Construction Leadership: What Your Failure to Listen Is Costing Your Company

0:00When people talk, listen completely. Don't be thinking about what you're going to say. Most people never listen, nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out, know everything that you saw there. And not only that, if a room gave you any feeling, you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. That's a quote from Ernest Hemingway. And today on Construction Genius, we're going to talk about what your failure to listen is costing your company.

0:40Eric Anderton: This is Eric Anderton, and you're listening to Construction Genius, a leadership masterclass. Thomas Edison said that genius is 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration. If you're a construction leader, you know all about the perspiration, And this show is all about the 1 % inspiration that you can add to your hard work to help you to improve your leadership.

1:09Sometimes I'm a lousy listener. Someone is talking. I've already prejudged them. I'm already forming in my mind what I'm going to say. And I don't really hear them. and in fact, I don't really value them. I'm driven by my own opinions, my own pride, my own preconceived notion of how the problem or the issue or the circumstance that we're talking about should be addressed. And because of that, I fail to hear them. And in many cases, I fail to truly understand the situation or tap into their wisdom and their insights about the situation. Does this sound familiar to you? For you as a construction company owner, your failure to listen to your clients, to your partners on the projects that you build, to the people who work for you, that failure is costing you money, but it's also costing you the quality of the relationships that you have with people.

2:16And it's costing you the ability to tap into their insights, which could tremendously benefit you if you simply listen. Your responsibility as a construction company owner is to run a sustainably profitable business. The way you do that is by driving up revenue and driving down costs. The way that happens is as the projects that you have contracted for are being built by the people you employ safely, productively, and with a high level of quality. Your job is to oversee all of that and to help people remove the obstacles that are in their way to achieving that. And in order to accomplish all of that, you must be an excellent listener.

3:08You depend on the people who build your projects to tell you what's going on as they build those projects so that you can help them to identify and remove those obstacles. They see problems and opportunities that you don't see and that you can't see because you're not involved in every single project to the level of detail and attention that they are. Miscommunication happens between the field and the office, between a subcontractor and the general contractor. A conflict occurs between the owner and the people who are building the project. And all of that happens on a regular basis on every project that you build.

3:47And you don't know about everything that's going on, but your people who are building those projects do. And as they report that information to you, if you're going to be able to process that effectively and help them remove the obstacles and therefore increase the profitability of your business, which is your number one responsibility, you must listen. If you don't listen to people, if you dismiss their explanations, you will fail to tap into their expertise. As a result of that, that will impact the profitability of your business. And I promise you that people who are not listened to eventually will go and find someone who will listen to them.

4:27And think about that. In the current economic climate, there's plenty of jobs in construction. And your very best people want to perform at the highest possible level, to collaborate with the people that they work with, to feel valued. And people who are not listened to do not feel valued, and they will go and find someone who does value them. So how do you become more willing to hear someone, particularly someone who you don't naturally enjoy listening to? Allow that person to pop into your mind real quick. Who's the one person who every time they walk into the room, you immediately get a physical response to them.

5:08Now maybe you don't have that kind of response to anyone but I bet you do. I bet there's at least one person who irritates you and sometimes you don't even know why they irritate you you just know that they do and yet that person is perhaps your best project manager or a superintendent that is tremendously effective at rallying his foreman to build projects profitably, and yet somehow they still bug you in some way, and you struggle to listen to them and hear what they have to say. One thing that you have to remind yourself of is that each individual that you work with is actually deeply interesting.

5:47They are a universe unto themselves. I think of this quote from C.S. Lewis, There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. It is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit. So take each other seriously. No flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. You see, when you don't listen to people, You communicate to them that I don't really care about you. I'm not taking you seriously. I don't value you. And when you don't value people, you miss out on so much. When you don't listen to people, you miss out on their genius, their expertise, their wisdom. And the reason why is because you don't think that other people actually have genius or expertise or wisdom.

6:46You value your own opinion above the opinion of others. A lot of the reason why we don't listen is because we're too proud. We lack the necessary humility to hear others rightly. And because of that, we miss out on tapping into their expertise and their wisdom. And man, does that have a negative impact upon the business. So take the person sitting across from you seriously. One mindset that always helps me when I'm working with people and when I'm interacting with people is that people are deeply interesting. Every single person is deeply interesting. Each individual brings a lifetime of experience and insight and abilities that I don't possess.

7:32I can discover so much by asking good questions and listening carefully. So think about it. you hired this person who's sitting in front of you, whether it's a PM or a superintendent or an estimator, you hired them and you're giving them money because you think to one degree or another, they have something that they can contribute. And if you don't think that's true, why are they in your business in the first place? So what happens when you get into conversations and you're having a hard time listening? You feel that resistance in you. I don't know about you, but I know for me, many times, I'll be in a conversation and I feel this visceral response within me that's causing me to shut my ears and not listen to this person.

8:12What do I do in that circumstance? What can you do? Well, one thing you can do is breathe through that resistance. And I'm not trying to be woo-woo or weird here, but you feel that resistance. And as you do, take a deep breath. And then what I do is after that breath, I ball up the toes on my right foot and I say to myself, ground yourself. And that little discomfort in my foot helps me then to lock in and to clear my mind and to focus on that person and to listen as carefully as possible to what it is that they're saying. Another thing that I find very useful is when someone is speaking to me and I begin to disagree with them, I remind myself I might be wrong.

8:59Yes, I've been in this circumstance before, and yes, in the past, my judgment has been correct. But today, on this project, in this situation, with this person, I might be wrong. So one way that you can test your own assumptions when someone brings in a perspective that you don't agree with, ask them, Can you help me understand why you have that perspective? Follow with, what do you mean? Can you explain that? Tell me more. Get curious. The way you demonstrate curiosity or stay curious is by asking questions. And every time they answer, listen carefully. Give them time to answer. Breathe through that resistance that you feel in your own body.

9:43Because it's that resistance that is costing you the profitability and the health of your business over the long term. Be caring. Be patient. Give people time. Listen carefully. They will tell you exactly what they're thinking. The first answer that they give may only begin the explanation. And before you're ready to jump in with your answers, ask those additional questions. What do you mean? Help me to understand. Don't fill every silence that occurs as they are processing the information or processing your questions. Let that silence do the heavy lifting and allow them to think through your questions so that they can give you the best possible answers.

10:28And as they're answering your questions, many times the first thing that they say won't necessarily be as clear as they want it to be. And so ask them, please clarify that. Please tell me more about what you're saying. And as you're doing that, that active questioning is a part of listening. That active questioning will help them to clarify what it is that they're saying. And again, be quiet in your own mind. Hear it, what it is that they are saying. You'll find tremendous value and tremendous insight in their answers. And as you're listening, stay attentive to the business implications of their answers.

11:07The revenue, cost, safety, productivity, schedule issues, quality issues, relationship issues. Always be thinking through that particular framework of running your business profitably, and it will help you to hear the things that you need to hear so that you can help them solve the problems and remove the roadblocks that are in their way to building projects profitably. And while you're listening to their explanation, pay attention to what's happening around that explanation. Let me go back to that Hemingway quote. Most people never listen, nor do they observe. So listening is not just auditory, it is visual.

11:50You should be able to go into a room, and when you come out, know everything that you saw there. And not only that, if that room gave you any feeling, you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. So for instance, You go into a room and the PM is giving their explanation of why the project is behind schedule. And yet you look at the superintendent and the superintendent is not buying it. And you can just feel that in your bones because of their body language. And what do you do in that circumstance? Well, for instance, if you respect the PM, you may initially buy their explanation.

12:27And if you have an issue with the superintendent, you may dismiss that body language and you shouldn't do that. If you see a disconnection between what your PM is saying and what your superintendent is doing with their body language, then you have to ask that question. You have to turn to the superintendent and say, hey, correct me if I'm wrong here, but it doesn't seem that you're on the same page with the PM in terms of why we're having an issue on the project. Allow the super to speak and the PM to even respond to that and listen to both of them and see where their body language is at. and perhaps you're surfacing a conflict between them that needs to be addressed.

13:06And it's vital that you make sure that the people in the room who are working on the projects as much as possible are on the same page because they have to work together to drive the profitability of your business. But if you're not listening in the first place as you're in that project meeting, then you're going to miss those disconnections between them. You won't be able to surface those disconnections and you won't be able to address them. But what if you're a bad listener. What if you're like me and sometimes you don't listen well and you've gained that reputation or you've earned that reputation?

13:39You've spent years shutting people down, jumping in with solutions before you even heard the problem. Well, those people who you work with may need evidence that you're willing to hear. So you've got to acknowledge your bad listening habits to them. Name your behavior. Maybe it's interrupting or dismissing, not letting people finish. Name that. Apologize for that behavior. Explain what you're working to change, and then model that in the discussions. I'll give you a practical example. Sometimes in these discussions, one way to prove that you're listening is to hear when people are criticizing you.

14:20And I find that's one of the most challenging things that I have in my life, is when people are criticizing me, my first response is to defend myself, to not listen to the critique, but to defend myself or to justify myself. And I found over the years, the most effective thing you can do when someone is critiquing you. And the best way to hear them out is simply to breathe through the resistance that you find. And then when they're finished, say, thank you. Right there is not necessarily the time to defend yourself or explain yourself or excuse yourself or justify yourself. It is a time simply to say thank you and to allow yourself to process the information.

15:03You can always come back to the conversation and to the critique and explain yourself at a later date. But in that moment when emotions might be high, when your emotions might be high, and the other person is testing you, so to speak, or discovering if you'll actually listen to them and receive the critique, the best thing that you can do is simply say thank you. So this week, I want you to improve your listening. And you're going to get an opportunity because you're going to be in a meeting this week when there's going to be someone there who you don't naturally like to listen to, or an issue comes up where you're going to be quick to jump to a conclusion.

15:41So what do you need to do? Identify someone you tend to dismiss. Remember that you hired them because of the contribution they can make to the business. Remove any distractions that keep you from listening, including your phone or the computer screens that are before you. When you feel the resistance in you to what people are saying, that's going to cloud your mind and is going to result in that dialogue happening in your head that is keeping you from hearing what they're saying. Breathe Breathe through that resistance. And remember, each person is this vast universe. They have tremendous insight.

16:20Be caring. Be patient. Hear what they have to say. Ask excellent questions to dive deeper into what it is that they're telling you. Observe their body language. Check your impressions through the questions that you ask. One way to do that very practically is when you hear them, explain back to them their position and why they hold that position before offering your conclusion and check to see whether or not you've understood them and then use what they give you to help them to make better decisions to remove the obstacles to building projects profitably. Your company is full of people with experience and insight that you don't possess.

17:02In your next meeting, will you give yourself the opportunity to hear it. I hope from today's podcast that you can learn some insights in how to be a better listener and apply those insights to help you to run a more profitable construction company. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Please share it with other people who you think would benefit from the content. If you're watching on YouTube, give us a like and subscribe to the video. Give us a rating and a review wherever you get your podcasts, and we will catch you on the next episode of Construction Genius.

17:40Eric Anderton: Thank you for listening to this episode of Construction Genius. Hope you found that 1 % of inspiration to help you in the next few days. If you like the show, please give us a five-star review on iTunes, share it with other construction leaders who you think would benefit, and always remember that the show is brought to you by kick-ass meetings. I've been working with construction leaders since 2004, teaching them how to run extremely effective problem-solving meetings that gets their people collaborative.