Books
AEC Leaders Share Construction ‘Secrets’ in New Anthology
“Secrets of the Construction Industry,” released earlier this year, includes more than 30 narrative entries from industry professionals on lessons learned and how to prepare the next generation of leaders
Author Elinor Moshe
In Secrets of the Construction Industry: The Most Important Industry Principles, industry leadership coach Elinor Moshe distills wisdom and narrative insights from more than 30 AEC professionals to create what she calls a “timeless” toolbox for the next generation.
“There is so much that needs to be said,” says Moshe, who is an architecture-trained construction thought-leader and mentor based in Sydney, Australia. “Creating a platform, a vehicle, which will outlast all of us in a form of a book was how it started.”
The anthology includes entries on a range of topics in the construction ecosystem—including design and architecture, professionalism, career advancement and jobsite challenges—contributed by construction managers, homebuilders, CEOs and entrepreneurs. Moshe explains that they were all posed the same question: What is the one thing you would tell someone getting into the construction industry?
“There is that part of the industry that has earned its battle scars, and wisdom does only come from experience,” says Moshe. “If I have an hour with you, I can tell you 50 things. But if I have such a short period of time with you, I need to give you something that is of so much substance and value it will force you to slow down and think and introspect. That's really what I wanted to bring into the industry.”
Moshe spoke with ENR about how compiling the book’s personal and professional insights created a microcosm of industry voices.
ENR: The book includes personal and professional insights from contributors. What direction were they given in crafting their responses?
The parameters I had were very loose. It had to be a response that was timeless and evergreen. I need to be able to pick the book up in 20 years, and it needs to be just as relevant. There are some topics that will expire or have been done so much that it’s not fresh anymore. We’ve heard it before. Other than that, it was creative rain. I didn’t tell people, you can do technical or personal [or] professional, yet all started weaving a common fabric between them.
Was there any thought given to the social demographics of the book—how many women v. men, age, ethnicity, etc.?
For me, it was about character and competency and people demonstrating themselves over a long period of time. I’ve been in the industry for quite some time, so you see people over a long period of time. That was most important. The package that they came in was irrelevant because none of the people here have used that—whether it’s their gender or their background, to get where they are. People have truly earned their own stripes in their own way, and that was really important.
There is so much dialogue going on in the construction business about preparing the next generation, and a huge knowledge gap. How do you think this book will serve to prepare the next generation?
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You’re absolutely right. There’s a chasm, and it’s a growing chasm as well because the people going out and coming in are of a very different paradigm. They’re cut from a different fabric. They want different things. They value different things. And that was also one of the drivers [of the book] because there are great people in the industry doing wonderful things that are not necessarily on the way out in the next decade. But how do we find them? If someone’s reading a chapter in the book, their network can start to open up. It starts to create this level of connectivity or awareness of people who are practicing at fantastic standards, what they stand for, the work that they do, and where that can lead in terms of mentoring or coaching or collaborations. Whatever that looks like is part of what this book offers. It’s the starting of the conversation between these people in the industry and people who are seeking.
Think of it like a toolkit. You don't always need to use a hammer. You don't always need to use the saw, sometimes you need to use the leveler. So what tools can you pick up based on where you are at the moment? And that's what also makes it evergreen. There's so many different things that are so timeless, that regardless of where you're facing at the moment and how you're trying to orient yourself, then it is up to you to decide.
This is a question that we ask a lot of our firms on our Top 400 and Top 500 lists. What do you think is the most pressing challenge facing the construction industry right now?
I look at any industry is also a microcosm of what's happening in our collective. You could go on and on with the challenges the most pressing, there's so many structural issues within it, but the structure won't change. It has to be that way, like you can't ask a MNC to change its culture. Individuals need to come back into themselves, deeper and deeper and deeper into themselves. If they want to see any structural changes.
We can all sit here and advocate for things outside of ourselves to change, but that's not how the energy works. So if someone wants to experience more richness, more opportunities, more anything, whether that's in their career or their life, the only place they can look is deep within themselves, and how that is supported, or how that narrative is woven into the industry, it's getting people to do that inner work within themselves, but people don't want to do that because no one's paying you for it. No one's going to give you a promotion for it. But if each individual took radical responsibility for where they're at and what they want the industry would be, it would be unrecognizable in 60 days.
Secrets of the Construction Industry: The Most Important Industry Principles Revealed is available on Amazon.
