Architecture Needs Radical Transparency

A Welcome to Practice Disrupted, a podcast where we find ways to create new solutions to current challenges while elevating the value of architects. I'm your host, Evelyn Li, an architect who spans tech as an angel investor, startup advisor, and founder of Practice of Architecture. Whether you're a seasoned architect or just starting in the field, this podcast podcast is your gateway to think differently about the role architects play within our global community. Hello, disruptors. Welcome back to this week's episode of Practice Disrupted. Today, I'm joined once again by Robert Yoon, CEO and cofounder of Monograph. If you've been following our past episodes with Robert, you know, he brings bold ideas, data driven insight, and a deep commitment to helping architects run better businesses. In this conversation, we're exploring what Robert calls radical transparency, An idea that challenges firm leaders to go beyond surface level openness and embrace uncomfortable truths about money, metrics, and management.

A We dig into the myths surrounding financial secrecy and architecture, the cultural fears holding leaders back, and why shifting toward more candid data informed practices can transform not just firm performance, but team engagement and trust. We also talk about the changing expectations of leadership, what high performing firms do differently, and how Monograph is thinking about the integration of AI to reduce time spent on the tasks we all hate. Yes, including timesheets. Whether you're a principal, an emerging leader, or someone thinking differently about practice, this episode is packed with actionable insights and maybe even an edge to push your own comfort zone. Welcome to the show. I was just reading Monograph's Benchmark Report, and you brought up this idea of radical transparency. So I wanted to come and bring you on to the show to talk about what it means to you.

C I'm so pumped. Let's do it.

A How do you define radical transparency? And then we'll talk about why the architecture industry needs it.

C I will start with, what do you gotta lose? So the here here's my interpretation of the industry for how however long I've been in it now and where I think it would benefit everyone if we move towards more radical transparency. It's not just normal transparency. There's a reason why I prefer the word radicals because we have to take a much more extreme approach to how we run our professional careers. And I think we should take a much more radical approach in how we wanna push. If not, we'll never see the results of the gains of the industry substantial enough if we actually don't aim higher than we're comfortable. So I go back to the saying, what do you gotta lose? And that should define radical because I don't think the industry has much to lose, and you should go as far as you feel comfortable. And that might be interpreted slightly different person to person from the firm. But I think everyone should just strive for pushing their boundaries in the comfort zone.

A So that's the radical side of it. What about the transparent side of it?

B Well, one, I'm biased. Right? I'm the cofounder and CEO of MyGraph. So, like, I lean towards financial literacy, and I want to get I wanna continue to preach how important it is to disclose financial performance, financial accountability, financial adherence, budgets, money, salaries to project performance, to time, to invoicing, to payments. I would love to have open conversations around these topics. So transparency for me really surrounds around the financial side of the equation. It could be brought into, like, individual performance. It could be brought into project execution. It could be brought into how do we design and architect organizations.

B I'll let you steer, but I tend to like money.

A No. Let's lean into that money. And the big question that every firm leader who doesn't wanna share anything, Why would I share with the summer intern any of this information?

B Yeah. Why wouldn't they? They should. Well, one, like, I think if you are having issues with driving cultural alignment, performance alignment, and you're having trouble as a firm owner going to sleep at night because you don't know what to say, who to say it to, and when to say it, which I think a lot of firm owners, large and small, have. I think I think it's really, really important to, like, reduce some of that anxiety as a firm owner and to run a practice that's a little bit more transparent. And it reduces the stress that you have to remember of, like, how much and when and why and develop a culture where everyone knows and is accountable. Actually, it becomes a lot easier than as a leader to talk about difficult topics when you have to, and it becomes a lot easier for a leader to celebrate the massive wins that you might have because everyone's aware and everyone can see it and everyone can contribute to it. As a young designer, some of the hardest things I had to go through and one of, like, my most non fond memories are being told that I'm behind budget or performing badly financially after it's already

A knowing why. Right? What budget was I supposed to be performing to?

B No. I I hope everyone knows that most people are generally really, really good people and have zero intentions of doing harm to a project, doing harm to a firm. I have zero intentions of ever, like, contributing to a negative deficit on a budget, on a project execution. But I also don't enjoy being told afterwards, like, look. Like, the it's we're already bad. So now we're in a reactive scenario of trying to figure out how to catch up, which is actually way worse if I had line of sight earlier.

A I just wanna continue to play this out for the firm leader because I did a post recently that talked about I made $14 an hour when I graduated and $14 an hour in Southern California when you're trying to live on your own. With my master's, not a ton of money even back in the early two thousands when I graduated. So you give me time and a half overtime, I am gonna take that overtime as much as possible. And it's not that I didn't want the project to suffer. It's just that I will research something to the point that I saw was beneficial to project, but it also contribute to my overtime. But little did I know because no one told me, because they didn't fill me in on my financials, what that time and a half overtime was doing to the project outcome.

B I totally agree. Like, I think I think the problem earlier and probably and most likely still persists today and which is why we're having this discussion is, one, the conversations don't happen. And if they do, they're extraordinarily rare within the industry. So we're here today on a mission to promote that topic. But also think, like, designing incentives is also not, like, a really, let's say, hot topic that gets talked about. Like, if the incentive isn't very clear, it's important for a firm owner to understand that a young designer who doesn't make a lot of money is now given a charter work and given the right to work overtime to make more money, you have to assume they're gonna take it. Yeah. Like like like, rent is not cheap.

B And without, let's say, boundaries and let's say the right incentive structures or right boundaries in how we work, naturally speaking, we're gonna try to earn as much as possible and make sure that we earn a living because that's that's human instincts. That extra context of, like, yes, work overtime. Yes. We want you to perform well. Yes. We want you to learn and be an incredible designer within this firm. And here are also the boundaries that we have to work and execute with it.

A Financially, but also if we collectively all contributed to delivering a project on time and under budget and have a greater profit at the end. I think there's ways to set up profit sharing so everyone sees and benefits from that as well.

B Oh my god. Our reports absolutely shows that. Like, our highest performing firms, the general delta between employees at those firms earn almost hundred thousand dollars more. So our data shows that if the firm is high performing, that that profit and the return on that effort actually gets distributed across the firm. It pays.

A So let's talk about this lack of transparency mindset. And I honestly don't know necessarily where it comes from. When you talk to firm leaders, what's their reason as to why they don't wanna share more, or they ask you to turn off all the filters that allow everyone to see Yeah. Everything?

B I do wanna make sure it's clear. Everyone has slightly different issues, and everyone has slightly different options. And they're unique almost every firm when I have these conversations. I do see a general trend. A general trend is, I think, if you're new to a platform and you're new to being becoming radical transparent, there's a lot of fear. And and you have every right to fear. You're doing something that's, let's say, uncomfortable and you're doing something that you've never done before. And there's a lot of things that start to surface mentally.

B Examples would be, I know my projects are bad financially. How would the team feel and react if I I

A knew it.

B That every single project is actually in the red? Would they ask harder questions? Probably. Would I look bad in front of my my team? Probably. These are very scary. I want I wanna be very upfront. Like, these are very scary thoughts for any firm owner, and they have every right to be scared. And I think that's really hard to overcome. But I've also seen incredible leaders in our space, firm owners, who have overcome it and who have the courage to face those issues with their team and have drastically turned the firm around very quickly and have seen support from the people they hire and from the people that they've built their their firm with and the culture that they've created within their firm to support them in turning it around. But the first hurdle is is usually rooted in some version of fear, and it's very hard to overcome.

A Is it fear plus I wanna say, I feel like what we want out of our firm leaders and what leadership is and what good leadership is has changed in the last decade. Right from the leader that's like the know it all that is the captain of the ship to call it a coach or a facilitator or somebody who is making sure the team is coming along with them. Is it a generational thing? How do we stop that trend in the future so that the next generation of leaders don't find themselves in the same position?

B This might start to age me a bit. I don't think the role of leadership has changed. I think it might have been forgotten. But if I if I believe that it's always been part of a job of a leader, obviously, to lead. It's not part of a leader's job to know everything. That was never really in the job description. I will go as far back as the dawn of man. Like, the job is to lead.

B I I don't know everything. I don't intend to ever know everything. I also don't intend to ever be right a % of the time. I do intend to lead the people who wants to follow me. I do intend to do it empathetically. I do intend to do it my way, and I hope it resonates with the people and the team and the company that I'm building. I think those principles have not changed. And I think there's a lot of leaderships that wants to win and wants to perform highly regardless of industry.

B This is tech and architecture in every space. I think those those root principles have not changed. They might have not been as loud, and we might have forgotten as an industry of what's really truly about leadership and maybe have over indexed on competency and knowledge. But a lot of times, like, it's not my job to know everything. It's actually my job to encourage those who do know a lot more than me to have a sounding board, to have a seat around the table, to know what it takes to lead and to be okay to make mistakes. But it's important to to be transparent and communicate.

A Yes. But you're a different kind of leader, and that's what I've always liked about you. You can argue that it hasn't changed, and and I can see your perspective. But I do see generally and and when I say generally, I know I'm making a large generalization about architects and architecture and firm leaders. But I also know that enough people have shared experiences. That is a problem, right, within the industry. That, you know, the type of leadership that we were brought under doesn't offer radical transparency. I don't think even considers, like, what it means to make their employees financially literate.

A So are you hopeful about the next generation of leaders, the millennials that are coming into leadership that are changing that, or is there something that we need to be more proactive with in the industry to create greater change?

B Well, personally, I don't genuinely like to leave things for chance. So I always like to be very, very proactive, especially if I have a strong belief and opinion on a topic. So I'm always gonna advocate for being proactive versus reactive type of behaviors. And I have to, in the core of me, believe that every generation is better off. It might be very different, which is okay. My parents are still alive. My grandparents are not. And I know there's generational gaps.

B I think that's absolutely normal, but I have a % confidence in mankind. I have a % confidence in our industry and future architects that we're doing everything we can to improve the next wave of leaders, designers, and architects, and engineers that will come after us. I strongly believe that transparency, communication, financial literacy are really core topics that we need to continue to surface and make more aware and remove some of the taboo that the industry has historically around money. Because I believe when we do that, there's an exponential curve where even the generation afterwards could be even substantially better. I would say you and I are probably doing the hard work right now. I hope to be impactful for this generation, but I hope to be really, really impactful for the following. Can't get there unless we continue to really believe in it and continue to make sure that we're heard.

A I believe in kind of the evolving business model. You have all of this data from firms that enter things into the platform. Do we need to change our business model to be successful, or can we be successful within what we are doing now?

B Well, this I do believe with you. Like, I think business model should always be changing. A better way to frame the question could be the rate of change, not the fact of is it is it a binary change? Yes or no. Like, I think that if it if we wanna ask that question, the chain answer should be yes. The industry should always be changing because the world's always changing, and how we work will always change relative to how the world's evolving. I think it's more important to talk about the rate of change. I think the rate of change historically has been very, very slow. Do you think the rate of change has increased? If not, we're gonna continue to lag behind as an industry relative to other industries because our rate is different than other industries' rate of change.

B Really, really important to distinguish slight nuance in language, but, like, really important.

A What are some areas that you think we need to change in?

B Well, we spent the first few minutes of, like, the opening of this dialogue around money. I do think, like, not talking about money is is hurting the industry, and money is a very broad topic. We can talk about, like, how do we how do we scope work? How do we invoice clients? How does the employees of this industry from ownership down to everyone else gets paid? We talk about internships. It's a taboo word.

A Is it really taboo? Why is it so taboo? Internships should not be a taboo word in the profession.

B I don't think it should, but I do believe that it is a taboo word right now. And I think we can have a conversation around that role from the perspective of money. We can talk about financial performance. We can talk about pay bands. We can talk about earning potential at the firm level, at the employee level, at the owner level. So I think, like, the topic of money opens a lot of, let's say, doors that I think can only do good because it surfaces this information, and it broadens the perspective of those who are doing really, really well to those who are not doing so well. I think that's really, really important. It's about awareness and education, and we can't have awareness or education if we're not comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations on money.

A Is it just money? You have a lot of conversations with a lot of CEOs in this space and a lot of users of your product. What is the biggest differentiator between the CEOs that are really thriving and what they're doing in their firms versus generally what you see, I would say, the majority of people struggling with?

B There's a lot of unique characteristics. I think the best, highest performing organizations are comfortable with having difficult conversations, not just about money, but generally speaking. I think they're great delegators. They know where they're good at and what they're not good at. Most firm owners of our industry are are architects, but not all architects are created equal. Some are very good technically. Some are very good from a design perspective. Some are amazingly talented at winning work.

B Some are great people leaders and that you would absolutely spend four hours listening to. And I think identifying who you are and what you're good at and delegating appropriate tasks away, the best firms know how to do it, and they know how to do it very, very well. And they can build teams to support their strengths and their weaknesses.

A So are the ones that are struggling suffering from this, we need to do it all mindset or I need to do it all mindset?

B Yeah. Because it's really hard. It's really, really hard. Like, I've been, like, knowing you for a long time, you've been doing a lot of things on your own. I've been trying to build Monograph on my own, and I think the more I learn how to become a leader, and I I have to grow up here, and the more I trust my team, empower my team, and delegate appropriately, the more successful Monograph becomes. I can't do it. I don't know how to do everything. So I I I cannot continue to think that way, and I'm so passionate about making sure everyone else also learns what I'm learning because I think it could be applied outside of, like, obviously, being on my rep customer and using our tool.

B But I think these are these are just core fundamentals. And I think any any architect can take away and be hopefully much more successful. What are

A you guys doing around AI and integration of AI into the platform?

B Oh my god. We're doing a lot. I think we're doing we're doing a lot to make sure that you spend actually way less time in the platform. We're trying to do a lot to automate. We're trying to do a lot where you don't even notice. And I think that's the core value of AI. I I I think AI as a chatbot is it might be very surface level and the introductory of of a new wave of technology. I don't think that that's the most viable impact for the industry at all.

B I do think, like, understanding there's a lot of data entry in terms of, like, making sure you're on track. How much of that data entry we can remove with AI?

A I always say that was, like, the crowning joy moment of me going in house to Slack and not working as an outside consultant anywhere because I didn't have to keep track of my hours.

B So how do we continue to work towards that reality? It won't happen overnight, but I think this is a very important question to ask internally here in my graph. It's like, how do we take how do we make sure that the forefront of technology today is being deployed to architects immediately? I think a lot of that has to do with how do we improve workflows and how do we take some of the many manual tasks that historically has persisted and reduce it. I would love for it to go to zero, but, like, the core goal is to reduce as much as possible. A few things we've already released, which I'm really excited about, is you can imagine you win a project, and in most tools, you have to go into the tool, enter the name, enter the phases, enter the people who's gonna work on it, enter the budget, enter the duration. Like, these are common questions for any platform you're gonna ask to do, including monograph. Well, you don't have to do it anymore. Just give me your contract. We ingest the contracts.

B The AI is smart enough to essentially parse out who's the name, who's gonna work on it, how long is it, what's the budget, how many phases. We just remove all that manual task. We can then say, here's what we think. Please validate and review. You click a button, and you're done. That's incredible. I think there's a lot more we can do with our mobile app. Like, if you're running to a job site, we can use the GPS on your phone.

B We know what job site you're going to. We can surface that project right to the top on your mobile device. We can figure out how long you're gonna stay at the job site and figure out how many what conversations you've had, where your meeting minutes might be. We use it to take notes. We can use it to log deliverables and decisions.

A Do you wanna do that all in the platform?

B I wanna do everything.

A Would you ever make an IMBD for architects? I have always wanted to create the IMBD for buildings and architects.

B So I think of that as like a marketplace. Mhmm. And general answer is yes. Right. How do you find work? How do you find partners, collaborators, engineers, consultants?

A I never thought of IMBD as a marketplace, but I can see it now.

B We can see it as an aggregator of Yes. Of data and a and a way to find information quickly. There's a lot of people who are also doing the work around vendors, product materials, contractors, general contractors, subcontractors, specialized trades. Like, there's so much there's so many problems with the industry.

A There's so many opportunities with the industry.

B Which is where I'm gonna go. Right? Like, I think, you know, I know your audience is mostly architects, but, like, if I were to speak towards a venture community, I would generally say close your eyes, throw a dart. Like, there's there's a lot of opportunity within the a and e and c industries because it is there are a lot of workflows that needs to be optimized and brought up to to the new twenty first monthly records. There's a lot of opportunity to build and solve problems, and I think there's a lot of opportunity for young entrepreneurs to go and take on those challenges. I can't do it all. I would love to solve a lot of those problems, but I intend to be working in monograph for the rest of my career, so I got time.

A Enjoying the show? Join a community of fellow disruptors at practiceofarchitecture.com/community. Your membership helps support the production of this podcast, Practice Disrupted, and funds the creation of more resources for all of you. Looking forward to growing together. Join us today at practiceofarchitecture.com/community. I have a question for you back on AI because, I mean, AI has been hiding under the surface a long time. And as a technology company, as a SaaS provider, have you had to bring in AI specialists? Or have you been reskilling your employees or doing a combination of both? Like, how are you integrating into the platform?

B I think you gotta do both. I think you do not win as an organization if you don't do both. Because I think reskinning the existing talent within our organization, you have to to make sure culturally it's accepted. But not bringing in new talent doesn't allow for an organization to recalibrate and reset the bar of what what good let's say, you can ask the question, what does a good AI engineer look like? Well, if you don't have one internally and you're just leveling up the team, well, what the next question you have to ask is, well, what are you leveling up to? Like, you you gotta have some way of setting the the the bar. So I think you have to do both.

A How do you do that in an architecture firm when you're constrained financially and can't bring in those AI engineers? How do you see architecture firm leveling up? This goes back to the whole rate of change conversation. How do we level faster?

B I think the first thing you gotta tackle is cultural identity problem per on a on a individual firm scenario. It starts at the top. Like, if you're the owner of your practice and you don't embrace change, honestly speaking, like, it's not gonna it's not gonna flow throughout the rest of the organization because you're the leader. You have to set you have to set the example.

A It is. But as someone who's had the the pleasure or the displeasure of working under people that just are lack overall self awareness, I've always been one of those people that ask, do I stay in this organization because I believe I can change it? And it was ultimately through lack of self awareness in the leadership that I that I felt like my ability to create change in that organization is gonna be no longer, and I and I left. Is there a hope for those individuals, or do we relying on the hope of the future leaders in the industry?

B I think if you're a young individual who's employed, who's unhappy with the rate of change your leadership is committed to, I think as you stated, you have two options, convince them or move on. I think I think there should we should have a frank conversation that it's not bad to say this is not the right organization for me. And it's okay to say, I wanna make sure that me personally am at the right firm to contribute my value and participate on a growth trajectory that I support, and I want the firm ownership to feel the same. And when they're not aligned, well, then I think it's really it's okay to say it might not be a good fit, and that's okay. That's totally okay. I actually believe that the industry doesn't have this conversation enough. This goes back to being radically transparent. I was

A gonna say, now we're talking about, like, individual radical transparency with yourself. I feel like.

B Like, I have constant conversations with Monograph employees. Like, what do you want? Where do you see yourself in five years? How can I help you get there? And if I can no longer help you get there, we should have that conversation too. And if you're not happy, well, like, I I don't want that. And I don't think any firm owner wants that. Like, I want you to be happy.

A I also don't want you to stay here. If this is not the environment to make you happy, then you're never going to perform to the level that we need you to perform at to be a productive employee.

B It doesn't serve your personal growth because you're not committed. And you're you still have a lot of growth in front of you. I wanna support that. I want you to be motivated, and you're not going to be if you're unhappy. So we should we should find a resolution and it's I continue to say it's always it's okay to have a dialogue where that the resolution means we might not work together. Doesn't mean we're not gonna be friends, we'll be incredible friends. It's not might not be the right fit for you.

A And I think the flip side of that is the good leaders are the leaders that just wanna foster the industry and move the industry and the profession forward as a whole. We'll say, like, this isn't the right fit for you, but let me help you find your next step. My network is yours to do that with versus the leaders that say, why should I spend any money training or developing everyone and kind of kick you out the door, pull the man out from under you on the way out the door.

B Not good business. You don't contribute to the industry at all if you behave that way. And it's it's hard for me to believe anyone will follow you, which means you're unfortunately, it's not the right definition of a strong leader. I'll give you other examples, I think. Like, employee retention is a great is a really hot topic for for this industry. And I think a lot of times, what not enough of us are asking is, is the goal to retain as much as possible, or is the goal to gain the right people? Like, that that's a very nuanced twist to the language, but, like, it sets the incentive structure very differently. Like, if you wanna keep the right people, then the goal isn't to keep everyone, and it's impossible to keep everyone. It's actually, like, statistically impossible to keep everyone.

B The goal is to keep the people who are huge value ads that are aligned with your mission and purpose that will work towards the company goals and their goals, and you're you're literally rolling. Then you had a picture recently on LinkedIn of of a boat rolling. Like, you want everyone rolling in the same direction on the same pace, which is also important. You can't have one rolling faster than the rest, and you can't have a few rolling to the left and a few rolling to the right. Like, you you gotta drive that perfect harmony as a business owner. So the goal was never to have, like, I want a % retention. Like, I want I want retentions of

A Of the right people.

B Of the right people. And everyone else, I need to build the muscle of having a a radical candid conversations around, is this the right fit?

A Yeah. No. I I mean, I think that's a mindset that one, I think that's a mindset that leaders need to have. Because I even when I worked at Salesforce, we talked about the Empire Builders. Right? They they're the people that wanted the most head count under them because the bigger they were, the more headcount they had control over. They felt politically, at least in within the organization that was Salesforce, that they had more political capital. Because you don't want 50 of your employees to be unengaged and 50 of your employees to be highly engaged just so you can have a hundred employees.

B No. I do think that conversation get lost quite often in in all of these panel discussions where, like, oh, we want to have score really high retention, and we want we wanna do really, really well as a as a firm culture. I would almost always push back. Well, what how do you what do you who do you want and who do you don't want? Like, you gotta have that discussion also because it's statistically impossible for you to score a %.

A But then I would actually say maybe employee engagement is a better statistic to track than retention. And I think retention is a better metric to track when you're looking at your hiring process Because your your lack of good retention could stem from a horrible hiring process.

B If you know your retention is really bad, your recruiting efforts are probably needs to be revisited. Your onboarding efforts probably need to be revisited. There's there's problems upstream in that process. This is a great way to circle back to, like I feel like everyone's looking for one number to measure financially. And the honest truth is you need to learn a set of numbers. They tell you very different stories, and they they help you hedge against different problems. And I think knowing just one is not ever achievable. You need to learn your business on how you monitor your business from the perspective of multiple different KPIs and and financial metrics.

B No different than how you think about, let's say, a retention problem, and you wanna look at your employee engagement metrics along with your retention metric, along with your speed to hire metric. Right? Like, there's a few other metrics that you wanna look at from a people side. That's no different than a set of metrics you wanna look at financially.

A Not everyone knows what a KPI is. So can you illuminate?

B KPI, the direct definition is the key performance indicator. If you don't know what that means, you can think of it as a a way of monitoring something that's really, really important that gets boiled down to a number. So if you're a runner, right, like, that's that you calculate that based on the distance you run. If you're into fitness, that's how much weights you live or how long you can work out for. If you're really into, let's say, project executions, how fast you can get something done or how well you can deliver it. If it comes down to financial, it becomes down to, like, I have a budget and did I stay on it or below it? It's not that hard. It's it's the definition of a number that you wanna track that's very important.

A Yes to tracking multiple different numbers. I think

B Yeah.

A The the one big thing that business owners fail to realize is similar to how buildings are systems. Right? And they all work together. And if one fails, if your waterproofing fails, then other systems can begin to deteriorate under it. Similarly, you have to be monitoring multiple different angles of your business through KPIs. Are there the 10 that any every business member should know, or is it is it dependent upon where you wanna grow your business and what you wanna do with it?

B I think I think it's really smart for every business owner to reevaluate what are important metrics every three to six months. Because I think they should align to what you want out of the business. Like, so if you want to hold steady state and be profitable and run it more profitable, you're gonna look at very different numbers than a firm owner who, like, I wanna grow, and I wanna double, double, double. Yeah. Well, those you don't have to monitor very different metrics because your up your goals and objectives are very are very different. So I think reevaluating if you have it right every six months is probably a very good cadence. Internally at Monograph, we we question this almost every quarter just to make sure that we're looking at the right number that aligns with the with our goals and incentives for for the quarter and for the year. But I do think most architects are services businesses.

B We're not they're not product businesses, generally speaking, on that. And we can spend all night talking about the differentiating

A So the product is a we build prototypes, a single prototype every three to five years and multiple if we are lucky.

B There are a lot of firms that can productize their services and and let's say include a lot of frameworks and methodologies that starts to productize their services. But at at a high level, it's still generally categorized as a service.

A As a service provider. Yes. Yeah.

B And and I say this mostly because if you look at it from an accountant's perspective or from a financial perspective, you still have to measure the return on effort relative to labor. And when you start to do that and that's your primary way of driving revenue, well, then you're more or less a services business. Now if you know that, there are, let's say, generic metrics that usually align with services metrics, which are which are throughput on your labor force and what's the outcome of that labor force. So you gotta track how much you invoice and how much you collect and the timely matter of you collected relative to your expenditure, which is how much you spend on labor. Gotta start there. Right? Like, I let's say you have two employees, including insurance, including all the benefits, you're spending $10,000 per employee. That's $20,000. Simple math puts you you should make at least $20,000 that month to cover the cost of those two employees at minimum without going and seeing and making the math harder.

B We cannot, let's say, price gouge. That's the whole reason why there's that law. Like, there's it's it's there to prevent, let's say, price gouging potential future clients, which is really bad. I don't think anyone wants that. But I do think everyone should have the ability to learn and know their own, especially with a firm owner of, like, what does it cost for you to run your business on a monthly basis, and how much do you actually collect, which is really important, not just bill, but actually collect because you have to cover. You start there. This goes back, I think, is also a hot topic of why tracking time is always, like, liked and disliked, and what's the role of tracking time. And we can talk all day about the role of tracking time, but at at its core, you should still know just based on performance how much time you're putting towards things.

B It does not mean that you have to invoice against that time. It does not mean that you have a direct correlation with how you make your money, but it should have a direct correlation for how you manage work. And you have a better idea of where and how much work you as an individual and you as a team can can produce. If you don't track your time, then you actually don't. And you're basing all of your decisions on intuition, which is a scary scary thought sometimes, you know.

A Which I just talked to somebody who is been at the same firm for over twenty years, and they have a project management system that is not yours. I'm not gonna say the name. But they don't even use data in it, and they run their firm off of gut feel.

B Well, then why pay for it? Like, let's let's save some money here. If you're not gonna use it, it contributes to expenditures. Right? Like, go back to that conversation. I'm like, let's see.

A Then why why are you even paying for it?

B Makes no makes no difference. But I do I do see huge amount of value go back. The industry is generally classified as a services industry. It's important to know where your time goes and how much time you spend, how much time it takes a team to perform at a certain on a certain project, and how much time it takes for an individual to perform. It's your decision in terms of how you wanna invoice and bill, and we can talk about value or not value, invoice by time. That's just completely separate topic. I think the hardest thing I run into all the time is everyone always combines the two topic, and I think that actually does the industry a lot of harm. Right? Just because I'm advocating for country does not mean I'm advocating for you to invoice against that time.

B Like, that's that's silly.

A No. I I get it. And jokingly, I'm just like anti timesheet. But, I mean, if you do have yes. You need to know where people are spending your time. So you can do all the things that you wanna do with your business including, like, do we have the bandwidth to create more strategy around innovation, and what does that look like? As a leader, then I can answer bigger questions about time. As an employee, I hate it doing time sheets, though.

B Well, our job is to make that more pleasant. So it be it doesn't become a hurdle, and we can make it more pleasant, and we can make it into, let's say, a financial literacy topic of learning why the value of tracking something is important. I believe that we get over the hurdle quite easy. That doesn't mean the problem is easy. Like, it's actually incredibly hard, and I've been working on it for six years now. It's still hard.

A Radical transparency, you've talked about it from a financial perspective, and you've also talked about it from a candid and, like, just having difficult conversation perspectives. As somebody that I see as as the type of leader that I would prefer to work under, where do you go for your own professional development to if you need help having a difficult conversation for interest as a starting point?

B I think I go I work really hard trying to isolate problems. And then as soon as I feel comfortable that I've isolated a problem to its core unit of measure, I try to find an expert. So I might have, let's say, a an AI problem or a people management problem or a board problem or a fundraising problem or a sales problem. Like, I would I would boil it down to exactly what I need help with and try to find to the best of of my ability a person who's an expert.

A Are you a collector of mentors then?

B %. I also tend to evaluate who I take advice from fairly regularly. For me, almost every three months. Because I do wanna make sure that my mentors are can provide value relative to the stage of growth I am personally and the stage of growth where the business is at. So never too far ahead. If you I'm sure a lot of listeners might know someone who who is very, very established, who has decades of experience, who are incredible mentors and leaders. The problem is when you ask them about a problem today, they're so far detached that they might only provide a framework for how to approach, which is great strategy, but very few tactical advice because it it's it's been so far ago. I would rather take advice from someone who's just experienced the same problem no more than, like, a a year ago.

B Feel fresh, and they remember how painful it was and what they learned and how they navigate it and what went wrong, and it's it's very top of mind. That also means I have to rotate my collection of mentors and and people that I look up to almost constantly because the business is growing quite fast.

A And somebody who has chosen to say a small business like me becomes less of a mentor than somebody who has grown and has, you know, several rounds of VC funding behind them. But as an example

B I I think as an example, you should still question, like, well, what do you need help with? Right. And who who is the right person to help you? Like, I think these are these are really important questions. Not and not just someone who's, like, checked the box as really successful because I I sometimes don't think that's enough. Like, you could be going through something that's, let's say, a difficult topic. Like, you have an employee that you you hugely value and they're underperforming. You have to have a hard conversation and you don't know how. And you know you need to and it's eating inside of you, but, like, you just don't know how to, like, bring it up, create a safe environment to have it, how to approach it, how to get your your your butterflies out because it's scary. And I think a person who who does it whole time, who might be capable of doing it all the time, who's done it recently, might offer more advice and mentorship than someone who hasn't done it very often or at all.

A I feel like this is important especially for younger people to hear because and this is my struggle with these mentorship programs, like these very I feel like I'm a collector of mentors. But when I view somebody as a mentor, they can be a friend, they can be a peer. I would say that at times, I turn to you for mentorship too. It's not it's not this, like, very formalized mentor structure, and that's okay because you're not gonna get all the answers you need, all the right answers you need from one person. And I feel like more young people need to hear that because people literally reach out to me saying, can you will you be my mentor?

B Do you find that a little weird?

A I don't find it a little weird, but my question is always, like, one, I know nothing of you. And personally, I'm a relationship person. Like, if I if I believe in who you are and what you're doing, I I think naturally, you wanna spend more time with that person. You have an investment to see them grow. So I think it's hard for to to respond to the cold call. Will you be my mentor? But two, it's just like I have people asking me all the time, I wanna go into strategy. Help me be like, help me grow around strategy. And I was like, well, what kind of strat like, what type of consultant do you wanna be? I could be the right person for you to help you grow.

A I could be the totally wrong person. But, I mean, it's it's a little bit exploratory. But one, I I'm just wanting like, one, it doesn't have to be a formalized mentorship.

B You know, it's really funny. Like, I I see you as a friend. But, like, whenever we meet, I don't say, hey, friend. No. Like, I think that I think that adds a lot of layer of, let's say, interpersonal complexities around, like, I genuinely wanna help people always. I don't know if I want to formalize the title of a mentor or a or a coach because then then I feel like I'm accountable to also So

A then, yes, like, you as a mentee has to report in to your mentor?

B Like, well, like, look, if you if you really wanna, like, play this out, right, like, I wanna do a good job. I I'm highly honorable to myself. I love I personally like to win. So, like, if you're gonna put this on me, like, I'm gonna wanna do the best version of being a mentor as possible. I genuinely don't want that responsibility, but I do want to be there when you need me. Right? And that's very different. Right? Like, if you call me

A That is very different.

B Need me, I wanna be there. And I think it's really important for a lot of young professionals to understand that most most people who are well ahead of you in their career want nothing more than to help. And you don't need to be you don't need to formalize it, but I do think you need to value a relationship. I do think you need to understand that, like, keeping things too transactional is not good, and, like, we wanna be we wanna build lifelong relationships. And those relationships have a spectrum, but, like, they're not not everyone's gonna be your best friend and nor should everyone be your best friend, but everyone should have a spectrum of how you view a relationship. And you wanna build a team, a roster. You could think of it as a team. I wanna build a team around me that has very specific skills that when they call me, I help them.

B And when I call them, they help me. And I'm gonna keep expanding my team as I as I as I age. And I'm I'm gonna build a team of of a very large team of that has varying degrees of specialized talent that I think I need to live a very fulfillful life from from love to relationships to business to industry to passion. I wanna make sure I have a really good team that covers everything that's that I care about that's meaningful to me.

A Hi, disruptors. Thank you for joining us today on an episode of Practice Disrupted. If you like the content for today's show, you can find all of our past episodes over on practiceofarchitecture.com/podcast. Be a part of the conversation by joining me, our speakers, and other disruptors in our community at practiceofarchitecture.com/community. Our social media handle is practice of arch. That's practice of a r c h. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to drop us a DM and say hello. Tune in next week for a new conversation on change in the profession.