165: ‘Transitioning to Leading People in AEC Tech’, with Phil Read and Adam Thomas

165: ‘Transitioning to Leading People in AEC Tech’, with Phil Read and Adam Thomas

Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. And in this episode, I'm talking with Phil Read and Adam Thomas about the complexities of transitioning into leadership within digital and strategic roles in an AEC firm.

We talk about the crucial balance between technical know-how and soft skills, cultivating interpersonal relationships, stress management, mentorship, where to go to foster skills and behaviors, accountability, and more. You'll also learn about AEC Acoustics, an innovative retreat, blending leadership and technical skill enhancement through collaborative discussions, which I will be attending in just over a month from now. And just for listeners of this show, Phil and Adam have extended and incredibly generous offer to get the early bird pricing, even though that time has already passed. So on the registration form, you'll see Phil's email address and once you register, you can email [00:01:00] him and let him know that you heard about it here, and you'll get that early bird price. You can find the link to learn more about AEC Acoustics and register in the show notes for this episode or on my website at TRXL.Co. You can also visit AECacoustics.com.

Please help this podcast by subscribing wherever you listen.

And if you'd like to receive an email, when episodes are published with all of the links, like I just talked about and other information from the episode, sign up at trxl.co. You can also directly support the show by becoming a member at the site as well.

As always. Thank you so much for listening. And now without further ado, I hope you enjoyed this conversation about mastering leadership transitions in AEC tech with Phil Read and Adam Thomas.

Evan Troxel: [00:02:00] Phil and Adam. Welcome to the TRXL podcast. It's great to have you both here. And Phil, it's been a while since we, chatted. It was Denver Airport, United Lounge. Uh, and I'm going to put links to those episodes. In the show notes, but something you said during that conversation, uh, it really piqued my interest and, part of the conversation was about the transition in leadership, especially when it comes to like digital tools and strategy, and there's, there's kind of a technical side to it, and then there's this transition to leading a team, and you talked a little bit about that during our last conversation there. And that being a difficult transition for a lot of people. We, we

work our way up, solving problems, working with the tools, really technically oriented. And then it's like the next step in that natural progression is, okay, now you're going to lead people to do that same thing.

And it's, and then we, we trip over those speed bumps that happen, right?

So like [00:03:00] set up the beginning of this conversation. Let's just go from, from that. And let's elaborate on that a little bit, because I think it's going to lead us in some interesting

Phil Read: Well, that, you know, there is the, kind of truism that you get promoted to your point of incompetence.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, There's a name to that

rule. I can't remember what it is off the top of my head, but

Phil Read: we should do this like Rogan and go, Adam, look that up for me. Can

you, what's that, what's that thing called? It's not Murphy's Law, it's something else.

Evan Troxel: I

don't have, I don't have an intern at my fingertips. So, yeah.

Phil Read: right. No, so there, so, That's the thing that happened to me. And if I had known there was a strategy, like read these books or go to these things or talk with these people, cause it's going to be stressful, then I would have known that being stressed is okay. But when you don't know why it's stressful and it just feels completely unfamiliar, it becomes even more stressful. So I really struggled with that. And then only to find out, like there's [00:04:00] been people that have attended, The leadership retreat after the fact that I managed during that very stressful time.

They said, Oh, you're the best boss ever had. It was great. And I thought, you weren't inside my head. I

Evan Troxel: I was,

barely hanging on, man.

Phil Read: yeah, it was so, I didn't know what I would, what I had accomplished. When I was at Autodesk, I knew at the end of a day, a week, a month, a quarter, like in detail, what stuff did we do to help the customer?

And then I went to a place where I don't even know if the decisions we're talking about are going to happen. How do I know I'm making the right decision? And so it was very stressful. I still find it stressful.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting predicament to, to get yourself into without like, this is not the kind of thing you get trained for in school ever.

So if there is, let me know that that exists because I don't know that that exists. It's just, it's like, And I saw this with other positions as well. It's like you become, you get promoted to becoming a project manager.

Like there was no, in architecture, there [00:05:00] was no project management school. There was, and it was just like, you just learn by doing along the way, but then all of a sudden it goes from maybe you're doing one project to now you've got five projects and all of a sudden you're, you're overloaded. You got to. And you get, you get buried deep, right? And, and it's like, where do you go for help? And I think that, that to me is what is kind of interesting. And maybe kind of the theme about what we're talking about today is like, where do you go for help? Where do you get

Phil Read: Well, the money trail to go higher up in the organization is tempting. And I mean, that's like, Oh, I should follow the money, right? That's what adults do.

But then you might, yeah, but the thing is, well, one of the things we talked about in Denver was the process of becoming a technical high performer. It's okay if that's trial and error, because you can squirrel yourself away after hours. And just put your [00:06:00] head down and figure out a way that that'll work, that you can implement. And that trial and error is invisible to everyone else. Trial and error with people, it doesn't work. You'll end up alienating

customer, you'll alienate your staff, you'll alienate your business partner. Hey, Adam. I think Adam does way better at it. He's more of a extrovert than me. I would, I would say in that he works with a team of people that works with. Big customers, and I primarily just still work within customers and I have to periodically connect to the team that makes software that we're implementing, but yeah, having a team of people that are unpredictable and, uh, yeah, I still find it stressful,

Adam Thomas: It is Yeah, it is

stressful.

Phil Read: well, then you just accept the stress.

Yeah, I,

Adam Thomas: right, yeah, roll with the punches a little bit.

Phil Read: Yeah.

Evan Troxel: So, Adam, talk about that transition. I mean, [00:07:00] you, you're the youngest here, so you've gone through this probably the, the most recently. I, I definitely went through this transition myself, and I'm happy to talk about it, and I know Phil, we talked about it a little bit in our last set of conversations in, on the podcast, but So, so you, you've, we've all been through this and I think navigating this is something that we're all going to have different experiences with and how, how we accomplish navigating that. But to Phil's point earlier about this becomes, you know, it's attractive because there's more money, but there's more money because the expectation is now you're going to multiply your skills amongst a team and you're going to help take our organization to the next level. But there's not necessarily a. a thorough roadmap of how to do that, right? It's like figure it out, which is, this is the, this is architecture in general, right? This is, you know how to figure things out. And I have faith that you're going to figure this out because I [00:08:00] don't have time to train you how to do it. I don't know what the resources are.

We all learn differently. We've all done it a different way. And somehow it's all just kind of worked out and I'm sure it's not going to be any different with you. Go. But what was your experience like?

Adam Thomas: Well, so yeah, I am the youngest, um, but I, I think I threw myself into it because I saw a problem with the first few architecture companies I worked with, there was no direct path. It was, I'm going to be a BIM manager and you're only going to talk to two people. And actually the first one I worked with said that I wasn't allowed to talk to certain studios.

So I couldn't effectively be a BIM manager then. Because I have to talk to the studios, the people, to be able to increase productivity. Um, it's a psychological problem, not a technical problem. And so I think 15 years I've been fascinated by the psychology of people more than the technical output of people.

And if I can somehow roll with the punches enough [00:09:00] to get someone to be successful in their own life, it comes back to their professional life, which goes back to their personal life, and it keeps building on each other. Um, and so I would rather get on the phone with someone and say, you know, how can I, how can I de stress you?

Or how can I help alleviate some stress in the next 10 minutes? And with some clients, it's literally, they just want to talk about their grandkids, because no one at the office wants to do that. But that's coming from a place of I get told all the time that the way we deal with architecture firm A or construction firm B, if they tried to deal with it internally the same way, they would be told to leave.

So there's a position of kind of,

Evan Troxel: Privilege.

Adam Thomas: privileged to say like this outside resource, we're going to listen to them, even though that same internal person has said it before. And I've talked with those managers. And I don't think they are ignoring the internal manager. I don't think they're in, they're ignoring that internal [00:10:00] person.

I think what that internal person has done is they've built up a kind of a tremendous wall in front of them. And they're talking at people instead of with people, or they're talking to directly, or they're making it all about them versus everyone around them. And we can come in and say, Oh, well, you figured it out.

I just did the last 2%.

We can highlight the person

without fear of our job being compromised, where an internal person might be guarded.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, there's

politics, there's baggage, and, and you're, you're talking about kind of a, a counselor or a therapist relationship, right? Where, where it's like, I'm paying for this outside. ear, and they've, they're going to listen to me. I can't, and that, that it's

not than going to a therapist.

Phil Read: it's not just about the job and I like the way that Adam frames this. Our, our company, the goal of our company is to take people's stress away. And that takes lots of forms, yeah. So if your job is [00:11:00] to be a great reddit technical person, I think you're coming up short. If your job is to take people's stress away, whether you're making a cup of coffee for someone, whether you're helping them figure out, you know, a complicated family component or a construction issue, really, they're just paying you to help take their stress away. And that's how we always have framed it. And Adam was the one that brought that up. And I was like, yeah, it's a really good, that's like, to me, it's like a principle based approach to what is your big goal? What is the overarching goal?

Evan Troxel: How do you, how did you come up with that framing, Adam? Because I think it, do you think it's innate to you is my question, I guess. Or do you think it's something that you learned in how to deal with this and how to open people up when they're coming to you with a high stress situation that they need this problem solved right away? I'm, I'm, I'm curious about where that came from.

Adam Thomas: So, it's probably not innate, I can give a lot of credit to my father and mother, because they had me at a really [00:12:00] young age, they had to work twice as hard to move forward in life. And they took a tremendous amount of risk. They, they might not have been the best parents or the worst parents, but at the end of the day, they took ownership for what was going to, going to happen and move forward with it.

And where I grew up in the small town, Northeast Georgia is called Gumlog. Um, the closest big town is Toccoa, realistically. Um, so, you know, 28, 000 people. Um, Gumlog has 1200 people. And. It was you and your word are all you have, nothing else. So you really dig into you as a person becomes kind of your book or being, and then that's the only way you can move through life.

So you never. You never cross anyone. You never allow someone to go stressed out for multiple days or multiple weeks. You always help where you can. And I think, I think I was doing that at a really early age. Now I was, I was part of a church at a [00:13:00] really early age. So we had like elderly outreach and things like that.

I got, I got, I was able to help people just all the time.

And right.

I had the opportunities to do it. And I don't think you have as many opportunities. In larger cities or in certain family structures. In our family structure, we kind of had to help each other. My dad was one of like 12 kids, right? So you had to help each other.

And, um, with your word being your bond, you didn't really have contracts where I came from. I had to learn how to write a contract after school.

It was just, can we shake on it and let's do it. And I

was trusted to do it. And that's a really hard thing to just teach someone. You have to let them do it, and then you have to hold them accountable.

I was being held accountable as a six year old, an eight year old, and so accountability comes natural. But now we have 30 year olds transitioning into management, and they want the leadership and management position, but they don't want the accountability necessarily. And I would rather have the negative so that my [00:14:00] team doesn't get it.

I can set with a tremendous weight on me for a very long time because I've been doing it for a long time. But that's not something that's easily just, you know, you can't do it through matriculation is what I always say. I can't just sit with you and all of a sudden you can bear a huge burden and help your team.

You have to work through it. You have to go through some bumps and bruises with everyone. And everyone on our team's been through them with me. And for better or worse, they trust that I'm going to get it done. And every client we have trusts that we're going to get it done. If I can't do it, I ping Phil.

If Phil can't do it, he pings Gaines. If Gaines can't do it, we ping Will or Elizabeth or Don, goes on and on. Um, And we've got a bit of a network there. I might be the first touch point sometimes with some of the really stressful stuff. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's kind of treating it as if What did you used to say, Phil?

What's the If you don't know the answer, don't be afraid to say you don't know the answer. But tell someone you'll find an answer,

Phil Read: Yeah, don't

just say, [00:15:00] I don't

Adam Thomas: and then do

Phil Read: let me find out. Yeah,

Adam Thomas: And we've done that for over 10 years now. And that's the only reason we have the client base we do. Because when I send an email, we have

Phil Read: work in a high trust environment. We have very simple contracts. We try to keep them as, like, I think our contract is two pages, Adam,

Adam Thomas: two pages, that's it.

Phil Read: and we try to keep it as clear as possible because ultimately, if it takes 20 pages to work with a customer, It's going to get too complicated. And so the advantage of being in a high trust environment where people trust people and you're not just there as a transaction to do a, to do a job for an amount of money, but ultimately to take their stress away, um, that ends up building really good relationships with customers because you're, they understand you're there for the whole person, for the whole team, not just for here's the product that you wanted, here's your invoice. [00:16:00] And sometimes projects go sideways, and Adam's had situations where projects, where, where maybe there's people coming in or some expectations not being met, but if you've built trust, someone else is going to reach across that table for you and go, no, no, no, these guys got it. Yeah, so that's how we tend to approach it from a, from a stress standpoint.

If your business isn't taking people's stress away, if all you're doing is providing a transaction. Then, um, I think you're right for competition.

Adam Thomas: I,

Phil Read: When

Adam Thomas: I tend to,

Phil Read: and says, Oh, we do it for a dollar less. And they go, uh uh, no, you can do that for a dollar less, but you can't take my stress away for a dollar less than these guys do.

Adam Thomas: I, I tell people, I tell people all the time that my, my first goal is to meet the goals of the project. My second goal is to get you home to your wife and kids, your husband and kids five minutes faster today.

That's it. Those five minutes add up. I have a four year old now, so I realize it more than ever.

That, that time It always goes [00:17:00] away. I can't just go to the end of the weekend and say, okay, I would like two hours back with my daughter and wife. I can't do that. And when I'm thanked, and thanking is hard for people to do too, but when I am thanked, I'm not thanked for being a technical expert. I'm thanked because they got to go home one hour early on Friday because I said I would handle it or the team would handle it.

If I'm the only one there, I'll open my computer and fix it. If we're still in the office, the team jumps in and fixes it.

Phil Read: But isn't that

Adam Thomas: later, they'll say, thanks.

Phil Read: isn't that the aspiration of architecture school, is that we're going to do this thing and that's going to allow us and afford us all this time to be. You know, the life of the party and, you know, waving our glass and talking about our projects. But the reality is we just work unforgivably long hours and then somehow it's worth it. Adam and I say to each other, you can make money, you can't make time. So you better find balance.

Evan Troxel: So, Phil, talk about this transition to overseeing a team [00:18:00] that you experienced, because I think that's where a lot of like that transition is very difficult, as we alluded to early on in the conversation. and and so, like, there is a progression to get to that point, and I think the strategies that Adam just laid out totally have a lot to do with becoming that person, that trusted individual who becomes kind of the go to person to be, you know, identified as a potential leader when it comes to digital practice, design technology, BIM support, you know, there's many variations of very similar technology kind of stuff.

But because you're so in the weeds with. Solving problems, tech, operating the applications and the computers and all the different technologies, the way they talk to each other, all these things. Now we're adding a layer of soft skills, you know, or people skills on top of that. And that starts to naturally build up. percolate you as the individual to that position for potential becoming that, that [00:19:00] spot. And then all of a sudden you're not doing the technical stuff anymore. You're not doing the, the nitty gritty details. You are making sure people are handling the right things. You actually have to completely change your day to day.

And, and that is a really tough transition.

Phil Read: Oh, it's easy for me. Managing people is so easy now. I just say, Adam, could you do this thing? And then Adam manages the

Evan Troxel: Uh, yeah,

Phil Read: I mean, that's, that's, I mean, I could, I've talked to executives now who've run multi hundred person, large companies. You go, how do you like structurally

Evan Troxel: delegation. Yeah.

Phil Read: And, well, the, the last time I spoke to a guy that I worked with back in the nineties and he said, well, I have teams of 10. And my team is 10 and they have teams. Each of those people have teams of 10 and it scales.

But I, it's hard to do that in a small organization. Cause there's, you know, the organizational structure is a phone pole. There's nobody, everybody has to do everything. I think Adam's great at it. Cause he has people that he [00:20:00] trusts and he delegates to. I don't really have to organize or manage a team. I'm primarily working with the Chaos team and the leadership of the Enscape and Chaos team. Um, I work with directors of companies that are implementing software, have technical issues primarily around Enscape. It's a go to market service. But as far as having a team of people under me, I'm still in that weird position of by the time I delegate, I would just do it myself.

Evan Troxel: But you did go through this transition earlier in your career, right? And And that's kind of

Phil Read: Oh yeah, I was terrible at it. Yeah, it was terrible. I was stressed out and you can't, I mean, you're asked, you're like, Oh, you're smart. You're going to teach all these people to. Figure this out. And then I find out Adam and I have a dominant gene where you just can't not show up, where you just

can't not get it done.

And not everybody has that weird dominant gene. And it is a feature in a lot of cases, but it is a horrible bug in a lot of cases. [00:21:00] Um, you know, with three little kids and you got to be there on time and on budget, and I'm the, you know, field marshal trying to march people along. I should have just relaxed more. So managing teams at a big, big E& A firm, I have a team of people that I manage, probably a dozen people or so. It was stressful and I never felt good at it. I just felt like I was barely above water and I never knew if any decision, I mean, we were solving the technical problems, but there's a, there's a, You're so detached from actually solving the problem where you're turning a gear that turns a gear that turns another gear. I don't know. Is it turning another gear in the future? Um, I still struggle with that part of it immensely, and I don't have to actually do that a lot in my day to day. What I do really like now from a leadership standpoint is, and I've learned a lot of this from Adam, and I finally just, Started talking to people who had been executives in big successful technical [00:22:00] companies going, just talking about, I mean, to be honest, I would go to breakfast with them.

That's what I started doing is these guys that I started with a guy that lived in the house, two doors down. He worked at a company called HALOID, which became Xerox. And he was a technical consultant at the beginning of DRY. printing and he loved it and we would go to breakfast and Ralph was amazing and he would tell me stories and I would tell him stories and talk with Ralph on Thursday morning is why Adam and I got in business because he's like, Phil, you should

just go into business for yourself. And that had never occurred to me in that way. So it's the part of it that's easier for me is I've learned not to have the hijack in my stress center of my brain when I hear something that I don't like. Because probably I just don't have enough information. And um, there's a, a frame to this. I sent it to Adam actually the other day.

It was a, it was a, a Meaningwave song. Who is he, who is that [00:23:00] guy talking to? Is it Akira the Don and he was talking to Jaco? So every time he hears something that's bad, quote unquote, bad news, he goes, Oh, good.

Adam Thomas: Yep.

Phil Read: That's like a frame. Oh, you hurt your arm. You, you, you blew out your knee working out. Good. Now you got time to rest. Uh, you didn't get the promotion. Good. Now you got time to be better. You didn't get the funding round. Good. Now you own more of the company. It's always good. And so I think the, Amygdala hijack is, I guess, what they technically call it, of hearing bad information. I just used to kind of get so stressed out, like, oh man, I got another thing piled on my plate, where now I

go, oh, I don't know what that means. Let's, what, what's going on? And then when you sit down and actually discuss, you're like, oh, that, that's okay.

Evan Troxel: Right.

Adam Thomas: early conversations with Phil when we would talk about this with, you know, he, he was able to experience 20 years before me. And, and go through 20 years of what he calls failures. So I should learn from those failures Phil

Phil Read: why it's so easy for you.

Adam Thomas: [00:24:00] yeah, right. If you have good, if you, if you have good examples, just don't replicate

Phil Read: do what he did.

Adam Thomas: And, um,

Evan Troxel: If only my

children would follow, would follow

Phil Read: Hey, we make better grandparents. We know that.

Adam Thomas: right.

Phil Read: I'll be, I'll be a better granddad.

Adam Thomas: but we, we, I think we discovered, um, in the first couple of years of business when. When there's an itch, I tend to scratch it, and Phil tends to think around it. Or if there's pressure, I tend to go toward the pressure, and Phil starts thinking about what the pressure is going to do.

And I just attack it, because

I was a,

Phil Read: things different ways.

It's good.

Adam Thomas: I don't, I don't mind diving into a pressure situation, because in my experience, pressure creates diamonds. So, if I finish a presentation, the first question out of my mouth is, what could I have done better? Now, what itch can we scratch? I don't think that's a normal thing to ask people.

Um, but it's because I [00:25:00] want people to hold me accountable. Now, Phil wants to be held accountable too. He just doesn't want to be held accountable for people he controls, necessarily. Or people that are under him, or people that work for him. I think everyone works with me, no one works for me.

Phil Read: Yeah. I

Adam Thomas: So, we're all

Phil Read: Yeah. I like to work with people. I don't like to

work for, or

Adam Thomas: yeah,

that's right. So if you set up that relationship, what happens is your accountability is everyone's accountability and it kind of takes the pressure and distributes it

all So I'm okay with that.

Phil Read: Is that there's a mindset and there's a, there's a, uh, venture capitalist named Involve that talks about this in terms of the owner's mindset. There's an owner mindset and there's kind of the employee mindset. The owner mindset is you hit your, your, the first thing when you start to wake up in the morning and it's not even 5 AM, it's 3 30 AM, now your mind is already thinking about, you got to make money for the day.

You got to hunt another project. You can't just put the [00:26:00] pen down at five o'clock at the end of the day. And that owner mindset, both Adam and I have that. Kind of owner mindset. And I think you want to look for people that have that same owner mindset, where they take ownership. Who's the champion, who's going to see it through. You don't have to chase people.

And if they cost a little bit more, it's a bargain. Like, I don't

Adam Thomas: so, so rare.

Phil Read: members that are going to add stress, right? We're trying to take stress away. I want people to have the same mindset. They want to work on a team cause they take the team stress away.

Adam Thomas: I do think that people are fickle, and Phil is a 1 percent of 1% er in terms of how he thinks about things. And if he expects that people are going to think about things the same way he does, he's likely not going to find that person. And when he does, that person is going to butt heads with him every damn day.

Because they're not going to think exactly the same, but they're both ultra high performers. I've never had a single person reach out to me and say, Phil has failed us. [00:27:00] Ever.

Phil Read: have pissed me off, but he didn't fail us.

Adam Thomas: He, he might have said something I didn't agree with, but everyone else agrees with, so we did it. And it's like, good, he made you scratch an itch.

He made you put things in a pressure chamber. Um, I don't tend to try to look for those people. I tend to try to look for people that have qualities of that 1 percent person, and then give them the tasks that match those qualities, so that they can hit home runs. More often than sacrifice flies or bunts, right?

I want to,

I want to, I want to build the field around somebody in a way that makes them succeed versus trying to find someone that can build a new field in order to succeed.

I don't necessarily need that.

Phil Read: yeah, I don't

Evan Troxel: you're getting, I think you're getting to kind of the leadership qualities of finding success means helping others become successful

and they, you

are more concerned about them and, and what happens then with your progression [00:28:00] becomes a natural process. outcome of your helping them achieve their goals and achieve what

they are capable of, even if they can't see what they're capable of themselves. You probably, if you have this relationship with that team, like you're talking about, you actually can see what they're capable of, even if they can't, and helping them achieve that raises the whole boat, raises

Phil Read: Oh, yeah, don't think that Adam and I always see eye to eye. We have different ways of approaching things. He is, I think we both have the same kind of characteristics around curiosity, around ownership, around responsibility and obligation. And, you know, the thing they say in the South is, uh, on time is, early is on time, on time is late, and late you're fired. both, but we express them in different ways. And we'll talk about obscure things, like even our investment portfolios, the way Adam will approach investments, and the way I approach them. We both have had very successful investing. experience, we approach them [00:29:00] differently. I think the, the way I tend to look at it overall, I heard a statistic not too long ago, and I'll try to remember the source, that the, the square root of an organization generates half the revenue. Now, if you're talking about a team of a hundred people, that's ten people that generate half the revenue.

Oh my gosh, what you could do with that team of ten people and not have the HR issues and the drama and the politics of 90 more people. And I think technology facilitates that. If you can find the 10 right curious high performers and build a team around that, you can run circles. I mean, it's just amazing. And I, feel like we have that.

Evan Troxel: the, the, the whole tool stack of what we have at our fingertips now versus five years ago.

It's completely different and it really speaks to what you were just saying, like, if I was starting my own firm today, one person, I can probably do what five people did [00:30:00] five years ago, right? Because of technology as a lever, the correct, using the right technology and the right application. can yield so much higher results now because of the interconnectedness of things and just the on, onward march of progress here, right? it's

Adam Thomas: We, we don't have

Evan Troxel: kind of think

what's going to happen in the next five years.

Adam Thomas: we, we don't have a technical drought though, Evan. We have an interpersonal drought.

Evan Troxel: AgRead Yeah.

Adam Thomas: can create a team that makes the best technology in my team's eyes with fewer people than ever. But I still have to go sell that and selling is about this relationship.

If you can't do this, you can't sell anything.

You can't create anything. It can, something in a silo or in a bucket off to the side is not really a creation because no one can enjoy it. If I painted and my art never left my barn, am I an artist? I might think I'm an artist, but once others start to

appreciate

I'm really, Right. I'm tech, yeah, I'm technically [00:31:00] capable of painting, but I'm not an artist yet.

And so I feel like something has happened and I've seen it in the last five or six years where our interpersonal skills have actually diminished

while our technical skills have increased. So I, I talk to people all the time. Yesterday included, I went to lunch with somebody who thinks they are capable of being a leader and they're upset that they're not in a leadership position.

And then when I asked them to define leadership. It said nothing about accountability or personal resources or psychology or stress management. Instead it was, well, I've made all these cool add ins for our teams and I'm not being respected for it. And I'm like, well, it sounds like you're a technical head.

You're not

necessarily a leader. Yeah, you're a very technical person. How about you work your way into that position? Well, I have to work myself into leadership to be a partner

in the firm.

Evan Troxel: is not a position. It is a skill set. Mm.

Adam Thomas: I always say that leadership is earned, not given as well. You [00:32:00] can, you can attempt to mirror leadership S qualities, but until others start saying you are a leader, you're not one.

Phil Read: It's hard. It's a big piece of it. I think it's just building trust, right? You have to build rapport. You have to build trust. Um, and that takes time and early on you build trust and people want to know, okay, what's the angle? What's he trying to get at? You really just have to build honest to goodness trust where people really can rely on you and you're not in it for an angle. And that

takes a long time and you can undo it quickly. Um, that's a, that's a big part of it. It's, um, yeah, the leadership piece. I don't know that it's something that just has to be innate. I think people are more empathetic naturally. They're more curious naturally. Uh, or they're either curious or, or not, or they have high, they're high in empathy, or they're high in other kind of characteristics of what good leaders probably do. But I think they can be taught to a point, otherwise they're just blind. I felt like I was blind to it, but once somebody [00:33:00] pointed out, like, what are the ingredients? I was like, oh, so those are the ingredients? Oh, I have horrible empathy. I have an impatience gene that's severely dominant. If I'm going to be a good leader, I need to turn that.

I need to be aware of it. And, um, once you're aware of the ingredients. Like even the craziest thing, Evan, breathing. Like breathing is a thing that you could do of not jumping to the answer. Like I tend to get too excited. I want to just jump into the conversation and pile on. Pausing and thinking, or when you get news, like I do breathing exercises when I get stressed out, Oh my gosh, they're amazing. Nobody told me about these ingredients. You could just kind of like. Settle yourself. Adam does a thing and he's taught me a thing where if you have to talk about something stressful, do it when you go, do it while you walk. That's like the simplest

ingredient. It doesn't even make sense. Oh my gosh, does it make sense? Like just when you have to talk about something [00:34:00] stressful or figure something out, that's not going to be, may not be an easy answer. You got pieces that don't fit, go for a walk. And the thing that I've learned working with Adam, I guess it's been this year's 11 years. Adam, did we just have an anniversary?

Adam Thomas: we're about to, we're about

Phil Read: was, I thought it was June, end of June.

Adam Thomas: I thought it was

August.

Phil Read: have to, I'll have to

Adam Thomas: This is like a married couple,

Phil Read: I know we don't care anymore. We stopped counting. We just love each other. Um, but so the thing is more times than not early on when I have to go into conversation and believe me, when I'm 20 years older than Adam, it's a, you know, approaching things like adult child relationships does not work.

You have to both be adults. And then at the end of conversations, I thought I was so glued to an answer. And then we would talk about it and we would end up coming with a third answer. I'm like, Oh, this third answer is so much better. So I've just over time learned to trust that that's going to happen.

And we even talk about it at the beginning of conversation going, okay, now I want to [00:35:00] do it this way. You want to do it this way. But if we talk about it, we'll come up with a better way.

Adam Thomas: Yeah, there's, there's two things there. One thing is never have a serious conversation setting. So if you can at least stand, I'm standing right now, I would never have a serious conversation or an interview or anything setting. You don't think well while setting in my experience. You're not as creative.

Stand up. If you can, go for a walk. I have 95 percent of any problem solving call walking the rail trail behind our office. 95 percent of them. Or I'm at least outside standing. So that's the first thing. The second thing is don't say things how you think they should be said. Say things how that person needs to hear them to understand what you mean.

That means you have to, I call it being a chameleon. When I like go to a company and talk about soft skill leadership, you have to first understand that person and then become a chameleon of that person and then say it, how that person needs to hear it. I would prefer to say things direct, Phil, you're gaining [00:36:00] weight.

Lose weight. You'll live longer for it. But that doesn't work. That

doesn't work anybody

Phil Read: though. I want you to know I've been trying to lose

weight. I'm actually in a pretty good fighting weight now.

Adam Thomas: right. I told him, five years ago, he was getting a bit tubby. No, he just did it on his own because

Phil Read: No, it's,

I, I, I agree with Adam. I would rather be more direct sometimes and just cut to it and then you burn a bridge. So you just

Adam Thomas: You can be direct with us.

Phil Read: Oh yeah.

Adam Thomas: fine.

We, we are okay receiving it. We just can't give it that way.

Phil Read: No,

you have

Adam Thomas: in, guess, same in marriage.

Phil Read: What do they call it? Um, like mirroring or mimicking or,

Evan Troxel: right.

Adam Thomas: it's, it's, yeah, it's

Phil Read: that's a communication style as well that we've, I've, I've noticed people in sales meetings, they talk about kind of try to detect the energy of the person, because if you go in all excited, and they're trying, they're relaxed and cautious, you're going to like the bullshit detector is going to go off. It's too

Evan Troxel: right. Yeah.

Phil Read: have to meet that energy and, um,

Adam Thomas: Listen to the cadence.

To how they're [00:37:00] enunciating. If, um, you can also sway a conversation a bit like that. You have to be extraordinarily on to do these things though. And I don't think most people can be this on all the time. It burns your brain up, right? Like if you have a fire in your brain, you can't perform, but if someone's coming in with high energy and you know that you need to bring their energy down, you bring your energy way down and they meet your

energy, like, like training and they'll come down and then you'll have a better conversation. If you need somebody to be more fired up about something, I can't talk to you like this. I have to really get fired up to boost them.

And, yeah, it's like, hey, we're going for a run right now. And it's like, I'm not going for a run. Yeah, you're going for a

run.

Phil Read: for a run.

Adam Thomas: I'll drag your ass outside. We're going for a

run.

And then get outside and we have a nice walk because I've set the expectation. We're about to sprint for a few minutes. Now we can have a nice walk because you were, you know, dragging a bit today. Or feeling down or feeling bad for yourself. Move the energy the way the energy needs to be moved. But that's, that's, that's easy.

That's [00:38:00] actually something you can train. You just have to practice it. Um, it takes a tremendous, tremendous amount of practice.

Evan Troxel: Just right before this conversation, I was outside doing some, some work with my, my youngest and he, he, he had done something, put something in the wrong place.

Phil Read: How old is your youngest? Just frame this. I want

Evan Troxel: he's 18. he's

1. So he's

not that

Phil Read: okay. He's not like eight.

Evan Troxel: and

Phil Read: He's

Evan Troxel: it's

Phil Read: not.

Evan Troxel: so, so the stuff, the thing that he put in the wrong place needs to be moved.

Oh, he says, I'm not going to do that. That's absurd. He said, I'm not going to do that again. He said it twice.

I said, fine, I'll go do it. He goes, well, I'll go do it.

Phil Read: Oh, yeah. No, you won't.

Evan Troxel: I

Adam Thomas: I'll do it. I'll do it

Evan Troxel: to do it So I'm

Phil Read: No, you can't do it.

Evan Troxel: go do it.

Phil Read: right.

Evan Troxel: You just have to give them permission to want to do it, I guess. I don't. Yeah, it is interesting. [00:39:00] If only there were a place where people could have more conversations. Like this. So this is my, my

segue into your, your retreats that you offer. You offer two different retreats. So you have a spring retreat and a fall retreat. Maybe, maybe let's just pay a tribute here to the spring offering because they are different from each other. And I

know you have a, a, a banner that you put these under, which we also must address. These are called AEC Acoustics. This is where you can go to learn all about acoustical treatments and materials.

And

Phil Read: It's down to attenuation, bad

Adam Thomas: That's right. STS ratings, right? Yep. Yep.

Evan Troxel: transmission, right? So, so let, let's set the record straight first around the name because that's the overarching banner of the two different, um, retreats that you offer.

Uh, but, but then we'll go, we'll get it, we'll pay homage to the spring one and then we'll get into the, because I think what we're talking about here really lends itself to the, the fall [00:40:00] retreat, which is, which is coming up.

So, Let's talk about the name.

Phil Read: Let me just go back up a little meta on this. You would not believe the flurry of text messages Adam and I went through going back and forth. I was so excited. About this like acoustic idea, AEC acoustics and metaphors and ICONs and, you know, why it's acoustic. And I thought it was so obvious when we got the little ICON label and my goodness, architects going, why are you doing an event about acoustics?

It's kind of niche. I mean, to

me, that ICON is the metaphor for why it is so obvious.

Adam Thomas: by the way, no one else. No, no one else had an issue. Engineers didn't have an issue. Contractors

Phil Read: That is true.

Adam Thomas: It was just architects that had the issue. But I, I, probably remember this story really clearly. We were talking on the phone saying there has to be something that's conversation focused, not sponsorship focused, or just like hard teachings on PowerPoint or with technology open.

[00:41:00] And I used to play the guitar. Phil still plays acoustic instruments all the time. And we said, well, conversations kind of have a melody and a rhythm. Right? We went really highbrow with it, and um, said, I wonder if, like, acoustic something is taken. It had

to have been, right? Because there's so many insulation companies and things like that, and I, I got on Hover.

com, AC Acoustics, no one has this.

Why does, why don't they have the com for this? I was like, yeah, I'm going to put it in the cart just because

Phil Read: Yeah, we should

Adam Thomas: we're talking about rhythm and

Phil Read: Every business starts with a website. You have to get a good domain.

Evan Troxel: Right.

Adam Thomas: exactly. So if you ever had a conversation with a company that's not in rhythm or not in melody, it's a terrible conversation. It's a terrible company to work with. But if you go in into a business and talk to them and they have a rhythm and a harmony with each other, you're like, this is going to be a really special project. Right. So why not set something up that, uh, attempts to. allow people the [00:42:00] opportunity and the place to develop rhythm and harmony. and have conversations. That's where

Phil Read: Adam used to always say the best part of every conference were the conversations you'd have after the presentation. Because during the presentation, that whole presentation always works. It's amazing. It's like, look at this technique. And then you ask the speaker question quietly. You don't want to ask them in class and embarrass them or ask them a tricky question.

So later on, you kind of corner. What's the deal with this thing? And they go, Oh yeah, that doesn't work. Here's what you, you might want to do it this way.

Evan Troxel: Under Perfect Conditions

Phil Read: I know under, under, in the, in front of a hundred people, yes, it works. But when you want to do it a little bit off script, Oh yeah, that'll break.

So we, Adam used to say, you know, these presentations after the conferences are the best part of the conferences. So that was kind of a meta theme, the idea of something being acoustic, is that it's quieter, it's the acoustic version of the louder events, which are all great, we have to go to them,

but sometimes you just want to get away from the, from the noise for a while, get [00:43:00] away from feeling that you're being marketed to at every moment, you're being advertised to. So it's the acoustic version of

Evan Troxel: MTV Unplugged.

Phil Read: Yeah, well, we thought about like BIM, BIM Unplugged. That was

kind of a thing. And Adam and I had been talking about this a long time and there, there just didn't seem to be the right. inflection point. Um, because we had some great, I mean, we have Autodesk University, there's Basecamp every couple of years, we have BILT in North America, and then when it looked like BILT wasn't going to happen this year, I was like, Adam, if we're going to do something, and we're not going to have an event with 500 people or even 100 people, I think part of that acoustic theme is that you have to be able to have honest conversations with people and get to know people.

So keeping it at 50. is one of the things is like, we're not going to have an event of 500, we're just going to have an event of like no more than 50 people. Oh, and coincidentally, that's how many people fit on a motor coach to go for an

offsite. So instead of having

the first motor coach that

everybody rushes to get on, then you have another bus with three people [00:44:00] kind

of like going, oh, this is a boring bus.

Yeah, so you just want to, and it removes complexity, like all the stuff Adam and I talked about. Like a conference that doesn't have lanyards, doesn't have PowerPoint, doesn't have big brought to you by signage, doesn't have obligatory marketing sponsorship. It's just like, let's just

Evan Troxel: Gold

Tier, Silver

Phil Read: that. No, no, no, no. And we've, we, people have asked to sponsor the event and we've said, I don't want anyone turning into Lake Swan Camp, seeing brought to you by. It's just like, no, this is, this is about you. It's about good food. The best things in life to me are good meals with friends. And so it's about that.

It's about sharing with people that you trust. So that's the overall idea of AC Acoustics. And if you look at the only thing I did that tweaked it, cause Adam like went out and nailed it. It's like, okay, it's this, it was a word bubble with a sound wave and the nice colors, the blue, the blues. And I changed the word bubble just to [00:45:00] make the second little. What are those little pointy thing called on word

Adam Thomas: Yeah. Like the waveforms.

Phil Read: No, no. The little pointy bit. So I was like, we should have two little

Adam Thomas: Oh, you may. Yep. That's a

Phil Read: And, and, and underneath that image, there was all of these red lines where things lined up and stuff, and I send it back to Adam, but, and then the other thing was the waveform instead of being waveform is, it's a metaphor for a skyline, which is a reference of course, to AAC. proud of ourselves. And I'm

Adam Thomas: See, I, I, I'm not

intelligent to, I'm not enough go a hundred percent. I just had to get it to 95%.

And hand

Phil Read: you show it to people and they go, why are you guys doing acoustic events? It's kind of niche. So, yeah, so,

Adam Thomas: laid plans.

Evan Troxel: Right.

Phil Read: event. First, that was in 2020 during pandemic and Evan, you and I talked about why that was important to me personally, and then Adam has endeavored to do a technical event focused on best practices. And [00:46:00] really getting people in a room to figure out, nobody knows what's going on, but what are some good vectors? And we, we held the first one this spring and I thought it was just a wonderful success, like suspiciously wonderful. It was great. Like some smart people, really super smart people, like Harlan Brum was there from Autodesk and Carl Storms was there and Craig Barbieri, like really smart people and saying some wonderfully complimentary things like, Somebody back, we were chatting one day on the deck, and this is a very modest environment.

It's a camp in North Florida. but we book out the whole camp and then we

Evan Troxel: it fits with the acoustic,

Phil Read: it does. And somebody said, we need more of this. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, this, we need more of this. And he's standing on the deck looking at the lake and he goes, we just need more of this. And I thought, you know what? That's it. That's it. It's okay. It's

Evan Troxel: That's a

good endorsement right there.

Phil Read: Yeah, we need more of this. So, yeah. And this is a guy who goes to all the big events [00:47:00] that we love, but sometimes you just need to unplug a little bit. We have the technical event. How would you describe that, Adam, if we're focused on the technical side of things?

We still have good conversations, but it's not

Evan Troxel: a,

round table format, right? And the way that you, you do it, it's not like a one to many. It's, it's, we, we come together, we have a discussion about a topic potentially, right?

Phil Read: Mm hmm.

Adam Thomas: Yeah. So you, you have basically a host, And the host is kind of frame the topic and Phil and I help narrow the topic a little bit based on the people coming. Because you wouldn't want to speak about something that no one wants to discuss, right? You wouldn't want a topic that's seemingly random.

Um, it has to be on some kind of vector, so you have to curate it a little

bit. But, um, this, this, the inaugural event for the round table was one to many. Because there was, there was enough people to generate a large discussion with

each topic.

Phil Read: discussion. Yeah.

Adam Thomas: we did realize afterwards that that's probably as big as it can get.

Like we would have to [00:48:00] break it into different conversations, but there's opportunities to do that because what a general contractor is facing technically and needs to have conversations about might not be the same as an architect, but they should both be able to read each other's leave behinds. And that's what we're trying to do.

We're trying to capture those conversations as well, and executive summaries and follow up, um, podcasts and recordings just to, to help keep the conversation alive on the website for, you know, the next year

so people can see what's actually happening. Um, if you could, Also record the conversation that happens after the conversation is supposed to stop.

That's the real special

Phil Read: Yeah. That was even

Adam Thomas: almost a primer.

Phil Read: Yeah.

Adam Thomas: Yeah, that's right. It's almost that you created a primer for people to stay up. Grown men and women staying up until 1 a. m. Talking about something that they thought they didn't care about. And you have to like, look at your door and go, Hey, could you guys keep it down? It's [00:49:00] one,

it's 1am.

No, one's drunk. No,

No,

Phil Read: way. That's right. Not loud drunk.

They're just

Adam Thomas: Yeah. They're, not,

They're, just having conversations like, Oh, I really appreciated when so and so brought up this. I haven't thought about it that way.

Um, I gained a tremendous amount of respect for people that in our industry, you would not know they exist.

And they came to this conference and I'm like, why are they hiding? have a wealth of knowledge that their team understands they have, and they're moving into a management or leadership position. But the industry needs to hear them. There's a, there was a tremendous amount of value, um, in doing that.

And my family got to come. So it was really easy for me to make the

decision.

Phil Read: In line with the idea of being the kind of quiet acoustic environment, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of posturing in the industry. You know, the people that get to speak, get recognized. There are so many smart people that don't have the, I want to speak gene. But when you get to know [00:50:00] them and talk about what they know, you learn a lot. And I feel like, you know, this is an environment for t shirts and shorts. And. Leave your expensive watch at home. We don't even have lanyards. Like, that's just another complexity for creating an event for 50 people. And you have these, you know, if we're, if we're the conversation after the presentation, to Adam's point, we end up being discussion after the conversation.

It's like,

it goes, it goes to a deeper level. And, and it's, if, if I put it, if I said there's 50 people at AU that I've got to catch up with, they're like all there. Like, Marty Rozmanith, who was the original Revit product manager, was there, and Harlan Brumm was there, who's the present Revit product manager. Like, we had good discussions and got to be part of that as well, and I think we just don't have enough of that. We have so many technical discussions about finishing the project, where teams have to get together and talk about, okay, what's going on this week, what's the deadlines, what's going on? But from a leadership standpoint, [00:51:00] The idea of getting together and going, okay, how's the team?

What's the energy like? How are people doing? What's happening? We don't have conversations like that. And

that's what I think that even happens at the technical event. So I really like this balance of having an event that's technical, where we can share things or at least vectors with the industry, like Carl Storms did amazing.

I think he was the, he was the first

Facilitator, he talked about AI, and he had been going through a series called 100 Days of AI, all this stuff. But Carl didn't get up and speak and tell us what he thinks for an hour and a half. We went around the table. I learned about tools and technologies I didn't even know existed that had nothing to do with visualization.

It was amazing. So the technical event feeds that part of me that is curious about all these tools and all these techniques. They're hard skills. You could probably

get on a vector.

Adam Thomas: if everyone's ever been a part of a book club, right, You, when you go to book club, you read the same book and then you discuss the chapters. This is like a book club where everyone [00:52:00] read a different book, but you get to learn what book they read. So I can say I read 30 books this year now because everyone read a different book, or you may have read part B of the same book and I read part A because I'm from the South.

I may have interpreted what the book said differently than somebody from another part of the world.

And those conversations are real. Well, as we learned, they're actually really difficult to facilitate and we need to have more like learning objectives, learning cues or ways to get conversations going instead of just setting.

Because my number one rule is conversations should be when you're standing up or moving. We set the whole time. So I, I learned immediately that we had great conversation, but we can still do better.

And I actually think this round table event is a good segue. into the leadership event. So for the technical people that are highly technical and want to discuss things at broad, but it doesn't have a psychological aspect at all, or [00:53:00] an empathy focused aspect, come to that event.

But if you see yourself being moved into a position of empathy and adaptability, and you're going to have to start taking accountability for things at a higher level, you should come to the second event. You should now come to the leadership event. Um, or if you want to do that, you aspire to do that, then you should

come to the leadership event.

Phil Read: Look, it's hard to transition from technical guru, where you are holding on and in control, and you've got hands on gears and dials. You know, the metaphor might be like, you know, the steam engine, and you're the engineer in the engine, and you've got all these dials. And now, The reality is, I think, in order to be very successful, you have to let go of that and learning to let go is stressful. Um, and, and we've all dealt with smart technical people that will have it their way or the highway and this is how we're going to do it. And boy, do people just not trust them because you can't, you can't enjoy the success of doing it that way. [00:54:00] But if people, if you'll actually let go and trust. I read this about Churchill during the war. Um, he would have loud yelling matches with his generals, but he never overrode them. And his thinking was, if he was right and they went into the next campaign, they couldn't take ownership of that. And if he was wrong, they would despise him because people were, what happens? And, um, but I think letting go is, Letting go and trusting, not just delegating, but actually letting go and let people have ownership is the only way to succeed in that sense.

And it's a hard thing for technical people to do because we have been conditioned that the way to success is figuring out the quote unquote right answer and then making sure that that right answer is implemented. And sometimes the right answer is. Let's just, I had a great mentor and Adam knows him, Dave Heaton at Revit Technology and later Autodesk. He would just say, well, [00:55:00] what do you think we should do? And I would go, well, we could do this or this or this. He goes, yeah, well, which one we should do? I think we should do this. He goes, well, let's just do that. And if it doesn't work out, we'll do something else. And that answer to doing something a certain way of, well, let's just do it that way.

And if it doesn't work, we'll do something else was so freeing and so stress relieving that if I was wrong, I was going to be accountable and, and demoted or whatever. It's like, Oh, well then let's just do that. And then we'll do something else. If it doesn't work out, it was like, Oh, not only can we do it this way.

And I think that that's a good way, but if it doesn't work out, we could do it another way that I think might be the good way. And Dave taught me that in a, in a wonderful way. I've been fortunate that I've had good mentors. So I think that's what the leadership part of it is about.

Evan Troxel: So these are the kinds of things that people could experience there. You've got a wide range of experience and you've got, so you've got people who have been [00:56:00] there, done that. And

to your point earlier, Adam, like Phil's got 20 years of experience and he wants you to be successful. So he's going to, Not have you start from a blank page and figure everything out on your own and reinvent the wheel and, you know, there's all these cliches we could say about, about doing it that way, but then there's, like, this is a place you can go and tap into the knowledge base of people who have literally been there and done that and

have had a wide range of experiences. and help you formulate how you're going to achieve the next thing that you're going to do. Yeah, I mean that the opportunity here is very different from other conferences where you sign up for a bunch of classes And you walk an expo floor and it's very salesy on the expo floor side of things Not always right, but but

you go to see the wares too. So, you know what you're signing up for But but you're going there to like tick off a bunch of boxes.

I get the feeling that going to [00:57:00] a conference like this, you don't know what the boxes are, right? It's like you're going in and it's a very open minded and that should be the approach to this is maybe, maybe you identify some goals ahead of time of like, here's what I would like to walk away

Phil Read: Oh, we have a structure. Yeah, sure.

Evan Troxel: is your oyster at this and you get to figure out who can help you get to where you want to go.

Hmm.

Adam Thomas: yeah.

Phil Read: Randy's done a great job. We have a framework around good leadership. That, I mean, it goes back to 2020, you talk about, you know, the, the, the kind of ingredient skill set, and this year we're going to explore that more in the context of, uh, implication from leadership standpoint, like how you communicate up, how you communicate down, how you, how you listen, how you, yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a framework and structure for that. I think the, the big pieces from a leadership standpoint is leadership is not headcount. You might have a team of [00:58:00] three people, just to be a good leader, just to be someone that's trusted. People can't come to you and tell you bad news if they think you're gonna pop. Good leaders don't pop. Good leaders go, Oh, good. Tell me more. Let's figure it out. And having that appropriate blink reaction, um, and then ultimately if people trust you more, You end up with more opportunities. You end up growing, you didn't need to grow a team of people or a team of trusted connections, but that it's nice. But I think for me, the key has been, you just have to let go.

And it's hard to go of. That feeling that, oh, if you're just not worried all the time, something's going to sneak up and get you. Like you have to let, like letting go of the inevitable, letting go of the worry, and not being detached to the point of suspicion. You still have to care, but being And not confident that you always know the right answer.

[00:59:00] That's what we're trying to facilitate with the leadership retreat. And it's helping people. It's helping in the most, in many cases, high technical performers go from being recognized as the high technical performer. Cause we know people that technically perform at a very high level. And then they don't know that people go, I can never work with them. They'd be so difficult to work with. And they keep losing opportunities. And they're smart people. Help them make that transition

Evan Troxel: And then there, that frustrated other side of the conversation that Adam had, like, I want to be recognized for what I've accomplished and what I've done. And it's like, on the outside, I can see exactly why you're not being considered for that position. Right?

And, and you can, yeah,

it does happen. So let's, okay, there's two subjects I want to talk about.

I want to talk about the other aspects of the leadership retreat. That are location exclusive kind of things that you guys do. I want to talk about the food, like, because I think your approach is really interesting when it comes to that. [01:00:00] Um, but before we do that, I want to talk about permission because there are people in situations where they can just say, I'm going, I'm going to something like this, or I'm going to go next year, or I can't go this time.

But, but the spring one sounds great.

They're, they have that, they have that ability to do that. But then there's a lot of people who are like, man, I really want to do this. I have no idea how to get approval for that from my organization, from some

leadership. Can you guys just talk about what, what has, I know you have talked about this before.

So let's talk about that part of it.

Adam Thomas: No, you actually have a really, I think, good way of thinking about this. I'm actually met with probably 50 50. Because of where I am just in my age and my progression, there are less people in a managerial or leadership position. Most people are still five to 10 years away from it. And so they see this. I actually had somebody tell me Monday of this week, Adam, I want to go, I need to [01:01:00] go to better myself first, knowing that it will better the people around me.

And better the business around that. So I call that communicating in three prongs. You have to communicate inward to yourself first, outward to your direct team and upward to your management. And if you can't do all of those, you failed. And some of us do one of them really well, or two of them really well.

And they have no capability to communicate up to management because management is so disconnected from their current position that these people are thinking about taking five days off and paying for it out of pocket

because they think it's such a value. And I would say half. Maybe

Phil Read: some do I know people that do it because they're

like, I don't want people in the company that know about this, so they don't ask because they're afraid it'll get out.

Evan Troxel: Oh, or, or you just, you just see the value of investing in yourself, right?

And, and, and ultimately it may come down to that in some cases,

Phil Read: you know, even if you go to like the Autodesk University, they do this thing where it's like, Oh, do you want to convince the boss to go download this form? [01:02:00] Right? And it's, it's, it's, it's the thing you have to download because they're like, well, how, how is this going to return on the investment?

And so there's lots of things about both events that we try to keep below the fold. Like the first thing that you see when you log in is not that we bring a French chef to a private event.

That's below the fold. The first thing is, Probably quotes by smart people who have been that said why this improved their relationship interpersonally, in our office, with customers, um, every, you know, I think management realizes that good leaders and, and the team that's managing the business have to have good soft skills, or at least somebody on that team needs to have the soft skills that are important for, you know, Keeping people from leaving because they get frustrated. Um, so for people that are already kind of in management leadership positions, they can kind of delegate like they have things that they can go to. It's the ones that are on that cost to go. I should go to a leadership things like, oh, we don't want you to be a leader. You're the [01:03:00] manager. We try to keep the important things on why good leadership is important, even for BIM managers. Above the fold. So without scrolling down, what should the C level see if they go to this website? And we do that for both events. We try to keep, so there are some very practical things by keeping the event at a private camp in North Florida and bringing a chef, including, like you sign up for these events that are 2, 000 and then you still have to pay for your transportation and hotel. Our events are below 2, 000, like early bird for the leadership retreat is 1, 500. That's everything about how to get there. That's your accommodation, that's off site, that's food, everything for the week, so that there's no surprises. So it's like, oh, you paid 2, 000 for the event, and then you had to get a hotel that was 300 a night.

No. So in practical terms, keeping, it's reducing complexity wherever you can. I think Adam and I agree, it makes a better event.

Adam Thomas: I think I have two call to actions I think about because every, everything I do [01:04:00] has to be, it has to be a call to action and accountable. Otherwise, there's no point talking about it. Um, one is like, if you're thinking about one of these events, show management that whoever signs off on your budget, show them the videos, let us speak for it.

So you don't have to.

Phil Read: Yeah.

Adam Thomas: the first thing, because then we're accountable to that manager, not you. That manager can call us. He can call Phil or I. We'll both have a very different conversation, but both conversations will end with you wanting to send someone to go. And hold us accountable for the event, not the person asking to go.

Secondly, if you're in a position, like the many I've talked to in the last couple of weeks, where management doesn't apply a budget to them, I would say, Roll the dice on yourself. It's a cheap enough entry fee, and it's a quality enough outcome of conversation and networking, and just the psychological part of it, and the empathy part of it, and the managerial part of it.

[01:05:00] Gurus charge, you know, 30, 000 for this. Do you want to go to Tony Robbins, or do you want to go to Randy Ben? Randy Ben will teach you everything Tony Robbins is talking about, but with no ego. And it's not 30 grand to go see him. And there's, there's armed security around the building. So take a risk on yourself.

Like if I was in where I am now at a, at a, I would like to believe I would be in a management role, but let's just say I'm not, I would take off and I would take a gamble on myself because that gamble pays dividends. If you think investing in Nvidia three months ago, Our four months ago was going to pay dividends, invest 1, 500 now and see the dividends in five years.

Um, so I would say that there's two ways of solving that problem. Hold us accountable, first of all, because that's what I want to be. I want to be held accountable for anything we turn over.

Um, so let

Phil Read: for your management.

Adam Thomas: right. Let it, let us speak for it so that we don't have to train you to speak for it and [01:06:00] then come learn how you're going to speak about it for others.

and fight for others to do events like this. I don't suspect this will be the first event of its kind. think it will be replicated. I think it would be replicated all over the world in the next five years. I think that people are going to get back to a kind of a grassroots, smaller format, highly conversation based retreat.

I think people

are craving it. Everyone I talk to craves it. It's just always, well, I don't know if I can take the time off. I don't know if I like how to explain it to management. Let us explain it to management.

Send them the links, send them the podcasts.

Phil Read: but it's, it's, I think we want to create an event that if people said I would spend my own money to do to the, go to this. But, but for some people they go, fortunately my company pays for it. But for other people, they go, you try to create an event that people will say, I would spend my own money to go.

Cause I go to technical events that I think some of them, I mean, I know I have to go to, but I don't necessarily, I wouldn't necessarily spend my own [01:07:00] money to do it. And so if you create the kind of event that people would personally want to attend, and we have people that do, um, and they, they've told me why they do it that way. They pay for the event, they take personal time off, then you're creating something that's. Authentic.

Evan Troxel: It's personal, right? That to me is what, what makes it so valuable. Because I think a lot of people go to something like an Autodesk University. There's thousands and thousands and thousands of people. You can actually go hide there, right? It's in Vegas. You can actually just go to a casino the whole time if you wanted to.

There's no accountability in that. In a small event like this, it's extremely personal and it is interactive and participatory and kind of what you put into it. I think you're going to see dividends on getting back out of it. But it is completely different. And you can still talk about the same kinds of topics you can with AEC leaders that you have access to at either one of these events.

One of [01:08:00] them, they're going to have five minutes for you, Max. In an event like this, they're going to have an hour for you, right? It's just you have personal time because you don't have all the distractions. You don't have the entire schedule, everything crammed into a day. And you've got to be on this side of the expo center at this time.

And you've got to be in this conference room. It's not like that. Right, you're

in venue.

Phil Read: it's, I have had people ask, they've looked at it and they've, um, said, you know, this looks like a junket. You guys have a, do you guys have an offsite on Monday at the beginning where you go down this river and people paddle or they paddleboard? And, um, I would approach it this way. When you mention it to your senior that you want to go to the event, go, and by the way, it's alcohol free. Cause that doesn't happen in the industry. You go to these events and there's open bars all the time. To me,

that's the junket and that's where it gets noisy. And Adam and I have done that. We have, there's no moral obligation. It just introduces complexity. Like there's a, there's a [01:09:00] lake, there's paddle boards, there's canoes.

I can't have the risk of anyone drinking and getting hurt. And then people wake up before sunrise and they go for a walk. So it's kind of a, it kind of works out, it kind of fits all together. But if you tell your boss, I want to go to this conference or this retreat or this round table, and it looks like there's no alcohol for the week.

To me, that kind of sets an air of, oh, this must be a serious thing. Like it's, you're going to be unplugged for a little bit

Adam Thomas: a lot of those, a lot of the, let's call them the, you know, the bigger AAC companies that go to the larger conferences. I've heard that they know they're sending people there. And they don't get anything back from it. Like even the, the recap afterwards, Hey, Evan, I'd love to send you to so and so conference this year.

Um, could you do a 45 minute presentation when you get back? And six months later, they're still asking for the 45 minute

presentation. And then

still send them to, they'll send them again the next year

Phil Read: Next year.

Adam Thomas: they,

they [01:10:00] think without visibility, they don't maintain their status as a company. And you just, you just kind of cued into it.

You're actually kind of invisible because there's so many people. So if you're trying to be visible. That's not the right place to do it. And if you're trying to be accountable, that's not the right place to do it. The right place to do it as a small circuit, a small conference of some kind. and then you can be highly accountable and you can be highly conversation based and you can actually do that 45 minute presentation the week you get back.

I mean, quite frankly, you could do it with just notes because you're going to have so many notes on a little eight and a half inch notebook that you could wing 45 minutes. The thing you're never going to be able to impart on people is the, the associative feeling of being at an event like this, where like people can understand what it's like to be in Vegas.

We've all seen movies, but I

don't know how to explain to, right. I don't know how to [01:11:00] explain to people The feeling associated with the noise being shut off and you being able to focus on a conversation for two whole hours. I had two hour long conversations with people that didn't exhaust me.

But in Vegas, the first morning I'm exhausted.

Phil Read: Look, there's

a thing, and it's just part of the, it's part of how it flows. You go, you get in all these classes and you're packed in and you're, you know, elbow to shoulder trying to make your way to the next session. And then at the end of all of that, the exhibition hall opens up and it's loud music and you're in line with your ticket to get a drink, to have a chat, to decompress. And so we're just going to do the whole thing where you're decompressed. If decompress means, like, in the afternoon, we decompress and we, for three hours, it's open time to just, if you want to go for a walk, if you want to journal, if you want to read, if you want to have a chat, if you want to go down lakeside and grab a paddleboard. And then after dinner, like, Randy would go, you know, guys, let's just go down to the dock and watch the sunset [01:12:00] at the lake and we'll have a wrap up session. Like why, why have a set aside time where you decompress? Why not make an environment for a week where the whole thing is meant to decompress and reconnect with people.

Try to put your phone down for a bit. I mean, during the open time, people have to sometimes send email and get back to the office. But create an entire week where people can decompress. And I was really nervous about the first event of not having alcohol because we were going to do something a little different.

And someone came up to me at breakfast and said, you know what? Normally at these events, I would be a little hung over in the morning and I'm kind of tired and groggy. But this morning I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm went off. So I thought I'll just go for a walk and watch the sunrise. It was really nice. And I thought, oh, that's what I like.

Yeah, go watch the sunrise. I mean, when's the last time you watched the sunrise?

When's the last time you watched the sunset? Like those moments, they're, it's a beautiful, quiet time. And doing that after a nice meal with peers where [01:13:00] you're learning stuff. Anyway,

Evan Troxel: it's a cool

Adam Thomas: I, I think there's one, there's one thing that I learned that is probably not apparent, but it's a huge value add. I learned it at the last event is I used to go to the large conferences to see the new things, see what people have been working on.

I

saw more new, I saw more new technology from just Kerry Thompson alone than I would have an entire exhibit hall from

one man.

Phil Read: Some

guy from New Zealand. He came all the

way to this round table event. He's a,

he's a mad scientist.

Adam Thomas: world and he was, he was the expo between classes. Like, Hey, have you thought about this for doing this? I use this for this other thing. These other three tools have helped me do this. And I'm like, wow, you've just done 50, 000 worth of marketing for those

companies.

should really

get a kickback from it. But I learned that if you're going to see the new things, the people that are highly curious and know what the new things are. I [01:14:00] have conversations twice a

week with startups. I can tell you a hundred pieces of technology you shouldn't be using. And I can tell you the three you should care about.

Phil can do the same, but we're not going to go set up a booth at a large conference to tell you those things. We want a small group that's polite and casual and we can do it there. But just from carry

Phil Read: lot of

Adam Thomas: I learned, I had a

Phil Read: Kerry's

Adam Thomas: full of products. could talk about

Phil Read: No, you go to conferences and there's booths and there's this technology, you know, it's like this, it's like the presentation where it works in front of a hundred people. This technology is amazing. You go back to the office a week later and you're trying to catch up on working this week forward.

You start playing with it like, this doesn't do what I thought it would do. And then you have to kind of go through the stages of grief to figure out if it's even going to work. I like the nice thing about talking to people that have used it, that can tell you where the landmines are and how to, okay, it's really good for this, but it's not good, but don't think it's going to meet your expectations over here, but here's why you still might want to use it.

Like to me, those conversations are really [01:15:00] valuable. It's um, the, the thing about the leadership retreat is we make these transitions in life from being a young technical person to then having families and mortgages and there's stresses outside of the office and inside the office, but it's just like the leadership retreat has helped me in my own just personal life, trying to just, you know, the kids are getting older.

Like, what's your purpose? Once the kids are grown, why do you keep wanting to do what you do? What's your, what, I still think struggle is important in terms of purpose and having something that you struggle with. Like learning to let go and learning to find good mentors. Randy Ben is a wonderful mentor.

And the fact that we get to sit in a room with him and we talk about these topics, and then I noticed that people will go away and have one on ones for half an hour or an hour, and I don't know what they're talking about. And I don't want to know. So the thing is like at the round table event, all the stuff that we learned there, we can share in whatever form we want to, whereas at the leadership retreat. What you learn can be shared, but what is shared [01:16:00] stays. We don't have executive summaries. Of the leadership retreat, like we would have for a round table of that. Um, maybe sometimes people share things that are a little bit close to home. Stays inside the retreat.

That's it. And that's why it's a, it is a safe space.

Yeah. Randy sets the ground rules for that right at the beginning. He's like, what we learn, you can share. What we share stays here. And people respect that.

Evan Troxel: that's cool. Well, I feel like we should wrap up, but I can't finish without talking about the cuisine aspect of this. Can you talk about, about that? Because I think, uh, this is, again, this is an anomaly when it comes to conferences and how you handle this.

Phil Read: Well, we like to have the big fancy dinner at the end of the event. We're like, well, why don't we just do that all week long? So I've known chef Charles,

Adam Thomas: three fancy dinners a day,

Phil Read: I know to the point that people go, actually, I've said last year, I was like, Charles is too much food. It's amazing, but we can't do this three. Yeah, Chef Charles is a French [01:17:00] chef who started his apprenticeship when he was 14. And there's actually an interview, a long form interview on YouTube with me and Randy and Charles. And you just get to see the wonderful, beautiful energy and spirit that he is. And without exaggeration, he prepares meals for heads of state, for rock stars. for multi billion industry executives. And then he loves to come to Lake Swan camp and be part of this group and make cookies. And, uh, he's just wonderful. So what we do is, I mean, Lake Swan makes amazing food. It's camp food. It's camp plates. But I thought, you know, if we could just have some, I was thinking the second year, like, who could we have? And I realized, Jeff Charles is just, I should just talk to Charles. And Charles drives his own car from Charlotte. He goes to Sam's or Publix or wherever. He gets all the food, you know, what, because you can get certain food with like ordering systems, but Charles wants certain things. I'm just about to release a menu.

Adam's seen it. He does an amazing [01:18:00] job three times a day for our onsite, offsite events. He'll have snacks ready, you know, uh, infused waters, cause you got to have nice healthy drinks and, um, he just, They love him. They love him. Chef Charles shows up, he comes out, he, oh, the food is not served like you stand in line and ask people for more of this and less of that and could have a little more of that. It's all served family style. So you might have to say, Adam, could you pass me those potatoes? You know, it's like a table full of people asking each other food and the food comes out. Charles, Charles plates it. He brings it out. He describes what he did. And, uh, then he goes, bonjour y'all. And he goes back to

Adam Thomas: Yeah, my, look, you, you, you just said it. My, my favorite part, right, is that. Because he's French, and because he's polite, he doesn't just give you food. He tells a story about the

food, and then he presents the food. And, I've never been to an event in my life where you [01:19:00] can have five star dining, in shorts and t shirt, and feel comfortable, and feel like you're at home.

And he somehow does that by telling a story, and then saying, If you need anything, let me know,

have

Phil Read: yeah. Yeah.

Charles loves it. He loves it. He's, he's, uh, he's just wonderful, wonderful energy. Oh, Charles Sun works for Autodesk. He's the HR director in EMEA. Like, that's just a weird thing. And, uh, but Charles will come out. Yeah. So it's a little aside. I get so excited. He comes out, he describes what he's done.

He puts plates out and every dietary restriction is covered. Um, you know, he knows all of that and, uh, but he's just part of it. Like any event, I don't think we've ever been to an event where the chef comes out and talks to you and says, this is what's going on and here's what I've done. And, and, um, so there's just a wonderful familial event to that. And, um, I think the best things in life are good meals with friends. It's such [01:20:00] a simple thing, but there's nobody sweeping under your chair and trying to get you out so they can put the next table in. And I remember, I get giddy now when I see people pull out their phones when Chef Charles brings out food and everybody's like taking their own little photos. but then I, it was Nick Kramer, uh, he's director at LPA on the West Coast, and Nick looks at me once and he goes, Phil, I'm eating Instagram food on camp plate. And I thought, yeah, okay. That's a good way. I like it. It's,

uh, it's authentic. It's authentic. it's Instagram meals on camp plates. Yeah.

Like, you know, the plasticky, how clamp camp plates kind of clink and clank like your school trays when you're a kid. It's

that sound. It's

not fancy silverware. Yeah.

Adam Thomas: one, one story I have to tell is my, my daughter came, so she was three at the time when we, uh, the last event came to the round table event

and we don't do sugar. Like, we just don't eat sugar. She doesn't have sugar, uh, she doesn't have iPad, she doesn't have phone, she plays with Legos, and she plays outside.

That's what I did, that's what she's gonna do. [01:21:00] You can learn the computer later, you can eat sugar later. And Chef Charles brought out like a, a pound cake he had made with ice cream on the side and went to set it down in front of us. We're like, ah, we, we'll, we'll skip this. And he goes, you'll have Chef Charles pound cake. have Chef Charles ice cream. And he goes, and, and the little one can have twice as much. And I was like, but we've, we don't do sugar. And

Phil Read: we don't do it.

Adam Thomas: he's like, it'll be okay. It's Chef Charles,

and I was like, okay, fair enough. So now

she'll ask, my daughter will say, when, when are we going to go see that guy that made all the food?

Evan Troxel: The

Adam Thomas: Um, and let me, and let me have ice cream. And I'm like, well, I can go see him right now. You want to drive and see him? Chef

Charles would think it's amazing,

but he's gonna, gonna feed you a dessert. So,

Phil Read: Adam looked over at the round table event and goes, we got to hold on to Chef Charles.

Adam Thomas: actually in our post mortem, right? I said, I don't care if we get rid of anything else, he is staying.

Phil Read: We got to

Adam Thomas: We can [01:22:00] change everything, but I will fight tooth and nail to keep him at every event and until he wants to leave. And then I'll still fight to make him come back.

Phil Read: Yeah, he, uh, he just does the photos online of him preparing lamb racks for one of the events, like how he sources his food. All of this stuff is beautiful. And the first year he said, Phil, I'm very busy. You know, I'll do it once, but I can't guarantee that I'm ever going to be doing it again. And then on the second day of the event, he was lakeside, sitting in the lifeguard chair, doing FaceTime call with his wife, Lee. He's going. You gotta come. This place is amazing. I love these people. And then by the end of the week, he's like, you know, if I was ever gonna retire, I could, I could work. What am I talking about? This is crazy talk. I'm never gonna

retire. He's just wonderful energy. And

it's, it's just, it's, just, a, it's just all these wonderful pieces have come together and the sum is greater than the parts.

And I'd love for other people to experience that. And Adam would too.

Evan Troxel: Well, and you framed it, you [01:23:00] know, in there somewhere about having a meal with friends, right? And that, and it goes back to your early having breakfast with mentors to glean insights. Like, it's a great spot to have meaningful conversations. And it doesn't have to be about work. It doesn't have to be about professional development. But all of these things, we know, they weave into each other in different ways. We find something that you, you pull out of this conversation and it applies over here where you would have never been able to

connect those dots, should you not have been in that conversation to have that experience, right?

So, this is a place, that is fertile for this kind of interaction and, and participation. And I think that that is worth talking about. So I've just, at this point, I think, invite you to give the details about what, when, where, you know, all those kinds of things. And, and we'll put links to all of this in the show notes for the episode as well.

So I want you to tell everyone, but then [01:24:00] everyone should also know that all of the details will be in the show notes for this episode.

Phil Read: A EC leadership retreat. Dot com.

Adam Thomas: No,

don't go there.

Evan Troxel: Don't

go to

Adam Thomas: No, it's just, it's just AACAcoustics. com. Click

Phil Read: Oh yeah, that's right. Sorry.

Adam .

Adam Thomas: no, you're good. Um, they're

Phil Read: Ac acoustics.com.

Adam Thomas: all the interviews we've talked about, they're still live on the website from the previous years. They're all there. Go see how Chef Charles talks. Go see how Randy talked. And then hold us accountable if you don't think they present themselves well.

Reach out to

Phil Read: Talk to

anybody who's been there in those photos. You probably know 'em, or you could figure out who they are. Send them an email and ask them.

Adam Thomas: yep.

Phil Read: Yep.

Evan Troxel: I appreciate how

you guys offer advocacy on other's behalf to make the case for why it's valuable to go to something like this. So, I hope people do take you up on that, for sure. So, I'll have links to your LinkedIn. [01:25:00] Profiles and aecacoustics. com in the show notes for the website. So people can reach out to you if they have additional questions, if they need help, uh, making the case.

Uh, and, and thank you so much for, for having this conversation today. I think, you know, big picture. The transition from technical to people, from single to teams, is a huge jump in one's professional development, and there is not necessarily a road map, and this is a great place to go get shortcuts. So that we don't have to start with a blank page with people who have been there and done that in their way over, you know, various years and years and years of time. Um, so it may not directly apply, but I think you're going to get some amazing ideas and amazing insight. And you're going to meet the people who have, who have accomplished what you're talking about. So this is, this is a great, great thing for people to definitely pay attention to. And I hope [01:26:00] that, uh, everybody can, you know, enjoy it. 50 people at least will show up and, and be at this retreat. It's going to be great.

Phil Read: Thanks Evan.

Adam Thomas: Thank you, Evan.