Building a Great Place to Work

A This episode of practice disrupted is supported by Monograph, the cloud based practice operations solution built for architects by architects.

B And Twinmotion, the simple real time rendering solution to create high quality imagery, client presentations, and interactive experiences that help communicate your design ideas fast. I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry is changing. Together, we'll

A find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects.

B Welcome to Practice Disrupted.

A Hi, listeners. Hi, Janine.

B Hi, Evelyn. Hi, listeners. Welcome back to Practice Disrupted. Today's guest is one of my former business professors from Mills College in Oakland, and I am so excited to introduce you all to him. For those who've been listening to the show, I think you've heard that Evelyn and I have both gone after our MBAs to complement our architecture degrees. And, actually, I think Evelyn, at some point, we'll have to do a future episode about why. Because I get a lot of questions on, should I go back for my MBA?

A That is true. Yeah. Let us know if you want us to do an episode on whether or not you should go back for your MBA. That is a question I get a lot too. Okay.

B Sorry. So, anyway, when I was doing my MBA, I studied entrepreneurship, and I actually got a concentration in social entrepreneurship. And one of the classes that I took was with Michael where he taught me how to write business plans, which ended up being a very important skill that I used over and over throughout the years to write multiple business plans, including the Leadership Institute business plan, and I use it a lot in my consulting work to talk about frameworks of business. So Michael's now the CEO of a company called Great Place to Work, which is a mission driven organization and the global authority on workplace culture. They're using research and data to transform companies. They have access to unbelievable amounts of data on what motivates employees and influences workplace culture. We've discussed this on the show quite a bit that office culture and management are two challenges that are frequently issues in design studios. So I thought this would be a great chance to bring on an expert that I know who's done a lot of work around this research.

B I wanted to bring Michael on so he could teach us what he's learned through his research at Great Place TO Work. And, hopefully, if you're listening, you'll take a moment to check out their website, look at their work, and definitely check out their book.

A Right. So here's his official bio. Michael c Bush is a global chief executive with over 25 years of experience leading small and midsized organizations through transformational growth. Driven by a love of business and an unwavering commitment to fair and equitable treatment, In 2015, Michael acquired ownership and currently serves as global CEO of Great Place to Work, headquartered in Oakland, California with operations in more than 60 countries worldwide. Great Place to Work is a global people analytics and consulting firm that helps companies of all sizes produce better business results by focusing on the work experience for every employee. So this is my jam kind of over at Slack too. I'm really excited about this conversation. Sorry.

A Through certification programs, a great place to work recognizes outstanding workplaces and produces Fortune's annual list of 100 best companies to work for, the world's best workplaces list, the 100 best workplaces for women list, the best workplaces for diversity list, and dozens of other distinguished workplace rankings around the world. Let's cut to the conversation.

C Hello. My name is Michael c Busch, and I'm the global CEO of Great Place to Work. And, Janine, very happy to be with you today, and looking forward to the this podcast that we're gonna be doing together. Just to let the listeners know, I I run a company called Great Place to Work, and many people know us because we're the analytics engine underneath Fortune Magazine, 100 Best Companies to Work For. And we actually do this work. We have offices in 50 countries. We survey employees in over 120 countries. In every one of those countries, there's a list of, great places to work.

C And our our mission is to help organizations become a great place to work for all by 2030. So we survey employees and let leaders know what they could do to create a more fair and equitable and just workplace, because those workplaces outperform financially workplaces that do not have, that attribute in terms of, a great, employee experience. We survey 10,000 companies a year, over 10,000,000 employees a year, all around the world. So happy to be here today.

B Yeah. We are so glad to have you, Michael. And the the research that your company is doing is so important and especially for our listeners to know, going into the focus on architecture is a little bit probably different than the audience that you're usually speaking to. But they they are a group of people who are trying to learn more about the business world and ways that they can take big ideas from best practices globally and integrate them into their businesses. But to be honest, a lot of our architecture firms are small businesses. And so I wanted to start the conversation by giving you a chance to talk about your entrepreneurial journey and your background in being a small business owner before you took this step into your current career.

C Yeah. And as as you know, I love small business people. That's where I put most of my time and my attention in my life. And I consider myself running a small business now. We have a 100 employees in the US and 900 outside the US. And of the 10,000 companies we survey, probably 4,000 of them have less than 250 employees. So and we do our work with companies with as few as 10 employees. So, I think the things that we'll be talking about today are applicable to anybody who has, employees and is trying to create an environment where everybody is is, maximizing their human potential and therefore doing great work.

C So I actually graduated as an engineer, went to work for Hewlett Packard and then Kaiser Permanente. So kind of big company, big company. And then went back to business school. And after business school, decided it was time for me to start my entrepreneurial journey. So did that. I started a a a consulting practice to help large and medium sized businesses, increase their profit. And that business was bought by another company, and I ran that business. And then that business was bought by a publicly traded company, and I ended up running running that business.

C So my entrepreneurial path kind of led to a couple of acquisitions, and then I actually kinda had a job again, which which wasn't so great at the end. But the journey, I certainly learned a lot. I came out of that in, 2003, and then, went back to really a a very small consulting practice, me and just a few other people. And I really lean into small businesses. In the community that I live in, which is Oakland and the Bay Area, I started teaching, which is which is how we met, which was awesome, and at other schools in the Bay Area. And then developed a curriculum for small businesses, again, to fulfill my passion, to make sure, you know, people that I really respected, small business people, could get the knowledge that some aren't able to get, you know, in terms of taking time out to go back and get a formal degree. So and that work led to me, being on president Obama's White House Business Council. It was that work with small businesses because of the inner city job creation that we were able to achieve.

C And then, probably 2014, I was contacted by Robert Levering, who was the founder of Great Place to Work. He knew that I had done I had done a series of turnarounds, businesses that were in trouble and and, as a part of m and a activity. Learned that I was, you know, kind of a human centered person in terms of the way that you bought and sold companies. He had a company, great place to work that he wanted to sell. So he hired me to sell it. I marketed it, prepared it for sale. Because long story short, I ended up buying it. So, I bought it in September of 2015 with my my financial partner.

C And, we bought a business that was technically bankrupt, but really believed in the mission, you know, around something being analytical yet people focused. You know, we've created, you know, kind of a growing thriving business at this point. So I've been very fortunate.

B And I still see you as someone who's advising businesses in this capacity. Great Place to Work really focuses on helping business owners understand the business case around culture and specifically to talk about this quantitative piece that you're you're referring to. Maybe we should talk about first the survey component of what you do and why that's important.

C Yep. You know, the, as I've turned around companies, and I've been lucky. They've they've all been been successful turnarounds. And whenever somebody wants you know, they go, well, how do you turn a company around? Well, I have to start talking about profit and loss, cash flow, and things like that, but that's not really how I turn it around. But that's what everybody wants to hear. And so if I really talk about how I turn it around, people are like, yeah, but how'd you really turn it around? The fact is it's the people. So if the Trojan horse is talking about profit and loss and cash flow and EBITDA and turns and efficiency and productivity and performance, Because those are the things that peep that make people think you're a business person. But the trick, you know, in in turning the business around is when a business is in trouble, it's normally the leader that's lost their way.

C That that's been my experience then and now. A leader's kinda lost their way for whatever reason. Could be a bunch of good reasons. And there's a bunch of people who are phenomenal, but are actually being kind of hampered by this leader. And so if you can unlock those people, which sometimes means replace the leader, The thing takes off. There are some leaders who are open and looking to to grow and learn new things. Those leaders can absolutely make the turn and and do great things. But if you're locked into, I just wanna keep doing things the way I wanna do them, the business is pretty much gonna gonna gonna stagnate.

C So I've always known it was about the people. And and so continuing that now where, you know, people have an organization, We do survey the employees. We ask them about 60 questions. We ask you the same questions whether you're in Bogota, Colombia or Toronto, Canada. It doesn't matter because people around the world are different. Cultures are different. Ethnic norms are different. But in terms of what people want, which is respect, fairness, and transparency, that's the same all around the world.

C Their expectations may be different depending on where you are in the world. But in terms of the what people want, it it it's actually absolutely the exact same thing. And our data proves that year in, year out. So we take this data. We've got a series of algorithms that enables us to let leaders know that you've got an issue here where people aren't feeling like leaders are involving them in decisions that affect their work. We've got a situation here where people feel like they are not emotionally or psychologically safe. We've got a situation here where employees in their twenties feel like they're not really listened to because you have to be at least 35 to be listened to in this company. So that's the what the analytics tells you.

C And then the leaders, you know, get a a clear view of of the situation, which is reality. And then we have from our best practice database, things that leaders can do to, improve the situation for their employees.

B I did find that really interesting. Like, there were 3 metrics that you guys talk about in your research. Number 1, as you said, trust. Number 2, this idea of maximizing human potential and what that means. And number 3, the leadership effectiveness.

C Yeah. So trust is the foundation of our of our methodology. So that is, you know, the cement and the steel that you can build a house on. Without trust, you have nothing. Without trust, you can't have happiness. Without trust, you can't have satisfaction. You can't have engagement. You can't have involvement.

C I would say you can't have sustainable innovation. So all the things that you want in a business, loyalty, commitment, you can't have them if you don't have trust. So that's what the majority of our question set is whether or not you trust the person you work for, which determines 70% of your experience. There's the leadership effectiveness part. And then the rest is, do you trust the people you work with? Because if you trust the people you work with, then you can actually care about the people you work with and they care about you. That's what drives high performance. People that are willing to do great work, you know, with each other because they actually care about each other. So that that's the trust part.

C The maximizing your potential is where we take the data and we actually do demographic comparisons. So we make sure that no matter who you are, no matter what you are, no matter what pronoun you use, and no matter how long you've been at the organization, you should be treated the same. What level you are, you should be treated the same. So it doesn't matter. So we do this demographic comparison of of the data to see if there's a group of people who are having a different experience than other groups of people. If so, we let leaders know that. That, because that's not fair and and equitable. So that's really the maximum energy potential that that if if I'm feeling I'm being treated like everyone else, I'm gonna really lean in and do whatever is required, to be successful here.

C And then the leadership effectiveness, we have about 11 questions we ask about your leader. So we can learn what that interaction is. And, that is the most meaningful data. That data, you can use and actually predict about 70% of the rest of what you're gonna learn from that survey, strictly from that experience that that people are having. 2 things are are are absolutely true. People do quit their leader as soon as they have the opportunity to. So there are some people who may have been stuck in a job during the COVID experience. They can't wait to quit their leader.

C It's not their company. It it it's their leader. And that's why we we measure that the to you know, we measure something called innovation innovation by all, and that you can predict based on the experience people are having, working for their leader.

A I don't think and I I I believe you're helping us bring this more to light that leaders don't really truly realize how much of an impact they're making on the organization and and in terms of the overall tone they set. So kind of thank you. There's so many good sound bites coming out of what you're saying, and and I'm hearing it, and I'm resonating with it. But, Janine, if you wanted to jump in.

B I have a lot of questions, but I'm I'm also really curious, Michael, why this is important to you and what impact you see your work making to come back to that idea of mission.

C Yep. I you know, I've definitely from a, you know, I'd say, a nature and a nurture point of view, I've always been interested in helping others. So that's a nature point of view. And then, you know, really from my mother, you know, a nurture a a nurture thing. And I got fascinated in bit you know, in the world of business from a really, really young age. And so, you know, probably 9 or 10, I became interested in this thing that I didn't understand. And, for me, my dad was a carpenter. And so when he came home from work, you know, he was sweaty.

C His hands were bleeding. That that was kind of my definition of work. And then I did that work with him. You know, all my summers before and after school, you know, you know, and weekends. So I understood work and all entrepreneurship because he ran his own small business. But I would see Leave It to Beaver was a TV show. You you're both too young. You have to probably look at it.

A I'm I'm not too young. Alright.

C Yeah. You probably look at it on YouTube. So or some of our listeners might. But, the thing about that show, you know, which I enjoyed is, you know, in black and white and, times are quite different. But I'll never forget it. This guy, Ward Cleaver, the father, would open the door and walk in, and he had on a suit and a briefcase. I didn't know anyone who went to work in a in a suit and carry a briefcase. I knew no one and nobody in my neighborhood did that.

C I was attracted to it. I was attracted to it. I didn't know what it was, but I was like, whatever that cat is doing, I want to do that. So I was driven. And then I started reading the business section, even though I didn't understand it. So this was kind of a, you know, I I don't really know how to explain that. But that that really, you know, got me into it. And so I started, you know, developing this love for business, which I still have today, and in this desire to help people.

C And, you know, the 2 started coming together. And and through work, I realized, you know, the power of what you could do when no matter what you're doing, if you're trying to build that that it's it's just gonna go a much better. So then when I got to a great place to work and was trying to prepare it to sell, and I had this database of a 100,000,000 employees, which was incredible. So then I'm like digging in and I'm looking at these lists that Great Place to Work is producing, and I'm like, you know, these companies that this business is calling great, I know people who are there and they're having a horrible experience. And that's when I dug in and saw that it was based on averages. So the dominant group drove the score. And then when you looked at ones and twos on the Likert scale, they were like women and underrepresented people. And so this thing so that's when I changed it to great place to work for all, and we've changed all the algorithms.

C And invented, you know, came up with this concept of maximizing your potential that we were gonna reward companies that had a consistent experience. So rather than one that's great for some and not great for others. And that's what we did. It took us time and and, you know, we finally you know, I feel like last year, we we we started to get it right. Because each year, you know, you're altering the algorithms. But I knew that I I had this desire, and I felt like with this data, you know, I somehow would have a more powerful ability to make change happen. I no longer would be talking to people about how they should treat each other. I can actually show them the data, and it's proven to be true.

C Meaning you if you sit with an executive team, a group of leaders, and you show them, oh, here's the experience of the people in your organization. They go, oh, that's pretty good. 8 out of 10 people are having a good experience. Yeah. But, if I look at men versus women, it's like 95% of the men and 65% of the women. But because you don't have very many women, that's how you got that 80%. To a person, the CEO goes, that can't be true. Always.

C They go, that can't be true. And then they go, Bill, is that true? No. I don't think it's true. Sherry, is that true? I believe it's absolutely true. That's what Sherry says. So that happens. And and I've been able to do that. Once I saw that, I knew, okay, I've got something.

C It's not me selling an idea, talking somebody into something. Just let the data speak for itself, which is what we do. We just put the slide up and don't say anything. And people can see, you know, there there's an opportunity. And it's a it's a really powerful experience when leaders, they don't feel good about that. There of course, there's some that don't care, but most don't don't feel good about it. And then they you get into a dialogue. And so that's, the power of having data that is believable, reliable, and, you know, our firm has a good reputation.

C So, you know, you can actually use it to make change happen.

A There's all these firms right now. This is true of everyone in the workplace trying to figure out, how do we come back? What is the hybrid experience like? There's a lot of firms saying anyone who we bring on their 1st year, they need to be in the office all the time to get the culture. And here you are talking about making sure everyone has a very similar experience of the office place. So what is your response to kind of those type of things of how do we maintain a similar experience for everyone, but we don't single out the newbies

C Yeah.

A In an effort to indoctrinate them into the company culture.

C Yeah. That that's anybody who's doing that is making a mistake. So they're just they're just making a mistake, and I have the data to prove it. So many companies, you know, I have a new VP of sales. High hired him June 1st. He's been with us a little over a year, obviously. Lives 7 miles from my house. I've never met him.

C He built his entire sales team, 16 people, since June. And he's never met them. I've never met them. They are indoctrinated. Not only that, they're crushing it. So anybody who thinks you can't achieve, you you know, yeah, it's just it's an old way of thinking that has been proven to be a lie that you're choosing to believe. I don't know why. Probably some control need of some sort.

C But but there's absolutely, you know, no data to support. You know? I know it makes people feel better or something. I think it's a control thing, but but the data doesn't support it. It absolutely doesn't support it. Now do I believe in people working together physically? For sure. For sure. Is that a part of the human experience for and comfortable for most people, but not all? For sure. So is is the hybrid role, you know, is the future gonna be different? I think for about 40% of companies, it will be.

C I think 60% are gonna go back to 2019. I can already see it, but but there's a group of companies now, you know, the genie's out of the bottle. You now know that people can be productive. And if you can treat them well while they're at home and listen to them and support them and give them flexibility, you are gonna be rewarded. You know, there are some phenomenal stories of productivity increases in 2020 that came from the companies that actually put flexibility into the hands of the employees, that found a way to do day care subsidies, you know, that found a way to help with people with aging parents, They put pet insurance in place. All these things they didn't know were important became important because a pet would run across the screen. And then they realized, oh, you have a pet. I've known you 15 years.

C I never had a pet. Yeah. This is my kid's pet, and you never asked me. You know? But now we're having this experience. So huge gains from companies who who got it right. What our data showed is great companies, the employee experience in 2020 was better than 2019, which I never would have expected. I would have said I hoped that was true. It was true.

C The data supported it. Now if you came into 2020 week, your data plummeted. If you didn't have trust, you couldn't build it like this. And that led to, you know, the separation

A Mhmm.

C In terms of a new sort of competitive advantage. So a great place to work, force is never used. Forcing you. You must. Whenever you do that, you're gonna pinch some people. You're gonna pinch some people, and you just cannot win that way. You have to be flexible, stay flexible. You know, you can say things like, look.

C I'd really like everybody to be in the office. Go ahead and say it. But I understand that's not really how some people can give their best. And so here's what we'd like to do. And then talk to your people about it, but don't force it. Survey them. Talk to them. And what you'll find and this is what some CEOs are finding out.

C If you don't force them, they're working their way back to the office. Not full time. Very few people are like, I wanna go to the office every day. That that there's not a lot of that. But people want some mixture, of the 2 things because they can have a better life with some mixture. And to your point, Evelyn, the new dimension of diversity is place. Nobody's career should be limited because they work from home. Nobody's developmental opportunities should be less because they work from home.

C Nobody should get less feedback because they work from home. No one should get less compensation because they they work from home. So it's become the new equity metric. Not only is opportunity fair, not only is well-being fair, you know, these and I mean for all, but let's double click and see if people working from home are somehow having a different experience from those that so this is brand new for our business now. You know, people wanting to see and measure the difference, depending on place to make sure that it's equitable and fair.

B That's a really good point, and I wanna also come back to this idea. I when I was preparing for this conversation, I heard you say something about at at some point in your career, you recognize that people were not getting a fair shot at the context of career development, promotion, and recognition, which might have been a pre COVID thing, but still, I think, is a is a overarching theme behind why this work is so important.

C Yeah. You know, if if you look at, you know, at equity, in the in the ways that that we're talking about, and if you look at it doesn't matter where you go around the world. You will find that as you move up in the organization, it starts looking it starts to be dominated by one group. I don't care where you are in the world. You will find this to be true. Therefore, when you have an employee, you know, kind of starting out their career and you say, hey. If you work hard here and live out the company's values and give your best, you can go anywhere here. And then that employee looks up and they're like, well, that's interesting because I don't see anyone who looks like me above this certain level.

C And this is a global phenomenon that this occurs. And so that is not maximizing that human's potential. It's actually limiting it. So now this person is like, okay, you say all these things are true, but they're not. So now you're not really credible. And so since you're not that credible, you know, yeah, the job's fine and the pay is fine, but you're not that credible. You're certainly not fair and equitable. So I really feel like maybe I'll give you a 7 on the risk the respect scale.

C So, you know, this is kinda the reality and and and what people do. And so what you wanna do, which is why, you know, really since George Floyd's murder, the thing that's popped through the top is diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. That people are, you know, willing to take a look at the systemic things that exist in society. And therefore, you know, trying to look up because there should be equity and representation. So, you know, every organization should be aspiring to to have underrepresented groups everywhere in the organization. And this takes conscious thought, conscious effort, a change in recruitment, and it takes the things that you're talking about, which is what we were talking about prior to COVID, which is who's getting developed, who's getting promoted and how, and are those things happening in a way with minimal bias? And the answer is they are

B not. Right.

C Okay. So so they are absolutely not. So then it's like coming to terms with that and then looking at the processes and how leaders are are behaving and being held accountable to try and minimize that bias.

A My follow-up question there would be, you know, obviously, there's the architecture community is playing a lot of catch up. Right? You know, even from a male to woman perspective, the amount of licensed female architects to male architects is 10 to 1. So if I'm on a firm that is desperately trying to create equity, but if I'm a female looking up and not seeing other female leadership, then how do you nurture or create trust in that female that there will there's the ability for her to progress?

C Yeah. So what the the leader needs to do there or the leaders is, you know, if if if a leader says, I want, you know, to promote more women here. That leader better be ready to answer why. Because if it's just for the diversity reason, they're gonna get a backlash that they don't understand and it shows up like reverse discrimination. Oh, so you're gonna just promote her because she's a woman? So you can actually destroy what you're trying to do if you aren't clear about why. So the leader needs to be talking about the the vision of the firm, what the firm's gonna be like in 2030, and why the firm exists, and why the community is better because of the firm. If the leader can't do that, which is communicate a purpose, number 1, nobody's gonna be thrilled working there. They clearly just have a job that's paying the bills that enables them to do something they really like to do, but they're not really going to be committed to the firm.

C So, but if you can communicate the purpose, and any purpose means you're going to be solving the complex problems of society. Not only are you gonna be designing great facilities, you're gonna do it in a way that does minimal harm to the environment and even does some good. Because if you're purpose driven, you can't say you care about people without caring about the environment. And so then you're also concerned about the people who work for you and who are gonna be in that building. Can they get to and from there safely? Are they being educated? Are they fed? You you know, is there a homelessness problem in the community? All these things affect that physical space. So you have to care about these problems. Everybody would, oh, I just really wanna do architecture. Yeah.

C Well, guess what? If you're running a firm, these other things are real things that your people are dealing with every day. So this is a purpose driven leader that I'm describing. So if this leader describes purpose, then you can say, look, we really want to lean into having more women at the top of our organization. Now, by the way, we're not dropping our standards one bit. So don't, you know, fall for that trick. The we want outstanding talent, the best talent available, but by having more women, we get a different point of view. You know, maybe for once in history, women won't have to line up to go to the restroom because we have them at the top and in the table, which is just an insane thing that we do. So but a different perspective at the table would change that would change that.

C The reason the world is what it is is the 10 to 1. That's why I go to a sports event and go right into the bathroom and walk out, and my wife is still standing there. That's why. Because if women were designing it, it wouldn't be the way that it is. It absolutely wouldn't be. And I can go on and on and on about how facilities are done by males. They they are what they are, you know, as a result of that. And and now I also want other points of view.

C Because if you look at innovation, it comes from thousands of ideas to produce the 3 or 4 that matter. Thousands of ideas and all breakthroughs when you trace them. There's a fascinating book called the Medici Effect that Frank Strahanson wrote. He writes about these amazing breakthroughs and how it was somebody at the table who knew nothing about the problem. But they had an experience and a perspective that enabled them to ask a series of questions that other people found out and it and it led to the breakthrough. It was a you know, it wasn't a paleontologist who found out that earth you know, why dinosaurs went extinct. You know, was an astronomer. And who said, hey.

C I think something hit the earth. That's the craziest idea I've ever heard. Yeah. Okay. But guess what? You know? So so this is you know, it's about different experiences being at the table because you might be able to solve the best way to make sure that building and that structure can support the design. You might be expert there and be at a table of people who are structural experts and can do that. But how are you gonna do that in a way that has minimal impact in the environment? Well, you need some other people there. How are you gonna do that in a way that when somebody's in the building, they all feel comfortable in the building? Well, you gotta have different people at the table.

C How are you gonna do that in a way that when people see the building, they have many people have the same reaction rather than one group saying that I love that building, which a group of men often do. So so these are the things that this leader ought to say. And then if they've only got, like, a small number of women in the firm, they need to let that woman know how important they are to the firm. And and they need to have a way of finding out what her experience is like at the firm. And to learn from that, to create this fair and equitable experience. And if if they're able to do that, what you really want is for that underrepresented person to be heard, supported, developed just like everyone else, and to see that they can get feedback and and rise just like everyone else. And then this has been proven. The way to increase the number of great women in your organization is to promote a great woman because that great woman will bring you her LinkedIn profile.

C Because great women know other great women, and it goes on and on and on that this is a way of unlocking, you know, finding hard to find talent is by, getting people, you know, from underrepresented groups. They'll do it if they feel like it's trusted. It's a it's a question called the net promoter score. You know, would you recommend this is a place for friends and family? And, it's phenomenal, you know, in a negative way what people will say. Yeah. It's okay here. And, no. I would not recommend this place to friends and family.

C Well, that that means they don't feel like they're trusted, and they don't want that to be experienced by anybody else that they

B know. That's true. And, actually, there's been a big push in architecture where the black community has really come forward to speak out against companies and architecture firms that are not great places to work. And they have been on social media really talking about that, and so it's opened up a a part of the conversation that I think has surprised some of these architecture firms. I mean, the thesis of this podcast is really that Evelyn and I believe the architecture industry is behind. The thing I took away in looking and reading your research is we're not the only industry that's behind, but I do think because of how old our industry is, we are maybe further behind than some other industries. And so we're really we are struggling with this workplace culture thing, the employee growth piece. And I think it shows up most obviously in the retention piece, which doesn't seem to be unique to us and but it does seem to be a very specific metric that we can say, you know, we're not promoting enough people.

B There aren't enough leaders at the top that look diverse, and we are losing people to our industry completely. So I guess the question I wanted to come back to is as a leader, as a business owner, as someone who's advising other businesses, can you talk a little bit about some of these blind spots that small business owners or even, corporate managers might miss in these conversations?

C Well, I I think that, you know, there's 3 types of leaders. There's the type of leader who really wants things to stay the same. And so because things are working fairly well for them, you know, usually in terms of power and control and economics. So when you say, well, you know, there's, you know, only one woman for every 10 architects, They'll say, yeah. And it's been pretty good for me. You know, they won't say it out loud, but they in their head, they're like, yeah. Okay. Works pretty well.

C So so that's that. And and I have found there's nothing you can do for that leader. There's nothing you can say. There's no amount of data you can share with with that leader. There's another group of leaders that I call the movable middle. They have a sense that something about that isn't right. Something about that just doesn't seem fair. Why should that be, that 10 to 1? You know, what's going on around education that's that's making women say, hey, I don't wanna do that.

C You know, what's what's making it so that, you know, young black people are like, I don't think I wanna do that. I've never seen one black architect that's alive. You know? And and so it's it's like, what's that? And and it just doesn't seem fair. It just seems like there shouldn't be some area where, you know, it just looks really strange. And those leaders, I call them the curious leaders. And they're actually striving for something more. And so just building a building isn't enough. Just building a building and doing it in a profitable way isn't enough.

C They actually want to do more than that, and these are purpose driven. And so those leaders, data helps them. It helps them change. And, they start to look at you know, if you if you I'm I'm whenever you have this dynamic of this 10 to 1 thing and you look at those firms are recruiting from very few places. Very, very few places. So if there I don't know how many architectural there are in the United States, but I'm just gonna say that there's 300. Okay? You know, where you can get a a degree in architecture. I'm just making that up.

C You know, there's, like, 36 100 colleges. Let let's say it's 10%. You know? But, you know, may maybe it's more. If you go to an architecture firm and say, where do you recruit from? It'll be like 2 colleges. Usually, where they went or somebody that they went to went. And if you look at that on a map of, like, the United States, it makes no sense whatsoever. What makes you think the best talent is there and there? It can't be true. Statistically, it can't be true.

C Matter of fact, what is true is you're not getting the best talent. That's what's true. I don't care if you're going there and getting the top of that class. There's great talent, and you're not and you're just not getting it. But that closed leader isn't interested. They're gonna keep doing that. And the leader who certainly doesn't care about a person growing and developing, you know, they they just oh, well, use use them 3 or 4 years, and then they'll leave. You know, that that high attrition model.

C Attrition is really the metric that helps you understand whether somebody's having a great experience or not. And then there's there are leaders who actually see the world, you know, not the way that it is, but the way it could be. And and they tend to be members of society, you know, and wanna be making it better. And the only way you can do that is through diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. It's the only way you can do it. So, you know, anybody in any business that has less than 20% women, that's a strange situation. That that's a strange situation. You have to work at that in in almost every field, and including brain surgery and rocket science.

C So you can grab obscure fields. You should be doing better than 20%. So and then if you not obscure fields, you should be at 55%. There should actually be more women than men once you leave, you know, obscure fields. And I don't know anything about architecture, so I'm just going on the 10 to 1 and the little that I know. And, I've met 1 black architect in my life and 1 woman architect in my life. You you know? So that says something.

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A Sound complicated? Well, what if I told you that Twinmotion enables anyone to present the biggest ideas in the easiest way possible, regardless of previous CG experience? To download your exclusive free trial, head to twinmotion.linkback/disrupted. That's twinmotion.linkback/disrupted. This conversation has been focused on leaders, which is obviously the people that are gonna move the profession forward. But do you have any advice for, you know, for the individual contributor and and how that they either may find a stronger voice or is really just the best advice to them, go find a different company.

C Yep. So I usually say to update your LinkedIn profile. But I I think that because, you know, since we're talking about architecture firms, which tend to be relatively small privately held firms, what I would encourage a young person to do who wants to change the world, it would be to go to an architecture firm where you can learn a lot, where you can learn a lot. So which may not be the best environment, but where you can learn a lot. Challenging assignments and, you know, some people around you who may not be the nicest teachers, but they're good teachers in terms of helping you hone your skill. And then I would try and and begin to understand the economics, if I could, of how the firm is operating. You know, I'd wanna try and and work on the bid and proposal team. Try and get that understanding.

C So I'm starting to understand the economics of of how a firm works and and how it makes its money. And the thing that I would use to persevere, you know, kind of that loneliness and lack of support is one day I'm gonna start my own firm. And that's what I would encourage them to do. There's an entrepreneurial way, you know, to make change happen. And, if they don't want that, then, yeah, I'd be looking for another firm.

A No. I think that reframe is is a really great one because I think I in all of the chatter that I see out there, I like, young people tell me how they're so disappointed about their current situation and how they're able to, like, be ineffective in creating leadership change. So the reframe that you kinda mentioned is, like, okay. What can I actually learn from this situation? Right? And then if there is truly absolutely nothing to learn, you know, and kind of begrudgingly stay here, then I just need to move on. And it's a business decision. I think so much of us put so much of the human aspect into it. Like, I really love my coworkers. How could I step away from my coworkers? I really love the client.

A How can I step away from this client? I think in the end, the individual needs to do what's best for the individual.

B If our listeners are interested in learning more about the work you're doing or even engaging you, how can they dive further into your team's work?

C Yeah. They can, follow me on LinkedIn for one day. You know, I always, you know, usually put out a post every 4 or 5 weeks on something, and we've got a lot of links to our research, which we publish for free. You can also get on our website, www.greatplacetowork.com. We've got, you know, our research on innovation, our research on diversity, our research on how to grow in a recession, all these, topics, all all driven by our analytics. And then, you know, there's there's a contact page there if you're interested in, you know, in our actual work. You could write me as well as michael.bush at greatplacetowork.com. Normally, you know, we have a lot of inbound leads, and and people will say, hey.

C I wanna be a recognized great place to work. Great. And what do I have to do? You have to survey your employees. I'm like, hello? Hello? I mean, they're gone. You get a poof. You know, You have to use some social science. And until you develop trust, you need to do it through an anonymous survey. Once you get through the anonymous survey, so that everyone knows there's no way, you you know, what I say is gonna be used against me because it can't.

C They have that protection. Now you can start to use that data and then have focus groups and actually talk with people. When you get to a level of trust, in your organization, you now have a lot more of an ability to talk to somebody and and have a a credible, sincere, candid conversation because you've earned the right to do it. It's not that you have to rely on the survey forever, but it you can use that to get to a certain point where then people know they can speak freely and what they say is not going to affect them in a negative way in terms of their standing in the company, their opportunities and choices and options within the company, their compensation within the company. Because a high trust workplace knows that's the beginning of the end.

A One more question, if I could just tag on. Does trust always equal transparency? Does greater transparency drive trust? Or is are there other fact because trust is such a big factor, like, what are the other touch points around

C trust? So it's in terms of the person that that you work for, it's respect, credibility, which is transparency, and fairness and equity. Those are the 3. It's those three things that that's what people people want. People can be doing terrible work. We survey places some mines where people make $3.67 a day with 2 5 minute water breaks. And in that rough situation, people will say, I love the person I work for. I know of an precise example where this is true. Every place else, it is a horrible place to work as you would expect.

C But there's these little pockets of that horrible place. It's where at that 5 minute water break, like everybody, I've been to this mine that I'm describing to you. It's it's definitely demoralizing. And why they survey? I don't even know why they do do were their customer. But anyway, the, at the water break, people come out of the mines and they run to these barrels of water, and they reach in with their hands and get water. This is the situation. Yet the same plant, this one liter will go and bring a barrel to their people. So So they actually get to come out and just have water rather than run down a hill to water and run back up.

C The other leaders hate this supervisor Because the I mean, seriously. I mean, they they they don't like him. But why is that supervisor still there? Highest productive team in in the mind. Now what I always go is, how come you don't make everybody do that? Well, the culture, they just won't do it. They believe that beating people, you know, that that that heavy hand is the way to go, yet they have data and evidence that it isn't. It's one of the most powerful examples I've seen of of how you can treat people in a horrible situation, and they will say, because of that person, it's a great place to work. As the people there would say, you know, it's they get more respect from that leader than they get in society when they leave work. So that that that's the power of it.

C So it's it's really those those three things, Evelyn. In terms of, like, trust with my colleagues, it's do I enjoy working with them, or do I need 5 shots of espresso to go to a team meeting? It's, do I do we take pride in our work? That's the care thing. And do we have the sense of team? We call it camaraderie, which is together, we could do something that we can never do alone. Those are the dimensions of trust. And we ask about 8 questions for each of those things. And then that enables us to say it's a high trust workplace for these people, not so much for these people. And what you normally find when you do a company is that there'll be a couple of spots where it's really low, and it's the manager. They have the same pay, the same benefits, which people don't understand and understand how it works.

C It doesn't matter, but this it's it's clear as day. And when you share that data, the CEO is like, I'm shocked at that. And then you ask the human resource person, they're like, I'm not. They it And

A that's why we need a trainer.

C There's no surprise at all. They know exactly who it is beforehand. And usually, they look at me and they're like, thank you. And and the way we do the data, it's like it's it's like leader 378, leader 479. It's not the person's name. They know exactly who they

B are. Right. That makes sense.

C And they've been there doing that for a long time.

B Do you have any either a story or inspiring closing thoughts about turning it around, a company that, like, really took that data and moved in a different direction?

C Well, you know, the from a small company point of view, the the one thing small business people don't do well is the people part. Oddly enough, they will let people stay at the workplace that are destroying the workplace. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows Larry is a problem, and he's been a problem. Larry's disrespectful, interrupts people, and and, takes over meetings, shows up late, leaves early. There's all these things about Larry, and everyone knows it. And the leader lets Larry stay. This is the small business problem that these relationships become such, and it's weird.

C And the leader feels like they can't survive without Larry for some weird reason. And the leader over the weekend practices telling Larry, you know, that it's time for you to change or leave on Monday. And as soon as they get to work on Monday, they go, hey, Larry. How are you doing? They do not do anything. And everybody watches this, which starts to drop the respect and the fairness and and the trusty road all around Larry. Sometimes Larry is an outstanding, like, individual performer in some regard, sometimes not. But the way to liberate that turnaround, when a company's having trouble, it's a couple of people. It's a couple of people.

C It's usually the leader, but it might not be the leader. It's a couple of people. So my advice for small business people, whether you survey or not, this is something I'll I will often do. Say, okay, leaders, all the leaders in the room, think right now who are the 3 people who if they left your business, you'd be, like, crushed. And write it down. And they immediately look and then they go, and they write down three names. And I'm like, you need to tell those people that you just did that. And when's the last and they're like, yeah.

C I haven't told him that. You know what? I haven't told her that. I'm like, yeah. That's a problem. You need to let them know right now. And then I go, and now I'd like you to write down the one person who the firm would be better off if they weren't here. And they go Some people are like a list. And I go, look at that list.

C Why is that? And this is I get the most feedback from this. And they will say, I really appreciated that. Everybody has a list, by the way. Nobody ever goes, oh, I don't have anybody. They they all have them. But this is a small business problem, and and because the magnitude of that person can drag down the whole firm. See, if you got 70,000 employees, you can carry dead weight. When you're small, you cannot.

C It can destroy the culture. And then once you get rid of that person, the culture changes. People feel free and liberated. And, you know, it's really, really a positive thing. So I would just recommend that for any small business person to really think that part through. And I'm afraid I just don't know if we can hire a new person. And so the trade off and the onboarding, I'm just gonna keep her even though this and that. All those things are are causing you a problem, and you're losing respect with the people that that people that work for you.

C So that's just the one thing to instantly do. And then the other one is to, you know, find an objective tool to to to survey your employees. And, and you can also like, with our our tool, you can benchmark yourself against other people with less than 50 employees. You know, you can benchmark yourself against other architectural firms. We have benchmarks by industry. So and we do survey work with our architectural firms, mainly outside the US, oddly enough, not too many in the US. Those would be my suggestions.

B Evelyn, I'm so glad we brought brought Michael on. I feel like he has such a wealth of knowledge, not only as a business owner, but in leading this company, he's been able to tap into some new research that I I think is so transferable to the conversations that we're having on this podcast.

A Yeah. And I think it was a good conversation in the sense that it's not just the architecture profession is struggling from these things. For instance, I know for a fact, like, every single industry is really are struggling with return to work right now. And for me, it it's a positive. It's it's an opportunity to really recreate and rethink about how we do things. And I I am hopeful if I'm gonna take the glass half full approach that we don't fall in the 40% that Michael said was just going to go back to 2019, that we really embrace this moment to move the profession forward in a meaningful way. And I know you have a lot to say, but, you know, I've been hanging on this thing lately because I've been saying it over and over. You know, if we are licensed to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the public, then we should also be doing that for our employees.

A And for me, that's what a lot of this conversation was actually about.

B Exactly. No. You're spot on. And I I just wanna take a moment to say this idea that I've been really confused about for a while, like and I think that it's at the nexus of, like, why I've been annoyed at different firms in the past, and while I loved working there, I just, like, I never understood, like, if we see things aren't working, why is there such a resistance to to changing them? And I know it's because it takes time away from projects and it takes money and overhead and whatever, and it can all it all the change can't happen at once, but, like, again, if it's impacting your people, like, why would you not make that a priority to your people drive your profit. Their time on work equates to successful design projects and money in the bank. So if you if the people are the lowest priority on your to do list, like, how do you think that impacts the design deliverables and the profit?

A Right. No. So there's a statistic that I've been sharing in my hybrid practice seminars around pre pandemic. There was a survey that was done by the Achievers 2020. It was an engagement and retention report that was done in January of last year before the pandemic. We can all remember back then. And it said then that 64% of employees may leave their jobs in 2020 for that exact reason. Right? Like, they're kind of disengaged and totally unhappy.

A Looking at the social media channels that I've been sitting in now, you know, people are making that decision now. We're coming out of the pandemic. Architecture is coming back. The billings index is up. And a lot of especially the women's forums that are in, they're saying, I'm seeing other firms allowing greater flexibility. I'm gonna make the jump. And and that movement is already happening. So So I'm hopeful that if anything, in a race for talent, if nothing else, to keep your best people at the firm, this is something that we really need to take a hard look at.

B I've been seeing this on social media also, Evelyn, and there there are a lot of business leadership companies that are calling this the great resignation that there's gonna be a massive push where people are quitting their jobs. And so and there's already a shortage and, competition for hiring talent right now for firms who are trying to bring people back into the office after some of those companies had to lay them off. One of the things that I also thought was really impressive about the work that Mike's doing is just this idea that they're using data to prove what works and what doesn't work. And too frequently, I've seen leaders make assumptions and because they don't want to really go dive deep into the data and understand what says. They they would rather project and make assumptions about how people are feeling or what they think the scenario is. The problem with that is that we have our blind spots and our interpretation might be biased towards the direction of what decision we want the reality to be or where we want the company to go. But in this case, what Mike's doing is he's taking the real data so that he can point to the facts. And because they've done this research over a long time, they've dialed in on what really actually drives behavior in companies.

A Right. And I think unless you survey, unless you do that type of research, there's things that are really easily overlooked. So another survey that came out of the future forum lately because I and I'm saying this because I feel like everyone talks about flexibility for and remote work for, like, mothers and parents and caregivers. But there's another health and mental wellness aspect to this. So in a survey done by the Future Forum, looking at a lot of knowledge workers, they actually found that black office workers are more likely than white workers to say that they prefer remote work because it reduced the need for code switching or the need for them to change their behavior in different contexts because they show up differently at work than they do at home. And there's just like the mental energy and exhaustion that is associated with that. And that by working remotely, they can kind of be more themselves, than they have been ever before. And it actually increased the sense of belonging at work.

A So there's beyond the flexibility, beyond time and async, there's true health and mental wellness aspects to making these changes for your employees.

B I do really agree with what Mike had to say about people don't quit their companies, they quit their leaders. And, unfortunately, it's the truth. You know? I think when you work with someone long enough, you start to see patterns and things that you can work with and things you can't. And to some extent, you know, people just don't change. They are who they are. And so a lot of times, I think when we see people leaving, it's because they may not be able to live with the behavior patterns that they see. Though they probably would never actually say that when they're doing their exit

A interview. Probably not. It's one of the reasons why I've been trying to encourage people to use Glassdoor more, like, just kind of to voice their opinion. I I wish the architecture profession would use Glassdoor more. The tech firms use it all the time as a means to kind of get some of that stuff out that you're not otherwise kind of comfortable voicing directly at an exit interview. But to that extent, I want to acknowledge that it's actually okay to quit because of the leader. I would argue that I know a lot of architects that stay in their position too long because they love their coworkers, they love their clients, they love their project. But the reality of it is they're putting themselves in a position where their career is going to stagnate because the person who has the ability to move the career forward is not giving them the time of day.

A So you could be staying in there for all the reasons why you believe it's right, but doing so might be hindering your own career growth at the moment.

B And Evelyn, you also said to me that in some of the research you've been reading that employee employees have actually said that their experience in 2020 has been better than their experience in 20 19. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?

A Yeah. I think Michael alluded to it. I feel like the emotional intelligent leaders really shown through the pandemic. Right? Like, that in a way, we got to introduce ourselves and get to know our coworkers in a way that we we wouldn't have before because we're literally seeing their life at home. And that the good leaders kind of acknowledged that and leaned into it. And there was a greater sense of belonging and a greater sense of appreciation for the company. It's because the company did what they needed to to acknowledge everything that was going on and give their employees the space to do that. But Michael did also kind of mention that in his findings that, you know, those companies that were really adapted and communicated through this last year really actually excelled.

A But those companies that have always struggled continued to struggle and became that much worse. I feel like the gap between the great places to work and the not so great places to work really increased over the last year.

B Yeah. I think it became very visible.

A The last thing that I would like to touch on, Janina, I don't know if you have anything, is, you know, any any company that I have been hired in, you know, if I think about it, at least from an architecture firm standpoint, beyond health care, you know, I've never had leadership come back and say, like, what is most important to me? Is it flexibility? Is it support for mental health and wellness? Is it support for, you know, like family? We're we're in a really, you know, Michael Michael alluded to pet insurance. I mean, right now I feel like companies are kind of weighing, like, what type of benefits should they be giving their employees, but they're doing that without asking their employees. So I would kind of implore employees to do just that. So if you're a principal or a partner at your firm and you're looking at rebalancing what it is you're offering people, especially as you move to remote work, like take this opportunity to actually ask them what would their employees prioritize, from benefits? I think you might be surprised in some cases, for instance, there may be even the ability, like if you offer greater flexibility and more remote work that they are willing to take a difference in pay, but, like, you're not gonna ask you're you're not you're never gonna know unless you ask.

B That's true. Actually, I was listening to a podcast yesterday that touched on this. And in some instances, like, the the ability to move to a 3 day in the office 2 day at home work model was as valuable in terms of how the employee perceived it as a I think he said about 20% pay raise or something crazy like that. And so, like, if you think about it in those terms, like, you don't always have to offer money, though money is really nice and most people want a little bump, but some of these other benefits, you know, we always think of the standard benefits, health care, you know, vacation days. But if you really start to quantify additional benefits that you're providing your employees, it can add value to their experience being there. So the last thing I just want to say is that if you enjoyed this episode and you like the work that Michael's doing, I highly recommend that you check out their website and definitely there's the book I read the book in preparation for this interview. It it was filled with great information that leaders can take away and implement back into their firm. So highly recommend it.

B It's all on their website, a great place

A to work for all. Great. Thank you, Janine. Thanks for listening, and tune in next week. Thank you again to our podcast partner, Monograph. Learn how Monograph can help you take control of your firm's financial health. 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.

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