As a landscape architect, I've been managing design/build businesses now for a number of decades. Our business has been in place for almost 40 years and we have built literally thousands of landscapes. Our work is incredibly complex. Can we simplify it to make it easier to understand? As a design build company we have been fortunate to be busy and innovative , and we've gone through some difficult down times and we've enjoyed some incredibly creative and emotionally and financially profitable years. I mentioned in another podcast episode that - a number of months ago I was given a list of every employee we've had over my tenure since transitioning to owning the company in 2000. The list was almost 400 people… of that list there were perhaps two dozen or more designers. Many of them were quite talented and have gone on to successful careers as independent designers and with (unfortunately)- some of my competitors. Some designers lasted for over 15 years and some lasted for about 15 minutes.
If you are a landscape designer, you will agree with me - that it's a difficult job. We discussed in another episode the problems with landscape design education And how academics can be improved and needs to change in order to educate beyond coming slate of landscape designers and all of the many facets of our fascinating work. Because the formal education is so lacking, over the years I have assembled a simple but comprehensive program that breaks the work out into a dozen components, I call "The dozen things we do ". As we interview and onboard new designers - I have always said that it's a difficult position to hire for. We are basically looking for a Unicorn. Not only do you need someone who is able to draw in CAD and is well versed in plant materials, but the candidate also needs to be articulate in construction materials and production technology. He or She must be able to work in an estimating and presentation system , and be presentable and of course articulate with suppliers and clients. I tell my design staff that they need to be someone that a client will be comfortable giving a $50,000 check to because that is the kind of person that we are seeking. In our particular firm, the designer will sell and in part manage the work. I think that designers can appreciate this kind of arrangement , as it keeps their head in the field and the plant material usually the source of their passion initially in pursuing their career, while also taking on the more pragmatic considerations of project assembly and estimating and of course billing. These are things that are not discussed in an academic situation typically and we are seeing difficulties I think because of that. This is not necessarily the kind of talent that you just find in any individual.
With this in mind, as I've said - I've developed a fairly cohesive training system that I call "The dozen things we do". We will be discussing this simplified list today in the podcast and in so doing - we will talk about how we can consolidate our thinking and improve our output by compressing and compartmentalizing our work in an easy to understand way.
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