Industry Insights
ARE YOU READY TO TAKE ON OWNERSHIP? By Ezequiel Tovar, Ownership Transition Analyst, Zweig Group
What next After observing and evaluating the current leadership situation, the next step is to synthesize this information with your own personal values and ethics. If you like the firm, the culture, and, most importantly, the people, what do you need to know, and how can you prepare yourself? In a survey that asked participants to list the things they wished they knew prior to becoming a principal, these were the top four responses: 1. Business education & experience with finance/accounting 2. The amount of stress and time involved 3. Skills related to emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and communication 4. How to prepare for ownership transition Knowing these things will set a candidate ahead of other people being considered. But what exactly do they mean? Business education and experience: As an owner, seeing and understanding financials will be a requirement. Being able to navigate this space will also depend on your firm being transparent on the financial end, which is essential for a prospective owner to feel secure about their investment. You don’t have to be a principal to begin this process. Talk to your firm and request information relating to your interest in the success of the firm. On the project level, see how billing is done in the firm and potentially even take on that responsibility for your own projects. Practice makes perfect, and the more you know the better. Stress and time: Ownership is great when the tide is high, but the low tide reveals those who aren’t ready for the responsibility. The AEC industry is oftentimes an incredibly precise industry, and there are a million things that can go wrong with a firm—a partner leaves, you lose an important client, and on and on. Firm owners should be leaders and problem solvers. No matter what your preparation level is, something will happen, and it will test your endurance and strength as a leader. Emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and communication: We all deal with different people all the time. On a daily basis, you may interact with coworkers, sub-consultants, contractors, and many other different people in different roles. When you are an owner, it will be your responsibility to resolve disputes between these different groups, and doing so requires tactfulness and effective communication. People problems are often the most sensitive issues. Egos clash, people get offended, and so on, but listening and trying to understand people in those moments can go a long way in resolving issues. The key is to show, not tell, them you have their best interest in mind. Producing
We serve a phenomenal industry. An industry we can be proud of. Each firm, no matter how big or small, impacts our built environment by improving lives. Now what if I told you that you could be at the helm of leading your firm in this crucial industry? Would you take it? Most importantly, are you ready for it? The AEC industry is a phenomenal space for innovation and change. As AEC professionals, we can take pride in serving such an impactful industry. Every firm—big or small—makes an impact on the built environment, and that has the potential to significantly improve people’s lives. This bestows us with a tremendous responsibility as an industry, and, for me, makes firm ownership a much more challenging question. Thinking about this responsibility shifts the way we view the qualities necessary for firm ownership. How would you respond if you were given the opportunity to lead your firm tomorrow? Would you take the opportunity? Perhaps more importantly, would you be ready for it? The process starts early, and it starts with you As an industry that carries such pride, I think we often overlook these crucial initial steps of the ownership transition process. If someone wants to be the owner of the firm, it makes sense that they are the right fit for that particular firm. While this seems like a logical first step, it ends up being a more complicated process that can only benefit from earlier consideration. During my time interviewing both incoming and legacy owners, there has been a consistent common thread that an understanding of trust and vulnerability must be established by both parties. In other words, the legacy owner relies on trust that the incoming owner will commit and deliver while the incoming owner relies on trust that the other party will relinquish control gradually and mentor them. Think about your work history past and present, in how many situations would you have felt comfortable taking on an ownership role? Would that have alleviated any feelings of mistrust or doubt? Probably not. In this way, spending more time at a firm—the longer the better—gives you a panoramic view of that firm’s leadership. You get to see them in the good times, and, crucially, you get to experience the response when times are bad. The latter of these two situations is a good measure of an individual’s character level, and these experiences allow you to observe their decision-making abilities. While performing this evaluation, it makes sense to pay attention to things like your company’s core values and whether or not those are being adhered to. Focus on their actions. As an individual evaluating whether ownership at their firm is a good career decision, these situations, both good and bad, give you a lot of information and insight into what that relationship would look like for you in the future.
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Fall 2024
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