Free! Permission to Challenge: Creating Crews That Speak Up When It Matters
The session connects psychological safety directly to decision-making, safety, quality, rework, accountability and project performance
Description
Construction depends on people being willing to say what others may not want to hear. A worker sees a problem with the plan. A superintendent makes a decision that someone believes creates risk. A crew member notices a mistake but isn't sure whether to raise it. Someone disagrees with the most experienced person in the room.
The challenge isn't simply creating a workplace where people can speak up - it's building the skills and leadership culture that help people challenge, disagree and deliver difficult messages constructively when the stakes are high.
This practical one-hour session moves beyond the fundamentals of psychological safety and explores what happens in the moments when speaking up is hardest. Participants will examine why people stay silent, how hierarchy and pressure influence behaviour, how leaders unintentionally shut down dissent, and how workers and supervisors can disagree without creating unnecessary conflict.
The session connects psychological safety directly to decision-making, safety, quality, rework, accountability and project performance and provides practical tools for creating crews where respectful challenge is viewed as an asset rather than insubordination.
Key Objectives
Participants will:
- Recognize the moments when silence becomes a project risk - and understand why capable, experienced people sometimes choose not to challenge a decision, raise a concern or admit a mistake.
- Understand how hierarchy, personality, time pressure and leadership behaviour influence whether people speak up, particularly when challenging someone with greater authority or experience.
- Learn how to challenge decisions constructively using practical language and communication techniques that allow people to disagree, question assumptions and raise concerns without unnecessarily escalating conflict.
- Develop leadership behaviours that invite challenge rather than punish it, including how supervisors respond when someone questions them, brings bad news, admits an error or offers a different point of view.
Delivery Methods: Virtual with Zoom Meetings or In-Person/Classroom private delivery available.
Course Fee Includes: Access to the course, course materials, and a digital certificate upon completion.
This course is delivered in partnership with local and provincial construction associations across Canada. You may be participating with a group of industry peers from multiple regions.
Sharing a single registration between two or more individuals is not permitted. Please register each person that will be in attendance.
Facilitator Bio
Paul Pelletier is a workplace culture expert, conflict management specialist, and former corporate lawyer who now works with organizations across Canada to help leaders address difficult behaviour, manage conflict, and build respectful high‑performance workplaces. See Paul’s website.
Paul has more than 30 years of experience dealing with high‑stakes conflict, investigations, and leadership challenges. He previously served as Chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Program for the Attorney General of British Columbia and is the recipient of the Premier’s Award for Outstanding Contribution.
Through his consulting practice, Paul works extensively with leaders in the construction and infrastructure sectors, helping superintendents, project managers, safety leaders, and executives navigate difficult conversations, resolve conflict between teams and trades, and strengthen workplace culture on projects. He is a certified TKI Assessment trainer, a PMP and CPS (certified professional speaker) represented by the National Speakers Bureau.
Paul is also the author of The Workplace Bullying Handbook and a sought‑after international speaker who has delivered more than 500 presentations and workshops around the world on leadership, conflict management, workplace respect, and organizational culture.