How Leadership Can Influence Architecture: Dale’s Talk

Recently, Dale was asked to speak at the Dunwoody College of Technology Leadership Lecture Series. Dale decided on the topic, “Leadership: From Softball to Residential Architecture”. His material was uniquely interesting since it’s the first time he’s been asked to speak on the topic of leadership after being with the firm he cofounded over 30 years ago. Rather than supplying bullet points for today’s post, we decided to include the full transcript from the talk. Enjoy!:

I’ve been asked today to speak on this subject of leadership and I gather it’s due to others having seen or experienced it in what I do. Although I have spoken often in academic, professional and public forums, on several subjects, mostly cabins, this is the first time I’ve been asked to speak on leadership.

So I’m reminded here of the first Frank Gehry talk across the park, at the Walker Art Center. For those of you who don’t know the name he is the architect of the Weisman Art Museum at the U of M. He was just emerging as a force in American architecture and the Walker sponsored his first major show of his work. He began his talk by noting that his work was the product not of words but rather of drawings and models. Yet here he was being asked to describe it in words. So he looked out at the audience and after a long silence exclaimed, “if this sounds like bullshit, just say so.”

To speak on the subject of leadership I had to conduct a bit of research and at every turn I came up with the name, John C Maxwell. Mr. Maxwell is an internationally known speaker, writer and trainer on the subject of leadership. He is also king of the one liners on the subject, so let me pass along a few:

“PEOPLE DON’T CARE HOW MUCH YOU KNOW…. UNTIL THEY KNOW HOW MUCH YOU CARE.”

“THE PESSIMIST COMPLAINS ABOUT THE WIND. THE OPTIMIST EXPECTS IT TO CHANGE. THE LEADER ADJUSTS THE SAILS.”

“LEARN TO SAY NO TO THE GOOD, SO YOU CAN SAY YES TO THE BEST.”

“AS A LEADER, THE FIRST PERSON I NEED TO LEAD IS MYSELF… AND THE FIRST PERSON I NEED TO CHANGE IS ME.”

“A LEADER IS ONE WHO KNOWS THE WAY, GOES THE WAY, AND SHOWS THE WAY.”

I’ve had the opportunity to spend some one on one time with the late Ralph Rapson, often as his chauffer. You may recall that he had only one arm and thus didn’t drive. Ralph was a leader! Not just as Head of the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota and his firm, Rapson Architects, but a leader of ideas, and people. You may have noted Ralph in this weekend’s Star Tribune. The article on his sustaining leadership through a traveling fellowship which is conducted in his name. On one of those trips he was quite introspective and among other things stated, ” In the end I’ll just be known for how hard I worked.” And that he did working up to a day before he died at age 93, still perfecting his design of the Rapson Rocker.

I believe I too have worked hard, but certainly wouldn’t claim anything akin to Rapson’s accomplishments. Haven’t we all worked hard? It’s in our Midwestern DNA. So in the 50 years I’ve been in this profession just where might I have achieved some leadership and how did that come about? I’ll return here to our guru Mr. Maxwell and his not-so-big-book, The Right to Lead. He highlights seven axioms for leadership and they’ll serve to jar my memory.

1. LET GO OF YOUR EGO

At our architectural firm we invented an organization that prides itself on having many diverse designers, each with aesthetic autonomy. Thus there is no central design czar as in Frank Lloyd Wright or Frank Gehry. This has evolved into a very horizontal structure, which we often equate to that of a law office. Fifteen years after starting our firm as Mulfinger/Susanka Architects (which later became Mulfinger/Susanka/Mahady) I and the other partners had to address the issue of our name. We were actually six partners by then and many outside the office often referred to it as The Mulfinger group. I was getting undue credit for projects I had no involvement in. We could have reverted to, “The Architects Collaborative” a name of a Cambridge, MA firm I had worked for in the 1960’s and which was by then defunct. But I fought for an anonymous name, one that didn’t mean anything at the get go but could gain in meaning as the firm went along. Thus, SALA was born. Many of my friends thought I was bonkers for letting go of Mulfinger as a lead name. But today SALA has experienced partners coming and going while the name sustains meaning in the locals and national community for quality residential architecture.

2. BECOME A GOOD FOLLOWER FIRST

I exited architecture school with a (very) heavy indoctrination in modernism. Yet almost on the day I graduated Robert Venturi wrote Complexity and Contradiction, a scathing attack on architectural modernity. I was fascinated with it, but also couldn’t comprehend it. He took the famous modern slogan, “LESS IS MORE” and flipped it to “LESS IS A BORE”. He noted that modernists practice “EITHER/OR” decision making, when they should practice “BOTH/AND”. Nearly a decade later I first encountered the work of Edwin Lundie, while sitting in the Fireplace Room at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. I was sufficiently enough enraptured by his work that I decided to see what else he had designed. That natural inquisitiveness lead first to my writing articles, then speaking engagements, and eventually the book, The Architecture of Edwin Lundie. Today I believe that stands as the first monograph on a Minnesota Architect. I never found Lundie someone I sought to imitate, but rather someone who presented to me another way of designing; one where history was not forgotten. I became liberated to pursue my own diverse design interests.

3. BUILD POSITIVE RELATIONSHIPS

We grow and gain strength from the deep roots we nurture and develop along life’s journey. For me that means never missing my high school class reunions. It means putting work into a marriage, which this September will have eclipsed 50 years. It means playing racquetball each week with my friend from dormitory days. And it means the sustaining friendships of an amazing group of architecture classmates …endearing relationships that transcend our geographic distance of Boston, San Francisco and Rome. Positive relationships can also be created with clients and builders. For the Brunker family, we are now designing their fifth project. And the Onstotts have put 28 years between project one and three. With several builders we have relationships that span multiple decades. I got a call from one during the recession complaining that after two decades he was finally having to build something not only not designed by SALA, but not designed by an architect. It’s good to know that we have him working on our projects again.

4. WORK WITH EXCELLENCE

This could mean seeking excellence in one’s work or in the colleagues one works with. I believe both are essential. When I look around the office and see so many talented individuals quietly at their desk working I often state that the, “silence is sheer brilliance at work”. As a teacher I was blessed by being surrounded by the brightest and the best. We produce the greatest high school students in the Midwest, smart and hard working. This group is then culled to those who go on to higher education and further to those who want the subject you’re teaching. I would begin each of my syllabi with the phrase, “Buildings are the answer. Architecture is the question.” With buildings you keep the rain out, and create functional intent for some programmatic goal. But it’s in the search for architecture that one seeks excellence.

5. RELY ON DISCIPLINE NOT EMOTION

On this item I have to challenge Mr. Maxwell. In fact I may not be the only one to challenge him. At least one other writer on leadership notes, “THE TRUTH IS THAT LEADERSHIP IS AN AFFAIR OF THE HEART.” But Maxwell appears to be talking about leadership when beset by adversity. For me that certainly relates to the downturn in the economy of a few years ago as SALA went from near 50 staff to 25 within a few years. These were dear friends we lost, treasured colleagues, talented architects, who of course today are our competition. I can only hope that we handled their separation with heart and not discipline.

6. MAKE ADDING VALUE YOUR GOAL

Six years ago I took a sabbatical, a month off at the Dairy Hollow Writers Colony in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I was interested in trying to see if I could write about lessons learned from a quarter century of practicing residential architecture. And after a month I thought I had a pretty good outline of what I intended to be a book. In writing books I knew the next task was to pitch it to a publisher and then await for the big advance to follow. Publishers have a standard form to fill out and send in along with an outline. One of the critical questions is “Who will buy this book?” After considerable searching I came up with six names of buyers, but I was having a hard time thinking of the seventh. So no book! But I did learn a lot from this exercise and my take away was to confirm that we sell added value to our clients. The architecture of domestic space must demonstrate added beauty, increased functionality and be a joy to be in.

It’s very rewarding to get letters six years after a completion that mention the joy experienced every day as clients put their home to use. Just last week a colleague returned from visiting a lake home we recently completed for a young retiring couple. The husband noted the interior window we had provided between the kitchen and the back hall. Each morning the husband sits at the kitchen counter and on occasion catches his wife scooting down the hall in the buff, making her way from bedroom to the laundry room. He now refers to that window as the “Thank You Dale Window”. Added value can be found in many ways.

7. GIVE YOUR POWER AWAY

If you gain power and it has any real social value, you should share it. If you have knowledge , then teach from it. If you have wisdom, write a book or start a blog. If you’ve created a process for offering added value, show others how to do it. To quote Maxwell here, “ One of the ironies of leadership is that you become more of a leader by sharing whatever power you have. You’re meant to be a river, not a reservoir.”

SOFTBALL

For the few who have wondered why I would bring a baseball bat to a leadership talk, well I have to finish with a little personal tale. In my research I wondered when I might have first shown any signs of leadership. And I think it starts with baseball, or actually softball. Picture a Midwest farm, red barn and sheds and a pale yellow house all set as back drop to a yard of majestic elm trees leading out to the road. The farm is adjacent a small hamlet containing a bank, lumberyard, grocery store and train station. And the family next door has fifteen children, ten boys and no farm. I’m the third child with an older sister to help mother in the house and an older brother to help father with the chores. I’m too young yet to drive a tractor. Farm life can be a lot of work, but it can also be a lot of boredom. Throwing the softball atop the granary roof and catching it can only interest a youngster for so long. Eventually I needed a real game. Enter work ps. Work ups is a game where everyone plays all the bases as they work their way to being the hitter. Our bases were in part the elm trees for first and third and home runs meant you had to chase the ball into the cow yard. I wanted this game to work, so I was the promoter, the manager and a pretty good player. But if you wanted the game to go on you could never be too good. All summer, every summer, we played that game in our front yard. I continued in softball through 4H, college intramurals, and the architects softball league up until four years ago when the balls being thrown to me on first were just too fast for my aging eye hand coordination. And my age was nearly equal to all of the other player combined! Over those years I had become a pretty good hitter, although more for smacks through the infield rather than the long ball.

So what’s the takeaway here? You don’t need to hit a home run. Just get on base and let your teammates do their part.

UPDATED: Dundwoody has posted a video of Dale’s talk. Enjoy!