As published in the March 2021 issue of AIA CT ArchiType

My original goal was to write some clever piece about collaboration and what “how we are is what it becomes” means to borrow a phrase from my mentor Barry Svigals. However, in penning this piece, I realized that what I was really after was the elusive term ‘culture’ in the sense used in offices. Svigals + Partners was founded upon both terms, and I find them inexplicitly linked together. Since joining the office in 2013, there have been exercises that the staff has participated in that have involved themes such as “it’s the glue that ties us all together” which I have found particularly helpful. In my own mind it relates to a more metaphysical ‘glue’ that we get accustomed to when we work with others. Like the best of times with family, culture boils down to having the ability to lean on others to help endure difficult times or letting the steam off to manage stress and pressure.

Workplace culture is the environment that one creates for the employees. It plays a powerful role in determining their work satisfaction, relationships, and progression. It is the mix of your organization’s leadership, values, traditions, beliefs, interactions, behaviors, and attitudes that contribute to the emotional and relational environment of your workplace. These factors are generally unspoken and unwritten rules that help to form bonds between your colleagues.¹

In working within our internal office “strategic initiatives” groups, we have had internal discussions regarding culture and collaboration (that we eventually presented to the office). I took that opportunity and treated the exercise more as a “think piece” as to how to address something from a different perspective. Here are my thoughts regarding how these terms can be expounded upon in a larger global sense in our daily interactions, both professionally and personally:

Creating personal relationships:
     A. Creating an atmosphere of teamwork
     B. Ensuring that everyone’s best interests are at stake
     C. Finding commonality and building within diversity
     D. Discovering different levels of interest among individuals

Learning how to empower others:
     A. Making people feel valuable, wanted and required for their own opinions
     B. Creating the need for unique perspectives from all
     C. Instilling confidence in those who are silent
     D. Maintaining a non-defensive atmosphere that encourages the flow of ideas
     E. Tee’ing-up topics to get all participants thinking and talking

Within the office, it is important that we give a helping hand to others by providing the will and clarity to teach. This ultimately entails what it means to enable the next generation to fill one’s shoes. From my own perspective, this is almost identical to mentoring in so many ways: providing a framework for others to assess for themselves so that they can tailor their efforts in their own lives and/or careers. As we mature and move “up the ladder,” this means teaching the younger staff how to be more aware of their options and how best they can help the firm maintain its’ success. As most of us already know, becoming a leader means taking responsibility for finding the potential in people and having the courage to develop that potential.

However, outside of the office, this same attitude (re: personal relationships) applies to working with clients, users, building inspectors, and contractors in the public realm for further success. Culture is all about creating (gaining) other’s trust with yourself. Once that is achieved, the world opens up in whatever fashion one desires. Holding on to that trust, however, requires daily effort and maintenance. This should be our daily goal: maintaining our own integrity by trying our very best and assuring others that this philosophy applies to them as well, both personally and professionally. Once one gains the confidence of others, ones’ ability to further illustrate ones’ own perspective in any situation gains traction. Creating a consensus is thereby more easily accomplished, which in turn leads to successful meetings, successful projects, and a successful office.

All of this requires a bit of courage on all parties:²
     • Physical courage: to keep going with resiliency, balance and awareness
     • Social courage: to be yourself no matter what
     • Moral courage: to do the right thing even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular
     • Emotional courage: to feel all your emotions (positive and negative) without guilt
     • Intellectual courage: to learn, unlearn and relearn with an open and flexible mind
     • Spiritual courage: to live with purpose and meaning through a heart-centered approach towards life and oneself

Especially in times like this, with the Covid pandemic, many of the qualities that I try to espouse on a daily basis and impart onto others, namely perspective, persistence, perseverance, and patience, are embedded in the term courage. A lot of the goal-setting techniques that I also profess to others, namely desire, dedication, determination, and discipline, mirror this as well. My aim is to help others succeed where I have succeeded (or failed) and avoid the common mistakes that we all make in life. I always try to remind myself how best I can help others in this office (as well as in my own personal interactions) and make the best of situations. Those that want to succeed usually listen and those that have their minds already made up cannot see things from a different perspective. Thank goodness there are more of the former and less of the latter.

In summary, I have discovered that my search of culture not only has manifested itself within the confines of Svigals + Partners, but also requires, like a garden, regular tending and maintenance. This includes professing vulnerability to express oneself freely, showing confidence in your set of values, displaying nuanced sensitivity towards others and acquiring empathetic telepathy that, while only some possess, can be learned even at an older age. Over the past forty years of working in ten architectural offices, I have become sensitized to office environments. There are those that ignore the issue and those that fight to establish and keep culture as a mainstay of leadership no matter what level it may be established at. It is the latter offices that are truly successful in all facets of the profession.

See the full article in the ArchiType here. 

¹From: www.sidekicker.com 
²From: www.lionwhiskers.com