Vincent Saunders: Well, today's episode a big one anyone in construction who feels like they're constantly stuck in. ⁓ stuck being the adult in the room for every people issue or situation. ⁓ talk a lot about productivity systems and results in construction, but not nearly enough about ⁓ behaviour ⁓ interpersonal skills. My today started his career in HR and now works closely with owners and leadership teams in construction, ⁓ helping ⁓ work the hard stuff, conflict, feedback, tension ⁓ and breakdowns. What I'm really looking forward to in today's conversation with Andy Bergman is why many leadership problems aren't always skill or knowledge issues, but they're communication ⁓ and interpersonal blind spots. Thanks so much, Andy, joining us. How are you going? And are you able just to talk to us a little bit about your career coming from HR and to what you're doing at the moment?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate you having me. Do you want me to jump right in?
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I think so. That'd be great.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah. Yeah, so my background is primarily in construction. I worked for a couple of different contractors. one I worked for the longest, I worked in project management for several years and then transitioned into ⁓ And from there, I got an interesting perspective into the company, working on the leadership team in ⁓ There's ⁓ often so many people issues that would come up. And not that the people were bad. It was usually around either their performance or their behavior. and we didn't really know how to handle it or we didn't know how to handle it well. Of course you can say, well, if you have an issue with an employee, you should talk to them. And so it wasn't that we didn't know that we were supposed to talk to them, but we didn't really know how or how to do it well. I was part of many different meetings and conversations with employees that either weren't clear, they didn't know what we were talking about, or they weren't effective, meaning the person would get offended or pissed off or sad ⁓ that's the case, they usually don't know how to improve or they don't want to. And so I became super maybe or interested to figure out how do you talk to people about like the hard stuff without like making the relationship worse or creating more drama. And so that's kind of where it all started for me. ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's funny because I don't know, all talk, communication's such a, I don't know, we all do it and it feels like it can be such an easy thing, but maybe in construction, I find it's very, sometimes can be very tricky and I don't know, just my experience, I've always been in construction and I don't know, is there one thing or a couple of things that may be in your mind that is. maybe super hard or super lacking in specifically in construction from teams on site or in the office that is why communication is so hard.
Andy Bergmann: It seems that there tends to be two groups of people that people tend to fall into. One is more like the empathetic or you could call the soft side, where they're afraid to hurt feelings and they don't want people to be offended and they don't want people to not like them and so they tend to beat around the bush. And then there's folks on the other end of the spectrum where they're not afraid of conflict, they're really direct and they're right to the point, but the problems they cause are like people are offended or they get mad at them or they don't take the feedback well and When you get two people like that trying to communicate with each other, especially, is you have the direct person overtaking the entire conversation and the more empathetic or soft person is just withdraws and it's really hard to actually solve the problem at hand.
Vincent Saunders: And sort of why, I don't know, this is kind of a thing of sort of turning into a little bit more of a passion project of mine at the moment, sort of why is it so hard to teach these skills maybe specifically in construction, maybe people at trades for a trade level, like an apprenticeship level, and then people moving into sort of a site manager. So I'm trying to think of so I'm trying to think of hopefully you understand these different roles in America. Like hopefully you kind of have these similar roles. just using the New Zealand lingo. But ⁓ why is it so hard in construction to kind of teach people in trades communication as they move through ⁓ a site manager, project manager, maybe their own business, ⁓ then running a team of sort of builders ⁓ ⁓ sort of apprentices. ⁓ of it's so seems so overlooked that communication piece when we're all on site together and communicating with so many different people in one day.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, there might be a few pieces of it. I don't know that the industry does a really good job at making leadership training or leadership development a big deal. I think there's companies that do, but I don't know that the industry necessarily pushes it. Another piece of it too is in construction. Oftentimes people are in different So you may have the office staff working altogether in an office, ⁓ and you have a few different job sites where people are working at different locations. And sometimes just like the proximity. the different groups of people can create like tension, you know, you hear like the office versus the field or this job versus that job or the plumbers versus the HVAC, you know, if you have multiple departments within a company. And so that might be part of it as well. I think maybe in construction too, some of the stuff can feel like soft or unimportant or beta ⁓ weak. And you know, to learn some of these things, it can feel like uncomfortable or you have to show some level of like vulnerability to do it. And that doesn't always well ⁓ tough and gruff construction workers.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I think that's kind of a super, super important sort of, I guess, just a mindset around sort of feedback. can you can for me, I guess you can take feedback either in a positive way, even it's negative feedback, there's an opportunity to learn or you can be on the other side where any feedback is just I'm doing a bad job or I'm terrible at this or my employer doesn't like me. Like just in your experience, sort of.
Andy Bergmann: Mm-hmm.
Vincent Saunders: Where does sort of, I guess, where does some of that feedback sort of fall down in construction? Like is it sometimes it's a bit too harsh to the person, if that makes sense?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, think maybe you could call it like an old school mentality. Maybe, you know, where being overly direct was the way that it was done and people just had accepted that. If we are overly harsh and the person doesn't hear us, it was not effective. And so, and there's some people that like direct feedback. That's their nature and that's how they want it. But if the person is to just take it personally, like... You give one little piece of direct feedback and they they consume it as like I'm a failure. I suck I'm not good at anything. Well, then your feedback isn't gonna work and so I Think being stuck in the mindset. Well, you know, I'm just gonna be I'm gonna be tough and gruff because that's how my boss did it to me know 20 years ago may work But it might not and so if it doesn't work that it's you're almost better off. not doing anything sometimes
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, funny. It's kind of, yeah, it's funny you mentioned that around how my boss, how that's what my boss did, because I feel sometimes in construction, if you're an apprentice, you kind of just learn maybe the skills or the interpersonal skills from trades from your maybe superior or your ⁓ project manager that's on site and you kind of either develop those good habits or bad habits and that kind of just stays, might stay with you for the rest of your career if... ⁓ you don't get feedback on it. It's a funny industry in that regard.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I think it's just how it was modeled for us. It probably starts back with our parents and then maybe our teachers going through school. yeah, any bosses that we have, if we weren't formally taught how to communicate or how to lead people, we tend to just fall back on what was modeled for us because we assume that's how it's supposed to be done.
Vincent Saunders: I just wanted to touch on a powerful story that I think you shared your website and your LinkedIn there. ⁓ You've shared a powerful story about a form and that really changed the direction of your career. So are you to take us back to that moment sitting across the table and sort of how that how that sort of changed your career where you went to?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I was HR for the construction company and we had this foreman that we knew people necessarily love working for. He was ⁓ real direct people, wasn't super supportive, never really give anybody props or attaboys. We kind of hover over people. If you messed up, you really heard about it in front of everybody. But ⁓ where we would stuck the company is, other than that, he was a great foreman. The customers love them. The jobs were coming under budget. They were on schedule. And so from a company perspective, he was doing a good job. And I get a call from an apprentice one day that this, he doesn't want to work with this foreman. We can call him Fred. He doesn't want work with Fred anymore. And, know, my first maybe thought or instinct was, you know, shut up your foreman, go back to work and quit complaining. And I didn't say that, but that's what I thought. And so I talked to him a little bit and ⁓ really ignored it. We didn't do much with that information. And a couple weeks later I get a call from another apprentice, same job, same foreman, and he says, I don't want to work with Fred. And it got to the point where this apprentice was essentially like, I'm ready to quit. I don't want to work for this guy anymore. And so I'd visit with some of the other leaders and said, we maybe like bring Fred in? Should we talk to him about it? And so that's ultimately what we decided. And so we bring him in one afternoon. We're sitting around the conference room table. He's on the other side me and the other leader on are on our side and It's like uncomfortable heart rates up Don't really know what to say or how to say it and it comes out somewhere another, know We really like you you've been doing a really good job except the guys kind of hate working for you Just an awkward silence and remember he looks at this other Other at next to me and he says how long have you guys known about this? who didn't really have an answer. I don't know, a while. Probably ever since you've been a foreman. And I remember looking down at the table, out of discomfort, and I look up and Fred's crying, he tears in his eyes, and he says, why didn't you guys tell me? And I didn't have a good answer for him. I don't know, because you're doing a good job mostly and we didn't want to offend you, we don't want you to quit, and we are kind of a wuss. And so I remember thinking after that meeting, like, how stupid. that has to happen because it doesn't benefit the job, doesn't benefit the apprentices, it doesn't benefit the team, it doesn't benefit anybody except for me a little bit because I don't have to be uncomfortable. You know, I can take the route and just sort of avoid the conversation altogether. And that was probably of the first meetings that I had that I realized like, if we can't learn how to do conflict and can't learn how to do it well, it's going to hold us back. And what's interesting is that foreman did his best to change and we got feedback shortly after that he was a totally different guy to work for.
Vincent Saunders: Wow, it's amazing story. there anything he did differently? Did he just change ⁓ his own? Or was there a bit of a training or a process going through there? Or did he just be a nicer guy at end of the day to some of the apprentices? ⁓
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I don't know that we did so much training or we did very well training. I think more than anything is it just opened a blind spot for him. you we did further explain kind of what the feedback we were getting and more of the details to him. But think he genuinely didn't know. He really didn't know people didn't like him or like working for him.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's pretty fascinating because could imagine potentially putting ⁓ thread on a improvement plan or a big training program to go through, but just having that conversation ⁓ created biggest change and improvement for him, which ⁓ is cool.
Andy Bergmann: ⁓ yeah.
Vincent Saunders: No, great. And sort of just another question around sort of feedback and trust on site, sort of in construction, of tension and conflict, kind of, I don't want to say I'm mostly guaranteed, but ⁓ I think there's a bit to that, but ⁓ a bit of tension and conflict out there sometimes. Sort of what ⁓ sort of healthy teams ⁓ ⁓ ones when comes to dealing with some of those issues?
Andy Bergmann: Mm-hmm. I don't think there's anything wrong with conflict. In fact, I think it's needed. But if you leave the conversation and there's you leave with like negative or hard feelings towards the other person, to me, it didn't go well, or you didn't do your part, or I didn't do my part to communicate well in that conversation. Because all conflict really is, it's problem solving. You have two smart humans with different perspectives trying to find the objective truth. That conflict is needed. But if you leave mad or angry or offended or hurt at end of the conversation, that is not one healthy or that's toxic. And so the ability for both sides to A, have the communication skills, but B, be emotionally mature to handle it, I think that's when it becomes, or that's when it stays healthy.
Vincent Saunders: some leaders can give some feedback from conflict without sounding like a jerk or just coming off way too strong.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, the simplest thing that comes to mind, which I think has the most leverage or is most effective, is the ability to ask way more questions than you do putting in your opinion. Now, there's nothing wrong with having an opinion. And in fact, the beginning of some of these feedback conversations, it's needed. So if somebody is showing up late to work, conversation sound something like, you hey, man, I've noticed that you've showed up to work late three in the last week. You know, what's going on? or how are you doing? Or what can I do to help? You ask these questions and then they may give an excuse or they may get defensive or they may accept it. We don't know how they're going to respond. But if our natural tendency can to be respond with more like open-ended questions or I've heard it titled powerful questions, a powerful question basically has two rules. It starts with the word what and it has less than five words. So if we can ask those kind of questions and that can be our knee-jerk reaction, it's more likely that the conversation will go well. The difficult part of doing that is often we have opinions and we have strong opinions and we like to insert them into the conversation. But when we do that too often without it being asked for, what that can do is it can just push the person away from having healthy conflict because they never feel heard. And so asking questions like, what do you think? What does it look like from your side? What are you going to do next? What's your plan? What else? Those kind of questions can be helpful to get that person to continue to talk.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, that's pretty... Yeah, think open are a game changer because sort of construction, ⁓ just sort of potentially you've just got a lot of experience in two parties that are having a discussion with either, you know, if they're foremen or project managers and they're trying to solve a problem, you've got a huge amount of experience, potentially different ⁓ that they've done certain procedures or certain items on site ⁓ And that's kind of when conflict ⁓ occur. And if you can sort of Again, sort of put your experience to the side and sort of hear the other side first and then sort of add your experience or your intuition around their ideas. I think that can be kind of a great way to have a conversation.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, and you'll know you've done it well is when they start asking for your opinion or your perspective. you can get them to do that, that means you've done a really good job listening to them.
Vincent Saunders: construction. How come they always end up back at the owner's desk because it sort of missing link sort of on the chain upward through sort of from a site team and sort of those project managers and sort of GMs don't really have those skills to mitigate some of those issues and it always sort of comes back works its way back to the top at the owner.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I would say it's either the owner has want to keep on to those decisions or they want to hold on to those issues or those decisions. And so every time it comes up, they put their nose in it. Or two, which is more likely they ⁓ like mentioned, they don't have the skills. The project manager is a foreman, general foreman, operations manager, GM. They don't have the skills to make that issue go away. And so if we have an employee that's we're struggling with their behavior or their performance, or they suck at a certain part of their job. If we don't know how to take that issue and either develop them or make that issue go away, the next natural thing to do is to push that issue up to the next level of leadership. And often that ends up being the owner.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, and sort of kind of really talked about that. So how do you help sort of foremen and either site managers or sort of project managers sort of with that handling of that conflict at their level before it kind of gets to the owner? is there sort of one tip or something that you can share around sort of at a foreman level? You talked about open question, powerful questions, but is it just those questions or is there a bit more to it?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, of course there's tons of nuance to it. ⁓ I think more than anything The communication tips that I teach are not that groundbreaking. I mean, go on to chat GBT and say, how do I give difficult feedback? And it'll give you 100 tips that are awesome. The problem most people have is, remembering to use them, and B, in the moment, knowing how to actually apply it. Because in real life, a lot of times it's more emotional, and it's more difficult, or we're mad. And so really what I'm helping people do is get the reps, doing it over and over. We're building that muscle, so when it does come up, you know how to do it. I think for some folks with difficult, especially with the people that are more empathetic or soft, or that's more their nature, they like to avoid conflict. The hardest part of a difficult conversation typically is anticipating the conversation in the first 10 seconds. So if I can get you just to start the conversation, it's usually not so bad. And a good framework that works well to start it ⁓ is the framework. It stands for Ask, Say, Ask. And so we're going to ask for their help. We're going to say the bad thing and why it's bad. And we're going to ask for their help again. So for example, if you have a guy on site that keeps just walking away when you're trying to give him directions, and you can say, hey, man, I need your help with something. He's going to say, yeah, what's up? earlier when I was trying to talk to you, turned around and walked away. And why that's bad is because, it's not only disrespectful, but then I can't communicate with you. Can you help me fix this? And And even if you have to memorize those three lines in Ask, Say, Ask and walk into it, then you'll start the conversation. And then your next step after that is just asking powerful or open-ended questions to get them to try to understand their side.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, no, super. Yeah, I have so many other questions that pop into my head. So as you're talking about these things, it's such a such a cool conversation. that's and kind of we briefly talked about it. communication can be so easy, but as soon as it gets to a little bit. slightly confrontational. can be, you you don't want to hurt someone else's feelings or you don't want to get on the wrong foot with them because you're working in a small confined space for them for the next six hours or something like that. So it could be, you know, you could be putting yourself in a situation where you could be making it more uncomfortable, but it's a great little tool that asks, ask, ask tool that you talked about there.
Andy Bergmann: There we go. Yeah, and often in conversations, it's easier for our body to go into a fight or flight mode and pump us full of adrenaline. And our lizard brain or our body is thinking that we're being attacked. Our life's on the line. We're being attacked by a tiger. And people ask often, how do I make that? I get so nervous before these conversations. How do I make it go away? And really, The only way to make it go away is to train your brain that it's not life threatening. And the only way to do that is to do it a whole bunch. It's no different than maybe public speaking. People often have a fear of public speaking and the only way to make it go away is just to do it. That's not a very fun answer. It's not very exciting, but you have to train your brain over and over and over that when this happens, I'm not being attacked by a tiger. What will happen is that adrenaline reaction will start to stop.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, cool. hopefully this will take us into the next of questions. But ⁓ talk about installing a leadership operating system ⁓ for the teams you work with. Are you able to break down what looks like or what that actually means?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, it's really like a three step system. If you think of like a pyramid with three layers, the bottom layer is people skills. And so you call them soft skills or interpersonal skills. Things that we're covering would be like humility, vulnerability, emotional intelligence, active listening, recognition and praise. Without that, communication is really difficult to to master or get better at. So the bottom layer is people skills. The middle layer is going to be conflict. which is like the ASA framework and what I've talked about there. Do you have the ability to get into conflict without making it worse? And then the top and final layer is behavior change. Do you have the ability as a leader to change someone else's behavior without just whipping them and threatening to fire them? Do you have the ability to get them to want to change? And so the combination of all three of those does a couple of different things. One, it lowers the level at which people issues can be solved. It doesn't have to go all up to the owner. And two, the leaders in the company have the ability to solve problems better and more quickly.
Vincent Saunders: Perfect. And kind of you resonate sort of strong with leaders who are open minded and sort of committed to growth, but struggle with maybe sort of a closed mindset sometimes. of how do you help those leaders recognize sort of their own blind spots or when they're going through your sort of your training program? Sort of what if somebody What if somebody kind of puts a roadblock in place? How do work through that? And if they're putting up a bit of a wall the training.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, and that's super normal. I mean, I've had folks that come to my training that have straight up said, like, I don't want to be here. My bosses make me come here to let you know I don't want to be here. And really, the way I've been able to overcome that is to build trust with them so that they will listen to me. And how I build trust with them is I use active listening skills, which just isn't going to be super exciting, but it's effective. I use a lot of silence. I ask a lot of powerful questions, and I reflect back what I hear them say. Again, it's not that flowery and exciting, but it is wild. The amount of trust that can be built in a short amount of time. And what will happen is these, and this is usually in a one-on-one setting, not in a classroom setting. But where I know the trust is starting to work is when they start asking me for my opinion. Well, Andy, what do you think I should do? I don't know. Maybe I actually do suck in this area. Do I suck in this area? And once I start asking those kind of questions, I know we're now in a position we can start talking about blind spots or talking about certain issues.
Vincent Saunders: I've got some quick fire questions and kind of sort of a bit of a final takeaway from yourself. Is there anything you wanted to, specifically touch on at all before we go through those last ones?
Andy Bergmann: The only thing that comes to mind is I think with communication, I found for myself, it's easy to think that I'm not the problem, but through coaching people and learning more even about myself is that I am always the problem. And even if I'm not, if I blame the other person, it doesn't serve me. It doesn't fix the problem. so the best thing to do to try to even work on your communication or leadership is to kind of look at yourself and think, well, Maybe, just maybe, I contributed to this problem or to this issue or to this communication fallout or whatever it may be.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I think for me, being in project management still at the moment, you you're working with a lot of different trades, a lot of different maybe consultants or design team, a lot of councils. Like there's always going to be issues, but it's kind of trying to focus on how can sort of help the issue or ⁓ than just sort of putting it onto an engineer and architect saying, this is... You you just need to sort this out. It's sort of what do you need from me in this situation to get the best result for the client at the end of the day? a bit of a quick fire questions here, Andy. So I've got like sort of just four little questions here. yeah, are you first of all, it's of an easy one. Are you a coffee or a tea guy? Nice. ⁓ And one communication habit that every needs.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah. Coffee. Ask more questions.
Vincent Saunders: myth about sort of leadership or leadership in construction.
Andy Bergmann: that it's or weak.
Vincent Saunders: ⁓ One thing leaders should stop avoiding.
Andy Bergmann: telling people when they suck.
Vincent Saunders: a positive way. ⁓
Andy Bergmann: in a positive way, of course, yeah. Don't say it like that, but the feedback needs to be given, like, hey, yeah, of course.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I understand. And best way to reset sort of after either a tough training session for yourself or having a conversation with somebody at one of your sessions or sort of the best way to reset for yourself after a big day.
Andy Bergmann: Hanging out with my friends or family.
Vincent Saunders: Nice, nice, cool. Well, yeah, if there's sort of one thing leaders take away from this conversation and just one point that they could maybe implement tomorrow talking maybe their team or ⁓ their team. So what would that one tip be from yourself?
Andy Bergmann: If you're not confident in the conversation, write down what you're going to say before you go into it.
Vincent Saunders: Okay. Like little bullet points or something or just the whole thing?
Andy Bergmann: Either or, think bullet points can work or if you want to script it out, if we just wing it or send it, oftentimes message becomes very confusing. And so even writing it down yourself will help you think through what the actual problem is before, because otherwise you'll just do it in real time with the person and they're confused thinking like, I in trouble or am I getting praised or, you know, it can be confusing for them.
Vincent Saunders: what's the best way for people to get in contact with you if they want to out and get your guidance on on something.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah. Yeah. So my website, mavexcoaching.com, you can contact me through there or another great place would be LinkedIn, just Andy Bergman. do offer like a free 60 minute workshop on hard conversations and active listening I would present an individual team. So we jump on a team's call or if everybody's in the conference room, I can get on ⁓ a or zoom call as well. And that doesn't cost anything. It's just more than anything for people to get some some basic first steps on how to get better at some of this stuff.
Vincent Saunders: No, amazing. Well, yeah, Andy, thank you so much for sharing your experience. It's been a powerful reminder that leadership isn't about having all the answers, I think, like sort of more questions, more than sort of talking, I think is probably one thing that I'll take away from this conversation. the right conversations at the right time. And thanks so much for jumping on the call, being on other side of the world and joining me here in New Zealand. So yeah, really appreciate it. ⁓ Perfect. Thanks, ⁓
Andy Bergmann: Awesome, well thanks for having me.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, absolutely. No, I appreciate you having me. Do you want me to jump right in?
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I think so. That'd be great.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah. Yeah, so my background is primarily in construction. I worked for a couple of different contractors. one I worked for the longest, I worked in project management for several years and then transitioned into ⁓ And from there, I got an interesting perspective into the company, working on the leadership team in ⁓ There's ⁓ often so many people issues that would come up. And not that the people were bad. It was usually around either their performance or their behavior. and we didn't really know how to handle it or we didn't know how to handle it well. Of course you can say, well, if you have an issue with an employee, you should talk to them. And so it wasn't that we didn't know that we were supposed to talk to them, but we didn't really know how or how to do it well. I was part of many different meetings and conversations with employees that either weren't clear, they didn't know what we were talking about, or they weren't effective, meaning the person would get offended or pissed off or sad ⁓ that's the case, they usually don't know how to improve or they don't want to. And so I became super maybe or interested to figure out how do you talk to people about like the hard stuff without like making the relationship worse or creating more drama. And so that's kind of where it all started for me. ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's funny because I don't know, all talk, communication's such a, I don't know, we all do it and it feels like it can be such an easy thing, but maybe in construction, I find it's very, sometimes can be very tricky and I don't know, just my experience, I've always been in construction and I don't know, is there one thing or a couple of things that may be in your mind that is. maybe super hard or super lacking in specifically in construction from teams on site or in the office that is why communication is so hard.
Andy Bergmann: It seems that there tends to be two groups of people that people tend to fall into. One is more like the empathetic or you could call the soft side, where they're afraid to hurt feelings and they don't want people to be offended and they don't want people to not like them and so they tend to beat around the bush. And then there's folks on the other end of the spectrum where they're not afraid of conflict, they're really direct and they're right to the point, but the problems they cause are like people are offended or they get mad at them or they don't take the feedback well and When you get two people like that trying to communicate with each other, especially, is you have the direct person overtaking the entire conversation and the more empathetic or soft person is just withdraws and it's really hard to actually solve the problem at hand.
Vincent Saunders: And sort of why, I don't know, this is kind of a thing of sort of turning into a little bit more of a passion project of mine at the moment, sort of why is it so hard to teach these skills maybe specifically in construction, maybe people at trades for a trade level, like an apprenticeship level, and then people moving into sort of a site manager. So I'm trying to think of so I'm trying to think of hopefully you understand these different roles in America. Like hopefully you kind of have these similar roles. just using the New Zealand lingo. But ⁓ why is it so hard in construction to kind of teach people in trades communication as they move through ⁓ a site manager, project manager, maybe their own business, ⁓ then running a team of sort of builders ⁓ ⁓ sort of apprentices. ⁓ of it's so seems so overlooked that communication piece when we're all on site together and communicating with so many different people in one day.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, there might be a few pieces of it. I don't know that the industry does a really good job at making leadership training or leadership development a big deal. I think there's companies that do, but I don't know that the industry necessarily pushes it. Another piece of it too is in construction. Oftentimes people are in different So you may have the office staff working altogether in an office, ⁓ and you have a few different job sites where people are working at different locations. And sometimes just like the proximity. the different groups of people can create like tension, you know, you hear like the office versus the field or this job versus that job or the plumbers versus the HVAC, you know, if you have multiple departments within a company. And so that might be part of it as well. I think maybe in construction too, some of the stuff can feel like soft or unimportant or beta ⁓ weak. And you know, to learn some of these things, it can feel like uncomfortable or you have to show some level of like vulnerability to do it. And that doesn't always well ⁓ tough and gruff construction workers.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I think that's kind of a super, super important sort of, I guess, just a mindset around sort of feedback. can you can for me, I guess you can take feedback either in a positive way, even it's negative feedback, there's an opportunity to learn or you can be on the other side where any feedback is just I'm doing a bad job or I'm terrible at this or my employer doesn't like me. Like just in your experience, sort of.
Andy Bergmann: Mm-hmm.
Vincent Saunders: Where does sort of, I guess, where does some of that feedback sort of fall down in construction? Like is it sometimes it's a bit too harsh to the person, if that makes sense?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, think maybe you could call it like an old school mentality. Maybe, you know, where being overly direct was the way that it was done and people just had accepted that. If we are overly harsh and the person doesn't hear us, it was not effective. And so, and there's some people that like direct feedback. That's their nature and that's how they want it. But if the person is to just take it personally, like... You give one little piece of direct feedback and they they consume it as like I'm a failure. I suck I'm not good at anything. Well, then your feedback isn't gonna work and so I Think being stuck in the mindset. Well, you know, I'm just gonna be I'm gonna be tough and gruff because that's how my boss did it to me know 20 years ago may work But it might not and so if it doesn't work that it's you're almost better off. not doing anything sometimes
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, funny. It's kind of, yeah, it's funny you mentioned that around how my boss, how that's what my boss did, because I feel sometimes in construction, if you're an apprentice, you kind of just learn maybe the skills or the interpersonal skills from trades from your maybe superior or your ⁓ project manager that's on site and you kind of either develop those good habits or bad habits and that kind of just stays, might stay with you for the rest of your career if... ⁓ you don't get feedback on it. It's a funny industry in that regard.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I think it's just how it was modeled for us. It probably starts back with our parents and then maybe our teachers going through school. yeah, any bosses that we have, if we weren't formally taught how to communicate or how to lead people, we tend to just fall back on what was modeled for us because we assume that's how it's supposed to be done.
Vincent Saunders: I just wanted to touch on a powerful story that I think you shared your website and your LinkedIn there. ⁓ You've shared a powerful story about a form and that really changed the direction of your career. So are you to take us back to that moment sitting across the table and sort of how that how that sort of changed your career where you went to?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I was HR for the construction company and we had this foreman that we knew people necessarily love working for. He was ⁓ real direct people, wasn't super supportive, never really give anybody props or attaboys. We kind of hover over people. If you messed up, you really heard about it in front of everybody. But ⁓ where we would stuck the company is, other than that, he was a great foreman. The customers love them. The jobs were coming under budget. They were on schedule. And so from a company perspective, he was doing a good job. And I get a call from an apprentice one day that this, he doesn't want to work with this foreman. We can call him Fred. He doesn't want work with Fred anymore. And, know, my first maybe thought or instinct was, you know, shut up your foreman, go back to work and quit complaining. And I didn't say that, but that's what I thought. And so I talked to him a little bit and ⁓ really ignored it. We didn't do much with that information. And a couple weeks later I get a call from another apprentice, same job, same foreman, and he says, I don't want to work with Fred. And it got to the point where this apprentice was essentially like, I'm ready to quit. I don't want to work for this guy anymore. And so I'd visit with some of the other leaders and said, we maybe like bring Fred in? Should we talk to him about it? And so that's ultimately what we decided. And so we bring him in one afternoon. We're sitting around the conference room table. He's on the other side me and the other leader on are on our side and It's like uncomfortable heart rates up Don't really know what to say or how to say it and it comes out somewhere another, know We really like you you've been doing a really good job except the guys kind of hate working for you Just an awkward silence and remember he looks at this other Other at next to me and he says how long have you guys known about this? who didn't really have an answer. I don't know, a while. Probably ever since you've been a foreman. And I remember looking down at the table, out of discomfort, and I look up and Fred's crying, he tears in his eyes, and he says, why didn't you guys tell me? And I didn't have a good answer for him. I don't know, because you're doing a good job mostly and we didn't want to offend you, we don't want you to quit, and we are kind of a wuss. And so I remember thinking after that meeting, like, how stupid. that has to happen because it doesn't benefit the job, doesn't benefit the apprentices, it doesn't benefit the team, it doesn't benefit anybody except for me a little bit because I don't have to be uncomfortable. You know, I can take the route and just sort of avoid the conversation altogether. And that was probably of the first meetings that I had that I realized like, if we can't learn how to do conflict and can't learn how to do it well, it's going to hold us back. And what's interesting is that foreman did his best to change and we got feedback shortly after that he was a totally different guy to work for.
Vincent Saunders: Wow, it's amazing story. there anything he did differently? Did he just change ⁓ his own? Or was there a bit of a training or a process going through there? Or did he just be a nicer guy at end of the day to some of the apprentices? ⁓
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I don't know that we did so much training or we did very well training. I think more than anything is it just opened a blind spot for him. you we did further explain kind of what the feedback we were getting and more of the details to him. But think he genuinely didn't know. He really didn't know people didn't like him or like working for him.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's pretty fascinating because could imagine potentially putting ⁓ thread on a improvement plan or a big training program to go through, but just having that conversation ⁓ created biggest change and improvement for him, which ⁓ is cool.
Andy Bergmann: ⁓ yeah.
Vincent Saunders: No, great. And sort of just another question around sort of feedback and trust on site, sort of in construction, of tension and conflict, kind of, I don't want to say I'm mostly guaranteed, but ⁓ I think there's a bit to that, but ⁓ a bit of tension and conflict out there sometimes. Sort of what ⁓ sort of healthy teams ⁓ ⁓ ones when comes to dealing with some of those issues?
Andy Bergmann: Mm-hmm. I don't think there's anything wrong with conflict. In fact, I think it's needed. But if you leave the conversation and there's you leave with like negative or hard feelings towards the other person, to me, it didn't go well, or you didn't do your part, or I didn't do my part to communicate well in that conversation. Because all conflict really is, it's problem solving. You have two smart humans with different perspectives trying to find the objective truth. That conflict is needed. But if you leave mad or angry or offended or hurt at end of the conversation, that is not one healthy or that's toxic. And so the ability for both sides to A, have the communication skills, but B, be emotionally mature to handle it, I think that's when it becomes, or that's when it stays healthy.
Vincent Saunders: some leaders can give some feedback from conflict without sounding like a jerk or just coming off way too strong.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, the simplest thing that comes to mind, which I think has the most leverage or is most effective, is the ability to ask way more questions than you do putting in your opinion. Now, there's nothing wrong with having an opinion. And in fact, the beginning of some of these feedback conversations, it's needed. So if somebody is showing up late to work, conversation sound something like, you hey, man, I've noticed that you've showed up to work late three in the last week. You know, what's going on? or how are you doing? Or what can I do to help? You ask these questions and then they may give an excuse or they may get defensive or they may accept it. We don't know how they're going to respond. But if our natural tendency can to be respond with more like open-ended questions or I've heard it titled powerful questions, a powerful question basically has two rules. It starts with the word what and it has less than five words. So if we can ask those kind of questions and that can be our knee-jerk reaction, it's more likely that the conversation will go well. The difficult part of doing that is often we have opinions and we have strong opinions and we like to insert them into the conversation. But when we do that too often without it being asked for, what that can do is it can just push the person away from having healthy conflict because they never feel heard. And so asking questions like, what do you think? What does it look like from your side? What are you going to do next? What's your plan? What else? Those kind of questions can be helpful to get that person to continue to talk.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, that's pretty... Yeah, think open are a game changer because sort of construction, ⁓ just sort of potentially you've just got a lot of experience in two parties that are having a discussion with either, you know, if they're foremen or project managers and they're trying to solve a problem, you've got a huge amount of experience, potentially different ⁓ that they've done certain procedures or certain items on site ⁓ And that's kind of when conflict ⁓ occur. And if you can sort of Again, sort of put your experience to the side and sort of hear the other side first and then sort of add your experience or your intuition around their ideas. I think that can be kind of a great way to have a conversation.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, and you'll know you've done it well is when they start asking for your opinion or your perspective. you can get them to do that, that means you've done a really good job listening to them.
Vincent Saunders: construction. How come they always end up back at the owner's desk because it sort of missing link sort of on the chain upward through sort of from a site team and sort of those project managers and sort of GMs don't really have those skills to mitigate some of those issues and it always sort of comes back works its way back to the top at the owner.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, I would say it's either the owner has want to keep on to those decisions or they want to hold on to those issues or those decisions. And so every time it comes up, they put their nose in it. Or two, which is more likely they ⁓ like mentioned, they don't have the skills. The project manager is a foreman, general foreman, operations manager, GM. They don't have the skills to make that issue go away. And so if we have an employee that's we're struggling with their behavior or their performance, or they suck at a certain part of their job. If we don't know how to take that issue and either develop them or make that issue go away, the next natural thing to do is to push that issue up to the next level of leadership. And often that ends up being the owner.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, and sort of kind of really talked about that. So how do you help sort of foremen and either site managers or sort of project managers sort of with that handling of that conflict at their level before it kind of gets to the owner? is there sort of one tip or something that you can share around sort of at a foreman level? You talked about open question, powerful questions, but is it just those questions or is there a bit more to it?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, of course there's tons of nuance to it. ⁓ I think more than anything The communication tips that I teach are not that groundbreaking. I mean, go on to chat GBT and say, how do I give difficult feedback? And it'll give you 100 tips that are awesome. The problem most people have is, remembering to use them, and B, in the moment, knowing how to actually apply it. Because in real life, a lot of times it's more emotional, and it's more difficult, or we're mad. And so really what I'm helping people do is get the reps, doing it over and over. We're building that muscle, so when it does come up, you know how to do it. I think for some folks with difficult, especially with the people that are more empathetic or soft, or that's more their nature, they like to avoid conflict. The hardest part of a difficult conversation typically is anticipating the conversation in the first 10 seconds. So if I can get you just to start the conversation, it's usually not so bad. And a good framework that works well to start it ⁓ is the framework. It stands for Ask, Say, Ask. And so we're going to ask for their help. We're going to say the bad thing and why it's bad. And we're going to ask for their help again. So for example, if you have a guy on site that keeps just walking away when you're trying to give him directions, and you can say, hey, man, I need your help with something. He's going to say, yeah, what's up? earlier when I was trying to talk to you, turned around and walked away. And why that's bad is because, it's not only disrespectful, but then I can't communicate with you. Can you help me fix this? And And even if you have to memorize those three lines in Ask, Say, Ask and walk into it, then you'll start the conversation. And then your next step after that is just asking powerful or open-ended questions to get them to try to understand their side.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, no, super. Yeah, I have so many other questions that pop into my head. So as you're talking about these things, it's such a such a cool conversation. that's and kind of we briefly talked about it. communication can be so easy, but as soon as it gets to a little bit. slightly confrontational. can be, you you don't want to hurt someone else's feelings or you don't want to get on the wrong foot with them because you're working in a small confined space for them for the next six hours or something like that. So it could be, you know, you could be putting yourself in a situation where you could be making it more uncomfortable, but it's a great little tool that asks, ask, ask tool that you talked about there.
Andy Bergmann: There we go. Yeah, and often in conversations, it's easier for our body to go into a fight or flight mode and pump us full of adrenaline. And our lizard brain or our body is thinking that we're being attacked. Our life's on the line. We're being attacked by a tiger. And people ask often, how do I make that? I get so nervous before these conversations. How do I make it go away? And really, The only way to make it go away is to train your brain that it's not life threatening. And the only way to do that is to do it a whole bunch. It's no different than maybe public speaking. People often have a fear of public speaking and the only way to make it go away is just to do it. That's not a very fun answer. It's not very exciting, but you have to train your brain over and over and over that when this happens, I'm not being attacked by a tiger. What will happen is that adrenaline reaction will start to stop.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, cool. hopefully this will take us into the next of questions. But ⁓ talk about installing a leadership operating system ⁓ for the teams you work with. Are you able to break down what looks like or what that actually means?
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, it's really like a three step system. If you think of like a pyramid with three layers, the bottom layer is people skills. And so you call them soft skills or interpersonal skills. Things that we're covering would be like humility, vulnerability, emotional intelligence, active listening, recognition and praise. Without that, communication is really difficult to to master or get better at. So the bottom layer is people skills. The middle layer is going to be conflict. which is like the ASA framework and what I've talked about there. Do you have the ability to get into conflict without making it worse? And then the top and final layer is behavior change. Do you have the ability as a leader to change someone else's behavior without just whipping them and threatening to fire them? Do you have the ability to get them to want to change? And so the combination of all three of those does a couple of different things. One, it lowers the level at which people issues can be solved. It doesn't have to go all up to the owner. And two, the leaders in the company have the ability to solve problems better and more quickly.
Vincent Saunders: Perfect. And kind of you resonate sort of strong with leaders who are open minded and sort of committed to growth, but struggle with maybe sort of a closed mindset sometimes. of how do you help those leaders recognize sort of their own blind spots or when they're going through your sort of your training program? Sort of what if somebody What if somebody kind of puts a roadblock in place? How do work through that? And if they're putting up a bit of a wall the training.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah, and that's super normal. I mean, I've had folks that come to my training that have straight up said, like, I don't want to be here. My bosses make me come here to let you know I don't want to be here. And really, the way I've been able to overcome that is to build trust with them so that they will listen to me. And how I build trust with them is I use active listening skills, which just isn't going to be super exciting, but it's effective. I use a lot of silence. I ask a lot of powerful questions, and I reflect back what I hear them say. Again, it's not that flowery and exciting, but it is wild. The amount of trust that can be built in a short amount of time. And what will happen is these, and this is usually in a one-on-one setting, not in a classroom setting. But where I know the trust is starting to work is when they start asking me for my opinion. Well, Andy, what do you think I should do? I don't know. Maybe I actually do suck in this area. Do I suck in this area? And once I start asking those kind of questions, I know we're now in a position we can start talking about blind spots or talking about certain issues.
Vincent Saunders: I've got some quick fire questions and kind of sort of a bit of a final takeaway from yourself. Is there anything you wanted to, specifically touch on at all before we go through those last ones?
Andy Bergmann: The only thing that comes to mind is I think with communication, I found for myself, it's easy to think that I'm not the problem, but through coaching people and learning more even about myself is that I am always the problem. And even if I'm not, if I blame the other person, it doesn't serve me. It doesn't fix the problem. so the best thing to do to try to even work on your communication or leadership is to kind of look at yourself and think, well, Maybe, just maybe, I contributed to this problem or to this issue or to this communication fallout or whatever it may be.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I think for me, being in project management still at the moment, you you're working with a lot of different trades, a lot of different maybe consultants or design team, a lot of councils. Like there's always going to be issues, but it's kind of trying to focus on how can sort of help the issue or ⁓ than just sort of putting it onto an engineer and architect saying, this is... You you just need to sort this out. It's sort of what do you need from me in this situation to get the best result for the client at the end of the day? a bit of a quick fire questions here, Andy. So I've got like sort of just four little questions here. yeah, are you first of all, it's of an easy one. Are you a coffee or a tea guy? Nice. ⁓ And one communication habit that every needs.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah. Coffee. Ask more questions.
Vincent Saunders: myth about sort of leadership or leadership in construction.
Andy Bergmann: that it's or weak.
Vincent Saunders: ⁓ One thing leaders should stop avoiding.
Andy Bergmann: telling people when they suck.
Vincent Saunders: a positive way. ⁓
Andy Bergmann: in a positive way, of course, yeah. Don't say it like that, but the feedback needs to be given, like, hey, yeah, of course.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, I understand. And best way to reset sort of after either a tough training session for yourself or having a conversation with somebody at one of your sessions or sort of the best way to reset for yourself after a big day.
Andy Bergmann: Hanging out with my friends or family.
Vincent Saunders: Nice, nice, cool. Well, yeah, if there's sort of one thing leaders take away from this conversation and just one point that they could maybe implement tomorrow talking maybe their team or ⁓ their team. So what would that one tip be from yourself?
Andy Bergmann: If you're not confident in the conversation, write down what you're going to say before you go into it.
Vincent Saunders: Okay. Like little bullet points or something or just the whole thing?
Andy Bergmann: Either or, think bullet points can work or if you want to script it out, if we just wing it or send it, oftentimes message becomes very confusing. And so even writing it down yourself will help you think through what the actual problem is before, because otherwise you'll just do it in real time with the person and they're confused thinking like, I in trouble or am I getting praised or, you know, it can be confusing for them.
Vincent Saunders: what's the best way for people to get in contact with you if they want to out and get your guidance on on something.
Andy Bergmann: Yeah. Yeah. So my website, mavexcoaching.com, you can contact me through there or another great place would be LinkedIn, just Andy Bergman. do offer like a free 60 minute workshop on hard conversations and active listening I would present an individual team. So we jump on a team's call or if everybody's in the conference room, I can get on ⁓ a or zoom call as well. And that doesn't cost anything. It's just more than anything for people to get some some basic first steps on how to get better at some of this stuff.
Vincent Saunders: No, amazing. Well, yeah, Andy, thank you so much for sharing your experience. It's been a powerful reminder that leadership isn't about having all the answers, I think, like sort of more questions, more than sort of talking, I think is probably one thing that I'll take away from this conversation. the right conversations at the right time. And thanks so much for jumping on the call, being on other side of the world and joining me here in New Zealand. So yeah, really appreciate it. ⁓ Perfect. Thanks, ⁓
Andy Bergmann: Awesome, well thanks for having me.
