Word on the Street: Issue 237

Nineteen Who Made Us

Last Thursday, we celebrated our 19^th year in business. Since we’re a pretty low-key bunch, the anniversary itself passed—as it has done for the prior 18 years—with a ton of work getting done and little to no fanfare. There were no cruises down the Nile. No Michael Scott-inspired “Good-ees” at the local TGI Fridays. And, as far as we know, there wasn’t a bottle of cheap champagne popped in Natick, New York, Denver, Durham, Atlanta, Houston, or Chicago (well, maybe in Chicago since they were also celebrating the end of another Siberian-like winter).

Instead, we chose to mark the day by reflecting on our time in business and giving 19 shoutouts to some of the folks, events, and circumstances that have helped us get here. 

#19: Our Clients

We learn from each and every one of you as we do our best to help you achieve your goals—whether they are to set and execute a strategic plan, grow through acquisition, sell or recapitalize your firm, explore new markets, or facilitate crucial conversations for your team. We’ve done our best for the past 6,940 days to always go above and beyond for you. And we’d like to give a special shout out to some of those firms that helped us get our start back in 2006, including our friends at Kirkham Michael, Timmons Group, Crafton Tull, Tevebaugh Architecture, RJN Group, and Merrick & Company and to the over 150 active clients who we are serving now. Thank you all. 

#18: Our Team

Mark G. puts it best when he says, “We’ve never had a stronger team.” Our 25 folks live our 13 (I know, we need to either add one or subtract one) shared values (we refer to them as our brand points) of being (1) Honest + Ethical, (2) Hard-working, (3) Responsive, (4) Reliable, (5) Continuously improving, (6) Sincere, (7) Energetic, (8) Subject matter experts, (9) On top of client and project engagements, (10) Direct and to the point, (11) Focused, (12) Low overhead, Low maintenance, and (13) Zero drama, Zero tolerance for BS. We feel more than optimistic that this crew will create even greater value for our existing and future clients over the next 19 years. 

#17: Our Sponsors and Partners

Every year, our three symposia provide opportunities for over 600 AE industry executives and investors to connect and learn. With each symposium we try to create an experience where our guests feel that the time they take to attend is well spent and valuable for them and their firms. We would not be able to pull this off (check out what attendees have to say here) without the support of our awesome event sponsors and partners—all of whom provide value-added products and services for the AE industry. (Shameless self-promotion: Early-bird registration for our Western States M&A and Business Symposium at the stunning Wynn Las Vegas is available until April 18. Register today to save big time!)

#16: Our Advisory Partners

We’re not lawyers. We ain’t tax experts. (Nor are we professional dancers, but that’s another newsletter.) But much of our advisory work involves helping both sellers and buyers structure transactions that have major league legal and tax implications for them and the folks sitting across the table. We’re able to help them navigate those complexities by partnering only with top-notch legal and tax professionals. These folks not only know the legal and tax ins-and-outs necessary to maximize benefits to our clients while at the same time protecting their interests, but they also know the AE industry. So, it’s not their first rodeo. They are not learning at our clients’ expense. They are ready immediately to bring the expertise needed and deploy the resources to get transactions completed on schedule—typically 90 days from LOI to closing. 

#15: Our “Overhead”

One of our founding strategies was to outsource everything that was not “mission critical”—which we defined as serving clients. We’ve pretty much kept true to that commitment over the years. We still outsource all of our financial, IT, and HR management and most of our marketing management. We’re able to do this because we work in partnership with these professionals so that they understand our goals and prioritize their resources to help us—much like we help our clients. We’ve had long-standing relationships with all of these folks, and we appreciate how they have increased their competencies to allow us to grow while at the same time improving our client service. 

#14: Our Competitors

Because nothing sharpens our game like knowing someone else is gunning for the same client, creating a new service, or pitching a different idea—sometimes better than us. They kept us honest, forced us to level up, and reminded us that complacency is a killer. Some became friends, some stayed rivals—all of them made us better.

#13: The One That Got Away

That deal, client, hire, or opportunity that we just knew was going to be a game-changer—until it wasn’t. And yet, it taught us more than most wins ever could. We replayed it a hundred times, dissected what went wrong, and swore we’d never make the same mistake twice. And usually, we didn’t.

#12: The One Phone Call That Changed Everything

You know the one. You weren’t expecting it, but after it ended, the trajectory of the firm changed. A deal, a pivot, a wake-up call—we’ve had a few. Sometimes it was good news, sometimes it wasn’t—but we always left those calls with a clearer sense of who we were and what we were building.

#11: The Other Call(s) That Changed Everything

Over the years, we’ve made our share of mistakes. Screwed up on client engagements. Failed to listen carefully enough. Needlessly dropped the ball. Zigged right when we should have zagged left. Misread the room. And we’ve also been in the position where we hadn’t actually screwed up yet but were well on our way to doing so. Until we got the call that changed everything. From our client. Letting us know in no uncertain terms that we were letting them down. Not meeting their needs. Failing to listen to what they were saying. Falling down on our commitments to them. To all of those clients who took the time to set us straight, we owe you a debt of gratitude. And we trust that we have learned from the experience. 

#10: Rejection

We didn’t always get the project. But those “no”s pushed us to sharpen our thinking, rework our pitch, and double down. Over time, rejection became less about failure and more about refinement—a necessary filter that helped us focus on the right things. (Editor’s note: Rejection was also a feature of Mick’s dating days.)

#9: The Flight Delays

We’ve been stuck in enough airports to qualify for a minor in behavioral psychology. Somewhere between Gate C22 and the last boarding call, we came up with some of our best ideas. Turns out, there’s something creatively liberating about being stuck with a laptop and no escape route. And honestly, some of those airport war stories became company lore.

#8: The Interns Who Called Us Out

The ones who asked, “Why do you do it that way?” with no malice, just curiosity—and left us speechless. They didn’t stay long, but they left a mark. Their questions reminded us that legacy thinking can be a liability. And every time we listened—really listened—we got better.

#7: The Ones Who Said, “You’re Crazy”

They weren’t wrong. But starting a consulting firm focused on the AE industry in 2006 wasn’t exactly a blue-chip move—especially with growing families, and in one case, a newborn who showed up five days after we opened our doors. Thanks for doubting us—we needed the fuel.

#6: Mike Lazaridis, Douglas Fredin, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, and Marc Benioff

When we started out, one of our core strategies was to be totally, completely connected 24/7 internally (even though there were only two of us!) and externally with our clients. So, after we each put $10,000 in the bank to capitalize the firm, we headed to the local Verizon store to pick up our new Blackberries, then to Best Buy to buy a couple of Dell laptops, then to a local IT consultant to get us set up on Outlook and connected. (At the end of the day, I went to Blockbuster to rent Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire—but that’s neither here nor there except to throw in another mid-2000s reference.) Today all of our team are still completely connected 24/7, whether they are on the ground in one of our offices in seven states, or overseas, or in the air. We’re not sure if the founders of Blackberry, Microsoft, Dell, Intuit, and Salesforce read Word on the Street regularly. But assuming they do—thank you for allowing us to spend a ton of money on your technologies to do what we do. 

#5: The Balanced Scorecard

We introduced this strategic planning methodology pretty early in our strategy practice because clients loved the way it allowed them to translate vision into action. For many clients, it was a brand-new way to look at their firm and connect the four pillars of Learning & Growth, Finance, Markets, and Operations to unlock potential that they had been unable to access before. And in some ways, best of all, it provided clients—many for the first time—with measurable KPIs for them to track their progress against and hold themselves accountable.

#4: The Open Space Meeting Format 

I’ll admit, I was a little skeptical when Mark came back from one of his Left Coast strategy engagements and raved about the Open Space meeting concept (“a casbah of ideas,” he described it as). It sounded more like something out of the Summer of Love to me. But I became a huge fan when I saw just how effective it was at getting meaningful input and generating big-picture discussions and out-of-the-box ideas from larger groups of AE and environmental consulting firm leaders, managers, and technical staff. We’ve run this facilitation process for groups of 25 to 250, and it has always been not only productive, but a great way for teams to engage with each other like they never have before. It’s SO much better than having a group of people sitting around a conference table.

#3: G.R.O.W.T.H.

We launched the business as a strategy and strategic advisory firm. Over the years, our strategy work has evolved (see #5 “The Balanced Scorecard” and #4 “The Open Space Meeting Process”), but one constant in that work has been us facilitating strategic planning meetings for our clients. The multi-day strategic planning meeting is either a capstone or milestone event in most of our strategy engagements. We require it. It’s the single-most important method to gather input, build agreement, and make decisions. We’ve run more than a few of these meetings at some “interesting” locations. But regardless of whether we’re facilitating in Duluth or Dublin, we are front and center for the entire meeting, ensuring that everyone gets “heard,” ideas flow, the agenda is followed, conflict is mined and managed to achieve results, and at the end everyone knows full well that they have addressed the important strategic items for their firm directly and intelligently, are a stronger team than when they started, and have a path forward. All good stuff—except if you’re an introvert, as both Mark and I are. We LOSE energy exponentially the more we engage with people. We can practically track our power levels declining throughout 10 hours of facilitation like a Tesla battery draining ominously on a winter’s day when there is no supercharger for hundreds of miles. (As an only child AND an introvert, my battery depletes extra-fast when facilitating.) How do we recharge our batteries to make sure the next day is a success for our clients? We follow the same standard pattern of G.R.O.W.T.H. that we started in 2006 which is Gym time followed by Review and clean up notes from the day leading to Order room service (salmon for me, some red meat and a dessert for Mark—we typically never attend client team dinners) then Watch either Seinfeld, The Office, or The Simpsons (while eating room service) followed by Tee up the next day’s sessions (PowerPoints, analysis, change room set up) then Home—gotta call home. Always call home. 

#2: Mark Zweig

Mark hired both of us in 1994 and gave us the best education we could’ve asked for—not in a classroom, but in the real-world business of consulting to AE firms. He taught us how to sell, how to write, how to think like entrepreneurs, and how to get comfortable with risk. Morrissey Goodale wouldn’t exist without that foundation—period.

#1: Our Families

They’ve put up with the late nights, early flights, weekend writing binges, and a level of obsession with the AE industry that no reasonable person should have to endure. Through it all, they’ve cheered us on, kept us grounded, and reminded us that the most important milestones don’t come with fanfare. This business was built on their support, patience, and unconditional belief in us.

Mick Morrissey and Mark Goodale

Weekly M&A Round Up

Six deals in the Western U.S.: Last week we reported twelve new domestic transactions, including six in the rapidly consolidating Western U.S. with two deals in Arizona and one each in New Mexico, Washington, and California. Overseas, we reported six deals. You can check all the week’s M&A news here.