What Makes Construction Challenging?

Working in construction can be very challenging. Why is this? HeatSpring instructor Amy Powell asks her teammates, colleagues, and trade partners to dive deep to get to the bottom of this question. 

She found that the majority of the challenges and experiences communicated ultimately boiled down to two things – communication and people. 

Skilled labor shortages. 

Onboarding. 

Motivating others. 

Initiating action in others. 

Motivating our teams to optimize productivity. 

Communicating intent. 

Stress. 

Burnout. 

Dealing with conflict. 

Operating as a highly functional team. 

All of these things lead us back to communication and people. So why are these things considered to be so challenging in our industry? 

Let’s tune in to this excerpt from Amy’s Construction Communication Methodology course to learn the answer to this question, because building your team’s communication skills are oh so critical to creating a successful and healthy work environment, conducive to getting construction projects executed efficiently and effectively.

Construction’s a team sport. While we love the game, our teammates, hecklers and fans can be some of the hardest parts. But also the most rewarding.  

So why is this? Why is it that the people or the social aspects are so dang difficult? 

Well, it’s the largest gray area, instead of the black and white that we all thrive off in construction. There’s less comfort in the unknown, the uncontrollable, and the unpredictable, which essentially defines a human. It’s the section not covered in the spec book or the instruction manual on all of this stuff. We don’t get as many immediate measurable results with humans as we do our projects. We like seeing our results – the outcome of our hard work, right? Our buildings. Our projects. What we’ve installed. 

And communication is so complex and even more complex in our industry. If you think of the many languages that we need to speak – outside of Spanish and English and other foreign languages – we have to be able to speak with inspectors, engineers, architects, the public, people with PhDs, people who may not have graduated high school or might have checkered pasts, right?

Then there’s the different communication tools that we have. The blueprints. Pre-task plans. SDS sheets. Shop drawings. Contracts. Meetings. Story sticks. Civil drawings. Electrical drawings. One lines. Right? All of these different aspects. 

And with all of these, it takes a lot more work and it takes a lot longer to learn and practice and master these skills…I can say skills… than some of these other skills, because it also takes  constant maintenance.  Our brains are not like computers or our equipment. Unfortunately, we can’t input code and get the exact output that we want out of a human, right?

Unfortunately, we can’t control people, which is hard for us to accept, especially with all of the different things that we are supposed to have within our control within the industry. In fact, when we do try to control other humans, our outcomes are usually the opposite of what we’re looking for, and it causes us to spend even more time and energy.  

So then how do we improve our communication skills in construction? 

Enroll in Amy Powell’s free Construction Communication Methodology course to learn the answer to that question!