A Case Study for Practice: Shepley Bulfinch

A This episode of Practice Disrupted is brought to you by Monograph, Arc IT, and NCARB. You'll hear more about them later in the show.

B I'm Evelyn Lee. And I'm Janine Chastain. We're collaborating on curated conversations to explore how the industry of architecture 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.

B Hey, Evelyn. Hey, disruptors.

A We were inspired to bring this week's guest onto the show because Janine and I have been hearing their firm's name come up frequently in conversations with emerging professionals and quite frankly other practitioners. Shepley Wolfinch is a national architecture firm that tackles complex challenges focusing on visionary design and education, health care, and urban development. As a nationally certified women owned business and a firm member of the large firm roundtable, we've invited both their current CEO, Angela Watson, FAIA, and immediate past CEO, Carol Wedge, FAIA, onto the show to talk about practice, industry transformation, their firm's policies, and the recent leadership transition.

B With the great resignation prompting employees to change jobs and reconsider their career paths, nearly every firm I know is hiring right now. And it's not a secret that emerging professionals are looking for firms that they view as EP friendly. Shepley Bulfinch has been one of the front runners in that race to attract talent. We believe it's because of their workplace policies and emphasis on culture inside the studio that have helped them stand out.

A I also believe that it extends beyond emerging professionals, and I think it extends to even the middle managers and just the general need for greater flexibility throughout their work schedule, but we will get into that as well. In addition to exploring talent recruitment strategies, this episode is meant to be a case study on Shebly Bull Finch and 2 women who have helped shape the firm's legacy. We'll discuss what it takes to adopt forward thinking policies in an existing practice, and we're going to ask Carol and Angela how they're thinking about for management in 2022 and what tips they can share on navigating change in practice. So without further ado, let's jump into this interview.

B So welcome, Angela and Carol. We're so thrilled to have you on the show today. We typically ask our guests to introduce themselves, so we'd love for you to both explain who you are and your leadership journey and where you're at right now.

C Well, thank you. Thanks for having us. This is really great. It's wonderful to be able to talk about the things that excite me about the firm and about the future. I've been with the firm for and it's really surprising to me sometimes. It's going to be 20 years this year, which seems incongruous because it seems like I just started yesterday, as Shepley was in the process of evolving and changing, and it's been an amazing, to be part of that journey. I actually, started my life back in Germany, which is where I was born and raised and actually started studying architecture there. So I come from a a background, I guess, that is varied, that includes the sort of more technical education in Germany and then paired with a really more individual focused education, particularly in studio that I experienced, in in Cambridge at MIT.

C I feel really lucky about that because it's exposed me to many ways of thinking, and I think that's sort of been a theme through my career. So really excited to take on this role and excited to talk to you this morning.

D Hello. Both to both of you. So fun to be together. Angela and I love talking about Shepley, and I would say, you know, kind of the overarching thing for me is you're always working on your organization. It's never done. And I think one of the interesting things about Sheply, because we'll be a 150 in a couple of years, Because people think you've been around for a long time, they think you're set set in your ways, and that's absolutely not what we are. If anything, we like to change things a little too much. And the thing that makes I know makes both of us a little crazy is when someone says, well, that's the way we've always done it.

D The hairs on the back of my neck go up. You know, I sort of get restless and try and listen to what their point is because that's one of those triggers for me of if you're not working on the organization and exploring what's possible, you're not taking advantage of all of the things ahead of you. I'm one of those interesting stories that I joined Shepley Bulfinch in 1986 in the mail room, and I just wanted to start at the beginning. You know, it was one of those, I don't wanna pretend I'm something I'm not. Just put me in the lowest position. You know, I really don't have any experience. And I'm a learner. I think I've always been that way.

D I've always been kind of a voracious reader and, you know, found a place at where, yes, I worked in the mail room and I ran prints, but I also opened the mail and I read all the mail. And so I started to understand the organization and all the different aspects of it as a very young person. And then because I've worked there since at Shepley, Shepley kind of raised me. I would say our clients raised me too. I've learned as much from their mentorship as I did from the mentorship within the organization, also from my opportunities with AIA and the BSA and sort of, you know, those connections allowed me to grow in lots of different ways over time and see lots of different models of leadership. And that's one of the things I'd share kind of with your listeners is you can you can find those inspiring leaders in lots of different places, and it doesn't just have to be in your firm. And any firm that can be open to change is also gonna design innovative buildings. You know, those are clients that are open to change.

D So when we find clients that we really click with, it's because we have a lot of shared values about humanity and and being open to change and exploring and being open to the future.

A So you already covered a little bit of what Shepley Bulfinch makes unique. I was wondering if either of you one of you could dive a little bit deeper into it. And and this is a question that, of course, we don't have script, but Janine knows I love to go off script. Obviously, over Shepley Bulfinch's history, the designation of a woman owned business kind of came into play. So so when did that happen, you know, and and how was that decision made going forward too?

C Well, I think you hit exactly on what I think is pretty amazingly unique about Shepley, and that is that it was founded in 18/74. So it's almost a 150 years old. And somehow, and I think Carol is gonna be able to talk about this a bit more, became a women owned business. And it's it's not that we define ourselves that way because to me, we are really about design. We're about architecture. We're about creating, you know, spaces for people. And, the the women ownership happens due to some changes that Carol and and her team at the time were making, and I think it's been really interesting in also the the kind of culture that Shepley has, which, you know, that's always really difficult to describe. Culture is an incredibly difficult things thing to actually pin down, so to speak.

C But it manifests itself in ways that are, really about room to try things, room to be out there and, you know, take a little bit of risk in actually presenting to a client, and, you know, being being given way you know, room to explore, room to actually get things wrong sometimes, and then learn from that. Right? And, I think most importantly, and this is what I've heard from some of our folks, is that it's the opposite of a, a place of scarcity. It's a place of abundance. So what that means to me is that there's lots of room to share, that people like to share, people want to share with each other, people wanna make each other successful. But I think Carol should tell the story of how we got here.

D Yeah. So I think the the day we realized we are women owned business, we were at a board meeting, and our CFO was, you know, sort of over in his chair looking at some spreadsheet. And I was like, oh, I wonder what he's doing. You know? And I was like, sort of noodling. I was like, oh, I wonder what he's you know, his his moment is gonna be, always paranoid that, like, we weren't making as much money as we thought we were or something like that. And he said, oh my gosh. More women than men own stock in the company. I just did the math.

D And I think it goes back to a philosophy of inclusion and diversity. So for me, you know, I'm I'm a happy architect growing up at Sheply, and all of a sudden there's generational change. And with the generational change came the idea that we really needed to transform the organization and really look at how we were organized and organize it differently. And people will recognize the the sort of diagram of an architecture firm where every principal is on the board of directors. You know, every principal kind of the principal sort of run the place, but it was getting pretty confusing with 23 different principles. And I come from a big family. You can't even decide what restaurant to go to with 23 people, much less decide strategy. So I think we were all feeling that tension of inclusion and really caring about each individual, but also wanting to have a strategy that we could move on more quickly.

D So that reorganization of the firm also let a lot of other people step up into roles of leadership. And so, you know, it's kind of a long rabbit hole of a story, but, basically, we created a smaller board. We created more opportunity for principals and directors and redid the organizational chart so that people could think of their their career as a pathway that they were developing and following both their interests and their talents and acknowledging where they wanted to grow and learn and also where they thought they could teach and, you know, share their knowledge and experiences with others. So I think it's kind of cool that we ended up having so many women leaders thrive, and it kinda goes back to the age we came up in. You know? So I'm a I I like to say I'm a title 9 kid. You know? I was outraged that in college, the women's swim team got had to work at it at 6 AM so the men's swim team could work out at 8 AM. You know, I was just mad as a hornet that that unfairness. How come they got the better time and the better lanes? So I think, you know, if you kind of raised on women are equal to men and we were raised that we could do anything we wanted to, all of a sudden when you encounter barriers, you kind of laugh at them and you're like, well, what's that about? That's wrong.

D And so I think a lot of the leaders at Chipley saw that happening. I also credit the fact that we worked for health care and nonprofit health care in particular and higher education as kind of the dominant markets when I was a younger architect because those were the organizations that were asking us to include women in interviews and to show us our diversity policies and what were our equal opportunity policies within HR. And we had some really progressive thinkers at Shapley that offered same sex health benefits way before even any pea anybody else was talking about it. And I think some of that came from our clients or also kind of our friends and colleagues, and we would talk to them about what they were doing in their organizations. You look at health care now, particularly the leadership in health care, huge number of women in leadership roles in health care, huge number of women in leadership roles in higher education. So I think we mirror the clients that we work for, and I think that helped kind of instigate change and have the firm be pretty wide open about it. But when we did reorganize, we articulated values, and we said diversity was a core value of ours in 2000, I think, or late nineties. And for whatever reason, we were lucky enough to see that and learn that and value that.

D And and then our experiences were these diverse teams really are more creative and have much more interesting conversations than everyone kind of with the same worldview or the same educational view or the same perspective.

B I feel like you guys have both covered the vision for the firm. But as a firm that you said, Carol, that when when people lean into, we wanna do it the same way that you a little bit, like, uneasy with that. I'm I'm curious. So if you're a firm that values change and thinking about how you can do it better, how are you guys thinking about the vision for the firm in a moment of, like, really radical change?

D Well, I'll start with one aspect that I think kind of really crystallizes where change and transformation in architecture has been happening with some of the big room projects that Angela's been a big part of where all the players, the all of the members of the client team, the contractor, the key subcontractors, Like, everyone is in that messy space together and actually has to create a shared direction. And it's a little messy and squirrelly in the beginning, but allowing for that and acknowledging that you're all gonna succeed together, I think insights change because people bring different ways of doing things. And, you know, if you're focused on continuous improvement, and a lot of it came from some of our lean exposures through clients and healthcare, you know, and those those ideas came in many ways from some of the things we were trying to transform of, there's gotta be a better way to do this. There's gotta be a more efficient way to do this, and I think some of that philosophy came from our clients as well.

C And I think I mean, one of the words that I really love is the word partnership because it's it's really about not doing it all yourself. And I think, you know, architecture has maybe a bit of a history of of the sort of the lone hero architect. And I think our world is just too complicated for that. And, you know, the projects and the design solutions and the ideas are so much better when you have a variety of of ideas and opinions and thoughts and dialogue that come into it. Right? Then they're really rooted in community. And so for us, I think that's that's really key. It's how we work with each other. It's how we really like to work with our clients.

C It's how we like to work with our construction partners. And the things that are really important to make that happen are things like being a learning organization, like learning new ways of talking to people, learning to understand what others are about, where they're coming from, where their motivations are. It's about exploring, and it's about, adapting and growing. And, I mean, I think, you know, today, that's what we're doing. We are definitely adapting to a a really different way of thinking about even physical space around work. Right? And how we collaborate with with each other. What does the term collaboration even mean? And I think all of that then comes back to this idea of engaging and which is how which is how we like to talk about this idea of sustainability and the kind of impact that we're having on this world or whether it has to do with diversity. So it's it's all of those things coming together.

C And interestingly for us, we created a lot of these things I just mentioned are the pillars of our strategic direction, which we're calling trajectory 2030, and we actually created that really with with the firm. This wasn't something that just came from the board or from the CEO's office, but it was something that we did together. And, it's been amazingly resilient. It was it was created just before the pandemic, and it's really amazing how it even has taken some of the themes that we were thinking about then and how applicable and how relevant they are today and so it's it's this constantly going back to what Carol said not just doing it the way we did it before but really thinking about it. And that feels to me, that's the core of our mission. It's thinking about how do we do things with others because space exists not just for one person, but it exists for all of us. Right? It's more than one person experiencing it.

D And I and I think what we've been through in the last couple of years almost feels like we are catapulted into the future. And so we're all trying to get our bearings a little bit, but also stay open to the idea that this has made other flexibility incredibly possible. And so keep the door open to it. You know? And so, again, I think I'm also a little allergic when anyone uses the word going back. It's sort of like the way we always do things. I'm like, woah. Woah. Woah.

D You know, it's like I can't I'm not very patient about that concept because I think, you know, when we were doing our strategic planning, there was one team that said, oh, we're gonna have and Angelo have to help me with the ac an acronym, this idea of saddle, and it's simulated automated design. It's gonna be very technological. You know, it's kind of like, imagine the matrix for, you know, sort of and I'm like, guess what? We're we're doing it. You know? And when people first proposed that, I honestly was like, wow. That's gonna cost a lot of money. It's gonna take a lot of time. But, you know, I do feel like, you know, COVID's kind of our meteor. We are hit by a meteor.

D We're all a little shaken by the whole process. But as we come back, we can think so much more elastically about how we work. And so one of the things I'm excited about Angela's leadership is there are roles that are positioned and advertised on our website that are not location dependent. They can be recruiting people from anywhere, and and you have, and Angela's team has. Or there are there are positions that are location dependent because the client needs you, because we want you to be near a con the construction site or, you know, sort of different roles. But I think just keep playing with the elasticity of what we're doing. You know, when I was a young mother, if I could have actually jumped on a couple calls because my kid was sick and couldn't go to day care but wasn't super sick, you know, they're watching cartoons, but I couldn't really work. You know, if I could actually jump on a call and do a couple things while they were napping, I would have been a much more effective participant in the process.

D So I think because I feel like a very personal alliance with all the families that have had to navigate this, I think it's incredible. And then I also watch Angela clients that could never get everybody to come to the meeting. It was like, okay. We set the meeting up 3 weeks ago, and now all these docs or faculty or the dean or administrators, they couldn't make it to the meeting, and so you didn't have to have another meeting and maybe you have to go get them and, you know, you're not in process because you didn't get the right people in the meeting. I think Zoom and all our other tools, people are participating in really different ways. And whether it's our clients or what I hear, you know, folks who are early in their career, like, I get to hear the client talk. I don't have a speaking role in the meeting. I might have a question, but I get to hear everything everyone says, and that's pretty powerful.

D So that's exciting. That's like me reading the mail. Right? You get to really hear what the client says and what how your team responds.

C Yeah. I was talking about that actually with somebody, just last week. That that was something that felt really amazing to be able to be part of the design meeting with the dean of a law center, you know, to to actually hear their comments and hear their feedback. And then instead of having it translated through one of the team members to actually be able to see how that translation happens. So that's in itself, right, is this whole learning process of how to engage. And I think there's also, I mean, it's faster learning, and at the same time, I think it also gives people a a a different level of confidence of really understanding where where, the design needs to go or what questions it needs to answer. Right? What it needs to address. So to me that was the really exciting part and one of the fun, situations, I think it was last year, Yes.

C When we were at a an event for one of our projects that pretty much had been designed mostly in a virtual environment with virtual walk throughs and virtual design sessions inside the 3 d model. And 2 of our design team members, 2 design leaders on the project, we've been working virtually. They've never met each other in person. And we came together for this event in person, and it was so much fun to watch them basically be instant friends. I mean, the the way that working relationship, that collaboration happened virtually, it translated into an even stronger relationship, I would say in person and it was just amazing to see how that could happen. It was the first time I had sort of seen that as an actual example of how we can stretch ourselves to really explore different ways of working with each other and reaching and supporting our most talented individuals.

A A lot of firm leaders right now are struggling when they talk about the hybrid experience and they talk about more flexible workplace, especially when they're younger folks, they talk about how hard it is to mentor those individuals. And, Angela, you just flipped that literally and talked about how that's kind of accelerated education. So that's really interesting to me and maybe something we can dive into a little bit deeper. But the my other question is, you know, you've also talked about this elasticity of transformation. So, obviously, Carol, there was this moment recently where we were hit by the meteor. How do you allow for this idea of continuous improvement? What is a feedback loop? Can, you know, me as a younger associate come in and say, hey. There is something that I wanna improve. How do we look at this? How how is that built into what you guys are doing to allow for that transformation? So maybe one happened a little bit more naturally than it does in other firms.

A It also means that it accelerates overall change within Chablis.

C Well, actually, I think what you're getting at with that question is at how how culture, again, manifests itself. It's the openness for people to ask questions and point out when there's something that could go better. But, I mean, there's one very specific thing that we're doing that actually came out of our trajectory. It's one of the initiatives, and we're calling it hatchery. So we have a bit of a bird theme, bullfinches, you know, hatcheries. So it's a place where people can hatch ideas. And so it's it's a way for folks to actually share an idea they have, and it goes through a process of review of how it, you know, how it's going to help us do our work better, how it's gonna help us evolve, and how it's gonna make our practice better. And then when ideas are hatched, so to speak, the firm will actually invest in them and, find a way to implement them.

C And so that's just a direct feedback loop that's very practice focused, but I want to go back to something a few years back where there was a group of folks that I remember Carol and I, we were sitting in a in a meeting. I was the board chair at the time, I think. And, but we talked about how important it was, you know, how we would move our firm forward, and one of the folks asked, well, so who is the firm? And I remember saying, well, you are the firm. All of you are the firm. It's not just us, principals, board members. You guys are the firm. And a couple of weeks later, that person and another colleague came back, and asked. So we have this idea of how we might get at some of the things that we're not doing so well.

C So we have this idea for this workshop and this, you know, this, engagement for the whole firm. What do we do about that? And I said, well, first thing you're gonna do is you're gonna talk to Carol, and we're gonna make this happen. And from that came just a whole process of looking at how we can do things better, but also an initiative and a a studio that we have, which we call Lens, which is really about thinking about things outside of the built environment and how we can design, help organizations design processes, how how they might think about their identity, how they might think about branding, you know, you name it. And it was this really interesting process of how out of that one simple question came a whole new way of thinking about design within the firm that grew within the firm.

D Yeah. I I was also thinking we're not so perfect. Right? So we there, you know, a whole lot of things that we had a great big idea, but we never created enough structure for it to actually take off. And the person with the big idea, maybe they left the firm or they got really busy on a project or they couldn't stick with it, and it was invested in this one person idea. And I think it was through the failure of those one person ideas that a lot of our, trajectory developed around Hatchery. You know, instead of having just authoritative sources teach things, Angela's helped shepherd something called bird feeder, again, back to our ABN terms. But, you know, sort of she worked on bird feeder for, like, in the strategic planning process, but, like, the whole 1st year of COVID, I remember Anne was saying, okay. So I'm gonna work on bird feeder because, like, who the hell else knows what's gonna happen? But we have some time to make this pull get this off the ground.

D And it's a place where anyone in the organization can teach something that they've learned. And so it's not hierarchical. It's more about learning and sharing and how important it is today, you know, for me to continue to learn tools, you know, their team members I have, they're so much better on Miro than I am. I'm like, oh my gosh. Can you just teach me how you think about organizing this? Like, I, I just can't conceive of it. I'm really trying to learn. And I think it's that you everyone needs to be learning all the time. It is continuous improvement for everyone in the organization.

D You know? And I think I've known Evelyn for a long time where I feel like I would bump into you at an AIA meeting and be like, this elite hierarchy stuff's kinda driving me crazy. You know? So I think I've had reactions to how our profession sent sort of subtle messages to people that I didn't think were positive, and I didn't think we're gonna be good for the profession. So, you know, I think we all come to a point of view about what we want architecture and design to be, and I think we've worked really hard to make it inclusive. You know? Angela taught for a long time. You know? I've been on the boards of some different schools. Like, really seeing the profession at its broadest makes, I think, you stay kind of ambitious and hungry for that continuous improvement. And, you know, say a bright, talented person, you want them to stay. You know, you wanna connect them to those things in the organization that they feel like they're learning and contributing and developing.

D And so maybe the kind of some of the points that Evelyn was making, there are a lot of architects who are early in their career that have come to me over the course of COVID and said, why should I stay? What you know, all my other friends tell me I have to work at 5 firms before I decide where I'm gonna work for the long term, or my friends that are in start ups are changing jobs every 2 years. And I was like, are you learning? You know? Is there something you wanna learn that you're not learning? Have you asked anyone if you could have that opportunity? Like, I think being a little bit of a coach for those folks of this is your career. You're in charge of this. So, you know, our job is to allow you to learn and give you the best opportunities we can, but also know that we're pretty committed to getting this done for a client. And sometimes it's complicated. And sometimes the learning you have to do isn't, like, super, super fun. But the positive side, I think of Angela telling that story about University of Houston, you do it together and you build relationships. And all of a sudden, the next time you work together, you can kind of build on what you've developed.

D And I think that's the other thing that I've lived at Chipley. You know, doing a a second, 3rd, and 4th project with someone, all of a sudden, you understand each other better. You kind of encourage each other to create your create your ideas. And so I think it's that kind of compassionate inclusion of ideas that really has served us incredibly well.

C Mhmm. I think with that also goes maybe that the this idea of really thinking about us not just as all the same, but really being aware of the fact that we're all really different and we all bring different strengths. And so when we think about learning and contributing to a project or to a team, it's sort of figuring out no two teams are exactly the same. The the sort of general structure might look the same, but they're not the same. The the roles kind of shift a little bit, and they they they have to adjust to how people bring themselves and their strengths to a project and to their work. Right? And so learning is the same thing. So this whole idea of, you know, the typical typical corporate university, so to speak, where you go through all these courses and once you've got this milestone, you can advance to the thing. You know, that's okay if we're all the same, but we're not.

C And so this whole idea that we have to focus on where we want to learn, where we can strengthen our, you know, talents and what we can bring to a community, to our design community is really important. It's much harder. It takes more work, takes more thinking, but there's something there, I think, that is is much stronger and much more resilient and where people's ideas and their ability to really contribute in meaningful ways has so much more to do with fulfillment and also then with what the design outcome is. Right? When people bring their whole selves to the design process, you're gonna get a very different kind of outcome. And so that's what feels really important to get at.

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B Tune in next week to hear the next tip from Arc IT. To take your security solutions further, contact Arc IT at www.getarkit.com/pd to set up your free 15 minute cybersecurity assessment or speak to them about custom solutions for your design firm. Hi, disruptors. Janine here. If you're like me and have a lot of ideas about how to improve the profession of architecture, well, I've got good news for you. Here's your chance. NCARB wants to hear from you. Their ongoing analysis of practice study is your opportunity to shape the future of architecture.

B Share your experiences and insights from working in architecture and tell NCARB what you wish they would do better. Your feedback will help guide changes to the national experience and examination programs for architects and impact what being a licensed architect could look like. Whether you're an architect or you work with architects, Incarb wants to hear from you. Make sure your voice is heard. Contribute to the analysis of practice study today. Open a new browser tab and sign up at inc incarb.org/a0p. That's incarb.org/a0p. There's a lot of things that I'm hearing in this conversation that I wanna point out because I'm trying to I wanna make the distinction.

B Carol, you mentioned there's organizations that are very hierarchical, and so they have this culture that comes with that. And then what I'm hearing though about the way you guys think about your practice, first of all, very people focused. You're putting people at the front of the way you're thinking about your organization. I'm hearing an openness to change early on that's allowed you to start implementing policies all along versus waiting for, you know, external forces to prompt the the board's decision to adopt policies. And, of course, you've mentioned, some of the the policy specifically that you guys are proud of, and and that's including the remote piece and, collaboration and family leave. Let's dive a little bit further into those policies that you are thinking about in in order to create this the reflection of the culture that you want, which which rise to the front of your mind that you're most proud of, and were there challenges in adopting those within your firm?

C I've been doing this now for 5 months. So, all although in a time of, you know, profound change, But I think the the thing that I see the most promise for really is that policy around distributed work or the ability to be able to work from anywhere and engage, you know, with with teams. We used to call them cross office teams. I think we have to rethink that. Right? Because it's it's not just is it really an office anymore? Like, what are we calling this place where we don't have and that policy basically is about not, requiring any certain amount of days in the office. So it leaves it it leaves it up to people to figure out whether one week they might do something and next week they might do something else. It leaves it up to teams to actually communicate with each each other and figure out what works best for them. Again, back to they were not all the same.

C And I think as as Carol mentioned, this idea that we can really you can be anywhere. You could be somewhere where we don't have a physical space. So you could be in California. You could be in in Colorado, and people are. And while I think it's more work because we all have to learn how to work in the virtual environment, we all have to know well, remember or learn, relearn how to work in a physical environment, and then the combination of those 2, and that's probably where we're still having the most, you know, the furthest to go. And so, again, that's a constant learning process, but, to me, that is really the foundation of how we are going to grow as a community of really diverse individuals and how we can accommodate different needs and at the same time make it possible for those voices to be part of our process.

D Yeah. And I think, you know, sort of through COVID, my 2 or our my husband and, Jerry and my daughters, Morgan and Ainsley, were working and living out of our house. So we had, like, 4 professionals working in the same house all through COVID for about 18 months. And I learned a lot from my kids and how they were navigating things. And, like, when their CEO would, you know, sort of, make a command policy and just their reactions, and I was like, oh, interesting. Like, I'm getting a very honest lens into a 25 or 30 year old's view of the world. And, also, you know, Morgan was, like, my co IT person. Anytime I was having a problem, I wanted to stop bothering the core IT team at Shepley and being like, can you just help me, like, set this printer up? It's killing me here.

D You know? So I think the for me, the experience of COVID has been how valid it is to listen to every voice and that we aren't all the same and that some people are gonna wanna go to an office most days. You know? Some people are high extroverts like me, love getting out of the house, love the experience, you know, but it's Monday morning. I drove in this morning. Guess what? The traffic's back. You know? Commuting in Boston is not fun. It's a waste of time. So there are definitely gonna be days I really can't afford an hour and a half in transit with all the stuff that I'm trying to get done. So if that's how I feel, I feel pretty empowered in my role as a grown up.

D Right? How does everyone else feel? You know, trying to get their kids to school, you know, and hop on a call. Well, it's possible. You know? I let we I worked closely with one colleague. He was always, like, on teams at, like, 6 in the morning. And I was like, why are you up so early? You must be a real morning person. He was like, I have 2 children in elementary school. It's quiet at 6 AM. Like, I I can think at 6 AM.

D Then at, like, 7:30, I have to get, you know, breakfast and get kids on a bus, and same person is like, you know, at 3:30, I gotta jump off this call and come back after I get the kids at the bus. And I was like, I love that you're meeting your kids at the bus. You know? And then he's back on the call at 3:45, and no one had even hardly knew he, you know, dashed down to the end of the driveway. So there's some humanity in what this flexibility is allowing us to do. And then other one other point I just wanted to make was I was talking with family friends, again, people in their twenties thirties around the holidays, and this one family friend said, are we fetishizing how good it was before? Like, we're fetishizing like the office work seamlessly before. And, you know, my joke would be, if you don't talk to that person, you don't know how they're doing. You know? Like, coming in to the office, the principals weren't in the office all the time. They were with the clients.

D We were flying all over the country. You know? So I think we pretend that we were in, but we weren't really in. You know? We got together when we needed to, and we designed our work process as a team, and we never told teams what days of the week to meet. They're adults. Like, they're adults. They're professionals. You know? So I think, you know, Angela and I have enjoyed being two sides of this of, you know, how she can take it forward, but also what we've collectively learned. And, you know, Angela was the chair of the board for many years before she took on this role.

D So, you know, she was a big part of the culture kind of all along, but I think has more experience in how you make a big room culture work because of the clients she's worked with, and I feel like that is more about the transformation of the architecture than exactly where people are working. I love I saw this podcast that said it's distributed work. Work happens wherever you are, and we should be measuring outcomes, not units of time.

C And I

D was like, yeah. Exactly.

A I think you're speaking our language on so many different levels. We're just sitting here, of course, nodding our heads. I'm I'm hopeful that so many of our listeners are doing the same as well. So one question, you know, as we talk about developing the leadership pipeline and and why you would stay at the firm that I would like more firms to address as they move to remote work, but I don't think they've given much thought of about it is the duality or the potential duality of the people that show up regularly in the office versus the people that are mostly remote for whatever reason. They're actually remote or just, like, you know, they don't want to deal with that time loss in the commute. And so how has that leadership pipeline and development changed for you over the course of building that remote designation as another team member?

C You know, I think the the jury's still out on that because it I think it hasn't quite been long enough to really see that yet, and I know that there are all sorts of opinions out there about, you know, if you're not seen by leadership, you're gonna have a harder time advancing. That, of course, begs the question, where is leadership? Right? Is leadership really in the office? Or is leadership on virtual calls like this one? Or is it a combination of the 2? And I would like to think that it's a combination of the 2. But I think this idea of exchanging ideas and being visible in bringing your voice to the firm is something that can happen in a number of different ways. It doesn't have to happen in the office. In fact, I've heard people describe their engagement with the the firm at large in much more much stronger now than it was before we were engaging in this hybrid work environment. Because, you know, when you were in an office that was in Phoenix or in Houston or in Hartford, you had your community. Right? But you weren't necessarily as easily connected to the firm because everybody was sort of more focused on their regional connections, now that's opened up a lot more and so there are really easy ways to navigate through that. What it's going to look like in 2 3 years as a result of this I'm not gonna, you know, say that I know because I you know, part of what my role I see my role being is to watch, try things, listen, adjust, and and just keep an eye on what's happening and then adjusting if it's going in a place where it feels like it's counter where we want to go as a culture.

C But, really understanding how this is impacting leadership pathways is something that I think we won't even as a as an industry or as a community see and for 5 years or so. And then it's gonna be really hard to put your finger on exactly what it was that happened. Right? So I think what we have to do is just listen and figure out if people are feeling seen, feeling heard, and then making places where making intentional opportunities for people to come together and share ideas. And so Birdfeeder is one of those, Right? That's an open invitation for people to be visible in the firm. Hatcheries, one of those. It's an open invitation. We have biweekly town halls where we usually have an icebreaker at the beginning and usually the chat, you know, blows up with people sharing whatever their, you know, whatever they had for lunch last or what the most important, you know, natural, you know, phenomenon they've seen. So you learn a lot about people even that way, and so just the fact of engaging is something that makes individuals visible, sharing themselves, sharing their ideas, sharing their thoughts.

C To me, if I had to give some advice about how to be visible at the firm, that's that's the most important thing and whether you do that physically, virtually, or a combination of the 2, I think can all work. It's really a matter of how it fits into the culture.

B You've mentioned the ownership transition. I think this is a really important point, and the fact that you're both on the call today, I think, is is very interesting. You know, it's this it says a lot about how your transition is going. So we're getting a lot of questions from firm leaders who are who are asking themselves about how do you manage and navigate ownership transition. I would love to hear from your point of view, how have you made that a success, and and what path have you walked to make that happen?

D Shepley's always in ownership transition. Like, we're always looking at who are we selling shares to. You know, we've changed that a lot over the years so that people are gradually buying shares, especially if we see them really blossoming, as a person in the firm. You know, we want them to continue to buy shares over time. We're also looking at, you know, what's the burden of being an owner in the firm? You know, because there are a couple people that like myself, they're married to architects. Like, you know, it's not a diversified portfolio. So I think the fact that Shepley has always been kind of tweaking and evolving and looking at making it better and asking for input from people. I think, Angela, we have over 70 shareholders.

D You know, the principles are required to own a certain amount of the firm, but there's a lot of other shareholders, you know, like, whatever, 50 ish shareholders that own some small amount of stock or or adding to stock over time. And I would always say your power is your voice. You're a shareholder. You get to go to the annual meeting. You get to ask anything. You get to you know, I think another part of our of our philosophy as a firm has been really open book. Like, this is how we're doing. This is how we're not doing so good.

D This is where we're doing better. You know? So that sort of openness. But we've been talking about succession planning and transition for the CEO role for, like I don't know, Angela. I'm gonna say if you take if you add COVID 2 years, which I think we would have made the change 2 years sooner, and it just seemed like a really bad time to, you know, throw someone into a hot seat. You know, it's been about 5 or 7 years that we've been talking about where people are going and who's coming up behind them in different principal roles with different client groups. You know? So sort of that whole evolution. And so I think in many ways, and I'm laughing because Shepley talks about stuff. We're talkers.

D We're like exploit. I don't know that the there's a conclusion at the end of every conversation, but there is sharing of points of view. And so we've been talking about this for a long, long time. And then I think I watched some transitions in firms that I didn't think went so well. So for me, it was really important that Angela and I do it together and that, you know, I was there to support her, but that she that was very clear. There was a day that she became the CEO, and I think some of the folks who have had too long an overlap had confused their firm. And, again, I could be wrong about that. My daughter Ainsley said, I know you were working on it for a long time.

D It was a little abrupt for me. And I think there were some people in our firm that thought it was a little abrupt. Like, were you not gonna tell us? And it's sort of like, you can't be, I think my metaphor, Angela, was, like, you can't be partially married. You're either married or you're not married. Right? So you're either CEO or you're not CEO. And so, to me, that seemed right for our culture to be super clear about it, but also Angela and I have worked together for 20 years. So, you know, I feel like we're able to tell each other when we need space and tell each other when we need help. And could you please take this because I'm not gonna get to it, or, you know, you don't need to come to that meeting.

D You know, it's sort of I think it's a it's designed together and very open and honest.

C Yeah. I agree. And, I mean, I I've so much appreciated Carol's willingness to partner on this and to step back when she thought it was, you know, important for me to step forward and, to be there anytime I needed it for advice and and support, and it's it's a big transition, you know, for both of us. It's it's funny. We sort of joke that, you know, I I remember maybe, a few months in, I said to girl, wow. My inbox has ballooned. It's become this completely different thing. She goes, that's funny because mine's kinda done the opposite.

C So it was definitely something we talked about a lot, but then the actual transition itself is you don't know what you don't know until you figure it out. And so I think the other thing that we did that was successful is that we or I hope it was successful, is that we brought other leaders in the firm along as much as that was possible. So, for example, I appointed an executive committee that's, you know, 2 important leaders in the firm that are working with me because the idea was that it shouldn't just be one person's voice. We should have diversity at the leadership level just in terms of opinions and backgrounds and thought processes and personalities so that we're thinking about it not just from one point of view, one person's point of view, but from, you know, considering a number of points of view. And I think that's that's another theme that I think has has also made its way into how we have adjusted our board of directors. We've just because we thought, like, leadership transition by itself wasn't enough, we also decided to broaden our board. So we've actually brought on outside board, members, so outside directors in addition to the historically inside directors we've had. So we've added a couple of board members, total.

C And and I think this is a really exciting piece is we've added an employee representative that changes annually is elected by the firm, not just by the shock stockholders that attends board meetings and brings the voice of the firm to the board meetings, but is also able to explain some of the reasonings behind decisions back when there are questions. And so it's this idea that, again, bringing voices to the table to make it a a stronger decision making process that's rooted in who we are and not just who a few of us are.

A I've knew so much about Shepley, obviously, Carol from our time together. I I literally recently had some firm principles in areas where you guys have brick and mortar offices saying, like, there's a reason why Shepley Bulfinch is, like, getting all of the talent right now. I think if anybody is just, like, listening to how you adapt and change and how your thought process on on the future and where things are headed, I think that's I think it's it's there's a direct relation to to why talent is so interested in coming to Sheply right now in the midst of the great resignation. So so thank you so much for that. We're gonna move to our closing question. In addition to everything you've kind of shared already, you know, what is one main idea or lesson on change needed in the practice of architecture that you'd like to pass forward to the architects, emerging professionals, and industry disruptors listening. And I'm gonna append that with that you may not have already mentioned in this conversation so far.

C Well, I'm I'm gonna go back just a little bit to this idea of partnership and and the idea that you you can't do things all by yourself and that you can't grow by yourself. You can't realize a project all by yourself, and you can't figure out if it's even the right project all by yourself. Right? It all requires communication, and I know that's that's, you know, a really broad word. But to me, communication isn't about, you know, just communicating my ideas or for us architects to communicate our ideas. But it's a two way street, and it's not just about how we say things, but also how we hear things and how we hear what others are telling us. Are we really listening to what they're saying or are we listening to what we think they're saying? And that takes a lot of time and effort and energy and partnerships take time and effort and energy. Right? Because they're about understanding where the other party are coming from. What are they trying to say? What are they trying to communicate? And once we figured out how to do that, then we can actually talk about the work.

C Right? Because then it's no longer about my idea or your idea, but it's about the idea. And if if if there was a magic wand that I could wave and I could make that that happen, we'd make it all supercommunicators that were amazing at having these kinds of conversations. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of things we could do.

D Just to build on that, Angela, which I think is so clear, is to kind of bring your human to work. Right? Regardless of what role you are, how many years experience you have or where what whatever it is that defines you, bring your human to work. This is you know, compassionate people work really well with clients. Compassionate people work really well with others. And if you can really bring that part of yourself to work, like, it's all gonna work. It's all gonna be wonderful. You know, you're gonna find the place you belong. I was gonna say the other thing about people who have to go experience other organizations.

D We say, well, you could be a boomerang someday. We would love to have you come back. Like, you don't have to stay here. You know, if you really feel like you gotta, you know, stretch spread your wings, but come back. And so many people have come back to Shepley. And so I think for me, it's really about the we that's affirmed, and I think that's, for me, again, that kind of challenge of architecture of that, like, founder thing or the eliteness or the hierarchies of things. You know? I don't think that builds the strongest organization regardless of what profession you're in. And so, you know, how do you bring that kind of compassion to what you do? And then I think the rest solves itself.

D But I think in the last 2 years, we've talked so much about really relooking at, are we being inclusive across, you know, social justice? Do we even understand the history? Like, every single one of us has been learning in the last couple of years in ways that we didn't even know we needed to learn before George Floyd. You know, we sort of did, but not really committed across a broad swath of, you know, a country or humanity. So that's my that's my kind of idea about change.

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