Hamish: [00:00:00] hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Mind4Builder podcast. Like always, I'm joined by my co host, Hamish. How are you today, mate?

Matt: Good, mate. How are you? Actually, I'm feeling a bit tired, but um that was all for a good reason.

Hamish: Kids keeping you up late?

Matt: No, no, I had a very, very quick, , trip over to Perth for a friend's wedding which was brought forward very quickly for not amazing reasons. His partner's quite sick, but, a whole bunch of us managed to get over there and celebrate their day with them. So it was definitely worth me feeling tired, but it's also a really great reminder that, We're not here for a long time, so let's enjoy it.

Hamish: Yeah, that's, unfortunate. I hope everything's going well, mate. But I think it was last week we were just chatting in the phone on the car. Let me randomly do and we're just talking about mistakes and sort of how we're both open with the mistakes we make. And we've just sort of been chatting about how we can empower our team to be comfortable making mistakes.

And then learning from them. So I know you had a few conversations maybe with your team around this.

Matt: Yeah, well, I've actually, I've been having a couple of individual conversations with some of my site leads. , but we've also got a team meeting tomorrow. just to talk [00:02:00] about The fact that making mistakes is a good thing. Like, I've always kind of used the narrative that I'm the sum of every time that I've fucked up.

And, if I didn't make those mistakes over the last 15 years, then I wouldn't be where I am. And it's, the biggest thing is learning from those mistakes. So if you continue making the same mistake again, well, there's obviously something wrong. But if you're actually putting yourself out there, making a mistake and learning from it and adapting your behavior to better yourself.

That is a good thing. But quite often when you have employees, they're afraid to make mistakes. So my conversations with them on Friday is actually gonna give them agency to actually make mistakes. Now there is gonna be a whole bunch of sort of caveats around that. It's, you've got agency to make mistakes. Within your position and your level of ability. So, you know, I'm not expecting a first year apprentice to jump on an excavator and start digging, a site cut when they've never jumped on an excavator before. So it's all within reason. know, just giving them some parameters around that sort of mistake making, but also kind of encourage it. So, it's done in a controlled environment, so it actually allows them to learn from them.

Hamish: So I think it comes with being a good leader. I think good leaders allow people to make mistakes. And I think, think it's one of those things where I know, I've got a, not an issue on site at the moment, but I have got one trade who's external, not my problem, but they're pointing the fingers at everyone else.

And then for some reason it sort of comes across as like, Hey, everyone else has a problem bit themselves and they haven't sort of learned from them that like, Hey, maybe I'm the problem. Maybe I'm the mistake and I've got to learn from it.

Matt: I think it all comes down to just having people own their own shit, right? Like. No one likes stuffing up. I know from my side, I'd much prefer someone just to come at me and say, Hey, you know what? I've actually made a mistake here and let's work together to fix it. Or this is how I'm going to fix it.

But if, someone knowingly makes a mistake and then tries to cover it up and then push the blame onto someone else, that's when I'm going to

get pissed off

Hamish: off Yeah. I think it's important. Like

Matt: you've got to [00:04:00] learn from the mistake. You then got to own it. Then you got to fix it. you gotta come with that solution. Like, I, made the mistake, how am I going to fix it? and that comes with experience.

Like, as you said, we can't expect a first year apprentice to, make huge mistakes but learn from them that quickly either.

Yeah, I'm going to be the first to say that, you know, we're not sitting here saying that this is some magical theory that we've come up with. This is pretty obvious stuff,

Hamish: I

Matt: I think for everybody who runs a business. But, I think what we wanted to chat about today is actually taking it a step further , and creating an environment for our team where they have an opportunity to learn and grow and step outside their comfort zone. Probably, I mean, I think I've become a lot more comfortable. allowing people to make mistakes as I've realized how important it is, and I think if I hadn't had this conversation 5 years ago where I was a bit more of a control freak and wanted to be touching everything and monitoring everything on site, now I'm, I'm putting trust in my team to make these decisions on site.

the, the beauty about letting your team fail and make mistakes is that they actually start thinking about their actions a little bit more rather than just sitting there and waiting for direction which results in less phone calls to me or to, , our admin team or our offsite team.

And I think things happen a bit more efficient when, you know, you've got a little bit more rope to operate on.

Hamish: totally agree. I think that you, yeah, you, yeah, and a mistake might say costs you a thousand dollars, but I think from learning from that mistake, it empowers them to start making other decisions and along the way that thousand dollars is paid back very quickly because they've

Matt: Oh, I think so, for sure.

Hamish: Yeah. And

we've all made mistakes. We made them on various levels, and some cost you a few hundred dollars, some cost you ten thousand dollars. Like that's just a fact of pretty much what we do. it can sometimes [00:06:00] be a hard pill to swallow, and I don't know, how are you going to go about when you empower someone to make that mistake, but they, you're like, hey, you probably should have known better, but they still make that mistake?

are you going to deal with that?

Matt: am going to probably sell it in a way that I'm going to put some, costs around it. So, you know, if it's going to cost me more than a thousand dollars, if, there's a big stuff up, then. That's a conversation. And I think that dollar figure, I think if you're putting a dollar figure on it, it's a, it's an easier thing to then manage and probably makes it a bit clearer for the site team.

And I reckon that dollar figure would increase or decrease with their level of experience. So say an apprentice, let's say

Hamish: a while.

Matt: it's a 500.

Hamish: 5 1 0, it's

Matt: If it's a site lead, it's a 5, 000 buffer. If it's for a carpenter, it's a better look. I'm just pulling some figures out of the air here for more of a, just for a little bit of context.

but Yeah, I think , from my end, I'm going to put some parameters around, I guess where I am giving them an opportunity to fail, but it's also at that level too. So. If an apprentice is doing a set out for a house, I don't want them to fail they've never done it before.

I want that to be monitored by someone who actually knows what to do, but, you know, for a site lead, I'm going to say, look you've got all the information to set that house out properly. So I'm trusting in you and your ability to do that.

Hamish: and do you think there's a like an element of say, sort of make, make the mistake in more of a low risk environment.

Matt: Oh, 100%. And that's what I'm trying to foster as well.

I don't wanna have an environment where all my team needs permission to file. , I want 'em to be able to have enough, you know, autonomy, to be able to make decisions throughout the day for themselves rather than be constantly checking, give to someone to ask if what they're doing is okay

Hamish: Do you think your team already do it? It's just, giving them permission?

Matt: you know what? I think you're right. I'm just giving them the whole bullshit,

Hamish: Yeah, you're just making it more [00:08:00] aware that, hey, yeah, mistakes happen. It's okay. It's odd.

It's conversation because like, I look

at the old school generation of builders and it's like, you make a mistake, it's yell, scream, throw a brick at them. Like, you owe us money. Like, you work an extra hour of overtime and it doesn't really create the best environment for people to work with.

But too, it's just like, I've seen that, and I fucking hated it. It just makes no sense that anyone would still live in it, and it still happens. I reckon majority of people and builders out there, that's still the way it operates.

Matt: oh man, , I'm a little bit older than you. I, I certainly grew up in that, environment where communication was through yelling and throwing shit and there's no, there was no such thing as over time when I was working. You got told when your day ended when you were told to pack up the trailer and not for,

Hamish: needed eight hours. That was it, was you've got page eight hours, and if you did two hours over time, it was too bad, too sad.

Matt: well, that was just, just, just, yeah, it's just how it was. I mean, I'm not, giving people autonomy to be reckless. I am encouraging them to just think about what they're doing and make the best decision with the information that, that they've got at hand and, and with their experience.

Hamish: So I'm gonna throw a purple at you. Uh, what's the biggest mistake you've made? On a building site.

Matt: Oh, man,

Hamish: had,

Matt: my biggest fucking mistake, the most memorable one was I was giving a pool builder

Hamish: back

Matt: a line to work off on the house. Now, I remember at the time I was dealing with a hell of a client,

I won't say where it was just in case I end up stupid, but I was dealing with a hell of a client at the time and, uh, I was a bit frazzled.

And to be fair, they're a hell of a client because I wasn't managing that relationship, how I manage relationships now. So, you know, if we look at that in isolation as something that I've learnt off, something that I've failed at and learnt off, communication, communication, communication, but I was a bit frazzled when I was sitting at this pool, the back of the [00:10:00] house., wasn't just a, a line, it kind of stepped out and then stepped back in, but where it stepped out and then stepped back in, it actually stepped back in another 500 mil. So I picked a line from one end of the house and the other end of the house, thinking that they were all in, in plane, and the pool ended up being, at a parallel with the house by about 200 mil. So it was like skewed. Now, we managed to kind of budget a little bit with building up like beams for the pool and. But I could still say that the pool was not square with the house.

And thankfully I had some amazing clients and do believe to this day that they can't see it, but I think because I know it's there, I can see it.

Hamish: So they know about this? Like, they know you made

Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 100%. We laid the whole thing out on the table. We drew it. I pulled the pool builder in who is still a good friend of mine to the day and we gave the client every opportunity and all the options to make a decision of what they wanted to do and they decided to keep moving.

Hamish: That's awesome. Like, yeah, I bet you won't do it again.

Matt: Oh, fuck no. Well, do check your measurements. I know, you're on site than I am.

mate, like, I've realised that the best people to set our projects out are not me. Oh

Hamish: like, I'm open, I'm a shit carpenter. But I'm always of that, like, I like to be the dumbest guy. At the table. So I wanna put better people and a plays around me, and that a plays a very good carpenter that's gonna sit out. And I, I like the, my team are doing one right now, like they're doing one right now.

And they are, like, we were looking at , the rivets in the ground. We've got a 400 mil slope from one side to the other side of the, the property. So we're still quite flat compared to say, where you might build, but decision of where to put that, that starting data point with the rivet and try to find it like.

We are talking like, I know you get that wrong. Your h your house can be 200 mil too [00:12:00] high. , you just gotta get it right from the start. And they're better doing that than I am.

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Look, I think what I am at doing, and I reckon you might be the same thing, is checking. Like, actually, the physically doing of the things, yeah, I'm like, sure you're capable of doing it as well, but you've got 10 other hats that you're wearing throughout the day I do still like to go and check heights.

I still do like to go and check the squareness of boxing and slab penetrations and all that kind of stuff.

Hamish: yeah, see, I do, I have complete trust in like, especially my main guy site. Like that's, his specialty. And I know that he's going to get it right. Plus, I also have a concreter that we use, like, they're checking it. I don't know my plumber's checking it.

So there are multiple steps along the way for us.

Matt: think that that right there is probably, you know, exactly what we've just been talking about though. So you've, given your team an opportunity to fail and succeed, and I'm sure there's been times where they've stuffed stuff up and learned from, you know, there is definitely something to be said for, micromanaging people. When they don't feel comfortable to be able to go and do stuff like what you're explaining.

Hamish: I'm very quick to hand things over I have no fear in passing things off. I think that I trust myself. And the people that I'm going to put around me, they're, they're going to be good at what they do and they're just going to be honest and they, they, again, they're not afraid to make a mistake and when they do make a mistake, they're like, Hey, Maddy, I made a mistake.

This is what I think we should do. What do you think? And then I might like add a few comments, but end of the day, they're sort of steering the ship and they're coming to me with the mistake and the solution. And I'm just sort of approving it or going, Oh, we need to look into this more. like, I always joke with everyone that, like, our phones go off like crazy as builders.

It's always because something's gone wrong. Like, we don't get a call from one of the carpenters going, I put in that nail fucking well today. , it's like, hey, this isn't working. Like,

Matt: a little bit more as well, rather than, um, , be focusing on the mistakes all the time. But no, you're absolutely right, man. Like, you, you know, when your phone does ring, particularly if you're, you ignore the first phone [00:14:00] call, and they call back two minutes later, you know that something's going on.

Hamish: yeah, it's just like, oh, what's this one now? that's the nature of what we do. There's a lot of moving parts in it. Like, a lot of what we do is still handmade, but yeah, there's machines and robots and stuff to do it, but it's still ultimately a handmade product.

Like there, there's tolerances and things that you've got to be able to work in. And I think you go through that phase as an apprentice and I see what I'm doing at the moment, everything has to be perfect and I don't know that tolerance.

that's also a very hard conversation to have because they're like, nothing needs to be perfect.

Matt: Yeah. And that's really how you deliver that message too. I mean, I can speak from experience that I had recently with one of my team where he was like making sure that like a noggin, was not bowing one of the studs out. And I'm like, man, there is like 20 mil tolerance in that opening, but just throw it in there and move on.

But I guess it is good. Like, you know, how do you foster the environment where. You say, hey, you know what? That doesn't matter. But this thing over here does matter.

Hamish: Yeah. I think, I think one of the biggest things, and one thing I've learned is it's all about the team that you put around you. Like my team, they're awesome people. They all get along. Yeah. They don't go every night together and on the weekend and hang out, but when they're at work, they've got a great relationship and they trust each other and they're open, like they go, Hey.

I dinted that wall, or I'll be like, who did this? And they're like, yep, that was the area I worked. they're able to have that conversation. And I think that, that it's so important that you develop a team that, that fosters that. Because once you have one person that's toxic, the rest will follow very quickly because that toxic person will always drag them down.

And generally that toxic person is the one that makes a mistake and they're putting on other people.

Matt: And they're the ones that are not making mistakes either. And you you know, something that's probably even really relevant to this is that, you know, you and I have never done a podcast before. And I'm sure that there's going to be things that we're going to stuff up along the way.

And, you know, there might be things that we've said, even in this podcast that, sounds a bit rambling or just a bit of bullshit or whatever, but you know what, every single time we jump on here and we get more [00:16:00] comfortable, we're going to get better. So hopefully, uh, you know, we don't lose too many listeners in the first couple of months and they're going to still jump on in a couple of years time when we've got it really dialed in.

Hamish: Hamish just wants to get to the point where we do a video so he can show off his hair.

Matt: Oh, look at it. It's long, isn't it?

Hamish: That is, yeah. It's, yeah. He's this is where it all goes on a tangent. Hamish and I are very good at just talking about one thing and we end up on something completely different.

But yeah, is that one of the big mistakes you made? No, I'm

Matt: Uh, yeah, the pool, the pool's one of the biggest ones for me. What about you?

Hamish: have two distinct ones. They're not as bad. One of them was, I remember I was probably a third year apprentice and I was left to do the fix for the first time by myself. So I was doing all the skirts and architraves. But that same day was a boys weekend. It was about 20 of us were going to the country races at the time.

And I just wanted to get it smashed out. So, I'd only ever done fixes where we'd done square architraves at that point and skirtings. So, this is a bit of a profile. But I didn't know which way was in and out. And I just thought the bigger profile on the end was inside. And I cut them, I did the whole house.

I smashed it, I was so proud of myself. But I did them, way the wrong way. I cut the

Matt: Oh, no.

Hamish: was And I, so I went away for this weekend and I was like, fuck yeah, like, Ice, they're gonna be so happy with me, I smashed it, and got there Monday and they're like, what the fuck have you done?

But, hey, shit happens and I definitely learned from it, so, that was a mistake I probably should have asked, but at the same time I also look and, I also thought that at the time I was like, maybe I should have been shown, but hey, look, I sort of copped and said, yeah, that's my fault, like, I should have also asked.

Matt: But you know what the beauty about that though, is that like, I mean, I can totally see how that's happened, but now you know, like, you know not what to do now. You know what I mean? Like, One of the narratives that I've had is when there's a problem, I'm like, okay, great.

This sounds like a really good opportunity to learn think they'll probably get sick of me saying that now whenever something stuffs up. But it really is a, an amazing opportunity to learn.

Hamish: Yeah. And like, hopefully people can learn. This is like about learning from [00:18:00] our experiences and our mistakes too. Like, hopefully that we, I mean, we put things out there that we do on social media and hopefully people can learn from our mistakes. Like, like don't need to make that same mistake.

We've already made it for you. biggest mistake, and this is probably, it's not something that cost me financially, but it probably cost me a lot of stress and definitely created anxiety around dealing with clients that was one project in particular that I gave the client too much control and let them kind of run things and I lost control of running them.

And. Once you lose control as a builder, it is impossible to get it back because they already know and they know how to push it and they know how to pull it like to push and pull you and pull those levers. And whilst the relationship with the client was still awesome, when you want something done or hey, that's, you've damaged that, that's a variation and you can get pushed around very quickly.

And it's something that I learned and it's probably something that I now make sure that I'm in control of all my projects. It's something. Definitely do not lose control of them. it has that mental impact on you when you lose control.

But every time that client message you a call, you're just like, oh, your heart sinks. You just don't want to deal with it.

Matt: me, but let's let's, do a podcast episode one day of, the best way to Manage client relations. I think that would be a really interesting one because I've certainly made a shitload of mistakes when it comes to managing clients.

Hamish: But it's also so easy. Like, it's really simple. I think we just overcomplicate that at times and not getting ahead of the, that topic. But it's one you just learn from mistakes.

Matt: Yep. Yep. I'm going to leave it and leave it one little bit of advice for people if, when they are dealing with clients. Never answer a phone call after 5pm. Never. Just don't do it.

Hamish: And I think, I think it's really important because we generally start at 7. You've got from probably 7 to 5. That's a fair chunk of the day that they can get onto you.

Matt: even if the house is burning down, you shouldn't be calling me. You should be calling the fire department.

Hamish: It's very true right?

but I think we leave it at that mate.

Matt: Cool.

Hamish: looking to do a lot more of these solo short episodes just about our sort of understanding of [00:20:00] the industry and our sort of beliefs and look people may agree with what we say and may not agree. That's the point of them, we want to create this discussion topic on, On things that we sort of what we believe in.

At times, Hamish and I would definitely disagree on things. Um, we definitely have conversations on the phone where we don't align on something, but that's fine. I think that's super healthy.

Matt: our phone conversation so fun. I'm

Hamish: it also, it's that mistake. You say it and you go, oh yeah, I'm actually wrong there. Like that again, it goes back to that mistake that you, you can sort of be open to have that conversation. But yeah, anyway, have a good day. , I'm

we'll chat very, very soon, mate.

Matt: Cheers. Bye.