The Quest is the Grail. Welcome to the Business of Architecture. I'm your host Ryan Willard and today I have the great honor of speaking with my very good friend Douglas Tiger, fellow of the AIA. His name resonates with innovation, leadership and an unwavering commitment to a balanced and holistic approach to running an architecture practice the practice of architecture and life. Doug's illustrious career began upon his graduation from Cornell University in 1982. With a bachelor of architecture. Just seven years later, he embarked on the bold venture of establishing his own firm. Under his visionary leadership. What started as a solo practice flourished into a thriving firm of 32 professionals, each driven by the same passion and dedication that Douglas himself embodies. In 2009, Douglas sought to broaden his horizons and deepen his understanding of the human experience by earning a master's degree in spiritual psychology from the University of Santa Monica. This unique educational pursuit enriched his professional practice imbuing his firm with a culture that values balance, well being and a holistic approach to both work and life. His innovative strategies and operations optimization have notably allowed for more time to be dedicated to design and project research, a testament to his forward thinking approach, Douglass's influence extends well beyond the walls of his own firm. In 2017. He brought his visionary leadership to the AIA Los Angeles chapter as its president and contributed significantly to the AIA national strategic Council. His roles in these esteemed bodies highlight his dedication to advancing the profession, and shaping the strategic direction of the architectural community. In 2019, Douglas transitioned from his firm, handing the reins to three capable associates and launched Tiger consulting. His new venture allows him to focus on coaching, consulting and personal growth, continuing his mission to live an inspired balanced life. His philosophy is not just a personal mantra, but a professional ethos that he imparts to his clients and colleagues alike. outside the realm of architecture, Doug's life is a tapestry of family, painting, and sports, all of which reflect his belief and a well rounded, fulfilling life. His journey is a shining example of excellence, continuous learning, and the pursuit of a balanced approach to both personal and professional endeavors. Doug is over the years has become very good friend of mine, I love and enjoy speaking with him and spending time with him. And just really appreciate his insights, what he's doing for the architecture, industry and just who he is being as, as an inspiration as a mentor, as someone who's wise, and has an enormous amount to share with the architectural community, and to the consulting and coaching community. So in this episode, Doug and myself, we discuss being authentic in your leadership, we speak about honoring your commitments and accountability, and we talk about you having the freedom to choose your attitude, and to work and to be in alignment with your core values. So, sit back, relax and enjoy the magnificent Douglas Tiger. This podcast is produced by Business of Architecture, a leading business consultancy for architects and design professionals. 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 information. Hello, listeners, we hope you're enjoying our show. We love bringing you these insightful conversations, but we couldn't do it without the support of our amazing sponsors. If you're a business owner, or know someone who would be an excellent fit for our audience, we'd love to hear from you. Partnering with us means your brand will reach over 40,000 engaged listeners each month interested in becoming a sponsor, please send us an email at support at business of architecture.com. Douglas, Welcome to the Business of Architecture. How are you?
Great, thanks for having me back.
What an absolute pleasure, always a delight to be speaking with you. Now you are in the same world as I am. You're an architect, you've you managed and owned a very successful practice in Los Angeles, which you've now sold your equity in and have become a business consultant, a business coach with a very deep kind of philosophy if you like a very human approach to running a business which I resonate very much with, and you and I we've spent many Yeah, I was talking with each other and sharing ideas and, and things in the film were very, you know, very aligned in that sense. And it's, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. And we're going to talk a little bit today about some of the work that you do with your, with your clients, how you help them. And perhaps we'll just jump in there really, with, if you were to describe what it is that you do with clients, how would you explain it to somebody?
Oh, you know, it's interesting, I was going to start with the concept that it's all about a work life balance. But I read a quote, that there's no such thing as a work life balance, it's just life. And I try to help my clients achieve the life that they want now, not what it's going to be in the future. Like, once I build the business, then I can enjoy. There is no gold at the end of the rainbow. So I always use the analogy in the quest for the Holy Grail. That the quest is the Grail. There was no Grail at the end of the quest. Yeah. So to try to have the mindset that this journey that we call life, it's happening now. I, you know, I, for myself has always lived in the future. When I was in high school, I wanted to get to college, when I got to college, I finished in four years, I wanted to get out and work. When I was working. It was be I'll be happy when I have my own firm, when I had my own firm, I'll be happy when I'm married, when I'm married, I'll be happy when I have kids. When I have kids, I'll be happy when they're out of the house. You know, it's it's I was so living in the future, that I'll be happy when. And I try to help my clients understand that, what is the practice that we want to create today? And what are the values that we want to live by that we can just enjoy now? Because that's all there is. And only when I went through my master's in spiritual psychology did I shift that mindset. And even being a type A personality, I constantly love to do and it's hard to just be, I'm realizing that that ability to be so grateful for what we have, that the now is great. And for most of us, you know, if we think about it, we have a house overhead, we have food to eat, we have clothing, we are we have friends, we are so blessed. And if you're the firm owner working for a firm, you have a great opportunity to contribute something meaningful. That's all something to be grateful for. So it's it's it's helping my firms create the life they want now, not in the future.
A very wisdom based approach. I think that's very, uh, yeah, it's a very wise words that you're saying there. And I mean, I speak to lots of architects and it's easy to get caught up in the doing, doing doing being busy. I sometimes refer to what happens to us. As human, we become human doings. And we forget the being the human being. And in you put it beautifully, like we get caught up in the relentless pursuit of a goal, as opposed to using the goal as a Northstar with which is a aid to help us focus on the path that we're treading today. And that's where a goal can become very, very powerful. With with your clients, what do you feel some of the things that they're the biggest challenges that, you know that he leads to this conflict, if you like we're being pulled into future results or pursuit of future results, and then being residing comfortably in the now?
Yeah, so I think part of that is being clear on what I want. And being able to ask for what I want to ask for. I want to have a balanced life. You know, a lot of us don't ask for that are not clear on what we really want. And I believe the foundation of everything is really clear communication. And it starts with yourself. Are you clear with what you want? Are you clear what your goals are? Are you clear with the type of relationship you want the type of firm you want? Are you clear with setting your core values, setting your intention of what is the office that I want to create? So it's it's that ability to Ask for what you want and to know what you want. And are you in alignment with that?
Does knowing what you want? How Does knowing what you want evolve as a process? How do you help people begin that inquiry?
Curious, you know, just asking questions. It's, it's, you know, one exercise we used in our program was to create an ideal scene. And an ideal scene is a very simple exercise on a piece of paper, it started with a heart in the middle and had the words I am and we just do. Lines emanating from that I am speaking in the present moment, with a lot of descriptors, I am joyfully going to work each day doing amazing projects, I am attracting creative clients wanting creative solutions, I am hiring the most talented people to be part of this team. I am joyfully mentoring all my staff, I am lovingly communicating with my clients, it's creating the ideal i i I have a light filled office, on on Main Street, whatever the descriptor is, ask for what you want, create the ideal scene of what you want. This can be an ideal scene for the clients that you attract for the office that you're in for the type of work that you're doing. And this ties back to the power of words power of thought, power of intention. If you put it out there, if you write it down a strategic plan, a business plan is no more than writing down what you want, writing down what you want to achieve. And when we've done that, I mean, five years later, I look back and it's like, oh my god, we achieved it. So it's that same intentionality of just documenting and being clear on what you want. Yeah, and my wife and I, for where we live. Now, you know, we recently moved to Ohio, and we created an ideal scene of what we wanted, and we got it. You've been here. I mean, it's it's beautiful.
Amazing. It's very interesting. You're drawing into attention as well, language, how important languages in this being able to define what it was you want. And the exercise that you just outlined. What draws my, my attention is that you're using very specific adjectives like lovingly or excitedly or passionately or Yes, can you tell us a little bit about the about the specifics of the language that you're encouraging people to use when creating these ideations or these idealized?
The concept is, you want to create the feeling of what you want. So it's not just I want to, I want a large office, you know, what is the feeling that you want from that office? And the adjectives can help you move into that feeling?
It's more than just an intellectual consideration.
Yes, it's energetic. It's the energetic feeling of what it's like to be in that whatever you're trying to create.
Amazing. So how do people know that what they want is a it's really what they want? And B, I'll often speak with people and the just asking, what is it that you want, can suddenly bring up a lot of resistance? There, people are very good, at least defining what they don't want. And that's, and
I was going to mention that that's very important. The universe doesn't understand the negative. So if you say what you don't want, it's going to give you that, not gonna not give you that. So, when you do this exercise, you're always speaking in the positive of what you want, not what you don't want. So I don't want cheap clients, that's going to bring you cheap clients. It doesn't understand the negative. So I want wealthy creative clients who are enthusiastically presenting and CO creating this project with me or, you know, whatever the word is, make it your there's a saying that I love if you're gonna have a future fantasy, at least winning. So we're gonna project into the future let's win in their own future fantasy. I personally have suffered from creating so many negative future fantasies about client calls and I'm thinking, Oh my God, what's, you know, I predict the worst of what's going to happen? Not he's going to say, Oh, my God, Doug, thank you so much. That was an amazing solution. I'm thinking, oh, you know, did I not hit it? Right? Is he upset with something, how quickly we go to the negative rather than the positive. So likewise, in these ideal scenes, always state the positive. And if you're going to have a future fantasy, at least within your own future fantasy.
So I find that quite an interesting concept by how the mind can kind of fixate on things that we don't want, and then unintentionally, we're creating more of what it is that we don't want, because all of our energetic, you know, focus is being applied on to this, you know, thing that we just want to get away from, I've heard people in the past liken it to, you know, it's kind of, you hear of these car crashes that happen and somebody crashes into the only tree for 16 miles around, because they start looking at the one thing that they don't want to hit. And so
true, I mean, that that applies for skiing. When you do ski through the trees, you have to focus on the opening.
Yeah, right. So motorcycles
you you you drive to where you're looking. And so look for the positive look for the opening look for the solution. And you'll be amazed at what happens over time.
And so how do you like, how do you kind of wedge people open to allow them to ask for what number one asked for what they want a number to have? Because it's there's a lot of courage and asking for what you want. Yeah, and, and we can underestimate that as well. It sounds like it's quite an obvious thing to do. But actually, a lot of times we've got a we've got trauma, in not having, you know, in getting what we don't want. And we've got past experience of asking for what we wanted once before and then disappointment. So how do you make it safe? For people to dream and to have courage to ask for what it is they want?
My wife has a line she always uses on me. So so how is that working for you? So life is just an experiment. You know, if it's working, keep it great. If it's not working, something has to change to make a change. So do you want to stay in the pattern that you're in? Or do you want to be curious and just experiment life is just an experiment. So let's try something new. I'm constantly just saying, Let's experiment. Let's do it for three months, I don't know if it's gonna work or not. And once again, I'm never telling my firms or my clients what to do. I'm just saying, hey, let's look at different ideas. Let's find what's in alignment for you. And then let's test it. It's just an experience. You know, this whole life is just a series of experiences. So let's just test try and keep it or try something else.
I like that in it. There's often when pose with the question what it is that you want, people can kind of clam up if you like, with being fearful. It's like they've only got one wish with the genie.
So what do you want today? You know, it can be different tomorrow. It's, let's just play with something. Yeah. And here's the here's, I think one of the challenges for design firms or architecture, firms engineering, I mean, all the AEC type service industry firms. We only have so many at that opportunity. So the analogy I'm using is like baseball or little league or coaching my kids through Little League, you only get better when you have hundreds of chances to practice. In architecture, we only do proposals two a month, three a month. That is not a lot of practice. I mean, some firms do one proposal a month that's 12 a year. Are you going to get better at baseball with 12 swings at a ball? No, you know, so how do we practice and I constantly say in terms of the you know, using the proposal as an example, videotape, tape yourself, present to your friend, videotape it present to you know, family members, whatever to get practice of how are you communicating and sharing and telling your story, your way of doing it your way of selling or communicating? I don't even like the word selling. It's really how are you communicating and sharing your story? And by sharing your story and the value you bring is why someone's going to hire you. But we need we need opportunity we need you know what's that famous Zen saying you know, 10,000 10,000 hours, you become a master after 10,000 hours. So, how many hours are we putting in presenting proposals? Presenting schemes? I mean, it's so it's minor. So,
in practice, let's look at a kind of CEO of an architecture firm, and you've warmed them up, they've had the courage to dream a little bit, and to actually start to commit something down. In, you know, here's they're starting to craft where it is they want to go and what it is that they want, what are some of the most common obstacles to those goals that you see, found owners dealing with?
Interesting, I'm going to throw back to you, what have you found? Let me hear what you're thinking. And I'll see what others can be there. You know, it's, I think fear is a big part. I think it comes down to, we all have an inner voice in our head. So if we get on a spiritual level, I believe there we are divine beings using this human experience, as divine beings. The spark inside of us that is divine, is from the oneness. And the analogy I use is the ocean, if we take a cup of water out of the ocean, that's still the ocean. Yeah, the cup is our vessel. So I think of ourselves as consciousness connected to the whole, our body is the vessel, when we go, it all goes back to consciousness. So from that perspective, that is the inner spark. In addition, we have an ego. The ego is a inner voice that is either going to be a cheerleader, or a critic, typically, a cheerleader or a critic of our we're going to simplify it, the sole purpose of the ego is to keep is to help us survive, it's going to do anything possible to help us survive some of those inner voices. And I found for most creatives, I feel the inner voice is more of a critic than a cheerleader. For those of you that your inner voice is a cheerleader, that's fantastic. But I have found most creatives the inner voice as a critic, you could do more, you could do better, you could do it again. You know, let's push harder. Let's you know, it's it's that's not good enough. I mean, let's do another version. It's always that that critical voice versus Oh, my God, that is a brilliant idea. You know, let's just explore a little bit. I mean, it's very different those two voices. Yeah. So I think helping the help helping my clients become aware that when that critic voice is coming up, to be able to pause and say, Hey, that has served me really well up into now. But let's shift that. And let's just say, Let's try something different. And I talk about four levels of consciousness. There's unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. So it's going through that progression, when we're just not aware of that inner voice, when we're not aware of the patterns that have been going on inside of us. That's unconscious incompetence. When we can first become aware and catch ourselves, oh my God, that's my inner voice criticizing, or Oh, my God, that's a pattern that's holding me back. To be aware of that is conscious incompetence. conscious competence, is to take that inner voice and to be able to talk to it in the moment, and to then shift right in that moment. But you're still thinking of that shift. So that's conscious competence. unconscious competence is a professional athlete that is just in the flow. He's not thinking of what he's doing. It's just he's just consciously competent. Yeah. And when we can shift, and just be aware that we're, we made a choice. That's the first step. And just to be able to listen to our thoughts, and, and that's part of meditation. I mean, meditation is not blocking your thoughts. I always talk about meditation as letting them come and letting them go, being the witness to just see what's going on to have that awareness of the neutral observer, almost outside of your head to be looking in and saying, Oh, my God, where did that thought come from? You know, what's the pattern? What's the thread if we carried that back to our childhood, where that started from? And it's just beautiful to play with all of that. So there's no one method of how do I work with clients it's taking. I don't know if anyone remembers Felix the Cat and hid his baggage. corrects, I mean, an old cartoon from the 60s is dating me. But it's having this bag of tricks that we have to try different things with different people. And everyone hears something differently. Even if you go to the same lecture year after year, you're going to pick up something different from it. So everyone's ready at their own time to progress at their own level. That's
very interesting, I would echo that sentiment about the kind of the challenges that I'll often see with, with people with their set their own goals. One is, number one, actually being able to set a goal, or define what it is that you want. And that takes some courage. And it's an iterative process. And, and immediately, people are kind of met with internal resistance and hang ups and not possible. And then the pursuit of the goal or the accomplishments of what they want them the immediate HandBrake is often exactly what you're describing here. It's these unconscious paradigms, beliefs, the inner tyrant who comes out and criticism and criticizes, and many people are, they love, they kind of allow the inner tyrant to run completely free. And many of us have been brought up in a, in a situation or with a childhood where tyranny of some form or another has been the way to produce a result. And we've kind of just learnt that as a, as a internal mechanism, its intention is good. And I'll often kind of encourage people to look at the intention of it, because these, these characters of our psyche are often they're trying to look after us. They are 100%. And, and they did something in the past, and it worked once. And now they're trying to use the same old trick again, and again and again. And actually, it's now operating like a handbrake. And
the other word, I use a self sabotage, right? You're getting in our own way. Yeah.
And it's interesting that many people are not aware of how we do this, or are in denial, that it's actually happening. And there could be like, a, an aggressive pursuit of give me the systems give me the give me the tools, those are all very powerful and useful, but they are underpinned by routines and disciplines to use the tools and routines and disciplines are underpinned by beliefs and paradigms and mindset, and the this, this reflective nature, of being able to see your own subjective experience, and the mechanisms of your own thinking, because that's really, very, you know, it's so powerful when people start to recognize, you know, how am I relating to my team members, I'm constantly thinking about my team members, and what they're useless, they're out of touch this generation, that it wasn't like this, when I, that is a whole net, it's now a big paradigm that you're interacting through people, and they're, they're locked into it now. You know, good, you know, what does it like for them to kind of be trying to interact with you, and they're gonna have their own picture of you in their minds
not to put your baggage on them? Hmm. So everything that's happened in my life up until now, everything that's happened in everyone's life, is creating a filter through the lens of which we look at everyone else. So outer experience, is a reflection of inner reality, outer experience, so what's happening outside of us, is just a reflection of how we're holding anything inside. The only reality is what's inside of each of us, everyone has a different reality. So if you can be as clear as you can, and as loving as you can, in your own inner reality, if you love yourself, it's going to be easier to love others. If you're hard on yourself, you're typically going to be hard on others. If you beat yourself up, you're going to beat up others, if you're a bully to yourself, you're going to be a bully to others. If you're in your loving, if you're grateful, if you're in gratitude and joy, if you're happy, you're gonna see that and other people. So outer experience is a reflection of inner reality. So the healing has to occur in each of us. So it's, it's, you have to do the work to heal that that part of you that is holding on to a story that blames other people. If you blame other people, there's a part of you that's blaming yourself. So everything is is just a mirror. It's just a reflection of what's going on inside of you.
I think this is a very common thing that we'll see in architecture practices and firm owners having either projecting their own insecurities onto team members. And it is it is a complex you know Dynamic in an architecture practice. And there is the expectation in architecture practice of, you know where profession, there is an element of mentoring that happens and people looking for guidance and stewardship. And there's I mean, I really liked that about architectures that the most architects are always quite happy to help younger members of the team. There's a lot of fulfillment that comes from that. And I think that's a very precious thing about the industry. But then there's also, you know, certainly in modern leadership that we're seeing, like an ever increasing generational gap that can occur. And, you know, the perception of entitlement and this wasn't like that this in my day. And practice owners being unnecessarily cruel, shall we say? And not knowing the difference between Craig creating a culture of empowered accountability versus kind of punitive fear based, just get something getting something done, which is very corrosive to to a practice? Yes,
yes. So you're brought up the concept of accountability, which I am seeing is a real issue with firm owners of how do we make the junior staff feel accountable, versus just a cog in the wheel or just not taking ownership of their work? And it's, it's I think it really comes from a culture of mentoring and education. So it's up to the firm owner to really be clear on what the expectations are. And to really once again, clear communication, defining, you know, even when you hire them, what does it mean to work at this company? And that even comes back to core values? I mean, the importance of core values is to really clarify, is this person a right fit to work for our office? And not everyone's going to be a right fit? If you are going to work on the in this office? This is what we expect from everyone? And what does ownership look like? So ownership, it could be and I think one of the best ways to help junior staff are to have checklists and systems in place. So they know, what is supposed to be on every sheet, what is the expectation of a floor plan? What's the expectation of a, of an elevation, and to have a system that shows them this is what a schematic design looks like, on all these sheets.
Very, it's very interesting. We were doing an exercise not so long ago with some of the practice leaders and, and our smart practice program. And everybody was complaining about entitled team members. And we reversed the question over, it was like a whole day long seminar that we were doing. And we ended up reversing the question. And ultimately, we were getting people to look at, well, where am I entitled? Where am I? Where am I being entitled for me to be able to see everyone else's being entitled, and it was so fascinating, because it started to bring up some quite powerful revelations of people recognizing Well, actually, I'm very entitled in what I expect from these people who are working in my team, and what they should and shouldn't be doing and how much they should be committed and how many hours they should be putting in. And actually, that entitlement is exactly what you're saying is that kind of reflecting of your inner your inner world is now being projected onto other people. And sometimes when it's part of your own inner world that you haven't accepted or you're not familiar with, or you're you don't have good energy about, let's put it that way. Then now we're getting frustration from our what we're perceiving is our external reality. And then that breaks down communication.
That is such a universal truth of what you just said. I mean, typically when we see something negative in others, is because we have an aspect of that inside herself.
Deep was very deep. So in terms of accountability, and kind of nurturing that as a culture. You're saying systems processes, this is the kind of framework for fun actually in the tools for having it. What it in terms of mentoring or coaching or like a leadership style, or a communication style do you think is very effective?
You know, I think a communication style that is curious. I'm loving the word curious lately. So being curious, it's very different to ask. I'm cute. As why you chose this versus that just doesn't work? Or versus, you know, why do you do it this way? Just adding I'm curious as to your your thought can shift the perception dramatically from someone being defensive to someone being excited to share with you why they thought this. So just phrasing it, you know, I'm curious what your thought was here, without any judgment. Now, once again, people can perceive the energetic feeling, without the word without using a judgmental word. So when you're saying, I'm curious, you have to be clean inside yourself, like I have to be clean inside myself. So I'm not holding a negative energy that is coming across. So there's that famous Japanese doctor that did the water experiment where he wrapped bottles of water with different words. And then he froze the water crystals. And the bottles that were wrapped with positive words. You're beautiful. I love you. Were beautiful crystals. And the words, the crystals that were wrapped around words that were negative, were deformed. And if you haven't seen that, just just Google, Japanese water crystal study. It was brilliant, you know, the one I'm referring to? Yes,
yes, I've seen I've seen it. Yeah. So I
always tell my clients, when you're writing an email, if you're angry, put it on pause, because that anger is going to come across, energetically in the email. And when you communicate, if you're truly frustrated, pause, you know, go for a walk, shift. Because if you communicate from that place of that energetic place, whether you use the words or not, the other person is going to feel the energy.
Very powerful. I mean, it's kind of, you know, I'm just thinking about my myself here. And sometimes, you know, how careful I have to be certainly, if I'm recording something, that's why it was very nice. Before we started this, we had a little moment of silence, and we had a had a clearing and got connected, that, you know, unconsciously, we're where we are, we're picking up all these frustrations, we've got these kinds of mechanisms going around and our own our own head. And we can unintentionally just sort of be projecting them. And if we're recording and communicating, we have other people underneath our, our leadership, if you like, we can end up magnifying our own experience, unintentionally, and certainly our insecurities. And again, it's kind of pointing back to the the importance of real self awareness and taking the time of reflection in your own leadership. And more and more we're seeing, you know, kind of contemporary writings on leadership and growth and successes. It's, it's there, it's always kind of pointing towards this maturity, if you like this maturity of the leader to be
humanistic approach to leadership. Yeah, really takes into account. The emotional intelligence, I think is so critical, rather than just the skill set or the strictly intellectual approach versus the emotional approach. Yeah.
So what does being authentic mean to you? We hear this phrase being used when it's talking in regards to leadership, like being authentic, being authentic in the way that we're communicating. What does that mean for you?
So authentic means in alignment with who I truly am. I mean, if you are sarcastic, and you try to hide it, people are gonna see right through it. So it's just really I grew up east coast, very preppy, very, very sarcastic. It took and I realized in hindsight after, you know, therapy in my 20s, that that was a separator that pushed people away, that kept me distant and you know, from not having more intimate conversations. And it was very hard to hide that. So it's only once I was able to heal that I could have more intimate, honest, authentic, vulnerable conversations, because I became a more vulnerable, authentic person. And I'm still working on that. I mean, I still don't always say what I want say what I mean. I'm afraid of hurting other people. I'm afraid of not asking for what I want. You know, it's It's a lifelong growing exercise. You know, we're all we're all in this together, none of us are perfect. None of us have mastered this. But it's just becoming aware, when I do make a mistake, I can catch myself a lot quicker. Still in different levels of those four levels of consciousness, you know, I still go unconscious at times. And I don't even know why I said that. And then other times I catch it in the moment and correct myself in the moment. And other times I make the right choice, not the right choice. I don't even want to use the word right or wrong. I make a choice that feels in alignment with who with the person I want to be.
Yeah, yeah,
I think it's okay, I think it's okay to, to say this is the person I want to be it's okay to change. And to have an ideal leader, an ideal mentor, and to grow into those characteristics that you want to try to achieve.
I think that's really, again, quite an aligned enlightened approach to be able to, again, self reflect asks the question, what is my authentic self, recognize that there are habitual ways of acting and being that we've picked up, maybe there, again, survival mechanisms. And I think what's interesting, like being sarcastic was having a sense of humor. That's something that we can very deeply identify with, like, we latch our entire personality on to that kind of trait. Well, that's just who I am. And if anybody else, you know, it takes a lot of skill to for somebody, certainly an external person to kind of question you around that. And it takes a lot of courage for you to question it yourself. And and realize that's not, that's actually that's a divider that's actually keeping me
that's not where I want to be. Yes, yeah.
It kind of comes back to this first question. of, you know, what do you want? And underpinning that, what do you want is, who do I want to be? Yes,
yes. And I am a living example of you can change from who you were to who you want to be in the future. You know, you're not stuck with the, you're not stuck as a person. We all evolve, we all can change. And you know, some people say, Oh, I can't change, he can't change, you know, they can't change. People can't change. It's just making the effort if you really want to make it happen.
I'm interested in this. Actually, I'm with you, specifically, because I've known you for a while and I've only known this version of darkness. If you were to look back on how you used to eat when you were practicing as an architect and as a leader. What are you most impressed with in terms of how you've evolved and changed and things that you will realize?
I got a lot angrier in the past. And I would express that anger and the anger came out of frustration. And my emotions, I emoted my emotions. And I'm not saying don't emote your emotions, but I have fewer triggers. So in the past, everything triggered me, not everything. A lot of things triggered me in the past, that I'm simply not triggered by now. You know, even, you know, big disappointments. It's okay, that happened. Let's deal with it. Even at our house, you know, things break their brand new roof leaked. And, you know, I didn't get angry. I just said, Okay, let's, let's deal with this. And I always say the leaders that I admire, most stay neutral in the face of adversity. That when adversity happens, they ask the question, let's gather all the information. And what is the best decision I can make today. And that decision might change tomorrow. But there's no emotion associated with it. Not that they're, I don't want to equate not having emotion to not being emotional, to not, I don't know how to say the words. It just means in, in, in the business situation. And even in relationships. If someone is if I'll use my wife, when she gets really angry at me, it's easy for me to get triggered and get angry back. Yeah, the beauty is to be able to witness it and say, Oh, my God, I see you're really angry. I'm sorry for what I did that contributed to that and to acknowledge what that specific action was versus to just respond with the anger. And I think in business There are constant triggers. But to be able to say, Okay, I see that is a trigger, I see you're very upset. What can I do? A classic example would be a client called me up, that was so frustrated with the consultant and I recommend the consultant and you're screwing up the project. He's letting me down. And my first response was, I hear you, I hear how frustrated you are, I completely agree that he let you down. Give me a day. Let me see what I can learn from this. And I'll get back to you with some some options. Rather than being defensive. No, it's not his fault. You're being unrealistic. just acknowledging I hear you I hear your frustration, because anyone's emotion is true. There's never you can never negate someone's emotional outbursts, because that's true to them where they are. So I hear you, I hear I can see how upset you are. But not to be triggered back not to get defensive. And it's the ability to stay neutral in the face of adversity is brilliant. Yeah. And hard to do. Yeah, yeah. Especially when it triggers your core values, especially when it triggers some childhood trauma that's not yet resolved. But as much of this childhood trauma that we can resolve, can allow us to not be triggered by that anymore.
I think it's, yeah, it's fascinating, actually, when I know myself, when I look at my own relationship, for example, and there are certain, it's almost like automatic conversations, which I probably should have been able to see happening a mile off. And we're in that conversation, then something said, and then I go into some kind of automated manner that blah, blah, blah, some Sonos, I watched the words come out of my mouth, and you're like, oh, whatever, why, why did you just and then and then it keeps on coming. And there's this sort of out of body experience of, you just need to stop this. But then other than that, and it's almost like out there other than that now, and now it escalates. And it's kind of like, you've rehearsed some of that escalation, or it's just, it's just a trigger, and being able to interrupt it and get out of it in the moment is, yes, that is the sign of a leader and what we should be aspiring towards. Yeah. And
part of my coaching is to do 360s over a situation, we we can't change how one of my clients reacted, we can use it as a learning opportunity to look at what might have been a different response. I took improv class for three years, I'd loved it. In the first year, every time I drive home from class, I'm replaying Oh, my God, I could have said that, I could have said that I could have said that. And, you know, after you practice, and you look back, you just become more natural in the moment to be in alignment with the person you want to be, and to be present. And I love improv for the universal truths that it that it practices, you know, the number one is Be present be in the gray space. Yeah, support your partners. Yes. And you never negate anything? Yes. And so if a client said something, you know, the first response is, yes, let me look at that. Or Yes. And I think we can build on it's not no, that's not a good idea. My partner was brilliant at Yes, ending with clients.
What would you recommend, or advice for team members? So let's say that you're, you're in a team and you've got a dysfunctional leader, shall we put it or somebody who's coming at you a lot and you're really feeling kind of you know, you're in difficult situation? How do you advise younger members of the team to step into their own accountability and being authentic and kind of, you know, the same sort of advice that we're giving to the leaders of the practice practices here with, you know, many employees are not blessed with having a leader of a practice who's being coached by Douglas. So what would what would you suggest, well, how to adjust.
Picking your firm's you're interviewing the firm, as well as them interviewing you. If you're in a firm with a leader that's not in alignment with your core values and who you want to be? Change firms. If the leader is time and time again, not reflecting the vision that you want to see in terms of attitude and mentorship and leadership, there are a lot of great firms out out there, do your research on the firm you want to work for, and go after the firm don't feel oh my god, I'm so happy to be gay to get a job to find who you are and find a firm that fits that. Beautiful, I think it's very hard to change. Once again, it's very hard to be a junior person in a firm that doesn't have the leadership that you would like it to have to expect it to change. Do your best to find the firm that has the leadership that you want.
Yeah, and I think this is a this is a very powerful wake up call, actually, for a lot of architecture business owners is that, you know, there's a I hear a lot of complaint around how difficult it is to hire people at the moment. There is career advisors, what they teach at university even, which encourages younger members of a team to, you know, go diagonal in their career path and swapped jobs every couple of years and can go somewhere. And part of the antidote, if you like, of developing a nurturing talent, is being the kind of leader that you're describing. Because people can then start to settle down and see something far more beneficial to them as human beings, where it's worth and sticking around. And
sticking to that specifically, all firm owners should be able to clearly demonstrate a path forward within their organization. You know, what are the steps that a person from a junior to an associate partner can? What are those steps to get to partnership? And being very clear on what that looks like? Like that, not that Yeah,
amazing. Douglas. I think that's the perfect place for us to conclude the conversation in lightning. As always, thank you so much for your time and expertise and contributions. You know how much I enjoy speaking with you.
Thank you as well It flies by and that's
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