In this episode of Laying the Foundation, we sit down with Brian Crichton, the CEO of CMBA Architects, to discuss the company's approach to creating a positive and engaging employee experience. Brian shares insights into the key factors that have contributed to CMBA's strong company culture, including the role of the Culture Club, team-building activities, and community involvement.

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Episode Transcript

(Skyler): Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. My name is Skyler, and with me today we've got Brian Crichton, CEO of CMBA, joining us to talk about the employee experience here at CMBA. We're talking company culture, we're talking all the kind of the fun stuff, the benefits, why it's awesome to work at CMBA. So Brian, can you give me? First of all, welcome. Should probably start with that. It's good to see you. It's always good to have you back on. So, Brian, we're talking company culture, we're talking the employee experience. What people are experiencing, for lack of better words, when they get here and or hopefully when they see us. Right. Like even just walking in the door, hopefully what they see.

(Brian): So. Right.

(Skyler): Can you give me an overview of some of the things that we do to create that positive employee experience?

(Brian): That's a big question.

(Skyler): It is a big question.

(Brian): We're doing a lot, I think. Really, our offices, to me, speak to that. If you think about historically, I'm going to go back a little while, little ways. Professional service firms like architects or attorneys or accountants, they're started by individual people that go out on their own. Like for us, Jim Duffy went out on his own and then he built the firm. Over the last 60 years, we've evolved through multiple people and parts and locations, et cetera, et cetera. But historically, that firm owner, that professional, had an office, right? And most of the time that office was close to the front. And the support staff, you might have a receptionist out front, but that support staff was pretty much in the back of the office. They were kind of back there. You sort of knew who they were or what they were doing, but they weren't visible to the public. And I would say, our Des Moines location was like that. Our Spencer location was like that to some extent before we moved up there. Our Sioux City office was like that when we were in the Mid-American Energy Building, Grand Island, if I think back on their first location. So our offices today, you really can see some of the offices, but they're open, right? Because we value our individuals. We all contribute to the projects; we all contribute to our success. Our skills are brought to the table every day and we value each part of that team, to bring the success for the client, ultimately. So, there isn't this front of house and back of house scenario. We're not trying to hide people away.

(Skyler): No, absolutely not. And I think that allows when someone comes into our office, they say, wow, this is cool because I can see what's happening. I can feel what's happening. Is every day a lively day? I'll ask you that. Is every day really lively in the office?

(Skyler): I wouldn't say fully lively, yeah. I wouldn't say super lively.

(Brian): But when there is conversation, when there are teams meeting, when there is action in an area of an office, you can feel that as people walk through. So I think that the way in which our offices have shifted over time, truly is that first step as someone walks in. It's a welcoming environment. Our colors are warm. Right. We have a lot of wood tones. A lot of our offices are in historic buildings which also makes a difference where people go, wow, this is an awesome old building.

(Skyler): Absolutely.

(Brian): And you were just showing a guy all the old pictures in the room that we're recording in.

(Brian): I was. What?

(Skyler): Everything looked like way back in the day.

(Brian): So.

(Skyler): Absolute.

(Brian): Yeah. Because people really look at them and go, I've not been in this building. This is really awesome.

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Brian): So I think our investment in spaces like this, like in all of our locations really, I can't think of one that's not in a historic building. Truly. All of them have been somewhat rehabbed and then a contemporary interjection, if you will, of design has been put into those environments. But that says who we are. We value the past, we value our history, we value those that came before us. But we're also forward-thinking. We're trying to make ourselves better. We're trying to get as many of the unique skills and abilities out of our employees to apply them to our clients' problems. So I think that's probably a big part of who we are as you walk through.

(Skyler): And it helps that we're architects too. Or. Well, I know I'm in the marketing side, but still you're part of our team, Mr. Skyler. Absolutely. But it's nice that we're made up of architects who have done the research, and they know or they have the knowledge about good office design too. And then we can bring that to our own offices. I mean, I know we've had people that have designed our offices and stuff like that from within our company.

(Brian): So yeah, our team of architects and interior designers, bring that unique background, if you will, and that knowledge set to not only our clients but to our own internal spaces. Now we're our worst clients, I will tell you, because we don't like to make decisions. Just like the age-old adage is, the carpenter's house is always the one that's falling down because he's working on everybody else's stuff for the most part. Right. It's never finished at his house because he's working elsewhere. For us, we want it to be perfect. We want it to put our spin on it. So we can't quite make a decision on what our new office space will look like. Now Sioux City is probably the unique piece of that where we've been in this office 15 years now, which has gone really fast. But our other offices we have remodeled, we've updated, we brought in new furniture because of some of the new thinkings on office layout and design. And that's fostered collaboration. And I think this is the next piece for us here in Sioux City.

(Skyler): Awe, well, hey, I'm excited. That'll be fun. That'll be fun to get to see it all go down.

(Brian): You bet. You bet.

(Skyler): Awesome. So we talk about space, we talk about the space that we're actually in where we, how we kind of have that set up to kind of create that company culture. What other factors are going into developing and growing our positive company culture?

(Brian): Well, I think communication. We talk about this all the time. Right. How do we communicate internally, person to person, but also corporately. How do we disseminate information from the leadership level down to our team members? And are we perfect at it? No. Could we be better at it? Absolutely. But I think we get kind of wrapped around the axle sometimes and don't think about, hey, I should tell everybody about this, or I should pass that information along. So we've made an active decision. Like our Quad for instance. Our Quad is there for us to disseminate corporate information or bigger picture issues that all employees need to know about. But it's also a place where employees can put, hey, I'm dealing with this issue, kind of the hive mind if you will. I need some help with this. Has anybody experienced this? And nine times out of 10, at least two other places or two other individuals in our company has said, hey, I've done three of those or I've done four of those or whatever it is. And that sharing of knowledge, that deliberate sharing of knowledge, just goes to the success of the overall team so that we're not siloed. We have enough locations right now that make it difficult to communicate. But we're making the effort to say the Quad is an important piece of that. Our Teams platform is another piece of that, for quick team communication and collaboration. And then it's also a place that we can deposit information into there as well that people can have access to. So I think our investment in some technology and some pieces of communication help to make sure our employee experience is the best with that. I mean, I could continue going on and on about different pieces and parts of our culture, but I think communication, I think as an employee, as a team member, if you feel like you know what's going on and you can feel that the leadership is looking out for your best interest long term, that takes your mind off of all those weird things that we start to think about, and we can focus on what's at hand. And that's solving our clients' problem.

(Skyler): Absolutely. Well, and I'm glad you brought that up about the Quad and Teams. Like, what's the point of being a part of a big company with all these people who have worked within different sectors and with different materials and with different people and not be able to communicate with them and say, hey, I've never done this before. Can you help me with that? It's sort of a mentoring thing all the way through so that we can all gain the experience of each other and then obviously do better with the client.

(Brian): Yeah, mentoring, you know, historically we think about it as the older person in the firm and it grabs the younger person and puts them underneath their wing and says, come along and let's. I'll teach you everything I know. Well, really, you think about it, it's a two-way street.

(Skyler): Right?

(Brian): I learn as much from you about all of what I see here on this table. I have no idea what half this stuff is, but I enjoy learning from those that are younger than I am, that have maybe just come through school, that have learned something new and that energizes me as a more seasoned professional. Put that in quotes. And that also allows us to broaden that depth of knowledge. So yes, the more seasoned people, the senior people need to bring the more junior person along and share the knowledge that they've seen. Things that have gone right. Things that have gone wrong. How did I learn from those? I remember vividly, driving with Jim Ruble or Owen Mamura and going to a client meeting. And of course I'm the young architect or young, you know, at that time I was licensed, but I was still learning. Try not to say a whole lot because they were the senior guys. Right. I was learning from those two. And just the way in which they listened to the client, the way in which they responded to what was being asked, or kind of guided the client as well to say, you know, I value that thought, but I think if we went this way, we're going to have more success. Whatever that situation was, they had the ability to think a little bit differently and to guide the client to the better solution without saying, hey, Mr. Client, you don't know what you're talking about. I know what I'm talking about. Right.

(Skyler): I mean, that's the proverbial hand to guide them.

(Brian): Correct. The perception, though, is that architects don't listen. I mean, that's a lot of people think that. Well, there are a lot of good architects that do listen and do want the success of their clients to be the best. So the ones that I've learned from truly took that to heart and that's how I learned as a young architect. And so I hope, and we talk about this all the time at the leadership level, is grab the youngest person in the office, take them with you to the next project meeting. They don't need to know what the project is even about, but it gives them the ability to say, hey, I saw what was going on over here. That's really awesome. Like, tell me a little bit more.

(Skyler): Exactly.

(Brian): Piques their interest, gets them still kind of jazzed about architecture. Absolutely. Because not every day is the most glamorous in the world of architecture and interior design. We still have to do a lot of paperwork, we still have to do a lot of email, we still have to do a lot of shop drawing, review or talk to answer questions on from contractors and clients and whatnot. But when you can still keep the interest of that young person to say, I want to learn more and learn more and learn more, I think that's a successful mentoring side of what we do.

(Skyler): Absolutely, yeah.

(Brian): Long answer to what you have.

(Skyler): Oh, well, hey, no, that's great. And I know you have definitely tried to foster that idea of mentorship too, because we had the whole CMBAU program, which was looking over just every category within what we do as architects and sharing that in sort of a lecture style or lesson style teaching environment so that everybody else can be on the same page as the rest of the company.

(Brian): Yeah. So we just started our 2025 class, if you will. There's four new team members, fresh out of school. And then I've got one that started with us more recently. She's got some experience. So I said to her, you're the seasoned professional on this call, so I'm going to need to have you help me out. And we got through the five weeks of my topic, which is overall business and structure that I talk about. And Brenda said, hey, just so you know, I've worked at other places and no one else takes the time to do this type of thing with the team members so that they know why we do certain things.

(Skyler): Right.

(Brian): The background of who we are, how are we making decisions. Like it seems like if I'm a team member and I just come to work and I don't really know what's happening, I don't see the bigger vision or picture. It's easy to get lost. Yeah. Right, so CMBAU is absolutely a direct effort by the leadership to say we want to pass on this information. Yes, there's some general in nature information but it's really about how we approach those topics. And it's wide-ranging. There's nine different topics and each is five weeks long. But each leader at the partner level takes a class, walks people through it, answers questions. But really again, it's a knowledge sharing that's truly what it's about.

(Skyler): And it's really cool that you say that too, that it's not just about, here's how we do this and this and this process of architecture. It's about what we are as a company and how we run things as a company.

(Brian): Right.

(Skyler): The architects will learn about the marketing department; the marketing department will learn about the architecture stuff. It's really implementing you into what CMBA is and who CMBA is and making sure that you know that you are a part of CMBA, not just, you know, some drone that we send out to go do work here and there or design this or whatever else. Like you're a part of everything that's going on.

(Brian): Yeah. And when we started CMBAU, we made a clear decision to say everyone in the company is going to go through this because originally it was just going to be new employees. We go through that when they start every year. We'd give them about six months to get their feet underneath of them to understand somewhat what's going on. But it was the January, let's say, or February. We would start a new class of new employees or maybe interns too as well but we then thought about it and like we really need to have everyone go through this. So that first year every employee, every team member went through these classes so that everyone has a platform or a, what's the words?

(Skyler): I'm thinking base.

(Brian): Exactly. Base level knowledge. So they can talk to each other too. Like hey, I remember taking that class from Brent talking about project management. Yeah, he talked about this. So it's that common language.

(Brian): It's that building of that knowledge and that CMBAU. Absolutely. I think it's been a great success. We want to continue it, and we want to continue to adjust it as well too. But it's something that builds that common platform.

(Skyler): Absolutely. It's a huge asset for sure to be able to have and to be able to reference because we have it all recorded and available. So if you're like trying to remember something that you remember hearing in one of the lessons, you can jump back into that and you can re-listen to that instructor talk about what you're looking for. So it's really cool. It's really cool. Really big program is a big investment to jump into and it was really cool.

(Brian): So even as a non-architect or design person, interior design I should say, because you're design still doing social media and other types of things. Did you enjoy it as a team member? Did you go, I have no idea what they're talking about?

(Skyler): Often I said there I have no idea what they're talking about. But yeah, no, it was definitely super informative. It was very intriguing. We've talked about it in the marketing department before. There's times when somebody will give us details, or we'll need details from somebody and there's that kind of miscommunication because it does feel like we're speaking two different languages. They want to tell us everything within an architecture vocabulary and we're talking in a marketing vocabulary and there can be a little bit of a heads clashing and so yeah, it was nice to be able to get like you said, that base education that sort of, you know, we're not going to turn you into an architect maybe, but we're going to give you something to stem off of and be able to understand a little bit better.

(Brian): Because we have jargon that we use and when as architects, interior designers, as really graphics. Katie's similar. She'll say something or I'll say something. Well, if you don't understand or haven't been deep in design to understand exactly what that terminology is, you're going to look at me like, what the heck, right?

(Skyler): Exactly.

(Brian): If there's a way that we can share that again, yeah, that's just going to make it much, much better.

(Skyler): We're all going to be able to communicate better. Yeah. So awesome. What about kind of the fun side of company culture, you could say, and I'm not trying to say that the rest that we didn't talk about wasn't fun, but you know, like you had mentioned before, not every day is, you know, super energized or really crazy or keeping you super preoccupied with things, you know?

(Brian): Yeah. I mean, are there days that kind of drag on? Yes, absolutely. Especially when you're reviewing a specification to go out for bid. You want to just pull your hair out some days on those types of things. But we make a very concerted effort again to ensure that there's some team building time. I think this week we've got something planned later this week, but there's specific culture events. We put together a culture club, which you're a part of. I appreciate that. Thank you, and that came out of our COVID time, that we were disconnected from one another because we were at home and it just like we need something. So we put together a culture club. And that was, actually we grabbed some of the youngest people in the office to get their thoughts on this. Because we had somewhat done some team building things over the years, but not to the level that we're doing it today. We're much more organized with it. We have some events that are cross offices that are absolutely competitive across office.

(Skyler): Absolutely.

(Brian): And then we have the other events that are done internally at each office. You're still competing against maybe some that are in your office, solely. But we're having fun together. We spend a lot of time sitting here in our offices or interacting with our team members more times some days than our families, which is not good either. But we know that anytime that we can maintain a positive work environment, something that you have fun doing, it builds trust and respect between team members. If you get thrown on a team and you're competing together, when you're sweating together, you're making bonds. Right. So those team building activities truly helped to foster that employee engagement, but employee relationships as well.

(Skyler): So, yeah, I always like hearing from the other offices, from the other businesses that are around us building, see us do something like really crazy, some weird game or something like that. And they're like, what are they doing over there? I've had people approach me, like when I'm headed to the restroom or something and that's, yeah they'll stop me and be like, what are you guys up to in there? Why are you guys rolling a turkey, a frozen turkey across the floor or what have you.

(Brian): You know, one of my, I don't think we've done this in a long time, but one of my ones that I remember, it was pretty cool. Was you blind. Put, like goggles on somebody and they couldn't see anything. All they had was a walkie talkie. And you had like, the other person was outside the office up on the other side of the glass. And all you could, they could just listen to someone talking, but you. To tell them how to get through the office to get to the end goal. And that was hilarious.

(Skyler): Funny story, actually, Brian, is that that was originally what Adam and I had planned for the Christmas party this year.

(Brian): Oh, okay.

(Skyler): And we were going to have you and Terry competing against each other. And then we were going to, like, maybe ask either maybe your wives or something to be the communicator.

(Brian): Yeah.

(Skyler): And then just kind of see how that goes. But we didn't have enough space, so we decided to switch to the other game. But we'll definitely save that.

(Brian): That was a fun time. The game you had was pretty fun too. The floater, Noe Sink or Swim.

(Skyler): Yes, that's right. So awesome. Yeah, we have a lot of fun with the Culture Club and everything that we get to kind of put together and create and the goofy games and the fun events. And we've done a little bit with, even within that with sort of some company partnerships. And I know we'll get into a lot of that when we do our giving back episode. But there are some things that we gotten to do along the way that also kind of enhance company culture in different ways. What do we get there? What kind of stuff are we?

(Brian): So, yeah, thinking about how we interact with others outside of CMBA potentially. Here, in this building we have our pumpkin carving contest. Right. We compete against other businesses here in the building, or at the United Way event that we have. And we're trying to obviously bolster some of that in our other locations as well too. But here, our United Way event, is an example of trying to maintain our community relationships where we have a competition. It's been, I think, bags games, the cornhole game. Basically the last couple years prior to that it was all kinds of different things that the CEOs or the leaders of these businesses got to get involved with. I've seen some interesting pictures from this. Yeah. Trying to catch spaghetti that was thrown out of a second story window and, in a garbage can and try not to get covered in it. No, as well that never happened. Or the water wars in October when it was 46 degrees outside. Yeah. So we think that's very important to think about outside of our office walls. How do we how are we a part of the local community as best we can? Because that's where our friendships lie. Right. That's where the people we know interact and do their work. But we want to be there to support them. We want not only mean, yes, we could write checks all day long. Right. If people need some cash, we can try to help with that, some funding. But how can we use our hands? How can we use our feet to help others?

(Skyler): Absolutely.

(Brian): And yes, these are fun events that we have. But there are other volunteer events and I know we'll talk about some of those and our giving back episode as well. But we think it's important to think outside CMBA, also being a part of the community that we reside in. We want to see our community grow. If we want to grow, our community's got to grow. So it's kind of a two-way street again. So definitely, when it comes to looking to the future, what kind of challenges, opportunities are we seeing? How can we grow our company culture, increase the employee experience? What are we moving towards?

(Brian): Well that's a. Wow; that's a big question. What are we moving towards? I sort of want to talk like AI to some extent, just a little bit. It's not going to be what we use for our design process. Right, right. But are there ways in which we can use AI to help in other ways of our employee experience the day-to-day process type stuff? Maybe it's not true AI, but it's using innovation, using technology, using automation to some extent to get rid of some of those tedious tasks that help get to the endpoint quicker. I know we're looking at certain pieces of software for our production side to help us with that. And I'm not going to speak to it exactly because I don't have all that knowledge. I'll let someone else have that, one of your next sessions. But I know that we're looking at pieces of software to maybe help, let's say dimensioning on construction, documents or building blueprints. We could sit there and dimension point by point all day long. But is there a quicker way of doing it? Yeah, so that we can truly work on what's most important, which is the design, the layout overall. So that's a very minor piece of it. But we are looking to some of that as well and I think other parts of our employee experience. We want to continue to listen to our employees. I know one of the questions you had talked about was maybe gathering feedback from that. So we have a suggestion box on the Quad which is our intra office network that we have. And you can submit here's my thoughts on this anytime you'd like. My email is open, my text is open, my Teams is open. Whatever you'd like to do. But we also just started. What is it?

(Skyler): Is it the Chat with the Chief?

(Brian): That's right, exactly.

(Skyler): I was hoping you'd bring that up.

(Brian): Yes, Chat with the Chief. We just had it two weeks ago I believe. I have another one in a couple weeks. But monthly, I started a 30-minute session that basically the first 15, 20 minutes it's company updates kind of giving big picture thoughts on things that are happening within the company. But then there's also a piece to that where team members can ask questions, they can submit them ahead of time or during the chat. I mean I'd love to just take questions. And we had a few during that first session which was really handy and really great. And they varied from what about this piece of software or what's going on with the phones or I'm trying to remember some of the other ones that I think one of the suggestions came up was just having generalized CMBA T-shirts, not with a message on them for instance, but and this was for an employee was asking about them so she could wear them around town on the weekend, let's say. Yeah, that's awesome. Love to see that. So we take feedback regularly. We want to hear it regularly. Because that's the only way we get better. If we don't know that somebody's upset about something or if they've got a suggestion like hey, what have we looked into this? Yeah, yeah.

(Skyler): People have great ideas out there and we want to hear them. We don't want to lock them away and say we don't want to hear your ideas. We want to know what your ideas are. We want to take those and see what we can do.

(Brian): Exactly, exactly. And I think you'll also see us look at some of the service offerings we have. We're just getting into this a little bit. I think what we do is going to evolve in the next five years. And I can't say I don't have a crystal ball.

(Skyler): Right, right.

(Brian): Of course, I would love to say exactly how it's going to happen, because then I'd be a billionaire. But. No, that's true. But I think we have to constantly think about what we do and kind of maybe question it just a little bit. Like, could we do it a little differently, yeah? What's another way of doing this? Or what are some of ours. Some of the things that our clients are needing that we could offer that might not just be architecture or interior design that are tied to projects? Maybe. What does that mean for CMBA? I think we'll see some of that in our discussions at the leadership level. And you'll start to hear some more about that because that's going to impact employee experience because we may need different types of employees than just what we hired.

(Skyler): Right.

(Brian): I don't know.

(Skyler): It's entirely possible. Right.

(Brian): We're just spit-balling here. Right? Yeah. So.

(Skyler): Well, yeah, and it's. It's one of those things. If we can offer it, why not?

(Brian): Right?

(Skyler): I mean, there, to some extent.

(Brian): Yeah.

(Skyler): We're not.

(Brian): We're not going to do mechanical engineering for all of our engineering partners out there. We're not going to do that. But there are other things that we could do that our owners look at us like, hey, could. Could you do this for us? Sure.

(Skyler): If we can say yes, that's great.

(Brian): Why not?

(Skyler): Yeah.

(Brian): I think there's some opportunity there.

(Skyler): Well, I've always said it, and I'll say it again, if you're not moving forwards, you're moving backwards.

(Brian): Yeah, for sure.

(Skyler): That's always good to hear that we as a company are taking those steps and trying to.

(Brian): I thought you were going to go right to the Talladega Nights. If you're not first, your last.

(Skyler): If you're not first, you last. Right. That's right.

(Brian): I go swore. That's where you're.

(Skyler): You know, I should have. I should.

(Brian): I didn't think about from the great philosopher Ricky Bobby.

(Skyler): Wise as he is. Yes. Well, whatever the case, Brian, super glad that you could come onto the show. Tell me a little bit about. And not that I don't know, I guess, but tell our listeners more about who CMBA is, what we do, and how we're creating that employee experience. And more importantly, a positive employee experience.

(Brian): Absolutely.

(Skyler): And how we're building that company culture and how we're taking steps forward. Because that’s always exciting to see.

(Brian): Yeah, I think most people think of us as projects. We were getting projects done. You’re doing great work that way. But we have to have a great employee experience.

(Skyler): Exactly.

(Brian): We have to have people that feel valued, empowered, trusted and respected. And really just looked at as the experts that they are. They have deep knowledge, and we need to be able to pull that out. And if they feel valued and respected, they're willing to contribute.

(Skyler): Absolutely. Absolutely.

(Brian): It's very important.

(Skyler): Well, thank you again, Brian. Great having you.

(Brian): Thank you.

(Skyler): See you guys next time.

(Skyler): If you'd like to find out more about the Laying the Foundation podcast, you can head over to any podcast streaming platform such as Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, and others. You can also find out more about CMBA architects through social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Additionally, you can head over to the CMBA website at CMBAarchitects.com. If you're an architecture or design professional or an intern looking for an internship within those fields, please be sure to check out our website and click on the Careers tab to find out more about what opportunities we offer. This has been another episode of the Laying the Foundation podcast. We'll see you next time.