#140 Death of Mediocrity
Hello, and welcome to another episode of construction corner podcast. I'm Dylan, I'm your host guys. We don't have a guest today, but before I get into it, so Matt and I come, come to every week. Talk about things that are relevant within the industry. Frankly, what needs to be talked about. And, you know, our mission here is to build a great America, whether we're building it or designing it on our own end or for you guys to do a better job, right.
I hate going down the street and seeing buildings that look like shit for no good reason, frankly. And I mean, I hope you all appreciate, you know, good architecture, good design, good building is you, you go through really anywhere in the world, but our mission here is to help you. Build better and build a great America.
And with that, you know, we don't always talk about nice things, easy things, things that people want to hear about. And, uh, we were, uh, kind of shooting the shit before the show and just finally decided to hit record on. Talking about, and we're going to just dive right into it. But if you'd like to show, do you want us to be the loud mouths to, uh, tell your friends, look, you've been saying all along, uh, please go ahead, share the show.
Uh, we appreciate it. And we, again, we don't do this for, for money. For notoriety, for fame, it's all to help you guys, uh, become better in the construction industry. Again, designers, owners, architects, engineers, contractors, subs, everybody. Uh, and with. I think they were talking about is throughout the industry.
There's people that do they go above and beyond, right? They do do a great job. They try to do the right thing. And more often than not, they get shit on for frankly. No good reason. Maybe not a reason somebody understands. And you know, Matt, you can jump in here at any point, but this is, you know, I think the big thing.
It ruins so many people within our industry. It beats them down and you just kind of become lethargic on the topic because you're just like, why does it even matter anymore? And that's a bad stance to be in that place. Um, but it happens, happens to the best of us.
It does because we allow for so much mediocrity all across the board, right.
From designers to. The specifiers to suppliers, to builders, to subcontractors, and to owners and clients. Also, we allow mediocrity at all levels and it takes the, the guy or the girl, the man, or the woman who's really stretching and really going above and beyond to produce a great product and to really produce the best for their client, whoever that client is.
Beats them down because you can fight as hard as you can all day long, all week long. And all it takes sometimes is that one asshole said to come back and, and flip the script on you. And, you know, people have a hard time coming back from that. And it's so easy to just sit in the corner, be a part of the gray, right.
And never riff, never ripple the water and never, never ruffle up the, the rug. Uh, and people will almost be forced into that. If, if you don't have that mentality of constant fight and constantly trying to improve and to grow into better every day, most people will slide off into that corner. Never to be seen again.
I mean, guys, think of it this way. So you've got your standard projects. Let's say you go above and beyond, right. You maybe do a little more for a given milestone deliverable, you bust ass and, uh, on the field and you, you get a re an extra room done that day, right. You really just kicked ass and got more shit done, but because of whatever reason, You get yelled at for going above and beyond, right.
For doing more than you were paid for, which is a, you know, golden rule, if you will. And, uh, to go on. Doing that extra work, but you get beat down. You get told like, Hey, we don't do this, this isn't, you know, we don't go above. We just do what we're here to do. Cause probably somebody gotten chewed before or came to bite him in the ass for whatever reason.
But now you're basically being told, and this is a cultural problem throughout the industry that, Hey, you doing more and better? It's not good here. We don't like it where we're not good with it. And because of that. So you never, maybe try again next time, right? You try to do your best, do a great job, go above and beyond, you know, fix stuff that needs to be fixed.
Find a better tool, uh, changed some processes, whatever, right? Fix the thing that you had problems with. Go above and beyond do it. And then again, you get chewed out for it for no good reason. The guy wasn't having a good day, but over and over and over again, this happens. And now. You never want to go above and beyond again, you never want to do a great job again, and you get beat into mediocrity.
You get beat into a submission basically of why should I care then? Why, why does this even matter? And that is a bad attitude straight up. But it's a cultural thing across the industry, frankly. There's a lot of it in our country right now where people are getting beat into just not caring and it's a bad place to be.
It's old school union mentality at its finest. And it's one of the reasons why the union started to fall apart and lost their grasp on, on frankly, lots of industries. Automotive industry is a great example. The teachers' union is a great example of one that mediocrity. It doesn't even begin. It, it pales in comparison to the fluff in the gray that our teachers are now teaching.
I can't get any farther on that topic cause I'll, I'll lose my shit here. But in construction, you know, the, the unions a lot, a lot of that stuff. They allowed that, that mediocre, they, they punished and frowned upon the guy doing more. So a lot of firms do unionize. They took the risk, they paid their money.
They got out. And not to say that we don't work with union shops. We do some of my favorite carpenters are still unionized. Our painter is still unionized. They're smaller shops and they, they found a way to. Keep culture high and to keep culture at the forefront of what they do. So their guys go out and bust ass and they produce, and they really know how to play the game.
But I would say 90% of our subcontractor partners that we we team with are non-union. And it's because of that, that mediocrity, that bread and infested the industry, you know, 20. Plus a years ago, whenever it was that it really can prevalent. And I don't know, man. I mean it, I see it coming back. I see it in different sections and in different trades, especially you see it all over the news right now.
Uh, if, if we, as an industry, allow ourselves to go and, and abolish say right to work laws, this industry is gonna it's in for. Dumping, like, I don't think many people realize it's going to bring that mediocre bullshit mentality flying back to the surface and we're all screwed for it.
I mean, just think of the projects that are hard enough to get done today as it is, right.
The, the jobs that, and this has been going on for a decade where you, you can't find work, you can't find people to. Produce the work. You can't find anybody to get it done. Your subs, your suppliers, everybody up and down. The entire supply chain is having problems in finding good people and getting it done.
And you add now on top of that, a culture and environment where it becomes difficult to even attract people into the industry, let alone good people, man. Like why would you come into a. You know what construction is a great industry. Why would you then come into a place where you're just going to get beat down, yelled at it?
And no one is ever trying harder to get better, to improve, to find, you know what I mean? Like productivity is. The lowest in construction it's ever been. There's no investment in anything which we've touched on in many episodes. You know, like most industries invest like four and a half percent in R and D constructions at like 1.2%.
And most firms don't even invest that in their company. I mean, Across the board engineers, architects, and architects are some of the worst, like the ones still using AutoCAD that haven't, you know, come out of the dark ages. I mean, it's, it's affecting their business. They're not able to grow. And, but again, it's just how it's always been and settling for mediocrity versus allowing.
You know, innovation to happen and just holding a higher standard. I've run into this on so many projects here lately where, uh, people, frankly, just don't care. Uh, and it trickles all the way through the project. Like if nobody really cares or holds the line for it, well, you know what, why should I, right.
If you get beat down on a project, okay. Like, again, not mine. Right. But that. It's tough when that happens on many projects, you just, it gets apathetic and nobody delivers. And then you wonder why the project turns out the way it does at the end of the day, when it could have been great. If you know, some standards in lines were held at the top, right at the owner level, at the, you know, from the beginning of the project before you got into the rest of it,
and it comes down to a topic we've frequented on this show and that's, you gotta be willing to have the difficult.
Uncomfortable conversations because nothing changes if you don't, if we just keep blindly letting things happen to us, we'll look at where we are right now. You know,
we, we allow so much to be taken for granted and we allow so many times to think that everyone else has our best interest in mind at all times. And. Politically speaking. I'm not, not even going there, but now more than ever, we're seeing, that's not the case. And it's not the case in construction. That's not the case in medicine.
It's not the case in politics. It's not the case in absolutely anything outside of maybe the parent and child relationship. You know, it just isn't, people all want what's best for them. We're all selfish by nature. So if you can't have the difficult conversations upfront and make sure that the people who are working for you or with you, or whatever are doing what they're supposed to be doing, and if you don't agree with it, you challenge it.
If you can't do that. We just allow ourselves to keep digging this perpetual hole. And I've got thousands of examples. I'm on a project right now that we have busted our ass for the last year to keep this project afloat. We broke ground in, I don't know, whenever the snow went away, may June, and, but for the last year, year and a half, we've we've struggled.
We've fought. We've been. Insane negotiations and deals with our suppliers and vendors to keep pricing that frankly, we, we offered up a year ago. That's unheard of, and without getting into too many of the details and giving away this project, there were things that took place on the design side, where the owner didn't ask the right questions.
He just assumed that this guy, this designer, he hired was absolutely working in his best interest. And. I can tell you that absolutely did not happen. The guy is, is overpaying immensely for the product he's trying to bring to market. And it all could have been solved by just asking those questions. And by having the uncomfortable conversation, pushing back when, when you need to push back and instead he didn't, he kind of rolled over when he was asked to roll it over and.
It's a bad scenario to be a part of it. It's sucks to watch and we'll build it. It'll be a great building. It'll be, it'll stand for, you know, 50, 60 years, whatever, what I know we could have done it better. Had we been involved in a different capacity? Cause I would have pushed back. I would have asked those questions to the people that were sketching and drawing this thing I would have.
I don't have any problem being the asshole. I don't, I don't like to hang my hat on that, but sometimes you have to do.
I mean, so my, uh, my in-laws were out here this last week. They're designing a house, building a house out here in California. And in that they hired an architect, right. Residential architect to do it, that was assigned by the, uh, kind of subdivision, right.
That they're in, that you had to use this architect to, to build it. And then, you know, they've had a falling out with the first builder, cause I never responded to an email. Uh, contractor just never, never got back to them or one of those like, oh yeah, I'm getting around to it type of things. Uh, I never did.
Uh, they, they finally found somebody that was good at it, but they were doing sidewalks. So, you know, slabs Ford framing's going up. And they had, you know, like sidelights, uh, around their fireplace and some other like transom stuff and they were wearing. With the architect and architect point out like, Hey, you know, they're missing this.
Like it's not framed properly, which that happens. Like, you know, anybody can miss anything. Uh, and you know, not, I mean, it's their fault, but it's not like a problem. Right. Cut early. It's still in framing. We can fix it. And the architect was like, oh no, I don't wanna, I don't want say anything. Uh it's uh, I don't want.
It's not. And then, you know, my in-laws brought it up to their builder. Like, Hey, you know, we noticed this where, you know, this wasn't framed properly and he's like, oh yeah, no, we'll take care of that. Like, it's, it's not a big deal. Right? Like they're like, oh yeah, no, that's right. Okay, cool. Um, but far too often, right.
That, that architect didn't bring it up. And that's a problem, but also in that relationship, they're not contractually obligated to do that either. And not that this should be a contract thing, but it's, it just goes to show that somebody who's been, been, been beaten down for long enough won't ever raise anything when it's an actual problem, you know, and knows that it's a problem, knows it wasn't done correctly.
And you know, that type of thing just perpetuates through everything else.
It stops people from just doing the right thing, because we all know that that's the easiest way to solve. All of our problems is just do the right thing all the time. But it stops people from doing that. Like this architect, you know, it doesn't do any good for the industry.
It doesn't do any good for us as a society as a whole. I don't know how far, how far down that rabbit hole to go, but it just, it permeates every.
Well, and it's one of those things of like, why'd I even hire an architect. Right? So from, from the design community, right in this side of it, it's you hear those stories are too often, right.
Of somebody who was hired to, you know, basically design, build a custom home, right. Or design a custom home for somebody and like, you know, For anybody building a home more than likely it's not a small investment to them. Right. It's very personal it's especially homes, right? It's a very personal thing.
It's your own tastes, all this stuff. And then for somebody to just not care right. At the same level that, that you do is just, it's so disheartening and. It's problematic on a lot of, on a lot of ways, but this gives the design community, such a bad name to where, especially in residential, where. You want people to care to the level that you are for the thing that is so much, you know, and it could vary in scale, right?
So someone's half a million dollar home or $200,000 home to someone's half a million to someone's $20 million house, right. There's equal amount of care in each of those, for, for the given person and for the design professional to not give a shit. Is it just shits on everybody through.
Yeah. And it's, it's not just the design guy.
I give them a hard time when we bought heads all the time, but I mean, that's the mentality that gives construction, the shit named that it sometimes has, right. It's permeates everything, the GC, the subs everybody's out to screw everyone else and, and make a fast buck. You know that those stereotypes were founded in truth, right?
Or at least in partial truth, I should say there's bad apples in every bunch. But I think a lot of it is, it just, it's a systemic problem as a society that we have allowed to fester and to grow unchecked for years and years and years.
And here's the thing right on the other side of that. If you care, if you actually do a good job, if you actually respond in a timely fashion, if you do a lot of the things that we talk about here on the show, you would have a great business, right?
It would grow, it would be profitable, just like my in-laws. They went from a builder who never answered an email to a guy who was on it and got them permits within, you know, 30 days, right? That's a completely different ball game for a guy that had a year and didn't do anything to somebody that was like handled it and handled it in a very timely fashion, you know?
And it makes all the difference, you know, that guy's business is growing. The other one is not it's real simple.
Yeah. And, and that first guy who, who shipped the bed is going to get weeded out and eventually. Eventually that guy will be out of, uh, out of a company, out of a project, out of a job, whatever it may be, we just need to, we need to start making these decisions and forcing, forcing the bad apples off the tree sooner.
Yeah. And I mean, so changing gears a little bit, you know, from this guy's like, look, it's not rocket science, but the, the gear change is. You were a lot of this, you know, there's a lot of construction firm owners that are, that are doing what they feel is the right thing. And taking on projects at super thin margins, less than the typical one to five, 10% they're typically taken on projects, but even slimmer margins are even at a loss to just keep everybody busy.
Right. And trying to do the right thing and keep their guys employed, keep cashflow moving. And while that's honorable. It's only gonna, it's a short term solution and it's again, not willing to have the conversations with your owners, with your developers on look, crisis are not the same. They were yesterday.
Let alone three weeks ago, let alone six months ago. So. You know, we need to have a different discussion here to remain profitable. So I can be here when you do have a warranty issue in 18 months, and I'm not out of business, like that's a real conversation that I don't think enough people are actually having, uh, in this type of market where prices are changing because they don't want to.
And instead of taking it off, they're taking it on the chin instead of, you know, redressing what it actually cost.
And that's a horrible way to do business, but that's a reality. I see it all the time. I see it every day. You know, you can't, it's, it's a scary conversation to go back to someone and say, Hey, by the way, that number I told you, six months ago, we're 75% higher than that now because of commodity pricing. You know, you and I will understand that we'd be like, oh shit, is that all well, okay.
That makes sense. It sucks, but let's, let's, let's move on to the next day, but people who aren't in it and don't see it, they don't understand that, that combined with these ridiculous lead times and, and lack of material availability, it's very difficult and it's becoming more and more difficult by the day to have to, to, to educate our consumers.
Our. For what is really going on out there. You know, I tell people all the time as a general contractor, I don't make prices. I don't, I don't price this building. All I do is tell you what the market has priced your building at. Now. I like to think that my team, we do it in a way that's much better than everyone else around, you know, and then we build it more efficiently and in a better way and all these great things, but realistically, The market tells us what the building costs.
So it's my job now to educate my prospect, my prospective clients on what the market's telling us. And then we all have to sit down and have that hard conversation to make an educated decision. Do we push on forward? At these numbers at this rate and this level of, or lack of level of availability, do we put it on hold and wait six months and come back and revisit or do we just scrap it, you know, and broom it off and be done.
And, you know, I'm having those conversations almost every day lately. It seems, but that's just a fact of life right now. And if you don't have them, I'll fight tooth and nail for my, my people, my team to keep them working. But it, you know, at a certain point, you, you reached that fault level where it's catastrophic, it's cannibalistic and you can't sustain it.
I'd much rather have the uncomfortable, shitty conversation now and preserve the good for later. If, if we can do that.
And it's having those conversations, you know, what are your options? And you've got to think through those, you know, on the design side, we have these all the time where, you know, Hey, you've got a few options here, take your pick. Right? We don't, I don't really care what you choose. I just need to know what we're going to do moving forward.
Right. We can do one, two or three ways, whatever it might be. And move forward and we just need to have more and more of those conversations. It's ultimately, it's the owner's responsibility for that project. You know, what do you want, how are we going to move forward? Is this something that you're going to do not do?
How do you want to do it? You know, we're, we're good on, you know, really whatever, uh, side and way that you want to move forward, but it's, you gotta have those conversations. Um, try to have a. In small chunks, right? You don't want to like go into this, not having had a lot of hard conversations before and have the really big one, even though sometimes that might be required, but to, to have some tougher, smaller conversations to where it's you realize it's not the end of the world, things aren't going to implode, you know, you can move on and, and live another day.
And I think we need. Again, spend some time thinking about this, not jumped from one fire to the next, not go off on an emotional rip, uh, for, even though we all get there sometimes on, on that next thing to do, but it's also. To know your numbers, to know your options, and then present those options to, you know, especially again, in the building world and the construction world that we live in.
That is the thing you've gotta be able to do is have hard conversations, but know the options to take, you know, left, right. Or we just go home.
That's it, man, I got nothing else. That's that's where we're at. You gotta, you gotta have the hard conversations. You gotta have the knowledge. You gotta be constantly pushing to get better every day, fighting off that, that gray cloud of mediocrity. That's, that's infecting so much. That's how we come out of this prosperous and, and we build our industry and our, and our damn country back to what it should be.
And through that guys, like if you are good, if you are confident in what you can deliver, if you know that you have a great product, a great team, a great everything about you, charge for it. You not be afraid to charge more for your services. This is the other thing in the death spiral that's been happening to construction for a long time is everyone's gotten beat down on prices, right?
You've been. Beat down on your services on design, it's been neglected, you know, when a good design can save a lot of money on the building, right? So if you are good, if you are great at what you do, do not be afraid to charge more people don't accept it. You can be okay with or learn to be okay with that.
Right. And being able to explain the value and why your services are necessary. And this goes for everybody right up and down the chain. If you're a. Deliver a project faster. Is this something, so that adds a lot of value to the project, right? If you can do that as a general contractor and save money and expedite and your scheduling and everything else, financing is better than everybody else, don't be afraid to charge more for it, you know, and this has become a commoditized industry and that hurts everybody.
Couldn't it be more, man?
All right, guys, this is a short episode. We, uh, It's just a lot of bullshit going on in the country, in the world right now. And, um, you know, we'll have more to say on it, but we wanted to talk about some of these things that we feel are important to talk about and not being afraid to charge for it, not being afraid to have hard conversations, to communicate effectively with your clients.
You know, at the end of the day, we want everybody to win one of what need to be great. Great buildings. Great projects. Great owners. Great everybody. And yes. Ben. So systemic through the industry on just getting beat down for doing more, um, you know, sometimes for not doing enough, but more often than not.
It's like we didn't, you know, you did more and that's, that's not good. Um, and that needs to. And again, it's just setting expectations, having hard conversations, trying to set some ground rules, if you will, for each project and then moving forward from there. Uh, so if you like this show, if you like what we're talking about, leave us a review, leave us some comments, guys.
We love to talk more about these things. We're willing to have hard conversations is probably doesn't mean no good, but I'm willing to do it. Cause I think it's the right thing.
And that's this episode of the construction corner podcast until next time.