Architecture and Workplace: Collaboration, Ethical Practice and Knowledge Transfer
The first time I asked Alec about the office culture, he declared that Tzannes’ survival rests on clear, distinctive and relevant values. Now, you won’t find a values page on its website. And this is not a practice that goes in for illustrated posters or decals on glazed partitions – there are no doors, for a start. I was intrigued. How well had he met the primary task of being a leader: to make sure that the organization knows itself? Consider, too, that this is also a practice that has thrived with many other significant demands on the founder’s time in the past decade. Alec was the national president of the Australian Institute of Architects in 2007–2008 and then dean of the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of New South Wales from 2008 to 2016.
Meg Wheatley writes about this challenge:
“If the organization can stay in a continuous conversation about who it is and who it is becoming, then leaders don’t have to undertake the impossible task of trying to hold it all together. Organizations that are clear at their core hold themselves together because of their deep congruence. People are free to explore … in ways that make sense for the organization. It is a strange and promising paradox of living systems: Clarity about who we are as a group creates freedom for individual contributions. People exercise that freedom in the service of the organization, and their capacity to respond and change becomes a capability of
