E95 - Adam Hoots: Respect and Communication

Meet Adam Hoots, founder of Construction ACHE Solutions and a change-maker in the realm of construction. His dedication to shifting the perception of skilled trades and craft workers is awe-inspiring, and our discussion today promises to shed light on this, and the fascinating world of lean construction principles. A man of many languages, Adam emphasizes the power of words in building trust with colleagues, a trait that's been instrumental in his success. In fact, it was Adam's remarkable journey that inspired the creation of Uncommon Communicators podcast.

Join us as we dissect the complexities of lean construction with Adam. He guides us through his unique approach to making construction projects more efficient, through the application of lean principles. The conversation broadens to include the importance of visual communication and respect for people, both within and outside the industry. For those eager to understand lean construction better, Adam provides a sneak peek into his book, a comprehensive thesaurus of lean terms and visuals, simplifying the concept for all.

We conclude with an exploration of the impact and influence of visual communication in lean processes. Adam shares his experience of launching a superintendent-only network, influencing the NCCER's leadership program, and his preparation for a TEDx talk. We celebrate the power of communication, specifically in construction and how it shapes our world. Walk away with a new found respect for the trades, the importance of thorough preparation, and the invaluable role of communication. Join us on this enlightening journey and gain valuable insights from an industry expert.
Check out Adams Tedx talk here : Changing the way we think

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Transcript

Adam Hoots: 0:00

We want to talk right down to. Earth and a language that everybody here can easily understand. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? What Space one again, space one again. I dare you, I double dare you. The one we got here is a failure to communicate.

James Gable: 0:24

Welcome to the Uncommon communicators podcast, where we are here to bring enlightenment to the topic of communication. Today I've got Adam Hooswitney. Adam is a lean construction shepherd and founder of Construction Ache Solutions. He's an author, kidney transplant survivor great on you. Tedx speaker, graduate student and professor at Clemson University. He believes that construction is full of aches and pains and is ultimately broken. His mission is to change the way our skilled trades and craft workers are valued and respected by all project stakeholders on construction project sites. Adam, welcome to the program.

Adam Hoots: 1:01

Thank you, mr Gable. Mr Uncommon communicator, I appreciate that as a heck of an introduction and I'm just I'm happy to be here on one of my favorite podcasts.

James Gable: 1:12

Thank you so much. You must have a small list.

Adam Hoots: 1:16

I do. It's a small and exclusive list. I promise you that much.

James Gable: 1:21

Well, thanks so much. Well, tell us a little bit more about yourself. That I cover everything, is that it? I know there's more to Adam than that.

Adam Hoots: 1:27

Yeah, there's a little bit more. I think you nailed kind of the highlights, though, of who I am and kind of what makes me what my icky guy is, as the Japanese say. So you speak Japanese? I didn't know that, un poquito, I can communicate in a few different languages. Yes, sir.

James Gable: 1:47

I love that I'm actually learning construction Spanish, so I learned Spanish now with a Japanese accent.

Adam Hoots: 1:54

That's such an important skill though. I mean, there are so many Spanish speaking professionals on our jobs and I think it goes a long way to build trust when they take notice that, hey, you're investing time to learn my language and speak to me and my native tongue, and I think that's huge man. So bravo to you, and hopefully you can inspire others to do that, because I think that is a super important skill.

James Gable: 2:20

And I do too. It's actually one of my company goals that I'm working on, and I saw it because there's such a need on the construction side. There's days when I have been the only guy that spoke English on the construction site, and in some cases there were not very many. I've always had guys that you know. I had one guy that translates pretty well, but you know, if had guys come up and they'll just remain silent and go, you know it's like no English. I'm like un poco español, so let's communicate what we want to do here. So you know, that is a very important key and those are some of our best people on the projects are those that maybe lack a little bit of that communication. So that's just. Another barrier that we have on our projects is language, and it's overcomeable, even with and I use Google Translate there's apps that help us get there and he's like, oh sorry, you can't talk to me, I don't speak. I'm like, oh yeah, you know, here's a phone that helps us get there and that has helped, I think, clarify some things on the projects as well. Not, you know, not being lost completely in translation. I'm not sure what Google Translate saying and then I read it right, Then I'm working on my accent, but he was. It's not about me, it's not about construction Spanish. I do need to say this though.

James Gable: 3:33

Adam, thanks for coming on this podcast.

James Gable: 3:35

I'm glad to hear it's one of your favorite podcasts, but you inspired me, and a lot of our listeners don't know that.

James Gable: 3:41

You know, the reason I started this podcast was a post that you had made a year and a half ago, two years ago and it's when you made your step into construction exolutions, when you left your day job, went into your consulting, and you talked about just the bravery, and you know I'm going to go in there and I'm going to do it, and we don't often realize the impact that those type of words have, those type of posts have, and between that and also a little bit of nudge from Jesse Hernandez, between both of those, I mean and there's another story behind why I wanted to go into podcasting listening to him podcast, but the whole thing is that that that was the nudge that I needed, and thank you for that, because I think it has made a huge difference in my life being able to grow through the, through the podcasting, but you were a key to that. So welcome to the show and that's what you've been wanting. Coming should have came earlier.

Adam Hoots: 4:35

So that's so freaking cool and again, I think it's a testimony to Jen's ripples of impact, right, like you never know, but when the story gets back to you it just makes it all worth it, because so much of what we do with this podcast stuff and just getting out with webinars and on meetings and hosting link copies and all the stuff we do there's really, when you turn around and look at their return on in time, invested. You don't always get that immediate impact, and so to hear stories like that is like man, that makes everything all worth it. So thank you for for feeding that back, and I know you're inspiring others just the same, and so it's all about man. So thank you, thank you, thank you for that feedback. That's huge.

James Gable: 5:20

I'm thinking you stop taking my things away. So the what, the couple of things we want to talk about and you know this is a podcast on communication and that's one thing that has really drawn me to lean construction is lean is really at its root communication and feedback loops. I mean it's just it's bringing that circle through. There's other aspects to it, but as I kind of dive in just the even, all of the different fish bones, everything you look at is some form of communication is lacking and we all know that. You know on our sites, in our offices, anywhere that we work, that communication is and seems to be the biggest hurdle that we have, or hindrance or even stopping point of a lot of our problems that we have are created because of how we communicate.

James Gable: 6:07

Now you wrote a book here let's see if I can get that in camera. The old dog leaned the sorus. Now of course I had to have you on the show. You wrote a book with words in it. The sorus even used a big dinosaur word, favorite dinosaur words that you use, but I love it. And you wrote it with Buddy Bromley who is a, you know, friend of mine. Love that guy. And together what inspired this book. The old dog lean the sorus.

Adam Hoots: 6:37

Well, I'll tell you this. It was always a thought in my head, back to my Whiting Turner days, and actually this is a little known fact about me because I don't often talk about it, but speaking to your communication is everything. Comment a second ago. My undergraduate degree is in public and cultural communications and when I got hired at Whiting Turner they actually started me lower than a project engineer because I didn't have a construction or engineering degree. I was an assistant project engineer and so I was called the great eight on the project site. In fact, my intern that worked for me or with me got hired on and then I was working for that person and so it was a very interesting world where I started in construction. But that aside, talking about the book, I mean that did co-author with the OG lean builder, mr Buddy Brumley, the old dog himself, which, again, I was not too fond of being the lean geek, but he definitely qualified for the old dog more than I did, so I went with it.

Adam Hoots: 7:48

What inspired the book is really simple.

Adam Hoots: 7:53

There are a lot of people that are spreading bullshito on what lean is throughout the industry.

Adam Hoots: 8:00

There's people just taking advantage of it and making money and going out and showing the tools and showing all these awesome things and the sparkly, glittery side of construction, but when it comes down to like what you're talking about the communication skills, the facilitation abilities, the trust building things and the starting with the people side of it before we get into the tools like that's where you really get the Ws when it comes to lean construction.

Adam Hoots: 8:28

And so we really authored the book to be able to help people understand, like, hey, some of this lean stuff, it's not even new, right? Like, if you're a great builder, chances are you've got two thirds of those terms already figured out. And so what we wanted to do is we wanted to put a book out there for the superintendents who are in the day-to-day grind, who are like, I don't have time to learn that new lean bullshito. I'm good with what I'm doing. Like that's okay, let's take some of what you're doing and help you understand what the lean term is for it, and then you can start communicating and understanding from some of these people who are also practicing these things. Right, we're establishing some lean terms, some terminologies, some really just against, like helping to spread some better ways of building by just making lean construction.

James Gable: 9:23

That and that's what's needed. I had a superintendent on my project when we really first started talking about lean and he's like I'm already doing that, which was true, and so that was kind of my selling point is, you are doing it but you're not doing all of it. And I said, how later are you working? And he actually didn't work too late. He's really for a guy who doesn't work, you know wasn't completely into lean. He was very efficient on his projects and very forward thinking, so he was halfway there with it and when he ran into issues, he ran into issues on the visual communication side, on some of the other things that would have been tools that would have helped solve problems for him. So you're right, you're doing some of this. You're just learning some new terms and tips and what I look about.

James Gable: 10:05

Let's talk about formats, especially on the communication side of your book, very simply written. I love the idea that it's a thesaurus, because we have to understand the words and you're breaking the words down into something very simple and I do notice like the style between the lean geek and the old school old dog, because you know buddy's like hey, guys, this is how you do it, and then you go in with just the technical terms, which I love hearing those as well too. Yeah, push those glasses up. You don't have your tape on your glasses, but the idea is you're offering those both sides of it and bringing a lot of value. But simply, you know, put the word. I mean by the book folks, and we're gonna put a link to buy the book in the show notes. But you need to take a look at it's simple enough to say, oh, you know what I do need to work on, pole planning, or I do need to work on you know we're gonna talk about respect for people or visual management. You know, these are things. It's not a lot of information, but it's a great information to say you know, hey, there's tips here to help you here.

James Gable: 11:05

Let's understand the words, especially when you know, just in every construction interview that we're at, we prep to not use the acronyms with everyone that's in the room, cause we're such an acronym heavy business. And it's the same with the lean Lean started to do the same thing. It should have been simplifying and creating what is lean? Creating flow, right. If you can create flow at the end of the day, then you're successful at doing it. And then we add in a million you know complicated factoring to do and you don't need all that. It helps, I think, if you're a lean geek, maybe. Yeah, maybe I'm a I don't wanna offend the lean geeks, but the numbers are important. But it's all about what are we? What, ultimately, are you trying to do right? And you're bringing it, I think, with this book.

Adam Hoots: 11:51

Yeah, trying to synergize between the lean geeks and the old dogs, right, like I think there's this stone wall there where some of the old dogs are like I'm not doing that shit, excuse my language, but that's how they talk, right. And then you got lean geeks that are like you know, you gotta do it this way and it's like go read the white papers and so, trying to bridge that gap, like hey, there is a happy medium.

Adam Hoots: 12:16

No, don't read the white papers and no, don't apply every single thing to your project. But yes, like, try to get better. And like I love what you just said, Lena is creating flow. Because guess what, when you create flow, that means that you're respecting people, that you're continuously improving, you're learning from what you're doing, you're focused on value, you're pulling people along. Like all of the principles are nailed if you just create flow.

James Gable: 12:41

Yeah, make it simple. And so you jumped on respect for people, and that's something that I've heard you talk about, you know, for a long time. That's one. I think one of your marquee things that you bring to this industry is really bringing respect for people, for construction workers.

James Gable: 12:56

I'm gonna read a little blur from your book specifically on the respect for people and if you can see that within the book there is a, did you get to choose the lean geek? I even has glasses on too. That's a little icon, but understand so let's. Before I do that, I wanna talk about the flow of the book. Like it's simple and it has visual monitors in it. Like it has a picture of the lean geek in it and then it has a picture of an old dog and the idea is you get to know who's talking where. I mean just all of those things are important in somebody to understand the book without having to you know read the addendum, you know figure out how to do it. But let me read this little blur. This is great what you put in here.

Adam Hoots: 13:36

Can I just shout out Miss Jennifer Lacey for her illustration skills on everything except for the new geek. The lean geek was designed by her daughter, alex, believe it or not. So she nailed that one and so, and without those visuals it the book just wouldn't be the same. So shout out to the Lacey's, that was huge.

James Gable: 13:56

Yeah, the Lacey's. Yeah, both of them. Yeah, we've had Jen Lacey on the shows, while, too, she's an incredible communicator, a master facilitator and also a brilliant artist.

Adam Hoots: 14:07

I think of her whenever I can sorry.

James Gable: 14:09

We got no when we talk about respect for people. This principle emphasizes creating an atmosphere that encourages open communication, active listening, listening and meaningful engagement. Rfp involves promoting teamwork, trust and empowerment, enabling workers to actively participate in decision-making processes and contribute their expertise to problem solving and innovation. So blurb from the book it's on respect for people, which you think is just kind of a feelings thing, but isn't that the very basis of moving forward with really any communication in your project? It starts with respect for people. What can you add to that?

Adam Hoots: 14:52

Yeah, well, for starters, it was the first term that we defined and it's the only one that's out of order, because without that term applied to the job, none of the other stuff works, and so I think that's really important to know and understand. Again, we communicated that the importance of respect for people by putting it first, which is exactly what we need to do on job sites. I will add that I think, in construction specifically, when you walk by a worker on a job site and you don't engage with it a minimum, just a smile, I think there's something wrong with you as a person. And it happens every single day, and I've been guilty of it just myself, because I'm on a mission to go write this RFI and I go by eight people on my way to the point of failure on the job site and then I start writing the RFI and then I gotta get back to the trailer and I just I'm ignoring people and that hurts every single time that it happens. And so I would love for people to think about just that alone, like, how many times have you walked by a worker and not engaged with them?

Adam Hoots: 16:09

And I think a lot of the sting still comes from my days as a plumber way back in the day, where I did some pretty nasty jobs, to the point where I didn't really respect myself, and I know damn sure industry didn't respect me, nor did society, and so there's still kind of that chip on my shoulder.

Adam Hoots: 16:27

That's like I'm gonna change that, because I remember being a stinky plumber riding home on a hot day in Florida with no air conditioning and it sucked and like nobody should have to experience that. It's just, it's wrong, and so or if they do, at a minimum they're valued by the people that put them in that situation, and so, again, respect for people is huge. It's when people start to feel included and will actually be more productive and add more value to the job and speak up when they notice something that's incorrect, even if it's not with their own work, and so it's really the reason I think all of my projects have just been run a little bit different than others is because I never really took that authority to be in charge, as, like, the reason that I'm here, and so I've always empowered and interviewed people and tried to understand what, like, the more knowledge I have, the better decisions we make as a team, and so, yeah, I mean it's everything right, like if we do that thing right, all the other things are simple from there.

James Gable: 17:39

Yeah, about 10 years ago I had this talk with my project manager I won't throw his name out here, but maybe he'll make him listen to the podcast. But about 10 years ago he would show up on the job site we're working up in the mountains at a Malibu to the mine doing a dirty hot work. Everybody up there is working out of town and he would come in the job site and walk through with kind of a grumpy cat face and he would walk through and everybody is always what's going on here? Is he upset? What does he think? And so they would ask me these questions. And then finally I said, hey, hey, bobby, I'll call him Bobby. Hey, ryan.

James Gable: 18:18

I said why don't you engage with the guys when you go through there? It would really mean a lot to them. And he's like well, I didn't wanna stop them from what they were doing. So he had a purpose in his mind of I don't wanna interrupt the process and the flow of the work and I said, please for me, interrupt for the two minutes that you're gonna do, because they want to hear from you.

James Gable: 18:38

So I learned really two important things from it. One is some people don't know, so bring it up and say you need to. It's gonna mean a lot for you to talk to them. And then also how important it is as a leader, walking through a building Like they're looking at his face I mean, these guys are looking from 50, 100 feet away is like what's going on with those guys. So that smile that you talked about, some kind of engagement, goes miles and miles.

James Gable: 19:05

And so the next time he came up there and after we talked, I'm like you need to come back up. So he came up about every two weeks. So he came up and went through and glad handed and shook hands and he didn't care. And he's a fan. I always call them fancy pants and also shiny shoes. Yeah, you're one of those guys, but I mean he was a very, very good PM, great PM, and when he did that it made such a change in the guys but morale went up from him just walking through there and that's the importance that I learned from doing. What you're just saying is given a little bit of respect and acknowledgement for those that we're working with.

Adam Hoots: 19:40

Yeah, well, think about how you feel as a leader when the vice president or the CEO comes to your job and acknowledges your presence. Right, it's the same thing. Right, the leader is recognizing that I'm adding value to the company or the project or the task or whatever it is. It goes a long, long way.

James Gable: 19:59

And it's in any organization, anywhere, anytime. When I went to the Toastmasters Convention in the Bahamas, the but you know, oh man, this next year it's gonna be in Anaheim but when we went there, the president. Every year there's an elected president. These are all volunteer positions, like every one of these people are doing this as their secondary volunteer for this organization that we really believe in Toastmasters and anyways, the international president elect went. When I showed up for district because we had leadership training prior to that, he's like and I did not. I went to sign up. I didn't have my name tags on or anything. He's like hey, good evening, james Gladj, you could make it. Wow. Yeah, this is the CEO of an organization that has over 300,000 members. Of the leaders, there's hundreds of leaders that were there. He took the time to know my name And-.

Adam Hoots: 20:51

How does that make you feel?

James Gable: 20:52

Well, you just could not believe the feeling in that and impressed that he had the ability to do that too, and I thought this is an important trait of a leader, and that's so that those things are important at any level, any organization that you're in, that's for sure. Another part in your book I wanna jump into is visual management. There's so much stuff in here that we could talk about Kanban, kanban how do you say that in Japanese? Help me, I'll go with your Kanban, sure, kanban? Okay, is that the how you say it in South Carolina?

Adam Hoots: 21:25

Yeah, gotta add a little twang to it though.

James Gable: 21:28

So the idea I mean that's something I use visual boards, but visual management in general. Right, that's talking about Kanban. Let me read this statement that you had in here, and this is from Buddy. Buddy man, he knows how to just keep it simple. Another one of my favorite parts of Lean Processes is removing the information from the drawings. I like how he worded that. You know you take the that. It removed the information from the drawing specs or computer, and that's an old dog. It's like get it out of the computer and put it to where I can. I want to feel it. Think about it this way If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a well-designed visual management system is worth a million. By making the information easy to see and understand, you can help everyone on the team stay on the same page and avoid misunderstandings, and that's probably one of the biggest keys of a visual management board. But what are some experiences you've had with visual management?

Adam Hoots: 22:24

Yeah, so for one. When you can actually visualize what you're thinking, you're more likely to understand it better and people will automatically gravitate to it and try to correct it. It's kind of something within human nature that when we see information that's not right, we tend to speak up, versus when we hear information that's not right, we don't really tend to speak up. And so I was taught back in my day like communication is like putting everything into a box, pushing the box across the table, and then your receiver, the receiver of that communication, should be able to unbox the communication and understand exactly what your message was. And so the visual, like I always think about that when I'm trying to visualize something for somebody else, it's like I'm putting information in the order in which I put it in the box or on the wall. That matters right, as well as the quality and the detail and all of these other things to make sure that the receiver of the communication is understanding the message that I'm trying to receive.

Adam Hoots: 23:32

Because, let's just be honest, in construction you can't really say what we mean, because we might think we are saying the right thing, but the words that are coming out of our mouth aren't always being received in the right order or in the right manner, and so we're not linear creatures, right, we are very much chaotic, kind of circular thinking, and so when we're trying to communicate a message, that message doesn't always come out, like even people that are listening to this podcast are you really getting the message that I want you to receive right now, and or how many different versions of this message are being comprehended right now? And so that's why, even like just you doing the video now is huge, because people can see me and see what words I'm emphasizing, and it adds right, and I think so, when we can visualize things, we're more apt to get the message across that we're trying to deliver.

James Gable: 24:44

Exactly. You know what on a couple of my projects they're like oh, picture time. Because sometimes it's a simple on the whiteboard, you know, drawing a couple of lines, like I've said it a couple of times, and he's like I'm not quite getting it, and literally draw a square and a circle and we're right here and this time needs to go here. It's like boom.

James Gable: 25:02

You know, it takes driving it down visually for a lot and a lot of our guys, you know, in any communication, because sometimes our words aren't enough and I've been poor at this in the past of just repeating the words again. You know, if you didn't get it, I'm like all right, I'll say it again. All right, now I'll say it in angry voice. It's very effective ways of doing it and I still would oftentimes repeat myself. In fact, the guy in my project currently he'll catch me is like I heard you the first time. I'm like, did you? I just want to make sure that we're understanding each other, but it's that drawing that picture of the visual that gets us there. Absolutely, I'm a big visual communication. Yeah, go ahead.

Adam Hoots: 25:44

Well, there's a great exercise that we do in some of these learning sessions is, you know, I will read the instructions to folding a paper airplane and maybe one out of 50 people will pick up on it by just hearing. And then I show pictures of how to make the airplane and it's a like everybody nails it, and so it's an interesting exercise to understand the power of visualization. That when you can actually see the things happening, versus hearing the directions and think about what we do in construction all the time, right, it's like here's your drawings or here's your specs, now, now go build it. And here's your 80 page detailed line item schedule of all words in a CPM schedule and we expect people to put that together and go build it, versus a tact plan for, say, or last planner system and being able to break that down and see it on the walls and see it in real life in a format that's really easy to understand. And so I think you know the way we communicate. The expectation of getting things done has got to change in our industry.

James Gable: 26:55

You can expect somebody to get the CPM schedule and say here's your schedule expected to show up. Then there's been a couple and I've been on both sides of this world. You know as a trade partner, you know as a millwright and working, you know as a subcontractor for other GCs. You know I've seen that side really for a majority of my career and now I get to see it from from both sides. I thought I was hitting the level that was now Teflon. But everybody has a boss, like when you, when you're the GC, then you now have, you know, the owner and the architect. The only architect has a board, like there's always, there's always a bigger fish.

James Gable: 27:29

But the idea was that I couldn't, I couldn't take that schedule and find my stuff in there. It wasn't even clearly communicated to me. You know here, go figure it out. That's what the GC would hand to us. And you know some schedules are, at least you know, broke out by division and then by division. You know whatever task of work you've got, then you could see all your items together. But a lot of times it's and we were doing miscellaneous metals. All right, you know you're, you're over here in the atrium and then you're now you're over here in the stairwell and then now you're over here in the elevator shaft. You know on that schedule and they don't give it to you broken out into something that you know all of your tasks where they put you right that's an important thing too is it's where we were put, which at the time was fine, like we didn't have time, we weren't asked to participate in, is probably a better way of saying it and this is where the schedule laid. So it's it's really understanding that.

James Gable: 28:19

So what do people do? They wait for the four week to come out and some companies do six week schedules and if I'm in the six week then I'll show up. You know we're planning that far ahead for that work and sometimes you know if we were on the four week, some of the materials were six weeks out. You know we needed to know when we were going to order them. So yeah, that's, it's a huge, you know misnomer that the schedule is enough.

James Gable: 28:42

You know for all of our trade partners, because they're very hard to understand for some people. They're not looking at it, they barely look at the four week lookaheads, and that's why, for me, a phone call. You know you have especially your system soups. You know that are covering different divisions, looking out ahead and making sure they're making those phone calls. You know you've probably already covered your long lead items. Now you're talking about scheduling and there's some companies like right now I've got a sign company that I was told they're at least two weeks out and we were, you know, considering shifting the date and now they're a month out before they have their next opening, four weeks and all. A lot of the sign companies are running that way. So you don't know right, you can't assume you can make the phone call and somebody's just going to show up tomorrow to do whatever discipline they're going to do.

Adam Hoots: 29:31

I do like your willingness to go back to analog communication versus everything we have from a digital perspective now. Yeah, like hey, let's just talk about it because we're able to. We're able to get so much more clarity, we're able to adapt in the moment and ask questions and truly understand when that versus digital typically is. Let me send this box to you. You can send the box to me. Shoot, I didn't put this in there. How about, like in this back and forth versus hey, let's just hop on a call? I tell my kids all the time wouldn't be awesome at this little black thing. You could call and actually talk to somebody on it. Versus like oh, my goodness, what a luxury. That would be right.

James Gable: 30:15

It must be a dad thing. I've done the same thing. I'm like, hey, I just got this thing and it makes phone calls like the old ones. Well, and that's, I think, important on a project as well too, is to discover what's the best form of communication.

James Gable: 30:30

Always want to pick up a phone call, but not with everybody. There's a couple of my trade partners that I will text because I know they're busy and they're not going to answer, and they know I'm busy and they'll shoot me a text. And that is fantastic, right, that doesn't. It's not an interruption of the day, but it's a thought that goes out there. And then there's work that's been planned that way, whether it's text or a phone call, and then you know you have to phone call. Some people have gatekeepers, like there's one particular trade partner that I cannot get his cell phone, so I can't text, I can't call, and I've got to call the office and he's never there and she doesn't send me to voicemail, she takes some messages and hands it to him. You know, which in today's day and age, seems so archaic to have that gatekeeper in there, and you have to know how to work the gatekeeper as well.

Adam Hoots: 31:16

And I think you bring up a good point is you, as the communicator, need to learn how does the message get through most effectively, and then, unfortunately, you have to adapt to each person if you truly want to communicate properly.

James Gable: 31:30

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, you have to. Everybody has their different styles and you need to find out what it is. Some people, you know, like my foreman said I heard you the first time other people don't right, they need it three, four times, and I'll even say I'm one of them. It's like remind me, you know, especially if you haven't heard from an email from me in a couple of weeks, you're probably not going to. It's not? I don't have a list of emails two weeks old and I'm going through. So I recommend that people reach out to me if they think something got missed, because I've heard that before. It's like I haven't heard from them. I shot him an email, like two weeks ago, and that's it. You know, there has to be other ways to try to reach those individuals.

Adam Hoots: 32:09

Yeah, you sent me a text message last night confirming for this morning, but unfortunately I was passed out on me.

James Gable: 32:16

So, and for me, I felt like I had failed in that communication because I wanted to send it out a day earlier and I would have should have sent it at a time when you weren't sleeping because I knew it was late it's only 830 my time and I was.

Adam Hoots: 32:31

We're here, baby.

James Gable: 32:32

There was no issues. I didn't doubt it, but I just wanted to send a reminder right and say, hey, looking forward to this. Well, is there anything else you want to add to the book, Because I've got one other area that we're going to dive into. Is there anything you want to add in regards to the book?

Adam Hoots: 32:48

Yes, it's more than a book, right, it's a community. It's a community of people, primarily old dog superintendents, and, james, you're a huge contributor to that. We're doing coffee once a month, we're starting to experiment with some leadership via transparency or, as Jesse calls it, emotional bungee jumping, where we're just getting vulnerable, we're sharing lessons learned and we're becoming better leaders, and so, again, it's a community of people who want more for the construction industry, and so I would urge you to come and poke around and see what we're all about and bring some of that value that some of your listeners have, because we'd love to have you again, primarily superintendents, and so if you get offended, easy, don't come, but we'd love to have a stronger, more well-built community as we move forward with changing how construction does business.

James Gable: 33:44

Yeah, and I love being a part of that group.

James Gable: 33:46

It doesn't always fit within my schedule, but you have let's talk about that because you created a community of people who are talking, communicating, solving problems, asking questions of superintendents that are pretty much across the country at high levels senior soups, soups, and it is superintendent only, which I love that because you're like no, if you're not a superintendent, we need to have these conversations, and you don't record them. So it's one of those opportunities for us to really bounce ideas across other peer groups within our group and we're finding we all have a lot of the same issues and we're finding that somebody has the answer and those have been. It's a great. It's almost like a mastermind of construction leaders, which there needs to be more of, and you spearheaded that, you initiated that, and I know it's going to continue to grow. Hopefully it branches out to other groups because there those are things that have made an impact on everybody. I think that participates. So that's a big influence that you've had in communication across multiple company platforms, which is an amazing facilitation.

Adam Hoots: 34:58

And our team even influenced the NCCER's leadership program for up and coming superintendents, which I think is just super cool Ms Patty Steffen and all her work over the last year or two years really putting in for this new program and I think all of us had influence on that. So it's just again another kind of way you've of the initial ripple of impact.

James Gable: 35:22

Yeah, absolutely. Yep, all right. Well, let's, let's talk about something. I know a guy only one guy who's a TEDx speaker that I've ever shook his hand with before. I think it's amazing that you are and did you did a TEDx talk, I think at Clemson right, it was Clemson TEDx talk and I would love to know that process. I mean, as a guy who loves and embraces public speaking, I'm in a public speaking organization. There are people that shoot after that and then to me that just seems like you know, that's a goal a ways off and you jumped right into it. So first tell me, I want to learn a little bit about this whole experience, but first you got to come with a message, right? What was your message?

Adam Hoots: 36:08

So my message was really respecting the trades and changing the way that we think. Right, I'm tired of society teaching to test and lieu of teaching people to think, and it starts early on from school and we're just kind of like driven in this way, like hey, just like even spelling words, how do you spell this word? Well, in the Hoots household, I don't care if you can spell the word, can you tell me what the word means? Like that is 10 times more important than being able to write it down. Now, don't get me wrong, my kids are literate, they can write, they can read. But guess what? You better know the definition of that word, not just how to spell the word.

Adam Hoots: 36:53

And so it's really changing the way we think, changing the way trades are respected, right? Too often it's the same thing in construction, like I don't care what the worker thinks, I just need to test them if they can get these 10 sheets of drywall hung today. Well, guess what? If you cared what they thought, you might get 15 sheets of drywall hung today and they might have an easier. You know, they might be able to work five years longer because they know how to save their own backs. And so I think it's very important from a message standpoint that we need to use the whole worker and not just three quarters of the worker.

James Gable: 37:31

Yeah, and so did you start with the message and get drawn in Like tell me, connect the dots for me. How did you get connected to a TEDx talk?

Adam Hoots: 37:43

So a gentleman named Tanin Hadari, with DPR, actually put on the whole event, and so this was right before he graduated with his PhD from Clemson, he was a coworker at DPR Construction, so I knew him very well, I'd presented to him several times and I just reached out to him and said, hey, I heard you're doing this, like I would love to be a part of it.

Adam Hoots: 38:05

And then you, I think you had to apply and like get references and all of this stuff, and so it was a pretty intense process to get connected.

Adam Hoots: 38:15

And then, once I did, it was, you know, we were supposed to do the TEDx talk in 2020, and then it got pushed like four or five months the whole COVID thing and they hired us a coach who also has been, has done several TEDx talks before, and I'll tell you this I don't think it was my best performance, if you will, because I didn't really I didn't take the process as serious as I probably should, because I oftentimes just show up and talk right, like I do that all the time.

Adam Hoots: 38:50

And so you know they're like oh, we want your speech six months ahead of time and we only want videos each month so that we can critique and make. I was like, yeah, okay, but I'll tell you why. When you get up on that stage and you got so much information to deliver in 15 minutes, it was challenging, and I spent the first one minute of it singing happy birthday to Charlie Dunn, who was also doing a TEDx talk, and in the audience. So, yes, it was. Again, it was an intense preparation process that I probably didn't take as serious as I should have.

James Gable: 39:25

You said they hired you a coach. Who did that? Who got involved in getting that TEDx coach? Support for you.

Adam Hoots: 39:31

I guess it was Clemson in some former fashion and his name was Michael, and I'm struggling to come up with this last name. But he was excellent. I can hold on, I can find him for you.

James Gable: 39:43

Yeah, well, you're pulling that up. The one thing that is important, I think, in any presentation is we. There's plenty of people that take that preparation. You know it's like I'm used to talking all the time, but when you're presenting in an organized fashion like that, it is different. And you know I'm a huge fan of practice, practice, practice on any of it, a lot of it. This is practice, right, this is helping us speak and communicate. But standing in front of a crowd of people is a different practice as well too. It's a different energy, it's a different presentation style. You know there's there's the energy that within yourself that you've got to monitor. You know your excitement level. You know all of those things come into play as different. It hits differently when you're on a stage as well too. So all of those you know lead into practice. It's kind of cool that they have you do the. You know monthly video check-ins and stuff like that and kind of critique that.

Adam Hoots: 40:39

Yeah, michael Arnold was his name and he's right here in Clemson, south Carolina and yet he was absolutely fantastic, definitely knew what he was doing, and I wish I would have taken a little bit more of his advice. So shout out to Michael, because he freaking, he rocked it, man, and he made my story that much better. You know, talking about some of the specific details, you know, and I told the story of me being in a nasty ditch with corn floating in it and having to work through that as a human, not respecting myself, understanding where I was and the stench of that day lingering with me like helping me visualize what I was going through. Yeah, michael was amazing.

James Gable: 41:25

We'll put a link up in the show notes to that. I'd love to have that on my website. If you're good with that, I'd like to pop your link into that. I'll add that in there to our website as well as a link in the show notes. So at the end of that so preparation you had a message. They prepared you, which is great to hear. I love hearing. I wish I'd prepared more, because we all say it. I mean it's not like nobody ever said I overprepared, yeah, and you overthink, and I think you know that is something that is a problem. You can overthink it, but you can't overprepare. And so I love hearing that advice. I think that's great advice for our listeners, especially of this podcast. But what were the results Like? What outcomes did you have after giving that speech?

Adam Hoots: 42:07

Well, for one, don't wear you can't wear a logo when you do it, apparently. So I had to put electrical tape over my lean builder hat, which really drove me crazy, and I was the first one to present a TEDx talk wearing a construction vest and a hard hat, so that was pretty cool as well. But as far as the results, I think I mean, if we've had almost 2,500 people watch it, and so that's pretty impressive in itself. I think, anyway, that's better than any other videos that I've put out there.

Adam Hoots: 42:41

And so just to know that we've impacted that many folks to go and you know, listen to the trade worker and, hey, maybe are you really valuing trade workers the way that you should? And we've seen a significant shift in the value on college versus the skilled trades. I think we're starting to see some of the fruits of those labors come to life, and so I'd love to say like, hey, I was a part of that change, right. Like I think some of the things that we're doing are helping to impact that, and by just bringing awareness that, hey, we need skilled trade workers, but in the same breath, realizing that we also need to change the construction industry's current conditions, because if we want to keep those new workers, then we've got some work to do.

James Gable: 43:26

Yeah, yeah, and that's that respect in general. You know you go back or I go back 30 something years in the trade and you think about, you know, working around professionals mill rights, iron workers, pipe fitters, you know plumbers, all of those there was at times and it depends on the area and the location a certain respect for that trade. It's like you were a professional. You know specifically like some pipe fitters and depends on which region that I was at, like they all kind of wear the same stuff. You know jean shirts or whatever it might be, and it you know specifically around here tan. You know some of these tan car hard. You know long sleeve, heavy, dirty duty shirts, but there's several of them that would come with iron shirts to work Like they. They, you know, knew that that was their. You know protective layer as well, but they didn't come in all raggedy looking. They came in because they were a professional and they got paid well and they were very proud of their work and just like a clean job site, going in with that type of you know, respect for themselves and for the trade. Their work showed it as well too. They were fantastic craftsmen.

James Gable: 44:29

So that's what I think it's about is bringing back that professionalism to the trades is you don't have to. Just, you know, show up and and I still have to turn them around shorts and or sweatpants and tennis shoes. I'm like I can't let you on this job site in sweatpants. You know where. What other jobs are you working on that you can wear sweatpants at and shoot. You know, go, because I don't have any. You know I don't have any steel toe boots, while you know we don't, on some of our projects, require steel toe, but it has to be a sturdy boot. So you have to at least wear a boot, not a Nike tennis shoe of some kind. So, you know, in respect for that, like you know, show respect for your own profession, you know as well too. That's going to help go a long way as well.

Adam Hoots: 45:12

Absolutely. And you, being a Colorado guy, you know what coach prime says if you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play good. If you play good, they pay good, and so I would urge people to take some of that advice.

Adam Hoots: 45:27

And then I agree with you that there was a sense of kind of pride and ownership of somebody's work. You know, maybe not, I didn't know about 30 years ago, but 20 years ago for sure. No question, meaning I can't attest to 30 years is what I meant by that, but 20 years ago I certainly can. And would you know? Today, when you talk with an electrician about their career, it's kind of like, yeah, I'm in construction, but when you talk to them on a job site and they just finished running these 90s, that come and turn down the wall and go into the panel, and then the determinations are all like perfectly straight lines, right, like they care about their work but they don't have pride in their career. And so, again, we've got to change that as an industry, and it starts with just respecting the people inside our gates before anybody outside the gates will respect us.

James Gable: 46:25

Yeah, absolutely Well. Thanks so much, adam. I've been looking forward to having you on the show. This has been perfect timing, because everybody gets to see your face. You know, if we've done this a few years ago, then they're like what does this Adam look like? Oh, that's right, I got to go find him on the TEDx stage to find out what he looks like. But thanks for coming on the show. We always sum it up in a UC moment, the uncommon communicator moment, because after listening for the nearly 50 minutes or so of this podcast, what are they going to walk away with? One thing. What do you think is the one thing that you'd want listeners to walk away from today's conversation?

Adam Hoots: 47:01

Hmm, how about this? You cannot not communicate? Right, like everything and I know that's bad English, whatever, I don't care but everything about you says communication, right, whether it's your hat that you're wearing or your shirt that you're wearing, or whether or not you've shaved, or like how big your eyes get, or how you're controlling your tone of your voice, all is communicating something, and so I would ask people, or challenge people, to think about what messages they're sending and be more intentional and strategic about those messages, because everything about you is communicating, so you cannot not communicate.

James Gable: 47:55

I love it. That's the perfect UC moment. You cannot not communicate. Well, that's all we got for you today. See you, bye.