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FROM THE FOUNDER
Accomplishing your business plan
A lot of people in the AEC business – truth be told – think that business planning is just another meaningless “academic” exercise that really isn’t worth doing. As a result, they treat the whole process as such, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A business plan only works if leadership builds accountability, relationships, and follow-through into daily operations and culture.
Outside of the AEC business, the majority of wannabe business owners see the business plan merely as a vehicle to raise startup capital, and once that goal has been accomplished, pay little attention to it or the process of maintaining it. The truth is that the business plan should guide daily operation of the business. It’s an articulation of the firm’s reason for existence, what it is trying to accomplish or become, and what the creators’ basic philosophy is about and how they will approach everything they do. It is also a means of establishing goals and action items that will provide individual accountability for their accomplishment. That’s a tall order, but a good plan along with management that uses it will do all of those things. I used to think (not long ago) that making all information about individual and group performance
public inside the company would in itself guide accountability through establishment of the right corporate culture. But I have now come to realize that in itself is not enough. As my friend Matt Lewis, general manager of the large privately-held Lewis Automotive Group based here in Fayetteville likes to say, “Don’t forget ‘management’ has the word ‘manage’ in it.” In other words, managers do need to hold the people who work for them to account to do what they say they will. That “holding people to account” is rarely fun. It is an art but also a discipline. Some people do it well and some don’t. Some managers try to use threats and fear to do it. While that may have worked in 1900, it rarely works today in a labor market where demand for quality workers generally exceeds supply. I find
Mark Zweig
See MARK ZWEIG , page 6
THE ZWEIG LETTER JUNE 2, 2025, ISSUE 1588
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