ElevateAEC - From Chaos to Clarity: Mastering Project Leadership and Organizational Growth

Host: 00:00:03

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Moderator: 00:00:50

And now what we're going to do is we're going to drill down on return on investment with a highly curated panel of experts here that are representing firms that have implemented some innovative practices and approved accountability ownership in the project management area of the org chart. Now, our moderator for this panel is someone I consider the top expert in project management strategies and tactics in this industry, Justin Smith.

Justin is Y Group's exclusive provider of strategic project management and leadership consulting and training. Now there's no shortage of uninspiring and outdated project management training out there. Okay, can I get an amen?

Aaron: 00:01:32

All right.

Moderator: 00:01:33

I suffered through so much of this in my career, but I met Justin about seven years ago and since then he has surprised and delighted numerous so I group clients with his modernized business savvy and strategic approach to project management and leadership. Justin's a PE and an SE with an mba and he has a proven track record of business growth, profitability and diverse and highly technical programs.

He's assembled an esteemed panel here to share some valuable insights with all of you. So please help me welcome Justin Smith, who will be our moderator and the rest of our panel on roi.

Justin: 00:02:14

So anyone who knows me or has ever spoken to me in a professional context knows I always like to start with two things. The first thing is lowering expectations. So Chad did a terrible job with that. So take wherever your expectations are and bring them down a notch.

The second thing is I've heard that the best way to start these things is to begin with an attention grabbing story. So I said to my wife, who's never wrong, what's a good attention grabbing story I could start with? And she gave me one.

And because she's never wrong, we're going to start with it. So on Sunday night I played in my first ever adult hockey game. Let that sink in for a minute.

No history of athletic pursuits on the ice, but I have a seven year old that plays hockey and he's very quickly about to surpass my ability. So as anyone would, I went to him before and I said I need some advice. What should I do? And he told me, just don't be so slow.

So I followed his advice and believe it or not, I scored three goals, a hat trick, in my first ever adult hockey game. The good news is I felt great about it. The bad news is it's only downhill from there.

So the moral of that story is not that I'm great at hockey, although the only reason I told that story is so that I could tell that story. It's that you never know where you are going to learn information that is going to potentially be game changing for you.

You never know who is going to have solved a problem that you are facing, who's going to have the secret recipe to getting things done. This perfect fit for something that you're dealing with.

Now, I in no way mean to compare this panel to a seven year old, but the point is the answers to the questions that you have may be out there in the audience here.

And so we've got three people up here that are tackling big challenges, challenges that I would imagine a lot of people in the audience have either thought about or are dealing with or maybe sitting at the starting line ready to start, but not sure what to do first. So I'm going to do a quick intro of my panelists here and then we are going to allow them to fight it out for about 45 minutes.

So toward the end, provided that we've got time, we're going to try to do a little bit of Q and A. Now, I know this is right before lunch, so that's typically a tricky time to ask people to hang out and ask questions.

But as we go here, please, if you have questions, write them down, throw your hand up in the air, and Chad Coldiron and Shirley, who are in the back, are going to track you down so that when we get to the Q and A, you're ready to rip. So I'm joined here on the end by Aaron Lauenger from Old Tech.

He's the general manager of the transportation and water lifeline sector, Lifeline sectors at Ultag.

I was told before this to make sure that I get to Tierra's name correct because I've historically called her Tiara, like the thing you wear on your head. Tierra Marcus with ISG director or head of the project management department at isg. And Brian Selaf of Tamarack Grove, CEO of Tamarack Grove.

Now, what's unique about these three is that they are all staring down and in a lot of ways working on very different challenges within their businesses. But what is similar about them is the steps that they've taken along the way to address these challenges.

So what we heard about this morning in the discussion right before this is that the firm of the future is going to have challenges that we likely haven't solved to date.

And whether it's thinking about technology, thinking about expanding our workforce, or any of a number of topics that were discussed, the one common theme is the firm that wins is the firm that is able to identify opportunities, create strong internal support, and then take action around those opportunities.

The challenge with that is the skills and approaches necessary to create and sustain long term behavior change are very different than the project management skills that we practice every day.

And the thing that is going to prevent us from making strides in that area is bringing that linear, project focused approach to these big initiatives that are near and dear to our hearts. The great news is we've got people up here that have unlocked processes and skills that have influenced large teams to accomplish big things.

So with that, I'm going to start with Aaron on the end here. Aaron. So Aaron, what is it that you are working on right now? What's a big program that you've got going on that is near and dear to your heart?

Aaron: 00:07:02

So at Oldtake we've been hyper focused on what we're calling high value client engagement. And as this conference is called today, Elevate this industry has really elevated itself, without a doubt.

And historically, when we talk about project management and budget and schedule and communication and responsiveness, the reality is these are no longer differentiators.

These are kind of the basic table stakes for us as firms because of that elevation that all of you in this audience have aspired to be, really haven't differentiated in the world of competitiveness.

And so for Oldtake, myself seeing this opportunity, one of those areas that I identified as really being a differentiator is how we engage with clients. And as we talk about mission and value and purpose and all those things that are really important to the business.

So is brand, and brand isn't something that you get to define your clients, get to define your brand, but what you do get to choose to do is how you engage, which informs that brand, creates that experience for them.

And so hyper focus across our organization on this idea that how we engage with our clients is going to develop an experience that they have that defines our brand and who we are, enabling us to differentiate ourselves.

Justin: 00:08:23

So it's interesting because I heard someone say the other day that about brand and culture, that if you don't assign it, one will be assigned to you.

And what's unique about Ulteg and is really similar to the approach that ISG has taken, is we stake out a claim for what we want our brand to be, and then in doing so, we say, okay, if this is the decision that we've made, then we have to act accordingly. So, Tierra, at ISG, how have you taken ISG's mantra, its approach, what it's about, and brought it down to the way you run projects?

Tierra: 00:08:57

We have a set of essentially non negotiables, right, with what do Isgers know, believe and do? And each day we ask our project managers to put themselves in the shoes of the client.

So to be empathetic, not only externally, like you're talking, but also internally with our team, which is our internal clients, we have a massive opportunity to influence the groups in a way that project management is a standalone function at ISG rather than a hybrid with like a civil engineer, co led architect, co led project management.

And I think that we have something really unique with protecting our culture that is good, but we don't allow any level of technical talent to outweigh a bad behavior. So if we have something that's poisonous in the culture, we get rid of it, we act on it.

We make sure that we protect the good in the leadership, because people want to follow folks that are not only technically savvy, but more than anything will have their back.

So the culture of leadership is something that we're transforming, not project management to project leadership, and really trying to embody that every day.

Justin: 00:10:03

Excellent. Thank you so much. So what I love about that is isg. If you've met anyone from isg, the culture is infectious.

And what is critical about it is that's great, we can feel this way about ourselves when we interact, but how do we bring this into core business processes? Which is what I think we're trying to do with project leadership.

Now, in working up an intro for Brian, I shared with him before, I said, to know Tamarack Grove Engineering is to know Brian, because everything about Tamarack's brand flows from a position of what is the culture that we want? How do we fiercely protect it? And how do we use it to evaluate and inform even what some might classify as routine business decisions?

So, Brian, how are you bringing Tamarack's culture into even the everyday business decisions that you're making?

Brian: 00:10:54

we went into this this year,: 2024

rove. But we really went into: 2024

And the big thing for me this year was our space. We basically did a big remodel in a facility three years ago. We had hoped to get five years out of it.

We were at the three year mark going into this year and we had just flat outgrown our space. So our initiative this year was how do we focus on those three things? Going to a different space and so revolving around culture.

A question that I ask all of you is when you look at that, of everyone that walks in your front doors of your business and all your locations, do they walk in that front door because they want to be there or because they have to be there? And I think we're dealing with a lot of topics here of just the younger generation, even older generation, of just what Covid did for us and remote.

But if you ask yourself that question of have to versus want to, I think that's how I just approach a lot of our decisions and how it revolves around culture.

But so we went into this year of doing that and there's a lot more things I can explain on that in terms of where we're at and how that's all played out.

Justin: 00:12:07

Excellent. So all three up here, three very different issues that we're focused on, right? High value client engagement.

Really intentionally creating the brand experience that we want customers to have when they interact with us. A focus on empathy for both the internal and external client and bringing that into every project.

That is not something that has been historically classified under the project management umbrella in pretty much any project management book or article that I've ever seen. And then looking at things like, okay, we have an office, we have to make a decision about that.

And these are things people are dealing with all the time. But wait a minute. There's the potential for there to be a huge culture impact if we get this wrong.

So we're thinking about all these things and we're dealing with them every day. But oh, and by the way, there's also a business to run, right? There's projects that need to get done. There's fires that are popping up.

So with all that going on, how are you each remaining focused on the strategic initiatives and keeping the noise out? How are you remaining focused on what is most critical to our business tomorrow and not letting the fires of today get in their way?

Tierra: 00:13:19

I'd take it. First, one thing that we started implementing was a project management influence team.

So recognizing that I As a leader cannot influence and impact 500 individuals directly. I'd love to. Right. But being practical with your key champions within your teams and leaning into them and helping them also be part of that journey.

So we have integrated our operational initiatives with our project management initiatives in a way that not only will help our project managers be better executors of their work, but also to influence outward in the firm for other people who are also leading projects, but maybe aren't an official project manager, spreading that out and doing additional mentorship into those groups is one way to carry that load and be more effective as well.

So thinking about the immediate team you influence, but also those who are watching how you execute and seeing your success, don't be afraid to share it and to continue to spread it throughout. Because, yes, we're all busy, but making those incremental changes to other groups can just help level up your entire organization.

So making it a priority, protecting it, and then weaving it into our operations strategy has been really successful for us.

Aaron: 00:14:26

I like that idea of protecting it, as many firms out here probably have a lot of initiatives. As you are high growth firms in the audience, I'm curious, do you guys suffer from something called initiative fatigue? Some numbers there? Yeah.

I think for me it was really important to delineate between an initiative and an imperative. And those are very different.

And as you go through your journey of growth, without a doubt there are ways you have to evolve and change your business month to month, quarter to quarter, year to year, to accomplish the things you're out to accomplish. But it does become, as you said, Justin, what white noise. When you have so many initiatives impacting so many people.

And for Oldtig, we've doubled in size in the last five years, which has been a tremendous opportunity for us. And it's enabled us to drive a lot of these initiatives forward with a lot of ownership.

But when you don't delineate between an initiative and an imperative, it becomes difficult.

And for me, drowning out the white noise, which I don't want to say initiatives are white noise, initiatives are very critical and important to the business. But what is absolutely critical and key, something you need to protect that is imperative to the continued success and growth of your business.

And my focus was really delineating between every other initiative leadership teams out there. Right. We read our books monthly, quarterly, and then we have the corporate buzzword soup that we put out there of the things we learn and do.

It's really important throughout all of that, again, to identify those imperatives that are going to be critical for you to move through and helping everyone understand that this isn't the flavor of the week or the month, that this isn't a task that we're going to, we're going to attempt for the next few weeks, few months, and then we're going to shelve it and people are going to remember when we did that.

How are you intentional, truly intentional about what you're trying to deliver and getting everyone else across the organization to understand that it is an imperative and not necessarily an initiative.

Brian: 00:16:26

I think we're all, we all have a lot of initiatives that we got to do and work through and just want to encourage all of you to, you know, I'm a person of faith, but walk in faith, move in faith, make decisions in faith. And with that said, we entered this year.

I'll give little EOS a plug, but we were all over the place and we had initiatives the last two years where we just felt like after, you know, a year, we're just still sitting down at the table and our initiatives are not moving forward.

And so I'd heard of this EOS thing and so Doug and I actually did that last fall prior to end this year and really got a good foundation of what EOS could do for our company from just an ability of accountability, of just putting people in the right lane.

I felt like we were driving down a five lane highway and we're all just cutting each other off and we were moving a little bit forward, but we were just all over the place. And so EOS really brought clarity in terms of, to the many initiatives that we had to go into this year to tackle.

And I think with that, you have to have a plan of action in anything that you do. So we tackled this year, as I said earlier, we were in a space where we were hoping to get five years that we needed. We were at year three.

And so our plan of action was to really go into this year. And we have about 40 people in our office. And I came out of the gates of just being intentional.

Doug and Celeste had to really help me accomplish this. But to sit down with everyone in our office for 30 minutes and I had generated eight to 10 questions to ask everyone.

Some of those revolved around culture in terms of what are big things for them. We live in Boise, Idaho. It's not a very cool place to live, so I wouldn't move there.

But we have people all over the Treasure Valley and we were kind of on the east side.

And so we went into this year of just do we do, we keep that office and maybe do a West End office, respecting people's drive times and commute, the work life balance of just not having to drive, you know, 40 minutes to the office. And so in that discussion with the staff and really bringing them into the conversation, you are nothing without your people, right?

Your people take most of your time.

We all know that we're in a business, but empowering the people and bringing them into the conversation of this specific initiative for Tamarack Grove. And so we did, we troubleshooted, we asked, you know, hey, would you, what would you see? Two offices versus one bigger one.

And as you know, if some of you have moved an office, it's a lot to Justin's point of, you got to do these kind of things by still running and operating a business, keeping clients happy. There's a lot that goes into moving.

But we went into this year and through those data points, if you will, Chad, I could share those with you if you'd like. We got a lot of great information back from everyone in our office of what, what is their why and what would they like to see out of that.

And so we really just took that and the ultimate decision was, okay, we want getting back to our culture and everything. Everyone really were more focused on having one bigger location. And for some of you that know me, I love branding.

And like our existing space was just tged out. It was cool.

But to walk away from that and then just to try and go to a bigger space, at the end of the day, we went to a three times a square footage space and we doubled our lease payment. But planning for that, executing that, I couldn't have done it without the team around me.

So that's important with any initiative is who you surround yourself with. And I think through all that, our team worked hard and we took ownership from the new space in July and we just moved in three weeks ago.

Justin: 00:19:41

So what I hear, although we're working on three very different problems, one of the foundational elements of anything that you're trying to do has got to start with senior level sponsorship. Aaron uses the phrase imperative. Now, for Aaron, it is an imperative. For him, this is a non negotiable.

But at the start, likely few people had the passion for it that you did. Same thing is probably true at Tamarack, few people had the passion for a new office space that the leadership might have.

It's not conventionally a topic that every single person in the organization is going to really feel the fire about. And then project leadership, it's, hey, we're just trying to get work done. Don't come in here and make this more complicated than it needs to be.

Just leave us alone and let us work. And that might be too strong a phrase, but it is the sentiment. It's wait a minute, Aaron, you want me to focus on this also?

I've got work to get done. Wait a minute. We're reimagining the way we do this. I'm busy. Wait a minute. You want to bother me with where I want to sit in our new office?

I got work to do. But the common theme here is we've got a problem and it's got to start with a high level of senior level sponsorship.

The other thing that's unique here is any issue that we're trying to solve is going to cost money. It's going to cost money in the form of real dollars. It's also going to cost money in the form of the time that's going to have to go into it.

So the question always is on the front end of any of these, what's the business case for this? Why do this? Why do this now? How do we know this makes sense? How are we going to measure the roi?

Now the theme of the conference here is return on investment. And all three of these in my opinion have non obvious ROI calculations. Right?

I can't sit down with a spreadsheet and say if I spend this dollar today, I'm going to get a dollar 25 in three months. So that's a good investment.

So when you're starting this process, how are you measuring the return on investment of these different initiatives and what time horizon are you looking at?

Aaron: 00:21:41

I can go first and this is probably going to be unorthodox to most of you, but sometimes ROI isn't measured by revenue and profit. Right? That's an outcome of the imperative that you've put forward. The initiative you drive for high value client engagement.

You, you know, it really came out of our strategic plan work where we wanna diversify our client base more widely. We don't want such high concentration across some key clients.

And so the solution to that or one of the solutions without a doubt was this high value client engagement.

Now, as you say, well, clearly there's a metric of you diversified your client base by X and you grew clients with existing capabilities to exist or new capabilities to existing clients or new clients with the capabilities you have. And this was asked actually of CEO, how do we measure that this is successful?

And I didn't go to the dollars, I didn't say we were going to grow the business by X percent, that would absolutely be an outcome. But for me, it was again about the brand, the experience.

And how many of you have an NPS NET promoter score, some type of client survey, client experience index. Those bring a lot back, a lot of valuable descriptors of your firm, of your people and who's in it.

And today for Holtag, a lot of that is about those things that you can measure. And high value client engagement has been about the things you can't measure, the ineffable, the intangible.

I foresee us tracking the success of that in the think of a word cloud of what is described today from our NPS and our CXI results that describe old tag as on time and high quality and all of those types of things.

And I see it transitioning over time to a word cloud that includes words like trusted advisor, resilient, adaptable, things that we want to resonate our brand to, that our clients get to define because of the experience and how we engage.

Tierra: 00:23:42

I've got a twofold, internal and external. So I was a client of isg, which I know you know that.

But what we've incorporated into how we lead projects, like I mentioned before, was the empathy factor.

If we can think in the minds of our clients, they will continue to come back to us because we don't speak mep, sds, dds, because as a client, you have no flipping clue what that is, by the way. So the engineers in the room, you gotta talk common sense people. So there's that aspect of it.

And so I think our relatability to clients will have them coming back to us. Right. We will continue to gain more profit.

We also educate our owners through the process of design and help them understand what their role in that is, which makes them feel like they're more integrated to the project. They do this once in a lifetime, maybe twice. Right.

You have repeat clients, but making it truly special for them, that will also make it a more profitable, profitable project. And then when you have to have those tough conversations about scope because they understand the process, you can get more out of that as well. Right.

We've positioned ourselves as a true partner, somebody who's trusted and can help lean on them too for their skin in the game. On the internal side of things, I would say I take a non traditional approach.

I'm an industrial engineer by background, so I don't have, I didn't grow up in the AEC industry, so very much a non traditional type of.

I am intentional about finding project leaders who don't necessarily have that background, because I think it's a diversification of other experience. And we talked a little bit about the educational diversity aspect.

Well, roundedness as you lead projects and being strategic with how you partner your project managers with the different client types is a really methodical way to go.

And that ROI helps the team internally execute better because those project leaders can accurately convey what that client need is into the project team more clearly so that the team can get off the ground running and be more efficient. Right. We get into production at the right time, we execute at the right time. We're nailing our deliverables.

We clearly understand client needs, but that's a lot of it is driven from communication.

And if we have project leaders who can speak that language and be the good effective conduit between the client and the internal design team, you're going to win every day. So.

Brian: 00:25:53

Yeah, I think for us, our ROI is just where we can go from here. We don't have, like, to your point, KPIs or how we can measure that or what we get out of it, but to what I mentioned earlier of just the, the.

Just the feeling, I guess if you want to say that, of just from our overall focus on retention, of just having people walk in our front door, of just truly wanting to be there and not have to be there.

And then I think just, just the feeling throughout of, you know, we have a hybrid work policy where, you know, I think everyone does, where it's two days out, a week and three in. But there's a few people that do that. But for the most part, people want to be in the office.

They want to be part of the camaraderie, they want to be part of the mentorship and the training, but just the culture we've created. And then I think in our space, you know, we can certainly double the size of our company in Boise and go to 80 probably in this space.

And I think there's a lot of things that were kind of from being able to do that in the last space, we were just sort of getting by under the circumstances that we're in. But so I think, you know, there's. There's this huge opportunity there where we can go from here.

Justin: 00:26:53

So I love that and I love the fact that we look at this and we say these are the things that are important to us in this and we're all focused on different things.

But there's one thing that is very similar, identical in every situation, which is every time we Evaluate a program and whether we are going to decide to take action or not.

There might be a sea of options, all the different ways we could skin this cat, but there's one that is always present which is we could also just do nothing. We could do any one of these things or we could do nothing.

And it always comes down to what's the cost of inaction versus the cost and the ROI of doing this. So anytime we decide to take something on, we're also deciding not to do all the other things, all the other options, including do nothing.

So you all have successful businesses. You would have had successful businesses whether you took this on or not.

So how did you make the case to the team that our options are doing nothing or doing this?

And if we do this, it's going to cost time and money and we have maybe this fuzzy definition of ROI out there in the future that we can see very clearly, but maybe not everybody else can see very clearly. And it's going to require work from everybody. Great case. I need you to do things to make this a success.

I acknowledge that the alternative is we could just not do it. It's going to cost money and it's hard to measure the roi. Right. Sign me up. Sounds awesome.

When I'm at, you know, 97% utilized for the last three years, that's something that I want to jump on board with.

So what are some concrete steps that you took in the early days of this initiative to get buy in from these people that you need to mobilize, but that see this as just another thing that I'm being asked to do?

Brian: 00:28:51

I think for us it was just cascading the vision from top down.

was to come for this year of: 2024

But getting back on the bandwagon of EOS, I think it's the accountability in terms of, yes, we have to do this, we have to tackle this initiative. We all need to stay in our lane.

We all need to still be successful doing the day in and day out of running a structural engineering firm, meeting client demands, all the conferences and travel we do.

But it's setting dates, it's getting back to that plan of action, but really fully communicating it from top to bottom in the organization is critical.

Tierra: 00:29:40

Our journey has been two and a Half years and it has been super fast. It is a test of endurance as well as making sure you have the right people in the right spots.

We had the leadership support, but one of the things we always say at ISG is better decisions, faster. There's not a massive amount of patience with the leadership team, especially in a firm where we say we hustle and we hustle hard.

The support was one aspect, the time and the endurance was just another piece of it. The concrete steps we took the first three, four weeks of the journey of this initiative.

We shadowed our project managers, we watched how we delivered projects, we watched how we engaged with clients, we watched how we led our internal teams. There were no two that were alike out of a team of 30 people. And so that was really obvious and telling that we had zero consistency.

And our internal team was frustrated because they'd go from, you know, you're working on half a dozen projects with six different project managers and no two ways are the same. So the inefficiency and the questions, and that became very apparent. We just have to get some core foundations down. Right.

We're not writing a spec book that's 75 pages of how to do project management.

We're aligning on core foundations that help us to be consistent in things that matter, from client connections to planning a project, how we design it, and then all the way through construction. What are the non negotiable foundations that we can align on?

That's been a bulk of the last two and a half years is just getting really good and repeatable at those four things. So that's been a huge journey and I will say it is a journey.

And getting the right folks to lead and influence the rest of the teams, that's been part of my personal journey as well for that.

Justin: 00:31:21

So I love the phrase, it's kind of a test of endurance.

Tierra: 00:31:24

Yes.

Justin: 00:31:25

Right. Because I think we tend to look at things as, I'm going to take action today and then the problem is going to be solved tomorrow.

Or as I like to say, I just need you to do what I need you to do and I need you to do it when I tell you one time, does anybody ever feel that way? Right, here's the plan. I just need you to do this. Why won't you do it?

Because in my mind it is so clear and I imagine for you, Aaron, sitting at the starting line where you were, it was. It's so obvious to me what needs to happen here. But we've got to recognize not everybody is there.

So what steps did you take to get some motivation going for this?

Aaron: 00:32:03

I think the number one starter for me, and we heard this on the prior panel, especially with the new generation coming in, the why is really important and transparency is really important. And so having a compelling story and in this industry we're not really that passionate, energetic out there, right?

It's more of the do the job, get it done. So having a compelling why was critically important.

And for us at Alteg, telling that story and getting people bought into the why was really important for me.

My origin story on this goes back actually a decade ago and prior to my current role I was really in charge of developing the market, establishing new clients, growing, et cetera. I had an engineer call me, a senior engineer who was, you know, doing some dabbling in sellerdoer and he said, Aaron, how do you do what you do?

And I wasn't able to explain to them because these things are ineffable, they're not tangible, these are the behaviors, they're not the measured things that engineers are so good at. And also a lot of us are introverts in the engineering industry. We heard from Linda, stare at your shoes or stare at their shoes.

That's the difference between the introvert and the extrovert. So engagement is hard. So helping people understand why the number one, our other why happened.

And we got forced into this virtual environment where engagement muscle just atrophied. We didn't have the opportunity to engage as we historically had.

It's not that Altig's engagement had dropped off in the sense of below our peers out in the market. We were just kind of regressing with what Covid had put in.

At the same time, at the same time as that, Oldtaig has doubled and we've expanded coast to coast.

And with that comes a lot of diversity of individuals coming into our organization with a diversity of thought, diversity of perspective, diversity of experience. And so who Oldtake was prior to that growth really wasn't who Oldtake as a brand was going to be.

Those reasons created a very compelling why to let people know that this is an absolute imperative in our client engagement. The structure of it is really 12 principles.

And the 12 principles are how we show up in the market, with our clients and with each other internally at the organization. One of those principles that was near and dear to my heart was called single point elimination.

And too often, and in particularly mid sized firms, we have single points of success until they are single points of failure. And too often we saw a project manager or a client manager who would come and go with the organization.

And I know big organizations hate to hear this.

Too often, our clients are not hiring the logo, they're hiring that engineer, they're hiring that pm, that client manager, whoever has that engagement. And as we talk about primarily being introverts, it's not a skill that's really well rounded.

So getting all of this kind of compelling, why, as the very first step to get people to bot in, can you get an aha moment out of them? Can they take a break from their work? You know, step two, get a workshop in person. Like, get people to travel. Here's the cost.

It costs money for people to travel. And then when they're in that workshop, how many of you have those workshops? And then half the people have their laptop open, right?

Critical to answer emails, critical to do this, do that. Laptop's closed. We're here, we're now, we're present. We're focused in on what we're trying to do.

That workshop was really gaining a lot of the ideas and the diversity of thought and perspective that we had gotten this organization to say.

What are the best elements of all those components that we can put together to help define how we want to engage with our clients that is different than all of our peers. Those people that you choose to be in that room, and this is a critical part, have to be influential in your business.

They have to have a network and connection with other individuals. Because we've heard change management and change agents, often we don't pick the right people.

And that isn't always your highest performer who has the most credibility in your business that can take your initiative or imperative and push that forward.

So we were really keen on identifying the individuals who would buy into what one be part of so they can see their voice and their thoughts reflected in the work and the outcome and then be able to take that and push that down into the, you know, the middle part of the organization where you have the mass and you need this adopted at a. At a consistent level as part of all of that. Then they became our champions.

They became our champions who were bought into this understanding of what it is and how and what we're trying to achieve and the why so that that can get communicated back into the business.

Brian: 00:36:45

And I think to that point, Aaron, it's, it's. I think all these three initiatives are all on a growth mindset. And most everyone in this room are probably here because you're in a growth mindset.

And Chad has said this before, if you're not growing you're dying. But I think with that, you know, the do nothing is really not an option. And there's some people that maybe do that.

But I think that's the easy answer. It's the easy route. But to even Aaron's point of just clearly communicating to your staff, and a lot of it is, what's the wifm? What's in it for them?

Like, what are they going to get out of it? Why should they do this? Why should they commit to being part of this initiative?

But it's through that full transparency of communicating to them, of, well, this is the why behind it for you. That in itself goes a long way.

Justin: 00:37:26

Love that.

So sometimes what I hear is when we're standing on the starting line and we're staring something down, there's a fear that if we commit to this too fully, we may find that some of the people that we love opt out. So we've got to make this as amorphous as possible so that everybody can find a place in it.

But the reality is that if we want to have laser, like, focus on this, it cannot be amorphous. It has to be very clear. It's got to have firm boundaries around it, and that runs the risk of unintended consequences.

I'm sure there have been no unintended consequences for any of you. Aaron, you've had no unintended consequences along the way here. Right?

Aaron: 00:38:12

Right. I like to use the term ruthless prioritization. Right. This. This imperative we will ruthlessly prioritize into the business.

And the reality is you hope that you can find a seat for everyone on the bus to be part of this. Right. And too often, as we think about change, we want to keep who we were. And that's important.

It's important to your tradition and your history and how you got where you're going. But how you got where you're going isn't necessarily going to get you where you want to go. And sometimes that doesn't include everyone.

I think, to your point. Then there's a hard realization.

In the examples that I heard, not my client or not my project or my individual doesn't know or would respond to it in that positive way, which it's not a formula, it's not an input, and an output gets you a result. It is very, as I said, ineffable and intangible. These are behaviors that you have to figure out how to adapt.

And I love what Tiara said about the, you know, matching that individual with that, because every client is different, you know, and Every within a client, depending on the size, you can have those different personalities and behaviors within that that operate differently. And so how do you adjust and adapt to it? There are ways to get that done, there are ways to approach that.

But some people feel that, you know, not in my backyard, right? Not my client, that that is not going to work. And you have to ask yourself the hard question, is a short term loss worth the long term gain?

And too often where we have those individuals that maybe have prominence or a significant portfolio or a big following, we are too hesitant to deal with that challenge that's in front of us.

Tierra: 00:39:58

I think we all have expressed, we have visions and what good looks like for each of these different initiatives. Accountability to the change is the other half of the equation, right? So we can have the vision, we can share the why.

I appreciate what you're saying.

Like if we don't have that accountability to the folks that we've asked to lead that forward and they're unwilling or unable, in some cases it is unable and they're just in the wrong seat on the bus, we have to be bold enough to make those decisions, right? And often I am a big advocate for, as I mentioned earlier, getting rid of bad behaviors in a team.

If you want to lead, change and influence a group, you have to be willing to make those tough decisions. And I believe that it does help the team advance forward because people double down. Yes, it's a short term pain for sure.

It sometimes long term pain if you lose somebody, but it never outweighs the benefit of the team rallying together and getting through to be better. Because they see, okay, cool, we removed this poison from the group. We're going to just absolutely crush it and go forward.

So the accountability, the trust but verify also, right? Folks inherently say, especially to leaders, what they believe we want to hear. Sorry. They tell us that, right?

They're like, okay, this is what they've asked me to do. I'm going to make sure I hit these three topics in this conversation so they think I'm doing what I'm doing. Trust but verify, right?

We have a pool of resources around us. A lot of ways that I gain feedback on our team is I ask the team members that they're serving, right?

The immediate groups within the design teams that they're there to lead and then also the clients and their peer groups, right? How is this individual to interact with? How are they leading the change? Are we doing the things we're setting out to do?

Because if we don't trust but verify, right it's that close coaching, mentorship approach with each of those team members to get the gaps minimized. Right. Of where we actually want to head.

So the accountability to the process and what you're setting out to do, making sure you're trusting and verifying the people are actually leading through the change, is another huge portion of it. And those that don't, you got to make decisions.

Justin: 00:42:00

So what I think there's. There's a lot of people in the audience, likely that. That might see their firm family like. Right.

A desire to take care of everybody, a desire to believe that they've done great work for us for a long time, and so we owe them this duty.

And it can be really tough when you ruthlessly prioritize to find that these people that have gotten you to where you are may not have a seat on the bus. If you redesign the bus.

Brian: 00:42:27

Yes.

Justin: 00:42:27

And that can be really frustrating and difficult and emotional and bring tremendous amounts of turmoil. Now, you all are up here as industry experts because you're figuring this out. And I'm sure the audience is dying to hear.

You know, surely they haven't gotten it right every step of the way. Right. So what are some missteps along the way here that you've experienced?

Because it sounds like you've got it all together really polished up here to share the message, but surely it hasn't all been perfect every step of the way. So what are some missteps that you've made along the way? What did you learn from those?

Brian: 00:43:03

I've had some specific ones, but there's probably a lot. But I think in business, there's a lot of highs, there's a lot of lows, there's a lot of successes and failures. That's life.

And I think that's how we all have to go through those and experience those times to get better.

Aaron: 00:43:17

Right.

Brian: 00:43:17

Because end of the day, we're going to get better, you know, to having the right people in the right seat on the bus. I mean, there's someone in the audience here that's a great mentor of mine that is often referred to as the Godfather of engineering.

But one thing that he said to me many years ago, and it stuck with me, is you always have to do what's right for the business.

And whether that's a tough decision, that's awkwardness, that's having to let someone go to your point, Justin, it may be someone that got you from point A to point B, but from point B to C, it's just not working out for the business. So you have to make some of those hard decisions.

But I think ultimately that's what carries the business forward, of just being transparent with yourself of some of the decisions that you have to make in life.

Tierra: 00:44:02

In change management, there's a lot of eyes, right? You're doing something that's big, hairy, audacious goal, right? We're transforming project management to project leadership.

And everyone in the firm is watching because they recognize the potential if we do it right, what it could do. When we were early on in our journey, we had a different individual leading the initiative and was my boss at the time.

And I think one misstep that we maybe did was not acting faster to get the right folks leading the initiative, because recognizing that, we actually went backwards a little bit, losing credibility with some of the project management and not demonstrating with the things we said we were gonna set out to do, right? We weren't leading by example. And that's like rule number one. You say you do this, you go do it right?

You act on the words that you've shared with people.

And so we made a shift, and probably a misstep would be just waiting too long to recognize the impact that was having and seeing that it was detrimental to what we were trying to accomplish and waiting almost a year before we said, yeah, we gotta readjust the docket here and get the right folks in. And so we have done that. And it's been a much more momentum building year for us in the last since January.

So we're making the changes we're having, the positive impacts, we're getting the wins, the credibility, and the folks around us. And our other practice group leadership realm is just people are rallying and it's been awesome.

But it was a Don't hesitate to make the right decision when you see something faltering, even if it's tough, even if it's tough, even if it's awkward and you have to raise your hand and say, I don't know that, you know, your boss is the right one to do the right thing. It's like, well, that's a tough conversation to have and took too long to do it. But we could be in a much different place if I had done that.

Justin: 00:45:46

A year sooner, no doubt about it.

And if you're ruthlessly prioritizing the success of the initiative, then it can sometimes be really tough to look at the people and say, this is not the right mix. This is not the best mix. Maybe we have some of the seats right, maybe not all of them.

And these can be People that have expressed high levels of motivation to support this initiative. But it's just not the right mix of the right stuff at the right time. So, Aaron, how many mistakes have you made along the way here?

Aaron: 00:46:15

Too many to count, but I'm going to hop on the, you know, the people part of it.

You know, Justin and I working in workshops, Justin was facilitating for us, which is another key point, getting someone independent, right, because they, they know that the team knew I was passionate. It was very important to me. But too often that can overcloud what the objective is.

And so Justin came in doing a great job facilitating our workshops.

But I realized in those workshops and talking about those people in the right seats on the bus who have influence or a significant client portfolio, et cetera, can start to ebb and flow the room based on kind of what they're saying. And without a doubt, you got to provide the opportunity for those people to be part of that.

But for me not taking action quick enough to have that kind of pull aside moment and say, hey, I need you to get on board, then a tough decision of whether or not they stay part of that initiative that you're working on, that was definitely one of my missteps in the process, without a doubt.

Justin: 00:47:22

So it's interesting because what I hear, three totally different challenges, three totally different initiatives that we're working on, but there's a common theme in here.

There is a process that is buried in here, believe it or not, that when we're staring down something big and amorphous and we're trying to figure out what do we do first? There is a common theme here, starts with high level sponsorship.

There's gotta be a firm commitment at the highest levels of ownership of the initiative and ruthless prioritization for it. There's gotta be a commitment to looking at ROI differently and likely over a longer term horizon.

Because the big stuff that you want to do, if it was easy and it was quick, you wouldn't be sitting at the starting line. Thinking about it so hard. You'd say like, whack a mole. Hit this problem and it's not going to pop up again.

But these bigger, more amorphous, they take time, money and energy.

And it can be scary to sit at the starting line and say, this looks like a lot, but if we can make a case and get a large level of buy in, there's a good chance that there's going to be success. And then we've got to ruthlessly prioritize and root out anything that is not in service of our higher level goal here.

And that is typically what is most difficult. It's easy to get excited, it's easy to paint a rosy picture of how great the world is going to look when we do this thing.

It's very difficult to look at some of our stars of the past and say, I'm having a really hard time figuring out where this person fits and do that calculation of what's more important to the business and then endurance, sticking it out for probably far longer than you think it should take so that you can start to see the change. So I'm going to ask one closing question of each person and they don't know what it is.

Apologies in advance and then if there are any questions in the audience, I would love to hear them. But here's our closing prompt here. What I hear is, although we're talking about an office move, we're really talking about culture protection, right?

How do we do this in a way that champions what's most important to Tamarack? Although we're talking about project management, we're really not talking about project management.

We're talking about empathizing with clients, creating a signature experience. We're talking about client engagement, we're talking about seller doer, but we're really not.

We're talking about how do we make sure that we are protecting the brand identity that we want to have. So here's the closing question. Brand identity, client engagement, client empathy.

Really thinking hard about what we're trying to do with project management and culture protection. Why is your initiative the single most important thing that you should be focused on right now?

Why is it, of all the things and even the things that your peers are focused on up here, what case would you make to the audience that if there's a place to focus, the juice is worth the squeeze? This initiative really is worth it. I'm going to go to Aaron first. Why is client engagement the place where people should be focusing?

Why is it that we should make the long term commitment to it that old tech is making?

Aaron: 00:50:40

Yeah, I'd go back to my opening. What we think are differentiators today are not.

It's not getting the project done on time, on budget, being responsive, communicating effectively, getting your project management report out. We are going to need to differentiate each of us individually as firms out there and develop that brand for our clients.

It's going to be different for every client too, in that sense. But I think when we look at our businesses and as they grow and scale, you reduce the probability of this happening.

But we kind of have those 10 percenters.

They're the ones who are charismatic and they have project management technical acumen and they can go in and talk to a client and get that next project for your firm.

But we need to be developing and training that next tier and that next level and giving the opportunity to our entire enterprise to step into that and understand how engagement works. And engagement can look different at different levels.

But I think there's also a reality that engagement just isn't at that seller doer, project management level. Almost every single one of your team members within your organization are going to be interacting and engaging.

Whether it's a project meeting, a project deliverable, you can go on and on and on. And ultimately that generation that's coming up is going to be taking the leadership of your firm.

And do you want them knowing how to engage and interact not only with the clients in the industry, but also internally?

Tierra: 00:52:14

I go back to my client time as a client of ISG and what I want to do and continue to have with our project leadership team is the ability to pay it forward with how my experience was as a client, the outstanding support that I got from the firm. I want that to be the experience that every client gets to have. And so internally paying it forward so that folks can continue to build your bench.

Right. And grow. I think the other aspect is the difference between being transactional and relational.

Anybody arguably can put together a set of documents where you can go build that thing.

The experience that you have internally and externally for that and the value that you can provide to make that something that's really unique and different and having the project leadership to help the client embrace that whole process and really be part of the journey with you, that's like I said before, that's a slam dunk.

And if I can make that experience like the client had with ISG for me to every other client we have, and those project leaders are continuing to grow and advance that mission forward so that we become an unstoppable force that is 100% winning in my book.

Justin: 00:53:23

Tough acts to follow here.

Brian: 00:53:25

Yes. What, what they said, I think for us, I mean we, we had many initiatives this year. This is in tackling this one.

It really positions, positions us for where we want to be and where we can continue to grow too. So I think hopefully that answers your question. But there are many moving parts in our business right now.

But this was obviously a top priority and I think it sets the tone where with how we close out 24 and how we tackle 25 so the.

Justin: 00:53:52

Answer, I think that I heard is find a way to focus on all three at the same time. Because we can't let go of culture. We can't let go of placing the client's experience at the center of everything that we do in every project.

And we can't let go of focusing on making our brand unique and doing that proactively rather than passively. So the common themes here are high levels of sponsorship by people that are in positions of authority to drive this.

An acknowledgement, however, that there may be others in the firm that are more influential with the block of people that you need to move than you.

And it can be really tough to birth this idea into the world and then realize you've got to hand it to others because they are the ones that are going to have to make it go. And where we see these things break down so often is we love it so much that we are just unwilling to let it go.

But the only way it is going to take root inside your organization is to identify people that can carry it forward without you.

Because to Aaron's point, you risk becoming the single point of failure or the single point of success for this initiative, and it is not going to be able to have the endurance that it needs if it's reliant upon one person. So in a second here, I'm going to ask the audience for questions, but before I do that, I want to acknowledge two things.

First thing is I want to acknowledge we got 10 minutes for lunch, and our feelings will not be hurt if people bolt for the door. So in case that happens, what I would love to do is say thank you very much to our panelists here. Let's clap it up for them.

And then I'd love to hear any questions that you have for them about the things that they're working on. I love asking about mistakes they've made or problems that they've had, but choose your own adventure.

Yes, we got a microphone somewhere, but if you don't have it, shout it out.

Aaron: 00:55:50

So with these initiatives, how do you know when you're done? Because of continuous improvement. Kind of the desire always to kind of take.

Moderator: 00:56:00

When you know this is done, we can start the next initiative.

Brian: 00:56:06

I'll let you know next year.

Justin: 00:56:09

When.

Tierra: 00:56:10

It becomes inherent to just the way you do business. And it's not something you're constantly having to coach and remind folks on.

I think when it is, it becomes just the way you operate, and it's truly ingrained in the culture. It's not this, oh, by the way I have to do this thing again, it's ingrained. It's part of how you execute, and it's just more organic.

I would say it is a long haul. It is a long haul.

But you also have to celebrate those wins and affirm, like, yes, that's exactly what I need you to do in that client discovery meeting. That's perfect way to put together a project schedule. Great job. Right. You're affirming.

And then it just becomes the habit in which everybody knows to be the good way to do it.

Justin: 00:56:47

Yeah.

Aaron: 00:56:47

I would offer, you know, when you say the initiative's done, so you've stopped the investment or the funding, your reinforcement trainings are complete, you're no longer putting it on the calendar. For me, I think it's gonna be that word cloud that we have achieved that.

When I'm out in the network, in the industry, at conferences, I'm hearing things from our clients that are telling us those things. But to your point, is it ever done? It's continuously evolving. It's continuously getting better.

It's continuously differentiating from everyone else in this room, which is very difficult in a very, very crowded industry.

Justin: 00:57:26

I think there's a language component. When you see the language of the initiative becoming the language of the firm.

We used to have to put a lot of energy into talking this way, thinking about these things. Now it's become who we are. And it's not so much that it goes away, it's that we can now shift our attention to the next thing.

There's likely to be long term reinforcement. But I know firsthand, for example, with Aaron and Tierra, that the language has changed and it is recognizable.

There are words that are used that were not historically used that you can point to and say, it didn't used to be this way. And we know it's taking hold when we start to see that you bring new people in and they don't even know that it was ever another way.

They just know this is who we are. So it's maybe time at that point to start to put the brain power into the next thing, but it's certainly never done.

Unfortunately, it's not a project that we can close the book on and not look at again.

Aaron: 00:58:28

So we're in the business of selling hourly expertise.

Brian: 00:58:32

Right.

Aaron: 00:58:32

So the tension between billable and non billable hours. So one question. Do you start out the year with a certain dollars or percentage for non billable work? And what comes first?

Do you first assign dollars and then find initiative or start the initiative and find the dollars. I think you adequately plan the year ahead in your budgeting.

Who are those individuals going to be that you're going to task with a certain amount of hours to accomplish your initiatives? And you stick to that regardless of what happens.

If you're truly committed to that initiative or that imperative, if you're not putting the pre planning into it, if you're not accounting for it and you're annual operating plan or however your business operates, you're not going to be successful because it won't become a priority. But putting it in your budget at the beginning of your year ensures that ruthless prioritization.

And everybody's going to know and be committed to it. And that takes all the way to the top. My opinion?

Justin: 00:59:29

Perfect.

I mean, I think what's interesting is right at the top, we look at it, we say, we know that this initiative has support at the top of the company if it appears in our operating budget or in our operating plan, whatever it is. And we know that it is just an extra thing if it's not there.

If it is a pet project that is being championed by one person, one is likely to work and gain support quickly. One is likely to be a fight the whole way.

Tierra: 00:59:55

And we don't use utilization rates at isg. We just, you know, we want the behaviors to be driven and a little bit different. It's just our culture. Right.

So I think from like a billable, non billable, we also focus a lot though on project based mentorship. Right.

Where we're using an actual project to coach these best practices and from how to lead it's partnership and very strategic alignment with somebody who's experienced that client type training somebody else who's coming in new to that space. So it is essentially billable. Right. But from a regard of the overall intent of it, it's not necessarily something we're financially looking at.

We know that it will reap the benefit. The ROI is tricky to measure, but it will. And it has been increasing our profitability.

Aaron: 01:00:39

And those initiatives often aren't just people's time.

It's awesome consultants who are partners with you that have fees, it is marketing material, it is training publications, it is reinforcement, it is buying lunch and travel and lots of expenses that go with these initiatives.

Justin: 01:00:58

Yeah. And I think one thing that's a big risk is if you put it in your operating budget, you're planning for it, but you don't plan for it appropriately.

The first time that you see an expense that falls outside the boundary, outside what it is that you thought was going to be curd. It would be easy to say, oh gosh, this thing is a runaway train already and I've got to kill it before it gets started.

So putting time into that, having a plan before you act is critical to success.

But we are a business of at times impatient people that want to kind of act, see the results and then hopefully be able to come up with some arithmetic to justify it. And for things like this, it's. There's gotta be planning that goes into it and real commitment to it. Completely agree.

Brian: 01:01:47

Justin.

Justin: 01:01:48

Cool. I'm coming. Yes. Sorry you're hiding behind the podium here.

Brian: 01:01:55

Yeah. Really appreciate the, the focus on initiatives and imperatives.

But as you talk about bringing or the key nature, having people lead these efforts, maybe touch on recruiting new people that. How do you discover. Discover that they're aligned with who you are as a, as an organization before you. Before it's too late, before they're on board.

Tierra: 01:02:18

I will hire every day for work ethic and attitude over technical talent. I believe that you can teach people the best practices and foundations of how to lead a project and how to execute that work.

But you can't teach somebody how to have a proper conversation with a client or bedside manner. Right. Like those things are a lot harder to coach. I shouldn't say you can't do Dave, and I'm doing that right now. Anything, it makes a difference.

So if you get the right foundations and the people that you're hiring, I think that you can coach them on a lot of the small stuff. But who they are as a person, their values, you can't really change. Right.

So if you find somebody who has great work ethic and has a great value set that aligns with your culture and what you're trying to accomplish, I think that takes you 90% of the way there.

Aaron: 01:03:04

I mean, she said it. Great. The only thing I could offer, you know, if you're, you know, each of your individual hiring practices, if it's.

We're hiring this person because they have client X, Y and Z and we'll get that now, it's probably not going to last too long. It's probably not a good idea. But if you in your process are upfront and transparent about what your.

Whether it's your mission, your vision, your purpose, your values, your brand. Can you, can you define your brand? Can you. Do you have an employee value proposition? Right.

All of these things that are an upfront process that inform that candidate of who you are. And oftentimes you absolutely have those who are Just coming to apply and you go through the interview process.

But I see a lot of firms, too, who are just focused on a very specific attribute or quality that an individual, maybe it's a niche capability, maybe it's a client, maybe whatever that is, having a pretty consistent practice and grounding yourself. And what's important to your business is going to ensure that you're making the right hires in the long run.

Justin: 01:04:07

So I think what I hear there, the key is when you are heavily focused on a particular initiative and as an organization, you are moving in that direction, you may need to look at the people that you hire in service of that initiative a little bit differently. Right. It's more about attributes and how they are going to fit into and support the big thing that you're trying to do.

And you may need to ruthlessly prioritize that above. They have this degree.

They've worked on these types of projects, because while those people are great, if they cannot fit into the thing you're trying to accomplish, there's a very real likelihood that they're going to get in the way of progress. So it's. How are we evaluating people through the context of what is it that we're really trying to do here?

Brian: 01:04:56

I'd encourage everyone to just. One of the things we do at Tamarack is hire the person, not the position.

And to the point of what they're saying, it's personality has a lot to do with it as well. Right. Are they a cultural fit? And I agree with Tara that you can.

You can teach them and train them and teach them your culture, teach them, like, the things that they're good at. But we all have that person in our business that you would never probably put in front of a client. That's not their strength.

But you have to vet them, too, right.

As you bring people into your organization and put them in certain lanes and positions and titles, we have people that just love to sit at their desk and crunch engineering, and that's what they're good at, and that's what we use them for. But the same person would blow up in front of a client. So again, you got to kind of vet them through that process.

Justin: 01:05:37

So great questions. Thank you.

The good news for the audience is that these three are here to have their brains picked by anybody that's got questions that didn't get answered. But I am not going to be the person that stands in the way of lunch. So with that, I want to say thank you so much for your attention.

Thanks for the questions. Thank you to you 3 they are here. Take advantage of the trials and tribulations that they've been through to inform your next initiative.

And with that, turn it back to Chad.

Moderator: 01:06:04

Applause for our panelists.

Host: 01:06:07

Thanks for tuning in to the zweigletter podcast. We hope that you can be part of elevating the industry and that you can apply our advice and information to your daily professional life.

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