“The Business of Architecture & Engineering”

Business can be messy and disorganized, leaving your team with a confusing lack of clarity around their focuses and, therefore, inefficiency and ineffectiveness in their work often leading to troubling low levels of employee satisfaction and engagement, avoidable challenges with clients’ projects, and high levels of costly employee turnover.

These challenges lead to a vicious cycle in which you have fewer resources to invest and you begin to lose your best people, your technology lags the industry, and your commitment to processes and procedures is weak. Client work suffers, your firm’s identity is damaged, and you stop being awarded good, profitable projects which further constrains your resources to invest.

Of course, there are alternatives to consider.

Imagine the power of a well-organized environment in which there is a clear and compelling vision for the future, open communication up, down, and across the organization, your people hold roles in areas of their strengths and passion, and there is an ownership mentality among most of your employees. Consider the value of an engaged workforce overseeing successful design projects which lead to satisfied clients.

The efficiencies and successes realized through effective communication, project and human resource management, and strategic planning create a virtuous loop in which the company’s profits fund more investments in professional development, improved processes and procedures, and new enabling technology which lead to even stronger professionals, greater efficiencies, and higher profits.

A level of magnetism develops that attracts the best available employees and projects. Referrals become second nature to everyone involved because it’s obvious that the environment is one in which success is expected for all stakeholders: clients, employees, and owners. Your time, energy, and other resources allocated to marketing to prospective clients and employees can be invested elsewhere.

So, what does it take to realize this potential?

There is not one “magic formula” but we have adopted a methodology that is based on gathering information from all stakeholders, bringing together senior management to think through strategies to address shortcomings or barriers to success and new opportunities, prioritizing our focuses each quarter, and relentlessly executing on strategies to advance the firm and our services to clients.

• What does your 10-year forecast look like? Can you describe it quantitatively and qualitatively? Is it a compelling vision of which people want to be a contributor or a client?

• Do you, at least annually, go off-site with key leaders for a planning session to address challenges within your firm, developing new strategies and designating champions and timelines for completion?

• Following up on annual retreats and agreed upon focuses for the years to come, do you at least quarterly reassemble to review progress and challenges, thinking through strategically aligned priorities for the upcoming 90 days?

• Do you regularly report to your team progress and hold listening sessions with architects, engineers, project managers, business developers, and non-technical office staff to hear their concerns and suggestions for improvement?

• As successes are realized, do you celebrate them with your team? To the extent individual contributions are identified, do you lift them up among their peers as an example of living your firm’s values?

Gathering insights from your team and clients, memorializing them for periodic review, and committing to action addressing their concerns and new opportunities can have a huge, positive impact on your firm. It just takes time, attention, and commitment but the return on investment is so significant we have no regrets and are continually preparing for whatever the future brings.