567: The Power of the Deep Generalist in a Large Practice with Mansoor Kazerouni of Arcadis Architects: Otter Voice Meeting Notes

567: The Power of the Deep Generalist in a Large Practice with Mansoor Kazerouni of Arcadis Architects

Enoch Sears55min

Speaker 1

00:00

Architecture is a team sport. We're not building monuments to ourselves. And the true success of our projects lies in understanding what success means to our clients and shaping our solutions, whether they're architectural or bigger, to address those drivers of success. Hello

Rion Willard

00:18

and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host, Ryan Willard, and today I have the absolute pleasure of speaking with Mansoor kazaruni As the global director of Arcadis esteemed architecture and urbanism division. The company's recent accolade of being ranked second in the renowned world architecture 100 bears testament to an unwavering commitment of Mansour to excellence. With a career spanning over three decades across North America, Europe, India and the UAE, Mansour has devoted himself to crafting environments that enhance the quality of life for individuals, whether they reside, work, commute or seek leisure, at the helm of one of the globe's most vibrant and varied architectural firms. Mansour dedication to design brilliance is mirrored in the team of multi faceted professionals at Arcadis positioned uniquely they stand ready to confront the pressing challenges of the era the expansion of architectural and urbanism. Proficiency empowers Arcadis to spearhead novel design paradigms, sustainable solutions and digital leadership, all with a heightened emphasis on Grandeur and scale. In this episode, we will be discussing how to avoid losing and siloing institutional knowledge in a large practice. We look at maintaining company culture as a business grows through acquisition of other organizations, and we look at how expertise and knowledge can grow and evolve in a large firm and also provide ever more value and services for the intricate needs of a client. So sit back, relax and enjoy Mansoor cazaruni,

Speaker 2

01:56

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Rion Willard

03:37

Mansur, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you

Speaker 1

03:43

great, Ryan, it's great to be here and looking forward to our conversation.

Rion Willard

03:48

Excellent. So you are the global director of architecture and urbanism division at Arcadis. You've had a very impressive career. You've been the Global Director of buildings at the IBI group, and have been a director, executive vice president there for over a decade. You've been a partner other practices as well, page and still architects. So a career with a lot of high level strategic positions at kind of really prominent game changing practices, some of the sort of most influential practices on the on the planet. So very, very exciting to be speaking with you. And perhaps my first question would be, how would you describe what your current role is

Speaker 1

04:44

right. So first and foremost, at the core of it, I'm an architect, and I came to Arcadis through the recent acquisition of IBI group, where, as you rightly. Pointed out I led the buildings practice there, the buildings sector, as it was referred to there, which was, frankly, 55% of the firm, very large practice of about 1500 people across the globe, and a very sort of diverse and exciting business. Arcadis acquired IBI in 2022 and Arcadis, within its core, had a large contingent of architects, urbanists, place makers, who equally strong team and did a fantastic work, and the logical thing was to integrate both teams and create a singular, unified architecture and urbanism entity, division within Arcadis so that we could bring consistency in terms of our thinking, our design work and our service that we provide to clients globally. And I was tasked with leading that that enterprise, and that's what I'm doing currently. Obviously, it's been a journey of integration, and every day we we bring the team closer and closer together as one unified team. And I believe we are much, much stronger by Virtu.

Rion Willard

06:33

It's an interesting proposal to, you know, to merge with another firm or to be acquired by another architectural firm. Sometimes people can be very suspicious of that kind of activity or or it appears to be kind of aggressive and very corporate. But you know, we've had a lot of businesses in the past, on business, on the podcast here, who have gone through that process, and it's a really fascinating way of, kind of collaborating and joining forces and building new teams and sharing and skills. Can you talk us through a little bit about, perhaps some of your apprehension before the acquisition? And you know, how did it how did it emerge? How

Speaker 1

07:16

did it happen? Look, I'd have to go back a little bit in time for that. You know, the best way to explain that you refer to, you know, early parts of my career and the start of my journey, at certainly, my journey in Canada. I grew up in India, and I've worked in the United States. I've worked in the Middle East, and really arrived in Canada late 90s, and I started work at a firm called Page and steal, very well established Toronto based, 120 person practice founded in 1926 and did one thing, residential and mixed Use buildings in the city of Toronto. That's it very sort of focused, singular practice. And fast forward to 2008 this phone called IBI comes along to acquire US. I ended up being a partner at page and steel in 2000 and and so this phone called IBI comes along to acquire US And and frankly, as the youngest partner at agent steel, I wasn't thrilled about it, because, you know, we were sort of diluting our sort of thoroughbred nature, if you like, and our singular focus. And I at the time, and naively, I thought that was not great, and, but coming to IBI was a real eye opener, because IBI brought a very holistic approach to problem solving. IBI was a was organized in three sectors, intelligence, buildings and infrastructure. That's what the IBM, the I stood for, and and what I quickly realized is we were coming at architectural challenges from the view of city building very holistically, getting involved in projects much earlier at the planning stages, getting involved in, you know, civil work in entitlements, in transportation infrastructure and management and planning, much, much before the architecture. And that gave us a really, it really broadened our view and our vision as architects and I started to see the value in this multi disciplinary practice, and then you fast forward to Arcadis, and that synergy gets further, sort of amplified here, where it's truly a global firm, 36,000 people. The diversity is just. Is magnified in terms of the service offerings at Arcadis, which is organized in global business areas of resilience, which deals with environment in at the largest scale that you can think of, mobility and intelligence, and in terms of the service offerings. It expands far beyond what what IBI offered, and so I've seen this trajectory as expanding our ability as architects to really have meaningful impact in all parts of the planet, and at us at an unprecedented scale that we would not have been able to do as just a standalone architecture firm practicing one building type in one region. And to me, that's been the most exciting part of this journey. And you know, as an architect, Ryan in Toronto, having designed, you know, my core practice in Toronto has been high rise residential mixed use towers up to 9900 stories, very exciting. But the ability to have this level of impact at scale is far greater than a single building. And I love that. I think it's so exciting that's

Rion Willard

11:32

really that's very inspiring actually, to hear to hear that, and it being a way of unlocking kind of more potential and kind of being able and actually working when you're kind of collaborating and or or merging businesses that actually it's opening up a whole load of of opportunity and ability to get architectural skill sets further upstream, if you like, and into different places that can have a deeper impact on the built environment, and then doing that as a kind of, you know, a business acquisition that's really fascinating,

Speaker 1

12:10

and frankly, also thinking about how it enables us to add greater value to Our clients and the challenges that they're confronting and and bring global thinking best practices from around the world, you know, cross pollinate in terms of the diversity that exists within the firm ideas. And I can share examples of what I mean by that. So it's a very, very different approach to architecture that I think is particularly exciting.

Rion Willard

12:50

Yeah, I would love to hear some examples of that that would be very interesting.

Speaker 1

12:57

Yeah, you know, let's start with, sort of within Anu, as we refer to it, architecture and urbanism within Arcadis. So architecture and urbanism within Arcadis, we've organized it in sort of 10 different practice groups, which are all the building types that we practice in, predominantly. And it starts with place making, which is a big part of our practice, which includes planning, urban design, landscape, all of that living, which broadly is what I described earlier as the patent steel practice, retail. And retail led mixed use. So you know, specialty retail, and then you know, large mixed use developments, which have significant retail as an anchor. You know, some great retail work. I mean, in New York, you know, we've, we've been involved in the in the five story Tiffany flagship store. Tons of work for LVMH and others we open.

Rion Willard

14:05

I was in there recently,

Speaker 1

14:08

right? So, you know, some great retail projects, some great retail led mixed use work. You know, we're, we're involved with the point in Salt Lake City right now, which is a very large mixed use, sort of retail development. Again, healthcare, you know where we we are involved in all levels of healthcare, in the UK, in Canada and the United States. In other parts of the world, education, both Elementary and higher education. Sort of future of workplace you know, where we are involved in workplace design, both as building typology, but also sort of interior workplace design, industrial facilities, and which we've recently rebranded as industrial. Real and mission critical. Because, you know, traditionally, our industrial buildings practice had a lot of focus on the automotive and manufacturing sector, but we have a really developed and advanced our capabilities with data centers and Giga factories, etc, which are, as you know, quite rapidly rolling out as we advance with technology and our increasing dependence on technology. We do a ton of government and civic work, and then we do transit architecture. So just to hone in on sort of two of these practice areas, healthcare and education, you know, and the ability, frankly, to borrow concepts and and design tools from healthcare, you know, like emotional mapping, which we've kind of done digitally, and look at how that helps us to design better education spaces, You know, that support welfare and well being of children in learning spaces, you know, using that kind of evidence based research in one area healthcare to then translate that into our Education practice. You know, therapies like snoozeland or understanding neurodiversity, the stuff that our healthcare team, but that cross pollination, which just broadens our approach, allows us to bring a different perspective than a single focused education practice alone, but simply not have that access or that mindset that you know is, is a very exciting approach to how we come at design, by virtue of that diversity and that multi disciplinary nature. Well,

Rion Willard

17:14

how do you as a practice thing? Because one of the one of the pitfalls I could imagine, certainly when you get when you're starting to get to a certain size, and also through the process of acquisition of other of other businesses that perhaps might have had more specialisms. How do you prevent knowledge becoming siloed or just kind of pooling up in one corner of the of a large office? How do you ensure that that that there is that cross pollination of expertise, and that people don't get kind of stuck into designing airport infrastructure for 25 years. But then I imagine, I thought there's also a massive benefit in having people who are just specialized in doing airport infrastructure, and there's probably a whole group of people who adore it and love it and don't want to do anything else.

Speaker 1

18:03

Yeah, but you know what? I think? I think it's about communication. It's about an openness. I recall a few years ago actually suggesting within our leadership team that we should mandate that people from a certain percentage, like whatever, say, 10% of people from every practice group should migrate to a different practice group in the next year and learn a whole new building type and all the drivers for its success, and understand because, you know, we're, We're, we've moved to a world where single use, single type environments are not as robust or successful or attractive as mixed use and hybrid sort of communities and environments are. And I firmly believe that in order to do that successfully, you have to understand its component parts, and all of the pieces that make it up, so that you truly derive those design synergies, you truly sort of understand how to co mingle. And it starts with commingling of the teams and the people and the professionals and the knowledge that they they bring to those those exercises. And there's a role that technology has to play in that as well, which we can talk about but but I feel like that opportunity creation for the talent within our team to communicate on a day to day basis, but then to Follow their sort of interests, which we tend to facilitate every single time that happens. You know, I'm reminded of an individual that worked in our transit team who who really, you know, wanted to actually approach me and said, Hey, I've been working on. The ground for a long time. I really want to work on above ground, you know? I want to see the light, so to speak. So. So we brought him into the the high rise team, and he started to see the way we work. And said, hey, you know the stuff that you guys labor on, we figured out different ways to solve similar problems in our transit work and and using technology, and here's how we do it. And he introduced us to, frankly, computational design and parametrics and all of that. We were just fascinated on the residential team, and thought, wow, this is great, because we just opened up a world of possibilities. And then, you know, pretty soon, what became evident, as you know, the secret of the transit team of computational design got socialized, was that there were applications for this throughout the forum, and so it got this wide adoption, and this individual now sits as part of our computational design leadership team and is agnostic to any practice, and what he does is applicable equally to each of those 10 practice groups I just described so that cross pollination, every time it happens, is just magic crime.

Rion Willard

21:27

Yeah, that's, that's amazing, and, and you can, you know, that initiative, or having an initiative like that, where you're kind of, you know, you are ensuring that there is movement between become, becomes really important, because you're kind of just releasing that potential into the office, that kind of institutional knowledge.

Speaker 1

21:44

So let me tell you, Arcadis is being very intentional about it. Uh, recently, we made a decision to migrate towards being a skilled, powered, or skills powered organization. So really, it's not about your subject matter knowledge and expertise, it's about your core skills. And if we can agglomerate those skills globally and use the technology within our systems to have that embedded in our database, we can bring the requisite skills to the table on any to solve or address any problem anywhere on the globe, drawing from that global pool based on their skill sets, not, you know, the silo they sit in, yeah, And I think that is huge. It just unlocks the global potential of the firm.

Rion Willard

22:46

What sorts of skill sets are you kind of identifying that are, say, like, like you mentioned like, they're more agnostic skill sets, as opposed to skill sets which are to do with specific experience inside of the kind of typology, niche. Well,

Speaker 1

23:03

look it can it can be internal facing, external facing. It can be about, you know, leadership. It can be about business acumen. It can be about business development, and it can be about engagement and facilitation. You know, across communities, it can be technology, as I just talked about, and its application across practice groups, and frankly, outside of architecture and urbanism, you know, so you know, people skills, there are so many facets to it, right? And, and, yeah, so I think it's just a very, very different approach to how we create our teams, which, which doesn't suggest that, unless you went to architecture school, you can't add value to I mean, look, we have an experienced design team that's part of and you, you know, and, and so when we start on these projects very early in the design process, we're more focused on what's the intended experience here, right? We're not even drawing lines on paper. We are curating an experience, so to speak, and and that could be applicable in so many things outside of architecture, in my opinion, you know, we have a sustainability sort of team across Arcadis, a global sustainability team, and it has equal application in in sort of the water and resilience practice of Arcadis, as it does in. Of buildings and architecture practice of Arcadis. So, so it's, it's creating those kinds of skill sets as well that have global application and are not limited to a particular practice group, that we think will be hugely beneficial with

Rion Willard

25:16

those kinds of overarching groups where there's a kind of body of knowledge, and they're kind of, you know, I can kind of way I'm imagining it is that you've got, you do have kind of specific practice types at Arcadis, and then you've got these overarching groups that make sure that, you know, knowledge is being spread across them. Do the people in the groups, say in the sustainability groups, are they still part, like, still practice, you know, kind of part of groups and projects, individually. And, yeah,

Speaker 1

25:49

yeah, very much. They're not just, I mean, you know, they are parts of groups and projects and but, but they're not siloed. They're not limited to, hey, you're just the, you know, the architecture team or the resilience or the mobility team, and, you know, they cross pollinate, right? We have within Arcadis places, we have program managers and project managers and cost consultants. They could equally work across business areas, right? And so, yeah, that that cross pollination is really important, so let's take it to the next level, and that next level is the Arcadis approach is about solutions. So you know, we're not, we're not just focused on providing a service or a menu of services. We're more interested in creating solutions that address our clients challenges right and global challenges that we are we're confronting. And so in order to get to a solution, you oftentimes need a suite of services, a suite of capabilities that may not come out of one division or one business area. So that whole model of global collaboration is fostered through the approach of solutions. What all do we need to know and do to solve this issue or this problem? And that's a very different approach. Again, it's,

Rion Willard

27:38

I love this because it's, this is kind of very in many ways, it's more architectural, just kind of focusing on being able to provide solutions. I, when I when I hear practices, and particularly larger practice kind of have the ability to be able to do this because of the of the resource and of the things that you've been illustrating you've got, you know, knowledge starts to compound itself in terms of its utility and application, and insights from one project typology, if there's a means of communicating it across, can be very kind of pertinent and profound when we're looking at providing solutions. The interesting question comes up. Well, how do you define problems? Or what sorts of diagnosis or problem definition do you do with your clients? Because that becomes quite interesting. I could imagine that you know your ability to be able to define a problem is a great way of being able to meet clients further upstream before they even know that they need some architecture, for example, because you're in a conversation about logistical problems, or problems with their with the organizer, with their operational efficiencies, or they've got problems with, you know, kind of a brand experience, which might seem a little bit outside of the of the traditional architectural things, but actually, they're brilliant things to apply the architectural lens of thinking upon.

Speaker 1

29:10

Well, you know, you've already touched on two or three in just your question, on two or three issues, where we come at it much, much at a much, much higher level than we do with an architectural sort of offering, right? You've talked about brand, you've talked about sort of real estate portfolio optimization, you know. And, and so let's take real estate portfolio optimization, you know. And in that instance, you know, you'll get a client who, basically, you know, says, I've, I've got this. And you know, honestly, it's not working. It's, it's very sort of fragmented. It's disparate. It's broken. What? We need to, you know, we need a solution. And so, you know, we, we have the ability to, to run analysis, to do feasibility studies, to look at, to do like a, you know, even at, at the numbers stage, you know, a cost so benefit analysis, do spatial analysis? Do stakeholder engagement? Talk to people, find out which parts of that that experience with those spaces is working, which is not working. What are the chat locational challenges, what are the technology challenges? And then gain a holistic understanding of that entire portfolio, and then curate a solution that says, hey, listen, you know, we think there's, you know, some divestment required, some design, required some new build, required some regeneration or retrofit and and then kind of say, okay, which parts of the firm have the capability to do these things? You know, there's some, you know, you can, you can agglomerate. You've got, you know, eight different locations, but you have this one location where you have the ability to consolidate, and you can let go, and you can agglomerate. And then, you know, do we do a master plan? So, you know, I don't know, in every situation, it's a different solution, but the ability to start there, yeah, right, to start much earlier, and, and, you know, so, so I think that that's exactly what I'm talking about.

Rion Willard

31:55

I find that so interesting, and it is. It's so valuable of that kind of insight that architects can bring to their clients, you know, just applying the architectural way of looking at those broader, strategic things that a client might be dealing with, and then helping a client, you know, go through the whole process that might end up in some you know, a building or the changing of a physical asset. How? How do you get clients to be comfortable with you, to bring you problems that might be outside of what they might think a traditional architect does is it? Is it primarily like repeat clients that you've already got a relationship with so they understand you? Or can you do this with people who have never worked with you? Well, I

Speaker 1

32:44

think we can do both, but I think it's essentially thinking of us as your trusted partner, not as your sort of consultant who you call because you need to renovate your office space or you need a new office building. I you know I often get calls from clients who who basically say, Hey, I'm, I'm looking at a site, you know, I haven't, I haven't put an offer in on it yet. But what's your opinion, and can you evaluate it for me or things like that? And we willingly do that because, you know, first and foremost, we want to ensure that our clients are set up for success. I'll tell you. Ron within Arcadis, we've got a very, very strong key client program, right? And and these key clients really treat us as their trusted partner. They take us with them across the world, and they know to engage us as early as possible in exactly that, in understanding their challenge in every new sort of area venture that they are foraying into, and then recommend solutions, and then see which part of Arcadis can support them in sort of envisioning those solutions and creating whatever outcome is required. So that key client program, it actually it's a very small group of clients who who contribute to a very sort of a vast majority of our business, over 50% of our business actually comes from that key client program and and that relationship is something we value very much because, and I think they value as well, because otherwise, why wouldn't they seek out a page and steal, you know, single use go to every. City and find an architect who can renovate your office space or build you a residential building, because you know you'll find that in every city in the world, right? But you won't often find a global partner who has global solutions, who has many, sort of core capabilities embedded within the business that and locations 30 countries around the world that can travel with you, that understands the local context by virtue of its presence there, that understands what it's going to you know, a solution in in Canada versus the United States, versus the UK, versus Italy, France, Germany, India, very different, right? The cultural context in which you're operating and and the ability to do that, and at the core of it, know who is the client, that that is universal, right? That's singular. You understand that client's DNA, no matter where in the world you are, that key client, that kind of special relationship. You know, it's a firm like ours that can provide that, and we've recognized that our clients recognize that our key client program is very much based on that sort of relationship that's

Rion Willard

36:23

wonderful, really, really innovative, and a very nice way of just, kind of just talking about long term client relationships and the kind of maturing that businesses can go through to together and kind of be entering into new new territories. Are there certain types of organizations and businesses that Arcadis is looking for to work with, and other ones that they'll stay steer clear of? And how do you you know what? What are your What are your criteria for for engaging in these kinds of quite intimate relationships with, with, you know, over, over a long term period, how do you how do you vet clients and make sure that they're an appropriate fit for

Speaker 1

37:13

you? Look the Arcadis mission, overarchingly, is quite simple, right? Improving the quality of life, right, and and so the first, the first level at which we're looking for alignment is clients that are truly sort of committed and interested in that right, improving the quality of life in the communities that we serve at whatever level. But I don't know if you know the history and the genesis of Arcadis, which you know is a Dutch firm founded in the Netherlands in 1888 and you know the early preoccupation, yeah, yeah. And the early preoccupation was, was human endurance and keeping, keeping, sort of most of the Netherlands, uh, above water, and turning unusable land into usable land, right? And in doing so, creating opportunities for a nation and improving their quality of life, you know? And so, so that that's the foundation upon which this firm is is kind of built and and so obviously, we're looking for alignment and mission alignment in values and firms that can truly leverage our global capability. They don't necessarily need to be, you know, purely international clients who travel the world with us, but alignment and values. You know, I was in Portland last week, visiting our team over there, and I was very fortunate that they had planned on me leaving early, leaving the office early, and had an A tour organized of a project. Right after I left, my flight was delayed, so I decided to go on the tour with them, and I was so lucky to get that, you know, we went and visited river Grove Elementary School. It's a school that we're just completing, and I believe it will open in the fall, and it's all electric, nearing Net Zero. First elementary school in the United States to be on the micro grid. Wow. And that's such an aligning with our objectives of creating sustainable sort of communities that you know are are contributing to a planet positive future for future generations. That's total alignment and values, right? That we we cherish, we welcome, and we love. And so that's a local client, you know? It's a local school district. You know, they're not going with us to the Netherlands. Funds. But you know, they're certainly helping us advance our mission. We're helping them advance their mission. So our our attraction is to clients who we have those kinds of synergies with, who we can truly add value to what they do, and they can truly gain benefit from our global capabilities.

Rion Willard

40:22

Amazing. What sorts of challenges then, you know, with such a large, global firm, what are the kinds of challenges that Arcadis is facing as a business, either in internally or just with the kind of, you know, ever shifting economic environment that that we're all living in, or the kind of macro environment that we're kind of doing business in at the moment.

Speaker 1

40:50

Look, it's, it's a very, very exciting time, frankly, at Arcadis, you know, we're navigating change. We have been for the last two years. There's been a massive integration underway. Because not only did Arcadis acquire IBI group, which was, you know, close to 3000 people, also acquired DPS, which was another large firm in in the sort of medical, sort of pharma manufacturing space and and that's, you know, a few 1000 people as well. So a very large integration of recently acquired firms and merging systems, merging platforms, merging practices, operating procedures, getting on, you know, the same operating platform as I said earlier, and most importantly, getting cultures aligned, yes, right, and and learning from each other, and having A willingness and openness to adopt each other's best practices and not lose the essence of what it is that made these acquisitions attractive in the first place. Those are some of the key issues that we are very intentionally contending with to ensure that that, you know, we continue to be not just as successful, but that the whole lens of greater than the sum of its parts and and so frankly, I don't know if you classify that as a challenge or an opportunity, but that's been a big part of The journey of the last two years,

Rion Willard

42:42

when, when the businesses are going through this kind of merging process, what kind of time frames are we talking about, from initial courting, you know, the the kind of the first date, to the the final, the marriage proposal, and then actually the wedding itself,

Speaker 1

43:00

yeah. Well, listen, from the, you know, from the, according to, I'm gonna say go live for architectural urbanism, was only little over a year. But then, you know, it was quite fast, actually. But then, you know, that doesn't mean all the back end is resolved, right, right? There's, there's more granular levels of integration that continue to happen. You know, whether it's, you know, there's granularity, right? There's so many organizational sort of alignments that need to occur, that continue to occur over a period of time. That could be another year. It could be a couple of years, but, but, you know, you get to, I'm going to call it Minimum Viable organization. You know, you've got the, you've got the structure in place to continue to do the great work that you're doing. Because at the core of it, you can't make integration and acquisition, you know, the preoccupation of the vast majority of the people. We've got to support our teams, we've got to support our clients, we've got to continue to do great work, great projects. That's got to be the preoccupation and and so getting there as quickly as possible is the imperative, amazing, and so that kind of, yeah, we try to compress that.

Rion Willard

44:30

I have some questions here, actually, which have come from some of our listeners on the on the podcast, who, who are keen to for me to to ask, ask yourself and other practice owners of practice leaders of large of large firms, one question that that's come up quite a few time is is, how do you it's kind of relevant to what we're talking about in terms of maintaining culture. How does. Does Arcadis maintain a culture of collaborative exploration within an office where you've got a lot of people who may be wanting to be working remotely or not being in studios? Is that something that Arcadis deals with, or is everybody in the office all the time? Or how do you, how do you maintain a culture when the office is the whole notion of what the office is is constantly being challenged. Yeah, that's

Speaker 1

45:29

a very sort of pertinent and relevant kind of current question. We contend with it every day. And you know, you've heard it all right. You've heard about the water cooler, conversations that are lost, the learning by osmosis, the you know, the mentorship, the ideas exchange. Look at the core of it. We're a global firm, you know, and if we were to limit ourselves to collaborating in local offices only and fostering culture within a local office only then we are losing the vast majority of the culture and the collaborative opportunity of the global firm, so we have to figure out Ways to retain and build that culture in virtual environments we, you know, in a firm like ours, you know, which is not, you know, one office in one city and or five offices in five cities. We're talking about hundreds of offices in 30 countries. You know, how do you create a unified culture and a unified set of values and approaches that we have those conversations every day, and we do have to rely on virtual collaboration, online tools, particularly as we are committed at a very, very high level to sustainability, we actually count our own carbon footprint and and set goals and standards internally for reducing them every year. So we, we are very prudent about our travel as well. So very challenging, very challenging to do that, but I it really comes down to ideas, exchange conversations, giving people the time and space to step away from day to day projects to an extent and and really gain from participating in these kind of global initiatives that are underway, and really understand what's out there for them, right and and then within local offices, I think it is important, to an extent, to have that level of interpersonal engagement, of a sense of being part of a team that's in your immediate environment. But you know, Ryan, here's the thing that that has struck me lately, that we're we're we've all been really preoccupied as architectural and other organizations about our teams with as we should be, but the other side of that equation is our clients and the consultants and The colleagues that we regularly collaborate with on these projects. And when I think back to the pre pandemic days to, you know, my own office here in Toronto, if you came to the front lobby, it was kind of this hubbub of activity. You know, there were, you know, some of, you know the most sort of active, busy, prolific developers in the city to be found in that lobby every day. They they bumped into each other. They they were excited. They added so much to the energy of the place. It inspired us. It inspired our teams. It inspired them. They were constantly exposed to, you know, they could walk up to somebody's desk and say, Hello, they've run into a principle so that, you know, that's the other part of the equation, right? Because we don't do architecture and among ourselves. It's also our our clients, our partners, the other stakeholders, consultants. And frankly, that's the piece that I don't think we've dwelled on enough about how, how that process has gotten diluted a little bit. So I. Yeah, I think there's a balance. There's an in between ground here for us as a global firm, it's, it's not a choice, right? We have to learn how to foster culture in a virtual environment. Yeah, we have, but we've also got to balance it with some in person presence. Yeah,

Rion Willard

50:18

absolutely. Another question here that kind of sort of riffs off some of these themes, is, how do you encourage and train younger staff to be empathetic to a client's needs? Now I don't know what the because what some of the context was behind where that where that question comes from, perhaps, and so you can take some liberty with how you might interpret it. But how do you kind of foster a culture when with younger architects becoming, you know, perhaps you know, moving from where they might have been focused on design that interests them to now becoming sensitive and attentive to the needs of of a client. Is this something that just happens through osmosis, or is there like a formalized training that happens? Or are you looking for the for particular sorts of people who

Speaker 1

51:11

have that? Yeah, I think it's a mindset. I think it's very much, much a part of the culture of different firms and and and everyone approaches it differently, but here's what I say to my teams, architecture is a team sport. We're not building monuments to ourselves, and the true success of our projects lies in understanding what success means to our clients and shaping our solutions, whether they're architectural or bigger, to address those sort of drivers of success, and if we ignore them, then we may end up with a pretty looking building that either doesn't function or doesn't serve its purpose or doesn't make financial sense, and in all those three instances, it would be a failure or doesn't meet their sustainability objectives, or doesn't do the things that they wanted it to do with technology or whatever their driver of success is right? So I think at the outset, and that's where the listening becomes really important. You've got to be active listeners, you know, and participants. And so that's certainly how we approach it, and and that, and that's, that's the guidance that we we give all our our junior team members love

Rion Willard

52:45

it brilliant. I mean, that's perfect place for us to conclude the conversation there. Man. So that's been really, really fascinating and a wonderful peak in the in the in the mechanical room, if you like, of what happens in Arcadis. So I really appreciate your your time and your sharing expertise there.

Speaker 1

53:08

It's my pleasure, and I just want to say thank you for for giving me this opportunity to connect with you. I've enjoyed it excellent,

Rion Willard

53:16

and that's a wrap. And one more thing, if you haven't already, please do head on over to iTunes or Spotify and leave us a review. We'd love to read your name out here on the show, and we'd love to get your feedback, and we'd love to hear what it is that you'd like to see more of and what you love about the show. And

Speaker 2

53:36

now a word from today's sponsor. A while ago, I began to hear reports of a company that was helping some of our clients build remote teams. We looked into it more closely and discovered the company world teams that was helping small architectural practitioners build remote teams that were both capable and qualified. I was intrigued by another business that addressing one of the critical pain points for small architectural practices, which is the ability to grow and shrink a team effectively, to be able to handle higher workflow without having to staff up significantly, and also being very sensitive about labor costs. World teams is built to address these issues. World teams is a small but mighty company that helps architectural practices build high performing remote teams quickly and efficiently, saving you the headache of sorting resumes and interviewing under qualified candidates. World teams operates in your time zone and prioritizes near native English speakers, ensuring clear and efficient communication with your remote team members. They have flexible contracts so you can adjust your team size as your needs evolve. Additionally, you're connected directly with your skilled professionals, which fosters trust and collaboration and world teams helps you reduce your operating costs without compromising the quality that is so important to a practice. To download a free guide for building a remote team for a small architectural practice, go to Business of architecture.com. Forward. Slash world teams. That's one word. Business of architecture.com. Forward slash world teams. As a reminder, sponsorship is not an endorsement, and you must do your own due diligence before entering into any business relationship. Go to Business of architecture.com. Forward slash world teams.

Rion Willard

55:17

The views expressed on this show by my guest do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise, guarantee, pledge, warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you be unstoppable. You.

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