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CHRISTINA ZWEIG, from page 5

Development, an intergovernmental group of industrial- ized countries, estimating that global nuclear energy needs to more than double by 2050. Here in the U.S., Watts Bar 2 in Tennessee just went into operation, and another four li- censees have permits for new reactors. According to a 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service, nuclear engineers are near the top of the earnings bracket in the engineering field, have only a 1.7-percent un- employment rate, and among the entire population of engi- neers, are a relatively rare breed. All of those are good rea- sons to consider the field, even as nuclear energy is in tran- sition. “A career in nuclear engineering isn’t for everyone, but if you get in it and you’re good at it, there will always be a de- mand for your skills,” Leshinskie says. “I don’t think anyone – Wall Street, plant operators, state planners – expected the change to continue this long. The bottom line is that it had a bigger impact than anyone expected.” z Embrace the ugliness. Your horse has to learn from its own mistakes sometimes. You can point your horse at the fence and encourage it to go over, but where it puts its feet has to be its own choice. If you give your horse enough opportuni- ties to position itself, it will learn and start jumping better and more accurately. As a firm leader, you have to let people make some choices for themselves and learn from the results. They will get quicker, smarter, and better able to do their jobs as a result. CHRISTINA ZWEIG is Zweig Group’s director of research and marketing. Contact her at christinaz@zweiggroup.com. z Take small risks every day. Lucinda stressed how impor- tant it is to create tiny challenges for your horse to overcome, building on each achievement. Firm leaders need to take risks to grow. that will move it forward. A positive culture, enthusiasm, creativity, all these things will create new opportunities for your firm and be extremely valuable to surviving hardships. A rider’s hands are for steering and putting the brakes on when necessary. Lucinda stressed that it’s OK to slow your horse down when faced with a complex or narrow obstacle that demands a lot of accuracy, but you can never stop the forward motion of your horse’s legs. As a firm leader you can never let your firm come to a standstill. It always has to grow and move in a focused direction. Some other lessons I learned from Lucinda Green: z Prepare for the worst. Many A/E/P firm leaders think play- ing it safe means moving very slowly, taking a long time to make decisions, and never pursuing growth. In situations such as a bad project, a rough economy, or policy changes – all of which are inevitable, by the way, no matter how safe you play it – you need to giddy up and get the heck out of there, not lollygag.

into a solid four-foot fence. Do you want a power struggle with your firm in the face of disaster? Absolutely not. Every person in your firm has an important job to do, but they also have free will. You can harness this free will by empowering your people to use their own creativity and energy, or you can try to micromanage every aspect of every person’s job. As a rider you have to use your eyes, legs, and hands to get your horse pointed in the right direction, then the rest is up to them. As a firm leader, you have to get your firm headed in the right direction, but you certainly can’t work on every part of every project and sell more work, answer the phones, and do all the accounting. “Just like in business, in horseback riding you are never done learning. I try to keep myself educated through reading, watching others ride, and occasional visits to my coach.” As a rider, your eyes are for intention. You always have to focus on where you are going next or your horse won’t know where to go and the rest of your body can’t do its job properly. As a firm leader, you have to have a clear and established vision. Your number one job is not to put your stamp on every project, but rather set the trajectory for where you are going next. Your legs are the gas pedal for the horse. A rider’s legs move a horse forward, but they also help with steering. As a firm leader it’s your job to create energy in your firm

NUCLEAR, from page 7

Though nuclear facilities have the potential to create ex- traordinary emergencies – the Fukishima Daiichi plant in Japan, for example – nuclear is reliable, carbon-free, and can power big grids. And for those reasons, nuclear will re- main relevant, Leshinskie says. But the industry was caught flat-footed by fracking and nat- ural gas, and did not foresee the steep and prolonged drop in prices that followed. “A career in nuclear engineering isn’t for everyone, but if you get in it and you’re good at it, there will always be a demand for your skills.” “I don’t think anyone – Wall Street, plant operators, state planners – expected the change to continue this long,” Leshinskie says. “The bottom line is that it had a bigger im- pact than anyone expected.” Even with its woes, nuclear is considered by many to be the best way to achieve aggressive carbon-reduction goals, with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and

THE ZWEIG LETTER July 25, 2016, ISSUE 1161

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