The Human Side of Construction Tech & Change Management — with Victor Sturgis

Rishi Srivastava (00:41)
Today our guest is Victor Sturgis from First Rule Contract Manager. Victor, welcome.

Victor Sturgis (00:47)
Thank you, Rishi. Appreciate it. Happy to be here.

Rishi Srivastava (00:49)
Section one here is on your journey. you started your career in tax and advisory before moving into the construction technology world. What drew you from public accounting into the world of construction finance and tech?

Victor Sturgis (01:02)
Yeah, that’s a great question and probably a really long story, but I’ll try and tell the abbreviated version. Not long into my 13-year career at Crow, the public accounting firm, I stepped into working in the construction space. So working with a contractor client from a tax standpoint, my background is in tax, but really helping those contractors, of course, file whatever tax return that they were filing.

But there is also a really specialized calculation around long-term construction contracts that contractors have to do every year for the most part. That’s different than from a financial person standpoint, the WIP schedule for contractors, you’re managing the financial WIP schedule, then there’s a separate tax WIP schedule that needed to be managed each year. So we helped our clients do that, which became really complex and really complicated.

especially as you might imagine some of the bigger GCs and the bigger subs out there who are literally managing hundreds of contracts at the end by the end of the year. So really stepping into that space, working with contractors brought me into construction and started my journey into, I really enjoy the people in the space and.

the perspective that they have in the sense that they are performing a function that adds value to this physical work being done in constructing a building or a bridge or a house. It’s really tough sometimes from an accounting standpoint, especially in public accounting to truly feel that connection to the work that’s being done. And I’ve felt that in working with

the finance and the back office accounting function of contractors. So the construction technology piece comes into place where taking that long-term contract calculation and using Excel to do that calculation for our clients, we at Crow decided to take that piece of proprietary knowledge, essentially is what it was, and turn it into software.

So the journey of taking a business use case and turning it into a tool that helped contractors being a part of the development process from a technology standpoint really was something that also grabbed me. So you have the construction piece and then you have the technology piece, both grabbed me kind of at the same time. And I’ve kind of been on this journey ever since. In fact, there was a time in my career where I had stepped away.

from this work, I was asked by the firm to take another path, do some different things. And I remember it pretty vividly. was late 2021, fall of 2021. So this was as things were kind of coming back, or maybe it was 2022 as things were coming back from COVID conference in CFMA Great Lakes. And I remember being in the expo hall of CFMA Great Lakes and just being in awe.

of the people and the relationships that I had built and the fact that I had been away from the industry for a couple of years to come back and say, like, these are the people that I can see myself interacting with, engaging with. These are my colleagues that I would like to work with for the rest of my career, right? And so that brought me back into the construction space. So really happy to be back doing this.

Rishi Srivastava (04:17)
Yeah, really interesting path you took. The second question is, you’ve led teams both inside large firms like Crowe and now as a startup founder. What’s one leadership lesson that’s carried through every stage of your career?

Victor Sturgis (04:19)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

One, this is one that I’ve really started to harp on a lot lately with my teams and something early in my career, especially as I was managing people, that I didn’t quite have a pulse on. This years of experience and being able to look at it from this lens retrospectively has brought this to the surface for me. Ultimately, friction is a good thing. I say all friction is good friction.

That’s typically how I say it to my teams. What that means is if your team is experiencing a level of friction and being able to get the work done that needs to be done, that usually is an indicator that there’s something that’s off. Something needs to change, whether that’s related to people, whether that’s related to processes, whether that’s related to technology. It creates an opportunity for your team to get better when you’re starting to feel those tension points.

Right? Sometimes that is between two people, but you can take that tension point now and say, okay, I’m sensing some friction here. Let’s get to the root cause of this friction so that we can solve it and we’re solving it together. So the issue isn’t this person or that person or that process or this technology. The issue becomes how do we tackle this friction? Like how do we, how do we stop this? And that creates a really collaborative environment for the team that you’re focused more on the problem that you’re trying to solve.

and you’re not playing the blame game or going after each other, taking things personally in that space. So I would say all friction is good friction.

Rishi Srivastava (06:00)
You know, there’s a quote from a philosopher.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

Victor Sturgis (06:05)
Mmm. I love that. I love that because it does right that becomes the way you got it. got to knock that thing down

Rishi Srivastava (06:12)
Looking back, what was the aha moment that made you realize construction needed a better way to manage data and change?

Victor Sturgis (06:20)
Yeah, for me, was in the process of working with the tax product that I was a part of building. We were able to work with some of the largest GCs in the country, some of the largest subcontractors in the country. And as a part of that process, again, that was really tax specific. But as a part of that process and understanding their workflows, especially towards the end of the year.

We often had to ask a lot of questions about what information is in your construction contracts. How often does this term show up versus that term? Right? And you would be shocked that most cases folks didn’t have any idea how often a certain term showed up across their portfolio of subcontracts that were out there.

on all of their active projects. You have a legal team of five, yet you don’t have a way to really aggregate and query the data as it relates to the contract language that was available to you. That brought the use case of, maybe there’s technology that could come in and help these teams be able to understand this information better. A really great example of why that’s important, COVID.

Right. So COVID comes along. Most consider that to be a force majeure event. I don’t want to get too technical from a contractual standpoint, but force majeure is essentially an act of God comes in and changes things. And projects can’t be completed because of this big thing that happened on a country or a global scale. And a lot of contractors struggled to know if force majeure was included in their contract documents across the board.

Rishi Srivastava (07:36)
Okay.

Victor Sturgis (08:00)
which contracts they needed to focus on specifically to try and mitigate some risk that was there because force majeure didn’t exist. And so being able to look at that data across the board for contracts has become extremely important. And it continues to be, right? When you see something like made in America clauses that are now popping up in contracts. So being able to find that information and surface it quickly.

across all of your data and all of your information. In our case, the data is contract data to be able to bring that value and make decisions based on that.

Rishi Srivastava (08:33)
A lot of these long contracts have these languages that are kind of new to the contract and nobody was expecting them and it suddenly shows up and nobody even is aware of them. ⁓

Victor Sturgis (08:41)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

yeah, very much so. One of the, I forget who I was speaking to, but one of the best conversations I had around contracts comes from someone who’s been dealing with more manufacturing supplier contracts for many years. He said, the legal profession is one of the most self-perpetuating professions that exist because there was a time when a handshake was enough.

Rishi Srivastava (09:11)
Mm-hmm.

Victor Sturgis (09:11)
to start

a project. Then it became, okay, let’s actually just sign this document to make sure we know we agreed of what we’re building. And then those contract documents have started to go from this to this to this to this, right? And the reason being those lawyers are in some cases from experience, maybe there is a legal battle that comes in and now you wanna add language that’s gonna protect your clients more.

Rishi Srivastava (09:23)
Mm-hmm.

Victor Sturgis (09:33)
but you start to see more and more language get added to contracts. So even when you’ve been working with a specific client, let’s say for years, one year may come along and all of a sudden their contracts have added a couple of different clauses or a couple of pages that are new, that are different because they’re working with some counsel who said, you probably want this protection because their experiences told them they had another client that just went through litigation. And so I need to make sure that

this other client is protected and now contract documents get thicker and thicker and right? So it becomes something that’s kind of self-perpetuating as a profession, so.

Rishi Srivastava (10:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, a great perspective. Next section is on change management in construction. You’ve spoken about more than a login, the human side of technology adoption. What inspired that framework?

Victor Sturgis (10:14)
Go.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah, really the framework comes from the years of experience that I’ve had in helping contractors adopt technology within the company. Now, I’ve focused a lot on back office tools for contractors and helping implement in that space. But one thing that is extremely apparent

when dealing with change management, especially around technology, is while the technology is important, the technology functioning and it works well and it accomplishes what’s expected. And I know we’ll probably talk about that later. All of that’s important. But at the end of the day, it’s the human that has to get used to the change. It’s the human that has to accept the change.

One thing, and during that presentation, one example that I typically give, and this is a really fun and easy one, is I’ll have people cross their arms. So they’ll sit there and they’ll cross their arms, right? That’s a very easy, very natural thing to do. But then I go, okay, I want you to cross your arms the other way. So I’ll put the other arm on top. So now you try that, right? And it feels weird. It feels different. I’m asking you to do the same thing.

Rishi Srivastava (11:26)
Yeah, wow

Victor Sturgis (11:32)
but I’m asking you to do it slightly different than what your body kind of naturally does. And part of this is learned, right? You just learn how to cross your arms at some point and one hand becomes dominant and then you automatically just cross your arms that way. So when we talk about trying to get someone who’s been doing the same process using the same technology for five, 10, 15, in some cases, 25, 30 years throughout their whole career, and you tell them,

we’re gonna have you cross your arms a different way, that’s extremely uncomfortable for people. And it has a huge impact on them. And so when you think about technology adoption, it’s really more focused on the psyche of the people that are impacted to make that adoption successful.

Rishi Srivastava (12:20)
Yeah, you know habits are very hard to change

Victor Sturgis (12:23)
They are, they are. It’s all in our brains. It really is. Regardless of the technology, regardless of if it’s a process that’s changing, you have habits. We’re human, right? We like to find something that works and then we stick to it. That’s safe for us.

Rishi Srivastava (12:37)
In your view, why do so many construction technology implementations fail even when the software itself is solid?

Victor Sturgis (12:45)
Yeah, I think that’s exactly it. a lot of folks assume, that just because you buy the technology, it looks great in demos, it does work and function and fit into your process as the way that it’s supposed to, that you’re just gonna flip a switch. You’re just gonna flip a switch one day.

you’re gonna get the login, which is the title of session, more than a login, you’re gonna get the login. And once you log in, done. Like this is gonna fit perfectly, this is gonna work, we’re gonna be done, we don’t have to think about it anymore, it’s just gonna work. I think a lot of folks want it to work that way, mainly because no one has the time, right? Usually, usually, and I know a lot of the CFOs that are listeners of your podcast,

feel this way, usually these types of projects somehow fall on the CFO’s desk. Right? Hey, we got some new technology. Why don’t you lead the implementation of it? Right? And I know that those CFOs take that and they go, I wish that I could just give these people a login and they log in and it’s done. Like, I don’t have to do anything else. That would be super simple. But it just doesn’t work that way. And the problem is that the expectation of it working that way

And the capacity of the people who are leading the implementation is usually so thin that it makes it difficult to really get that thing off the ground. And there’s a turning point. There’s a level of excitement that happens in the beginning. There’s always going to be some folks who are naysayers to start out. But if you start to take those people that are excited and they suddenly become the opposite of excited,

and they start to have thoughts and feelings about a certain product or technology you’re bringing in, and you start to lose them, you kind of start to slide across the board. So someone, including the technology partner you’re working with, really has to manage those expectations from a psychological standpoint for people.

Rishi Srivastava (14:35)
How do you help financial leaders and project teams feel seen and heard during major process changes?

Victor Sturgis (14:43)
Yeah, yeah, for first rule, it starts with those two areas. You have to find the leadership, right? You have to define who is going to be leading this change from the company standpoint. We break that into two different personas, if you will. You have an executive sponsor, and then you have a process champion, right? Your executive sponsor is the person that is

wearing a couple of different hats. That first hat, and this is typically going to be like your CFO, right? If they’re the person charged with getting this implementation off the ground. That first hat is, first of all, responsible for overseeing the whole process. Second, they’re responsible for holding the technology partner accountable to the expectations. But then third, they help manage the expectations and the level of excitement and the

communication of the small wins when rolling out that technology across the board to the company, right? They handle the messaging that comes from the process champion, the people who are doing the work, and they convey that to the rest of the leadership team, right? So they play a pivotal role in making sure and filtering for the good, the bad, the ugly, the everything that goes with implementing technology, right? Because let’s face it, there going to be some hiccups along the way.

And you don’t want those hiccups to turn into rumors and those rumors to turn into the mindset of people. now you kind of start to lose everyone when implementing that technology. So you have that role. And then you have the process champion. Process champion is really your person that knows your current process that’s going to be most impacted. They know that process inside and out, right? They can see and understand, I have the process that this technology provides.

I have my process that I currently do. How do these two mesh? Where are the wrinkles that we’re going to need to iron out? And we, as technology provider, are there to support that person in understanding, OK, what’s your process here? This is how the software handles that. How do you handle that? What’s new that you’re excited about? What’s missing that we might need to find a solution from a product standpoint?

Or we need to find a solution that works for you that’s outside of the product that still allows the process that the product is bringing to the table to function the way that it’s supposed to, right? So as we talk about helping our clients feel seen, that’s a big piece of it. Let’s make sure that we truly understand where the pain points are gonna be by working with you directly to do that. And then working with you to kind of iron out those pain points as it goes along.

Rishi Srivastava (17:14)
next question is, what’s one example where good change management transformed an implementation that was headed for failure?

Victor Sturgis (17:23)
Yeah, yeah. So I’ll give you an example from working on the tax product here when I was back at Crowe

You have to identify personas and in a lot of cases for technology providers, those personas become pretty apparent pretty quickly, or you’re working with your executive sponsor or your process champion and they’re gonna tell you, right? They’re gonna say, well, so and so is really skeptical. And maybe not so many words, right? They’ll let you know.

And this particular scenario, there was that person who automatically kind of started with a, don’t think we need this product. I don’t think this is going to help me do my job more effectively. I already have a process, right? I already have process. I’ve been doing it for years. Why are we trying to change this? And what became really apparent is that there was a little bit of hesitation and trepidation there because it was a learning curve that that person needed to take on.

And what really helped in that scenario was a much more one-on-one kind of hand-holding interaction with that person, begrudgingly at first, right, from their standpoint. But there’s a rapport, there’s a trust, there’s a relationship that needs to be built, which then creates that space of allowing that person to voice their concerns, really in any space, but even specifically working with a technology provider to say, hey,

You know, I hear you that this process has worked well for you for many years. And to be honest with you, you might be right, but let’s try it, right? How about we try to do this process that you’ve done for years, and I’ll work with you kind of step by step to see how it might work here. And then there’s a certain point during those discussions, right? And maybe there’s multiple discussions. There’s a certain point where you can see the light bulb go on for that individual. Not that they weren’t getting it before.

but they weren’t making the connection to say that, this is actually gonna help me, right? You’ve seen that light bulb moment a lot, especially in the AI space right now. I know if you’re in AI, a lot of you have personally gone through that light bulb moment to say, wow, like I can see how this is really gonna help, right? And so working with that person on a more close one-to-one basis and helping them reach that moment. Once they reach that moment, instead of,

dragging the whole process down and maybe taking some of those people that were excited previously with them, now you’ve got someone who is an absolute champion of bringing in this new technology because they started in a spot of, I don’t think we need this. And now they’re saying, I absolutely see the value, right? It makes it really hard for any of the others that maybe have that old mentality to continue on that.

So there is an example of me walking an old client through the process and then seeing, seeing and hearing, I don’t know, I think that was pre-COVID, so we didn’t really have much video. We were mainly on phone calls then, but hearing that moment of, I see now, like I get it, that makes sense. Okay, I’m with you. And you can feel the excitement. Like you can just almost feel like the person is bouncing on the other side of the.

the call on the chair. So it’s a really fun, fun moment to have.

Rishi Srivastava (20:30)
Yeah, you know, even in this highly technological world, people actually don’t necessarily buy technology. They buy people, people buy people, you know.

Victor Sturgis (20:39)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

They really do. They really do. Yeah, one of the best pieces of advice that I got is people buy from who they like, right? People buy from who they like to work with. And if you have those relationships, and at the end of the day, if people feel cared for, and people feel seen, and people feel heard by you, you’re building a relationship, and that makes it that much easier to overcome obstacles that come up. Because let’s face it, in business, there’s always obstacles. So.

Rishi Srivastava (20:50)
And.

You mentioned that buying tech isn’t the same as implementing tech. What’s the most common mistake CFOs make during this transition?

Victor Sturgis (21:10)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I think the most common mistake is looking at a piece of technology and not understanding your process well enough to know if that technology is actually going to solve an issue with your process as it stands, right?

A lot of the companies that we work with that are extremely successful in implementing technology and in my past seeing this, they know and have documented their processes, right? So when it comes to being able to identify the right piece of technology, you have to start with the process first, understand the process, document the process before you go out and make that purchasing decision. Because if you’ve got that process documented,

You understand what the pain points are. You understand what the bottlenecks are. And once you understand those types of issues, then you can find a piece of technology that not only keeps your functioning process intact in many ways, but also then attacks and starts to break down the bottlenecks or the challenges that you’re seeing in that process. Otherwise, you may end up buying something that’s super shiny, right? this is really

cool, this is great, I think this might solve our issue, only to find out that that was never an issue to begin with. So buying something that’s shiny and new and really cool looking doesn’t work. It’s gotta be something that actually helps the process that you’re trying to specifically target for that technology to come in and help with.

Rishi Srivastava (22:42)
Next section here is on the human side of technology. You often talk about making a PACT with your technology provider. What does that mean in practice for a construction CFO or controller?

Victor Sturgis (22:50)
Yes. Yes.

Yeah, so especially when we talk about that executive sponsor role, who’s usually like a CFO or controller coming in. One of your goals should be making a PACT with your technology provider. When I say PACT, that stands for Performance as the P, Alignment as the A, Communication as the C, and Transition Support as the T, right? The P in and of itself is making sure that that product and what

the folks on the product team or the vendor that you’re working with, what they say functions in the product actually functions, right? And I know contractors have gone through this many times where they’ve brought in a vendor that has a product that says, it does this, that, and everything under the sun, and it doesn’t, right? Or it’s not quite there. And in some cases, that’s okay, right? Especially in…

the construction space where you have a lot of new tech companies, you have a lot of AI tech companies coming in the space, all of those companies have roadmaps, right? They have a vision of where they want to be, they know where they are right now, and they have a vision of where they want to be. But your job as the executive sponsor and working with them and making a PACT with those vendors is that, A, the product is actually functioning for what you both know is functioning right now, right? Before you sign up, you agree to say it’s doing this, right? Yes, it is.

But then when it comes to the roadmap and what’s coming next, you’re holding them accountable to that performance, right? If they say that a feature is gonna come out in two months, then you have an accountability there to say, is this feature gonna make it out? Is it coming out? If it’s not, what is the updated timeline? But you’re keeping them accountable to that performance. So that’s really the P impact. The alignment piece is essentially what I just spoke about. Finding alignment to your processes. So making sure…

Rishi Srivastava (24:13)
Thank you.

Victor Sturgis (24:36)
first and foremost really, that that technology provider understands the construction, especially in this industry, the construction related process that it’s designed to work for. There are some products that are out there that are coming from different industries. There are some products out there that are coming from the idea in someone’s head who’s never been in the construction space at all, right? And then there’s others on the other side of that who have a lot of industry experience.

who are coming up with these ideas and these thoughts for technology that help. And then you have those who are really designing their products around what clients or prospects say that the need is, right? Where the actual alignment is for that product. And so making sure that that provider has really strong alignment and understanding of the process that it’s meant to fix is important as well.

⁓ The C is communication. So making sure that they’re strong communication. And you should see that throughout the entire sales process as you’re exploring who they are and what they do. You shouldn’t really see much of a gap in communication there as well as working with. If you do end up signing with them, what does the customer support look like? Are they communicating well? What is the onboarding? What does training look like? Make sure that you really understand the next steps. And then transition support, speaking of next steps.

once we’re done with training, where do we go? Like when you as a technology provider are done with a lot of the heavy upfront hands-on, what happens after that? What kind of support do I get after that? How do I transition from training mode to actually ⁓ full bore scalability within my organization, right? So having a strong understanding of that. So that’s the PACT That’s the acronym that we like to use to think about

how contractors and finance leaders should be working with technology vendors.

Rishi Srivastava (26:27)
I like the word, and how it actually translates into all these different concepts. How can software vendors and finance leaders build more authentic partnerships, not just transactions?

Victor Sturgis (26:40)
Yeah, building authentic partnerships is truly about the relationship, right?

At the end of the day, we are all people. We are all people in business. For the most part, I don’t think any of us are not-for-profits, right? We’re all in the business, to make money. But part of that is understanding that we all have our limitations. And so I think that on both sides, there should be a level of grace given to the other party.

to understand that there’s limitations, whether that’s personal, whether that’s something going on in a work setting. From a vendor standpoint, that’s the patience and understanding that clients are busy. They have a day-to-day job, they have things going on. Even as a prospect, they may not get back to you as soon as you would like. And then on the other side of that, when it comes to a contractor working with a specific vendor,

What kind of grace is there for them? You know, obviously that grace can’t be extended too far because you’ve paid some money and there needs to be an ROI on the other side of that. But as people, the best partnerships seem to be formed when a situation does come up and maybe someone needs to step away for a bit. Maybe you need to work with a different customer success or support person for a while. Having grace and understanding that as companies and as people, there are things that come up that are out of

our control, right? So I think that’s important.

Rishi Srivastava (27:56)
What are the warning signs that a company’s tech rollout is focusing too much on the tool and not enough on the people?

Victor Sturgis (28:03)
Yeah, the biggest warning sign to me is the always fun rumors, right? When rumors within that organization, when you start to hear rumors that this isn’t working or that isn’t working or I can’t believe that we’re paying this much for that or like when those things start to come up, that means that people…

Rishi Srivastava (28:11)
Yeah. ⁓

Victor Sturgis (28:27)
are not being communicated effectively to, right? And again, that’s kind of an executive sponsor type role. And those groups that are focusing on implementing the product to start that process champion isn’t necessarily being seen and supported and heard throughout the process because a lot of that, those thoughts.

Right? A lot of those thoughts that are being spread by rumors now, there should have been, or there should be a space, especially with that executive sponsor and the vendor, for that person to voice those concerns, right? Because if that person starts voicing those concerns to whomever sitting next to them or someone that’s over here, then those rumors start to spread and you start to see and kind of feel the negative impact of those rumors, pulling the implementation down.

And so if those rumors are being spread, then people aren’t being seen and heard in the right way to effectively feel like their needs are gonna be met when rolling out new technology.

Rishi Srivastava (29:26)
Sometimes these software are pretty complicated. It’s hard to explain or prove an ROI immediately in the implementation.

Victor Sturgis (29:30)
Mm-hmm.

Very true, that’s very true. And so as long as those conversations are had, those expectations are set, the pain point, all the pain that the people that are initially implementing this tool or piloting this tool go through, those pain points are heard along with those expectations and you can really kind of, I wouldn’t say control, but you can.

you have more of a grasp over what things are said, when those things are said as it relates to people’s reaction to the product initially.

Rishi Srivastava (30:05)
The next section here is on leadership, culture, and mentorship. You are part of CFMA’s national mentorship program, and your coach is Joe Harper, who was also on the show. What’s one thing you’ve learned from that experience about mentoring the next generation of finance leaders?

Victor Sturgis (30:13)
Mm-hmm.

Love, Joe.

That’s a great question. And it’s great because I am working with Joe now. When you’re talking about leadership, when you’re talking about mentoring future leaders,

And I feel like I’ve said this a lot, but it’s about the person and understanding that that we are not just an individual that shows up for work every day, right? We are an individual that has at our base hobbies, things that we’re interested in, reasons that we’re in the job that we’re in, right? We have families, we have other stressful situations going on in life.

And as much as it seems like.

I might say outdated thoughts or rhetoric around work are. You bring those things with you to work. You bring those things with you as a leader, right? Some of that is more long standing. Some of that is more ingrained in the values that you bring to the table. Some of that is more short term and immediate, right? You had a bad morning and now you’re showing up trying to lead a team.

and you’re showing up in a way that doesn’t effectively convey a message as a leader that you want to convey because you’re operating from a space of emotion, high emotion at the time because of something that’s going on personally. I don’t think any leader can truly be effective if they’re not managing their full selves.

as an individual and making sure that they have a good not I’m not saying they have control over everything because at times life is just life. But making sure that they have the right perspective and can step back and see this that’s happening for me personally maybe impacting this and how I’m showing up as a leader and then resetting yourself as it relates to the values that you bring to the table being grounded in those.

because you want to make sure to remind yourself sometimes that I’m not living in my value as I’m showing up right now. Let me step back. And as a leader, being able to admit that to your team goes a long way. It really does. We’re human at the end of the day. Sometimes emotions run high, sometimes emotions run low. And being able to admit that and communicate that to your team, even after making a mistake, we all make mistakes. That goes a long way in building trust with people.

Rishi Srivastava (32:33)
Such a great point, Victor. My sister is going through something really tough, an accident, and she’s in ICU. And this morning, I was ⁓ so upset personally, and I showed up in this meeting with our team, and I was yelling at them pretty bad. And you reminded me that I got to go and issue an apology here tomorrow.

Victor Sturgis (32:40)
man, I’m sorry to that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And I can guarantee that you will find that people are going to be sympathetic and empathetic and understand that, right? As a leader, you’re person too, and I think that builds trust when they see you come back around and say, you know what, guys, I wasn’t showing up as me. I have a lot going on. That really helps.

Rishi Srivastava (33:13)
The next question is, how do you cultivate a culture of trust and curiosity inside your own company, especially when leading through uncertainty?

Victor Sturgis (33:22)
Yeah, that’s a great question. And one that has really taken a grip and hung on, I think, over the past 10, 15, maybe even 20 years, you might go back to like Y2K, where there has seemed to be much more uncertainty as it relates to what’s coming. What does the future look like?

whether that’s technology, whether that’s socio-political environment, whether, no matter what that might be, there’s uncertainty that seems to be lingering in a lot of instances lately. So when it comes to building a culture of trust around that.

In my career as a leader, this is going to sound a little bit crazy. The best statement that you can make is, I don’t know.

Right? I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers at this moment. Right? And that is, that is such a vulnerable moment as a leader because most people see leaders as someone who’s supposed to have all the answers, but there’s a lot of scenarios lately where you just don’t know how things are going to shake out. Right? And, and that level of vulnerability creates a space where, you know, others can, first of all,

kind of relax, kind of say, okay, I’m not the only one that’s feeling this uncertainty. Even the leader that I work with is. And now that you’re all kind of on the same level, if you will, you now have a space where you can start talking about ideas. But what information do we have here that might help? What idea do you have that you can bring to the table? And then you start to work through those ideas, work through that information.

come up with a plan, right? But again, sometimes the premise of that plan is we feel like this is gonna take us in the right direction. We don’t know that for sure because we’re uncertain of X, Y, Z happening, but let’s start marching this way. And if we’re wrong, we’re wrong together, right? And we can make an adjustment and switch and pivot and change wherever we need to change.

Knowing that we started this initially from a space of uncertainty, now we’re together gonna shift as we find out more information, as things actually start to reveal themselves in whatever space that was uncertain before. And so I think creating that culture comes from a space of, strangely enough, I don’t know. I don’t know.

Rishi Srivastava (35:38)
You know, I made a UI UX change thinking that the customers are going to love it. I pretty much forced my team to do it and the customers hated it. Ever since I realized that, you know, my understanding of what customer wants can be wrong. Yeah.

Victor Sturgis (35:45)
Yeah.

may not be it. Yeah, it could be wrong.

It could be wrong, right? And that’s beauty of that statement is I think that we all, especially if you’ve been in these spaces for a while, whether that’s AI, whether that’s AP processing, whether that’s contract review, we all kind of come to the table with some years of experience and knowledge there, but that also doesn’t mean that we know everything, right? And so.

really using the information at hand and the tech and the construction space and the construction finance space. A lot of that comes from listening to your stakeholders. Listen to your stakeholders, whether that’s a product that you’re developing, whether that’s a process you’re improving, whether that’s working with your project management team and building out, how should we meet? Should we meet weekly? Should we meet every other week? What should the agenda of the meeting be?

Rishi Srivastava (36:27)
Thank you.

Victor Sturgis (36:44)
get them involved in that process if that’s the stakeholder that you’re working with so that you truly know and truly understand what’s going to be valuable to them in those spaces, right? So everyone’s getting value out of the discussion that’s being had.

Rishi Srivastava (36:56)
Yeah. The next and the last section is on the future of construction finance. With AI and automation moving fast, how should construction CFOs rethink their role over the next five years?

Victor Sturgis (37:09)
Yeah, so I think construction, financial managers,

Like I mentioned before, CFMs usually end up being either the leader of implementing new technology in the space or they need to be involved in a very heavy way. Financial systems are really the backbone of any business. The systems you have in place from a construction standpoint are even more important because you kind of have these little

little snippets of PNL statements on a job by job basis, right? And so you have the ability to pull levers and put control mechanisms in place on a project by project basis. And so if there’s a new piece of technology that’s coming in, that’s going to impact, if it’s purely on the operational side, the financial folks need to be aware at the very least, or they need to be heavily involved in implementing that product.

in most cases, right? So those construction financial managers need to have the agility and the capacity to be able to come in and help with those implementations in the way that they need to. And I think that your COOs, your CEOs, your board of directors need to make sure that they’re thinking about the support

that construction financial managers have as this technology revolution in the construction space, especially around AI, starts to unfold. Because the last thing that you want to do is implement a piece of technology and it starts to impact the company negatively from a financial standpoint because that financial manager was not included in the process to begin with, right? So that individual…

needs to be able to step in, see the big picture, see the value, see the benefit, and also understand the financial impact of that technology. And I’m not talking about just how much is it going to cost, right? I’m talking about how is this going to impact the financial process, the visibility to the finances, my ability to pull certain levers at certain times when I’m working, when we’re working with subs and, and we have to fire a sub or whatever that might be.

they need to understand the impact that that technology is going to bring to the table for that, which means they need the time to be a part of the evaluation and the implementation process.

Rishi Srivastava (39:23)
Last question here, Victor, is if you could give one piece of advice to a construction CFO or controller implementing a new financial system in 2026, what would it be?

Victor Sturgis (39:35)
This is one thing, but it maybe feels like two. The one thing would be make sure you understand fully who’s gonna be impacted by the adoption of that technology.

I emphasize the word fully because most pieces of technology, you have a core group that’s going to be impacted. But then in a lot of cases, you have a level of input into that technology that’s outside of that core group, or you have a level of output coming out of that technology that is impacting folks that are outside of that core group. And if you don’t have a strong understanding of who is going to be impacted,

there’s no way that you can truly help them be seen and heard as you implement that technology, right? And that’s what it comes down to is that human side. So really make sure you truly understand who is gonna be impacted across the board when you’re implementing a new tool.

Rishi Srivastava (40:27)
I like it. It’s not sometimes obvious who all is going to be impacted by a technology.

Victor Sturgis (40:31)
It’s not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it’s

really not. It’s really not. it’s something over the years in the technology space that I’ve learned like, wait, these people need to capture this information in a different way so that this works. Or these people used to get this report and then they would take this report and they would do that. Now they don’t have that report anymore. Like, what do do? And if you’re not thinking about them, you’re going to run into some friction. You’re going to hit a pretty big road bump, which is never good when you’re implementing technology.

Rishi Srivastava (40:44)
Mm-hmm.

Victor, it’s always a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for coming on to the show.

Victor Sturgis (41:00)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it and I hope things go well with your sister.

Rishi Srivastava (41:05)
Thank you.