The Importance of Embracing Community with Heather Dubbeldam

Heather Dubbeldam:

As a business owner, I feel like you need to be true to what you believe in. You start building a reputation and then more people hear about it. And then it’s kind of a word of mouth. And then when you’re actually in the situation, you’re working for people, talk about the things that are important to you. And if you do have a good relationship, I think for the most part they do take your advice.

Mathieu Yuill:

Good day and welcome to the Leading With Nice interview series. My name is Mathieu Yuill from Leading With Nice. And we want to help you inspire others, build loyalty and get results. So lately we have been thinking a lot in our organization about what it looks like to think and move laterally, not in terms of career positions, but for example, if you listen regularly or you follow us on YouTube, we recently spoke about engaging people in your workplace with their hobbies. Because often when you’re looking to get unstuck or come up with a new idea, it’s all this stuff that we know that we don’t really know is useful until we share it, that people realize, “Oh, you have that skill or you have this learning or that knowledge can be applied this way.” And so it was with that in mind that I really… I was excited to have today’s guest on. Heather Dubbeldam is an architect here in Toronto, Canada.

Mathieu Yuill:

And I’ve known Heather actually for a long time through some family connection and blah, blah, blah. But what I’ve always thought is really cool about her is she explores a lot of arena. So we’re going to talk about that today because I want to get some learning from that. But if you are not familiar, we’ll link Heather’s website in the description. Some of the work her and her firm does is next level and a proof of that through all the awards they’ve won. So don’t take my word for it. In fact, if you want to pause now and check it out and open up the browser in a different window, go ahead and do that. But otherwise, Heather, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming.

Heather Dubbeldam:

Thanks Mathieu. I’m really excited to be here.

Mathieu Yuill:

As I said, if you follow Leading With Nice, you know we are huge advocates for encouraging your employees and reports in their hobbies, learning new skills and have something new that they’re learning. We believe it brings a richness and fullness to one’s work that inspires in new ways. Now, Heather, you have actually lived out this practice, because in addition to your work as an architect, you’ve pursued photography, graphic design, furniture design, and art. And I actually remember once when my wife and I were newly married, we were living downtown and you had a show, an art show in Yorkville here in Toronto. And I would just love to hear how this has enriched the work you do today. And what value do you feel it’s brought?

Heather Dubbeldam:

Well, there are really obvious things like just being able to get away from work for inspiration. You always need a mental break, but in my case, I’m a very creative person. So architecture is very technical and very creative. It’s sort of this kind of left brain, right brain thing where we’re constantly moving back and forth, problem-solving and then designing and doing technical drawings. And so for me, all of the I guess extracurricular activities that I used to do, now it’s all melded into one because I have my own practice. But when I was an employee ages ago and I was doing all those things like photography and art and graphic design, it was another kind of creative outlet for me. And actually in my case, architecture is such a long drawn out process.

Heather Dubbeldam:

It takes so long to kind of design and detail building and for construction to happen. And so sometimes it’s a few years. And then the other creative areas I had were a complete counterpoint to that. So graphic design and designing quick things like business cards and logos, that was just very media tour photography. And you take a picture you develop and then it’s done. Something start and finish, not something that takes years to create. So that was part of it for me, but also it was just seeing things through a different lens and like literally, when it comes to photography. It affected the way that I see the world around me through the lens and through and building. So I started doing architectural photography too. So now when I’m getting my projects photographed, when they’re finished, I always hire architectural photographers.

Heather Dubbeldam:

I don’t do the photography side anymore. But I already know the best way to kind of capture the best parts of the building or showcase some of the ideas, the design ideas that we were working with. And then other than myself being an employer now and just to sort of respond to the third part of your question about encouraging employees, most of employees have that’s some side interest or in some cases, a side gig, one of them is actually an architectural photographer. And so he’ll on weekends, he goes and photographs other buildings. And for other people actually, for other firms. Another one is this amazing illustrator and he’s always drawing these incredibly complicated, beautiful drawings, and he’s very passionate about it. And then other people in the office have different interests that are either partially creatives or sports related, but it just brings something different to your work, in our case it’s creative work.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So for the ideas and inspiration, and when we were able to travel and hopefully we’ll be able to again soon, be able to see what people do in different cultures and bringing all of those fresh ideas and that inspiration back into your work. Otherwise, you just start doing the same thing over and over again. You always need that inspiration. So we really encourage people to be doing things outside of, after hours obviously. But to be bringing that inspiration back into their work and their daily lives.

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah. I love that idea that brings a freshness. I’m not a talented graphic designer at all, but I know how to use Illustrator and Photoshop, which is a dangerous thing, but I love diving into typography and fonts and really breaking down how they work together and how that helps me. How does that help a dude who does leadership and team development now. But what it helps me is when I’m working… If I have to work with an art department, I can at least speak their language. That’s how I find it helps me. Do you do anything like are your employees, do you encourage them officially through any policies or anything, do they get time off to explore? Do they have benefits that help them with that?

Heather Dubbeldam:

I’m encouraging them more on the professional side, in professional development. There’s a number of different accreditation’s that are in line with our company values of sustainability and advocacy and innovation. And so I’ve been kind of pushing a little bit to try and encourage them to get their Lead Accreditation.

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah. Lead course.

Heather Dubbeldam:

Yeah. Lead, it’s a leadership and energy environmental design. And it’s just something that at this point in our careers should be just a given that everybody has their Lead Accreditation. It’s actually the kind of basis for any kind of leadership in environmental design, but now there’s so many other different accreditations. So I basically said, “Okay, anyone who wants to do this, I will cover the costs of the exam and the course material. And you have to. There’s nothing that you can really do in your spare time right now so go [inaudible 00:07:56].” As more on the professional development side. One of my employees is very interested in project management. So she’s taking a project management course right now. People already have, like I said, we’re really creative people. So people already have a kind of creative passions that they do on their own. So as the employer, I’m more kind of focusing on professional development, which that has a benefit to them, their careers, and of course, to us in our working methods and efficiencies and all those things.

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah. We did some research for a client and we shared some of the data we learned and for millennials and gen Z, especially intentional professional development opportunities is a huge, almost more equal to their salary. So fabulous. When I hear you talk about all of this and the things that you do personally, and how you encourage your employees from where I see it, I see it as a lead indicator that you are someone who is curious and it’s really the heart of a hungry learner that I hear. So you may not see it that way, but here’s what I mean by that. Recently in the past few years, you toured Denmark, Sweden, and Norway in an effort to learn about the innovative techniques they’re using in architecture to increase sustainability.

Mathieu Yuill:

And you can tell us what kind of led you up to go into that trip was part an award. But what you learned, it’s actually much more than just like engineered solution. I watched a talk you gave at a library, I think Kitchener–Waterloo, where you spoke with the community and public policy playing a role. And to you tell us about how you got there, what you did, why you went on this trip. And then also I’d love to hear more about what was the learning outcome of that?

Heather Dubbeldam:

Okay. Yeah, that was actually really amazing chapter in our lives, in our careers. And I say our, because my team and my staff were involved with this project, every step along the way. We were awarded the professional creator role in architecture, which is a national prize. There’s one given out per year and it’s a real, it’s quite an honor to receive this award. It’s also a cash prize to support research that an architecture firm is doing. And it’s usually travel research, field research. So in architecture, you can’t just look at pictures of buildings, you really need to experience them. And the best of what, the result of those buildings in terms of space and light and movement and circulation, and all those different elements. And so historically architects always go on trips to explore architecture. We did that when we were in architecture school as well, actually did a four month term in Rome.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So winning the Praetor Rome was this amazing honor, and our whole thesis was about exploring sustainable architecture in Scandinavian countries and how for them it’s not just a technical pursuit. It is completely seamless with the design. And we wanted to understand how to bring those lessons back to Canada and inspire people here because in north America, up until recently, sustainable design was looked at as an add on. It was completely technical, what kind of great energy saving systems do you have and how do your windows work and all that kind of thing. Really technical stuff that you would apply after the building was designed, but in Scandinavia and Denmark kind of being the root of all of this learning, it’s not technical at all.

Heather Dubbeldam:

It’s just the way you approach the building, how you site it, how you orient the building in terms of where the windows face, how everything can vent naturally, using natural ventilation through windows. All the systems that you would integrate, all different ways to kind of not just save energy, but help people stay comfortable. And I guess they’re in Scandinavia and in a lot of parts of Europe, their tolerance for temperature variation is much higher than ours. So in the winter when it’s cold, they just wear more layers and they put on sweater, they don’t crank the heat up to 25 and wear a T-shirt when inside. And when the summer, when it’s really hot, they don’t crank the air conditioning down to 20 and then everybody else is absolutely freezing. They open up the windows. And so anyway, they have a higher tolerance.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So we went, our intention was to explore environmental sustainability. And we had interviews with architecture firms. They gave us tours of their buildings. We met with green building organizations. We did these amazing tours. We went on to three different countries. I took my staff, like half my staff each time. And it was interesting, what we were there to learn, we learned. But then we found out that sustainability in Scandinavia is much more than environmental sustainability. They’re much more interested in the social sustainability side of things, which is even more all encompassing. So everything, it’s things like quality of life and wellness, like healthy communities, livable communities, people who can age in place or communities and buildings that are accessible to everyone. And I mean physically accessible. And I also mean intellectually accessible in terms of citizen engagement.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So the citizens are engaged in decision-making around communities and around public buildings. So that makes them accessible to everybody. Creating spaces, whether they’re inner spaces or outdoor spaces for people to really flourish. Cultural and social sustainability. It’s a hard concept for us, I think in north America to understand because for us, we’re always looking at things in a very black and white kind of way. And I think that this quality of life idea is much more intangible. And so I kind of went on this major lecture series. I keep getting invited to speak about our research. And I always talk about the environmental sustainability because people are right now very interested in it, in north America and Canada. But then I also try and introduce the kind of social sustainability that everyone’s starting to… Just start to be more interested in that, like wellness.

Heather Dubbeldam:

And there’s a whole, we were talking about Lead and accreditations. So there’s one called WELL which has to do with wellness in architecture and design. And that’s becoming more prevalent. I’m actually in the process of getting my WELL Accreditation, which is a little bit more complicated than I thought. I thought wellness was a little bit more straight forward, but it’s pretty [inaudible 00:14:32] to in terms of healthy buildings, but just kind of exploring different ways of thinking there and how the level of innovation there is so high. You asked about public policy. This just doesn’t come from people who say, “Oh, I want to make a difference.” There are people like that there, but it comes to public policy. So the government started in the ’70s after the… There was two oil crises in the ’70s, realized like we have a problem.

Heather Dubbeldam:

We don’t have our own oil, we are totally reliant on other peoples oil, we need to be independent of fossil fuels. So they started that process. They developed public policy in the ’80s. They have been completely unwavering from that goal. The goal was to be, I think they defined an actual date a bit later on, but the goal was to become independent of fossil fuels in everything, in a heating systems, in electricity generation and transportation, public transportation, cars, everything. And so their goal is 2050. They are more than a third of the way there already. The pace of innovation technology is just so high. They are about 30 years ahead of us in Canada in terms of the systems they use, the approaches and it isn’t just windmills and solar.

Mathieu Yuill:

So when you say 30 years ahead, what does that actually look like? Give me… What does that mean?

Heather Dubbeldam:

Well, part of that is public policy and people’s appetite for it here in Canada. The appetite there, all the citizens completely bought. Everyone we talked to, not just architects, everyone we talked to, they buy into it. They’re proud of their country’s commitment to this. They live their lives that way. They don’t waste. They don’t waste energy, they don’t waste things, materials, raw materials. And also in terms of the technology side of things. So Denmark is considered to be a leader in exporting their services in environmental sustainability, whether it’s products like windmills, something that’s simple. They’re really big in bio gas. They export a lot of bio gas technology, which is using the gas from waste products to either power engines or machines or to heat that can be used for fuel. So they basically are burning or decomposing waste materials and turning it into energy sources.

Heather Dubbeldam:

It sounds so simple, but we don’t actually do here. There’s very few biomass plants in Canada. I actually tried to do some research because I figured I’m doing all these talks all over the country. Someone’s going to say, “Well, what about in Canada?” No one actually has asked me that yet. Thank goodness. But that’s probably because in all my talks, I actually, wherever I go, last year or not last year, we lost a year. In 2019, I was in New Brunswick and another occasion in PEI. So I did some research, “What’s going on at Brunswick? What’s going on in PEI? What are they using?” PEI was actually the first province in Canada to adopt recycling, to be using wind energy. What else? They were the first province to ban the single use plastic bag. There were a whole bunch of firsts when it comes sustainability and reduction in waste.

Heather Dubbeldam:

But I guess back to Scandinavia, partially it’s the government who makes the rules and stands by them, then secondly, it’s the public who buy into that and are living that. And then thirdly, it’s in business in terms of them exporting their services to develop a lot of technologies, systems and products related to green technologies that then they sell around the world and consulting like services. They’re known as a leader in consulting. So it’s kind of everything. And it’s, I don’t even know how, I don’t really want to be pessimistic. I apologize, but I don’t know how we would get there.

Heather Dubbeldam:

We grew up differently. The whole country, not just, you and I and how we grew up. And I think our kids, the age of our kids who are young and teenagers, they’re the ones who are really going to make this change, but our whole country is just based on a different model. So I’ve been trying to figure out ways of bringing all these lessons back to Canada, not just telling people about it, but how providing solutions or options, how do we actually make a difference? How do we make a change?

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah, that’s a whole, I’m sure that’s a whole different episode. All the differences between how we think and behave in north America compared to different parts of Europe. One piece that I kept hearing over and over again is, I call it well, I didn’t make this up, but co-ownership. When you talked about accessibility and intellectual accessibility, to me that means that people have been asked to contribute to a solution and their voice is actually heard and used.

Mathieu Yuill:

And that is so much stronger than simply, buy in where people are… They’re told a plan and asked to get excited about it. If you co-create and co-own something, it’s so much more powerful. And I think you’re right, like our… So we have kids that are in the same kind of age bracket and they are much more tuned to letting other people’s voices that may have been marginalized in the past where you and I wouldn’t have even had the chance to hear them now our kids actually seek those voices out and want to hear them and want to get their opinions.

Heather Dubbeldam:

And they also, they’re always giving us a hard time. Don’t leave the tap running when you’re brushing your teeth. That’s like small things and stop wasting. And why do we need to buy that? And can’t we reuse this? And I think that’s great. I’m of that mindset already, but just having someone else challenging me when I’m slipping. Right?

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah.

Heather Dubbeldam:

And actually, you and I were talking earlier, and you were asking me about how we could help our clients along these lines. So just kind of tap into that side of things as well, in terms of pushing the envelope on sustainability. I think that based on our reputation, and I think we don’t talk about it enough on our website, but I think some people know about it and when we’re published, like every now and then we have an article in the global mail or something, and we talk about these things. So people read it. So clients who are approaching us, they’re already looking for something sustainable and for number of different reasons, sometimes it’s for social good, other times, it’s for kind of long-term thinking about like the life cycle costs of a building, whether it’s a new house or an office building or whatever it is, and some affordable housing and those kinds of projects.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So they already come to us. But if they don’t, if clients aren’t specifically saying, “I want my house, I want this very green building.” We always talk about it. We always say, “You can do this.” And we automatically look at systems that are lower in energy use, but it’s more about designing ways for people to use natural ventilation, daylighting, when you have a building that’s a square for example, you have a whole bunch of areas on the inside that aren’t close enough to a window. So you have to turn on artificial lighting. If you design a building, that’s a rectangle, you have windows either end it’s a little bit better. If you design a building that has a courtyard in the center as a light well, then that’s even better.

Heather Dubbeldam:

One of the requirements in the WELL standard, and actually it’s being brought into the kind of more recent versions of Lead is a certain natural light level of a certain percentage within a certain distance of a window. So you have to calculate the window size and the exposure is it North, East, South or West or some combination of that. And how far… What’s the percentage of natural lighting as you get in further into the center of the building. So those are standards that they employ in Scandinavia but for us here, we could just do that as a matter of course, like introducing skylights in the center, like over a stairwell that brings light in.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So there’s all these different things that you can just design in without telling your clients necessarily. I think they appreciate it, but it just becomes the way we approach things. But then we talk a lot about, long-term thinking also, again the example of a house, but any other buildings, this is something that people obviously think about. With residential it’s kind of a different conversation, but what are the total costs of your project over the life of the building or the period of time you’re going to live in there?

Heather Dubbeldam:

Is this a five-year project for you or is this a 25 year project? Most people who are building custom home or renovating their home, they’re looking at 20 to 25 years. So don’t just think about the first costs. We’re talking about first cost versus life cycle costs. First costs are how much do you spend to put in your HVAC system or your lights or whatever, the costs that you spend for construction versus lifecycle costs. What is the cost to operate and maintain all of these things and the energy costs.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So if you look at the payback period of some of these sustainable systems like rating and floor heating, solar, geothermal, and some of them, the payback is few years. Some of them it’s 15 years, think it’s going to vary depending on the system and how you’re applying it. Then you start thinking, “Okay, well, if after seven years I’m basically getting free energy, then I’m willing to spend another 10% or 20% right now.” So you start looking at these kind of much bigger picture, longer term approaches to cost. That’s how you sell it because in north America, we’re very cost driven. Not everybody is thinking about the greater good and the planet. So then you sell it on life cycle cost basis.

Mathieu Yuill:

I want to dive a bit deeper into the the leading clients in a moment because that… You were headed right down there, but I wanted before we get there, because I want to end with that discussion. Part of the motivation behind this question I wanted to ask was when I read some of the articles that’s been written about you and some of the talks that I watched on YouTube and online and different websites, as I was trying to make it relevant, understandable the idea behind this whole community of both public policy and citizenship and corporations, all on the same kind of wavelength.

Mathieu Yuill:

What I dumbed it down to is the first thing we need to do in north America is just build greater community. And you live that out. I’ve seen you live that out right here in Toronto, through the building you acquired to house your office. It also has two great hallmarks of community building literally a coffee shop in a shared workspace. I think people already know why this is important to you, but I remember reading that you went through many potential suitors for those spaces, but you landed on these two. So why was it important to you that you found the right partners to be in your building?

Heather Dubbeldam:

It’s so funny because I was just thinking, “I’m going to have to tell Mathieu the story of how we turned down so many potential tenants.” And I kept saying to Kevin my partner, my husband and partner, “Are we crazy? Hey, let’s just step back for a second. Are we being crazy?” My dad kept saying, “You have to get a doctor like a medical office or a dentist in there. Stop being so picky. Those are great tenants.” I’m like, “No dad, we want this to be community. We want this to be a community based space.” So just to kind of back up and tell you briefly the kind of broader story, at least for your listeners, we were looking for… We outgrew our office space downtown. We were in this amazing art community, the 401 Richmond Building. And for people like [inaudible 00:26:31], I’m sure you know the building. It’s absolutely amazing. Mini studio in there and we outgrew it. And we were just bursting at the seems, where people literally had their workspace in the boardroom.

Heather Dubbeldam:

And so Kevin and I were looking to purchase something small for our office and maybe have something else interesting in that space. And we could not find anything that was affordable. We couldn’t make the numbers work in terms of, you occupy some of the space and then you have to rent another part of space just to cover the mortgage and all those things. The proformas they call it. And so we really looked for about five years and then we just gave up and then I said, “Okay, we have to rent something. I don’t really want to do this, but let’s just do it.” And I jumped on realtor.ca and then found this building in our neighborhood, sort of in our neighborhood, west of our neighborhood that ended up being for sale. I’m like, “Oh, I’ll notify my agent to send this to me. I guess she’s given up on us too.”

Heather Dubbeldam:

It was a long time. We live just off of St. Claire and I wanted to be able to walk to work. That was going to be a big thing for me, lifestyle, sustainability, but mostly lifestyle, just be able to walk to work. And we went and looked at it and was this really run down corner building. Rundown as in literally holes through the floors and like not… There was only two tenants in this sort of fairly large building. And we’re like, “Oh my God, this is too big. But with the number of spaces we have in here, we can make the proforma work.” So we purchased the building, ended up getting into a bit of a bidding war, unfortunately, but this is just before the market completely went insane.

Heather Dubbeldam:

And I think we absolutely scored in terms of timing, but being on a corner, it has windows along the side, like the front, the back and the side, so much natural light. This is such an amazing opportunity. And Kevin and I had a dream about putting a coworking space in the building and developing this kind of creative community. And this wasn’t our original intent, but this dream kind of started evolving. So we took over the third floor for the architecture practice.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So we have our studio up here. I’m sitting here right now in the boardroom and we converted the second floor to a coworking space for creatives. Now we have all different kinds of people in there. Most of them are creative, but not all of them, but it’s a creative community. So we run this space. Kevin runs it. Right now it’s a little empty because of COVID. Pre COVID it was like a really amazing dynamic space and was something that we were interested in that kind of building a community like the building we were in downtown, this creative community in 401 Richmond, not on a smaller scale, obviously.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So then the last piece of the puzzle was the tenants on the main floor on the ground floor. And there’s a storefront facing St. Claire. And then because it’s on a corner, there’s actually a storefront on the side. And so one of the critical things was a coffee shop. Like you refuel. And it’s definitely a public space, a community space. People hang out in coffee shops inside, outside. We wanted to make sure it had like some outdoor space. And ironically, we were renting, subletting, a temporary space on St. Claire because we moved from downtown and our building wasn’t ready yet. So we’re renting this space on St. Claire, a few blocks away from the building.

Heather Dubbeldam:

And somebody walked in the door one day was at street level and said, “Hey, do you guys know? Are you staying here? Are you renovating?” No it’s owned by Boom. And he’s like, “I’m looking for a space for a coffee shop.” We are like, “You are kidding me, we’re looking for a coffee shop owner for our space.” And he was Dutch and I have Dutch background and like, there’s so much synergy here. So it was the owner of Wallace Espresso. So we were so excited, they ended up taking the space. They’re in the kind of side street side of things. They’ve developed this wonderful little shop and there’s like this people in there all the time. And then the last piece was the front retail space. And I really wanted it to be like a little kind of cafe, not coffee, but like little soup and sandwich salad place.

Heather Dubbeldam:

People, parents with their kids come in during the day. And it’s like a little community hub and we were trying so hard and at one point we were even considering opening that ourselves, I’m like, “Are we insane, we can’t open up a little restaurant. We’re running too many other businesses right now.” So we got approached by a lot of different types of potential tenants, like convenience stores, and eye wear, which actually was slightly interesting to us, flower shop, we are like, “Oh, flower shop very kind of cool.” Tons and tons of different types like physiotherapy and dental. And there’s a lot of those kinds of personal services along St. Claire, real estate agency. Tons of weed shops, tons of hair salons, tattoo parlors, all these things. And each one of them, we were just like, “No, we want it to be more community based.”

Heather Dubbeldam:

And so we really held out for a long time, which was extremely painful, but in the end we decided to list it on the real estate website, realtor.ca. And ironically, somebody just approached us in the street who lives in the neighborhood who runs a marketing agency. And he works for all the BIAs, the business improvement agencies. So it’s actually not a public space in that the public goes in and out, but they serve the public and they work for the BIA. And they’ve been interviewing a lot of the kind of preCOVID, all the business owners along St. Claire. And so it ended up being that portion of community, serving the community, I guess. So it’s real mixed, when they say mixed use, it’s really mixed use, residential and commercial and hospitality. And that us, I guess we’re on the commercial side. Well that’s the story.

Mathieu Yuill:

I love it.

Heather Dubbeldam:

Trying to kind of make it more community. And then also to through the design, we really feel that design has the potential to catalyze transformation. So we just kind of fun and playful with the elevation, which I guess people could check out on our website and it has raised a lot of eyebrows. And we did kind of this fun thing with paint. And it seems to have had an impact, not just us, but the whole neighborhood was a little up and coming. It was a bit of a turning point. So we’re starting to see that change just before COVID, we’ll see what happens afterwards. So I think it did, just improving this one corner, we’ve had a lot of positive input from neighbors who kind of walk by and stop us and say, “Hey, are you the owners of the building? Oh, we love what you’ve done. You’ve really improved the neighborhood.” And so it’s just one of those like positive, feel good kind of situations.

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah. I think, I love my dentist, Dr. [Caskey 00:33:24], if you’ve ever heard me, if you’ve been in one of my workshops or talks about empathy. He’s the dentist who I tell the story about working in the ER room and blah, blah, blah. But he and pretty much every other dentist I know, they frost their windows. And I always find that, although it lets some natural light on the inside from the outside, it looks kind of shut down or closed. And so I’ve walked by, actually before we started recording, there’s a restaurant just a few doors down from you that my friends and I go to often, and I just love that it looks open, it looks like there’s activity there and it’s inviting. So I think you made a very wise decision. So before it gets to the last… The thing I want to talk about, we kind of got into it.

Mathieu Yuill:

I think there’s some great, actionable advice that I’d like to draw out of you. And so, as an architect, you’re always having to bridge the gap between encourage your clients to push the envelope with sustainability, but also you must ultimately deliver what they’ve hired you to do. And that can be really hard. It’s like when I’m talking to my clients about gratitude and some of the things that I suggest they do and they’re like, “That’s crazy talk. This is not a social club.” And I’m like, “No, it doesn’t make it a… Anyway regardless.” I have the same problem in my business. So this can be hard. So what are a few tips you might have for another business owner that’s trying to manage this polarity of trying to lead a client, but also deliver what they’re looking for.

Heather Dubbeldam:

There’s a few different ways you could approach that. We work with clients that we have synergy with. So we couldn’t work with a client that doesn’t value the things that we value. That’s the beginning, of any relationship, because this may sound really strange, but when you’re doing something like architecture, which is incredibly creative and also very personal, whether you’re designing someone’s home or the place they work or a building that’s more public, regardless of what it is, we’ve done so many different types of projects. We’re really kind of putting our heart and soul in it. And if our client doesn’t believe in the things that we believe in then it’s hard for us to do that. It’s not just a business. We don’t just do it to make money, when you’re creative people.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So that’s the first step is that, as a business owner, I feel like you need to be true to what you believe in that if you are, that you will attract the right kind of clients. And then when you do, you’re building this kind of momentum and whether you’re producing something like it’s a product or, graphic design, or in my case, buildings, you start building a reputation and then more people hear about it. And then it’s kind of word of mouth and not in terms of us coming, not them come to us to ours, but more like realizing, reading about it and realizing this is important to me too.

Heather Dubbeldam:

So that would be part of it. It’s just kind of staying true to your beliefs. Then when you’re actually in the situation you’re working for people, I think you just kind of keep pushing away and talk about the things that are important to you. And if you do have a good relationship they value your expertise and your professional advice. And hopefully they listen. Now we can’t force everything we believe on our clients. But I think for the most part, if you develop that kind of relationship, they do take your advice. Does that answer the question?

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah, no, totally. So like, if I were to do a click baity blog title, it would be, “These three steps to lead your clients.” And the first would be to be true to yourself. So if you believe it, dig, dive into it. And I totally believe in that. There’s a woman, Sandy de Felice that when I was naming my company, I needed something totally different. And she’s like, Mathieu, Leading with Nice. It’s what you’re about doing. And I’m so grateful for her because what it’s done is clients who think it’s stupid. They don’t work with me. And the ones that buy into it, they really get a lot out of working with our organization. So it is just, it was a blessing that advice.

Heather Dubbeldam:

And it’s catchy and people are intrigued. What does that mean exactly? And so they’re going to look into it and it’s a great name, but it’s a great premise. It’s not just the name of your company. It’s the view you’re doing what you believe in. Right?

Mathieu Yuill:

Yeah. And the second thing I heard you say was always be having the conversation. I remember when I once went to a real estate conference, like back in the ’90s and the guy said, “Make every conversation about real estate.” That would suck. Every conversation about one thing. But you said that, always be talking about it. And three was when you’ve developed the trust, ask the questions. So those are three steps, one dig into what you believe in. Two, always be talking about it. And three, when you develop trust, start the conversation. I think anybody can do that with their thing. Those are great pieces of advice. So by now, people who have heard you are like, “I want more of this.” So where can they go to learn more about you and your firm?

Heather Dubbeldam:

Well, our firm website is dubbeldam.ca D-U-B-B-E-L-D-A-M.ca. We also have a blog that we created when we were traveling and we post whenever we an interesting story on sustainable design in Scandinavia. And that is thenextgreen.ca, green is in color. Yeah, the next green with the in there. www.thenextgreen.ca. And then if anyone’s interested in our creative coworking space, it’s lokaal, which is Dutch for local, L-O-K-A-A-L.space. Check that out if you’re interested. So lots of places to go.

Mathieu Yuill:

Cool beans. Well listen, there’s a handful of people that make this podcast possible. I’d love to thank them every time. Carrie Cotton is our account manager. And normally, I didn’t get one notification that from her. So maybe she knew, she looked into college and then she was like, “I’m not going to send him a note at this time.” But Carrie, while I’m doing these podcasts, she’s running the show. So I appreciate it. Naomi Grossman is our EA and she helped prepare these questions, helps me do some research. Cindy Craig books all our guests, she makes the time happen, make sure, everybody knows what website to show up at. Sam Forsen, he’s going to take this podcast and make all the graphics that we need for iTunes and for posting on social. Jamie Hunter, he’s our content manager, if you know about this podcast, you probably know about it because Jamie did a great job of writing the blog, getting the podcast uploaded and promoted it.

Mathieu Yuill:

Austin Pomeroy is our audio technician, audio producer. He cuts out all the ums and ahs and gives me more bass and resonance. So thank you for that. Maybe a little bit of reverb right now, Austin, try that out. And I’m going to thank Kevin Macintosh, Heather’s partner because of him. He is your biggest fan, your biggest promoter. He is always pumping you up online and I get to sit in my home and cheer you on thanks to his great advocacy for the work you both do together. So thank you Kevin, for that. I really [inaudible 00:40:44] you did.

Heather Dubbeldam:

Yeah. Thank you, Kevin.

Mathieu Yuill:

All right. So for more on this, visit leadingwithnice.com. Heather, thank you so much for joining us today.

Heather Dubbeldam:

Thanks for having me. That was great.