Smarter by Design

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Nicole Chavas, President and COO of Greenprint Partners, and Hillary Thompson, Principal at MBH Architects, for a candid conversation about what they are learning as they turn AI experiments into meaningful business transformation.Both Nicole and Hillary are senior leaders who are also personally building agents and redesigning workflows, which gives them a close-up view of not only what the technology can do, but what it reveals about their firms. Again and again, they have found that building with AI exposes the same underlying questions: What does good look like? Is this actually our standard, or just what we happen to do today? Is the knowledge documented clearly enough to use? And are we redesigning the work itself, or simply bolting AI onto an existing process?One of the clearest lessons is that scalable transformation often means going smaller, slower, and together. Nicole describes initially trying to move quickly, work largely on her own, and use agents to redesign entire business processes at once. What she learned was that proposal development and project management are really collections of interconnected subprocesses, and that lasting change requires a different approach: involve the people doing the work, break the system into smaller pieces, focus on the highest-impact opportunities, define what good looks like, redesign each subprocess for an AI-enabled way of working, and then train the firm on the new process.Hillary describes a parallel journey at MBH, where rapid prototyping with firm leaders through an “agent charrette” surfaced her leadership team’s dreams for AI-driven business transformation. Rapid prototyping then exposed the undocumented processes, conflicting standards, duplicated effort, and poor data quality standing in the way of their dreams. In that sense, AI serves as an organizational mirror because when agents struggle, they often teach you something about the business.But process redesign is only part of the challenge. The other major constraint is change capacity. Nicole and Hillary are both operating in environments where the technology is improving faster than their organizations can realistically absorb change. They discuss experimenting with “good enough” solutions, following the energy of early adopters, sharing successful use cases between peers, building trust with skeptics, and giving leaders closer to day-to-day project work permission to control the pace of change.The goal is to build a trusted core of people at their firms who can experiment, interpret what is changing, and act as a kind of shock absorber for the rest of the organization. This helps the firm move fast without forcing everyone to experience the full chaos of living at the bleeding edge of the AI frontier.The throughline is that AI itself is not the point. It is an increasingly powerful catalyst for redesigning the business around the fundamentals AEC firms have always cared about: high-quality work teams are proud of, profitably run projects, happy clients, and engaged employees.GuestsNicole Chavas, President & COO, Greenprint PartnersNicole is President & COO of Greenprint Partners, a Chicago-based urban planning, civil engineering and landscape architecture firm. In leading all aspects of firm operations, she brings a passion for rallying resources, talent and partnerships to scale sustainable infrastructure—a passion that has informed her approach to team leadership and company growth since 2014.Nicole's love of learning is inherent in every initiative she leads. Whether it’s spearheading a proposal, accelerating adoption of a new knowledge management system or recruiting and onboarding employees, she is committed to transparency, collaboration and continuous learning every step of the way. She is inspired by the knowledge and interests of every Greenprint team member and seeks to foster a flexible, inclusive and mission-oriented company culture that supports the personal and professional growth of all employees.Hillary Thompson, Principal, MBH ArchitectsHillary brings together design thinking, strategic communication, and systems development to strengthen how MBH operates, learns, and tells its story. With experience leading brand, marketing, knowledge management, and business systems initiatives, she approaches organizational strategy as a design challenge, creating frameworks that connect people, processes, and information to drive better outcomes. Her work focuses on building scalable platforms, improving access to knowledge, and transforming complex data into actionable insights that support decision-making across the firm. Hillary has led initiatives spanning brand strategy, digital experience, business intelligence, AI-enabled knowledge systems, and cross-functional process improvement, helping teams work more efficiently while preserving the creativity and expertise that define MBH’s culture. She is passionate about creating alignment between technology, operations, and people to ensure the firm’s collective knowledge, innovation, and capabilities are both visible and actionable, supporting growth, quality, and long-term business performance.CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsEpisode ResourcesBooksTharp, Twyla, with Mark Reiter. The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. Simon & Schuster, 2003. Referenced for her "banker's boxes" system for tracking ideas she's not actively working on.KA Connect TalksLeonard, Dorothy. "Deep Smarts and Core Capabilities." KA Connect 2017. Referenced for the "critical knowledge transfer" cohort project.Milton, Nick. "Lessons Learned from Lessons Learned." KA Connect 2018. Referenced for the "lessons learned databases are where knowledge goes to die".Chapters(00:00) Episode Introduction(03:40) Guest Introductions: Hillary Thompson and Nicole Chavas(07:12) From Human Knowledge Management System to Real Systems(09:41) Picking Agent Use Cases: Frequency x Pain(11:30) The Light Bulb Moment: From Chatbot Helper to Agent Infrastructure(15:23) Refining the Formula: Repeatability and the Right-Sized Agent(20:38) The Human Side of Process Redesign(24:44) Skeptics, Fences, and Guardrails for AI Adoption(30:52) Uneven AI Adoption Across Roles: Engineers and Creatives(36:33) Embrace Disruption but Choose Changes Wisely to Maintain Trust(41:27) Design Charrette: AI As An Organizational Mirror(49:58) The L&D Venn Diagram: Merging Just-in-Time Learning with Training(53:01) Rebuilding Training Standards from Scratch(55:06) Project Management: Tackling Subprocesses First(56:51) Good Process Before Good Agents(1:02:11) Robot Jim and Critical Knowledge Transfer 2.0(1:07:42) Lessons Learned Reborn(1:10:50) Nicole's Roadmap: Metrics, Practices, and Quality of Life(1:15:57) Guardrails Create Freedom(1:19:28) Idea Trackers and the Gas-and-Brake Team Structure(1:24:33) Synthesis MCP Server and Commons Command Center(1:29:10) Advice for AEC Leaders: Don't Outsource Your Understanding

KTGY was founded in 1991 with an ambition to build a firm that would outlast the people who built it. Six founding partners set out to create a firm which would endure from generation to generation — a firm whose culture, values, and capability would compound over time rather than walk out the door when any one person retired. What they couldn’t have anticipated is how deliberately, and how systematically, KTGY would eventually design its way toward that goal.In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by John Robison, Chief Operating Officer at KTGY, and Donovan Helminiak, Director of Knowledge Management, to trace the evolution of KTGY's learning ecosystem and examine how it has become one of the firm's most consequential strategic investments.The conversation goes behind the scenes of how KTGY built four key components of its learning ecosystem:ELEVATE Leadership — a year-long, cohort-based program built to teach emerging leaders what great leadership looks like at KTGYELEVATE Essentials — a foundational knowledge program which grew from a pandemic-era intern series into a hybrid on-demand and workshop model open to the entire firmELEVATE Talent Management — a newer program targeting first-time people managers, focused on the day-to-day nuance of leading teamsFUEL — a grassroots mentorship community driven entirely by emerging professionals, deliberately mixing offices and experience levels to build connections that wouldn't otherwise exist across seven officesThe old apprenticeship model — learning one project at a time from the people around you — served KTGY well for decades, but is no longer sufficient for a firm with over 400 employees, seven offices, a generation of retiring principals, and a profession being radically reshaped by technology.KTGY's answer has been to design something more intentional: a learning ecosystem where cohort-based programs, on-demand curricula, and grassroots community reinforce each other, and where building trust is a primary goal.As we discussed in the episode, trust is the catalyst that determines how fast AEC firms can change and evolve. To move faster, means intentionally investing in building trust and KTGY’s learning ecosystem has proven remarkably effective at doing exactly that.If you lead an AEC firm thinking seriously about what it takes to build a culture that connects distributed teams, and stays ahead of change, and endures across generations, this episode is an honest accounting of what that investment (and the returns) look like.GuestsJohn Robison, Chief Operations Officer, KTGYWith over 30 years of experience in practice, technology and operations, John Robison serves as COO for KTGY. His primary responsibility is the management of the company’s operational activities including, HR IT, facilities and internal communications. John is also involved in strategic growth activities, process improvement, key recruiting and hiring, and professional development programs, adept at communicating a vision and building effective teams to move the company forward.John practiced architecture as a designer and project manager early in his career until he transferred his talents and expertise to business management and technology. He is a creative strategist who seeks out opportunities to improve operational processes and positively affect both the top and bottom line. He has been a long-time advocate for virtual design and construction and integrated project delivery practices.He led the effort to adopt and implement Synthesis in the firm, which revolutionized project management processes and the ability for teams to collaborate effectively. He also provides corporate leadership, vision and change management efforts and has pioneered organization-wide technology transformations of production and project delivery software.Donovan Helminiak, Director of Knowledge Management, KTGYDonovan Helminiak is the Director of Knowledge Management at KTGY, where he leads the charge on helping the firm make better decisions faster. His work sits at the intersection of people, process, and technology—breaking down silos across teams, systems, and information so that knowledge actually moves to where it's needed. With over 15 years in the AEC industry and two decades of experience before that as a corporate trainer, business and systems analyst, and internal communicator across the automotive and financial services industries, Donovan brings a cross-industry lens to solving business challenges. He's known for digging past symptoms to find the real problem worth solving.Today, he leads KTGY's AI strategy, championing intentional and responsible adoption paired with the learning culture and knowledge foundation needed to make it stick.CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The Parents📚 Show Notes + ResourcesBehind the Scenes of ELEVATE: KTGY’s Professional Development Program — John Robison's KA Connect 2024 talk, a deeper dive into how the program started and why cohorts work.Chapters(00:00) Welcome and Episode Introduction(04:28) KTGY Overview and Origins(05:37) ELEVATE Leadership Program(14:05) Defining Leadership and Measuring Success(23:02) ELEVATE Leadership: The Participant Experience(27:04) ELEVATE Essentials Program(41:11) ELEVATE Talent Management Program(44:49) Why Cohorts Build Trust(49:21) Cohorts, Workshops, or One-to-Many(51:54) FUEL: Grassroots Mentorship and Community(55:04) Seeing KTGY as a Learning Ecosystem(01:03:01) Critical Knowledge Transfer(01:06:43) What's Changing for Practitioners(01:18:29) What Never Changes(01:24:04) AI and the Speed of Trust

Jennifer Bennett didn't think she had what it took to be a leader. As a structural engineer coming up at Shive-Hattery, she assumed leadership required a natural charisma she didn't have. In 2007 she was invited to participate in the firm's Leadership Development Program and changed her mind. Today she's President and CEO of the 750-person, 18-office architecture and engineering firm, and she runs the program herself.In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, Jennifer takes us inside how Shive-Hattery’s Leadership Development Program actually works: the cohort structure, the Socratic teaching method, the five curriculum pillars (business acumen, negotiation, high-performance teams, culture and values, emotional and social competence), and the real strategic projects each cohort tackles over their 15-18 months together. She also shares how she builds the trust a cohort needs to succeed and how the program itself is evolving as she brings her executive team in to teach modules so the firm can double how many future leaders it reaches each year.At its core, Shive-Hattery’s Leadership Development Program isn't just about developing individual leaders — it's about teaching people to lead change in a way that's consistent with Shive-Hattery's culture and to carry that culture forward as they rise. That's part of a bigger act of stewardship. Shive-Hattery is a firm with more than 125 years of history and Jennifer sees investing in future leaders as central to how the firm sustains, evolves, and grows for decades to come. Past leaders invested in her generation; now it's her generation’s turn to pay forward.If you lead an AEC firm or are thinking about what it takes to build a leadership culture and an enduring firm, this episode is for you.GuestsJennifer Bennett, President and CEO, Shive-HatteryAs President/CEO of Shive-Hattery, Jennifer Bennett is responsible for the overall leadership, strategic planning, culture, vision and direction of current and future operations. Bennett joined the employee-owned design firm in 2003 and has 25+ years of experience of client service, talent development and market growth. She has a structural engineering background and previously served as the Vice President and Office Director of Shive-Hattery’s Quad Cities location.Episode ResourcesThe Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business — Patrick LencioniThe Leadership Pipeline: Developing Leaders in the Digital Age — Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, James L. Noel, and Kent JonasenFirst Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals — Patrick J. McKenna and David H. MaisterEmotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ — Daniel GolemanWhat to Make of a Life: Cliffs, Fog, Fire and the Self-Knowledge Imperative — Jim CollinsAnother Way: Building Companies That Last — Dave Whorton with Bo BurlinghamCreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsChapters(00:00) Welcome and Episode Introduction(02:46) Firm Overview and Jennifer's Path to Leadership(09:10) What Good Leadership Looks Like(12:00) Inside the Leadership Development Program(15:58) The Socratic Method and the First Team Concept(20:55) Culture, Onboarding, and Cohort Selection(28:22) Business Acumen, Financials, and Negotiation(37:05) Building High-Performance Teams(41:13) Culture, Values, and Mentorship(56:22) The ESCI 360 Assessment(01:08:03) What's Next: Scaling the Program(01:15:52) Building a Long-Term Sustainable Company and Culture

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Jackie Baxley, Principal and Practice Leader for Environmental Health, Safety, and Sustainability at HRP Associates. Jackie has spent years helping HRP evolve from a more organic, apprenticeship-driven learning culture into a more intentional learning organization that thinks carefully about competency, capability, incentives, mentorship, and organizational performance. Her perspective is shaped by the realities of consulting work, where the product is ultimately the people themselves.One of the central ideas Jackie returns to throughout this conversation is that not every learning experience is trying to accomplish the same thing. Organizations often get into trouble when they fail to define the actual goal upfront. Is the goal simply communication? Awareness? Skills development? Demonstrated competency? Different goals require different approaches, different investments, and different ways of evaluating success.Jackie walks through the practical frameworks HRP uses to think more intentionally about learning design, including her “inverted pyramid” model of communication, awareness, training, and competency, as well as the EDGE framework: Educate, Demonstrate, Guide, and Evaluate. We explore why awareness is not the same thing as competency, why repetition matters, how HRP approaches skills validation and quality audits, and why some learning experiences work best asynchronously while others must remain in person.The conversation also explores the operational and economic realities of learning inside consulting firms. Jackie discusses how HRP has worked to remove the stigma around training and development by redesigning incentives, rethinking billability, and treating learning as a strategic investment rather than overhead. We also discuss HRP’s evolving employee lifecycle programs, their growing focus on soft skills and management development, and the challenge of building deeper organizational capability without turning learning into bureaucracy.If you lead an AEC firm, manage teams, oversee operations, or are thinking about how to scale expertise more intentionally inside your organization, this episode offers a thoughtful and highly practical conversation about designing learning around real outcomes. A conversation about clearer goals, stronger capability development, and building modern learning organizations that keep getting smarter, by design.GuestJackie Baxley, EHS&S Practice Leader, HRP AssociatesJackie Baxley, a professional engineer in several states, has over 28 years of experience as an environmental engineering and risk management consultant specializing in the areas of environmental health and safety (EHS) compliance and management systems. As the EHS&S Practice Leader for HRP Associates, Inc, her responsibilities include fostering operational performance to a project and management staff of engineers and scientist. Throughout her career, Jackie has developed a strong working knowledge of the principle federal and state EHS laws and regulations, the principals of management systems and the application of sustainable practices and policies. Jackie is well known as a compliance trainer and has developed training courses delivered in person and online. She has managed or performed hundreds of site EH&S audits for a multitude of clients. CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsEpisode ResourcesPeople & ExpertsKent Jonasen — CEO, Leadership Pipeline Institutehttps://www.leadershippipeline.comBooksThe Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company — Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, James NoelThe Specialist Pipeline: Career Development for Technical and Professional Specialists — Kent Jonasen, Stephen Drotter, Aigerim EdwardsChapters(00:00) Welcome and Episode Overview(02:49) Introduction to Jackie Baxley, HRP, and HIKE(10:16) Inverse Pyramid Framework: Communication, Awareness, Training, Competency(24:06) Building Skills with the EDGE Method(34:07) Reframing Training as a Strategic Investment: Time Tracking, Overtime, Stigma(43:54) Defining and Measuring Competencies(49:15) The HRP Employee Life Cycle Program(01:00:03) Balancing Internal and External Role: Serving Clients and Developing People(01:04:48) Future Goals: Skills Development Matrix

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Kent Jonasen, CEO of the Leadership Pipeline Institute and co-author of the third edition of The Leadership Pipeline as well as author of The Specialist Pipeline. Kent has spent decades helping organizations rethink leadership development, succession planning, and the challenge of scaling expertise inside complex companies.His work starts from a deceptively simple premise: leadership is not leadership.Each transition—from leading yourself to leading others, leading leaders, leading functions, and eventually leading an enterprise—is fundamentally a different job that requires different skills, different priorities, and even different values.But this conversation goes far beyond leadership development.Many organizations unintentionally build systems where leadership becomes the only visible path for growth, recognition, and advancement. Specialists—deep technical experts, practitioners, strategists, and problem-solvers—often feel forced toward management roles simply to continue progressing in their careers. Over time, this creates frustration, weak leadership transitions, and the gradual loss of highly valuable expertise.Kent and I explore why organizations need both leadership pipelines and specialist pipelines working together. We discuss:Why leadership transitions so often failThe hidden importance of discovering and aligning with your “work values” in career progressionWhy many specialists feel alienated inside traditional organizationsThe difference between knowledge experts and knowledge leadersHow companies accidentally push people into management roles they never truly wantedWhy specialist career paths need more than just new titlesHow dual leadership and specialist pipelines create healthier long-term organizational designAlong the way, we connect these ideas directly to architecture, engineering, and construction firms, where specialized expertise is often the core engine of competitive advantage. From healthcare planners to sustainability experts to technical design specialists, many AEC firms are wrestling with how to scale expertise, accelerate development, and reduce dependency on a shrinking number of senior experts.If you lead an AEC firm, oversee learning and development, manage technical teams, or are thinking about succession planning and long-term capability building, this episode offers a powerful framework for rethinking how careers evolve inside organizations. More importantly, it raises a deeper question: what if building a stronger company starts not just with developing better leaders, but with designing better systems for developing expertise itself?GuestKen Jonasen, CEO, The Leadership Pipeline InstituteKent is CEO of the Leadership Pipeline Institute. He is author of the book “Specialist Pipeline – how to winning the war for specialist talent” and he is co-author of the 3rd edition of the book “Leadership Pipeline – Developing leaders in the digital age”. Before becoming CEO of Leadership Pipeline Institute, Kent Jonasen was Deputy Head of Group Human Resources in A.P. Moller – Maersk since 2003 up to 2008 responsible for talent management, leadership development, executive development and executive compensation. Previously to his deputy position, Kent was Regional HR Manager for Europe Region from 2000 to 2003. In Maersk Kent led the implementation of a companywide integrated leadership development initiative based on the Leadership Pipeline concept to impact more than 10,000 leaders in more than 100 countries. The project secured reliable executive succession plans and a 90% hit ratio on talents in the executive talent pool. During his time in A.P. Moller - Maersk he was member of the US Conference Board Council on Development, Education and Training. Since founding the Leadership Pipeline Institute Kent has led the implementation of the Leadership Pipeline and Specialist Pipeline concept with regards to development, selection, and assessment in more than 25 different large international organizations. CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsResourcesLeadership Pipeline Book: https://a.co/d/01HXBNCTThe Performance Pipeline: https://a.co/d/0bJgSp0qLeadership Pipeline Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipPipelineInstituteChapters(00:00) Welcome and Episode Intro(02:47) Origins of the Leadership Pipeline(12:12) Development of the Specialist Pipeline(37:36) Why Specialists Leave and How to Keep Them(46:23) The Three Steps Up the Specialist Pipeline(01:11:11) Applying the Pipelines in AEC and Professional Services(01:21:44) Strategic Implementation and Looking Ahead