A Building Crew Can Teach You How Teams Get Work Done

One of the jobs John McGloughlin remembered most positively had nothing to do with cybersecurity. He worked on a crew framing houses.

In his Fireside Chat conversation, he described learning from the way that crew organized its work. The person leading it had a strong approach to systems and getting things done. McGloughlin paid attention to the coordination and motivation required to achieve a shared objective, including in difficult weather.

He later connected that experience with entering a project-coordination role in technology. Although the formal language was unfamiliar, working with construction teams had given him something relevant to draw on.

Separate the setting from the underlying skill

The tools and output of a building crew differ from those of a security team. Some of the questions about working together remain recognizable: how tasks fit, how people stay motivated and how individual effort contributes to a shared result.

McGloughlin's story offers an editorial reason to examine earlier experience carefully. A job outside technology can contain useful evidence of coordination, reliability or an ability to learn how a team operates. Those skills do not disappear when the industry changes.

The connection still needs to be explained. A previous role does not automatically establish competence in a new technical discipline. It can provide a foundation on which the new knowledge is built.

In McGloughlin's account, the building site was more than a line on an old résumé. It was a place where he learned to observe the system around the work. That habit remained useful when the work itself changed.

Listen to the original conversation with John McGloughlin · Read the transcript

From the Fireside Chat archive: original episode published 2022-09-28. This is an editorial reflection on that conversation, not a new interview or an update on the guest’s current role.