A recent article in Fast Company magazine focused on Despair, Inc., the makers of calendars and posters that poke fun at those motivational posters from companies like Successories and others. The fact that Despair, Inc....
Here’s something I have observed in many different A/E and environmental firms around the country— certain employees who act as if they don’t understand how critical it is for them to be responsive. This one...
I’m no fan of most of the performance appraisal systems I see used in A/E/P and environmental consulting firms. The simple fact of the matter is they don’t work. They don’t motivate anyone to do...
A lot of design and environmental firm principals have been around a long time— they’re an average of 48 years old. That means that they have probably been doing this work for 20-25 years or...
Every A/E and environmental firm experiences those inevitable departures of key employees. After the notice is turned in and the hand-wringing, self-flagellation, and/or angry statements come out from management, the next question is, “Now what?”...
When it comes to project management for A/E/P and environmental firms, there’s one thing we all agree on— it could be done better. I won’t even begin to attempt to postulate why that’s the case....
I should be reading now, sitting here in my tight blue “pleather” Northwest Airlines seat on my umpteenth flight this month. But I’m not. Instead, I just wasted a half hour on “Brick Breaker,” a...
This is a question that I see the majority of principals of A/E/P and environmental firms wrestling with. Should they sell their firm to a larger company, get liquid, and ready themselves for the next...
With my work as a board member for the College of Business at Southern Illinois University, and the teaching I’m doing at the University of Arkansas this semester, I have found myself giving a lot...
When it comes to predicting the future of a successful A/E or environmental enterprise of any sort, what’s more important— the market conditions, the passion of the individuals leading it, or the unity of those...
Thank God for technology! If we didn’t have the technology that we have today, there’s no way most of us who travel could keep up with the demands of work and life. For example, I...
Every single A/E or environmental firm in this country needs more people who can sell work. These people feed the rest of the firm, allow the owners to sleep at night, and are generally the...
How many times have you seen it— one or more of the best people in either your firm or another local AEC firm quit their jobs and start a new company? By year’s end, word...
They’re making their lists. Nope— I am not talking about the Santa Clauses of the world. I am talking about your employees, and more specifically, your key employees. And the lists they are making don’t...
Years ago in The Zweig Letter, I wrote an article entitled, “Go local” as a rebuttal to all of the pundits who were advocating A/E firms “go global.” It just made sense to me that...
We held our 2004 AEC Mergers and Acquisitions Summit at the Biltmore in Coral Gables, Florida, the first week in December. The food and accommodations were great, and the meetings were a success. As someone...
I’m getting ready to start teaching a course at The Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville this spring semester. It will be a class on entrepreneurship— more specifically,...
The folks at Deltek Systems, Inc. (Herndon, VA) have always claimed their market for software and consulting services was “project-driven businesses.” The truth is, the first time I heard that, I was skeptical. I wasn’t...
Hiring enough people— and the right ones— is where it’s at today. How well an A/E/P or environmental firm does this really is either an impediment (or stimulus) to growth. It impacts every area of...
As usual, this year’s Zweig Letter Hot Firm Conference & Celebration in Boston drew a great crowd. We had the typical smiling, optimistic, high-growth A/E and environmental firm principals and managers in abundance and it...
I was surprised to see in our latest 2004 Principals, Partners & Owners Survey of A/E/P & Environmental Consulting Firms that the balancing of work and personal life issue was barely on the radar screen...
It just doesn’t matter what type of business one talks about. Whether you are a housepainter, you sell window blinds, or you are in the architecture, engineering, or environmental consulting business— ALL of your clients,...
When I first got out of graduate school with my MBA back in 1980, I went to work for a consulting/recruiting firm in St. Louis that specialized in serving the construction and real estate development...
We all know it. If we cannot train a second generation of leaders who will be able to take over the firm and run it successfully after we are gone, we probably won’t see any...
