The basic value of curiosity is saying I don't know everything. I still need to go find out something.
Hello and welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard and today I had the great pleasure of speaking with Sam and Nunez, a founding partner of WRN s studio, an architecture firm with offices in San Francisco, Seattle, on Lulu and New York. During his 14 year career, Sam has led numerous high profile projects throughout the Western United States, including workplace campuses for Adobe, Intuit and Microsoft to recognize the beauty, sustainability and a positive contribution to the public realm. Sam's work has been honored by professional associations, cities and neighborhood groups for enhancing the distinct character of the communities they serve. Sam brings a creative management approach to the practice of architecture to endow leaders with autonomy and provide emerging talent with room for growth. He developed and implemented a socio kradic governance structure for w r NS GGO, which we're going to talk a lot about today. This non hierarchical approach to governance has historically been employed by large production based corporations looking to realize operational efficiencies. socio kradic governance is a typical within architecture as it emphasizes and empowers a plurality of perspectives and voices, rather than a singular creative vision. As a result of this decentralized authority. W r and s Studio is a team of incentivized nimble and innovative leaders. While only 18 years old, WR enter studio has twice been named for top firm in the US by architect magazine, and was recognized as a Fast Company 2020 most innovative design firm. So this was a brilliant conversation absolutely loved speaking with Sam, we go into a lot of depth about the non hierarchical and socio kradic governance system that they employ, how it works, how efficient it is, how it empowers individuals to be able to make their own decisions, we talk a lot about the difference between consent and consensus and how that plays a role in fast decision making. So we go into actually what that distinction is. And we talk a lot about financial communications and the importance of transparency within the business. So this episode, if you're on the leadership team of a architecture firm, of any size, and certainly a larger firm, this is going to be filled with absolute gold. So sit back, relax and enjoy Sam Nunes. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, business of architectures, flagship program to help you structure your firm for freedom, fulfillment, and financial profit. If you want access for our free training on how to do this, please visit smart practice method.com. Or if you want to speak directly to one of our advisors about how we might be able to help you please follow the link in the inflammation. Sam, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
I'm good, how are you?
I'm very well thank you. So you are the founding partner of WRN s studio. If grown the practice you are now remember last time we were speaking about around about 170 people split across four different locations. You got San Francisco, New York, Honolulu, and Seattle. Yes. And a very, very interesting kind of philosophy where it's, you know, it's a kind of one studio before locations, philosophy, you've got a very diverse portfolio of work, being involved in multifamily residential mixed use a lot of education work from higher ed to K 12 work, as well as being involved in civic projects and infrastructure. And there's a real kind of core push of sustainability that's being driven by the practice. So I guess the first question is, perhaps you could tell us a little bit about the, the beginning of the practice, when when you founded it and, and, and kind of how how has it changed since then?
Yeah, are beginning. So four of us, founded Diller in a studio, but John Ruffo, Brian Charles, Jeff foreign myself, but actually, you know, pretty quickly, we brought in some very senior people that we had been working with, and, and frankly, I think its founding was really a collection of about, you know, 10 folks that founded the studio back in 2005. And we've been working together for a very long time. And John Bryan, Jeff and I were actually minority partners that are firm called Song partners in San Francisco. I had joined Gordon song in 1980 You five, I think I was 10th. employee at the time, you know, right out of school, I joined there. And about seven years later we'd started growing the firm. I think we're about 45 people. And we we brought in John Ruffo, out of antron. And Allen. And Gordon made John and I partners at that time. So in the early 90s, I became a partner of, of chunk partners. In fact, it was with Gordon song and Associates. And when John and I were made partners, we changed the name to Colin partners. And about half a dozen years later, we brought in Brian Stiles and Jeff Warner, and they became minority partners as well. And we grew that firm. From the 10, when I started to 200, man, we had offices in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, and in London, because we were we were deep into health care, you know, at that office. And we done we were fairly diverse there as well, we did a lot of civic work, which is what I was doing a lot of K 12 work, which I was a part of, as well. And, and we tried to transition that firm. But you know, Gordon had founded that firm as a sole proprietor, like I said, in the early 70s. And he really, he hung on to that company, it was just such a huge part of his personal identity, I think he was just having a difficult time imagining that he might have to become less than the majority partner. And, you know, we tried to transition it over probably five years, you know, off and on just thinking about valuations and how we might begin to move it and and frankly, the four of us wanted to move the firm in different directions. Then Gordon wanted to move in. And just all of that sort of led to the fact that well, actually what we had to do was sell our our shares back to Gordon, the law, allow him to own 100% of the company and to exit that company. So in 2005, that's what we did. And we founded stubbornness studio. And as I said, about six others, you know, came with us calling Souza, Mitch fine animal tag, Brian Melman. Right, Sherman, came came with us. And, yeah, we, we took a big risk and a gamble on ourselves and said, Let's, let's go start our own thing.
What were the sorts of the first kind of projects that you brought in? And were they project subsidy that you'd obviously had a kind of a lot of experience with previously, and connections and networks with?
Yeah. A good number of the projects that I was working on at chunk partners came with me, and my partner, Pauline Sousa. They came, those clients came with us. And that really was important. And we're very grateful for that. You know, there are all sorts of non competes and non solicitation, but we can't stop the client from deciding to do what they wanted to do. And so we just got a few phone calls when we decided to leave. And some of the clients came with us, like the Jewish Museum or Hillsboro schools and some others. And that really helped us to get started, you know, meanwhile, others were out seeking new works, but pretty much in the lines of things that we were interested in doing, those things that we were doing at solid partners, but even things that we were not doing there, but wanted to do. And so, you know, one of the tenants of our firm was that each of us would just follow our own enthusiasm, you know, our what we were curious about the things that drove us as professionals and and that just led to a great diversity of work right off the bat. And and we were, we were known in the market I mean, we by I was a chunk partners, I was in the market for 20 years, my partner's John and Jeff for 10 years or eight years, my senior so they had been in the market for 28 years. And what I mean by in the market, they were just knowing they were unknown entities in the fields in which they were working. And so yeah, work came came to us. I'd like to say easily but fairly quickly, and we began to grow was a
much kind of proactive marketing and business development that you guys kind of switched into, to gear to make sure that the pipeline was was well filled up for the next few months or was it kind of a little bit more reactive and organic?
It was frankly, just reaching out to our networks and having dinners and lunches and, and just being present and putting who we were out there and one of our values is authenticity and most authentic way we could, this is who we are, this is what we can do. Being as nimble and agile as we could be, you know, as as just getting going, there's lots of energy. At that time. Molly Thomas, who was one of our marketing coordinators at Town partners wanted to come work with us. We came over, we established a way of communicating with where the various places we could acquire work. And, and so yeah, I was, I would say, in the main, it was just tapping into our friends, you know, what, what people would call their network, but just the people we knew in the industry, from, from clients, to builders, to sub consultants, and engineers, and just getting real, you know, allowing people to know, we were established. So the biggest question that people might have would be, you know, are we are we a legal entity? Do we have we set up the right interferences? You know, you know, what kind of depth do we have? You know, folks get a little nervous that you've only been in business a few weeks, and then want to hand over a project to you. But if we could show that stability, you know, that we actually had an office, and we had our technologies all established? And, you know, once we could demonstrate that, I think it wasn't that difficult, actually,
how fast did you did you grow? Like, how big did the team get? And what kind of what kind of period because that brings all sorts of fun challenges.
So, you know, I know we're going to talk a bit about governance structure and how we make decisions. And that's really all that is, is how do you make decisions on on what you want to be doing and where you're going. But also, we were very interested in establishing very early on a transition strategy, right, we saw the thing we were building, not as we didn't want to hold it so closely as a as a as a personal thing, but more we were building a vehicle into which, for a while, we would drive this vehicle, and then others would get to drive it as well as, as the decades rolled forward. So after our first year, in business, when we realized that we were, we were established, we had grown to about 25 people at that time, we decided to make those senior people I spoke of earlier partners of our firm. And so we took our ownership and began to distribute it down in sort of cascading quantities to these senior people. So by the end of the first year, we were about 2530 people and, and 10 of us, you know, actually, were partners of the firm, that established this idea of transition. Alright, so there's, there's, there's cascading ages involved in that and levels of ownership, and there's sort of a very clear path of buy in and investment and return and all that can be communicated clearly to what we're trying to do. And then established immediately this, this idea of us just being temporary stewards of the firm that we were, we were just piloting it for a while, and, and then others would pilot, pilot it later and take it wherever they wanted to take this vehicle that we were, we were building. And that was highly motivating, you know, people really leaned in to this, to this model and way of being. And of course, now we've got more people with their own enthusiasms right, they're the things they're trying to achieve professionally, in their careers. And that began to drive our growth. And so we had 20 25% growth, year over year, until we hit 2009 or so, you know, when the great recession hit, that didn't really affect us too badly, it just slowed our growth. Because clearly, you know, in our just in our back of the napkin modeling, it was pretty obvious, you know, we were going to be growing into a firm of at least about 100, just in the markets we're in and what our capabilities were. So that might have slowed us a bit. And we sort of held at around 60, you know, or so, folks, 70 folks coming out of that recession in 2010. And then we just really took off. And at our largest we're about 205. And roughly that size, maybe, you know, one at 190 through the, through the pandemic and then you know, the return office policies and sort of where we exist and, and the sort of reimagining and rethinking of what these environments we build our for, has slowed us a little bit while our clients kind of begin to understand, you know, their needs and what they're doing. And so we're roughly about 170 now, but I would imagine 20 2425 We're projecting growth as as sort of we've, there's a, that reimagining that we're a part of what these clients do takes root and, and we can discover what the work is ahead of
us. What kinds of challenges did you have with kind of going up to that, that size? And when did you start opening up other locations?
Yeah, so the challenges so that the, the way we, the way we're organized, so imagine, after that first year, you have 10, people who call themselves partners. So we have a certain amount of autonomy, right? We have a certain agency, there isn't a hierarchical structure where I say back at Town partners where there is a majority partner who kind of makes the last call, right, and that everything had to flow into that last call. Well, this doesn't quite work that way. So this is that this is that structure that began to emerge naturally for us, because of who we were a group of people who share certain values who have to share certain goals and aims in the profession. And now you have this group of people, and you have to decide, well, how is it that we work together? How do we how do we move ourselves forward as efficiently as we can. And so I was aware, I spent a couple of years in business school at San Jose State, I was aware of a few models that kind of did that. And, and I began to talk about these models, but not in any formal way, not in any way of like, here are the here are the rules of this game. And in this governance structure is the most important thing. It's the least important thing. It's simply a thing that allows us to talk to one another about the rules of the road and decision making. So the socio kradic governance structure is one where you really drive down as far as possible within your organization decision making. And so the way it sets up, its you can imagine each project has its own concern, each business function like HR or finance, marketing is its own concern. And it has, it has a very small group of people that are engaged in it, maybe five to 10, folks, you know, at a project level, the largest might be 20. But it's not much more than that. And if you can imagine that those systems work semi autonomously, from the broader organization, they get to make their decisions, and move forward based on those values based on the aims and goals that are well understood by the organization. And then, in our system, because there are so many partners, if two of us are engaged in any of those functions at any time, right. So two of us are engaged in a project or two of us are engaged in HR function, and so forth, and so on. And so we provide a link back up to what's called a leadership circle. So the 10 of us then form a leadership circle, and then the main, that leadership circle has a very important function within the organization. But it isn't making all the decisions for the organization, because that's happening down below. And it's a consent based system. So certain things might rise. So what would rise into that circle would be things that you might imagine might live at the margins of our aims and goals, right, that we've agreed upon things that we might see as a threat to our identity, or brand or, or an opportunity that might require a much deeper discussion amongst us about how best to realize that opportunity. So so we, you know, this, this circle meets once a week, and we have these conversations about things that are happening and basically keeps the organization on on its tracks. And that's a very flat organizational structure and in it, but it is an organizational structure, there is a bit of hierarchy in it, right? I just the word leadership circle tells you, there's some where you go, when when things need to go there, when you try to keep things from going there, because what you're trying to do is empower, you know, the talents and skills and the basic intelligence of everybody in the firm, just to figure out how to do things better. And once you can, once you can find that then you can transfer that into the broader organization and just keep moving. So
that's, that's very interesting. So this is consent based as opposed to consensus based kind of decision making. And and so a very big distinction, by the way, would you would you care to go in a little bit more about what that means the difference between consent versus consensus?
Yeah, the where the system can bog down is that that leadership level, that's where it can be bogged down. So it's the various systems you can imagine, you know, at the project level or at the business function level, it could be extremely efficient way of moving forward. Because you don't have to go through these hierarchical panes right and, and you can get derailed by just one person's opinion. But when things get to the leadership level, it can get bogged down, because you're now you have a big conversation about something that's risen to that point that that is going to require some some big conversation, which, if you are, if you're seeking consensus on that, like everybody agrees, this is the right thing to do. Or Everybody agrees, this is the wrong thing to do that could take that could go way outside of normal business cycle timelines, and you, you get stuck in the in the mire. But if you're, if you're seeking simply simple consent, then you can move much faster. And consent is simply saying that you could live with it. So you will take whatever whatever the issue is in front of you, and say, Well, do I see that as an existential threat to our business? Is it somehow so far outside of our value sets or for not consistent with our aims and goals? That I need to really object to this, and I need to keep fighting the fight? Or, you know, not what I would do, but I can live with that, you know, I think it's not going to destroy us. And I think it's okay, you know, it's just not the way I would go. And so that's, that's consent, right. And so that doesn't mean you don't have serious conversations, and sometimes maybe even heated ones show up in the main, you recognize you're not trying, you're not trying to convince me and change my my opinion completely, you're simply trying to say, Can you set your opinion aside, can you see setting your opinion aside, and allowing us to move forward. And so that's what consent based decision making is, and it's central to this socio kradic system, this circle structure is central to that, because otherwise, it's pretty clear, you would simply not be able to keep up with decision making within normal business cycle timeframes,
all that all that predefined topics, or areas that automatically get kind of passed up to the leadership circle. Oh,
there are things that are relatively consistent, you know, types of projects we might, one of us might want to pursue, that we think might represent a bit of a stretch for us. You know, we'll talk about the kinds of public PR, we might we might be doing, and do we want to do that we've established a foundation, things of that nature, will, will, you know, how we want to use our monies and, and distributors, you know, both internally and externally, and its causes we want to be a part of those are the kinds of things we we talked about as a group.
You mentioned earlier that you've, you know, the business has its set of values, what role does the values play in kind of leading to consent and making sure that decisions get made quickly.
They play a large role, but I would say, we joined each other because we fear those values, we didn't post a bunch of values on the wall. And say, You need to believe in these values. It's like we and when we hire, we seek out people who've already shared the value. So authenticity and curiosity, and transparency and honesty. You know, these are the things competence, these are the values, you know, we believe in, we walk around the firm and say, you know, that doesn't feel very authentic. To me, it feels like you're forcing it Yeah, I mean, things things of that nature, right? So so. So it's like making friends right? I mean, you're gonna make friends with with with people, it doesn't mean you're the same. In fact, it's not good if you're the exactly the same, but you share something and you know, you share it. And so, when we left chunk partners, you know, the four of us wanted to work together and we knew the people we wanted to work with, because we feared and the values go to names and goals or like, you know, beauty and sustainability and a positive contribution to the public realm, which you know, we we define a continuously happy clients had happy us and a fair return on our investments. Those are the things you know that those are our aims and goals under those values that we top of those values, I suppose, you know, that I talked about sharing those things. And honestly, this system doesn't work if you don't share in those things. Force this right. You need it. It has to begin with. We fear a certain perspective, you know, on on the profession on life. In general, we fare this perspective doesn't make us the same. And there's plenty of conflict that needs to be worked out, as there is with any group of people trying to work in common purpose towards something. But if you don't share in these things, then it's going to be very hard to overlay this flat organizational structure onto what you're trying to do with
this organizational structure with the kind of when you when you're managing 170 different people, do they? Are they in there, they kind of divvied up into, like sector based groups, or is it more like a studio unit type of approach inside of the business? Or is it much smaller cellular groups of people that work together? And then kind of come to consensus in smaller groups before anything would ever go to the leadership circle?
Yeah, so I'm trying to follow exactly what you said there, but let me just say, so the projects are centered in our office, right? So they they sort of occupied if you can imagine they occupy real estate. And then we assemble a team around that. And certain people have desires, they want to do K 12, schools, or they they're really interested in workplace, then they tend to do those sorts of projects, others move about more generalist they move about, and all that's welcomed and encouraged in the firm, whichever way person would like to develop their skills and their talents. You know, we tried to just put that into the natural flow of our business, but the project occupies the real estate that people surround that. And you can imagine those people surrounding that project, you know, there are skill sets there are there's, there's the leadership and management leadership and design. There are, there are skill sets, you know, that are 30 years deep down to, you know, an intern, right. So there are different skill sets. But they surround that project. And we encourage, you know, dialogue and participation, by everybody on that project, whatever, whatever the level of skill is, you know, relative to time, we want that conversation to be happening, because you never know where that conversation might lead. We want lots of drawings, we want lots of model building, we want a big exploration, because curiosity is a big thing. We want to remain curious, like, you know, we did that last time, but what if maybe, that could lead us somewhere different, and we want to be open to those possibilities, right? So so in, in that circle of people surrounding that project, they're making the call, now they're bringing it out right there will have firm wide critiques, or will, they'll bring in people to say, hey, take a look at this. But they're, they're making those decisions. Now, in that circle, there are two partners, typically, in that circle somewhere. And so they can double, it's called a double linking, I hate these terms. It's a double linking, it's a feedback loop, that allows any issues going on within that project to be floated back up to the leadership circle pretty quickly, with people who really understand what the issue is, they're deep into the issue, if there happens to be an issue that needs to get up to that leadership group, those two partners can communicate what that is, without, you know, without wasting a lot of time, sort of unearthing what's truly happening there. So the partner is acting as the double links to the to the feedback loop back to the leadership circle. If, if things need to be discussed there, you know, can move that conversation pretty quickly through the leadership circle, and they're highly trusted, all the partners are trusted. And yeah.
Is this is this more kind of in the realm of kind of specialist technical design knowledge and experience? Or does it relate back to other topics as well, this kind of double linking, communication.
It could be it could come from anywhere, you know, it could come from the pod thinking in in environmental stewardship and sustainability, it could come through managerial structures, managerial aspects of the project, it could be the design aspects of the project. It just depends on the scale of the project. How you know, how that team was assembled to take on the work. It isn't always the partners in the leadership role on the project level, but they're engaged in the project. You know what I'm saying? So, yeah, yeah, it really it really, it varies very much, which has got to be you got to be open to you can't you can't try to hold too tightly to anything. Absolutely.
Very, very fascinating, in terms of the financial communication of projects, and just money and profit and tracking, tracking where the business is, is at how, how transparent are you with the team? How does that information get community hated, what kind of knowledge, financial knowledge to project managers have, for example, with the projects are they aware of, you know, kind of profit margins and what the profit targets are on projects. And they've kind of, you know, they, they're very much active in creating budgets for time, allowances and resources.
Were all of that. I mean, we're extremely transparent with all of that information. I mean, transparency is one of our, one of our values. Because we think with knowledge, people can do their jobs better. So we're, we're very transparent with all of that. And, and financially, ultimately, the way it works is we're one studio. So it isn't anyone's particular fault that a project might go might have trouble financially, there are all kinds of reasons why projects might have trouble financially, which has nothing to do with a person didn't have the right boss at the right time. Convert conversely, I mean, the you know, it's it's wonderful when you can applaud someone doing extremely well financially on a project, but it's not fully the circuit that circumstances and wholly of their making, either or all kinds of things that cause that to happen. So ultimately, what we do is we we roll everything up across all four locations, though they're not profit centers, we're one studio, which is, you know, what that really means. We just roll everything up at the end of the year and say, how did we do this year, and then, based on a model that we've built, we just distribute the monies equitably? It doesn't matter whether you happen to financially, because who knows what else you did extremely well, but financially had a tough year, just person that financially a great year, we don't even think in those terms. It's this is how we did and and everything is distributed equally amongst us.
How did the other offices come into existence and where they were they initially kind of satellite offices for certain projects, and then you decided that we're going to kind of maintain and keep them there.
Okay, so the first one was our Honolulu office. That was our first one. And we have one of my partners had a mole tag, who was one of the first, you know, they came with us. It was born and raised in a wahoo. And he wanted, yeah, he wanted to return. And he said, I think we can do what we're doing here. In, in, in Hawaii, I think I think we should open an Allahu off on little office, excuse me, and, and I said, No, you're you're nuts. Now there's like a million people that live there he goes, Well, I think I can do it. So okay, in our model, we said, All right, go give it a shot. You know, like, we'd figured out how much it would take and my partner, Jeff Warner, and Pauling Sousa, were very interested in helping Adam and so they took K 12 schools over to Hawaii, and, and they were successful. And they started winning work and started doing some really beautiful things. And it seemed to be working. And so we we held on to it. And it's been it's been wonderful, and nice. And then New York, my partner, Brian Childs, who is one of the founding partners, he had been talking to a couple of our senior employees who was who left us to move back to New York for family reasons about Well, I think we could open up an office in New York, you know, with these, with these, these two guys, Stephen Kelly and John McGill. And, and ultimately, Brian, you know, brought that to us and said, I'd like to go back there and help them do it. And so we did we open the New York City office based on basically a couple of our senior people who used to work with us having had to move back to New York, convincing us that we should open a New York office and Brian being committed to doing that. And so and so we did. And then Seattle was different Microsoft, and Mehta to a certain extent, brought a new model with some big work. And so we opened an office to do that. And then my partner Kyle Elliott, who joined us about three or four years after we founded the firm. But we've worked with Kyle for a long time, decided to move his family to Seattle. And so he runs now our our Seattle office, so it looks slightly different way these offices opened. I would love to tell you, it was super strategic. And while we did all the math, but it was more opportunistic. And here's a moment do we want to seize the moment and
Well, it's interesting because you got you got the New York and the Honolulu offices, which were kind of not necessarily you didn't necessarily have work there. It just seemed like a good idea. And, and sort of personal connections and relations. And then the Seattle one was much more there was it was more serious. IT projects that kind of a group. And and what's the kind of interchange, if you like, between staff members in those offices? Do people often change offices? Or do you recruit locally? When you say that? It's, it's one studio for different locations? Yeah. How is thinking? How are things centralized? And how do you prevent kind of repeat roles being made and what bits are kind of localized in San Francisco?
Yeah, people do relocate. It's not often but you know, a few people have wanted to move, either from New York to the Bay Area, or Seattle, or, you know, the thing said, does happen. And we facilitate that. And, of course, that's all fine and good. But I would say, in the main, the other aspect of us being one office is we will build a team around a project from any of our offices, right? Because if it's the right set of skills, and they want to work together on this thing, you know, we will build it, you know, we've we have a couple of, we have many projects that might have someone in Seattle, someone in San Francisco, someone in New York, and a team, you know, around them that are doing a thing in Austin, you know, or in Chicago, or whatever. And that, frankly, proved to be very good for us when COVID had because we were, we were super used to working with one another remotely, across different time zones. And, and it's just something that we've always done, we don't try to hold on to, you know, revenues in a certain location or a project opportunity. We're doing work for the College of the Desert in Palm Springs right now. And I think half of our team is in New York, and the other half is here in San Francisco, because of the skill sets they represent and what they can do, and it's not. It sounds odd, but it actually doesn't feel at all strange to us, because of how we work. What
kind of technology do you use to make that happen? How to team meetings, kind of coexist, how to design conversations happen, because that does sound? Yeah, really kind of very forward thinking and, and, and innovative to, to actually be able to work on one project, which is in a different location, and the teams actually spread across your different locations in the office. Yeah, well, we're
using you know, well, we, I think we are default, the meeting platform is zoom. But I mean, our clients will use teams and we use blue jeans, if that's still around. As Cisco, we use anything our clients consistently, internally, I think we tend to go to zoom when we use mirror boards to move information around and share and everything that matters on a project is in our cloud, which is the Azure Cloud, Microsoft Azure Cloud footprint is in the cloud. And so all the file sharing all the back and forth is pretty is pretty seamless. I mean, there's, there's really no issues there. We've got a wonderful IT group. And I wish I could speak to you more about all of that, but it's not what I do for us. So I have in my 60s, and so it's just amazing what it can do. I'm amazed, I'm on this call that I actually was able to get on but and then and then we fly people around, you know, I mean, there's times you have to be together. And so we fly people around and put them up in hotels. And so teams will do that. In fact, I think the cod team was in the office just a couple of weeks ago for about a week. The guy was in our
job, a culture of work from home, or is it people that people are literally really working inside of these in these different locations? And then you work digital, you work digitally, kind of internally if you like, yeah.
Work from home? Well, let's talk about that. So you can work anywhere. Really, that's true, but we don't think you do your best work like that. That's why we even fly people out because you got to be together from time to time. Yes. So so our default what we say is, you know, we built a studio, physical studio, so we could work in the studio. And so that's where we work. But even prior to COVID We were pretty flexible with our staff. So you know, we didn't want anyone coming in if they were sick if if their family was sick, you know, stay home, you know, because you know, especially with young children, it's like you're sick many weeks of the year stay home with that if you got some pressures other other pressures you know, just go deal with those. Those pressures if there's a soccer game, you know, a play something you need to get to go do that. You know, I mean, in other words, when life was throwing something at you, and you needed to to We have some flexibility. We didn't we didn't want to get in the way of that. But the default is you work in the studio. So it's not like, oh, you know, I'm having a bad hair day. So I'm gonna stay home, it's like that. That's not a reason to stay home, we need you in this studio so that we could learn from you. Right? And we just believe in that level of collaboration. Right. So that's met fairly. I mean, I think because we share these values, I think people really get that in the main, there's a, there's it's a little there can be a little bit of contention around that, because of what other companies are doing. Sure, we can hear about that. But but in the main, I think people understand that, you know, we built the physical studio, because we want to collaborate in that studio. And the default is you work in the studio, then that I mean, we are highly flexible with our staff,
in terms of identifying new leaders in the business, and kind of, you know, we were talking about succession, and the way that the structure, the governance structure was set up, how do you identify new leaders? And have them move through and kind of step into their own leadership positions, if you like? What sorts of training do they need to kind of go through? How do you identify them? How do they get enrolled in the kind of working aspects of the business and not just focus on design,
we we do provide various trainings, there are also a lot of internal kinds of exchanges, the mentoring and exchanges that occur within a studio, but I will tell you that a leader will will emerge, you'll there will be people that will be you can begin to see that others are willing to follow because they're trusted. They are they they have a natural ability to take who they are, and their skill sets and their talents and, and put them out there. And people say I want to listen to what this person is saying I want I want to know what they know I want to I'm gravitating toward them. And you can see that happening, you know, when you hit it's like when you when you think of the system you have you can see certain people emerging in that way. And then you you might move to a little bit of mentoring and training of those people right to to allow them to see what's happening around them, and how to be a better leader. And then ultimately, like John, John and Jeff, two of the founding partners I spoke of, they've retired, they're there they're gone. And in their place our our Tim Morris had and Lily and aspirin and Rashomon. So they join us, right. And these three were natural leaders, and people were at different leading different sorts of things entirely. But they were deeply respected by our staff and, and understood to be later. So it was almost, it was a natural step to say let's Okay, so now, you also now are my partner. And, and you're buying up some of those shares, and there's a financial thing to that and all of that, but in the main, what you're doing is joining our leadership circle, we want your voice their views, you have the temperament to, to understand, you know, the role of of leading a studio like ours, and, you know, so I would say you don't, yeah, it requires some patience, and requires empathy, not in the sense of, of sympathy, but just in the sense of being empathetic of understanding a person and then allowing them to grow as they are growing in that role of being a leader. Does
that make sense? Yeah. And I'm gonna like the way that you phrase it there in terms of leaders actually emerge. And it's something that you kind of just get a sense of that there is a natural there's a natural communication and, and trustworthiness, and they've already created an environment where people are naturally following them, or you're very ready to follow them. Do you ever have people actually kind of individually putting themselves forward and say, hey, look, I want to become a partner. What is it that I need to do to kind of get onto that track?
Yeah, I mean, do you do I mean, obviously, sometimes it's not I want to be a partner. Yeah. It's very real, but there are people should advocate for themselves, I believe you should advocate for yourself, we need to be as as candid as we can be in our assessment of what the person is asking us without being. You know, without, without being somehow limiting, of what a person may become. I'm a big believer that our firm, or you know, this is a CW in a studio, which is just just a drop in a giant pond, you know, can be a great place for someone to emerge as a leader, but others might need to go somewhere different to emerge as a leader they needed, they need to be in a different system. And I can be very candid about that, you know, my assessments of folks and, and is it are they in? Are they fitted well, where they have found themselves? Or do they need to see the broader picture? You know, we're, like I said, this profession of ours, architecture, there's many, many ways of being in it. And, and it means at all scales of work types of work jog, where where you are, the kinds of affirm it is its history. There's many ways of being in it. And I think people just need to find where they're best fitted, and what their own personal goals are. So, yeah, there are times it's, you know, in the main, you know, it's it's younger staff. And so it's hard to, you know, so I mostly try to just give a little guidance and mentorship and watch them and talk to them about, but ultimately, as they mature, it's like, hey, this may not be the right place, right? You know, you have these abilities. You can get there, but probably not here. For these reasons, whatever it might be. What
is for at WNS, what, what makes a good leader? What what are the sorts of skill sets that they might have? The kind of attitudes that they might have? You already mentioned a few, you know, in terms of communication and kind of trustworthiness and having an ability where people are following them. But are there any other sorts of domains that they need to be knowledgeable in?
Yeah, one, I think whatever your whatever it is, you do, you need to be incredibly competent. Our staff needs to rush is very smart. So you need to be, you need to know what you're talking about. And people need to have respect for you, right? So so in that respect is going to come and park there's just your competency, your skills and your talents are, you know, they're understood. And then out of that you can't a good leader is not arrogant in that skill. And that talent. And that competency. There's no arrogance there, because because you're too basic. And I think I mentioned that the basic value of curiosity is saying, I don't know everything, I still need to go find out something I you know, and maybe this person right here, you know, right out of school has something to teach me. Right. And you have to have that openness, to establish that dialogue with that person. So of course, they're going to learn a lot more from you than you're going to learn from them. But you do have something to learn. And you and that's you got to wear that on your face, you being a partner at WNS studio is is there's no crown, there's no transactional to it, that you're just part of a team, and you're trying to get the best out of out of out of the work. And so that's what makes for a good partner. So a bit of humility, coupled with a high level of capability.
Makes sense? Yeah, it does. Are there other other skills that that you encourage with partners because it's interesting when when we look at when I talk with businesses about succession planning, or I've worked with clients in the past, even when they've been going through succession planning often, a partner is, you know, if they haven't run a business before themselves, things like winning work might be a bit of a mystery, or even some of the more business systems and functions that might be a bit of a mystery, but they might be very, very talented in terms of the domain of design is a are you looking for people as well who have got those skill sets in say winning work and the business side of stuff? Or does that kind of get trained?
Spread winning, winning work is is interesting, you know, we've always felt and I believe this to be true that doing good work, is winning work. So we you put, you put your work, and by work I mean not not just to The physical architecture that ultimately gets built and people respond to and critique and applaud or awards get one but but also just who you are, you know, how you executed that work, you know, how you work through the entitlement the relationship with the authorities having jurisdiction, the builder partners, the engineering community, I mean, who you who we are in that, in that world is a is a big part of winning work, because you develop a reputation, you develop a brand, people understand of word of mouth, and, and suddenly you become viable. That said, some of us are fairly good at communicating that, right at the moment of an interview, or the writing of a proposal. Others, you know, I'm talking at the partner level, focus less on that, and that's all okay, you know, we don't need everyone to do that. And, and we don't over applaud the winner of the work, you know, because really, what's winning the work is that is the, is the recognition of the studio itself, and everything that the studio can do. So yeah, you have to have people who are willing to present themselves to the market and communicate to the market who we are. But that doesn't need to be everybody. And other people have different skill sets that are all needed to create this thing. That is the studio on the business side, it's similar. You know, I've always, I spent two and a half years at, at San Jose State as a business major. And I, there was an offer in some of the structures stuff I talked about, I saw there. things I'm curious about, personally, about these things, and so I've always leaned into that John Ruffo, who's now retired, he also had a kind of an interest in this, like, how this thing actually work. Now, I'm working with Brian Millman, who's one of my partners, you know, on a lot of these similar issues, and, and with our long with our CFO, you know, we was interested, we just enjoy these conversations and, and, but everybody gets involved in it. However, a lot of people have, most people have, you know, will rely on those that are most curious about these things and how they work. So again, you don't need everybody engaged in those things, you just need trusted. Everyone needed was trusted. And right, it trusted, and there needs to be enough of us at the right ages to keep the ship moving. Brilliant. Brilliant,
brilliant. What are you most looking forward to? For 20 minutes, rest of 2023 and moving into 2024?
Yeah, 23 definitely a difficult year, kind of a transition year. For us and, and yet a lot of good things are happening. Wonderful projects are finally completing through the their COVID build, and there's been just a lot of wonderful projects being won as well. So so that's all that's Yeah, and I became a grandfather this year, and so many things for the 23. So when I say it's a difficult year, it's just it's been a, it's been an odd year, because we've just seen a lot of our, our clients struggling, you know, with their own identities and what they want to do, and, and we've, you know, we're sort of participating with them on that, but it just makes it it just makes things a little less a little murky, a lot less clear. I think 24 is going to be an awesome year, I think it's going to be a very busy year, at a time of establishing, you know, basically what's next, you know, and what, what the use case is for the things that we do, at least in the work that I'm mostly involved in today. And, uh, coupled with at least in California, you know, we're doing a lot of housing right now. And, and we need that housing. And so that's an ongoing concern, you know, for the state. And we're participating in that in a big way. And I see that really taking root and moving forward. Strongly. So I'm, I'm super looking forward to 2413
brilliant place to conclude the conversation there. Sam, thank you so much. Yeah, well, that given us that deep dive into your your firm, really, really fascinating and really, really enlightening actually hearing how your socio kradic and a non hierarchical governance structure works and how you how you keep the business successful. So thank you.
Thank you. Appreciate it. Good call.
And that's a wrap. Oh, yeah, one more thing. If you haven't already. Head on over to iTunes and leave a review. We'd love to read your name out here on the show. This episode is sponsored by Smart practice, the world's leading step by step business training program that's helped more than 103 architecture firm owners structure their existing practice. So the complexity of business doesn't get in the way of their architecture. Because you see, it's not your architecture design skills that's holding you back. It's the complexity of running a business, managing projects and people dealing with clients, contractors and money. So if you're ready to simplify the running of your practice, go to business of architecture.com forward slash smart to discover the proven simple and easy to implement smart practice method for running a practice that doesn't get in the way of doing exceptional architecture. The views expressed on the show by my guests do not represent those of the host and I make no representation, promise guarantee, pledge, warranty, contract, bond or commitment, except to help you conquer the world. QRP DM
