Panelists:
James R. Hess, Vice President, Frank Messer & Sons Construction Co.
Patricia J. Shuster, Senior Project Manager, Pizzuti Development, Inc.
Robert J. Weiler, Chairman, The Robert Weiler Company
Moderator: Samuel A. Shuman, Chairman, Speer Industries, Inc.
Location: Columbus State Community College, 550 E. Spring St., Columbus, OH 43215
The focus for the third meeting in the series of conversations about character development is on the character qualities of top employees in the development and construction sectors. As a distinctive way of approaching character development for business and industry, the Council has organized eleven sector task forces to explore the particular challenges of work in each sector. What are the specific qualities of character that make for success not just in initial employment but that are needed for advancement?
Moderator Samuel Shuman opened the Conversation by providing some background about the construction industry. It came out of the guild system prevailing in the European countries in the nineteenth century. For example, the carpenters came out of the British Isles—both the Irish and the English—the masons doing masonry work came out of Italy; the steel trades and the pipe fitting trades came out of Germany. As our forefathers migrated to this country, they brought their skills with them. These skills were taught throughout the family, particularly to the males. As a result, in the early part of the twentieth century through World War II, the bulk of the construction personnel in this country were male. Even the secretaries were male in many companies. That changed. During the 1960s when we went through the discrimination frustration, we finally introduced, by legal action, minorities into the industry. Yes, women were included but only in secretarial jobs at that time.
The industry is in for more change because of technological advance-ments and being in a world economy with new problems. We are still one of the greatest industries in this nation. For years we were able to brag about the fact that we produced the largest percentage of gross national product, however, the medical industry now surpasses us.
We are a segmented industry. We do not work like a General Electric or a national organization. We are an accumulation of many people with many talents and skills, many organizations, manufacturers of products, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers who come together in a very unique way to provide the beautiful structures that we all need and enjoy.
Right now we need young people to come into our industry and we need them to have characteristics that are equal to those needed in any other industry in a great society. Character development is very important to us. Our panelists will talk about some of the characteristics we need and we hope this will stimulate further discussion from all who are here.
REMARKS BY ROBERT WEILER
I don’t think the characteristics needed in our real estate development brokerage business are going to be unique to our business. Some of the things we look for in employees are universal, but here are the three qualities I think are most important.
First is attitude. I think a positive attitude is the single most important trait—not alone because the other two are necessary. Without a positive attitude, you are not going to make it in our business. We are definitely a "people" business. We are working with other real estate brokers, sales people, clients and owners of property—a wide array of people. If you have a chip on your shoulder, are not friendly, are a person with whom people do not want to work, then you are not going to have repeat customers. Our business is not based just on initial sales, it is based on people coming back to us. Sometimes we have the opportunity to lease five, six or seven sites to the same company. I think a positive attitude tied in with a relationship-building capability comes from people who feel good about themselves—they have self-esteem and like other people.
Second is loyalty. Today we are in a business atmosphere where loyalty is lacking. An example is sports where you see people jumping from team to team looking at the dollar rather than at the employer or the associations they have. Loyalty must work both ways for the employer or employee. What is an example? I think of a person who puts the company and the goals of the company ahead of his own personal ambition, particularly when it comes to the dollar sign. Now the employer hopefully recognizes loyalty and compensates the person fairly. I am not suggesting there be blind loyalty by those who are not being treated fairly. We are looking for people who will represent the company well. In lay terms this means you don’t go around "bad mouthing" not only your own company but others in your business. Loyalty is to your company and also to your industry.
The third quality is integrity. We are talking about getting an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. We have hundreds of active real estate brokers, independent contractors and sales associates who are not being supervised. They are self-starters working at their own pace. We are counting on them to work hard and put in eight, ten or twelve hours. That’s tied into integrity because you have to be honest in terms of working the time you should, particularly those who are salaried. Integrity crosses the spectrum. It is found in fair dealing when repre-senting a client or talking about a property. It is very tempting to leave out facts sometimes or to embellish the way things are. In summary, a positive attitude, loyalty and integrity top my list of characteristics that are needed.
REMARKS BY JAMES HESS
The construction industry is truly an orchestration of many activities with very complicated processes. It takes a significant amount of effort behind the scenes to effect this. We have one chance to make it work. We are not pulling automobiles out of an assembly line or using some other struc-tured operation. We have one chance to get a $100 million job correct and have it function properly. We constantly battle with the low bid mentality. We may have thirty, forty or fifty contractors on site—all of whom usually have arrived there because they are low bidders and they have a vested interest in protecting their company’s interest. The construction industry is a people’s industry with continuous contact and communication between employees and customers.
This year, our company will do between $250 and $300 million in revenue so you might say we are a medium size company, with offices in Lexington, Cincinnati and Columbus. We have about 220 management employees and about 220 craft employees. If you think about producing this revenue in the confines of the three cities, obviously some 65% to 75% of the work is with repeat clients.
I view employee characteristics on three levels going from the most generic to the most specific. I must find people who have care, concern and commitment. This is the first level and fundamental requirement. From there I must have academic skills—reading, writing, arithmetic and speaking skills. From there I look for technical skills. Does the individual have the technical skill to do a particular job? The most difficult elements of these three levels to identify in the hiring process are care, concern and commitment.
But having said all this, what characteristics do I consider the "high flyer" or top employee to have? When I look around the company for the people who have these characteristics to some extent more than others, I see people with dedication not only to themselves and their career but to the company. They follow the tenet: If I put the company first and help the company grow and be successful, then I will be successful in the process.
Next is self-motivation. Particularly in my industry, I need people at the point of contact who are out there working and interfacing with the activities. They can’t rely on somebody else to hand out tasks. They have to be self-motivated to get tasks and priorities identified and completed.
Pro-active—I need people acting on their own behalf and trying to foresee and get ahead of problems instead of working in a reactionary mode. A person who works in a reactionary mode in the construction business is not in the right place. Being respectful of others and customer- oriented is part of the company’s philosophy because there is constant interface with customers.
Then there is leadership. I need people—in whatever capacity they serve—who are leaders. This means having: 1) vision, 2) the ability to plan around that vision, 3) the ability to communicate what that plan is, 4) the ability to motivate people along the lines of the plan and 5) "gumption"—a word from the past. You have the gumption to keep the project moving forward. All of these things are part of leadership.
In conclusion, what does all this mean in terms of what needs to be taught? First, interpersonal skills are tremendously important. Employees must know how to communicate with each other and others outside the company. They need to know that each person has a different personality and background, therefore they must communicate with each person differently. Ninety-five percent of the problems I get involved with turn out to be communication problems. "I didn’t know that is what you wanted—I didn’t know this was your expectation." Communication ability is critical.
Finally, problem solving techniques—not just the technical/mathematical problems but also the people problems. I must have personnel who understand how to tackle these kinds of problems and how to solve them. These concepts do not lend themselves to brevity. There is a lot of work here to be done.
REMARKS BY PATRICIA SHUSTER
My position is Senior Project Manager in the Development Department of The Pizzuti Companies. We are usually both the developer and the general contractor for my projects. As project manager, I supervise the entire project from the time Pizzuti finds the land and has decided exactly what building is going to be built on the property. The work involves coordinating the architect and the engineers, meeting with the owners about the scope of work, getting all the specifications and drawings in order, making a bidders list, putting the project out for bids, reviewing the bids and finally awarding the contracts. This process entails a lot of work watching the budget, writing contracts, making sure that workers show up and deliveries made in a timely fashion so the day-to-day work gets done.
I have been asked, as a female construction manager, to point out some of the characteristics that I use in my job, since it is important to have the respect of workers from all the trades—especially as they are predominately male. When I first started in the business, I learned by listening and asking a lot of questions. I began by being a property manager which has a lot to do with getting things repaired and replaced. When I had the opportunity to move into the construction industry, I took it knowing it would be a challenge. The construction industry was one of the last areas in which men did not want women to be employed. The men played games to challenge my knowledge, giving me incorrect information to try to mislead me. I had to learn to deal with men in the field because they did not want to listen to me and did not want to take orders from any female. It has been hard working in a male dominated activity but tenacity and determination won out.
The characteristic that I believe is most necessary to have in the construction business is fairness. If anything can go wrong, it will on a construction site. Things do not always go as planned. Deliveries and workers don’t always show up when they are scheduled. So you have to be flexible and understanding. If there is a problem, I encourage all of my workers to come to me and discuss the problems and possible solutions. If it involves other trades, we get the others together and discuss the solutions as a team. If you try to run the project by pointing blame and accusations, you will get questions and answers that may not be true or helpful and you do not get to the bottom of the problem.
I greet every one of our workers by their first name and try to get to know them as another way to earn their respect and trust. I have a high sense of integrity and demand honesty from my workers and they know that. If someone on my job site tries to do things behind my back or in bad taste, I take them aside and talk with them. If it happens again, I go to their boss and have them removed from the job site. When we are working on many projects simultaneously that are worth millions of dollars, we don’t have time for negative, inconsiderate people.
Our jobs also have a lot of valuable materials and equipment that we use during our construction, so we have to employ workers who are trust-worthy and honest. Many times they must be working late at night or during the weekends so I try to impress upon all of our workers the trust that I have in them and the responsibility they have.
All in all, my work has become easier. I have worked very hard at winning the workers over by letting them know that I am fair, respect them, and want their respect in return. I want honesty on the job and do not assign blame. Before you know it, most of the workers who find out that I have a new project starting on which their company will work ask to be assigned to my job. I think this is due to the fact that they not only enjoy working on my jobs but when they leave the job at the end of the day, they go home with a good feeling about their work and the problems we were able to resolve in a positive manner.
THE DISCUSSION
As an educator trying to teach characteristics—some of which are somewhat difficult or spongy—how do you think we can do this when we are accountable for measurements of the learning process?
Response: I don’t know. All I can say is what we are doing in our company. We have case study workshops. After work we bring together five to seven employees, get some pizza, pop or beer and a discussion will be led by one of the senior executives in the market. These are employees across all sectors of the business and positions—a project manager, a foreman, a journeyperson etc. We toss out situations and don’t provide the answers. We only try to catalyze a discussion. Our company has a list of values that we feel are important for us to use on a daily basis. Whatever decision we make or action we take must be in concert with those values. So the idea of the executive in charge of a discussion is to funnel the discussion back to this list of values.
One example comes to mind. You work for three weeks to pour a concrete wall. You spend thousands and thousands of dollars getting it ready to go. It could be twenty feet high and a hundred feet long. You decide to pour the concrete. When you are ninety percent done, a thunderstorm comes up. There is lightning and you have people on top of the wall. What do you do? Do you risk losing all that investment in time by pulling people off the wall? Or do you take the chance of somebody being struck by lightning? There is no easy answer but hopefully we can drive the discussion back to the core values of the company. Does that teach ethics and values? I don’t know but if an employee doesn’t catch on, I am not sure he ever will.
How do you teach a positive attitude?
Response: Communication is important. Often we don’t let employees know when they are doing a good job. It’s like the situation where your child brings home a report card that shows a ninety but the first thing you focus on is the ten that she didn’t get right. At work we need to recognize good efforts and give praise perhaps more quickly than we give criticism. People need reinforcement to help them be positive.
Comment: The characteristics identified by the panel make a good composite for almost any business. But when you talk about how you teach some of these things, I know one thing for "openers". You have to live these ideas—you have to do it yourself. You see so many instances where someone is willing to stand up and talk about what you ought to do. Then you watch what this person does and you don’t always get the same answers. So you have to walk the walk yourself. In many cases people will then use you as a role model.
Comment: Communication of the expectations of a company is critical.
Comment: At one time I was the CEO for a construction company planning airports, etc. I had a lot of nightmares—margins were tight and could disappear with one change that you didn’t get an agreement on, etc. It seems to me that the problem we used to have was not the lack of communication, because the people involved were well meaning and wanted to do a good job, but it was the lack of discipline in communication. For example, do they really understand what is said? Are they sure that the person they are working with is hearing what they are saying and they have signed off on it? Who is responsible? Is it in the contract or is this a change that has never been accepted? So discipline in a sense of what you are doing is very critical for every employee in engineering who develops specifications that guarantee output/input and all the other things.
You talked about the needed characteristics of new employees coming into your organizations. What about the processes and procedures that you might have in place to recognize and reinforce these characteristics?
Response: As far as trying to reinforce or instill the values you thought you saw when you hired an individual, we primarily hire at the entry level. We encourage our employeess to grow within the organization. It takes time to understand our values to the point they are reflected in all daily activities. Formally we have processes whereby once a year we assemble new employees for a couple days to talk about core-value kinds of things. Is it effective? I think so. It starts employment relationships properly.
Another thing we do is find the most effective employees and ask them to communicate informally—not formally, since that doesn’t work—with the newer employees and make sure that they understand things in the right context and have a good perspective. This process seems to work out very well.
Comment: Two of us here belong to a board at the Builders Exchange where we come up with a lot of topics on problems in the industry each year. We try to develop an approach to solving them. For example, to reinforce loyalty to the company, we try to develop ways to make employees feel so good about their company that they do not want to take another job even if it pays more.
Comment: The panel stressed loyalty as an ethical requirement. When I was in the construction business twenty years ago, some of our employees had trouble deciding whether they owed their loyalty to our company or to their union. It seems that construction management is learning how to deal with this problem today.
With regard to continuity of people, it must be very difficult to end a job and then have to wait for another one to start. Is this much of a problem? How do you maintain morale when you have to lay people off, or do you have to absorb the expense on this?
Response: I was looking at our figures last night and we have had less than a four or five percent fluctuation of the hourly employees in the last year. Employment consistency is something we work very hard to maintain. On the other hand you can use it to your benefit. You communicate what your expectations of the hourly employees are and suggest in whatever way possible that they need to be punctual on a constant basis, that if they aren’t, they will be on the first wave of people to be let go. Hopefully this is a bit of motivation—though a bit negative—for them to aspire to possess the skills, characteristics and ability that we are looking for.
To follow up on an earlier question, most of these teachers have very little experience in the workplace outside of the school building. Theirs is a very different world compared to construction, etc. How would you as a teacher or a parent want the characteristics you have talked about, such as honesty, explained or put into a case that makes sense to an eleven year-old? What are these characteristics translated into beyond a dictionary definition?
Response: I think with eleven year-olds the importance of arriving at school on time is the same thing as arriving at work on time. I do think that schools can teach values in an academic environment which prepare youth for going into business or industry. I go back to recognition. We are so quick to talk about expulsions and penalty boxes; we get into trouble when we isolate kids. You have to build self- esteem. The other area is teamwork. In school you can work on projects where students interact with each other. That’s important preparation for business. I think the school environment where you learn to get along with other people is the best training of all for our business.
Comment: In some fashion we need to educate the teachers and counselors so they have a better understanding of the various industries. Then perhaps we have a better chance for them to present the needs that include character traits. We are not the plumber who fixes the kitchen sink and ends up ruining the kitchen.
Comment: We have started a program for teachers to work within the industry over the summer. We have tried to bring together people who are interested in looking for work and are at least partially interested in the construction industry. We then place them with employers who are looking for help during the busy time of the year. Last year we put about fifteen teachers and counselors to work. It is not a casual thing—it is a well orchestrated activity because the teachers need to come away with a positive experience. Otherwise, we haven’t accomplished the image we are trying to build. We hope to put back into the classrooms teachers who will be ambassadors for our industry without inaccurate perceptions.
ABOUT THE PANELISTS AND MODERATOR
James R. Hess is Vice President of Operations of Frank Messer & Sons Construction Company. He began his career in 1975 as a co-op student and graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.S. in Civil Engineering (Magna Cum Laude) and later obtained an M.B.S. in Oper-ations Management. Hess is active in several organizations including the Associated General Contractors of America at the national, state-wide and local levels, primarily focusing on workforce development issues.
Samuel A. Shuman is Chairman of Julian Speer Company, a mechanical contracting company serving the southern two-thirds of Ohio and neighboring states since 1927. His B.S.in Mechanical Engineering was earned at Penn State University in 1950 and he was recognized as an outstanding Engineering Graduate for 1991. Among his many activities in the construction and engineering profession, he was President of the Mechanical Contractors Association of Central Ohio from 1974-75, the Builders Exchange of Central Ohio in 1996, and, in 1992, the Mechanical Contractors Association of America. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Council for Ethics in Economics.
Patricia J. Shuster is Senior Project Manager, Pizzuti Development, Inc. and is a proven manager of multiple projects. She has over nineteen years of experience in the development and construction industry. Her dedication to clients and career put her in the forefront of the industry as she became one of Central Ohio’s first women project managers working in the field. She has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from The Ohio State University.
Robert J. Weiler is Chairman of the Board of The Robert Weiler Company. He has been a realtor since 1957 and a developer of numerous subdivisions and apartment/office/industrial complexes in Central Ohio. He is also an adjunct professor at Capital University Law School and a contributing editor to The Appraisal of Real Estate. He has a B.S. degree in Business Administration from the University of Arizona, an M.A. degree in Real Estate and a Ph.D. both from The Ohio State University as well as the Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Capital University Law School.
ABOUT THE LOCATION
At Columbus State Community College, the Business Management Department chaired by Harold E. Babson has initiated a new approach to business education. The new curriculum has three parts. First is the cornerstone course that assesses a student’s basic skills, learning and behavioral styles and introduces five skill areas to be acquired in the program: communication, teamwork, adaptability, creative thinking and motivation. Second, these skill areas are woven into each course taken and third, prior to graduation, each student presents a project, conducts management simulations and/or mentors incoming students to refine the skills acquired.
Highlights is one of the benefits of membership in the Council for Ethics in Economics. The Council thanks Celianna Taylor for assembling and editing this and future editions of Highlights.
We acknowledge with gratitude the special support of
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Ashland Inc. • Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue • Merrill Lynch
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