Construction Genius | Construction Leadership

Time management for construction leaders begins with your calendar. If you're a construction company owner or executive spending most of your week fighting fires, you're probably neglecting the work that could prevent those fires.

I coached a construction executive who claimed business development was his top priority. When I asked to see the time he'd scheduled for meeting key clients, there wasn't a single hour on his calendar.

His calendar revealed his real priorities.

In this solo episode of Construction Genius, I explain how construction company owners, presidents, and senior leaders can take control of their time, reduce interruptions, and become more effective at leading their businesses.

We cover: - How to use the Eisenhower Matrix to identify your most important leadership activities. - Why poor delegation, inadequate training, and weak accountability create constant interruptions. - How to protect time for construction business development, operational improvement, and employee development. - How to use time blocking to concentrate on strategic priorities. - Why 30 minutes of planning every Friday can change how you spend the following week.

One project manager I coached discovered he was losing three hours a day to interruptions. That's 660 hours a year, or more than 16 full workweeks.

If you're constantly dealing with project problems, employee issues, and unnecessary meetings, this episode gives you practical tools to start getting your time back.

FREE TIME MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK Download Stop Being Overwhelmed and Start Being Effective, including the Eisenhower Matrix, interruption audit, time log, and weekly planning tools. https://ericanderton.activehosted.com/f/257

THE SHIFT: ONLINE CONSTRUCTION LEADERSHIP COURSE Develop your construction managers and executives into more effective leaders. https://theshift.constructiongenius.com

Construction Genius with Eric Anderton: Practical leadership, strategy, sales, and marketing advice for construction companies.

www.constructiongenius.com/time-management-for-construction-leaders-construction-company-owners

Every construction business has chased an opportunity that looked great and turned into a money pit. Herb Sargent calls it the Trojan horse.

Herb is board chair of Sargent Corporation, a heavy civil contractor in Maine that turned 100 this year. Scott Peper is CEO and founder of Mobilization Funding. They wrote Field Tested: Lessons in Leading, Losing, and Winning in Construction together, and they walked me through how to spot the horse before you wheel it in.

Takeaways:

• Set the number where you'll walk away before you start. Sargent lost money in ready mix every year for ten years.

• Let your estimator tell you what the job costs before ego decides you have to have it.

• "I gotta keep money coming in" usually means overbillings went to start other jobs.

• Every growing owner becomes the bottleneck. Hand someone the keys for half a day, then debrief.

• One 15-minute conversation about legacy got Sargent's best operator mentoring a 23-year-old foreman.

Connect with Herb Sargent:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/herb-sargent-esop/

Sargent Corporation: https://sargent.us/

Starbuck and Sargent podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/starbuck-sargent/id1856531285

Connect with Scott Peper:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-peper-9387288/

Mobilization Funding: https://mobilizationfunding.com/

The Mobilization Mindset podcast: https://mobilizationfunding.com/videos/

Pre-order Field Tested on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Field-Tested-Lessons-Leading-Construction/dp/B0HM2TXYS3

The Shift Leadership Course: https://theshift.constructiongenius.com/

Capable people can spend an hour in a meeting and leave without a decision. Effective leadership in construction requires a better meeting structure.

In this solo episode, Eric Anderton shares the process he's used with contractors for over 20 years to help teams reach agreement in about 30 minutes, even on problems they've debated for years.

Key takeaways:

• Frame a precise question with a 90-day deadline.
• Have everyone write ideas independently. The owner shares last.
• Vote for the best third of the ideas without stacking votes.
• Confirm commitment and address objections.
• Create a one-page action plan with clear priorities and numbers.

Free resources:

Meeting Assessment: https://ericanderton.activehosted.com/f/256

Kick-Ass Meetings eBook: https://www.constructiongenius.com/kam-2

Special Offer: The first 10 contractors who email [email protected] with "Kick-Ass Meetings" in the subject line receive a free 60-minute Zoom problem-solving session with Eric and their team. Normally $3,500. Include your problem and where you heard the offer. Expires 12/31/26.

Connect: https://constructiongenius.com

Construction Business Development: How to Hire Salespeople Who Win Large Projects

Construction business development suffers when you hire someone for their industry contacts or interview skills, then wait a year to find out they can't sell.

How do you assess a business developer before making an offer? How do you know if weak sales come from the person you hired or the process you gave them?

Neal Glatt joins Eric Anderton on Construction Genius to discuss construction company business development, hiring salespeople, and building a repeatable sales process for large commercial projects.

You'll learn what to test before hiring a construction business developer and how to judge their progress within six months.

In this episode:

• Hiring construction salespeople: Why industry experience alone is a poor hiring criterion, and what Neal assesses across more than 220 data points.
• Building a construction sales process: How to turn your best past sales into a one-page process with clear stages and steps.
• Pursuing commercial construction projects: Why you need to reach prospective clients six months to a year before the RFP goes out.
• Finding decision makers: What to ask to uncover everyone involved in selecting a contractor.
• Assessing sales candidates: What a five-minute phone screen can suggest about a candidate's willingness to pursue an opportunity.
• Managing business developers: How to set expectations and assess whether a new hire is likely to succeed.

Listen before you hire your next business developer or give your current salesperson another year without clear expectations.

Connect with Neal Glatt:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nealglatt

Website: https://nealglatt.com

The Shift Leadership Course: https://theshift.constructiongenius.com

You pay the Christmas bonuses. Then January hits, more job costs come in, and the profit you paid them on starts to shrink.

In part nine of the construction accounting series, Kathe Barrington, CPA, of KB CPA walks through a contractor's year-end close. She covers how to test your numbers before you spend, distribute or pay bonuses on them.

Takeaways:

• Year-end prep starts in January. A hard close tells you which SOPs need work

• Check December's closed jobs against January's job costs. Costs still landing means you closed too early

• Take job losses as soon as you know them. Be conservative on pending change orders

• Internal financials that don't match your reviewed statement cost you credibility with your bank and surety

• Get Q3 right, pick the jobs you'll close by December 31, and get the numbers to your tax person in October

Kathe also tells the story of a job that took 11 years to close out.

The full Construction Accounting Series with Kathe Barrington:

Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNqgaQ0mEF1w

• Ep. 357 WIP Reports Made Simple: https://www.constructiongenius.com/wip-reports-made-simple-the-key-to-stopping-hidden-job-losses-ep.-357

• Ep. 359 Use Your WIP to Protect Cash: https://www.constructiongenius.com/how-to-use-your-wip-to-protect-cash-and-grow-profitability-ep.-359

• Ep. 364 Physical Progress vs. Financial Reporting: https://www.constructiongenius.com/physical-progress-vs.-financial-reporting-in-construction-projects-ep.-364

• Ep. 368 Underbillings Bad. Overbillings Better: https://www.constructiongenius.com/underbillings-bad-overbillings-better-the-cash-flow-truth-construction-owners-cant-ignore-ep.-368

• Ep. 377 Why Your Jobs Look More Profitable Than They Are: https://www.constructiongenius.com/why-your-jobs-look-more-profitable-than-they-are-indirect-allocations-and-overhead-in-construction-ep.-377

• Ep. 388 Read Your Backlog Like a Banker: https://www.constructiongenius.com/how-to-read-your-backlog-like-a-banker

• Ep. 396 Grow Bonding Capacity: https://constructiongenius.com/grow-bonding-capacity-banking-tax-moves-contractors/

• Ep. 400 Projections: https://www.constructiongenius.com/construction-projections-cash-flow-margin-kathe-barrington

Connect with Kathe Barrington:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathe-barrington-a6346337

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/p/Kathe-Barrington-CPA-100072271041746

KB CPA: https://kbcpa.biz

Suffolk and MIT just released a white paper on AI in construction. It estimates 17 to 20% in potential cost savings and 22 to 25% on schedule. In this solo episode, Eric Anderton reads it for a contractor running a $25 to $500 million company and pulls out the applications worth testing now. He also explains where those numbers came from before you expect them on your next job.

Takeaways:

• Many field production problems get locked in during design, months before the crew shows up

• Design changes hit quantities, purchasing and installation. AI could get those effects onto the schedule sooner

• A contractor is using AI to turn hundreds of schedule activities into a three-week look-ahead with a risk list

• Tie your procurement log and lead times to the schedule so a late delivery flags the work it puts at risk

• None of it works without accurate project data and someone who owns the decision

Connect with Eric Anderton: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andertoneric

Read the report: Construction in the Age of AI, from Suffolk and MIT

https://suffolk.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Suffolk_MIT_AI_Whitepaper_FINAL.pdf

A $20 million project lands in your lap with three or four red flags attached. You want the revenue. You want the backlog. In this solo episode, Eric Anderton walks through the three-for-three test he uses with his coaching clients: right client, right project, right location. He also tackles a harder problem. What do you do with a technically excellent superintendent whose behavior no longer matches your company's values? Two decisions, and Eric shows you exactly how they can start reinforcing each other if you let them.

Takeaways:

- Why profit history matters more than revenue when deciding which projects to take again

- The three-for-three test for qualifying clients, projects, and locations

- How to define a seat by its outcomes and behaviors before judging the person in it

- The three real options for a values mismatch: train, move, or fire

- Why the size of the number never fixes the size of the risk

Connect with Eric Anderton:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andertoneric

If you want the full niche analysis spreadsheet Eric uses with his coaching clients, email [email protected] with "Niche Analysis" in the subject line.

Your WIP shows today. Your backlog shows what's booked. Neither tells you where your cash and crews are headed. That's what projections do, and most contractors either do them badly or skip them.

In Part 8 of the series, CPA Kathe Barrington shows construction owners how to build projections that actually predict trouble early.

What you'll take away:

• Why projections belong to your CFO, and where owners still need to stay involved

• How far out to project (18 months internally, fiscal year-end for the bank)

• The job-cost bell curve, and how to plan cash, billings, and manpower around the peak

• Why cushion in your estimates can hurt your credibility with bank and bonding

• A 30-60-90 day plan to get your projections under control

Kathe's line for owners who play games with their numbers: you lose the truth about your own margins, and every future estimate inherits the lie.

The full Construction Accounting Series with Kathe Barrington:

• Ep. 357 WIP Reports Made Simple: https://www.constructiongenius.com/wip-reports-made-simple-the-key-to-stopping-hidden-job-losses-ep.-357

• Ep. 359 Use Your WIP to Protect Cash: https://www.constructiongenius.com/how-to-use-your-wip-to-protect-cash-and-grow-profitability-ep.-359

• Ep. 364 Physical Progress vs. Financial Reporting: https://www.constructiongenius.com/physical-progress-vs.-financial-reporting-in-construction-projects-ep.-364

• Ep. 368 Underbillings Bad. Overbillings Better: https://www.constructiongenius.com/underbillings-bad-overbillings-better-the-cash-flow-truth-construction-owners-cant-ignore-ep.-368

• Ep. 377 Why Your Jobs Look More Profitable: https://www.constructiongenius.com/why-your-jobs-look-more-profitable-than-they-are-indirect-allocations-and-overhead-in-construction-ep.-377

• Ep. 388 Read Your Backlog Like a Banker: https://www.constructiongenius.com/how-to-read-your-backlog-like-a-banker

• Ep. 396 Grow Bonding Capacity: https://constructiongenius.com/grow-bonding-capacity-banking-tax-moves-contractors/

• Full playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNqgaQ0mEF1w

Connect with Kathe Barrington: kbcpa.biz

Ryan Englin, founder of Core Matters and creator of the FieldCon software platform, returns to talk about the two things most construction leaders dodge: accountability and performance reviews. Ryan and Eric get practical about why these conversations feel so hard and how to make them routine.

The short version. Accountability starts with a commitment the employee actually agreed to. The longer you wait to address a problem, the more painful it gets. And the annual review is the worst way to give feedback.

In this episode: - Why you can't hold someone accountable to something they never committed to - The foreman story that shows how delay turns a small issue into a confrontation - Why focusing on the agreed outcome beats focusing on the person - How to redesign reviews around the gap between self-rating and manager-rating - Running reviews monthly or quarterly so nothing is ever a surprise

Connect with Ryan Englin:

Core Matters: corematters.com

FieldCon: fieldcon.io

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ryanenglin

Core Matters on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/corematters

A superintendent's wife wakes up at 2 a.m. to find him pacing the bedroom for the third night straight. She tells him, "This isn't going to work. For anybody." That superintendent was Scott Borroughs, and the project was Deep Space, Epic Systems Systems850,000 square foot auditorium, built 80 feet down through limestone.

Scott Borroughs is the Vice President of Field Operations at JP Cullen, a fifth-generation Wisconsin contractor. As general superintendent on Deep Space, he became the decision-making funnel that choked the project, then rebuilt the way he led. In this episode, we walk through how he did it, and how you can do the same without losing control of the work.

• How to recognize when you've become the bottleneck on your own project

• The "banks of the river" framework: define the banks, let people flow between them

• How to step back from the weeds without feeling like you've stopped working

• What to do when your team solves a problem differently than you would

• How JP Cullen turned one project's lessons into ten company-wide SOPs

• Why you should never confuse activity with accomplishment

Connect with Scott Borroughs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-borroughs-63999a19

JP Cullen: https://jpcullen.com

The Epic Systems Deep Space Auditorium project: https://jpcullen.com/portfolio/epic-deep-space-auditorium