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Karen, an ex-industry expert with years of experience under her belt, is here to dish out some real talk on leadership within the architecture realm.
Curated content, insights and opportunities to accelerate your career in Architecture, Design, Development and Real Estate to the next level.
Top Architecture Leadership Tips and Insight from an Ex-Industry Expert
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[00:00:00]
Stephen Drew: Hello, hello. Oh my goodness, I muted myself there. We're doing another live stream. Of course, I'm muting myself. There's just too many, but I've got all these awesome guests around me. We need to get them on because you're in for a treat today. If you're anything like me, you're middle management, upper management.
These tips are going to be good for you. So put that Revit model aside. 10 seconds. Let's go.
Hello everyone. And welcome to this live stream special. I'm so excited you're here and I have an amazing guest with me. Where is all you're going to basically be watching [00:01:00] a little bit of career coaching live. Very live. I'm going to get my bell because I am managing the team. I am currently trying to work it all out and I'm making mistakes left and right.
Okay, I'm not designing a building anymore, but it's the same principle. But maybe there are a few tweaks and my next guest has written a book, which is going to help you. But also we're going to pick their brains and get all the tips. So on that note, I've got the amazing. Karen Fugle from Sleeping Giant Consulting.
Karen, how are you?
Karen Fugle: Hello. Hello, Stephen. Hello, everybody. Good to be here. Thank you for having me. Okay.
Stephen Drew: I'm glad you're here, Karen. Now, it's the second time that you've had to endure me. You've persevered through me to be, to share your awesome message. I really appreciate you coming on. Now, in case someone missed our first conversation or hasn't met you before, Karen I know you, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Karen Fugle: Just to [00:02:00] start with, if you're only listening and not seeing me, I'm actually speaking from my garden studio in North London, it's pouring with rain outside and I'm wearing a kind of a purple top. I've got my computer glasses on, not my normal glasses because I cannot see the screen.
I've got a stack of books behind me that my 12 year old made a little video of yesterday, kind of thing. Okay, so that, that's my setup. So I am an executive coach and I work with architects and construction professionals in the industry on their leadership capabilities. And it's a really, it's a mix actually between working with people in the larger companies and those who are owning and operating their own kind of small practice, bit of a mix there.
Yeah, lots of leadership stuff and and I do that through one to one coaching with people and small group coaching and I do lots of workshops [00:03:00] and things and yeah, and I love what I do. I'm a NextCAD BIM Manager and that was a while ago and that was over 10 years ago now. I've been a coach for 10 years and although I loved that at the time.
Didn't quite get my creativity fulfilled. And so now, I love being a coach and supporting architects and getting them to reach their goals is just, what I was put on this earth for. Sounds a bit cheesy, doesn't it? But that's what I believe.
Stephen Drew: no, it makes complete sense. And I'm I, in my also past life, I used to drive my CAD and be manager insane with all my drawings. So I understand. Even though I'm really good friends still to this day with my CAD manager. I do get it. But you've been in the industry, it's really important. And so you've seen firsthand were architects and also.
People in the construction industry go through, and I find Karen as well. It's quite difficult, isn't it? I speak to a lot of friends who maybe get qualified as a part [00:04:00] three architect, and then maybe they were leading a project. Suddenly, then they inherit a team. They inherit a part one, like me, who's messing up the drawings.
They inherit all this stuff. And leadership isn't. Always what's taught in university, you get bits of it, but it's never really drilled into, in my opinion. However, what do you think? Is that about right? Or
Karen Fugle: I think we're slowly starting to change that and I do think it's still oh if you're a senior leader, you might be lucky to get on a leadership training course for two days, kind of thing, but it's, but and I saw a post on LinkedIn the other day that was about everybody needs leadership, not just The leaders no, it's everybody and that's so right.
We all need leadership training. And I think we're slowly starting to shift to realize that when everybody says, we're not never taught about how to, lead at university, et cetera. And it's so true. So there's a gradual shift, but yeah, we just need to, we need to push it a [00:05:00] bit ourselves.
I think really we need to take control of. Of that.
Stephen Drew: I agree. And I think that's the key thing, isn't it? When you become into a professional, a lot of it, then the onus becomes on. You, the individual, and that's why I always bang on online. I always talk about you have to invest in yourself. Now I've been there when I was a student, right? And I was broke.
I didn't want to spend money on a portfolio. And I remember at the time, my students saying, if you're not prepared to invest my tutor said, if you're not prepared to invest in yourself, then why should anyone else? I was like, whatever, I'm broke, you don't have a clue, that annoys me. Over time, it's really stuck with me, it's really stuck with me, and I think that of course, if an employer will invest in you, great.
And if, if you get this training course and stuff, good. However, I'm always amazed that sometimes people go I need the training, but I'm not prepared to invest in myself. That's one thing I think about. However It doesn't [00:06:00] need to be that expensive as well, isn't it? It's one of these things where I think you can start investing in yourself, Karen, and it gets easier and easier over time.
What do you think, Tor?
Karen Fugle: think that was an excellent piece of advice that your tutor gave you, do invest in yourself. But I think, yeah what's the next step is realizing what investing in yourself actually means. Does that mean that you need to go on a training course and or does that mean that you need to get a mentor?
Or does that mean you just need to give yourself? Time to just stop being so headfirst in your project. Just time to sit back and think, what do I really want in my career? What's going well? What's not going well? What do I want to change? Kind of thing. And just stopping and thinking about it. So it can be really small and really but really crucial about how you Invest in yourself, and it could also be just your well, how you invest in yourself could just be your well being, like if you're not well and if you're not coping and you're stressed out and you've got anxiety or [00:07:00] whatever, that's going to affect your work, so investing in yourself might not mean, CPDs, it might mean going to the gym three times a week, kind of thing,
Stephen Drew: Yeah, that that's my current task now, because before COVID, my waistline was a lot skinnier. I've got all that clothes in there. I, but you're right though, because You can basically, your health can deteriorate and all this stuff when you work and you're busy, you have to look after your mental energy because you're right, all that stuff will bleed into the professional work.
Now, I was going to say, because you've got this book and we're going to talk about it more. Down the line and you, so you have written the Architects Leadership Journal. Okay, and everyone can check this out online. We're going to get the links in a bit. You can also find it on Karen's website. However, I want to unpack the meaning behind it because I thought it was really cool that you've done this.
People basically can go through it. They can. Jot down their time, their responsibility, and there's some self [00:08:00] reflection tasks in there as well. Now, you've got all this super knowledge, right? One of the things that, when we were talking before this, you mentioned the importance of self reflection. So this would be top tip number one, or whatever, I don't know how many we've got in the list. I, you're right, self reflection is important. I would love for you to expand upon that and just tell me why you think that's the core of a lot of what you do and how we can help people.
Karen Fugle: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I really do think it is. And I think we're always hearing about, you always hear, or at least I've always heard about this kind of, oh, you, you should, you need to start doing a gratitude journal every day or something and writing things down and, there's just this thing out there about writing,
I think architects like journals full stop, to be honest but just diary type, getting everything out to help you see where you are and [00:09:00] but there's, and I think there's probably proof in all the studies out there that's to say that, yes, journaling as a whole, when you're writing things down and you're downloading them, the benefits are like increased happiness.
And better productivity and better self awareness kind of thing. There's loads of things there. There's there's better emotional understanding of how you're dealing with things. And there's just simply identifying patterns and opportunities, um, and passions that you have, kind of thing, by writing things down.
And then there's just the simple management of the challenges that you're having. I really like the The what, so what, now what method, which is like a little method of getting things out that I've been using for years with, my clients. It's what happened? What are the facts?
Let's be subjective about it. And now, and then so what, how did it impact you? Kind of thing. What do you feel about it? Kind of thing. And then now what? Which is a bit that many people don't do. [00:10:00] Now what? What are you going to do now that you know all that? What are you going to do? And you can do that like in 10 minutes of writing of what, so what, now what kind of thing to lead you into, going forward with managing your way better forward, resilience, high resilience is what it leads to.
And there's just all sorts of benefits in terms of leadership as well, comes to reflection. Just that increased self awareness of examining your thoughts and your feelings and your actions and identifying your strengths and your weaknesses and motivations and recognizing your impact on others is, and your decision making is improved.
Stephen Drew: yeah, make, it make, it makes complete sense and I was gonna, I saw one of the notes that we had before and I'm just gonna put up on the screen now, which was, why don't we reflect enough? And now also when I add to that. And I think I'm a brilliant case study on this, [00:11:00] right? Because I know I should be reflecting.
I know I should be writing stuff down, Karen, but I'm tired. I'm terrible. I don't have lists. I'm running around. Remember before this, I was sending you the links last minute. That's me right now. So how do I why don't I reflect enough? And then and then where do we begin? So maybe you go, so what?
So what now is I'm not reflecting.
Karen Fugle: you're actually the victim of the first explanation is that we're just like, we're just doing over thinking and that's what we prioritize and we've got so many things on our to do list that becomes the go to and it's really hard to, excuse me, to just stop and sit there for 15 minutes because, if you did try that, you'd probably pick up your phone and start scrolling kind of thing,
Stephen Drew: I've done that the doom scroll and I'm like, I'm just distracting myself from all this stuff I'm giving myself a breather, but then nothing gets accomplished.
Karen Fugle: Yeah. And that's the trouble with our [00:12:00] society today is that we, and especially in the office at work, we prioritize that doing time over thinking time. And when, I've had people say to me, I'm not sure when the leaders in our office, Excuse me, I've got a cough. Actually get their thinking time, because they don't, I don't see them kind of thinking in the office.
I'm like, yeah, they probably do it on a, on a Saturday morning when it's all calm and quiet, but you don't see people just sitting there contemplating and, thinking about things and reflecting in the office because we want to see productivity. That's the bottom line.
So I think that's the kind of the first kind of Societal, what it is, bias or, what's stopping us, for one. And then there's time, isn't there? Off the back of that, it's I don't have time to do that. I don't have, time to write loads, kind of thing. And I've got, dozens of things that would take priority over, over myself. Helping other people and all, all that kind of, and also the fact that We tend to [00:13:00] want to seek external validation of our efforts. We want other people, we want the, our boss to give us some feedback and our peers to give us, we want to hear it from everybody else.
And we're just not taught how to give it to ourselves.
Stephen Drew: right.
Karen Fugle: It's all external, not internal we don't want to sit down and have to reflect and say well done, I've done well, we want somebody else to say that to us, um, and I think that's it. Yeah, that's another problem because it impacts our self esteem and how we think about ourselves and the the, the high regard that we have for ourselves is impacted, kind
Stephen Drew: Yeah, really? Said I mean I've I've do some career coaching, but mine tends to be more You have a problem, I'll help you with the solutions, CVs, portfolios. I find that very different than a long term coaching thing that you're talking about where you, it's like a therapist, you check in, you have that spare [00:14:00] moment.
However, I find that really valuable as well. But you're right, you don't need, it doesn't need to be like Tony Soprano on the therapist chair every week, even though that's a nice thing to do. But what you're saying is you can also Do it yourself, self reflective, and, get a lot of that gain and personal accountability, I think, is one of the most important things, especially, and that applies with a job search, but also for your professional career, constantly evaluating that up and reflecting on that.
But how do you Then start reflecting effectively because when you, probably at the start, you're just getting going, you're getting used to it, but maybe there's a few tidbits of ideas that you have on how one does it.
Karen Fugle: I think you hit on the problem. It's yeah, sure, I can tell you to go away and reflect. And I might say, Stephen, just go, just reflect for a minute and you might, you might just, and then it's How do I do that? How do I [00:15:00] go about doing that? What's even the, some people don't even understand what the process is of reflection kind of thing, what you have to go through and some people might not even like the results.
Yeah,
Stephen Drew: Yes, that's true because sometimes you ask yourself a difficult question and sometimes you get an answer that you don't like.
Karen Fugle: we're like, Oh no, we'll just ignore it. And there's also another factor is actually with reflection, we can't see a good. Return on investment in terms of our time because as reflection, the benefits happen over time. I think when you start to see patterns happen or whatever, you're not going to, you're not necessarily going to reflect for 10 minutes and suddenly, the answer pops into your head or something happens.
So you're more like to say. Actually, I either need to get that done, that task done for the project. I'm going to see your return on investment on that straightaway. I can tick my box, but a bit of reflecting, I'm not quite sure how that's going to help me right now.
Stephen Drew: [00:16:00] I've encountered that a lot as well with some for example, in historically I've given maybe training exercises to the staff, which are really important. However, when people have responsibilities, the training keeps slipping because they've been doing the task at their hand, yet maybe you're not doing the training.
And therefore, in the end, I think that because that investment, which wasn't directly I don't know, scene wasn't done at the start, then it's this whole thing of the training needs to be done, you haven't done it, now you've got all your responsibility, and you put it away. But that analogy I think happens a lot, doesn't it?
You're focusing on your part three, you have a very busy project, you think you don't have time to read up this stuff, or you get, you're working long hours, you don't want to reflect anymore. Does this happen to some of the other people that you spoke to then, Karen? This kind of problem of Letting things slide and all this stuff. But you
Karen Fugle: yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. I
Stephen Drew: How do you stop that? Is it just maybe [00:17:00] making small little bits of time?
Karen Fugle: It is. I have to say that I've never been into diaries or journals. I hold up my hand and go, this is not me. This is not me. But then a couple of years ago. I started to have a kind of a weekly conversation with a friend of mine about just about a week, just, to keep ourselves on track and we used to go, and then we said, actually, let's make this make a bit, make it a bit more structured.
Let's do our wins. And our challenges and our to do list kind of thing. So we started to do, okay, here's my wins, here's my challenges, and we'll talk about that. And that became my little template for reflection every Friday, just to do this. And then to have a chat about it with somebody. And I found that to be, it only took me like 10 minutes to do.
But I found it really beneficial for just celebrating, yay, I've made it through the week. And, because I'd go, okay, what have I done this week? And I had to look back in my calendar to even remember the dozens of tasks, kind [00:18:00] of thing. And and I realized that reflection, it didn't have to mean that you had to write three pages in a diary and do all this and do it every day kind of thing.
It could just mean 10 minutes and a couple of bullet points every week
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Karen Fugle: Could actually really help. My, that's my kind of personal journey on reflection and it led to, directly to the kind of slight, the more expanded template in the journey.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. Let's talk about it. Let's throw it up. Come on. It's beautiful. What? You've, you put the concept to paper, Karen, haven't you? You've done it.
Karen Fugle: I have. Yeah.
Stephen Drew: Tell us about this because that's the manifestation of what you, it's your core belief, isn't it? In terms of your coach and this whole, basically people doing the self reflection.
You've,
Karen Fugle: All of my clients, they're doing, a ton of reflections over the come to coaching going, prepared and everything. So it's, what it is that weekly template. [00:19:00] Excuse me. That weekly template of self reflection. So I ask you the questions every week. And what I'm asking you is to just take 10 minutes to say, What are my wins?
What are my challenges? What's left in my head before I can get to the weekend? Let's get it out. What's my stress level and how did I get there? I think that's a really important one just to recognize patterns there. And then every week. I ask you a different leadership question. I've got three themes in the journal.
Self leadership, team leadership, and strategic leadership. It cycles between questions. Only one question a week. Just to make you that much more self aware about how you're working and how you're showing up, who you are as a leader. And then recognize what's happening in the team around you and, contributing towards that.
And then just raising your head slightly above that parapet. And I don't mean you have to be, the company owner to be strategic. You can, you can be a junior, you can be mid level, but just that kind of [00:20:00] raising the bar and going, what else is happening out there? Kind of thing. What is the bigger picture?
Yeah, it starts with it. A goal setting exercise. Like I want to know what your, excuse me, your goals are for the year. I think a lot of time people don't sit down and go, what are my goals for the year? Not my boss's goals or our leader's goals or HR goals or anybody else, but what are my goals that I want to achieve for the year?
And what I'm trying to do is help you keep them in mind. Throughout the whole year and not lose sight of them so you don't come, come back in six months time and go, oh yeah, I did. I was thinking about doing that, but I've got too much work to do and I haven't thought about it. The journal helps keep that on track.
It's got quarterly reviews so you can revise that and then it ends with an appraisal setting section so that you can prepare for your review. What I want really is you to go, this is my leadership. Journey. This is me thinking about myself and what I've done and who I've met and what CPDs I've been to and what my leadership [00:21:00] is and having a whole year of this and getting to the end of the year and going to your review and going.
I know exactly what I've done. It's all here. I've got a week. Every week is, I've got some bullet points down. I know what my best wins were and now I can ask for that promotion. I can ask for that pay rise or I can advocate for my goals. So I know where I want to go because it's here in one journal and it's not, buried within project notes or anything else.
It's this is your leadership journal. This is about your leadership. We can
Stephen Drew: impressed. When I was looking at it again, I know we said we'll do a giveaway. I don't know. I'll still do a giveaway, but I'll buy someone a copy and, they can, I don't know, we'll sort it out. But
Karen Fugle: some away.
Stephen Drew: Wow, but I like it. Let me buy one for someone, but I will take this one because when I was looking at it, you did say before we went live.
You can use it, Steve, because I was like, I don't know, I've done architecture for a while, and I actually could. And I was just thinking about me right now, with the challenges I have in the business, I would actually use this myself. So [00:22:00] I'm going to use this copy. I think it looks great. Now, I just want to remind everyone here, because I don't do sponsors, right?
I just talk about stuff I like, and that's why I appreciate you coming on, Karen, because I believe in it, right? And also, what I think about this book is it's a low barrier to entry. I think it's a really nice taster on starting to get along the journey, because I really do see the value in coaching, but it's an hour of your time, it's an hour of my time.
I can't even remember how much I charge now, but it's 200 free, 250 or whatever. And of course I will endeavor to get that return. But I always say to people before that, I was like, listen, you can pay me if you want. You can throw money in my face, but all the content that I will say in the create coaching session is on the hours on YouTube.
Yes, I will curate it for you. But all of it's there. And what I think is that this is a really nice way to just start getting going on the journey for what's probably quite a low cost. Where can people get these things, by the way, [00:23:00] Karen? No.
Karen Fugle: Yeah, they can get them from my website, sleepinggiant consulting. com, and they can also get them from the RIBA bookshop.
Stephen Drew: That's
Karen Fugle: Wow. Yeah.
Stephen Drew: that's very nice. I want to get you on Amazon as well though, Karen. That's the next step, isn't it? Going to get you, I reckon you would do really well on Amazon. I'm going to get in trouble with the RIBA bookshop, it's all right. I'm not on the RIBA council anymore. I've done my time.
I think it's really great. I think it's really great. So everyone, you should check that out. But I've got you for a few more. I got you for a few more minutes about it now, Karen. So what I'd love to know is, and the book is here and it's really important, but we'll give the viewers one or two little bit more tidbits as well.
So self reflection is important and you, I think, have really nailed it with this book. Okay, but just while you're here, what are one or two maybe other problems that leaders have, apart from self reflection, that tends to come up in your sessions [00:24:00] that you have some initial steps of conquering?
Karen Fugle: I think the ones that come up a lot, okay there's themes that come up a lot. The first thing is something that is, is just knowing your values. I think you need to get really clear. On what you value, and by that what means most to you and your work and your life. Like for me, I really value structure, since I've written a template in here for reflection.
That's what I value, I really value creativity, which is excuse me, why I've got my studio, so I can paint and draw and do things in here. I really value family, which is why I work with, I think, Getting to grips with what you value and being really clear about them and being able to articulate them that this is the basis for good decision making.
This is what you can refer to again and again when things are [00:25:00] changing all around you and you've got decisions about your career and which way to go and you don't know whether to leave your practice or stay. You want to say, okay. What are my values and are my values being fulfilled? Because when they're not being fulfilled, you start to feel really unhappy and unsettled.
Like something's odd here. I'm not feeling right. Probably because you're not getting one of your values met and you feel like there's a bit of a hole there. So I think that's the number one. And the other two are far more kind of practical, it's like skills, delegation skills and feedback. Perhaps difficult conversations. They're the three things that I find come up time and time again. How to delegate properly. How to set expectations with the people around you, what did you get? What, what you want as a team leader kind of thing. How to give feedback to people, which I think is really overlooked.
About how to appreciate each other [00:26:00] often I think people probably their engagement goes up something like 3. 6 times or something. If you appreciate them every day, rather than just once a year at a review or something like that,
Stephen Drew: Okay.
Karen Fugle: Yeah, so just that daily check in and appreciation because, this is when people don't feel valued and appreciated.
What do they do? They leave. Yeah, we've all felt like that. We've all got to that point where we're like going, I'm doing so much, I'm putting a hundred and twenty percent of my effort in, but I don't feel like I'm getting anything back. And sometimes we think too much about that being a promotional pay rise, but that can't happen at times.
And so we've got to think, how else do I want to be appreciated and valued? How do I like, there's five types of appreciation. Have you heard of those five love languages? Have you heard of that? It's also, it stemmed from that. There's five types of appreciation. So there's like the physical kind of handshake, high five.
There's the time is, [00:27:00] time with your boss or time off, is one way of looking at time with the team, having lunch together or something acts of service. Or you might make a cup of tea for someone or to say how, just to saying how can I help you at this moment if they're really stuck, being of service to somebody, I like, I really, that's my kind of appreciation language.
I love it when somebody says how can I help? Can I do this for you? Or can I make you a cup of tea? I can see you're really busy kind of thing, it's just the spoken appreciation.
Stephen Drew: I think that makes a lot of sense. Really useful. You touched upon difficult conversations. That's one side I've had trouble with historically, because now I can see there's two sides of the coin, isn't there? Because the natural thing is, if there's a difficult conversation, or you've got a member of staff that you need to say something to, one way is that you can go You can be quiet about it and almost put it off and then the downside is for that it almost goes too far then and so sometimes I think it's better to have an honest [00:28:00] conversation without emotion.
Earlier. Equally, there are other episodes where in architecture, maybe someone's being a bit too aggressive and, shouting at the start, but I find that it goes either way. It can go either too nice or, too abrupt and stuff.
Karen Fugle: And I think difficult conversations, most of that is about your mindset about them. Really, I think we make them difficult ourselves, in our heads. Before we, the most difficult bit is before you even have the conversation. The conversation that you're having, Oh, they're not going to like me if I tell them that, or, they're going to, they're going to get really angry, or this is going to get really, and it's okay, if you go into a conversation with a good mindset of Hey, We really want to make this work, where you both have this base goal or whatever in order to get us from, or you from here to there, kind of thing.
So let's have a good sit down and talk about the reality of where we're at and sit and, have a discussion about it, kind of thing. If we adjust our mindset about what is a difficult [00:29:00] conflict, in general. To one that's a bit more productive and happy and inviting of it, inviting productive conflict, then I think that, just that simple mind shift helps a lot in conversations.
If you go into a conversation thinking, oh, this is going to be difficult, and the other person starts going like this, you're lost right away. As soon as they do this, that's the point where you go, okay they're not going to be able to take in anything that I say because they're shut down, they're You know, they're getting defensive already about,
Stephen Drew: yeah, it's so true. It's so true. And it's a reminder. And I always try to think that it's never about, like you said, it's never a perfect time as well to have a difficult conversation, isn't it? But I love what you're saying. It's the attitude. Part of me thinks that you should it. Nip it in the butt when these things happen.
There's an analogy I heard from someone else called Eat the Frog, and I always find it really interesting as human beings where we naturally put off [00:30:00] something that we don't want to deal with. That could be a deadline in architecture, that can be a whatever. And we'll get there in the end, you know us architects, we'll just get there in the
Karen Fugle: you know what that does? Conflict debt, which is that, that, that conflict is what builds up inside you because you're not saying what you need to say. And it's all that resentment and it's avoiding somebody and it's like having conversations about that person, but without that person in the room, just with other people, it's all that stuff is the conflict debt that you build up because.
You're not having the conversation that you should be having, or you've put it off for so long it, you've built it up to this really
Stephen Drew: you built it up.
Karen Fugle: Yeah, so you're carrying all the stress of that conflict inside you. The other person doesn't even know about it! You're holding it!
Kind of thing. Yeah.
Stephen Drew: it's true, isn't it? And what I find really interesting is that even though, and this could be quite, because you've done the CAD, the BIM, the systems and all this stuff. But ultimately, it's a human process, isn't it? And I think a lot of the complications come from The [00:31:00] relationships behind the scenes, behind the teams.
It's rarely the program's problem. Issues can be poor management, poor conversations or good management, good conversations, all this stuff, which keeps a project on, on, on time as well. Do you have any advice for I'll tell you, it was a curve ball you mentioned earlier, middle management.
You know what, there's a weird position sometimes when you're in a corporation. I've been one before where. You're being managed, but you're also managing teams and stuff. So you're on one end of the scale on the other. So right now, the business owner is just me, which is a bit lonely sometimes.
But if you're stuck in middle management, say now you're an associate and you report to a director and stuff as well. Do you have someone advice for someone who's in that world and that world? Because historically I struggled with it. where you'd be, you would get told this kind of thing, you'd have to report all this stuff, then you need to feed back to the team, sometimes you want to protect the team, and so you're doing this whole middle [00:32:00] management game.
Do you have any advice?
Karen Fugle: yeah, I think that is the toughest time having been there myself. It is the time when, you're having to manage up, down and all around you kind of thing. And it is the time that you're probably more likely, you probably want to stay in the firm that you're in because you don't want to take.
More risks, you're not young and carefree. You can go anywhere you want. I think you've probably got more responsibilities And you might have a family or whatever. You don't you want to be okay in the role that you're in And you also want to see that growth and unfortunately all the kind of training material and the CPDs and everything like that So quite a lot of it is aimed at the younger crowd.
It's all geared towards your early growth. And then there's not a lot of training that's geared towards the other end kind of thing that keeps you motivated and engaged and things like that. But I think at that level, you've really got to have a good support [00:33:00] network around you. So you've got to go to, people in the same boat.
You've got to go out there and find your tribe, basically for your networks. I think that's really essential for your resilience and for talking through the challenges that you're having and getting advice kind of thing. And I think that's probably the area that I really see, the journal having the most impact for.
A couple of years ago when we spoke, I'd done, actually I don't remember if I'd done this, but I'd done the, the Woman in Architecture report. And I looked at that mid level, the women in architecture mid level, to see what their self development needs were, kind of thing. And, the biggest thing that came out of that was time.
Of course, when you're, when you're running a team and you're managing up and down and you've probably got home responsibilities and you do want a bit of a life. It's oh my god, I don't have time to develop myself. I don't have time to think about my [00:34:00] career. And lots of them were like, yeah, I'd love to go off and Do this course or have this hobby, but, project work got in the way kind of thing.
And I haven't had time to really even think about it. That's this report that I did for the mid level. This is what kind of geared me towards how can I help you at mid level? How can I help the architect at mid level to find the time to stop and pause and think about their career and take more ownership of it and not.
Rely on the senior team or HR or the manager to tell you your next step or whatever, but for you to go, no, this is my responsibility. This is my investment in myself. This is, these are the goals I have, and this is where I want to go, and I'm going to be the director of that rather than somebody else, kind of thing.
And so I'm hoping that the, the journal does that for the mid level, is to say, 10 minutes for yourself every week. To sit down and think about your goals [00:35:00] and reflect on your week and pause and notice patterns about your stress level and your leadership and things like that. And to get it all down, it's just a, okay, I know where I am and what I'm doing and I'm free to have a weekend.
That's what I want you to do, to draw a line under the week. And I think,
Stephen Drew: I think that's good advice. I've struggled with that a lot as well though, given your own personal time. Like having your own chilled out time because you just want to double down or do these things or you touched upon it earlier, it's Oh, I don't have time to do this now.
So maybe I'll bleed into that time. But actually it is really important that you relax and have a life because otherwise there is a personal point. And I've been there too, where you just think is this all worth it? Like what the heck have I done? And so I do think you have to hold yourself in check per se.
Karen Fugle: I think personally, I'm like, at about four o'clock every afternoon, I feel like a bit of a hamster in a [00:36:00] wheel and I'm going to my list and I'm going, oh my God, there's 10 more things on my to do list and I haven't got enough time to do them and I'm going on this and it took me a long, and I used to just push on through that.
I'll just do a bit more. I might work later and I just, I used to push through that uneasiness of that I'm not doing enough. It took me a long time to figure out that I had to get off the treadmill and stop and go away and take a break in order to do better, so I was just trying to push on through.
But pausing can often be, and stopping and reflecting can often be the thing that unlocks everything else, just to gain that energy back and to give you some direction and to it's not just reflecting, it's thinking about how you think. It's the metacognition. It's how am I thinking about this?
Am I, what bad thinking habits are getting in my way? Am I just being too black and white or am I catastrophizing or whatever? Is what I, the inner critic, is it actually true? Or am I just making things up? It's the [00:37:00] thinking about your thinking that's really important.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. Yeah. I like that as well. And Jeff Bezos of Amazon. There was like a clip online. Probably I picked it up somewhere on. Doomscrolling or whatever. And another thing that stuck with me is forget what you think about him as a person and all this stuff, but Amazon is a big business, right? But he said that the role of a leader is that it's not about making hundreds of decisions a day, it's about making two or three quality decisions.
And that really stuck with me, Karen, because It was a bit like what you were saying about earlier, and maybe it takes me an hour to think about that decision. Maybe it takes me a week, if it's a big one or whatever. But it's making, getting to those quality decisions that's important. And I think that when you get in firefighting and the part one screen, saying, How do I do detail this?
Or you've got someone, got all this stuff. The problem is you get eroded and I've got this weird theory that everyone has [00:38:00] like I don't know 50 or 100 decisions in them a day which quality but then after that it gets worse and worse. Now I haven't got nothing scientific behind it that's just my gut reaction that's what happens.
Karen Fugle: Making League, yeah.
Stephen Drew: Yeah, that's what happens to me at the end of the day. I'm like, I don't know anymore, whatever you do, what you think. But that's the thing then, decision fatigue is a thing.
Karen Fugle: Yeah, exactly, it just affects the quality of our decision making, yeah, I think everybody suffers from decision fatigue.
Stephen Drew: Me. Now you've given away so much tidbits. I'm going to talk about your book and all that as well. However, we know each other because we've done the one before we bop around online. We're going to meet in person at London Bells. So
Karen Fugle: Oh yeah. I'll be there.
Stephen Drew: we will plug that in at the end, but this is about you, not about London Builds, even though, that'll be fun and if you were around tomorrow, Thursday, come see me, I'll be there.
Karen will be around too. What I was going to say is, maybe you've got one or two questions for me that you want to ask me. Anything. Really, and what you [00:39:00] really want to ask Karen, we can do it live and it can be anything. It could be about recruitment, it could be about working with people, it could be about business owner, it could be about the podcast, it could be about my disorganization, it could be about anything.
Karen Fugle: Okay. Gosh. Throwing on the spot an anything question. I think I want to know, what is your favourite way of taking a mental break from things?
Stephen Drew: Really good question. Really good question. The crap way, which I do, but shouldn't do, is Like going on your phone and doing nothing. That's terrible, right? So that's worse one. When I really enjoy and I think it's valuable and I, I never regret it, but sometimes I think, Oh my goodness, I used to try to do stuff like that.
I'm trying to engage more with my parents, enjoy their time. They retire, just have a chat with them rather than being too busy because I've started picking up on that quickly. I was like you've got to enjoy your family and around. And [00:40:00] I do think as well, put in real life.
I do think having certain friendships and relationships is really important to keep that up. And, when I had a phase, Karen, where I would not really do it, I would just focus on my business because I'm very one track minded, which is like part of my success, but it's also a big part of my downsides where, I will make this business happen at the expense of my own health, it's like crazy, or relationships.
And so I actually find now that Before I used to think that as a task but actually doing that is really fulfilling, and is a mental break. And actually, bizarrely, like this podcast, while it's a little bit of work, I get to enjoy it because it bizarrely, it's a bit of a break from my day of setting up other parts of the business.
So I try to find. Meaningful distractions. This sounds a bit sad as well, but maybe adding something to the website it can be a bit annoying, but it can also be really fun. You built a new thing on the Architecture Social. So I, that to me, like web design is something that I've always done over the [00:41:00] years.
And it was a hobby that I did. And in the end I used it as part of my business. So I like building up skills and building up relationships outside. That's like my break. Ringing someone up, saying hello. Or maybe even blowing off a bit of steam, going for a video game or going out, I used to say before meeting up for a pint, but I don't put that in the.
In that bracket now of switching off because the older I get, I think first to give then take it away, it's like a hangover. It's probably not worth it, and there's that whole downward spiral as well of and I've gone into there before where especially when I've been like high functioning as workaholic modes, then, you've You just, in the evening, you eat shit and you drink beers or wine or whatever, and it's not a really good way to be.
But initially, you're like, oh, I'm just blowing off a bit of steam. I've just had a long day. But when you do that all the time, it's not healthy. And I accept that, and I've definitely done that, where I'd work all day, come home, [00:42:00] averaging and stuff. And if you do that every day, then you're doing it every day.
So I try to do more productive stuff, like invest in people and skills, stuff like that. Go for a walk, my partner, whatever. Does that make sense?
Karen Fugle: Yeah
Stephen Drew: I have, I'll tell you what, can I throw an open conversation back as well? Because I tell you one of the battles that I have is that I'm torn Karen on something, like on my philosophy on something, because I really think to get further in life, sometimes The extra hours puts you ahead.
If you've got two people competing, they want one more hour, potentially that person will go ahead and this kind of worked with me before, but then you got work life balance. It catches up with you in the end and all this stuff. So I'm torn to you as a person, power through, just get it done at the expense of this stuff, expense of hours, where I'm going with this is overtime or working in the evening or.
Do you do your [00:43:00] nine to five and that's it? And maybe you'll get there the same way, but maybe you don't. It's a tricky one. Do you have
Karen Fugle: Yeah
Stephen Drew: on that?
Karen Fugle: It is a tricky one and I've I've definitely been one to, to overwork definitely hours and hours, and then I'd feel guilty about not working, oh, and then I feel yeah, okay, we won't go back there anyway, but definitely been there and it is tricky and I think that it is, but I think I just.
Again, just need to remind everyone about the importance of slowing down and giving ourselves the space to think and reflect and grow. And sometimes, this is how I conquer this by doing my own kind of mental break. I do because I'm a doer, not really a be person. I like to keep doing kind of thing, so I do self hypnosis. Which is like meditation, but better because it guides you, so I just have to listen to somebody's voice to get a quite a deep meditative, relaxed state. At [00:44:00] the same time, you can train your brain to do stuff, and I'm like thinking this is a productivity hack, because I'm like, at the same time I'm completely relaxing, I can train my brain.
To, my favorite one is a self belief one. Gets you going. A lot of my clients like that one as well, kind of thing. But there's loads of self hypnosis things that you can do out there to get you more productive at the same time you're relaxing. I'm like, like I've got this nailed kind of thing, do less, do more at the same time.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. It's weird when you think of hypnosis, you think oh, it's witchcraft. But now what you're talking about is repetition and all that stuff, isn't it? Where you can the one I hear, which is true is speaking to a mirror, isn't it? About what you enjoy or what you're going to do in the day.
Karen Fugle: do that every day.
Stephen Drew: Yeah. Yeah. And I guess I but I'll tell you what I'm guilty of though, Karen, right? Is that I like the idea, I embrace it and then I stopped doing [00:45:00] it, and you've got to keep these things up, right? For them to work, you've got to invest.
Karen Fugle: And I, habits are hard, but yeah, just investing 10 minutes a week, I think, on your, just having that spot, finding that spot is probably the hardest bit. Is it 10 minutes in the morning, or is it 10 10 minutes in the evening? Where is your 10 minutes going to be just to stop and quit?
And even if you hang it off another habit, You're always brushing your teeth, you know that, so that's a really good place to start with habits. Probably not reflecting habits, but brushing your teeth, or you do that every morning, so hang another habit off that, or if there's something in your routine that you do regularly. Then hang it up, hang your new habit off that one, make it easier for yourself to get into, kind of thing, I think But yeah, we're always going to go into habits, and out of habits, and into habits, but I don't think we make it easy on ourselves at times, and we give up too soon, perhaps, rather than saying, actually, it's not the habit that's the problem, it's not what [00:46:00] I'm doing that's the problem, it's the time that I'm doing it, or where I'm doing it, or with whom I'm doing it, kind of thing, it's just the, all the things around that create it
Stephen Drew: Correct. And also breaking habits can be painful as well. I've done a few of these podcasts and. I try not to listen to them all the time, just because I think some people go, Do you listen to the episodes you do? I go, absolutely not. Once it's done. And for some people, that blows their minds.
But for me, it's what's done is done. However, when I do listen back to some, and if maybe I've been stressed in the background and stuff, I can definitely hear my speech wavering. Ums, Ahs, You Knows, Buts, all that stuff. You can, though, train yourself to stop saying them. It's the same concept as you saying, though.
Self reflection, taking the moment to breathe. If you actually slow down when you're speaking, like now I'm concentrating, actually you don't say these
Karen Fugle: [00:47:00] I've seen a good Christmas present for you, actually, as
Stephen Drew: Oh, really?
Karen Fugle: I was in, where was I, Selfridges or somewhere the other day and I saw this game called Don't Say and you and the basis of that was you had to explain something really weird to your friends and whatever, but you weren't allowed to say at any stage when you were explaining this weird thing, and I think
Stephen Drew: is such a good game.
Karen Fugle: that's good training to do, to be able to do that and not say I think that that's classic.
Anyway
Stephen Drew: I think that I, the last thing I'd like to add before, because I know you've got to go and we stumbled upon it. I think the power of speaking is really important. And I think that is a skill that people can practice. And I think that actually commanding words and tonality is so important as well, because I've learned that in sales and people think, Oh, Volga, what do you think of.
Pitching a project is what you think, talking to your teams amicably about difficult things, it's like you said, it's about the [00:48:00] explaining things eloquently and set in the scene and getting people on board with your ideas. And the last thing, Karen, that really drives me insane, that I always try to get people to not do is read scripts.
It's okay to have a few points. Where I'm going though, is when you're in the professional world, things happen all the time, right? And that script kind of goes out the window if it's overly scripted. But like earlier, we had a few points. That's cool. I just, I always find that when people present and they read something, it's quite disengaging.
Do you think that kind of feeds into leadership at all?
Karen Fugle: Excuse me. I think there's people who are really comfortable talking, who just present well, and they come across well, and they've got their confidence and everything like that. And there are other people who look at that audience and freak out entirely. [00:49:00] And, and need the backup of a script.
I think pretty much if you're going to be speaking, speak about something that you love, speak about something that you have passion for, and then it will come through and then you don't need to have that script to and I think always, just role play it, just, practice it before you're doing it and role play it kind of thing.
I don't look. I like scripts. I don't look down on anybody who's got a script and needs it. I think, for some people it can enhance things. But it, no, it doesn't help if you're going, nanananananana, like that. But you're right, though. Anything, if anything happens and you're reliant on that script, what will happen is that you will default. To go into your script rather than reacting to whatever is happening around you.
Stephen Drew: Yes,
Karen Fugle: [00:50:00] I think that's what happens, basically. You go, I don't know how to answer that because it's not on my script.
What do I do? And then you answer it. Then you do it, it's the script thing and that wasn't what was needed kind of thing. Yeah, and I think it's a, it can be a tricky balance for some people, but I think, yeah, we could all do with presentation training and in our leadership skill pack,
Stephen Drew: Yeah.
Karen Fugle: kind of thing.
I think that's, I think that's quite important to
Stephen Drew: I think so. And it is self reflection, isn't it? And also it, it takes a lot of time to get good at anything and you're always practicing. That's why I always find it interesting in architecture. You could be an architect for many years and you're still practicing. And I think that's the same in business.
And I think that's why it's so important to do self reflection. Now, Karen, I am, I'm going to be in danger of taking up all your personal time. And we need that balance. Like you said, and I need to make sure I go away from this. Don't doom scroll. Can I have a breather? Go back to my business. I got to [00:51:00] think of all this stuff as well.
So I really appreciate you being here. And I just want to make sure that anyone that's enjoyed this conversation has got a flavor of what you're about, that they can again, find where to contact you and pick up this book or just learn about you. Maybe drop you a message or whatever. So where can people find you, Karen?
Karen Fugle: I think just the easiest way is just to find me on LinkedIn and then you'll get all my, oh yeah, there it is, then you'll get all my details there and you'll be able to find stuff on the journal and go to my journal page kind of thing. And if you want to know about that or coaching or leadership or anything, then yeah, just drop me a line.
And if you're going to London Build next two days, then turn up at the Archie Social spot, wherever, that's going to be, kind of
Stephen Drew: yes, I'm amazed that you still want to hang out and now not just digitally, we'll meet in person. I promise I will not pester you too much, but I'm so glad you're going to be there. And I tell you what, it's going to be a laugh. I don't know what's going to happen. London Build, if you've never been, I love it.
It's a good [00:52:00] event. It's a good laugh. It's there's no script. In the analogy, what we said, you're just going to go there, you're going to meet people, you're going to get stuck in, but do pop up and do bump into me and Karen and say hello. But thank you so much for being here, Karen, and what amazing stuff that you've covered.
We didn't get many questions. I think everyone was deep in thought, self reflecting. Susie's going to watch the replay. There's a few people that have joined us as well, but I really appreciate what you've done. It's a bit like a coaching session. That's what I do now. I just invite people along, get a coaching session.
You can all join me and we could pick my fragmented brain. But jokes aside, I really appreciate all the insight you've given Karen. Thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. Now, are
Karen Fugle: always a joy talking to you,
Stephen Drew: is very important.
So I am glad that you put Revit aside and you've gone into your passion of helping people out in leadership position. So thank you, Karen. I'm going to end the live stream now, but stay on [00:53:00] the stage, and I'm just going to remind the viewers that they can check out all the Karen stuff. It's really good.
I've got one here. At start, I was even thinking maybe I shouldn't, this is for architects, and through doing this episode, I realized I'm going to keep it. I'm going to try and do it. I'm going to actually put pen to paper. It's quite nice putting pen to paper in the digital world as well. I think that's, there's something nice about that little touch, but you can check Karen and say hello.
You can check Karen. I was gonna say, you can check out the Architecture Social. You can say hello to Karen tomorrow, but check out her stuff online. Thank you for tuning in. More stuff coming soon. I'm just going to be at London Bill tomorrow. Come meet me. Come nag me. Come say hello. Ask me any questions.
I'm all yours. See you soon. I'm going to end the live stream now, everyone. Thank you so much. Take care. Bye. [00:54:00]