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By Lauren Martin | A simple “time is of the essence” clause can transform routine schedule delays into costly legal and insurance risks.

By Morgan Stinson | AEC firms win when purpose, not profit, drives client experience.

By Kraig Kern | AEC's next competitive advantage isn't expertise; it's how fast you unlock it.

By Matt Cooper | Repeat clients keep AEC firms stable, but winning new work is what determines long-term growth and resilience.

By Michael Makris | Several of improv’s most fundamental rules are very much related to leadership and professional growth.

By Sara Parkman | Zweig Group’s 2025 Rising Stars share what inspires purpose, loyalty, and change in the AEC workplace.

By Morgan Stinson | Leading with purpose helps firms navigate uncertainty by reinforcing values, fostering trust, taking ownership, and turning challenges into opportunities.

By Shirley Che | ElevateHER® is identifying sustainable workforce solutions to address our industry’s recruiting and retention challenges.

By Jay Kennedy & Julie Thiel | Be thoughtful in how you approach and manage your emotions, and you will find success building and maintaining meaningful client relationships.

By Linda Schulte | When your team views you as a leader and not just a manager, they will work much harder and be willing to go the extra mile when necessary.

By Sara Parkman | This year’s cohort has picked up where previous groups left off – taking on creative ideas to solve both historic and emerging challenges.

By Kraig Kern | Your firm’s collective strengths can and should be applied to make your new employees’ onboarding a standout experience.

By Jane Lawler Smith | When it comes to our clients, employees, and brand, are we competing like AEC professionals or acting like Family Feud contestants, simply guessing at answers?

By Mercedez Thompson | While weak language can dilute your message, assertive language fosters attentiveness, boosts credibility, and increases authority.

By Tim Spence | There is a third option that empowers leaders at all levels, provides a foundation for growth, and offers a sound path forward.

By Rob Hughes | This subtle but onerous language is becoming fairly widespread in design contracts and, if overlooked, could leave design firms with significant, potentially uninsured exposures.

By Phil Keil | Decentralization of structure within our firms allows for a more agile, adaptable, and unified organization.

You don’t achieve success by going solo. You need allies – your manager and your direct reports – to make the load lighter.

By Eduardo Smith | Company culture, employee engagement, and morale are often the differentiators between common and great companies.

President of Shield Environmental Associates (Lexington, KY), a full-service engineering and environmental consulting firm that seeks solutions of distinct value.

If innovators find themselves on the wrong side of these rules, the law may deny them legal ownership of what should have been their intellectual property.

Women must stop apologizing, speak up, and stand tall if they want to be successful leaders.

Under the Accepted-Work Doctrine, contractors and designers are relieved of liability to injured third parties after a completed project goes back to the owner. The Accepted-Work Doctrine – also known as the Acceptance Doctrine, the...

Approximately 10,000 baby boomers will retire every day over the next decade. By 2030, millennials will comprise three-quarters of the U.S. workforce. A common blood sport at leadership team meetings these days begins with, “WHAT...

If you request even a minute of precious time to meet with your firm’s leader, make sure you don’t waste the moment. If there is one thing I have learned growing up in an increasingly...

Be careful. While a design firm can retain its copyrights by contract, the firm can just as easily give those rights away – by written contract. Design professionals are, traditionally, reluctant to give up ownership...

You might think about ditching the fancy slideshow in favor of something much more engaging and authentic – the story of your firm and its people! We’ve all been there; the highly anticipated meeting with...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 2, 2017 Apple Blossom Brewing to Release Collaboration Beer with Mark Zweig FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (June 2, 2017) -Apple Blossom Brewing Company has collaborated with Zweig Group founder & chairman, Mark Zweig,...

Dutch port city emerging from Amsterdam's shadow with eye-popping architecture, willingness to innovate, and a proposed Windwheel that just might change the world. By Richard Massey Managing Editor Of the world’s national brands, perhaps none...

AIA’s new push for materials transparency might help the planet, but it could also put design firms up against the wall should cases go to court. On April 8, 2016, the American Institute of Architects...

More and more design and environmental firms are adding outsiders to their Boards of Directors. There are many reasons for doing so but that’s not the point of this article. Instead, what I want to...

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....

When you look at architects, management consultants, bridge engineers, computer programmers, artists, or any other “professional” in the classic sense, there is always someone or some people who stand out as the thought leaders. They...

With times as good as they are, particularly for architecture, engineering, and building-related environmental consulting firms, it’s hard to think about failure. But there are still firms going out of business and firms on the...

One reason the A/E/P and environmental consulting industry is predominated by small, not-so-successful firms is that it has too many weak leaders. A firm can end up with a weak leader for many reasons. The...

Almost every motivated person working in an A/E/P or environmental firm is either already a manager, or wants to be one. That’s OK, but I’m not sure all of these people really understand what it...