Business Services
Different by design
How David Gensler guides his firm to the next level of success by investing in its foundation
By Kristy J. O’Hara
Smart Business Northern California | July 2007
When Gensler’s founder decided to retire two years ago, everyone said leadership needed to choose a successor — just one person to lead as CEO. But the architectural design firm’s next generation of leaders disagreed. They didn’t believe that choosing one
leader was best for the firm and the direction it was going with its
global initiatives.
“There was nobody who was going to be able to stand in
[Founder] Art Gensler’s shoes,” Executive Director David Gensler
says. “Nobody has the founder’s equity that he has. The fact is,
nobody can run this company as a single individual the way that it
was run by Art. It’s too big, too complex, and it’s too big of a burden for any individual, and the reality was he wasn’t running it himself. We all lived with the myth that he was running it, but we were
a team underneath him that was running the company.”
With the backing of the senior managers and the board of directors, three people were identified who would take on the role of
executive director: David Gensler, the eldest son of the founder,
along with Diane Hoskins and Andy Cohen, both long-time
employees of the firm. The three would jointly run the firm and
each have a particular area of expertise. Gensler focuses on
finance and operations, Hoskins on practice and professional
development, and Cohen focuses on design excellence and client
development.
While many greeted this decision with skepticism, and the three
often differ in opinions, they always talk it out to ensure the firm
succeeds and grows.
“It’s like a marriage,” Gensler says. “You’re either committed to
making it work or you fail. And a lot of these kinds of leadership
teams struggle — I would probably say all of them struggle, and
some of them fail. The fact is that the leadership of one is not necessarily a perfect model either.
“By having three of us, we connect to a lot more people than if
there was just one of us,” Gensler says. “There are different
aspects of each of us that are maybe more comfortable for any one
individual to connect to.”
When the three executive directors began, they sat down and discussed a host of issues that would help the firm succeed in its global expansion efforts. While they agreed many things were important, three of the more crucial elements were grooming future
leaders, creating unity and maintaining a long-term view of the
business.
While they’re only in their second year as top dogs, they’re making strides in these areas to ensure success.
Grooming leaders
Part of growing means preparing people to take on additional
responsibilities.
“The biggest challenge a second generation has is to make sure
we grow and develop the third generation of leaders,” Gensler
says.
The first key is setting them up to succeed. With more than 300
employees in the San Francisco office, it could be easy for them to
get lost in the shuffle.
“That scale is hard for an individual to find their way in it,”
Gensler says.
To combat that, employees are structured in units of 20 to 30 people.
“There’s opportunities for leadership development within that
kind of organizational unit that allows people at every level to realize opportunity,” he says.
It’s also critical to invest in employees so their skills don’t stagnate. Gensler says the firm spends a tremendous amount of time
and money on continuous training programs, sending people to
industry events, and other initiatives centered on registrations and
licensing for particular disciplines.
Transparency offers the third key to molding leaders. When
employees can see, challenge and participate in decisions and
problem-solving, it helps them understand the company’s processes as opposed to their niche responsibilities.
“We try to foster team development and opportunities within a
team activity by exposing how we’re doing things,” Gensler says.
“We make visible what the contract is, what the project plan is,
how we’re managing that, how we’re performing at each interval
and how you deal with things when they’re not working. That
team-based environment is where the bulk of people’s development and learning is going to happen.”
While it can create uncomfortable situations when people challenge the leaders’ decisions, as a whole, it benefits the organization.
“It creates a greater level of trust and a much better opportunity for development,” he says. “What happens when you open
up the kimono and show people what you’re doing and how
you’re doing it? They’re going to question you, but they also, at
least, don’t have to suspect some nefarious, malicious process
or methodology or agenda.”
Gensler says leaders have to put aside their concerns.
“People have to overcome two things,” he says. “One is fear,
which, by allowing participation that they lose control, and by
making it transparent, they create more problems than they
solve.”
As employees grow and learn, they also have to be given
additional responsibilities. At Gensler, employees must be with
the firm at least a year before they can earn the first of three
possible ascending titles, but it could also take years for people to earn any of the titles.
“You have to walk through that process of becoming an associate, senior associate and a principal,” Gensler says. “That
encourages people to get a greater understanding of what it
means to be a leader in this firm and play a role at every level.”
He also avoids having strict criteria for promotions and
instead fosters discussion about people’s leadership, expertise
and contributions to the firm during the year. This allows
everyone to advance.
“What you expect out of somebody who’s a few years out of
school versus somebody who’s 20 years out of school and has
a huge body of experience is different,” Gensler says.
Creating unity
“Dad, why do you have to go?” Gensler’s youngest daughter
asked as he tucked her into bed the night before he left for
another business trip. “I really want you to stay.”
“It’s not easy to do something great,” he explained to her. “I
have to work hard because I’m part of a firm that’s trying to do
something great.”
That commitment is something he prioritizes as he and his team
strive to maintain the company’s “One-firm firm” mentality, which
isn’t exactly easy with 2,600 employees in 30 offices around the
world.
“We are one firm in many locations,” Gensler says. “We’re not
a franchise with a lot of different offices that share our name.
We’re not a federation. We are, in fact, all connected and share
a destiny.”
To keep people connected, the firm hosts a conference call
for every office each Monday at a time that allows all the U.S.
and London offices to participate during business hours. But
when the Asian offices grew larger, they needed to be in on it,
too, so someone’s going to have to sacrifice some sleep.
“Now we have to say, ‘Guess what, Asia? You guys get to get up
in the middle of the night and participate in the call because we
don’t have a solution of how to avoid that,’” Gensler says.
“Somebody’s got to get up and draw the short straw.”
While it’s not ideal, they do it because they know it’s important for the firm.
“This community that we have in our firm is incredibly passionate about maintaining our culture, and we all know that
there’s a price to be paid to do something great,” Gensler says.
Leaders have to also create unity for the next levels of leadership, too. Gensler hosts two major meetings each year — one
for all principals and one for practice area leaders.
“Twice a year we’re getting together roughly 100 people to
connect them physically as large groups to share what they’re
doing and renew their relationships,” Gensler says.
Then to further foster communication and interaction, Gensler
suggests having employees work with people in other offices regularly. He says 20 percent of the hours on everyone’s time cards
come from working with people in other offices.
It’s also crucial to reach out to younger people in an organization to connect them so they feel they have a place in the
company. The firm groups one or two dozen younger, rising
employees to work on a task together.
“That binds them together in a way that you can’t get if you
say, ‘Well, yeah, I share the same business card as that person,’”
Gensler says. “You’ve actually touched that person. You’ve
talked to them. You’ve gotten to know them, and you’ve
worked with them. That happens so much every day that it
really holds us together.”
Beyond communication, companies can create unity in the
way they reward employees. While many businesses award
bonuses only to those offices that do well, Gensler takes a different approach by rewarding everyone.
“The bonuses are based on the firm’s profitability and then
influenced by the region, the office and your individual contribution to the firm’s success,” he says. “It’s not formulaic. It’s
based on judgment calls. We believe that formulaic, objective-based bonus compensations drive this kind of territorial type
of behavior, so we rely on a subjective assessment by the leadership.”
This helps every employee keep the firm’s overall best interest at the forefront of his or her thoughts.
“An office that’s really having a great year is helping an office
that is having a bad year,” Gensler says. “Recognize that offices
will have ups and downs in this very cyclical industry, so that
shared destiny of being in it for the benefit of the entire firm
and recognizing that we benefit when we help our brothers and
sisters in another office who are struggling really drives a
whole cultural paradigm and a behavioral paradigm that holds
us together.”
Keeping the long-term view
During the Sept. 11 attacks, Gensler was the chief operating officer and visiting the London office. He watched the office television
for hours in horror, but it wasn’t until later, back in his silent hotel
room, that he realized that as COO, he needed to organize the company’s response and deal with the resulting issues.
“I was experiencing this tragedy on a personal level,” he says.
“It took me a few hours to realize I had to think about the long-term future of the firm and what my job was. That happens
every day, on a much less traumatic scale — I get pulled into a
problem here or there, and I can’t allow that to completely take
over my life. I have to make sure that I prioritize my job for this
firm.”
To do that, leaders need to call each other out and constantly remind themselves and each other of their duties.
“You fail every day, but you try and come back to the fact that
that’s your job,” he says. “I get pulled down into the weeds all
the time.”
This constant self-check helps keep a longer view instead of
focusing on the current quarter.
“If you take the long view as your guideposts and you develop a set of values that you aspire to, if you make mistakes, you
can always come back to what the vision for your firm is,”
Gensler says. “If you articulate that and communicate that and
share that among your people — by saying it, it doesn’t make
it so, but it makes it visible. If you’re willing to admit that
you’re going to make mistakes and we’re trying to achieve this
together, I think every organization can weather the failure and
achieve (its) ultimate goals.”
Gensler involves all of his people in hitting the mile markers
along the road to success by communicating the vision and
building on the organization’s DNA. That path has helped grow
the company to $528 million in revenue for the fiscal year,
which ended March 31.
“This firm has this kind of grassroots entrepreneurial spirit
that says you can do anything you want, as long as it’s responsible, it’s consistent with our mission and you have a personal
passion for it,” Gensler says. “By creating that sense of opportunity for people to pursue their personal passions, with that
long-term vision that we have, is a way that grows this organization organically.”
HOW TO REACH: Gensler, (415) 433-3700 or www.gensler.com
