These are tricky times for many A/E and environmental consulting firms. In this business environment, figuring out a direction for your firm to take and getting everyone’s buy-in is no garden-variety challenge. But a deliberate, focused, strategic planning effort can help your leadership team unite around a common goal and transform the firm’s culture and performance. Here are a few tips that will help you and your team establish a clear, compelling roadmap for the future.

Get the story behind the story
Before launching into strategy meetings, get a 360-degree perspective of the firm. Do this by preparing an unbiased evaluation of the company. Gather feedback from leaders, staff, and clients, and benchmark your firm’s financial performance, policies and procedures, marketing practices, and organizational characteristics against industry norms. Distill this information into a concise report that contains a summary of the information as well as observations, interpretations, and conclusions. Deliver the report to the planning team several days in advance of the session so they can digest the issues and test their assumptions about the firm’s strengths and weaknesses before engaging in discussion with the rest of the leadership team. This document should not be shared firm-wide. It is only a tool to help establish the strategic plan, which should then be communicated to everyone in the company soon after its development.

Consider a “Leadership Intervention”
If your preliminary analysis indicates that there is a moderate to high degree of dysfunction at the top of the organization, think about having a “Leadership Intervention” prior to the strategic planning retreat to focus on the health of the leadership team and clear the air before the real planning begins. Use this forum to practice listening, exchanging ideas, giving honest assessments to one another, getting any lingering or festering issues out in the open, and ultimately, building trust.

Hold the strategy meetings off site
Consider booking your strategy meeting off site. A neutral setting has a way of relaxing the mood and providing a buffer for busy managers who would otherwise be tempted to douse the brush fire du jour. Arrange for flip charts, white boards, markers, projectors, name tags, and any other tools and accessories you might need, and make sure whatever facility you use allows for plenty of natural light so the meeting participants stay alert and focused. Finally, don’t skimp on breakfast, lunch, and snacks—a good spread will keep everyone’s energy level up.

Set ground rules for the meeting
Before the bell rings for Round 1, take 15 minutes to set the ground rules for the session. Let the participants know that it is their responsibility to fully engage, listen thoroughly, and be open and honest with their thoughts and comments. Encourage the team to build on ideas and take them as far as they can go before looking for holes. The phrase “Devil’s Advocate” should be banned from the session. All cell phones should be turned off, and no one should have a lap top open or their hands anywhere near a PDA until it’s time to break.

Work from big picture to little picture
Principals in the A/E and environmental industry often have the tendency to want to figure out how to do something before they even know what that something is. But it is important to start the discussion with the goal of setting a vision for the firm (not to be confused with mission—more on that later). Take the opportunity to think about the possibilities of what the team could build together and what the company might look like, say five or ten years from now. What kind of firm will it be? What markets will it serve? What will the culture be like? How big will it be? An exciting, unifying vision can be exactly the tonic a leadership team needs to gel.

Understand that a vision statement is quite different than a mission statement. A mission states why a firm is in business, or why it exists. Conversations about mission statements tend to eat up a disproportionate amount of time yet seldom yield anything truly valuable. It’s almost a guarantee that after hours of waxing poetic, someone in the group will ask, “What are we supposed to do with this thing? Put it on our business cards?” It’s better to simply state that you exist to help your clients accomplish their goals, and leave it at that.

Once the vision is established, move on to strategies. Strategies are the firm’s key profitability and growth initiatives, and the core philosophies on how the firm will run its various management areas like finance and accounting, HR, marketing and business development, IT, etc. Next, set annual firm-wide goals (specific and measurable), and establish a set of action items (who will do what by when).

Don’t keep it a secret!
When senior management disappears for a couple of days, employees tend to get curious, or perhaps even suspicious, depending on the firm’s situation. To limit the water cooler talk, plan for a firm-wide meeting as soon as possible after the session (within days, not months). Larger firms should schedule a road show or use video- conferencing technology to deliver the plan to management and staff around the company. Share the floor with the planning team. Discuss the strategic planning process and the reason for it, showcase the vision, provide a strong rationale for the strategies, and field questions in an open and honest way.

Strategic planning can be of great value to an organization. But you need to have a well thought-out approach and a willingness to tackle the tough issues—or you could end up doing more damage than good.

If you have a strategic planning success story (or train wreck) that you’d like to share, please email me at mgoodale@morrisseygoodale.com.

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The economic growth of the previous few years has made recruiting and hiring some of the top business challenges faced by architecture and engineering firms. But with the recent softening of the market, we may see this stressor easing up. Our firm’s workloads may decrease enough to provide a little breathing room while being able to keep existing staff busy. Some unfortunate firms, however, will lose enough business to require downsizing. The silver lining: this releases some valuable staffing talent onto the street and provides a golden opportunity for financially stable and/or growing firms. Here’s a few points to keep in mind while hiring in a slow economy:

• Don’t lowball salary, just because you can. With more people available, and firms being extra conservative with their cash, leaders may be tempted to undercut salaries for new hires. However, keep in mind that while people may accept a lowball offer today while the chips are down, tomorrow when the tide turns, they’re apt to move on to a higher bidder. While you want your staff to not be all about the money, people’s self worth is often tied into their compensation. You’ll want to set conservative yet competitive pay rates that are at minimum the industry salary average for that position to keep people for the longer-term.

• Focus on quality. Unless they’re closing the doors entirely, firms don’t lay off their best performers. Keep that in mind as the job boards fill up and you suddenly start getting a good response to your job postings. The last thing you want to do is to hire someone else’s expendable staff and make mediocrity the norm. The best prospects are likely gainfully employed, and will still be found through networking and leveraging staff referrals.

• Recruit locally. With the difficulty in the housing market, you’ll want to focus your recruiting efforts locally whenever possible, and avoid having to relocate prospects. Not only will you save the effort of recruiting prospects that will be resistant to the risk of selling their home, but you will save yourself relocation costs, which are typically on the order of several thousand dollars or more. An added benefit to local recruiting is the increased chance for long-term cultural and social fit within your firm.

• Invest in strategic hires. Key strategic players are even more essential to your firm during times of economic challenge. Now is the ideal time to identify your firm’s strategic goals, and to make sure that the best people are in place to implement them. The most important strategic positions in a down time are usually: 1) rainmakers who are marketing and developing new business, as well as maintaining client relationships, 2) outstanding project managers who exceed client expectations and serve as trainers and mentors to more junior staff, and 3) technical staff with diverse transferable skill sets and strong work ethic. If these type of folks come seeking out opportunity with your firm, don’t pass them by simply because you “aren’t hiring.”

• Consider part-time solutions. Hiring part time and temporary staff as needed could save you a good deal of money in salary and benefits, and provide appealing opportunities for those seeking flexibility. Many smart and experienced folks, like those with young children or nearing retirement, would welcome reduced hours or contracting options. A/E firm leaders rarely consider the real and significant contributions that can be made by part time employees. While a slowing economy has clear negative impact on most firms, hiring during this time in some ways may become easier. If your firm has the fortitude to be actively hiring, celebrate your good fortune, but proceed with caution.

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