176: Robin Bellerby, Chief Architecture Officer @ Humphreys & Partners Architects

Few people begin as interns and rise to Chief Architecture Officer at the same firm. 

Robin Bellerby is one of them.

Over nearly 26 years, Robin has advanced through six roles at Humphreys & Partners Architects (HPA). Starting as a Project Manager, she oversaw more than 10,000 units and $1 billion in construction costs, and subsequently became Vice President. Her excellence in this position led to her stepping in as Risk Management Director, where she took on implementing the firm’s risk management program and reduced losses by 85% in just one year.

Building on these accomplishments, Robin went on to serve as Principal and Senior Vice President of Strategy & Risk before becoming Chief Architecture Officer, where she oversees architectural operations and risk management across the firm's global practice. 

Inside this week's episode: 

• How Robin balances career ambition and home life - and why her 5-year hiatus was crucial to her growth
• What it means to be a developer’s architect - and how Humphreys embeds that philosophy into their design approach
• How Robin turns claims into lessons learned
• Essential contract terms for design professionals: limitation of liability, errors and omissions, and accounting for insurance limits
• A look inside Robin’s day-to-day as CAO

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Transcript

Rens Hayes IV 0:08

Hi everyone, welcome to design development, your hub to learn direct from top performers in real estate design and construction. I'm your host, Ren Tayes, co-founder of HO structural engineering, lifelong learner, and I'm personally obsessed with high-powered organizations and the leaders that guide them. Let's go. We have Robin Bellerby. She's the chief architecture officer at Humphreys and Partners. Robin, I'm thrilled to dig into your career and the lessons you've learned along the way. Thanks for joining us.

Robin Bellerby 0:38

Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be here.

Rens Hayes IV 0:41

Happy to be here. Burnout, questioning where we go in our career. I think these are things that all of us as humans experience throughout our career journey. Today, you're the chief architecture officer, but not too long ago in 2011, you thought you might be done with architecture altogether. What was going on at this time? What were you thinking?

Robin Bellerby 0:59

So there was a lot going on with me in 2011. I had started a master's degree program at Northwestern earlier in the year, thought I was going to be able to work full-time and manage that. I also had two teenagers.

Rens Hayes IV 1:15

You were ambitious.

Robin Bellerby 1:16

Yeah. So we had that kind of deal going on at the house. And I was also doing some really cool things out in the community. And I'm walking across campus after class one night at Northwestern and just thinking what a great experience the day was, and just winding down from the day. And the message just came, quit your job. And I was a little taken aback by that. I didn't know where it came from. But I something had to give. And I decided that it was going to be the job that I gave up and wasn't sure at all where that was going to take me. But like I said, I was enjoying my program at Northwestern. I knew that I needed to be at home a bit more and was doing some other things cool in the community and having more flexibility in my life to take on even more of that was just something that I felt I needed to do at the time. And it was uh, it was out in faith, right? That this is all gonna work out. This was the right decision, and absolutely was the right decision. It was amazing time away for five years. And I did some things here and there along the way, but nothing full time. And it was just a great five years that I really treasured.

Rens Hayes IV 2:32

Yeah, that what an amazing gift to also have that time with your teenagers back at home. I know as a parent myself, my kids are six and eight. And you think about going through high school after that, they're like not really living at home anymore. So it's like, how do you make sure that you're taking advantage of this time and getting to spend time with that? So what a gift that is. What inspired you to go get your master's at this time?

Robin Bellerby 2:55

So I guess I was already on a little bit of a journey trying to decide is this what I wanted to do with my life? You have those moments where you question things. And I was getting some coaching at the time and was just exploring all different options. And part of that was, is there some more education that might be good for me? And I just came across this program at Northwestern in learning and organizational change and never even thought about that. And I just kept going back to it over and over again. And all the other programs and things that I explored, I just kept coming back to this one. And my coach at the time, she said, usually I don't encourage my clients to go do something unless you know what you're going to do with it. But in your case, I think you just should do this. And I thought, okay, yeah, let's do this. And so that's how it started. And it was just an amazing program there. So much self-exploration that you had to do. It was a little unnerving at times. But in order to help people through change, you have to know a lot about yourself. You have to know about how you react to certain things so that you can help others as they react to things. And it was just, I would do it all over again if I could. It was that good. Definitely am full-on fan of that program.

Rens Hayes IV 4:19

I like how you described self-exploration. I have found myself in a lot of those conversations. And something I encourage people to do is make sure you create time in maybe not your daily life, but certainly annually, if not more frequent, is reflecting on what is actually important to me in life. Because it's so easy to start making decisions in your life, your daily habits, your career, pursuing goals that like society leads you to think that should be your goal, not necessarily what's important. And so, like those moments where you get to reflect on what's important, time with time with your kids at home or exploring a new education is those are really cool experiences, I think. What does being a developer's architect mean at Humphreys?

Robin Bellerby 5:00

We want to know what drives value for a developer. We want to be able to come up with design solutions that create even greater value for them. And we've been able to do that at Humphreys for 30 years, probably. When we first came up with our first design concept, our signature design concept. It was called the big house. And it was designed to, it's an apartment building, but it looks like a large home. It wouldn't, yeah. And so it was, from what I understand, the story goes that we were being interviewed for a newspaper or a magazine article at the time. And they were trying to understand this concept. And the person being interviewed said, what's just like a big house. And that was the name of the article. And it stuck. It's just like a big house. So it's called the big house. And it was just one of those ways that we could transform the way multifamily could be viewed, not only by the residents, not only by the developer, but also the community and the and those who live around the apartment, because a lot of people don't want that in their backyard. And being able to create a community of multifamily buildings that really does just look like the extension of the single-family neighborhood adjacent to it was really important. And then even since then, over the 30 years, we've come up with some other concepts as well. And those focus on driving efficiency and densities. Again, trying to create greater value for our developers. And it's worked out really well for us. And it's what sets us apart from other architects who are in this sector of the business.

Rens Hayes IV 6:44

Yeah. I think understanding what's valuable to your customer is so important. And I think assuming you know what's important to them can get you into trouble, right? You have to have this exploratory process. How do you help coach or instill that throughout an entire team the size of Humphreys?

Robin Bellerby 7:01

It's about obviously teaching, teaching the purpose behind these design concepts that we come up with. It's helping to show them what does matter to a developer, sharing those stories of when you have a project that works out well and this is why it worked out so well for a developer. And just helping it become part of your culture, your DNA in the business so that everybody understands why we do what we do. And when they're having a conversation with their client, they can always have that in their minds, thinking about, okay, if I'm faced with a decision, I want to be thinking about it, not only for what's good for the architecture, but also what's good for the developer, what's good for our client. And are they going to get real value out of which decision? And helping us weigh those thoughtfully and creatively for the best outcome for them.

Rens Hayes IV 7:58

Tell us about the team offices, the makeup of Humphreys today.

Robin Bellerby 8:03

Now we're about 120 people across five offices, stretching from California to Florida. We do full service architecture and interior design. And we are focused on all forms of housing, primarily multifamily. But in multifamily, there's a lot of different parts. So market rate, affordable, senior living, student housing, workforce housing, just all aspects of multifamily townhomes. We do all of that. Occasionally we'll do some hotels, but we really our line right now is multifamily, and we like to stay in that. And we work, it varies, but I just like to say maybe 35 plus states. We're doing business. So we work anywhere and everywhere that there's an opportunity.

Rens Hayes IV 8:49

That's a great geographic reach. And you mentioned five offices. Headquarters is in Dallas, correct? And how many people are in Dallas?

Robin Bellerby 8:55

Oh, maybe about, maybe about 50, 40 to 50.

Rens Hayes IV 8:59

Well, yeah. So you have pretty good sized offices then across those geographies with HPB at 50. Do you guys work as cost centers, profit centers? Is it one cohesive group?

Robin Bellerby 9:10

That's the way it was set up by Mark Humphreys years ago, where he was very entrepreneurial-minded. And so we did have profit centers. We have started here recently to take it back from that idea and look more at project profitability and look at the whole life cycle of the project start to finish versus what's happening here, what's happening here, what's happening here. And that's both geographically and through the project cycle, right? And so I'm more focused now today on the project itself and how we're doing start to finish. Then obviously it's still important that each of our offices are successful, but it created some, it created some issues over the years when all you were focused on was a geographic region and how they were performing. Always important. You have a tendency sometimes to lose sight of the project and of the work itself. And that's what I'm hoping to bring back more into the forefront.

Rens Hayes IV 10:15

Yeah, that that's a really good conversation, Robin. You want to incentivize collaborative performance so that everyone's rowing the boat in the same direction, but the organizational structure of a company or incentive plans can drive people to have different behaviors that are in conflict with long-term value creation. And I know something we're even talking about often is trying to find upward career mobility for that senior design professional that really just loves designing buildings and wants to continue to do that at a high level. It's like, how do we connect that with organizational success so that we can continue to give them career upward mobility without forcing them to become a manager or run a team, right? Because they still have excellence, but it's like you got to connect the dots and make sure success is aligned for the employee and the company because you don't want them to be in conflict, right? It's not easy to do.

Robin Bellerby 11:06

For sure. There is that default that we think everybody wants the top job, you know, and they don't. And nor would you want everybody to want that. You need all types, you need technical-minded. We have technical track, we have management track so that we can help guide people to the area that really works best for them and where they will be in a greater position of success. Because we had over the years seen some people become a project manager just because that's just what you do. You become a project manager. And you find out they're not happy being a project manager. And when you're not happy, you tend to not tend to not perform as well as you could. And so, how do we make sure that we have people in the right role? I commonly say we need to make sure we have the right people doing the right things at the right times to make sure that we're really firing on all cylinders and people are being able to enjoy what they're doing and have passion for what they're doing and feel like I'm contributing in my way, and we all have a part to play in that project. That's it would not make me happy if I knew that somebody in our company was in a position that they felt that it wasn't the right fit or they felt stifled or something like that. We want to be able to help them on that journey. And even if that means leaving the firm, I love it, it's okay. And it's commonly you get freaked out sometimes when somebody resigns. But when I look back on my career and what I've done, I think I grew from those experiences. And why would I want to keep that from somebody else? And so you support that and say, hey, I'm here for you in the future. If you ever need me for anything, you let me know. Do you want to come back? That's good too. Yeah. So you just want you want people to feel there's some self-determination in there, right? That they can go off, explore. And if you end up coming back here, all the better because you'll be better having gone out and explored something else and brought back new learnings that you may not have otherwise got.

Rens Hayes IV 13:14

I use this example. It's if you have two great people at similar stages in their career and they're both growing and high performers, but your company really has one promotion opportunity. Like you can only pick one. So somebody's going to be left hanging. And if they want to continue to grow at a rate, but you don't necessarily have that role for them to step into, and they can find that elsewhere, I think that is a phenomenal result. You should encourage and support them in that career move. And like you said, maintain that relationship. So what there is opportunity, maybe they can come back to the team. But you don't want to stifle somebody's career growth just to avoid losing them because you don't have a role for them. And that trust is, I think, so important coming from leadership. And it comes back to this self-reflection and self-exploration where we started today's conversation. Because I think a lot of times people want more from their career. They want a promotion or a raise. And it's like you have to be a project manager. You have to try to be an associate or principal. So they advocate for those without really knowing what they're signing up for because they think they have to continue to grow. And I think conversations like this are hopefully educating the work, the entire industry to challenge those limiting beliefs and to think differently about how they create value in the workplace.

Robin Bellerby 14:25

Yeah, in this moment at time right now, there, I think the paths are multiplying because with all the technology that is coming into play, there's days when I'm like, oh, I want to go be a technologist. I want to learn how to program.

Rens Hayes IV 14:39

I'm a vibe coder now.

Robin Bellerby 14:41

It just looks and it just seems so fun. And it's so exciting what's going on over there. And I do think that the future in architecture is going to broaden and we're going to have more paths that people can take that are so exciting and interesting and valuable to a firm that maybe, you know, that there's going to be, there's going to be a feeling that I have options where maybe before you did feel like there was this single career path that you had to take, but it's really going to start branching out. And it already has, but even more so.

Rens Hayes IV 15:16

Technology makes our industry extremely exciting right now. There's a lot to be excited about, I think, in with technology today. But from professional services, so professional services are all have always traditionally been pretty linear in their growth because with growth and revenue goes uh growth in expenses. I think really for the first time in a meaningful way, does a professional service company have an opportunity to exponentially grow the value they can create for a custom for a customer disproportionate to the time required. So this industry professional leveraging technology and put in a position to succeed, I think has a huge upside over the next few years because their judgment, they're going to actually get compensated for that judgment because they have the tools to drive volume.

Robin Bellerby 16:04

Yeah. Yeah. And there's just a lot of cool things going on out there. And that's one of the things that I'm very much focused on right now is what is our next, I'm calling it our next generation of digital workflow. We need to make some improvements in our overall workflow processes, and technology has to be at the center of that. And there's so many interesting things that are being done out there right now. And so I'm talking to a lot of people, asking a lot of questions. And here pretty soon, I'm gonna have to dive in and pick one and start testing it out. But there's a lot of fun stuff happening. I'm getting really super excited about what we might be able to do here in the not too distant future that not only will be exciting for us as architects, but as you said, bring value, increased value to our clients and the industry.

Rens Hayes IV 16:56

If you look out, say five or 10 years, what's something in our design profession that you hope technology changes?

Robin Bellerby 17:04

Documentation. Documentation is the necessary thing that we all have to do, right? And it can feel redundant and not very exciting, but you gotta have it. And I think that's gonna be the easiest thing that can get automated, right? And by doing that, I was more on the technical project management side than the design side. And so I believe that when we are able to start handing off more of that technical task to the machine, that we will be able to all grow in our design skills and be able to participate more in the design development, be able to spend a little bit more time on the design development. And particularly for us in our company's DNA is that innovation piece. And it had been housed with just a few individuals for the last three decades. And I'm looking forward to saying, no, it can be within any of us. If we get more freedom to explore and we have tools that help us to explore, then it becomes something that we're all better capable of doing and not having to just have a one little group over here doing it. It can expand across the company. And I think that's exciting for everybody who feels like, okay, I'm just gonna come to work today and do more construction drawings. They may want to do something different. And I look forward to that opportunity and giving them ways to explore the technology, especially the younger staff that we have that that just naturally have more access to technology and more understanding of technology today. That how do we start pulling that out and into the business in a way that's exciting and and helpful in creating better work and hopefully also better work in terms of not only design, but good work, work that minimizes risk and can minimize mistakes. It may happen on a project.

Rens Hayes IV 19:04

I'd like that you went to documentation. If I look back 30 years in the profession, it really went from hand drawings to CAD and then to Revit, whereas 3D modeling. But even when I sit here today and I look across our data as an engineering firm, right? We do a ton of multifamily housing like your firm. And when we break down the amount of time and effort committed to design versus coordination and meetings versus documentation, most of the work, most of the time spent is in the communicating and the creating the documents, which are really just a communication tool. We don't actually do any engineering in Revit in our 3D modeling. It's literally just to communicate the design intent of people that are going to build it. And so technology has got to help solve that problem. I don't know if this is possible or I don't have vision for how this would impact architecture. When I think of structure, we have concrete, some form of steel, or some form of wood, right? As our primary materials on how we design buildings. I see, and what I hope happens sooner than later, us being able to provide construction level drawings, not design drawings that contractors then build shop drawings from, because I think technology can allow that to happen in a cost-effective manner.

Robin Bellerby 20:18

You did kind of get me a little scared with that statement though.

Rens Hayes IV 20:23

Why is that scary?

Robin Bellerby 20:24

A little bit, because then that's all about risk management and how far then is the architect or the engineer taking their responsibility to where the constructor is taking it from there. And I'm not quite comfortable yet going too far down that road. But yes, it makes sense. That's where we will get that the industry will have to change. So what causes me pause will have to change somewhat, but we're gonna have to have a lot of cooperation for that as far as professional standard of care and what's the risk look like for the design professional. Even architects and engineers licensing laws and things like that, they're still pretty archaic, right? They're gonna, they're gonna be the things that are pulling up the rear, but we can't forget about them because that's actually the law. And so how do we bring it all together to where they meet at the same point without one getting too far ahead of the other? And that's really a lot of that's managing expectations, right? Clients can hear about all these great things that can be done, but can they really all be done effectively? And should we rely on all of these ways just yet? So it's a lot of balancing of those kinds of expectations, especially when you think back on the risk aspect of it and making sure that you're not losing sight of that because it's just a it's a necessary part of the job right now.

Rens Hayes IV 21:52

Robin, I'm so glad you brought that up. You're absolutely right. And I think for the people thinking through technology or Or if we think about a lot of the challenges we face in development, design, and construction, to me stems from how a development's capitalized and then how fragmented the delivery of the entire process is. There's dozens and dozens of companies that come together to create one building. And so you're absolutely right. Like risk management not is a concern and those things have to change in order for us, I think, as an industry to innovate. And so it comes a point of who's willing to own that risk. If you provide enough value, right, risk is the inverse of value, then I think there's a way to find this. And if somebody isn't willing to take that risk, then it's probably not worth it. So, like to me, and I don't have the silver bullet, but when I think of risk and value, it's like I got to try to shatter my limiting belief. And then I got to think about how could this play out. But to me, I think these conversations educate everybody that's working towards these solutions on like how to think about the entire situation that we're dealing with.

Robin Bellerby 22:55

Yeah, yeah, it's a constraint for sure, right now, that it makes the process a little ugly because it's that looming thing over what we do that we have to worry about what happens if I do something wrong, right? And there's a claim later. We're not judged for perfection. That's not what the professional standard of care is, but there's a misunderstanding about what does that mean? And how do you balance that out? And again, managing your client's expectations, having a good relationship with the general contractor, making sure that, you know, what we do the best that we can. We're all on the same team. We all want the same thing at the end of the day. We want this building. We want in our line of work, we want to provide housing to people, right? And so how do we do that in a I would love to see us be able to free ourselves up from some of that constraint. But right now, where we are in this industry, this profession, it's a very, very important piece that we always have to be mindful of.

Rens Hayes IV 23:59

If I share an example where, let's say in in our business in structural engineering, we estimate every building we design. So like we absolutely have information to support a steel contractor in proposing their estimate. The risk that I think you're talking about is if they take our estimate, but then they have a missed scope. Now the owner like can't like they can point to us about the amount of scope that we provided for them to price. And then all of a sudden, we're a much smaller piece of the pie in terms of the overall project scope. So it's like the risk isn't with the compensation to the party that's responsible. And I think that's like the line that you have to walk and figure out where that lies because you want to provide value and reduce that risk. And I that's a huge communication piece.

Robin Bellerby 24:42

And I don't know if engineers are like architects, but we just naturally want to help. And so there's there's always good intentions with wanting to, and again, we're trying to bring value to our clients. We want to do a good job, give them good service. And sometimes that line gets a little gray, and before you know it, you've crossed the line and now you've assumed some risk that we didn't intend to assume. And there you go. Who's gonna be responsible?

Rens Hayes IV 25:09

And some and somebody holds you to that mistake, and then now you've got that scar that you carry with you.

Robin Bellerby 25:15

Exactly, exactly.

Rens Hayes IV 25:16

Tell us about the late Mark Humphreys.

Robin Bellerby 25:19

Oh gosh. He was a visionary, he really was. He could see trends before other people could. And he would, he would drive things really hard on us and to bring those to life. And we sometimes wouldn't understand it because he was seeing it way ahead of us. And so we'd be like, I don't know. I was like, I don't know when he started saying, we got to have EV chargers on every property. Who has an electric car? But it was very early on when he was saying, no, we they need to put, they need to put the at least the infrastructure in place so that when this comes and it's coming, they can install those chargers. And sure enough, look where we are. I remember when I first met him at a conference and he was talking about new trends in housing, and he was showing what I've always referred to as the precursor to our big house design. And I was just taken aback. It was just, I just loved everything that he was saying. And a few weeks later, I was working at Humphreys. It was just, it just, it was, it spoke to me. And I think he spoke to a lot of people over the years and sure miss having him around and leading the charge, especially in the housing world. Great loss.

Rens Hayes IV 26:34

In what role did you join Humphreys in? Was at what stage of your career did you join?

Robin Bellerby 26:40

Oh, I was an intern.

Rens Hayes IV 26:42

As an intern you joined. All right. So you've really spent a lot, uh a big part of your career with Humphreys. That's really cool.

Robin Bellerby 26:48

Yes, absolutely.

Rens Hayes IV 26:50

In that, let's say in that journey, because you've really moved into even different type of like executive leadership here. You were a design principal before. So if you talk to us about your time as a principal, what's maybe a project you're particularly proud of?

Robin Bellerby 27:05

Oh gosh, there's so many. What one of the one of my favorite projects that I did was a a big house project in Palm Springs. And it was on the site of the old Biltmore Hotel. Frank Sinatra and all those characters would go. And the developer wanted to stay true to that history and to mid-century modern style. And of course, most of our big houses are very traditional looking. And this one just took that turn, and it was just so cool to be a part of something like that. Also got, I started when I was an intern, was doing tax credit housing. And that was meaningful to me. It still is. We're actually doing a lot of tax credit housing right now. But way back in the day, I started off doing tax credit housing. And I think it was my second project that was the first new development in South Dallas in 20 years. And it was bringing housing down there and born and raised in Dallas, and that was just meaningful. I remember still being at that groundbreaking with all the dignitaries there and just being so proud of being part of it that just it just it still means a lot, even what is it, 30 years later?

Rens Hayes IV 28:25

Yeah. Project I love to hear that. I appreciate people that are passionate about the work that they do. And I think one of the beauties of our industries is the built environment. They're like tangible things that you get to see and watch their impact to a community. You were principal. We head into this kind of five-year, we'll call it a hiatus from architecture during that phase. And when you came back as the SVP of strategy and risk, it seems like you have an odd passion for contracts, contract language. So how did you find yourself into this side of the business?

Robin Bellerby 28:56

As I was away, I stayed in contact. And every now and then you do a couple of odds and end jobs for Humphreys, checking drawings or something like that. And one time it called and said, We've got something different for you. We had a claim and we don't have anybody to research this claim. And could you do this? We'll just give you all the documents and you read through it. And I was like, okay, I guess I don't know anything about the project. But I did that for a couple of weeks and wrote up a report, sent it over to them. And uh, oh yeah, this is great. This is great. Write up a job description for this. I think we want to hire somebody to do this. I don't mind helping you. I could do that. Not knowing that was going to be two weeks later, I was gonna be working back at Humphreys again. But that's just how it happened. And it was just something that really resonated with me. I love working. It sounds terrible because I don't want us to have claims, but claims are part of reality. But I do love working through them. They're they're problems to solve and hopefully getting to positive resolutions, not only for our firm, but for our client as well. Helping our general counsel navigate that process, learning all about that process and the insurance side of it. It's just been really fascinating. And I love it. And I I sometimes oftentimes forget that not everybody loves it like I do. It's just, I just think it's a fascinating part of our job learning the lessons that we face, right? We deal with. And how do I then take that lesson learned and apply it to the practice so that hopefully we don't learn that lesson again? That we've always I've always tried to say to people when a mistake happens, and sometimes people can feel so bad that they feel like they were the cause of the claim and they feel terrible about it. And I said, you know what? I guarantee you, you will never make this mistake again. You will get you're gonna remember it forever. And that's all I ask, right? Let's just remember it, take it forward, teach others so that it doesn't become a claim again in the future. And hopefully that does provide some comfort to them, some safety around that whole process that can feel scary when you feel like, wow, I've just cost my firm some money, right? That we didn't expect to have to pay. But things happen and uh we work through it and we hope for positive outcomes afterwards and taking that forward in a positive way.

Rens Hayes IV 31:31

Yeah, that's a good lesson for everyone in those situations, the importance of having integrity and accountability. And then from the leadership perspective, understanding like everyone is human. And if it is an individual's fault, there's probably organizational fault as well in that system. And then so it's building awareness. It's it would be really, it would be a tough decision to have a great person who made a mistake. You have already paid for to learn that lesson. To lose them now would be a bigger mistake because you now have that experience on the team that can share that lesson, right? That I think that's a really it's a hard thing to come around to as a leader, but it's an important perspective, I think, to share. So we don't make we don't jump to those types of decisions. Quick break from the show. Thanks for tuning in to design development. We're trying to help as many people as possible. So if you can subscribe and leave a review on today's episode on whatever platform you're listening, it would be a great help. It's the only way we're gonna reach more people. Let's get back to the show. I in my business journey, I got exposed to mergers and acquisitions. So MA. And it wasn't until that point that I really understood what it meant to have a good handle on contracts and like the legal side of the business. It always seemed like this big expense, and like lawyer, I never quite understood. And I'll wrap this next section, this next part of our conversation with this frame is the contracts that you sign are protecting the future value of your business. And that to me, that frame was such an eye-opening frame. So it's like the contracts you sign today, if you are signing bad contracts, and then a team at Humphreys, a team at HO, we are working to build world-class organizations for the next five and 10 years. If there's a bad contract that could wipe out all that value creation, like what a terrifying thought that is. That's why contracts are selling. So if you were to share from your experience, what are some of the tripwires, the unique things that we need to look out for in contracts? And I guess I'll kick off one to get your mind going. Limit of liability. I think I am in the spin zone on limited liability all the time. What's important? What's not important? Do we need it? All those things are hard conversations. Do you have unlimited liability?

Robin Bellerby 33:49

Absolutely. You need it. You need a limitation of liability in your contracts. More frequently, it depends on your business, but more frequently for us, it is tied to our insurance coverage versus fees paid. That's where we started years ago with fees paid. Very logical way for a lot of companies to do it. But as you get bigger and your projects get bigger, it begins to get more tied to your insurance coverage amounts. Now, where we see some changes happening around that right now is professional ENO, Airs and Emissions Insurance, is an eroding policy, right? So if you have a claim, that claim erodes the policy that you have in that year. And if you have enough claims in one year, you could be out of insurance. And developers are beginning to understand that and are looking for, I don't want just it to be tied to your available insurance, because what if your insurance has been eroded and there isn't any insurance left? So what that puts them at is, or where it puts us at is essentially doing a guarantee. And that is not where we want to be.

Rens Hayes IV 35:03

That's not insurable.

Robin Bellerby 35:04

No, it's not well, a guarantee meaning if insurance is gone, we're gonna pay you out of our pocket. And that's not a workable solution. Most architecture and engineering firms in the US. And so that's one that we're seeing more challenges with as of late. And so we really have to balance the risk. We have to balance how much of the insurance are they asking for a guarantee on? Do we think there's a chance, depending on how many projects we've signed that year, because your ENO is on an annual basis, right? When you make a claim, it goes into that claim year. And so every year you get a new bucket of money, right? So we've got to be weighing out how all of that spreads across the years, because of course, most states were doing a 10-year statue of repose, right? So gotta be out there for 10 years after substantial completion with the possibility of having a claim come back to us. And you've got to weigh those risks. You've got to weigh what's the likelihood, probability that we would have that many claims in one year and negotiate it from that standpoint. But it's definitely a concerning thing that developers are seeking more of that guarantee when it's just not, it's not financially viable for most firms to go that way.

Rens Hayes IV 36:25

Yeah. That to me, when I think of professional liability, and for those that aren't exposed to this side of the business on professional liability, there's a per occurrence and then an aggregate amount for an annual basis. It's and it's to help manage this exact situation so that you have more insurance than one claim can get to. And you want to make sure I think it's really important to have that gap and to demonstrate that because that's reducing the risk to the owner that they don't have access to that per aggregate claim. So I personally want to see a gap between those two all the time. What does your typical day look like as chief architecture officer?

Robin Bellerby 36:59

I actually try to keep a pretty loose calendar. I don't, I don't pack mine full. And that gives me flexibility to change course if I have to during the day. So I'll come with maybe a couple of things that, you know, yeah, I really do want to get these things done today, but give me enough room for the surprises that will inevitably happen. The person that'll come to the door and say, Hey, I've got a problem. Can you talk? And I feel like I'm pretty available in that aspect. And I don't email me, send me a team's chat. There, there's where I'm most responsive. I can look through those a lot faster than I can emails, but I hope that my team feels like I can respond pretty quickly to them when there's urgent matter to to look into. But any day could be looking at a contract that we're trying to get signed, having a negotiation contract, uh conversation on a contract, or dealing with a claim, being in a mediation, then deposition last week. Those things happen not very often, thankfully, but but they all happen. And then also in in this role, I assumed this role just about a year ago. And we are still very much in a transitional moment of the company. Mark Humphreys passed away four years ago now. We are still looking at what do we want the firm to look like? How do we want to structure it? I talked a little bit about how it was a little siloed in profit centers, and I'm looking to be more overall inclusive of the whole process in the company and looking at the structure of the organization through that lens, also exploring all of the new technologies and where do we want to go next and what do we want to pull in first into our processes. So that for me, that's the creative part for me is being able to look at the at all those possibilities and and how does the map lay out for us for the next, say, one to three years. And so giving me that that time in my day to be able to explore those is really important to me. That's what re-energizes me, where it doesn't feel like it's it's a tough job. There's still a lot of fun things that we can do.

Rens Hayes IV 39:19

Very meaningful and impactful work. And when I hear you talk through like having that freedom or flexibility, if I describe that through my experience, the thing that I'm looking for is mental space.

Robin Bellerby 39:31

Yeah.

Rens Hayes IV 39:32

Like mental clarity so that I can think deeply about the things that are most important to the company and where we're going. Because ultimately, my job is to help identify and remove constraints to employee success, customer success, and organizational growth. And if I am packed full on my calendar, it is impossible to create the space to be able to think deeply about those things. Something I'd love your perspective on, Robin, is the difference between being a pref a principal and then firm leadership or executive leadership. And I'll preface that when I look across the industry or I question even in our own growth, like I even me personally, I essentially I'm sitting as an executive and a design principal. And so the trend, I think deeply about the transition on when those need to separate, because especially as you grow to a hundred plus people, it's like trying to be a principal and then an executive as a side job when they are really two full-time roles. That's a really difficult position to put a firm leader in. Connecting back to this mental space, it's like, how do you have the mental space to do both when you share all of those responsibilities? Did you share some of your perspectives on that challenge that you've seen throughout your career?

Robin Bellerby 40:41

For as long as I can remember, I've always carved out time for myself. And it may have been after five o'clock. It was okay with me. It was always okay with me. And it was nothing that was ever demanded of me. It was just my natural curiosity to go study something, learn something, work on something that I thought could benefit the company, if not just myself. I was always thinking of those things, even from the early years of my career, looking for ways that I could contribute more than just the job at hand. And so I think that the ability to nurture that creativity part, or the creative part, I should say, is really important to me. I'm, again, I'm I wasn't the designer, right, in our firm. I was a project manager, production, that sort of thing. And so the organizational design and processes and thinking through those types of things, I've always been drawn to. And it's what has allowed me, I don't know, maybe that space to breathe a little bit and it re-energizes me. It doesn't exhaust me, it re-energizes. Whether it's a, I remember I wanted to track like financial data for years and years. And I pulled all these reports over the years, and I was gonna do this, and nobody even knew I was doing it. And I think it might have been Christmas holiday time or something. And I worked hours and hours on it. But I was curious, I wanted to know why one team was profitable and another team wasn't as profitable. And so, how can I really dig into that and understand and learn what I might be able to do that could improve my own profitability and my team, all those kinds of things. And it's just been fascinating to me. And I just I get drawn into those kinds of things. And I don't think I'm answering your question exactly.

Rens Hayes IV 42:41

But we're similar in that way. I too am very curious about the data. And the deeper I get into building companies, the more important data becomes to making sure the strategy is doing and the execution is working. Cause if you don't have the data, you don't know what to change and you don't learn from change.

Robin Bellerby 43:00

Absolutely. I've always said there's a story in it to tell in the data, and I always want to find the story. And so when you elevate that upwards into this role, we are definitely looking at things from a strategic standpoint. We are trying to improve our understanding of the company and where what's working, what's not working, and where might we go next. I work very closely with our COO, CFO. And just how do we move this company to the next step post-Mark Humphreys, right? And it's a very it's a unique challenge in that not everybody gets that opportunity to go past the founder. And what do you want to keep? What do we think we need to change? How do we need to evolve? We need to stay up with the times and but stay true to the original spirit of the firm. that that drew me in from the beginning, all of those kinds of things. You just wanna just want to always be mindful of that and remembering what it was like when you were in their chair doing that job. And how can I make that job easier for them and more fulfilling for them if it's not? It's just always something that that has mattered a lot to me.

Rens Hayes IV 44:21

Yeah. Thank you for talking through that. And I when I come back, like the situation that you're in, like you said, is somewhat unique, but in that unique is a really cool opportunity. It's like preserving what's great, preserve the culture. And then it's like how do we collectively as a team identify what to prioritize? Right. Because there's a million things we could change in any one of our businesses. But it's like you can only do a few. And it's probably best if we find the one most important thing that actually moves the needle. A lesson I learned in business is wrong problem, wrong solution or wrong problem, right solution. It's like you can spend a lot of time fixing something that doesn't actually move the needle. And then so it's like the issue is in that we didn't identify the right constraint to fix. And so it's you need data to help figure that out. Robin, I want to wrap up today's conversation with a favorite book or podcast you'd share with the audience.

Robin Bellerby 45:11

So my favorite podcast right now is called the Confluence Podcast and it focuses on AI, leadership and communication. And what this company does is they put out a newsletter every week and then they do an accompanying podcast that summarizes the newsletter and it is narrated by two AI generated voices, characters. And they talk between themselves about the contents of the newsletter and it's all about what's happening in AI and what happened last week, what happened and how might businesses need to adapt and adjust to what just happened in AI and what might we want to do from a communication standpoint. So it's fascinating mashup of business leadership with where AI is and it's just the coolest it is only about 20 minutes. So it's really easy to listen to but it's super cool. I love it.

Rens Hayes IV 46:14

That is fascinating. I saw this comment and I feel this way often is I feel like I need to be unemployed to stay up with everything that's going on in AI. It's I have so many things that I want to test and I'm like I don't think I can do that until May right now. But I know it's important to stay up.

Robin Bellerby 46:30

So that's my commute. That's my exercise time I'm always listening to the podcast to uh to hear what's going on and then I'll reach out to people that are on podcasts and say hey I heard you and you have time for me. I want to talk I want to learn more. And so just learning and meeting people in the space that is just again that's another energizer, right? To be thinking about what's possible and what's ever changing and just playing around with the tools that's a fun thing to do as well. And again eventually settling on where we're gonna go and putting those out there for everybody to use.

Rens Hayes IV 47:08

Robin thank you so much for joining us today on design development I'm excited to see what you and the team at Humphreys does in the future.

Robin Bellerby 47:16

I wish you nothing but the best thank you so much for having me.

Rens Hayes IV 47:19

It was great everyone thanks for tuning into design development real quick before you leave our goal is to help as many people as possible we're a growing community and you're a big part of it so just click that send button send this episode to a friend to let them get those same insights that you got today we appreciate you. See you next time