Elevate Construction

Jason records a quick podcast on the side of the road while waiting for a Lyft and shares a powerful analogy that builds on his earlier conversation with Kevin Rice. He uses the simple goal of losing 10 pounds to show how a single clear target requires a system of supporting elements: eating healthy, exercise, sleep, a plan, and an accountability partner. Then he goes one step deeper and asks the...

Jason sits down with Kevin Rice, business owner and trained business professional, to dig deeper into the aggregation of marginal gains. They revisit the Dave Brailsford story of British cycling, then push past the surface to ask a harder question: is it better to improve one percent over and over in a single area, or one percent across many domains all at once? The conversation turns into a candi...

Jason sits down with Ryan Schmidt, owner and president of Petticoid Civil Contractors in Florida, to talk about how to truly train and develop the next generation of construction workers. Ryan shares story after story of friends' college aged sons spending a summer on a pipe crew or punch out crew and coming back transformed, sleeping harder, talking about it for years, and gaining a respect for t...

Jason continues recording from Jacksonville and shares the two driving rules he hammered into his daughter Effie when she was learning to drive: don't hit the car in front of you and stay in your lane. He maps those two rules onto construction leadership and makes the case that flow and team balance are the only two things superintendents and project managers need to master first. Everything else,...

Jason continues the personal coaching series with a candid episode on cleanliness as a reflection of the mind. Recording from Jacksonville on four hours of sleep, he walks through the awakening moments in his career when superintendents and general superintendents drilled cleanliness into him until it stuck. He makes the case that what your project looks like is what's in your mind, what your desk...

Jason makes the case that standard work is one of the most underused practices in construction, and that it's not about distrusting workers but about deeply respecting them. He shares a reading from Taiichi Ohno's Toyota Production System on the three elements of a standard worksheet, cycle time, work sequence, and standard inventory, and reframes them for construction crews. The episode opens wit...

How you do one thing is how you do everything. Bad handwriting caused hundreds of thousands in safety mistakes because instructions not followed. Dress and appearance shows you care and advertises for promotions. Well-groomed means trimmed hair, washed face, brushed teeth, nice clothes without holes, good shoes. Update wardrobe regularly and dress for next position. What you'll learn in this episo...

Jessica Buchanan kidnapped in Somalia for 93 days and rescued by Navy SEAL Team Six. SEAL ethos: guardians who protect fellow Americans, willing to sacrifice lives. Builder ethos Jason created: protect workers, families, neighbors, enforce safety rules, win projects on time on budget. Guardians train, rise to challenges, never fail. What you'll learn in this episode: Jessica Buchanan rescue: Navy...

Every successful person keeps a to-do list. Handwriting must be block lettering all caps because how you do one thing is how you do everything. The system is capture, clarify, organize, reflect, and engage. Use Eisenhower method to triage urgent versus important tasks. Mind needs to be free from loops to receive inspiration. What you'll learn in this episode: Everyone needs to-do list: cannot be s...

Culture is common beliefs and actions shaped by story. Research laboratory story: safest, cleanest, most remarkable project in Arizona with owner who cared. Story gives people significance, certainty, love, and connection. What we do must be clear, visual, incentivized, enforced, and made famous through morning worker huddles. What you'll learn in this episode: Story creates culture: research lab...

Focal Point teaches how to focus after knowing what you want from Think and Grow Rich. Do more valuable things, do less low-value things, start new things, stop wasteful things. Leverage knowledge, energy, money, and other people to accelerate progress. Clarity enables triaging tasks into important, delegate, or eliminate categories. What you'll learn in this episode: Four actions: do more valuabl...

Wilson Electric and foreman John Bohr delivered excellence for 20 years but never received written feedback until Jason sent appreciation letter. The company said they had not received feedback like that in 20 years. Give people a good name and they will live up to it. What you'll learn in this episode: John Bohr excellence: traced circuits with colored pencils, as-builts perfect, oriented new wor...

Think and Grow Rich researched 40 millionaires to find what made them successful. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe the mind can achieve. Your mind will give up a hundred times before your body will. Write purpose statement and repeat until you believe it. What you'll learn in this episode: Five big ideas: desire is starting point, master of destiny, rebuild plans after defeat, success on...

Customer service is about creating raving fans and finding win-win. One team pushed per owner requests and finished four and a half months late losing $2.3 million. Another team negotiated six more weeks with transparency and finished on time with raving fan. You win in pre-construction by setting a good deal. What you'll learn in this episode: Win-win not always right: deliver what customer paid...

Visualization workshop taught Jason to go deeper than surface questions. Most conversations stay at 2D level when they should go to 3D with surroundings, then sensing emotions, then engaging with questions. Two screens in conference room help: one for schedule, one for model and roadblock tracking maps. What you'll learn in this episode: Visualization levels: words, 2D picture, 3D, 3D with surroun...

Plus delta feedback is useless if problems do not stay fixed. Teams get the same comments in every meeting because they react to problems instead of implementing systems. Stabilize before optimize means fixing problems once and keeping them fixed with procurement logs, quality processes, and standard systems. What you'll learn in this episode: Plus delta problem: same feedback every meeting becaus...

Phoenix Sky Harbor guideway project had a layout problem that risked major rework on a $450 million project. The team stayed calm, traversed the entire site, took thousands of side shots, and found a five-inch GPS coordinate bust from third-party surveyors. They modified one spiral segment and fabricated the central guide rail specifically to preserve existing work. The biggest takeaway is stay ca...

Quality control simplified to three artifacts: team meeting agenda, quality process, and feature of work board. The quality process has six phases: teaming, pre-mobilization meeting two weeks after contract, pre-construction meeting three weeks before work starts, material inspection, initial inspection, and follow-up walks with rolling completion lists. The feature of work board has bullet list o...

Apostates are people who renounce a principle but stay in the organization and publicly dissent. If you are a dissenter, apostate, or not a cultural fit, fire yourself and find somewhere you will be happier. Cultural change causes 5 to 33 percent of people to actively fight the change and dig in like Alabama ticks. Zappos offers employees money to quit after a certain term to make the decision eas...

    Work-life balance is failing at your own project if you focus only on work and not on family. Planning out daily work and weekly schedules creates clarity and capacity to focus. Mr. Decker built a deck on the trailer with roof, lights, and microwave so workers could feel at home. He bought a grill for trade appreciation lunches and Friday luncheons, creating community on the job site. What you...

Jesse Hernandez spent 20 years coping with industry stresses through substance abuse and multiple arrests. Just over five years sober, Jesse rode his bicycle and public transportation to job sites after losing his license. Lean professionals exposed him to leadership development and he learned he did not have to be defined by past behaviors. Now Jesse travels nationwide helping men and women who b...

For podcast number 400, Jason delivers a quick, high impact list of advice for anyone in construction with their hand raised to become a general superintendent, project executive, COO, or CEO. He covers personal mastery, the discipline of reading and continuous learning, the difference between doing and leading, why advertising yourself matters, and why finances are not optional. The episode ends...

Jason corrects a nuance from his previous episode on building capacity vs. pushing. He distinguishes between pushing, which is coercive and destructive, and driving with urgency, which is the intrinsic mark of a great builder. He uses the image of Japanese train attendees cramming people into rail cars and frosting being squeezed through a tiny nozzle to capture what pushing really looks like, the...

Jason makes the case that the worsening supply chain crisis can't be wished away, but the unforced errors absolutely can. Recording from the road after setting up a new studio, he walks through a four part emergency plan every project should have running in the next two weeks: a real procurement log built in Excel with all the right columns, a weekly procurement meeting with the entire project tea...

Jason makes the case that the real fix for the construction industry doesn't come from new tools, new philosophies, or even Lean alone. It comes from getting back to the fundamentals through a strong field engineer program. He shares his own story of nearly being fired before reading Wes Crawford's Field Engineering Methods Manual, the legacy of the Field Engineer Boot Camp, and why every company...