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CHAPTER 4 Company Culture Is Crucial

      George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata, and George Kassabaum were different people with different personalities, but they shared a powerful vision of a firm where people treated each other as teammates and helped each other to succeed. They valued harmony. Plenty of rivalry existed outside the firm for projects, but inside, the founders insisted that teamwork was the best way for HOK to compete. To simplify this thought, which would work well at any company, the idea was:

       Collaboration inside is the best way to compete outside.

      My friend Bill Voelker had described the atmosphere as that of “a big family,” and I came to think of it as HOK culture. People at the firm really did do their utmost to help each other succeed. When I came to HOK, the firm had such a unified culture that everyone shared a common frame of reference. I heard many HOK leaders say, “If you don't fit into the HOK culture, you are going to leave sooner or later, and you might as well leave sooner!”

Mutual Respect

      HOK was remarkably egalitarian, with a sense of mutual respect between everyone from file clerk to founder. This was most important in the quest for new and better ways to do things. The founders actively encouraged people to seek out the very best ideas and solutions, regardless of who they came from—an enlightened approach any firm could adopt. We were encouraged to innovate and take risks, even if it didn't always work out. If a junior employee dreamt up the best idea, senior people set their egos aside and went with it. Period. This was a real novelty at a time when most companies took a top-down approach. Architecture has at times suffered from a cult of personality, where so-called “black cape” architects demanded total obedience from their apprentices. HOK was different.

The founders also demonstrated mutual respect by using first names around the office. People called Kassabaum “George K.” and Hellmuth “George H.” Later, people started calling George H. “Papa George,” when his son—also an architect and named George Hellmuth—came to work at HOK. I called Gyo Obata “Mr. Obata” during my interview, but he soon corrected me, and he was always “Gyo” after that. It was a first-name-basis kind of place. In fact, as I write this book, it makes me faintly uncomfortable to refer to the founders by their last names, but with so many Georges and Bills and Bobs, I have done so for clarity. (I have called later leaders by their first names.)

      Part of mutual respect at HOK was self-responsibility. The firm relied on everyone to do the right thing. In fact, no one filled out a time sheet. Staff members were mostly salaried, and each person was expected to be diligent in his or her work. Obata himself always came in on Saturdays, so his team did, too. People worked, as needed, until a job was finished. It was also normal to see people working at night. In return, HOK respected our efforts and made it possible to do this with the least amount of stress. If people had to work late, HOK fed them and the founders lauded their work at the next staff meeting. It was part of the family feel. People treated each other with respect, were patient with each other's shortcomings, and celebrated both personal and firm growth.

Considerate Communication

      The founders had a soft-spoken way of conveying what they wanted that I came to think of as “Suggest, Don't Tell.” They would make something sound like a request—“Why don't we do it this way”—but we all understood that it wasn't really a suggestion, it was an order. However, couched the way it was, it sure

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