Conquering Career Transitions
This week, Tim and Carolina discuss how they have transitioned into new jobs and roles over their career and how they navigated through those challenging times.
More About the Show
The Build Perspectives podcast shares insider knowledge to build connections and community in the building materials industry. Tim and Carolina are friends, colleagues and former coworkers who love the construction industry and their clients, and want to share their passion and insights to attract future talent to the industry.
In this episode, Tim and Carolina talk about how recent transitions have impacted them and how they dealt with the challenges thrown their way, along with advice to those facing a job transition in their career.
Tim’s Career Transition
Tim just made a huge career move, and is now working at John Burns. He recalls a movie quote that said: “Time is a construct.” He says that when you make a career move in this time space with a type of distortion, a couple of weeks can feel like forever. A lot of people are feeling similar to Tim, just generally in life, in that sometimes time feels like it’s really stretched out and parallel to that, it seems very compressed. Sometimes it feels like things take forever and then other things move very quickly.
Tim joining John Burns Real Estate Consulting, which he will dive deeper into later, happened very quickly, but it seems like it’s been going on a long time for a host of reasons. From when he started in the middle of November until now, December 10, 2020, it just feels like he’s been there for years and other times he still feels a novice in some ways. Some of that has to do with slight culture change and stuff like that. It’s been really interesting for Tim.
This is Tim’s fourth career reinvention within the same industry, which makes him very qualified to be a host of this podcast. At Nichiha, he started the hospitality sales division years ago. He’s no stranger to sales. Then, he transitioned into a more analytical marketing role with thought leadership and has been very involved socially with key players in the industry.
Now, he’s made this natural transition to John Burns. It merges all of his passions, experiences and interests into one job. That’s pretty cool. Carolina would like to check back in on Tim in six months to see how he is doing. She has been through transitions herself, and they are not always easy.
Tim’s family was at odds in a lot of ways, especially in his teenage years. However, his mom and dad have a real sticktoitiveness and have creative solutions. They had six kids and low income and a positive attitude to boot. Those things really served him well. He reminds them of that all the time and that helps them feel better about all the time they invested in him.
He started out washing equipment at a heavy construction equipment rental company when he was 13. (The labor laws were a little different then.) He went to her work on Hurricane Iniki and fell in love with construction, became a carpenter, eventually became a home builder and remodeler.
He started to get tired of that and got hurt a couple of times. He had this opportunity to go to a company called Bellingham Session Door in Bellingham, where Tim grew up. It became Builders Alliance, and then Kodiak bought them last year. He learned sales from his mentor there, Bob Schultz, who’s passed away. He really taught Tim a lot about the building industry. He also learned a lot from Bill Lee, Pro Sales Magazines and Western Building Materials Association.
Seizing Opportunities
He was always hungering for knowledge. He moved in through sales, worked at a couple of lumber suppliers and then went to work for a company called James Hardy. He worked there for several years, which is like an MBA, especially with his boss, Gary Faucet. He had another boss that he learned a lot from at BB Lumbard, Sam Crawford, who now runs a company called West Side Lumber in Billingham.
He learned from these people along the way to think more strategically and less about the transaction and the project right in front of him and, instead, to think in a broader scope outside Bellingham, Washington. Those relationships led to a job at Nichiha where he started the hospitality division.
He saw both Modular and Modern Home as opportunities, which is largely what Nichiha did in Japan. Those were made successful in the United States. He really pushed himself, and he never thought it wasn’t possible. He owes that to his parents and people in his life, like Carolina, that opened ideas and horizons.
He also never worried about losing his job. That was one of the biggest things his dad taught him: “Every time you move a job, you learn something new. Don’t worry about ever getting fired or anything like that. Just keep to what you know is the thing to do, stick to that and trust.”
A lot of people live in fear of that, and it’s not unfounded. If you have a family, if you have kids to support, if you have a wife at home or whatever your home situation is, there’s a fear of losing your job.
For most people, it’s natural to feel afraid to speak out, to bring your full self to a job position or even share ideas. It’s no small thing. Carolina loves the advice Tim is giving and how people shouldn’t be afraid.
One person who Carolina looked up to at Nichiha was Bruno Dumais. He was the plant manager for a while there, and he just called it like he saw it. She wanted to be like him and not be afraid of getting fired. He was being completely 100% authentic to his role. If a company doesn’t appreciate that, then maybe people need to look elsewhere.
In the old days, it’d be looked down on to have more than one job. Within 10 years, that’s changed. Tim didn’t really care about having more than one job. Oftentimes, people would ask him for a resume, but he doesn’t really do resumes. He thinks his reputation should stand on its own. Of course, LinkedIn helps a lot with that now.
What happens is it’s liberating if you’re not worried about it. Of course you don’t want to do stupid stuff or illegal things that can get you fired, but when it comes to how you think, people should embrace that.
Learning Different Perspectives
That’s what this podcast is about: perspectives. People can learn a little bit from everybody. When thinking about what’s the same and different about careers, the thinking doesn’t really change in terms of how someone’s mind and heart operate, but maybe the view or optics change because more information is being taken in.
You don’t want to be at a company where they’re trying to change your thinking in the way you operate because that’s usually the reason why they hired you. Tim embraces that and continues doing what he thinks is right to do every day for customers, the company and for the industry. If people can do that, then that theme can carry through a career.
When Tim makes jumps in improvements, there are people that opened up his eyes, like Gary Faucet, Sam Crawford, Carolina, Bob Schultz, Jim Weesty, Michael Cobb – people that helped him see what was possible and being okay with trying something new even though they knew there was a chance it would fail. When someone is in that environment, it opens up tons of opportunities
Tim used to joke at Nichiha he wasn’t worrying about getting fired. People took that as he was job secure because of the people he knew. What he really meant was that if he got fired, it was fine. He was sticking to what he believed was right for the company, for the customers and for the industry. That really guided him.
Over time, he’s started to think more macro about things. That bigger thinking has opened up tons of opportunities to meet new people, like Todd and John and John Burns and Steve Bastin. That way of thinking has pushed him in the last couple of weeks to even broaden those boundaries more in terms of how he thinks of the world. As far as making those connections, that hasn’t changed.
What’s different is he’s now thinking even bigger than he used to think. There is a saying, “Love, throws fear outside.” People who wouldn’t want someone like this on their team is someone who operates in a position of fear, or people that are worried about channel conflict or are conservative with no entrepreneurial bone in their body.
What Tim loves about John Burns Real Estate Consulting is that the whole team is very entrepreneurial. That helps to be able to move projects and initiatives forward not only for our company but also for the customers. Tim is getting to do a lot of what he was doing for Nichiha, and in a smaller part at James Hardy and other consulting jobs he’s had over the years, but now he is doing it on a broader scale, which is testing his synopsis. He really loves that dynamic.
Carolina’s Career Transition
Carolina also loves testing those connections, sometimes to a fault. Her transition to her new role was a bit more drastic than Tim’s, which was more natural and organic. He changed his role inside Nichiha then transitioned to something even better and more suited at John Burns.
Carolina went from being head of technical and being a troubleshooter, doing testing, developing products, to selling, evaluating projects, problem solving with architects, being at job sites, mediating disputes between GCs and installers and architect and manufacturer. She went from there to sales, which was totally different, but she does it.
She is in a much better place now. She loves what she does and has so much more freedom than she did before, though she can’t pretend that her ego didn’t take a hit because it was hard. She was managing two different departments who were managed with supervisors who were managing people under them. It’s a big shift in thinking now, but she is happy to not be managing anymore.
She got a text earlier in the week from one of the people she used to work with, who said, “I wish you were still my boss.” She thought that was really nice because it has been a few years. That was really rewarding, but at the same time, she knew she didn’t want to do that anymore.
Carolina knows she is smart and has her degree from Georgia Tech, and there is respect that comes with that. However, she wasn’t feeling in alignment with herself. She wanted to be out there talking to people and wanted that freedom. She wanted to be in sales.
Michael Cobb made a comment to her many years ago that she’s never forgotten. He told her, “You’re a unicorn because you are smart and can talk to people. You aren’t the typical engineer.” She didn’t really fit into engineering school either, so it was hard to find where she belonged. Her heart was saying one thing, and she didn’t ignore that.
She made the switch and took a huge pay cut to be a tile rep, and she can’t pretend that it doesn’t hit her sometimes. It was a great transition for her, and she is happy 99% of the time. There are times when she says, “Oh, I’m a tile rep,” but there is nothing wrong with that because she is happy.
Tim didn’t even really want a title at John Burns or Nichiha. He wanted some kind of career anonymity there, and there’s more of an acceptance of that these days. He hates titles. In a lot of companies, a territory manager is just a claims adjuster. A sales rep does so much more. They have to know so much about their market.
Building Connections
Having those connections from the past and those roles help, and what it comes down to really is empathy. It helps individuals connect with the right people to make these decisions. Tim says that Carolina has credibility because of how she talks. She has polish, professionalism and an education. Those things exude from the right people.
Other people have commission breath, but they don’t have the polish. They don’t look for a deeper understanding. Tim was thinking of that when he was comparing competitors of John Burns. He was thinking, “ None of these people have building products experience really outside our company. How can they possibly empathize and connect with what survey, respondents or people in the field?” Unless they’ve been in those positions and have those conversations, they don’t have a good idea of how those conversations go.
It’s really important to have empathy in this business. If it’s coming from a place of experience and not just knowledge, then it’s even that much more powerful. To Tim, that’s why Carolina stands out and why she’s been crushing her budget because those relationships are built on something a little stronger than a transaction.
It’s hard to transition, but Carolina and Tim are here to encourage taking the leap, to be fearless and to walk through the fear. Follow your heart because you only live once and life is too short for you to be in a job or in something that you don’t feel like you’re well-suited for, even though you’re successful. Carolina was successful, but wasn’t happy on the inside. Listen to that voice and, and don’t be afraid to get fired. Be who you are because the world needs exactly that.
People that worked with Gary will know what Tim is saying, when he would lower his glasses and say, ”Are you trying to get fired? I will fire you.” Some people would be crushed by that, but for some reason, it was very motivating for Tim. It’s okay to fail, and companies should be okay with that and embrace ideas that come from employees. The teammates that maybe have responsibility but no authority have really good ideas, but end up getting crushed because of that. Give the players more responsibility and listen to their ideas.
Get to Know Your Team
If you want to pitch your ideas, learn how the people you’re pitching them to communicate, just like you do with customers. Tell them what needs to happen and how they can get there. Hopefully, you’ll see a type of connection.
In order for you to know who you have in your team, you have to take the time to get to know your people. You never know what diamonds are hiding in your team already, and what knowledge you’re leaving on the table or what talents you’re leaving undeveloped because you haven’t taken the time to get to know who you really have on your staff. You don’t know how much greater things can be when you utilize somebody’s full potential. Their job satisfaction skyrockets, and then they never leave. It’s worth the time.
Carolina highly recommends anybody in leadership or management to take the time to get to know the people who report to you, who work with you, even in other departments because you just never know. You never know what you have and how you are going to maximize your team. One of her five strengths in the StrengthsFinder is the Maximizer.
Tim also advises people to try to understand what the people in your organization are up against every day. If people are going to have empathy for customers, they need to have empathy for the people in their organization.
One thing he loves about John and Todd, people at J Breck, and Jim, Kenny and Emily at Nichiha is how they were open to those things. Trying out new ideas and being okay with them failing or learning how to pivot to make them successful allows for growth. From a career standpoint, Carolina and Tim have both been able to act on that. That comes from being able to evaluate and being able to self-assess while being honest.
Join the Conversation
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this week’s episode! Shoot us an email at buildperspectives@gmail.com.