The Zweig Letter

You and your team need to have a global understanding of your firm so the right people are in the right places to best serve the client. This marks the first column I’ve contributed to...

Open book management is a big card to play, but it puts everyone on your team at the table, and that’s where you want them to be. One of the trendier ideas in management consulting...

We’ve all heard about (and do) multitasking, but the real ticket is figuring out how to do one thing at a time, and do it well. Editor’s note: Perry Shea will be a speaker at...

When the company you acquire has better ideas than your firm’s, you have to remain open to change and be willing to learn. Acquisitions help companies in many ways. They enable access to the professional...

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (April 14, 2017) –Zweig Group recently released the 2017 Financial Performance Survey of Architecture, Engineering, Planning and Environmental Consulting Firms. This annual publication is based on a survey of industry firms, and is...

Sell your firm to recruits, don’t overburden them with a marathon interview process, and cover yourself if a candidate pulls a fast one. I recently finished a webinar series called Becoming a Better Recruiter. It...

Jamie Claire Kiser Four new members have joined the Board of Directors for Souder, Miller & Associates (SMA), which is now comprised of three external and four internal members. This addition expands SMA’s reach, diversity,...

So you’re thinking about acquiring an A/E firm? You’ve got a lot of questions to ask yourself, and you need to have honest answers. In a recent article, I wrote about how important it was...

Too many owners/managers/leaders in AEC firms are obsessed with looking in their rearview mirrors when instead, they should be looking far down the road. Doing that – as I was taught at Freddie Spencer’s Superbike...

You don’t want to lose sight of your current business, but fostering ideas and innovation with your staff is increasingly essential. Achieving the seemingly impossible could be one way to sum up several epic sporting...

President of Fitzemeyer & Tocci (#2 Best Firm Multidiscipline), a 50-person engineering consulting firm based in Wolburn, Massachusetts. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “The expectation is growth through 2018 followed by a mild recession in 2019,”...

If your firm does not have a well-crafted system for handing out employee bonuses, you run the risk of creating the haves and the have nots. 2016 was a good year in the domestic A/E...

If we want to make this world a better place to live, it’s up to us, and not elected officials, to make it happen. Leadership is the single characteristic of behavior that determines a person’s...

If you want to boost your project profits, analyze past failures, and use that knowledge to craft winning estimates. We have all had projects that for some reason did not meet our financial expectations. Over-budget...

The acronym is PDB, not to be confused with PBR, the beer, or PBR, professional bull riding. Bone up on the latest method of project delivery. By some statistics, design-build accounts for some 40 percent...

President of LJA Engineering (Hot Firm #2 for 2016), the largest employee-owned civil engineering firm in Houston (600-plus employees). By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent Ladner has more than 35 years’ experience in civil engineering serving both...

Book about elevating sustainability as a national strategic imperative is an impressive guide on how the US can shape a prosperous future. My daughter was at a sustainability conference in Santa Clara, California recently. She...

What can I do for you today? As it turns out, perhaps not a whole lot, but in a crunch, a little can go a long way. It’s a simple enough question. But how often...

Social Media: What NOT to do There's a lot of advice out there about how to best use social media to market your company. We even have a social media guide just for the AEC...

Succession planning is tough, but if you put a plan in place and are careful to re-evaluate as circumstances change, you can succeed. Every privately-held/family-owned business can bank on a change in ownership and a...

If you make it that far in the interview process, don’t forget to show the potential client your best asset – your ability to make a human connection. A few weeks ago, your A/E team...

As social media continues to change, so too does the way it affects the A/E industry. Stay in touch with the times or get left behind. Architecture, engineering, planning, and environmental consulting firms appear to...

CEO of HGA (a multiple Hot Firm award winner), a national, 750-person integrated architecture, engineering, and planning firm based in Minneapolis. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “Our most successful proposals help the client visualize the journey...

People always laugh over here at Zweig Group when I launch into a tirade about a guy who worked for us long ago. This fellow was a consultant – an engineer with an MBA –...