Cultivating a Culture of Expertise

As part of our latest strategic plan for the firm, LS3P spent a great deal of time in 2019 developing and refining a new vision statement that would unite us around common goals for the coming years. In navigating 2020, a year already defined by global challenges we did not anticipate, our new vision statement has taken on new layers of meaning and heightened importance:  In our commitment to the Southeast, we create architecture that enriches community through a culture of design excellence, expertise, innovation, and collaborative engagement.

Expertise has never been more vital, in architecture and in many other industries. Expertise is what allows us to solve problems without reinventing the wheel, to innovate based on a solid foundation of knowledge, and to earn the trust of our clients and communities as we listen to what they truly need. Expertise goes beyond skill, folding in sound judgement and the ability to synthesize information from diverse perspectives to create solutions that serve our communities. It is borne out of long experience, collectively and individually, and is woven into all aspects of our firm’s culture- into our designs, into our market sectors, into our technology, into our Knowledge Teams, and into our business practices.

Expertise resides in our people.
Above all, expertise is a human attribute, and it resides in our team members. This is a fact that we never take for granted: the people who choose to share their knowledge and talents with us are the foundation of our firm, and we are grateful for them every day. From our architects to our construction administrators and spec writers to our interior designers to our business teams, we depend on the advanced skills and detailed knowledge that all of our team members contribute in their diverse roles across the firm.

Expertise is amplified by collaboration.
The process of collectively sharing ideas elevates us all, to the benefit of our firm, our clients, and our communities. Sometimes our collaboration occurs between individuals and project teams within the office. Often, we form teams across multiple offices to pair the right expertise with each project. When we collaborate across sectors to bring a multidisciplinary approach to a design challenge, we yield some of our most exciting results.

Expertise is multigenerational.
Our most experienced team members have vast institutional and industry knowledge, often with substantial expertise in a particular element of practice. Through teaching, mentoring, and even through informal interactions, our most seasoned experts are incredibly generous and deliberate about passing their knowledge to the next generations. Our emerging professionals, likewise, bring expertise from their academic programs and other life experience that helps to generate new ideas, techniques, and perspectives. From all levels of practice, this shared expertise makes us better as designers and stronger as a firm.

Expertise requires a diverse team.
“Business supports practice,” a mantra we repeat often, illustrates that our business teams are integral to everything we do. While our designers apply their expertise to buildings, our business teams focus on world-class technology, HR, legal, and finance processes to streamline our workflows and allow project teams to do what they do best. Our marketing, communications, and business development teams are critical to relationship building and brand enhancement and our administrative teams provide invaluable support to keep us running smoothly. Excellence is a beginning point, and the targeted expertise of each team member reflects that each day, in business and in practice.

Expertise must be captured and shared.
For a firm populated with busy and high performing team members, finding time to share knowledge is challenging. However, taking time to document, refine, and disseminate expertise is always worth the effort. This sharing can take the form of written pieces such as white papers, case studies, blog posts, or structured events such as in-house trainings and staff meetings. Our LS3P Academy seeks to harness and share expertise, and our Knowledge Teams create opportunities to engage deeply with a variety of topics. Expertise is often shared through informal desk crits and red line discussions, or just by sharing lessons learned on job sites or at team meetings.

Expertise is at the core of our culture, and is embedded in all that we do. In the weeks and months ahead, we will have many opportunities to draw from this strength, and to apply it in serving our communities across the Southeast. We will use this collection of expertise to help our clients, communities, and partners navigate the uncertainties of our “new normal.”  Most importantly, we will continue to push ourselves not to become complacent, and to continue to grow our expertise as individuals and collectively as a firm.