Succession fails when managers cling to control instead of building leaders behind them.
Most managers in AEC firms think succession is someone else’s problem. That’s a mistake. Whether you run a studio, a discipline group, an office, or the whole firm, your real job isn’t just delivering work. It’s building capability behind you. If everything slows down when you’re gone for a week, you haven’t built a team. You’ve built dependence.
Here’s how managers at any level can start fixing that:
- Stop being the decision clearinghouse. If every staffing choice, client response, or design or technical question waits on you, your team never develops judgment. Push decisions down and make it clear you expect people to think first and ask second. They won’t always get it right, but they’ll get better faster than you expect.
- Teach how the business actually works. Most AEC professionals understand production but not the economics of our industry. Walk your team through budgets, write-ups and write-downs, utilization expectations, where the overhead money goes, and how scope creep quietly destroys profit. When people understand consequences, their decisions improve.
- Narrate your thinking in real time. Don’t just assign work. Explain why you’re choosing a certain approach, why one client gets flexibility and another doesn’t, or why you’re using someone to do a specific job. Judgment isn’t taught in training sessions. It’s best absorbed through exposure.
- Put future leaders in front of clients early. Too many principals and managers protect client relationships instead of developing them. Let others run meetings, present work, and handle tough conversations while you’re still there to support them. Confidence only comes from repetition.
- Share responsibility, not just tasks. Delegating redlines and coordination isn’t leadership development. Give someone ownership of schedules, budgets, a big client, or a market sector. Responsibility changes how people think about their work.
- Let them experience consequences. Rescuing every struggling project teaches the wrong lesson. Step in when risk becomes unacceptable, not when discomfort appears. Learning to recover from problems is part of becoming management material.
- Make feedback constant and specific. Annual performance reviews don’t build leaders. Tell people what they handled well and where they missed the mark while the situation is still fresh. Clear and rapid feedback shortens the learning curve dramatically.
The goal isn’t to make yourself replaceable tomorrow. It’s to make the team stronger every year. The managers who advance in AEC firms aren’t the ones who stay indispensable. They’re the ones who leave capable people behind wherever they’ve been.
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Mark Zweig is Zweig Group’s chairman and founder. Contact him at mzweig@zweiggroup.com. |