Roundtable London: Hiring & Firing

Whether hiring for growth, for a niche skillset, for diversity, or for a new strategic initiative, the process can be time-consuming and even overwhelming.

For small businesses (and especially for service providers) knowing the right time to hire, and making time to get the process right is a difficult balancing act, but one that has the potential to yield transformative results over time.

In this discussion, we’ll hear from our seasoned co-leaders as they share insights gleaned across hiring markets and different geographies, with companies big and small. We’ll reveal some of the common pitfalls with recruitment (and firing), and some of the tools and techniques that can accelerate the processes and improve outcomes.

Roundtable New York: Building People, Building Teams

How to you ensure your employees are on a continuous growth curve that shows you are invested in their career and professional success?

How to you motivate and reward employees who provide training, skill development and coaching to junior team members?

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss strategies and insights for internal workforce training and development.

Roundtable Austin: The Specialist vs. The Generalist

Most are familiar with the adage “jack of all trades, master of none, ” and you’ve likely debated the pitfalls of specialization or generalization in your business and personal skill set.

Whether project types, services offered, or clients cultivated, it can be hard to choose between perfecting your niche or expanding your offerings.

In this Roundtable, we’ll explore how real estate and design rewards and punishes specialization, generalization, and the area in between.

Roundtable San Francisco: The Specialist vs. The Generalist

Most are familiar with the adage “jack of all trades, master of none, ” and you’ve likely debated the pitfalls of specialization or generalization in your business and personal skill set.

Whether project types, services offered, or clients cultivated, it can be hard to choose between perfecting your niche or expanding your offerings.

In this Roundtable, we’ll explore how real estate and design rewards and punishes specialization, generalization, and the area in between.

Roundtable New York: Why Should Anyone Follow You?

Designing and communicating a compelling vision for your company is an essential aspect of entrepreneurship.

How do we convince other people to put their faith in us, work hard for and with us, and stick around the the going gets tough?

How do we inspire the people we lead to do their best work, and to believe in our plan for where we’re going and how we intend to get there?

Roundtable London: The Specialist vs. The Generalist

Most are familiar with the adage “jack of all trades, master of none, ” and you’ve likely debated the pitfalls of specialization or generalization in your business and personal skill set.

Whether project types, services offered, or clients cultivated, it can be hard to choose between perfecting your niche or expanding your offerings.

In this Roundtable, we’ll explore how real estate and design rewards and punishes specialization, generalization, and the area in between.

Roundtable Austin: Making Better Decisions

How do you make decisions?

Do you use a values-based decision-making framework, or another framework to check your instincts?

In this Roundtable members will share their experiences in decision-making and how the use of frameworks has influenced their memorable business decisions.

Roundtable San Francisco: Seeding Innovation

We invite Brick & Wonder Pro and Council members to join us in San Francisco for our Roundtable titled Seeding Innovation. 

Innovation in the ways we work, and in the products and services we produce creates opportunity. Yet innovation is an ongoing proposition – it’s not enough just to innovate once. In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss approaches to seeding innovation in your field and nurturing the capability to innovate in your teams – even among the consultants you hire.

Roundtable London: Seeding Innovation

We invite Brick & Wonder Pro and Council members to join us for a Roundtable on Seeding Innovation. 

Innovation in the ways we work, and in the products and services we produce creates opportunity. Yet innovation is an ongoing proposition – it’s not enough just to innovate once. In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss approaches to seeding innovation in your field and nurturing the capability to innovate in your teams – even among the consultants you hire.

Roundtable New York: Mentors and Mentees

We invite Brick & Wonder Pro and Council members to join us for a Roundtable on Mentors and Mentees. 

Do you have a mentor? Do you have a mentee who looks to you for guidance?

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss the nuances of mentor/mentee relationships and the value of both having a role model and being one to others.

Roundtable: Making Great Decisions

How do you make critical decisions? Do you use a values-based decision-making framework, or another framework to check your instincts?

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss strategies and insights on how to make better decisions and ease decision fatigue.

Roundtable: How to Handle Client Relationship Breakdowns

Though we enter new client engagements with energy, enthusiasm, and high hopes for what the future holds, the reality of realizing any built project is that it places stress on the clients, the project collaborators, and on the original vision for the project.

We are wise to counsel clients (before we engage!) that there will be ups and downs, and that this process can often be additive, though it seldom feels like it at the time.

Many projects survive or even flourish in the crucible of getting the work done. Others, for a variety of reasons, do not.

Roundtable London: The Power of Collaboration

We’re delighted to welcome Brick & Wonder members and select guests to our inaugural London Roundtable, generously hosted by Brick & Wonder member firm, Hayes Davidson.

Intuitively, we know that we go further together. Collaboration may help us do better work, and it can even increase the joy in the work we do, but in the crucible of doing our best work, things can sometimes get heated…

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss strategies and insights for developing and sustaining collaborations that unlock new opportunities in business growth.

Roundtable Austin: The Sustainable Building Imperative

The built environment contributes up to 42% of global carbon emissions. These emissions take the form of embodied carbon needed to build and repair buildings, and the operational carbon that buildings consume to stay warm or cool, connected, and productive.

As professionals designing and building the places people live, work, and play, we are both part of the problem and part of the solution.

This Roundtable will explore the imperative to build better, more sustainable buildings. Our lives and the future of life on our planet depend on it.

Roundtable: Forging a Team of Leaders

We’re pleased to offer our first-ever San Francisco Roundtable on the topic “Forging a Team of Leaders”.

Leadership is an essential component of entrepreneurship – we have to inspire others to follow us (and hire us!) to take on great challenges, even hardships, in pursuit of our goals.

As businesses grow, it also becomes critical to nurture other leaders in our organizations who can lead in areas that are not our strengths, whether that might be sales, marketing, finance, operations, or even management itself.

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss approaches to nurturing leadership in our teams and how this can increase our ability to scale and take on more complex challenges.

Roundtable: Forging a Team of Leaders

Leadership is an essential component of entrepreneurship – we have to inspire others to follow us (and hire us!) to take on great challenges, even hardships, in pursuit of our goals.

As businesses grow, it also becomes critical to nurture other leaders in our organizations who can lead in areas that are not our strengths, whether that might be sales, marketing, finance, operations, or even management itself.

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss approaches to nurturing leadership in our teams and how this can increase our ability to scale and take on more complex challenges.

Roundtable: The Power of Collaboration

Intuitively, we know that we go further together. Collaboration may help us do better work, and it can even increase the joy in the work we do, but in the crucible of doing our best work, things can sometimes get heated…

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss strategies and insights for developing and sustaining collaborations that unlock new opportunities in business growth.

Roundtable: Performance Under Pressure

Entrepreneurship, leadership, and management all create great stress and pressure on those who lead, but we don’t always succeed in managing these moments well.

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss strategies and insights for navigating intense workplace pressure, avoiding failure, and supporting those we lead and manage to do the same.

Roundtable Austin: Intelligent Risk

Risk is an essential dimension in business (and life!), but it can be the making or undoing of businesses, ideas, partnerships, projects, and teams.

How do you manage and take risks in your business? What are the qualities or factors you weigh in taking risks? What is the course you are plotting with the risks you’re taking?

We invite Brick & Wonder Pro and Council members to join us in Austin for a Roundtable on Intelligent Risk. 

Roundtable: Refining Client Experiences

Research shows eight in ten customers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.

The moments when we kick off and close out client engagements present opportunities to create high-impact, memorable experiences. There are certainly other opportunities along the way, including how we handle emerging project challenges or bad news about timelines and budgets.

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss strategies and insights on how to foster impactful, innovative, and sustainable client experiences and relationships.

Roundtable: Reading the Room

Everyone has surely imagined what it would be like to read another person’s mind: the potential client, disappointed by the presentation but unwilling to concede exactly why; the potential hire, unwilling to reveal their true levers in a hiring negotiation.

Our inability to read minds is probably a blessing – we may not always like what we’d find. But this doesn’t stop us from trying to anticipate and second-guess people. Occasionally we might nail it, but, perhaps overwhelmingly we’re more likely to be wrong than right. Join us as we dig into the dynamics of trying to read the room, or failing to, and the effects this can have on our business and personal growth.

Roundtable: Thought Leadership

In this roundtable we will explore ways to build your personal influence through creative thought leadership, and why this work is valuable in your own professional development, and in order to grow your business.

Roundtable Austin: Seeding Innovation

We’re excited to invite our community in Austin to join us at Michael Hsu’s studio in Austin, TX for this Roundtable titled Seeding Innovation. 

Innovation in the ways we work, and in the products and services we produce creates opportunity. Yet innovation is an ongoing proposition – it’s not enough just to innovate once. In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss approaches to seeding innovation in your field and nurturing the capability to innovate in your teams – even among the consultants you hire.

Roundtable: Sales & Selling

We’re thrilled to invite Brick & Wonder Pro & Council members to join us at Stickbulb in Long Island City for our Roundtable, Sales & Selling. Stickbulb is an innovative lighting design studio that utilizes reclaimed wood to craft stunning modern pieces, and their large loft space functions as both their showroom and their manufacturing studio.

In this Roundtable we’ll discuss the way survival and growth in business depend on sales and selling, but for many, the process is exhausting, emotionally fraught and a distraction from the satisfaction of doing the work we’re required to sell.

Expanding Business Ownership

We’re excited to invite Brick & Wonder members to join us at the beautiful Henrybuilt showroom in Soho for our July Roundtable, Expanding Business Ownership.

As your business grows, it becomes increasingly critical to retain senior team members that have deep institutional knowledge, valuable client and collaborator relationships, and tailored experience in core business activities.

One of the best means available to promote retention is a structured business ownership program, which gives senior leaders a stake in business outcomes.

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss the notion of expanding business ownership by extending Profits Interests, or Shares (of different kinds) to senior team members.

Intelligent Risk

We invite Brick & Wonder Pro and Council members to join us in Brooklyn at Public Records for a Roundtable on Intelligent Risk. Public Records is an innovative multi-use space that caters to audiophiles and tastemakers, is known for its impact on the global music scene, its design forward aesthetic, and its commitment to sustainability. We’re excited to explore The Nursery, the newest addition to the venue.

We’ll discuss risk, which is an essential dimension in business (and life!), but can lead to the making or undoing of businesses, ideas, partnerships, projects and teams.

How do you manage and take risks in your business? What are the qualities or factors you weigh in taking risks? What is the course you are plotting with the risks you’re taking?

Hiring & Firing

Whether hiring for growth, for a niche skillset, for diversity, or for a new strategic initiative, the process can be time-consuming and even overwhelming.

For small businesses (and especially for service providers) knowing the right time to hire, and making time to get the process right is a difficult balancing act, but one that has the potential to yield transformative results over time.

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss some of the common pitfalls with recruitment (and firing), and some of the tools and techniques that can accelerate the processes and improve outcomes.

Learning From Mistakes

We invite Brick & Wonder Pro & Council members to the New York home of COOKFOX Studio, an integrated and multidisciplinary architecture firm that aims to design and advocate for a more sustainable future.

If you believe “those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” you know the stories we tell about our past are almost as important as the experiences themselves. But how can we ensure we learn the proper lessons? And how can we best apply these lessons to the present and future?

Making Better Decisions

How do you make decisions? Do you use a values-based decision-making framework, or another framework to check your instincts?

In our Roundtable format, we invite members to come prepared with a specific anecdote, based on personal experience, responding to one of the following discussion prompts in under two minutes.

• What’s an example of a value you engage when weighing decisions?
• What’s an example where you’ve used a framework to lead you to an important decision, and what was the result?
• What’s an example of a decision you made which didn’t use a framework, and what was the downside?

The Specialist vs. The Generalist

Most are familiar with the adage “jack of all trades, master of none.” You’ve likely debated the pitfalls of specialization or generalization in your business and personal skill set. Whether project types, services offered, or clients cultivated, it can be hard to choose between perfecting your niche or expanding your offerings.

In this Roundtable, we’ll explore how real estate and design rewards and punishes specialization, generalization, and the area in between.

Resilience in Life and Business

Psychologists define resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, threats, or significant sources of stress—such as business and financial stressors. As much as resilience involves “bouncing back” from difficult experiences, it can also catalyze personal growth.

In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss methods and strategies for cultivating resilience in your professional life and share lessons learned from past brushes with adversity.

Present Me vs. Future Me

You’ve probably read about the Marshmallow Experiment and wondered how you might have performed balancing the offer of immediate gratification with the promise of a greater future reward if you could wait a little longer.

Saving, investing, and certainly growing a business requires mastery of the same mechanism – deferring immediate gratification to build and gain something more valuable in the future. In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss how we balance taking care of Present Me and Future Me, and how we can create alignment with the teams we lead around the promise of future value while balancing their nearer-term needs.

Seeding Innovation | Olson Kundig Studio Visit

Innovation in the ways we work, and in the products and servivces we produce creates opportunity. Yet innovation is an ongoing proposition – it’s not enough just to innovate once. In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss approaches to seeding innovation in the work you do, and nuturing the capability to innovate in the teams you work with – even in the consultants you hire to deliver your work. This Roundtable will take place at Olson Kundig’s new studio in New York.

The Obstacle is The Way

Everyone knows the axiom “you’ve got to go through it to get to it,” but sometimes it’s not clear whether an obstacle is to be avoided or hurdled, or whether pushing through it the hard way might be the best, or only way. In this Roundtable, we’ll discuss approaches to navigating the business and personal challenges that stand in our way, from confronting them directly to trying to steer clear. What’s the right approach, and when, and how do you asses the kind of obstacles you face?

Hell Yes, or No | Saint Marks Place Site Tour

In all businesses and projects, competing priorities can create decision fatigue that clouds our judgement and impacts the outcomes of our work. How do you decide what really matters to you and your business? And how do you get at your true values? This Roundtable will take place at Saint Marks Place and include a tour of the stunning development.

Catalyzing Success

Sometimes we find ourselves needing or benefitting from steaks of success that build one upon the other. Recognizing this pattern, and the need to make our own luck to benefit from it, how do you think about building from one success to the next in your business?

Living in the Future

Are you following the status quo or are you operating ahead of the curve? Real estate is speculative by nature – nothing that is designed is built immediately, so the work is always looking forward to some future state.

Intelligent Risk

Risk is an essential dimension in business (and life!), but it can be the making or undoing of businesses, ideas, partnerships, projects and teams. How do you manage and take risks in your business?