Old-School Crews, Last Planner Mistakes, and Building Culture by Design with Boone White

Welcome And Meet Boone White

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Really smart man in my past what said facts are forgotten, but stories you're told.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

What is going on, LM family? Back again with another super awesome interview. I've got to spend time in person multiple times over the past few years with this gentleman. He's been super supportive of the industry, of the learnings and missteps, and of me even, which I super, super appreciate. And he's probably not going to like this intro, but too bad because I get to say it. He is a construction influencer, one of the growing number of construction influencers out there. He is a member of the old dog community, which, if you haven't heard of the old dog community, you got to go look it up. They're doing some cool things. Their mission is important. It is one that we need in the construction industry. He is a general superintendent, which doesn't cover what he actually does in terms of his contribution to his firm and to the industry at large. Because from what I've seen, he is a people developer. And more than that, he's like my role model when it comes to being humble. He's a man of service. He's not fighting and clawing for the spotlight. He's here to serve and make things better. His name is Mr. Boone White, and we're going to get to know him a little bit more. Now, if this is your first time here, you're listening to the Learnings and Missteps podcast, where you get a front row seat introduction to people just like you that are sharing their gifts and talents to lead the world better than they found it. I'm Jesse, your selfish servant, and we about to get to know Mr. Boom. How you doing, Boom? Man, I'm doing outstanding. How you doing, Jesse? Oh man, having fun. Like I said, before we hit record, super, super ultimate blessed. Get to hang out with you here for a little bit. And I'm looking forward to what we could start up today. So I got like a little softball question just to kind of get us warmed up. You you all right with me asking it? Go for it. All right.

From Stutter To Public Speaking

SPEAKER_00 2:15

What inspired you to speak at big giant conferences? The public speaking thing, because I know you've been at it a lot. Where did that come from?

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Man, I can go, I can go deep on that one. So I've always been a pretty poor public speaker. So for a while it was like my greatest fear to believe it or not. I grew up with a stutter when I was in grade school. And so overcame that. And then once I got out of college and started doing a safety meeting every week in front of guys that were twice my age, that kind of you had to either overcome the fear or get out of that, right? So didn't do anything about it. I started realizing, hey, I like doing this. I'm actually decent at it. And then I have a I have an opportunity to reach more people in just a couple if I can go and spread messages like this at these conferences.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Wow. So the nervousness, the all of that anxiety, like that's all gone away.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Oh, it's not gone away, but I look at it more as fuel than as a detriment nowadays. You know, there's uh there's a level of anxiety, but I think it's good, and I think it makes me grow.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah, man. Dude, serious. So you have to stutter, like that's that's tough because you know, you have the pressure. I mean, just the pressure of speaking. I got a big mouth. I feel the pressure and the anxiety. I like to talk, but I feel it. But then there's the pressure of like taking longer to communicate the message or the words you want to get out, and then like the self-consciousness that comes with, like, man, I know I have this thing. Like, it's just was it like a compounding pressure when you were working through the stutter? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Yeah. Yeah. There were there were times where I just had to grit my teeth and get through it. I found that if I'm prepared and practiced, I'm a lot better at getting my message across. There's still times where I can get super nervous and hung up here and there, but uh, the more I do it, the better I get. And you know, that's all part of growth, right? You have learning some missteps.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Oh my God. Okay. And you also mentioned, like, and I think it's an important message for especially the younglings out there, right? Like facilitating the safety meeting, the toolbox talk is public speaking. Like, you're talking to a group of people in front of them, you have their attention, you you are center stage.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

That's your one chance every week to reach everybody and implement safety on the job side face to face, right?

SPEAKER_02 4:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yeah. Yeah. I was super young in my career. It was, you know, you had the piece of paper that came with the toolbox talking, you're just reading it word for word. And then after a while, you learn, hey man, if I can relate to these guys with a story or you know, maybe do a demonstration on how to use a ladder safely, then uh they'll remember a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Oh my god. Okay, so let's talk about that because there's a lot of people out there, right? That they're gonna go, they're gonna read the script, and they're gonna okay, move on. And I know I've been in those safety meetings. I'm like, I'm only here so I don't get fined. There's not a lot, there's no value exchange. I know they're doing it because they gotta do it. I'm doing it because I gotta do it. How much I retained is very little. And you talked about one getting comfortable with doing that, and then starting to say, okay, this is the the foundation of the safety talk, but I'm gonna start adding in some stuff. Like, what how did you go about coming to that formula? Uh, and how did you experiment? And the reason

Toolbox Talks That People Remember

SPEAKER_00 6:00

I'm saying how did you experiment to where you to the point you got comfortable is because there's a lot of people out there that are just kind of reading the thing and going through it. And you and I both know if they were to elevate their game just a little bit, it would have a bigger impact long term for the men and women out there doing the work. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

So I guess one of the things that made me want to do a safety meeting better. And again, this is after I'd done several rows just reading the script, and I had to sit through a few where somebody else was just reading the script, and I was like, I started looking around, I'm like, nobody is listening to a word we're saying. So then I started even like making them short. Instead of adding, I would subtract and I would just say, hey guys, if you got to walk away with two things today, here's the two things that you need to walk away with. We'll make that section meeting five minutes instead of 20. And then if you remember two things today, here's those two things. I had some coaching from some mentors in my past, it was really awesome. We actually started having this little evaluation, and we we would hold each other accountable on the job sites. And one of the things that we learned to do was hey, tell a story. Even if it's a made-up story, a real story is better, but but if you can if you can relate it, and a really smart man in my past once said facts are forgotten, but stories are told. Okay, if you can relate a story, maybe make it humorous, maybe make it sad, but if there's a real story where somebody really got her, yeah, people remember that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Yeah. Yeah. Is it human, it drives it generates connection, right? Human connection, the reality of what I'm living with, what you've shared, is way more impactful than the damn the data, the stats, you know, all of that. Like I get it. I know, I mean, I'm a psychopath when it comes to data and statistics. Like, I love that kind of stuff, but not a whole lot of people do, right? Like it's it's the the human part is the big deal. Now, speaking to people that are twice your or leading, let's let's go to the leading part. Leading people that are twice your age. What how did like what kind of preparation did you have for that?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Uh a lot of it was just uh stumbling through and trying to uh trying to not look like you're you know 24 years old and don't know what you're talking about. I found that the more I was prepared, the the better I was able to lead those people. And then part of it was just you know, you gotta be a little hard-headed. Uh and you know, and construction people are in general hard-headed. And you then you will you will have some some head button contests when it comes to that. But I can't tell you how many times in my career where I'm getting away from safety, we're just talking about building in general or you know, quality or whatever, you have somebody say, Well, that that's the way I've been doing it for 20 years. You look at the specs or the drawings and you say, Okay, well, you've been doing it wrong for 20 years. And to say that to say that in your 20s to somebody in their 50s, you'd be be ready for some backlash. But I mean, you gotta have the you gotta have the cojones to call them out sometimes, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

It's uh you know, and it's interesting because people don't believe a lot of people nowadays that meet me like in my current state don't believe me. But I was I was not fun to work with. I was I was a jerk to everybody, and I believe like a hundred percent. This is one of those arguments that I will never back off of. I think, especially in our industry, you have to have the ability to be a hard ass, to stand firm, to fight, to cut people. That doesn't mean living there all the time, but being able to go there will make you a phenomenally effective leader, as opposed to just you know, culture and let's all get along and let's collaborate and listen. Like, yeah, there's a time for that, and hopefully it's the majority of the time. But sometimes you gotta drop the damn hammer, and if you don't have that skill, it will affect affect your career growth. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 10:35

I agree with that. Yeah, we we would love to just be all butterflies and rainbows and only talk about respect for people, but only the soft side

Firm Leadership Without Being Cruel

SPEAKER_01 10:45

of things, but you're not gonna be as effective if you don't have a little bit of that authoritarian in you, right? You I mean you have to be you have to be the boss sometimes, and sometimes that requires you to call people out, give difficult feedback. Doesn't mean you have to be an asshole all the time, but but you need to sometimes you do have to be firm, you have to drive the mission forward, yeah. Yeah, even if you're me for a little bit here and there, and you gotta be okay with that.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

I have to be okay with I'm gonna offend some people, I'm gonna hurt feelings, I'm gonna disappoint people, but if I'm in charge, that's the deal. Like that's part of the bag. They're not all gonna love you, and that's okay because did we achieve the mission? Did we achieve the outcome? That's what we're focused on. Did I piss you off? My bad. Did I hurt your feelings? My bad. But but you pointed something really important, right? You don't have to be an asshole all the time, which is what I did for I don't know, 15 years of my career. And it was not fun. Like, I didn't enjoy it, like in terms of felt really good about myself. Like, of course, I'm a little twisted, so I loved torturing people and I loved pissing people off, but it didn't, it was taxing on me to be in that mode all the freaking time until I, you know, eventually.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

I've I've been there as well. And and what I'm hearing you say is you you may more kind of naturally tend toward that. I'm I'm kind of the opposite. I was kind of I kind of realized early in my career that hey, I kind of I need to make myself that way. Right. So, like, because that that was the way, and then yeah, and I don't want to throw any shade at any of the guys I've ever worked with. They've there were some awesome superintendents that were just really awesome builders, but I was brought up in the kind of the old school superintendent way. Be ready for a fight, be ready to throw the contract at them. You might have to hear a dog cuss somebody, that's just part of the job, right? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

We got to do the LM family member shout out. This one goes to Mr. Benjamin Carter, who is a fellow troublemaker fighter starter out there in the industry. He took the time to leave this little comment. He said, if you want to feel uncomfortable, sick to your stomach, uncomfortable, about how little you're actually getting done and how rarely you pay attention to yourself in the middle of the chaos. Call Jesse at depth builder. I love that. That is so ultimate. He suffered through the time management for construction workshop. Him and all his superintendents, we had a blast, and yes, it is it is all about ownership. So that wasn't natural for you.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

No, it's not. I'm not naturally a yeller and a screamer. Um I'm just I don't know if it's just my demeanor or the way I was brought up or or what, but I'm I'm more of a let's figure it out together kind of guy. But when you think disruption, I was brought up as a hey, what we say goes, and that's that, and they sign the contract, and we're gonna enforce that contract, we'll supplement them, we'll we'll do whatever. You know, that that's just that's the way it is.

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Right, right. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's interesting because I was it was easy for me to be a shit ass. It still is. It takes a lot of work for me to be not. It's like I got a thing, like, wait a minute, don't say it that way.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

It did that into you for me over time, but it did just like the whole public stitching thing, it it took time to make it easier, and then then it got to where I I started learning about lean and all the things that go with it. And then I, you know, for the first few years of doing this thing to call lean, I had to break some bad habits. I still have some bad habits. I still have that old superintendent that comes out every now and then. But yeah, you're brought up one way and then you you find a better way, but you still you still have to stop and pause and repent every now and then. You know.

SPEAKER_00 14:57

Yes, yes. Oh, a hundred percent. The pause and repent, a hundred percent. Oh, that's it's freaking fantastic. You know, I I feel like

Why Construction Must Change Now

SPEAKER_00 15:10

more and more that the approach of it's in your contract, just freaking do it, shut your mouth, is getting less and less effective. Especially with the newer people into the industry, because they don't respond to that, they just don't. And I, you know, I applaud them for that because they have this level of self-advocacy that I should have had. Like, I put up with some shit that kids today, I say kids, but you know, the this the people entering the industry now, they just won't will not tolerate the stuff that I used to tolerate. And I think it's extremely valuable. I also will say that in a lot of cases, it's like, no, I'm not gonna feel sorry for you because you got to take your cat to the vet. Like, get the hell out of here. We got a job to do. Yeah, there's uh there's levels there, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

I mean, yeah, that the the younger folks in the industry now, they are they are, I guess, pushing back, or I guess I don't know, waking up, whatever you want to call it. And they're like, hey, this is not fair. Uh but then there's also the there's a little you can go too far, like all right, yeah. You're a little off the deep then with uh mental health days here.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yes, sir. I concur 100%. So people don't go after Boone, come after me, because yeah, like I'm with it.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Male level is important. I'll say that. But yeah, we you know there's a balance to everything. We we are we are still in construction and we we have to get the job done.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Four. Well, and I think like what I see happening, I've been able to see over the year. I mean, I started back in 1995, right? In the 1900s, boom. And what I see happening is you have like it's the perfect storm. We have an exodus of of experience leaving the industry, which is not news. I knew it back in 1995. It's why I decided to get into the apprenticeship program because they said there's four plumbers leaving the industry for everyone coming in in the state of Texas. And I easy math. I'm gonna make a lot of money in 10 years and more and more and more. That's not a surprise. People are pretending like it is. So we have the mass exodus, we're having fewer kids, like people in general are making fewer human beings to do the work and have been making fewer than they have in the past. Two, three, we have the suicide, substance abuse, mental wellness epidemic that's eating away at our people. And number four is people can make a living sitting at home selling pictures of their feet on the internet. Like they do not have to go put up with bullshit to make a living. They may not make a lot of money, but they are gonna be pretty damn happy, like they'll be able to design the life they want. And that like the conversion of these four things, all happening right now, are creating a massive, massive need for change. Yes, and the change I think it's the most impactful and exciting for me is the leaders, the decision makers within organizations that are figuring out how to appreciate the people on their projects, whether that's training, whether that's just being freaking decent and asking questions and listening and not screaming, yelling, and threatening anymore. You know, it's a broad spectrum. But by and large, what I see is the leaders out there that are committed to like creating the conditions for people to thrive and grow, they're gonna win this game. What do you think? Am I like in la la land with that?

SPEAKER_01 19:11

No, I agree with that a hundred percent. Uh the old school me would was raised to blame people. And now it's the systems, right? We we've got to blame the systems. So, yeah, we gotta treat people like people, and we gotta give them the right systems to get the job done in the right way. And and here, I uh the I agree the the the leaders who are doing that are finding a better system for communication and for just for just for job side appearance and for you know a man of job center, right? Like we're the only industry, this is an incentive times, we're the only industry where people have to go use the bathroom in a plastic box that is 120 in the summertime and freezing ass cold in the wintertime, and nowhere to wash your hands, and there's nowhere to eat lunch eat lunch. Like there's no other industry like that, and so we like that's one thing that's gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

And it's an easy thing to change, like easy thing to change. I've been on projects where they have, and it's it's amazing. They're like trailers, air conditioned, trailer, 40-foot trailer, double white, and they're bathrooms with running water, hot water, conditioned air, which is

Blame Systems Not People

SPEAKER_00 20:40

you know, there's a cost to it. I get that part. And they're clean. Like, here's the key thing is they're clean, they're always stocked, right? Like, there's not graffiti all over the walls. There's it's it's it's a you know, facility. Now, the people, again, the people, the decision makers that never make that investment, their number one argument is because the guys won't take care of it, because the guys are just gonna tear it up, because the guys are just gonna graffiti it. And I to date have, and I've been on let's just say 20 different projects, more or less, that have these fancy ass bathrooms. Not a single one of them had graffiti in them, and they didn't have security in there watching it. Like my so my my takeaway is and you give them something nice, something like a better experience, they're going to value that. You give them a hot shit box, the graffiti you get on there is a reflection of of what you're giving them. I'm not excusing graffiti, I don't think it's cool. I used to, but not really anymore. But it's a reflection of like, hey man, this is how you treat me, this is how I'm gonna treat you. Exactly and and blaming now back to your point blaming the people is easier. It's more convenient. Taking ownership for the system is the difference. So what are the things that helped you start thinking about the system and stop blaming the people? Because I know that doesn't happen overnight, but it's I think it's a super critical point that people need to understand.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

What are what are the things that start making you think about the system instead of the people? Yeah. I I have to go back to the first two books that I read. And so like the starting my lane journey was kind of miraculous a little bit. So I was like eight years into my career, and I've been brought up in this old school way of you know doing construction as a superintendent. Every sub-meeting was a beatdown session, yelling, cussing, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, started this new project, and my plumber foreman on the job gave me a copy of Two Second Lean. Yep. Nice. This is in uh Houston, well, Cypress, Texas, like north of Houston. So anyway, I read Two Second Lean and I was like, huh, that'd be cool if we could apply that to construction, right? I'd heard the word lean before, but it was like, you know, oh, that means we gotta do more work, less people. That sounds like horrible to me. Right, correct. Then I read I read Paul Acres' book, and it was like, okay, well, no, it's not about making it harder, it's about making it easier. It's about fixing more price. And then, like back to back with that, I read The Goal by Eli Gold. And so yeah, these two kind of tie together in the goal, if you if you underroad it. The guy takes the factory, and just through changing some systems of the factory, like smaller batches and finding the bottleneck and making the bottleneck better, and all those different theory constraints things, he was able to just turn the factory around. So I was like, he didn't get in with people, he didn't retrain people, it was all about the system. So then a month after reading those two books, we had a consultant come in and teach me last planner system for sounds like perfect timing. Yeah, it was perfect, it was weird, it's perfect timing, like like I said, it was like kind of miraculous. Yeah, so all that hit me at once, and so I did last planner system on that job for the first time, and I butchered the shit out of it because I was still still managing it with the old school keyprint and this mentality. But I learned a lot of that job, carried it forward to the next one, and we did it right, or more right, I guess. Yeah, yeah. We were more about, hey, how can this work for you, the the foreman and the workers? And we just did a lot of really cool stuff on that job, and and it was it's fun. It's not about pushing people harder or looking more out of it, it's about having the right system so people can see what's going on, everybody can see the problems, and everybody can communicate and move forward.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah, oh my god, I love so, folks. For the LM family member out there listening, the goal is a phenomenal book. Like, if you're into processes and efficiency and this sort of thing, I and I'm gonna recommend the audiobook because the book it's heavy, like it's an intense book. But the audiobooks are awesome because they have like different characters reading the voice, like it's it's almost like watching a movie. They should make a movie about it, anyways. Like it just paints such a beautiful picture. I'm not a huge fan of

Books That Sparked Lean Thinking

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Two Second Lean, mostly because what I've seen people do after they read it, right? There's like, oh, two second lean, everybody make improvements, and then they don't support like the thing about two-second lean is that book is phenomenal. The idea, the thinking, the system he designed is freaking magnificent. But what happens, what I've seen happen is people read it and they think they can just start doing that. And that book is a snapshot after years of changing the leadership behaviors, of building a reinforcing system that cultivates that type of innovation. And so people want to start there, and it's like, oh, you're gonna cause more problems than that, but anyways, it is a good book, it'll it's a good one to start the fire. Now, you mentioned you did last planner system on that first project and you butchered it, which I applaud you again for for your humility and ownership of saying, you know, I still had some habits. And so, how many people do you know, Boone? Because I know you're super active in the lean construction community. How many people do you know that got it right the first time?

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Zero. Yeah, no, I've I've never talked to anybody. Well, there's probably some people out there who who were doing it on a project with somebody who was already experienced, so they haven't, I guess they haven't experienced it and done badly. But the people everybody I know who who like learned about it and then tried it out for themselves the first time, yeah, just totally butchered it. Yeah. Because you know, we're we're going from we're coming from a uh weekly submeeting, just using CPM schedule, you know, just trying to trying to force dates on people, you know, coming from that mentality into a system that is supposed to be like, hey, let's collaborate, right? Help us figure out the handoffs, help us figure out your durations, and we can figure out, you know, what kind of zones we need to do. Like you're going from a dictatorship to a democracy, but you still have a mentality of a dictatorship. Yes. So it's like, okay, here's a new system that we can manipulate people with. Right. That's exactly what happens, is like, okay, we're we have a new system where okay, these guys are gonna put all their their schedule on sticky notes. Well, now we we can take that and we could roll it up and beat them over hedgeman.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yes, they weaponize it. Oh my god. Oh, I love you know, I'm saying there's two people that I know. Actually, there's one person that I know that she was introduced to being a superintendent using the last planner system. Like she was an assistant superintendent, she was on a project where they were doing it, she got her own project. She was running, and I I remember I was I was there to observe and kind of give feedback on their on their coordination meeting, and they had a poll plan, like you know, they were doing different things. And I was like, man, she she was rolling like she'd been doing it for 20 years. And so I asked her, I was like, How long have you been doing this? She says, a year or yeah, like a year. I was like, What do you mean a year? Like a year. I'm thinking the last planner system. She's talking about being a superintendent. Wow, that's exactly what I just said. I said, So, how did you run work before you started the last planner system? She said, What do you mean? I was like, Well, like before you're the year that you've been doing this, like, oh no, I've been a superintendent for a year. Like, this is this is what they taught me, this is what I do. I'm like, oh my god. And I was like, okay, have you been on projects that didn't? She's like, yeah, and I don't understand why people do it that way. And so, you know, she and I got to talking, she was up in Denver, and uh, my big takeaway was kind of like you said, she didn't have the experience of running it with an iron fist. And so she was introduced to leading

Last Planner Without Weaponizing It

SPEAKER_00 30:00

and coordinating work collaboratively, and it fit her naturally, right? So there was like the friction, and maybe here's the big point is there's an identity shift that has to happen. And that's the hardest part of going from running work the way we used to run it to doing it more collaboratively. And that's the I think that's the rub where people get in their own way because you got to kind of let go of the reins a little bit. You're but you're still in charge, right? You're still accountable for the outcome, but you're inviting people in to contribute and that behavior, it it's it's a difficult thing. Hell, when I got introduced to it, I was like, and you use the perfect words like, oh man, this is gonna be perfect. That all the tools I need to be more efficient in manipulating people. That's what I did. And I think the key for me, because I did it that way for a long, long time, I was the leading champion, and it was just all about efficiency, output, so I could get bigger bonuses. That's that was my primary objective. And then I figured out, like, oh, wait a minute, if I use the same things in a way to make their life easier, I have even better outcomes. Oh crap, I've been doing it wrong for 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

And that's counterintuitive to people who are who are come up the old school way, right? I mean, yeah. Yeah, you're you when you're when you're taught, hey, it's you against them.

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Done, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

But then when you start realizing, hey, it's uh it's not you against them, it's it's all of you against waste and inefficiency and safety rewards and all that. I mean, yeah, I started reading Dako Ullink, I guess like in 2017, and Jason Schroeder has the same thought process. Construction is very similar to war. So if construction is war, who's your enemy? Right. You'll have guys say, oh, the architect or the owner, the inspectors, or subs, or whatever is no, we're all up to the same goal, same mission. The only thing we're trying to eliminate is waste, variation, and safety hazards.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah, those are the enemy. I love that. Wow, I really like that. I'm gonna steal that, boom. Gotta give it to Aiden Trevor. He I think he he twined it first, but yeah. Oh man. Okay, now you're with ICM construction. And like, folks, if you like, I got an inside view, but you don't get to get because you're just listening. The same energy, the same care about people, about the industry, being mission focused for a better experience all the way around that you give Boone. I got the same feeling from interacting with all of the folks there at ICM. And so what was what did how much how much do you put into supporting and reinforcing that experience there at ICM? It's hard to quantify.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

I guess every everything that we do. So I'm I'm general superintendent, also work closely with their operations manager and and one of our uh project executives, and so we're all more or less bought in on doing things the right way and having uh having really good people. I guess indirectly it's everything we do. We're we are we are very in tune with the way people feel about coming to work and the culture that we're trying to build. Again, we're you know, some some companies are we're just about getting the building done and about making money, which every company has to make money. Yes. Also, you know, with with what you've seen at Align Academy and the way we're investing in our people and we're trying to promote from within, and we we're very hesitant to hire anybody who is not really similar or have has similar thought process and culture to us because we don't want to we don't want to hurt the culture that we have. So again, we're we're not worried about being the biggest. We we want to be the best. You do have to go every company has to grow to give your people in that company upper mobility. You can't be stagnant, but we don't want to we don't want to be doing a billion dollars worth of work in five years. That would be our culture would not

Choosing Culture At ICM Construction

SPEAKER_01 34:50

be the same if we did.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

Uh I love that. We're all very bought into the way that we're doing things and we're all bought into making life better for buying the job site.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah, yeah, man. It's apparent. I've seen it. I mean, I haven't been to any of the job sites, but just the all the people I got to interact with is like, ooh, yeah, we got some like-minded people with the mindset that I share and appreciate. Now, you haven't been at ICM your whole career. How much did this culture thing play into you deciding to go to work for ICM?

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah, I've been at ICM for six and a half years now. So I spent about 12 years with another company who was a great company. I don't know if I'm supposed to say their name or not, but they were a great company. They they taught me how to do construction. They they also taught me how to do lean in the last years I was there. So like they were on a lean journey in their own right. What's what brought me to ICM? So ICM is in Oxford, Mississippi, which is where I was born and raised. And if you've never been down Oxford, man, it's just kind of a special place. Like there, it's like Mayberry. So it's safe, it's uh everybody's just down on them, laid back, a little bit slower pace of life. I was living in Houston, Texas. And I love Houston. I hope nobody in Houston gets upset when they at all. Oh, loved it there, except for the traffic, obviously. But and Houston is an hour from Houston, and that's like almost any big team like that, right? You're you're in the truck, you know, sometimes half the day, it feels like. And then even like taking the kids to daycare or to wherever it was like a 25-30-minute ride, and so it was just uh you know, a rat race. So anyway, me and me and the wife decided to move everybody back here where I'm from. But the the reason I showed you that ICM is I've I've known the owner of ICM since I guess around 2007. Uh and we actually went to the same college. We did graduate a little bit ahead of me, but uh, he is just a solid stand-up Christian human being. Uh he really cares about people. And I knew that if I if I came here, I would be able to influence the culture in Mississippi, which from a lean standpoint is a tartar-rich environment.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

From a last planner and lean, tact, and all that standpoint, Mississippi is a little bit behind everywhere else. Again, holding up much Mississippi gets mad. I was born and raised here. I love it here. Right, right. This is why my mission is here. But um I knew that coming to ICM and working with Casey and everybody that that's here would be the best opportunity for me to make a big difference in an area of the country that needs it.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Yeah, yeah, amazing. You know, one thing I want to point out, Boone, because I hear that a lot. You said we're a little bit behind here. I hear that from people all over the country.

SPEAKER_01 38:06

Yeah, and yes, when I get LCR and we start listening to other people present, you're like, oh, everybody's like that. That five billion dollar company has the same problems we do.

SPEAKER_00 38:16

Exactly. Exactly. And from my perspective, it only the real ones say that, right? The people that are actually committed to the long-term game of you know, not just completing the project, but building a culture and transforming the industry, they will all say we're a little bit behind, which is different than the ones that say I'm a lean expert. Because just different mentality. And I'll just say the ones that will say I'm a little bit behind, we're a little bit behind, those are the real ones, they're the ones you want to be around. Now, you you kind of floated this align academy thing out there, and I want to shine a spotlight on it because it is significantly different than what most construction firms are doing. So, can you give us a little overview of what that is?

SPEAKER_01 39:09

So we we launched last year, Align Academy is our internal training program here at ICM. So one of I think one of the catchphrases we have is aligning the talents of the many to accomplish the extraordinary. So we're wanting to take all of our people and align what they can do together to get that synergy of, you know, the I think the the biggest analogy that Casey likes to use is from the movie or the book The Boys in the Boat. I don't know if you've seen that yet or not. Okay. It's about the I think it was somewhere around in World War II, the group of junior varsity boys that were on the rowing team, and the idea is if you can get everybody in the boat rowing in the same direction at the same speed,

Align Academy And Internal Training

SPEAKER_01 40:00

at the same rhythm, then you develop what's called swinging. And then once you hit that moment where everybody is in that groove or that you hit that swing, then it's almost like you can go 50% faster than anybody else with the same effort, right? So that's the idea behind Alliant Academy if we're trying to align our team to get into that swing motion. Nice. Yes. So yeah, we launched it last year. Alice, who you've met is our heading enough for us, our head of people in culture. We'll have uh one big, you know, either half day or full-day class every month. But then we'll also have like some of these field-targeted trainings where we'll go to the job sites and do some specific trainings for specific teams. Uh and then we also had a group of young guys that we were trained last year, and they had been in themselves the lean outlaws, and so we were just trying to get those young guys brought up as quick as possible because that that's where we'd have the gap, right? We would we've got some older, you're more seasoned superintendents. Take a matter if I say older, and then we've got we've got a solid group of up-and-coming project engineers and assisted supers, and we're and we don't really have a whole lot of these like mid-level superintendents, so we got that at least at ICM we do. We've probably had it everywhere else, too. Yep, from what I've heard. And so we're trying to get those guys run up. But anyway, but across the board, whether it's safety, schedule, quality, or anything to do with budgeted or leadership or relationships or leaning in, we're always training on something.

SPEAKER_00 41:45

Yeah, yeah. No, I you know, it's interesting. I get to talk to a bunch of people out there, you know, running their construction company, and they all most of them will say, Yes, we have training. And then when I get deeper into it, it's like, oh, you have the mandatory training that's required by the to minimize your liability if something happens, which it's necessary. And then so that's one bucket. Then the next bucket is like, Yeah, we have training, and it's usually reactive training. Something happened, and so it's like, oh, we gotta we gotta do this thing, and it's it, and it kind of just stays there. But then you have what you're doing, which is focus like you designed professional development for all of your people. You bring them in off the job for half a day or a full day to do like professional development that is relevant to their career growth, that is relevant to business performance. And it's not just uh, you know, the scheduling, like it's not just the tactical stuff, it's also like the human skill, like I call them obituary skills, like the skills that everybody's gonna remember you for, not the skills that go on the resume. And you also like y'all also bring in outside wackos to come in and do the facilitate the training. The reason I say wackos is because y'all have brought me in.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

And what like did y'all re do some research or chat GPT and say best practices? How should we create this professional development for our people? Like, how did y'all get to the recipe that y'all are at now?

SPEAKER_01 43:34

That's a good question. I don't think we I don't think we used AI to help us get to it. I mean, we'll we probably used AI to like help us generate or help us develop some internal trainings, but as far as like the overall program, I think a lot of it came from me and Brian, and a lot of us read a lot of books. Anything from good to great, uh, like I said, reading Jocko's. Books or any book on leadership or we've started to see in a lot of these books that if you can get your people trained up, then everything's a lot easier. A lot of these books would give you almost like recipes for how to do that. And so I'm telling you, the line academy is a derivative of a lot just a lot of the stuff that we've learned at our level and that we want to make available to all of our people.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

Yeah. Yeah. Amazing, man. And again, just in case the listener didn't hear it, this is not online self-paced videos. This is impressive. You tried that on.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Yeah, well, yeah. So before we got to the Line Academy, we we were we had a training program, and we were using like mirror boards, which is kind of like with mirror, mural, or like online whiteboard, basically. And we and we thought, hey, we'll we'll just put all this training on an online whiteboard and we'll just copy and paste it and assign it to each person, and then we'll just say we'll just expect them to do it. And so it was the online, self-paced, do it at your own will training, and it was not effective.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

That was one of the big takeaways that we shared in LCI last year when we talked about it was get people in a room face to face, you have four engagement, and then you know, break bread together at some point during the training, or if it's a half day, do it at the end, or if it's a full day, you know, stop and stop and pause and have lunch. Like just get some interaction going, and also bring in people that are not gonna just stand at the podium and talk.

SPEAKER_02 45:53

Right?

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Bring in bring in the wackos like Jesse Hernandez or Adam Hoos or like this year. We also had Kyle Netchin come to us. So yeah, we've had some some really good trainings come from people like yourself.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

That's all, yeah. Yeah, well, and thank you for bringing me in. Like being able to contribute to that was a man. I remember when we first first talked about it, I was like, man, this is fantastic. Just I mean, the real business commitment to bring in that much salary into a room and like pause because the work's still happening. Like that to me is the ultimate signal of commitment to developing the people with the long-term vision of building and growing the business, right? Like, I think it's the ultimate investment, but I gotta ask like we did the one of the sessions I did was all about communication and more important, like, specifically about listening. Uh what did how what did the group think about that? Because I know it was uncomfortable for a lot of us, and we all struggled with it. What was the takeaway there?

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Um I I can think of one particular of the guys that had been on a job site for like six months, and they came away from it saying, Hey, yes, first time we we even had really talked. We got to know each other in that what was it, five or ten minutes where we did the bungee jumping.

Face To Face Learning That Works

SPEAKER_01 47:20

So that was one one little story, but yeah, by and large, everybody felt like they they had uh another tool in their toolbox to be able to communicate with people. Again, it's not about trying to drive communication to people, it's about trying to receive communication.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

I started using it with Adam a couple years ago. Yeah, he he's been in your group for a while. And uh for me, it's a way for me to try to get people to think the way I think. Instead of just you being the easy button and giving them the answer, you start listening and asking, asking those open-ended questions, and then you start to see their thought process develop, which is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

Yeah, man, engaging their critical thinking. Like it's the biggest awakening I had, man. Why does everybody suck? It's like, oh, because I tell them they suck every day when I just give them the answer. There was some humble moments for me, many, many humble moments for me. Yeah, man, I applaud it.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

But it's instead of giving the man a fish, you're you're teaching the man how to fish.

SPEAKER_00 48:35

100%. 100%. And again, I applaud you guys for like making that investment because that type of training, that type of experience, it's very difficult to quantify and tie it to you know, earnings and revenue and bottom line growth, but it it's gonna help them on and off the clock. And you still y'all still made the commitment to make that happen, which is ultimate. So, folks, you already know if you're in that in the area, give Boone a call. They're looking for great people. And if you're a scrub, don't bother, stay where you're at. Now, you mentioned Adam. I said at the beginning of the call, I talked about the old dog community, and I believe to my bones that community, more specifically, connection is what our industry needs desperately. The people in our industry need it. You meant you just mentioned about some of the guys that were in the training, they've been on the job side together for six months. So we're talking 12 hours a day for six months, and they knew very little about each other, which is natural. That's kind of the standard. So I'm a huge advocate for any and all construction-oriented commun community. So, first, how important is the connection that you get from the old dog community? And then, second, tell us about the old dog community because I know we got some LM family members out there that could benefit and would be great contributors to that community.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

How important it is right to me, it's super important because again, I'm kind of a nerd about all this stuff we call lean. They're just my people, right? You know, you they they're just like you and Jennifer have your tribe. Like, yeah, and this is this is my tribe. I've been working in the industry for I guess almost 20 years now. And I've found the people that think the way that I think. And we can we can bounce stuff off each other. We can and we can talk about our issues and get feedback and get advice from each other. And also what the old dogs is, is it's a I think we have 54 members now. It's a group of like-minded superintendents that have kind of come up the old school way, but then have learned how to do it the new school way. And and so we we all have heart a heart for people, but we have a lot of experience in building, and we know that everyone coming into industry, there's either five to seven people leaving, right? Yes. Yeah, so we've got to transfer this knowledge and this wisdom to the people that are coming in. So that's the that's the main point of the old dogs is move the ball forward in knowledge and doing things the right way. And also helping support each other and when we're trying to do that in our own little areas of the country.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

So yeah, I mean, like there's the pop-up stuff that happens all the time. Like there's there's scheduled stuff like lean coffees, uh that you did a learning a couple months ago.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Once on social media, we had a guy named Markets that was on a couple weeks ago talking about AI and construction and how so we're we're always learning, but then we'll also have some pop-up things where like somebody will reach out to somebody else and say, Hey, can you help me figure out this tax plan for my project? And so we're like, Yeah, we can do that. And then we're like, hey, is anybody else want to join in? So we'll just have a pop-up training, you know, on a Thursday, and we'll nice, we'll help that guy figure out tax for his project, and then but everybody else will come in and learn. But also, you've got some guys that have been doing tax for 10 years now that which is way longer than I have, but so I'm learning for them. So it's it's a really cool

Listening That Builds Better Thinkers

SPEAKER_01 52:40

community that is all about helping each other, but also helping anybody who wants to come for real.

SPEAKER_00 52:47

Yeah, yeah, amazing. Again, I applaud you guys for doing the thing, super important, and the impact is just gonna continue to grow. You know, that the element of like helping people real life, the pop-up stuff, freaking magic, like magic. We absolutely need that. All right, man. So are you ready for the grand slam question? Go for it. All right, closing question. And I'm excited about your answer because, like I said, you are somebody I look up to in terms of I wish I could be as humble as you someday, maybe. Well, and the impact that you've had in the industry, like the way you carry yourself, the things you focus, you're extremely consistent. Clearly, you're committed to improving the lives of the people that work for ICM and beyond that, like that's the super impressive thing. So that's why I'm excited about what your answer is going to be. So here's the question: What is the promise you are intended to be?

SPEAKER_01 53:51

The promise I intend to be is I want to change the way construction is done in the Mississippi in a few different ways. One I want to be the promise that normalizes the better treatment of the people on the job sites and stops blaming the people and starts influencing the systems for blaming the systems. And two, one of the biggest systems we have in Mississippi is the dead laws. If if I could change some of the laws or sort of the way the laws are written around publicly bid work, which almost requires you to design, bid, build, and pick the lowest bidder, which is really hurting it hurt owners, it hurts companies. If I could somehow influence the dead laws in Mississippi to allow us to have a more collaborative delivery method for public work, that would be also promised.

SPEAKER_00 54:53

That would be especially public work, brought that to everywhere. Wow. Oh man. Well, Mr. Boone, I appreciate you for speaking into my life and allowing me to contribute to your mission, my man. Folks, you're on LinkedIn. Where should we send people? They want to go work for you or connect with you. What where's the best place to be?

SPEAKER_01 55:17

Yeah, our website is icmlc.ms. Find me on LinkedIn. If you can't find our website, you're just searching ICM construction in Mississippi, and I can get you to where you need to go. But you know, we're always looking for good people who have a heart to fool people and have the right mindset for the way we like to build. Bam. 10 four. Did you have fun? Had a great time, man.

SPEAKER_00 55:44

Hell yeah. Before you go, I want to thank you for spending part of your day with me. Your time and attention mean a ton. And it's because of listeners like you that this podcast even exists. If you enjoyed today's conversation, make sure to subscribe to the Learnins and Missteps podcast so you never miss an episode and you get extra credit if you share it with your friends. Also, if you want even more insights on leadership, personal growth, communication, you know, all those fancy magical things, you can sign up for my newsletter on LinkedIn because I got a newsletter that goes out every single Monday. All the resources I share there are designed to help you put yourself first so that you can leave this world better than you found it. There's also a digital copy of my book, Becoming the Promise You're

Old Dog Community And Real Support

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Intended to Be. And it's sitting there waiting for you on my website. All you gotta do is do the click and do the download and you get the free PDF. And if you want even more bonus points, share that PDF with somebody you know or the family of somebody you know that is currently struggling with self-destructive behavior. That would be the ultimate gift for me. While you're there, do some exploring of the trainings, workshops, and services that are designed to enhance your performance at home and at work. Just click the link in the show notes to check it out. Thanks again for listening. Take care of yourself, and I'll see you on the next episode. Peace.