When I was a superintendent on the bioscience Research Laboratory down in Tucson, Arizona, I went to, we, we did so many cool things because of the company and the environment and the team, so I’m not taking credit. But we went to, I think it was 2017 lean Congress, LCI Congress, and went there to present, and Patrick Lencioni was doing was the keynote that year. And he was like, Well, let me actually back up. I read his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and and he’s like, healthy conflict, healthy conflict. So I read the book, and I’m like, Woohoo. Like, I have full license to, like, go tell everybody anything I want, right? Like, I’m jamming like, so I’m like, just loud mouthing all over the place, and I get in trouble. I remember when to and I’m not proud of this. So I’ll use this as a transparent example of what not to do one time. Like in construction in Arizona, you’ve gotta get the air handlers in hand. Is what they call it, meaning not operating by the by the building management system, but by but in hand, blowing cold air in the hot summer months. And I said, I like, I was just working with the mechanical foreman. Wasn’t getting it. Wasn’t getting it wasn’t finally, I was just, like, if you don’t get those effing air handlers up by July, I’m going to kill somebody and like, like, that’s like, just, that’s just something to say for me, but somebody on the other end of that, like, that’s a threat, you know what I mean? Like, that’s right, that’s no that’s no bueno. So I get a call from the project director, and he’s like, Hey, what are you doing? It’s so, like, I get in big trouble. I have to meet every week with the owner of the company for him to feel safe like is a big deal. I go to the 2017 LCI Congress and Patrick Lencioni. Lencioni is describing healthy conflicts, and he’s like, if this is hell and this is false harmony, we false harmony right here. We just want to inch people along to the center, and if you ever step over, the team will get you back, but you want to balance here. And I was like, Oh my gosh, okay, I understand this concept. So, like, I’m like, a radical implementer. You tell me something, I’m going to go, right, what? And that’s why I say learn and then apologize the. There have been so many of those situations where it’s like, no, Jason, like, kudos for starting. But no, we’re like, we’re not there yet. And then get a little bit of a slap on the hand, and then get back to where I need to be. And then I’m, oh, I understand what healthy conflict is. Healthy conflict is creating a trustful, a trusting environment where everybody can speak up, and it never becomes toxic. It’s literally just where we’re encouraged to speak. I get it now, right? I’m sorry, right? And like, so that just happens to me over and over, but, but I will say there’s two concepts I want to talk about, and I hope I’m not going to do too much. But, like, one thing that I try and communicate is all lean practitioners or influencers have screwed it up 10 times before they got it right. The first 10 gamble walks we all did were all horrible. The first 10 meetings we ran were all garbage. The first 10 pull plans we all did were just gut wrenchingly difficult, right? And so, like I do, think you can do it better than I did, but I think that people out there have got to realize that you know that they’re going to make some mistakes, and they don’t have to be perfect. Just one other thing. And I wanted to, I’ve been wanting to say this a couple of times, when you look at like, you know, Paul acres and Toyota and just lots of Lean influencers around the world. It’s not just, you tell somebody something, and everybody gets it right. There’s a little bit of tenacity in there. There’s a little bit of authority in the stew. There’s a little bit of, you know, there’s a one to 5% of the people that will rebel. What are you going to do about that, like, there’s, it’s not butterflies, kittens and rainbows. And I love butterflies, kittens and rainbows, but it’s lean. Is is like, a lot harder from a change management standpoint than people. I think, think so if people are going to go do it, especially in construction, we’ve got to realize we’re going against 100 or 1000 years of programming, and it’s going to be harder, we are going to fail, and it’s going to look a little messy. So I hope that was a good answer. If I’m talking too much, let me know.

Patrick Adams  42:11

No, no, that’s that’s why we’re here. Great, great advice for our listeners. We want you to talk so but as we, we are coming to kind of the end of the the interview here, just based on time. Otherwise, we’d love to just keep talking. But Jason, as we, as we wrap up here, just speaking specifically to our listeners around the world, in all different industries, not just in construction. What advice would you give to someone who’s trying to uncover or clarify their their own leadership values, you know, maybe they’re, maybe they’re, you know, at the beginning of their leadership journey, maybe they just got promoted to position, or maybe they’ve been living the wrong values, and they know it, you know, to what you said earlier, and they need to make it an adjustment and a switch. What advice would you give to those people that are listening to just start to kind of clarify and uncover the right values that they should be leading with.

Jason Schroeder  43:05

I love them. I would say, study yourself that the truth is. The truth is that, as much as we are, I would like to think that I’m something awesome every and this is a lean concept, and you all know this better than I do. Everybody has problems. There isn’t a single person, family, marriage, religion, church, government, country, system, practice, thought, philosophy that doesn’t have problems. We all have problems like actually study yourself and and, and I think that’s healthy, because, like, if I am truthful about what I’m good at, what I’m not, I can be kind to myself and then say, Yeah, but I do have these really cool things that I do really well, and I can partner, and that actually reinforces the need to partner as a team that I’m not good at some of these things, and I need a team, and we succeed as a team, and so studying yourself would be key. The other bit of advice that I’ve always loved is don’t just ask yourself, ask a personality profile, ask the janitor, ask your wife or your husband, ask your boss, ask a coworker, ask your preacher, ask What would other people say you value? And that’s going to be really insightful. Oh my gosh, this is so good. You’re going to be so proud of me. So my my I’m really big with art. When I was in high school, I did. I just loved art class. And I remember one time I was drawing a face, my own face, and, oh, this is so good. I can’t believe I’ve never said this before, but I was, it was it was distorted. And the the art instructor said, you have to turn your picture and your drawing upside down. It will override your mental impression of yourself. And you’ll actually draw it accurately, really, yes. And so anytime I in art school, I had to draw my own face. I had to take a picture and turn it upside down. And my daughter, the other day, was doing that with a picture, and she’s like, the Chin’s not right. I was like, Honey, turn it upside down. And she nailed it. The point is, we see ourselves in mirror. We see our like, if you look at me closely, like one of my eyes is higher than the other, I don’t like that, right, but, and so when I go to draw myself, I’m drawing them low. That’s that’s distorted now, but if I turn it upside down, that’s Jason, right? And so if you ask other people, you’ll actually turn the picture upside down, and then, you know, really, like, get a good picture. And the third thing that I would say is, I’m going to Eric Thomas on this. What do you want? He says in these wonderful videos, don’t wake up like an accent. What do you want? What do you want to drive? What do you want your marriage to look like? What do you what kind of car? What kind of career Do you want? Who do you want to be? How do you want to live? Right? And bring that into the conversation of core values. And what I realized, oh, this, and I’ll close out with this, is that a lot of what I thought, who I thought I was early on, is, is fake. It’s a facade. It was a mask. I was trying to be General Patton when I’m really and I’ll throw you with this one. I’m really my five foot four sweet, curly haired grandmother that I grew up just loving and adoring that was just so kind to me in at my core. I’m a sweet, loving, supportive person, and so I had to take what the industry wants from me and actually just detach from that and say, Who am I really? What’s my mission in life? When I’m done, what’s the legacy I want to live? And if you do those three things, I think somebody can actually map out their core values and then literally just start watching it in action, and you’ll know really quickly whether or not it’s your core value or not. So Wow,

Patrick Adams  47:06

that’s great advice. Love it, Jason, what an amazing, amazing episode. Love just the conversations. I think probably there’s a ton of people that are contemplating and wondering, what next I would say we’re going to throw I know Shane mentioned earlier about your YouTube channel. We’re going to put your YouTube channel, LinkedIn, your podcast. We’ll put links to all of that in the show notes. So if anyone’s interested to grab some more information about Jason Schroeder and elevate construction and all the amazing work that’s happening to embed continuous improvement principles and values into construction, but also applicable in all different industries, because you guys are taking some things, you’re tweaking it, and which is what everybody should be doing, and making it work for you, not necessarily putting a square peg into a round hole, but, you know, make it round. Yeah, so And Jason’s doing that. Yeah. Go ahead and Jason,

Shayne Daughenbaugh  48:06

you also mentioned a book, though, right? That I did. I hear that correctly. Because I also want to, if there is a book involved, I want to make sure we put that in there for in the show notes, for people to be able to, you know, I can get you the article, or whatever

Jason Schroeder  48:20

we have, we have multiple books I can just real quick, elevating construction superintendents, elevating construction senior superintendents, which is about building teams, the elevating pre construction planning, which is how to plan a project according to the first planner system. And I’ll mention three more tax planning, which is how to create a production plan on a rhythm tact steering and control, which is how to recover from delays without hurting people, and then elevating construction foreman, which is how Foreman work inside the system. So we we have multiple books. The best thing to do is to check out The Art of the builder on Amazon, and most of that stuff is out there for free if you can’t afford the book. So it’s pretty cool stuff. Yeah, thank

Patrick Adams  49:01

you. Yeah, and Jason, you said this earlier, but Jason is so willing to share. I know you’ve shared many things with me, and so you know, again, just appreciate everything that you do for the Lean community, for people you know, for the construction industry. Just continue, continue doing what you’re doing, because it’s definitely making a difference in the world, and we appreciate that. So thank you for being on the show, Jason. We really appreciate it.

Jason Schroeder  49:29

Yeah, absolutely. Can I say one, one thing? I just want to leave everybody with this knowing that human beings have problems and make mistakes and that we’re flawed isn’t insulting. It’s actually an, in my opinion, the ultimate form of respect. Because, like hell, make Homer one time told me he said we will. We’ve engineered failure out of planes. Planes can fly themselves, right? So we’ve respected pilots and passengers. Now we’ll really be lean when we engineer out the human. Error in these processes and systems, while also leveraging the genius of human beings. And so I think the ultimate form of respect is to provide the environment, the processes and the systems, so that people can do their best work. And that’s just my closing comment. So that’s what we’re trying to do. Love it. Thanks

Patrick Adams  50:20

again, Jason, we appreciate you being on the show Absolutely. Thank

Jason Schroeder  50:23

you so much. All

Shayne Daughenbaugh  50:24

right, thanks guys. You.