Scaling Without Losing Identity: The Consultant Strategy | Collins Electrical Secret by Brian Gini | Ep.222

What would break first if you stopped answering calls, stopped checking email, and stepped out of the building for 30 days? 

John Gallagher sits down with Brian Gini, co-CEO of Collins Electric, to unpack a real transformation inside a multi-branch, family-owned electrical contracting business and the personal growth required to make it stick. Brian’s path starts in the field and moves through project management, branch leadership, and ownership, and that credibility shapes how he thinks about trust, systems, and the next generation of leaders.

We get into the practical catalyst behind the shift: building a sustainable leadership pipeline when “nobody gave us a playbook.” Brian explains why outside expertise mattered, how lean construction tools entered through a prefabrication quality problem, and what it took to move five branches from five different ways of working to a shared enterprise mindset. He’s candid about the hardest barrier to continuous improvement: people staying locked into who they’ve always been, even when the business demands something new.

Then we talk about the experiments that prove your culture is real. The Gini Wonka month-off test sends a serious message to employees and customers: we trust you, we’ve built guardrails, and the company can operate without the owners acting like heroes. Brian also shares a deceptively simple leadership word he keeps in sight every day: “appreciate,” and how that mindset helps stretch new leaders into big roles. We close with a grounded take on AI in construction: keep building the training and curriculum you know you need, and adopt AI only where it truly supports the strategy.

🚀 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮’𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧:
• Childhood lessons that shape an underdog leadership style
• Three-brother leadership dynamics and using friction productively
• The catalyst for adopting lean and building a Collins Business System
• Real barriers to change, including identity, habits, and resistance
• Standardizing five branches into one enterprise mindset
• Tough people transitions guided by core values and respect for people
• Confidence, messaging, and leading like an “actor” when needed
• Succession planning wins that show the next generation is already leading
• The Genie Wonka month-off test and what it revealed
• “Appreciate” as a practical tool for trust, accountability, and growth
• A pragmatic approach to AI in construction without waiting for perfection


If you got value from this, subscribe, share it with a leader who’s building for the next generation, and leave a five-star review so more uncommon leaders can find the show.


𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 Brian Gini👇
➡️ LinkedIn (primary): https://www.linkedin.com/company/collins-electrical-company-inc-

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

People for sure. People did their donuts who they worked at, how they did how they learned previously. You know, we we I tell people that I don't think companies would have grown independent healthy and our healthy center outside expertise. As much as we may not follow the advice of outside expertise, it's something we need to think about and to add to it to as one of the ingredients. Like, no, no, no, no, no. That was the wrong ingredient to put in there.

Welcome And Guest Backstory

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Hey Uncommon Leaders, welcome back. This is the Uncommon Leader Podcast. I'm your host, John Gallagher. Today's one of my absolute favorite types of episodes because I get to pull back the curtain on a real life story of personal and organization transformation. My guest today has been an integral pillar of the Collins Electrical Company since 1988. He didn't just walk into the corner office, he earned it. He started out as a laborer, worked his way up through project management, becoming a branch manager, vice president, and stockholder, and today he serves as the co-CEO of Collins Electric alongside his brother Kevin. Together they manage the massive day-to-day operations of the company. Now his leadership and industry has earned him an induction into the prestigious Academy of Electrical Contracting, and he currently serves as the president of the NorCal National Electrical Contractor Association. What makes him even more uncommon though is his commitment to community, serving on the executive leadership team for the American Heart Association and as the co-president of the historic State Theory, just to name a couple things that he's involved in. He's a battle-tested executive who continues to do what it takes to build a sustainable management system and leadership pipeline and culture at his organization, ensuring increased company value for years to come. Please welcome to the show, Brian Genie. Hey Brian, welcome to the Uncommon Leader Podcast, friend. How are you doing today? Wonderful, John. How are you doing today? I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Hey, I enjoyed the introduction. You didn't get a chance to hear it, but we kind of talked about it a little bit. I recorded it beforehand, and I took folks back about 27, 28 years in terms of your journey with Collins

Childhood Roots Of An Underdog

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Electric. But all the first-time guests on my podcast get the same first question. I'm going to take you back even further in time. But I'd like you to tell me a story from your childhood that still impacts who you are today as a leader.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

There's a lot of stories that I look back and reflect of who I am today, and I'm very similar in reflection to who I was as a kid. And I think some of it comes down to the pecking order within our family. That um I always considered myself the middle child. And so where I'd call myself the black sheep of the family, and Craig does too, my other brother will say the same. They reflect that Brian was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. And I like that. I like that difference of opinions. But in my depths, when I really think back of what molded me in my childhood was really my parents, watching them grow up, watching them skimp by, but still have fun skimping by, bringing the family out on boating trips and you know, living on the delta on the weekends, those type of things. But even there, I felt more comfortable being alone and uh just kind of wandering and exploring and those type of things. I didn't always want to fit in with a big group, just wanted to be who I wanted to be. And I think that mentality today still exists because I like the I like that underdog mentality of people not expecting too much from you. And I think that's where my grounding is, is just, you know, I've got my opinions, my ideas, and and as much as I may be seen as pretty forceful in some of my daily environments, I still am much more grounded on my own. Just trying to figure things out and work through matters. So it's just uh a lot of that, you know, the pressure of being in a family, the pressure of growing up without a lot of things, but still the opportunity that was presented to me at a very early age. I got to work uh up in Yosemite Valley at 18 years old as a laborer on a jackhammer, you know, breaking up granite rocks. And I'd spend the whole day uh on one rock. And at the end of the day, one of the one of the experienced uh laborers and electricians came over and hit the rock one time with a 90-pound jackhammer and said, This is how it's done, and walked away. So those were great learning lessons for me that it's not about might, it's about talent and experience and knowing how to do things. So it was his way of telling me, take a step back, watch the old guy do this, and ask me how to do it next time instead of just wisdom.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Love that.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Absolutely. They're great, uh great stories, and just being able to work in the beauty of Yosemite Valley. Those are those are things. And the fun part about John is I'm the old guy in the room now. And a lot of the people that I worked with back in the day, they've retired, they've passed along. And uh, I think a lot of people see me in the office that, oh, he doesn't know what we do in the field. I grew up there, and I don't need to tell him. Uh there's still enough people around to say, hey, no, Brian worked his tail off during the summers, during the winter. So those are a lot of things that have molded me that uh I reflect on and and smile about, frankly.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

I I think it's great, and I think about it, you know, just as the time I've gotten a chance to to work with you all for the last almost five years now, which that time has flown by, recognizing the the challenges of a second generation family-owned business, having you know the three of you, the three brothers involved in it on a day-to-day and recognizing you mentioned being the old person in the room, but you used to be the young person in the room inside of that space and had to had to really earn your way up into that. Even if you're and then the middle child call syndromes you got founder syndrome, you got middle child syndrome, you got all kinds of syndromes that you've had to fight your way through in terms of getting through that. And I remember meeting you guys for the first time and just you know, you telling me, hey, you gotta you gotta poke your way through, poke us in the chest, and let us know when things aren't going right, because we'll fight like brothers, but we'll we'll do anything we have to for the family and for the business as well. And and look the last thing on that, you've treated your employees inside your organization as family for a long time. It's one of your core values. And I see how you guys live that out on a daily basis. That's what's made it easier for me to work with you all for so long as well.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah. It's uh there's you know, outside of pressure, really good things come up. My brothers and I are very different from each other. We have our own unique talents. Uh, we do not agree, we probably agree upon 40 to 50 percent of new ideas, new concepts, but we get through it. Um, if we didn't have glass walls, it'd probably be better uh because our people wouldn't be able to see us fight. But what comes out the door and what we decide is gonna make this company go forward and grow and keep our people working, uh it's pretty good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Well, the organization's been doing it for 100 years, and that doesn't happen without a little bit of friction, a little bit of blood on the carpet, as we like to talk

Brothers, Friction, And Family Culture

SPEAKER_00 6:44

about it. And that's what's interesting. The co-CEO structure came into place, you know, right around 2019. You worked, you worked your way up in the organization. And y'all decided that I mean, by all measures, you could say you're successful. You're generating revenue, you're generating a profit, you know, you guys are uh family-owned business, you're you're getting your paychecks and paying your employees well. You decide to go on this transformational journey uh to do things even better. What was it that kind of kicked that off or was a uh catalyst for saying, man, we gotta we gotta do this and get better?

SPEAKER_01 7:14

I think there are several things that uh when I reflect back again at some of the early conversations Kevin Craig and I had just trying to figure out, you know, nobody gave us a playbook. When dad stepped aside, it was us trying to figure things out. We put some long-term plans together, probably at 50 years old, 52, 54 years old where I was. So

Why Lean Became The Catalyst

SPEAKER_01 7:33

I'd say seven years ago, about how we wanted to look forward with the company. We put a two, five, 10-year plan together that in two years uh we would try to get ourselves out of our daily hands-on business and bring new leadership up. That doesn't happen overnight, but all three of us navigated that probably took us about three years. And then about uh year five, uh, which was right about that time, we had had a leadership coach come in and really helped to start the change of thought processes, of really indoctrining people who Collins Electric was, new people coming into the organization. And a lot of the people that were in the organization, there's an appreciation factor that I that I think back at that we had to take the appreciation of receiving this gift of being owners and leaders within this organization and do something holistic with it. And so that holistic piece was really developing our people and and taking profits, investing in them, all those things, and finding ways to do it. And then, you know, the bigger scheme was, or the bigger not scheme, but the bigger piece of it was how do we make this sustainable? The sustainability piece was pretty significant, unfortunately. Our CFO was working with with some lean people. Her husband was working with some lean people, and they came over and helped us to solve a problem. And in my mind, it was one problem is the output of our prefabrication department. Our people in the field were saying, hey, there's high error rates on this, we don't have the confidence in it. Susan tried a fishbone exercise here. Twenty people looking at a whiteboard, and I knew she wasn't gonna be able to land the plane, and she knew she wasn't gonna be able to land the plane, but it was our first taste of what it's like to put tools in place to solve problems. I mean, that's my recollection. And from there she said, you know, I know a guy. And her guy was her husband, who was working with uh LA at the time, and they came in and gave us a presentation. The shock of the cost of it, just the direct cost of what was in the proposal was significant. But you know, Kevin Craig and I are maturing at this point in time and realizing that nobody gave us a playbook to manage this company and to drive it forward. And so looking at some of the tools in the proposal and and experimenting with some of those tools really grounded us to say, yeah, we need to do this. It was a little bit of a leap of faith because it was very different. It's you know, lean and uh Collins business system and those type of things, it's not normal in construction. But it did a lot of uh direct impact and inherent uh benefits for our business and for our people. Wasn't easy, wasn't easy, but that's uh what I recall is our first step in.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Yeah, I love that. And that I love that last kind of piece about the leap of faith as well, because it wasn't that common inside of the electrical construction world at that point in time. It was just really starting to move its way into service. I mean, we'd done some work on lean in hospitals and things like that, and I think that's one of the local folks who kind of chatted with you about that journey as well, the hospital system there locally that had an impact. But the you know, the other side of that is it it is an investment, and it was a decision that you all made, knowing that it was going to be difficult to make that happen. Like I remember my first visit, no doubt about it. And then we had a uh Chris, uh guy named Chris took me on a tour of some of the job sites, and you kind of asked me when I came back, said, What'd you see? I said, Hey, all I know is once I've seen one job at Collins Electric, I've seen one job. And so it was that you know, it was that variation as well that you knew that you weren't going to be able to grow and sustain the organization if you didn't have some system in place. So, you know, kudos to you guys for making that choice. And it's not always easy for organizations when they see that dollar figure that comes through on that on that first look. So outside of that being kind of a roadblock at the start, when you got started on this journey, what were some of the other big barriers that you ran

People Resistance And Branch Misalignment

SPEAKER_00 11:21

into? Things that slowed it down?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

People, for sure. People locked into their their persona of who they were and how they did things and how they learned previously. You know, we we I tell people that I don't think the company would have grown and been as healthy had we just stayed within our cylinders and stayed calling centric uh without bringing outside experts in. As much as we may not follow the advice of outside experts, it gives us something unique to think about and to add to the soup as one of the ingredients. And sometimes you taste the soup, and it's like, uh, I don't know, that was the wrong ingredient to put in there. But some of the inherent pieces that I touched on earlier is that we have five branches, five different geographic locations in a pretty small geographic area in California, and we operated in like five different locations, even our letterhead. I mean, we struggled each location to have their own letterhead, same company. It's like, oh my God, that was a that was a great stride that we made there just to be on the same letterhead. About the time that that challenge went over, we stopped using paper and everything's electronic. You know, this experimentation is just kind of fun to look back and say, you know, dumbass. You know, we didn't we don't know what the future is. And so, not knowing what the future was, we had to put some gravity toward improvement. And uh that's where Lean really came in. The inherent piece is that you know, keep in mind five branches, everyone's doing things differently, and nobody knows each other at each branch. And five, six years later, we're all working together, and people know each other, and this cross-polinization and mixing people from one location to another and keeping that goal of enterprise instead of corporate. You know, this is an enterprise business that we have, five separate businesses under one name, the mothership, as we call it. But uh really, really grounded this company to make sure that we're all uh appreciating each other, knowing each other, and working alongside each other to improve.

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Well, even with your family, the three you and your brothers, you each kind of when I got started with you several years ago, were had the still in the business, kind of acting or the branch managers, you know. So three of the five branches, or three of the six, if you include renewables, were really run by you guys still. And while you were co-CEOs, you're also running day-to-day operations of a branch. So you've had to make that change to elevate yourself in terms of leadership and become different.

Leading Transitions With Core Values

SPEAKER_00 13:44

How are you different today than you were five years ago as a leader?

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Well, just something came to mind while you were asking that question. You have within those five years, we have transferred uh ownership for lack of a better term, in terms of leaders, uh about eight people. And some of those transitions are easy, uh, some are very, very difficult, as you know. I mean, I'm glad I'm not a uh very, very reactive person. I may between reactive and uh a sloth, you know, that I want to dwell on things, I want to find the right way, I want to make sure that it's a respectful approach. And a lot of it goes down to our core values. I can lean on that a little bit. We can lean on it both ways, you know, for the good and the bad. But transitions, those people that don't want to jump on board, they pretty much expose themselves right away and they become a rock in the road that we need to we need to set aside because it's not helping our continuous improvement. So that was um very mindful to really look at our core values and pin them on how we've got to move forward as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Well, there's two sets of recognition in that statement, which is really good. One is recognize that not it's this type of transformation is not meant for everybody. You've had to make some tough decisions inside of your organization. I mean, you and I could debate how long it takes to go through those things all day long, but uh, you've had the majority of those tough decisions to make because you've had the most people and the most responsibility directly with those individuals. And you know, the the change the leader or you change the leader concept is something that you've really had to grow into. Having said that, and we've talked about this, I never want you to be good at it, okay, that it you know, that it doesn't, because you're in you're also, as you say, the family value, the core values organization, including family and loyalty, integrity, those are very important to you as an individual as well as as a family. And so you don't just make those decisions quickly. So sometimes it takes a little longer, but you've also recognized the need to develop others and and raise them up inside the organization, and you've had some successes that have been built in that space as well. So I think you've seen you've seen both, and I think both of them are wins for the organization. They just come in different flavors as you go through it. So I appreciate how you've changed as a leader. I mean, it looked the I often refer to it as founder syndrome. If you've come up through the ranks, starting out as a laborer and come up and in essence done all the jobs, it's hard to watch somebody else do it, especially and allow them to make mistakes. The natural tendency for you, founder syndrome, is to jump back in and be the hero and fix the problem for them. And so you've had you've had to really adjust to that. And I appreciate how you've done that. Now, I'm curious in that pain, how would you share that story, not just like the people that are listening, but if you're sitting next to another CEO in your industry, how do you share that as a win with them and say, Man, this is hard, but here's the value.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

I don't know if I can answer that question directly, but again, my life is all about reflection and people along the way that have helped me. And I was a very, very shy person. You know, I was not the person that wouldn't want to stand in front of a crowd. And I remember my dad, we had a Christmas party one time and he pushed me out in front and he said, Hey, I'm gonna take a seat. And I said, Well, no, you're the MC. He goes, No, you're the MC today. 250 people. And this is coming from a guy that wasn't gonna graduate college because he flunked five speech classes and had to get speech to get my degree from the university. And he knew that and he pushed me out there and made that made me, you know, get rid of that bear hug from behind myself and feel more comfortable in my skin. But I had to be confident in the message that I was delivering, and I and I realized that. And that came with time. And I can reflect back into other people that I got to work with and see how they molded me along the way too. But I think the most pointed is when somebody told me that if you're gonna be a leader and you're gonna struggle, think of yourself as an actor, standing in front and acting and delivering a message. Maybe it's not your message, but it's the message from within your company that you want people to really believe in and adhere to and keep it consistent. And that was really something that helped me along. So if I sit next to that CEO, and I've sat next to many CEOs, and we we talk about those things, and I and they ask me, what is it that really helps me through my day? Is I want our people to know that we care for them and that when they come to work, if they have stuff going on in their life, man, we're here to talk, talk to them, talk them through. But because I think there's a lot of angst that comes through the office door every morning, angst that shows up on the job site every morning. And if we can have people that come from a place of support, our people are going to be better, our business is gonna be better. You know, when we get into conflict situations, I tell people is that look, this whole thing with our core values and what we're doing with lean, this whole respect for people, that's not just what we're telling you. We want you to, in a conflict situation, step aside and say, What would Mr. Collins do here? Mr. Collins would go back to his tools, he would go back to his core values, and he would respond in a manner that follows those guidelines. Those are those are some of the things that have really helped us to make decisions is going back to that core of who we profess ourselves to be, who we aspire to be. It's a never-ending job when you put the word aspire to. We we learn that together on our retreat is that we are not this, we're not this, but we aspire to be this. So having that messaging in front of mind is always helpful.

Sponsor Break: Build Your Brand

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Hey, Uncle Leaders, hope you're enjoying the episode so far. I believe in doing business with people you like and trust and not just a company name. That's what a strong personal brand is essential, whether you're an entrepreneur or a leader within a company. Brand Builders Group, the folks who have been helping me refine my own personal brand are offering a free consultation call with one of their expert brand strategists. They'll help you identify your uniqueness, craft a compelling story, and develop a step-by-step plan to elevate your impact. So head on over to CoachJohnGallagher.com slash BBG, as in brand builders group, to schedule your free call and take the first step toward building a personal brand that gets you noticed for all the right reasons. That's CoachJongGallagher.com slash BBG. Now, let's get back to the episode. Love that. We aspire too. It's something that you always have that to shoot for. You know you're not gonna be perfect, but you certainly aspire to be in that direction, and we're always working toward it. And I've again I've recognized that in terms of how you all have made that that transformation.

Proving Succession Without Losing Momentum

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Is there a specific, I'm gonna call it a success, or you know, you mentioned how bringing together, and without throwing any names out there that kind of protect, but a success on this journey for you, you know, being proud of the organization that they've done in these five years and what what what uh transformation they've made. Any story that comes to mind?

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Kind of interesting that uh over the last few years my dad was uh in the leadership role here, how he would speak about how much he appreciated and uh really enjoyed seeing everybody grow and he had get to the point of being emotional. And if I I just kind of shed everything that's uh going on day to day and reflecting, looking back at our people, I become emotional. And it's and it's a journey. It's uh a journey to work so hard to break through and see change happening easily instead of forced. We had a meeting here recently, and you know, going back to Kevin and I and Craig's 2510, some of our goal setting in that was that how are we gonna get through to the next generation? How are we gonna transition to the next generation? And I remember being in a uh we do a department of rep meeting um once a month. And I asked everybody, I said, you know, we're in this building uh 14 years, plus or minus. And I asked everybody in that meeting, I said, hey, how many of you, 24-25 people, just by a show of hands, started in this building when we opened it up? Four hands went up out of 24, 25 people. So that transition that we worried about had already happened and we're still growing. There wasn't a dip in growth, there wasn't a dip in um structure. I mean, all of those became stronger through that process, through that time frame. So that's that's probably one of the the things that I am most proud of is is seeing where we are today.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Every day, there's so much there. The emotional side of it. I'll get emotional about how things are, and you know, to see him and how much he cares for it still as the chairman of the board and what he sees going on, and and to see you guys get emotional about some of those wins as well with your. Team have been powerful.

The Genie Wonka Month-Off Experiment

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Look, you guys have been a model that in a space that I would say one of the wins that I've seen, and it wasn't, frankly, wasn't quote, my idea, and it doesn't really matter. And that was the Genie Wonka experiment that came out of the retreat. Tell tell the folks a little bit about that, because they won't believe it if I if it comes out of the consultant or the coach's mouth in terms of what you guys did to show the confidence in your people and the systems that you have.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Well, it was on our retreat last year. It was kind of a what-if scenario. You asked us to um answer a handful of questions, what-if questions. And one of them was one of them was uh, you know, what if this? And somebody pitched, I think we should take a month off for many reasons. I had heard other companies that uh have partnerships that one's on, one's off, one's on, one's off. Part of it was let's see how much we're missed. And it comes to the whole adage of something my dad said is, you know, take a five-gallon bucket, put your hand in it, pull your hand out, and that's how much you're gonna be missed. Love the technology. It's gonna level itself out. And so we think we are it. We think we drive the ship. It was for us to take a step back and say, we're out. Messaging was big about we trust you guys. We're gonna put some simple parameters in place. We're gonna have this red Porsche that if everything is going to hell in a handbasket, you gotta go to our CFO. But otherwise it's business as usual. We're concerned that people are gonna step on each other and all those things, but you know, I think just the um just the thought process of even outsiders, general contractors saying, You're doing what? Because they know who we are, they know how connected we are with the business. And we told them that, hey, this is an experiment that we're calling it the Genie Wonka. We had to have a fun factor to it. We told everybody, no, you're not gonna take over the company because you bring the gobstopper back. You know, still more fun, but there was a serious message behind it that these guys are crazy. I w I wish I would have thought about that. I had several contractors say, I wish I would have thought about that. Just to let people know that there's gonna be a time and we're experimenting right now about how this company is gonna move forward without us. So it was you know, a month probably uh in hindsight, probably wasn't long enough, but it was just enough, but still the message sank. The message sank.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Yeah, maybe it's 60 days next time, but to step away from the business for 30 days physically, step out of the building for one thing. No television, no email, no nothing. Yeah, no email, no phone. I mean, that was it's tough. How did you feel after that during that and when you came back?

SPEAKER_01 24:26

I wish I had something planned to go away, and I didn't, and I'd find myself waking up in the morning saying, Laura, I'm going up uh to the mountains, I'm gonna go fishing. He goes, I can then um and then me, you know, shuffling around the house. She goes, What are you gonna do today? I said, I don't know. I mean, so it was a good experiment for me that I better find something else other than this. I'm not I'm not ready for retirement for sure.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Love that. Hey, I want to I want to just have some fun here for just a little bit as we go through this turn.

Appreciate, Stretch, And Trust New Leaders

SPEAKER_00 24:53

That's been, and I think that's been almost uh to a certain extent, icing on the cake, the systems you put in place, the people you have raised up in that organization, uh, and the trust that you have. If it was only 30 days that uh you guys left to your point, was it really that long? But all for all three of you to be out for 30 days was a testament to the trust you have in them and frankly to uh your own leadership development as well. Have there been any uh favorite um, I'll call it like Johnisms, any that you've learned along this way, like quotes or themes or tools or anything else that you use that uh are kind of fun, but it just sit out there for you. It's a little bit of a trick question, but that is a little tricky.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Any tools? Um, I mean, I can look out my window right now of my glass wall office, and I've got a direct line of our core values. That is a tool that I see subliminally subconsciously, and it's right there proud in front of everybody. And we try and use that as starting off some of our meetings. Hey, do we have somebody out there that um and we just started this with our branch managers when we do our monthly branch meetings? Is hey, we don't see everything out there in the in the business. Please bring a story to us. You present your your branch information uh to ownership and to this round table, and it's been a really good tool to center our conversation. And you know, I've got this one word here that it says appreciate and that is very, very can be perceived as a very bland term, but it has so much meaning here in our company and with our people is appreciate what they do. And that's the that's the respect for people piece, but also appreciate that we're asking them to change. And we're asking them to change to help them, to help the business go forward, to be here another decade, century, whatever it is, to get us through the headwinds that are at us every day. A lot of change out there, a lot of hey, we could do this, we could do that, but we've got to stay very, very centered. But the tools that we've learned through you and LA have a lot more meaning that way to become more streamlined through those through those headwinds and create a glide path that we can go to and know this is what we're doing. Let's go back, let's not panic, let's go back to our tools and continue to improve it.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

That answered the question, but no, I think I I think that's fair. I mean, it was I was trying to get I wasn't trying to go anywhere in particular with that. And by the way, I I love the sticky note. I want you to save that. Um, we may need that for August at the retreat. I want you to keep that appreciate sticky note because that you know, I thought about that question beforehand. If you're gonna write one word on a sticky note to talk about that, what would it be? I love that appreciate word. The fun part here, we often do in our events, we talk about carry on. I want to go back to that. I'm gonna go back. Go ahead. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

You know, it's great to say, hey, I appreciate, but you still have to drive people, you still have to drive the business. You know, but if I I truly believe that if you uh show people that you appreciate them, they're gonna be more willing to follow your lead. When you talk to them about stretching themselves, um I remember, I remember uh a young man that's working for us, he was 24 years old, I think 24 or 25. He was gonna take on the largest project that the company's ever written a contract for. And I said, Yeah, I really want you to be the project manager on this job. He's like big eyed. I said, understand that you have great talent around you. You're gonna be the mouthpiece, you're gonna be taking action, but you're gonna be working with this team that's gonna support you from the field, from the wisdom, from this, from that. But I think you've got it. Four years later, he struggled through it, but he did some really unique things too. Really unique things, and and giving people that space to be innovative, stretching themselves, I think is huge. And so that's one of the appreciate components that I reflect on is that I appreciate him taking that step and growing him out. And I appreciate the people around him, his teammates that made it happen. But the business decision of putting somebody in that position, that role, representing the company on the largest project we ever had, you gotta have people that feel that somebody behind them is believing in them. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

I love that. That's that that's one of those isms. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. That's a quote that uh I often fall back on because it it absolutely is. If if you're asking them to change in their work and the way they've done things, you know, which is all about lean and CBS, is we need to change, we need to constantly get better. It's a continuous improvement pathway. But if they don't think you care about them as well in their journey, it's gonna be that much tougher. If they don't they think you don't appreciate them, it's gonna be that much harder in their journey.

AI In Construction Without The Hype

SPEAKER_00 29:41

No doubt. Hey, a little something different too, and I didn't prep you for this. Sorry, it's not they're not trick questions to go in, but I how are you seeing AI show up in your space? And where do you see that going for not just Collins, but for the industry going forward?

SPEAKER_01 29:55

It's uh it's a tough one for me. We we get so many people saying, hey, we could do this for you, do that for you. It's just not specialized enough yet. And I see it as a roadblock uh to a certain extent. And I've tried to tried to explain this to a couple of people yesterday. You know, we're putting a really putting a lot of emphasis in developing a training plan for our front uh frontline leaders. And the topic of AI keeps coming up. And what's important to me is that we do what we think we need to do, and AI will follow. And so when we talk about, well, AI can do this for us, AI could do that for us, is and then my point is look, let's go two paths. One path is let's develop the curriculum and get that started, and let's experiment with AI. Let's not wait until AI is mature enough for us to move forward. And um, it's out there, it's in everything, it's already happening in our lives. But for us to put our arms around it and say, hey, we know what we're gonna do with AI, we don't. It's that it's it's really we still got to keep moving forward the way that we do, but then we along the way, when we find pieces that will help us uh become more efficient, great, we'll adopt them.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Yeah, I love that approach y'all are using. Is that what it's not gonna be that we're going to be the innovators in that space, but if there's a if there's something that'll help us get better on our journey and supports our strategic initiatives, then it's something we should consider absolutely because we don't want to keep our eyes closed to it. It's going to make us more successful at some point if if we use it to support our Hey, I want to ask

Music, Theater, And Life Outside Work

SPEAKER_00 31:20

you this a fun question too. What's your karaoke song? If you're gonna sing karaoke, what would you sing? You just had your porch fest this weekend. Did you get up on the microphone?

SPEAKER_01 31:28

No, I didn't. I became a uh observer and an enjoyer, not a performer. Nothing wrong with that. No, I don't know if I have a care a favorite karaoke song. I you know what, I'm not into titles and songs. I I really and I tell my wife this, I don't know the lyrics to anything. I don't. Um, I think some of my favorite I you know my in my genre, music's all over the place. I love Barry White stuff. You know, at a young age, my parents uh brought us to see uh Count Basie and his big band. I got the opportunity to do that before you know the big band Eero went away and got to see the spinners. My sister was a big Peter Frampton Earthman and Fire fan, so I can hear that through the wall. Uh and then Led Zeppelin, you know, um one of their last albums, All of My Love. Robert Plant belting that out. I wish I had the tune the the pipes to to sing that, and I just watched uh I just watched a um biography on or uh show on how the Led Zeppelin group came about and had such beautiful music and changed music during that time, and I didn't appreciate it then. But now that I'm starting to follow lyrics a little bit better, right before I go deaf, everything's on sub subtitles on my screens these days, but I don't have a favorite karaoke song.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

As as part of your community work, you are uh involved in the local theater there. And when we traveled, I remember we traveled to uh Texas, you found an opportunity for us to see uh um a Broadway show, how unique that was just to walk in and kind of see that uh both the architecture of that facility, which was in and of itself very cool, and I was very grateful for that opportunity, but also the show. How did your interest in uh theater come come around?

SPEAKER_01 33:07

I don't know. Just um a friend of a friend um brought me in, and um I was outclassed by the people, you know, there's a there's an element of people that are into the arts, and I I think it was kind of my outlet. I tell people when I come to work I'm in a box, and I've got to work within those confines, but that's kind of my outlet is is again exploring and seeing something different and really digging it and having the ability to help people build certain things, envision certain things. And I live in a small community of about maybe 250,000 people, and there's a really small downtown, so it makes it a little bit easier. But I see these people swirling that are artists, that are um, you know, and an artist is not just somebody that paints. Um, I had a guy that was an awesome woodworker. I mean, he couldn't run his business, but he was like the best woodworker I'd ever seen. And he told me about uh projects that he did in Berkeley when the Shah of Iran collapsed many years ago, and all these people were running from Persia and that whole area and bringing all their rugs that he said were 20 feet long by 40 feet long by 20 feet wide. And when he's doing woodwork in these houses, he had to take his shoes off and walk around it. So just from that end to people that just have natural talents. And to be around those type of people it was really kind of a unload, a kind of a yin and yang thing for being serious on one side and just having fun on the other. But then realizing that um that the next generation behind me is pretty thick and rich with those type of people that um just trying to help. I learned that I enjoyed it, appreciated it, and now I see that I can do good in that space too.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Alright. So no karaoke song. Very interested in theater, though. I get that. Absolutely. Favorite game for family night to embarrass your uh consulting friends and take their money away from them. Oh, it's liar's dice for sure. Look that one up, folks, liar's dice. I'd never heard that until I was introduced to the genie family. And uh somebody, somebody sent me a picture.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Somebody sent me a picture with this guy who looked like he just got off his Harley and he had black glasses on, his hat was backwards, and I found it on my phone. I said, Who's that? And that was John Gallagher taking a picture of me going head to head with him on Liar's Dice.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Yep, absolutely. Maybe we'll have to dig that one up, and that'll be the photo for our our work for this one, no

Final Takeaways And Listener Ask

SPEAKER_00 35:26

doubt about it. Hey Brian, I appreciate you investing the time. It was really good. I appreciate you as a leader and uh as a friend as well, in terms of what you're going through, both uh personally and your transformation and changing your organization, preparing it for the next generation. It's not easy. If they were easy, everybody would do it. That's why you end up on the Uncommon Leader podcast because those things take an immense amount of courage and faith to jump in on. You guys have been tremendous on the journey. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Well, thank you. My parting words are you gotta have fun in what you do. It's a great man, you gotta have fun. Keep that smile on your face. Absolutely. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Hey, like I said, uncommon leaders, get the chance to chat with someone who's right in the middle of the throes of personal organization transformation. It's impactful. That conversation with Brian Genie was one that I know you found value in if you've gotten this far in the episode. I want you to kind of bookmark this, but also I want you to go out there and give us a review, a five-star review of this episode. It helps us getting into the hands of more leaders. But even more than that, share this with somebody you know who needs to hear it. Love to hear from them, uh see what they're doing on their journey as well. Until next time, go and grow champions.