BEST PRACTICES
I Want You!
Federal design chief Casey Jones explains what you can do for your country—and how you go about doing it.

From Archinect.com:

In Focus is Archinect's series of features dedicated to profiling the photographers who help make the work of architects look that much better. What has attracted them to architecture? How do they work? What type of equipment do they use? What do they think about seeing their work in blogs?

In this feature, we talk to American architectural photographer Brad Feinknopf.

A more technology-savvy, holistic philosophy informs the firm's work today, including its current job on the design team for the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago's new research hospital at 630 N. McClurg Court.

In a nutshell, it's about making clients more comfortable, workers more creative or, in this case, patients healthier.

The Rehabilitation Institute tapped Gensler and Omaha-based firm HDR in June for the Streeterville high-rise project.

In a statement last summer announcing the deal, the institute's CEO, Dr. Joanne Smith, said the new hospital will set "a new benchmark for rehabilitation medicine in the world."

The goal is to bring the latest in rehabilitation research more directly into the patient setting.

It was the first major win for Leiserowitz since coming to Chicago after running the firm's Los Angeles-area office, where her clients included DreamWorks and Sony.

On its heels, the firm is going after other health-oriented clients.

A marathon runner and mountain climber, Leiserowitz refers to the business as "wellness and health," instead of the other way around, to emphasize the goal of keeping people healthy.

"Nila was central to winning the (Rehabilitation Institute) business and leading the effort" of sketching out how the patient spaces will accommodate innovative therapies and equipment while maintaining a comfortable, healing environment, said Lamar Johnson, the other regional managing principal for Gensler in Chicago. Together, Johnson and Leiserowitz are responsible for about 400 employees, including 210 in Chicago and the remainder in Minneapolis, La Crosse, Wis., and Detroit.

"We're the perfect matched set," Johnson said. "She's interiors, while I'm more of a core architecture and mixed-use guy. She handles HR issues, and I take the finance piece. She oversees Minneapolis, and I have Detroit," he said, referring to two of the region's other Midwest offices.

"I knew things were going to work out when people stopped asking both of us what to do about the same issue," he said. "For a while it was like we were the parents, and people would ask both of us for something, thinking that if they didn't like the answer from mom they could go to dad."

That kind of subterfuge is likely made difficult because Leiserowitz's and Johnson's offices are separated by a glass wall at Gensler's Loop office.

The glass is another form-following-function example, Leiserowitz said.

"It's about being very transparent," she said. "Our space is open.''

In fact, her office doesn't have a door, a reminder to staff that she's always accessible, Leiserowitz said.

Now at the top of the corporate interior design field at one of the world's largest architecture and design firms (debt-free Gensler logged $574 million in revenue last year and took on 500 new employees, giving it 3,200 as of the first quarter), Leiserowitz worked her way up the ladder and came of age when corner offices behind mahogany doors ruled the landscape.

That command-and-control image has slowly given way to more egalitarian spaces designed to reflect companies' individual missions and inspire creativity in workers, and Leiserowitz has been at the forefront of that trend.

While working her first job out of the University of Minnesota at a Minneapolis design firm, she met Gary Wheeler, a designer on staff at the university as it built a new law school, through a mutual friend.

They hit it off immediately, and when Wheeler left town for an extended European holiday, he asked Leiserowitz (then named Hildebrandt) to cover his duties with a professional organization to which they both belonged, the American Society of Interior Designers.

When he returned, he took her to lunch to thank her for stepping in.

"Halfway through lunch I turned to her and said, "I've decided to leave the university and go into business with a friend,' " he recalled. "She said, 'Who?' and I looked across the table and said, 'You.'

"And she looked right back at me and said, 'Well, that's good, because I had already decided to go into business with you,' " Wheeler said.

She was just 24 when they struck out on their own.

Over the next decade as she and Wheeler built the business, she also met and married Ron Leiserowitz.

"We met at a swimming pool" in 1984, Ron Leiserowitz said. "We just started talking and really hit it off. At one point I excused myself, went into the locker room and made a phone call to cancel my date with someone else so I could ask her out that night. Much later, Nila told me she had done the same thing."

A year later, they married, with Wheeler standing up for Nila during the ceremony.

About two years later, just as Wheeler-Hildebrandt was planning its 10-year anniversary party, Nila broke some bad news to her business partner: She wanted to sell her share of the company.

"It was extremely difficult," she said. "There were some hard feelings. It was a small community, and everyone knew us as Gary and Nila. I said to Gary that I needed to be looked at as an individual."

They argued through lawyers about the financial end of the breakup and for more than a year barely spoke.

"It was probably the most painful thing I've gone through in my career," Wheeler, now based in London, recalled. "It was almost like a divorce."

Eventually the pair patched things up, reconnecting through industry events, and today remain close friends.

Meanwhile, Nila and Ron moved to Chicago so Ron could take a commercial real estate job, and Nila made a clean break from design, spending a semester at John Marshall Law School.

The break didn't last long, however.

She joined design firm Perkins Will in 1989 and hasn't looked back. It took her just two years to become the first woman on the firm's board.

She had spent nearly seven years at Perkins Will when Andy Cohen, a Gensler executive director, asked her to meet him for a drink during a layover at O'Hare International Airport.

"We had heard of her for a long time as a top designer and, of course, we wanted to recruit her," Cohen said. After the meeting she joined Gensler Los Angeles in 1995.

About 18 months later, Gensler named her a workplace practice leader. She rose to the top of the Los Angeles office (then located in Santa Monica, Calif.) seven years ago.

In 2007 she won a coveted Designer of the Year award from the American Society of Interior Designers.

On paper, a casual observer might expect a hard-charging personality to accompany such a rocket launch of a career.

To the contrary, colleagues and friends say it is her warmth and empathy that gets her noticed.

"Nila is one of the most genuine people I know," Cohen said. "She's friendly, inquisitive, always asking about you and your life. It's why clients love to work with her."

Even in her avid hobby, mountain climbing, a more human side shows through.

On a 2010 trek to the Western Hemisphere's highest mountain, Argentina's Aconcagua, she made it to the highest camp but at the last moment decided against trying for the summit.

"I stopped at 19,600 feet. I was the oldest person in the group, was getting frostbite and I just had a gut feeling that I shouldn't" proceed, she said. "I'm a competitive person, but I'm competitive with myself. For me, 90 percent of the memory is the time you spend getting there, not the summit itself.

"I've been a pretty driven person my whole life," said the South Dakota-born daughter of a cattle broker, who used to accompany her dad when he called on ranchers.

"I used to watch the way he was with clients. He spoke with respect to their wives and families. It's from him that I learned to be authentic with people."

That side also comes out in her myriad community service projects.

Among them, she led a Gensler pro bono project last year in Haiti to rebuild a grammar school ravaged by a 2010 earthquake. Gensler donated the design, and Honeywell donated the construction. Recently, she's been networking with nonprofits about ways to make her mark in Chicago, including helping with the Young Women's Leadership Charter School.

Meanwhile, she and Ron are renovating a three-story, Victorian-era home in Lincoln Park, about two blocks from their previous Chicago home.

She feels no pressure to enslave herself to the Victorian style throughout the home. They're keeping some of the vintage flair, such as rosettes in the ceilings, wood moldings and original hardware, but modernizing the kitchen and baths and using modern furnishings, she said. It's a big departure from the couple's LA place, a midcentury modern.

So where does the designer think most homeowners go wrong in renovating their own spaces?

It's the same as in corporate design projects, she said.

"You start out as a team and clearly identify your design principles and what you think is important," she said.

"And then sometimes along the way you get sidetracked and don't stay true to your original design."

Most people blame budget factors when that happens, she said, but she calls that a cop out.

"Costs can always be brought in," she said, by substituting materials that can still deliver the right effect.

That's why, she said, she continually takes clients back to the original planning sessions when they first identified what their building projects were about. Get to the essence of how the space will be used day to day, she said.

"People do four things at work: learn, focus, socialize and collaborate," she said. "We create environments that support that and give people an opportunity to work in multiple ways."

(Tribune illustration by Rick Tuma)

 

Whether it’s a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, large companies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! with a flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some of their best people to do the start-up thing again.

How To Get The Best Severance Deal

Deborah L. Jacobs Forbes Staff

6 Things Best-In-Class Companies Do To Grow Leaders

Eric Jackson Contributor

Top Ten Reasons Why VC-Backed Companies Fail

Eric Jackson Contributor

How To Leave An Unsatisfying Job And Pursue Your Dream Career

Cathy Scott Contributor

Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talent and don’t. I’ve seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s my Top Ten list of what large companies do to lose their top talent :

1. Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it’s usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it’s usually a sign that they didn’t feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say “check please.”

2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts — by definition. Therefore, they usually don’t have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they’re enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they’re really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a “nice to have” rather than “must have” conversation. However, unless you see it as a “must have,” say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.

3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss — and, therefore, the company — isn’t really interested in my long-term future here. If you’re talented enough, why stay? This one leads into #4….

4. No Discussion around Career Development. Here’s a secret for most bosses: most employees don’t know what they’ll be doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants to have a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up. Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees — apart from their annual or bi-annual performance review meetings — to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there’s a path for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.

5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud companies trying to build an incubator or “brickhouse” around their talent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategic priority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be “jerked around.” If you commit to a project that they will be heading up, you’ve got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they’ve promised.

Whose life am I living? I'm sure you ask yourself that kind of question from time to time. What am I really good at? What is the purpose of my work? These are not new questions. Sooner or later, we all seek answers to them.

Up to three or four decades ago, most people struggled with such questions once or twice in their lives. When they chose their line of work, or when they resolved to break from the expectations of their family.

Today, fundamental questions of identity and purpose are no longer a once or twice-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Many of us face them again and again. Not only when we are struggling, but, paradoxically, when we are succeeding.

That's because the better you do, the broader the range of opportunities you have. You no longer just get to move up, you get to move around. You are exposed to different opinions, worldviews, and lifestyles. You become keener to look for work that grants you more than sustenance and recognition. Work that allows you to feed your passions, express yourself and serve a larger cause.

Today's careers are no longer ladders. They are more like works of art.

In this context, what does it mean to succeed? What does it take to thrive?

First, you need a foundation of knowledge and skills. You can't be Picasso if you can't handle brushes. Second, you need to use those skills to express something that is both deeply personal and that resonates with an audience.

Success in art is not just making a living, or being famous and acclaimed. Those are consequences. Success is moving and being moved. It is opening vistas. Unsettling the status quo. Peeking beneath the veil of convention.

Making art is not an artist's job. It is an artist's life. This is why it is exciting. But it also creates anxiety, and second-guessing. Putting your passion on display can be scary. How do you know what is your true passion? What if your work is ignored, derided or misunderstood?

In my research and leadership development work, I witness the same mixture of excitement and anxiety among people who aspire to craft careers centered on their passion. Especially when they are faced with the prospect of becoming a "leader." It is as if leading in a world in flux amplifies the dilemmas of living in a world in flux.

We expect leaders, more than anyone else, to express their authentic concerns and desires and, at the same time, to give voice to the concerns and desires of those they aspire to lead. We expect them to be fully committed to a purpose and community — but also to be constantly pushing for change.

How do you manage to show up and put yourself aside? How can you stay grounded if you are meant to be always changing? Think of artists again. They often congregate, to teach, inspire and support each other. And although their gatherings may not always be harmonious, many find freedom, courage, and voice once they find a tribe.

Similarly, being able to turn your career into a work of art, to thrive and lead with passion in a world in flux, requires finding a space, and I mean both a psychological and social space, where what you do is tied with who you are and what people around you care about — a community where commitment feels enabling, liberating, rather than just constraining.

Jennifer Petriglieri and I describe these communities as "identity workspaces." They are groups or organizations where we can both acquire valuable expertise from others and also address fundamental questions with others. Identity workspaces are communities that help us discover who we are, where we belong, what we can do and how we are meant to do it.

For some of us it may be a community within an established institution, like a company or a profession, like medicine or the law. For others it is a less formal community, like a volunteer group, an annual event, a group of classmates that stay connected as they move around.

If we find an identity workspace within our organization, that organization has a profound impact on us, it's harder to leave, and what we learn there keeps orienting us even after we leave. If we don't find one, the organization feels like a place we're passing through while our heart remains elsewhere. And when we can't find an identity workspace anywhere we feel empty, uprooted, deprived of meaning. We spend more time trying to be liked than to be taken seriously.

If you are a manager, you may want to ask yourself, is you team or organization an identity workspace for the people who work there? Can they easily share and acquire expertise? Do you reward those who personalize their work and make it meaningful for others? Do you encourage people to find their voice and push against conventions?

If you do, they'll not only be more satisfied, creative and productive — they will also think twice before leaving, as they may not grow as fast and express themselves as fully elsewhere.

Because ultimately, while mastery, identity and purpose are very personal, we can neither find nor pursue them alone. We're still peculiar animals endowed with consciousness and cast in a sea of suggestions and demands. We need others who care enough about us, and whom we care enough about, to help us take it from there.

Perhaps the most difficult part of any manager's job is telling a subordinate that he can no longer stay with the company — that he's been "fired," "let go," "dismissed," or otherwise taken off the payroll. It's a gut-wrenching conversation, knowing how this simple act affects a person's career, self-esteem, and livelihood. Firing an employee also affects everyone else on your team. Not only does it change work assignments, but it also makes people wonder about your judgment as a manager and their own job security.

Given these emotional undercurrents, many managers let anxiety drive the firing process instead of intellect, making a difficult moment even worse. For example, I know of a senior manager who walked unannounced into his employee's office, junior HR person in-tow, and declared: "You've been fired. Our HR associate will answer your questions and then escort you out of the building." The manager then exited, leaving the shocked (former) employee and the ill-prepared HR person staring awkwardly at each other. What made this situation even worse is that the senior manager had given no previous indication of the employee's performance difficulties and had given him nothing but positive feedback in the previous six months. Now, suddenly, the reason for the firing was "lack of teamwork." And because it was "for cause," no severance was offered and pay was terminated immediately.

From the manager's perspective, this approach avoided the anxiety associated with firing. He didn't have to engage in any difficult performance discussions or justify his actions. He also avoided any kind of emotional scene and (temporary) budget impacts. Of course, he also probably generated a major lawsuit that left the company liable for far more than the cost of a severance. And once the story got out, he likely lost the respect of his team.

Clearly this may be an extreme example,but there are too many stories like this one. Because firing is so emotionally charged, it's easy to act counterproductively. To avoid that, here are some guidelines for those times when firing an employee becomes a necessity:

First, make sure that letting your employee go is the last step in a careful, thoughtful, fair, and transparent process that started long before the actual firing. In other words, if the dismissal is for poor performance, then it should occur after a series of performance discussions, plans, and documented actions. If it's due to reorganization or job elimination, it also should follow conversations, announcements, and a reasonable "fair warning." The key is that, if possible, firing should not come as a surprise. In most companies, the HR function has guidelines for how this process should unfold.

Second, come to the "firing meeting" prepared to address the practical logistical questions that the person will have about leaving her job: When is the official end date? Are there severance arrangements? Are there opportunities elsewhere in the company? Is career counseling available? What happens with benefits? You may need help from HR to make sure that these answers are available.

Third, at the meeting be ready to listen but not react. Losing a job can be traumatic, and your employee may display a range of emotions, which he might direct towards you. Try not to get caught up in responding. Listen with respect and then direct the person towards the practical realities of moving on. Offer to talk again later when the emotions are not so raw, or ask a trained HR counselor to join you.

Finally, after the firing, talk to your team about the process, the reasoning, and the implications for them (within the limits of confidentiality). In some cases, they will fully understand the decision. In others, they may have a very incomplete picture. In either case, you need to be sensitive to their emotions, and then help redirect their focus back on work.

Firing a subordinate is one of the most difficult and painful tasks you'll ever have to do as a manager; and for most of us it never gets easier. Unfortunately, avoiding the anxiety associated with firing only makes things worse. So if you have to do it — do it right.

What's been your experience with firing — or being fired?

This is an excellent article on how to build a strategic alliance, from the perspective of Michael B. Lehrer, FAIA, President at Lehrer Architects in Los Angeles CA.

Many business leaders don't care why employees do anything as long as they follow the company's rules, processes, cultural norms and laws. But we've found that leaders can create and sustain stronger business results if they understand — and manage — how employees approach their work every day. When employees' thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are aligned with their daily work, they do that work better. Leaders, though, can be squeamish about approaching topics many think are better left to psychologists, so they don't even try to create alignment.

In the work underlying Beyond Performance, we found a technique we call 'laddering' that even the most hard-nosed business operators can feel comfortable with; the reason is that it closely resembles the "five whys" approach lean organizations use to get to the root causes of performance problems. Laddering mirrors the five whys, applying it to people's mindsets instead of operational problems.

Take a classic operations example: If a motor breaks down, a lean-minded operator won't just replace it, but will ask why it broke down. "Because it overheated," comes the reply. Why? "Because it wasn't properly ventilated." Why? "Because the machine is too close to the wall." The operator thus moves the machine away from the wall before replacing the motor. Without "why," any fix would have been temporary at best, because the new motor would have burned out, too. Addressing the root cause produced a better and more durable solution. In much the same way, asking "why" about employees' mindsets gives leaders insights into how organizational performance can be better and more durably improved.

Consider a bank that discovered its sales per banker were lagging behind the competition. Its leaders headed down the traditional, process-based path: they asked "Why are sales per banker lower?" and found that bankers were not spending enough time with customers. Then they asked "Why aren't bankers spending more time with customers?" Because, they found, a significant amount of bankers' time was spent completing paperwork.

The bank's leaders had their diagnosis, and set about reengineering the loan-origination process to minimize paperwork and maximize customer-facing time. They also provided bankers with new sales scripts and easier-to-use tools so that bankers knew just what to do with the extra time with customers. The bankers were trained, the tools were rolled out, and, leaders thought, the problem was solved. Six months later, time spent with customers had changed little and sales had barely improved.

Faced with this, the bank's leaders began to ask "why" again. Why wasn't the new process working?

Through focus groups with the bankers, the bank's leaders quickly found that most of them found customer interactions uncomfortable, and preferred paperwork to people. Asking "why" again, the leaders found that many bankers were introverted, had poor interpersonal skills, had a sense of inferiority in dealing with customers with more money, and saw salespeople as hucksters, not professionals. Furthermore, their supervisors, who were mostly former bankers, were just as insecure, so they placed more emphasis on paperwork than people too.

Clearly, no new process was going to work as long as the bankers' mindsets were so opposed to the basic goal of spending more time with customers. So the bank's leaders radically revamped their change program, to include training on being aware of one's own and others' personality types, building emotional intelligence, and changing bankers' notion of being salespeople from "pushing products" to "helping customers discover and fulfill their unarticulated needs." Within six months, customer-facing time and sales improvements were back on track. The bank eventually generated significantly better results than it had aimed for, achieving a 43 percent increase in bankers' cross-sell ratio compared with a target of 20 percent.

The power of mindsets is brought home by Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad's story of four monkeys sitting in a cage with a bunch of bananas hanging from the roof, accessible by a set of steps. Whenever the monkeys try to climb the steps to get to the bananas, they are blocked by a blast of cold water. After a few days, the monkeys give up. Researchers then remove the water hose and replace one of the original monkeys with a new one. Seeing the bananas, it starts up the steps. What happens? The other monkeys, being social creatures, pull it down before it gets blasted with water. This happens again and again until pretty soon the new monkey doesn't bother to go for the bananas either.

Over the next few weeks, the researchers remove the rest of the original monkeys one at a time and replace them with new monkeys who've never seen the jet of water. Even though there's no longer anything to stop the monkeys from reaching the bananas, each new monkey is always pulled down by the others.

By the end of the experiment, not a single monkey has ever seen a jet of water, but none of them tries to climb the steps. They've all learned the rule that "You don't grab the bananas around here."

What ingrained employee mindsets or unwritten rules are keeping your business improvement efforts in check? Asking "why" enough times is a simple and powerful way help you uncover and deal with those mindsets in ways that will boost employee engagement and business performance.

This is a wonderful article about Project H Design in North Carolina, and the difference that it is making for the Bertie County School District.

Investing in staff’s continuing professional development benefits everyone. And it’s more important than ever in a time of tight budgets.

In this challenging economy, it might be tempting for companies of all kinds to place a lower priority on professional development opportunities for staff. The thinking is understandable: With an eye on the bottom line, programs that are perceived as non-essential to business can easily be tossed into the wait-until-we-have-the-budget pile.

In a creative industry like architecture, however, this mindset can have a particularly detrimental effect. We hire people not only for their demonstrated aptitudes and skills but also for the energy and exploratory thinking that results in great projects, and these traits require a working environment that fosters such creativity. Programs that provoke new approaches, deepen experience, and promote healthy competition are essential to keeping staff motivated and doing their best work. In the case of career-long learning, what’s good for the employee really is good for the firm.

Opportunities to Excel

At HMC Architects, we’ve instituted a wide range of programs designed to put emerging and future leaders on the path to success, recognizing that the firm’s vitality is based on keeping employees curious, creative, and engaged. As a baseline, architectural licensure is promoted and rewarded; continuing education is encouraged. (One example of this manifests: An HMC employee created an Architect Registration Exam board game for use during firm-sponsored study sessions.) Pasqual Gutierrez, HMC director of architecture, personally reviews interns’ submissions to be certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards. Costs associated with taking the exams are reimbursed. Newly licensed architects receive a cash award from HMC, and their achievement is announced and celebrated upon licensure and again in the CEO’s annual address.

HMC has developed professional development program software to assist experienced architects and designers in interacting with and educating the next generation of architects both inside the firm and within the community. Lunchtime brown bag and firm-wide webinar training brings industry leaders together with students, staff, and industry colleagues. These sessions explore AIA-accredited topics and industry issues. With 13 HMC employees currently serving as educators at various colleges and universities, the firm remains fully connected to emerging ideas and plays a pivotal role in disseminating these ideas while also reaching out to new talent.

Perhaps most significant, HMC has developed a variety of mentorship initiatives that allow employees at all levels to develop practical and managerial skills and to hone their talents as designers, project managers, and thought leaders. These include a travel fellowship, the Intern Development Program and an associated forum, the nonprofit Designing Futures Foundation, and the annual President’s Awards.

Our travel fellowship, [X]ref, is perhaps the most distinct of these initiatives. The program was created to enable employees to gain greater exposure to outside influences, new ideas, and historic precedents. Each year, employees submit proposals for a travel experience intended to enrich their professional and personal perspective. Two winners, selected by a client jury, receive a week’s paid time off and $4,000 to realize their dream adventure anywhere in the world with the condition that they share their experiences once the trip is completed. Past winners have invested in intensive training sessions with stonemasons, learning one of the oldest crafts related to the design and construction of lasting buildings and cities. Another undertook a bike trip through Denmark, photographing and documenting notable architectural responses to the country’s history, climatic challenges, and societal and economic shifts. Director of Architecture Gutierrez notes, “The [X]ref fellowship is really a mechanism for opening up staff’s design perspective and interaction with different communities as well as encouraging them to bring that enthusiasm and those new perspectives back to their colleagues and clients.”

The process itself adds to the suspense and the rivalry of ideas. Each fall, entrants begin by brainstorming and crafting their proposals. Led by Sacramento-based Associate Principal Arturo Levenfeld, a committee of volunteers from HMC offices nominates jurors drawn from a pool of key existing and potential clients and consultants. Jurors’ interest in travel and adventure is considered, as is their awareness of the potential benefits to the winners (and their future clients) afforded by the opportunity. Levenfeld has seen that it is not difficult to get prospective jurors invested in the process. “They become hooked immediately,” he says. “Ultimately, they want to be part of the fun.” Winners are announced the following spring and are expected to create a presentation that can be shared firm-wide about their experiences.

From an internal standpoint, the [X]ref program has multiple benefits. In its use of external jurors, it provides the opportunity for HMC to engage clients even when a particular project isn’t the focus. The behind-the-scenes view often deepens clients’ trust in the firm’s people and processes while allowing them to get to know the passions that drive individual staff members. “There is a real cross-pollination that happens with the [X]ref,” Levenfeld says. “Clients get to see what makes us tick and get more of a sense of why we’re the people who make their schools, hospitals, and offices better spaces for living.” Each year, a different HMC office hosts the selection process, surrounding participants with interesting work on the boards, the submissions being considered, and staff who are on hand for the event. Hearty refreshments are provided, elevating the collegial ambiance.

Significantly, HMC leadership maintains a distance and does not get involved in the judging process. While they serve by answering technical questions about the submissions or procedural guidelines, HMC staff are not part of the review or discussion of [X]ref entries. Once the two winners have been selected, the committee (the same individuals who assisted with initial brainstorming and selected the jurors) meets with jurors to hear the comments, impressions, and influences that resulted in the final award decisions.

Investing in Staff

Even as firms across the United States are cutting costs, HMC has maintained the [X]ref program. It is rightly regarded as a creative challenge and a competitive event as well as a professional distinction for the winners. But the firm also invests in other programs to keep employees excited about their work and refine their skills as collaborators, managers, and leaders.

The Emerging Leaders (EL) Forum provides a two-year experience for middle and upper management track staff to refine their corporate leadership skills. Even seasoned managers can benefit from the combination of inward and outward development offered by the forum: a focus on the inner workings of executive management that is paired with practical skills, such as the formal and informal sharing of information. This framework, which pairs emerging leaders with established mentors, facilitates discussion and learning, enhances communication and knowledge-sharing, and creates a continuously replenished base of candidates for transition as the firm continues to evolve.

“I have found the EL Forum to be a great way to plug into HMC’s executive-level leadership, where I can see the process involved in honing our vision and core values,” says James Krueger, a senior project designer and associate principal in HMC’s San Diego office. “This allows me to share these goals with my team and colleagues across the firm, so we’re speaking the same language.” Krueger also cites the program’s mentoring component as an important means to share ideas and cross-educate, bridging a variety of professional and personal backgrounds. “The fact that HMC has programs like this is a testament to the fact that they value their emerging leaders and are taking a broad view of the company’s success into the future,” he says.

This broad view looks both ways. In addition to fostering the leadership skills of up-and-comers within its ranks, HMC also reaches out to students and new practitioners with its Intern Development Program and forums. As Director of Architecture Gutierrez puts it, “Entering a large firm from school or without a management background, there is often a long waiting period before you are qualified for many crucial aspects of the architectural profession, such as construction administration.” To expedite the training period and expand prospective, new, and established but under-qualified employees’ experience, HMC’s IDP forums offer the opportunity to partner with senior members to study critical materials such as the Emerging Professional’s Companion booklet and carry out exercises on real-world projects. “Equivalent exercises — ones that are part of NCARB certification — can be completed over all phases of a project and sent in,” says Gutierrez. “It’s a very effective way to train people who might otherwise have to wait years for the kind of hands-on experience that is so necessary in our profession.” Recently, HMC contracted with the American Institute of Architects to document 1,000 of its professional workshops and to provide these in a Web-based format with relevant interactive quizzes, promoting continuing education credits for staff at any point on the spectrum of experience.

A corresponding and particularly noteworthy aspect of HMC’s outreach to new practitioners is its non-profit Designing Futures Foundation (DFF), established in 2008. With an initial endowment of $1.9 million, the DFF has followed its founding mission and granted numerous scholarships, sponsored research, funded design competitions, and participated in other philanthropic initiatives. Scholarships begin in high school and continue for up to an additional five years in college. In its first year alone, the Foundation granted scholarships to 29 students, effectively offsetting costs associated with college testing. DFF also awards scholarships to HMC employees and their families: In 2011, four employees and five children have received or will receive scholarships.

Giving back to the communities HMC serves has been a foundational aspect of the DFF. Since its founding, the DFF has facilitated commitments of more than $200,000 in funding and thousands of hours of staff time to support research efforts related to evidence-based design. Unique partnerships have arisen: Working with the University of California at San Diego’s 3-D virtual reality environment (the Calit2 StarCAVE), HMC staff and consulting researchers can study the direct effects of the built environment on users. This partnership has allowed HMC to better understand design concepts while they are in development rather than after construction.

Synergies and Benefits

The interconnectivity of HMC’s programs generates remarkable synergies. Recently, two EL Forum members engaged the DFF to create an initiative called HMC PlaceWorks, which commits a number of paid and volunteered staff hours to specified projects. This has two-way benefits: The community gets informed, engaged professionals who are committed to a project’s outcome, while staff who participate gain valuable real-life experience that they can apply to their IDP portfolios and overall professional development. HMC staff are supported in such efforts by HMC’s alternative 9/80 work schedule, which allows them to work nine-hour days with every other Friday free to use for volunteer work or personal time.

All of the programs and initiatives discussed above have both short- and long-term benefits for employees and for the firm. By expediting learning and training experiences and providing unique opportunities for mentorship, contemplation, and information-gathering, HMC is underwriting its future — a fact that it takes care to celebrate with the annual President’s Award. At the end of the year, employees firm-wide are invited, at all levels, to nominate peers who have contributed in some extraordinary way to the benefit of the firm to receive a President’s Award. These contributions surpass the standard scope of individuals’ jobs and often encompass raising the firm’s public profile, mentorship, implementing new ideas/processes, notable community involvement, or other above-and-beyond accomplishments. Employees are selected for their individual or team impact on the firm and are announced at the annual HMC Leadership Conference. As a reward, they receive a monetary amount to cover airfare, hotel accommodations, and spending cash, along with two extra days of paid time off.

With the benefit of more than 70 years of practice (and valuable hindsight), HMC views the investment in our employees as essential to our success. In leaner times, it is even more important to look beyond the challenges of the day and continue to cultivate the people who drive our business and our mission.

The collaborative efforts of HMC’s employees, with their dedicated commitment to clients, service to the profession, involvement with their communities, mentoring of future generations, and respect for one another, continue to make HMC a leader in the profession of architecture with focused purpose and a steadfast belief that design can change the world.

We also believe in the catalysis of ideas that happens when practitioners from the full spectrum of experience and background have the chance to connect and learn from one another or from a challenge presented by an experience, a client, a site, or a community’s needs. It may not be convenient. It may take months or years to show up on the bottom line, but it is the bedrock of a healthy design practice. As a slightly tweaked adage would have it, the future starts at home.

Randy Peterson is president and chief executive officer of HMC Architects. Throughout his career, he has worked with public and private institutions, leading the programming, planning, and design of major facilities throughout the western United States. He is a fellow if the American Institute of Architects and a LEED accredited professional.