Studio Launch

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.

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...

...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.

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 called "connectblogs." 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 the recent "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.

"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.

"Teaming" Part One

(One person’s simple observations, Dr. Phil, or both. However you see this post, its origin came out of current personal ramblings on human potential and was sparked by recent interactions in the studio.)

It seems most of us bring to our studio experience… [scratch that] Most of us bring to life a somewhat naïve psychological attitude in our expectation that our lives and relationships will be simple. And more importantly we bring the expectation that they should be simple. We believe that others in our studio unnecessarily complicate our lives and the processes we are involved in. And if they would only change their attitudes and habits, our work would be much simpler and the goals we are trying to achieve more attainable. If only they preferred email like we do, if only they would stay after 5:30pm to socialize like we do, if only they would be as concerned about the design as we are, if only they communicated the same way we do…

Now certainly, a “well oiled” team, once you experience it, is something to behold. But, the process for making great architecture, the care, attention and love of our work, asks for some appreciation for its complexity. “Well oiled” may truly equate to “magical.” This is true of the studio. As each team coalesces, members bring his or her current stuff along with them. What was one’s stuff on the last project is another’s for this project. Each person is a changing and evolving entity, flexing their spirit in varying degrees. Some need coddling to bring forth their ideas. Others, seemingly dominating the project spew forth idea after idea. How can we accommodate this mess?

I am sure we can agree, that it seems at least, a life lived fully is not without its moments of darkness, and periods of foolishness. These problems, many times, though gut wrenching when they happen, are not only most often temporary, but sometimes-mere illusions we’ve created for ourselves. Remember Senior Prom? The choice of a partner to attend the Senior Prom was for many an anxious time. How much of an impact did your choice in Senior Prom date impact the long line of your life? (Those who had a memorably and traumatic Senior Prom need not respond.)

From this perspective, the problems that make us victims are actually not outside of us, caused by others, but concocted by our own minds. As the old man is often quoted, “I’m an old man with lots of troubles, many of which never happened.” So, enjoy the prom already and know that, well, that date may just not work out. Life is complex. And so are people. And so is the process of making great architecture.

What we say about ourselves

Nathan Speck began his first day as part of our studio...today. And on the walk home from work I was pondering what to tell him about our studio; what to tell him, specifically, to enable him in maximizing his success as a contributer to moving "us" forward.

Last Thursday, I was spending some time with Jack Brittain, the Dean of the School of Business at the University of Utah. He's a student of organizational behavior, among other things. During the conversation we touched on how organizational change seldom finds its power [or its origin?] in the descriptions of organizational purpose derived from folks at the "middle" of the organization. Many people "in" the organization simply can't see out of it, or see the direction of it. Yet, for the folks who can see out, what they tell us about themselves is a complicated mix of who they are, and more importantly, who they aspire to be.

And as we talk with clients, we have to do the same thing. We talk to many of the people in the organization from helmsman to engine room. Each carries with them a different lens through which to see the organization and through which to describe it. And their statements about themselves are varyingly optimistic and pessimistic, far reaching and minutia focused, accurate and flawed, reality and dream. Some folks are simply more communicative than others, just to make it interesting. Its a tough social science we are asked to employ in designing for a crowd that has difficulty in simply asking for what they want. [Just see Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert]

So it remains up to Nathan, to decipher what I say, and what all the other members of the studio tell him, to determine which is description, which is conjecture and reality, and which is aspiration. Good luck with that, Nathan, it will be good practice for...well, the practice of architecture.

A Creative Collective?

Holland Cotter calls it the Collective Conscious. In his article in the New York Times he writes of miniature subcultures called collectives…art collectives that purposely “do away with the one-artist-one-object model.”  He talks of these groups as “organizationally complex and specialized, beyond what any individual artist could manage.” And the places and/or studios they organize, real or virtual, are where multiple voices have life as “simultaneously blended and distinctive.” To be clear he makes sure that we understand this is a set of talented individuals who decide to work together.  Not a bunch who couldn't make it on their own.  They simply prefer this kind of collbaoration to individualism.

More interesting relative to our branding discussion, Cotter claims the sheer existence of these groups may undermine the cult of the artist as media star, a phenomenon we see in other fields like music and architecture where big names dominate the most coveted commissions and overshadow the collaborative work of many. Sounds like a collaborative studio to me…or set of studios?

Interestingly he notes that these groups “may or may not refer to their activities as art. Research, archiving and creative hacking are just as likely to produce objects, experiences, information that is politically didactic or end-in-itself beautiful, or both.” And here is where there may be closer connection to what we do than one might initially think.  "They are far less interested in producing art objects than in providing an experience of the world through a scientifically based aesthetic language of symmetries and disharmonies, tones and shades, concreteness and abstraction." An abstract and architectural description of what they do. And much like our work when we are at our best.

Could a move to embrace our existing collective condition challenge the singular architect-as-artistic genius? I wonder.

> Read it here

Included below are links to some of the collectives mentioned in Cotter’s article. I am continuing to gather a list of these. So if you are aware of other groups like these please post their links in the comments section or send them to me in an email.

> Critical Art Ensemble

> The Center for Land Use Interpretation

> Otabenga Jones and Associates

Working In Groups

I was reflecting on Greg’s recent observation, which I quoted in the last post when he stated that, “…if someone won't sign their posts, then they probably won't share their ideas face-to-face either, which limits the potential of our studios' creative environment.”

The discussion on whether or not someone should sign their posts on the web log ranged from lack of authenticity to simple generational differences. As we wallowed in pop psychology we did end up agreeing that honest dialogue demands expression and transparency of thoughts, feelings and opinions. One of the hottest topics in our studio has become, how can we challenge ourselves to engage in this honest dialogue?

Then…Tim Lies sends this quote from George Bernard Shaw: "Success comes from taking the path of maximum advantage instead of the path of least resistance." And I started thinking, actually, that the path of least resistance is the path that in human interaction can be the most dangerous, not just least advantageous.

An article, Repression Expression, published in The DailyOM last week suggests this might be true. Passive Aggressive Behavior is not a new concept, but it has taken on new meaning relative to my observations of group interaction. As you look around and observe behavior, particularly in group settings, you may find someone who is adept at engaging in passive-aggressive behavior.   As a coping mechanism some folks actually repress their feelings and behave in a variety of “indirect” ways to get their point across.

The big threat here in terms of “honest dialogue” is that according to the article, “such behavior has the outward appearance of being peaceful…” In other words, you can come off looking good, the peaceful one, the agreeable one, the good-guy.  The article continues, “yet it is really an attempt to express oneself in seemingly passive ways-usually without accepting responsibility for doing so.” And it is the accepting responsibility part that caught my interest the most.

They give an example, “someone who doesn't want to attend an event with a partner might engage in behavior that causes them to be late or miss the event without ever admitting to their partner that they never wanted to go to the function at all.” Without taking responsiblity for it.  And how many times do you see this in groups?

Has a group that you’ve been a part of reached an apparent agreement only to find out later that procrastination, inefficiency, talking behind backs and “being too busy” have undermined the groups progress? In this way, key members of the group are simply expressing their disagreement indirectly. That’s passive aggressive behavior of the most dangerous kind when it comes to organizations.  And the people trying to move forward find themselves confused because little gets accomplished between meetings.

“When we express ourselves directly, we are more likely to be heard by the other person. It also becomes easier for us to ask for and get what we want. By learning to express ourselves directly, we prevent misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and resentment from cropping up in our relationships. We also learn to communicate with others in healthy and productive ways.”

We need to work in groups, and our efforts ultimately are better for it. Let’s strive for honest dialogue. Let’s not kid ourselves or others. Let’s avoid the inertia, the drag on movement forward that passive aggressive behavior creates when we should be actively executing our decisions. It is never too late, to simply mean what we say and to reach conclusions as groups that we are all going to sincerely work towards.  We can start today.  I'm going to.