Happy Hour, This Thursday - May 2, 2013

The 2013 Class Project: Promise House!

So with a few leadership sessions under our belts, the Class of 2013 is making strides.

The nametags have disappeared.  Driving to DCFA comes naturally.  (Even if parking still may not).  And you can bet that Pete DeLisle will leave you feeling challenged and inspired by the end of each monthly leadership training session.  Forgot a name?  Wanting more inspiration?  Well, there's always the Happy Hour...

So as the Class of 2013 began to develop those personal relationships with each other, they asked the question:

"...what should we do for our class project?"

The class project is a charitable, volunteer endeavor taken on by each ELP class.  It's often a civic, and/or non-profit need... presumably that can be filled by the fantastic talents of energetic young designers!  So what has the Class of 2013 chosen?  After a few great options, the Class quickly coalesced around the needs of one organization: Promise House.

Promise House seeks to provide homeless, run-away, and at-risk teens a safer path out of their current circumstances.  They provide many services, including shelter.  For a deeper dive, take a look at their website:  http://www.promisehouse.org/index.php/about-us

Promise House has a Street Outreach program that seeks to take these teens in.  Except, when they can't!  Due to a lack of space, they turn people away every week.  So... enter the ELP Class of 2013.  We'll be designing, permitting, and fitting-out shell space at their Oak Cliff facility in South Dallas.  The goal is to provide additional beds and communal space for at least a half dozen teens, who will otherwise be turned away.

The Class met with Promise House's executive leadership in March.  We were inspired by their vision and leadership as we toured the space, listened to ideas, and generally learned more about each other.  We left with a sense of urgency.  In the months ahead, we'll be advancing the design and documentation of the space.  But we'll also be promoting and fundraising for the project.

Bake sale, anyone?  (...um, really.  Not kidding!)


Jordan Thompson

KickOff Retreat at the Pump House

Imagine setting up a tent with four other people you met only twelve hours ago.

Oh, and you've all been blindfolded.

This was one of several unique (to say the least) activities the AIA Emerging Leader's Class of 2013 participated in at our kick-off retreat at the Pump House in January, led by Dr. Peter DeLisle.  We arrived at the Pump House bright and early on a Saturday morning, and began with breakfast, coffee, and an interesting fact from each person that they wished to share with the group.  The morning and afternoon sessions were grandly titled “Connections and Communications” and “Leaders and What Makes Them Effective.”  What followed was a series of group activities in which the class examined leadership and teamwork in the microcosm of simple activities like group juggling or building the tallest possible Tinker-toy structure in 30 seconds or less.  The tasks we were given for each exercise were straightforward and uncomplicated, allowing us to observe truths about the way people work together and how leadership develops within a team without the distraction of the complications of day-to-day work.  Like a science experiment, by carefully controlling external circumstances (the parameters of the activity), we were able to study the resulting behaviors in isolation.

So what does this have to do with tents?  During the afternoon session (formal title: “Leaders and What Makes Them Effective”), we were split into groups of five or six, blindfolded, then told that our task lay before us.  Feeling around with our hands in the darkness, we found a bag with sticks and plastic-y cloth.  We quickly realized our skill levels varied tremendously, from the inexperienced (“How did you guys know it was a tent?”) to the expert (former Eagle Scout).  Those of us with experienced team members quickly learned to listen and take instructions, as the leaders of this task naturally emerged from among the sightless.  In my own group, the fastest way to accomplish this task was for team members to quickly communicate what they observed from their perspective, and then allow the leader to assess and instruct accordingly.  The simplicity of the activity allowed us to think critically about the process and reflect on what concepts might relate back to our day-to-day work.

As the day drew to an end, we gathered together to talk about what each person hoped to gain by attending the class.  As people shared their backgrounds, current projects, and goals for the next year, it became clear that the activities we'd engaged in throughout the day had served another purpose beyond conveying leadership concepts.  Those activities had transformed a group of strangers into a group that had learned to work together and begin to trust one another.  Although the Emerging Leader Program takes place over 9 months, the group meets together formally only once a month, in other words, only nine times.  Yet in those nine meetings, a class project must be selected, developed, coordinated, published, and executed.  Taking nine months to feel at ease working with the other members was not an option.  One crazy day of practice working out small challenges has us primed and ready for the big one to come.

Plus we learned a thing or two about tents.

 

Gwen Morgan, SHW Group

Emerging Leaders Program - Class of 2013

 

 

The AIA Dallas Leadership Committee is proud to announce the 2013 class of participants in the Emerging Leaders Program.

 

Lauren Boepple – Perkins+Will

Aimee Burmaster, RID – PageSoutherlandPage

Shannon Carpenter, AIA, NCARB – Gensler

Jared Eder, Assoc. AIA – Gensler

Tucker English, AIA – HKS

Jarod Fancher, Assoc. AIA - Architecture Demarest

Katie Hitt, Assoc. AIA – AIA Dallas

Meredith Hunt, Assoc. AIA – t. howard + associates

Ian Means – Beck Group

Monica Miranda, AIA – JHP

Masoud Monfared, SBA – HKS

Gwen Morgan, IIDA – SHW Group

Mia Ovcina, Assoc. AIA – Dewberry Architects Inc.

Mara Salas, Assoc. AIA – Corgan

Dustin Siegrist, AIA – HKS

Xavier Spencer, AIA – Good Fulton & Farrell

Jordan Thompson, AIA, NCARB – Perkins+Will

Julianna Turner, AIA – Merriman Associates

Houston Wurtele, AIA – Corgan

 

The program is Co-Chaired by: Charles E. Brant, AIA of Perkins+Will, Amy King, AIA of SHW Group, Michelle Northington, AIA of PageSoutherlandPage, and Chris Owens, Assoc. AIA of The Samuel Group. The program is instructed by Dr. Pete DeLisle of The Posey Leadership Institute at Austin College.

 

The Emerging Leaders Program is open to participation from all Dallas area architectural firms through an application process to the AIA Dallas Leadership Committee. Information describing nomination details for the 2014 class will be posted on the AIA Dallas website this fall.

 

Special thanks to Acme Brick, Daltile, Dimensional Print, and L.A. Fuess & Partners for sponsoring this year’s class.

 

Emerging Leaders Program 2013

Applications are due on Thursday the 6^th. 

Scholarship applications are now on the website (see link below).  If you know of someone at a small or medium sized firm that we be a great candidate, please let them know.

http://aiadallas.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=64

ELP September 2012 Class

For the September ELP seminar, the class met at Sabine Hall on the Richland College Campus. The seminar focused on project leadership and featured panelists with backgrounds in both architecture and construction.  Our invited guests were Patrick Glenn, a principal with Perkins + Will; Wade Andres, President and CEO of Andres Construction; and Stephen R. Miller, a project manager with Andres Construction.

Pete’s session began with a fun collaborative exercise that helped everyone recall and situate all the analytical models that we’ve studied throughout the year with regard to leadership development.   By using the dashboard of an automobile as a metaphor, we broke into groups and related each of the concepts to the instruments and gauges we all utilize in driving our vehicles.  The goal was to situate the various analytical models as if they were instruments on a dashboard---where would we place them? How would we use them? How are they connected and interdependent? The dashboard represents self-awareness of the automobile machine in real time;  Pete used it as a metaphor because all of the analytical models are tools to better understand ourselves as developing leaders.  Each group sketched their automobile dash on the dry erase board and presented their ideas to the class.  One group applied the Johari  Window model (Open, Hidden, Blind, and Unknown Self) to all components of the dash, while the other groups expanded upon the Farm Gate, Leadership Effectiveness Triangle, and the Dynamics of Competency Model.

Next, Pete presented the product realization model diagram and closed the session with a group discussion where we applied it to the practice of architecture, relating the workflows and processes conveyed in the diagram to the workflows and processes each of us keenly know as practicing architects.  We looked at the diagram from the perspective of innovator, bridger and adaptor types to understand where each of these cognitive problem solving styles most naturally fit within the phases of the product realization model.

Nick Richardson