- Get the most from employees
- Inspire staff when times are good
- Create business plans that work
- Keep satellite offices happy
- Set up a bonus plan
- Offer other ways to reward employees
- Make change stick
- Resolve team conflicts
- Deal with "duds"
- Respond to problem employees
- Fire intolerable employees
- Lead your firm to success
- Give performance feedback
- Improve your training efforts
- Carry out top management ideas that work
- Groom future leaders
- Have what it takes to be a leader
Are your employees just doing what’s necessary to keep their jobs, but little else? Is the productivity and morale in your firm at an all-time low? Are you an A/E/P or environmental firm leader who feels as if you have no followers?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you’re not alone. Managing an A/E/P or environmental firm is never easy. That’s why we’re offering the Leadership Nuts & Bolts: 330 Action Items for Managers of A/E/P & Environmental Consulting Firms—to help firm leaders motivate and lead their team of professionals.
We’re the publishers of The Zweig Letter—the only weekly management advisor exclusively for the principals and managers of engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting firms. We’ve selected the best leadership articles from our archives and condensed them into easy-to-follow bullet points. Each point contains a proven tactic that you can put to use at your firm.
Leadership Nuts & Bolts: 330 Action Items for Managers of A/E/P & Environmental Consulting Firms is divided into three parts:
Part 1 – Motivating your team
Practically any firm that makes money in the A/E/P or environmental business does so by getting a superhuman effort out of its staff. It follows, then, that anything the company does to "demotivate" its work force detracts from this superhuman effort, and makes it harder for the firm to be profitable.
Let’s face it—You just can’t get this superhuman effort from your staff with everyone working only 40 hours a week. As logical as this is, very few A/E/P and environmental firms can sustain this type of effort from their staff. The motivation and morale in these companies just aren’t that good. People don’t feel like being there. They do what’s necessary to keep their jobs, but that’s about it.
Design and environmental professionals are especially susceptible to becoming demotivated by their work environments. And since management controls the work environment, the responsibility for dealing with the problem falls square upon their backs.
Part 1 – Motivating your team gives managers practical and proven steps to motivate employees. The section titles include: • Getting the most from employees • Inspiring staff when times are good • Business planning that works • Keeping satellite offices happy • Setting up a bonus plan • Other ways to reward.
Part 2 – Overcoming people problems
No doubt about it, just about every A/E/P and environmental firm has employees that the owners and managers consider "problems." These people can be pains-in-the-rear who drive us all crazy, yet are hard to avoid if you want to remain part of this great industry.
One way to handle these problem employees is to cast them aside. But there are better reasons to try to turn them around—it’s getting harder and harder for firms to find the people they need, and sometimes you can change behavior, if you really deal straight with the employee.
Part 2 – Overcoming people problems takes a look at the people problems every firm faces—from change resisters to poor performers—and offers specific strategies to help resolve them. The section titles include: Making change stick • Resolving team conflicts • Dealing with "duds" • Responding to problem employees • When you have to fire them.
Part 3 – Leadership secrets
One reason the A/E/P and environmental consulting industry is predominated by small, not-so-successful firms is that it has too many weak leaders. A firm can end up with a weak leader for many reasons. The most likely explanation is that the firm is in its second generation, ownership- and management-wise, and it has a second-generation leader. Many second-generation leaders got where they are because they were good followers—not good leaders. They did what they were told by the entrepreneurial, first-generation leaders. Some firms have weak leadership because the other principals want it that way.
Whatever the reason, weak leadership is a problem our industry must overcome. And there are successful firms with strong leaders who are leading the way.
Part 3 – Leadership secrets will uncover the practices of these successful leaders—and show what you can do to become one yourself. The section titles include: Leading your firm to success • Giving performance feedback • Improving your training efforts • Top management ideas that work • Grooming future leaders • What it takes to be a leader.
Now you can own the best management ideas for A/E/P and environmental firms found in Leadership Nuts & Bolts for only $39. You’ll be able to consult this handy reference whenever you face a management challenge. Having communication problems with your branch offices? Turn to #64-77 to learn the secrets of "Keeping satellite offices happy." Need to terminate an employee? Go to #170-186, the "When you have to fire them" section. Is it time to give a performance appraisal? Look up #221–232, for "Giving performance feedback" advice. Whatever the leadership situation, Leadership Nuts & Bolts will be there to help guide you through it.
We’re so confident in the advice given in Leadership Nuts & Bolts that we guarantee it. If you don’t find ideas you can use to help lead your firm, simply return the book and we’ll give you a full refund. No questions asked!
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