Three Rooms, One Lesson
Three rooms have been on my mind, and one thread keeps pulling at me.
- A panel conversation about the boundaries of belonging.
- Studio and critique, the foundation of my architectural education.
- A QBR presented to a CEO and executive team.
In the first room, four people sat on stage with vastly different religious and political views, and still shared a commitment to dialogue, respect, and understanding. The audience was curious and eager with questions. But the conversation never fully formed. You could feel the unrealized potential: the speakers in conversation, and the audience’s questions that never made it to the stage. Instead, the moderator kept returning to his own commentary. The mic stayed with him, rather than being used to draw the speakers into each other. The only consensus at the end was disappointment in the moderation, discussed openly as everyone filed out.
For 10 semesters, studio was my second home and the foundation of my education. Critique was where you presented your work to a wider audience so your design ideas could be pressure tested. The good critiques have energy. Critics disagree among themselves. They defend you while also pushing you to go further. The work is alive. The not so good critiques are quiet and neutral. You leave with less pressure, less progress, and less excitement. My final critique presenting my M.Arch thesis got the good kind, so much so that at graduation the program director leaned in as he handed me my diploma and told me how much he loved it, signaling he was still thinking about my project.
Thankfully, the quiet ones, we all forgot.
The QBR was held in a virtual room, PowerPoint on screen, senior leaders on the line. Everyone could read the numbers, and everyone could tell where the story was beginning to drift into explanation. The presenter kept moving forward anyway, as if the job was to get through the deck. Cameras went off, and the people who could have helped were disengaged. Afterward I asked: what would it look like to use the people more, and the deck less.
All three are highlighting the same conclusion: the value of a room with a foundation of trust is not just the intelligence of its people. It is whether the person leading the conversation invites curiosity and draws the best out of the people in the room.
Without that, a panel becomes a monologue, a critique defaults to silence, a QBR becomes a deck you get through, and in all scenarios learning opportunities are squandered.
This week I’m asking where I’m leading with inquiry, and where conviction has quietly turned into a verdict.
