Construction Curiosities #72
Bring Them Along | Sad History of High Speed Rail | This is What We Do
Hey! Happy Saturday! Matt here.
Welcome to the Construction Curiosities newsletter! Happy Halloween Week!
This weekly Newsletter explores my Curiosities about the Construction Industry. It's meant to make you think, smile, and become a better, more thoughtful Construction Professional.
Am I hitting the mark on helping you become a better Construction Professional or at least make you smile? If so, why not share it with someone else who will like it?
Summary
This week we will look at:
One Guest Article: Bring Them Along
Two Articles: The Depressing Story of American High-Speed Rail
One Meme: This is What We Do
One Guest Article
This week’s Guest Article comes from Kirby Coats, Project Manager at Bartlett Cocke. She didn’t think I could gif it… But you know me. 😏
Take it away Kirby:
Bring Them Along
Matt’s goal each week is to make you learn something, rethink something, or at least smile at something. He’s got the memes under control, so I’ll help with rethinking and maybe a little learning this week.
In construction, a hot topic lately is the age and knowledge gap of employees. Often following these conversations are statements of blame that ‘kids these days don’t want to work’ and that they need more formal training.
Spoiler alert, the facts say that simply is not true.
A Gallup poll found that almost 90% of millennials value “career growth and development opportunities,” however less than 40% felt strongly that they had “learned something new on the job in the past 30 days.”
That same poll found that managers are critical to the experiences that younger employees have at work, accounting for “at least 70% of the variance in engagement scores” and “managers who rated the highest at balancing results with relationships saw 62% of their direct reports willing to go above and beyond”.
“Learners retain approximately 5% of what they learn when they’ve learned from lecture, 20% of what they learn from audio-visual, 30% of what they learn when they see a demonstration, 75% of what they learn when they practice what they learned, and 90% of what they learn when they teach someone else/use immediately.”
Incoming generations desire a culture that supports growth and learning, and there is an actionable, direct effect between leaders that build their people well and the level of effort those employees want to give back. With these facts, and that 75% of employee learning and development happens on the job, leaders have the RESPONSIBILITY to lead, develop, and bring others up in their careers.
No small thing. So, where to start?
It’s actually pretty easy… ready? Bring Them Along!
[‘Them’ being any employee directly under your supervision or any employee around you that is willing to learn.]
Bring them along on job walks. Continue to build the relationship as you walk the job and enjoy getting to know them. Also use this time to ask specific questions about on-site activities. Ask them to point out safety concerns, best practices, and deficient items along the way.
Bring them along to meetings, even if they don’t have a role. This will facilitate a feeling of belonging and camaraderie. Each meeting is an opportunity to observe different personalities, methods of facilitation, and approaches to achieving results.
Bring them along to industry events where you can introduce them to connections that will benefit them throughout their career. Model for them how to best network and introduce them to individuals that can benefit them through their careers.
Bring them along as you complete your daily tasks, inform them of the why behind decisions, model desired behaviors and attitudes, challenge and encourage them to think and act on their own, and draw their ideas out with engaging questions. As they approach a new challenge, instruct them on the necessary details and take a step back. Allow them to try different methods and develop their own methods, take the long way around, and make mistakes. Maybe you will learn from them! Your responsibility is to be there - ready to balance them, reset them, adjust them, ENCOURAGE them, and only step in if needed.
It is not our job to change people. If we focus on bringing them along so they can observe, they can have those ah-ha moments for themselves.
In case you need a re-cap, Bring Them Along.
Thank you Kirby! It’s something I personally witnessed, as I had my first intern in a while this summer. He was an eager college kid wanting to learn. Essentially his internship consisted of us Bringing Him Along, to everything we did. He put together an end of Internship Presentation for our regional office. I was surprised by how much he soaked in, in that short summer.
I’m a believer. Bring Them Along to teach and inspire the Next Generation.
If you want to follow up and connect with Kirby shoot her an email at: kcoats@bartlettcocke.com
Want to be featured and have your article Gif-ified by yours truly? Shoot me an email at matt@constructionyeti.com. And let’s do it!
Two Articles
recently put out this 2 part series in his substack about the cluster-F that High-Speed Rail has been in the United States. 
Spoiler: It’s just decades after decades of the same sad story…
One Meme
When you “Bring Them Along” be sure to show them the right way to do things!
We pick up more than we are taught. Bring em along!!!