Hit the Deck

Put your ear to the ground

Louis, foreman for a fence and deck construction company in Vancouver, Washington, told session seven of the Leadership Development Lab:

"A couple of month's back I was working on a huge deck project that included a couple of features that were new to me and our company. This was our first time to use this new system for waterproofing a deck. About halfway through the project, I noticed a couple of things in the engineering design that I thought were going to be potential issues for our customer in the future. I went to our engineer right away and explained my concerns to him. He didn't exactly agree with me and explained his side of the story, ensuring me that my concerns should not be issues and that it will all work out just fine.

"A couple of months after we completed the project to the engineer's specifications he called a meeting with me and several of the other guys that worked on the project. The meeting was about the exact concern that I had brought up to him while we were working on the project two months earlier. I internally heated up instantly and normally I would have said, 'I told you!' or 'I knew I was right!' Instead I remained calm, kept my mouth shut, let him explain the issue and what was happening with the waterproofing on our customers deck. I wanted so badly to call him out. We discussed what had to be done and came up with a great solution as a team. After the meeting, he walked over to me and apologized for overlooking my concerns when I brought them to him initially and ensured me he will do a better job in the future in design, and in listening to the concerns of the crews who are on site during construction.

"The lesson I learned from this experience is that getting mad and calling people out will not help. When I stay calm and collected issues and problems are more easily solved to everyone's advantage.

"The action I call you to take is to keep yourself in check,listen but don't react, even when others don't listen to you and make you upset and mad.

"The benefit you will gain is a healthier team, and you will be more respected as an employee and leader. You will be seen by everyone as someone to look up to."

We can also learn from Louis story the importance of the office professionals, accounting, legal, IT, purchasing, and in this case engineering listening to the firsthand, on-the-ground experience of those on the front line!