Two weeks ago, I had the pleasure of presenting at the Miami +AGC BIMForum with my boss on the subject of the Generation Gap. The presentations were done in the Pecha Kucha (pronunciation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdghID66kLs) format, which meant we had 20 slides to present in 20 seconds each on an automatic timer. This format makes for a lot of condensation of information, which can be good as you really drive at the heart of the matter. But you can also miss a lot of the nuance and details of a subject.
As a result, I'm taking the opportunity to expand on our presentation and my thoughts on the subject in this medium. I hope you find this informative. You can view the original presentation, along with all of the other great presentations from BIMForum Miami at http://bimforum.org/
The Challenge
For the first time, our industry is dealing with the challenge of having four distinct generations in the workplace. The new-come Millennials, Generation X, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation.In adapting to the multi-generational workplace and advent of BIM, many of our work processes have evolved, especially our approach to staff education. With many firms, including our own, having three or even four generations of employees in their offices, and with Millennials still being fairly new to the professional environment, adapting our approach to staff education to meet the needs of the new and established generations has given us a leg up in
Most senior staff members, from Generation X, Baby Boomers, the Silent Generation and generations past, have worked with a specific, common, design process. The designer would conceive a project mentally in a combination of 2d and 3d, then expressed in 2d in sketches and contract documents (occasionally in models), before the project is built in 3d. This process has been largely unchanged through the history of the building industry, whether designers were working with a stylus in plaster, with pencil on paper, with a pen on vellum or with CAD in the nascent digital realm.
For junior staff such as Millennials and young Generation Xers, digital 3d modeling is hardwired into their design process. For them, their conceptual 3d vision is fully expressed in a digital 3d model, then extracted to 2d drawings from that model, before finally becoming a non-digital 3d built environment. Junior staff have to learn how to communicate with mentors who are used to a very different process. Even more importanly, they need to understand that the ability to model something, such as a building, is a far cry from knowing how to properly design it,much less build it.
On top of this process shift, everyone is dealing with BIM’s ability to incorporate phasing, energy data, FM information and huge amounts of other data. Previously in our profession, once the building was built, the designer's work was rarely dusted off aside from the occasional renovation or adition. Now, the BIM is increasingly something that can be actively employed through the life of a facility for space management, facilities maintenance, energy modeling and analysis, and other uses.
Our Approach
Communication and education become increasingly important with these advances in technology, changes in process, and generational gaps. Members of each generation need to understand the strengths, values, and goals of the others in order to communicate effectively intergenerationally.Traditionally the architecture internship has been one directional. Interns work within a firm slowly learning what is needed to practice as an architect and work their way up the firm ladder, following a clear path.
Two issues make this pedagogical methodology less practical today. The first is that the rapid pace of technological advancement has been easier for the emerging Millennials to adopt than older generations that are not native users. While the old saw that "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" is simply non-sense, there is a common human tendency to resist change and changing a process, a way of thinking, is particularly challenging. As a result, the people with the knowledge of how to build a functional building are often isolated from the individuals with the skill to express this information with the most current technologies.
The second issue is the addition of all this new data for downstream use. This is information that the Millenials and other junior staff don't know what to do with. Meanwhile, the senior staff have never really had to work with much of this data before, and certainly not in this way. Both groups are struggling to figure out how to work with it. The production abilities and mental processes of junior staff must be more effectively wed with the senior staff's lifetime of experience. In response to this condition, our firm has adopted a system of what we call bidirectional education.
Bidirectional Education
Bidirectional education enables staff members from each generation to develop a common language to facilitate improved workflow. For instance, Millennials often feel like they can be instant experts on whatever topics they choose to pursue at that time. This is in no small part a result of the instant access to the huge amount of information available on the internet. Quite literally, all the knowledge in the history of mankind is available through the use of the right search terms. Bidirectional education allows Millennials to bring greater value to a team, while instilling them with an understanding of the extent of the breadth and depth of professional expertise they still need to gain.If Millennials will change jobs more than any other generation as is predicted, how much of our company resources do we commit to training and retaining them? This is the 800 lb gorilla in the room. We believe that the key to retaining talented Millennials is communication. Engage employees individually, provide them with attainable goals, imbue them with a sense of purpose, and give them productive, engaging challenges.
Millennials are native technology users and have a better understanding of the latest trends. Every Junior staff member at our firm takes a turn at presenting information on BIM tools and industry trends for staff education at our bi-monthly lunch and learns. Some of these presentations are very specific, "What the heck is work sharing?" or "How does Revit really work with an interior design set?" Others are more general, such as what's new in FM software or what did they learn at a recent conference?
By training our whole staff in the basics of BIM, including staff who will never need to open the software, we ensure a commonality of language so that even those staff not working with the software understand its capabilities for working with staff who do. This also enables them to better explain, and sell, our capabilities as a firm.
By putting junior staff in a position to educate senior staff as well as each other, they are able to contribute to the growth of the firm at a higher level. These presentations keep senior staff in the technological loop and develop the technological vocabulary to communicate with the junior staff. The participation of senior staff also allows them the opportunity to provide junior staff a practical grounding of what is achievable in the realities of architectural practice.
Also, by turning each staff member into a topical expert, they’re all empowered to find answers and solutions for themselves rather than simply ask for them. Essentially rather than having an encyclopedia of knowledge coming from a single static source, we have a fluid informational framework with constant input from multiple sources.
Information Age
Another presenter discussed the third revolution of of human history. He put forth that humanity, beginning in a quasi nomadic, 'cave dwelling' state, advanced then into the Agrarian Age, when wealth and power were measured largely in land. We then moved on into the Industrial Age, when wealth and power were gauged primarily in cash. Now as a result of the Digital revolution we are now entering the Information Age, when wealth and power can be gauged largely in information and knowledge. Unlike the previous ages, sharing of knowledge is a non-loss proposition, and frequently reciprocal. When you share information with someone else, you still have that knowledge and you frequently will receive information and knowledge in return.In keeping with this mentality, we also apply our philosophy of bidirectional education to our industry and strategic partnership relationships. We do this by hosting presentations and workshops to present and discuss trends and emerging technologies within the AEC community outside of a project context. This allows us not only to propagate industry knowledge and wisdom, but also to engage our partners and develop more personal relationships with team members in an industry where historically there has often been a great deal of friction and even confrontation.
