Leadership Tactics: Tony Pellegrino
"We don’t always need an answer, but we do need a solution."
In this new series, Leadership Tactics, I interview industry leaders I respect, diving deep on how they manage their business and lead their people.
In this first edition, I asked Tony Pellegrino, a senior field leader at Ryan Companies, to share his thoughts on leadership. This was an incredible conversation that I learned a lot from. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Highlights
The first schedule he had me build was for a bathroom. “I'll give you a slab, and I want to flush the toilet when you’re done. What needs to happen to get me to flush the toilet?” That was the first schedule I built.
I didn't look at my mistakes and think: “My boss will resolve this.” I instead took the initiative to take ownership of the problem and helped work the solution. I didn't wait for someone else to come to me with "Oh, we screwed this up and this is how we will fix it." I wanted to know why I messed it up, what was the reason, and what the best solution to get of the problem that we created as a team.
When I became a superintendent, my dad was proud of me but said: “You are stepping into a different realm now. You have to clear the path for people to be successful. You don’t need to hammer the nails, pour the concrete, hang the drywall. You are here to clear their path for success. There isn’t a person on this job that got out of bed and thought: “I can’t wait to go to work and have a shitty day.” Your job is to prevent them from having a shitty day. They want to be here, they want to be successful, and they want to go home.
People want instant satisfaction. They think they can look it up on Google and come up with an answer. People lack the ability to actually have a conversation. When they have to engage in a conversation, they want the fastest way out of it instead of taking the time to process it, listen, and at least walk away with a to do list - and even a follow-up.
Don't put people in the wrong seat on the bus.
You have to constantly be communicating with your staff, your people. You can't go a day without knowing what people want.
learn to pause. Learn to take a second. You don’t have to solve the problems of the world today. Understand what they are, pick away at them at a pace that is manageable that still leads to the end game.
Questions
What is the story of how you got into your current position?
What skills did you learn and develop that set you apart?
What were major accomplishments or turning points in your career?
How do you play that chess game? How do you get people to elevate themselves?
What would you tell your younger self, just starting out, what to do differently?
What is the story of how you got into your current position?
I’m a 4th generation construction worker. My great grandfather worked construction in Naples, Italy and the surrounding towns. His family came to the US in 1956 to live the American dream.
My grandfather and father continued working in construction, and my father was a superintendent. Back then, it was “Take Your Kid to Work” day on the weekends, where I got inducted into construction when I was very young. I grew up to love construction, seeing what my father did every day, knowing this is what I wanted to do.
I started as an apprentice in the union. The drive to be a leader happened when I was in the 2nd or 3rd year of my apprenticeship, working in New England in January. It was incredibly cold, and I had an epiphany. We're outside, and there was an experienced carpenter I was working with. I looked at his hands, then looked at my father – who was in the trailer. I wanted to be there. I didn't want to be the 65-year-old carpenter working outside in the winter. I asked my dad: “How do I get your job?” He said: “You have to start taking the initiative to work up the ranks, understand the job, the drawings, and the schedule.”
My schooling, Monday through Thursday was down in the basement with my dad. This was my college. The College of Pellegrino. Open a set of drawings in the basement, starting on page 1 of civil, working to the last page of architectural over the course of a year, turning the pages, learning how to read the plans, hunting down the details.
The first schedule he had me build was for a bathroom. “I'll give you a slab, and I want to flush the toilet when you’re done. What needs to happen to get me to flush the toilet?” That was the first schedule I built.
I started showing initiative on a job. I was 22 as a foreman, running a small concrete crew, and by 25, I was an assistant superintendent for a general contractor, building a school in Hartford, CT. That's the place I showcased my talent, to the point where we were the general contractor, and Gilbane was the construction manager. Their superintendents – via my interaction with them and the project managers – saw something in me and asked me to come work with them. They said: “You can continue to grow here.” I switched in 1998 over to Gilbane. Now I’ve been at Ryan for 11 years.
What skills did you develop that set you apart?
Having had the opportunity to be a carpenter and a foreman, I learned everything from footings to installing hardware on doors. I learned the technical work – doing it repeatedly, making the mistakes, but because I had the initiative to be a leader, I didn't look at my mistakes and think: “My boss will resolve this.” I instead took the initiative to take ownership of the problem and helped work the solution. I didn't wait for someone else to come to me with "Oh, we screwed this up and this is how we will fix it." I wanted to know why I messed it up, what was the reason, and what the best solution to get of the problem that we created as a team.
By those technical skills – being able to walk into an area and hear the problems – I got to a problem-solving mindset. People on the site want to go; they want to get their jobs done. What do I need to do to move that needle forward for them? The technical side of construction was the repetitive doing it over and over again, seeing things, listening, getting involved in things I had nothing to do with, even a trade that I didn't touch as a foreman. I would listen and try to figure out what could I do even if I didn't have to do it. I leaned in a lot when I didn’t have to. Because I kept leaning in as a foreman, the company I worked for saw that. They said: “He's willing to take on things outside his realm. As a carpenter foreman, he wants to dig into steel, plumbing, anything.” I did it because I wanted to. Not because I had to.
I was lucky enough to work with good superintendents, observing their ability to communicate and take things head on. This communication is where it starts. The ability to take things head on, understand their problems, then help them solve it. When I became a superintendent, my dad was proud of me but said: “You are stepping into a different realm now. You have to clear the path for people to be successful. You don’t need to hammer the nails, pour the concrete, hang the drywall. You are here to clear their path for success. There isn’t a person on this job that got out of bed and thought: “I can’t wait to go to work and have a shitty day.” Your job is to prevent them from having a shitty day. They want to be here, they want to be successful, and they want to go home.
I took this to heart. This is what separated me from others. I don't care if you are the superintendent for the electricians or the laborer pushing the broom. Everyone plays a role and you have to manage that role for them, not matter how they get that job done, whether its’s cleaning up the trash or connecting to a panel.
Conflict resolution is another skill that sets me apart. I've been in meetings where everyone is in a grind, and I would sit quietly. Sometimes people ask: “Tony, why aren’t you saying anything?” I say back: “Because I don't know what’s going on.” I’m going to listen. We may not come out of this 100% resolved, but I wanted them to know I 'listened to their issue, and I want to come to a solution and help solve this issue for them.
But I don’t want to just I can come in and say: “Here’s what we will do,” then leave. I can be in and out of a meeting in 2 minutes, but I'm here to clear the path. If there' something in the way, let me know what that is. Let's come up with a solution instead of arguing about it.
The ability to listen, absorb it all, then work towards a solution. This is something that's missing from today's world. People want instant satisfaction. They think they can look it up on Google and come up with an answer. People lack the ability to actually have a conversation. When they have to engage in a conversation, they want the fastest way out of it instead of taking the time to process it, listen, and at least walk away with a to do list - and even a follow-up. We don’t always need an answer, but we do need a solution. People don’t want to have these layers of conversations to get there. I know we are bogged down with meeting after meeting, but much of what we can do can be resolved in the field by talking to one another. Meetings that seek to get to the quickest answer is where there's a lack of ownership. That's not real problem solving.
What were major accomplishments or turning points in your career?
The first one was as a carpenter, the moment I recognized I didn't want to be the guy in the cold. I wanted to be planning out the next few months instead. To be a superintendent. The defining moment there was the tap on the shoulder from one of senior superintendents that recognized this 27-year-old kid had something to bring to the table at a big company. I never saw myself working for a large company like Gilbane. To me, this was the holy grail of construction. I came to the conclusion that as a superintendent, I'm doing okay. This is where I'm going to be. I didn’t believe I had what it took to play with the big boys.
The next step was the continuous learning that I tried to put myself into. I took advantage of every opportunity to learn something new. And to further my ability to talk to people, how to communicate. I had to tighten it up a bit, the style was different at a larger company. How do I present myself sitting with clients to win an $80M job? You need to sell yourself as the superintendent and as the company to win the job. This was so far outside of my wheelhouse.
Then moving from New England to Arizona was a big challenge. I was the first superintendent for Gilbane in Arizona. They said: “By the way, we are counting on you to be the guy in the field that launches this region. We need you to run these few jobs, and the success you bring will determine if we stay in Arizona or if we leave.” This was very pivotal. People are moving with their families. The success of these jobs will determine if they all pack up and go back to where we came from. This put me in a different mindset: I needed to run the job, but I also had a hoard of people who were counting on me because they didn’t want to pack up and go back.
The courthouse job in downtown Phoenix was another turning point. This is where I met Ryan Companies. It was a joint venture between Ryan Companies and Gilbane. I hoped I would play a lead role at that job. At six months in, I naturally fell into a leadership role with turnover on the team, and after another month, they asked me to take it over. “You'll lead the whole job.” At that point we have 16 superintendents, and the economy took a turn for the worst. This job was critical for both companies in the joint venture. The project was in the limelight constantly. It was high end finishes. It took my skillet to the next level on how to manage. It also took everyone else’s skillset to the next level. This was the opportunity to lead a team successfully. There was no give in the budget or schedule. I had to make it work. To take one thousand people and help them succeed. It was a constant chess game on how to get things done - keeping safety and quality in mind.
The last major milestone was when I came here to Ryan. Ryan said they had a big job and needed a leader for the biggest office building being built in Arizona at the time – and the biggest for Ryan: $850M. 2,300 people on site every day. 27 superintendents. I reached the level of dialing back when I was twenty-five and thought: “I was okay just to be a superintendent that small contractor. That would have been as far as I went. To be here now on this huge job, all these skills that I've developed over the years – the ability to play the chess game – has now paid off.”
How do you play that chess game? How do you get people to elevate themselves?
Over the years, I’ve realized that I'm not longer the guy building the buildings. I know how, but don’t have the time like I did in the past to get down into every nut and bolt and detail. There’s too much going on. Because I always had a few people working with me, I figured out how to improve their skillset, drag it out of them. I have this uncanny ability to talk with anyone. To be able to pull out of them in conversation where do they want to go, what do they want to do. It's tough to learn it. It takes time.
Don't put people in the wrong seat on the bus. “So and so isn't the person to run the job, but they would be great in this other position.” How do I it? You have to constantly be communicating with your staff, your people. You can't go a day without knowing what people want. The comment my father said: that no one gets up in the morning to fail. Your job is to help them succeed. It's not just the subcontractors, but it’s your own staff, the people you are working with. What do you want, and how do I give that to you? This is the caring and nurturing you have to make the time to do.
If you just want to be transactional about it, that's easy. I can do that all day long, and I have nothing to do after 8am in the morning. But I want to know what people want. I take that and set them into the positions where if they want it, I'll give it to them. I'm going to be there. We will watch, discuss, talk about the good, the bad, and the WTF moments. There will be hard conversations. As a leader, you need to have them. If you don’t have them, people will say: "You never told me. I thought I was doing okay.” It gives people a false sense of security that they are doing fine.
I struggle with the direction that the world is headed where everyone wants to be nice. There's no nice when we have the WTF moments. I’m somewhere in the middle: Not quite old school, but not new generation where I’m empathetic to a fault. I want these lightbulb moments. However, when it’s the wash, rinse, repeat mistakes, people aren’t paying attention to the fact that they are continuously making mistakes. That’s when we need to have a difficult conversation. As long as you approach it correctly, people will engage by saying: "Help me.” They need to know you'll help and support them. That you'll get them through the hard times. But we need to know it's not always rainbows and butterflies. Sometimes, that conversation is: “Are you the right person?”
You need to know what people can do. It depends on how well you know your people. It's visual for me. How do I put teams together the best I can to be successful? Who will lead the job, what value do they bring to each other, what value can a senior bring to an assistant? Will they take the time to do their daily tasks? Will they train and teach others, cultivate the next superintendent? I can't do what we do without the people who are super focused individually, but I also need people who still have the patience to drag the younger folks through the experiences and take the time to cultivate others into themselves someday. A leader, knowing who can work with who? Who can teach who?
That's the chess game. Knowing everyone’s skillset. Who can and can't develop the next group of people? We need both.
What would you tell your younger self, just starting out, what to do differently?
I would tell my younger self always take the time to engage, to listen. I didn't have this skillset form the very beginning of my career. Of being able to step into a situation and just sitting back to listen. I thought I had to have the answer, that the answer would drive me to success. I had to tell myself: learn to pause. Learn to take a second. You don’t have to solve the problems of the world today. Understand what they are, pick away at them at a pace that is manageable that still leads to the end game.
I'm happy with the decision I made growing up in this business. Finally taking advantage of asking for help from my dad. I didn't recognize it, that I could just ask: “Here's a problem, how do I solve it?”
Ask questions, get engaged. This is what I tell my younger teams today. It's okay to ask the question. I don't expect you do know, you haven’t done it. You can learn it in a book, but this is a whole different world. You have to deal with personalities, other attitudes. Learn that everyone doesn’t think the same way you do. That it is okay to ask questions.
When I first became a superintendent, I thought I had to have all the answers instantly. I started bogging myself down with all the stuff thought I had to know, but I wasn't giving the answer that needed to be given. I was instead giving the short quick answer because I had to rush off to go give another answer somewhere else.
Be humble. Take advantage of the people around you. And it takes time. That's it. Just time. The humble part came later in my career. When I was asked to go to Gilbane, I was humbled. “Really? I'm that guy? You want me to work for you?”
It's taken 38 years. I continue to reflect. I'm in a position to help people succeed, and that's all I thrive for. Helping someone solve their problem so they have a good day. That good day will lead to success from start to end. Personally, or success on the job, just being there, being engaged. But we need to know there's repercussions if we keep screwing up, and I'm not afraid to have conversations with those folks. Because of the conversations I’ve had, the relationships I've built,
We don't need to get people to the top in one day. Just a step at a time.
Thanks for much, Tony, for being vulnerable and for sharing your insights.