Construction Trailblazers: Paving The Way to Excellence

[00:00:00] What does it take to truly transform a team? From active listening to straightforward business decisions, today's episode is going to be packed with some amazing insight. Welcome to Construction Trailblazers, paving the way to excellence. Your go to podcast for innovation, success, and streamlined excellence in the building industry.

I'm Samantha C. Prestidge, your host and expert in Ops and Processes. I've seen the transformative effects of adopting smart, efficient processes. And these changes not only boost company revenue, but also restore peace of mind for leaders overwhelmed by the daily grind. On this show, we bring to light leaders who are innovating across the industry and creating outstanding results.

inspiring you to forge your path to excellence. Today, we're diving into a conversation with Vincent Di Iorio, the CEO of Red Team Homes. Vincent stepped into his role with Red Team last year, taking over for the previous founder, who humbly stepped out of the CEO seat after 18 years. Red Team [00:01:00] Homes is an award winning company in Colorado.

They won the Best Individual Electric Only Builder Overall Award from Xcel Energy, and they place a high emphasis on building LEED certified homes. Vincent's strategic leadership and focus on team transformation have already led to remarkable improvements and set a new direction for the company. So Vincent, thank you so much for joining us today.

I want to give our listeners just kind of a lay of the land. So let's start with when you joined Red Tea. This was last year, right? So just walk us through your experience joining this brand new team.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you having me on today. I've been excited for this conversation. So yeah, it's, it's. It's hard to believe it's been a year uh, at the end of June and uh, and reflecting back you know, it's always easy to. It's hard to look forward a year and looking back a year you kind of see how all the stars aligned or didn't align how you saw fit.

When I came in, candidly so I met Nathan in [00:02:00] April of 2023. I, I had known Red Tee for a while the former company that I was running growth for Atlas Real Estate. We actually did some business with red tea. And I had indirectly worked with Nathan and the executive team while I was there.

But when I formally was introduced to him under a different lens of looking for a CEO to come on and, and replace replace him as CEO we, we hit it off. Pretty quickly, I think, you know, I was attracted to where Red Tea was positioned in the market, you know, I had known the challenges that Red Tea and other developers in town had faced over the last four or so years.

But I was attracted to the fact that Red Tea had been agile throughout throughout some of the, that challenge, the market challenge. I was, I was attracted to their differentiated Focus on green building in Colorado. They're focused and [00:03:00] attainably priced housing, infill housing. So all of those things were the making of what I viewed as a company that had a lot of potential and ability to scale.

But I'd say more importantly, I was as I, cause I wasn't looking for a new role and, you know, as, as, you know, partnerships and business or like marriages, I wanted to make sure who, like, who is this person that I was getting involved with, what was I inheriting, et cetera, et cetera. So, Nathan and I, I think we have complimentary skill sets and I appreciate it as humility.

to say, you know, I'm not the right person to take the company to the next level. I want to get back in my lane of excellence. So those things enticed me to dive in deeper, to do due diligence on the company for a few

so let's, I think we should actually, if we can dive into that a little bit, just to give some context for our listeners, guys. So Nathan, again, like I said in the intro, he was founded the company, he's running it for 18 [00:04:00] years and he hasn't totally stepped aside, right? Usually when you see a new CEO come in, you see that previous person maybe step into a board member role or just exit completely.

But Nathan's still your chief acquisition officer, right? So this was kind of, like you said, really a marriage that needed to work, right? Cause you've got someone that led the company. He kind of built this team. He's stepping aside, right? He has that humility to not be in that ultimate leader position as the CEO, but he still is involved in making some risky strategic decisions, right?

So how, and you said you complimented each other's skill sets well. So really, how did that come to be? How did you guys really figure out what that collaboration was going to look like and navigate that conflict together?

Yeah. So I, I don't want to allude or make it seem like we have figured it all out. So, I will say I've, I've been fortunate to observe situations like this a number of times in my career so far where a founder was still in the building and they brought on a new CEO and I've seen it work really well and sometimes not [00:05:00] work well.

The one thing that's been a common theme throughout on those that it's worked well as a new CEO coming in and not blowing stuff up and being a bull in a china shop and day one saying this is exactly what we're going to be doing going forward. So, I'm truly grateful that Nathan has been in the building because he had 18 years of institutional knowledge that if I didn't have access to, if he would have said, hey, here's the company, I'm going to go, you know, to the Bahamas and not want anything to do with the business anymore, I would have been in a real challenging position.

So I think I was patient, and I don't tend to have the wiring of someone who's patient, so that was a challenge for me. But I was patient, and I absorbed all the information for, you know, the first three months, just, I was just a sponge. Similarly, Nathan is not a patient person, but he had to be patient with me too, and patient with the process, [00:06:00] because I think You know, the whole reason he brought someone in was so he didn't have to do the, do what he was doing as CEO.

However, you don't just say, okay, now I get to go do what I want to do as Chief Application Officer. So we had laid out, like, I remember vividly in June we had laid out what we thought was going to be a timeline of transition.

Mm

And it was wrong. I mean, we thought, We thought in the first 90 days that I would fully be transitioned into the CEO seat, he would be fully in his Chief Acquisition Officer seat, and we would be off and running.

At the year end last year at our off site, him and I did an off site in December of last year, so we're six months in, and we set up. Okay, we're We're not completely off, but we weren't like, you know, we're still at that time we were about 75 percent transitioned. So, you know, I felt that I had, [00:07:00] I started to get my own footing and my, my own relationships here in December at that time, I had brought on some of my own executive team.

So some new people that I had chosen to come on, I built trust with the team. And The only way I was able to do that was patience from Nathan and trust, and similarly, I had given him the patience to just step back and just take it for what it was worth, so I think there's no science to it. It's really an art, and we, we've just continued to evolve, and in full transparency, we're here a year later, and I don't, I don't think we've We're fully each in our own seat.

And part of the reason of that is because market dynamics have shifted and it's challenging. I mean, I'm still cleaning, cleaning up a lot of what I had walked into and and then the markets pose new challenges. So it's required him to be more involved than I think he would have thought, you know, a year ago.

And the reason [00:08:00] is he's the majority shareholder and he's still the owner. So we have this weird dynamic where some days I'm reporting to him, some days he's reporting to me, and a lot of days we're just, we're making decisions as a team.

but that is such a testament though to both of your, your guys's leadership skills, right? To kind of have that flexibility and work with each other and understand, okay, yeah, it definitely makes sense for you to take lead on this and I'm going to collaborate with you on this and to be able to reverse that, right?

That's not easy for a lot of people. And like you said, not, not always having a patient personality and having to really tap into that. can be very difficult. So, I mean, amazing that you guys have been able to do that. I think one of my, one of my favorite quotes, I think it was Bill Gates. He's, you know, it's we tend to overestimate what can be done in a year and drastically underestimate what can be done in five years.

And so same thing with quarters. On paper, it's like, yeah, 90 days, like this should happen week one, and then week four, we should be here. By week 12, we'll be here. And then at the end of a quarter, you're like, oh my gosh, it's already the end of the [00:09:00] quarter, right? Like even now, this conversation's, end of July.

And sometimes I'm like, I feel like it should be the end of May. How are we, you know, almost at the midway point for, for Q3, right? Okay. So I, I also, I want to double back to a few things that you said, you know, you, you've mentioned you're cleaning up some things that you walked into and also part of your decision, or, Part of your decision to be patient and kind of do this listening tour with your team was really understanding the challenges that you were inheriting.

Do you feel comfortable expanding on this? Like, did you really understand what challenges you were going to walk into before you accepted the role? Or were there things that just really came as a surprise as you took this kind of three months of listening?

Yeah. Great. Great question. And again, I'm, I'm fully transparent. So, I, I usually like to just lead real and raw and, you know, there's a lot of good that I could talk about, but The funnest part or I think the most valuable insights, most valuable nuggets for the audience or for other peers is the challenges, right?

Like we can all [00:10:00] be good leaders during good times. The best leaders are those who can get through hard times. And I think I will say I was just talking to a mentor last weekend about this, actually. On like, was it what I expected? I, I probably knew about 60 percent of what I was getting into. Like, that's over two months of due diligence and meeting the team and looking at other financials.

You can't know everything. And and so I remember there were some key milestones that Nathan had said, Vince, you know, we need to hit these milestones before we bring on a new CEO, just from a financial perspective. And I was on board with that cause I also didn't want to come into a situation where I was only cleaning things up and rescuing, right?

And unfortunately, about 15 percent of those milestones hit. And as we looked at The forecast, you know, I had to make the best judgment from what I knew of saying, [00:11:00] you know, I just need to dive in. Like, I can't wait for this to be perfect. And based on the forecast that I'm seeing, it seems like it's not too far out.

And the harsh reality is, is you're never going to know everything until you get in the building. You know, I think that goes for any, any job you take, like, You could interview everybody, you could, you know, you're in that honeymoon phase, and then until you get in the building, you don't know everything.

And so, so I could confidently say, probably, you know, at the end of July, one month in, I was like, okay, I, you know, I, I kind of understood this, like, it's not, you know, I, I didn't I know that I walked into a development company. It's not like they said it was a development company and we're, you know, a mechanic or something.

Like, however, the 40 percent that I didn't know, so the skeletons that were in the closets that I couldn't pull out in due diligence they surfaced quickly. And I will say out of the 40 percent that I didn't know, 20 percent of [00:12:00] that I was pleasantly surprised with. And, you know, the pleasant surprises were the team, you know, not everybody was a fit, not everybody was perfect, but generally speaking, we had a pretty good team in place where, you know, some turnaround roles or some positions, you'd come in and you have to completely start from scratch.

So I was, I was proud of the team that we had in place. The processes and systems for a company of this, this size that, you know, sub 20 million in revenue a year. We have more processes in SOPs than candidly, too many SOPs, so, but it was, it was refreshing to see, okay, there's a thoughtful, there's thoughtful team members in place who are being methodical about how they're doing business, and I don't need to come in from scratch, right?

So, so those were the pleasant surprises. On the other 20%, the things that I was surprised about are, you know, And I don't think it's red tea [00:13:00] specific. It's just fast growing companies, fast growing entrepreneurs who grow companies fast, who don't necessarily you know, they're not planning for scale.

They're just planning it for like a lifestyle business and you know, things like You know, how we're underwriting deals and like where, how, like the, the methodology in which we're doing things and, you know, the sophistication that's going behind some of our assumptions and the usage of data, like.

We're, we're large enough now that we have to lean into more sophisticated data. We have to lean into like, what is the competitive landscape doing? And they just hadn't done that. They weren't ever thinking outside of red team. So, that was a surprise. And then, you know, Our cash position has been tough, like, like a lot of other small private builders and developers in town.

It's, it is a tough, tough time. And some of the challenges that some of [00:14:00] the things that happened in 21 and 22 from a market standpoint have, have hit us in a way that, I'm trying to navigate because it's still, it's my, it's our challenge right now. Like we can't say, Oh, well it was because of COVID or entitled timelines.

The reality is we have to figure it out and, and those challenges have been tough, but our future, we, we are forecast and our pipeline has been great. And that's been one constant that I've known. You know, when I came in, I knew there was a healthy pipeline. And the forecasts were promising. I still feel that way about the company. It's just, it's more of a timing dynamic.

Yeah. I mean, you have kind of some of that, maybe not cushion, but wiggle room to, to make the changes that you need to. And so talking about those market dynamics, you're also, you're in Colorado, right? Notoriously known for a lot of regulation in the building industry. And then you guys are also so committed to building LEED certified [00:15:00] homes, right?

So you're welcoming like another level of complexity to your builds. And so, again, like big kudos of saying like, yeah, these are, these are challenges and I'm not and so I do kind of, I want to talk about your team for a little bit cause you, when we talked before you were open to kind of repositioning your team, you talked about the strengths but also something that was kind of super uncommon was that after your listening tour, or actually before you were really done with it, your team came to you saying, Hey, we're ready for changes, right?

Most people are hesitant. They're like, Hey, here's this new guy. I'll tell you my problems, but I'm going to see what you try to do with them. And they, that trust was built so quickly that they're like, yeah, like I want to see change and I'm going to trust you to change. Like, let us know what you need from us.

Was that somewhat unexpected? So I want to hear a little bit about that, but also the follow up question of what was some of the first things that you really started to change and implement?

Yeah, and I, you know, maybe you could do a part two unfiltered so you could get feedback from somebody else on the team because, you know, I have my perception, but [00:16:00] I don't know what their perception was. I do think that, you know, initially you know, I remember doing a presentation on July 5th, the day after July 4th, terrible day to be the first guy.

People are tired. It was, you know, it was, I remember that presentation just because it was so important to me and everyone was afraid that because they heard the words scaling growth. So they thought, oh my gosh, we're, we're going to scale across the country. We're going to grow so fast.

There's, you know, he's going to come in and just completely bring in all of his own people and et cetera, et cetera, all valid concerns. Because I'm a new guy. Like, who's this new guy? And I started I started that presentation with you know, commitments. I said, this is my commitments to you. Here's me being vulnerable.

I've met you, some of you I've known for a month, some of you I've never even met, but my commitment to you [00:17:00] is I'm gonna put these up here. This is a slide, you guys can have it, and these are my commitments to you. And if I, Veer outside of these commitments. You are welcome to come talk to me and you know, and they were stuff that is just is fundamentally things I felt comfortable with because it's at the core of who I am as a leader and a person.

Things like, you know, I'm going to be authentic. I'm not going to change a lot in the first 90 days. I'm, my door is open. You can come talk to me at any time. I'm going to be transparent. Just fundamental basics that I think the team hearing that for me day one, I think calmed people down a little bit.

I explained that, you know, Scale doesn't mean rapid growth all the time. Sometimes scale just means repositioning, setting up, going deeper in your market, etc. So I think I got people comfortable with that. So it just felt good that we were off on the right foot. I will say, this goes back to a point that I just [00:18:00] had mentioned, there was just pretty good people on the team already that were We're resilient and agile.

And, you know, Nathan teed me up pretty well. I, you know, this wasn't a, a massive surprise for everybody. I think in full transparency, I think the team was ready for a new leader. You know, some of the, the challenges that Nathan faced as a CEO and the reason why he stepped down. It's not like it was a surprise to everybody on the team.

They felt, they felt that. So I think they were welcoming to someone new on the team. So I, I, you know, I want to, while I want to take credit for winning all their trust day one, I think it was a collective effort for, for everyone. And and so that was the first month or so, you know, I was just really getting to know everybody.

Some of the immediate changes that I made.

yeah.

were mostly personnel related. And some of that was, you know, [00:19:00] like for example, our COO left in the first month. I had a great relationship with him. I still, you know, I care for him and respect him a lot. I just knew he was kind of already, he was looking to get into get back into what he was doing prior to coming to Red T.

So that was actually an opportunity for me. I didn't force anyone out. I didn't have to let anyone go. He said this isn't the right place for me right now, and that allowed me to then bring in someone that I was able to choose. Similarly, you know, I think we had a couple other people that left, and it gave me the opportunity to bring in some new folks, and then I repositioned.

You know, I assessed, okay, here's the bus, here's where everyone sits on the bus, is this the right seat for them? And part of that was me doing exploration. I had a 30 minute or an hour meeting. I can't remember, it was maybe an hour with everybody in the first 30 days. And part of that was my assessment of, I asked them, what are you [00:20:00] good at and what do you want to do? And you're like, Oh my gosh, I, I haven't been asked that in a while. So we repositioned some people to get them to do what they really wanted to do and what they were good at. So really just people like that, that just it's, there's no, you know, special recipe to it. It's just leaning into understanding people.

Yeah, and just having that active listening, right? And the fact that you asked them that question that I, I, you know, I'm a process person, right? So process interviews, you also usually entail asking people questions like that, right? And like, what do you not like? What do you like? And most people are, don't know how to answer that right away.

Cause they, they haven't thought of it themselves. No one's ever asked them that before. And I love the analogy of I think of my middle school and high school days. Yeah, I love sitting in the back of the bus with the cool kids. But you know what? I don't when the bus hits a bump and everyone else gets excited about like flying in the air.

I don't like that. Right? So maybe I need to sit a few seats [00:21:00] further up. Right? So I'm not being tossed around like I can leave that for other people. And it's something else that you've mentioned that I think is also really important for people to hear is that growth doesn't always have to mean like rapid.

Escalation, right? And when I talk about lean leadership with some of my clients, we talk about, we have this element of systematic scalability, right? Like, how can we grow? How can we meet your revenue goals? But do it in a way where we're still making customers happy. And our employees aren't burnt out all the time, right?

Again, that people focused nature of it. So you had this awesome opportunity to bring in a COO yourself and to kind of Handpick and choose some of the other members of your team. What were some of those core characteristics that you were looking for when you were interviewing and choosing people that you were like, okay, I know that they will excel in this role, or I know that they will fit into this company because of X, Y, Z.

Yeah.

Yeah, I I was looking for industry expertise. You know, I, I think historically, it hasn't [00:22:00] always been a core focus of mine. Like, for example, when I, when I was in Prop Tech, I, some of my greatest hires were those who had no technical experience, but were really good in their disciplines. But I knew that initially I needed some pretty deep knowledge.

industry experience, particularly like for a, you know, construction role or a CFO. I, I wanted that experience. So, that, that, that service is a, you know, something that was highly important to me. And then just agility, like I think agility continues, you know, at a company our size bringing in, I'll use a CFO for example, bringing in a CFO who wants to sit.

in an ivory tower and just do everything that a CFO should do, like, that's just not what we need. And, and candidly, I'm still not in my lane of excellence a year later. You know, I've, I've, I'm deep in the [00:23:00] weeds and doing things that a CEO should not do, candidly. I say they shouldn't do it. I I do think they should do it to learn and to get into the weeds to know what they're talking about, but not for an extended period of time because then ultimately I'm not doing what I'm great at.

But having some people, and this has been something I, you know, ask in all of the interviews, are you able to be resourceful, to be agile, and to leave your ego at the door? Because like there's really no room for that here. And because if your ego gets in the way, you're going to probably not want to roll up your sleeves all the time and do things that you feel like you shouldn't be doing, right?

And and I think those characteristics have mostly been true for the people that we've brought in. And then there's like non starters, like, You know, are you a good human? And can I trust you? Right? Like, those, those two things are [00:24:00] a must. And cultural fit. Like, I, those, those three have to, to check the box.

I will say I've interviewed every single person we've brought on. not just C suite. So I have to have at least, you know, a 30 minute to an hour conversation with anybody who comes in as a final step to make sure that, A, to let them know I care for them. Like, I'm happy that they're choosing us. And I have to see, like, you know, one of my strengths is just an intuition of people.

Like, Am I getting any spidey senses that this person is not a fit, right? Because you do hire, you know, when you're growing, you, and you have to fill the roles at times. Sometimes you move too fast, right?

Yep, and then you bring on people that cause way more headaches, right? I love that you ask those questions and that, you know, people have that sense. If I am going to go into this company, I know that I have to leave my ego at the door, right? Like, [00:25:00] there is an element of knowing when something isn't worth your time, right?

Like, kind of what you're saying, like, you're the CEO, you shouldn't be in the weeds, but it's not necessarily work that's Beneath you, right? Like you can, you're capable of doing it, you can step into it. Is it worth your, your time? Right? But I also love that you are making time to make sure that you're building the team and building the culture that you want, right?

And that will be sustainable for your team. So I'd also love to know, is there ever a time where maybe someone got to the interview with you, everyone else loved them, but you're like, spidey sense is tingling here. And, and can you elaborate on that? Or, or has that not happened yet? Mm hmm.

I can't go into the details of it, but you know, I, I will say that for the most part, it's went pretty well. There's been a few times that someone has gotten to me and I said, I'm not quite ready. Like, let, let's see if we have some other candidates that I feel better about. And sure enough, someone's come through and I felt better about them.

I think one thing that I've leaned into heavily. [00:26:00] And I think Nathan struggled with a bit was leading through my leaders, you know, I, I think Nathan wanted to do everything. And, you know, as you grow, I get it. There's a feeling of micromanagement and you can't be everywhere at once. And so I've really leaned heavily into my, the leadership team to trust their judgment on things.

And so fortunately because of that. They've gotten to know what I'm looking for and I trust their judgment. So, most of the time, if they put someone in front of me, it's a good lid.

Okay. Awesome. So I, so with that, was your team kind of ready? I know you brought in some people and then you had some people that were already there, right? And leading through your leaders also means like, Hey, you guys can make decisions on certain things without me. Do you feel like they were kind of ready to start making decisions or was it kind of a slower journey of empowering them and teaching them what the best decisions look like?

Mm hmm. Mm

Um, for the new [00:27:00] folks, not a problem. So this is where, you know, I, I don't like to I don't like to, to delineate like new guard versus old guard, but the reality is like, that is a reality and we're all one, we are all one team, but it's much easier for new folks to be empowered to make decisions.

And there they've been. You know, in many different organizations and they're, they're used to that. The old guard, it's re it's rewiring their brain a bit, because if they've, you know, someone's been here for seven years and they've never really been empowered to make decisions and they had to kind of go through these hoops.

And then all of a sudden you say, Hey, like, why don't you tell me how you want this done? They're kind of like, really, are you sure?

Yeah. Yeah.

taken some adjustment and, and in full transparency, it hasn't been the right fit for everyone. Sometimes people don't want that, right? And some people have self [00:28:00] selected out because of that, right?

Or, or we've had to make moves on them because, you know, ultimately I need people to be able to think for themselves. And, you know, some of the, the folks that haven't been able to think for themselves have been exposed and as a result that are no longer here.

Yeah, I mean, there, there is such a power when you have a team that has that proactive problem solving mindset, right? And they, because they understand the big picture, they can make some of those decisions, right? And they feel confident making those decisions, or at least confident presenting the solution to you in this Have your validation on that solution.

Right. And it's not the right fit for everyone. And then when people self select out, you're like, thank you. You did us a favor. Thank you so much. Right. Or I do want to take a little bit of a left turn. We talked a lot about leadership and that team building. It's been some awesome insights. But something else I think our listeners would be interested in knowing.

When we spoke before, you mentioned some innovative ways that Red Tee is preserving cash and trying to diversify revenue. Can you tell our listeners about what you're doing the benefits from this, [00:29:00] and maybe also some of the challenges there?

Yeah, definitely. So, we are we're not your traditional home builder in that You know, I view us more as like a real estate investment company and not just a traditional home builder. We're not, you know, only building subdivisions with four plans and rinse and repeat. Although I want to start getting Getting there and certain aspects of our business.

But as a result, we are able to diversify our revenue streams in that we have our fee business. So we have architecture. So acquisitions, architecture, development, construction. and sales in house. So because we have those pieces of the puzzle in house, we're able to offer those services to other client, other folks in the marketplace who maybe want to get into development or, you know, we have a client who's really good at construction, that's all he does, but he doesn't do the other [00:30:00] pieces of the

Mm hmm.

And so that has allowed us to build up a pretty meaningful pipeline of fee revenue that's not subject to Project selling, right? So, separate from that, we do have equity and ownership in a number of projects that we, that we do service through our fee based business, but then that we get to participate in the upside or, or, or not on those projects.

So most, most groups are only they're tied just to project level revenue, so they take a lot of risk. They have all their equity tied up in a deal and then they're dependent on that deal selling out in order to achieve their revenue. So we have that, that funnel, but the fee business helps us smooth out some of the turbulence that's natural in what we do as a company.

And, and so, you know, I think that does differentiate us. The challenge with that is, you know, the, the The classic, like, what's your hedgehog? Like, what [00:31:00] are we great at? You know, what is our focus? And I think we're great in aspects of a lot of those pieces, but sometimes there's conflict, you know, between architects and construction teams or sales and architects.

And so that naturally sometimes creates silos in our business that I have to break down the barriers and remind everyone, hold on, hold on, hold on. We're all on the same team. I don't expect you all to like the same things, but we are all, we are all driving towards an end goal together. And a lot of people aren't used to that.

Like, you know, architects are used to being. You know, in a studio and only focused on design and building beautiful things, right? And construction companies are out there looking to build efficient and quick, and they deal with a lot of challenges in the field that you never hear about. And then there's sales folks who, [00:32:00] you know, in a good market they look like they they're the savior, and a bad market they're the first one that you point to.

Yep. Yeah. Right there. The scapegoat. No, no matter what. It and I mean, that diversification of revenue, I think is, is such a smart and again, innovative way to go. Something though, you mentioned is that you're kind of constantly tearing down silos between these teams. Can you tell me a little bit about how do you know a silo is popping up?

Like, do you have some kind of. Red flags or warning flags that you know that's about to happen and you're going to go shut it down or does it kind of slowly creep up on you guys?

I know, I don't think this will be on YouTube and video, but you'll see me. I mean, it's this it's the finger pointing. So, like, we're

back and forth.

know, if we're in OAC, and I'm sensing that there's a problem, and then each department head is saying, well, We, we had bad plans and then the architects are saying, well, we gave you good plans and you didn't. And

Mm hmm.

that, that finger [00:33:00] pointing quickly surfaces. Well, Hey, you know, it doesn't matter whose fault it was. Let's solve the problem. And I think we often as leaders and other many organizations, it's like a witch hunt sometimes, like something happens and you just want to know who is responsible.

And instead of identifying, well, you know, we need to know who is responsible, but let's create an environment of psychological safety that that person responsible feels okay with just saying, yeah, the plan sucked. I'm sorry. We did our best. Let's solve that problem. Too often though, everyone comes from a place of defense because they don't want to be that person who, you know, falls on the sword.

And it takes time to build that culture and we're certainly not there yet, but we're, we're moving in the right direction. Hmm.

also kind of going back you said, you know, the construction guys are in the field dealing with problems that you'll never hear about right and that Kind of happens for [00:34:00] so many of us where we don't really know what that other person is, is dealing with. We just know that there's a problem and we forget that people element, right?

And then you as the CEO, knowing that you want that people focused culture can kind of say, you have that moment of pause and say, okay, let's back up, right? Let's lean into our people, which is amazing. So awesome. Okay. Is there, we touched on so many different things. Is there anything else, maybe an action item, a tip, or just kind of.

favorite quote of advice that you would want to leave our listeners with?

we lean heavily into slow incremental growth here and and stress doesn't make good decisions.

So, you know, it's like those two conflicting, those are two conflicting statements. You know, it's like, in times of challenge and if things, if forecasts aren't hitting and the market is giving you challenges, you get stressed and you tend to make rash decisions or want to pivot really quickly because you don't have the luxury to slowly see the growth [00:35:00] evolve.

And, and, you know, I think large companies who have buckets of cash, they can, they can endure that Slowness of growth sometimes, but I do push heavily, you know, the, the notion is Kaizen, which is slow incremental growth. And it, I'm very proud of when you take a step back and you say, okay, the world is not falling.

This, this problem need, we need to think about this thoughtfully and not not rush to conclusions. Because change does take time. And I've, I've experienced for the last year, I mean, I couldn't expect someone new to come in and put a process in place and then all of a sudden we're, we're humming. If I don't see the results quick enough, so to how I opened this podcast with patients.

If I don't have the patience to see a process actually get into motion and, and work, all I'm going to be doing is chasing, [00:36:00] you know, what's chasing my tail and making rash decisions and, you know, having expectations that are unrealistic. So, you know, my piece of advice for anyone who's coming into a new role or repositioning a company is if you have the ability to, you know, Lean into slow incremental growth and not expect things to change overnight.

It'll serve, serve you wonders long term. I get that that's sometimes hard and

Hard to do.

battle with it every day. Heh

advice, right? Like we we don't want to always be reacting to emergencies and always be rushing around. I think a lot of people in the construction world kind of term themselves as a firefighter. They're always firefighting. And sometimes it's like, well, Are you making your own fire and throwing the match there?

Or really is that just kind of a smoking ember? It's not really a fire yet. You have time to evaluate it. So I, I really thank you for taking the curveball question. That was awesome. So what amazing insights today. I think that's going to be [00:37:00] a wrap for this episode of Construction Trailblazers. Thank you so much, Vincent, for joining us today.

Listeners, if you would like to learn more about him, his LinkedIn will be in the show notes, or you can check out the company at redthomes. com. And if you feel like you're maybe firefighting and stuff. If you're seeing smoke where there isn't in your business, or if you want to see how your approach might compare to what we've learned from Vincent today, then I highly recommend taking our easy quiz to find out what level of business hero you are, and most importantly, what action you can take to reduce those fires in your team.

Vincent previously took our quiz and scored a Thunder Trooper, so awesome there! You can find out if you're a Thunder Trooper, or maybe more of that Fix It Flash, by taking the quiz at ConstructionTrailBlazers. com. Thank you all for listening, and we'll see you next time.