Serving up a community benefit

Schmidt Associates, Turner Construction Company employees participate in central Indiana Earth Day clean-up Committed to servant leadership, sustainability, and a desire to serve and save Mother Earth, Schmidt Associates employees traded their drawing software and schematics for gloves and trash bags as they rolled up their sleeves and spent time beautifying Indianapolis parks for Earth […]

Eat Your Frog First

It is true in many of life’s situations, it is often wise to plan for more than you may need. Take pizza for example. You may plan to have five friends join you for dinner, or you may end up having ten friends show up. It’s best to order enough for ten people and have […]

7 Common Traits of Leaders

I was fortunate enough to attend an event recently in which Pat Williams, Senior Vice President of the NBA’s Orlando Magic, keynoted. I’ve listened to a lot of speakers in my career, and I was impressed with Pat. He has researched key leaders through history: Jesus to Mother Theresa to Winston Churchill to George Washington […]

2017 AIA Conference on Architecture

Each year architects from our office attend the National AIA conference. They hear best practices in the industry, network, visits projects, and come back invigorated. Here’s what this years Schmidt Associates attendees took away! Sarah Hempstead, AIA, LEED AP  “Michelle Obama talked about how it is our role as architects to make sure youth are […]

Brighter Today, Better Tomorrow

This time of year—when color, light, and warmth have faded from the natural world—is the perfect time for us to create our own. And we do! We know the antidote to spirits grown worn and weary. If it momentarily escapes us, we soon rediscover it in the eyes of a child or someone in love. […]

A Way that Works

Originally we were an autocracy—just one man establishing an architectural business. That worked awhile. As the business idea became reality and the firm grew, additional human capital was necessary. Each unit of human potential joining our ranks came with hands, mind, and ideas of their own—a good thing since there was much to do and […]

In Search of Self

Services that trace genealogy or determine one’s ethnicity through DNA are just the latest version of mankind’s enduring quest to know self in larger-than-self context. These are exercises in identification—that transformative step beyond relationship. We each sense that we are more than the singularity who stares back from the mirror. So we look here, there, […]

About Turning 40

Turning forty for a business is different than it is for a person. For one thing, there are no teasing implications that “it’s downhill from here”. More the contrary—if a company weathers all the challenges it will encounter over that length of time, it is probably proving itself multi-generational. That takes us into the province […]

Trusting

These past few months while we were considering the five pillars of trust necessary to lead a team of jet pilots through tight aerobatic routines and how those criteria apply to leadership at large, the nation has been having a larger discussion about leadership. Many citizens do value character, commitment, competence, connection, and communication. They […]

Show Me

We are midway through George Dom’s illumination of the Blue Angels’ leadership model gleaned from his experience as C.O. and flight leader in the 1980s. The world’s best aerobatic team operates on a platform of trust built on five core competencies. These are the determinants for all effective leadership. Could asking questions that reveal these […]