Transcript: My Journey of High Performance and Personal Reflections of Constructrr Podcast

Hello and welcome to the Constructor Podcast, The Best Way To Build It, episode number 80. I'm your host, Brittany Campbell-Turner. This podcast is dedicated to helping property owners have certainty in their decisions about their construction projects. We talk about fostering trusting relationships, help you to understand how to lower risk, be under budget and on schedule, and most importantly, exceed your end user's desires. In this episode, we spoke with Todd Burns.

He's the president of Project and Development Services and General Contracting Units at JLL in the Americas. He is the chair on the Global Practice Board with responsibility for the Americas representing and ensuring that the organization provides similar processes and results globally. Last week, we discussed a new product that Todd and his team developed called Insight. Insight pulls the cost data in that JLL has collected for their office fit out guide and allows for project teams and their clients to see instantaneously how changes to the plan will impact their budget.

So we discussed also the importance of leveraging data from previous projects across the globe, taking that history and the lessons learned to support smarter decision making. We discussed culture and what the future of the industry should look like in the next five to 10 years. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, check it out at constructor.com slash EP 79. This week, you'll actually be hearing from me because today is a special episode specifically because of three pretty awesome reasons. It's actually quite a celebratory month.

Today, as you've already heard, it is the 80th episode of the Constructor podcast. It is also the second year anniversary of the launch of the Constructor podcast. It's actually in a couple of days. It'll be the 16th of June, but we'll celebrate it today as well. And it just so happens to be my birthday today.

So I'm going to celebrate with you, the Constructor audience. I mean, how awesome is it that it's my birthday today? You know, I'm really excited because, you know, simply it's my birthday and you look forward to getting gifts. I realize, you know, my nephews are going to have their birthdays coming up. They're turning five and nine.

And, you know, getting gifts when you're a kid is, you know, you're looking for toys. You're looking for me. I was looking for puzzles and, you know, random tool stuff. I was an odd child, but I was looking for gifts. Nevertheless, I find, obviously, when you get older, you get more joy, really, out of sharing experiences.

And that's one of the gifts that I want to give to you. I want to share some experiences and lessons learned based upon my journey of doing this podcast. I will not neglect the opportunity to ask for a really simple gift from you guys. And I'll explain more about what that might be in a minute, because whenever it's someone's birthday, you want to know what to get them. So what I've done is I made it really easy for you.

I'm taking all of the guesswork out. So back to what I'm going to share with you. Ten things I learned sprinkled throughout my time from doing podcasts for two years. I'm going to actually break this out into two categories. I've learned loads from my podcast guests and from my conversations that I've had with listeners on LinkedIn or via email or after hopping on a call.

So I've learned so much from industry practitioners that I'm going to just focus first on industry related lessons learned. But the second area I'd like to focus on is really telling you a little bit about my personal journey and business growth findings. A lot of you may not have the opportunity to speak with me, but you listen to the podcast and you may get an idea of what I'm focused on and what I care about based upon the questions I ask. I'm finding this an opportunity to share a little bit more about me.

So industry learnings. Number one, I'm going to talk a little bit about smart cities. I learned what smart cities were and the need for cities to be smarter in ways that they actually approach initiatives. But not just that. There's a low hanging fruit, right?

There's the idea of being a smarter city by doing things smartly. And then there's being a smart city by incorporating technology. I learned that there was a distinction. It's about having the agencies work together. It's about economic resiliency, sustainability for citizens.

And it's about not falling behind. Even if you're an industrialized city, like many cities here in the U.S., it's actually about giving the citizens the best possible chance for them to live, work and play, being conscientious about the needs, adjusting to even maybe overall population needs. And I have to thank Paul Doherty, the founder of the Digit Group, gave me a broad sense of what smart cities look like and led me down this path of curiosity regarding smart cities. This led me to talking to Michael Lake and Carl Pippa.

Carl Pippa talked about city as a platform. And this discussion on smart cities got me on to Zoethor's podcast called the Smart City Podcast. I was able to share a little bit there. Just kind of in that same strain of thought, I was able to learn about architecture as a platform and the need for a common data environment and interoperability. Nathan Wood spoke about this.

I'm having a lot of fun talking with people about it. So number two, BIM, Building Information Modeling. I learned that there's a distinction between the technology aspect of BIM and the fact that there is a governance focus as well. I've been exposed to BIM standards issued by the British Standards Institute under the PAS 1192, actually from my colleague at MACE, who relocated here from the UK. But in further investigation with Abel Maciel, Michael DeLacy and Bill DeVebec, I actually understand BIM so much better than I did before.

I think as a consultant and not being a designer, having to tangibly touch and create design in the software itself, it really gives me an opportunity to dig into what the different elements are of creating a proper governance structure and putting together a proper BIM execution plan. So on that note, Bill from the BIM Thoughts Podcast and I were in the planning stages of doing a powwow series about BIM and blockchain. So when that comes together, I'm looking forward to sharing that series of episodes with you.

So number three, since I mentioned blockchain and been talking about for some time now, I've learned that blockchain is a database, a protocol or programming language that allows for databases to be more secure, for them to be permissioned and for data to be immutable. It enables collaboration, enables for communities of trust. One thing I really appreciate is the connection to blockchain and lean. I've actually really started on this path of investigating blockchain because of the tie to the lean mindset, if you will, building a culture of transparency and trust.

But having the data to go back to rely on and create lessons out of that specifically. So, you know, the idea of digitizing lean is really what got me here had a interesting introduction to that term, the digitization of lean by watching a video from Singularity University. And just a couple of weeks ago, I had the honor to have explained this concept of blockchain or the technology of blockchain to Glenn Ballard, one of the co-founders of the Lean Construction Institute at the design forum. I'm really excited about this topic.

Going to continue to dig into it and just the relevancy to how we are wanting to lean processes up in the construction management industry, but also enable a culture for better collaboration and allowing people to provide their skill sets, what they can provide as far as value. Back to the project, I think this is really the paramount concern and capability that blockchain allows for us. Tom Cox and James Salomon bridged this gap for the digitization of lean and really broke that down for me in past podcasts.

These two guys really speak my language and I'm really appreciative for their contribution here on the podcast and teaching me this. In addition to that, just kind of fostering that curiosity and seeing the linkages as well. Number four is healthy workplaces allow for happy and more profitable workplaces. I spoke first with Elise Stringer about this, who's the author of The Healthy Workplace. We talked about how the fact that the actual business case for employee health grows stronger every single day as we learn more and study the subject more.

Catherine Biker, PhD, a professor at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, actually did a well-respected 2010 meta-analysis study, evaluated the return on investment for 22 companies that have wellness programs. This is something that Elise Stringer and I spoke about. The study actually revealed that medical cost fell by $3.27 for every dollar spent on these programs. And the absenteeism cost fell by about $2.73 for every dollar spent.

In separate studies completed by Ray Fabius and Ron Goitz-Zell over the past three years, these authors compared the stock performance of companies that won awards for their health initiatives with the Standard and Poor's 500 Index. No matter how the resources slice this data, companies with a focus on health significantly outperformed the S&P 500. So, that being said, I am that much more related with the stats, right? It's like, how do you not do this, essentially? How do you not look for ways to invest into more sustainable, and I mean reduction of carbon emissions, using more sustainable materials, reduction of water utilization, reduction of energy utilization, electricity.

How do you not do that when you know that it will impact your employees in such a validated manner, whereby your investments really are a return on investment because your people are happier? Isn't that crazy? After speaking with Rex Miller, he actually came out with a book that we're on the docket to do an interview for. Called The Healthy Workplace Nudge. These guys have continued to validate the reasons for having a healthier workplace.

So, that's something that I've always suspected. I've always had a focus on health and productivity and how the two things are interrelated, especially as it relates to work. But these guys have done the research, they have the numbers, and I'm so excited that I was able to learn that throughout this entirety of doing the podcast thus far. So, wrapping up with the fifth item here in the industry-related lessons learned, I'll mention service management. I talked with a couple people about service management and really setting up a culture of valuing the approach to providing service.

So, be it architecture firms, be it facility management, general contractor, even project management consulting like I do. The approach to service and the re-evaluation of the RFP process, requesting for qualifications, requesting for proposals, that has been a really fun discussion. I spoke with Vic Bangia. He talks about making RFPs fun again. Peter Ankersterny and Kate Vytasek, they both have shared with us how to incorporate the vested outsourcing model, whereby you're taking into account the people who are actually providing the services into the RFP process so that you understand what level of expertise is required and essentially get some of the recommendations up front.

Make sure that everyone's really established on what those KPIs are and make sure everybody's happy with the terms. If people are really compromised in their dollars and the quality that they can provide, even the approach, they're not going to do as good of a job. So, I think it's really given me an opportunity to look at RFPs differently, but in addition to that, incorporate a mindset around just value of the service that people providing throughout the entirety of the service contract. With that, we're going to transition into a little bit of the personal and business lessons learned here.

And although I'm talking about how these specific things have applied to my learning and growth as it relates to the podcast and or business, I think that these lessons learned are really applicable to anyone depending on where they are in their growth process, their personal growth. I'll just go ahead and start with number six. Don't underestimate the power of a referral. Good people refer other really awesome people, and I appreciate referrals. Before I actually get to that, my first yes, and I've got to give Chris Mattis from Dirt.

He actually was my first guest and he stuck with me through all the blenders. But he was definitely someone who took a chance on me and said, OK, well, yeah, let me go ahead and give this to her and share a little bit about Dirt. He actually was not referred to me. I met him with work and said, you know, this is a very interesting concept. I want to go down the path.

And we recorded that interview and created this trajectory that I'm on today. If you're looking for a mentor or advice, you know, my advice to you is, you know, if you want help with anything, think of some really awesome people that you know, you know, kind, genuine, human, authentic people, ask them, ask them for help and ask them for a referral. Once you've actually gotten your response from them, because good people know good people. I'm actually really grateful for the people that I've been afforded to interview and develop relationships with as a result of doing this podcast.

I've been able to speak with founders, CEOs, CMOs, CTOs of major companies in the AECRE industry. I've been able to speak with tried and true veterans, industry practitioners who are paving the way for next generations of construction professionals. And that does not separate technology at all. I mean, we really need to have that mindset of construction is integrated with technology now. And they have that.

But they also understand that culture and appreciating people for their skills and value is just as paramount. I've spoken with startups who are investigating options for delivering valuable solutions for this industry through emerging technologies. So we need them to and companies that are properly providing seed funding and second round funding. And they're able to provide more ways and more value to this industry. Just make sure you go down the path and keep searching for that genuine, kind, good person.

And that kind of leads me to number seven. Be grateful about the no's. In searching for people to do podcast interviews, especially when I first got started, I received quite a few no's. People did not want to do interviews with me, interestingly enough. But I've become grateful for them.

I become grateful for the no's. I'm sure they've built my character, but what it has also done is allowed me to understand. OK, yes, of course, people are busy and they're going through things. But it has also helped me understand outright if someone's aligned with me and what the vision is by telling someone no. They tell you they don't want to be involved.

And you know what? That's OK, too. I'm grateful for that. It's only part of the ways and open the doors to speak with good people, more awesome people. I also realized that, you know, when I first started, there were not really many podcasters in the CREAEC space.

Last time I checked, there might be a dozen that are consistent, that are in construction or corporate real estate. Nevertheless, podcasting is still gaining popularity. And according to Edison Research and Triton Digital, listening to podcasts has been on the rise every year, where from 2013, there were 13 percent of men listening to podcasts, where it's now 20 percent of men. Again, 2013, nine percent of women listen to podcasts, where it is now 21 percent. Podcast listeners are pretty affluent.

16 percent have an annual household income of $150,000 or more compared to 10 percent of the general U.S. population. Podcast listeners are educated. 30 percent have some grad school or advanced degree compared to 22 percent of the general population. 27 percent have a four-year college degree compared to 19 percent of the general population.

And just for setting a baseline, majority of listeners are between the ages of 18 and 34. So all of these stats tell me that it's reasonable to continue podcasting, even though there are a lot of people who told me, no, they didn't want to participate. Resistance when you first begin something is a good sign. And then when you get the yeses, it's that much more rewarding. I'm actually happy to report that this scenario has been more recently that people come to me and ask me to do podcast interviews.

It's also becoming hard to respond to everyone. So thanks to my business partner and husband, Marcus, I've been able to respond to, I would say, most of all of you who are reaching out. And I remember the no so vividly that I'm still humbled by your communication with me and I will still engage with you as much as I possibly can. Just bearing the volume, even if it's not an interview, I'm actually now looking for sponsors, planning some webinars, and I am looking for that resounding feedback from you.

Hoping to create a course and a roadmap to understand blockchain and the ACRE space. That being said, lots of no's, but there are lots of yeses as well. And no matter where you are in your life, whether it's progressing in your career, just keep asking until you get yes. There's always going to be resistance, but that's OK. Just keep asking.

So I say this to you because many of you know that I have a full time job that I work as a senior project manager at May's Owners Rep Work. I do the interviews before and after work. It takes about a good eight to 10 hours of work preparing and or editing and doing post interview work. So thankfully, once again, Marcus, he's been really helpful, especially with the editing over the past year. Let us thank him for the improved audio quality.

But I really say all that to say sometimes work is not just a 40 hour work week for someone who has a full time job. It's you know, we know sometimes we're tasked with, you know, doing more at different stages of the projects. And that's totally fine. But it's important to have a self care routine. I myself have tried my best to basically put systems in place and have a self care routine.

So that means like working out, eating healthily, sleeping in an adequate amount of hours. And then, you know, sometimes it calls for going hard and pulling a night, a few hours of sleep and then planning to recover. So one thing that I keep reflecting on, I have an affirmation that I look at whenever I get tired and it says, if you get tired, learn to rest, not quit. I can talk about how hard it is all day long. If you've listened to the first episode, first ever episode, you'll hear things about me saying, OK, well, yeah, the reason why I'm starting this podcast is because I'm a nerd, because I like puzzles, because I like, you know, sustainability, because I'm passionate about lean.

Today, my passion is really driven by so much more and it has so much more depth. I've actually really been opened up to a very supportive community where you have constantly been supportive. There are just a couple of people that I'd like to mention, interviewees and people that I've just spoken to in this community that have been so encouraging. And I'll just mention them here so they can understand how this keeps me afloat and keeps me going. First person I'll mention is Kevin Flanagan, PLP architecture, one of the designers of the age.

He said that what I'm doing is changing the industry. People like Darren Young from the Congress on the Future of Engineering Software were actually both part of that organization. He said that he binge listened to the podcast, sort of like Netflix, and he enjoyed it so much and invited me to attend the event. You know, Rex Miller, he said that what I'm doing is changing the industry. Peter Anchor-Sternie for reminding me how much creating a service experience is.

These amazing people I have so much respect for and have so much humility as I hear these comments and read these comments. So thank you, thank you so much for that. I want to thank any one of you who's reached out to me and have, you know, just thanked me for what I'm doing. That's what fuels me. That's what keeps me going and almost at the state of tears.

But you know, the feel that this comment brings me, it like really tells me that you appreciate the guests that I bring on the show and the way I put together content. So thank you so much for that. Just keep going. Don't stop if you're passionate about something. Always keep the focus is the next item.

I mentioned previously that I've been thinking about the next steps for Constructor. Constructor is the name of the podcast, but that's not all Constructor is about. I'd like to share where Constructor came from. I thought to myself that each person is a Constructor in their own right. Even if they're not physically constructing, you know, don't have to necessarily bend pipe, lay towel, pour concrete to be a Constructor.

You can be a designer. You can be a GC. You can be an owner. You can be owner's rep. You can be anyone who's contributing to the high performance within the built environment.

And the other big thing about being a Constructor is that you need to understand your personal value. You need to understand how you want to contribute to the world. So always keep that focus and always really understand what those next steps are for you. I want to share with you actually that I'm wanting to keep my focus and understand better about what my next steps for the Constructor podcast are, which leads me to my last and final lessons learned. I need your help and I'm going to tell you exactly what my request, my gift is that I'm requesting from you.

But I'm going to tell you the lessons learned first. And this is an ongoing one is to be vulnerable and don't be afraid to ask for help. So believe me, historically, this has been one of the hardest things for me to learn. And I'm still learning. And it's going to be a long term lesson for me, which is something that I'm now aware of.

And it's going to be a fun journey. It might be the project manager and me. And I sort of take too much ownership. Actually, I mentioned how much Marcus has helped earlier, but he actually took it upon himself to help, as I would never really ask. And we might be actually adding another Constructor team member to do some more technical support.

And she offered help. Again, I didn't ask. But asking for help by sharing the vision is one of the things that I've learned. And one thing I know is that I need to do more of sharing the vision and asking for feedback and contribution to that vision. As I briefly mentioned before, I have a vision of sharing webinars with you guys and sharing guides and doing live events and providing essentially more value to the Constructor audience.

And the podcast is great, but I do want to be able to provide more applicable tools, more useful tools that really take you to the next step of application. And I want to know how I can support you, whether it's blockchain implementation or lean methodologies implementation. I want your feedback in that. And I also want to know what you want to hear more about in the podcast. So this is where I'm asking you to give me some birthday live.

I'm asking you to actually respond to a survey, taking the full guesswork out of it. I'm asking you to do this less than five minute response to a quick survey I put together. And I want to know what I should focus on. So I'm simply asking for your help to respond to that survey. You can find it in the show notes.

And if you send me a birthday message on LinkedIn, I will also send you the survey. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast.

Thank you for being part of the Constructor audience. You can find the survey and all the show notes at Constructor.com slash EP 80. 8-0. I'm really excited to get your responses. And thank you for listening to this episode.

You can find it at Constructor.com slash EP 80 again. If you learned something valuable in this episode, share it with your friends and colleagues. You can also let me know if you enjoyed my talk with you by connecting with me on Twitter at Brittany underscore CT or find me on LinkedIn. Or you could just email me too at Brittany at Constructor.com. That's B-R-I-T-T-A-N-I-E at Constructor.com.

Next week, we'll be speaking with Harvey Johnson with PB Mayors, Cyber and Control Risk Service Leader or Partner in Charge. How major companies put themselves at security risk every day and how they can get compromised through construction tools and software. We talk about putting the right protocols in place, how to answer the interoperability question as we're really aware of these security concerns, and then, you know, improving intelligence, doing risk reduction. And of course, we talk about how blockchain will play into all of this discussion. Actually, look forward to sharing this interview with you guys next week.

If you haven't subscribed to the podcast, you can do so at your preferred podcast player. Please leave a review to show your support and let me know you're enjoying the podcast. I look forward to talking with you guys next week. you