#2: Defying Expectations and Finding Fulfillment With Michael Riegel

Description:

Today’s conversation between Tina Marie St.Cyr and Special Guest Michael Riegel delves into Michael's journey from corporate to small business ownership, highlighting his transition into coaching and executive leadership development. Michael shares insights from his book, "The Little Book of Big Ideas for Construction Professionals and Those Who Work with Them," emphasizing universal leadership principles applicable beyond the construction industry.

Biography:

Michael Riegel is a coach, consultant, author, speaker, and trainer working across industries with a focus on technical and processdriven organizations. He developed an expertise in managing technical professionals, creating high-performing teams, and helping leaders grow and exceed their individual and corporate goals. As a technical professional himself, Michael brings insights and perspectives on the challenges and organizational dynamics that can thwart analytical, technical, and structured-thinking professionals. In his coaching work, he focuses on building emotional intelligence, communication skills, collaboration, cooperation, and leadership skills, especially for technical professionals who work with nontechnical leaders and teams. Michael’s coaching approach leverages his experience working in organizations and emphasizes practical solutions to management and leadership challenges. His clients include Washington Gas and Light, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Carolinas AGC, Wayfair, Electives, and Udemy. He designed and is facilitating the Carolina AGC Construction Business Academy including business assessments, action planning, and leadership coaching. Michael is a strategic partner to the National Association of Women in Construction to build greater awareness of coaching and professional development benefits to traditionally underserved professionals, industries, and companies. Michael is a contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, and is the author of Build Like The Big Primes: A Contractor’s Guide to Building Your Business While Balancing Your Life and The Little Book of Big Ideas for Construction Professionals.

Links:

Website: https://www.michaelriegel.com

Website: https://www.aecbusinessstrategies.com

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-riegel-acc-pmp-8739024

Transcription:

(00:02):

Hello and welcome to Ignite Your Leadership, our host, Tina Ree Saint here. And I'm so grateful to be sharing this space and time with you. And more than that, your attention. Together Today, we're gonna learn some new leadership insights that are gonna help us lead our teams and ourselves even better. I have an amazing guest on, and a dear friend, Michael Regal, and he brings to both of us, you and I, the listeners, 30 years of experience leading and building across cross-functional teams to deliver critical construction project. Now, how can construction, project management, and leadership help you? And I, trust me, you're gonna get some amazing nuggets out of today. 'cause I have read his book, <laugh>. He has been called the Engineer Whisperer, helping engineers and other technical professionals communicate and engage with clarity, collaboration, and cooperation with both the technical and non-technical partners. So if you're here and you'd love to learn new communication skills, and more than that, it's really how do we own ourselves and manage ourselves? That's what we're gonna be diving into today. So Michael, thank you so much for being our guest here on Ignite Your Leadership.

(01:10):

Thank you for having me. I am excited to see where our conversation goes. There

(01:15):

You go. And so, I'm curious first, 'cause I know your background is in corporate, what had you moved from corporate into being a small business owner?

(01:27):

So, I like to joke that I am the accidental entrepreneur. Okay. I, I, I, I never went into it with the idea that at some point I would be a small business owner. You know, so for the first 30 years of my career I was working in corporate. I had no model growing up for small business ownership. Both of my parents were, were started off as, as school teachers. And the thing that essentially led me to becoming a small business owner in addition to my wife being a small business owner, she's now in business for 20 years. I got laid off as part of a corporate merger corporate acquisition. So the one and only time <laugh> found myself on the outside looking in and had to kind of reassess for myself what I wanted to do.

(02:25):

This goes back, I guess about 10, 12 years. So my wife being the, the my, my smarter half, I suppose who's already a coach, said, why don't you think about going to coaching school because you're doing a lot of this work. I was already managing teams and, and much more involved on the people side of things than I was on the technical side of things anymore. So I was the engineer, technical professional who liked to work with people, made me very sort of a fish outta water in a lot of organizations. Right. Went to coaching school and realized that like, oh, there is a path forward here in terms of just like working for myself. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So I had one more corporate gig after that, which was running a small business program where I really started to look at business coaching for, for smaller businesses. Lasted there about two years. I had, I had which is sort of my pattern. I, I learned as much as I can, and then I need to move on and learn something else. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I moved on and now I work for myself doing executive coaching and leadership coaching for lots of technical folks as well as business coaching for, you know, smaller growing businesses.

(03:47):

Wonderful. And what had you focus in on the construction in the industry?

(03:52):

That's really where I came out of. So I, I went to school for construction management. I know enough engineer. I, I was, I knew enough engineering to get myself in trouble. And the thing that kept me from being an engineer versus construction management was three semesters of calculus in the semester of differential equations,

(04:13):

<Laugh>. Oh, I know, I know that one.

(04:15):

<Laugh>.

(04:16):

Oh God. Yeah. That could drive you crazy.

(04:18):

So yeah, I was, I was not willing to, to break my teeth to get through four semesters of like high level math. So went into construction management and ended up with, with a very sort of diverse career along the way, because I started doing traffic engineering and traffic planning, and then got into civil engineering and quickly moved into managing projects and managing people. But the, the industry I sort of came up in was, was really very much around construction, engineering, public works projects, which was, you know, complicated. And basically dependent on getting people to work together in a effective, efficient, cohesive way.

(05:05):

Yeah. And that's what, that's a great segue into your book right now. So I love this book and the title is, is Inre intriguing as well? The Little book of big ideas for construction professionals and those who work with them. And even though, you know, this may jump off the shelf and, and seem, you know, appealing to those people in construction, engineering, architecture, things of that nature when I read it, I'm like, this is a book for everyone. This is a book for every leader, because you're doing exactly that as you're helping them work with humans. That's what we do. And humans are everywhere. So, <laugh>, great book. Thank you. The other thing that I love about this, Michael, is you made it a workbook. I didn't expect that whenever I picked it up. You know, it's, it's wonderful insights. And then all of a sudden I'm doing my own introspection and you're calling forth that the inner leader in Me. And so <laugh>, thank you so much for making it a workbook that made it even more fun.

(05:58):

Well, you know, there, there was an interesting perspective putting the book together and, you know, yes, the ideas are kind of universal which is I have, I have gotten that feedback from attorneys who are working in construction who, who, you know, one woman who read it and was like, this is not just like, yes, it's sort of targeted for, for construction, but like, you know, this is a lot of universal sort of lessons in there and things that just, you know, ideas that were beaten into my head growing up, working in the industry. <Laugh> you know, the advice, the wisdom, the, I mean, some of it is just like common sense that we just sort of forget about Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And I couldn't help myself as a coach to sort of insert with each chapter some, some reflection questions in there because that is, you know, that's an important part of, part of, of, you know, sort of the self-development piece.

(06:57):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> the self-awareness of starting to sit down and say, oh, how, how is this starting to relate to my, to my own work? How does this start to, to pair up with how I'm managing people? So yeah, it was, it was which for most folks in construction, and I know you, you know, some of those, those kinds of those kinds of people they are not always the most introspective. They probably are. They don't wanna admit it. You know, Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> in the, in the quiet, in the quiet recesses of their, of their offices. Occasionally they, they let those, those those you know, those thoughts creep in. But mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, from, as an in, from a industry perspective, we are not the most we are not the soft and fuzzy and like to deal with the emotional elements of things even though we really do, we don't like to admit it.

(07:56):

Right. That's so true. And so I wanna dig into some of these things 'cause I pulled out some nuggets out of your book, but I think we're all gonna love to hear more of like the InBetween the spaces here in Michael's brain. One that I love that you you put in was how to upgrade your to-do list. And, you know, every single one of us has project plans, project lists. We have the things that are prioritized, and sometimes those project lists end up on our desk, meaning like, I don't know about you, but I have piles, people leave me piles. And so the piles can, in fact, right now, I have one across on the table. My conference table in my office has some piles for me later today. Thank you, Ryan. And then if it's really important, they put it in my chair. And so like, help us understand. It's like that one must need, I can't sit down until I look at this one, right? <Laugh>, but help us understand how you, your advice on upgrading your to-do list.

(08:53):

So well, and I'm, and I have my, we are all, we all fall into our own level of dysfunction, I suppose <laugh>, but I think a, a to-do list, you know, sometimes we don't really need the to-do list. We need to think of it as the to don't list. Because there are things that just go week to week that stay on your to-do list. And, and sometimes we're, we never really sort of sit back and say, you know, if this is on my list for second week, third week then maybe it shouldn't be there in the first place. Or maybe I should be delegating this to somebody else. So managers and I was in that position too, hate to delegate, right? We, you know, the, the thought creeps into everybody's head of, it'll just take me less time to do it myself that it will, to explain it to somebody else.

(09:50):

And from a leadership development perspective, like that is the killer of everyone's schedule. Every manager, every leader who adopts that, that sort of mindset is just destroying their time because, you know, they, they don't recognize if I take the time this time to explain it, all of a sudden I don't ever have to worry about this anymore. So, so I think that's, that's one thing, right? In terms of the to-do list, there's lots of stuff we can delegate. You know, I talk to my clients, the, the sort of small business owners. My advice always to them is get rid of everything except for the things that you have to do. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> get rid of everything. And, and they look at me like, what, what do you mean? Like, that is just like, yeah, I have to do all that. Right?

(10:42):

That's like crazy talk. I'm like, let go. Right? You have to just let go and, and trust people. So there's a big piece of of the trust that just like, you know, that is, that is part and parcel of, of the to-do list piece. And I think I, I had an interesting conversation about a week ago with my wife who was talking about, she showed me her to-do list, and it was just like, she was like, I don't even know where to start. And she came to me, she was like, I just, I just can't get motivated. And the, the, the conventional wisdom is like you, and I'm sure we've all sort of seen the video of like, how do you fit as many rocks into the jar as possible? Right? And, and it's always start with the big ones and then the smaller ones, and then the, and then the sand fills everything in.

(11:34):

Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I, I went, I flipped the script script on it, and I said, start with the small ones. I said, because, because her issue at that moment was motivation, not so again, when it Right. It was not about how to maximize what she got done in the day. It was just about how to get the ball moving. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So, so when you start to think about it, when you take the step back and say, what's the problem here? Right. The problem for her was not about how do I fit as much into my day as possible. It was like, how do I just get started? Yeah. So, on the to-do list, sometimes if the challenge you're having is motivation, start with the easy stuff, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> go through that list and say, this is gonna take me, you know, three minutes, oh, I've gotta make, I've gotta make a hotel reservation for a, for a conference. I'm going to just, just do it. Right. Just get it done. And all of a sudden you start to deal with the little stuff and you get some momentum going, and then you get, then you say, oh, I can, I can now tackle, you know, something bigger. Mm-Hmm,

(12:40):

<Affirmative>, that's awesome. I call it check, check mark, energy <laugh>, like the check mark energy. I wanted to touch on, on something that you mentioned, and when we delegate, I've often seen the leaders that I work with, and you probably have two, they'll, they'll delegate, but they don't set their person that assumed that responsibility for success. A hundred percent. And so not training them or understanding clearly what the expectations are, or maybe the gotchas along the way that, you know, this person already knows may be out there, those alligators waiting in the water, you know? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> what would you say to the leader who says, okay, okay, okay, I'm gonna delegate. Fine. I've heard it like the 10th time this week, I'm gonna delegate. How do we position those people that we're delegating to for success? Us?

(13:27):

That's a, that, that's a loaded question. I suppose it, I think that it gets back a little bit to, right, we all talk about smart goals, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So, right. It's gotta be specific, it's gotta be measurable, all those things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if you're delegating, you, you can kind of follow the same, the same model, you know, for things that you're delegating, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, this task that you're delivering, is it specific? Is there some right measurable outcome that you're expecting back? Do you, does the person who you're delegating to actually know when you need it back? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> do they know in the format that you need it back? So so when they do the work and then they hand it back to you as a leader, you go, okay, they, they heard me, they understood. But we can't, as leaders, you can't make the assumption, which is the, which is where things start to get a little wobbly, right? You can't make the assumption that someone's gonna just intuitively understand Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> what I need, when I need it, how I need it, and for what purpose. Right? So sometimes we forget about the for what purpose and, and the audience that it's gonna be delivered to. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> you know, so the being as specific as possible and being as explicit as possible is, is I think the responsibility on the person who's delegating in order to, to ensure that they're gonna get quality back.

(15:00):

Yeah. And that way when the, the workload or the work I object item gets done as leaders, we don't go, oh, man, I should have just done it myself. Because I think that's where we get into that, that mindset of we, we see the work and we think one was this is poor quality, there's no follow through or the details, you know, like, they missed the mark, and then we can tell ourselves the story. I could have just done it myself, or I trusted this person, it didn't work out. And then we, you know, confirm our own limiting belief that we have to be the one to do it. Yeah. So it, it comes down to delegating effectively, <laugh> Yeah. And not just delegating

(15:40):

<Laugh>. Yeah. And, and I think that, that there are lots of leaders who feel like they've gotta be the, the, the, the linchpin to everything that happens. Hmm. And, you know, and I think that more often than not, that comes from a sense of and this is, comes from a sense of lack of ego as opposed to having a strong sense of ego, which, which I think a lot of people sort of misinterpret. People who have a strong ego are willing to say, I don't need to be the one in charge. I'm gonna, I'm gonna let you, right. Let you deal with it, let you handle it, let you take whatever credit comes. Right? I can't, I, I can't tell you. I'm sure you hear it as well, how many people are, their motivation is around credit, right? Well, if I, if people don't know that I was, you know, did it right?

(16:33):

I don't get credit. And if you don't get credit, it's like, it's almost like it's not worthwhile. And I think the, the other piece in terms of the effective delegation is if you are a leader and you're delegating and you're doing it effectively, you are setting your team up to manage their own time much more effectively. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So if they, if they can start to say, oh, my, you know, my manager needs this by end of next week, and I know it's gonna, you know, it's a, it'll take me a couple hours. I, you know, now as the person who's being delegated to, I can start to, you know, manage my schedule and manage my time a lot more effectively. Right. So that, so that they're, you know, they're not always feeling like they're, they're under the gun to get stuff stuff done as soon as possible. I think as soon as possible is like the is is is perhaps the worst thing that <laugh> <laugh> that, that a leader can get it to me as soon as possible. Well, as soon as possible for you is a whole lot different than as soon as possible for me.

(17:38):

There you go. <Laugh>. And that leads me to another pieces of, of wisdom in your book. One is don't confuse urgent for important.

(17:48):

Ah, yes.

(17:49):

Urgent and important are two different things.

(17:51):

<Laugh> entirely, right. Urgency is, is completely external. Right? importance is, is is just internal, right? So I know what my job is, is this important to my job, is it's not important to my job. And then the urgency is always set by somebody else, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So I, I often when I do, you know, workshops with, with, you know, different kinds of organizations I always talk about the sort of the Eisenhower matrix, you know, urgent versus important. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, and I always say, you know, the urgent and important is the stuff that on a Monday morning, you open up your email and it blows up your schedule. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, right? It's important stuff. But somebody else is like all of a sudden putting the fire to it. It's like, this has to get done as soon as possible. Right? So all the things you have planned for your day, all of a sudden go completely out the window,

(18:48):

<Laugh>. Yeah.

(18:49):

And, you know, sort of going back to my own background in terms of being a planner you know, I always talk to advocate on, on shoehorning as much work as possible into that, that corner of things that are not urgent, but important, right? Right. It's all your planned work. It's your relationship building. It is the development of your team. It is a, it is all the things that are really critical to your organization functioning, but not doing it in a timeframe which, which feels rushed or, or artificially, you know, accelerated.

(19:27):

Right. And I find many times that urgency can be a personality based want that drives a level of value. Like that internal value. I'm valuable because I have all this urgent work. Yet whenever we step back and look at it, the truth is it's more than likely the result of poor planning <laugh>. And if we, like you said, if we, we were better planners, I think we'd have a better per brand inside of our companies, we are able to get the important things done in a timely manner versus a rushed, urgent manner because we're not stressing ourselves or other people out <laugh>.

(20:07):

Well, you know, and, and I think there's a part of it, which is people have adopted this, this sort of identity of I'm so busy Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Right. The, I'm so busy. Right. You know? Right. And part of that comes from a taking on things they shouldn't be taking on. Right. They just take on everything. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> I, I heard someone recently refer, they, they, their boss told them they were the human garbage can because they picked up all the, all the garbage that people were not, were were just dropping off the things that they weren't to do. And she was picking them up and doing them. Now, terrible mo terrible moniker, terrible way to describe it. But this was somebody who Yes. Yeah. But someone who was unbelievably valuable because she was able to, you know, a little bit of a jack of all trades was, was willing to jump in Mm-Hmm.

(21:08):

<Affirmative> willing to engage. But yeah. Was, was was burning the candle at both ends because she was doing all kinds of things that were not her job, not her responsibility. You know, and, and other people were not being held accountable for them and Right. You know, so, so there is this, but there is this sense of, if I am not busy, if I am not like, you know, hair on fire all the time people aren't gonna think that, you know, I'm actually being effective and efficient and Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> those people who can figure it out, who walk around, you know, and you go, how does this person have time to actually have a, just a random conversation? And, you know, and the answer is like, they're, their managing their time. They're managing their work. They're, they're doing things the way they should be done. They're being much more planful. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And as a result, they've got the, the flexibility and the capacity in their day to take on things that are just gonna show up. Because things always show up. Right. We just don't know. We don't know what they are, and we don't know when they're gonna show up. But you can pretty much guarantee that at some point something's gonna jump out of the grass and grab you by the ankle.

(22:27):

Yeah. <laugh>, those are always fun days, moments, right. Not the whole day. But I I, I get a not the whole day. Sometimes people call me, they say I don't wanna bother you. You're so busy. And I'm like hello. I answered the phone. I'm, I've got time for you. That's why I answered the phone. And then I'll say and the truth is, busy is a four letter word. I I find myself to be productive. So how may I help you? And, and I'm like that Michael, I, I plan, you know, I plan as much as I can effectively and execute a a sense of I'm doing my life well, especially as a leader, is at the end of the day, that I feel as though we, we did get those check marks. We have moved balls down the field in a concerted way, not haphazardly.

(23:20):

It was mindful. And then we can see where we're stopping on that day for that project if it wasn't yet finished. So we know where to pick up the ball again the next day. And my team feels as though they also, you know, created progress. I check in with them for that. And then we, we can put things down, you know? I've been an organization where it's, and I ask my clients to do this too. It's build organizations where you can know that you can put things down and trust that it, you know, all hell won't break loose. That means that you've got great communications, which, which means, you know, like, I, I love that you, your book really, I, I wanna stress everyone You're gonna go, it's Amazon, right? That's where they'd find this. Yep. Is it on Amazon? Okay. The, the little book of

(24:11):

Find out Amazon.

(24:12):

Right. The Little Book of Big Ideas for construction Professionals. Now, again, this is for everyone, and the truth is, we're all construction professionals. 'cause We were constructing our own life. So <laugh> <laugh>

(24:24):

I, I love that

(24:24):

Perspective, but I, yeah, there you go. And so it's, the sense of fulfillment is that I can rest, you know, I can go home and I can rest, and I can be with my family and my mind is calm. Right. is that a hundred percent every single day? No, but it's, it's, the majority of my time is that way, and I'm grateful. Would you say that's a sign of fulfillment in, in your book? Or what are those signs of fulfillment for professionals to Michael?

(24:55):

Oh, so, well, I think that for, for me, with a lot of the, my coaching clients, I think there's a perspective that, that I always stress for with them, which is Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, they are more than their job. Right? We, we, you know, too much too often, we identify who we are with what we do. And it, it can, that can be a really dangerous trap. Because if your only identity is, you know, you know what you do. I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer, I'm an engineer. I'm a right. And, and don't ever widen the aperture a little bit to say, you know, what do I like to do? Right? What do I get pleasure from? What do I enjoy doing? You know, that to me, if I can get, if I can get a leader to start to think from that perspective, that they are a, they don't have to be on.

(25:55):

Right. More often than not, they, they shouldn't be on call 24 7. I can't tell you how, I can't tell you how many leaders I have said who I have said if you email your team on a Saturday, they are going to respond because if they get right, you're, you are sending 'em an email and saying, right, because you had a thought in your head, you know, and, and you want them to think about something for Monday morning. But if you send the email on Saturday, all of a sudden they are gonna go from I am out of work mode to, oh, now I'm working again. And Right. And our technology has, has made it that we are tethered to work in, you know, like I started, I'm sure for you, when, when we both started our careers, like, you left work at five o'clock, you left work at five o'clock. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Right. It didn't. Right. You didn't start again until nine o'clock the next morning. Right. So, you

(26:53):

Know, when it stopped, you know, when it stopped Michael, 'cause we're the same age here. So when they invited, they invented pagers, <laugh>, I remember when I got assigned a pager, like, oh, no, <laugh>.

(27:09):

For for, for those, for those of you who are listening who may not quite understand what we're talking about go back and watch what's a pager? Right? What's a pager? It was I, I forgot what show it was on. Oh, I'll remember it. But it was like, there was a character called the beeper king. Right. The beeper king. Right. We all had beepers, right. <Laugh>,

(27:31):

Yeah.

(27:32):

But this was like the, I would say sort of mid nineties.

(27:36):

Mid nineties. Yeah.

(27:37):

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We all of a sudden we started to become, you know, much more tethered to work and Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So, right. So leaders, you know, without even consciously doing it, are burdening their teams because they get an idea in their head of something that has to get done. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And they just send out the email. And then the hierarchy of organizations is still that same way. It's probably worse now in the last few years because everyone works remotely. So you don't necessarily have that same connection to, to people to understand, oh, this is what my, I mean, managers is thinking, I actually don't need to respond to this. I just need to like, put it in my inbox and deal with it on Monday. But we've lost some of that, that, you know, that sort of

(28:27):

The boundaries,

(28:29):

The boundaries and understanding of, of, you know, other people's, you know, sort of thought processes. So, you know, so for me, mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> fulfillment from a professional perspective is like, you know, are people really engaging in the things outside of work that are gonna be giving them fulfillment? Are they getting fulfillment from the actual job they have? Because people get, people get slotted into jobs. I work with a lot of technical folks. They at some point get pushed up into a role that they don't want, don't understand, don't have the skills for they are brilliant in their own way. If you leave them doing the work they do, but as soon as you start to require them, or for force them to manage other people to, to take on these other responsibilities, they all of a sudden they, they are completely fish outta water and don't know how to react.

(29:30):

Right. It's the, it's the joke about you know, asking a fish to climb a tree, right? It's like, Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, they, they can't do it. They don't have the, they don't have the skills, they don't have the muscle memory to actually do it. Right. And too many organizations don't create that, that path either for them to learn those skills or for them to stay in those roles, that generate huge value for the organization. Right. So they push 'em into roles, you know, engineer who all of a sudden has to manage teams or deal with, with clients and says like, I just wanna go back to my desk and design things. Right? Right. It's like, you know, so all of a sudden you now take somebody who is really engaged and really happy in the work they do, and they become disgruntled, dissatisfied, ineffective, and, you know, roll it forward a few months, and all of a sudden they are on the job market looking for something else because Right. You know, they, they're gonna find somebody else who's gonna let them do what they, what they are really passionate about doing.

(30:34):

Right. And that's, that's a critical bad move on on many, what I see engineering based companies, because they believe that since somebody's been with them for the longevity of loyalness, they reward loyalness with responsibility over other humans without positioning them to be the leaders over other people, let alone themselves. So you know, fair point, fair point. There's a couple points in your book I'd love to put, bring forward. 'cause I love this. I mean, I, like, I, as soon as I read, 'cause you wrote in such a, an intriguing way, like it's these little paragraphs. I'm like, I can go there. I'm like, oh yeah, that called me in. This one is let me find it in my notes, is basically, oh yeah, you don't need to like each other to work together. <Laugh>, I love this. You don't need to, everybody listen, we don't need to like each other to work together.

(31:29):

And so I just got a new dog. So she's a puppy. She'll be a year old next week, and she's the same breed and and size as my current dog. Now you, I've had my dog for 18 months and she, you know, you can tell your dog a day long, you're gonna have a sister working home, a sister, they have no clue what you're talking about. And so in comes this other being, and she's not just there for a weekend vacation. She's now part of our family. And so my dog literally has been ghosting me, giving me some attitude, you know, before where she would look me and want me to hold her. She's like, nah, nah, not talking to you woman. Because she's like you know, what'd you do bringing this person on into our family? I thought we were good. And so my dogs are gonna learn to like each other, I hope, but they don't need to like each other to be a family. So can you talk to us about not needing to like each other to work together?

(32:24):

Yeah. I, I mean, I have, I have, as I'm sure many of your listeners have as well had experiences where you had to work with people who you didn't like. And like is, you know, it's hard to describe what like is, right. So sometimes like is just a difference of opinion different, of different way of doing things, different, you know? Yeah. Sometimes it's about different backgrounds, it's different, you know, different attitudes. And that's okay. Because I think that, you know, not liking somebody is one thing. I don't have to be best friends with everybody who worked for me. I work with don't have to be best friends, don't have to want to go to go for drinks at the end of the day. But I have to, I have to treat them with respect. Right. I have to acknowledge what they bring to the table.

(33:19):

So unless they are violating, you know, ethical sort of boundaries or Right. You, you have to, you have to allow for people to have a different way of doing things, a different opinion, a different, you know. And I think that, you know, especially feels like in the last, you know, six, seven years we have become so polarized politically, and that bleeds over into into workplace, right? So it's like there were, there were, there were times, I'm sure I worked with people who had political opinions who just were horrid. Right. Would be completely 180 degrees from where I am. I never knew Right. Because it was like, right. You, you didn't talk about certain things. And it seems we

(34:11):

Didn't talk about it <laugh>

(34:12):

Yeah. We just didn't talk about it. And, and sometimes that's okay. And I think that now it seems like everything is on the table all the time, right? Just like lay everything bare and you go, and, and there's an attitude sometimes in organizations if you don't like it, well, there's the door and mm-Hmm. Sometimes it's like there, you know, there people are allowed to their o opinion, right? It's like and I think that, and I think that we, when we can get to that place, right? That's a little bit of the like but when we say, yeah, you do your thing, I'm gonna do mine, right? But we've gotta work together on this project and, you know, it has to be some kind of meeting of the minds, you know, that is different than, than wanting to, you know, hang out all the time and, and go for drinks after work.

(35:08):

Right. What would you say is what advice would you give someone if they have gotten into this contentious place and they know that to work closely with a certain person on their team? Is it, you know, do we make that move? Do we have that courageous conversation to restore trust and respect? Have you coached people in that regard?

(35:30):

Oh, yeah. <Laugh>, it's right. It's, it's what we, what we sort of refer to as the, it's, it's the, the tricky conversations. It's the, it's the conversations that we don't necessarily want to have, but we need to have them. And I think that once we, you know, it, it's, it's hard to know. It's like the chicken and the egg, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> who, who's, who's, who's gonna, who's gonna sort of start the right, who's gonna, what sort of,

(36:02):

Who's gonna broach it? Yeah. Who's

(36:03):

Gonna broach the, who's gonna give the opening bid? And I think that, you know I, I often talk about it in terms of relationship bank accounts, right? These are, and especially with people who you may not be aligned with philosophically where you have some kind of a difference of opinion that it is, it, it's your responsibility to, to put some deposits in that bank account Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> to build that trust to build the relationship. And I remind people all the time that it is entirely likely that you are your difficult person's difficult person, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So <laugh>, right?

(36:48):

There's some humbleness. Yeah.

(36:49):

<Laugh>, you, you are your, you are your, your, you are your difficult person's, difficult person, right? Which is accept your own, your own responsibility. Right? What do you, what do you, what part of this do you have to own? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Because, you know, it is, it is never a hundred, you know, it, it's never a hundred percent on one side and zero on the other. It's never black and white. It is always in shades of gray. And it's figuring out how do you, how do you make sure that you're treating each other with respect? And, and and, and it's about finding some common ground because mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you may not like somebody, but there's always some common ground, right? Even if that's just to get through a project and do it well, and everyone gets their, you know, gets, gets their pat on the back for doing a job well done. And, and you may be able to part ways and, and never have to work together again. But for that period of time, you gotta figure out a way to, to put your personal stuff aside and, and sort of recognize the greater good that, that everyone's trying to achieve.

(38:03):

Yeah. I love that. And, you know, and in big projects it's gonna happen. So, you know, it's the more experience we get in the maturity of our careers, learn new navigatable strategies to help those things go well. Right? Sure. And speaking of which, a navigatable strategy for you, everyone here is the little book of big ideas for construction professionals. I've said that many times, and I'm meaning it <laugh>. So get it. There's another one in here, and I wanna get your insights on this one. Michael, you talked about lead with body language. So our body language can create receptivity or resistance. And I wanna understand your thoughts on, 'cause I see this so much, I see leaders who are texting as their first mode of communication with their customers, with their vendors, with their teams, <laugh>. So I just wanna know, what's your insight on communications? And especially whenever you say lead with body language and we're in a texting world.

(39:03):

Yeah. Well, we are in a texting world and I, and I often have to remind clients that texting is great, but like, you know, there, the, the telephone is your friend, right? Occasionally pick up the phone. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, you can, you can deal with things you know, sometimes very efficiently. Forget email, forget texting, pick up the phone, have that five minute conversation, and then sort of, you know, recap it. The body language piece is really interesting because the science of it is that from a interpersonal communication perspective, the words you use only carry about 9% of your message. So of the, the actual words, only 9%. Wow. Your, your tone of voice carries about 38% over half your message is delivered by body language. So, you know. Yeah. It's a, it's a huge number. So the, the, the way I always tease people about it, especially like they're, they have to make presentations.

(40:19):

They gotta talk in front of groups. I said, if you're happy or you're excited, tell your face. Right? So, Mm-Hmm. <Laugh>, because if you <laugh> tell your face, because if you've got if, if you, if you've got a smile on your face, if you seem a little animated, people are gonna re be, they, they're gonna, all of a sudden the message is gonna be received a whole lot better than as I'm sure we have all seen in the, you know, you go into a meeting and there's somebody sitting in the corner of the room, arms crossed, they're right there, eyes are closed, they're shaking their head, and they're, and you're going, <laugh>, this, this person wants to be any place else except for right here. Right? Right. So no matter what you say that, that person's not gonna hear. Right? So, Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So from a communication perspective, we have to, it's important to remember that the, the energy, the the way you present yourself is way more important sometimes than the actual words you're using. And, but we're not getting away from texting. We're not getting away from Right. And it's like, it, it, it is, it is, the challenge of text has no context. It's got no emotion, it's got no feelings to it, no

(41:39):

Body language,

(41:41):

<Laugh> no body language. And, and in general, if you are the one who's sending the message you know, it, you, you don't know how it's gonna be received, right? It's the, it is the difference between impact and intention. And I do a lot of, and I do a lot of work with, I happen to do a lot of work with women who are in construction. So we're in 90 10 industry demographically. And I have to remem remind the, the men your intention is immaterial. The impact is, is where things come down. So, and it works with really any kind of a, you know, a minority group intent Mm-Hmm. Is forget about intent. You had, you know, the, you have to think about impact. How does this message land? And what's the impact on the person who's receiving it? As opposed to Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, I meant, right? I didn't mean to offend anybody, right. <Laugh>. Right. No one ever intends to, but, but you did. And mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So from a communication perspective, we gotta think about what's the impact? And, and that the texting, the email, the instant messaging, the wherever, you know, slack channels, right? Whatever, you know Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> sort of virtual communication stream you have is, you know, it, it starts to make it a whole lot more complicated and difficult.

(43:15):

Yeah, it does. I I tend to start my communications, at least if they're at the beginning of the day or the first communication I've had with that person in the day, I'll say, wishing you well, hoping you're having a great day, or something like, hope everything's going great. And then I'll go into my communication and my, my, my intent <laugh>, I don't know about the impact, but the intent is that it lightens the reception of the message, or at least it opens a door as if we were in person and had shaking of hands, right?

(43:47):

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And, and the interesting thing from a, from a digital perspective, we read emails in, in the shape of an f. So

(43:58):

What's that mean, <laugh>?

(43:59):

So people, so people will read the, generally read the first paragraph, and then they will skim down and only read sort of what's in the, what's along the left hand bullets <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. So, right. So if you want something to be a, you know, if you want people to understand, right? Use bullets, use bold, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But understand that people are, their eyes are gonna drift from a long paragraph up top to just looking at what's on the left hand margin. Mm-Hmm. So if you're putting blocks and blocks and blocks of, of paragraphs, it's, it's, yeah.

(44:32):

You've lost 'em, you've lost them,

(44:34):

You're done, you're done. <Laugh>, <laugh>.

(44:36):

And people will, I, I do this sometimes I'll see their name in my inbox and like, oh no, it's gonna be a book <laugh>. I don't have time for a book. Right. Less than CliffNotes. <Laugh>. Yeah. Cliffnotes nowadays is too long, also, right?

(44:56):

Oh, right. Like beepers for those

(44:58):

People. Cliff

(44:59):

<Laugh>. Right. I right it, it's like cliff, right? It's like beepers right there. There's a whole generation of people who don't even understand what CliffNotes are.

(45:08):

I know. I'm, I'm getting old <laugh>. It's okay. Yes. I'm happy to be got, I I, I'm very grateful to be getting old because there's many times in my youth where I couldn't have not survived. And so I'm like, yay, I'm still here. <Laugh> Yeah. I'm defining the odds. And,

(45:23):

And, and, and I'm very grateful. I'm very grateful. There was no social media when, when we were right. That age, because like, we, we head plan. Yeah. We, we, we, at, at this age, we can admit that. Like we did some dumb stuff. We did some stuff, which was just like, yeah. Just, and, and I'm glad there was no social media around to to capture it. I still have friends, I'm sure, like you, who, who will Yeah. Occasional, occasionally drag up the old memories. And I go let's, let's

(45:58):

Remind us.

(45:59):

Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah.

(46:02):

Yeah. I'm like, you're old enough. That memory should be gone by now. Okay, so <laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I would've gone viral multiple times. I'll just put it that way. <Laugh> <laugh>. And not, not

(46:15):

For good reasons and, and not for not for good things. Yeah. Not

(46:18):

For good things at all. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for putting your wisdom into a book. Well, your second book actually. So second book.

(46:26):

Yes.

(46:26):

Second book. And this book is, is chocked full of wisdom for the leader. And so if you'd love a, it's, and I hate to say easy read, it's not that it's easy read, meaning mindless. It's, it's, it's impactful and the way that you've put it into an organizational digestible sense of, you know, just formatting here. It's, it's just, it's like a little bible. It's like a bible for the leader. And I love the workbook aspect too. Thank you.

(46:57):

Thank you. And, and, and I will, I will share one, one thought that I heard yesterday, I was listening to a podcast Simon Sinek was interviewing Alex Edelman, who's a, you know, comedian Mm-Hmm. And bringing it full circle for you, 'cause I know that you are right. This, this is your

(47:16):

I standup comic gig. Yeah. I do

(47:19):

This, this is your bill, you my

(47:20):

Alter ego.

(47:22):

Yeah. And, and Simon Sinek was talking about the way he writes and he said, I don't write from the perspective of there being like this huge reveal at the end, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, like, ta-da and, and Alex, right? And Alex Edelman was sort of talking about it from the same way. Like, he goes, I don't, I don't do, my comedy is not like the, the setup. And then it's like, right. The huge reveal. And, and you know, so he said like, the, for me, the reader does all of the work. He goes, I'm just laying some things out. And then they've gotta sort of do the work Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, and then take it forward from there. And I am in no way comparing myself to Simon Sinek. You can,

(48:06):

You can. I I am. But I think

(48:08):

That Right. <Laugh>, but I think in, in that same vein, when I, when I started to put the book together, it was not to write, you know, an encyclopedia. It was to give people enough to start to generate the get, get the wheels moving, generate some thought, generate some awareness, and then the reader then has to go and do the, you know, do the rest of the work themselves.

(48:31):

Right. Put it to put it into play. And that's what we do here. Put leaders we can digest all day long, putting into play changes lives. And that's why we're leaders. And that's why we listen to Ignite Your leadership. Thank you, Michael. I want to have everybody know how to stay in touch with you.

(48:48):

Stay in touch. Yes. Yes. You can find, find me on LinkedIn. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. You can find me. I've got a substack with lots of resources and lots of stuff I've written. You know, you can find me on my website at michael regal.com. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that's probably the best way to, best way to find me. That's, and if you're interested in the book, it, it is on Amazon I think it's 1299. It's give or take,

(49:14):

Amazingly valuable. I love it. Yeah. I, I'm gonna give this as gifts to my clients, by the way. You know, I, I stretch and, and try to find the, the latest books that you can give. And I give them all, you know gifts whenever they sign on with me and Think and Grow. Rich has been one of my common ones to give out. And, you know atomic Habits and things of that nature, your book is now put to the top of that list. Thank you. The little book of big ideas for construction professionals. And we are all constructing our own lives. So leaders get your copy. Definitely. You'll love it.

(49:49):

Thank you for the time.

(49:50):

Thank you, Michael <inaudible>.