The Foreman’s Posture

For years, I worked in construction, particularly as a roofing foreman. 

At the time, I wasn't thinking about that work as philosophy.

I was thinking about schedules, materials, crews, specifications, weather, deadlines, details, and the thousand other things that have to come together before a roof actually becomes a roof.

But as my K.I.N./G-M.A.P. has continued taking shape, I have begun recognizing something familiar in the process.

There is a particular posture a foreman has to develop.

It is not the posture of someone who controls everything.

It is not the posture of someone who knows everything.

And it certainly is not the posture of someone who can simply insist that reality conform to the plan.

It is the posture of someone responsible for looking at what is actually here, understanding what matters, recognizing what has changed, and determining the next responsible move.

Increasingly, I think that same posture matters far beyond a construction site.

The Plans Were Made Before You Got There

A foreman enters a project already in motion.

Plans have been drawn.

Materials have been ordered.

Schedules have been established.

Manufacturers have specifications.

Architects, engineers, project managers, superintendents, subcontractors, suppliers, and workers all have different responsibilities.

The foreman does not arrive at an empty site and invent everything from the beginning.

Neither do we.

By the time we become capable of seriously examining our own lives, a tremendous amount has already happened.

We have families.

Histories.

Cultures.

Bodies.

Relationships.

Beliefs.

Expectations.

Successes and failures.

Things we were taught explicitly and things we learned without anyone ever saying them aloud.

We inherit conditions we did not choose.

And then, eventually, we find ourselves standing in the middle of them.

That does not mean we are powerless.

But it does mean that orientation has to begin with something more useful than pretending we started from nothing.

We have to look at the site.

Eventually, the Drawing Meets the Roof

Construction taught me that plans matter.

Standards matter.

Specifications matter.

Experience matters.

But eventually, every representation encounters reality.

The wall isn't exactly where the drawing said it would be.

The material hasn't arrived.

Weather changes.

A detail cannot be installed as designed.

Something that looked perfectly reasonable on paper doesn't fit what is actually in front of you.

At that point, arguing endlessly about what should be there does not install the roof.

You have to orient.

What is actually here?

What was supposed to be here?

Where is the discrepancy?

What can I change?

What requires someone else's decision?

What resources do we have?

What is carrying load?

What has to happen first?

What happens downstream if I make this decision now?

And then, perhaps most importantly:

What is the next responsible move?

Those are construction questions.

But they are also remarkably useful human questions.

Orientation Begins With What Is Actually Here

There is a temptation, when reality does not match our expectations, to spend enormous amounts of energy arguing with the discrepancy.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

They weren't supposed to respond that way.

I should be further along.

This relationship should be different.

My body should be able to do this.

My career was supposed to go there.

I thought I understood this.

The plan may have been reasonable.

The expectation may even have been justified.

But orientation cannot begin only with what was supposed to happen.

It also has to account for what did happen.

That distinction does not require us to approve of reality.

It requires us to see it.

A foreman does not have to like the fact that material didn't arrive.

But if the material isn't there, the day's decisions have to include that fact.

Seeing clearly is not surrender.

It is the beginning of responsible action.

Not Everything on the Site Is Yours to Control

One of the most important things a foreman learns is the difference between responsibility and control.

Those are not the same thing.

A foreman may be responsible for moving a project forward without controlling the weather.

He may be responsible for coordinating work without manufacturing the materials.

He may recognize a problem that requires an engineer, superintendent, manufacturer, or project manager to make the final decision.

Being responsible does not mean doing everything yourself.

It means knowing what belongs to you.

That distinction has become increasingly important to the way I think about orientation.

What can I influence?

What can I change?

What belongs to Another's Reality?

What requires patience?

What requires action?

What is simply outside my control?

When those categories collapse into one another, we can either take responsibility for things that were never ours to control or surrender responsibility for things that actually were ours to address.

Neither produces good orientation.

What Is Carrying Load?

Construction also trains you to think structurally.

Not every piece of a building is doing the same job.

Some things are decorative.

Some divide space.

Some protect against weather.

Some transfer force.

Some are carrying load.

And when something is carrying load, changing it without understanding its function can create consequences somewhere else.

Our internal maps can work that way too.

A belief may appear to be a single idea while actually supporting an entire collection of assumptions.

A habit may have developed as a response to circumstances that no longer exist.

A coping strategy that once protected us may now limit us.

A relationship may be carrying emotional or practical weight we have never consciously examined.

Before removing something, changing something, or declaring something wrong, it can be useful to ask:

What is this doing?

What is it supporting?

What happens elsewhere if it moves?

That doesn't mean nothing should change.

It means change becomes more intelligent when we understand the structure we are changing.

Sequence Matters

On a construction site, two tasks can both be necessary and still have to happen in a particular order.

You cannot install everything at once.

Some things depend on other things being completed first.

A roof and a foundation are both important, but their importance does not make their sequence interchangeable.

Human change contains sequence too.

Sometimes we know exactly what needs to change but have not yet developed the capacity required to change it consistently.

Sometimes information has to come before action.

Sometimes stability has to come before exploration.

Sometimes we need enough Space to observe something before we can respond to it differently.

And sometimes the responsible move is not the final solution.

It is simply the next move that makes the move after it possible.

That is a very different way of approaching a problem.

Instead of demanding:

How do I fix all of this?

We can ask:

What has to happen next?

Plans Need the Ability to Be Corrected

There is another lesson construction makes difficult to avoid.

A drawing is a representation.

It is not the building.

No matter how carefully something was designed, reality eventually gets a vote.

The membrane welds or it doesn't.

The fastener holds or it doesn't.

The water drains or it doesn't.

The detail survives or it fails.

Our internal maps need ways of encountering correction too.

If nothing could ever cause me to reconsider something I believe, then I am no longer using a map to investigate reality.

I am using reality to defend the map.

That is a dangerous reversal.

A useful map has to be stable enough to orient us while remaining correctable enough to learn from what we encounter.

That requires questions.

How do I know what I think I know?

What evidence am I using?

What would be capable of correcting me?

What happens when Another's Reality contradicts my interpretation?

What haven't I considered?

At what Scale is this true?

What happens over Time?

What does consequence reveal?

Those questions do not weaken a map.

They are part of how a map earns trust.

Guiding Responsibly Within Conditions You Did Not Completely Choose

This is what I increasingly mean by the Foreman's Posture.

It is not controlling everything.

It is not knowing everything.

It is not doing everything yourself.

It is guiding responsibly within conditions you did not completely choose.

You look at the plans.

You look at the site.

You notice the discrepancy.

You identify what is carrying load.

You determine what belongs to you and what requires someone else.

You consider sequence and downstream consequences.

And then you make the best responsible move available from where you actually stand.

Not from the site you wish you had.

Not from the plan you thought would unfold perfectly.

From here.

What Is the Next Responsible Move?

That question has become increasingly important to me as my K.I.N./G-M.A.P. develops.

Not:

How do I control everything?

Not:

How do I make reality conform to my expectations?

Not even:

How do I know with absolute certainty that I'm right?

But:

Given what I can see from where I am standing, what is the next responsible move?

Sometimes that move will change the structure.

Sometimes it will change the plan.

Sometimes it will require more information.

Sometimes it will require Another's perspective.

Sometimes the answer will simply be:

I don't know yet.

That, too, can be orientation.

Because the purpose of a map is not to guarantee that we will never encounter something unexpected.

The purpose is to help us recognize where we are when we do.

And perhaps that is one of the things construction taught me long before I had language for it:

You don't have to control the entire project to orient responsibly within it.

You need to see what is actually there.

Understand what you can.

Respect what you cannot yet know.

And determine the next responsible move.