Using embedded leaders to drive digital adoption in the field

Driving digital adoption is a difficult process for any construction company and is impossible when done incorrectly. The good news is that no one needs to try to figure out the best practices for digital adoption, it has already been done.

This episode features Nate Fuller, founder and director of Placer Construction Solutions. Nate shares with our host Mike Merrill a technique to make sure that your teams are willing and able to jump onboard with new initiatives. Mike and Nate also discuss the lag that many construction leaders experience in digital adoption, especially on the job site, why construction has inherited this problem from our project structure and how to deal with it.

Key Takeaways

1. Understanding who is influential on each of your teams is the first step to taking advantage of your embedded leaders. We all understand that there are people of influence inside of a company. The issue is that most of the time the influence isn’t investigated and properly understood. Simple investigations for each team will reveal who is the leader or the influencer for each team and situation. Simply doing a quick two minute interview with each of your employees asking them who they would most likely trust a new process or technique from will quickly reveal your embedded leadership.
2. You don’t need to convince everyone for an effective digital transformation. There is a misconception that in order for new technology and processes to stick you must have 100% of your teams on board. This isn’t true, to get an effective set up you only need to get 10% of each of your teams fully engaged and the rest of the team will follow with proper support and guidance.
3. Technology isn’t needed to survive right now, but not having it all but guarantees failure down the road. Right now construction firms can survive off of old school practices and processes but without the insights and data that new technology is bringing, future business will continue to go to the firms that have more control over timelines, budgets and labor forces.