Architecture, And: EDI+J

A This episode is sponsored by Monograph and Arc IT. You'll hear more about them later on in the episode. I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain.

B We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry is changing.

A Together, we'll find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects.

B Welcome to Practice Disrupted.

A Hello, listeners. Hello, Janine. Hi, Evelyn. Hi, disruptors. Throughout seasons 1, 23 on Practice Disrupted, we have been designing episodes specifically addressing a broad range of diversity, equity, and inclusion conversations or EDI. We have one more coming up this season, and it is our goal to continue to develop and expand resources related to this topic. You can check out those past episodes in our show notes.

B Today's guest first joined us on the show in episode 16, where she participated in a shared discussion about the LGBTQIA plus architecture community. You can go back and listen to that episode to hear Gizelle's full story, but we've invited her back on the show to do a deep dive into her role as the director of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at HKS. We're curious to know what it's like to position someone in this type of role within an architecture studio and what lessons she can share with us for firms to learn about the adoption of leadership in a position of that scale. We're also gonna ask her about some of the challenges she's up against in driving this type of change in her firm.

A Her role as a director of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion is an emerging position to staff in an architecture practice. It's also really, if you look historically over larger corporations, is an emerging position into, I would say, business at large. I am really interested in having a conversation about how her role has evolved over time and where she thinks the role is headed in the future. The AIA simultaneously has also made EDI a strategic initiative, and they've just revised their Equitable Guides for practice. So if you didn't check it out the first time around, it's definitely worth checking out now.

B I've actually been using the Equitable Guides in some of my consulting work, and there are a lot of really great hidden resources within that resource that will expand the conversation in a lot of different capacities, but highly recommended, and we'll put the link to that in our show notes. But to jump to Giselle's bio, Giselle Santos Rivera is a medical planner and global director of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at HKS. With national and international experience on a broad range of health care, sports, residential, institutional, and commercial mixed use projects, she thrives on designing for inclusive communities, building belonging through equitable practices, and empowering the next generation of leaders in the architecture, design, and construction industry. Giselle is a published author, national speaker, and has been featured on various podcasts and is the founder of We Inspiring Emerging Leaders in Design or WILED, which is a part of AIADC. She's the recipient of the 2019 AI Diversity Program Recognition Award, and she's a storyteller as well as a 2015 Christopher Kelly Leadership Development Program Scholar and the recipient of the 2018 AIA Associates Award.

A Let's cut to the interview.

C I am the director of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion at HKS, and I'm in the DC office. I'm also an architect and a medical planner. And I used to do, health care work before taking on my role full time. That does not preclude me from not doing work or not wanting to do work. Right now, I'm just focused on this work until until we create a a framework that is truly embedded in all aspects of the organization. And then everybody's accountable for the work and everybody understands their role, their goal setting, and the opportunities that they have to make an impact with the organization.

A When in your HKS career were you kind of appointed to this role?

C At the end of 2018, HKS was going through the last portion of a strategic plan with a lot of visioning sessions to really look at what the vision for the next 5 years was going to be for for the firm. In looking at the vision of the firm, there was a a clear intentionality in wanting to focus on using metrics or frameworks to create a a new value proposition for for our clients that was more holistic. So encompassing of sustainability and and other aspects of the work that we were doing. So we chose the UN Global Compact to be the framework that we were going to exist within. And in order to do that, we needed to create an environmental social governance structure to support the UN Global Compact. In order to do that, we needed people to focus on very specific sustainable development goals. And 2 of the goals for or the SDGs that HKS was interested in in in putting a stake in the ground were gender equality and reduced inequities. So that required or it was well understood that we were doing work already at HKS.

C We had programs like better together that were meant to elevate the conversation of our gender equity in the firm. And there was a a group of champions and conversations that happened somewhat regularly. But HKS wanted to be intentional in putting somebody in the world to be accountable for achieving those goals. So that's when they they decided that at the end of that strategic plan, they were going to formally establish the ESG umbrella, and somebody within that that umbrella would support sustainability, which at the time and still is our chief sustainability officer, then they would loop in our citizen HKS work so our public interest design group which is our social group, and then our director of EDI or Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to support those particular SDGs. So advancing gender equity in the firm and reducing inequality, which is all just equity work, right? Doing, establishing the frameworks, dismantling the barriers, providing people with access to opportunities. So I I was asked to join the ESG umbrella March 2019.

A Were you volun told? Did you volunteer? How did how did that come about, and, you know, where does your passion in all of this really lie?

C So I think it's a little bit of everything. Mhmm. I I have always been interested in this work. I was part of the Better Together Champions Network. I was always very vocal about the kind of content that I thought our firm should deliver and see. I was interested in elevating women in the profession. That's why I had created the the wield initiative of women inspiring emerging leaders in design. And I've I've always been interested in creating platforms for people to engage, create spaces for storytelling, for people to share their successes, their challenges.

C And as the, equity in the equity by design coined, so they're pinch points on your challenges in the profession. So because I was already doing that work and I was doing that work through HKS, I gained visibility in the firm around these topics of equity. I already I had already created the the AIADC Latin American Interior Designers, Engineers, Architects Committee as well. So I was interested in in my own identity for Latinx or Hispanic. And I think because of all of those things that were happening and my ability to use my voice to sort of create agency, and I had agency over over the things that I was doing because I was an AIA. I knew the conversations. I knew I knew what was happening. A lot of the things sort of came together where somebody in the firm knew the work that I was doing was following wheels online and social media, had heard my voice many times within that this framework of the champions.

C So I was sort of asked, but I think the expectation was that I already wanted this role, and I think it's because I had emailed the CEO asking if HKS was considering hiring or elevating somebody to a chief diversity officer because those conversations are sort of already happening. So when when I was asked if I wanted to take on that role, I, it was one of these moments where my initial reaction was, of course I have to do this. I'm already doing this outside of the firm. I know what it means to feel belonging and not feel belonging in the industry. This is an opportunity for me to elevate my friends, my colleagues, create a space for them, you know, be truly impactful in the industry even outside of volunteering. Like, I could have the resources of a firm to do the work within the firm and in the process, figure out how to do it in a firm. It's like I was not even close to the corporate structure to understanding enterprise. I had no idea what that looked like.

C But in my mind, I was like, oh, I did wheels. I did like that. I'm on the EQFA, right, the AIA, Equity in the Future of Architecture. I've read the Equity by Design survey results. I know what's happening. I have a voice. I could probably do this. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I could not imagine doing planning work, like, medical planning work that in my mind is about building, access to care, health, and well-being.

C I couldn't imagine doing deliverables, project work, sort of external things for clients and not find ways to embody the work that I was doing for my clients within the firm. Like, I've I've always imagined that those two things have to go hand in hand. I I think you can't really do the work if you don't embody the work, you don't know the work. It's very much the Jedi thing, like, how can you best support your community if it's an African American community or Hispanic community if you don't have Hispanic people or African American people within your team. So it's sort of the same thing. How can I really be a better service in my community if I'm not if I'm not doing it myself internally in in the firm? So I I had to say yes and then I thought well if it doesn't work out I still am a medical planner and I'm still an architect you can go back and and do these things. But, yeah, COVID hit and the murder of George Floyd hit, and I wanted to continue doing work, but I couldn't imagine doing this work that is emotionally taxing. It's about people experiencing with my colleagues what they were going through and not give it a 110%, a 1000% to the work.

C So I thankfully, I I I know in that regard, it's it's it's a privilege. I I don't know, at least at the time, to ask the firm, can I go full overhead and really just focus a 100% on this work until we figure out how to do this well and and and have everybody thrive? Because in my mind, I was thinking, COVID's gonna get worse. I'm a little hypochondriac. So I was thinking, this is gonna get worse. This pandemic, I don't think it's gonna be 3, 4, 5 months. I think it's gonna be 18 to 24 months because I was reading maybe a little too much literature. The Black Lives Matter movement happened and then, you know, stop Asian hate and the AP. I I felt like those things were going to be catalyst for this snowball thing that was just gonna keep going.

C And I wanted to be available and ready to do this work and not fail the firm, my friends, or a client. It was just not gonna happen. Maybe some people can do this, both, they're amazing, I do not have that superpower. So I'm now I'm a 100% on this role and I'm being encouraged to continue doing this full time because I think now more people know that this is hard, and this is not a one time thing. And this it's actually even needs a team. We'll see what we get from there.

A It is a big thing, and it is a hard thing. And there are a lot of major companies out there in tech in tech and retail, you know, adopting these chief diversity officer positions and building teams. So so is it something that you think like, is it really ever going to be a framework that you can walk away from? Or, I mean, would that be your your hope? Or or is this now that you're further in it, like, is this something that we're gonna just as an industry, as a profession, have to continuously work on?

C That's a that's a great question. And you're making me reflect a lot even on the first article that was published when I took on the role. I remember one of the last things I said to Architect Magazine and to Wanda was I hope in 10 years my role does not exist. And my hope is still the same because I would hope that we all do this, that this is this is a part of who we are, this is a part of our business proposition, this is a part of how we partner, how we work. I would hope and my hope is still the same. The fact of not having somebody dedicated to this role, I don't know if I see that changing in the next 20 years which is when I may retire, not even. I don't I don't see that happening because no. I don't think I don't think it is that people will not own this work.

C It is that it is work. It is it requires somebody to take ownership of creating content, of looking at the information, understanding what that information means for an organization so that it stays, resilient and equitable and diverse and inclusive. It is it will always take people to do learning around this topic. It will always require us to to to look at our data, to look at how we're partnering, and particularly for design firms, to look at our output. Is a really representative of our communities, is a really creating, the impact that we wanted to to have instead of the intentionality behind it. So I think infrastructure wise, as as an enterprise role, much like process or sustainability, I think it needs somebody to consistently lead the strategy around the work. I think embedding the language, the intentionality, I would hope that it is spread across. But, for example, I I create programming that I'm very passionate about, and I need a program manager to help me put the content together.

C We have the limitless series, at HKS that Evelyn was a part of recently. Thank you very much. That's an external facing program, and the intent around that program is to elevate JEDI topics in the built environment through complex conversations that are not only isolated to to the work that we do, but it pulls people in. We have to create a narrative around it, much like all of these things that we're doing, because the goal is to continuously educate and and not only influence our firm by, you know, expert speakers like like you of course, But also influence our clients and and learn from our clients and what it is that they are seeking, how do we can better support them on the work that they're doing because they have these initiatives too. So I think I think we need people to focus on this and be strategic. We will still need reporting structures. We will we will still need report cards, initiatives. We still need all of that to keep the culture going because it is about building culture.

B I'm curious now with having this experience over the past year plus, how has your journey further evolved? Like, where where are you now that's different than where you were when you started?

C I am significantly more bold and fearless than I imagined I would be. I operate a lot on on experience. I think that is also part of the people person in me, try to understand experiences. And I and I use this all the time, and maybe it's because HKS, we use Gallup strengths a lot. So my my top 5 in my top 5, there's context and empathy. The other ones which are higher than that are restorative, achiever, and activator. So I'm like doer, doer, influence, a little bit of context, strategy, and then I feel. So I I wanna do things that have an an emotive outcome, like a feel for things.

C It's very hard for me not to think about everything and how people are gonna feel about it. Like architecture the way that I talk about architecture, architecture is the backdrop of people's lives. You're responsible for how people view and frame themselves. Strangely enough, I don't wanna give him that much credit. Something that impacted me a whole lot when I did my summer program at in in Mexico, the University La Unam, the the Autonomous University of Mexico, we went to Barragan's house, which I as an architect, his architecture is beautiful. And I don't know why this is the one thing that remind that I remember most. His in his house, when you go into his house, his his dinner table, his dining table is up against the wall. It's a long it's a pretty large table, but it doesn't have 2 head head chairs, only has 1.

C The back of the chair, the wall on the back of the chair is painted gold, And Barragan was the only person that could sit at the head of the table. So he wanted all his all the people in his in his dinner party to when they look at him, they would see the glow behind him. And I thought that was ridiculous. But, hey, who am I to judge? You do you, Barragan. But I thought this is experiential. Like, everything is experiential. Every piece of furniture, every wall, every color, He had I remember he had cut he had a shag shag rug and carpeting all over the house. He cut a path from place to place and the people that clean his house could only walk on that path.

C Not the rest of the shed carpeting, it was just through that path. And that was so formative for me. I was like, oh my god. The kind of impact that a single person can have on somebody else's perception of anything, how they traverse their day, how they engage in a conversation with this person was just so fascinating that I thought architecture is so powerful. If you really think about all of the components and how people interact, and I'm confident. Well, I don't wanna say confident. I'm not confident about most anything. But I can imagine that most of us through COVID, now that we are experiencing all of these things in the confines of your home, we are looking at space differently.

C When we want to gather, like, where are we gonna go? Are we gonna go outside? Is it open? Is it closed? There's so much that we could affect in in the work that we do. And I wanted to sort of be part of that. So I feel now that that I have more fearlessness in articulating that I have more I feel more empowered about the work and the outcome of the work than I ever did before. I I also reflect on that. I I did almost every building type from the oil ministers villa in Riyadh, the Richmond County Jail, which I'll I'll be honest, I struggle with having worked on that project but I learned a lot about that project. I did the chiller plant but I also did beautiful class a office buildings and beautiful, I even did a mall and multi residential and hospitals. I've done all of this stuff. And the reason I wanted to do health care is because I wanted to impact how people live their lives, how they heal, how they thrive, how they do all of these things.

C And after this year of trying to reconcile with dealing with people and thinking about architecture because that's my backdrop. Like, that's that's I'm also an architect. Reconciling those two things together and then creating a narrative that empowered me to feel confident and know I can do this work because I'm an architect, which is different than somebody that was doing this work, that grew up sort of doing this work, organizational development or HR. I feel empowered to do this work in architecture because people strategy is business strategy, because architecture is about people, because all of these things are are together. I think today, I am in a place where I can I feel more confident in saying, this has to be an integral part in how we talk about architecture, how we talked about the built environment, how we talk about what we're doing? If we're really gonna affect people's lives because we are either intentionally or unintentionally, then we have to think about all the people that are doing the work, how they're doing the work, why they're doing the work, and we have to empower them every day. And I didn't know how to articulate that 2 years ago, and I didn't know what that meant organizationally. I didn't know that I was gonna want to ask for help. No.

C I I didn't I didn't know that I was gonna also recognize a bunch of my weaknesses. I'm good at doing stuff, and I'm kinda strategic. I'm actually my gallop strength. My last one, 34th strategy, so I'm learning that. But I I have a hard time asking people to do things in a volunteer capacity, and this work is all volunteer work. So I'm also learning about my weaknesses that maybe having too much empathy and too much vulnerability also makes people feel less empowered because I I make it really fluffy. I don't know how else to say it. Like, well, this is volunteer time and you're a BIPOC person and you also have a lot of work to do and I know you care.

C I don't really wanna ask you to then put time and energy, 5 hours to do a panel or to do a presentation or to talk about Black History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month. It makes me I struggle. I struggle with where to put that, but now I recognize, well, I need somebody to help me reconcile all of these things and manage the work and and and tell people, no. This is an integral part of your business. Whether you like it or not, it already is. Even if you're not articulating it, even if you're not implementing it, by not doing it, it's affecting your business. Yeah, I'm sure you're losing talent. I'm sure you're maybe gaining talent.

C All of these things, they're happening whether whether you have somebody looking or not. So I think I feel today that I'm clearer on why I'm doing this work because I love this work and because I love people and I love architecture. And I I can articulate it, and I have 2 years of trial and error because that's how I operate. I just try something, and if it fails, I'll try another thing. I'll just keep trying, and I'll sleep when someday. I don't know.

A Let's take a break from this conversation to talk about our sponsor of this episode, Monograph.

B We're proud

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A Be proactive with Monograph. So throughout this conversation, we acknowledge that, like, well, obviously, change change for change sake is hard, but so much of what I see firms need to change around EDI is is really making a true cultural change in the firm. And that's even harder, right, to have it built into the culture. So is this something, now that your tears in, that that we can really change in a single generation, or is it going to are we going to have to age out of this for the culture to really evolve?

C The first thing that comes to mind is, well, we I think whether HKS or industry wise, I think we have to really understand what culture we have, what culture we enable, and what culture we really wanna have. And that varies. And I look at it through my lens, so that's a little complicated. Right? I think, a timeline. I think if people are really willing to be open and vulnerable and welcome this challenge which is change and and understand how hard it is to change and really be reflective of the behaviors that that we have as a culture? I think we could. I think we could, but I think I think it takes a lot of education and a lot of self awareness. And not this is gonna be a blanket statement. I don't I don't know if this is true or not, but it seems like corporate America or corporate frameworks weren't necessarily created to provide frameworks to talk about behaviors and culture and impact in that way.

C Right? We talk about money, we talk about efficiency, maybe not even. We talk about productivity, and we talk about profit, and we talk about these things. We don't even talk about efficiency. We don't talk about we we talk about utilization rates. We don't talk about, efficacy. Like, we inherently the language that we have perpetuates outcomes that we have. Like, we are where we are by design. That's why if we really wanna create something, then you have to create a framework that is equitable by design.

C The organization by design needs to be very clear on what culture wants to have, articulate what culture the behaviors that in that that culture should exhibit, make people accountable for those behaviors, so the impact, and then really look at the conclusions that we all have and our biases that create that are created by those conclusions to then change the behavior. If we're willing to have the hard conversations about the conclusions that we already have, then I we could totally change. We could absolutely change tomorrow. But then do we really wanna have the the the conversation about your conclusion? And I was I was part of the, Open Architecture Collaborative Pathways to Inclusion and I loved the presentation on the 4 box model for conclusion. And I love when when they started talking about conclusions. Some conclusions are good and some conclusions are bad, like you look at green you're like oh go, you look at red that means stop. We don't have to talk about that. Like culturally in the US most people acknowledge that green is a good thing and it's a go, and and and red is a bad thing and means stop.

C Not all the time, but that's sort of a conclusion that somebody says that and you kind of know most of what they're talking about. Then there's the conclusions that, old people drive slow. That has some implications. Some of it has, you know, there's grains of truth and all of these things. But then there are conclusions, like we can't teach critical race theory because it does x y z that are harmful. If we're willing to really have the conversations about what are the conclusions that you come that you show up with when you when you're at the table, then then we can have the conversation about why your behavior is enabling that conclusion. And then I will react to your behavior with my own behavior. And it's that that positive feedback loop and positive not in the good or bad sense but in the positive feedback loop of it is a continuous incremental movement.

C I think if we're really comfortable, if we get to a place where we're comfortable or we're challenging those conclusions or even asking about that conclusion instead of reacting to the behavior, It could totally change but I don't know if we're in a place I don't know if the entire industry is at a place where we're all willing to challenge those conclusions.

B I don't think so because back to your comment about priorities, like, the thing that I keep observing is just everybody's priorities are different. And so that makes it really hard in these conversations of change. Like, if if if we're segmented on priorities, it's really hard to take steps forward. It makes the progress slower, and that is visible in so many ways. And I'm not gonna I think it's obvious, like, you know, there's so many examples of that in the world. I guess maybe if we think about it at an incremental level, though, you know, you you've been given this great opportunity to step into HKS and bring visibility where it otherwise can sometimes be invisible. How do you see that you've been able to add value to the culture at HKS through your role? And how would other firms benefit by having someone in a role similar to, like, what you're doing?

C I think the the greatest advantage that I have is that I have a CEO that was integral to the decision to create this position and is continually telling me keep going And he absorbs a lot of the pushback that I don't receive. I don't know if people are scared of me. I don't know what's going on there. But, which it may be something bad. I don't know. But he he absorbs a lot of that negativity, and he enables me to continue pushing. And it gives me a ton of agency to do that. Because I'm dedicated to this work, I feel like it is my responsibility to constantly keep an eye out in in what we're doing to transform, to enable, to create change.

C And and and I am also accountable then to be an integral part in creating the culture that I feel is best representative of creating a more just, equitable, inclusive, and diverse world, which we have said organizationally is one of our key commitments. I feel compelled all the time to be mindful that I am part of the UN Global Compact structure and I am accountable for those 2 SDGs. I say all that because I have a very clear outcome out of my work. I I have to meet goals. I have to, support creating the culture that we wanna see. I I should be part of the responsibility to recruit and hire. I was part of, you know, I know the commitments that we've made. We've made a commitment to increase diversity in our board.

C We've made a commitment to increase diversity of leadership. We've made all of these commitments, and I am accountable not necessarily for the outcome but I am I feel like I'm accountable for making everybody else in the firm accountable for this work. And I'm accountable for the strategy of how we're going to do it even when I don't know how to do it. I'm accountable for pulling in the right people. I'm accountable for for delivering the message. I'm accountable for creating the message and pulling everybody in in that is an expert in those things and and try to be the strategy. So I partner with marketing a lot because of external content, internal content, they also support a lot of projects and our teams creating collateral, we partner a lot. I don't have the expertise that they have so I'm I'm kind of an integral part in all of that.

C I think firms I I have a I'm always being very mindful of asking a firm to take on more overhead, So that I don't want people to in any organization to feel like, you know, they they have to risk something to do this work. The risk is not doing the work. You do it however your organization needs to do it in order to thrive. If you need to make several people in an organization accountable for the outcome of this work, then establish that. Marketing will have, I don't know, x percent of time has to be dedicated JEDI. Process has to do that. Your financial group has to do that. Your promotions committee has to do that.

C But then make the organization or a group accountable for the outcome. Talk about the goal, establish the goal, make them accountable, track that progress, and make it transparent. If that looks like a person like me, then fantastic. If that looks like a group of people, fantastic. If that looks like a consultant, fantastic. However it works for you to build a framework that you can consistently take from year to year, where you can see growth, where you can see progress, that's what is most important to me. People need to understand, you know, where they are at and what help they need and then start from there. It may start with a ton of lunch and learns.

C Listen to these podcasts. Go to go to organizations that are delivering content and and do lunch and learns that are not necessarily required but everybody's sort of expected to be in these conversations, ask the questions, do the surveys, poll the office. I'm sure that every firm and organization has people that want to do this work. Enable them, give them hours, establish a budget, create employee research groups. You don't have to start big. We already had an infrastructure. We had been doing sustainability work that's very similar to this work like, I don't even know, more than 2 decades ago. We were all we already had a lot of this sort of embedded in what we were doing.

C Nope. This is one firm. Firms have many different ways of doing it. I do think though that if you look at what's happening out there, large firms and not so large firms are dedicating roles to this. And if it's if anything mirrors my experience, this is hard work. You need somebody to do it. And you can't do it half time. You just can't because it's emotionally taxing.

B Definitely.

A With all the movement that is happening now in the profession, if I am a young person who's just not seeing a way forward in my firm, what's your recommendation to them? And frankly, if I'm being honest, I would probably say, go look somewhere else because there are firms that are beginning to do this work.

C Yes. My question was going to be I was gonna sort of sort of throw it back is, you know, what if you feel like you don't have an opportunity to succeed and there's not a framework for you to succeed, find a framework that helps you succeed. And that may mean you have to go to another firm to do that. A firm that supports you, a firm that mentors you, a firm that sponsors you. It's like relationships. To me, firms are like relationships. It's still about people. If you if you find a partner that supports you, that that enables you, that helps you grow, you will grow too and then relationship is going to grow.

C If you're in a relationship with you're doing 90% and that person's doing 10%, you know you gotta go. So the firm to me, a firm is the same. Any organization is the same. If you've reached a point where you don't have a lot of agency, where you don't have a lot of power, where you don't have a lot of opportunity to affect change, and the consequence of that is that you're not able unable to grow, then you have you have to seek other opportunities or push for a framework that would that would allow you to thrive. And that means many different things. Ask ask to be part of the Christopher Kelly leadership development program, which is pivotal for me. Ask to be part of a professional development group like a women's empowerment group or ask to have time to be part of NOMA and build your community. For me, I didn't find my path to leadership asking for it in the firm.

C I found my community and my mentors and my peers through the AIA, the National Associates Committee, the Christopher Kill leadership development program. And, ultimately, I ended up on the AIA board because of all of these things. And it wasn't my firms. It wasn't any of the firms going, oh, I think you're phenomenal. You're gonna be the next leader. I'm gonna do all of these things for you to succeed. And I was going, oh, I need to find my community. I need to find my people.

C Where are they? And I'll tell you my my biggest mentors have been the National Associate Committee peers, and they're all, like, 10 years younger than me because I showed up late to the game. The Ryan Gans, the Corey White's, Janine's of the world. They're all sort of younger than me, but because of that experience I I I learned from them. I I grew from that experience and then my growth, my agency, my opportunity to fail over there then turned into successes for my firm. So sometimes I think there's so many ways to tackle this. What is the sense of urgency? Like are you done then get out? Do you have time and energy to devote to finding a different path that gets you to succeed? Do you have power and agency to create a different framework for others to succeed that will enable you to succeed? Are you the one that should be doing this for other people? So there's many ways to answer that question.

B Before we get into our closing thoughts today, we wanted to share some info that we recently learned from the team at Arc IT.

A Our friends at Arc IT are helping architecture firms with their technology solutions, including fighting back against ransomware and cybersecurity attacks. They recently told us about 1 San Francisco based design firm they help who had 3 ransomware attacks in a span of 6 months. Their latest hit took their generic IT provider over 7 days to recover the data.

B Yikes. Imagine not having access to your project data for over 7 days. For a midsized firm of 40 people, that's a lot of people not having the ability to do work on their projects.

A Cyberattacks are a growing challenge in the hybrid world, and they are costly. The firm leadership estimated that the pure financial cost of the business was just over a 100 k, not accounting for the tremendous mental pressure the team experienced during the attack and subsequent recovery. However, it's important to mention that proactive architecture firms can get ahead of these type of technology threats.

B As you consider your technology infrastructure needs for your business, be sure to check out Arc IT. They're a trusted IT provider who is in the business of helping architecture firms, and they offer tailored solutions for design studios small, midsize, and large.

A Arc IT is offering a free 15 minute cybersecurity assessment to help you determine how secure your business is. During the assessment, Arc IT will help you identify your top three highest risk areas in your business.

B Speaking of risks, Arc IT is also sharing some helpful tips with practice disrupted listeners that you can implement tomorrow to ensure your business is secure from cybersecurity threats.

A Their latest tip is to secure your endpoints. Your Windows or Mac OS device with business grade antivirus, URL filtering solution, and OS plus application patch management solution.

B Tune in next week to hear the next tip from Arc IT. To take your security solutions further, contact arcit@www.getarkit.com/pd to set up your free 15 minute cybersecurity assessment or speak to them about custom solutions for your design firm.

A So I know we mentioned this a few times, Janine, in our conversation with Gizelle, but I just wanted to revisit this idea that this stuff, this, you know, EDI, and it's going to take a lot more hard work to get there at all levels of the profession, be it students, to teachers, to professors, to employees, employers. It's gonna take all of us working together to really move the needle on this initiative.

B Definitely. I don't think this is one of those conversations that you can have in a limited capacity in a short run. I think it's gonna be a reoccurring conversation that happens over the long run, and I think you have to approach it in a lot of different ways. Sometimes it's about listening. Sometimes it's about shared dialogue. Sometimes it's about storytelling. There's so many ways to approach this conversation. And while I'm encouraged that so many firms jumped to action last year in 2020, I think that this is a long term effort that we have to keep the momentum going

A behind. Right. You and I had a conversation prepping for this, and we talked about how the there's been this growth and momentum about the conversation. The AIA is now looking at this as a strategic initiative. A lot of cultural change happened within the last year that I feel moved a lot of firms to kind of make really big declarative statements about where they wanna head in this. Where I see a lot of opportunity, though, is really in the implementation. And for me, some of the start of that is going to re really be rebuilding the professional the the industry's culture from the ground up, but also kind of even the firm's culture from the ground up on a firm to firm's basis.

B I think you're spot on. I think that the cultural element goes hand in hand with the diversity, equity, and inclusion. And if I think about just, like, our experience coming out of AI San Francisco and attending some of those really early sessions with Equity by Design, this conversation has grown so much, you know, ahead of 2020. We we've evolved the discussion just within our profession to move Initially, we were just talking about women, and now I think we're we're past the the missing 32%. This conversation has expanded in so many different ways, and I think that it will continue to expand because the depth required in order to solve these problems is quite significant. The issues have been ignored for a very long time. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they they have long standing consequences and challenges that we have to redesign around, and it's gonna take time to solve those issues.

A I think it's gonna take time, and I also encourage employers to really listen to their employees right now. I feel like the younger generations, especially, not even I saw I'm gen x, but I I feel like especially the millennials and the z and gen z is looking for firms that are not only doing interesting work, but are doing it with diverse clients as well as having a diverse group of individuals to be working with right now. And if we're as we're looking at this this great resignation, and I'm thinking about all of the firms that are you know, all of the social media posts that I see out there of firms looking to hire right now, there's really an opportunity for employees to talk about their expectations of firms and and their participation in EDI going forward and to help firm leaders kind of frame the conversation.

B Yeah. And I do think that younger employees are definitely there's a sense of urgency behind these issues, and this is similar with climate change and solving the issues around climate change. But I think a talent, attraction and retention strategy is for firms to really be upfront about their values on those things and to talk about, like, what are they doing in house to actually respond to those challenges immediately. While it is a long term problem, I think that what employees want is to know that their employer is taking action in some capacity. So what does that look like for your firm, and how is it showing up in a real tangible way that employees can stand behind and feel really to really believe in those values.

A Right. And speaking of firm values, I think this is actually an excellent time for firms to go back and revisit their values. There's nothing I mean, mission and vision potentially could stay the same. But as as you evolve, you know, as the language the HR language changes from we want somebody who is a a cultural fit for us to we want somebody who is a cultural add to what we already have. Those values of the firm are going to continue to evolve. So so take this opportunity to really revisit your values and and navigate that conversation from the bottom up. Have it be a conversation that all of your employees can kind of engage in and get really excited about in terms of where the future of the firm is headed. On that note, I think we'll close out this episode.

A And as you can imagine, there'll be many more to come in the future. And for those of you who have just started having those conversations, hopefully, this episode can serve as a starting point and a point of reference. And please do check out our past episodes, but we look forward to supporting your conversations around diversity going forward, and let us know how we can help. 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.

B Thank you to Arc IT for their support of this episode. Don't forget to visit get arcit.com/pd to set up your free 15 minute cybersecurity assessment or custom solutions for your design firm.

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