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8 thought, Dr. Seuss provided the answer to the conundrum. It was classic Dr. Seuss, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas . All of the Whos in Whoville were saved by Mary Lou Who, the Who who transformed the Grinch and saved Christmas. Without the courage to step up and challenge the Grinch, the Whos in Whoville would have been lost. Mary Lou Who saved them, just like identifying the whos that will take over the leadership of a firm and propel it in a new direction. We are often placed into challenging positions to force the leadership transition decision, to radically transform a founder’s thinking, and to go out and recommend who we believe could provide significant change to the organization. In the cult classic, The Matrix , Neo is faced with an extreme decision from the character Morpheus: Take the blue pill and nothing changes, or take the red pill and his world is radically transformed. Without change, the status quo is maintained, the firm does not change and grow, and senior leadership runs the risk that without embracing the ideas and enthusiasm from the second tier, they compromise their annuity. By taking the risk, the status quo is radically shifted. Change is managed and mentored and the second tier takes the firm to places that the first tier never imagined. In recent engagements, we have recommended that highly TED MAZIEJKA, from page 5

valued, highly competent staff members in their early 30s become, in one instance, the chief vision officer, and in another, president of the firm. In both cases, the staff members were women, offering a radical transformation to the firm’s previous leadership culture and organizational structure. This change does not come without thought, exploration, and vetting of the second-tier ideas and ideology. Ultimately, it is their responsibility to prove to the first tier that they have what it takes to lead the firm. Change, in any situation, is never easy. Simple as a concept, but the ramifications are usually sudden, short- lived and over, and everyone moves forward. In ownership transition, the dynamics create the opportunity for long- term change, to radically alter the way the firm moves and operates. That risk has to be assimilated and embraced by the senior first tier. When change is fully accepted, and the second tier steps in, the first tier need only guide their successors. Their best approach is to gradually phase away from the day-to- day, allow the new team to engage the market, transform the firm, and successfully grow the organization into the future. The blue pill or the red pill? An apparently simple choice, just not an easy one! TED MAZIEJKA is a Zweig Group financial and management consultant. Contact him at tmaziejka@zweiggroup.com. Gonzalez says. “The country is destroyed in terms of infra- structure. Civil engineering will be the number one field in the beginning.” But unlike Freeman, Gonzalez is not so sure the embargo will be lifted next year. “I doubt it,” he says. Cuba still does not have freedom of speech, has not redis- tributed the property seized during the revolution, and only allows one political party. If those things don’t change – and as long as the Castro brothers are in power – Gonzalez does not see the embargo going away. But even if the political future is cloudy, the vision for a re- juvenated Cuban capital is not. “There are mock ups for the city of Havana,” Gonzalez says. In terms of engineering, he sees housing, standard tourism, medical tourism, and all manner of infrastructure as poten- tially healthy lines of business. When the time is right, he also sees American firms working hand-in-hand with Cuban engineers. “There are a tremendous amount of resources at their dis- posal,” he says. Firms like TLC, which specializes in medical facilities, will focus on higher-end, more complex projects in Cuba. While competition is expected to be fierce, once things get going, there should be plenty of work to go around. “There’s a big opportunity down there,” Gonzalez says.

HAVANA, from page 7

The emergence of Havana, Freeman says, is similar to the emergence of Hanoi, Vietnam, which, like Havana, is an ex- otic locale with an impressive trove of colonial architecture. “It is a unique opportunity for a venue that has sat on the sidelines for 50 years while the rest of the world was being developed,” Freeman says of Havana. “Without infrastructure, there’s nothing you can do. The country is destroyed in terms of infrastructure. Civil engineering will be the number one field in the beginning.” Plenty of people have their eyes on Cuba, and that’s espe- cially true in South Florida, home to the U.S.’s largest Cuban population. In Florida, and elsewhere, engineering firms are starting to position themselves for entry into the Cu- ban market. One such firm, TLC Engineering for Architecture , (Orlan- do, FL), not only has major offices in Miami and Deerfield Beach, but the manager of those offices, Erick Gonzalez, is Cuban born and is also a member of the Association of Cu- ban-American Engineers. He says when, and if, Cuba ever opens up, TLC will be in the mix, as will other American firms. “Without infrastructure, there’s nothing you can do,”

THE ZWEIG LETTER May 2, 2016, ISSUE 1150

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