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Children’s Hospital of Michigan.
Conference call: Mike Cooper Managing principal and president of HED, Inc. (Hot Firm #34 for 2017), a 350-person design firm with offices in Illinois, Michigan, and California.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
“S mall changes often lead to significant results,” says Cooper, who believes in empowering the team and then letting them run. A CONVERSATION WITH MIKE COOPER. The Zweig Letter: Diversifying the portfolio is never a bad thing. What are themost recent steps you’ve taken to broaden your revenue streams? Mike Cooper: We remain committed to leverag- ing all of our skills and capabilities across all of- fice locations. This also serves to broaden our rev- enue stream – in the areas where we are strong as an organization. So, for example, if one of our of- fices has deep expertise in the research lab design, we want to make sure that all of the firm’s clients, across the nation, have access to that expertise. By using available technologies and with a willingness to travel between office locations, we’re able to ef- fectively do this.
TZL: The list of responsibilities for project man- agers is seemingly endless. How do you keep your PMs from burning out? And if they crash, how do you get them back out on the road, so to speak? MC: The key to project management success often lies in the team dynamic. Project teams should be more than the sum of their parts. When we set up teams that have the necessary leadership and tech- nical capabilities, then the individual team mem- bers take on an appropriate level of project respon- sibility and then lean on their teammates for sup- port. Project managers are a vital part of our proj- ect teams and they need the support of their team (and the organization). They should not have to take on more than they can reasonably handle. TZL: What is the role of entrepreneurship in your firm? MC: Entrepreneurship exists on many levels at
Mike Cooper, Managing Principal & President, HED, Inc.
THE ZWEIG LETTER Ap
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