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Measure
of Success
Sometimes, the secret
to professional success is as simple as making
a list.
 Tony
Waller, IIDA, did not arrive at his current position,
Chief Administrative Officer for the Chief Architect
of the Federal Government’s General Services
Administration (GSA), by chance. Since age 23,
when he was inspired to document his life’s
ambitions on a piece of notebook paper, his career
path has been guided by one extremely detailed
laundry list.
Top on the list: Land an
internship at the John F. Kennedy Center for the
Performing Arts. Check — Waller was the first
student from the U.S. Northwest to win the coveted
spot.
Next up: Earn a graduate
degree. Check — He graduated from American
University with a Master of Public Administration.
Also on the list: Buy a
big house, work in an international capacity and
donate scholarships to his undergraduate alma
mater, Montana State. Check, check, double check
— At age 48, Waller today is working toward
a collaboration with the Japanese Ministry of
Construction, lives in a “mammoth house”
and not only has awarded scholarships to his Montana
State, but even has one of the university’s
galleries named after him. “I am one of the
few people I know who has a game plan,” he
says.
Indeed, Waller shares elite
company. Lewis J. Goetz, FIIDA, FAIA, Principal
of Washington, D.C.’s world-renowned Group
Goetz Architects, knew from an early age that
he wanted to be an architect. “I set a goal
to have my own firm by the time I was 35,”
Goetz says. “I had the firm before I turned
38.” Past Presidents of the IIDA Foundation
and IIDA respectively, Waller and Goetz have most
felt their uniqueness around students.
“Sometimes, students will come into my office
and say, ‘How do I get your job?’”
Waller says. “What they don’t realize
is that it took 24 years of experience and careful
planning to get to this point.”
That 24-year ladder began
with a stint as a draftsperson, topped by a move
to a junior designer position, then Designer,
Senior Designer, Project Manager, National Spokesperson
for Space Planning and Interior Design, a brief
career in real estate, followed by a gig as National
Program Manager for Accessibility, Deputy Director
for the GSA Centers of Expertise and finally his
current position. Each rung was climbed with purpose
and foresight.
If purpose and foresight
are the catalysts to success, it’s a wonder
more people don’t put it into practice. “I
think that many people don’t understand that
you can’t just automatically get there,”
Waller says. “You have to have to have an
incremental plan, and sometimes that incremental
plan takes a long time. Success is far more work
than failure; it’s painful. I don’t
think most people are willing to pay the price.”
WHAT’S YOUR PLAN?
For those who are willing to pay the price, there
are several road maps that guide from point ‘A’
to point ‘B.’ While Waller prefers lists,
others take a more scientific approach. James
Howell, an Associate Professor and Advisor at
the University of Cincinnati’s highly esteemed
Cooperative Education program, teaches a prep
course called “Introduction to Cooperative
Education,” which focuses squarely on career
planning and development. Howell’s classroom
model is structured like a circle. At the top
of the circle is Self Assessment, an exercise
in identifying a person’s needs, strengths
and passions. After Self Assessment comes Career
Exploration, which delves into the more tangible
exercises of meeting with various companies, conducting
research and narrowing down geographic destinations.
Completing the circle is Placement, a stage that
weaves interviewing with portfolio and resume
development.
If there is one ‘eureka’
realization to Howell’s planning model, it
is in its crystallization of what most careers
lack: a truly defined target. Lifelong learners
can’t reach and succeed at point ‘B’
if they don’t know precisely what point ‘B’
is. “Students tend to be naive when I first
get them,” Howell says. “Many of them
have misconceptions of what interior design is
really like.”
Waller agrees: “If
you don’t know where you’re going, you’re
never going to know that you’ve arrived.”
PLAN AHEAD
Once designers know where to go, they can start
plotting their way. Waller often relies on Stephen
Covey’s best seller, Seven Habits of Highly
Successful People, to guide him through the
plotting part of the process. “Covey makes
it very clear that you need target performance
measures and benchmarks in your life.”
A less literal way to perceive
Covey’s measurement approach is as a combination
of big-picture vision with minute details. “I
think I’ve done well at combining my dreams
with my abilities to handle all the details,”
Waller says. “If you can handle that, you
can get yourself there.”
The element of time is inherent
in buzz words such as measure, benchmark and detail.
And integrating a time frame into a big-picture
vision can be one of the most crucial — and
challenging — parts of creating a career
plan. Though Waller’s to-do list is full
of age-centric goals, he is the first to concede
that time is not a plan’s most central benchmark.
“You have to be careful about deadlines,”
he says. “Life is a long and ongoing process
of unveiling itself to you.”
Of course, a game plan with
no time frame is nearly as useless as no game
plan at all. Without it, a person can end up stalled
between major milestones, floundering amid the
smaller pebbles that must be tossed to move on.
“I did think about goals I wanted to achieve
in a relative time frame,” Goetz says. “It
was first important for me to become a registered
architect as soon as I could and complete my formal
education. Without that, I could not have had
my own firm.”
The solution, it seems,
lies somewhere in between. “The best plans
combine timing, direction and flexibility,”
Howell says.
CHANGE OF PLANS
Waller suspects that some people do not assign
goals to their careers for fear of not accomplishing
them. “That list I made at 24 was a phenomenal
list,” he says. “Had I understood how
difficult it was going to be when I wrote it,
I probably wouldn’t have pulled it off.”
His suspicion raises an interesting question:
What happens when a plan doesn’t pan out?
The plan gets another chance.
Waller’s distinguished internship at the
J.F.K. Center for Performing Arts actually took
two tries to land. His graduate degree, too, was
first on his list as an Ivy League degree. “It
wasn’t exactly Ivy League, but it was a good
school,” he says. What’s more, the degree
didn’t materialize until 16 years after he
set his sights on it. “I did not go back
to school to get my graduate degree until I was
40, when I was working full time. By the time
I checked that off my list in 1999, I was exhausted.
That check was written in blood.”
If after several attempts,
a goal still does not come to fruition, it may
be time for a readjustment. The key to Howell’s
model — and the point that many professionals
overlook — is that it is circular. “It
starts in school,” Howell says. “But
it never ends. Career planning is a lifelong cycle.”
Waller and Goetz are perfect
examples. “I’ve been busy working on
my retirement plan,” Waller says. “What
are my options? How will I work? What do I want
to have happen on my 70th birthday?”
“I want to continue
to influence the professions of interior design
and architecture and bring the two into a better
working relationship,” Goetz says. “Although
I have accomplished many things in my career,
I feel as though I have a lot yet to do.”
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