The Trailer Ain't the Field with Coty Fournier

Steve Doyle (: 00:00

Welcome back to Blue Collar BS, Brad. How you doing today, my friend?

Brad Herda (: 00:04

I am wonderful Mr. Stephen Doyle and how are you this great January day that is like, it's like 40 degrees here.

Steve Doyle (: 00:09

I mean, it is a nice snow-filled day. It is great. It is snowing. It's phenomenal. I love it.

Brad Herda (: 00:17

Well, it's snowing, but it's 40 degrees and sunny here. It's like spring.

Steve Doyle (: 00:20

Yeah, it's not sunny and it's not 40. We got those big chunky snowflakes. It's quite nice. Quite nice.

Brad Herda (: 00:27

perfect. I wish we could get some of that because we need our water tables to go up.

Steve Doyle (: 00:31

yeah, we've had no loss of snow here this year. It's quite nice. It was raining today, but now it's a little snowing. So good stuff, good stuff. So Brad, who do we have on the show today?

Brad Herda (: 00:38

Awesome. Good for you.

Brad Herda (: 00:45

Well, today we have a dynamic guest who happens to be a Spartan and we talked about that a little bit before the show. So Mr. Wolverine over here, please don't get into a fight with our guest. have, I'm gonna mess this up because I had it going and then she looked at me and smiled. Cody, Cody Fournier.

Steve Doyle (: 00:52

Yes.

Steve Doyle (: 00:56

You are gonna mess this up and it's gonna be great. It's gonna be great. It's gonna make fun of you and I'm gonna love every minute.

Coty Fournier (: 01:05

You can do it, Brad, you can do it!

Yay! You did it!

Steve Doyle (: 01:10

Whoa!

Brad Herda (: 01:12

A dynamic international leader with decades of experience in design, build, management, business development experience. She's published a book. She is a bestselling author. She's thought provoking. She is funny as all hell. She's a great communicator. Her experience goes all the way back. You remember when we used to have video tapes and we could rent those things and rent DVDs and a blockbuster?

Coty Fournier (: 01:37

I do. I do.

Steve Doyle (: 01:39

Right?

Brad Herda (: 01:39

She was in charge of making sure the stores flowed and what they did and what they didn't do back then. So Turner Construction, I mean, she's been in the industry for, I mean, like in it. So Cody, thank you so much for being willing to give us your time today and share with our audience.

Coty Fournier (: 01:56

You're welcome. I'm happy to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

Brad Herda (: 02:00

Absolutely.

Steve Doyle (: 02:00

We're glad to have you here. so before we get started and before I forget, which generation do you best identify or fit in with? Yeah, the best one. That's right. That's right. OK. OK, boomer. But yes.

Coty Fournier (: 02:09

The best one, Generation X.

Brad Herda (: 02:14

Steve, shut up.

Coty Fournier (: 02:15

Last of the feral children.

Brad Herda (: 02:20

Whatever.

Yes, the last last of the come home when the streetlights are on right? Get home when the streetlights are on. Don't be late for dinner. Go outside.

Steve Doyle (: 02:31

Yes.

Coty Fournier (: 02:31

Come home when it's dark or you're hungry and don't ask for help with anything. You're on your own.

Brad Herda (: 02:34

Yeah.

Right, if you need a quarter, figure out how to make a quarter.

Steve Doyle (: 02:38

Yes.

Make it cool. Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Brad Herda (: 02:44

If you want to go to the store and buy some candy, get a job.

Steve Doyle (: 02:49

you

Brad Herda (: 02:50

So how did you get started in the construction world? What led you down that path to even start thinking about that? Because it is not a normal path for.

Coty Fournier (: 02:58

No, it's not. And I did not get into it in a normal way because a lot of people that go into the construction industry have family members that are in the industry. Maybe their father owned a construction company or something like that. In my case, that was not true. My father was an aerospace engineer. My mother is a math teacher. But when I was at Michigan State trying to decide what to major in way back in the days before the internet and all of that,

Steve Doyle (: 03:13

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 03:27

I was literally looking at a catalog of all of the hundreds of majors. You can look up what a catalog is if you're before, if came after Generation X. But I was looking through this catalog, this magazine that Michigan State published with hundreds of majors in it to choose from because Michigan State's huge. And I came across this index at the back of the catalog that ranked all of the majors by average starting salary out of school.

Brad Herda (: 03:57

Okay.

Coty Fournier (: 03:57

And number one was chemical engineering and number two was construction management. And I was like, what is that? So I, I mean, I the word construction and I knew the word management, but I just had never thought about having a career in construction at all.

Steve Doyle (: 04:04

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 04:11

So chemicals didn't apply to you? You weren't thinking about chemistry? You weren't interested by chemicals?

Coty Fournier (: 04:17

no i want every

Steve Doyle (: 04:20

Yeah.

Coty Fournier (: 04:20

don't know, it didn't even occur to me to look at the chemical engineering, but for some reason the construction management caught my eye. And so I checked it out to see what kind of classes and all that were in it. And it was just like this healthy mix between half the classes were very technical in nature in the College of Engineering, reminiscent of the College of Engineering, and the other half of the classes were very business-oriented, management-oriented. And I thought, well, this is interesting. Let me check this out. I made an appointment.

Steve Doyle (: 04:42

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 04:49

with the academic advisor for it. And she said, well, if you enroll, I think you would be like the third woman to ever do it. It was really early on. There were very few women in the industry at all coming into it from that kind of white collar, get a degree in it, come into the industry through that door. And so I thought, well, you know what, if I could actually be good at this, I would be unique.

Steve Doyle (: 05:00

Hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 05:16

Maybe it could stand out, maybe make a difference. And so I just gave it a try. It was more like a pragmatic decision with my head because it wasn't like I had a passion for it or even knew if I would like it. So the decision was very much made with my head and then I just kind of hoped that my heart would follow over time. And it did because...

Brad Herda (: 05:37

Yeah, that did. That did. I would say yes. And so what was the trigger point for the heart to follow? What was the thing that said after you got graduated and whatever, what was the thing that said, hell yeah, I'm gonna make this happen. And this is where I find.

Coty Fournier (: 05:51

Well, I distinctly remember it when I was on my first job, which was being a field engineer for Turner Construction, hired by Turner's Detroit office, and then transferred to Turner's Miami office, which is how I came to live in South Florida for 30 years. But the very first project that I was on, and then followed by the second and the third, I was so blessed to be

Steve Doyle (: 06:02

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 06:18

surrounded by a group of people who just mentored me and helped me as opposed to chewing me up and spitting me out, which could have easily happened, could very easily have happened. So the key was this. The key was I happened to go to work for a construction company, Turner, as I said, who forced you to start in the field.

Steve Doyle (: 06:31

Yeah.

Coty Fournier (: 06:43

And when I say the field, I mean the real field. I was a field engineer. I was not in the office. I was not a project engineer or anything like that. Turner forces you to go out and be a field engineer, which is like a level lower than assistant superintendent. And so you are just out in the field, the true field on the job every day, interacting with all of the subcontractors and trade foremen and other members of the superintendent team to actually learn how to build buildings. And

Steve Doyle (: 06:57

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 07:12

So the reason I say my heart soon followed is because that environment, as you can imagine, could have been absolutely closed-doored, could have been absolutely detrimental to my career. I could have been chewed up and spit out, as I always say, very, very easily. I was, first of all, I brought my own thick skin to the table. I brought my own sense of humor.

Steve Doyle (: 07:30

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 07:36

you

Coty Fournier (: 07:39

I brought my own not take things personally. I brought my own grit and resilience. But again, I was met and cradled and held and nurtured and trained and motivated by people who were kind to me. So in the field, I fell in love with like a deep reverence for all those guys out there. I say guys, because it's mostly men.

Steve Doyle (: 07:42

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 08:05

Correct.

Coty Fournier (: 08:06

who build buildings and they were so good to me. They taught me things, they embraced me, laughed with me, you know, not at me, laughed with me most of the time. And I just fell in love with like the incredible strength, perseverance, toughness, know, grit. These guys are just geniuses out there, like the shit they can do in all kinds of weather.

Steve Doyle (: 08:06

Good night.

Steve Doyle (: 08:16

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 08:35

and they just face unbelievable obstacles out there and yet they go to work every day, they get it done. And the construction industry is just filled with like an interesting gap between kind of the office side of things and the field side of things, the guys who work with their hands versus the people who are in the office in suits and ties. I mean, it's pretty, it can be pretty separate.

Steve Doyle (: 08:37

Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 09:01

And I was just really fortunate to start out in the field, be completely embraced by all those people, and learn to fall in love with what those guys do for a living. And to this day, to this day, I owe my entire career to a handful of guys out in the field who taught me everything that I know.

Brad Herda (: 09:22

Congratulations. That's a big deal, right? I mean, that is very, very important. And your statements of the, you know, the office versus the field, right? You get the engineer that can put it on a piece of paper. Now the guys on the field need to figure out how the hell am I supposed to do this? I have no holding points. I have no nailing points. have nothing to be able to attach to this floor to, but magically you want a floor here somehow.

Coty Fournier (: 09:23

Thank you.

Coty Fournier (: 09:48

Typically it's not quite that bad, but your point's well taken.

Brad Herda (: 09:51

We need to put electrical, we need to HVAC in here, we need to do all this other stuff and yet we got no room. So thank you, Mr. Engineer.

Coty Fournier (: 10:00

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There can be some differences in constructability knowledge, obviously. The guys out in the field are the ones who really, really, really know how to get things done. And that's why design build methods. It's probably a term you've heard before, or perhaps discussed here on the podcast, but that's why I am a firm believer in getting

Steve Doyle (: 10:22

I don't know.

Coty Fournier (: 10:27

construction companies and architectural and engineering firms together early on to participate collaboratively during the design process. You want as much construction influence, you want as much construction know-how and knowledge at the table when buildings are being designed because that is your best shot you have to control budget and schedule.

Brad Herda (: 10:32

Mm-hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 10:51

Right. Yep.

Brad Herda (: 10:51

Right. Especially when you start digging the hole. shit. We forgot. damn. Yeah. holes.

Coty Fournier (: 10:54

Yes.

Coty Fournier (: 10:58

It's very difficult to save any money. Most people learn this a hard way. It's very difficult to save any money once construction begins. Almost all opportunities to save time and money are happening upfront.

Steve Doyle (: 11:09

Yep, yep. Imagine that. Imagine that. So Cody, as you were growing up in the industry, from a mentor perspective, we don't actually, I would say in general, we're not gonna talk in general, we're not seeing a lot of, I would say quality mentors helping people.

Coty Fournier (: 11:13

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 11:39

Walk that path. As you grew up, what were some key things the mentors taught you?

Coty Fournier (: 11:45

Yeah, well like I said, I was very lucky, right? And not everyone is, but I was very lucky along the way to be surrounded by enough people who were doing two things for me. Number one, they were helping me to succeed in the job that I was in. So like whatever my position was at the time, I had enough people around me that I could go to and ask for help who were guiding me to make sure I was successful in the current role.

Steve Doyle (: 11:49

Mm-hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 12:02

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 12:12

Okay, so when I was a field engineer, I had people helping me to be a successful field engineer. When I was an estimator, I had people in the estimating department teaching me to be a good estimator and so on and so on and so on. But I also was blessed to have people that were above me in the org chart, people that were maybe five years ahead of me or 10 years ahead of me who were helping to guide me on the position I should go for next.

Brad Herda (: 12:40

Nice.

Coty Fournier (: 12:41

and then making referrals on my behalf, making recommendations on my half and helping to sponsor me to get me that opportunity. I had sponsors, I had both mentors and sponsors. And so because I had that and I am, my career is literally, right, I'm like a poster child of what can happen.

Steve Doyle (: 12:48

Yes, you had sponsors and that was yes.

Coty Fournier (: 13:05

when you get a combination of the right mentors and the right sponsors, along with the right attitude, right? And all the things that you bring to the table. But because I was so fortunate to have all of that, once I got farther along in my career into positions of authority and influence myself, I have perpetually paid my own success forward. So I now spend an inordinate amount of time

making sure that I am mentoring and sponsoring others, which is why, for example, I wrote the book Inside Construction's Most Valuable Players. It's literally a guide. It's literally a career development guide for young construction management professionals who, let's say maybe they're in their first 10 years of their career and they're looking for strategic insights into how to fast track their way up the executive ladder.

And then also strategic insights to do very well once you get to the top, because we all have known people who have somehow found their way to the top and made a complete mess when they got there. So I'm constantly mentoring and sponsoring others. I work very hard at it. Beyond my book, I mean, I post on LinkedIn regularly. I spoken at almost every major industry organization there is. I've spoken at Council of

Steve Doyle (: 14:15

Yes. Yes.

Coty Fournier (: 14:32

countless conferences and conventions throughout our industry. And so it's just something that I've always done and it's my way of giving something back and leaving a path for others to follow.

Steve Doyle (: 14:36

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 14:45

Okay, so, right, so we go back to, yeah, you're the Gen X, last of the Feral Kids, right? You made the decision in college, go down this path. Today, the Gen Zs, right, they're, having, we're facing this dilemma of college versus not, and is there any value to secondary education or not along the way? Because I think COVID proved or showed that

colleges weren't necessarily the value prop for all those things that happened during COVID, that education might not be what it's all cracked up to be as what employers might need coming out of school. So how are you or what are you seeing from the younger Gen Z kids that are wanting to get in industry, wanting to get through, what are the things you're asking them to do and what are you asking the potential millennial leaders to do?

to support youth coming in.

Coty Fournier (: 15:43

So are you asking me about youth that may be coming in through a college door or not through a college door? Either one?

Brad Herda (: 15:50

Either one, right? They may be coming through the college door and said, hey, you know what? I still want to go work in the field because I did what I did to make my parents happy. Cool. But now I want to go do this because I don't want to sit at a desk every day or those. So how are you helping in your current roles and the things you do in your consultations to support those younger folks to come in? And many of those folks are going to report to like a millennial leader.

Coty Fournier (: 15:58

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 16:05

Yeah!

Coty Fournier (: 16:12

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 16:18

Maybe they're pouring to a Gen X leader like Steve, possibly a younger Gen X guy that acts like a millennial once in a while, but he, you know, just having cause it's just different, right? It's a different leadership style and understanding. how are you supporting them?

Coty Fournier (: 16:24

Heheheheh!

Coty Fournier (: 16:32

It is. It is. Well, let me share a few things of which I'm known to like climb on a soapbox and be a bit preachy about. So since you're giving me a microphone, I'm gonna wail away at it.

Steve Doyle (: 16:40

Let's go.

Brad Herda (: 16:44

We can always wield it, just so you know. We have the power to do that.

Steve Doyle (: 16:48

Wow, pulling that move, huh? All right, let's go.

Coty Fournier (: 16:50

Here's one of my most famous quotes. The trailer ain't the field. Get your ass out there. That's one of my favorite quotes. So what do I mean by that? Let's say you are one of the people that comes into the construction industry through a construction management degree, like I did. So for those people who chose to come in that way, here is my advice to you.

Steve Doyle (: 16:59

Yeah

Coty Fournier (: 17:21

you need to stay out in the real field for as long as possible. And let me just make the distinction for those who have not read my book or listened to me rant about this. When I say the trailer ain't the field, what I mean by that is you can ask a lot of people if they have field experience and they will say yes. What they really have is trailer experience. That's not the same thing. So if you...

Steve Doyle (: 17:25

you

Steve Doyle (: 17:44

You

Coty Fournier (: 17:48

If you are a project engineer or assistant project manager or project manager or anything like that, if you can do your job remotely through a computer, that is not field experiments. So what I'm calling field experience is you came up through the trades, you actually wore a tool belt and you come from the trades yourself, or you are from some sort of field leadership role, you are a foreman, you are a superintendent. On the general contractor side of things, going the superintendent route,

Steve Doyle (: 17:58

That is right.

Coty Fournier (: 18:18

is the closest thing you can get to the real trade experience. So that's why I say when people come into the construction management industry with a construction management degree and they go to work for a general contractor, what I'm saying is raise your hand and demand, put me in the field, make me learn from superintendents. And I say, stay out there for three to five years or three to five projects at a minimum.

Steve Doyle (: 18:37

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 18:44

Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 18:45

in order for you to be able to have any level of foundation underneath you of what it actually means to build a building and the most important thing that you get experience in subcontractor coordination.

Brad Herda (: 18:56

Okay.

Let me ask you this question. So for that three to five years, that dependent upon the organization's ability to have systems and tools in place to see all the things that may happen? Or is it just because every job is that much different?

Steve Doyle (: 18:59

Right.

Coty Fournier (: 19:01

Yes.

Coty Fournier (: 19:19

Yeah, I would say most companies build a variety of things and for the most part, most projects are quite different. So if you can work on three four or five or more projects, that's awesome because you're very likely to get three or four or five very different experiences. So that's why I say that. And the reason I kind of throw out there the idea of multiple projects in multiple years,

Steve Doyle (: 19:38

Yup.

Coty Fournier (: 19:47

is because every construction company is different. If you go to work for one of the big dogs like I did, and you're going to work for Turner and Skanska and all those big companies, they're on projects that are averaging hundreds of millions of dollars. So it could be two, three years worth of time on a single project. So by the time you finish three projects, you could be 10 years in. And conversely though,

Steve Doyle (: 20:03

Yep.

Steve Doyle (: 20:11

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 20:14

You also can very legitimately go work for a much smaller general contracting firm whose average project size is one million to five million or something like that. And then therefore their projects are going to be done in eight months or a year or something like that. And so all I'm saying is you would then want to stay out there longer so that you can just get more and more and more experience. One thing I will say, I've just never heard this in 30 plus years in the industry.

Steve Doyle (: 20:24

Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 20:42

I have never ever, ever heard a very successful senior level construction executive ever say, I spent too much time in the field. It's no one says that, right? It's just, it's so therefore that is a huge sign, right? For people that are coming into the industry. Now, whether you came into the industry through the construction management program, the education side, or you are just a young aggressive

Steve Doyle (: 20:52

No one has ever said that.

Coty Fournier (: 21:12

kid who's coming into the industry without a degree looking to ambitiously work your way up the top. Either way, what I try hard to share with people that are like in their 20s still is one of the things that's frustrating or can be frustrating about the construction industry is there's no hack. And there's no hack for experience. And that is really hard for young kids these days to understand because there's a hack.

Steve Doyle (: 21:35

Right.

Brad Herda (: 21:39

I can watch lots of instruction videos.

Coty Fournier (: 21:41

for a lot of things. Yeah, but there's no hack for building buildings, right? You can't fast forward, right? You just can't fast forward through it. And that's really, really hard for a lot of people to understand. Yeah, now keep in mind, there are hacks for other aspects of the construction industry. And that is why I think some people still find a place for themselves in our industry.

Steve Doyle (: 21:42

Yeah, they want a shortcut.

Steve Doyle (: 21:49

Mm-hmm.

Brad Herda (: 21:53

Well, that's where last week started.

Steve Doyle (: 21:56

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 22:08

Like for example, all of the construction technology that has emerged over the past, let's just say 20 years, construction technology had a rough start in the beginning. It took a while for the industry to catch on and start believing in technology and adapting technology at any sort of reasonable pace beyond a snail. But slowly over time, we have started adopting technologies and some of these technologies from

Steve Doyle (: 22:29

Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 22:37

say Procore on down to all kinds of other things, they do bring some hacking to the table, right? They do. And that is allowing some younger people to be able to feel like they're contributing and having a high level of productivity towards the administration, underline, bold, that word, towards the administration of construction projects or the financial management of construction projects.

Steve Doyle (: 22:44

Yes, they do.

Steve Doyle (: 22:54

Right.

Steve Doyle (: 23:01

Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 23:05

because these technology tools are helping us to do those things more efficiently. just want to always be one of the people though that is standing loud and proud on the soapbox saying, you still cannot hack your way. You cannot fast forward your way through the actual building of the construction industry that you have to experience and appreciate by being out there in the dirt.

every day watching it unfold. And the reason it's so, so, so critical is one of the other phrases that I'm most known for touting besides the trailer ain't the field is the reason you need to spend time learning how to build buildings and coordinating all of the trade contractors to actually build buildings is because that's the only shit we actually get paid for.

Steve Doyle (: 24:00

Right? That's right. That is right.

Coty Fournier (: 24:03

That's the only shit we get paid for. I try so hard to drill that into people's mind. I always say to people all the time, there's no button in Procore that we get paid to push.

Steve Doyle (: 24:06

Yeah.

Steve Doyle (: 24:16

Yep. True. They're true.

Coty Fournier (: 24:17

Okay, there's no button in Procore that will solve a problem. There's no button in Procore that we get paid to push. There's no meetings we hold that we get paid to hold. There's no emails we write that we get paid to write. Do we get paid as general contractors and contractors, do we get paid for other things beyond building? A little, but it's pennies. It's pennies compared to the dollars of what we actually get paid for. What do we get paid for? We get paid for

the pouring of concrete, right? Form, pour, strip. That's what we get paid for. We get paid to lay pipe. We get paid to hang drywall. We get paid to paint walls. So if you wanna know what it really means and become valuable to a construction company, you need to learn how to drive work in place. And you can only one place you can learn that and that's in the field. And so you don't

Steve Doyle (: 24:49

Yes. Yep.

Brad Herda (: 24:50

The digging of a hole, the erection of steel.

Steve Doyle (: 25:14

That's right.

Coty Fournier (: 25:17

to out there long enough to become a world-class superintendent. Like if that's not your thing, right? If you don't want to be a world-class level superintendent and do that for the rest of your career, that's okay. I'm not a world-class superintendent, but I will tell you what I am. I was out there long enough to know exactly what one looks like.

Steve Doyle (: 25:37

Yes. Yep.

Brad Herda (: 25:37

Hahaha

Coty Fournier (: 25:40

can't do it. I'm like maybe B plus good. Do you know what I'm saying? I'm not A plus good at it, but I'm B plus good at it, but I'm fluent in the conversation. You follow what I'm saying? And I'm the kind of person you would want on the interview team to interview potential superintendents. I can tell you which one is a world-class superintendent.

Steve Doyle (: 25:45

Mm-hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 25:52

Yes.

Brad Herda (: 25:53

Yes.

Steve Doyle (: 26:00

Superintendents,

Coty Fournier (: 26:05

So what I'm saying is, no matter what your career aspirations are in the construction industry, whether or not they ever involve being a world-class superintendent, what I'm saying is, stay out there long enough until you can appreciate with your own eyes what a world-class level foreman looks like for every trade and what a world-class level superintendent looks like from a general contractor's point of view. And if you can do that, you will be a

Steve Doyle (: 26:27

you

Coty Fournier (: 26:34

far better anything else. You'll be a far better project manager, far better chief estimator, far better VP of Ops, do you know what I'm saying? Far better pre-con manager, far better everything because you were out there and you know how to drive work in place and that's the only shit we get paid for.

Steve Doyle (: 26:43

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Steve Doyle (: 26:53

Right. So Cody, I got a question for you. Have you ever come across something where you just wish somebody would bite their tongue out in the field? So this is kind of like a new segment called Bite Your Tongue. Called Bite Your Tongue. So something funny, something inappropriate that maybe somebody out in the field has said, at some point they could have said, you should have just said, you know what, you just need to bite your tongue.

Coty Fournier (: 27:07

Call it bite your tongue, okay.

Steve Doyle (: 27:23

and any any insight or stories into bite your tongue.

Coty Fournier (: 27:30

Okay, where you're encouraging somebody to bite their tongue? Is that what you're saying?

Steve Doyle (: 27:33

Yep. You know what? He's probably just should have shut your pie hole.

Coty Fournier (: 27:36

Okay, I'm so not a good contestant on this game right here. have no filter. This is why I don't drink very often, because Lord knows I do not need any less inhibition. Okay, I don't know. I think I understand the question. I would like to say that I'm good at that.

Brad Herda (: 27:39

I'm

Steve Doyle (: 27:40

You

Brad Herda (: 27:43

Really? That's weird.

Steve Doyle (: 27:51

Yep.

Steve Doyle (: 27:59

Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 28:05

But I'm more of the generation that is like, just let people talk and just say what's on your mind and just roll with it. I don't know. I'm not really into censoring what happens on the job sites. I think it's all actually really good. I tell people all the time, construction is not a fucking tea party. Stop trying to turn it into one.

Steve Doyle (: 28:12

Yeah. Yeah.

Brad Herda (: 28:19

So, what's it?

Steve Doyle (: 28:30

Yeah.

Yes, right.

Coty Fournier (: 28:35

like I wrote this post you got you could I encourage everybody who's listening check out this post that's on my LinkedIn it's in my featured section and it's called learn to play in the sandbox okay and my what is the message of that post the message of that post is attention everyone coming into the industry the construction industry is not a tea party do not try to turn it into one

Steve Doyle (: 28:46

Right?

Coty Fournier (: 29:04

It's, you need to go out into the field, experience it out there without judging it. Don't judge it because it's actually as messy as you might think it looks and feels or is quasi-dysfunctional or quasi-politically incorrect or all kinds of other things that you might think are making it less than perfect. What I'm saying is just stay out there long enough

Steve Doyle (: 29:12

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 29:34

reserve judgment long enough to discover the magic because it's actually beautiful. If you put your judgments aside, stop expecting it to be like, you know, a boardroom diplomacy of the United Nations. It's not like that, right? It's messy. It's in your face, you know? But it's beautiful.

Steve Doyle (: 29:39

Hmm.

Steve Doyle (: 29:54

All right.

Coty Fournier (: 30:04

try to get people to see. It may be a hot mess, but it's the most beautiful mess. It's so impressive. It's like there is underneath a lot of temperament and discomfort and challenge and strife and hot weather and cold weather and et cetera, everything else. Underneath all of that is this most beautiful emergent teamwork.

that happens and you really have to be out there and see it and experience it to know what I'm saying. That's why I always say don't judge it. Find the magic. Find the magic and don't worry about the package that any message comes in. That's the other thing I say all the time. When I was out in the field, I did not care. Truly. I would pass a lie detector test. If I was hooked up to one right now, I would say what I'm about to say. I would pass.

Brad Herda (: 30:46

I like that.

Coty Fournier (: 31:05

I truly did not care what message, excuse me, what box the message came in when somebody was communicating with me. I didn't care what they looked like when they were saying it. I didn't care the tone of the voice when they were saying it. I didn't care how many F-bombs were in the sentence when they were saying it. I didn't care. What I cared is that they were talking to me at all. That's what I cared about because you cannot learn when you're that

Steve Doyle (: 31:29

Right.

Coty Fournier (: 31:34

young person out there in the field, you don't know shit. And all these guys around you, they have already forgotten every, way more than you were gonna likely to ever know. So what I cared about, much less about how someone was communicating with me, what I cared about was that they cared enough to communicate with me at all. And when they brought me a problem,

Steve Doyle (: 31:39

Right?

Steve Doyle (: 31:54

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 32:01

Right? Because that's what general contracting is. You're basically there for everybody to bring you their problems so that you hopefully will do a good job in helping to resolve all of them, right? If you're a good GC, that's what you're doing. You're problem solving all day. You're coordinating and problem solving all day. Well, when you're a young rookie working for a general contractor, you don't know shit. You don't have answers to problems off the top of your head. No, you're lucky if you know who's the right person to ask to get an answer to a problem.

Steve Doyle (: 32:11

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 32:31

So when people would come and ask me questions, again, I could care less how they asked them. What I was appreciative is that they came to me and asked me anything at all, that they included me at all, which then gave me the opportunity to thank them and say, listen, I know that you know that I know that you know that I do not know the answer, and you still came and asked me.

Thank you so much because now I have a chance to learn something, right? Now I have a chance to say to you, I do not know, let's go find out together. I get a chance to learn, I thank them every single time. So like, let me paint a quick picture for you. I was mentoring, having like a mentoring conversation with a young man the other day and he was...

Brad Herda (: 33:09

That's awesome.

Coty Fournier (: 33:21

talking to me on the phone, expressing to me, I just don't know if I want to be in this industry, man, the way everybody's arguing all the time. just seems like the tension level's high. I'm in the trailer, I'm just trying to do my job. Sometimes subs come in, they're just all angry, they want this, they want that. I don't like the way that everybody's communicating with one another, blah, blah. So in the spirit of what we've just been talking about for the past five minutes, I said to him, listen, on one hand,

I understand what you're saying. On one hand I do. There are moments where it's definitely less professional than we would all like. On one hand, I do understand what you're saying. I said, but are you open to hearing another point of view? And the kid was like, yeah. And I said, I feel more sorry for the sub that's yelling at you than I feel for you. And he goes, really? Like that, like he really was curious what I was saying.

Steve Doyle (: 34:12

Right?

Steve Doyle (: 34:17

What? Like say what? Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 34:19

He goes, really? And I go, yeah, can I tell you why? And he goes, yeah. I said, listen, I was out in the field long enough to know that guy's got my sympathy and you don't. Let me tell you why. I said, there's a 99 % chance that that guy is either really hot or really cold or really hungry, hasn't had a decent place to go to the bathroom all day, probably

to get down off of a ladder, pack up a bunch of tools, check on all of his guys, huff his ass halfway, half a mile over to the trailer to wherever your ass is at, only to show up, talk to you, and not get his question answered. And you wonder why he's frustrated. I said that's why he's frustrated because there's no subcontract anywhere that includes a clause that says that

Steve Doyle (: 35:00

Right.

Coty Fournier (: 35:12

Every subcontractor in the world is supposed to teach every young rookie general contractor how to build a job. But that's what they do. By coming to us, by asking us questions, by helping us to learn, we are in essence learning how to build by osmosis, by being hopefully tangent enough to the guys who actually build a building to have some of that wisdom drip off and fall on me.

Brad Herda (: 35:19

Correct.

Steve Doyle (: 35:22

Mm-hmm.

Coty Fournier (: 35:41

So I try to explain this to people that listen, stop worrying about how the communication is happening and be grateful for the communication at all, that everything is a learning experience and if you play your cards right, 20 years from now you will feel exactly the way I feel, which is nothing but absolute gratitude.

Steve Doyle (: 35:53

Yep.

Coty Fournier (: 36:05

to every foreman and every superintendent who ever gave me a chance to learn anything, because none of them owed it to me, none of them.

Brad Herda (: 36:12

Correct. So, so this has been awesome and your passion shows 100 % on your sleeves and in your emotion and in your energy level. So as we have our listeners that are are GCs that are in the construction world and they want more of this energy and passion to support them, how and where do they find you?

Steve Doyle (: 36:13

That's a great point, Cody.

Coty Fournier (: 36:38

The best place to find me and get in touch with me is on LinkedIn. I'm the only Cody Fournier in LinkedIn. So just look me up, give me a follow, shoot me a direct message. Happy to talk anytime. I speak with people in the industry from all over the United States on a regular basis. I'm happy to do it. I understand what it's like to be young and have questions and want somebody to help you. And so I am.

Again, paying my own success forward, you can reach out to me anytime. You can also reach out to the consulting firm that I work for, Well Built Construction Consulting. We are a team of consultants that specializes in helping general contractors and specialty contractors to grow their businesses strategically. So if there is any need for that sort of thing, you can reach out to my team at Well Built or reach out to me personally through LinkedIn.

Brad Herda (: 37:34

Spectacular. will put a link in the show notes to the book as well so that we can get the, so somebody can get the seven, right? The seven track system that you got out there for how we have better construction person and all those other things. So your energy and passion and desire to be successful in this industry is second to none. And I am truly appreciative that you were willing to share that with us in our audience.

Coty Fournier (: 37:39

Great.

Coty Fournier (: 38:00

You're absolutely welcome. Thank you guys for having me and thank you for all that you do to show support for the Blue Cloud community and everybody that works with our hands and builds shit for a living, because it's awesome.

Steve Doyle (: 38:10

Yes, it is.

Brad Herda (: 38:11

So as a side note, I was just doing some research on FeedSpot. We moved from number five to number three on Blue Collar podcasts to pay attention to. That's because of guests like you and others that have been part of this journey supporting us along the way. So thank you.

Steve Doyle (: 38:22

I know, we're like, woo!

Coty Fournier (: 38:29

Awesome. Well, I hope I catapult you to number one.

Steve Doyle (: 38:31

Yeah. that's hope so.

Brad Herda (: 38:34

Let's hope so.

Thank you very much.

Coty Fournier (: 38:38

Thanks for having me guys, have a good one.

Steve Doyle (: 38:39

Yeah, thanks.