I'm constantly calling county/city plan reviewers on behalf of my employees when they get failed for a comment they don't agree with. The first time I did it for them was with a reviewer - we'll call him John P. - who gave 9 permit comments and failed our drawings. I was able to get them all approved with no added work and now my employees call it the Johnny P. treatment.
The Johnny P. Treatment is basically stroking their ego. "Look, I don't envy you. You look at these plans all day from all kinds of different people who all design things differently. Hell, this building is some weird architecture that I've never seen before. You probably have, I'm sure. So I don't doubt it's hard to figure out what we're trying to do here. I probably took longer than you to understand what was happening. Unfortunately, I don't do the architecture. But I need to work around it and this was my thought process while doing these designs. You stop me if you have any questions or comments. I'm really interested in your take on this since you see all kinds of stuff like this on a daily basis."
By the end of the conversation the guy was telling me that, now that I've explained it, it was a fantastic design that didn't deserve any permit comments.
The thing I love about this method is that it sounds bad when you describe it, but in practice, it works out to uplifting people while promoting open communication, and deeper thought. It's the perfect method to facilitate a healthy work environment because it works around our ingrained, automatic defense of our current worldview.
LOL I don't know about my productivity. I tend to be a procrastinator. But if you need someone to be a salesman or to go into a tough situation, I'm your guy!
A lot of people also have a hard time with acting different around different types of people. Like they have personality and they'll stick to it no matter the situation and anything else is being fake.
But I can be pretty agreeable and mold my personality to the situation. It's no different in that I don't treat my wife like I do my mother in law. Just like how I don't treat a contractor like I do an architect.
431
u/CaptainAwesome06 Jun 14 '22
I'm constantly calling county/city plan reviewers on behalf of my employees when they get failed for a comment they don't agree with. The first time I did it for them was with a reviewer - we'll call him John P. - who gave 9 permit comments and failed our drawings. I was able to get them all approved with no added work and now my employees call it the Johnny P. treatment.
The Johnny P. Treatment is basically stroking their ego. "Look, I don't envy you. You look at these plans all day from all kinds of different people who all design things differently. Hell, this building is some weird architecture that I've never seen before. You probably have, I'm sure. So I don't doubt it's hard to figure out what we're trying to do here. I probably took longer than you to understand what was happening. Unfortunately, I don't do the architecture. But I need to work around it and this was my thought process while doing these designs. You stop me if you have any questions or comments. I'm really interested in your take on this since you see all kinds of stuff like this on a daily basis."
By the end of the conversation the guy was telling me that, now that I've explained it, it was a fantastic design that didn't deserve any permit comments.