Sometimes breakdowns and conflict can cause breakthroughs. Hello, architect nation Welcome back. This is the show where you'll discover tips, strategies and secrets for running a profitable and impactful architectural practice. Have you ever had trouble finding an architectural photographer who can really make your project shine? Today's episode is sponsored by renowned architectural photographer Tobin Davies Tobin Davies eliminates the hassle by travelling to your location to create the stunning photographs your project deserves. And we are happy to support him here on the Business of Architecture podcast, visit Tobin davies.com, or Bayway photos.com, to book a shoot in less than 10 minutes, and ask about the special offer for Business of Architecture podcast listeners. Again, that's Tobin, davies.com, or Bo a photos.com. Today, Ryan and I are excited to bring to you the second half of our conversation about when team members eff up again, which is running a small practice, let's face it, you're managing team members, you're managing people who are growing in the professions and their careers. And this can be a real struggle to get to the place of freedom, fulfillment and exceptional financial reward that you deserve as a firm owner. So last week, we ended up talking about some of the typical problems we saw, Ryan had ended up talking about this brilliant story from Henry Ford, where some reporters were accusing him or basically heckling him that he didn't have, how could he possibly do all this great stuff when he doesn't have the knowledge himself? And he said, Well, I have a button on my desk. And within five minutes, I can get pretty much the answer to any question because I hire a team around me. So last week, we talked about some of the problems that happen. When you're working with a team, when you have a team we talked about, you know, team members lacking initiative, they're too scared to make decisions, they're always waiting for you, this results in you becoming the bottleneck. Oftentimes, you feel like it's quick, yourself to just do it. And so you're creating your own prison again, because again, everyone needs you to be able to take a decision forward. You're constantly in fear about sending out bad information, which this may keep you up at night, it may stress you out, it means that when you're out and about managing business tasks, meeting with clients putting out fires, the office goes on standstill, your team has now joined an online Pornhub site. And they're all watching the latest videos. While you're out there trying to figure out, you know how the detail connects for the contractor and you come back and you're surprised that no work has been done, which ultimately leads to resentment. And this is you know, what's happening? Right? You know, you know, come on. This is why you must have filtering software. And yeah,
exactly. I'd love to hear stories of people who have caught their employees with porn. Questionable
stuff, we would love to hear Yeah, we'd love to hear if you've had if you've heard of this or done it yourself. We will keep you anonymous. Right. And what's the craziest thing you've done on shift will be we'll have a little episode around that. So yeah, please, that'd
be brilliant. It'd be things you've ever done yourself or things you've caught people doing in your office?
What's what's the what's the shittiest thing you've done, right?
I slept in my office one.
That one's That one's got to be very common because I was about
to say, that was Menominee people sleep in their office because they are working hard. I slept in the office because I lost this was a long time ago. Okay, you've, you've mended your ways. I've I've I've redeemed myself and I've had a I've had a renaissance of my life. Okay, yes. But long time ago, I lost my keys. For an hour I went and I went on the night out and I must have been a little bit and Newbury ated. And I lost my keys. And I went back to the office that I was working at because I thought I'd left them there. And this was in the early days of when I was dating my current wife to be and couldn't find the keys and had nowhere to sleep. So I had to sleep in the office. Okay, okay. slept under the
desk. So that's not that bad. I thought you were saying you slept on shift?
No, no. Oh, geez. Well, I mean, I was I was
falling asleep on shift and my first job right out of school. I would get so drowsy right after lunch because I have like kind of this this hypoglycemia thing happening where like carbs if I eat the wrong thing I just get so sleepy my I just like difficult. So there was time when I caught little cat naps. Fortunately, it was just a two person office. So my employer at the time, he was very aware I kind of talked about it. I wasn't I wasn't like trying to hold a secret or anything. And he said hey look, I get it if you need to take a little catnap. I understand. I mean obviously I'm tracking how much work is getting done so we can get through it. And he's not even if you need to take a break and school on your cell phone or play solitaire for five minutes. I fully support that. But we had that kind of relationship but let's see the shortest thing I would have done. I've always been pretty straight arrow but I know at one of my practices again to deal with that like after afternoon dip, I would get so sleepy I would go into the bathroom and But laid down, I'd set like a single person bathroom and I would lie down on the floor for five minutes, I would just set my timer. And I would just lie down and kind of try to meditate and try to like, wear off the foggy buzz because I knew I wasn't going to be worthwhile to anyone. So that was probably the most questionable things I did.
As far as not too bad, not too bad. I mean, generally, when I was in practice, as a younger, a younger architect, most of my misdemeanors would have been just either coming in late. And doing that repeatedly. Yeah. Browsing the internet,
certainly did plenty of that that's true. And do that. And perhaps router can browse the
internet while taking very long lunches when I shouldn't have been taking a long lunch. Yeah,
that's true. Well, actually, interestingly enough, I actually was fired from one of my positions. And I talked about this, like, when I started my practice, I was literally fired from my position. Right, as about I was starting Business of Architecture. So I was starting to love the content. And I was so excited about this idea of the Business of Architecture. Every morning, I would get up around 5am In the morning, and I would work on the blog, and I would work on researching, you know, just about the business side of architecture. And social media was exploding at that time. And so I would schedule all my social media posts to go out while I was at work, right. So I didn't have to interact with them, because I didn't feel that I knew I didn't want to be there like doing my own social media posts. And occasionally, you know, people would send me DMS. So I might respond to them when I was on shift, but I wouldn't ever, you know, literally work on a social media post while I'm on the clock. However, my employers, they didn't know that. And they didn't know there was such a thing as scheduling software to schedule these social media posts. So of course, they call it on my content. And they were on vacation for a week, and they literally came back and they were like, still in their vacation out there in their vacation clothes. And they're like, Enoch, we need to see you in the conference room. And I was like, oh, okay, I'm like, wow, that's this kind of sudden. And then they're like, yeah, we've seen you know, for the past week, we've just been watching, you know, every hour, you're posting the social media posts, and, you know, we pay you to be here on the job and doing the projects. And that's totally unacceptable. And we're gonna have to let you go. And I was like, at the time, I was just I kind of almost chuckled a little bit, which probably wasn't the right response. But I said, Oh, I was like, Oh, my goodness, wow, I'm so sorry. It seems like, it seems like there's been a misunderstanding. Like, I never do that on shift. I have a scheduling software that does that. I do it off hours, it's running on autopilot. And when I'm here, I'm trying to get the work done. You know, yeah, that's what I'm doing. Um, they ended up letting me go anyways, because there were some other other issues behind the scenes. The personality stuff. Yeah. As a personality things, I think, you know, there was there were some hurt feelings, because I think they were looking for someone to take over the practice, eventually. And they were kind of counting on me to do that. And I at the time, wasn't really feeling like, like a cultural fit there. I wanted to start my own practice. And I had talked about that on my blog, and everything. So I think there was some of that where they felt like I wasn't really being grateful for the awesome opportunity I had there. Plus, one of our projects had gotten put on hold. And so suddenly, the income was a lot less, and I was the highest paid employee there. So kind of a number of factors came together. I'm glad they did it, though. I'm glad they fired me, it was really difficult when it happened. But looking back Business of Architecture probably would not have been here. If they didn't let me go. Because I don't know if I would have had the Kahunas to, like, break out on my own.
Well, it's interesting, isn't it, they they're kind of, you know, being let go from positions are actually, you know, pushes you in the right direction that you're supposed to be going in. And I certainly look back and, you know, when I hear stories of what our clients are dealing with, with their team members, I quote, you know, I've also got the experience of having been a team member, as well as being a practice owner, and know what it was like to be in an office where you were having the soul sucked out of you. Well, that was your experience. Yeah. And, you know, there's a, there's a whole load of stuff going on, which is, you know, was my responsibility and how I was performing. And also that age, sometimes you don't care. It's not really, that it's not really that important for you, and you're in a, you're in a phase of discovery. And this is also interesting, because, you know, we see a lot of businesses, that they don't do any, they've got such strong expectations of like, you should be grateful for this job. And I certainly think that younger generations that the Gen Z is and the younger men, younger millennials, they do have a lot of other options available to them. This is a this is a cultural difference. And it's real, you know, look at you for example, you you had had the option of podcasts and podcasts and likewise, it was me with this whole other world was starting to open up of, of digital information and different ways of making a making a career. And I think the architecture industry needs to kind of be aware of of that as well. That that what is it? What does it start to look like to create A company culture which is compelling and filled a vision and has people want to be performing at their best, what does it take to have people performing at their, at their absolute? At the best that they can they can give? What's that? What's our role and responsibility of creating a space where people can do that? Well, oh,
this is this is part of it. Right? You, you and I, before this call, we were talking about conflict, and how sometimes breakdowns and conflict can cause breakthroughs? Yes. And I told her I told the story in a previous podcast of I met this guy who owns 50 McDonald's franchises, it was amazing. I mean, like, first of all, I'm not a fan of McDonald's. I don't eat there. I'm a fan of that. From a business perspective. The story is incredible. You know, he told me that his favorite hamburgers actually in and out so you know, but the point was, I was asking him, yeah, he knew. He told me that he knew that he needed to build teams that was mission critical if he wasn't gonna succeed with his first McDonald's because it was losing money. He needed to learn how to build teams. And part of that what he told me said, Well, how'd you do that? He said, Well, the first thing is, I learned to love firing people. He's like, I love firing people. I love firing people. And I was I leaned in with curiosity, instead of judging him, Oh, you're horrible capitalists, I can't believe it. You're exploiting all these young kids. I was like, I lean in with the curiosity. Tell me more. What do you mean, tell me about it's a very interesting, he's like, I really care about people. And if they're not meeting the expectations and standards that we set, and they're very, very high, then it's a learning opportunity for them in their life, to go learn somewhere else, and to have a little wake up call. So he's like, so I really relish that as a mentoring opportunity. And the minute I feel like someone's not meet, they're underperforming, then they're out. So there's part of this, here's a firm owner, Ryan and Ryan, just the other day this week, we were talking with another one of our friends, who is also a coach and consultant to architects will remain unnamed. But he said that as as architects we are generally people pleasers, which another word for a people pleaser as a conflict avoider. So this attribute of being this people pleaser, if it impacts our teams, it impacts how we run our office, it impacts how we run our teams. And it's actually it can be cancerous. To the proper functioning of a good team. There's so many leadership lessons that are overlooked, when we're just going into it with our natural skills and abilities. Which is why something like leadership training and coaching can make a huge improvement for you as a firm owner, you know, oftentimes we find people that come into smart practice the first year, they get phenomenal transformation, because we're picking up all the all the low hanging fruit, it's like they just make a couple switches and the way they lead and the way they do their accounting and the way they sell. And they have massive results. After that, it's a law of diminishing returns, right. And year two, they may get good results. But it may not be as impactful as the first year was, when they're in year three, they've kind of matured a bit more. And it's you know, they're really honing into certain to like put the finishing touches on the marble statue. But you can't be afraid to hire people like Sorry, fire or hire, you know, which is difficult, I've I have people pleasing streak in me, it's something I've had to deal with, and is certainly reduced my effectiveness as a business person is is you know, when I lean on that old pattern and habit of trying to make everyone happy?
Well, I got I gotta say, it's interesting when we're dealing with practice owners, and sometimes like, even this morning, we were talking with somebody. And from our perspective, now we don't have the, the kind of human relationship that this business owner had with their member of staff, and listening to the results that this person was producing, and the, you know, the kind of what, so of what had been happening and their performance and their attitude, it was very clear, well, this doesn't sound like it's a fit. This doesn't sound like it's a relationship that's, that's working anymore. Whereas the business owner was very deeply involved in the life and all of the personal problems that this particular individual was having. And this, and this happens totally under understand, like, you know, when you're there is that relationship, you now become enrolled in their problems, and their relationships that are breaking down or their health issues. And I'm not saying that we're meant to be completely uncompassionate people, we now end up taking this we end up kind of guilting it's difficult, it's a difficult relationship, because now you feel like you're responsible for this person, and you now need to pay for ticket for them to be helped getting help. But then there isn't any kind of exchange back in your way. You know, so they're, they're no longer producing any results. They're no longer working. They're no longer doing X, Y and Z and that that becomes quite unbalanced. I'll often hear our, you know, business owners that we talk with, they'll say something along the lines of, I'm paying, I'm paying for 20 More mortgages. And I've said this before in the podcast, no, you're not you're paying people to do your job. And they can choose to use the money to, to pay their mortgage or not. You're not paying their mortgages. That's that's a kind of false position that you have around around how much authority or power you have, if you like, on that person.
Well, and it's a different reframe, like, certainly, it can feel, I get that it can feel very overwhelming to feel like we're paying someone's mortgages, and certainly they're depending on us, but also understanding it's a give and take relationship, and they're providing profit for our practice. So leadership, leadership isn't easy, right? It's not easy. One of the most difficult parts about leadership, like going back to that conversation we had earlier today, Ryan, was that it's difficult to see the facts of the situation when we're involved in them, which is why something like smart practice is so powerful for the firm owners, because they're able to be an environment where they begin to see these things, other people can give them this information that they might be blind to. And instead of having to repeat the same patterns for years and years and years, and never actually be aware, they have a mirror that can be held up someone like ourselves a coach, a mentor, who can say, hey, look, you know, this is what I'm hearing here, and we can help them see the truth of that. And then they make the radical shifts in the business. So, Ryan, if we had to summarize this episode up on the on the the topic of why, you know, my team members effed up again, what would you say would be our top our summary here today, and
I think, perhaps paint a picture of what it looks like with a fully functional team. So that people that people have now a target and have something in mind, rather than the kind of complaint to be moving towards. So imagine a team where you've got team members who are taking complete ownership, they're proactive, they're enthusiastic, they're passionate, and they're experienced, that'd be the first one. That you've got the ability in your business to make things happen. Okay, so you and it's not an it's not through enormous effort, but it's through, you have an idea. You speak it into existence, it gets done. That's a very, that's a good definition of power. Imagine your team being in they're not just good at what they do. Not just being in a zone of competence, but actually, they're in a zone of their own genius. Okay, so you go into your office, and you're like, Wow, that's amazing what they did, I couldn't have done that. Shit. That's, that's, that's true. Actually. You're inspired by your team? You're inspired by your team?
Yeah, they take Yeah, you. You're like, I wouldn't even thought of that myself. That's amazing. I'm so glad you did that. Well, excellent solution. Absolutely.
I imagine a team where you can sleep well, there's no fear of being sued, you know, that, you know, Joey and Simon and, and Lucy, they've got everything handled, they've got 100% integrity with dealing with the client, they know how to make the client happy, they know how to make sure that the project is delivered. And you can you can take some time off, you can have a vacation not be disturbed, and in fact that their business operates even better whilst you're gone. Yeah, I think that's a good little pictures. Good.
I love it. Ryan. Thank you. Yeah, we have you brought that to mind vacation, we have something here at Business of Architecture called the Vacation Club, where when people are a certain level with us and working through smart practice, they have a milestone which is they'll be able to take a month long vacation without any interruptions or at least a two week vacation and have everything working on autopilot while they're gone not have to check their email. And so we call it the Vacation Club, it's a it's a great place to be as a firm owner. And that's only possible when you've hired the right people in the right spots. And let's face it, this helps everything about the business go better, you sleep at night better, your relationships with your family are better because you're not preoccupied. Your bank account increases, but it takes the mindset of investment. In terms of spending money on employees, you can't see it as a cost. It's got to be an investment. Yeah, absolutely.
I think we could do another podcast on like the process of hiring and the process of developing a vision and even the process of communicating that vision to the team and helping develop a vision for your team members. Or I mean, all of each of those is a podcast in itself or several podcasts. They go,
yeah, we'll put those. We'll put those for future episodes. Ryan. Great as always, and those of you who are listening for more on the smart practice method, and how you can go from architectural prison to architectural passion and Paradise. Head over to smart practice. method.com 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. Have you ever been frustrated with architectural photographers who aren't reliable or don't capture your projects the way that you'd hoped? Visit taupe and davies.com or buhay photos.com to book renowned architectural photographer Tobin Davies to photograph your next project. Tobin Davies travels to your location and specializes in architectural photography for modern design focused architecture. Again, visit Tobin davies.com, or BOE photos.com To get more information or book your shoot today and tell him you heard about him here on the podcast for a complimentary package upgrade. The views expressed on the show by my guests do not represent those of the hosts and I make no representation, promise guarantee pledge warranty, contract, bond or commitment except to help you conquer the world. QRP Diem
