Stumbling on Success

We started our firm in a whirlwind of bravado and optimism that our talents and energy would be sufficient to carry us through the first lean months while we got our name out into the world, scaring up commissions and putting cash in the bank. Our future looked bright even while it was murky; we thought we could discern what we couldn’t yet actually see out on the horizon. And while we were never sure if it would make us wealthy (or if that even really mattered), we assumed it would at least make us happy. We knew how to make architecture, but we didn’t really know how to make a business. We figured we’d figure it out—after all, we were smart (we’re architects!), resourceful, and had always wanted to work for ourselves. In a formulation that we’d later use to assess potential employees: Did we want it? Did we get it? And were we capable of doing it? We definitely wanted it. We believed we got it. And we sorta kinda thought we could do it. 

That was in 2007. 

It was in 2008 that our real business education began.

The economic tide that had carried us blithely along until then just as blithely withdrew, leaving us—and pretty much the rest of the world—high, dry, and not a little freaked out. Suddenly all our glorious plans had evaporated, and all our assumptions about the future were called into question. Thrown back on our heels, we were essentially back to square one. After a stunned period of staring off into the distance and Googling, “what to do now,”  we decided that this eerie calm after the storm was our opportunity to begin building a more nimble and resilient foundation upon which we could build a business for the anticipated recovery—and for the inevitable next disaster. Whether or not it was a great opportunity for resetting our business, we were determined to suspend disbelief and act as though it were, to fake it until we made it. Or didn’t.

In the midst of this crisis, and searching for any kind of help we could get, we stumbled upon a book that would become a bible of sorts in our subsequent business planning, and which remains a significant touchstone in our cultural evolution.

Stumbling on Happiness, written by Daniel Gilbert*, a social psychologist at Harvard, is based on the premise that we—each and every one of us—are terrible at predicting what will make us happy. Or satisfied, or comfortable, or anything. As difficult as it already may be to accomplish our dreams, even if we manage to achieve them—especially then—they never have the impact on our lives we imagined they would.

Conversely, all of the nightmares and what-ifs that fuel our pedestrian anxieties never live up to their scary shadows looming over our shoulders. We’re simply terrible at predicting what will make us happy or distressed, satisfied or not.

And if our prediction skills as human beings aren’t something we can count on, then the prospect for any sort of planning is daunting.

The book reads a bit like the first half of a self-help book, convincingly diagnosing the problem, but without the second half to prescribe the answer. Initially this leaves one, well, rather unsatisfied. (Hmm, what did I expect?) But upon reflection, one realizes that that is precisely the point: there is no solution for this situation; we are and always will be terrible at predicting what will make us happy. And while we as humans can’t help ourselves from planning and aspiring to better conditions and alternative futures—even though we’re not great at it—we must continue to do it. We should plan for ourselves and our businesses with the understanding that this process is fundamentally flawed, and find a way to compensate for that.

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. Whether or not we’re dealing with first-rate intelligence here at RoehrSchmitt, we do aspire to first-rate business and project planning. We’ve found the key to doing so successfully lies precisely in this ability to plan in such a way that we believe in our plans even as we acknowledge that they are fictional (for now). 

Our plans function less as a road map with a specific path and more as a plot line charting a direction, allowing for the vagaries of the obstacles and opportunities to come. We do our best to not confuse the map with the terrain: we can see the idealized fiction of the map, but the reality of the terrain is ever changing.

This ability to hold opposing ideas in mind while still functioning is fundamental to design thinking, where we gather a variety of materials and conditions—real and virtual—into a process that seeks to optimize each of these elements with respect to the others.

While planning is necessary, we have to acknowledge that until those plans are fully realized, they are fictional, essential fictions, and even if they lead to a desired result, that result will never have the anticipated or desired impact.

The myriad contradictions and disjunctions of the process constitute the very richness of potential in any design challenge. A successful resolution of these forces will never be coerced, but rather coaxed, conjured, and nurtured into realization. As architects, we naturally identified with Gilbert’s ideas through the lens of design thinking, but have come to embrace them holistically, extending them to the way we organize our business and ultimately, how we approach all our relationships and endeavors. 

This book, stained, scribbled in and dog-eared, has become one of the founding documents of our partnership, and we’ll often, amidst some thorny discussion grappling with the inherent conflicts and contradictions presented to us as architects and business owners, raise a finger and simply say “Stumbling on Happiness!” It’s a mental palette cleanser and gentle reminder of the limitations inherent in our efforts at command and control. When we dispense with our preconceptions and embrace the notion that there’s no way to predict we’ll ever want the future we are striving to create is when we truly empower ourselves to create the future that we may actually want.

*Gilbert, Daniel. Stumbling on Happiness. Vintage Books, 2006.