Studio Launch

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.