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Leadership Edge

One Mindset That Will Future-Proof Your Practice

📰 How Woods Bagot’s Ashley Hastings is navigating the current AEC tech landscape, how rhetoric and language have quietly become core technical skills, and how AI is forcing firms to re-examine culture, governance, and the psychological safety needed for transformation.

One Mindset That Will Future-Proof Your Practice

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This newsletter provide key insights for forward-thinking leaders seeking innovation in AEC who are short on time, offering the context of each conversation without the need to listen to the full episode. It’s designed to keep you updated, spark your interest, and encourage you to tune in if the ideas resonate.

What happens to a design practice when curiosity stops being a hobby squeezed in after deadlines, but instead becomes the engine that drives the entire firm forward?

Summary

In episode 212, I sat down with Ashley Hastings, Studio Design Technology Leader at Woods Bagot. During our conversation, I paraphrased something Ashley was describing—the idea that firms should incentivize continuous learning to help innovation happen: "curiosity as a KPI." The phrase stuck with me, and when I went to name the episode, it reemerged. But it needed context. When I recorded the intro, I explained that the phrase carries an intentional contradiction: KPIs are traditionally about measurement and control, which are the very forces that can smother the exploratory spirit we’re trying to cultivate. Ashley and I explored a more nuanced idea: not measuring curiosity, but making space for it, protecting it, rewarding it, and tying it to meaningful outcomes.

We dug into how Woods Bagot is navigating the post-GPT era through “freedom within boundaries,” how rhetoric and language have quietly become core technical skills, and how AI is forcing firms to re-examine culture, governance, and the psychological safety needed for transformation.

What emerged is a clear-eyed look at what modern design technology leadership demands, and how a firm can turn curiosity from an accidental byproduct into a strategic advantage.

Catch the full episode

Key Takeaways

Here are my top takeaways from the podcast episode. Then we'll get into the deeper analysis.

  • Curiosity shouldn’t be micromanaged. It should be made visible and valued. KPIs won’t measure wonder, but systems can reward exploration and protect time for learning and innovation.
  • Revit as a database reframes BIM as an information strategy. Seeing Revit “as a database first” shifts BIM from geometry to consequence and collaboration. Of course this isn’t limited to Revit any longer. Many foundational apps work this way.

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