Studio Launch

Chinese Proverb

 "Those who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt the person doing it."

Hey batter!

While keeping up on my friend and Dean of the School of Business at the University of Utah I've run across some interesting blog posts; both his and others on an aggregate blog. One writer, Katie Reeder, caught my eye with this post so I thought I'd share it in its entirety given how short it is and how related it is with my "Teaming" ramblings.

Someone once said, "You should never tell Babe Ruth how to hold a bat."

Truer words were never spoken and yet everyday, I work with managers, who have employees with a 1000 batting average, who insist on telling them how to hold a bat.

Process, policy and procedure are critical elements which allow us to consistently replicate desired outcomes. But once those are memorizialized, routinely reviewed and improved, the employees who work within them should be turned loose and allowed to fly.

Leaders who insist that employees should perform every task, approach every project, finalize every sale, exactly the way the manager would, is severely limiting the potential of the business and, more importantly, the employee. If you have an employee who comes to work eager to do their job everyday, who knows themselves well enough to work efficiently and effectively, give them the sign to swing away.

My best advice to managers and leaders - get out of the battersbox today, don’t start coaching until they approach first and give them the room and equipment to knock the ball out of the park, every single day. I promise you, they will.

So here's the sign to swing away...and if you want to know which bat has worked well for me in the past, just ask.

The wisdom of Steve Jobs

Great article here >>> Get Rid of The Crappy Stuff

What strikes me most is the section on courage.  It takes courage to reduce, it takes courage to eliminate, it takes courage to remove, it takes courage to "say no to 1000 things."

Sweet University Rec Center

See this new project at the University of Cincinnati.

>>> Morphosis Project

Student housing seldom gets this kind of budget and this kind of attention.  Morphosis has a way...

Found on irishtimes.com

Dublin city architect Ali Grehan on design.

“The link,” she says, “between the award-winning (impressive) and well-functioning (well-loved) buildings is generosity. Generosity is, I think, what elevates the former to become the latter. By this I don’t mean size but generosity in the design of routine elements through discovery of opportunities for greater enjoyment in use. This in turn creates distinctive, memorable and even delightful places. It is often forgotten.”

"A site for all your reading disorders"

"Inappropriate books for children."  OK, so that's the title that blog writers Lane Smith and Bob Shea tag their blog with.  It probably drives some sort of traffic, but I haven't found too much that would be actually inappropriate.  (Maybe that says more about me than the site.)  And, as a warning, I haven't traversed the entire site nor, will I show it to my kids until I do.

But what I did find is a wonderful collection of graphically rich book illustrations that are good for the designer's eye.  Below are just a couple examples from one book featured recently.

 

    

"A site for all your reading disorders," they propose...consider the therapy complete.

>>> To go to the blog- click here

Creative Focus and Design Teams

The Information Age has mutated.  Focus is a serious challenge.  Creative focus, in a design field with multiple masters, technical challenges, environmental concerns, a construction industry that still builds as if its 1940, and political land mines at every turn is tough yes.  But add to that, multiple avenues of information access, vying for our attention like jumping Donkey in the movie Shrek…

“Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!”

Was design always this complex?  Was creative focus always this elusive?  I don’t think so.

The holidays were consumed with mulling over the increasingly complex conditions we design within and how we might organize our design teams to effectively respond.  How might we work together to avoid the kind of complexity that today leads to complications and confusion?  I returned to the office and waiting on my desk was "Change By Design" by Tim Brown.  And inside I found his answer.  (Thank you Doug Thornley for your generosity!)

As Brown tells us creative effort is challenging in and of itself,

“…unlike more analytical methods, design thinking taps into intuition as well as rational thought. You can’t put your process into boxes and check everything off, and that is one of the challenges of any creative methodology.”

But also, in the past, some people tried to define design methods as purely creative — as if just “getting out of the box” were enough — that’s what we did when we fine tuned the charette process.  It was our way of making lightening strike.  (See previous post)

Brown goes into depth in making sure we understand the subtleties in managing the creative process.  He confirms that design thinking still occurs in groups, and that large teams are still typically employed to tackle large and/or complex projects.  So here’s the difference.  Large teams, when present, usually don’t arrive to the project at the outset of the project but at the beginning of the implementation phase.  The inspiration phase, as he calls it, by contrast requires a small, focused group whose job is to establish the overall framework of the project.  In our words, the parti.

His example of the film industry was a the most fascinating parallel in the book.  The “preproduction phase” of almost all major films consists of, say, a director, writer, producer and production designer.  That’s it.  They develop the basic concept.  As Brown indicates, “Only later do the ‘armies’ arrive.”  During the pre-production phase, this small, focused team acts not solely as “artist-creators.”  They find not only the “idea” but also drill down to begin outlining the key implementation strategies, schedule, locations, props, etc.

And interestingly, near the end of the pre-production phase, there is a “read-through” of the script that includes the whole cast, heads of departments, financiers, producers, publicists, and of course the director.  This, in the architectural world, would be the internal “kick-off” meeting except, in Brown’s film analogy, much inspiration and preparation has preceded it.

Looking at other creative fields I found that the music industry handles the creation phase of projects very similarly.  Their pre-production phase is when the recording artist spends time creating and refining musical ideas and then produces a “demo” to evaluate if those ideas have legs.  This reduces time and money wasted on large production teams and expensive studios.  The goal being to enter into the recording phase with the most promising ideas already established.  Much like the film industry Brown tells us about.

Maybe we should create a pre-production phase in architecture; one that combines the goal of serious idea generation with the typical pre-design tasks already established by the AIA and then add the implementation planning that these other creative industries use.  Given the complexity we are finding in the field of architecture, it’s worth a try.

And Brown warns us.  Do not to give into the temptation of thinking that complex problems, or projects, require more brains to solve.  Expanding the pre-production team more often than not “leads to a dramatic reduction in speed and efficiency as communications within the team begin to take up more time than the creative process itself.”  (Have you ever experienced this?)  Beware; he tells us, this is when you know your process is in trouble.

Creativity is not enough.

Theodore Levitt wrote this title in the Harvard Business Review years ago…

And when it comes to the design process, undeniably, competence, knowledge, execution, management, and technical prowess are all important in the production of great design solutions.  But for a very, very long time, for us, creativity was the star, the secret ingredient, the one quality we spent the great majority of our time on trying to capture as the core of our design process.

Levitt on the other hand emphasized,

“The fact that you can put a dozen inexperienced people in a room and conduct a brainstorming session that produces exciting new ideas shows how little relative importance ideas themselves actually have.”

Ouch.

In the eighties we followed the DeBono's of the world.  Experts on creativity they were.  They educated us on how to avoid "groupthink," where common knowledge told us that creativity was suppressed not liberated.  Their strategies were all about brainstorming and looking at things from different angles.  (Or in DeBono's case, as if wearing different hats.)  But it was mostly about how large teams of people could become prolific in idea generation.  More was always better.  Always.  And at the time, access to diverse information was either at the library, or in people's heads.  More people, combining more diverse information, and more experiences, equaled more and better ideas.  Especially more.

Consequently, facilitation of large group processes was born as a skill, the skill, to be mastered.  And the crowds, staff and clients, most of them, loved it.  Who could argue against the warm and fuzzy feelings associated with the ideas of inclusion, openness, and more is better?  It was the American way.

We did have a few doubts back then.  Some felt that the facilitated events denied the reality that creative design occurs not at points in time, or in days at a time, but through an extended process of hard work that, while creative, encompassed all the qualities of a successful project I mentioned above.

And as it turns out, Levitt may be even more right today.  Access to information is obviously different than in the eighties.  Almost any individual has access, through the Internet, to more and more diverse information than they could possibly absorb in an entire lifetime.  We are now bombarded by information, so much so that the challenge is now finding the signal above the noise.  So much so that just avoiding the noise is a stretch for many of us.

John Mariotti, a business consultant and former President of Huffy bicycles, of all things, has identified this in his writings.  He believes that the culture of information that we design in today is radically different, and that unnecessary complexity is born out of the very act of idea proliferation.  The very thing we worked so hard to be good at.

He states that creativity and innovation are not the same thing.

“Proliferation is not innovation, and it leads to complexity – a very wasteful result.”  “Wasteful complexity uses valuable resources needed for innovation.  Drive out unnecessary complexity and the entire organization will breathe a large collective deep breath.”

Complexity, the kind that we are now experiencing, brings complication to the design process.  Of course, creativity and idea generation are still important.  But, creativity and innovation are far from being the same thing.  The ideas spawned by creativity are simply the raw material from which innovation can grow.  Maybe the alchemy, of combining creation and execution, should be the new secret ingredient, the new quality we should be trying to capture on each and every project.  But all in the context of, signal above noise.  Creative idea proliferation was what we needed in the eighties.  Creative focus is what we need now.

Opportunity

"Most people miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work" - Thomas Edison

Desire change and you will welcome risk.

Where there's a will...postscript 2

I once visited (interviewed) with a design Principal at HOK in St. Louis in search of a design position.  Having done plenty of interviews with job applicants myself I was not prepared for what finally was revealed to me as his approach to finding architects/designers who would be the right people to help his company achieve what he felt were very high goals for the quality of the designs they produced.

In architecture, the portfolio has almost mythic status in its ability to represent an applicant's skills, talents, and experience.  Everyone carries their work with them in portfolios of all kinds, many handmade with loving care representing the architect's care in every detail.  Interviews are spent with the interviewer pouring over the pages of the portfolio, sometimes for over an hour, soaking in what is usually a representation of a variety of projects, drawings, models painstakingly presented, page by page...

He, didn't want to see my portfolio.  Not at all.

We talked.  I wondered.  We talked some more.  Two hours passed.

Finally he revealed to me his strategy.  Never look at a person's portfolio the first interview.  Save that for the second interview, or the third.  Focus on one thing and one thing only.  Use the conversation to determine if this person has the "will" to do great design.  Period.

In his opinion, skill sets, can be improved with training and experience.  But if the candidate doesn't have the will to do great design, none of the rest matters...

Think he's right?  Or can we believe that people can evolve over time and through their experiences see new paths to their contribution to design that they simply couldn't see before?  And through this new "sight" could they become more confident and emboldened to work harder at creating great things?

Where there's a will...postscript

"You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take."

Wayne Gretzky

Where there's a will...

...yes you know how to finish that one.

Recently, an architect told me that they didn't feel a particular need to do great design work.  And I was, well, astonished.  And, I wondered, but why not?  To argue against design seems to argue against quality, against improving our place on this earth.  Design makes things better.  Design solves problems.  Design makes for the best environment we can have.  What's not to like about this?

If I were to pose this question to the Architect who does not need to pursue great designs, I think the answer would be simply, the cost is too high.  Now cost in this case means either hardship, or stress, or discomfort...  Because as we all know (right) its not a great design (right) unless it meets its budget and can be built well.  RIght?  Right.

And this is where we can use the old quote from Michelangelo:

“The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.”

Pamela Slim describes it from a more personal perspective, "Work...is the way you translate your feelings, your thoughts, your hopes and your desires into something valuable, tangible and useful every day. You can choose to make work into a dreaded, necessary evil that you can't wait to finish so that you can get busy with your 'real life.' Why not just do work you love?"

Now I think this is a fine position.  But the next thing she says probably comes closer to answering my questions of why not?  And gives a hint into the reason why my associate says achieving great design is not that important.

"Fear is the great inhibitor. All of the excuses that you find for not doing work you love have solutions. You do not enact them because you are afraid: of showing up too big in the world; of failing; of appearing as an imposter; of living in poverty."

Ahhh, I think we are getting closer.  So if you have studio-mates that think like my associate.  And you decide, as I have, to help them past their fear of design.  Consider Pamela's recommendation, "There is nothing wrong with fear. Feel it, talk to it, examine it and walk with it. Then step out and let yourself show up, warts and all. It will liberate you."

And maybe give me some suggestions on how to help these folks see this wisdom.

dangerous questions

What will change everything?

"What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" These are the questions asked at the World Question Center for 2009.  Yes, there really is a place called that.  The Edge asks a dangerous question every year.  The coolest part is these questions of some of the world's greatest thinkers; this year 151 of them.  As a big fan of TED, with its 20 minute thoughtful videos, this site can keep my interest for quite a while.  The diversity of great thinkers is overwhelming, and the questions always engaging.  Try it out.

>>>find it here

"Teaming" Part Two

Zen Master, Dogen, wrote that every meal has to include a harmony of the six tastes - bitter, sour, sweet, hot, salty, and plain. No one of these is better or more important than the others. Each ingredient has a different taste and a different reason for being part of the meal; they're all important to the end result. And they are comfortably seen as different if only for the reason that the recipe calls for their application in different proportions and/or for their use at different times. Competing ideas or forces of will not with standing, team members, likewise, while all important, may be called to apply their talents and skills in varying degrees and varying times. No one of them will always be the most dominant taste in the final entree.

[Translation] In the studio, the old man and the youth both have to have a place. And given their vastly different perspectives, they must speak to one another over time to work out some degree of reconciliation. This dialogue demands expression and transparency of thoughts and opinions. Ideally, in the course of the debate, the studio and its individuals become more complex and spacious. Ultimately, this is only realized if we appreciate, even embrace, that complexity and accept active responsibility for it at the same time. In the best of studio environments, particularly collaborative ones, the conflict itself becomes creative and perhaps should never be resolved.

Wendy Ornelas, FAIA, offered another perspective: “We can love design and also passionately love management, engineering, construction, contract law, mechanical systems, good plumbing, and assiduous specifications. Can we elevate these different talents and expertise to the same status we traditionally reserve for ‘good designers’? The alternative is a naturally integrative, naturally collaborative, improvisational frame of mind—a jazz mentality—that cultivates invention in all areas of architectural knowledge and production. Great jazz ensembles give every musician an opportunity to riff and solo, not just Miles [Davis].”

As for the problems created by this kind of push and pull of differing opinions >>> Many religious rites begin with washing the hands or sprinkling of water to symbolize the cleansing of intention and the washing away of thoughts and purposes. I suggest that when we feel a “problem” coming on, we run to the washbasin to cleanse our feelings of the moment, and then step confidently back into the evolving stream of the studio.