Learning from Those Who Know

The following is a blog entry I wrote in response to a post made on my company's internal web forum. Our global Sustainability Executive depicted how she has seen blatant resistance to positive change in certain areas. The company I work for is an international Real Estate Investment, Development and Construction Management company. Below is my response to the post:

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I will make an attempt to be as specific and direct as possible. I beleive one of the greatest barriers for those of us in environmental sustainability-promoting roles is the fact that we ourselves are too broad with our ideas. Like Amber mentioned, those of us in Construction Management have the amazing opportunity to look at things on a minute scale. We see how the elements physically go together and more importantly, we work with, and have personal relations with the very people who perform the physical labor responsible for our tremendous buildings rising from the ground. Yes, we must utilize the resources of fellow coworkers in other cities, but more importantly we need to utilize the resources that are right in front of us. 

I have an amazing labor foreman. I hear from others that he is one of the best, but I only know from personal experience. I constantly ask him, "Jimmy, how does this work?", "Why do we do this that way", or more frequently, "What the heck am I looking at right now?!?" I have come to realize that he is my biggest ally when it comes to positive change. He's KNOWS how to set up a loading dock and where to put waste containers because he'd DONE it before, many, many times. He is the guy to talk to when it comes to figuring out if it will ever be possible for NYC to embrace source separation of waste rather than comingling. It's the Teamsters that will be able to figure out how to get the drivers to stop idling. It's the Tin-knockers who will be able to figure out the best ways to keep ducts stored so the wrap doesn't get damaged or removed prematurely. The list goes on. We need to make relationships and friends out of these people, not only because they deserve as much respect as any Project Manager or Super or Exec or PIC, but because it's THEM who will be the key players in making a serious and meaningful change. 

I credit my generation in the enthusiasm many of us share, but I blame us in not utilizing the greatest allies we have: the construction workers themselves. Many have been building buildings longer than I have been alive. If I myself fail to embrace the wealth of experience that I have available to me through these workers, than I have failed miserably in doing the best possible job of promoting positive change.