From the Field to the Chessboard: How Great Superintendents Think Five Moves Ahead

Rishi Srivastava (00:41)
Today our guest is Rob Duplain Rob, welcome.

Rob Duplain (00:44)
Thank you.

Rishi Srivastava (00:45)
First section here Rob’s on your career path, identity, and craft pride. You had a non-traditional path. Farm life, Eagle Scout, law enforcement, then IBEW. What parts of that background show up most in how you lead a job today?

Rob Duplain (01:02)
That’s a great question. I have had kind of a non-traditional background as far as getting to where I’m at as a superintendent in the construction world with the IBEW the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. I’ve been in the trade for about 16 years and I’ve had a lot of those experiences kind of come back for me. The work ethic that I developed at the dairy farm growing up through high school and college has definitely been the backbone of who I am.

When you’re on farm life, there is no opportunity for you to have days off or…

call in sick. Obviously, if there’s a need, you can do those things, but it’s going to put everybody else at a loss pretty hard. The work always has to get done. It’s 24-7, pretty much 365 on a dairy farm. The Eagle Scout, that’s an interesting thing in my background as well. I was fortunate to be the first Eagle Scout in my hometown on about a 10-year dry spell at that time, so I was pretty proud of that. Again, I think that just says a lot about the work ethic.

drive having a goal, setting that target and doing the steps necessary to achieve that and come out with that award. It was part of the work ethic that feel like my family kind of instilled in me and it’s definitely been beneficial as I see that in other guys. I like to reward people that demonstrate that work ethic and they’re not just showing up going through the motions.

to make sure I recognize that. And when that kind of comes from a position where I’m at to the guys and the crew, it really resonates with them. And I feel like they have more buy-in, they’re willing to do more for you just because you have that relationship. And to me, that’s where a lot of things come down to is just that relationship building.

Rishi Srivastava (02:52)
Yeah. All those things that you’ve done in your life, they’re shaping you in who you are.

When did you realize you were ready to move from doing the work to leading the work? And what was the first moment you felt the superintendent role click?

Rob Duplain (03:04)
you

I don’t know if it still clicks all the time. It’s a tough role. You’re monitoring a lot of different things. Going back into my career, I don’t think that there was any one specific moment or any kind of line of demarcation where it was,

One day you’re just a field guy and next day you’re in supervision. Really it’s kind of a progressive thing. There’s a gray blur there I feel like for a lot of guys. As you’re able to show competency and show leadership and kind of have that wherewithal about you, those responsibilities start to increase over time as a journeyman, even as an apprentice. As a fifth year apprentice, I was leading a small crew on a bus dock build-up.

⁓

and you know that kind of ruffled some feathers for some older journeymen but I never

treated them with disrespect, I leaned on those guys and I told them flat out, you know, I need their expertise. need their, their years of knowledge. wanted that input from them. I wanted them to see, you know, areas where I could get refined. And that’s just, I feel like the, the trade in general, it’s really not, you know, any kind of like, pivotal moment. It’s, it’s that progression over time that the guys kind of recognize and either you step up and you can’t take it on or you decide that it’s not for you.

and you just stay where you’re at. There’s nothing wrong with either path. We obviously need great journeymen, great apprentices. Those roles always need fill. That’s the backbone of any construction site. But yeah, management and going into a foreman role, general foreman, and then climbing to a superintendent. There’s differences between each one of those positions. And they require a different skill set.

Rishi Srivastava (04:44)
Yeah, your background, starting right from, you know, a person who’s on the field actually doing the job and then moving up, it gives you some empathy for these guys who are working such a tough job.

Rob Duplain (04:56)
Yeah, yeah being in the field is it’s ⁓ it’s tough because

You’re required to do a lot. You’re expected for that level of competency. You can’t always be the guy that’s just waiting to be told what to do because that’s no good. That’s not a useful allocation of resources. the foreman always has to be following up with you and telling you the next step, that’s a problem. You need to be self-guided, self-motivated, and you need to be able to kind of look down the stream yourself as just even a journeyman. ⁓

lot

of pressure on those guys to perform and produce and carry their weight that they need to and then they’re also being able to help younger journeymen out and help apprentices out. There’s a lot of those things and in the background they might have a lot of things going on with their personal life, family life, finances, all those things. So you need to be able to kind of take some appreciation for what those guys are bringing to the table and recognize them, see their strengths, talk to them.

I pull guys aside all the time and recognize where they’re succeeding. I don’t think it’s always where you need to brow-beat somebody and point out where they’re not performing. think given recognition on where their strengths are and recognizing their talent is a huge part. And a lot of those guys will take that and run with it, and they’ll be able to kind of feed off of that energy that you’re giving them. ⁓

Rishi Srivastava (06:19)
Yeah,

you know positive feedback is so important. negative feedback a lot of times we lean on it, but like if you tell someone you’re doing something really good and on the part they’re not doing well, they’re gonna pick it up there too.

Rob Duplain (06:28)
Yeah.

Rishi Srivastava (06:32)
Mm-hmm.

You’ve touched residential, commercial, industrial, and utility slash substation work. What changes the most and what never changes when you move across those environments?

Rob Duplain (06:45)
Yeah, so there’s obviously all those different facets of the industry that you just mentioned and they’re compartmentalized for a reason. Residential work is going to be its unique brand and flow unlike a commercial or industrial job and definitely not like a utility substation project. Each one of those requires a different mindset, a different performance level, a different adaptability to what the conditions are. Residential construction is tough.

because the pace is really, really fast. And you’re also dealing with conditions around the property a lot of times that aren’t really set up for you to do outside work because the landscaping is still not done. So you’re trying to set up outdoor ladders and all those things that hit some of the finish touches or even the rough portion on a residential project. And you need to be able to kind of understand that going into it. You need to have that mindset where the conditions

aren’t always going to be ideal. Commercial and residential are definitely separated for a reason. Industrial work is its own kind of unique brand and flavor. There’s a lot of different aspects to industrial work. It’s more mechanically oriented. There’s a lot more control aspect in it and the materials that are used are different. They’re more restrictive as far as labor intensive. Commercial work again is kind of like that step

in between residential and industrial work in my opinion. It’s more of that fast pace but it’s more of those you know hard metals you’re not getting into a lot of

wood and lumber framing. So you have to have different components. You have to have different setup. have to have metal hole saws, those kinds of things that you normally wouldn’t have on a residential project. then utility substation, safety is paramount more so than any other project. And it’s because of the level of voltage that you’re dealing with and the proximity that you’re allowed to even get close to those things. You have to have that awareness when you’re in a utility environment. Not that you don’t have

to have safety mindset when you’re on the other projects, but those utility substations, there’s so much inductance in the air and that’s a huge factor that a lot of guys aren’t aware of when they first step into that world. So grounding is a huge part of that and being able to ground your machines, ground your trucks, all those things, guys can get caught up in that capacitance a lot of times even on an un-entered

There’s still a lot of capacitance on those lines and just removing grounds can be problematic and you need to understand what you’re doing. So the consistency is that the labor is always going to be intensive no matter what industry you’re in. So there’s the common denominator is, know, guys are always going to have to come ready with that skill set no matter which one it is and they’re going to have to act accordingly. And the big part of that is asking questions.

I think a lot of times in the industry where we downgrade or downplay the importance of a guy saying that he doesn’t know and treating that with like almost like favoritism like yes thank you for saying that you don’t know that’s good like that’s not a bad thing that’s a good thing you know to say that you don’t know something before you head into it and ask questions those things are the regulator across any industry or any part of the industry that they have residential through substation.

Rishi Srivastava (10:07)
Curiosity is super important.

For someone early in the trades who wants your kind of trajectory, what are the two to three reps they should chase on purpose over the next two years?

Rob Duplain (10:20)
Go back to that questions that I was just mentioning, know, ask a lot of questions of your journeyman, of your supervisors, you know, of your even your fellow coworkers. You know, you can never get enough information in this industry and it’s definitely rapidly evolving. It’s changing all the time. There’s new technologies, there’s new tools that come out, new materials even. So asking questions and being open to the fact that you don’t know it all is definitely, I would say, the first rep that you need to come into. That would be the first mindset established.

that you need to kind of come to the table with. As far as the rest of it, I would say there’s so much information out there right now that you need to be somebody that’s willing to put in the time to self-educate. You can’t rely on even like a an apprenticeship program to give you everything that you’re gonna need. You can’t even get on-the-job training that’s gonna get you everything. You can’t even get, you know, additional classes that you might get at the Union Hall. All those things are part of it, but there’s just so

much to know that you need to have a commitment to lifelong education and not stuck in the mentality of well this is the way we’ve always done it or this is tradition or this is the only thing I know. If you’re in that kind of framework you’re gonna struggle and you’re not gonna excel and everybody’s gonna pass you by. So if you want to have that upward trajectory for your career you’ve got to commit to the fact that there’s got to be a level of education that you have to set as a target and you have to go seek it

even if it means putting in that work on your own time. To me, nobody can take that from you.

Rishi Srivastava (11:52)
Yeah, you know, one speaker told me you got to work on yourself harder than on your job.

The next section here, Rob, is on the superintendent’s chessboard and forecasting mindset. You said a three week look ahead can mean you are already behind. What does your five moves ahead planning cadence actually look like week to week?

Rob Duplain (12:18)
That’s the biggest jump I feel like guys struggle with when they’re moving up on supervision and management on a construction project. And obviously it’s going to be commensurate with how the project is, the scale of the project, the size, the manpower load, all those things. However, when you’re in that superintendent role, it’s 100 % you are controlling that chessboard. The chessboard is yours at that point, in my opinion. And you have to not only see where the move is in front of you, but you’ve got to be able

plan that move out five steps ahead. And how you do that is you’ve got to understand sequencing. You’ve got to take all the information that’s being provided to you. You’ve got to then make sense of it and you’ve got to make it fit for real world application. So you have the project schedule and that’s great. There’s your guideline that’s that’s going to hit some of your milestones, your dates, all that sequencing should be kind of figured out. However, you’ve got to fine-tooth comb that as you’re in the moment.

find tooth comb that for that week. That week already had to be planned out five weeks ago in your your world. So when you’re in the moment that week should be running itself. There’s always going to be the hiccups there’s always going to be the things that you can’t foresee and those are the fire drills. But for the most part none of that should be the standard practice. The fire drill as everybody has experienced that shouldn’t be the norm. That shouldn’t be your daily ops plan and if it is then

there’s a real problem with where you were leading up to that moment. Did you miss a sequence? Did you miss a coordination? Did you not talk to the other trades? Did you not look at what the tooling and crew load was gonna need to be for what you saw coming? Why did this fire drill happen? There’s a reason why. It’s not just arbitrary. It’s not just, well, it’s just part of construction. It’s like, well, it’s part of construction if it’s not planned out. So that’s the biggest part, I feel like, as

as as guys, they get caught up in the fact of, well, it’s a requirement, I gotta provide a three week look ahead it. And yes, you should be providing a three week look ahead it. But that shouldn’t be in a vacuum where you’re only looking at those three weeks. You need to be ahead and planning where at the end of that three weeks, where are you gonna transition to? And that’s the skill.

Rishi Srivastava (14:29)
I really love how strategically you think about this.

Rob Duplain (14:32)
Thanks.

Rishi Srivastava (14:33)
How do you translate real reality into a manpower forecast, equipment plan, and schedule commitment that the office can trust?

Rob Duplain (14:43)
So that’s a great.

point to kind of draw out because this is where I feel like lot of contractors struggle is you have an estimating team and they’re providing you information, a budget, a schedule, all those things kind of based off of what they’re looking at for the bid documents that they’re being given. What doesn’t really happen a lot of times is that estimating team doesn’t really have much interaction then with the project team. And so the handoff is usually kind of sloppy. It’s kind of choppy.

it’s kind of rushed and that estimator who was factoring in certain manpower loads based on what he was seeing from a preliminary schedule now we’re in the midst of construction and some of those factors need to be changed and that’s where the communication really needs to be critical and as a superintendent that’s where I’m always trying to meet with my crew foreman my general foreman and have that interaction.

I want those guys to be looking ahead as much as they can be as well because their information is going to feed my information and it’s going to keep on going upstream that way. The office needs to understand some of those constraints and again a good project superintendent in my opinion needs to be able to have that kind of foresight where you’re communicating back to them ahead of time. Hey this is what I see coming. This is the pinch point that’s going to happen. We need to get ahead of this. We need to talk about this. We need to release this material. All those things

need to be planned out and that’s where that project team, that estimating team, that field team all need to be in sync. And I think a lot of times with construction organizations we get caught up in this hierarchy. And yes there’s a hierarchy there as far as a pecking order for where the buck stops, where the responsibility lies, but it needs to be more of flow mindset. There needs to be those channels that all those bit different entities that

project team, office staff, all those things need to be more in unison with their communication because nothing in construction, in my opinion, is in a vacuum. We just can’t build that way. We can’t do it. It doesn’t exist. It’s all part of one big picture and then it boils down to those separate details. And everybody on a construction team or construction crew from office to field needs to kind of have that same mindset where your role is definitely critical but it’s not on a vacuum. It’s not ice.

You’re a part, a branch of what’s actually going on in the field and the field is the revenue stream. So if there’s a hold up there, that’s going to trickle down to all those different entities and those pain points are going to get more more cumbersome as that burden doesn’t get shouldered.

Rishi Srivastava (17:23)
Yeah, yeah. end product, know, the construction entity, like a building or a bridge, whatever you’re creating, you know, without that, else exists. There is no office, you know, there is no field, you know, you need that end product, right, for all of us to exist.

Rob Duplain (17:39)
Yep.

Rishi Srivastava (17:39)
What are the earliest signals you watch for that tell you a project is drifting before it shows up in cost or schedule reports?

Rob Duplain (17:49)
That goes back to that three week look at that chessboard that I’m talking about. As a superintendent, my job is to be ahead of that crew.

Rishi Srivastava (17:54)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Duplain (17:58)
And I need to be able to see some of those impacts downstream. Just like I was saying with that coordination between all the different entities, the project manager, the estimating team, the field team, all those things. There has to be a lot of symbiosis there. There has to be that communication where everybody’s working in unison for that common goal, the end deliverable.

When those pain points are coming, you have to understand construction well enough to know what you’re looking at. You have to see that in about two weeks here, the schedule is showing us and the iron workers are going to be over in the same area at the same time. I need to get ahead of that now. I need to talk to them and see, hey, do you guys really need to move here? Is this something that you have to get to or is it something that we need to shift? Do I need to find another area for our guys to go for and chase that

work in another area in order to give those guys time in order to catch up or meet their ends and so we’re not slowing the project down and also causing safety issues because there’s too many guys fighting for the same real estate over the same you know time frame. So you have to be able to constantly be looking ahead. If you’re running work and you’re in the moment like I’ve said before you’re late you’re behind so you have to be ahead. Construction is a forward-thinking process you have to be on

that page.

Rishi Srivastava (19:15)
Actually someone was telling me, if you’re on time, you’re already late.

Rob Duplain (19:18)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Rishi Srivastava (19:20)
When you’re asked to go faster, what are the constraints you diagnose first? Materials, access, sequence, design readiness, staffing, safety?

Rob Duplain (19:32)
Safety is always paramount for me and that’s when I’m looking at my flowchart with the site personnel and all that. Safety is always at the top of that list for me because nothing can move without having to run through those diagnostics as far as what these guys are actually going to encounter. So when we’re asked to go faster that’s always a thing. If we’re putting on acceleration, that’s definitely a legal part of the construction port. If we’re actually put on true acceleration through

the general contractor, there’s some constraints or constraints that happen with that and those are the communication things that need to be vetted prior to the release of that declaration that yes, we are on acceleration. You have to communicate that back to them and what you’re saying, all these different components with materials, access, sequencing, all those things, that’s something that should be on your radar. You should have your thumb on the pulse of that constantly. So when those things get moved towards acceleration,

you should be able to speak to those things readily because you understand all those things. You have your thumb on procurement and you know what things are pending, what your lead times are. Okay, you want me to go on acceleration but it’s really not gonna be beneficial to us because we’re still waiting on a piece of gear that’s two weeks out. So we can only get so far on even an accelerated course.

we’re still going to be waiting on this material. So you’re really not gaining anything. So how do we want to handle this? And those are the things that you need to be able to speak to and give real time solutions to back because it’s no fault of the office. They’re not there. They just want to see the information. They want to hear what the schedule is going to be. They want to know what that end cost is going to be on the budget. And if it means, yes, I understand that there’s a need for acceleration, but given the conditions of the site, given lead times, given all these different

factors, we’re really not going to be further ahead. We’re actually going to be further behind by doing it. So you need to be able to speak to those things and you have to be able to do it because you have your thumb on the pulse of that job.

Rishi Srivastava (21:30)
This leads to our next section, which is bridging the field office gap and building real collaboration. You called out a real skill, being strong in the field and the office. What specifically creates that gap? And how can companies develop people who can operate in both worlds?

Rob Duplain (21:52)
you

So I think a lot of that just goes back to my law enforcement background when I was in service as a police officer. When we were putting together a case, the term that got used to kind of frame that for those guys is the totality of circumstances. And that means that you have to take all the factors into consideration. You can’t just look at things in isolation. You have to take everything from a perspective that puts

together that narrative. And I feel like that’s one of the things I really pride myself on, I strive to do is to be able to see it, not just from the office perspective, because I understand that world. I understand what they’re looking at. And it doesn’t, I think a lot of guys look at, know, like, oh, well, those guys never were out in the field. They don’t know. That’s disingenuous. And that’s, you’re going to set yourself up for failure with those guys in the office. If that’s the attitude that you have, you have to treat them like an asset and you have to look at them as all they

really want is good, reliable information. And if you can provide that and you can systemize that for them, then they’re going to be on your page and they’re going to march to your cadence as well. Because yes, they want that, they thrive on that information and you’ve got to be able to understand what they’re looking for and how to present it. And then conversely with the field, those guys need to be treated with a little bit of respect for what they’re bringing to the table. ⁓

And not everybody’s going to be, you know, the model citizen, but you know, that’s just the nature of construction and treating those guys with the fact that they have personal lives, they have things going on at home and hours that definitely affect them. And sometimes they’re not at their optimal best and being able to not just give a blanket discipline policy to some of those things is being able to see people as a human being, have that empathy, being able to

pull them aside, have that conversation and get them to, you know, kind of course correct on their own. And I think a lot of guys respond well to that. What they don’t respond to is blanket, you know, discipline across the board where one guy messes up and now all of a sudden, boom, we’re going to hammer down with a new directive that, you know, this is how it’s going to be for everybody now. And it just kills morale. It kills the motivation for a lot of these guys where they’re like, well, you know, Joe’s the problem. Why, you know, why, why, why, why are we all being punished?

for this guy constantly being late, know, if that was the case,

Rishi Srivastava (24:17)
Yeah,

you know, I’m going through something with the court in my personal life and you helped me think how a law enforcement person thinks.

Rob Duplain (24:27)
Hahaha. ⁓

Rishi Srivastava (24:28)
In your experience, where does handoff break down most often? Estimating to ops, pre-con to field, PM to super, and what’s one fix that actually works?

Rob Duplain (24:33)
Thanks.

you

Well, the industry loves to use the word silos as if it really means something significant, as if it’s like a get out of jail free card. know, like, wow, everybody’s in a silo. Well, we need to correct that. And one of those things is that handoff process where, again, go back to the earlier part of the conversation where I’m saying everybody needs to understand that end goal. What’s the deliverable? Well, it’s the product to the client. And so each one of those facets of the construction team, estimating the project

management, the accounts payable, your fleet division, all those different things, equipment, and then your field crew, all of those things are working in unison from their individual perspective. And so when everybody can kind of have more of that guidance right off that project kickoff and understand that these are the different roles and responsibilities, but we’re all going to have some crossover here because there has to be some crossover. We can’t be in a silo.

we’re going to have to have some of that that blurred line here where we’re kind of sharing some of those responsibilities in order to make sure that everybody’s getting what they need done in order to meet that end deliverable for the client. And I feel like the more that you can kind of have that preemptively and you’re kind of pro planning that ahead of time and everybody on your on your squad, your crew, you know, from from office to field understands those roles and you’re playing them out, having more training, having more discussion, have more dialogue.

It’s not going to get solved with just a piece of paper that says, here, this is what I want you to do. There has to be some real integration there as you’re handing those things off. And I think the more communication you have, the more understanding you have, the more fundamental perspective that you can get your head wrapped around from different roles and see it from somebody else’s point of view is definitely going to help the whole team function better.

Rishi Srivastava (26:31)
Electricians touch every facet of a project. What are the best practices you’ve learned for coordinating with other trades so it feels like a partnership, not competing agendas.

Rob Duplain (26:45)
That’s how I’ve always worked on every project is from residential to substation is again, asking questions, building relationships and being inquisitive as to what other trades are doing, what their constraints are, what they’re up against, how they want to have conditions met for themselves, where our work as electricians are in contention with them, where it’s not in contention, all of those things.

down to relationships and building those partnerships with those those different trade craft on site. And the more that you understand what the plumber’s needs are and the more you understand how the carpenter wants to frame something and how he needs to frame it then that’s going to help you out as far as what you’re going to be able to coordinate with them. When guys you know from other trades or gals you know see that you are on that mission to be helpful and you want to be inquisitive

and you want to do the best thing for yourself and for them, you get a lot more cooperation that way. As the saying goes, you get more flies with honey, So that coordination, that relationship building is paramount on site. And it’s definitely been my bread and butter. It’s been how I’ve built relationships and had success on projects because the other trade partners know that I’m looking out for not only my best interests, but theirs and the project at large.

Rishi Srivastava (28:04)
Yeah, there’s so many trades on a construction site. I’m just amazed about the complexity that you deal with.

The next section here, is on documentation, daily logs, and claims readiness. You emphasized daily logs should capture delay impacts, not just as completed. What does good documentation look like in your world? And what gets teams in trouble later?

Rob Duplain (28:30)
So what I

To kind of give some guys, ⁓ I’ve done some workshops for some crews, documentation and the importance of it. Again, my background with law enforcement is documentation is everything. So do I need them to write all their daily reports like as if they’re a police officer? No, but I want them to have more of a mindset of the significance and the importance as to why documentation is important. And it’s telling the story. Again, everything that we’ve talked about today is bridging that gap between field

and in the office. And a lot of times you got, you know, folks in the office that are just reading reports and you’ve got to be able to tell that story. You’ve got to be able to show that this is where the delay is for our crew. Yes, I understand that the schedule says one thing, but guess what? Reality hit and weather impacts and, you know, delays on concrete or, you know, you know, different crews falling behind in manpower. So that delayed them and all those different things that you need to be able to tell that story.

Then it’s not that you’re trying to tattletale. It’s not that you’re trying to point the fingers or cast blame It’s that this is the construction narrative This is how we got from breaking raw ground to the end deliverable of you know, turning it over to the client and along that way This was the story and this is what happened and when somebody goes back to it You know, they want to be able to read that and make sense of it So it has to flow with some kind of consistency and to say that well, I’m just a field

guy and I don’t want to have to write a book here. I don’t need you to write a book. What I need you to do is speak to what you’re experiencing out there. And one of the things that I always thought when I was in law enforcement was do I want this read back to me in court? Do I want this report to find me on the witness stand with giving cross-examination from the prosecutor or defense counsel? And do I need guys to have that level of, I guess,

paranoia? No, I don’t. But I want them to have that mindset of like, this isn’t just an arbitrary thing. You’re not just putting this down for the sake of putting it down. It’s going to be that narrative that somebody’s going to look at later possibly to understand where the cost analysis kind of compares with what the reality was in the field. And that documentation is paramount to tell that story. It’s not anything that, you know, they guys look at it as it’s sometimes of, you

it’s looking to point the blame at them and it’s not. You’re not the estimator. You’re not the project manager. You’re the guy in real time in the field and you just need to talk to that story. That’s it.

Rishi Srivastava (31:03)
Yeah.

And, you know, materiality of events versus the time that these guys are putting that needs to be properly factored in, right? They’re not in the business of like writing, you know, books for accountants, right?

Rob Duplain (31:15)
Yep.

Rishi Srivastava (31:15)
With your law enforcement background, how do you coach foremen who are great mechanics but struggle with documentation without turning it into busy work?

Rob Duplain (31:27)
Yeah, this is a big component because the more, you know, just even in my time, the 16 years I’ve been in construction, that documentation has become more of a precedence. You know, lot of companies are seeing the benefit to that and they want that field input. They want that narrative that I was talking about. They want to be able to see that and read that story and again, use that as they compare and contrast with the spreadsheets that you’re looking at for the budget. And a lot of guys do struggle with the fact of

of what’s the point of this? Like I can do my job. I don’t need to explain it. You know, these guys don’t know what they’re doing. There’s a lot of animosity, I think that comes with that because by and large, the guys that, you know, are attracted to this line of work didn’t want to have to do a bunch of computer stuff. They don’t want to have to write a bunch of reports. They, they love the work. They love the physicality of it. They’re kinesthetic people, they’re hands on, they’re movers. That’s how they think. And to have those guys, you know, sit down and start writing

Rishi Srivastava (32:17)
Yeah.

Rob Duplain (32:25)
forms out, it really becomes cumbersome. So what I do is I really try to explain the significance and it’s not again to point blame at anybody. Again, it’s just to tell that narrative and it’s to your benefit. It’s to your benefit to be, you know, as descriptive as you can and there’s no downside to it. The more you put in, the better off you’re going to be. The more vague you are, the more you’re going to have to possibly come back later and have an explanation.

which I’m sure they don’t want to do. So I really try to emphasize the better you are up front, the better you’re going to be down the road.

Rishi Srivastava (33:00)
Yeah, and sometimes the documentation is for your own help. You’re going to forget what you did a month ago.

Rob Duplain (33:07)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yep, it’s always good to go back and review some of those, just even on the ones that you wrote yourself, 100%. ⁓

Rishi Srivastava (33:14)
What’s your framework for creating a culture where documentation supports the crew, protects time, reduces rework, strengthens claims, position, instead of feeling like policing?

Rob Duplain (33:27)
Yeah, I think it just goes back to the communication that I’ve been really kind of pointing out is you have to be upfront. You have to be able to speak to those things ahead of time. you know, a lot of executives don’t want to deal with, you know, those fire drills. They want to have that preparation and you as a field guy need to be able to understand that. And you need to recognize that’s where that person is good, bad or indifferent. You agree or disagree. It doesn’t matter that that’s what that executive level, that’s what those directors, that’s

That’s

what those upper management folks are looking for. They want that summary basically so that they can speak to that budget is really what it all comes down to. And so it shouldn’t be a thing where you’re looking at that policing aspect of trying to point fingers or build a case against somebody for criminality. It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with, again, that story and that communication is precedence for all of that. You have to be able to communicate.

that story back to the office and that framework is you have to show them that importance for that and having that culture built around that is you I’ve a lot of times I’ve just broken it down for them on different you know aspects of this is how I would document this this is where I would go these are the components that I think you need to focus on as far as what the incident was what happened and to put it in your words but this is this is the

framework, this is where it needs to be. That guidance.

Rishi Srivastava (34:58)
Yeah.

You know, someone like you, your perspective is so valuable. A lot of times, the office people don’t fully get the field, and the field people don’t get the office.

Rob Duplain (35:07)
Yeah, it’s definitely a noticeable gap and it’s unfortunate. And again, I think it’s just because we’ve gotten so accustomed to that word, just, you know, being in a silo as if it, you know, it carries weight. If somebody’s saying that we’re in a silo or that, you know, this is, this is not my role or responsibility there. That’s a problem. That’s a red flag to me because even if it’s not your direct role or responsibility, you need to have knowledge. You need to have, you know, awareness of to what everybody else is, is responsible for. You know, when you look at it,

like a football team, know, the linemen don’t need to understand all the intricacies of a receiver’s routes. They don’t need to know that, but they need to understand that the receiver is running a route for a reason. And that receiver needs to understand that this pass protection is going to call for certain linemen to pull or to chop block or whatever they need to do. And it’s based on the fact that all those parts, all those different positions,

are working for what? The end goal for a score, for a touchdown. And not everybody has to know all the interskies of everybody’s position, but they need to know that everybody’s doing their part, their role, in order to meet that goal. The same thing with construction.

Rishi Srivastava (36:19)
Yeah,

I want that analogy. Construction team is a football team.

The last section here, is on tech, voice, and the human component. This is also the last question here. You are bullish on voice for the field, but you also warned tech can become counterproductive when it encourages in-the-moment adjustments. Where do you think voice plus AI helps most right now?

And where can it accidentally make teams worse?

Rob Duplain (36:51)
Yeah, there’s definitely a move to a lot of those field designs. There’s a lot of pushing a lot more to value engineering and those things have their place and they’re definitely a facet of construction that can be beneficial at times, but it can’t be the bread and butter. can’t be the go-to. And unfortunately, what I see as the industry is becoming more tech savvy is there’s more of a reliance on those field adjustments, make those modifications on the fly.

And that translates to a slower field, burdensome field. Those guys get frustrated with that because again, if I’m telling these guys I need them to be planning, looking ahead, foresight, forward thinking, and then I’m constantly pulling the rug out from underneath them and saying, schedule’s no good, that drawing’s no good, well, we’re not doing it that way, we’re gonna do it this way. Well, that’s frustrating to those guys because for the most part, the guys in the field, they wanna show up.

They want to get a set of drawings. They want to know that the material and tools are there and they want to go to work and they want to be able to just be left alone to do what their skill set is and When that drawing is constantly being modified or you’re getting a boilerplate Detail that doesn’t really apply and now you’ve got to put in a bunch of RFIs in order to make sense of some of the details or request additional details because they weren’t really you know fully vetted and it’s

That’s frustrating. That slows the field down. that’s the component that I wish the office could understand more. Yes, it sounds great that we’re going to make all these design modifications and field modifications and we’re going to value engineer here and there. you got to understand that that needs to be part again of that forward thinking. You can do all those things, but to do it on a regular basis in the moment is just slowing productivity down. It just is. There’s no

getting around that whatsoever.

Rishi Srivastava (38:44)
I really like that, know, architects and estimators, have a job, right? I mean, they’re not like out there to do the fields work, but they have to be able to design and communicate in a way that field just goes and executes. I mean, if the field start designing, I mean, again, the football team analogy, right? I mean, we are stepping onto each other’s toes.

Rob Duplain (39:03)
Yep. And that’s exactly what happens is you get the office personnel. They’re like, wow, these guys are just laying down on us. They’re going slower because, you know, they can’t get up to speed on all the, the nuances that we want to do. And then the guys in the field are like, these guys in the office, they don’t know what they’re doing. They can’t even give us a decent set of drawings. And so there’s that animosity that’s built in to this, like in the moment, try to, you know, ad lib and pivot. Whereas if you just kind of bridge some of that gap ahead of time,

and you were part of that forecasting, you could alleviate some of that animosity between both sides by having more of an understanding of, yes, this is why we need to do it, we want your input, and here’s the end solution. And then when it comes to that part of the schedule, it’s been vetted, it’s been talked about, the guys are up to speed. It’s not just some like, hey, we pulled the rollout or the rug out from underneath you and now we need you to add lib. And if you can’t keep up, well, it’s your fault because you just don’t know what you’re doing. And that’s just like,

that tension, that animosity is baked in almost to some of those fire drills that like, well we want to do a last minute modification. So I don’t know if that tracks.

Rishi Srivastava (40:12)
Yeah, it’s very hard, right? These projects are very

complex. mean, you give it to the field person and they try to edit and try to make this value engineering. It’s not easy. But also it’s tough for the office person too, because they don’t know the field reality.

Rob, thank you so much for coming on to the show. I had a great conversation with you.

Rob Duplain (40:30)
Same, I appreciate it. Thanks for requesting me to be a part of it. Loved it.