Some day, I would very much like to have my own architecture firm. I would like to have a smaller, design oriented firm with about 5 employees. As such, I'm constantly observing from my lowly spot and thinking about things that work and don't work for me as an employee. Here are some of my observations:
The key to working as a team is less about finding people who "work well in a team" and more about finding people who are able to communicate enthusiastically and openly about what they are doing.
I have worked with both lone wolves – the sort who like to do everything themselves – and masterful delegators – who can't stop themselves from piling the work on others. Both of these types of people can be successful on a team provided that they talk and share information. Just to clarify: I don't mean people who talk in detail about what they made for dinner last night or the antics of their cat or their kid's soccer game. I mean: people who talk about the work at hand. This could include anything from what a particular project means to them, to why they are making the decisions they are making, to what they heard from so-and-so and how it relates to such-and-such task. This talk needs to more more than the stuff of meetings, but also the idle conversation at the water cooler.
Communication is the primary way we assign value in a work setting. If project specific information is not flowing among the members of a team, it is impossible to gauge value and significance. If one person is not part of the communication flow, they start to feel insignificant pretty quickly. An insignificant team member stops being a team member. On the other hand, if you want to get rid of someone quickly, this is a good strategy: stop communicating with them.
There's also a balancing of communication that needs to occur on any team between those in leadership roles and those at the bottom. Another way to think of this is mentorship. Mentorship is so important for the growth of ideas, efficiency, and people.
One common strategy I've seen at architecture firms is to task in pairs with different experience levels. For example, there may be a team of 4 people working on a project. Whenever there is meeting, two people are sent to the meeting: one senior, one junior. Sending only two people means there are never too many cooks. It also helps to clarify responsibilities. If ONLY two people go to a meeting, they are held accountable for reporting back about the meeting to the others. There's less likely to be a situation where everyone sits in a meeting, but nobody takes notes. The pairing of 2 also gives the junior person a chance to learn and the senior person a chance to lead. The leading part is every bit as important as the learning part. If the senior person is merely participating alone, they aren't forced to process the information in the same way. You know that saying? If you really want to learn something, teach someone else to do it? Such is the case here. But almost as important as being the teacher, is the opportunity to be the leader.
Alternatively, I've seen firms use the opposite strategy of always sending the two most senior people to meetings. This generally does not promote growth or learning or leadership. It tends to stop the flow of information by creating a barrier between those in the know and those on the outside. Firms that pair by seniority often tend to lack efficiency and standards in their business model: probably because there's not enough communication between the employees who are managing and the employees are who are actively doing. Privileging seniority is also a great way to end up with weak – or nonexistent – leaders.
I've rarely seen anyone capable of working effectively on more than two projects at a time. Whether it is the firm owner or an employee, dividing someone's time in more than two directions has more negative impacts than positive. If you've been reading this blog for a while, than you know that I even feel this way about children in families. As such, I do realize that sometimes it is simply unavoidable. You WILL be pulled in three – or more! – directions. In these times, it is terribly important to be able to step back and figuratively hand the reigns over to someone you trust. And that's when you should feel really confident about the leadership qualities you've been cultivating in your employees.
I'm always shy about adopting such a prescriptive tone on this blog. But I think it might be pretty useful to me in the future, so I'll leave it for now. Any other thoughts?
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