Читать книгу Designing a World-Class Architecture Firm - Patrick MacLeamy - Страница 43

George Hellmuth, Gyo Obata, and George Kassabaum were different people with different personalities, but they shared a powerful vision of a firm where people treated each other as teammates and helped each other to succeed. They valued harmony. Plenty of rivalry existed outside the firm for projects, but inside, the founders insisted that teamwork was the best way for HOK to compete. To simplify this thought, which would work well at any company, the idea was:

Collaboration inside is the best way to compete outside.

My friend Bill Voelker had described the atmosphere as that of “a big family,” and I came to think of it as HOK culture. People at the firm really did do their utmost to help each other succeed. When I came to HOK, the firm had such a unified culture that everyone shared a common frame of reference. I heard many HOK leaders say, “If you don't fit into the HOK culture, you are going to leave sooner or later, and you might as well leave sooner!”