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Chief enthusiasm officer: Matthew Saacks President of Ampirical (Best Firm Multi-discipline #21 for 2018), a 200-person firm on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
“W e learned several years ago that just adding people to the existing organization isn’t the way to grow,” says Saacks. “Instead, we had to devise and implement the processes and systems that allow a company to scale.” A CONVERSATATION WITH MATTHEW SAACKS. The Zweig Letter: There is no substitute for experience, but there is pressure to give responsibility to younger staff. What are you doing to address the risk while pursu- ing the opportunity to develop your team? Matthew Saacks: We learned several years ago that just adding people to the existing organization isn’t the way to grow. Instead, we had to devise and implement the process- es and systems that allow a company to scale. We began re- tooling our organization a couple of years ago as we expe- rienced the pains of growth, and we’re continuing to tran- sition to a team-of-teams model. Ideally, young staff that demonstrate their proficiency to technical tasks will become team leads. In this new position, they accept accountability for the output of a five- to seven-person team and report to
a manager with more than 10 years of experience. Because that manager oversees a group of teams, we can grow by further developing leads and multiplying teams – a process similar to cell division. “Employees want to feel valued, want to know that their work is important to the success of the firm, and that there is a purpose to why we do what we do. Finding ways to achieve that ideal and communicating it continually is really my primary responsibility.” TZL: Engineers love being engineers, but what are you doing to instill a business culture in your firm? MS: At the same time we implemented systems and process- es, we purchased a modular 10-portion program to increase
THE ZWEIG LETTER Ma
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