On the other hand, thriving is proactive, specific, and selective about goal setting, strategies, and success measurement. In thrive mode, not every opportunity is pursued because every opportunity has an ROI calculation and only acceptable profitability is pursued. Often, opportunities are created organically by the firm through refinement of core competencies, brand differentiation, and serving the right relationships well. A firm in thrive mode does not concern itself with chasing opportunities that are only marginally or not at all profitable, or with clients who are not loyal or profitable to work with, or in markets where the firm’s differentiation is not recognized. Thrive mode targets profitability and high utilization, and the firms that are high-performing and maintain thrive mode are often those that unify and communicate brand strategy and differentiation, specific goals through financial measurements, and are most transparent at deeper levels of the organization. In short, surviving puts you at the mercy of your competitive environment, thriving is your strategy shaping your competitive environment. What’s interesting about survive vs. thrive mode is that within one firm both mindsets can be active at the same time – at the highest levels of an organization there can be a thrive mindset, but if the strategy, measurements, and correct incentives aren’t communicated to the levels of the organization that are entering into pursuits, contracts, negotiations, and project management, the practice of the firm can quickly devolve into survive mode. This is how you get misalignment between C-suite leadership or principals-in-charge, who will be confused when the firm wins a large project, only to discover that the win was based on a fee with a razor thin profit margin (if any) and hefty overhead into the pursuit itself. There is a lot of literature out there on how to slow down and take control of your strategy, define your place in the market, price your services appropriately for your value*, and communicate it through your organization, but we identified a few practices we saw as symptoms of surviving instead of thriving mindsets and attitudes. Deep discussions on these can reveal opportunities for training people within your key decision-making teams, many of whom probably did not receive robust business or financial training and education in their architecture or engineering programs.
*For more on how to properly evaluate your value in the marketplace and pricing, we suggest the text “Raise Your Value: 5 Steps for Architecture and Engineering Firms to Uncover Hidden Value, Design a Winning Advantage and Charge More,” by June R. Jewell, CPA, which includes with it tools for assessing your value and was a source of much learning and inspiration for us when writing this guide.
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