When Phil Barrett announced he was retiring from Metricon, he did it 15 months early.

Not because he wanted fanfare, but because he wanted certainty for the people coming after him.

“I made that announcement some 15 months before… we had time to develop, you know, appoint new managers,” Barrett told The Good Builder Podcast.

Three months into retirement, the former senior leader is still adjusting to a slower pace on Victoria’s west coast. He still catches himself thinking like a builder executive.

“I do every Sunday night think about, wonder how the sales went this week… I wonder what the profit result was, but I’m getting over that.”

It is a small insight into how long-term responsibility sits with leaders who have spent decades carrying operational pressure, protecting staff stability, and building teams that can outlast them.

Barrett’s career covers more than 40 years in Australian housing. He spent 20 years at AV Jennings before joining Metricon in 2000, at a time when the brand was far smaller than it would become.

“When I joined Metricon in 2000 they were building 350 homes a year… and one year we hit seven and half thousand site starts,” he said.

In regional Victoria, where Barrett led growth for decades, the operation was on track to reach a milestone that would have sounded impossible when he started.

“My business, the regional business, we built… we were just about to hit 15,000 site starts when I left.”

But Barrett is quick to push attention away from his own resume and onto the machine behind it.

“What we achieved in regional Victoria was 100 per cent a team effort… I might have had the conducting sticks most of the time, but it was a team effort.”

The first lesson: never be irreplaceable

Barrett’s view on succession planning was shaped early, and sharply.

When he was in his mid-20s at Jennings, he tried to move out of accounting into sales management. The state manager blocked the transfer for one reason.

“He said, ‘No, I’m not letting you go.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ And he said, ‘Well, you’ve got no one to replace you.’”

It was a moment that changed how he thought about leadership.

“That was a big lesson for me… I then decided, well, I’ll need to get somebody on board that gives me an opportunity to move on.”

From then on, Barrett says he actively recruited people who were better than him.

“I’ve employed or recruited people that in many cases were better sales managers or building managers than me… that was the way we built the team.”

In his view, building leaders is not a “nice to have”. It is basic business hygiene.

“Succession planning is a big thing at Metricon… if you’ve got good people, they want to know where they’re going.”

Multi-skilling, not just promotion

A big part of keeping people for the long haul, especially in regional markets, was creating development pathways even when formal promotions were limited.

“We had to multi-skill people… if you gave them the opportunity to multi-skill themselves in different roles, that gave them job satisfaction.”

It also created practical resilience inside the business.

“If you’ve got some small teams, people go on annual leave, they can step into other roles.”

That focus on capability building became a quiet advantage: better coverage, stronger internal knowledge, and a deeper bench when leadership roles opened up.

Trust is a growth strategy in regional Australia

Scaling a major builder brand into regional Victoria did not happen through marketing alone. It required trust building with the people who actually make housing possible: developers, agents, suppliers and trades.

“It was a slow process of building trust… we obviously had to build trust with, you know, developers, agents, banks and brokers and suppliers and the trades.”

Barrett said some trades followed him across decades, which became an anchor for expansion.

“I had some trades… that I’d known for 35 plus years.”

Operationally, his regional model started small: three-person teams where everyone knew each customer story.

“We just started them off… with three people… and the beauty of that was that every new customer that came in the door, the other two people knew all about it.”

He described it as a caring system, not just a process.

“It was a very caring process… to continue that with the larger teams as they grew was a big focus.”

COVID and the HomeBuilder boom: when leaders had to say no

Barrett’s comments on the COVID period will land with many builders still carrying scars from that era.

“I speak to a few small builders and they’re still a bit shy from what happened during COVID… and rightfully so.”

He believes the industry overall “overtraded” during the boom that followed, chasing demand beyond the capacity of trades and supply chains.

“The building industry as a whole tended to overtrade because we found out that there weren’t enough trades and there weren’t enough supply capabilities.”

In regional Victoria, Barrett said his team tried to limit volume even when the market encouraged the opposite.

“We tended to have our cut off a bit earlier… because we just didn’t want to overtrade.”

For Barrett, this is not a moral position. It is risk management.

“If you overtrade on what your capital is gonna give you, if you overtrade on what the number of quality trades are available… you’re on the hide to nothing because you can lose money very quickly.”

And the damage is not only financial.

“The customer angst that that causes is huge.”

How do you lead 370 people?

At the peak, Barrett says the regional business employed around 370 staff, not including subcontractors.

“At one stage, I think the team got to about 370…”

His answer on how you lead at that scale is simple, and revealing.

“I had very good managers… very good competent regional managers and building managers… it was all about people… choosing the right people, making sure they had the right attitude.”

He points to culture and tenure as a performance advantage, saying he once calculated the team’s combined years of service.

“It was something like 550 Metricon years at one stage.”

The “sad clown” line, and the reality of leadership

One of the most memorable moments in the conversation came when Barrett referenced a quote from Tony Soprano to describe the emotional load leaders carry.

“You’re smiling on the outside, but inside, you’re tearing yourself apart.”

Barrett explained the point in practical terms: you cannot react to every conflict or complaint the way you might feel like reacting in the moment.

“You’d have a customer on the phone… having a crack at you… then you’d have to walk out of the office with a smile on your face and deal with another issue… you couldn’t react and throw the teddy out of the cot.”

It is a reminder that composure is not personality. It is a job requirement.

What makes a good leader?

In Barrett’s view, good leadership is a mix of talent spotting, mentoring and planning.

“You’ve got to recognise talent… help mentor people and develop them.”

He also believes leaders should be open with teams about performance.

“We were quite open with the whole team about, you know, budgets and results and forecasts.”

And he emphasises forward planning as a protection mechanism, not an admin task.

“You’ve got to be looking at what’s happening over the horizon… have a fairly solid 12-month plan on volumes and resources.”

Because erratic decisions hurt people.

“You certainly don’t want to be making people redundant… that just destroys the culture and the energy within the team.”

What makes a good builder?

When asked what makes a good builder, Barrett returned to fundamentals: people, relationships, planning, honesty.

“A good team, good customer focus, key relationships… you’ve got to have some wisdom, you’ve got to have some planning and succession plans in place.”

He also believes builders need humour and humility, because problems are part of the deal.

“It’s a very human business and things do go wrong. The key is how quickly you can get them back on track and be open and honest with your customers about that happening.”

And above all, doing what you say you will do.

“You’ve got to deliver what you say you’re to deliver… because you can’t be respected… if you don’t do what you say you’re to do.”

Barrett is not pretending the career was flawless.

“I have over the years made lots of mistakes in my life… I’d like to think that maybe 60 to 70 per cent of the time I’ve got it right.”

But the throughline of his story is clear: high-performing building businesses are rarely built on heroics. They are built on succession, systems, trust, and leaders who are willing to make themselves replaceable.

Listen to the full episode on Spotify