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I believe that a sustainable practice can be realized. To get you started, I am going to provide you with 12 essential implementation rules for a sustainable DB practice.

Like Death and Taxes, DB will be in Your Future

You don’t engage with DB projects? Might you be fooling yourself that you can avoid it and stay in business? The reality is that alternative delivery methods are quickly becoming the mainstream solution demanded by owners.  These methods are here to stay. Avoid it and death will find your business (in which case you will avoid taxes).

Not only are these methods here to stay, the demand for these services is exploding. The Design-Build Institute of America (DBIA) conducted an analysis in 2016. Since 2002, the industry has grown 800%, from 140 transportation design-build projects to over 1300. A survey by DBIA revealed that 8.7 out of 10 DOT owners will continue to uses DB. And that is just transportation. Many sectors have already embraced DB (DB in this discussion refers to all alternative delivery methods).

Pain Avoidance as Told by DB Experts

ACEC of Massachusetts convened a panel of professionals who lead their firm’s national DB practice to answer the question: “Is it possible for the A/E industry to profitably practice DB?” The panel’s discussion was facilitated by industry legal legend, David Hatem, Esq. founder of Donovan-Hatem, who has supported the A/E industry for over 40 years to avoid and resolve claims.

The panelists were representatives of Simpson, Gumpertz & Heger, VHB, and Burns & McDonnell.  David Hatem provided his legal perspective. The overall problem identified is that DB, CM and P3 projects too often end up in one or more lawsuits. These claims drain resources and money. Settlements and verdicts wipe out a firm’s equity and can force a bankruptcy filing. Reputations are ruined.

Let’s consider just some of the “red flags” the panel identified where claims occured.

• Risks were transferred from the owner and the prime contractors to the A/E firms
• Owners selected on low price, not qualifications
• Teaming partners were incompatible
• Contract terms were unfair
• Roles and responsibilities of the teamed companies were poorly defined
• Project managers and project staff were not experienced in the delivery method

Does your team fully understand what these mean and know how to make decisions to avoid and resolve disputes?

Your “A team” is Your Only Viable DB Team

My observations and personal experience with DB tells me the overall connection to disputes is the quality of the project team. I agree with David Hatem, that it is imperative that the A/E firms assign only their “A teams” to DB projects.

Doesn’t this mean that you have to have at least one “A team?” The answer is, “you need more than one.” You might have a team in mind when the proposal is developed. But it could be a year later before the projects starts. Will that team be available? Will it still be intact? And should you wish to grow, plan on developing many “A teams.”

What do we mean by “A team”? Yes, I know you have many very good project managers. But you need a team that operates at a higher level than “very good”.  As David Hatem stated, “there is a heightened standard duty of care”.  We are used to “Standard Duty of Care”.  Does your team know how to operate at this “heightened” level?

How do you develop these high performing teams? All of your project managers have been through Project Management training, you say? Well, that is not good enough. They also need to be astute business professionals.

DB Success = 12 Imperative “A Team” Rules

This list identifies where “A team” proficiency is imperative in a sustainable DB practice. I also identify the actions required for proficient solutions.

1. Always, always, always have a teaming agreement executed well in advance of a procurement request. Obtain legal support.
2. Know when, and have permission to, walk away no matter how much has been invested in the pursuit. Define criteria. Secure senior management buy-in.
3. Choose a contractor partner and other team members who you know and trust. Marketing support and relationship development are important early activities. 
4. Only pursue clients with a positive track record with DB. Engage marketing and relationship development efforts to identify “red flags”.
5. Agree on contingencies that will be used for each phases and define what they cover. Consistently apply cost estimating processes.
6. Develop contract language that spells out responsibilities and reduces, avoids, or transfers risk. Obtain legal support.
7. Secure project specific liability insurance. Obtain insurance provider support, legal support, contractor and owner buy-in.
8. Jointly develop the CPM schedule. Involve all teaming partners.
9. Never provide quantity estimates, not even informal ones. Provide training for PM and technical staff.
10. Defining clear roles and responsibilities. Train your team on well developed business processes.
11. Include terms for compensation  for when the contractor fails to submit the proposal after the effort starts.  Secure legal guidance. 
12. Rigorously manage the fast paced information exchange and coordination processes to adapt the design as you go, with proper QA/QC.  This requires heightened experience, training and discipline. 

If you follow these 12 core principles your DB practice will be profitable and enrich employee’s career and your business. Ignore these rules at the stockholders’ and employees’ peril. Ensure you have “A teams.”

How do I develop business proficient “A teams”?

For information about a business learning program embraced by more than 80 A/E firms, click and follow this link. 

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The landscape is littered with the corpses of once-successful firms that overextended or pursued badly flawed growth strategies. That said, the changing economic landscape will offer numerous expansion opportunities for firms that approach growth sensibly and strategically.

Would you like to overcome this technical-mind limitation to business? Engineers, architects and scientists are an intelligent group.  Is solving this just like solving a project challenge? Take a pause.  Isn’t this your ego talking?

A wise man once said “any ego is a bad ego as nothing productive will come from it”. How many times have you seen the do-it-yourself approach work? As a technical professional I have done this, and it worked. But only after lots of pain, suffering, re-work and busted budgets.

The truth is that preparing for a bright business future has to be done the right way, with continuous learning, not just a one time program.

For further perspectives and ideas that may help you to contribute in your position, leadership or not, take a look at my article published by Industrial Magazine. The article reviews concerns identified by over 100 CEO’s at a recent national conference for professional services design/construction firms, and provides solutions. You will find this article fresh and relevant.

Doug

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Your employer’s reputation is based on what?  Its website?  A 2017 survey revealed that only 12.2% of AEC firms feel that its website has the most impact on business. As far as I am concerned, a website has very little impact on a firm’s business.  A website is simply the ante for playing the game.

So then, what has the greatest impact on the firm’s business?  The same survey reports that 29.9% of firms feel that speaking engagements are #1 and 21.9% feel that conferences and trade shows are #1.  So, what are we really talking about when we saying “speaking” and “trade shows”?

For both of these activities aren’t we talking about the firm’s employees?  And not all of them.  Just the ones speaking and attending these events?  These are the employees who are highly visible throughout the industry. This are the firm’s Visible Experts.

So, if we continue the logic this might also cause us to believe that these same persons are the magnets who attract all the business for the firm.  But in reality, this is not accurate. While they likely do generate a lot of business for the firm they have a much broader and deeper impact.

Visible Experts Generate a Halo Over the Entire Firm

Within your own firm can you think of employees who actively contribute to booking new business?  If they are not highly visible how do they do this?  They do this because the Visible Experts have imparted a Halo Effect on the firm.  Let’s examine how this happens.

It is likely your firm started with one to three principals, each of whom had positive industry reputations.  Business flowed to the firm because of who they were.  Those persons were known experts. Thus, we have the term Visible Experts.

So now the firm is 100, 500 or 10,000.  Who are the employees in the firm who are broadly known in a positive way in the industry?  Make a list and write one sentence to describe their fame.

Now, how about the firm’s reputation as a whole?  How closely does that reputation mirror those employees you just summarized?   I’ll bet the reputations are the same.  Those employees collectively contribute a “Halo Effect” on the company.  This makes it much easier for everyone in the firm to contribute to sales because of the aura cast on the firm by the Halo.

This also works in reverse.  Can you name several mediocre firms? How does your perception of the firm compare with their key personnel?  Probably the same too.

Those employees are like a tree with large thick branches. They cast a shade on the company’s reputation.  Those companies can sometimes endure, but their performance is never good.

We often think of employees’ contributions as they relate to their defined role without consideration for how they might contribute to the firm in other ways.  What if you created a program for each of your experts to turn them into Visible Experts?  It would likely be the least cost, highest impact program you every deployed.

How a Halo Factory Is Created

What might such a program look like?  Here is one approach I employed.  I gathered my team and lead a discussion about the benefits of being visible and the barriers that get in the way. One barrier was time.  The other was knowledge of how to create, re-purpose and distribute thought leader communications. My program eliminated both of these barriers.

I told everyone that a good way to be recognized by their peers, receive top bonus’s and enjoy admiration from their family, was to be visible. And, to help them achieve visibility I would retain a Digital Marketing Copywriter for anyone who identified a topic and would schedule an hour to be interviewed by the copywriter.

This worked like a charm.  From that point forward many from my team brought me ideas based on their projects or interests. The copywriter met with each, drafted their article, contacted editors for print publications, submitted abstracts for conferences, and created pieces for LinkedIn, Twitter and Blog posts. They also received assistance with presentation content and rehearsals.

This approach proved not only good for revenue and profitability, but for staff’s self confidence and energy. This was a win-win and it really didn’t cost the firm much.  In a flat economy, revenue grew over $3 million in the first year.  Profits quadrupled to 22%.

Build Your Own Halo Generator

The strategy I am laying out for you is one whose goal is to achieve the biggest and brightest halo.  The rate at which you generate visible experts will drive the halo’s intensity. The resulting “glow” will excite your staff and improve business through growth, more sole source business, higher margins, higher billing rates, and higher quality pursuit teaming.

Start your program by examining your internal experts and assessing their visibility. Then, work with a “Visibility Expert” who is usually a copywriter who understands both print and digital marketing methods.  Don’t stop here.  Make sure you provide a process and support for tracking leads, building relationships, and identifying new business opportunities.

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You created your business model back when your company was formed or when you took over as CEO. You have been implementing since and will continue to do so. Not so fast! In the ever-changing marketplaces full of newbies and innovation, you must revisit your business model on a regular basis. Why?

Click for Free Commodity-Value Tool

Your business model is focused on how you provide value to a defined client, such as hospitals, beverage producers or transportation agencies. If your clients’ business has evolved over the years, do you think that might alter the effectiveness of your model? Most definitely. Revisiting and updating your business model keeps you sharp, away from commodity services and seen as valuable to those clients.

I witnessed a firm transform their contamination assessment services into services that also included marketability analysis. This analysis helped developers to know to whom they could market the property and to prioritize the environmental clean-up costs for that market.

Clients then saw the firm as more valuable. Thus, the engineering firm moved this service away from commodity to become high value. They did this by having a complete understanding of the client’s business and being open and thorough to ideas on how to align to that market’s business drivers.

To create an effective model, some difficult questions to deeply explore include:

1. How well do you understand the drivers of your clients’ business?
2. How can your business deliver services leveraging that understanding?
3. How might your core skills be evolved or complimented to directly support your clients’ business goals?
4. How will you get the word out to find those who will value your services?

If done well, a strong business model guides your firm to differentiate yourself, create niches and deliver top-notch services.

Where are your services on the commodity-value curve?  Click for free Commodity-Value Tool and place an X on the curve where you think each of your services lie. Which service requires action?

Share with me your first assessment and I will respond with additional guidance of next steps.

P.S.  Are you following my blog? There are over 40 insights on managing your business. By following the blog you will be notified when new content is posted.  Its free and it is On-Demand.

Doug

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What if I told you that you could become a superstar project manager and it wouldn’t be that difficult. I’ll show you how to set yourself up to be the envy of your peers and you don’t need to be Michael Phelps.

Learn ways to reduce on-the-job stress, enhance your reputation, become a top profit principal and project manager. And, wouldn’t it also be nice to be recognized for your skill at retaining loyal clients?

In my ACEC webinar I shared tips to help project managers set themselves up to become superstars that make money. Although I cover a variety of ideas in the webinar, in this post I’ll share a successful budgeting and contracting tip that you won’t find in any book. Here is an example of a win-win contract that worked for me.

What was the Client Really Asking?

My client wanted me to help them to rehabilitate their 30 million gallon per day water treatment plant. We developed a budget and a contract for the work. The client liked a collaborative approach which matched with my values.

I knew that the staff, and even the City Manager and some City Councilors would want to be informed too. My budget included meeting time with all of the stakeholders. The budget was developed with a budget for me of 20% to make sure I had enough time to spend with the stakeholders as well as manage the project.

It was a rehabilitation project with many complexities due to working with an older facility. I made sure my client understood the design budget had to be robust to allow for surprises. Since surprises along the way were certain, I knew there would be more exploration and more re-do.

To account for large unknowns, the contingency budget was set at 20%. I set up the contract as a fixed price, which provided for monthly invoices based on percent complete.

The City Manager looked it over and wanted to know the basis of the contract fee. He asked that we set it for payment using hourly rates. I explained we were comfortable taking on the risk of a fixed price and that would give him assurance over the budget. He said he was okay with that, but he wanted to make sure the basis of the budget was documented.

To address his concerns, I showed him my budget back-up, a very large spreadsheet with hours and disciplines for each sub-task.  He then asked if I could attach it to the contract.  After giving this some thought I labeled a printout of the budget “for information purposes only”.  Then, I included it as an enclosure with the transmittal letter for the contract.

The budget was then not a formal part of the contract. But the City Manager had a copy for his file.  You see, what he really wanted is a document that showed how the budget was derived, should someone ask.  I thought it was smart of him to know this might become important.

Since I was successful at securing a fixed price, the project was invoiced as a percent complete, with no hourly rate back-up.  I was motivated to manage every hour and minimize our cost while delivering a good product. An hourly contract would have limited my profit to profit in each hour. There would be no motivation to finish under budget.

The Art and Business Science of a Solution

This is an example of understanding how to listen to the client’s true concerns and to apply best business practices to negotiate a contract that was a win-win for everyone. The client knew their costs and I addressed their key concern about the basis of the budget. The project was finished with a 30% profit (that is over $300,000 to the bottom line), the largest project profit for the company to date.

This, and hundreds of other approaches are best practices that are not offered in standard project management training programs.  It requires a business educated mind, and years of practical experience.

The Superstar Program

Learn more by viewing my on-demand ACEC webinar— Superstar Project Managers Make Money: Set Yourself Up On Day One.  If  achieving Superstar status excites, my profitability program for managers and executives is the surest solution. Email me at dreed@fostergrowth.biz for further details.

Doug Reed, Business Consultant, FosterGrowth

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It can be lonely at the top. As a CEO or firm executive, your shoulders are burdened by huge responsibilities. This impacts your personal life, your sleep, and your feeling of accomplishment. There is risk everywhere.

Your employees have each other for collaboration, brainstorming and feedback. Do you have an honest, tell-you-what-you-need-to-know resource? Have you ever had a decision blow-up that you considered avoidable? Has this contributed to your holding back on other decisions?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you had readily available resources who could answer all your questions, test all your ideas and prevent you from making decisions you regret? You would sleep like a baby, have more time to spend with your family, perfect your favorite hobby, and your accomplishment list would be “on fire”. Life would be grand.

There is a solution and I am going to share it with you. First, please allow me to share a true story of one CEO’s experience.

The Slowly Opening Gate Valve Let Loose a Deluge

The CEO, Palmer, was charismatic and a good businessman. The company had grown from 25 to 150 over five years by diversifying services to architectural and MEP. As the company grew, it needed to add higher skilled corporate positions. For instance, no longer could the senior administrative assistant cut it as an HR Manager.

Palmer hired a 30-something Harvard grad, Kenny, as our first HR director. I sat near the Palmer’s office and it seemed like Kenny was always in there. When Kenny emerged, it was not unusual for Palmer to announce to the nearest person, “Isn’t Kenny great!”

The problem was that Kenny was not great to anyone else. The talk of the office was how Kenny never seemed to have time to talk to anyone. Trying to get a benefits question answered took persistence and he was always short. For managers who needed to add staff, Kenny acted like advertising new positions was his last priority.

Yet, at every management meeting, Palmer glowed about Kenny. All he got back from his team were smiles.

Six months later, Palmer decided to convene a meeting to check the pulse of the company. He invited a cross section of employees. I was included as a younger generation representative (29 years old), and thus, I was a witness to the big surprise.

During that meeting, Palmer glowed about Kenny. He asked the group if they concurred. The person to his right, agreed, but sounded half-hearted. Same with the next two persons. When it got to the 4th person, the comment was, “He is okay but he has not always been responsive”.

It was like a slowly opening gate valve that held back the water above the Hoover Dam. Each person opened the truth valve a little more, emboldened by the prior revelation. The comments became more and more negative, until they were downright scathing. Palmer was embarrassed. He had been fooled by a “brownnoser”. 

On the way to my desk I saw Palmer bring Kenny into his office. The next thing I knew, Kenny had boxed up his possessions and left. He had been fired.

Seek Input From Those Outside Your Sphere 

This was all avoidable. The moral of this story is that even though the firm was growing due to the technical and sales skills of the management team, the management team and CEO were not prepared to support change to sustain growth. 

The solution is so simple, yet it is underutilized. In a Harvard Business Review survey, over 80% of CEOs say they would benefit by having one or more paid advisers. Yet, only 30% do.

Why? Is it ego? Are they afraid to invest? Are they too involved in the weeds of company management and don’t see the big picture? 

There is research that measured the impact advisers have on a senior leader. Assembling Your Personal Board of Advisers, an HBR article by Yan Shen, Richard D. Cotton and Kathy E. Kram, highlights that CEO’s can’t go it alone AND succeed in today’s business environment. The researchers provide an in-depth look at how to identify needs, pull together a personal board of advisers and what to do when all your needs aren’t met.

We all get advice from many sources– friends, family, books, webinars, and the media. Rarely is this tailored to you. Discussion groups abound but only safe topics get discussed and that group themselves might not have the time nor expertise to recognize and resolve your issue. Wouldn’t you benefit from a personal advocate to look out for your interests and boost your leadership impact?

Envision Your Career with an Advocate 

To fully grasp what this will look and feel like, click here and I will provide you with a summary of effective approaches that you can use to boost your impact.  

Don’t find yourself in Palmer’s shoes. He didn’t deserve it, and neither do you.

Douglas Reed

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Wouldn’t it be nice if you could put your near entry level staff in a time machine and have them exit with ten years experience? What if I tell you that you have such a device?  And that device is in your control.

Rather than spending hundreds of management hours and tens of thousands of dollars on recruiters have you compared this to accelerating skill development and boosting authority of your younger staff.

But first, allow me to tell you a story about how my bosses encouraged me in my younger years as an A/E/Env professional.

In Sydney Finkelstein’a piece in the Harvard Business Review, the Secrets of the Superbosses,

There’s one thing that distinguishes these business icons from their equally famous peers: the ability to groom talent. They didn’t just build organizations; they spotted, trained, and developed a future generation of leaders. They belong in a category beyond superstars: superbosses.

I started researching this cohort of managers a decade ago, when I noticed a curious pattern: If you look at the top people in a given industry, you’ll often find that as many as half of them once worked for the same well-known leader. In professional football, 20 of the NFL’s 32 head coaches trained under Bill Walsh of the San Francisco 49ers or under someone in his coaching tree. In hedge funds, dozens of protégés of Julian Robertson, the founder of the investment firm Tiger Management, have become top fund managers. And from 1994 until 2004, nine of the 11 executives who worked closely with Larry Ellison at Oracle and left the company without retiring went on to become CEOs, chairs, or COOs of other companies.

Eager to learn the secrets of these star makers, I reviewed thousands of articles and books and conducted more than 200 interviews to identify 18 primary study subjects (definite superbosses) and a few dozen secondary ones (likely superbosses). I then looked for patterns—common tastes, proclivities, behaviors—anything that might help explain why these people were able to propel not only their companies but also their protégés to such great heights.

I found that superbosses share a number of key personality traits. They tend to be extremely confident, competitive, and imaginative. They also act with integrity and aren’t afraid to let their authentic selves shine through.

But far more interesting (and more important for teaching purposes) were the similarities I saw in the “people strategies” that superbosses employed. Their remarkable success as talent spawners was not the result of some innate genius. These leaders follow specific practices in hiring and honing talent—practices that the rest of us can study and incorporate into our own repertoires.

Unconventional Hiring

Superbosses begin by seeking out unusually gifted people—individuals who are capable not merely of driving a business forward but of rewriting the very definition of success. As Lorne Michaels, the longtime producer of Saturday Night Live, has said, “If you look around the room and you think, ‘God, these people are amazing,’ then you’re probably in the right room.” Here’s how he and others do it.

Focus on intelligence, creativity, and flexibility.

Superbosses value these three attributes above all others. C. Ronald Blankenship and R. Scot Sellers, both protégés of real estate guru Bill Sanders before they became CEOs of leading property companies themselves, remember how Sanders would brag about bringing in so many people who were “four times smarter” than he was. He would insist that if you weren’t going to hire someone great, you shouldn’t hire anyone at all.

Superbosses want people who can approach problems from new angles, handle surprises, learn quickly, and excel in any position. Norman Brinker, the casual-dining innovator who founded Steak and Ale, was a good example. As Rick Berman, who worked under him before founding a successful lobbying firm, recalls, Brinker “wasn’t a fan of hiring people to play first base; he just wanted to hire a good baseball player.” That emphasis on versatility helped give rise to a generation of top leaders in the restaurant industry, including the CEOs of Outback Steakhouse, P.F. Chang’s, and Burger King.

Find unlikely winners.

Superbosses consider credentials, of course, but they’re also willing to take chances on people who lack industry experience or even college degrees. According to Marty Staff, who worked for Ralph Lauren before becoming CEO of Hugo Boss USA, Lauren once made a runway model the head of women’s design “for no other reason than she seemed to get it—she got the clothes.” At health care giant HCA, Tommy Frist sometimes set even physical therapists on a path to the C-suite, simply because he spotted something in them.

Because they reject preconceived notions of what talent should look like, superbosses often show greater openness toward women and minorities. Mary Kay Ash, in fact, expressly designed her company to empower women, holding sales conferences where the message was “If she can do it, so can I.” Walsh started a fellowship program in the NFL for minority coaches, giving participants a fast track into the league and himself a chance to tap into a vast new source of talent.

Superbosses often dispense with the conventional interview process, too; instead, they pose unusual or quirky questions or use observation as a tool. When Ralph Lauren met with job candidates, for example, he would ask them to explain what they were wearing and why. Sanders would invite prospects to hike a 7,000-foot peak on his New Mexico ranch with him and other managers. “We learned a whole lot about these kids on the hikes,” recalls Constance Moore, who worked for Sanders at Security Capital before becoming CEO of BRE Properties. “After, we would all sit down and talk about each of them and figure out which ones we wanted to ask to join.”

Adapt the job or organization to fit the talent.

Superbosses opportunistically tailor jobs and sometimes even their organizations to new hires. As an assistant coach for the Cincinnati Bengals, Walsh had to invent a new offense to enable the backup quarterback to excel after an injury brought down the team’s starter. Because the second-stringer had more accuracy than arm strength, Walsh designed an unusual strategy around short passes—which later became known as the West Coast offense (when Walsh was with the 49ers). Lorne Michaels lets his ensemble’s ideas and abilities constantly shape and reshape their contributions to Saturday Night Live. Writers sometimes become performers, and performers or assistant directors sometimes become writers. At Industrial Light & Magic, George Lucas’s employees didn’t even have job descriptions. They were assigned tasks on various projects according to what was needed and who was available. All these examples run counter to traditional HR practices, but they reflect an innovative mindset that superbosses bring to virtually everything they do.

Accept churn.

Smart, creative, flexible people tend to have fast-paced careers. Some may soon want to move on. That’s OK with superbosses. They understand that the quality of talent on their teams matters more than stability, and they regard turnover as an opportunity to find fresh stars. Consider how Discovery Communications founder John Hendricks reacted when, in 1997, his second in command, Richard Allen, was asked to become the head of National Geographic’s for-profit arm. Hendricks would have loved to have kept Allen but never tried to hold him back, realizing that he’d rather have a friend leading his rival than anyone else. “It was a real indication of his generosity of spirit,” Allen says.

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Most of all, you want something of value out of your learning investment. Yet, time and again, you experience little or no change. Don’t you find this discouraging?

The problem is that you learned the theory with almost no application of the skills. Workshop role playing is not the same environment as the real world.  So, what you need is an environment where you can learn in the real world. And, I am going to tell you how you can do this.

First, I ask you to consider this true story.

My Brain was Infused with Knowledge

A decade into my very technical engineer career I took a job with a firm led by an entrepreneur who was also a professor. That was not the reason I took the job, but fate was in the making.

I discovered that the entire environment was supportive of learning and trying new ideas. I recall at least six outside consultants who were brought in by those owners. These persons coached me on sales, on employee engagement, on project management, presentation skills, motivating employees, influencing employees, writing, negotiating, contracts, and financial management.

The point is, it was constant. And, I was nurtured and supported to apply those skills in the real world. In only 18 months after joining the firm, I had blasted through the bookings, profit and customer satisfaction requirements to be elected shareholder. And, I was.

Was this expensive for the firm? You bet it was. But how did that compare to stock that doubled in value every three years? It was chump change.

Why Throw Away Time, Money and Potential Gains?

Think about a professional athlete. To perform at a high level, they make use of one or more personal trainers. Imagine if they tried to design their own work-out program?

Why should you? Why not make it easy on yourself and make sure you’re not only learning, but applying the learning as it was intended– for you to be more successful at whatever you seek.

Comprehensive Programs Encourage Long-term, Sustainable Change

A Harvard Business Review Discussion Group member asked, “Is training worth-while?” The comments posted were from 40 persons across the globe and range from academics, business managers, and management consultants. I have two takeaways.

First, for any learning program to be effective you must have a desire to participate and learn. You do that by placing yourself in an environmental where learning is actively encouraged. By doing this, you will begin to see that you CAN improve yourself as a result of learning.  This perspective of yourself in the world is the real impact; the real value.

Second, set your ego aside and seek lessons from those who have proven their talent on the topic. Don’t just learn the material, practice the material. Find someone you can learn from and who will be available to you as you apply the new skills. Rarely will it be as easy as during the lesson. Real-time support is essential to your adaptation of your new skills.

What is it You Seek More of?

Seek out a trainer and coach who knows the business and will make sure you get there. Here is what a project manager, now an owner and Senior Vice President, had to say:

“(Doug’s) largest asset is his ability to blend his knowledge of technical issues with the ‘soft side’ of human interaction and understanding– a skill that eludes many engineers. Doug has been of great assistance to my personal and professional success.“ 

It is All in Your Control

What is it you are not achieving that you seek? What is getting in the way?

Do you and your firm support my hypothesis? You can be your own wings or be a leader who provides the wings. Don’t be the drag.

Click here for the many solution opportunities FosterGrowth provides.

Doug

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Talent that shares your firm’s values critical for growth

How often do you think about your company’s values and purpose and how they’re related to your business growth strategy? The answer should be, “all the time.” As the leader it’s easy to be distracted with day-to-day operations and lose sight of what’s really important to you and your business. Successful leaders communicate these beliefs and priorities to their staff regularly as well as consistently model the behaviors that represent them.

There are certain times when reflecting on these company values is especially critical for future success– specifically during the hiring process. Sure, resumes with a long list of accomplishments and credentials are impressive. We can all agree on that.

But, how do you ensure a potential employee fits your company culture? Do you know how to figure that out? And, what makes knowing this and hiring based on this essential to your business growth strategy?

It goes both ways too. Potential employees need to feel that they are aligned with your values as much as you are with them in order to make a successful partnership.

I advise clients on an approach I used many times as an executive in an engineering consulting firm. Identify an interview team and give them a specific role. Make sure that at least one, if not two, are responsible for getting a sense of the candidate’s values and characteristics relative to the company’s culture.

Other evaluation topics to assign to interviewers include aspirations, technical skills, technical leadership history, non-technical ways they have contributed either professionally or socially as well as how they manage conflict. Dig deep– don’t let the interview process be a repetitive experience for the candidate.

Amanda Shore, writer for TalentCulture, shares tips to help you understand your culture better in the article titled, Cooking Up A Better Company Culture. Here, she describes steps for figuring out why people chose and stay at your company. Hire based on them to ensure you’re aligning with people with the right qualities. She identifies the following:

• Start by identifying high-performing employees.
• Define what behaviors and characteristics make these employees high-performers.
• Interview these employees and ask them why they work here and what makes them stay.
• Using their answers, determine what makes your company unique and defines the culture.

Focus on the values of the individuals on your team.   Try not to get too caught up in their particular area of expertise.  Most often, you need someone who fits into your organization and will engender loyalty with your clients.  Only with these two attributes can their technical skills secure the business results desired.

What approaches have worked well over your career?  When you try my suggested approach, send me an email and share what worked and what was challenging. dreed@fostergrowth.biz.  Thank you.

Doug Reed

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