Architects 2Zebras

Do Architects Have the (Mindset) to Face the Future? March 1, 2011

Posted by randydeutsch in architect, architecture industry, BIM, books, career, change, identity, technology, the economy, transformation.
Tags: BIM, Building Futures, Carol Dweck, fixed mindset, global economic crisis, growth mindset, Mindset, The Future for Architects
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Here is your future.

Do you know where your mindset is?

And do you have the right mindset to face your future?

The future was presented to us the other day in the form of a PDF.

That is, as the future will unfold according to Building Futures’ “The Future for Architects?” the result of a year’s inquiry and research into the future of architectural practice.

Here are some of the takeaways from this cautionary study:

• Architecture is “a profession that has an unenviable reputation for being notoriously insular and more focused on what it can offer than what its client wants.”
• Smaller practices expressed a resistance to integrated technology such as BIM.
• Technology is a more significant driver for larger practices – and an essential tool required to compete.
• The vast majority of the demand side of the profession (clients and consultants) could see design slipping further down the pecking order in the next fifteen years.
• Building technology is becoming increasingly more complex, so much so that design work is increasingly being carried out by subcontractors
• The concept of the architect as a technician who composes all the constituent parts of a building that are designed by the subcontractors was widely thought to be a realistic vision of the future
• The architectural profession unfortunately does not view itself as part of the wider construction industry, and that this was a fundamental value that needs to change
• Whoever carried the risk would drive the design, and so in shying away from taking on risk architects are diminishing their ability to influence design outcomes.
• Many saw the label ‘architect’ as restrictive and as creating barriers between themselves and other professions such as planning and urban design.

Interestingly, students and graduates of engineering were more positive about their education process, and said they felt well integrated into the other built environment professions – putting them in a good position to lead the design team.

Victimized or energized

How do we know that their findings are accurate?

We don’t.

But when you look at their two previous studies – Practice Futures 2005 is an update to The Professionals’ Choice, a 2003 Building Futures publication that examined the future of the built environment professions – they predicted everything correctly.

Only the global economic crisis wasn’t anticipated.

“The Future for Architects?” calls itself a speculative exploration of the imminent changes likely to affect the industry over the next fifteen years whose stated purpose is for “generating scenarios, cautionary tales and alternative futures to stimulate discussion and debate rather than perfect answers.”

To read more about the ongoing aims of the project click here, and to download their new mini-publication click here.

Whether you feel powerless and victimized by these changes, or empowered and energized by them, will have something to do with your age, status and position within your organization.

But more importantly, it has something to do with how you see yourself – as someone who is seen as being intelligent and having the answers.

Or, instead, as someone who is open to learning.

The Big Idea

On this last point, I’ve been thinking lately about Carol Dweck who’ll be visiting one of my kid’s schools here in Winnetka, Illinois USA in the coming weeks.

Her book, Mindset, is a familiar fixture in our household having spent time on just about every coffee table, night stand and otherwise flat surface in the house at one time or another.

Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford, like the hedgehog has one idea – but it is a BIG one.

I’ve written about Dweck and her big idea in my other blog.

Here’s her big idea:

She proposes that everyone has either a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

And that determines how we succeed at work and in life.

Her idea has huge implications for how organizations professionally develop their employees, and the way design professionals go about professionally developing themselves.

Fixed Mindset

A fixed mindset is one in which you view your talents and abilities as fixed. In other words, you are who you are, your intelligence and talents are fixed, and your fate is to go through life avoiding challenge and failure.

So an architect with a fixed mindset would have rigid thinking, be set in their ways, practice their profession as a tradition with conventions that are time-tested, unvarying and inflexible.

For architects with fixed mindsets, architecture has to be practiced a certain way otherwise they will not be able to protect the health, welfare and safety of people who inhabit their buildings. You can see how architects, through education, training and practice, could develop fixed mindset attitudes concerning practice and the damage this attitude inflicts on us and those we work with.

Architects with a fixed mindset tend to

1. focus on proving that they have fixed knowledge or expertise in one area instead of focusing on the process of learning and

2. avoid difficult challenges because failing on these could cause them appear less knowledgeable

Their disregard of learning and challenge hinders their performance which in turn hinders their professional development of knowledge, skills and abilities.

Growth Mindset

A growth mindset, on the other hand, is one in which you see yourself as fluid, a work in progress.

Your fate is one of growth and opportunity.

An architect with a growth mindset recognizes that a change of mind is always possible and even welcome.

Note that this isn’t about positive and negative thinking – but about fixed and growth mindsets.

According to the dictionary, a mindset is an established set of attitudes held by someone.

When it comes to your career, which mindset do you possess?

How to develop a growth mindset

The good news, says Dweck, is that mindsets are not set.

At any time, you can learn to use a growth mindset to achieve your goals.

This is perhaps the best reason to read Mindset.

In the book Dweck tells how we can develop a growth mindset and improve our lives and the lives of those around us.

To change from a fixed to a growth mindset, follow these four steps:

Step 1. Learn to hear your fixed mindset “voice.”

Step 2. Recognize that you have a choice.

Step 3. Talk back to it with a growth mindset voice.

Step 4. Take the growth mindset action.

For those familiar with cognitive theory, you may recognize some similarities. For more detail, look here.

For us visual types, here’s an illustration that effectively describes the differences between the fixed and growth mindsets.

We’ll all need a growth mindset if we’re to meet the challenges facing the future for architects.

Despite the steps listed above, I cannot think of a more important first step than reading this book.