KTGY was founded in 1991 with an ambition to build a firm that would outlast the people who built it. Six founding partners set out to create a firm which would endure from generation to generation — a firm whose culture, values, and capability would compound over time rather than walk out the door when any one person retired. What they couldn’t have anticipated is how deliberately, and how systematically, KTGY would eventually design its way toward that goal.
In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by John Robison, Chief Operating Officer at KTGY, and Donovan Helminiak, Director of Knowledge Management, to trace the evolution of KTGY's learning ecosystem and examine how it has become one of the firm's most consequential strategic investments.
The conversation goes behind the scenes of how KTGY built four key components of its learning ecosystem:
ELEVATE Leadership — a year-long, cohort-based program built to teach emerging leaders what great leadership looks like at KTGY
ELEVATE Essentials — a foundational knowledge program which grew from a pandemic-era intern series into a hybrid on-demand and workshop model open to the entire firm
ELEVATE Talent Management — a newer program targeting first-time people managers, focused on the day-to-day nuance of leading teams
FUEL — a grassroots mentorship community driven entirely by emerging professionals, deliberately mixing offices and experience levels to build connections that wouldn't otherwise exist across seven offices
The old apprenticeship model — learning one project at a time from the people around you — served KTGY well for decades, but is no longer sufficient for a firm with over 400 employees, seven offices, a generation of retiring principals, and a profession being radically reshaped by technology.
KTGY's answer has been to design something more intentional: a learning ecosystem where cohort-based programs, on-demand curricula, and grassroots community reinforce each other, and where building trust is a primary goal.
As we discussed in the episode, trust is the catalyst that determines how fast AEC firms can change and evolve. To move faster, means intentionally investing in building trust and KTGY’s learning ecosystem has proven remarkably effective at doing exactly that.
If you lead an AEC firm thinking seriously about what it takes to build a culture that connects distributed teams, and stays ahead of change, and endures across generations, this episode is an honest accounting of what that investment (and the returns) look like.
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📚 Show Notes + Resources
Behind the Scenes of ELEVATE: KTGY’s Professional Development Program — John Robison's KA Connect 2024 talk, a deeper dive into how the program started and why cohorts work.
📃 Episode Transcript
This transcript was lightly edited for clarity.
Chris: John, you are the Chief Operating Officer at KTGY. And Donovan, you are the Director of Knowledge Management at KTGY. You presented together at PSMJ's AEC TalentMAX 2026 conference in Austin this May, and the talk was called "Connect the Dots: The Evolution Toward a Learning Organization." What struck me about that framing is it wasn't just what you built, it was your story of how you got there towards being a learning organization and this argument that you made that you were always a learning organization, you just didn't know it. But through this journey, you gained awareness of the fact that you were a learning organization and once you gained awareness, you could make more choices more strategically and more explicitly, which is something we'll definitely dig into.
I want to walk through that story mostly chronologically, and we're going to talk a lot about ELEVATE, which is your professional development ecosystem and the three programs inside it. We're going to touch on FUEL, which is your mentorship community. And then I want to get into some questions toward the end around what happens when knowledge walks out the door, what does it mean to be a learning organization in a billable hour culture and where AI fits into all of this.
I want to start with KTGY. For the listeners that don't know KTGY, can you give us just a quick orientation? What does the firm do? What work are you known for? How many employees do you have? That kind of thing.
John: Sure. We are just shy of 400 people right now, with seven offices across the country. We are a design firm. We are architecture, interior design, branded environments, land planning. I think we're built originally on land planning and residential. We're known for residential—that's the bulk of our work. We were founded back in 1991 by six partners who came out of another firm. They wanted to build something that was generation to generation and long-lasting. So they built KTGY to do that. And I think that's important because that generation to generation ethos and the fact that we're a large firm now, that we’ve grown since 1991, comes into play when we talk about how hard it is to share knowledge across the company.
Chris: Yeah. John, you spoke at KA Connect 2024 about ELEVATE Leadership, your firm's leadership development program. And we'll link to that in the show notes. People should watch it. It's one of my favorite KA Connect talks of all time and I know a lot of people in the community feel the same way. But I wonder if you could just, in a shorter version, take us through the story of ELEVATE for people who haven't seen that talk to ground us in the ELEVATE Leadership program and how it got started, whose idea it was, what problem you were trying to solve, all those things.
John: Yeah, so I'm going to give all the credit here to Tricia, our CEO who was, I should say for the last 20 or so years, she's just stepping down now, but it was Tricia's idea. Tricia conceived of creating a program for leadership development and then brought me into it. I think what I mentioned earlier about this being a generation to generation firm is really the genesis of ELEVATE leadership. This idea that a firm should outlive the people who founded it, the people who currently run it. And that's important because so many of them have retired—in fact, all of the founders. So it wasn't really this abstract idea of creating a training program. It was quite existential. How does the firm live on? So we created something with the intention of being very purposeful about developing people who could carry the firm into the future.
Chris: I like what you're saying—how does the firm live on? Which I think is a really great big question. And I think what you're implying by the fact that you need a leadership development program in order for the firm to continue on, we need leadership, we need to translate the way that we think about leadership to make sure that that's where it starts.
John: Yeah, I think a lot of us could look around the firm and recognize that we have really good people. We have potential future leaders. That's easy to see and say, but are they ready to run the firm? Do they see themselves as the future leaders of the firm? Do they feel that they're equipped for it? So the purpose was about building that next generation and onward.
So the program itself, ELEVATE Leadership is a year-long program. It's a pretty immersive program. It consists of monthly virtual meetings. It consists of three in-person week-long sessions. There's tons of reading. There's a lot of homework. In other words, you're not just reading a book. We're getting back together and we're discussing the lessons learned in the reading. There's a lot of issue processing, a lot of personal discovery. It's a very intense, very immersive program. And it's built around a small cohort of 10 to 12 people at a time.
Chris: How do you.. I love this, thank you for the background. I'm thinking about this thing you said around future leaders. Do they see themselves as leaders? Are they ready? Was there a process of trying to put people into leadership who weren't ready or who didn't see themselves as leaders that was a defining moment for…? How did that it was time that what you were doing wasn't working to continue the firm going from generation to generation?
John: Yeah, I think naturally a lot of people will emerge in a firm as leaders and I think subjectively you can sort of see that people are right for leadership and people sort of know and that's where they want to gravitate toward. But there are a lot of other people out there who have high potential for leadership, but really may not be aware of it, may not know how to access it, might not even be raising their hand. And maybe they're under the radar. So I don't know that there was necessarily this immediate problem staring us in the face. This isn't working. In fact, I think the firm has grown considerably and done very, very well and that it's a generation to generation firm has created shareholders, partners year over year over year, right? So I mean, at this point in time we have two dozen, but probably had all 15 or more I would bet when we started ELEVATE Leadership. So I don't know that it was trying to solve for a problem other than is everybody aligned in what it means to be a leader and what will be needed to carry the firm forward and how do we make sure that everybody agrees what that is?
Chris: So it's interesting. Starting a program, because I've been pretty aware of what your program is, and I know how much goes into it and I know how hard it is to start one of those things and obviously sustain it. You overcame inertia to launch this program and you overcame inertia without a burning problem, right? So what do or maybe Tricia had a spark where it's like we really need to do something different than we're doing today in order for us to continue being successful.
John: Yeah, I would love it if she was here right now to answer that question. I can recall very vividly when.. So we were sort of talking about what would it mean to have leadership development? And we were meeting with various organizations, people who come in and do that for you. How can we sort of just level up leadership? Because we have a really good grasp on what it means to do architecture and design, right? But can we really name what it means to be a leader?
So how do we bring that in? And Tricia started talking about, well, doing it ourselves, right? Can we just build a program and do leadership development ourselves? Which at the time I thought was bananas because that just seemed like a tremendous amount of work.
I guess I also thought, well, if it was so easy, wouldn't everyone just be doing it? But she came back from this meeting one time she had with a client and it was at a lunch and she was talking about this with this client about creating a leadership development program because that client had done one of their own. And Tricia came back and she told me the story and said, " I mentioned to this person, gosh, that sounds like a, just a tremendous amount of your time." And they said to me, "Well, what's a better use of my time than creating future leaders?" So it was at that moment where she said, "We have to do this, this needs to be done. We need to know that we're ready to bring people to carry the firm into the future to bring them up."
Chris: What was it about what you were seeing out there in the market as potentially outsourcing or partnering that made you think it would be better to build it yourselves?
John: I don't know that at that moment I thought it would be better to build it ourselves. I put all my trust in Tricia. Kidding aside, I think there are some really great leadership development programs. There are some really great outfits out there. There are things that we had participated in, PSMJ, some of their programs being some of those. There's plenty of Carnegie Mellon or there's Stanford University. There are various programs you can use and they're all really, really good. What didn't resonate for us there is, we need you to understand and learn how we run the business as a firm. That doesn't mean like there's a blueprint and you have to necessarily follow it. But you have to understand the context, you have to understand the culture, you have to understand a bit of how we got here to get there. So what really made sense when we started talking about it was we could leverage the experts that we have in the firm to bring some of that to the cohort. We could leverage our experts in public speaking. We could bring that into the group and talk about it, how we do things at KTGY versus generically how leadership is done.
Chris: Was part of that like the attraction, like a forcing function to get you to articulate what good leadership at KTGY looks like?
John: For me, it very much was. In fact, I would say a lot of where my ideas are now some 10 years later have come from that exploration, that discovery of what does it mean to be a leader here.
Chris: I want to circle back, do a couple more things on this. You mentioned this idea that you can see people leading some of those people naturally rise up, but then there's some other people who may have capability who for whatever reason don't see themselves that way or aren't being seen that way. And what I'm inferring, and tell me if I'm off base here, but we had Jen Bennett, the CEO of Shive-Hattery, in the last episode talking about her leadership development program. And she personally did not see herself, she was a structural engineer, did not see herself as a leader because in her mind she had this externally planted idea of leaders being super charismatic and backslapping and the person that leaves the room and that. But like what she got told and when she got pulled into their leadership development program was there's a lot of different ways to lead. And leadership isn't just that externally facing charisma piece. Is that part of what you were getting at is that there are people here who are capable of being leaders that are in the typical cultural norms of what leaderships are seen as that we're missing out on?
John: Yeah, because I think when you talk about leadership just in the abstract, we all have our own understanding of what leadership means, but I think there's, without any more discussion around it, leadership has sort of a generic understanding. And yeah, a lot of that—charismatic and extroverted—I think becomes part of that package. When we start talking about what leadership means here, it has very little if anything to do with that part of the character. And it has everything to do with can you work through others? Do you see what's important right now and what's needed right now? Do you have the ability to say the hard things that need to be said? It's more about that and you start to understand that that really has nothing to do with whether you're an extrovert, an introvert, whether you're bold, whether you're shy, whether you're charismatic or soft-spoken. It has very little to do with that. So if you've always thought about leadership as that and we start talking about it as this, then you can recognize yourself in there.
Chris: Interesting. Yeah, I like that. I've got one more question.
John: And having come from there myself as a very, very highly introverted person, we're able to connect in a way with people very differently. And Tricia is on the spectrum more on the extroverted side. And so when we pair up and talk to people, there's really a nice dynamic there. But the number of people who have emerged out of our ELEVATE leadership program and other ELEVATE programs, who have sort of raised their hand and said, "I am an introvert too. How do I do this?" Has been really an eye-opener for us. And for everybody who's sort of in that same category of I'm maybe a little shy, I'm highly introverted, is leadership for me. And we talk about leadership in a way that has nothing to do with whether you're outgoing or not.
Chris: Yeah, and especially in an industry such as ours where it skews incredibly heavily introverted in AEC. So like if all you're doing is promoting extroverts, you've got a very small talent pool to pull from.
John: And look, they tend to be recognized a little more, a little sooner than an introvert, right? Because I'm a little more willing to jump in and brainstorm in a conversation, right? I'm a little more willing to think on my feet, right? Where the introvert is going to be a little maybe more analytical, a little more introspective. So they might not be as immediately recognized. And we do have a lot. And in fact, we begin ELEVATE leadership with some assessments. In addition to some 360s and some other things, we do personality assessments and that's part of it, understanding who you are. And we do that not just so you can say whether you're an introvert, an extrovert or whatever. It's really so that we can talk about here's who you are and here's how you show up and here's why that matters and here's how it relates to other people.
Chris: That's great. And then do you share that as a cohort with each other? Does everyone understand?
John: We do, in fact, there's a really long session that I lead on that and what it means to be wherever you are... We're currently using Myers-Briggs framework, but that's sort of not really super relevant. We just talk about—based on your preferences and how you tend to show up and where your strengths are— how does that relate to your position as a leader?
Chris: INTJ for you, John?
John: How'd you…
Chris: I don't know. Just a swing. Just a swing in the dark.
John: Very I, very T. Yeah.
Chris: I want to ask you one more question and then Donovan, I realize you're here. Hi, Donovan. If you think back on 10 years of ELEVATE leadership in terms of what this has done for KTGY as an organization and then also what it's done for individuals who went through the program, like what does success look like? What keeps you going?
John: Gosh, so there's a couple different questions, but I think.. So I'll start with what does success look like? I mean, certainly you can look at the like number of people through the program, number of people still with us today, et cetera. But I think a little maybe harder to quantify, would be my measures of success would be things like are those hard conversations, are they being had more often? Are they being surfaced sooner and with better candor? Are studios talking with more transparency and more vulnerability? Is the word trust being used a bit more? Does that culture of trust, is that felt more across the organization?
I think for me the leadership development program, while we talk about being a leader and such and the mechanics of running the business, et cetera, the discovery that happens of being vulnerable, of showing up as a trusted and trustful leader, I think is really to me where some of the metrics of success are. And am I hearing back from those studios that so-and-so is just showing up in a very different way now?
So I would like that to be the sort of metric of success. Look, we have a number of people who've gone through ELEVATE Leadership and are currently shareholders in the firm now. So yeah, we have a really good track record of I think elevating people in the firm. And that's necessary and that was one of the goals. But I would really like to say that the culture of the organization is very visibly changing.
Chris: I just wrote down your measure is culture. It's what it seems like you're saying. It's like you almost need an indoor air quality test, but for leadership and trust, right? That feels like you're trying to be like in the air, like in the day-to-day interactions as this is happening.
John: If we had a trust meter over the last 10 years, I believe that it has just incrementally climbed. And I would like to see that. And I would also like to see that whatever the firm needs in the future, the leaders are ready to respond to that, that they're not waiting to be reactive.
Chris: And you've also implemented a system for describing what leadership is at KTGY and for identifying and developing future leaders. So you've built a pipeline and a mechanism, right?
John: Yeah, and so for me personally, because it's easy to say it's very subjective and you'll know it when you see it. And I think there's some truth in it, it's subjective, right? Future leadership potential, there is a subjectivity, but I've created my own personal framework for measuring where the strengths are and maybe where some of the gaps are. And that helps me. And if I can use that and look at future leaders through that lens, that metric is very useful for me.
Chris: That's great. So Donovan, welcome. Director of Knowledge Management at KTGY. You went through this program. And I'm curious from your perspective, what was it like to be a participant or a cohort member in ELEVATE Leadership?
Donovan: Yeah, it was one part exciting and another part grueling and terrifying and survived it. But yeah, I mean, given the opportunity to be able to participate and be part of that cohort and knowing that the firm is investing in you to grow and they see that, right? It's like the validity of saying, "Oh yeah, you are a potential leader for this firm." And so it gives you that drive. Sometimes you sit in your seat and you're like, "Are they seeing what I'm doing? Are they recognizing the stuff that I’m bringing to the firm?" And being tapped and saying, "Hey you have the opportunity to apply." So that's actually how you do this, by the way.
You have to write a letter and tell them why you think you're someone that would be good for this program. And then there's a review process. And yeah, I think for me it was super exciting to just go through that. And one of the things that I appreciate is because it's led internally, it's not an external program. They're investing their time in it. The leaders are bringing everything to the table and saying, "Hey, this is what we want to see and this is how we want to see it. And this is where we want to help you grow." And so they're investing a lot. Not just the money side of things, but they're investing their time, their effort, everything. And that means a lot as a participant.
Chris: What did you learn about yourself in the program?
Donovan: Man, so a lot actually. If you ask anybody, they say when you start, you think of one thing about yourself and when you end, you're like, wow, okay. I definitely learned a whole lot more about myself and my own leadership style, knowing what tools to be able to use and the things, how to approach things like John was mentioning, having those tough conversations. I was one of those people that were like, ha I know I need to have this conversation, but I don't really want to have it. Is there a way to get around it? The typical. How do I get out of that type of thing. But now I have the tools to be able to have those conversations, have more confidence in doing so, which then builds the trust in our teams. And I think that's been something that has definitely resonated in the teams that I've been working with directly and indirectly. Yeah, I don't know. There's going through like this moment of, "Oh man, this is heavy." When you're going through it because you start to issue process. Like how do you deal with problems or issues that are happening? And you're working with a cohort who is also other leaders in the firm. So you're looking at them and saying, "Well, you're a leader, but why am I here?". So you have a little bit of that. I'm going on. I'm like, "Wait, what's going on here?" But then you start to realize we're all in the same boat. We all have the same feelings behind the scenes. Some show up better than others are covered up better than others. But I think it is definitely, you're starting to really realize that we're all in it together. We're very much learning together. We're growing together. And out of it, I mean, even to this day, we still, I've been out of it for what, three years? And our cohort still connects and talks and issue process. So it's not done at that time. You're done with the hard work of the program, but you're never done with the program, if you will.
Chris: By issue process, you mean I've got a dilemma. I want to pull in a couple people to help me think through it?
Donovan: Yes. Absolutely.
Chris: That's great. And before that, were you trying to issue process, so it sounds like that's something that's taught in the program. And so you were maybe trying to do it on your own without asking for help?
Donovan: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, right. Because you don't know who to reach out to or who you trust to reach out to, right? To have those candid conversations about a challenge that you're having. Even admit that you have a challenge.
Chris: Yeah. Yep. That's great. Thank you both for introducing us to ELEVATE Leadership. I want to talk about the second piece of ELEVATE, which is ELEVATE Essentials. And I love this story. Well, I know the origin story. I'm not going to tell it. I'm going to let probably, Donovan, you tell that story. Yeah, so tell us what ELEVATE Essentials is, and then how it came to be.
Donovan: Yeah, so before I get there, I think John, there was an email that we were talking about earlier about there was a moment where our internship during the pandemic. And I don't know if you, John, if you wanted to touch that part of it and I'll carry on.
John: I'm happy to. In 2020, there were a lot of board meetings happening. I think almost weekly for a while. And there was some discussion around, oh gosh, I guess we're not going to be able to have summer interns because they can't be in the office. We're not going to be able to teach them how to do anything. It was an opportunity instead. It was an opportunity to say, "What if we completely reconsidered what it meant to be an intern this summer?" So I reached out to a whole bunch of people who had been involved in the summer intern program. We always have those people in the firm and asked them, "Is there anything you can do to turn this into a virtual program? Each of you have a subject matter you're an expert in. Can you bring that to them? And can we have a weekly virtual session or something?" So it all started in 2020.
Donovan: Yeah, and then naturally I got wind of it, said, "Well, that's really cool. You guys are doing this internship program and there's a bunch of leaders that are teaching a bunch of cool stuff and." And I said, "Why can't we have that?" And the rest of the firm started catching on too, right? They're like, hey, there's some really cool sessions happening. Why can't we have something like that?
John: Yeah, there was somebody on the intranet who said, "I wish I was an intern." And they were like a 15-year veteran and they said, "I wish I was an intern."
Chris: So what was so attractive about.. What were some of the sessions that were being taught that you felt like you were missing out on?
Donovan: Yeah, so just hearing from the architects. So actually I'm not an architect by trade so hearing from them on what does good design look like? And what does it matter to our firm? To, we had a gentleman doing smart goals, like just how do we actually talk about smart goals? We had a person talking about our culture and what that means and the history of KTGY and all those things. And then they got more into technical realms of like, this is how you do good technical design and what QA/QC means and what that process looks like. So we touched on a whole lot of areas. I mean, I think there were 12 sessions or something like that. And so you can imagine there was a lot of rich information that was happening where leaders were taking time to really articulate that topic and really explain it and engage the interns. And yeah, I mean, it was just a plethora of information and knowledge that was coming out of this that we're like, whoa, this is really rich. This could be really helpful for the rest of the firm. And so yeah, that's-
John: These things that you might learn over time osmotically or some other way, you'd learn them over time, but you wouldn't sit down with the purposefully being explained, right? How do we put together a set of drawings and why does this go there and that go there and the decisions we make. So you learn them over time, sure, but we like we sort of, I guess we codified it and presented it that way.
Chris: I mean, that's the parallel with the leadership development program already, right? What does good leadership look like at KTGY? What does good design look like? How do we set goals? How do we review drawings? And it's really in order to teach, you have to codify, right? And it forces you to do that.
Donovan: Yep, exactly.
Chris: So what happened then? So Donovan said like, you saw this was going on. People saw this on the intranet. You told John this is going, like how did you take it from being an intern program to being something other folks at KTGY could participate in?
Donovan: Oh, I pretty much beat down John's door and said, "Dude, we need to do something about this." Why are we putting on my KM hat, right? And say, well this is major for the firm. Other people are asking for it. 15-year-old veteran is asking, I wish I was an intern. We should be tapping into this. This is a prime example of taking institutional knowledge, people that are willing to even take the time to show it to an intern, would imagine if they did it internally with all of our own employees, right? And keep that moving and happening and showing that we not just at the leadership level, but also at any level, care enough to articulate who we are, what we do, how we do things, right? And I think that was definitely the catalyst for me. What got the spark for me to say, dude, this has to happen. This is essentially, pun intended, needs to happen for us. So yeah, and then John and I definitely had the conversations about what would it look like? How would it happen? Who's going to lead that? Because it is a daunting thing, right? I mean, you asked a group of leaders to do this for an intern one time, right? And it's like, okay, one and done. Great. Then it actually was happening a second time because we were still in the pandemic world and-
Chris: More interns though, second time?
Donovan: Yes, more interns. And so I think it happened like twice, right, John? Yeah. Yeah, and then as that happened, it was then, it was known, right? Like the second time around, those leaders knew what those topics were, who was in charge of it, like what they needed to say, and they refined that.
And so then I was taking it and saying, "Why can't we now produce that internally?" And let's just keep it going. And right now let's create that opportunity for others that may have never had the opportunity to learn about what design means, our culture and all the things and solidify that through our firm and bring that in. And so yeah, between my team and John, we just figured out what that would look like and then asked the leaders to lead that process and bring it together and continue what they've already been doing, but just now for internal employees. And we had a whole signup thing and we tried to keep it small enough so it wasn't like the entire firm going through it all at once. So that first pass, that first year, we were definitely like, let's keep it a little bit smaller so there was a little bit of a cap on how many people could actually attend the sessions. Just to make sure that it had some lesser impact on billable hours and all that fun stuff, but yeah.
Chris: So you kept it going as a live course, limited cohorts. Is that how you imagine it's going to continue? Has this ever become on demand? Like, okay.
Donovan: Yeah, no, we learned quickly that it's not sustainable.
Chris: What's not sustainable about it?
Donovan: Well, so if you're asking leaders, right, it's about 12-ish sessions throughout the year. And a couple of things were not sustainable, one was the leader's time, right? Like you're asking them to now commit twice a year possibly doing a session and life happens, right? Where they might have deadlines or whatever and there was a lot of jockeying — that was really, really hard. Actually, it was almost a part-time position for us to manage just those sessions and try to get it organized.
The other thing too was those leaders sometimes don't stick around forever. And so we knew that it was a live session, it wasn't being recorded, it wasn't being that. We weren't capturing it. It was happening when it happened. And then also if someone got hired two weeks after that one session they really needed, they had to wait a whole 12 months to get that session again. And by then are they interested or not?
And so all these things really dive started to think, how else can we position this? How else can we make this a sustainable process, but also easy enough where anyone in the firm at any time could learn how to do a goal or what does design look like for us? And what is it? So having it more on demand and that was the catalyst to that was like, how do we actually make that happen and convert those sessions into more of an on-demand type of approach? And we're in that process still. We're still building those things out. Yeah.
Chris: So like, I'm guessing, tell me if I've got this right or wrong. So while they were still live and you were capping the number of people who could attend, I'm guessing the primary audience was still more interns because you're going to have more than emerging professionals. That 15-year architect who wanted to be an intern still isn't getting access to it. But if it were made on demand, they could, right?
Donovan: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And they don't have to go through the entire session. That was also the impact of this is, yes, it was created for interns to go through the end-to-end of all the sessions. What we also wanted to expose is, it's essentials, but you don't have to go through every essential. Like if you're not an architect and maybe you're just curious, sure. But smart goals, yes, we all have to do them. That's probably one of those ones that everybody goes through, but yeah, or as a reminder. So it depends on the thing. So it's not a mandatory end-to-end either. It's there for those who want it and need it at the time.
Chris: Right, and so just take me through the future. Like how do you think this translates on demand? Like do the courses, are they still taught the same way? Are you teaching them in a different way? Like what does that mean?
Donovan: No, that's why it's taken us so long because we are looking at it. I mean, when you have a captive audience for an hour, we were doing a virtual session, so everybody was on their cameras and you can show a screen and you can walk through and answer questions on the fly. The on-demand needed to be a little bit more structured at the beginning. So we're taking that and saying, okay, what is the core essence of the thing that you wanted to teach? And then make sure that that information gets out.
And now we're actually borrowing some ideas from other firms that have done this as well, is taking have that as on-demand, but then opening up workshops and saying, "Hey, if you want to continue the conversation around drawing and what that looks like from our perspective, there's going to be a workshop that this leader can hold maybe every other quarter or something like that." And so we're entertaining that thought about how that looks and how that structure translates into what the end result is when we want it to be, which is knowing how to do the thing and understanding how KTGY works and all that. So we wanted to take what needs to be taught and be explicitly on demand for those moments that they say, "I just need it now,". I wanted to understand and not wait another 12 months or whatever it is to get that information, but then have opportunities to still connect to those leaders in ways that are meaningful. 'Cause I mean, you do lose that if you put something on demand, right? There's a one-way street type of thing.
Chris: You're looking at like a hybrid strategy, right? So the core instruction is delivered on demand, but then somebody can get in, they can run scenarios or they can ask questions or.
Donovan: Yes.
Chris: That's great. Cool, John, what are your thoughts watching this essentials program from this virtual intern thing in 2020 to where it's headed?
John: Yeah, so as Donovan's talking, I'm sitting here thinking, "My God, I'm so glad we have Donovan here." Because it is so much and that somebody like Donovan is not only able to, but willing to think about how do you continue to move something like that forward, which is just Donovan's word, daunting. I think it's amazing. What started as how are we going to keep interns busy for the summer and give them a great experience? And now how can we teach everybody new to KTGY how we do things? And what's important to us is phenomenal. This whole workshop idea, which emerged in the last couple of years, it's like you can sit down on demand and learn what sustainability means for us and how we approach it. But there's so much more to it than that. And so now if you want to dive deeper, you can do a workshop with Megan and learn everything there is to know about it and maybe become an expert yourself, so.
Chris: One of the things I've heard from others in our community who are going down that same hybrid approach that you're talking about is that burnout thing that you brought up about the instructors. Like it seems like that goes away when you take this approach. They like doing the workshops, right? And the interaction and the discussion is just they don't want to just do the instruction delivery thing. Have you been finding that too?
Donovan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Once we told them it was actually our selling point for us to because they're like, "Oh man, do I have to do this again? Now I have to get in front of a camera and you're going to be forever whatever I say." But then yes. But imagine that you just do it once and then now you can have these sessions where now you're saying, "You've gone through my session, the on-demand session. Now we're just going to dive in and work through a design together or explore more options and really dive into it." And that's where they get excited anyway, because that's what they're in it for.
Chris: Yeah, they'll probably learn something more that way, right? Someone will bring up a question they've never been asked before or a project example that stretches them or something.
Donovan: Exactly.
Chris: John, is there a connection between ELEVATE Leadership and Essentials? Like do you have an essentials piece on leadership? Like how soon do you want to plant the seed for people that like leadership isn't only one way and this is how we think about leadership? Does that happen here or does that happen later in somebody's journey?
John: Boy, you got me thinking now. So certainly a little further into the journey, there is some discussion in ELEVATE Talent Management around management versus leadership. Does that happen in Essentials? I think there's hints of it when there's sort of like the meet the board moment Q&A with shareholders where you start to see no longer at such a distance what a leader is thinking about, what they're talking about, how they're showing up. But is there a direct, this is what the journey looks like and this is.. Actually, I quite like that question. It's got me thinking now.
Chris: I don't mean to create more work.
John: No, you just did, I think. Yeah, I apologize. Yeah, probably for Donovan-
Chris: Yeah, I was going to say, sorry, Donovan.
Donovan: Thanks.
Chris: All good. All good. You did a masterful transition there, John, about introducing ELEVATE Talent Management. So we talked to ELEVATE Leadership, we talked about Essentials. Let's talk about that third piece of the puzzle that you put in place. What is it? How did it get started? How did you know you needed it?
John: Yeah, ELEVATE Leadership, flagship program started plus 10-years ago. ELEVATE Essentials came out of 2020 and sort of emerged from there. Sometime in the last handful of years, there started to be this sort of a hint of a conversation around a sort of a missing middle in a way. And at about the same time, Donovan and his peer, Melissa, our head of HR, were in ELEVATE Leadership. And there was this conversation happening of we have these people who are managing on a day-to-day basis and what are we doing to equip them with those skills? And we had been using PSMJ's project management training program. We had done a little bit of our own training internally. We have what's called the Project Playbook, which is how you manage a project. But we hadn't really put a lot of time into what does it mean to manage people?
It is something that Melissa and I had talked about developing those soft skills and stuff, but there was an opportunity right there when.. Because with this new context that Donovan and Melissa had coming out of ELEVATE Leadership, not just the context of what does it mean to lead people to self-discovery, all that, but the context of this is how we do leadership development in the company, right? They'd just been a year immersed in this program.
I grabbed the two of them and said, "What if we did this at more of a management sort of precursor to leadership level? What would that look like now that you just went through the program? What would you have wanted to see in that program?" And thank goodness they had just gone through this program because between the three of us, we were able to craft out what's missing and what's needed and what would people at that sort of day-to-day level, right? ELEVATE Leadership is preparing people to lead the firm into the future, strategic, high level, right? Maybe become a shareholder even. Who knows? There's a whole lot of other people who are just trying to figure out how to navigate the nuances of managing people.
Chris: For like first-time especially, right? This is the first-time I've been responsible for other people.
John: Yeah, and why? Because I'm good at managing a project. Now suddenly I'm managing people. And some of those people being clients even, now I have to have hard conversations. So we were able to put together a curriculum that was.. And I do differentiate between management and leadership. So we were able to put together a curriculum that was focused more on this is what managing a team looks like. And this is what we would like you to know as a new or recently new people manager. And here's a toolkit that we have for you that is going to help you navigate that.
Chris: So it sounds to me like from what you just shared, in spirit, it's the same approach with cohorts and sessions to come together as ELEVATE Leadership it's just the focus is a little different.
John: It is. So the cohort aspect is huge. I think there are plenty of learning opportunities that don't require and maybe aren't even facilitated well by having a cohort. But ELEVATE Leadership is, I'm going to say the vast majority of its power is in the fact that you're in a cohort. So yes, we take that cohort experience because being in ELEVATE Leadership is not just about what you're learning, it's about an experience too. And we bring that into ELEVATE Talent Management. Now, so the spirit is the same. The content is maybe a bit different. And it means it's a larger class for a shorter period of time. So it's twice the size, half the time.
Chris: Okay. So 20 to 24 people in six months.
John: Correct.
Chris: Okay.
John: Yeah.
Chris: Why are cohorts so important and why are they so powerful? It seems like that's the secret sauce here.
John: Yeah, you can scale content, right? You can scale curriculum. You can't really scale hard conversations. You can't really anticipate that somebody's going to share something in whatever it is, issue processing. And another person's going to say, "That same thing just happened to me last month. And here's how I dealt with it." Or, "Man, I wish we were having this conversation then." Or you can't call bullshit if you're not in the cohort, right? And we'll do that. We'll say-
Chris: You can, but you're yelling at a screen or whatever. Yeah.
John: So it's really important to be able to be in that room and say, "I'm going to challenge you on what you just said." Or, "I need you to go deeper. I need to hear more from you." And to challenge each other that way and that I talked earlier about vulnerability and trust. That's where that comes from. That comes from those moments of those transparent moments that are very, Donovan, I think you used the word terrifying. Coming out of those moments better successfully is what builds a very strong, I think, vulnerable, transparent leader and that trust across the organization. So we have a tremendous network now of trusted leaders across the organization. We have between two ELEVATE Talent Managements. Coincidentally, the second cohort just graduated two weeks ago.
Chris: Do you run one a year or are you doing two a year?
John: We do them every other year.
Chris: Every other year, okay.
John: We alternate. We'll do ELEVATE Leadership, ELEVATE Talent Management. So we have five cohorts of ELEVATE Leadership, two cohorts of ELEVATE Talent Management. And it's a very strong network. Donovan said it, it doesn't end, they still.. I mean, they get together, they meet all the time. And they have a shared experience. So even if you weren't in the same cohort, you know what each other went through. You know what that other cohort, so you have a shared experience. So that shared experience really resonates across the firm with these people who are going to be carrying the firm into the future. So that. You don't really get out of sort of a one-to-many webinar classroom type scenario.
Chris: Have you had somebody go through talent management and through then leadership yet?
John: Yes.
Chris: I would assume they come in a little bit more prepared. Like they hit the ground running a little bit more if they've been through both, or is it totally completely different?
John: Nothing prepares you for ELEVATE Leadership.
Chris: Okay, fair.
John: It's pretty intense, I mean. So I would say this, while yes, they are similar in spirit and ELEVATE Talent Management maybe focuses on a little more sort of managing people than the organization. We do not demand the same level of transparency and vulnerability in ELEVATE Talent Management. ELEVATE Leadership is, you're pretty naked in there. So, yeah, it's an intense experience for many people. And the reading is considerably more. There's a lot more. Just the load is a lot greater on you.
Chris: That's really.. Sorry, Donovan, were you going to add something?
Donovan: No, I was going to say, and you still have your day job.
Chris: And you still have your day job. One last question on this one. Do you have a sense either tacitly or have you talked about when is this a thing that's one to many? When is this a thing that requires a workshop or a cohort? Like do you have a sense? Is it topically? Is it outcome? Like how do you think about when to do this and when not to?
John: I'm going to wait for Donovan to chime in there.
Donovan: I don't think it depends. Chris's quote. It depends on what we are trying to achieve. So I think when it comes to the ELEVATES, right, we've been talking about that. Those we do, they're cohorts for the leadership and talent management, but for ELEVATE Essentials, it didn't make sense because it's just information that people need to know. And we didn't want it to feel like it was exclusive. It was inclusive, right? So we wanted to make sure that everybody can feel included in learning whatever they wanted to learn, even if you're not an architect, like I mentioned before but understanding how architects work is a very valuable asset and understanding so we have a common language when we're talking to each other. And so those things to me were that's why we positioned it that way with essentials. So no cohort around that. But then yeah, when it comes to communities of things we haven't touched on it, but the FUEL, those are types of things where communities make sense in having some cohortness happening, if that's a word. But yeah, when it comes to, yeah, the ELEVATE, I guess, I don't know if there's anything else to add on that.
John: Well I think that the timeliness of information, right?
Donovan: Yeah, absolutely.
John: If I need to know something about the QA/QC process and I'm trying to hit a deadline for Friday, like I can't wait until my cohort meets next month. I just need to know this now. So some of the things, yeah, you can say, sort of say there are some check boxes and if it meets these criteria. And then a lot of them are sort of by feel like does this feel like it would be better served by having a group of people sharing it? And if so, who are you excluding if you do that? And is that okay?
Chris: Right. Yes, that all makes sense. Plus I would add just on the things that you've said and is connection between people one of the goals of this program because that sounds like that's very much one of the goals of talent management and ELEVATE Leadership. Well, you just mentioned FUEL.
Donovan: Yes.
Chris: What's FUEL?
Donovan: So FUEL to me is a community at first of people that want to come together and learn together. And we tie in that mentorship conversation around that as well. And one of the things that we are really excited about is it is its own entity, its own thing, because we didn't want it to be like this ELEVATE Learning and where it has a curriculum, it has a designed outcome. Whereas FUEL is nebulous. It's whatever people want to talk about from becoming a licensed architect to how do you work-life balance, to what does it mean to be even a leader in the firm?
Chris: So it's like bottom-up content topics, that.
Donovan: 100%, yes. And it's actually driven on purpose by those that are not leaders. So we actually create.. The way that's structured, we have a committee that's actually comprised of people that are very passionate about mentorship and learning that are new to the firm or are new into their role. And then we bring those together. So we have about eight people right now that are under our committee. And then we create a community around that of cohorts.
Chris: Mostly emerging professionals. Is that the primary target here?
Donovan: Yes, but actually we ask everyone. So anyone in the firm from the person that's been here for 20 plus years to the person that just started can all be part of these cohorts. And actually on purpose because behind the scenes mixed them up from different studios to different levels and we look at, we ask the question of what would you like to get out of it so we can group those types of people together for those types of conversations. And we bring them together and they're smaller.
So we have, I think that we had 80 people in our firm sign up this last time. And there are cohorts of 10 or less in each one to make sure that everybody has a voice in the conversation and we bring them all together and we lead there's always a mix of leaders and emerging professionals in that group. And actually it works great because then they ask a question, a leader can say, "Oh yeah, I've dealt with that." And I've had many leaders say, "Oh, I've actually learned a lot from our emerging professionals on certain topics and the ways they're doing it," so. And the topics are, nothing's off the table so it could be whatever they need to talk about like at that time. Mine just talked about soccer for about half the time.
So, but it was great because it got people talking that would never have talked to each other in our firm. So we have seven offices and this is something that's always been near and dear to my heart. It's like, how do we connect people that aren't sitting next to each other in their own cubes or in their own office or even in their own studio, right? It's how do we expand that out? And so we're very deliberate and not having the same people in the same office and all that. So they have an opportunity to meet somebody that was in our Irvine office, in our DC office, talking to each other and learning from each other. And also many times after these cohorts have changed or gone on, I hear all the time, "Oh yeah, I was able to talk to somebody over in that other," because we've had that connection already. Yeah, so it's creating those connection moments and common ground for having those conversations and learning from each other.
Chris: Yeah, how does this fit in your like view of KTGY as a learning organization, John? Like as we start going toward using that phrase, how does FUEL fit in around ELEVATE? Why is it not part of ELEVATE? Like how do you think about it?
John: Yeah, so it's probably, all of these things for me, they just sort of gradually emerged over time. And then to use Hemingway's quote sort of "First gradually, then suddenly," I realized there is an ecosystem happening here that just was sort of growing unbeknownst to me, but around me, unbeknownst to me, even though I was sort of immersed in it and quite a part of it. The genesis of FUEL is probably, it is the oldest of all of them. It predates all of them. But it has evolved like the others. It has evolved to something else since then. But it has evolved I think because of this willingness, ability to see ourselves as a learning organization because otherwise it's sort of, if we couch it the way I had back when it was originally conceived, it was just more training, just another training thing along with all the other training things we did. But because I'm starting to become more comfortable with this idea of a learning organization, I can see FUEL and anything else that might emerge later as simply part of that learning ecosystem. ELEVATE is not the learning ecosystem. ELEVATE is merely another one of those pieces in it. Now it may be one of the more, what, robust or-
Chris: Yeah, keystone whatever, foundational, whatever.
John: It may be the case and there's considerably more time and dollars invested in it, but that doesn't make it the ecosystem. That makes it an important part of the ecosystem. I would say unlike ELEVATE, which is always curriculum-based.. Well, ELEVATE Essentials, curriculum-based, the other two, talent management and leadership are very finite. There's a start date, there's a finish date. You must complete the curriculum, et cetera. Unlike those, FUEL is not. Neither is FUEL dictated really. It's very grassroots. It is of the people by the people for the people. But that makes it simply another means of delivering learning to people. So it's an equal part of the learning ecosystem. Right, it just sits next to ELEVATE and the other things that are part of that.
Chris: But it balances it, right? Because if you just had ELEVATE, you would miss out on some of these bottom-up topics or emergent ideas that people want to connect with. If you just had FUEL, then it would be pretty serendipitous. It's like, it's just random. Whatever people are learning about, like, who knows? And so by having both, you get the stuff that's intentional, but you also get, yeah.
John: So, look, when we put together a curriculum for ELEVATE. For talent management and for leadership, I know quite specifically what I would like you to get out of the program. And while we're open to feedback, and in fact, just in this last cohort for ELEVATE Talent Management, I pivoted a session based on the feedback. So it's not that it's dictated 100%, but look, I know generally what you're going to get out of the program. I honestly don't really know what everybody in FUEL wants, which is why I sort of don't.. Like Donovan and his peer in marketing, they provide leadership for FUEL, but it is also very self-run. Like what is it that you want to learn and know about? And you guys go ahead and do that. And we'll help you facilitate it in any way we can, but I'm not going to tell you what that needs to be. In fact, trying to do that some 12 years ago or whenever it started was a fail. I was like, "I got to get out of this process because I'm not really giving them what they want. So we'll let them run it."
Chris: Is partly why it's important for you two to be thinking about KTGY as a learning system or an ecosystem or a learning ecosystem, is that you don't have to put pressure on parts of it to become things that they're not. And you can allow different types of programs to emerge and flourish and compliment each other? Like I feel like that's what I'm hearing.
Donovan: Yeah, I think it gives us the opportunity to not be so rigid in the approach. We can explore and see what sticks. Because we don't have an L&D person that's directing or strategizing and figuring the whole thing out for us. We have to just go with the flow and see what's sticking, try it. The whole ELEVATE Essentials is exactly that. Maybe if there was somebody that was a professional in the realm and knew exactly like, no, that's not going to be sustainable, you might want to try a different way. But we're learning as we go and that's part of the whole adventure for us in this. And I appreciate it because it gives us an understanding of what is really important to the organization. Where do we put our effort because time is not infinite, right, for us. So we have to figure out where the most important thing is that we can help with the firm and grow in all of the things that we are trying to achieve from strategic goals to just community and growing our firm.
John: It's not KTGYU. And that's sort of purposeful because like sure, I think there are things we need you to grasp when you finish ELEVATE Talent Management. There are things we need you to grasp, but I don't purport to know all the things that you need to know or want to know to be a better manager or leader, whatever it is. So being part of a learning organization means I'm also learning. I'm part of that learning organization. I am not the dean of academics at the university that tells you what success looks like. I am learning right along with you. And like I said, I pivoted entirely one session for ELEVATE just a month or two ago based on the feedback I got and realized, okay, they're not getting exactly what they want. What can we do to help and deliver better content for them? Because I think being a part of a learning organization doesn't mean everybody necessarily says, yes, we are a learning organization. And I don't think everybody would. They don't have to. I think what it means is, would everybody agree that they're in a place where they can recommend changes, where they can talk about FUEL, here's what we want to learn. How can we get that? Instead of tell me what you need me to know and teach it to me.
Chris: Yeah, maybe a learning organization, not a training organization or something like that.
Right, I want to start moving towards a synthesis of ideas here. So at each level of ELEVATE, we've talked about KTGY figuring out how we do things here at KTGY. I think FUEL's an interesting wildcard in the mix in that it's like putting things on the radar that may not have been on the radar, but like, I want to go back to the thing you said, John. I want to look at my notes.
So generation to generation firm. So part of that is like we know that people are retiring and critical knowledge is walking out the door. And part of these programs are a response to that and that's not just a 2026 challenge, that's an evergreen challenge. I want to get into how you two are thinking about critical knowledge transfer and making sure that not only that the knowledge survives, but that the capability and the culture and the way that the firm thinks, like how are you thinking about knowledge transfer in that way?
Donovan: That's a loaded question. So yeah, there's a lot to unpack in that, but I think one of the things that we naturally, we look at, okay, who's the expert in the room? Who's carrying the weight of the answers of the questions that are being asked? And so that's where we start to focus on and they go, okay, it looks like they gave their notice or they're walking out the door or we just know that that's a high risk area. And one of the things that we try to do is like, okay, how can we help them give them the tools or understand the way that they should be sharing out, right? And some do it by sharing just respect of the craft, right? They do it, they've been doing it. Some of our leaders are born to just, here's how I do stuff. And they've been doing that with their teams and we're not really focused on them because they know their teams are doing well. They're going to flourish with or without the leader that's there already.
But the ones that are a little bit more like there's that expertise or that one thing that they always do really well that diffuse a client super-well and they just do it. We don't know how they do it, but they just do it. So how do they keep telling those stories and give them the microphone, the way to do it so that they can keep on sharing those things is what I'm trying to build out for them. But then also just where are those things happening where they're focused on the day-to-day and they don't always look up and say, "Hey, this is how I do things too," right? And so that's another area of focus for us is there's a person that does the one thing. And that one thing is pivotal for the entire firm to function in some way. And we all rely on that person, but if they win the lotto. They may not come in the next day.
Chris: Right, and they're busy doing the one thing.
Donovan: Exactly, so we don't want to necessarily derail them and say, "Okay, now you got to train a bunch of people that are not going to remember the thing because they don't do the thing.". And so how do we start tracking that? And so we're building out ways to start supporting that, that make it easier for them to be able to capture that knowledge so that when, if and when that information needs to be known, it could be easily accessed.
Chris: That's interesting what you just said. So if I heard what you just said right is, it's so funny because like so much of the discourse around knowledge transfer is, how do we get it out of Donovan's head and then scale it? But you're hinting that there are times where we want to make sure that we understand how Donovan's doing the work, but maybe it's not important to figure out how to transfer that knowledge right away because we don't need it or we don't need a second person doing this today. Did I hear that right?
Donovan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's something that we've been toying with in a sense of how do we account how do we make sure that the information is known or somewhere it can be found, but not impose a full thresh learning opportunity where we're teaching a bunch of people that might or may not ever do the thing, right? And that. So, that's really hard because how do you, then you just hope that they just stay in that seat forever.
Chris: Yeah, sure. But in another scenario, right, it might be that that person's actually a bottleneck and you want five people to be able to do the thing. And in that case, you want to scale their expertise.
Donovan: Exactly.
John: I think a lot about, especially lately, what does it mean to be in our industry, to be a practitioner in this industry in the future? Because, I don't know what it is, but I do know that it's not what it was. I know that the way I learned the profession, and I've been just about 40 years in this industry, the way I learned it and what I learned is it's not that. It's going to be different than that. And I think we are at a very interesting time one, in the industry, just what we see happening in the industry, across the industry in terms of consolidation, merging of services and service offerings. What we also see at this point in time with where people are doing the work, which isn't often shoulder to shoulder anymore.
And then specifically for us at KTGY where we are a generation to generation firm and now of the first 12 partners in the firm, two of them are left. One of them is actively winding down. So all of those things make me think a lot about what does it mean to be in this industry as a practitioner in the future and what do you need to know? And how do we get that information to you? Because it's one thing to say, look, so and-so is the expert on this subject matter and we got to figure out a way to share that knowledge with other people. And we've been doing that for a while now because we have seven offices. 20 years ago we had one. Now we have seven. So if somebody in DC is a subject matter expert, how do we make sure somebody in Oakland has that same knowledge, right? So we've been dealing with that, but I think it's even different now because the question is, well, is that knowledge important to that person right now? And will it be in the future? And all of those things that we've been holding onto as the things that are critical for our success as practitioners, is that in fact what is in the future? With all of the things, and I didn't even include in that list of things, the emergence of new technologies.
Chris: Look, we got to an hour and 11 minutes in without talking about AI, which is, I think we should all-
John: You said it first.
Chris: I think we should all take a little bow.
Donovan: Exactly.
John: Right, so all those things, I think, start to re-inform what does it mean to be a practitioner in the future and what do we need you to learn? And yes, that whole conversation of AI changing the how we get the work done is going to play a big role in what do we need you to learn now then.
Chris: So for the last.. So FUEL, I mean, you said fuel predated leadership. Is it 2015, 2010? Like just ballpark.
John: 14, '15, something like that.
Chris: '14, '15. So for the last 11 or 12 years, as KTGY has grown and added offices, like by adding in FUEL and leadership and talent management and essentials, you are recognizing that people, like all of that would've done at one point by learning by doing, right? And through working on one project at a time with a mentor, manager, whatever that is, and over time you hope there's osmosis and you learn the practice of architecture. So you've already recognized when you started adding these programs as like, we're not learning fast enough or well enough or all that. But as you're looking forward from 2026, John, when you say, "I don't think people are going to learn the way I am." Do you have any hypothesis, or maybe Donovan too, like how it's going to be different and is that a good thing? Yeah, does this keep you up at night worried? Or are you like, this is exciting actually because the practice is going to be different, or is it both?
Donovan: Yeah, I am worried and excited at the same time, which is interesting. So I'm worried that we're not going to get it right, but I'm excited that there's an opportunity to do something different that maybe will impact those that are becoming leaders and becoming the experts in their realm. I think that someone has taken 40 years to get to the position that they're in and know the thing that they know, it's going to be expedited for those that have been that journey is not going to take 40 years anymore or shouldn't take 40 years anymore. It's going to become so much faster.
And I think there's going to be this moment of time where it's like, I don't want to call it resentment, but it's going to be like, wow, it took me 40 years to get there and now you're taking only 20 years to get there. And how come? And I think that's exciting actually for me, that's the exciting part of it because I think now this industry is going to grow faster and have more opportunities than we've ever had before because of that shorter period of time of learning and understanding. But it needs to be done right and that's where it scares me too, is that what does that look like? And that's what keeps me up is like, what could that look like from the YouTube generation to the now AI generation, right, of people are just readily getting answers when they need it, how they need it, versus having to tap away working on a computer or even a drafting table and having someone look over the shoulder at that time, right? It's so much different in how fast someone can learn up if they choose to do so.
Chris: So there's this in the past maybe, just to overly simplify what you just said, like if I were going back 15 years, like the bottleneck in my accelerated journey, my ability to go fast and learn is maybe partly access to information. I just can't get to the things I need to know faster. And then also obviously organizational willingness to let people move faster. But now it's like the information isn't going to be the bottleneck. People are going to be able to get whatever they need on demand. It's this opportunity to get reps and practice and do this again and again on projects. So I actually learn the skill, haven't just watched a video on a skill. But they're going to feel like they've got.. Like their knowledge is out ahead of their.. Their information is out ahead of their knowledge in some ways. Which is out ahead of their wisdom. And I don't know. Is that making sense? It's making sense in my mind.
Donovan: Yes.
John: Yeah, I do think there are so many things that we have become good at as an industry, teaching and training that were necessary. And you could get those things to people when they needed them as they needed them, help them develop in their career. Some of those things I think are probably just no longer necessary. And that should be the case in any industry.
Chris: What's an example of something you used to do that we can just cast off?
John: Don't need to know how to construct a window schedule anymore.
Chris: Okay.
John: Just like 30 years ago I had to. I had to spend a lot of time laying out parking stalls, right? How do you get the most efficient parking lot out of this piece of land? That was necessary. You had to learn how to do that. I don't know that it's completely unnecessary. Maybe you need to get the basic concept of it, but a computer can do it way better than I can. So is that even a necessary skill?
Chris: Is that the best use of your human talent is to be able to, yeah.
John: If we were to presume all those things that we've always trained and you've had to learn are the things that you're always going to have to learn, if we presume that to be the future, well then that's the part that worries me. The part that worries me is we continue to make that assumption that the thing we learned is the thing that needs to be learned, when in fact I do think that the bar for some of those things continues to be lower, right? Whether it was because of AutoCAD or then because of Revit, or now because of automation and AI, the bar to some of those things, those entry things is much lower. So what does that mean? Well, I think that raises the bar for those value-add things. So those things that we didn't spend a lot of time learning.
Chris: Difficult conversations, building trust.
John: There you go. Right. Connecting with a client. Understanding your client's business even better, right? All those things that we didn't spend a lot of time learning, I worry that those things get missed because I don't know how the industry continues to evolve otherwise. And then I worry-
Chris: Wait, can you tell me about the worry, just for a second to click on that though. But you guys have put a lot of infrastructure in place to solve that. So are you worrying about the industry in general, but do you feel like, well, at KTGY, we've got talent management, we're thinking about leadership, we're thinking about being more intentional about those soft skills and those things than we've ever been. Or are you thinking, we're not even going far enough with that?
John: I always worry that there's more to do. I probably always worry that it's not enough. If I thought about, you asked me earlier, what would be a metric for success? I would think that we are developing practitioners who think and respond faster than actually the industry changes. Rather than, I think that we are, all of us as humans are behind it because we can't read every tea leaf, right? We can't read all the cups of tea. So I think we're sort of behind it. And so that worries me. It also.. It doesn't, like that we are solving it. Maybe I don't give ourselves enough credit and I'm guilty of that a lot. That we are cognizant of it, that we are putting effort into it is probably a lot less to worry about. I also worry, will we be able to attract as an industry, and maybe even as an organization, the people who are passionate about those things, about solving the problems in that way.
Chris: So someone that would've been fun to lay out parking stalls and optimize for that. Like, wait, I don't get to do that anymore, so.
John: Absolutely.
Chris: Yeah.
John: Absolutely. Look, I loved making chipboard and foam core models. But there's no need for that anymore. Would my 25-year-old self be as interested if I didn't get to do that? I don't know.
Chris: Where it's like the thing I'm rewarding out of. Yeah, clearly there's still going to be design and that matters. But so much of it is sitting with a client, hearing the unspoken needs that they're articulating and it's a lot more that that piece is going to be what's brought forward….
John: When I was 25, 30, we relied zero on data to inform design decisions. Well, and that was fun, right? Because you go, why'd you do that? Well, I did it because it looked cool.I did it because it solved this problem I wanted to solve, whatever. If the answer to the question is supposed to be because that's where the data led me, am I as excited by that? I don't know.
Chris: It's attracting different kinds of people potentially to the profession. Yeah.
One of my go-to quotes, and you two have probably heard me say it, is the Jeff Bezos thing around when he gets asked where do you think things are headed in the future? And what's going to change? He's like, "That's not the question I answer. I answer, what's not going to change?" And so like his example for Amazon, right, is like 10 years from now, do people want things to be cheaper or more expensive? Cheaper, we invest in cost. Like do people want their packages faster or slower? Faster, so we invest in speed. Do they want more selection or less selection? More selection. So we invest in assortment and availability.
And I'm curious as we're wrapping up this conversation, like I wonder if there's a.. it seems like whether you thought about it as a way to think about this question or not, like you've made investments in those people skills piece and judgment and trust. And that seems to be part of your thesis through your actions whether or not intentionally that's where you think some of the value is. And I'm curious if there are other areas, broad areas of investment where you're like, we don't know exactly what it's going to look like to be an architect in 2030 or 2035, but these things feel like they'll still be true. Therefore, we can invest in these things without having to know how the whole picture shakes out.
John: Well, look, I mean, I think I could use that entire framework, Bezos's framework for our clients. Do they want their projects to be cheaper? Or they want it faster or slower? They want it faster. Do they want more options or less options? They want more options. So, yeah, I think all of that, and I mentioned earlier the consolidation of the industry. I think we're absolutely seeing that and we're all seeing, every single one of us is seeing pressure on fee. I don't care if you wear the black cape in town, you're still seeing pressure on fee. And you may be the cat's meow, but that doesn't mean you're not competing on fee every single day. You may be able to charge a premium, but there's still pressure on fee, which means there's also a pressure on cost and costs aren't going down, right? Labor costs are going up, right? Rent, everything. Costs are going up. So that margin is going to continue to be squeezed. So in the future, do we want to do it for less or more? We want to do it for less. And do our teams want more vulnerability from their leaders or less? Do they want more transparency from their leaders or less? Do they want more honest conversations or fewer?
Chris: Are times going to be more volatile? Is change going to be faster or slower? Like it seems like all those things are true, which is I think underlying what you're saying, right? In turbulent times, you need trust more than anything.
John: Yeah, but you need trust more than anything. I was asked, I don't know. Look, many years ago, if you had a magic wand and you could wave it and tomorrow any one thing in the company would be different, what would it be? And my answer was and still is today, everybody would trust everyone implicitly. Because that gets you somewhere. That gets you somewhere fast. It gets you farther than not. And I don't know exactly what the industry looks like in the future. I just know it doesn't look the same.
Chris: If it's true, I mean, I'm agreeing it's true, but like let's say it's true that like costs, fees are going to go down, schedules are going to go faster, blah, blah, blah. What's the knowledge and learning response to that? Like how do you prepare KTGY to be successful in an era with smaller fees, faster schedules, et cetera, et cetera? Like what investments could you start making now in preparing the company for that?
John: Yeah, we'll see. And I don't know that that's such a like point in time question. I think that's something that just evolves year over year over year. I do, since you mentioned it, we do have a group of leaders right now, two groups specifically. One that is focusing exactly on, look, the truth is fees are going down, costs are going up. How can we.. We're not bad at what we do, but how can we get better at it? How can we deliver more for less?
We have a group of leaders who are focusing on exactly that question right now. We also have another group of leaders who are focusing on the question of the industry is changing. There are disruptions and there are innovations happening. Every weekend you read a new article about things that are changing and that are going to affect us. What are those things? Can we keep them on our radar? And do they need a response and do we have a response for them? So like I don't know that I can tell you this is the answer to that. I can say that if we have those leaders who are willing to get in that conversation, that sort of tiger team of people who are willing to get in the room and say, well, we can solve this problem, whatever it is, bring it to us and we'll solve it. With that ability to talk, like I said earlier, the leaders who can anticipate and respond to change faster than is happening around them.
Chris: There's this underlying thing in which you said and this is true for the whole conversation we've had. KTGY is investing in things that are important but not urgent. One day they're going to be urgent.
John: One day they're going to be urgent.
Chris: The old cliche. When's the best day to plant a tree? 20 years ago. Right? And the next best day is today. But you've planted some trees 20 years ago that are going to.. How far do I go with this metaphor? Provide shade. Yeah, I'll stop there. I'll stop with that, right? Yeah, Donovan, as you think about what's next from your lens in knowledge management and learning, what's got you excited about the next few years?
Donovan: Yeah, I mean, with the prospect of using AI in our own realm to be able to help accelerate and amplify what we've already been doing is going to be a huge part of this conversation I think in the next few years, even now, that's helping us. And I think that's going to be something that's going to be more present and more prevalent within our industry as we're starting to see the conversations are starting to wrap around that, right? And understanding, okay, what does that mean in the knowledge sharing and knowledge capture realm? And I think that's going to be very much a first and foremost conversation of what does that look like? How does that work? What does that mean? And what does that mean then to that emerging leader and what does it mean to one that is retiring? And how does that all connect in that conversation? And I think that's where I'm super excited about that part of it because I think there is some great opportunity and I think there's some great things that are going to happen around that for our industry that's large and KTGY has definitely taken that step.
Chris: That makes a lot of sense. So yeah, I keep coming back to this. I like what you said, John, also about KTGY moving fast in the industry. And that was echoed in what you just said, Donovan, and allowing your people to learn to move faster. But, connected to this other underlying theme of what we've been talking about, you can only move as fast as… the speed of trust is the limiter, right? So the more that you can increase trust, the faster KTGY can move and can meet that goal of being ahead of the industry.
Donovan: Absolutely.
Chris: That's great. Well, John and Donovan, thank you so much for your generosity and sharing all of your stories and insights, hopes, fears, anxieties, excitements about the future. This has been great, and I appreciate you both.
John: All right. Thank you very much.
Donovan: Thank you.