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Human Connection – The Key to Influence

Relationships Will Determine Your Success

Relationships are fundamental to every interaction and transaction in your life and are the key to unlocking your potential for a successful future. This is true for both your construction career and your personal life. Regardless of situations you have encountered in the past or decisions you have made, it is never too late to start improving your relationships. It takes conscious effort, but you can do it starting right now. The fact that you are reading this book shows that you care enough to invest the time and effort to improve your life and I am honored that you have selected this book to be part of your journey.

Before two or more people are able to effectively operate with high technical function and collaboration (e.g. business, romantic, or otherwise), they must first make a fundamental human connection based on three key components: mutual respect, trust, and care. The word “mutual” means the feelings and attributes of the relationship are two‐way and dynamic. Whether or not you are conscious of this, these connections start forming quickly after initially meeting someone. This is your first impression. How many times have you met someone and instantly felt connected? An inexplicable feeling that you were going to get along based on no prior interactions or information other than their name and occupation. The opposite is also true. Have you ever met someone for the first time and felt that something was off about them based on little or no information? Our brains have been hardwired to make snap judgments that were previously used to determine our ultimate survival but have since been dulled to just give us “feelings.” While the topics of psychology, evolution, and the subconscious are important parts of building and maintaining healthy relationships, I am not an expert in any of those fields. As such, this book focuses on high‐level principles to make the right connections and leverage them for success. However, you are encouraged to investigate these areas yourself for extra points!

I want to clarify that the intent of expressing and applying the skills in this book is to genuinely connect with people and provide mutual value for anyone and everyone that you cross paths with. It is not meant to use and manipulate people to get ahead. Similar principles can apply in either situation but you will not experience long‐term happiness and success by manipulating or treating people like resources. It just makes you a bad person, so please don’t do it.

Behind every personal achievement is a community of supportive people and connections that made it happen. There are few things in life that we can do alone and professional success is no exception. As you read through the following chapters, keep in mind that relationships can make or break your career and personal life. You can leave these decisions up to chance, or you can take an active role in prioritizing, planning and executing relationship management to increase your chances of success on site, in the boardroom, or at home.

While the principles and techniques described in this book can be applied universally, chances are you are reading this book because you are keen on accelerating your career in the construction industry. You may be asking yourself, “What do all these feelings and relationships have to do with a rough and tough industry like construction?” Well, that is a great question. Simply put, over the last decades the construction industry has evolved into a very transactional environment with little to no focus on enhancing “people” skills and the human experience. It is predominantly, “Here’s your schedule, here’s your budget, get it done.” As a result, we have an industry of very technically strong people – brilliant architects, engineers, skilled trades people – people who have spent years honing their crafts based on concrete, quantifiable methods and principles but what academic course or professional training covers the topic of everyday life including interpersonal relationships, conflict management, and dealing with difficult people? All job descriptions and postings emphasize interpersonal skills as important for the role. Construction is rooted in working with people, lots of them, with many different backgrounds, training, and levels of experience. Yet, people skills are largely left to the individual to take on as part of their personal development.

What’s funny is that if you ask anyone in the construction industry – project managers, estimators, superintendents, foremen, journeymen, and apprentices – what they spend at least half of their time doing every day, they will tell you that it is “dealing with people.” Half the day is likely a conservative estimate. Depending on your role you may spend your entire day dealing with people and their problems. Why, then, are we not equipping ourselves and our teams with the tools needed to properly conduct our work in a psychologically safe manner? That is why topics like these are so important to learn. We will cover more on this in the next chapter.

The position we are in today poses a lot of opportunity for people like you who are willing to invest their time into building connections and improving the industry. This will be a huge distinguishing factor for you and will help you immensely to stand out and attract the right kind of attention. There has never been a more important time for the people of the construction industry to stop and think about how we treat each other and its direct impact on factors like productivity, profitability, and overall job/life satisfaction. It is time for a change!

This Will Improve Your Life

The main reason I wrote this book is to share what I have learned over the years to help you improve your current career situation and overall life. In this section, I will explain how learning and applying these principles will help you in your career. We will walk through some situations that you may identify with, and learn how leveraging relationships can benefit you and the people around you.

As an employee in a traditional company with a large organizational structure (more than four levels), you will have many types of relationships with many types of people – coworkers, peers, managers and friends – that you can nurture to maximize your potential for success. This is the most common situation and what you likely identify with. Whether you are an entry‐level employee, senior leadership or anywhere in between, there are three types of relationships that you need to be aware of: they are up, down and around you. These three types of relationships are equally important and serve different purposes for your success and can be illustrated as the three legs of a stool. Some relationships appear to provide more value as they connect you to higher power and authority but if any one of the relationships (the three legs) is compromised, the stool will topple and you will fall. Keep this concept in mind as we elaborate on the details below.

In large organizations, regardless of how big or fancy your title is, you will probably always have a boss. Even presidents are held accountable by boards of directors or shareholders. So, you must always be cognizant of “managing up.” Establishing and nurturing upward relationships are the most critical in pursuing future roles and responsibilities because these are the ones that will have the most impact on your career. Because managers have the ability to make decisions regarding directly hiring/firing, promotions, and incentives, it is important to identify these relationships early and focus on strengthening them often as it takes time a repetition to form a meaningful connection and bond. In short, if your boss likes, respects, and trusts you, the probability of you advancing and succeeding increases.

While connecting with managers/leaders is critical and is the most effective way to set yourself up for future success, these are not the only relationships you need to reach your goals. Connection with your peers – or those of similar experience/status – will have the largest impact on your day‐to‐day enjoyment and job satisfaction because you spend most of your day working with and around them. These relationships are extremely important. Gaining trust and respect in your coworkers will not only make for a happier, more enjoyable work experience but it will also increase productivity and effectiveness in your team. All of these results will eventually make their way back to your boss as well, thereby strengthening that relationship. The key takeaway here is that how you treat your coworkers will have a direct impact on your future success. This is also where you may have the biggest challenge and run into the most adversity as there are a lot of different personalities, especially on large teams. Some team members will even have different or questionable agendas; we will learn more about these situations in a later chapter.

The third and final relationship type in a larger organization is your connection with junior employees. These could be direct reports, new hires, or just those with less experience with whom you have some amount of responsibility or mentorship. While these relationships will have the smallest bearing on your personal career compared to the other two types, I genuinely believe that this is the most critical relationship from a leadership standpoint. As leaders, we have the...