It's Not Selling, It's Connecting: Steve Thompson on Leading Billion-Dollar Projects and the Humans Behind Them

In this episode of Activating Greatness, Alec McChesney sits down with Steve Thompson, a senior construction and program leader who has spent decades delivering complex capital projects at Intel and GlobalFoundries. Steve breaks down what actually happens inside a team when people believe they cannot win, how leaders can manage heat from above while restoring discretionary effort from the front line, and why the Last Planner System is one of the most powerful leadership tools in construction. He shares his framework for delivering bad news to executives, how to remap a project in trouble without creating chaos, and why the job of a leader is to manage the want so the front line can score daily wins. He also shares two of the most memorable rapid-fire answers in the show's history — including a John 10:10 revelation that changed how he leads. If you are leading large teams, navigating complex projects, or trying to turn a losing situation into a winning culture, this episode delivers rare and practical insight from one of the most experienced capital project leaders in the industry.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of Activating Greatness, the show where we dig into what it really takes to lead with purpose, inspire performance, and create lasting impact. As always, I'm your host, Alec McChesney, and every episode we sit down with leaders, thinkers, and change makers who are unlocking potential in themselves, their teams, and their organizations. Here we talk about the real stuff: leadership that drives culture, strategy that creates momentum, and the mindset that turns good intentions into game-changing results. Because greatness, it isn't a title, it's a choice. It's something you activate every single day. So thank you. Thank you for listening, for showing up, and for being part of a community of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. Now let's dive in and meet today's incredible guest. Today's guest is Steve Thompson, a senior construction and program leader who has spent decades delivering some of the most complex capital projects in the world. Steve has held senior leadership roles at Intel and Global Foundries, where he led global construction portfolios, managed billions in capital investments, and built advanced semiconductor manufacturing facilities across the United States and internationally. His work sits at the intersection of strategy, engineering, operations, and construction execution, translating business goals into capital projects that drive production, profitability, and long-term value. He's also deeply involved in lean construction practices, helping teams collaborate more effectively, improve predictability, and deliver complex projects with greater alignment and discipline. But what makes Steve's leadership perspective unique is that much of his career has involved stepping into projects that were already in trouble, behind schedule, over budget, or structured in ways that made success feel impossible. And that's really what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about how leaders can turn losing situations into winning teams, how you restore belief, align people around what actually matters, and frankly, create momentum, even when the odds say that failure is inevitable. So, Steve, thank you so much for joining us today. It feels like this has been six months in the making since we first connected. I couldn't be more happy to have you on the show. And everybody that's listening knows I'm ready to start grilling you and asking a lot of questions. Before we do that, would love to give you the chance to introduce yourself a little bit further and then we'll dive into today's show.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, well, thanks, Alec. And I appreciate the opportunity here that uh that you're giving me and the opportunity to have a conversation about some leadership challenges and uh uh what what ends up at the end, I think, being a lot of fun. Uh I appreciate the intro. I've got a couple of things I think I'd like to add. Uh one, I I've uh I've had a number of phases in my career, but I'd say largely the first half of my career was actually in the operation running factories, uh, and the second half of my career in the uh building them, which gives me an appreciation of, I'll call it, uh a pretty large food chain from a twinkle in somebody's eye to uh full volume, high volume production. Uh and the second I'd say is I'm an unlikely construction guy. My background is actually as a physicist. Um and uh but where that where that comes into play for me is I've got this need uh to really formulate theories or hypotheses that fit all of the data. And when you look at a project that maybe is a mess, uh you might see four or five things wrong. And a lot of times it'll okay, I'll put the blinders on, I'll go and look at this one wrong thing and try to figure out what's going on, I'll look at this one wrong thing. But really, I I want a theory or a hypothesis that governs all four or five or six uh symptoms that we're seeing, uh, so that we're look trying to look at things more holistic. And doing so provides, I think, greater insight. At least it's been helpful to me to uh understand the root of the issue so that we can uh actually apply uh corrections that make sense and help.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I love it. And you just hit on something that makes me so thankful for the Activating Greatness podcast already, which is the differing backgrounds that we've had on this show and the way that each of the leaders that we interview see a problem and address a problem. And the way that you're raised, the way that you come up, the way that I was through journalism and you were a physicist and you know, another guest that we had, Michelle from John Hancock as a kid, was obsessed with the FBI and wanted to be an FBI investigator, and now she runs a giant sales team for distribution. But the way that she thought about things really put her in that position to be successful. And I love even looking at some of the challenges that we're gonna talk about today, not looking at them in a silo. You talk about how complex some of these projects are. You can't just look at it within one lens. You have to look at it over the course of sometimes three, four, five years, and certainly in the millions and sometimes even in the billion-dollar amount for these individual projects. I want to start, though, Steve, with this concept of projects being set up to fail and frankly, the team feeling like they can't win. So one of the things that you and I have talked about in our prep calls, and one of the things that I deal with uh all the time when we're talking to construction companies is hey, we know that this project is actually set up unrealistically. There's an unrealistic schedule, the budget isn't what what it's supposed to be. And all of a sudden, you have this team, which could be made up of hundreds and even thousands of individuals, and they're already feeling negative. They're already believing that the outcome isn't going to be what it needs to be or what the perceived outcome is supposed to be. So I'm curious, just from your perspective, you know, as a leader and through your experience, what actually happens inside a team when people believe they can't win? And how do we actually change that? I know that's a really heavy question to get us started, but I think it's the most important place for us to begin.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Yeah, and and I don't think there's any one answer that will service all projects or all project teams. Every one of these is a little bit different. But there's a I think a couple of principles uh that uh at least from a start we can apply and then uh learn and adjust. Uh, but what really happens is when a project goes off the rails, there's a lot of heat that uh gets generated. And a lot of it, you know, a lot of it comes down from above because we still have this list of wants in terms of how much we want to spend and how uh or the business wants to spend, how much when do we want the project come on? And that list of wants never really goes away and it never really changes. Um and and that and so we we get that heat, and then the people that do the work, we we we tend to lose when okay, I just give up. I we tend to lose the discretionary effort from below. And and so let's let's try to work on the one end on the heat problem, and let's try to work on the discretionary effort problem, and then uh we can uh dial it in a little bit more as we uh learn along the way. And and a lot of times the heat will come down as micromanagement. And I was just watching a project not too long ago where okay, uh we're going to uh try to review progress on a twice-a-day basis. Now, when you're in a 24 by seven manufacturing operation uh where you're manufacturing widgets, you can count things on a uh um 24 by seven basis. But on a on a on a project, uh you have a difficult time tracking 10,000 activities. I'm just looking at if I've got 10,000 craft workers or 5,000 craft workers, I've got 5,000 sets of activities that are taking place uh during the uh uh during the uh course of the day. And and and those things aren't being measured by a uh automatic uh ticker. And so there's no way you can actually roll it all up. So you've got you've got, but you've got to deal with the micromanaging, uh, and then people don't have answers, and you see it erupt uh shouting matches and uh all kinds of things. Uh a lot of times there's silence because okay, we're not making progress, and then uh there's chastisement. So got to try and address the heat and make sure that the desire for micromanagement, okay, we got to check in, but let's check in at the right cadence uh and and make sure that it's useful. Uh so let's let's let's work on that end. And that's my my job as a leader is to kind of work on that end of it. And then my team out working with folks in the field, uh, you know, let's uh uh work with the uh people that are doing the work because right now they're just going through the motions. Uh and so we need to shift the that conversation that's happening in the field and even in the uh check-in meetings from what we want uh to what we can actually deliver. Um and um if if if I'm if I if I if I'm at the front line, and this is where I think the last planner system is so brilliant, we get daily commitments or promises, hand over the heart promises, uh on how many feet of pipe are gonna be hung in this construction volume, how many feet of cable are gonna be pulled, or how many terminations are gonna happen, or what systems are going to be started if we're later uh on in the in the project. And if if if I'm and the brilliant foreman, supervisors, the brilliant project managers, they they get this. And so if I'm a if I'm a craft laborer, if I'm Sue uh out there and I'm and and I'm uh responsible for hanging pipe and I make a promise that I'm gonna get, let's just say, 20 feet uh hung, I've got it welded, I'm gonna have elbows in there, I'm gonna have valves, et cetera. I make a promise of something that I honestly believe I can do, which is the essence of the last planner. Uh then at the end of the day, I know whether I've been successful or not, and I can score a win. Now I've changed the dynamic with the people doing the work. I'm I'm I'm able to win. I'm not delivering the corporate uh what I want yet, yeah, but I've I've I can I can change the dynamic on the front line and start scoring wins. And when I can start scoring wins, when I can when somebody makes a promise and that promise is delivered, now the next person in line has something that they can count on and they can take the baton in the relay and and go with it. Uh and that flow establishes a fundamental capability that every project needs. It doesn't matter whether it's a project in trouble or a project that starts off on the right foot. Every project needs that. So let's work on that and uh really put a lot of focus on it. And if the project is behind, boy Steve, you need to be in there as the leader, helping to manage the heat, helping to manage the uh uh tendency to micromanage and helping to rewire things so that we can deliver something useful for the business at about the right cost at about the right time. Um, but uh all the while letting the team out on the front line score victory after victory after victory. First downs, bass hits, doesn't matter how you want to call it.

SPEAKER_00 13:12

Yes. Um you you you gotta hit singles sometime, right? And we have to create this level of consistency and expectation setting. And that's really the big takeaway that I had there. Two two thoughts that I want to double click on, Steve. The first is that micromanaging and knowing what is checking in actually look like when it provides value and how do you coach or elevate what is actually happening versus micromanaging. And I think everybody who has ever been a leader has probably said, I don't micromanage. And I think everybody they've ever led has said that person micromanages me in some way, shape, or form. And I can imagine on a job site when we are off track, or even if things are on track, that he starts to feel like micromanagement no matter what. And so being really intentional about how you have those conversations and then what the expectation is of those conversations, which goes to your point about that last planner. And hey, what's realistic? What are you going to be able to get to done get done today, Stu? And being able to set up a cadence where, hey, I say that I can do this, I achieve this, the next person says they can do this, they achieve that, and they start to become really dependent on each other as a skilled laborer or whoever it is, if it's a you know a subcontractor, somebody that has never met before, you're able to create that shared communication. But more importantly, I think shared respect on the job side as well from an expectation standpoint. Is that I'm gonna ask my bad podcast question here, Steve. I I told you I got at least one of them in our prep call. I'm gonna bring it out. It feels a lot easier said than done. You know, I I don't know where else to go with that, but this thought process of, hey, let's create this, you know, this shared methodology of wants versus actual, it feels a lot easier said than done. So how difficult is this on the job site when things are going poorly to really be able to hit this reset button and reset expectations? I know you shared a couple of stories in our prep call about resetting major expectations on a major project and really starting to identify what is realistic, but you're also handling people on site, you're managing up, you're managing down. How complicated does this really get?

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Well, it we can we can we can really overcomplicate it or we can uh attempt to simplify. Now, if if I'm gonna uh say I have a uh fatal flaw, sometimes I'm uh oh I oversimplify things. But um I I think the high-level objective is to get every person on the project operating inside of a breakthrough performance system that's operating with clear expectations, the ability to self-assess or self-measure. So because my expectation is so clear, I know whether I'm getting it done or not. I don't need anybody to come around and tell me. And then I need to have the resources in my control in order to make that. So I need those three things. Now, if I'm a fitter or an electrician that's working on the field trying to deliver on my daily promise, the the check-in is in the kind of in the middle of the day, right? Right. Uh, you get to validate whether the expectations are clear. So this is what your foreman and your uh supers are probably should be out there doing. Uh and uh were the expectations cleared? Do you know how you're doing? Do you have the resources? And kind of history says that if I find I know what I need to do and I know how I'm performing, if I don't have the resources that I'm failing, I'm gonna complain about it. And that's what the check-in is about. It's to it's it's it's to it's to capture the complaints uh and and help resolve those things such that the delivery can be made at the end of the day. Um and then obviously there's come and tell me your final score, right? Did you hit or miss? And um, so that makes it pretty easy for the frontline. Um on the uh larger kind of a management overview, yeah. Uh unless there's a business process that rolls up all of these thousand pieces of data every day, you're not gonna do it. Most of the schedule collection activities, and then and some of it's being automated now through things like build ops, which uh uh gives you kind of real time measure, but on on on most of the projects that I've worked on in my uh career, the the the roundup of information is about once every two weeks. Yeah. And so if the roll-up of information is only once every two weeks, then maybe your check-in is once or twice during the week on some of these aggregate holes. Because if it's any more than that, uh you're you're you're you're just sitting there listening to people talk uh for the purpose of talking, and uh uh and you and you don't really get to the uh crux of anything. And so my work is let's be rational about the about the review. Uh and uh okay, your team is gonna do this. What are you gonna complete by the end of the week? Now we can check in the middle of the week how you do it. You know, if they make a commitment for to be done by the end of Saturday, we're gonna have X, Y, and Z completed. Uh, you know, my my one of my PMs over a zone of the project say, okay, now let's go and let's let's check in like Wednesday morning that week. Uh where how's it going? Because they'll know, am I off the rails or not? Now, obviously, you need to have a culture of uh uh open communication uh so that they're they're willing to do it. And so if I'm doing a check-in, my behavior has to be good. Yeah, uh, you know, I have to be willing to listen without yelling, uh, and and and and and and so forth. And even and if it's in a BAM or a big ass meeting, um where there's I'll call it executive observers, uh okay, bosses, before we go into this, uh none of this, none of this, none of this. You've got to be on good behavior. You can ask for clarification, but this is not a meeting to scold people. This is a meeting to understand where the problems are so we can provide the assistance they need to get it done. And in the process, we'll get some status. Um, because you don't know if there's if you know, if if if if you got problems, you you know we're a little bit behind where we want to be. Uh and if and if something is right on track, they'll come in and I'll be right on track and I'll move on to the next uh next thing. But it the cadence is what's key, and the cadence has to be consistent with how information gets aggregated. And it's different at every point of the project, every role of the project. Their information flow is coming together on different cadences, and you've got to manage the check-in to be consistent with that cadence.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

It there's there's so much good here, Steve, not only for the the types of projects that we're talking about, but I think this is applicable across the board for any large projects in any industry, right? We talk about setting the right expectations, knowing what's possible versus what the the want is, and then how are we measuring it? How often are we measuring it? What's that cadence look like? And then having the psychological safety available for people to come in and raise their hand and say, okay, here's my update, here's where we're at, without feeling like that, that scolding is coming, uh, because at the end of the day, it is just data, right? And I think so much of changed, so much of of hitting milestones is. The work, then the data, and then how do we interpret the data? And what do we do with that information? And so I think that's super applicable to not only what we're talking about today, but you know, if you're in, if you're in the insurance field and you are restructuring the sales workforce or you're adding sales force as a as a new CRM, it'd be very similar. Give me the progress updates. How fast are we going to be able to make this shift happen? What are those levers that we have to pull? And I think so much of this can be applied across the board too.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Absolutely. In fact, one of my one of my great teachers uh for the probably the first 15 years of my career until he retired, uh Bill Daniels was a behavioral psychologist. And so the things that the things that he taught uh are are kind of universally applicable to all human beings.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

And and as he as he used to say, 97 or 98% of us respond almost the same way to uh certain stimuli. And so let's just play within that uh uh let's just play within that realm. And so, yeah, universally applicable principle breakthrough performance system. There's no there's no magic uh to it other than having those three pieces in there and then having uh a leader that cares enough to go and check in with his folks and uh see how they're doing.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Yeah, I I love it. And I think the the aspect of the behavioral scientist and and that background is a good reminder that if there are 5,000 or 10,000 individuals working, that's 5,000 different people that have their own backgrounds, their own stories, their own trauma that they're dealing with on a Tuesday on the job site. And all of them have their own connection or disconnection to the overall, overall corporate messaging. And getting them to buy in to this big project or the company's forward-looking future is not always going to happen. They're there to do a job, they're gonna leave, and the job is gonna continue on when they're done. And so sometimes it's that operational reality that you've touched on a couple of times, uh, just in terms of, hey, what's what's realistic? How can you win today? And then how can we try to show up and win tomorrow? I'm curious, in in your position and other leaders' positions, how do you help them understand the bigger picture so they see what their work is is leading to and how it connects to the survival or the success of the project without going into that really heavy corporate lens? And I'm really excited to ask this question because it it's super tangible in the construction world. But again, there are organizations where you have 30,000 people that work for that team, 30,000 people don't feel the same way about the corporate messaging, the vision. So how do we uh how do we adapt to their role and how do we make them buy into that? Or how do we we show them how to buy into that? I'm curious what's your what your thoughts are there, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah. I I I think key is as a leader, I need to understand, right? I I need to under I need to understand the piece that is within my ownership. Uh I I need to understand how that connects to the uh to the mothership. I mean, well, let's just let's play the tape back to the story. I I'm assuming it's true because it's been repeated a bazillion times, but it's the janitor at NASA during the uh moonshot in the 60s. And uh, you know, he said he's there to help put a man on the moon. Uh, and and he was the and he was the janitor. And I think and I think that's the ideal, uh, is people can connect what they're doing and and why it matters to the uh greater mission. Uh and and and that and that's hard. The larger the organization, the more difficult it is. But I need to understand it myself. Uh and I need to understand the the key players that are operating adjacent to me. I need to understand how they connect to it as well. And I've got a I've got an obligation to teach my direct team uh and help them make their connection. Uh and and my peers, I've got to help them make that connection as well. So it's a it's it's there's a teaching aspect to it. Certainly there's a learning aspect to make sure that you uh uh know. And and then commission, I commission my team to go and help their teams make that connection as well, so that we can see how we are uh doing. Um the the the largest I say I've done individually with a group is maybe one to 50. Uh you get the next layer in, you're gonna need some help. You're gonna need some disciples, so to speak, to uh go out and it's not selling, it's it's connecting. Uh, you know, uh knee bones connected to the hip bone, uh, and and and and and so forth, so that I can see how uh I play in the overall uh schema. And not everybody cares. Uh we can want them to care, but not everybody's going to care. But for some people, it it really makes a difference to know this is what my contribution is to this greater thing. Uh and there's enough of us who who really do want to understand that connection. If we understand that connection, then we're working with purpose.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Um, you know, beyond just, okay, I'm just gonna go uh punch it, punch it out and collect a paycheck. I'm working for some greater purpose and and and some greater uh win. And you know, when you when you're working with uh uh unions, and unions can get unruly if you're not uh if you're not good to them. Um but one one thing that I have found time and time and time and time again is these these folks are patriots. I mean, they want they want the US to win. Yeah, and so if you're and so if you're working on a on a US based project with uh with unions, help connect them to something that means my you know my country's gonna win. Uh and and and and it really uh it really animates them.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

Um I love that.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Whether whether you think it's useful or not, I don't know. It just seems to animate them, and yeah, let's go for it.

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Well, it's the it's the connection, it's the connection piece there, Steve. I I wanna I want to highlight two things that you said for everybody to to to re-listen to. I asked a question that was how do you help them understand the bigger picture? And how do you how do you sell that to them? And you hit me with two quotes. And the first is, well, first off, I need to understand. And I that that is a true leader right there. That's one recurring theme on this podcast is if I don't first understand myself, my role, my connection, then I certainly can't go out and and do that with them. If I don't understand what role they play, then I also cannot do it. So I appreciate you saying that. That that goes a long way. And more leaders need to have that self-awareness, but also self-awareness first and then go external. So I love that. And the second one, and I have it in all caps here, it's not selling, it's connecting. You're not selling the mission or the vision or the corporate message, you're connecting an individual to that story. And that difference is night and day, right? One seems like we're doing it for the corporation and corporate greed, and everybody needs to get on the bus. And the second one seems at the individual level, what's your what's your connection to this end vision? And each person is gonna have a different one. So I just wanted to to highlight both those because I think they're so important for people to be able to hear and implement in their day-to-day going forward.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Totally agree. I mean, you you've summarized it. Good to you.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

I love it. I love it. Well, I just looked at the clock and somehow it's 4.08 Central Time, which means we're we're already 32 minutes into this, the recording. I knew the time would fly by. I want to ask, I want to ask one more question, um, and then we'll get into the rapid fire and and the closing. And this is this is inevitable, right? No matter what project you're running, whether it's it's the type of projects that you're talking about uh that we work with at velocity all the time on the construction side, or it is change management inside of a life sciences organization, you are likely going to run into a problem. You might run into a schedule slipping, uh, a labor shortage, cost problems. And you and I have talked about these situations where you and other leaders have had to deliver extremely difficult news about timelines, about budgets, about updated schedules. I'm just curious, what's your perspective on how leaders should approach these situations with their teams, again, knowing that you're managing up and managing down? And how do you maintain honesty and transparency, but not chaos and frustration and confusion? Because that's where this tends to go. So, pretty big question here to wrap us up before we get into the rapid fire, but curious on your thoughts and your perspective, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Well, well, let's talk about up first because I've run, I've run, I've run a couple of experiments and one of them looks better than the other. Um bad news is best uh in a relatively private setting. Uh, the first time the boss hears the bad news should not be with 100 people present. Um uh I early early some early career mistakes uh and some recalibration, but uh it it goes best in a relatively private setting. And sometimes it needs to be repeated and chewed on two or three times before uh it really uh sinks hold. You know, you've got to talk about what what where we're actually trending to, what's the data and the analysis behind it. And again, it might be two or three times before there's real acknowledgement of the problem. And and then uh immediately the conversation turns to recovery. Um and uh on on the on the recovery end, you know, you you you gotta look at the time horizon. Uh and this is where looking at the whole picture makes the most sense. Uh, because if I've got if I'm just responsible for what I'll call base build, um and I'm supposed to turn this facility over to the installation of production equipment or whatever in six months' time. If I'm only looking at it that way, I've got six months to write the show. Yeah. But if I've got if it's gonna take me a year to install the production equipment and another six months to start up the line, I've actually got two years to work on the problem and re-remap the trajectory, rewire other pieces such that uh I'm delivering something useful in two years. And this is where looking at the whole picture helps because recovery a lot of times is okay, let's go and figure out how we can make up six months of uh negative float in the next three months. That's probably not gonna happen. But I I've got it, so I've got to look at the uh uh the the time horizon there. And then remap so the team can work towards something that is uh achievable along the way. Uh because we're not gonna we're not gonna have this hockey stick all of a sudden performance and make up all of the lost uh ground. So on the uh leadership end, managing up, that's uh really key. With the team, the team knows. The team knows they're behind. They're in it. The team knows things aren't going, right? Uh and and and and so you can't BS them. You've gotta you've just you've got you've got to acknowledge that things are off track. Uh and no, no BS. And so what what can we do? And and and so honesty is really the best policy here with the uh team. Uh and I've got to have some understanding as the leader of what I think is achievable. And so I I can have a framework that I can uh engage my team around. Uh and still I'm not even worried about the front line. I'm just front line, let's just go out and have them get their daily wins while we kind of take our time to rethink things. And yeah, maybe we need a uh kind of a larger assortment of people, and we'll need to get uh uh 40 or 50 people in a room and remap this whole project out. Uh, I don't change anything that I'm doing on the front line. I just daily win, uh, move it up, move the ball down the field, and get my daily scores while we're rethinking how to remap, rewire, re-jigger things over this entire long uh time scale to make it happen. Um and and if we're working on things that can uh go, let's go. Uh and if the team makes a commitment, they're not gonna hit everything. That's uh that's reality. I've got to have their back, they gotta know that I've got their back uh so that we can just keep uh keep making progress. And sometimes we'll have to rethink things two or three times, and sometimes uh we we have to deal with uh denial, a project that I I came off from. Um there's multiple ways in a set for in a semiconductor fab to start up a line and qualify the line. Uh there's I'll call it there's an Intel way, there's a Global Foundries way, there's a stand way, etc. They're not all the same. Some of them are longer and some of them are shorter. Uh and uh but knowing that there are different knobs we can turn between today and production volume, and and production volume is very end of the curve. I mean, I'm yeah, I might be okay if I'm a month late if I can uh ramp volume faster.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Uh for the quarter, I can keep the quarter, I can keep my quarterly output whole, uh not necessarily the first month. Uh so knowing that I've got knobs to turn, uh we we we go at it. And granted, not everybody is uh willing to consider knob A and B on day one. And then you have to you have to keep on hitting and hammering at home. Um and I was told absolutely not. I uh I gave a proposal on uh uh a major project. Uh and no, absolutely not. We're never gonna do that. That is not the way we do things. Uh and uh lo and behold, when we got right down to it, that was the only way we do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

The only way to do the thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Um and the the the the the challenge, obviously it's a lot easier to plan it than to react through it. Right. Um but time and again, the we end up choosing for whatever reason to react our way through it rather than plan our way through it. Um and uh that's why I'm passionate on the planning end, because if there's a lot of things we can plan for rather than react for. Uh and it's a lot, it's a lot easier, and it and it uh you you you keep your hair longer uh if you uh can plan through it rather than react to it. Um you've you've got to be resilient and deal with it on the reaction side too.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Yeah, I love I love the resiliency, but I also I I there there was a theme to your answer, and it's not a theme that I think you probably highlighted, but it's one that I am in in interpreting is you you do a really good job of limiting the roller coaster, right? There there are we don't need to go up and down, there doesn't need to be this chaos. It is what it is. The work still has to get done. We always have a move or two that we can make. So which one or two, which knobs do we pull, which levers do we move? But on the front line, the work still has to get done. So let's go to work, let's put the hard hat on, let's do our job. And then let's also look at as we're doing that, what are the what are the the moves that we can make to help us get out of this hole that we found ourselves in? Whether that hole is a foot deep or if that hole is 60 feet deep, there's still an avenue to be able to get out of it. And I think a lot of young leaders, especially, and and I would say through my lens, what I've heard on the construction side is that there is quick flares. You have a lot of money being involved in this. And when something goes wrong, we jump to panic mode, we jump to yelling, we jump to who can I blame, who can I fire, who can I get rid of. And that goes the same for any type of project when in reality how we respond to that bad news, which is inevitable, is ultimately how we're going to get the team back on track. And and as a leader, you're responsible for that response uh in every way, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Yeah, let me let me uh uh uh say it I think pretty succinctly. Yeah. As a leader, as the leadership team, we need to manage the want. Such that the folks out on the front line can just go make the daily wins. Yeah. Uh and if if we're if we're managing the wants, then we can kind of create a firewall that protects them from all of the noise and and and the whipsaw. Uh granted, you're gonna be more successful sometimes than others, but uh as as a general principle, you wanna you wanna create that uh dividing line as the leaders work on the want end uh for the so the front line can just work on putting points on the board.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah, set them up for success, right? Put them in a position to to succeed. Steve, this has been this has been exactly what I wanted it to be. I I can't believe we're already at the that 45 minute mark. So let's get into some rapid fire questions here before we get you out of here on time. This is four rapid fire questions. We ask the same four questions to every guest at the end of the year. We're into a book with all of the guest answers. Uh, really excited about that. I'll try to keep you to 30 seconds, but if you're really excited about one of them, you know, I'll be lenient. There won't be any booing or heckling from me. Um, but let's start. Question number one is is what is one leadership habit that you rely on every day?

SPEAKER_01 43:06

I'll I'll call it human touch. I mean, I make it a point to check in with, acknowledge, and praise every member of my team and my role set every day. Um and even if I'm getting an earful, because sometimes you just get an earful and they're gonna dump and vent, uh, still, how do you how do you acknowledge them and offer some praise, uh, uh identify some praiseworthy thing that is just a touch and try to do that with everybody on the direct team and in my direct role set, uh, folks that I'm dependent on to be successful, that are outside of maybe people that are I'm supervising, so that uh we can uh just kind of keep the flow and uh make sure we're connected uh as a as a team. And uh Kind of a story back on uh COVID time when everybody uh went remote. Um okay, it's like we're gonna have 15 minutes a day. Let's just call in this time and uh have a have a team uh check in. That's all we're gonna do. We're gonna see each other's faces, and that gives me again that opportunity to acknowledge, praise, and then if I need to hear an earful or some when we're on the conference call, all of us heard the earful. But uh to uh to to to just kind of keep things moving. So I'll call it it's the it's that human touch.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Human touch. I I love it, I especially think in today's world, increasingly remote, increasingly online, that is it it's such a pivotal piece that every leader needs to invest in. Question number two here, Steve. What's the most underrated skill that a leader needs in order to be successful?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

I I I'm actually got two. One is uh listen and second is observe. I mean, we've got ears and we've got eyes, and we can take in information. Uh you know, you're not gonna taste the project, but you can certainly listen to what people have to say. You can uh watch behaviors uh and uh you know see what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Yeah, I love lesson and observe is so good. On the flip side of this, Steve, question number three what is one thing that great leaders should stop doing?

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Um I'd say believing data versus what our eyes and our ears tell us. Um, data is critically important. Don't don't don't get me wrong. And I'm uh I I I I like my metrics, I like trend lines, I wanna I want to see how things are going. But it it's highly by the by the time it rolls up, it's it's highly filtered. Uh and the view is not always holistic. You know, it's kind of like you go to the doctor, your vitals may be fine, right? They're taking all these measurements. Uh, but if they're not watching, they don't see that you're walking with a lip. Uh and uh sometimes you just got to go out in the field, you gotta listen to what people are saying, you've got to uh uh observe the action, and then you've got to roll that up with the data to draw a more complete picture. Uh but if we sit in the office and just look at data alone, we're missing at least half of what's going on.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

I I uh that's the first time that answer has been given, and I I adore it. The one of my favorite lines about data in in this light is that numbers don't lie, but they can be manipulated. And I can only show you one-fourth of the numbers that matter to make this look good, to make it look bad, and you're not seeing that full picture, and you could go and ask Jennifer or ask John, and they would tell you the full picture, probably right then and there. So it's a it's a great, it's a great answer. Leads us to our last one. What's the best leadership advice that you've ever received, Steve?

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Well, I'm gonna say uh two things. First, uh is from uh Bill Daniels, this uh behavior psychologist. He says you are always on always on stage. Uh and and kind of the lesson I took from that is you know, people are watching me. So my team's culture emanates from me. If I want a culture of respect, I've got to be respectful. If I want a culture that values open and free-flowing communication, I've got to communicate freely and openly, and I've got to listen and I've got to take it in. And so how I behave, how I react, uh drives the culture. If I want people yelling at each other, then all I need to do is yell. And people will emulate the boss. Uh, it happens across the board. And so always realize that eyes are on, that you're on stage, that eyes are on you, and the way you want the organization to respond has to be the way you respond, you react, you treat people, etc. So culture flows, emanates from how I behave, what I practice. So that's the that's kind of the first thing.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah, hit me with the second. The first one's perfect. That is gonna be a that's gonna be a LinkedIn post. Hit me with the second one. I you get me get a second one.

SPEAKER_01 48:39

Yeah, second is more of a revelation than advice, but I I it really changed my view. I I I I I I backpack in the in the summer, I'll go out on long uh trips and on this one on one particular hike, I was deep in prayer, just solitude. I was deep in prayer and really examining. Uh, I was having difficulty with the team and examining how I could be better. Um, and uh how maybe I maybe I need to be more Christ-like uh as a leader. And and John 1010 was impressed upon me that I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly. Uh and a switch flipped uh that my role as a leader is not just to post business results. It's not just to post business results and help people grow their career, it's to help them achieve true abundance in their lives. Uh and so I I have to I have to be attentive to uh uh their individual passions, their individual situations, because the entirety of them comes into the room. Sick kid at home, uh, you know, babysitter, uh uh substitution at the last minute, uh uh taking care of a parent. That all that all that's all part of the package. And and I've got to be sensitive and attentive to that as well as the business results in the the whole person. So that was really the uh kind of the uh key lesson. But so yeah, I've got to I've got to post the business results, but more more importantly, as a leader, I I need to I want to help people uh achieve abundance in their lives.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Nice. Whew, Steve, you went way over 30 seconds on that one, but it might be the best, it might be the best answer that I've received for the best leadership advice. I love that you're always on stage and what that means. And then the whole human is so relevant in today's world. And so I'm I'm so appreciative of you giving both of those. They were absolutely fantastic. I'm gonna pull out a video. We're recording this on April 21st. It airs in a couple of weeks, but I think that that video might be on my LinkedIn today or tomorrow because I love it. You mentioned two people in your throughout this podcast. You mentioned a couple people. I'm curious where you're gonna go with this thought process of who we're supposed to interview next. You you obviously have a well-rounded network, and you know, you probably have a hundred people that we could interview. Who do you think, Steve, we should interview next that would, you know, be a great guest for the Activating Greatness podcast and and that our audience would learn from the same way that they've learned from you today?

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Yeah, I I I would suggest trying to get Tom Caulfield, the executive chair at Global Foundries.

SPEAKER_02 51:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Uh Tom uh was our site general manager at uh well shortly after I joined Global Foundries. He came on as site general manager, ultimately became the CEO, and he uh and how he operated uh turned I'll call it a losing organization. Whole company from a losing organization into a winning organization. Uh and uh I think he would be phenomenal uh be uh, you know, and uh if if if if he ever wanted to get a band back together, come on.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

I love it. I love it. We will uh we will reach out and and I hope that we'll be able to get him on the show. I think it sounds like a fantastic uh, you know, from we talk about from good to great, but you also got to talk about from from down to up. And it sounds like that's that's where that's where maybe he's gone with the organization. Steve, this has been, you know, I I knew we would have a lot of fun, and here we are almost at the hour mark going back and forth. Uh time really does fly. I think that a lot of people are gonna get a lot out of this, not only on the construction side, certainly, you know, Velocity works with both owners and GCs and subcontractors, but also those that have listened, you know, you mentioned the variety of guests that we have on the show. And those that are listening from the life sciences or insurance or finance, I think are also going to get a lot out of this. Is there anything that you want to leave people with? A final takeaway. Uh, we talked about all these different concepts. I loved your your your first uh your your final your rapid fire four answers, but is there anything that if someone was listening to this, you would really want them to take away and bring with them to their teams?

SPEAKER_01 53:32

Um I uh you know it it it just kind of repeat uh kind of one of the core themes is uh people want to win, people need to win. And so create the conditions that allow everybody on the team to win every day. Uh and that uh I think is a cornerstone and foundational to the success of any project, any organization, uh any piece of work that you want. People have to be able to win, so create the conditions that'll let them win every day.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

I love it. I might just use that as the promotion for the episode. People want to win, you need to create the environment for them to be able to do that. Steve, this is this has been unbelievable. Uh, I could see me uh trying to get you back on at the end of the year for an episode in 2027 just to talk more uh because I value your expertise, your brain, your thought process so much, and getting to see it flourish a little bit more today and hear how you talk about people leadership uh was a real treat for me. And I know it was a real treat for anybody that was listening to this. So make sure you go connect with Steve uh on LinkedIn. We'll include the LinkedIn URL in the show notes. Go connect with him, uh, tell him that you listened to his episode of Activating Greatness, that you left it a five-star review, that you learned X, Y, and Z. You know, we continue to do this. I mentioned it's April 21st. Yesterday on April 20th, our 22nd episode came out. Now, when Steve is out, we're into the 30s and we're we're not stopping anytime soon, still on pace for close to 70 to 80 episodes here in 2026. The only reason that's possible is the unbelievable guests like Steve, but also the fantastic audience that continues to listen, that continues to engage and share commentary and you know, frankly, leads this community uh of leaders who refuse to settle for good enough. So, Steve, thank you one more time. I greatly appreciate you spending some time with us. And to everybody listening, as always, thank you. And we will see you on the next episode of the Activating Greatness podcast.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

Thank you, Alex.