The pitfalls of informality

The workplace--architectural and otherwise--has changed radically in terms of formality in the last twenty or so years. Suits and ties have given way to khakis and jeans, typed letters are being replaced by emails, and even language itself has slid into a casual territory. Colleagues call each other "Dave" and "Becky" instead of "Mr. Swenson" and "Ms. McNeal". "Sir" and "ma'am" have been replaced with "yeah", "hey man", "yo, lady", "sure thing", and "no problem". 

While there's a certain ease and indeed relief to be associated with this new informality, let us not follow that slippery slope down to an absence of respect, for our clients, our consultants, and our colleagues. A client recently emailed an intern and me for a rendering image to be included in some marketing and fundraising materials. The intern sent back the image to the client with just this in the body of the email: "Here you go." 

Yikes. 

This is not your aunt or your friend. That's right--your client is not your friend, they're your acquaintance at best. You don't get falling-down drunk in front of them, you don't make yo-mama jokes to them, and you definitely don't dash off three words to them in an email. The intern and I discussed this, and the next email in which the client asked for something got this response from her: "Mark, attached is the file you requested. Please let us know if you need anything else. Thanks, Sandy." Much better.

The formality--even and especially from interns--reminds my intern's client that even with her young age, she went to college, is a properly-trained professional, and she respects the fact that he cuts the checks that keep our lights on and doors open. Furthermore, an email that looks like someone took the time to write actual, coherent sentences subtly tells the client that the writer also takes his/her time when working on other things, like floor plans and details, renderings, meeting notes, and so on. 

Casualness in the workplace is overall a good move. Keeping a little formality in your business writing is also a good move, and it's just good business.

Playing well with others

I hated group work in school and in college. I hated the fact that I seemed to get grouped up with a bunch of people who were either clueless or incompetent, or worse, they outright wanted to team up with me because they figured they could coast while I busted my ass to get my/our A. Funny that I now work in a profession that is nothing but teamwork. There's a design team in my office, consisting of landscape architects, interior designers, planners, exterior designers and architects, and project managers. There's a full design team outside my office, consisting of various engineers and other consultants. There's a team of clients and users that we have to work with to get the project designed. And then there's a team of contractors and subcontractors who actually use my drawings to build the stuff the client asked for and we drew.

When teams work, it's beyond awesome; but when they don't work...oh, dear God in heaven, make the pain stop. A few things to remember when working on a design team,with other architects, designers, and engineers:

• It's inevitable that we're going to be on teams, and we need to make the teams work as best as we can. Ignoring or just not engaging with your colleagues isn't going to make the project better, and it isn't going to make them go away. Talk design ideas, details, and plan ideas through with one another. Even if you think their ideas are crappy or not well thought out, everyone needs a chance to engage and be heard. Giving them the courtesy of listening earns you your right to be heard.
• Err on the side of asking too many questions. You never know when something you're doing is affecting other parts of the team (especially the engineers) in a huge way. Let folks know when you're making changes or need to change or fix something.
• Sometimes you'll be the one willing to work with others and talk things through and others will be the ones not wanting to engage. It will be incumbent upon you to make the dialogue happen. If your teammates are giving you the Heisman arm and won't meet with you, or the engineers or other consultants are being unresponsive, ask your project manager and/or other managers in the office to help you get a response or get everyone together. Explain to them the consequences of not coordinating or having the conversation you're asking for.

Teamwork isn't always a blast, but you can actually make it better by making it happen. This kind of gesture can let your managers see you as a leader and as someone who thinks ahead, which might give you more autonomy and more/cooler responsibilities in the future

What to do when you're over your head...on a project

Another inevitable fact of being an intern is that you will end up getting in over your head on a project. Perhaps your boss likes what you do and how well you do it, so s/he gives you a bigger role with more responsibilities.  Or perhaps a small project turns out to be like an onion: it has lots more layers that you can see from the outside, and peeling those layers makes you cry.  Either way, there are few things worse than feeling overwhelmed and unable to handle a project, especially early in your career when you're still developing your skill set.  It leaves you feeling adrift and anxious, and it might even leave you thinking you're going to get fired if anyone sees this or figures it out. 

The first thing to remember when running a project as an intern is that a licensed architect must supervise your work. On a regular basis, a licensed architect needs to look at what you're doing, answer questions, provide feedback, and review most if not everything you send out of the office. That process can be in person or electronic, but it needs to happen. If someone isn't doing that, then you're going to have to manage up.  Send out the message to your office, send urgent emails, and even stand in the doorway/walkway of your manager's office/cubicle and insist that someone review what you're doing and answer questions.  If you have a few years' experience, you may think that you're answering everything just fine and doing well, but unbeknownst to you there are repercussions to what you're asking and writing in your emails and RFIs and documents. The seasoned eye of a competent licensed architect can stop the in-over-your-head phenomenon before it ever starts.

I mentioned there are few worse things that feeling over your head. One of those few worse things is having your mistakes discovered after the fact. If you're feeling like you're not able to do the right thing on a project, or you don't have the skill to respond to a project's challenges, the time to ask for help is the moment your start to feel that oh-dear-God-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into feeling. Asking for input, review, feedback, and advice is one of the primary ways that architects learn. Ask for help before it becomes a problem, and ask for help when it's a problem.  It's okay to admit ignorance within the walls of your firm. If you're unlicensed with less than, say, seven years' experience, no one is expecting you to know everything.  

Frankly, no one's ever expecting you to know everything, even after you're licensed.  Architecture is a big, wide, deep field, and you can't know it all.  I have 12.5 years' experience and manage large projects, and yet I still will ask my boss for help in writing a good email or making a judgment call on how to make a floor plan work.  My boss has almost 20 years' experience and is one of the principals of our firm, and yet he still asks me questions about the ADA and various healthcare codes and guidelines. Everyone asks for help and advice--it's just the nature of architectural practice.

You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em

As a manager, I've sat through some pretty uncomfortable meetings with interns and upper management.  Sometimes those meetings were project-related in nature, talking about design or construction ideas. Other times those meetings were more generic in nature, like performance reviews or were some sort of attempt at conflict mediation and resolution. The uncomfortable moments generally came when the intern began pushing too hard in a design meeting for a certain feature or material or layout, or when the intern made sharp, emotionally-charged statements that sounded more like accusations than responses. In either case, the issue seemed the same to me: the intern wasn't correctly reading the moment, or s/he wasn't reading the moment at all.

Reading the moment is something I learned to do during my brief foray into stand-up and improv comedy.  If I'm performing a bit that's causing discomfort in the audience, I need to stop those jokes and move to my next group of jokes that they might respond to better.  If I'm running with a scene in an improv skit that's got the audience laughing a little more and a little more with each particular kind of gesture, I need to do more of those gestures, and maybe keep up that weird accent I developed accidentally to do the scene.  Either way, I'm making these changes on stage based on reading the moment, tuning into the audience and the surroundings: the noises they're making (or not making), the looks on their faces, if they're even making eye contact, and so on. But if I decide that I just absolutely come-hell-or-high-water am telling these jokes or am going to make this scene about Jerry Sandusky and Casey Anthony on a blind date, and I don't give a rat's ass how the audience is receiving what I'm doing, then I'm almost assuredly going to bomb.

This works very much the same in an architecture firm.  You may be in a design meeting where you really want the entry to do this instead of that, and your manager disagrees. Sometimes you two can talk through the pros and cons of the entry's layout and design, but perhaps today your manager just isn't having it. If you're not reading the moment, you're ignoring how his voice is getting louder and his answers are getting shorter and shorter. You're not seeing him pinch his lips together tightly and grimacing.  And if you keep not reading the scene, you're about to walk into a minefield. If you are indeed reading the moment, though, you can deftly propose looking at some different options and revisiting this later today or even tomorrow, or you can acquiesce and move on with your manager's suggestion. This isn't giving up or wussing out--it's acknowledging that design and work are about compromise, and always pushing for your way isn't going to be possible or a good idea.  In other words, this is acting like an adult and a professional. 

Lulu's Mailbag: Where do you draw the line with time spent at work? Part 2 of 2

Last week, I answered T.'s email about drawing the line at work with having to stay late every afternoon because a manager hands you something at the last minute.  There's more to flesh out with his question, though, regarding how and when to draw that line.  


Where that line lives may be different for everyone--interns who have lots of family, spiritual, and extracurricular obligations may have less disposable time then interns who mainly go to the gym and then watch Hoarders on TLC while eating dinner.  (By the way, if you need motivation to clean your apartment, watch one of those extreme hoarding shows--you'll be emptying the trash and Swiffing during every commercial break before it's over.  Plus, seeing how nasty the houses are will help curb your appetite and help you lose weight.  It's a two-for-one deal...but I digress.)  If you're really busy outside of work, you may need to figure out how to schedule your overtime better, which means you'll need to be even more proactive with your manager(s) regarding asking when things are due and do they have something coming up.  I must caution you all against being too busy outside of work, however, because sudden deadlines and emergencies are going to happen, and you will need to stay late or come in early sometimes to help with them.  Careful planning and good communication with your boss can eliminate some if not many of these emergencies, but not all of them.


Some if not most bosses will be accepting of your limits, readily or grudgingly.  If they're grudgingly accepting, resist the urge to succumb to the guilt.  Some bosses (and some coworkers) will try to push on your boundaries--maybe they think it's crap that an intern dare "talk back" and say they're not willing to stay late every single day and time someone "needs" them to stay, or maybe they're mad with themselves for not setting that boundary for themselves long ago.  Here's the bottom line to remember when someone tries to push your boundary:


Is the work getting done on time and with quality?


It's a yes or no question.  If the answer is no, then you need to work with your boss to get things right so that you can do the work well and on time.  But if the answer is yes, then no apology or long, drawn-out explanation is needed.  This is a concept introduced by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson of the electronics retail giant Best Buy.  Ressler and Thompson created the ROWE, or Results-Only Work Environment.  Instead of being obsessed with time, they reasoned, why aren't we focusing on results?  If you're getting the task assigned done on time and with a high level of quality, who cares if you did it late last night or first thing this morning?  If it's good and done, then it's good...and done.


I could do two or three posts alone on how Ressler and Thompson's work would be best used in architecture (and where I take issue with their assertions--I don't fully accept their whole premise, but most of it feels solid to me).  For now, though, I'll pass on their approach to dealing with people who take shots at you.  When someone begins to hassle you about "oh, I guess now it's time for you to leave, huh?" or "oh, nice of you to show up", you simply and calmly ask them:


"What do you need?"


This questions stops the heckling and focuses on the result.  What do you need, and when do you need it by is what matters.  If the response is, "I need to to do these redlines for a meeting tomorrow, and I have to leave at 7am to get to that meeting", then you know that they either need your help right now or if you really really can't help them, you may be able to help them find someone who can.  If the response is, "I have some redlines that need to be done by end of day tomorrow," then you can glance at them and assess if you can handle them in a timely manner the next morning. And if the response is just more heckling, then you can repeat the question:


"Homer/Marge, did you need something?  If so, let me know.  I'm willing to work with you to get something done.  What's up?"


When this is done repeatedly and as calmly as possible, you show the heckler that you're not rising to the bait. The point of your "what do you need?" question is to find out if the emergency is real or in your boss' head.  Now, if this is a boss heckling you, it can be hard to hold the line and stay calm, but it's necessary.  You may decide to talk with them later about it:


"Homer/Marge, when you were saying all that stuff earlier about me leaving right at 5, was there something you needed?  I'm glad to help get things done, and I can do a better job of helping you when we plan a little ahead of time.  Can you help me with that?  Can we talk about this a little?"


Sometimes in order to get what you need at work, you have to manage up and take control of the situation.  You have to help your boss--or company--help you, and part of that involves showing or explaining to them how helping you helps the company and project.  When you can make that case, and when you stick to your guns, you can ultimately make everyone's lives easier: people are more organized and well-rested and the quality of work is higher.