HOW I PLANNED ABA's LEADERSHIP TRANSITION by Pamela Anderson-Brulé

Many of you have asked about my approach to leadership transition and what the future holds for ABA as a woman-empowering firm. It may come as a surprise to you that I started planning a firm transition when I was 29, so I thought it would be fun to share the backstory.

Knowing What You Don't Know

I have always loved to learn, and I think one of my strengths is knowing what I do not know and seeking those that can teach me. With that perspective firmly in mind, I signed up for a summer course at the Harvard School of Design in Firm Management taught by Weld Cox so I could better understand what it meant to build a firm and learn skills that would lead to success. When I arrived, the course was filled with principals from firms located all over the country. As one of the only females in the course, and thirty years younger than most of my classmates, I was humbled by the caliber of my fellow students. The course itself was tremendous and I learned so much, but my greatest influence by far was listening to these men at lunch and dinner.

I will be honest. They were miserable. Each one complained about how they had not planned their own transitions. Like a sponge, I listened to their tales and kept asking each of them: how would they have done things differently? With pen and paper at the ready, I took notes and did organizational drawings of what I thought I heard them suggest. They would review my notes and make corrections – they were helping me design a vision for the future of my firm that they wished they had conceived for their own. It was a fascinating experiment that planted the seeds for the firm that ABA would become. I completed two other courses at Harvard in Finance and Marketing. The teachers and classmates I met became mentors.

The takeaway was that you could design a firm like you design a building. It needed a strong vision and concept and for me, it was creating a legacy firm that focused on employee’s success, built deep competencies, and treated everyone as a leader so that the next generation would be prepared to take the helm when I was ready to release the wheel. This plan included hiring an attorney that was recommended by these top firm principals to write out an ownership document that clearly spelled out what it would legally look like. You may think I was an overachiever but having this knowledge at the beginning of the firm’s evolution created an incredibly focused approach to everything that followed.

Creating an Inclusive Culture that Empowers All

Given my own experiences as a woman making my way in a male-dominated profession, it was important for me not only to grow my own career but to support other women in their journey as I planned for the future of ABA. That's why when I worked on evolving the firm and planning for an eventual leadership transition, I made sure to include all staff in the process. Our firm has averaged about 75% female staffing in our history. We always say, we hire the best and this is just the outcome, but I imagine great female architects are drawn to work for a female-led firm. I know that I created the firm to build a very different culture than I had experienced as a young architect, and as I found my own voice, I made it a priority to nurture a culture that purposely builds the voice and confidence of every staff member. Through this approach, ABA became a women-empowering firm in which women have a strong presence both among leadership and staff, partnering with men who are just as dedicated to everyone’s growth and whose success is equally valued.

Designing our practice was, for me, as much a passion over nearly 40 years as designing our projects. Considering how each individual in the firm added to the ABA’s culture, success, and legacy, developing our staff’s leadership skills was always a priority. If you are planning a transition for your firm or have some leadership transition experiences you would like to share, I encourage you to leave questions and comments below so we can discuss and learn from each other. I would love to hear from you!