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By Steve Jarmon | Modern AEC firms need technology leadership that connects IT decisions to growth, profitability, and long-term business performance.

By Joseph Crabtree | Efficiency creates time, but how AEC firms reinvest that time determines whether quality, culture, and performance actually improve.

By Steve Jarmon | AEC firms cannot afford to ignore cybersecurity leadership as digital risk grows alongside cloud platforms, data sharing, and remote work.

By Mark Zweig | Market cycles are inevitable, and firms that act before revenue drops will outperform those that wait and react.

By Mark Zweig | Annual performance reviews fail AEC firms because real leadership requires continuous feedback, not once-a-year management theater.

By Logan Neitenbach | Recruiting thrives on curiosity, trust, and purpose, because people – not processes – are the true drivers of organizational success.

    “If you're going to be an entrepreneur and you're going to accomplish anything and you're going to grow your business in spite of a lot of negative things happening, you've got to be...

By Mark Zweig | Many AEC firms claim high quality, but without consistent action those promises quickly become hollow words.

By Scott D. Butcher | To succeed in disruption, AEC firms must refine client focus, target markets, and go/no-go processes.

By Mark Zweig | Leaders should set clear expectations around vacation planning, approval, and communication to avoid disruption and disengagement.

By Josh Crawford | Our industry currently faces unique hurdles; success hinges on adopting tailored solutions combined with tried-and-true principles.

By Mark Zweig | These qualities will be essential for entrepreneurial leaders in the AEC business to have in the coming months and years ahead.

By Mark Zweig | Start 2025 strong by reviewing your AEC firm’s marketing tools, including your website, email lists, signage, and more.

By Mark Zweig | Negative employees in AEC firms can undermine management, leading to declining morale, productivity, and company performance.

By Val Brennan | By moving beyond outdated tools, we can foster more meaningful connections, better demonstrate our capabilities, and evolve with the needs of our clients.

By Janki DePalma | Late bloomers gain wisdom, resilience, and unique insights, proving there’s no fixed timeline for achievement.

By Matt Verderamo | Prioritize building relationships with clients and potential clients to build trust, credibility, and alignment for better outcomes.

By Mark Zweig | What owners and managers of AEC firms should be thinking about and doing as we plow headfirst into 2024.

By Mark Zweig | Take these steps to reduce resistance and increase the likelihood of success for any change initiative.

By Kraig Kern | It is essential for companies to reevaluate their meeting culture and prioritize efficiency and effectiveness for long-term success.

Bill Mandara of Mancini Duffy, Benjamin Alper of Severud Associates, and Joe Levi of Pavarini McGovern discuss the importance of collaboration in managing large-scale projects and the inherent challenges that come along with tackling a complex...

By Mark Zweig | These three things are important to your firm’s success, but they may require a reallocation of your time and money.

By Leo MacLeod | Email is a great tool, but if it’s not managed efficiently, it can dominate our day and rob precious time from getting work done.

By Mark Zweig | Most firms in this business still struggle to get their people to do their timesheets and turn them in – but there could be a simpler way.

By Kyle Ahern | Best Firms To Work For and Hot Firms continue to distinguish themselves in a highly competitive industry.

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 Stephanie Warino | How employees answer a question about where they see themselves in two years, and what their responses really mean.

By Chad Clinehens | Optimism among AEC firms is high as we look ahead to 2022 and beyond.

By Mark Zweig | While there are no doubt some costs associated with making a brand for your firm, a lot of it just boils down to a little work and some discipline.

Architect Julia Su Jack, AIA talks about being an architect, a woman of color, and making the transition from the private sector to the public sector in this episode of the podcast. 

By Mark Zweig | There are many ways to show courage, and Jerry Allen showed real courage in his willingness to confront every single obstacle in his life.

By Julie Benezet | Time limits tighten focus, propel you over challenging hurdles, and maximize your chances of success.

Focus on getting stuff done and moving forward by fitting the tasks on your to-do list to either the time slot or energy you have available.

By Chad Coldiron | Practice becoming a better communicator, and you’ll build better rapport and credibility with clients, colleagues, and just about everyone else.

Clients appreciate the opportunity to sit down, free from distraction, and candidly discuss what is going well and where there is room for improvement.

To manage time effectively, you need to know – not just believe – you are spending time productively.

By Christina Zweig Niehues | Celebrate the present, and focus on extreme flexibility and radical empathy going forward.

Vatsal Shah, VP and principal engineer with Mott MacDonald, talks about the challenges that his firm and so many other design firms are dealing with during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s important to revisit your purpose and values statements from time to time to make sure they still hold true for your firm.

Most of these ideas take very little money – just your time. Invest in yourself and your business and you’ll be stronger and better for it on the other side of this.

It's more important than ever to have good data to guide your business practices. In order to produce the data your firm needs to benchmark and make important management decisions, we need your help and...

By John Bray | Connect with your people and bolster your business so you come out of this pandemic stronger on the other side.

Many firms still cling to old-school attitudes and business practices that chase away top performing employees looking for a more future-friendly place to grow their careers.

Phil Keil, Zweig Group’s director of strategic services, knows how to put the pieces together to craft unique strategies and implementation plans for AEC firms.

By Christina Zweig Niehues | There’s plenty of support out there for women in the AEC industry, but the stats still have to catch up to the sentiment.

“Are you making decisions as quickly as you should, or is this a problem that you keep facing over and over again? Just like all problems in this business, there’s always something you can do!”

President and CEO of Eclipse Engineering (Best Firm Structural #12 for 2018), a Montana firm that likes to have a little “phun.”

In our industry, diversity and inclusion are dawning, so seize the day by incorporating an open mindset throughout your firm.

We all know meetings are a necessary evil, but do we have to let them wreck our productivity? Did you know that a typical American professional attends more than 60 meetings per month? That is...

“Right now, at the start of the new year, is a great time to be selling. Organizations of all types, public and private, have new plans and new budgets to go along with them.” Right...

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (May 23, 2018) –Zweig Group is proud to announce the release of the 2018 Best Firms To Work For Awards, a prestigious list honoring the creation of outstanding workplaces at architecture, engineering, and...

The last few weeks have been pretty rough. A nice young fellow who cleaned my antique cars was killed in a New Year’s Eve altercation with a gun-wielding criminal. Several of my friends and acquaintances,...

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...

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...

You want your firm to be more valuable at the end of the project than it was at the beginning. Start to GRIPE. Many of our clients turn to us for assistance in providing project...

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...

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...

“At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint occaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt...

In addition to it being time to renew your Amazon Prime account so you can buy presents for people who don’t actually need a thing, it is also business planning time! One of my favorite...

While it is widely acknowledged that hiring people is probably the single greatest challenge faced by AEC firms today – and the problem WILL get worse and worse over the next 20 years – we...

Global infrastructure and environmental services firm is poised to introduce patent-pending workflow process to $1B market in remediation of abandoned Navajo uranium mines. By Richard Massey Managing Editor A billion-dollar market in the remediation of...

When recruiting big talent, don’t let little details in the benefits package get in the way of making a winning offer. I’m amazed at the need that exists out there for great talent. Firms in...

With a focus on renewable energy and environmental conservation, and a need to improve a vast and aging infrastructure, opportunity abounds. Things are going pretty well for nearly all these days. Those downturn doldrums are...

The exclusive rights to a new technology launched TerraTherm into a world of contamination – and that’s right where John Bierschenk wanted to be. By Liisa Andreassen Correspondent It all started with research. John Bierschenk,...

The A/E/P industry is doing well right now, but you shouldn’t get too comfortable. Right now, we're having some really good times. A/E/P firms are doing well – some of them are doing incredibly well....

You may have an “open door” policy as a CEO or manager, but you could still be seeing your firm through rose-tinted glasses. If you want to grow, are having a hard time recruiting or...

Take the last few months of 2015 to assess your clients and marketing. Although 2015 won’t be over until the last day of December, September always feels like the start of something new. With the...

Technical professionals should appreciate the importance of timely and accurate time-sheets for determining appropriate project billing and more. For most A/E/P firms, it is the talent, technical expertise, and experience that are sold to clients...

Take an honest look at your client relationship and ask yourself if it’s still mutually beneficial; if it’s not, it is time to do the hard thing. In addition to working at Zweig Group, I...

Four items of political savviness can help ensure organizational newcomers are accepted and successful. A/E/P and environmental firms are in hiring-mode nationwide. This industry is booming, and we’re bringing on new people – some of...

Five things that differentiate entrepreneurs from the rest of the people in the world. I was watching a show on Netflix the other night with my eight-year-old daughter. It was all about humans with superhuman...

Have a conversation about project details and fees so you can staff them right and finish work on time, preferably below the allocated fee. On the architecture and engineering professions, we measure everything by time....

Five types of unnecessary practices that are making you lose big bucks, Mark Zweig writes. I’ve always thought there was a lot of time wasted in the typical AEC firm’s office, especially for the managers....

Being treated as a second class employee, independent of rank, is very demoralizing, Mark Zweig writes. The other day I stopped to talk with ZweigWhite’s CPA, who was meeting with our in-house accountant – a...

There may be something missing in your firm after the recession, Mark Zweig writes. The recession of the last six- to 8 years has been hard on the A/E/P and environmental consulting business. Many companies...

This article first appeared in The Zweig Letter (ISSN 1068-1310) Issue # 997 Originally published 3/4/2013 HR, recruiting and hiring teams also need to take a critical look at their operations, so make use of...

Press Release: August 15, 2011 Time to love thy neighbor or raise the draw bridge? A/E/P Experts have mixed feelings on when to share information and if it’s always beneficial. FAYETTEVILLE, AR (August 9, 2011)...

By Mark C. Zweig CEO, ZweigWhite The tough times haven’t gotten any better. If you look at the American Institute of Architects’ billing index, it goes up a little and then falls back again. Money...

By W. Hobson Hogan ZweigWhite Principal, Investment Banking I have represented many businesses in M&A processes and I have analyzed both great and not-so-great firms. In all of these M&A processes, I have witnessed some...

By Christine Brack Principal, Business Planning Consulting Design firms don’t sell an actual product, even if drawings and written deliverables are part of the final package. They make their living selling units of professional time....

Probably no one warned you before you started your A/E/P or environmental consulting firm about the slipperiest of slippery slopes— one you don’t want to go down— that of not paying your bills on time....

In these hard times we live in, many companies in our business are not performing like they once did. No question about it— there’s been plenty of suffering to go around. Fewer projects, lower profits,...

As the economy gets worse, and panic sets in amongst the management of too many A/E/P and environmental firms, mistakes will be made that are difficult to recover from. I’m referring to decisions such as...

Now that we are fully working ourselves into a recession frenzy (whether we needed one or not), many A/E firms will be facing some tough choices IF they want to remain as profitable as they...

I can admit it. I’m a little “bah, humbug” about the upcoming holidays. I sure don’t need or want anything for myself I don’t already have. All of us in the Zweig family have so...

Orville Honstater was starting to sweat a little for the first time in a long time. His company, Honstater & Associates, had enjoyed a long run (more than 10 years) of profitability and good, if...

It seems like yesterday that I was “the young guy.” And that’s the last thing I wanted to be. I always tried hard to look and seem older than I really was so people would...

I’ve often thought what it would have been like to live at the turn of the century (1900). Change must have been coming so fast— electricity, indoor plumbing, telephones, and automobiles, along with so many...

As the fall air turns crisp and cool here in Northwest Arkansas, many folks’ thoughts turn to football, leaf raking, and the upcoming holiday season. Owners and managers of A/E/P and environmental consulting firms, however,...

If you examine any business— a restaurant, a car dealership, or an A/E/P/environmental firm— they all seem to benefit from active leadership. Likewise, they all tend to suffer from a lack of it. I would...

I recently witnessed a transformation. An old-line A/E firm that had been on the decline for about four years decided they’d finally had enough. Their top management reallocated their energy and efforts to one thing—...

You’ll hear it at any gathering of A/E/P and environmental consulting firm owners— hiring is at the top of the list of challenges they’re facing as we head into 2006. That said, there’s still too...

There are many experts on time management that I see used periodically by A/E and environmental firms. These people are brought in from the outside to help train our principals, PMs, and technical and design...

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...

Spring has sprung and we are now into summer. And while some firms are having record years, more companies are not doing so great. This has resulted in diminished expectations for the owners and employees...

Fifty-eight-year-old Frank Gristleling was a strong leader of his firm. Other than a three-and-a-half year tour with the Navy from 1968 to 1971, Gristleling worked at Johnson, Smatters, and Tattersham (JST) since he started as...

You know what? Turnover is not always so bad. Sometimes people just don’t keep up with the firm. There are all kinds of reasons for it. Maybe they got tired. Maybe they got turned off....

Durwood Ryan, CEO of Ryan, Brookhouse, and Springdale, was frustrated. He knew that Jeannie Turtlepup, his structural engineering department head, needed a raise. But he wasn’t getting any support for it from Poppy Buck, the...

Best I can tell, the events of September 11 pushed a fragile economy over the cliff. It’s hard to make a bull like me into a bear, but I am there now. Companies everywhere are...

Irving “Tuck” Schlockmeir walked into the Schlockmeir Associates board meeting in a bad mood. Tuck was frequently in a bad mood, and if he wasn’t, the fear that he might go into one scared everyone...

Both of my daughters are into horses. I mean they are into horses and have been for the last five years. We have three of ‘em right now. They ride every day. Then we have...

Exit stage left. If you are like most of our readers, you are probably a CEO, managing partner, president, chairperson, majority stockholder, or major shareholder in the A/E/P and environmental consulting firm you work in....

Just got back from the Spring Meeting of ASFE: Professional Firms Practicing in the Geosciences (Silver Spring, MD) in Atlanta. I think the management and volunteers do a wonderful job. They had about 140 top...

In spite of my repeated attempts to educate our readers about some of the crazy things they are doing, it takes some people a long time to catch on. Here are few examples of what...

We finally received notice a few weeks ago that Zweig White & Associates was selected for the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing privately held firms in the U.S. It’s something we are certainly...

A/E/P and environmental consulting firms are really in the business of selling time— something there never seems to be enough of. That’s why it’s important that we all use our time wisely. Here are my...

No matter what the self-appointed experts are telling you, right now is a great time to buy a firm or to be acquired by or merge with another firm. But, like most things, it’s not...

Reflecting back on all of the A/E and environmental consulting firms that we came in contact with during 1992, one thought comes to mind. By and large, our industry’s management expertise has significantly improved. The...