Practice Disrupted [001] – Practice Shifts

Welcome to the launch of Practice Disrupted! Meet hosts Evelyn Lee and Je’Nen Chastain who will begin to discuss the changing nature of architectural practice.

Hosts:
Evelyn Lee, Founder of Practice of Architecture & Senior Experience Designer for Slack Technologies
Je’Nen Chastain, Founder of Apostrophe Consulting

Evelyn M. Lee, AIA, MBA, MPA is a licensed architect in the state of California, with over 15 years of experience working with individuals and companies that are looking to reshape their future. She has been a featured keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator at national conferences and symposiums. Her topics focus on developing knowledge leadership, organizational change management, capacity building, stakeholder engagement, and strategic approaches to put design thinking to work in life and in practice. She also serves on the advisory council to ZeroSixty, an accelerator for the AEC Industry and is the first female Treasurer to AIA National‘s Board of Directors. When not working on the Practice of Architecture, Evelyn works as the first-ever Senior Experience Designer at Slack Technologies.

Je’Nen M. Chastain, MBA, Assoc. AIA is a business strategy consultant trained in architecture and business management with expertise in marketing, communications, and leadership development. She founded Apostrophe Consulting with the goal of helping architecture firms win more work, build a culture of leadership and trust within the design studio, and create a pipeline for emerging leaders to grow in our industry. A recipient of the 2017 AIA Associates Award, Je’Nen holds both a B.Arch. and an MBA. She previously spent nearly a decade in the San Francisco Bay Area, collaborating with award-winning architecture firms on design, marketing, and business development efforts. She has spoken across the country on leadership development, career advancement, emerging professionals, mentorship, and women in architecture.

1. Areas of change that are impacting our industry:
   • External businesses, such as tech, are moving faster than the historically slow-moving field of architecture.
   • Emerging best practices from innovative industries influence broader change globally, including technology, workplace culture, management best practices, and career development.

2. Change for the individual.
   • Understand your willingness to take risks. Realize we grow through the most challenging times. How far are you willing to push yourself within your means?
   • Don’t let the path define your future, but decide what is important to you and design your future around that. The skill of navigating your career is finding what is important to you and allowing that to inform your decisions.
   • You’re never stuck. There are a lot of ways to broaden your career.

3. Raise the value of architects.
   • Designing new service lines is one-way firms can increase their revenue potential.
   • Learning new vocabulary can help architects speak more broadly about the value of architecture outside of our industry.

4. Make our practices run better.
   • There are new strategies to enhance communication across teams, and firms should explore these opportunities.
   • There are also new ways to think about mentorship in practice.
   • Leverage emerging technology to enhance your practice.
   • Change is not scary. It is an opportunity to expand what you’re already doing in a new way to create more value.

5. What new ideas can help move the industry of architecture forward?
   • It is helpful to understand generational differences between staff, rather than ignoring those conversations.
   • Looking outside the industry can help architects understand how different businesses offer new and unique things to their staff and their clients to keep them engaged.
   • The pandemic is an opportunity for firms to reflect and pivot.

Evelyn Lee 0:03
I’m Evelyn Lee.

Je’Nen Chastian 0:04
And I’m Je’Nen Chastain. We’re collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry is changing.

Evelyn Lee 0:11
Together, we’ll find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects.

Unknown Speaker 0:17
[Both] Welcome to Practice Disrupted.

Evelyn Lee 0:31
Hi, everyone! Welcome to Practice Disrupted. I’m Evelyn and this is Je’Nen.

Je’Nen Chastian 0:36
Hey, everyone!

Evelyn Lee 0:38
Thank you for joining us on our very first episode. I’m pretty excited. Je’Nen, what are you feeling right now?

Je’Nen Chastian 0:46
I’m really excited. I think this is gonna be a really fun experience, and I’m looking forward to seeing what we produce for season one.

Evelyn Lee 0:54
So a lot of you are probably asking, why are you starting this podcast? And, Je’Nen and I have been talking a lot over, I don’t know, the last 10 years that we’ve known each other, right?

Je’Nen Chastian 1:05
Pretty much.

Evelyn Lee 1:07
We’re talking about the various different themes that we’ve see, continuously come up in the profession. You know, a big one, obviously, being architects don’t get paid enough. People don’t value us or for that, you know, or for that matter, they don’t really understand what architects do. I think there’s a lot of internal things going on there to Je’Nen?

Je’Nen Chastian 1:30
Yeah, there is some struggle, I think within some firms about firm culture. And a lot of people are looking for that idea of work life balance and how to take practice, which is really demanding and still find ways to step away from work at the end of the day and do what they need to to take care of their families and themselves. But there’s also that idea of like, a lot of commitment into this profession over a long period of time. And sometimes people feel boxed in and they’re not sure how to how to get out or how to do something different with their careers that still leverages the education that they’ve received.

Evelyn Lee 2:12
Yeah. Which are all, I think, big kind of questions or respond to, and I don’t think we’re gonna answer them all in this first episode. But hopefully we can begin to really explore them over time and help architects get unstuck, I think is, is a big theme that’s going to be running throughout each episode. You know, and you know, in particularly, how do we help architects think outside the box of the traditional practice model? And how have changes in technology shifted the profession? What should we be looking out outside or at outside of BIM, and VR and AI in terms of, you know, helping us grow in value and also helping us run our practices better.

Je’Nen Chastian 3:01
Yeah, I think we’re really interested in this idea of change and how it’s impacting our industry. So even down to what are new ways that we can think about mentorship and design practice, what are new ways to communicate across teams? And what are new service lines that firms might be introducing to increase their revenue potential?

Evelyn Lee 3:26
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we might want to tell our new audience, especially those individuals that don’t know us a little bit about who we are. So I’m Evelyn Lee, I’m the Founder of Practice of Architecture, and Practice Disrupted is a podcast of Practice of Architecture. And I invited Je’Nen to come and join me because of her unique background and perspective as a younger individual in the profession who is creating a lot of change within her her own right. So, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself too?

Je’Nen Chastian 4:02
Sure. So I am the Founder of Apostrophe Consulting, and that is a consulting business focused on helping architects primarily with their marketing, but also their business strategy, their communications, leadership development, and certainly bringing up that next generation of leaders in firms. And my experience really rooted from this idea of the emerging professional experience of coming out of school, transitioning into practice and trying to figure out how to move forward through that path towards becoming either like a project manager or project architect.

I have practiced as a designer on architecture teams, and I’ve also had the experience of working as a marketer for architecture firms. Both were in the Bay Area and it really stemmed from this step outside of traditional practice, a result of the Recession. And I have been just really intrigued by this idea of how people from my generation, were trying to navigate that difficult moment in time. And then, as a result, they kind of have all kinds of interesting careers. And their expectations, I think, on the industry have been pretty different than prior generations.

So I’ve noticed there’s a lot of firm leaders that are asking like, why are people changing jobs so frequently? I give them all these benefits, and I’m not sure why they’re not sticking around. I think that there’s a lot to unpack in those conversations. And I’m hoping that I can add to the conversation and bring that perspective into the discussion.

Evelyn Lee 5:44
I definitely think you can and I don’t think we are saying that there isn’t anything we can’t learn either; right; from the more tenured professionals in the profession too. I think, you know, a lot of what the podcast is going to look at is, you know, what is important to practice that needs to be retained. But where can we begin to shift and move the needle?

Je’Nen Chastian 6:09
Yeah. And I think Evelyn, you have a really interesting story, too. You’ve worked as a practicing architect, but you’ve also made this big jump now in your career to landing at Slack. So I think it’s important to look at like, how did you get from there to here and what did that path look like for you?

Evelyn Lee 6:30
Yeah, a very meandering path. I think. One that took me a while to get used to and adapt to, to. And I think that’s another lesson that we can kind of hopefully help other people embrace about career pivots and being okay with change, but I think my my path was filled with a lot of change.

I always knew I wanted to be an architect, right up until I got my architectural license, right? And we all know that’s not a slow… I feel like, you know, I am like I took the AREs back in the days when there were nine tests now there’s less. But, uh, yeah, I practice traditional practice. I did a lot of site adapts, for big chain stores, I worked for a firm that did K-12, and then community buildings as well, which I felt was hopefully going to be a very meaningful path to take. But I didn’t really get to engage the community and the children and the stakeholders as much as I wanted to.

So I sought off on my own, too… and I landed at a nonprofit organization and at that nonprofit organization, I had a really hard time talking about the value of architects and what we bring to other nonprofit organizations or what the value that we bring beyond building a building from the ground up. And I realized I didn’t have the ability or the language or the vocabulary to really talk to other people about that value.

So I actually went out and I got my MBA and picked up my MPA, my Master’s in Public Administration and I just want to throw in Je’Nen you too have your, your MBA, and we might want to talk a little bit later about why you went and got yours. But it came out of it. And I started working at I found my way at a great place at MKThink leading their Strategy Group under Nate Goore. And it was a really interesting place to be because it wasn’t a large firm. At its peak, we were maybe 40 people. But we were having we had a successful strategy practice in a way that I’ve never seen any other firm of a similar size, actually produce revenue out of, and then went and worked for a dear friend of mine in workplace consulting and that’s ultimately what landed me at Slack in experienced design. What I found throughout this whole experience on the strategy side, though, is I really, I really get to speak to the end users, which is why I kind of ended up leaving architecture, in the beginning,

Je’Nen Chastian 9:17
That’s a really interesting experience.

Evelyn Lee 9:20
Yeah. And it provides a new unique experience. And it’s really interesting, especially in this time of change. When architects are really I think being urged to go back to the office, you know, what, what the tech firms are doing as a kind of a unique counterpoint to what’s going on with architecture firms. I feel like that’s offered me in another kind of layer of experience to add on that we can learn from as an as an industry and as a profession.

Je’Nen Chastian 9:56
Yeah, I think you being in the tech industry and being so up close to that – really, I think progressive model of how are businesses really reaching to offer new unique things to their staff and their clients? It’s a very interesting case study that we can learn from in our industry. That’s much more slow moving.

Evelyn Lee 10:18
Yeah. And there’s other people I think we can learn from too. So, in terms of what else our leader, er our listeners… I was gonna say, our readers… our listeners can expect out of this podcast, you know, I’m really excited in bringing in, you know, architects that are doing things a little bit differently, that have stories of their own, to talk about kind of the changes they’ve made very intentionally, to be successful. You know, Je’Nen, you’re kind of excited about this whole architecture and series.

Je’Nen Chastian 10:51
Oh, yeah. I think it’s gonna be really fun. We’re going to try and bring in some people that are trained in architecture, they might be licensed in architecture, but they’ve been gone off into different career paths that are very unique, and applied what they learned in our industry into those fields. So oftentimes we see these people as creating their own path and really making their own way forward for others to follow. And we’re gonna ask them some questions to understand better, like, what is that journey like? And what are the unique ways that they’re applying their education?

Evelyn Lee 11:27
Yeah, and I’m really excited to kind of bring all of the most interesting speakers from business schools and even my peers from business school that have gone off and become successful consultants in leadership development and cultural strategists, even HR and finance planning into the conversation to really talk about what are lessons that we can learn from other fields outside of architecture that we can apply?

Je’Nen Chastian 11:57
Yeah, I am too because I think at the end of the day, I’m really hoping that people will be able to walk away with some really clear ideas about what they might be able to bring back either into their own practice. Or if they want to pivot their career that they’ll have some ideas about how to do it. And it will just create some more energy behind the idea that change isn’t scary change is an opportunity to really expand what you’re already doing in a new way and create more value.

Evelyn Lee 12:28
Yeah, I’m really excited about that. And I think kind of the through line of all of the 12 episodes that we’re looking at doing in this first series is really about the changing nature of practice. But I think the sub bullet to the changing nature of practice is how to get people unstuck and how to get firms unstuck, so that they can actually change. Speaking of unstuck, why don’t we talk a little bit about why we wanted to be a little more entrepreneurial. And go off and start our own businesses. So why don’t you tell me more specifically about Apostrophe Consulting and what you’re doing there?

Je’Nen Chastian 13:09
Yeah, so Apostrophe Consulting kind of came out of my fight to stay in this industry. during the Recession. I was a new grad coming into the industry and sending out resumes everywhere I could think and trying desperately to get a job at a time when most firms were not looking to hire people recently out of school. So I had to get really creative about what I was doing. And through some guidance from some mentors, I was able to start taking on smaller jobs where I was doing consulting work.

It started with AIA California who brought me on as a four month contract to help them out with a couple things, and it shifted into helping different architects and other nonprofit groups. And it followed me through my career as I transitioned back into working full time. So since, I’ve gone off and I’ve started doing my consulting work full time, I’ve been really focused on this idea of how do I bring all of the things that I learned while working inside architecture firms, that were very diverse, into helping different studio leaders grow their businesses in a way that works for them.

So I think I’ve seen in my professional experience, a lot of trends, I think that resonate with different architecture studios, and they relate to dealing with marketing, dealing with their staff, dealing with the culture of the firm, you know, how the client influences the culture of the firm, even. And I think each entrepreneur of an architecture studio has to navigate those issues in a unique way that works around their unique series of variables. And I’ve become really skilled at understanding how to help be a cheerleader for architects in figuring those problems out so that it improves their organization.

Evelyn Lee 15:08
Yeah, I’m especially… can you tell me a little bit about the work that you did with the Leadership Institute at the AIA, and kind of how the lessons that you’ve learned from there, as well as, like what leadership development looks like in the future of the profession?

Je’Nen Chastian 15:24
Sure. So I got really involved with the AIA and this committee that was focused on how to get architects to be more civically minded, and they are the people that came up with the term the idea of the citizen architect, and this desire for architects to have leadership skills.

Unfortunately, the committee pretty generally felt like that leadership skills were lacking in architects though, while it might seem that architects are leaders – there is this duality to it of wanting to step forward in some areas, but pullback in others. And so the committee was really focused on trying to address the issues around where they saw architects, most architects, pulling back, which included the soft skills, and wanting to teach them how to be leaders in their firm, how to step out and be civically minded leaders within their communities and beyond.

And so, basically, we started coming up with this idea of like, how do we create more opportunity for more architects and designers to be exposed to leadership development training, rather than this traditional model of leadership development that’s only for the select few who either get promotion and they get put into this leadership class, or they have enough money to pay for an executive leadership training class that they fly to a city and they spend thousands of dollars being coached on something for a weekend.

We felt like that was counter intuitive to the need in the profession. We felt like we needed it more widely distributed to more people, especially young leaders who oftentimes are trying to figure these things out earlier in their careers and are being exposed to increasingly more complex challenges that need leadership training. So we started designing a conference model that broke away from the traditional conferencing model rather than having everyone fly in.

We created the first kind of of its kind, multi-location conference that happened across multiple cities on the same day and was telecasts in a way that allowed the cities to connect virtually while engaging locally within their communities. So that was a long response to your question, but basically, we found a lot of success in being able to to amplify what we were doing. Through this method, and over the four years that the conference grew, we were able to reach over 1,700+ people, both architects and emerging professionals who are unlicensed, and the conference is still continuing to grow.

So now as a professional in my consulting business, I really want to create opportunities to bring that leadership development piece inside the firm, because I want to see leadership being talked about not only with the leadership team that’s running the studio, but also with the younger staff who are being asked to step into these Job Captain roles or young Project Manager roles or young Project Architect roles and they, they need as much support as the leaders of the firm do who are looking at the organization as a whole. So creating unique ways to integrate that development across the firm.

Evelyn Lee 19:00
Yeah. Now I mean, what’s really exciting for me is in the takeaway from the Leadership Institute was the fact that you actually came up with a completely new way of delivering the education materials on a virtual scale that brought together people both in person and kind of online, right? The keynotes, were in various different places sometimes. So, so for me, that’s an entire new new business model to develop new educational courses. So there’s, there’s a lot of things going on there.

Je’Nen Chastian 19:33
Yeah. And it’s been exciting because, you know, in this moment of change, a lot of the AIA components have been actually trying to figure out like, how do they shift their conferences and their educational delivery online. And so I think our conference has been a really good case study for helping make it a little bit more normal and to understand that that is it accessible to them in a way that maybe wasn’t previously?

Evelyn Lee 20:04
Yeah, absolutely.

Je’Nen Chastian 20:05
And you’ve also been very active with AIA equally and came up with this concept around the Practice Innovation Lab, which equally had some new ideas that introduced a different way of thinking into our industry.

Evelyn Lee 20:20
Yeah, so I think this was 2017. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was 2017. So 2017, I was chair of the Young Architects Forum. And every five years the Young Architects Forum, has a budget for a conference to bring together 60 individuals of their choosing to create the strategic plan for the next five years. And we kind of flipped that on its head a little bit and said, well, what if we do a practice innovation lab and bring together 10 teams and give them some homework up front that – you know, some great reading that I had in business school – some icebreakers because these people, for the most part didn’t know each other.

And we were throwing strangers, complete strangers, together on a team, and gave them a framework to potentially build out new business plans. So could we get 10 new business plans out of 10 teams of six strangers? And miraculously, it actually, it came together quite incredibly. I think we were very intentional about opening the selection process, and the application process to AIA members, to non members, to students, to people with all different tenure in the profession, right.

So it doesn’t matter if you’re new at a school or if you’re in school, or if you had been practicing for more than 30 years. If you’re interested in this conversation, you’re welcome to apply. And I think one of the best compliments that I actually got out of the Practice Innovation Lab was from a non member who said, you know, if the AIA was having these type of conversations on a more regular basis, then I would sign up and join to be a member.

But the energy that came into that room from people that were kind of united about this idea of moving the needle forward and thinking about practice differently, it was crazy because it was all done in a day and three quarters. And the first day was this really intense charettes where we also brought in a few keynote speakers, one so people can get a break from their team, but to also kind of prompt different ways of thinking for the team. And then on the last day, they had to do kind of a shark tank, like each team did a shark tank presentation, of their new business idea, and the conference committee went back and forth a while.

Are these people going to be so worn out on the first day? Like, when do we end the day? Right? Do we do we leave the space open for them so they can stay as long as they want? The space, I think closed at 9pm that day? So that ended, but a lot of the teams chose to work like they would the day before a big critique in the studio, because they were that excited about it. And they stayed up to all hours of the evening, trying to get this pitch ready. It was really exciting. It was a great energy. If you search Practice Innovation Lab on aia.org, they have a video that came out of it as well as kind of a findings document. But that’s what really gets me excited about the future of practice having those discussions in that energy. And that’s really why I ultimately launched practice of architecture as a way to keep that dialogue going.

Je’Nen Chastian 23:58
Yeah. We should definitely talk about Practice of Aarchitecture. So, as a, I mean, I think we’re both founders, we’re both very entrepreneurial in some of the endeavors that we’ve done. And I’m curious, like, what was it about launching the Practice of Architecture platform that was most exciting for you.

Evelyn Lee 24:17
I mean, there’s a few things for it. So there there was a period that I thought about going off and being a consultant to architecture firms, a lot like what you’re doing. I didn’t feel like it the right audience was there. And I also felt like my work, MK Think and workplace strategy and now at Slack is kind of – it’s not a means to an end, but I like my day job and it gives me another perspective on practice that I otherwise wouldn’t have.

For me, the Practice of Architecture is kind of a place to put all of the extra energy and all of my desire to raise the value of the profession and to really make architects more relevant in this changing economy. You know, people talk about us being the master builder, or the first person that they want their clients to turn to, in a state of crisis. And it is a lot based on relationships. But it’s also based on, you know, intelligently, being able to communicate out our ability to problem solve around a variety of different problems.

And for me, the long view of Practice of Architecture is providing professional development to individuals in a unique way. Running innovation sprints with firms that are looking for a way to get unstuck and move forward. And then for the ones that are willing to take a risk on those outcomes of those innovations, Sprints to really look at what it means to bring a new business model to market and how do you implement it, and there’s an interesting full circle thing about that right?

Because if you implement a new business model, then the way you kind of train up your leaders is going to be different than you are now. Or it should be inherently different than you are. Now, they’re going to need a different set of skills to be successful in that model. So there’s this kind of full circle training the individual, helping the firm, innovate, create new business models, and the big hope and the big dream is to ultimately launch Practice of Architecture, and have a cohort and then an accelerator of all these new ideas and help them bring it to market. And then if we can’t provide the VC funding, have the right people in the room and make those right connections, to really see those ideas take off in a way that haven’t been able to catalyze within the traditional model of the firm structure.

Je’Nen Chastian 26:50
Yeah, I think that’s so exciting. And I know there’s gonna be a lot of people out there that are going to be really interested in trying to contribute their ideas to that. I guess one question I have to dive just a little bit deeper – so currently the Practice of Architecture website, it’s like a, there’s a lot of articles on there. And I know the business itself. It just kind of started with you writing some thought pieces that you were developing. And now it seems like there’s a community behind it, where there’s additional contributors. Like I’m a contributor, and there’s a couple of other folks. And you also have some other people that are chiming in on ways to collaborate to. Talk about that a bit more.

Evelyn Lee 27:34
Yeah, I mean, ultimately, the Practice of Architecture while it was my idea, is more aligned with like rising tide raises all ships. Right? And I think it’s also important that we don’t feel isolated in these new ideas that even though they may be new and risky, and that they’re not necessarily mainstream, we’re not the only ones thinking about it. Right? So I think bringing others to the table kind of just adds more, not gravitas, but it just adds another layer of… you know this is something worth thinking about. It’s one thing when you have one expert talking about a variety of different topics, some of which they’re probably stretching on, because it’s hard to cover all those themes that we mentioned at the top of the episode. It’s really hard for any one person to cover that. But there’s definitely a community out there that can begin to look at all those aspects of practice.

Je’Nen Chastian 28:37
Yeah, I’ve been really interested because I think there’s been a lot of really good articles on there that explore these different themes in different ways. Like I was just reading Nick’s article about taking an architectural education into another career path and he had some really great insight about that. And then of course, there’s other people who are looking at it from the business innovation standpoint or the leadership development angle.

And I think just kind of asking those kind of questions that are related to thinking outside the box in terms of the way we’re talking about architectural practice is very intriguing. And that’s actually one of the reasons that I got involved with collaborating on the website, I really wanted to be able to explore those ideas a bit further in terms of what I’d been thinking about sitting at my architecture studio desk, sitting there clicking Revit like, I always wondered, isn’t there a different way we could be doing this? And if so, how? And I think through this platform, I’m really excited because I feel like we’re asking those types of questions. And we’re able to explore them in a environment where there’s a group of people who have that shared desire to analyze it and to understand it better, right?

Evelyn Lee 29:58
No, absolutely. And I think it was also, you know, I’ve just also been trying to find a way to work with you over the last 10 years, mostly on something. But I think I mean, the biggest takeaways from kind of your experience on Apostrophe Consulting – actually, before we get to that, you know – what is what is kind of next for you, on Apostrophe Consulting? What would be kind of your dream consulting gig?

Je’Nen Chastian 30:28
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I had an amazing opportunity to work with a firm that was interested in understanding their mentorship model better and looking at what else was out there on the forefront of what other firms are doing. And for me, the most exciting part is to think about how do we help people who are Gen Xers, Millennials Gen Z step into architecture in a way that responds to their unique needs. I think that if I had a chance to work with a firm on developing their mentorship model or their leadership development track, that would be amazing. Because ultimately, I think my biggest concern is being from that generation and having worked in firms, watching my peers leave the industry.

First from the Great Recession. There were a ton of people that left. And then now just because the way practice works, I’m constantly seeing my friends, in all parts of the country in all different types of firms frustrated and wanting something different and oftentimes walking away. Or if they stay, they might be a little bit frustrated. And I don’t feel like it needs to be like that. I think that we can solve this problem in a way that allows for younger leaders and firms to find their way forward in practice. And then I hoped to be someone who helps firm leaders navigate that. So that their retention is happening and that ultimately their projects continue to be successful because their people stay. They grow and they succeed into the firm and different leadership capacities. And long term, the health of all these different firms continues to grow – you know – the gap is there. We desperately need people to stay in this industry and to continue to become great architects for the future of our industry.

Evelyn Lee 32:35
Yeah, I mean, the interesting thing there, too, and I don’t know how much you want to get into it is just kind of, I’ve seen this in various different workplaces when I was doing workplace consulting but also the disconnect, especially the longer the organization has been around between what leadership thinks they should be providing from a leadership development perspective. And what those individual contributors, like really an early the younger managers or even the mid level managers really need for development within their careers?

Je’Nen Chastian 33:15
Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, our industry has such a really robust history of what it means to be an architect. I mean, it goes on for centuries. And it’s based on some really iconic leaders in our field, who practiced in a specific way. It came from their education and the places that they studied and the people they studied under. And so I think our industry replicates a lot of those behaviors forward.

But we’re at a pivotal moment of change where people are asking their leaders to lead in ways that are different than perhaps the way their mentors taught them to lead, and there is a bit of a conflict there. I would say it’s oftentimes unspoken, because it’s not like the younger leaders in the firm, are going to be that outspoken. And usually if they are, they end up getting, like asked to leave.

But the opportunity really is there to look at things a little bit differently and create pathways for people to be successful where they don’t have to leave. You know, they can grow into these leadership roles. Usually, the outspoken ones are the ones you want to groom into leaders anyway. So I just think there’s a disconnect, and there’s a need to foster and champion all types of different leaders into growing into the type of architects that we need now and in the future versus what we needed a decade ago.

Evelyn Lee 34:48
I completely agree with you. And it’s really been interesting in of your view as a millennial, I think I take a little older view, right? I’m I guess I don’t know if I’m quite mid management or mid career, but you know, I fall firmly in Generation X. You know, we were called kind of the unicorns, right, those licensed 10 to 15 years with enough work experience to maybe go transition to principle, but they’re missing that generation ahead of us. So they’re kind of scared to hand it all over.

And to be honest, I think there’s definitely plenty of people of my generation that depending on the size of the firm and the role that they’ve had, and kind of the overall lack of transparency, that architecture firms tend to have hesitancy to kind of step into those leadership roles as well, partly because of what they don’t know but also partly because they haven’t been given the hand or the authority to do so I guess. Do you see architecture practice changing at all? And, you know, admist everything else going on in the world, do you think like, what is your sense on, on their ability to change?

Je’Nen Chastian 36:10
Well, I think the current economic and social challenges of our time – the pandemic – I think it’s going to force a lot of firm leaders to have to ask questions that they need to address that they’ve never had to before.

It’s already prompted some change because of the need for everybody to work from home. I mean, that was unprecedented in scale, and the swiftness of converting architecture studios overnight to being all digital. But I do think there is some openness to change. I think it will be slow in some instances. Ultimately, I think it’s a generational shift. So as Generation X starts moving into leadership positions within firms I think they’re going to start helping to move these conversations forward in a more swift way than the conversations were happening with the Boomers because the need for change, isn’t there. I think for the Boomers are pretty happy with the way firms are operating

Unknown Speaker 37:19
[Both] Until about 10 or 11 weeks ago or…

Evelyn Lee 37:24
Or, when the first Shelter in Place Order went out. I mean, I am hopeful that the architecture profession comes changed out of this. I think we’ve shown an unprecedent amount of agility to adapt and I think it was interesting.

I heard one of the large firms say if we talked about this, if we brought this up, you know, we would have created a task force. We would have talked about it months on end. We would have tried to make it just perfect before we made the change. and have found a way to prototype it. You know, in two to three years later, they might have tried it. So you think this pushes things forward in a new way.

I hope that one of the biggest takeaways is the need for our practices to be more agile and to be more adaptable, and to be more empathetic, right, to the needs of our employees. I’m so grateful to work at Slack. But I’ve also, you know, on top of my regular workday have kind of taken on the role of with a two year old and a four year old at home of the nanny. And thankfully, my son has really excellent social classes, digital classes, but it’s still making sure he’s sitting in front of the computer for circle time.

You know, and keeping my two year old entertained throughout the work day and then staying up late into the night to actually get focused work to done so I think, definitely on the project side, I’m not the only one doing that. So at a very minimum, I would hope that, you know, this notion of asynchronous project schedules remains intact. I don’t necessarily believe in work life balance. But until we do that, I don’t think that we are going to be catching people at their most productive hours when they can really thoughtfully can contribute to the firm. And we need to allow space for that to happen.

Je’Nen Chastian 39:33
Mm hmm. So Evelyn, I just want to take a step back for our audience and just think about what we’re asking them to think about as they listen to this episode, or even as they move into this season with us. As we start to talk about these different areas of change. What we want you to ask yourself? What are the challenges that you’re facing either in your firm or in your studio? Or in your career? And, how do you start to think about solving those problems in a bigger way?

Evelyn Lee 40:03
Right? And I don’t think you’re going to find the answers, you know, in this episode, I think if you were to go back and list your challenges, that in the forthcoming episodes, you’ll find that we address those challenges in a variety of different ways. And we do so at a variety of different scales. At the individual scale, at the firm scale. And for those early in their profession, those that are later in the profession, those that are thinking of moving to a similar role or even leaving the profession altogether.

I think, you know, you’re not alone in this. The challenges are not entirely unique. But how we move forward I think is where the biggest opportunity lies. And not only do we want to present cases of people doing it differently, but we want to provide you the framework in the mindset so that you can create something new yourself.

Je’Nen Chastian 41:04
And we’ve gathered some lessons that we think are applicable as you start to ask these questions of yourself, some lessons that we learned through our career that we wanted to share.

Evelyn Lee 41:14
Yeah, so I think I’m going to start with the individual. So understanding, understand your willingness to take risk, and realizing that we grow through the most difficult times. So how far are you kind of willing to push it within your means?

Je’Nen Chastian 41:32
one lesson I learned in my own career was just to not let the path define my future, but rather to decide what was important to me and design my future around that. I think early on in anyone’s career in this field, it’s easy to look at the traditional linear path of the way you might move down the succession of becoming an introductory designer to a project architect and think that you have to stick to that.

But in reality, the skill of navigating your career is about finding what’s important to you. And allowing that to inform the decisions that you make in terms of how you navigate your career. We’ve also talked a lot about this idea of people who are invested in this industry for so long, and they have so many years of experience and they sometimes feel like they get to a place where they feel stuck. And they don’t feel like they can change anything, that they just have to do that forever. And we don’t think that’s the case. We think that there are ways that you can broaden your career. You can pivot, as Evelyn said she did in her career, to explore new ideas. There’s a lot of ways to take an architectural education and apply it.

Evelyn Lee 42:50
And I think part of that is also looking at what inspires you outside of architecture or kind of architecturally adjacent. You know, there’s a lot of architects out there. They are doing unique things from a graphic design, the sculptural kind of point of view. I take a lot of inspiration from other entrepreneurs. I take a lot of inspiration from, well the CEO of Slack, but like, similarly minded people that are kind of disrupting other industries, and how did they think about creating that disruption, you know, and there’s ability to continue to be unique and original, and to use kind of everything that we’ve have learned in the past to contribute to those ideas. So just to kind of cap this all off, maybe we should highlight some of the range of topics that we’re looking to dive deeper into over the season. What are you more interested in Je’Nen?

Je’Nen Chastian 43:51
Well, I’m certainly interested in understanding what this next generation of practice looks like. On our next episode, we’re going to be having some guests come on who participated in the Practice Innovation Lab, and even came up with their own business idea that they’re trying to take to market. So we’ll look at what those leaders are thinking in terms of pivoting in terms of how they’re thinking about practice. We’re also going to look at what it means to be a purpose driven practice, like how do you put what is important to you at the forefront of how you’re talking about your firm culture and your marketing? We’re going to look at new models of mentorship, which is a personal favorite of mine, as well as retaining the next generation of leaders.

Evelyn Lee 44:37
Yeah, I’m excited, kind of, about this whole idea of new service lines. The best way to kind of increase your profit margin is by offering something new and different rather than trying to get people to pay more for what you already offer them. So to whatever extent we can really expand The different types of different services we’re offering as an architecture firm. At Practice of Architecture we’re developing a course in this. But, having a good conversation about what we’re saying is recreating or creating your career in architecture. And kind of the expectations of that, Je’Nen, you mentioned of staying on that path, but also what it means to go off that path and to discover new and applying this idea of agility to your own career, and settling in being okay, with change. On a personal level, I think.

Je’Nen Chastian 45:35
We hope that people will walk away with these lessons that they can apply in their firm or in their personal career paths. And just be willing to explore some different concepts like step outside of what you think is the set way to do it. And what is another way that another firm might be looking at the same problem?

Evelyn Lee 45:55
Yeah. And then one of the things that I’m really interested in, I think you As well as this whole idea of architecture. And so if you find yourself attracted to this podcast, but you are in a different career altogether, you know, please reach out to us because we’d love to hear what you’re doing. But in the meantime, we have are using our connections, to reach out to those who have already pivoted away and give them kind of a space to tell us how they took their architectural training, or how they believe actually the career they landed in could lend itself better to those that have architecture training, and advice to architects who are interested in making the leap.

Je’Nen Chastian 46:39
Yeah, so if you’re, if you’re one of those people, if you’re an architecture and career person, please reach out to us we’d love to hear your story.

Evelyn Lee 46:48
Yeah. So for more on the changing nature of practice, visit us online at practice of architecture calm and follow us on social at practice of arch

Je’Nen Chastian 46:59
And we are So looking forward to diving deeper on these topics with you. Over the next couple episodes Stay tuned as each week we roll out a new episode that will explore different variation on this theme, and we will look forward to seeing you in the future. Until next time

Evelyn Lee 47:19
Thanks for joining us on practice disrupted a podcast by practice of architecture. Visit us at practicedisrupted.com. To find out more about future episodes and the changing nature of practice. This show is part of the cable media Podcast Network. You can learn more about other podcasts and our community by visiting gablmedia.com. If you enjoyed the show and want to hear more content like this, you can help us by leaving a rating review and subscribing on your favorite podcast app. Don’t forget to share with your friends and feel free to let us know what other topics or speakers you’re interested in hearing about. Thanks for listening and see you next week.