Building & Running a Successful Hybrid Practice

A Alright. Welcome back, everybody. This week on practice disrupted, We're taking a little bit of a shift away from our normal episodes where we invite a guest on, and we're going internal to Speak with Evelyn actually who is going to share with us more on some of the research that she's doing and also share with us A bit of an inside peek at her business, which is practice of architecture. So for those who don't know, Evelyn and I Started the podcast in 2020, not really planning to do a podcast during a pandemic, but it became clear that that's where we were heading. And over the last year, we've basically been building our own businesses as 2 female founders who are Very interested in architecture and entrepreneurship, and we've been building our research around some of the topics that we've been talking about on the show. So in this episode, you'll hear a little bit about Evelyn's research and where she's heading with that. So Hi, Evelyn. How are you doing?

B Hi, Janine. Hi, listeners.

A This is a rare opportunity for us to come together and just talk more on the show. And I know last season we talked about why you had started the business. Do you feel like the reasons that you started the business are still showing up in how you're thinking about the business now that we're in the pandemic?

B I I think if anything, as the pandemic has proven out for a lot of individuals and a lot of businesses that it's it's even accelerated things. Right? Like, that it's given us a view into what we do well, but even more so into where we struggle as a profession. It's actually kind of brought the work that I've done with Slack closer and that I am doing with Slack when we think about being a remote first organization and reimagining work, which is literally reimagining work is literally the tagline of our latest marketing campaign to how how we do that for our own practices in a way where we come out as more sustainable and resilient Economically. It's so interesting to me that we talk about so much about sustainability and resilience from a climate action perspective. But in order for us to be around to continue to make that change, That means we also have to build sustainability and resilience into our practices. So, yes, it's accelerated it, I feel.

A I think so too. I mean, I think from my observation, we had already started this research before the pandemic, and we were observing that there was a shift in workplace practice and that there was a delay specifically around adoptions of some of these ideas into an architecture firm setting. So that kinda was what led us to start having conversations. Partially, that's what led me to go after my MBA, and then I think we've continued to have these conversations even after both of us graduated. So I know that your mission was to bring some of that into focus with your business. And I agree, I think, in having these conversations with you over the past almost 12 months, I feel like we've been able to go accelerate the conversations because everybody's talking about change in a way that's relevant to the way we're gonna practice going forward as we move away from the pandemic. So I wanted to start by asking you to talk about your interest in this model of the hybrid practice because that's what I I first started hearing you talk about that last year. And Maybe you can give us, like, a overview of what what is a hybrid practice,

B how have

A you seen that trend emerge, and what does it mean?

B Yeah. So for me, a lot of companies didn't know if they could do remote. Right? Even the CTO at Slack was an individual that really liked Having an office culture and having people show up, and be in the office, the way we manage our space was very indicative of that. We had 1 to 1 desking. With the move to remote, which allows for some greater flexibility for better or for worse. I mean, there's definitely those people that's are having a really hard I'm drawing the line between when the workday ends and when their personal life picks up again because it's all happening in the same physical space. But I think there's this enthusiasm around being able to work during the hours where you're most productive, but also the lack of commute, especially in big urban areas where the average commute was 90 minutes or more. You know, and that's where where I am in the Bay Area to really take back that commute time and turn it into some type of productive time.

B So the notion of the hybrid practice is really looking at all of the companies saying, we are not going to be a completely in office company. We are not going to ever have be entirely remote. So what is a hybrid? What is the mix of the 2? And I I'm a little bit worried, and this is not true purely of the architecture industry. I think this is true of every industry, That creating a productive employee environment that is split between both physical and remote is actually harder than, you know, if you're managing for everyone being in the same place or everyone working remotely. Because I think you have to be more intentional about What happens when the team isn't together, and those opportunities to bring the team together, and what it really means to bring the team together into that physical space. And in some cases, in a hybrid practice, you have to almost act as if you are entirely remote and adopt that mindset. So you have all the systems set up so you can actually work asynchronously on projects. Because if you allow for complete flexibility, Then at any given time, you can assume that, like, 1 or 2 people from your team are not gonna get in be in the room.

B So how do you loop them in at a later date? So it's it's the harder of the 3 models to adopt and to adjust for. And Architects are very much they we've we've proven out that we haven't changed our business model for I don't I don't even wanna put a date on it for over decades, but we haven't evolved our business model. So I'm a little bit worried that we are going to storm ahead with all the Band Aids that we created in moving to remote work and not really reassess the firm's operations, policies, and procedures around what it means to actually truly run A flexible hybrid practice.

A And so I know that in our research, we have uncovered a lot of conversations around mindset for architects debating this question of how will we work through the pandemic, how will we work after. And if I'm assessing this conversation right, I would say that you're advocating for architects to consider the hybrid practice, if if that's right. And I wanna know what would be your argument for why they should consider it and adopt it.

B Yeah. So I think there are several things. I would say building in the systems that you need for a hybrid practice since you are acting as if you are remote, but you still are having a physical office, means that if anything were to happen to the physical office, be it the pandemic or the more recent events of what happened in Texas, You have all the redundancies in place for business continuity through the best of times, but also through the worst of times. And this includes If one of your major principals or partners has to step away for under an undetermined amount of time and other people have to then pick up and understand kind of the course and history of the project to date and be able to pick up and move forward. So it builds in all those redundancies and systems that Create a best case scenario for business continuity. The other thing that a lot of tech firms are actually leveraging around this hybrid is the ability To have the 1 or 2 or handful of individuals, depending on how big your workforce is, to be entirely remote, and what it means to open your hiring to a a more diverse population simply because You can hire the best talent no matter where they live. We will always be faced with circumstances where, especially for Bay Area firms, People can't move here because of the cost of living. And even if you are able to pay 1 person to move here, there might be extranuating circumstances stances that prevent them from moving here.

B So if you really want the best talent but if you don't have the ability to hire from a diverse population, It opens up the ability to actually bring more diversity of thought, and demographic diversity into your firm 2 from an equity standpoint. And it also gives people the ability and the flexibility to really grow in their careers as they focus on the things that they need as their life changes over time. So the person that you hire in their early twenties will have very different needs if they stay with your firm long enough, you know, when they're in their thirties and starting a family. So it makes sure that you are adaptable to the career growth and the career changes of your people over time as well because you're building in that extra flexibility. I mean, those those are rattling off of the the top of my head or kind of like the the The biggest takeaway is that running a hybrid practice has. And if you think about all those things, it really actually ensures that you Contain your culture. Right? That you actually have a culture that stays with the firm because you're actually because people are staying with the firm. Right? So much of what the firm's culture is are the individuals that make up the culture.

B And if you're dealing with a high turnover rate, that's quickly going to go away.

A Yeah. And, I mean, you're raising a lot of really good things, and I I don't wanna pursue all of them in-depth. But one that stands

B out to

A me was Just based on my own experience, I had to leave San Francisco because it just got to a point where, financially, it wasn't gonna work for me anymore. I didn't see staying there changing the equation for me in the long run. So we decided to relocate, and now I live in North Carolina. And It's amazing to me because in this model, I've I've been able to make the podcast work with you. We split time zones. We're working our editor is also in California in a different part of California. So, like, we have a very flexible way that we work on the podcast. And, yeah, it's not architecture, but I still see the creativity and the collaboration happening in a virtual space that's to our benefit.

A And it's amazing because I look at, you know, my time with all the firms that I, you know, spent out there, and I'm able to continue conversations with firms in California even though I'm on the East Coast. And I see a lot of people leaving jobs, like, that they love or that they've had for a long time to move to new locations. And allowing for this flexibility has allowed one of my very good friends who just moved to Boston to continue to work for her firm in California. And she's gonna and they want her to stay because they see The value in making that long distance relationship work for her to continue to serve the firm.

B Yeah. Absolutely. I think a lot of architecture firms are going to try this. I see that there's gonna be a lot of architecture firms. I mean, I already see it happening that they're like, we're trying it, but it didn't really work even upon reentry. So it's gonna be back to normal as soon as it can get back to normal. And the reason why if you talk to Stewart Butterfield about the reason the number one reason why we went to her remote first workplace is because all things being equal, you know, except culture, which never can be. But all things being equal about title, benefits, Salary.

B If you are the company that requires somebody to be in an office, you know, x number of days for so many hours versus you're the company saying, we trust you enough that you'll get your work done when you need to get it done, And we figured out how to do that on our team, they're always gonna go for the latter. Right? There's I I mean, I don't I don't know who would introduce that.

A So let's talk about the hybrid practice playbook because this is a document that you started developing in the fall, and it's led to this other Expanded research that you've done, I guess, starting in January is when I think you rolled out the workshops. So the hybrid practice playbook

B really looks at the variety of different aspects a firm should reconsider looking at when making the move to this model. You know, I talked about how I'm worried that that all the firms will take what they've banned like, created as Band Aids going to the remote workplace and kind of just adopting them into their current workflows. The hybrid practice asks that you so 6 areas. So you revisit your your firm culture, that you create people frameworks that build greater trust, especially as You don't have eyes and butts in seats about what the people are doing on a day to day basis. Creates policies around How you manage projects and how teams work productively together looks at added security and support For your team as you migrate your systems to the cloud, a lot of the slowdown that I saw, especially with small and medium sized firms, was that they had this physical server that people were trying to VPN into, and they didn't have the bandwidth for everybody to be VPNing into the physical server in the office. So how do you get around that? Using the tools in the right way, I see so many firms that are like, how far can I get with the free version of Zoom? We're scrappy. Architects have always been scrappy. We're like, What can we do with the tools we have?

A How can I MacGyver it?

B How can I MacGyver it? What can we do with the tools we have without, like, looking at those tool I mean, The tools have some come so far even in the last year in terms of, like, what are tools that actually support how we want to work in a way that's meaningful and ultimately productive and helps us store data and access data when we need it, and move things forward rather than it together. And then, you know, what are best practices around Being the individual we call them individual contributors in the tech space. But, like, you know, how how do you you be a better employee? So those are kind of the 6 areas that we're doing deeper dive webinars into. And those are the 6 chapters that actually make up the playbook that I put together. And every time that I roll out a new webinar, which ultimately comes with a new Architect Magazine article, which ultimately then updates the playbook. The the hand the playbook itself just continues to grow and get it gets longer as I research these things.

A Yeah. And I think we're also we're living in a time where the discovery is happening in in real time. So, like, things have changes changed dramatically over the past 12 months, and things that we were thinking at the beginning of the pandemic have already become evolved and new norms have emerged from it. So I'd I and I think that that trend will continue as we find our way out of everything and into this. I think it's like the next decade of work. We're defining it. It's gonna set us up for a whole new generation of Employees and workplace culture trends.

B My hope is that all of this really sets up architecture for success. I think and this was true prior to the pandemic, that the profession needs to take a breath and really look at the business model, look at operations, policies, and procedures, and look at how we're setting up our mission, vision, and values as a company to really align with what people these days want. But there are firms out there that set a mission and vision, have changed leadership, and have never revisited that mission and vision. And we have a different generation of architects that are coming into the profession. I think wanting wanting more than what previous generations have wanted to get out of their work and just kind of more meaningful social contributions. And it's it's worth a revisit to to these topics.

A Well said. I think there are a lot of firms out there that would say, we've already done this. You know, we've already gone through this this process of figuring this stuff out. And what I would challenge is that a lot of the best practices in business have shifted probably over the years since you've design some of your strategies, and it's continued to shift at a rapid rate. And our argument and what we are trying to present through the series of episodes across our podcast is that just like when you sit down and design a building, when you figure out The programmatic elements and the things that you want to inform the design of the building, that's what produces great architecture. That's what drives long term success and vision behind every element that you scale up through design. Similarly, if you apply that same thought process to thinking about your business, you have to start with really understanding The processes behind your business. And I think this is where I wanna step in to allowing you to talk about these 6 areas that you're really encouraging firms to design around Evelyn because I think this is a great framework to assess what's working, what's not working, And come in and make adjustments to some of that operational and cultural design within your firm to improve it.

B Yeah. And I I also wanna say, I feel all of this is indicative of a broader underlying problem with our profession. I mean, it's not I don't necessarily blame the architects for not being not having business sense. Right? Because we're not taught that. And if we purely model, like, how firms are run today, then then you can kind of see how how things continue to evolve and stay in place or actually don't evolve because we're just learning from people who learn from their, you know, from from their managers and leaders. And there's there's kind of no evolution of thought to how our business is run. So, I mean, I I struggle with business owners, but I don't I don't blame the profession for where we are. I don't blame the profession for ever anything, I guess.

B I I mean, my my my critique on it is if you are more open minded to these changes, you will move your practice forward faster. If you aren't open minded, that's fine. But as things start to go south, like, you like, you'd need to be willing to claim responsibility for what you did and didn't do to move your firm forward. So I I guess that's kind of the approach that I that I take to all of this.

A I think that's a fair critique and maybe a good step into our 1st topic area, which is culture. So tell us more about why architects should be thinking about culture in terms of a hybrid practice. Yeah.

B So I think we already hit on it. Right. So mission and vision is often set by companies, and then it it just sits there. I actually find that very few companies truly set values that they live into. And if you, like, look up business definitions of values, These are, like, 5 or 7 filters. And I say 5, like, the values are the filters that every business decision that you make about your company should be going through from how you interact with clients and how you select clients down to how you interact with one another and the firm and also who you hire to join your firm. For for the audience, please excuse me, but I'm just using Slack as an example because because, like, that's, you know, that's who I am. But but our our values, some of our core values are being, You know, smart, humble, hardworking, and collaborative.

B And then we go further to define it as, like, smart. This isn't just like IQ smarts, But it's the desire to keep learning, be curious, inventive, and creative, humble as effectively Effectively serving our customers. So it's how we treat our customers, but it's how we treat ourselves too. And it's how we treat our space. So clean up after yourself. And also, you know, know that you're not not always gonna be the expert in the room, so go find other experts to work with. Hardworking And we it's quickly followed by, this isn't working late or on weekends. This is because we are determined and gritty and finding ways to be creative and the resources to get there.

B Collaborative is the output of our team exceeds the sum of all individual team workers' strengths. So on the highest functioning teams, People should be multiplying each other's strengths, not taking away from it. So those are kind of some of the core values that we tend to live into. And I think more architecture firms have to look at, especially as we moved to hybrid work, Because a successful move to hybrid practice actually means greater transparency and greater communication throughout your firm, It means that everyone has to kind of understand their wheel or their what their cog and the greater system is doing for the practice, And you are bringing them along. You are hiring people that are in line with your values, that are excited about what you wanna do, and excited about how you're delivering on the end, which is which is what ultimately gels kind of the culture of your firm together. I mean, that's the big thing to me for those individuals who are like, oh, we've got it, And it's set, and we're working through it. Some of our research has shown that, like, even if you create a culture that is strategically aligned and super strong, And that means, like, everybody is like, I wanna work for your company. I'm gonna recruit all my friends to work for for you.

B It will not help in the long run if it's not adaptive. So another key to, I think, all of these steps, culture inclusive, is that Hybrid integrates, like, a cycle of continuous improvement as well.

A There's so much more to dive into on that topic, but maybe we'll save that for future episode. And we'll link a couple of the past episodes in the show notes so people can go listen to prior conversations that we've also had.

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A Let's step into the next focus area, which is about people and policies. So you talk about, creating a people framework that builds trust and creates pass towards growth within the firm.

B Just checking into recent social media forums. Right? I think a lot of organizations, especially, are struggling with, Is it worth bringing interns at this time? How do I mentor my younger people along? You know, do we need a policy in the firm where everybody who comes to the firm for the like, for the 1st year, they have to show up at the office every day because that's where the learning happens. So this is really about creating people frameworks that make sure that you hire the right people at the right time for your needs. Like, if you need somebody to be good at Revit, then introduce a skills test into part of the recruitment process. So you know from day 1 that they have the skills that you need them to have to make a contribution to the firm. Like, make make sure that your hiring process is built like, that is built into your hiring process. It means that you're providing adequate amount of room and growth for individuals. And it also means And and we talked a little bit about this.

B Like, that no matter what size your firm is, that you can actually set up a career path so so that an individual knows how they can grow over time with your firm, whether you're a 2 person firm or and you need to decide When does this individual get more responsibility? When does this individual get to begin to show up at client meetings, lead projects on their own, do business development, speak on behalf of the firm, like, as a 2 person firm, or how do you develop bigger career paths more broadly. But it's really how do you set up people frameworks that build trust so it's no longer A butts in seats type of thing. You know that everybody knows what they need to do to accomplish to get to their next step, and everybody is excited to be there because they're to be a part of the firm.

A Yeah. And this is a really important one because I know there's a lot of firms out there that They want this stuff to happen organically, and they're I mean, essentially, the conversations that I keep having, it's like, They don't wanna be corporate. They didn't go into architecture to design business HR processes, so they're not really interested in that. But what I keep seeing is Because there is a lack of process for people moving in the firm from when they get onboarded to how they grow and when they leave, That lack of communication causes so many unintentional issues within, like, people's development and and attempts to Stay in the firm. And the number one lesson that I would say is if you are not planning for people to have some sort of growth no matter what point they are in their career. If they're it's their 1st year there, if they're new hire, if they're early in their career, or they're more senior, You're being naive. I mean, just frankly, you're, like, being completely naive. Like, you need to plan for ways for people to have growth in their career, and it has to be communicated in a really clear way because people need you to tell them how you see they're growing, where they fit into the firm, how they're gonna continue to have longevity there, or you're gonna lose them.

B Right. And, I mean, a part of it too is just it's it's about growth, but it's also about creating trust. Right? You know, and I I I I dip my toe in it, but going back to, like, hiring new grads right out of school and believing, 1, they're going they're going to learn through Osmosis, which yeah. We all know that people learn differently.

A My favorite quote was this architect He's like, yeah. We just like to throw them in the deep end and see how they swim. And then when they look like they're drowning, we go get them and we help them. It's like, Oh gosh. I guess you could teach like that.

B Yeah. I guess I guess. But then, like, how much time are you losing? Like, billable hours watching them drown when they could actually be doing billable hours that are I mean, if you if you wanna put it in, like, firm owner terms. Right? Like, that that's time lost against billable hours versus, like, time gained. So, you know, these are intelligent individuals, College grads. I I feel like the onboarding process should be like, 1, is orientation is a 1 1 day to 1 week thing. Onboarding at any firm, I would like you to look at it as, like, at least a year long thing. And then I would like you to look at, like, what is the syllabus you hand over to that person so that they know what they need to do at the 30, 60, 90, 6 month 1 year marker to be able to say, I've contributed to the firm in the 1st year.

B Write up the syllabi. Write up the skills that you need to make sure that they get to. Write up what they're supposed to be able to do on a project. Write up what they should know be able to know. Like, within the 1st 30 days, I don't want to have any more questions about where our details library is because you should know where that is. And then acknowledge that not everybody is going to learn if you throw them into the deep end, that there's different styles of learning, And you're going to kind of have to accommodate for all those different styles because we're looking for greater diversity and ways I'm thinking when you bring people in. But that comes with a a greater diversity of how we approach learning as well and teaching.

A Well said. Well said. So, that kinda leads us into, I I guess, a bit about Team management and productivity, which is our next stop on the tour.

B Yeah. So team management and productivity. So Flexibility, by the way, is not only about where people work, so making the determination to work in and out of the office, but also when people work, which I know is a harder concept for architecture firms to wrap their head around. But And, ultimately, to provide the greatest amount of flexibility, you have to provide both. And we had a great I don't know if you were on that call, Janine. But I had a great, conversation with a a firm leader who talked about, who hired this 1 person. And it's a relatively small community. And this 1 person has had grown a reputation at a different firm for being completely lazy, Showing up late all the time, not doing their work effectively.

B You know? And then At the end of you know, when 5 o'clock came along, everyone else was so much more productive than this 1 person. Well, he goes and works for this firm who who's a little bit more forward thinking and allows allows this 1 individual who is struggling to really show up and do their work when they're best geared to do that. And that meant for them that the day started at 10 or 11, but it also meant that the day went a little bit longer. And now that individual is one of the top performers at the new firm only because they were allowed to work when they could. Granted there there are other things that, You know, make the dynamics of running a project like this a little bit more difficult. But it goes back to my saying that, like, you have to act as if you're an entirely remote firm, which means you need to be documenting and storing everything in one place that's easily accessible. All of your conversations accessible into the to the entire team so that anyone, no matter where they pick up or leave off during the day, can see what has progressed on the project and what they need to do and what they need to accomplish. So it's in this environment, it's really about how do you set up and manage Asynchronous projects.

B When do you decide when you need to bring people together, and how do you continue to keep and grow innovation in the firm, especially as your workforce is not all in the same place at the same time. And actually, the Future Forum just released a whole bunch of information and research, deep research, into how firstly collaboration times is more innovative than, like, forcing people to collaborate in the office all the time. Because if you think about it, you are never truly collaborating from 8 to 5 all the time in the office. I would argue even that the majority of the time is like, the individual spent kind of like head down Either reviewing documents or putting documents together in the office, and and collaboration happens in births. So how do you be more intentional about about when those burst happen to really move innovation forward, especially with a hybrid workforce?

A I think that's a great point. So, Evelyn, what I'm hearing and what you're touching on goes back to something you said earlier in the episode, which It's really just this idea about working smarter and not necessarily throwing more time or more work towards something. But, like, really figuring out, like, what how do we, like, streamline this efficiency around? How do we work to get what we need done within the time that we have so that we're not trying to just throw continuous hours at it. And I know that that's a big theme that's gonna show up in more of the conversations that we're gonna have in the next bit of this interview. Can you tell me a little bit more about How you've seen efficiency improve some of the work that you've been involved in? You you it was interesting that you kind

B of stated up front. We're all kind of learning and growing and doing this together. Even Slack, even personally, I've kind of, like, in my head have changed, like, what are the policies that need to happen for us to be, like, a bit more productive. So Zoom fatigue is real. I think we We all have experienced it firsthand. So, you know, Slack has gone away from this policy where they require cameras on all the time But if you need your camera off, no questions asked. Like, we get it. Like, you can't always be on Zoom all the time.

B So we allow for that space to happen. Citibank just did this. I think they just released, like, no Zoom Fridays. So they they actually reserve Fridays as, like, non meeting days. You know? And we've done this at Slack, not necessarily whole days, but different departments will say, These blocks during this week on Tuesday, Thursday are reserved from deep for deep work. That means that we will not allow anyone to schedule a time on anyone's calendar. And it allows you to kind of really focus and get the work that you're done done because otherwise you're just sitting in meetings all day. And then I think we we are very conscientious about rereviewing all of our meetings and why you actually have meetings.

B So Slack, we operate in channels. I don't know the what the equivalent is for Microsoft Teams. There's obviously other Google Chat. But, like, how much of what you'd like to communicate in the meeting, can you communicate through those other mechanisms So you don't have to bring everyone together. Some teams have set up, like, a morning you know, engineering teams do a morning stand up. And instead of actually doing a Zoom call to say, like, what's on everybody's plate, there's a reminder that pops up and says, hey. Good morning. Reminder, fill the team on in on the following 3 things.

B You know, what you accomplished yesterday, what you're working on today, And 3, what are any potential roadblocks to the work that you're doing that you needed assistance on? Alternatively, we have firstly team times where we come together and, like, if you if you if it's just easier to work things out in person, Like, set aside an hour once or twice a week. It doesn't have to be an hour even. Where everyone is on on camera or you know, like, it's like office drop in hours, if you need an a question answered by a person, it's just easier to have An actual conversation rather than doing it through chat. Like, those are the times we get together. So it's it's like figuring out what are all of these different systems that you can adopt to create a productive workplace going forward.

A Right. Okay. So what's the next one on our list of, 6 hybrid practice tips.

B 4 is just really about security and support. The biggest takeaway from security and support is everything is safe on the cloud. I know some architects might have some problems wrapping their head around this, But even Dropbox and Box and Google Drive have pursued things that get around HIPAA compliance. So anytime, for instance, you are working on an app on your phone to sign in to any of your financial institutions, All of your financial information, whether you like it or not, is on some cloud database. So if you're worried about moving your firm's Data to the cloud, you already have a lot of personal information on the cloud. So I mean, there's the we'll we'll dive deeper into, you know, single sign on, applications and and managing, like, how you manage, Who like, what type of software programs are on people's computers remotely, how your cloud server should be set up. For that one, I'm looking actually to bring in more deeper expertise to speak specifically to that. But the biggest the biggest hill that I found, and we touched on that at the beginning was that so many of these firms had a physical server.

B Right. And the you have to pay to upgrade your physical server. You have to pay to upgrade to more bandwidth to provide for that, and you inevitably have to pay that third party IT person to come in to kind of manage that anyways. So how can you you know, what type of security and support from an IT perspective can a hybrid firm kind of lean into. Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, all of them, Microsoft 360 are hiring the top of the line cybersecurity people to lock down their systems. Is that like, essentially, you know, get in the mindset that if you migrate any of your documents, now you're paying for the top of the line security that your firm, you know, just couldn't frankly afford out of pocket. So for me, that's kind of the biggest mind shift there.

A Yeah. Definitely. I I know that we've had a lot of conversations offline around that. And I've been learning about, like, a lot of the tips that you've shared with me about the single what did you call it? Single sign on? The single sign on.

B Yeah. So we use single sign on to give people a lot of access to our our licenses, but you there's also a way to use single sign on. Like, it was it was amazing. My 1st day at Slack, I didn't have the Adobe Suite on my computer. And I I I was just, like, thinking about all the nightmares about what it took to get small firm or large firm. You know? How do I get Just to get something installed. Right? But I send out you know, I reached out to our help help biz tech channel, and I said, hey. I need this on my computer.

B They're like, can you can you send us an okay from your boss? I did a screenshot of a message that she sent me and sent it back to them. And then 5 minutes later, It was, like, it was on my computer, remote access.

A Yeah. So it goes back to our point about streamlining.

B Yeah. But there's absolutely ways to, like, to support, like, who has what software on your computer if you're worried about it and to kind of manage how many, digital licenses that you have throughout the firm.

A Yeah. But, you know and it's important. I mean, there are risks out there tied to technology. We all know that. There's spammy stuff out there. And I think in terms of our dependence on technology, like, putting some systems in place around security and just getting things set up in an efficient way. It really saves you a lot of time is what I found, and it gives you peace of mind in terms of, like, trying to Just ensure that your business is all, safe and taken care of.

B Yeah. And, I mean, the the other thing with single sign on, and kind of allocating resources that way is It is really quick and easy for you to take all of that capacity away. If I gave my notice today, they could They could shut me out of the system with, like, one click. I wouldn't have access to any of our documents. So even remotely. So, I mean, those those are kind of this the where technology is now looking at, like, enabling the remote workforce, but also controlling the data that you need to control.

A Right. So your 5th item on your list is tools, and I know this is a really important one that we've talked a lot about. Like, Some of the firms that we've been speaking with, they've been discovering what tools to use during the initial months of the pandemic, and now I think a lot of firms have, like, their standard go to. But you also mentioned using the tools correctly, which I think is another important point.

B I mean, I'm gonna come out and say it. At the top of the pandemic, I was getting really annoyed when I was getting invited to Teams meeting as a non Teams user Because and and granted the product has evolved over time, but, like, literally, the reason why Teams meeting was only had, like, a limited availability. Like, you can only have 5 people. Like, it wasn't meant to have 20 people on at one time. Was because it was meant for like, if if you're having a conversation and dialogue back and forth in Teams and it's going south and you need to jump on a quick call, And you can quickly, easily say, like, let's turn this into a video chat to resolve it. By the way, Slack has that integrated as well. Like, there's the ability to make a quick video shot. So, you know, my thing is not only do you you know, and we talked about this.

B Firms tend to kind of take a look at their toolset and MacGyver it and figure out a way to use it. There's there's a few things that happen there. If you are MacGyvering, like, this 20 step process to go through 5 different programs to get out a rendering the way that your firm specifically produces a rendering. Think about how hard it is to train any new person to go through that entire process. So at some point, you need to look at it and say, is there a quicker way to get from a to b. So there's actually a term for this. It's called the technical debt. So technical debt is like when you're in a middle of an important project, and you hit a roadblock.

B And then there's an option to either, like, correct the roadblock, but that takes a lot of time, or those are work workaround and fix. We usually go with a workaround and fix. The problem is we never go back to the roadblock and take the longer road to create processes that fix it later. So in the IT world, the additional cost to an organization that incurs to undo workarounds at a later date, that's called technical debt. So how do you use tools correctly, and how do you create a system to continuously reevaluate tools so you do not incur the cost of technical debt in the future.

A Yeah. And I can see this translating directly through Revit because I always hear a lot of my architect friends, especially the ones that have to go back in and clean up Either the model or the drawing set, they get annoyed when people model or draw something wrong, and then there's a lot of cleanup that happens because someone took a shortcut they didn't understand, like, procedurally, like, how to draw it the right way or model it correctly. So my reaction to that and kinda what you're saying is it comes back to that onboarding piece where, like, if you're training people how to use the tools correctly, which is an overhead cost that most architects don't wanna use. They'd rather just throw them into the project and expect them to use it correctly. Well, that's the payoff. That's like what you get. You get someone who's not trained in the tool because you're expecting them to just do that after hours or come in already trained on how to do it, which I think is ridiculous, and then being disappointed when they get it wrong. Like, no.

A Like, maybe train them correctly, show them how to do it, Make sure that those are things that you're communicating across the firm and reduce your inaccuracies. Like, that's what's gonna, like, get rid of that.

B Yeah. Those just talk about, like, the tools and the tactics. Again, it goes back to this notion of an of continuous improvement. I think a lot of architects talk about how they love architecture because you continue to learn like, there's opportunities to continue to learn. There's always so many different new ways to approach a facade, which is something that that has my eyes glaze over. You know, and I and I understand that, like, Some of the topics that I'm talking about, I'm sure, like, firm owners, like, their eyes eyes are their eyes are glazing owner, but, like, that's kind of the responsibility that you've taken on as a firm owner to learn these things. You know, unfortunately, that means greater admin responsibility to your team, and it might mean that You're not doing as much design to begin with. But there are people like Janine and I that get really excited about these things.

B If It requires you bringing somebody in to kind of think a little bit differently, then we're here to support you.

A Exactly. So our 6th item, I think, is probably the one that you're most excited about. Can you explain what that is?

B I I am, and I'm not. I mean, I think so I'm placing a lot of this responsibility on firm leaders, right, to make these changes, to cultivate a wonderful culture that your your employees want to be a part of and that your clients want to have a piece in. And and by the way, I think the responsibility falls. A lot of responsibility falls on firm owners. I don't know how many firm owners I've struggled with that say, like, oh, this incoming class, x, y, z. Oh, like, I can't like, these people, I don't know. Like, they they don't know enough. They aren't trained correctly.

B Like, they blame The educational system that that's coming out of, or they blame the new employees that they hired. Well, if you're consistently saying that over and over again, Then the cause might be the systems that you have or the lack of systems that you have in your firm. So I think you really have to kinda take responsibility and ownership for that and acknowledge that you might be part of the problem. Lastly, though, we every employee definitely has a responsibility to being a good hybrid employee. So if you are committing to a workplace that is allowing for you to work more flexibility, Then you need to be willing and open to communicate when and what you're doing. And in the most genuine and best of circumstances, It actually means that your team knows probably a lot more about your personal life and what's going on than you might otherwise be willing to share. So my team knows when my nanny is sick. My team knows when I'm just having a rough day, and I need space.

B And then I'm I might I'll be on the computer later, but not now, mentally, especially with everything that's going on in the world. But you have to be able and willing to communicate out to your team kind of what's going on with you to manage their expectations, but also set expectations about when you are unable to work. So it's really just about how do you be a better hybrid employee too. And if they're giving you the ability to work remote, Then you're you're saying that I am I am putting myself in the best situation that I can given my living circumstances. Right. If you have a desk that you're more productive at, then for crying out loud, don't be working from your bed all day. But, like, Set work boundaries, understand what you need to be productive, communicate out to your team, take care of yourself so that you are showing up the best you can to work every day. For me, the last section is how do you be a good employee within this hybrid environment.

A Yeah. I think there's a lot of things that we're probably not gonna dive deep into right now, but there is an emotional maturity that has to happen, and I think that that's usually what's tied to firm owners being risk averse towards allowing employees to work from home. You have to demonstrate and prove, that you could be trusted in in taking on greater responsibility to have that ability because they are relying on you as an employee to help move the company forward. So If you can't step into that responsibility, in a way that adds value back to the company, then there are issues that I think definitely have to be addressed from a business perspective. However, by working towards growing your professional maturity, it really opens up the availability and more increased access to flexibility and more responsibility within your professional role.

B And I know, you know, there there are types or individuals out there who will ask a ton of questions. There are individuals that are kind of scared of asking questions. I think if you know you're one of those individuals, you just have you have to make the effort. Like, with all of this comes greater responsibility.

A Yeah. And I also wanna say 1 more thing. Like, I know early on in the pandemic, I noticed one of someone was struggling that, like, was really having a hard time with having so much flexibility. And I think rather than us being a culture as an industry where we reject that person and look down on that person. I think we have to rally around making observations around things like that to come and support that person and figure out what do they need, how can you support them, and give them an opportunity to improve. Like, once it's pointed out to them that it's not working. Give them space to improve. If you can't get to improvement, then those are the moments where you have to step into harder conversations.

A But some people are struggling with this hybrid practice. Some people embrace it, and it's really you just have to kind of Have more honest open conversations about what's working and what's not working.

B Right. And we've been speaking about this one from the point of, like, new hires. But I also wanna go back to leaders and managers and say, this is a responsibility of you too. Like, you need to over communicate your to your team. You need to set a behavior an example of the behaviors that you would like to see out of your team. And one of the thing that is most important about revisiting mission, vision, and values and readopting new policies, programs, and processes is that you need to make sure that your entire leadership is on board. So if you say we are going to have a more flexible workplace, but 3 out of your 5 leaders are showing up to work every day and putting in long hours, they are setting up an expectation that for me to get to your position, That is what is expected of me to do. It doesn't matter if you have a flexible workplace policy.

B It doesn't matter if you say it. You're not living into it. So same goes for, like, I know we've decided to communicate through this way, But I I really just prefer email, or I prefer that you text me, or I prefer something other than what we've decided on as an arm. You are messing with the system that you are you know, have just worked so hard to recreate. So Whatever it is, whatever wherever it lands, you need to live into the new policies, processes, and operations that you've created for your team. That also means taking time out for yourself. That also means doing professional development and allowing space, time, and financial funding to create professional development opportunities for yourself. But all of these rules about being a better hybrid employee applies to every single individual in the firm.

A So, Evelyn, as we close out today's episode, there's a couple of things I wanna talk about. Number 1 is that I know you have delivered 2 presentations so far, and you have a 3rd coming up at the end of this month. And you'll be doing a few more presentations on the same topic over the next couple of months. So why don't you tell us about that?

B Yeah. So we've gone through an overview and we've gone a little we've done, a webinar overview Of the hybrid practice, we are last month, we covered culture. This month, we're covering people and policies. So, the last Friday of every month, we're doing a webinar deep diving into one of these topics. We are submitting them for AIA continuing ed credits If you need those, so feel free to join us. Right now, registration links, you can find them in our Newsletter, you can find them on social. So once you paid, you'll be given lifetime access to materials of the webinar and then any Evolution of the webinar going forward you'll have access to. So please come join us.

B We like to leave a lot of room for conversation at the end of the webinar. And we're we're thinking of actually pivoting our practice of architecture lab into a space where we can invite more people to come in and talk about these shifts as they look at what and how they establish hybrid practices in their own firms.

A And you have another, course coming up on virtual practice that we're gonna be talking about in an upcoming episode, so you guys can look forward to

B that. Yes. And since I do not run and work for an entirely virtual organization despite it being Slack, we are bringing on 2 experts that have read, virtual practices, and they will be sharing out their expertise. So if that's the direction that you would like to go, we will have some educational materials for you on that as well.

A And then the place that I wanted to leave it off at is just if you could Tell our listeners how you think these shifts with hybrid practice and the work that we're doing here on practice disrupted practice of architecture will help move the industry forward.

B What I'm most hopeful of is that we really open up architects' minds to what are all the possibilities that the education has created for us, and where are all the avenues that architects can kind of have a space not only within architectural practice, but within other industries as well. So that that includes Recapturing all of the individuals who have an architecture background, but can't call themselves an architect, but have landed in pretty prominent industry is outside of the profession and and kind of, you know, bringing them back into the professional fold. I think A change in mindset into being more entrepreneurial, into hustling more, and creating organizations that are more agile and adaptable over time will mean that the profession not only, like, continues but grows in in value and and remains ever more relevant

A as we go forward. Excellent. Similarly, I've heard so many stories from people just being frustrated in this industry, and I know there's definitely people out there who love it. And I just wanna make sure that we're coming up with solutions that All of my friends who've been frustrated and felt a little bit abused through this industry have new ideas that they can implement into their studio so that they can continue to help their organizations improve over the long run and keep keep helping architecture as an industry Stay relevant and grow and become, adaptable to how the world is shifting.

B I mean, we are, by nature, a profession that is people centric, that is licensed to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public good. So While we're doing that, let's ensure that we're doing that to our employees and kind of nurturing the future of the profession along.

A Well, on that note, I think that's a great place to end it. So this concludes this special episode, and we will be back on episode 40 for our season finale. And as we gear up for that, if you have questions or if you're interested in, Having us answer anything specific that you'd like to talk about on the show, just shoot us an email or contact us on social media.

B Great. Thanks for listening, and tune in next week. Thank you again to our podcast partner, Monograph.

A Learn how Monograph can help you take control of your firm's financial

B Follow the link in our show notes or visit practice of architecture.com backslash monograph so that Monograph knows that you heard about them from us. Thanks for joining us on Practice Disrupted, a podcast by Practice of Architecture. Visit us at practice of architecture.com to find out more about future episodes and the changing nature of practice.

A We have several ways you can get involved with our growing community. Find us on social at practice of ARC. You can also become a member of the POA lab or join us on Patreon.

B And if you wanna take your career or practice to the next level, Janine and I also consult, provide workshops, and speak regularly on this research, and we would love an opportunity to collaborate with you.

A This show is part of Gable Media. You can learn more about other podcasts and video channels in our community by visiting g a b lmedia.com. We are

B also looking for sponsors who want to partner with us in 2021 and beyond. If that's you, please contact me directly at evelyn@practiceofarchitecture.com.

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B Don't forget to share with your friends, and feel free to let us know what other topics or speakers you are interested in hearing from. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.