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Transcript (Monday, January 24, 2022. Raw text, being translated.)
"Welcome my name is bradley waldrop in for those of you don't know. I've been at this civil engineering thing since 1989. I've had a chance to do more once-in-a-lifetime projects than probably i deserve. And. I really have this huge passion to be able to help others that are trying to grow in their career. Now let me sort of walk you back a little bit to tell you how i got here. And tell you a little bit more about what i think i'd like to be able to do for everyone who's listening. So in the year 2010. So you're busy remember i just said that my my career started in 1989 it took all the way to 2010 to have an epiphany in my career. But let me tell you a little bit about what happened. I was working with a firm down in southern california had been in the community for about 7 years or so i had been at a couple different firms move down there for projects or assignment after a project. And i was in in a responsible charge of an office and and i was helping with some regional work and i moved companies and i moved companies to a. And a regional engineering firm. That was doing both land development work and public works and there was a project that i was associated to which was offside improvements for local development. And it just so happened that the local development was being developed by a gentleman who i was sitting on a board of directors with. Was on a non-profit we were working together to develop a community resource for folks that. Didn't have the capability of baby staying at hospital and staying in a hotel while their loved one was in the hospital or they needed to be closer than a hotel would provide kind of like a ronald mcdonald but for anyone not just children. Anyway kurt and i were on a board of directors together and as we went through this process we were working on how to create this really amazing facility and on the side i was managing work. Foraker. To develop a roadway widening not very far from one of his projects and i was also working on some off-site improvements for a local mall. As i was doing that work we wrapped it up and we were we wrapped it up within budget we drafted up on schedule and we delivered the scope of the work. But we didn't deliver. The vision in the passion of the work. So i took her to breakfast and then i said kurt. I really really really feel bad. That i allowed you to make all kinds of decisions along the way that we didn't end up at the finish line the way i expected we would finish up. This is what are you talkin about we finished on budget and we finished on schedule and we're building projects and i said yeah i know but. If you go back and you think about what what it took to get here. And where you really wanted to be i would venture a guess that you and i. Can be slightly disappointed maybe even a lot disappointed that we didn't accomplish the really big stuff that we wanted to wear there were points in the design they were points in the product development where we took the path of least resistance and we did it for lots of different reasons but i'll bet there wasn't a single reason in there that we that we took the path of least resistance. 4. The right reasons we didn't specifically say hey look we know that this is a trade-off. We know we're not going to get the vision of the project we were really originally wanted. But we are going to finish the project we're going to finish it. On budget on schedule and we will develop we will deliver the scope even even though it may lack some of the panache and some of the excitement that we really wanted it to begin with. Any sizlack i'm comfortable i'm you and i were in this together and i said yeah i know i get that. But as a project manager i should be more of a project leader. And i should be helping you make the right decision so that you realize the vision of your own leadership in your own company right so as a developer he has a vision and he needs to be able to develop his of his vision through the projects that he's taking on. I just felt horrible. He said well. Okay i get it i appreciate what it is your time at will what what are going to do about it. And i told him i said you know i don't know exactly what i'm going to do about it i do know that i have stopped. Paying attention to the monitor and control management of our business and i really want to focus on leadership i want to understand the difference between leadership and management and i want to be able to help. My clients realize the vision of their project through project leadership rather than project management. And that's when it all changed for me. Now. I don't know what your face structure is. But it was also part of my own personal journey my own personal journey took me as a christian guy back home to start to ponder what's the difference between leadership and management rather than going to the bookstore and grabbing a whole bunch of management books and grabbing a whole bunch of leadership books and trying to compare the two i chose to do something different. I chose to dig into the bible and try to understand what god's plan for leadership was and what god's plan for management was what the roles responsibilities were in what does good biblical leadership look like i didn't really know and i spent the better part of two years trying to get through the bible and understand that i did go and buy a whole bunch of books and i did do all of this work and in the process god came to my wife not so many words it's time to move and so gone my wife came to me and said hey. I think god's trying to move us. To which i said i have no idea what that means. And i chose to go to work. 3 months later right i'm so i did i did what every good husband seems to do like solve the problem by going to work. Yeah i know. So three months later i finally heard what she had to say. And when i heard what she had to say she she. I came back to the back home and i said hello i appreciate that you said what you said three months ago and i think i finally i think i finally heard you. So. I would appreciate. That we do this you pray on it for months and i'm going to pray on it for a month but i don't want to talk about it for a month i want you and i to really try to understand what god would have for us in this next chapter. And in remember it in context time i'm sort of changing what's going on at work and i'm getting away from the monitoring control bit tarnished and leadership bit and this this is where this is where the story gets kind of crazy. After about a month i come together with my life and we say hey look you know what what's got tell you what's got tell me and i was afraid we were going to be headed up to northern california where her mother was my dear mother-in-law who was married to my father-in-law for 50 some-odd years my father-in-law i just passed away and i expected that we would be headed back up to northern california to help take care of her and instead in the conversation what i heard was no we should be moving to the east coast and which was a relief to me because i also believe that we should be moving to the east coast. And. As we as we talked a little bit about that we decided to send our kids up to northern california to hang out with grandma even though he were going to be moving up there and we told her we were going on a trip and we tried to figure out what to do next. But we ended up in north carolina figured out that that's where god wanted us we came back to north to southern california we asked my mother-in-law to come back down to southern california with our kids while she was there we decided to take her to a really nice restaurant so that maybe the blow of moving from california all the way to north carolina would be softened a bit due to the appetizers the really nice meal and potentially the desert but to our surprise she actually said. I think that's a great idea. And in fact if you guys don't mind i'll stay at your place just a little bit longer and i'll help you pack. So that was around christmas time by june of that year we always had already put our house up for sale we had gotten rid of everything that we could we took two pods in one car across the country. To do what we could to figure out what god wanted for us annie plants with us in the mountains of north carolina. Without a friend without a job without any family on an adventure in over the following three years. My life and my perspective on life and god's plan for me changed dramatically and he's now port sort of poured into me an understanding that i didn't have about who people are who his people are and what our jobs are all about. And in that process he's sort of like a it was a three-year cocoon there will be more stories of the three-year kumon along the way but as i came out of that cocoon i had a better appreciation for the work that we do the people we work with and. A way forward so that we're not trapped in the the lie of a better management and were control yields to better projects and and a better results for our clients. It has much more to do with relationships it has much more to do with leadership it has much more to do with making good on your promises and valuing the people and their ideas along the way. No. All that to say. I'm in a completely different place than i was when i was managing the operations for about 12 to 15 million dollars worth of public works services in southern california i've had a chance to manage and help grow areas of public works services in california and i've had a lot go on in my own career what i continue to find is fascinating for me is that people continue to come to my door ask for my advice about what i would do in certain situations most of which have nothing to do with engineering and have to do with people and i decided. I will be a really great idea for me to try to help as many as i could rather than the line being outside my door how how could i help so there are ways that that i have sort of hatched in my own brain about how i'm going to help and one of those is this podcast. I'm going to do everything i can to drop a podcast hopefully daily except for sundays for all the right reasons maybe even just monday through friday because my saturdays are committed as well but maybe maybe not committed the same way but committed to family time committed to the chores that i still need to do around the officers around around the home and decompressing a bit from the monday through friday work that exists in my life not because someone is holding a gun to my head but because that's the environment i put myself in i'm an overachiever i like to have lots going on and as i have lots going on the pressure builds up monday through friday and sometimes i have to find a way for it to just be relieved a bit. So. As you're listening to this i would love for you to hit. Hit me up in an email and send send questions comments concerns if you have hate mail that's fine to go ahead and send it send it to bradley at waldrop communications.com it's waldrop communications.com and i will do what i can to read every message and try to understand how other you know how i can help you in your journey in your own professional career my hope and my joy in all of this would be for you to realize that your advancement in your career is not directly related to time and grade like some companies would would have you believe it's not directly related to you having to make all of the mistakes on your own does not directly related to the education that you had in school in fact most of the stuff that i and we'll end up talking about in stories i share will have nothing to do with school it will have everything to do with the stuff that they didn't teach us in school and the lessons i had to learn the hard way. I would love it if you would hit hit me up with an email bradley at wild communications.com and let me know what you're struggling within your own career and i'll do what i can to answer those questions whether it's with you on the on the show or if it's if it's me just simply reading to you or or me providing an answer to your question that could help others. With all of that i hope that you have a wonderful day and you have an opportunity. To change the trajectory of your career very very quickly and i am excited to be able to see you do that alright take care."
