Why Leadership Gaps Are Holding AEC Teams Back

BJ, when you look at leadership across engineering [music] and construction teams today, what are some of the common gaps that you're seeing in leadership in our industry? >> The ability to adapt and innovate, whether that's AI or other technology. Every time you introduce another thing to folks that are trying to execute a project, even though it it could be [music] the best new whisbang thing, I feel like our industry is very resistant [music] to change. I used to joke that AEC was archaic, expensive, and cumbersome. It's archaic because you're not changing the math problems of engineering equations. that they are. >> What are the biggest [music] leadership gaps holding architecture, engineering, and construction teams back today? [music] And why do so many firms struggle to address them even when the challenges are clear? In an industry built on precision and performance, leadership is often the difference [music] between projects that simply get delivered and those that are truly successful. In today's episode, I'm joined by BJ Kramer, president and CEO [music] of MCFA and the host of Leadership Blueprints. He's a West Point graduate, a combat veteran, and founder of the Friendly Strife Foundation. BJ always brings such a [music] unique perspective on leadership shaped by his military experience, and his experience in the [music] AEC world. And we're going to get into some stuff today that is kind of next level leadership and how to build leaders in your organization and how to build your leadership mindset. >> [music] >> Now, before we jump in with BJ, I do want to tell you a little bit about AECPM Connect, a series of in-person events that we've created at EMI for AEC project managers and the leaders who develop them. If you want to stay [music] on top of PM trends, elevate your team, and deliver strong project results. These fullday events are built for [music] you, so you can learn more at apmconnect.com. I'm your host, Anthony Pasano, and this is the AEC Leadership Podcast. All right. Now, I'd like to welcome my guest on to the show for today. BJ Kramer is the president and CEO of MCFA and the host of Leadership Blueprints. BJ, welcome to the AEC Leadership Podcast. Or maybe I should say welcome back. How are you? >> Good, good to be back, Anthony. Thanks for uh thanks for the invitation. >> Yeah, I'm excited to have BJ back. He's been on the show before. um he's growing a company, so he's kind of in leadership mode, real time, if you will. Um he's also a West Point graduate and combat veteran. I always like to thank him for his service to our country, which I'm very grateful for. So, thank you for that. >> Appreciate it, brother. >> Thank you. >> And let's get started by having you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, kind of where you're at in your career today, and you know, how your journey has evolved into a lot of leadership in what you do. Take us through your career in the give us the cliff notes if you can. Yeah, it's um so as you mentioned, West Point grad, I graduated in 2004 during a time of combat operations in Iraq. So, kind of quickly uh saw the realities of war, but off right out of right out of my first operational assignment, went to grad school, got a utilization assignment with the core of engineers, and that really opened up my career to the AEC industry. So, hard for me to believe that it's it's been almost a 20-year career now in the AEC on both the public side and the and the private side. So, first project out of grad school, I was like the third or fourth person on on site. I grew into a resident engineer position for a two two billion dollar research and development campus that the army was building. And that really opened up the doors to everything I know about the AEC today. and uh really set the foundation for the company that we're we're growing here at MCFA. Um fast forward, I joined MCFA in 2012. Uh I I bought the majority ownership in 2019 and we we've grown from about 15 employees back then to now 70 today very intentionally and hopefully we get into this around empowering a leadership mindset at the project manager level. Uh and we can get into what what that means. Uh but to me it's about pulling together all of the pieces that I think it takes to lead in our industry which is understanding the client and the business development side of it understanding the technical delivery side of it having the business acumen and then having the people leadership skills because professional services we you know whatever you want to call it we end up selling people's time to to solve problems um and hopefully create value. And I think being able to teach, mentor, coach, and develop other humans, other professionals is key to continuing growing our firm. >> Yeah. And we talk a lot of the same language in our day-to-day. So, I'm excited to kind of talk shop here with BJ about leadership in projects and and beyond. And you know, one of the things that kind of reminded me to kind of have him on again is he puts out an awesome kind of newsletter every Friday that I really like and enjoy reading. And I'll let him tell you about that at the end of today. So maybe you could check it out. But that's been, you know, really a good reminder. He puts out really good reminders every week about the leadership journey, which I appreciate. So BJ, let's let's start by talking a little bit about your experience as a West Point graduate and a combat veteran and how that has kind of influenced the way you lead teams in the AEC industry. Tell us about the connection or how it's helped you. >> I It's funny. I I had a a classmate of mine posted something about our plebe year today on LinkedIn. So without knowing it, you you are forced into this leadership development ecosystem. And I think what West Point gets right and and when you're there, you're talking about all the things that they're getting wrong. Um but what what they get very very right the further away I get from there is they do two things. They make you think that everything that's going on in your life is very very high stakes. And it feels like that when you're 18, 19, 20 years old, like you can't get bad grades. You have to do everything that they're asking you to do. You're you're you're you're receiving all of this new culture, new identity, new education in this elite institution with a very competitive pure group. And everything feels high stakes. I got to get good grades. I got to make it to PT. I got to do good on my PT test. I've got to understand all of my military knowledge. I have to memorize my pleb. It's just an overwhelming environment and it feels like you cannot fail. Like I can't I can't screw any of this up or I'll I'll be out of here. But the truth is wrapped around this intense culture is actually a very safe place for you to fail. Nobody wants you to drop out of there. Nobody wants you to leave there. And people do end up dropping out. People do end up quitting that that aren't right. And people do end up getting kicked out for either uh drastic academic honor or character violations. But it's actually a safe place for you to fail because in all of that high stress stuff, none of it actually matters a lot. It's the compounding effect that you are able to slowly figure out how to balance a whole bunch of demands on you and still figure out how to perform. And it's the idea of constantly going through hard things that makes you capable of doing hard things. So the further I get away from it, the more I realize like, holy cow, the you knew you were going to a leadership development institution, uh, but you didn't realize how much you were being developed. compared to let's just say our peer group. Um so the more I connect with connect 20 years postgraduation with my classmates, it's unique to see how much we identify with each other's pathways and how much we appreciate how hard it was and what what we had to go through. Uh because I do think it it set us on a different trajectory for a leadership development uh career. So, let me go back to what you asked though because I I think I went on a tangent. >> No, I mean that was helpful, but yeah, tying it back to what you're doing today, but it sounds like that's a big piece of it. >> I I think what it what so it prepares you. You are you graduate and you're a platoon leader in the United States Army. What does being a platoon leader mean? It means at 22 years old, I was responsible to take 30 men ages 18 to 40 under my leadership into combat where stakes are very real and it is not a safe place to fail. Bad guys are trying to hurt us and my job was to execute the mission while doing my very best to bring everybody home. So it prepared us for that. >> And I think after that you realize two things. One, you're never going to have something this hard or this where the stakes are this high again in your life. And two, leadership is about taking care of others. Plain and simple. Can you accomplish the mission while taking care of other people? And I think my leadership development journey has been about balancing those two things in different environments. I've been on boards. I've been athletic coaches. I've been I'm a father. I've been a project manager at the at the project leadership level. I've been a division, you know, business unit leader. I'm the CEO of a company. Everything is about can we accomplish the goal and develop and bring people with us while we do it. Yeah, I love that because leadership is when someone can simplify leadership down to a couple of core things. I think that's very valuable because it becomes this thing where there's a million books on leadership, a million videos you can watch all day long. And I'm sure there's a lot of good stuff in there, but at the end of the day, like you're saying, you got to keep it simple, right? Achieve the mission, achieve your goal, and develop and bring your people along in the process, which I think is great. And and to your your West Point experience, I actually attended the leadership program last year at West Point, >> which was great. I really enjoyed it. And what you said, >> who did you go through it with? >> There was several different generals that I can't recall right now, but one of the thing I do recall very vividly was one of the I don't know if what level he was, but from the Blackhawk Down mission, who was actually there spoke to us and took us through it. and he shared some clips from the movie. But but the point I took away, the reason I went to it in the first place was because >> Colonel Steel, >> I think that was >> old guy. >> I believe that that was him who was the who visited with us. >> Okay. >> And um the reason I went to it in the first place is exactly what you said is that there really is no higher stakes than that kind of leadership, right? Like what you said, it's like it's live or die. You got people that you're responsible for their lives. And so my thought process was that if you can learn from people that have been in that situation, that's got to be really powerful, right? And some of the stuff and some of the stories that they shared were very powerful. But going back to your experience at West Point, you know, we spent about a week there and we walked around campus and stuff and you could really see how regimented the cadetses were, right, in terms of running together, dressed the same way, go to flag football, set it up, everybody breaks it down and and it really makes sense to what you're saying is that they're making you feel like every single thing matters because when you graduate and you get shipped out, every single thing does matter. So they're they're trying to replicate like you know the fiercest of situations. Um so I can only imagine like how much like that can help you like you're saying now when you're trying to achieve your goals when you're trying to develop your people you've got that experience behind you. So I think that's awesome. So BJ when you look at leadership across engineering and construction teams today what are some of the common gaps that you're seeing in leadership in our industry? I think well let me start with the one that feels like it's the most pervasive and interface right now is the ability to adapt and innovate whether whether that's AI or other technology every time you introduce another thing to folks that are trying to execute a project even though it it could be the best new whisbang thing I feel like our industry is very resist resistant to change. It's it it's a I used to joke that AEC was archaic, expensive, and cumbersome. It's archaic because I mean, you're not changing the math problems of engineering equations. They they are what they are and they always will be. And then second, we're risk averse because most of our clients um and most of and and even the professional obligation is the public safety. So now you want me to do something better, smarter, faster and trust it immediately. By nature, our industry is not going to adopt it quickly. And then it changes. By the time we get bought into adopting it, it changes and there's something new. So, you know, I finally figure out how to use chat GPT for the couple of things I want to use and everybody's telling me move to Grock or or Claude or, you know, it it's just there's there's so much. So, I would say one a leadership challenge is how do you be innovative? How do you adapt? How do you be nimble to the things that will move our industry forward while also being compassionate to the professional body of of people we have and their ability to to digest change. >> That's that's number one. Number two is brain drain. I just got off the phone with one of my most senior engineers and I tell him all the time my biggest fear is him him not just leaving the company leaving the industry >> because he has so much knowledge >> and I don't know if it's that I I don't know I haven't put a lot of thought into this I know that there was a point in time where it was like when I was at the core of engineers there's something like 80% of the core of engineers employee base was elig uh retirement eligible. >> Okay. >> And they were just kind of because of econ economic slips their instead of retiring at 60 they retired at 68. They stayed in grade longer. So they continued to get all these leadership lessons from where they were sitting. But that next group might not have gotten all of the experience that should have naturally been passed down. So I think that there is a level and I just talked with Milo Reverso who's the former CEO of of STV and he thinks that one the amount of leadership we need in our industry does not exist because we are taking on way more complex uh and way bigger programs than we ever had before. the and and I look back the research and development $2 billion research and development campus I was building like at the time the number of people that were like you have no idea how lucky you are to be on such a huge project at such a young age $2 billion projects don't you know they only come around once in a lifetime we've got billion dollar programs going on you know you can't you can't go a 100 miles without running into a hundred billion dollar construction construction projects in in our region. >> Um, and that's probably true across the country between data centers and pharma and you know, you name it. >> There's a bridges and infrastructure and you know, highway widenings. There's just so much pro so much going on. But the level of complexity of that, the number of stakeholders in that, um the number of internal and external stakeholders, the ability to communicate and then you know in all of that stay on top of technology that's supposed to be trying to make us more efficient. It It's a lot. >> Yeah, it is a lot. It's a lot. And in the AEC industry, skilled project managers are the backbone of success. EMI's AEC PM certification offers tailored [music] training, ongoing support, and exclusive access to premium content that keeps your team sharp and effective. From foundational training to advanced leadership tools, set your team apart with certified growth. Learn more at aecpm.com. That's aecm.com. [music] That's why if we go back to what you said a few minutes ago about the role of a leader to achieve your goal and develop your people in the process, I feel like when you have kind of a mission even statement like that, it can make some of these things easier because you can look at AI and say, "Okay, how can we use AI but still do this?" >> Right. Right. I mean that's a that's the way I try to think of things like if we have an overarching goal, you might throw different variables into the equation, but we still know where we want to go. So >> correct. >> If AI is going to help us, which one's going to help us? How can we learn it? How can we start using it to make this better? If it's not going to make it better faster, then it's a waste, right? Potentially. Like I'm not saying AI is a waste, but I'm saying finding the right thing that she helps you achieve >> for for our mission. Exactly. >> What is it? What is it we are trying to accomplish? >> Exactly. >> What what problem are we trying to solve? >> Exactly. And so having that I think to ground you is really important. >> And I had a a really good conversation recently with Kevin Haney who's the CEO of Kier's Engineering and Design. And I was asking him their philosophy on AI, you know, 3,000 person AE firm growing, acquiring companies. And his was very good. He said, "Listen," he said, "There are experts out there in AI." Like for example, Bentley, right? >> We're using their programs. They're keeping up with AI. So if we're using their programs, then we can let them worry about the AI and we can do like what we're doing type of thing, right? which was also a great philosophy is like you know getting the right people to help you so that you're not bogged down trying to learn a bunch of stuff when you can focus on what you could drive value with. So I think that's important you know having that mission like you said having a clear goal and I think the other thing that you said is true and that we just lack right now I think leadership in this industry or enough leadership because the programs like Milo suggests I think he's right is becoming so complex right there's so many moving parts right now and everything is moving so fast that there's on leaders and project managers there's just so much pressure put on them and so many things that they're juggling Which is why in my opinion leadership development is just as important as it's ever been because the companies that have those leaders and to your point about your team member the leaders that are going to stay right and grow in their organizations those are going to be the companies that are successful long term. >> I I agree I and I I want to make this point on leadership. When you come out of the military, there's not a soldier in the military that doesn't think they're a leader. >> Wow, that's powerful. >> From the team leader who might be responsible for one other or two other people to the squad leader who has two team leaders to the platoon leader that has four squad leaders to the company commander who has four platoon leaders to the battalion commander that has three to seven company commanders to the brigade command. every one of those levels. It's just a higher echelon of leadership. But go back to where I started. The team leader who is a 20-year-old E3, E4, they're a leader. >> Yeah. >> So that's that is something in a technical field like engineering, uh, architecture, construction, we we tend to think like you're the doer and they're the leaders. It's like no, no, no. We have to empower a leadership mindset at every level. And if we do that, then we will match career pathways to the largest programs. And so I I think that everybody listening to this, whether you're a sole proprietor, whether you're a junior employee or or a CEO of Collars, you have to empower a leadership mindset into our industry. >> Yep. If if we're if we think that all we are are technicians, AI is coming for your job. I don't know when there is going to be some some part of our industry that is going to be commoditized because large language models and all of that is going to to figure out how to commoditize what it needs to commoditize. It it will never be the risk manager, the risk mitigator, the risk communicator, the stakeholder engager, the the human account element um that that a leader can be. So, I I think it's it's good job security, it's good business, uh, and it's just the right thing to do is to start training people on leadership. >> Yeah. And I love what you said about the example of the army because that's a mindset, right? People know that they're leaders be 20 years old, they could be 40 years old. that like it doesn't have that mindset and once they have that mindset the the opportunities are really limitless at that point, right? That's that's kind of the hardest part, >> I believe. So, >> so that that's a good example. >> So, I want to talk to you a little bit about resiliency. I'm sure it's something that you've had you had to deal with in your experience at West Point and I'm sure in business. You know, we live in this world today, we just talked about the complexity of our projects and basically what that means is every project manager is going to create a project plan that's not going to go according to plan. We know that. Yeah. >> Because there's just too many variables in today's industry. There's too many changes. Things happen. >> And so, you know, how can you build resiliency within teams, within leaders, in an organization so that your team can perform through the ups and downs, which we know we're going to go through in our industry, really in in life in general. So let's go back to my idea that West Point despite all the stakes feeling really really high it was a safe place to fail. You cannot develop leaders if they feel like any screw up is the end of their career. You have to micro dose risk at the appropriate level. Which is why you have to empower a leadership mindset at the lowest level because there are things that should feel really really high stakes to my 20-year-old or my 23-year-old right out of engineering that they do not want to screw up and they feel like if they screw up it's their the end of their career and their leader needs to know if they screw up it's it it's a rounding error on the project. It's a it's >> there's very little >> there's very little true risk to the organization or to the mission at that level. So you have to micro dose risk at the appropriate levels. And I think that's the hardest thing that our industry is not good at is this combination of our leadership development model is actually a sink or swim model. It's like well you either showed it to me or you didn't. And sometimes that's true. Sometimes that's like, oh, you got lucky on the project that more things went right than wrong and you were just in the right seat and therefore you look like you were really good at what you were doing. It may not have been any intentional leadership development model. Anybody who grows up in an organization, and the construction industry is notorious for, you know, kind of tough guy and bang my chest and, you know, yell real loud and whoever's the loudest is right and they're the boss and that that kind of BS. If you can't create an organization that systematically reinforces the the things that need to go right and the things that people need to be aware of when it comes to managing risk because I think that's you know resilience is when goes wrong how do we respond >> right >> and what you want people to do is just like in war when goes wrong we respond just how we were trained to respond. >> Yeah. preparation. >> This is our job. Yeah. >> Exactly how we were trained to respond. >> If at the individual level >> I say I have not been trained for this, >> right? >> And all I have are my people, my my business people are yelling at me to not lose money and my client is yelling at me to don't screw it up and my subs are yelling at me. I'm gonna have a very hard time leading through that if I don't feel like I have any safety net around me or anybody that I'm on the same team with. So, I think the the short answer is you have to introduce people to the the appropriate level of risk so that they slowly kind of get inoculated with the incremental stress that comes at each new level of responsibility. When you run a million-dollar project, you might have $100,000 of of tolerance in in your risk. Um, in at 10 million, it might be a million. Like, you're managing a a higher band of of risk. When you're a sole performer, like, did I was I fully utilized this week? Was I fully productive this week? And I think that's a that's I may be rambling, but I think it's really about how do you slowly step up people's ability to to be responsible and accountable for everything that's going on. >> Yeah. No, I think that's great. I think that I think this is a very difficult thing for leaders to do because on one hand you want someone to do great work and be accountable for their work but at the same time you don't want them to feel like if they screw one little thing up they're out of the company right because so there's like a really fine line there I think as a leader like you're saying to maybe give them these micro doses of feedback >> right build their confidence also hold them accountable when you need to and have that healthy relationship where you could say hey listen And we're all going to make mistakes, right? We don't want to make too many mistakes. We want to be able to do things right and not make the same mistake over and over, but we're here to help you and guide you through it, especially early on in your career. So, I think developing that culture of like feedback, which is what we try to do at EMI. >> Yeah. >> And we normalize it. So, we're not only giving you feedback when you mess up, right? We're giving you feedback when you do something right. We're giving you feedback when you could do something better. And that just makes people feel like, oh, I'm in an atmosphere where I'm going to grow and I'm going to get the feedback. And sometimes it'll be good and sometimes it won't, but I'm on the right path here, so to speak. >> I I don't know if we talked about this before, but in the in the military, you have afteraction review, >> right? I learned >> everything. >> Did you? >> Yeah. Yeah, they taught us that. Yeah. >> There's two key parts to this. So, an afteraction review after every mission, training mission, real mission, uh, you know, it could be it could be a a one-hour education that you do an AR with the instructor, like what went right, what didn't, >> right? >> But in a real mission or or a training mission, then the the the most important thing is whoever's in charge takes the rank off. And it's no rank. Yep. >> It's just what went right, what went wrong. >> Y >> it's not about blame. It's about getting better. And let me go back to where we started, which is like we're in a we're in an industry where nobody wants to ever be wrong. We're we have public safety at at the core of what we're doing. So, I have been around engineers. I've been around accountants. I've been around attorneys where it's like they will never ever ever admit that they were wrong because if they were wrong, then they they really did something like their entire career has been developing them to no, don't say you were wrong. You you did what you thought was best. And and that's there's a lot of nuance to this conversation, but like you have to find a way to break that culture of hey, we're we're a learning organization. We're a developing organization. And that's why I said like there there are real stakes to decisions that we make, but I have 70 employees relying on me to make good decisions for how we're growing this business and where we're taking this business. It's like those are 70 families that I I feel a high level responsibility for. I also remind them they individually have a high level responsibility back to the team to raise their hand if something we're asking them to do doesn't make sense or to ask for help or hey, I don't know that I'm the smartest person on this thing. Could I be connected with somebody who's done this before? It goes both ways, but leadership is about making it an organizational norm to be developing at all times. >> Yeah, I love that. I think again having some of those overarching ideas that you can teach people or set the mindset with is very valuable for people because I think leadership can become very overwhelming. >> Yeah. >> Which kind of is the next thing I wanted to talk a little It was kind of this connection between like mental health and leadership effectiveness in these high pressure environments. I mean, we do a lot of custom like PM development programs for companies and we interview project managers >> and what they say to us all the time is there's nothing else I can take on here, >> right? >> Like I'm maxed out. Like they want us like they want us to get better at this, do better projects, do this. And they're like we can't. We have like 30 projects. And so, you know, I'm just wanted to get your take on, you know, we're kind of taxing people at this point with a lot of complex projects. How can we ensure that people are able to, you know, have some space in their brains so that they can do things, you know, have some peace, have some mental health while we're pushing them on complex projects in leadership? >> Yeah, this is a hard one. There's two things that I think you can do. first is when you're at that level of PM, you are where the rubber meets the road and your job is very hard. Like that's that's the reality. You are in a demanding career field and there's there's a lot of demanding career fields. So I I recognize because I've been the PM feeling like there is no way I can get all of the done that I feel like I need to to be good at my job. So, you do have to triage a little bit and you have to triage in whatever way you feel best. I was always trying to renegotiate commitments and triage commitments and triage emergencies based on client personalities, but the truth is like much of that is about how you prepare yourself outside of the office, right? you know, are are your weekends uh staying up till two o'clock in the morning and and you know, kind of burning it at both ends and wearing yourself out or are you catching up on sleep and kind of organizing your week and I'll use getting to church? I know that the weeks that I have a rejuvenating uh weekend, which may include grabbing four hours in the office in between kids sports games to feel like I caught up on something. Are you are you prioritizing that stuff or are you making that somebody else's problem or are you just accepting that as a problem? So, I say routine is the number one thing that you have to be able to do. And I I'll actually send you I've got this seven habits of highly effective project leaders. >> Oh, cool. >> And routine to me is critical. You have to have a weekly cadence. You have to have a daily cadence. You have to have a morning startup routine like when you wake up and the miracle morning. I I give it to everybody. >> Yeah. I give that to everybody because I think I am somebody that when stress gets too high, I do not handle it well. >> Yeah. >> I think I have a very high tolerance. >> But when I once it's overloaded, it it breaks you. >> Yeah. >> And then and then I'm combat ineffective. Um so I am a very a very big believer as soon as my life starts feeling like overstressed, I go back to routine. It's like did I did I do the miracle morning? And the answer is like no. >> I had a bad week. I threw the miracle morning out. I thought sleeping in 15 more minutes was better than reading for 10 minutes or whatever it is or you know I didn't get my workout in. So to me that's that's one piece of the problem and that that is the extreme ownership mindset. It's like what control the controllables. >> Yeah. And by the way just want to say for listeners we did I actually interviewed Hal Elrod on the podcast. So I'll share that with the link for this because it's a his miracle morning if you're not familiar is a really great process that you can use every morning to get yourself going. It's like very step through different things to do reading working out etc. So I just want to mention that but we'll link to that because it is amazing. It's game it's life changing. >> I think everybody listening you should you should try it for 30 days and see if you're a better person for it. >> Absolutely. >> So that's that's the individual level responsibility. The the flip side of this is the industry. We have this expectation of people to be I I build projects when we when we put the level of effort everybody uses 1920 hours for an FTE or 40 hours a week. When we know that the client demands are around the clock because of technology and because when I send the 77th email of the day I feel like I did a little bit more than the other guy. we have there is this performance and demand that goes on in our industry and I don't know the answer to it is it is it that we need to say you know what every time I price a PM I'm actually going to price 1.5 PMs because I know I know that it's going to be more than one person's job >> right you need margin there >> every time every time we price something as 20 hours person's like what do they think I am a full-time consultant to them >> and it's the problem with that is this is where we get squeezed is businesses are getting squeezed between client expectations and employee health >> right >> and I don't know the answer to it I yeah >> the the answer may be hey PMS keep growing yourself so that you know there's a saying in uh in the army. There's a reason company command only lasts two to three years because it is that taxing on you. >> Then you go and you might get a staff job. You might get a educational uh assignment and then before you go back into command. So command in the military I think is a lot like project management, program management. >> Yeah. >> In in our industry, it's like you're signing up for a very demanding period of time, >> right? You got to find ways to recover before and after. >> Yeah, I totally agree. I mean, a couple things that I'll say, and I agree it's hard to find answers to this, but number one, I think what BJ talked about with routine and what you do outside of work. I think that's really important. A couple years ago, I stopped, you know, or at least minimize working on the weekends and I got really involved with my church. We have a men's group and now these are friends. We hang out and it's just a life-changing experience and it kind of brings another dimension to life, if you will, right? So, you know, you have your family, you have work, you need other social outlets. I think that's really important and it can help you >> through stress and stuff like that. And then I think the other thing maybe >> is we talked a little bit about AI. You know, this may be the opportunity where AI can maybe help a leader to do things that took 20 hours, take 15 hours or take 17 hours in a week, right? And if that picks you up 3 hours, that potentially could help give you a little bit more margin, a little bit more head space because you're able to again use AI to help you with some things, especially administrative related things. I think it can be very helpful. So, there really is no right answer to this. BJ's right. It's going to be one of those jobs. We're talking about how complex our projects are. So, project management is going to be stressful in ways for sure. >> Yeah. But anything that you can find either outside of work or inside work in terms of tools and help, I think that will at least make it easier for you. Not easy, but easier than than what some of you deal with. And hopefully that can can be helpful for you. >> Yeah. >> All right, BJ. I got my final question for you. For those kind of leaders in the industry that are listening today and they're thinking about leadership development in their organization for their teams, what can they do to ensure that their leadership development efforts are impactful and they will transfer back to the job for their leaders? I I think you have to figure out what what outcome are you looking for for the business and what outcome are you looking for for the individual and then be very intentional about designing or engaging a vendor to help you align those two objectives. In mine it's I want PMS to be able to grow into business unit leaders. I will not consider my I I I look at the blueprint of my career and I know that you know and not everybody goes to West Point and had that experience. Not everybody goes to combat and had that experience. I I had a bunch of these unique experiences and a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit inside of me that allowed me to take the path I did. But I what I want to do is to normalize that path for people. So, I'm always trying to figure out how do I teach people to do what I did, but make it easier, safer, faster for them to do it. I I I know how much risk I took on. I know how much stress I took on. I know how much stress I was bringing home to my family. I don't want people to have to do that, but I want to show people pathways to become business leaders inside of our company and and inside of the architect engineering industry. It the reason I want to grow goes back to that idea that like I don't want project managers to feel like, oh my god, I've signed up to be Cisphus and I'm going to roll the project management uh rock up the hill and at the end of the day it's just going to roll back down on me and at the end of the year it's going to roll back down. I I want them to feel like, ah, I got to the top of a hill. I let that one go over. I got three guys coming behind me that I'm going to cheer, and I'm looking at the next hill in front of me and figuring out which way I'm going to take it. So to me first is make the decision that you have to invest in some sort of intentional training and make sure that that investment is aligned with some kind of outcomes and and those outcomes should be both business outcomes um which you know it's going to increase your reputation, it's going to increase margin, it's going to increase growth but it also has to be what's in it for me, the project manager that's sitting in on these trainings. Why am I coming to this? >> What why is this good for me? And I think that that that is the it I say unspoken, but it's my spoken contract to our employees is that the growth of the company and the growth of the individual have to be a symbiotic relationship. >> Yeah. I'm going to work hard to make our company as good as it can be and to grow it so that we grow opportunities for you. My ask is that you work as hard as you can be to stretch yourself to become the professional you say you want to be. And everybody's going to define their own success differently. My number one is I I will feel successful when I've when I've put 10, 15, 20 other, you know, BJ Kramer project managers into a a trajectory to to be business unit leadersh. >> That's great. Yeah, I love that. And I what I like about that answer is that it goes back to what you said earlier in achieve the mission, build up my people, right? the mission being what are the business objectives of the program and the people being what are the people objectives of the program meaning how am I going to you know build them up so again it's very lined up with that overarching kind of goal that you had in the beginning which is why I think you need to have some kind of mindset like that that helps you make decisions right whether training or any other decisions and >> you know one thing that you reminded me of and I'll just wrap up with this is I I interviewed a guy once who talking about leadership and he he let a he let a missionary uh trip to another country to help build a church. Their goal was to build this church. And he had like maybe 40 50 men there that were volunteering in this mission trip and they were building up the church. And he said he had like this kind of like epiphany when he was there that he wasn't using the men to build the church. He was using the church to build the men. >> Right. And that's like you reminded me of that because what you were saying is like >> the programs are going to help us grow the company, but they also have to grow the people, right, that are through them and allow them to have success at home and success at work. And that's really like a win-win kind of >> relationship. So, >> listen, lots of good stuff. I mean, BJ and I could sit here and talk for 16 more hours. I don't think everyone wants to listen to us for that long. But BJ, before I let you go, tell people where they can find you. And I I love your newsletter. I don't know if there's a way they can get it, but it's great. On Friday, >> we we will put it in on uh Thank you for that. That the quick story there is during co we couldn't I I started out sending it to employees and then somebody forwarded to a client. They said, "Hey, can I get on your list?" And then we started building this this list. So, I appreciate it. The very first quote was optimism is a force multiplier. Uh colon pal. >> That's great. >> So, I will put a a link in the show notes to to our Mailchimp, but So, it's Leadership Blueprints, Leadership Blueprints podcast. You can find me on LinkedIn on and we're actually on YouTube now. So, uh, >> you're everywhere. >> Despite the fact I have a face for radio, we're on YouTube. [gasps] >> Well, BJ, thank you so much for again coming on the leadership podcast and spending some time with us here. It's always awesome talking with you about leadership and uh I'm looking forward to keeping the conversation going. I'm going to be on BJ's podcast as well and we're going to be sharing that online, too. So, you'll see us in a couple different conversations. >> Awesome. >> I hope you enjoyed my conversation with BJ. If you did, please subscribe to our channel here. We put out videos like this on a regular basis to help AEC professionals become [music] better managers and leaders. I'll see you next week. [music] >> [music]