What do you do if your concerns about building design are not being heard by your boss?

Sometimes you run into situations where the team doesn’t listen. It happens. It can happen because the owner or program manager won’t speak up, it can happen because the designer(s) want to push the design envelope. Regardless, you must encourage the team focus on what’s best for the project… and in certain situations, that can take having to intervene and speak up several times. You may not be popular, but in the end- what is best for the project will ultimately happen anyway. Whether that is convincing the team to change course early in design- or whether during construction trade partners force changes late in the game… everyone on the team ultimately gives their best input and does the best job they can for the job. Money talks.

I have faced this many times in my career. Now as a leader, I’m very attentive when design concerns are brought to my attention. What I would recommend is that you ask more questions of your leadership because there may be issues or design solutions that have already been exhausted. There may be code or budget implications, or the client may have already stated a concern to your leadership. I would tread carefully before escalating the issue as it may cause issues with your relationship or disrupt the team. We aren’t always going to agree with design direction - but we need to learn which battles are worth fighting and which hills to die on.

Leaders should be aware of the difference between Knowing More and Knowing Different. More experienced professionals would certainly know more. But is in the different backgrounds and experiences of all the team members (different age, gender, ethnicity, origin…) where the competitive advantage lies: I call that the “Knowing Different”. Good leaders must embrace, pay attention and encourage all opinions, even (if not mainly) to those one-person-only opinions that seem to be off (the so called weak signals). Because is the sum of those differences that makes the team, and the design proposal, better and stronger.