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By Daryl Simons Jr. | If your retention strategy relies on appreciation events instead of competitive pay, you are already losing talent.

By Mark Zweig | Calm leadership under pressure –whether in business, aviation, or racing – proves experience and composure drive effective decision-making.

By Chad Clinehens | ElevateAEC celebrates high-performance AEC firms moving fast and intentionally in a changing industry.

By Tom Mesk | Prioritizing personal well-being and balance enhances workplace culture, productivity, and presence while preventing burnout and endless to-do list cycles.

By Sam Liao | Like electronic scientific calculators, personal computers, and CAD systems – generative AI is just another new tool in our toolbox.

By Luke Carothers | Our industry must look to places like Cairo as an example of how ambition can shape the built environment.

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 Mercedez Thompson | It’s worthwhile to continue conversations around what marketing is and is not and why it’s critical to your bottom line.

By Mark Zweig | This is the time of year many of us, and many of our clients, will take a family vacation, so do what you can to step away and enjoy it.

By Mark Zweig | These are “the good old days,” so don’t take anything for granted and find something to enjoy in even the most mundane aspects of life.

By Jerry Holder | Three lessons learned from stories of leaders’ successes and failures – and their ramifications.

  Zweig Group is the leading AEC Industry advisory service provider. We blend industry and sector knowledge with experience across the M&A lifecycle to help you capture value for shareholders. Reach our Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory team here. -...

By Matthew Poling | Often overlooked, the simple checklist can empower your people to coordinate more, reduce mistakes, and focus on bigger picture items.

President and CEO of Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc. (Northbrook, IL), a global firm that’s committed to helping clients solve, repair, and avoid problems in the built world.

By Chad Coldiron | Having a set strategy for when the internet is down will prove you are the leader you are striving to be.

Niles Bolton Associates (Atlanta, GA) has acquired Dye Aviation Facilities Architecture (Atlanta, GA), a 40-year old design firm known for its expertise in aviation design spanning the continental United States, Hawaii, Caribbean, Middle East and...

By Jamie Claire Kiser | What differentiates us now as leaders is our ability to roll with the punches and make sharp, sober decisions.

To keep up with the “smart revolution,” AEC firms must embrace emerging technological solutions, innovate, and lead clients into the future.

As Zweig Group’s director of executive search, Chad Coldiron’s passion is connecting top talent with AEC firms.

COO of Aguirre & Fields, LP (Best Firm Multi-discipline #27 for 2018), a 120-person engineering firm based in Houston. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent “If you haven’t started planning for ownership transition, you’re behind and you...

Each week, The Zweig Letter features commentary from top-flight leaders of AEC firms. Here is a compilation of their thoughts on maintaining the leadership pipeline. By The Zweig Letter Staff Nic Andreani, president with W&M...

Each week, The Zweig Letter features commentary from top-flight leaders of AEC firms. Here is a compilation of how they handle, and move beyond, failure. By The Zweig Letter Staff John Hiltz, president of OHM...

By Phil Keil | The development of high moral and ethical standards is the most important thing you can do as a leader, and it will transform your team for the good.

Honoring your clients’ business success above all else will enhance your firm’s reputation and bottom line – without compromising design. This is the third installment of a three-part discussion on the topic of job success,...

I have been traveling my entire professional career, and as much as I hate to admit it, that is 38 years now. I’m sure I could have flown to Mars or something with as much...

No generation owns the work ethic, but when it comes to motivation and anxiety, there’s a big difference between millennials and boomers. I recently read a report from Project: Time Off called, “The Work Martyr’s...

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...

One of my theories about why A/E firms do so poorly with at-risk construction projects is we are just not equipped for the people we deal with in that “other” world. There are some bad...

Serving others before serving yourself sounds noble, but if you are low on your own priority list, it’ll show in poor performance. If you’re a fellow frequent traveler, you’ve probably heard the safety announcement that...

Summertime is here. If you aren’t someone like me who travels all year round, odds are you’ll be going somewhere this summer. Since I’ve been doing this stuff for 37 years and been practically everywhere...

President and CEO of ISG (Hot Firm #58 for 2016) a 200-person architecture, engineering, and environmental planning firm based in Mankato, Minnesota. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent With the recent acquisition of Green Bay-based Raasch Associates,...

By assessing how they plan to use drones, and by carefully evaluating related risks, A/E firms will benefit from this new capability. As more A/E firms begin integrating drones into their operations, they need to...

When does travel time become paid time? If you don’t know the answer, you might need to check in with the U.S. Department of Labor and dust off your policy manual. It is alarming to...

U.S. bridge-building firm opens office in Prague to be closer to work in Israel, but over time, role of European hub expected to increase. By Richard Massey Managing Editor There are certainly many reasons why...

You should if you want more business and enhanced services for your clients, and besides, the new generation of engineers has to have it. In 1971 the founders of our firm went to their local...

Here are a few tips on ensuring that potential employees accept your job offer, and have a back-up in case they don’t. It’s a big problem today. You go through a long search process, interviewing...

Years of travel have led to some rules-of-thumb that firm leaders can implement while building their companies. In the “good ol’ days” I used to fly 150,000-200,000 miles each year. Now I am down to...

If you are a target of bitterness, here’s four tips from Mark Zweig on how to deal with it. ​On a recent flight to go see some clients in South Florida, Chad Clinehens and I...

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...

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...

Air travel is at an all-time high for me. It’s always frustrating... so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to share some of my recent thoughts and observations: E-tickets. It always amazes me when I see...

It is a sad day as I write this. I am at Boston’s Logan International Airport waiting for a flight to Dallas-Fort Worth so I can attend the funeral of my long-time friend and mentor,...

I was doing my usual deep thinking in the shower this morning, and I started wondering what I would do if I were on a flight that terrorists were hijacking. My first thoughts were about...

As periodically happens, I have a number of issues I want to share with our readers, none of which merits an entire article. Here they are: There will never be true equality of the sexes...

Traveling all the time is no party, as anyone who does it can tell you. But it’s a fact of life for many of the top people working in the A/E/P and environmental (as well...

I get to see a lot of proposals and qualification documents from A/E/P and environmental consulting firms of all types and sizes. In most cases, there’s plenty of room for improvement. Consider the following: Length:...

Most of us in A/E/P or environmental consulting firms who are at project manager level or higher must travel occasionally. The probability that you will have to travel increases the larger your firm is, the...

A few weeks ago, I went to Colorado and gave an all-day presentation on marketing at the management retreat of a rapidly growing environmental consulting firm. I thought I’d share with our readers what it...

This year’s Professional Services Management Association (PSMA) National Convention was held in St. Paul last week. (I keep wanting to say “Minneapolis,” but St. Paulians are sensitive about that). Ed Vick, president of PSMA (Charlotte,...

Road Warriors Square Off— One Monday a couple of weeks ago, I got up at 3:45 a.m. to catch a 6:00 flight from Boston’s Logan Airport, the start of a long week to come. After...