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Smarter by Design

Smarter by Design

By: Knowledge Architecture
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The Smarter by Design podcast explores how leading architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms are reimagining knowledge management, learning, and AI to build smarter, more adaptive practices. Hosted by Christopher Parsons, Founder and CEO of Knowledge Architecture, the show dives into the real stories behind how firms are scaling expertise, transforming culture, and creating modern learning organizations. At the heart of the show is a simple belief: AEC firms should spend as much time designing their businesses as they do designing buildings, bridges, and infrastructure. The systems we design for capturing, sharing, and distributing knowledge shape everything else we create. Through thoughtful conversations with AEC leaders, knowledge managers, and innovators, we explore how design, leadership, and technology intersect to shape the future of practice. If you’re curious about how AEC firms are learning faster, working smarter, and designing better ways to grow—this is your show.Knowledge Architecture, all rights reserved Art Economics Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Why Every AEC Firm Needs a Leadership and Specialist Pipeline | Kent Jonasen of the Leadership Pipeline Institute

    Why Every AEC Firm Needs a Leadership and Specialist Pipeline | Kent Jonasen of the Leadership Pipeline Institute
    Jun 3 2026
    In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Kent Jonasen, CEO of the Leadership Pipeline Institute and co-author of the third edition of The Leadership Pipeline as well as author of The Specialist Pipeline. Kent has spent decades helping organizations rethink leadership development, succession planning, and the challenge of scaling expertise inside complex companies.His work starts from a deceptively simple premise: leadership is not leadership.Each transition—from leading yourself to leading others, leading leaders, leading functions, and eventually leading an enterprise—is fundamentally a different job that requires different skills, different priorities, and even different values.But this conversation goes far beyond leadership development.Many organizations unintentionally build systems where leadership becomes the only visible path for growth, recognition, and advancement. Specialists—deep technical experts, practitioners, strategists, and problem-solvers—often feel forced toward management roles simply to continue progressing in their careers. Over time, this creates frustration, weak leadership transitions, and the gradual loss of highly valuable expertise.Kent and I explore why organizations need both leadership pipelines and specialist pipelines working together. We discuss:Why leadership transitions so often failThe hidden importance of discovering and aligning with your “work values” in career progressionWhy many specialists feel alienated inside traditional organizationsThe difference between knowledge experts and knowledge leadersHow companies accidentally push people into management roles they never truly wantedWhy specialist career paths need more than just new titlesHow dual leadership and specialist pipelines create healthier long-term organizational designAlong the way, we connect these ideas directly to architecture, engineering, and construction firms, where specialized expertise is often the core engine of competitive advantage. From healthcare planners to sustainability experts to technical design specialists, many AEC firms are wrestling with how to scale expertise, accelerate development, and reduce dependency on a shrinking number of senior experts.If you lead an AEC firm, oversee learning and development, manage technical teams, or are thinking about succession planning and long-term capability building, this episode offers a powerful framework for rethinking how careers evolve inside organizations. More importantly, it raises a deeper question: what if building a stronger company starts not just with developing better leaders, but with designing better systems for developing expertise itself?GuestKen Jonasen, CEO, The Leadership Pipeline InstituteKent is CEO of the Leadership Pipeline Institute. He is author of the book “Specialist Pipeline – how to winning the war for specialist talent” and he is co-author of the 3rd edition of the book “Leadership Pipeline – Developing leaders in the digital age”. Before becoming CEO of Leadership Pipeline Institute, Kent Jonasen was Deputy Head of Group Human Resources in A.P. Moller – Maersk since 2003 up to 2008 responsible for talent management, leadership development, executive development and executive compensation. Previously to his deputy position, Kent was Regional HR Manager for Europe Region from 2000 to 2003. In Maersk Kent led the implementation of a companywide integrated leadership development initiative based on the Leadership Pipeline concept to impact more than 10,000 leaders in more than 100 countries. The project secured reliable executive succession plans and a 90% hit ratio on talents in the executive talent pool. During his time in A.P. Moller - Maersk he was member of the US Conference Board Council on Development, Education and Training. Since founding the Leadership Pipeline Institute Kent has led the implementation of the Leadership Pipeline and Specialist Pipeline concept with regards to development, selection, and assessment in more than 25 different large international organizations. CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsResourcesLeadership Pipeline Book: https://a.co/d/01HXBNCTThe Performance Pipeline: https://a.co/d/0bJgSp0qLeadership Pipeline Institute YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipPipelineInstituteChapters(00:00) Welcome and Episode Intro(02:47) Origins of the Leadership Pipeline(12:12) Development of the Specialist Pipeline(37:36) Why Specialists Leave and How to Keep Them(46:23) The Three Steps Up the Specialist Pipeline(01:11:11) Applying the Pipelines in AEC and Professional Services(01:21:44) Strategic Implementation and Looking Ahead
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    1 hr and 43 mins
  • Leading a Learning Organization: Lessons from Angela Watson | Shepley Bulfinch

    Leading a Learning Organization: Lessons from Angela Watson | Shepley Bulfinch
    May 20 2026
    In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I'm joined by Angela Watson, President and CEO of Shepley Bulfinch, a nationally recognized architecture firm whose work spans healthcare, higher education, and civic design. Angela leads with a conviction she traces back to her time teaching at MIT: that real learning doesn't happen through lecture — it happens through doing, through struggle, and through the kind of exploration that only comes when people are given room to fail safely and try again. That belief didn't stay in the classroom. It became the foundation for how she thinks about leading a firm.Learning by doing is the foundation of how AEC professionals and firms develop. The problem is that great ideas stay trapped in pockets — one team figures something out, another team struggles with the same thing, and the knowledge never travels. Angela saw that dynamic playing out at Shepley Bulfinch as the firm grew into a national practice, work-sharing across five offices with project cycles too long and feedback loops too slow to rely on informal transfer alone. Becoming a learning organization became an operational necessity, but it turned out to be much harder than it looked.The conversation traces the full arc of what that effort has looked like in practice and what Angela has learned leading it. Why it's so hard for subject matter experts to codify and teach what they know. Why the traditional apprenticeship model is breaking down as plates get fuller and mentorship gets crowded out. What Shepley Bulfinch learned from building Birdfeeder, their internal peer-to-peer learning platform — what worked, what was too ambitious, and what the firm is rethinking now. And why the harder problem isn't building a course catalog — it's connecting learning to where someone actually wants to go in their career.The thread running underneath all of it is psychological safety. Angela talks about "Back to the Future," Shepley Bulfinch's reframe on lessons learned — a format designed to celebrate the imperfect and make it safe to share what went wrong. She reflects on what it took for her, as CEO, to model that vulnerability publicly, and why she believes culture is the soil in which any learning organization either takes root or doesn't.If you lead an AEC firm, manage a team, or are thinking seriously about how your organization develops its people, this episode is for you. Angela offers deep insight into what's worked, what hasn't, and what is still to be figured out on Shepley Bulfinch's journey to becoming a learning organization.GuestAngela Watson, FAIA, LEED AP, President and CEO, Shepley BulfinchAngela Watson is the second consecutive female President and CEO in the 152-year history of Shepley Bulfinch, a national architecture and design firm with studios across the United States. She is a strong advocate for communication as the foundation of understanding clients, communities, and stakeholders, and she integrates research and practice to create spaces that positively impact people and their environments. Angela's post-occupancy research and co-authored studies on the impact of light on occupant well-being reflect her dedication to understanding the relationship between space and behavior. Her design process bridges teaching and practice through a collaborative design process that inspires innovation adaptable to a changing world. Beyond Shepley Bulfinch, Angela serves on the University of Arizona’s CAPLA Futures Council and the Texas A&M College of Architecture Dean’s Advisory Board. She also serves on the Board of the Design Futures Council, and as Chair of the Board for Shepley Bulfinch. Born in Germany, she studied at Universität Karlsruhe and earned an MArch from MIT, where she later taught Design.CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsEpisode ResourcesWhy Your New Engineers Look Lost for Six Months: LinkedIn article by Nick HeimAmy Edmondson: A Harvard Business School professor and author whose research on psychological safety demonstrates how creating environments where people feel safe to take interpersonal risks—admitting mistakes, asking questions, and challenging ideas—is foundational to organizational learning and innovation.Desirable Difficulty: Robert Bjork's learning framework showing that challenges that slow initial performance—like spacing practice over time, mixing related concepts together, and retrieving information from memory through testing—produce superior long-term retention and transfer compared to easier, more familiar learning methods.Chapters(0:00:00) Welcome and Guest Introduction(0:02:41) Why Focus on Learning Now(0:04:23) Learning to Teach at MIT(0:08:09) Delegating and Letting Go(0:10:05) Why Pockets of Learning Aren't Enough(0:12:32) Balancing Standardization and Flexibility(0:17:03) National Practice and ...
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    1 hr and 24 mins
  • Designing Learning That Actually
Improves Performance | Clark Quinn of Quinnovation

    Designing Learning That Actually
Improves Performance | Clark Quinn of Quinnovation
    May 6 2026
    In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I’m joined by Clark Quinn, a cognitive scientist who has spent his career translating decades of learning research into practical guidance for organizations. He is the founder of Quinnovation and co-director of the L&D Accelerator. His work is grounded in a simple conviction: most organizations are leaving enormous potential on the table — not for lack of effort or care, but because the science of how people actually learn has rarely made it into the room where learning decisions get made.In most AEC firms, learning and development didn’t start with a formal strategy. It emerged organically. Executives responsible for talent came up through practice. L&D leaders stepped into their roles because they wanted to make their firms better, not because they were trained in the discipline. Subject matter experts shared what they know without ever having been taught how to teach.As a result, most learning organizations in the AEC industry were largely built by accident rather than by design. And in that gap lies a significant opportunity: to create learning that doesn’t just inform, but actually improves capability and performance.That is what this conversation is about.Clark walks us through the science that most accidental L&D leaders never had access to. He explains why training so often stops at information transfer, what it really takes to design for performance rather than content delivery, and what the research says about learning design that actually moves the needle. We explore the shift from content-heavy training to practice-led learning, how to identify the root causes behind critical performance gaps before reaching for a training solution, and how to determine whether learning is even the right intervention.We also step back and look at what a true learning ecosystem requires: not just courses, but performance support, job aids, communities of practice, mentoring, and the cultural conditions where learning compounds over time. Where knowledge is shared openly. Where failure is discussed. And where leadership sets the tone.Finally, we go deep on one of the most important dynamics in any AEC firm: how to effectively work with busy and highly billable subject matter experts by drawing out what they know, pairing them with skilled learning designers, and building a coaching culture that makes expertise transferable at scale.If you lead an AEC firm, build learning programs, or teach others what you know—and you’ve largely been figuring it out as you go—this conversation offers a foundation for doing it smarter. By design.GuestClark Quinn, Executive Director of QuinnovationClark Quinn, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of Quinnovation, learning science advisor to Elevator 9, and Co-Director of the Learning Development Accelerator. With more than four decades of experience at the cutting edge of learning, Dr. Quinn is an internationally known speaker, consultant, and author of seven books. He combines a deep knowledge of cognitive science and broad experience with technology into strategic design solutions that achieve innovative yet practical outcomes for corporations, higher-education, not-for-profit, and government organizations.CreditsHost: Christopher ParsonsExecutive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher ParsonsEditor: Coe HoeksemaTheme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The ParentsResourcesFor a full list of episode references and resources, see:https://www.knowledge-architecture.com/blog/designing-learning-that-actually-improves-performance-clark-quinnChapters(00:00) Introduction(03:26) Clark Quinn's Journey into Learning Science(06:00) The Biggest Surprise About How People Learn(09:21) Why School Is a Bad Model for Organizational Learning(13:41) People Don't Know How to Learn or Teach(17:15) How Effective Self-Directed Learners Operate(22:03) The Performance Ecosystem: Courses, Job Aids, and Community(28:23) Building a Learning Culture(33:50) L&D's Role in Facilitating Innovation(39:51) Accidental vs Intentional Learning Organizations(47:13) Diagnosing Performance Gaps Before Reaching for Training(53:04) Why L&D Still Gets Course Design Wrong(55:10) What Good Course Design Actually Looks Like(01:01:32) What Experts Need in Order to Teach Well(01:08:29) Working Effectively with Subject Matter Experts(01:19:34) Partnering Experts with Learning Designers(01:27:17) Resources for Becoming a Better L&D Professional(01:29:19) The Learning Development Accelerator (LDA)(01:33:05) Bridging the Gap Between Training and the Workplace(01:38:33) Closing and Where to Find Clark Quinn
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    1 hr and 42 mins
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