A/E/C THRIVE AGENDA

Key decision and policy makers at state DOTs and municipal public works agencies are often forced to handle rapid and disruptive change due to new administrations, unexpected tragedies, program revisions, sudden funding increases or reductions, and more. While they often try to develop solutions internally, A/E/C principals and consultants can capitalize on such upheaval by collaborating with agency leaders and sharing proven best-practices for meeting new objectives. Learn, from a former state DOT official, how to deftly position your firm as a valued partner in public agency change management by knowing the right things to do, when to do them, and how to avoid catastrophic overreach.

You learn:

• How to successfully approach and help new government administrations achieve their vision and missions
• Data on what government agencies say are consultants’ best traits and worst mistakes
• How to be thought of as “there to help” and not “there to make money” when tragedy strikes
• How to recognize when a government agency needs an outside eye; extra horsepower; specialized skills, or to be a safe zone

See how Delta Engineering evolved from not leveraging financial metrics to driving metrics into the daily culture. You get examples of key metrics used, scorecards, and detail areas where Delta applies financial metrics to making key decisions on monthly scorecards and bonus reporting. And you learn how the firm used metrics tracked by PSMJ to be a COE Award winner to take action over 3 years to influence metrics in the right direction.

You learn:

• How to identify key metrics for your firm
• Tracking and measuring key metrics
• Scorecards and reporting ideas
• Real life examples where metrics influenced decision making
• Creating financial transparency to non financial colleagues and managers

We can list characteristics of great leadership, so why do we fail so often in developing A/E/C leaders? Instead of focusing on external skills, strengths, and values, we need to adopt a transformative approach and develop leaders from the inside-out by encouraging behavioral change, challenging them to face their own thoughts, feelings, assumptions, biases, and beliefs. In this session you learn to how to create connection, inspire performance, and drive success, identifying practices that allow your current and future leaders to come alive and thrive.

You learn:

• How to identify and understand personal values that serve as leadership cornerstone
• Understanding your "why" and how your purpose guides you as a leader and brings more energy and fulfillment in how you lead
• Ask the questions that support others and help them thrive
• Establish vulnerability based trust that seeks to understand, not to be understood
• Walk the talk. Becoming an authentic, vulnerable, and inspirational leader takes practice and includes braving opportunities to be vulnerable and learning how to be deliberate, aware, real, inquisitive, nurturing, and genuine.

Three years ago, Neumann Monson Architects established Client Experience (CX) as their Strategic Plan’s top critical objective because they recognized it as the platform to sustain a high-quality design practice, last year they began working with consulting firms to lead CX planning and implementation, and have hand selected the most pragmatic and effective CX tools and processes to guarantee continued impact. Now they will share the value CX has brought, specifically how they have learned to harness empathy to create value, and how they will leverage it into the future. Join us to learn how to:

• Listen empathetically to clients, allowing them to identify your differentiators
• Map your client interactions, finding the pain points, and innovating for your both your client and organization
• Leverage your expertise to gain valuable connections and relationships
• Understand the value of each client and using that information strategically
• Create a strong employee experience (EX) as the foundation to a successful CX culture

Tighten your seat belt for this hands-on, fast paced, and fun session that exposes the factors that most often lead to the perfect storm or “Leadership Bermuda Triangle.” Weak management undermines a high-performance culture and can “kill” good work. In this session, you will have the opportunity to explore your own leadership tendencies and examine the factors that interfere with high levels of performance, so you can take action to mitigate this perfect storm in your own organization.

You learn:

• An understanding of how your own ecosystem of behavioral tendencies impact your managerial and leadership effectiveness.
• A framework of understanding how your behavioral tendencies impact your team and for leading intentionally.
• An understanding of how avoiding the Leadership Bermuda Triangle in your organization can positively impact plateaued workforce engagement levels.

You want every edge you can get to boost your firm’s after-tax profits. Are you using research and development (R&D) tax credit to decrease your A/E/C firm’s federal and state income tax obligations? This incentive can now be used to off-set the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax and it's open to a majority of tax entity structures including C-Corporations and Pass-Through entities such as S-Corporations, LLCs, Sole Proprietors and Partnerships. This session will provide you with the latest insight on the R&D tax credit that is designed to reduce the high cost of innovation (U.S. Labor Expense).

• An overview of the NEW current rules and legislation governing the R&D tax credit
• How this tax credit applies to the A/E/C industry
• Important details on recent law changes and the types of activities and expenses that qualify for the tax credit
• Actual examples of how the mechanics of the calculation and statutory exclusions have benefited A/E/C firms

The face of business is changing, and rapidly. Your future success requires bold ideas, courageous decisions and the ability to take action, even if that means failing fast. Join presenters Kristi Weierbach and Valerie Higgins as they lead attendees down a path to the future. Along the way you’ll experience real life examples of firms who made radical shifts in their approaches to people and processes to achieve remarkable results including higher employee engagement as well as increased profitability and growth. If you are interested in removing barriers, identifying pathways to success and ditching rear view philosophies, this session is essential.

You learn:

• Actionable steps to flip your your approach to people and process and drive more value
• How to turn hard employee conversations into win-win collaborations
• Identify barriers to growth -- and remove them

In the hyper-competitive A/E/C industry, it’s imperative that firms bring their “A-game” to their business development practices. Developing intelligent strategies to optimize your firm’s relationships, determining which pursuits to invest your firm’s resources in, and creating winning pursuit strategies are critical to a firm’s business development success. Join the aec360 team from sa.global in this session where we’ll explore 10 winning strategies for optimizing your firm’s business development strategies and winning more work.

You learn:

• Gain a 360-degree view of your firm’s contacts and relationships
• Automate the creation of a firmwide database of experience and qualifications
• Gain intelligence around pursuit strength and win/loss insights
• Ensure that your firm is investing in the right pursuits
• Leverage your relationships to win more work!

For many municipalities, becoming a digitally enhanced smart city is vital for attracting business, residents, tourists, and talent, and for ultimately fostering growth and prosperity, but the path to a smart city future is often unclear to urban leaders. As architects and engineers, we can guide our clients to the smart solutions available that best fit the needs of their community. See how Pennoni partnered with ESI Thoughtlab to execute an in-depth benchmarking survey of government leaders in 136 cities around the world. Eleven cities were chosen for a deeper dive that also surveyed businesses and citizens, revealing how well-aligned different types of stakeholders were with each other and how A/E/C firms can capitalize.

You learn:

• How to assist clients in building a roadmap with governance, economy, infrastructure, talent, and funding
• How to vary your approach by market and stakeholder to deliver solutions to problems clients are facing
• How to incorporate multi-modal mobility involving a wide array of fully integrated and connected options, including public and private services across all modes of transportation
• How to help cities improve environmental sustainability, energy use and resource allocation through innovative solutions
• How to be part of a city's mix of internal teams and external ecosystem of suppliers and partners, including technology vendors, consultants, and outsourcing providers

You stub your toe and your face winces. You bite into a lemon and your toes curl. Our bodies are wired to communicate what happens in one area to other area, and we react accordingly. Making a similar communication network a part of your A/E/C firm can give you the intelligence you need to react nimbly when financial, market, economic, client, personnel, and other changes offer amazing opportunity... or existential risk. Learn how to establish an Organizational Nervous System in your firm that empowers you to make smarter decisions, faster, and act on them without a lag for data export, manipulation, and distribution:

• Key organizational nervous system (ONS) components, and how they work together to feed you mission-critical data
• How to know if your ONS is healthy, and how to heal fractured links
• Common ONS dysfunctions, and easy fixes that stop the flow of bad data
• Driving ONS buy-in at every level of your firm to maintain a steady flow of actionable intelligence

What can be done to raise the profile of women in A/E/C leadership positions? How can firm principals add essential diversity to the executive ranks? What are the effects of implicit bias and how can active mentorship overcome it? These are just a few of the critical questions we'll address in this lively and candid dialogue. Panelists: Melissa Gibbs of Gibbs Constrction, Paula Peer of Trapolin Peer Architects, and Jennie West of Studio West Design & Architecture .

Just because your clients say they are ‘likely to recommend you,’ does not mean they know how to do it. So your job is not only to identify your firms raving fans, but to empower them to act on their desire to tell their colleagues about you and your firm. During this session you learn why clients decide to recommend your firm through a practical exercise you can use to “activate your promoters." We'll share a case-study of a 50-person firm that used an activating a promoter process to generate 13 opportunities with new clients in 90 days, closing over $2M in new business. In addition to identifying new opportunities for your firm, clients that are referred by existing ‘raving fans’ typically result i: higher win rates, higher margins due to built-in trust, and higher likelihood of securing a client pre-disposed to already being a great client.

You learn:

• How to identify a potential “promoter”
• A processes for the three key phases of capturing a referral: Research, Relate, React
• Why clients WANT to refer you (and why they don’t)
• A clear plan to generate new clients within 30 days of attending

The business of design may seem like it is always either boom or bust. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This session gives you a first-hand look at how Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, an AIA Architecture Firm Award recipient, uses six core principles to drive lasting financial success and design excellence... in any economic cycle. Good design and good business can go hand-in-hand and this session gives you the tools to make it happen.

• Shared Core Values (What is your long game, Profit goals, Values, How do you do your work)
• Solid Business Foundation (Resiliency, Transition Plan, Reserves, Roadmap)
• Lateral Leadership (Knowledge Sharing, Strategic Groups)
• Transparent Metrics (Financial, Equity, Profit Goals, Projects)
• Staff Support (Licensing, Education, Mentoring, Feedback)
• Culture of Giving Back (Day of Service, Fellowship, Civic/Professional Participation)

Interested in determining the value of your firm? Putting a price tag on an A/E/C firm is unlike valuing other businesses because it demands a different kind of analysis. Learn which valuation technique is right for you and how combining book value with a risk-weighted multiple of adjusted earnings delivers more reliable metrics. A/E/C firm M&A expert Dion Kenney uses recent transactions to expose flawed thinking and unrealistic expectations, to provide principals with a valuable wake-up call!

You learn:

• Why EBBT is a better than EBITDA when valuing an A/E/C firm
• The 7 risk factors you must weigh, and the multiplier to apply to each
• How internal and external transitions affect valuations
• The impact of deferred taxes and unrecorded liabilities on valuations
• Current market realities that may shock principals

We've heard from the experts about how to engage and inspire younger A/E/C employees -- now let's go to the source. In this candid, no-holds-barred panel discussion moderated by the author of Lattes, Puppies, And Unlimited Vacation: Attracting, Retaining, And Empowering Millennial Design Firm Professionals, millennials share what drives them, what they need from firm leadership to realize their full potential, and how to eliminate motivation-killers in your approach to projects, tasks, work/life blend, and compensation.

You may be tracking data and metrics in financial, project management, and CRM systems across your firm, but are you driving the behaviors necessary realize your firm’s strategic goals? In this session, learn how to structure your data and leverage business intelligence and data visualization tools to develop dashboards and reports that motivate your staff and help your firm grow.

You learn:

• How to develop a suite of dashboards and reports that speaks to every level of your firm, from leadership, to business unit leads, to individual contributors
• What categories and metrics are most important to track to drive your firm forward
• How to leverage your strategic plan when setting up your data systems, reporting, and dashboards
• How to choose from the array of business intelligence and data visualization tools in the market, such as Power BI and Tableau

When most firms conduct strategic planning, the primary focus is on markets – which ones to move into, which ones to cut back on. They also consider where to open new offices and what kinds of additional expertise they might need. But few A/E/C firms focus on our industry’s most important asset – our people. In this presentation, Kenny Smith and Randy Landry of T. Baker Smith, LLC describe how and why their firm made HR an integral part of its strategic planning process. You learn how doing so helps through both good and lean times – and how your firm will benefit from greater involvement of HR in high-level planning.

You learn:

• Source the best employees by elevating HR leaders from back office support to the C-Suite
• Supercharge productivity with an ongoing Associate Development Program (and say goodbye to outdated “annual reviews” everyone hates)
• Grow organically and retain rockstar employees with a culture that matches skills and passion to projects

Did you know there are a few powerful ways to decrease your taxes and increase your cash flow? These little known, often misunderstood, and yet highly-powerful tax credits and incentives are available for the AEC industry. BRAYN Consulting’s Kevin Sullivan and Jason Villere will present on the history, background, eligibility requirements, and special issues, as well as provide case studies of some of these highly lucrative tax incentives. Join in to learn how you can turn your accounting department into a profit center!

Where is A/E/C comp headed, and how can you prepare? Have you budgeted enough for the next 6 months? The next 24? In this session, you benefit from expert analysis of the current and near-future labor market  and how changes on the horizon impact your long-range compensation budgeting and planning:

• Millennial employee compensation expectations that might shock you
• How to determine which compensation strategy is right for your firm
• How to apply the latest employment trends and data to making more shrewd decisions
• How to make comp offers based on the latest and most accurate data
• Trends in incentive comp that deliver win-win for all parties

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Before you start rethinking the way your firm brings in new work, STOP doing things the same way you always have. To be successful, A/E/C firms need radical changes to keep up with the times and make the process less frightening to staff members. Join Ken to learn how to listen, how to tell stories, how to communicate in 2020 and beyond:

• Stop doing “business development”: Instead, develop a culture that values the collecting and telling of the main story how your firm can help a potential client achieve goals. Tell, don’t sell.
• Stop “marketing”: Instead, constantly innovate better ways to deliver even the most mundane projects. The line between winning work and delivering it is disappearing. Today, the best way to win work is to explain the best way to deliver it.
• Stop “upside down” management of your process: In many firms, marketing coordinators have to beg senior leaders for a proposal section hours before the proposal is due. Instead, learn how to engage PMs in the entire process of both getting and delivering the project.
• Stop “chasing” work. Instead, learn how implement a proven 3-step, dynamic, strategic plan, with go / no go analyses far earlier in the procurement process.

Do you want to build a successful business and a successful home life? The needs of succeeding in these two fundamental partnerships have more in common than you’d suspect. And as we all know, if mismanaged, they can end up competing with one another, endangering both. Married owners of A/E/C businesses can invest in a happy future by building teams of advisors that align both these priorities, then help them grow to meet the challenges that come with success. The result? A complementary personal and professional life, where marriage supports your work and work supports your marriage. Join Bill in this presentation and discussion of key lessons for a future we’re all shooting for, including

• Identifying where you are right now – as an individual and partner (in your marriage and business)
• Your business may already have a board of directors. -- Your marriage should, too.
• Learn from others – who are finding out and living what works for them
• Begin building your action plan to align your personal and professional life

This first-person case study of a successful transition from first- to second- and third-generation ownership provides valuable insights for A/E/C principals considering transition options. Learn the how, why, and what one firm evaluated and decided.

You learn:

• Key dynamics of ownership transition from a financial perspective
• How to evaluate ownership transition from the points of view of multiple stakeholders
• Details about various retirement schemes such as ESOP, SERP, and others
• Balancing debt and equity for sustainable equity appreciation
• Succession planning as a constant discipline

When was the last time you took your own leadership skills inventory? In this essential refresher, see how to get more from your team by refocusing on five attributes of exceptional leaders: sharing information, building the right team, showing empathy/having emotional intelligence, giving praise/taking the blame, and promoting creativity by focusing on passions. And how to shed what you don't need: seniority, a title, ego, power, unnecessary rules, and even direct reports. With just a few tweaks, you'll see dramatic improvements in trust, respect, productivity, creativity, collaboration, and project quality. And create more great leaders who can advance your firm's mission.

You learn how to:

• Retain your best employees (61% of those working for "bad bosses" are looking for another job!)
• Gain trust and earn respect
• Build a team you can count on
• Teach, coach, and mentor your team to greatness
• Motivate your team (70% of their motivation comes from you!)

It’s easy to spend a few hundred to more than a thousand dollars on a single face-to-face client meeting when you’re positioning for future work. With so much money on the line, you need to make sure you get the most from these important interactions. A disciplined approach to client meetings will help you maximize the return on your marketing investment. In this highly interactive and dynamic workshop, you’ll learn how to plan the steps in three phases of a sales call: Getting ready (before) - key elements of research to prepare for meetings, whether you have two weeks or two hours, Implementation (during) – understanding client needs and how to effectively communicate during your meetings, Follow through (after) – driving accountability to build on the results of your work.