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O P I N I O N
The new realities of business
Current world events are changing the way we value everything. This pandemic highlights the need for collaborative and equitable decision-making between leadership and staff.
F rom supply chains to Zoom meetings to work-from-home orders – our world has changed in unprecedented ways. This time is historic and lays bare any lack of preparedness imaginable. For AEC firms that have had to adapt to decades of flux or stability, our industry is probably more adept at dealing with change, although not as rapidly as encountered by the threat of an invisible virus. Still, those firms that planned for crisis, with strategies focused on staff and clients, with teams trained to mobilize, and technologies to support business processes, may prove to be the most resilient.
Stephen Lucy
With all of the challenges that we are continuing to work through, we need to memorialize and continue to implement the “lessons learned” as they will prove invaluable to our firms moving forward. ❚ ❚ The team. If only one positive ever comes from working through our current challenges, it is the value of a collaborative and trusting relationship with our staff. Regardless of position, we are all being impacted economically, socially, and mentally. There is no denying the toll that our current health and social environment can and does exact. However, no matter how cliché it may sound, we are all in this together and we will only come out of this successfully if we stay in step with each other.
Active listening to gain input from across your organization is essential to understand and adequately address the needs of your team. If asked to identify our most valuable asset, the universal answer has to be our staff. However, we must actively display and respond to that value if our answer is to be believed. Uppermost is communicating that message to staff on a regular basis as information is what they crave. Think about the questions you want answered as they are probably the exact same questions your staff wants to ask you. ❚ ❚ The process. To all those who long for the old
See STEPHEN LUCY, page 4
THE ZWEIG LETTER OCTOBER 5, 2020, ISSUE 1362
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