Guest: Ethan Chittick
Ethan Chittick on commercial carpentry, culture and a production-line site
Ethan Chittick is Director of Commercial Carpentry and co-founder of B&E Built. He left school in Year 11 and started at 21.
From this episode
- Ethan started young and built a serious Melbourne carpentry operation before 30.
- The best tradesperson is often a poor default choice for leadership.
Show notes
In Episode 10 of Behind the Facade, Jake from Proline Group and Daniel from Complex Facade Install sit down with Ethan Chittick, Director of Commercial Carpentry, for a raw and honest conversation about what it really takes to build a high performance construction business from the ground up.
This episode gets into the culture, mindset and daily discipline behind one of Melbourne's most respected commercial carpentry businesses. Ethan breaks down how he built a team that goes to war for the company, why the best installers don't always make the best leaders, and how a production line mentality on site is the difference between a job that hums and one that bleeds money.
We also get into the 4am club and why physical discipline is the foundation of business performance, how to get on the shortlist of the best tier one builders in the country, the right client right job mentality, why staying hungry matters more when you're on the way up than when you get there, and what it really means to build something that lasts beyond the next job.
If you work in construction, commercial carpentry, facades, cladding, project management, site management, subcontracting, trades, estimating, operations, or business ownership, this episode is a masterclass in what high performance actually looks like on the tools and in the boardroom.
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome Ethan Chittick, the 4am club and why morning training sets up everything that follows
07:04 What a high performance day actually looks like for the director of a commercial carpentry business
12:55 Calendar discipline, being militant with your time and how the best operators structure their weeks
20:15 How Commercial Carpentry built a culture where the team competes with each other to perform
28:40 Production line mentality on site, one touch efficiency and how to make a job hum
40:18 Doors are the bread and butter and why process beats raw talent every time
47:07 Why promoting your best installer into leadership is often the biggest mistake you can make
52:00 The two metrics that tell you whether a job was actually successful
58:30 Right client right job, how to know which builders and scopes are worth your time
01:07:05 Why the best builders are the hardest to get in with and how to prove you belong there
01:12:30 Construction is chess not checkers, knowing the other subbies on your job before you price it
01:20:10 Staying hungry on the rise and why getting things is more fun than having them
01:25:58 Boys in a van to $150M, gratitude, goals and what the journey actually looks like
ABOUT BEHIND THE FACADE
Behind the Facade is a construction podcast hosted by Jake Gorry, Director of Proline Group, and Daniel from Complex Facade Install Pty Ltd. The podcast goes behind the scenes of the facade, cladding, glazing and construction industry, sharing real conversations about business, leadership, site work, project delivery, culture and the people building the industry from the ground up.