Transform Your Firm NOW!

Although there is some debate over the exact time frame, Psychology Today has published that it takes approximately 25 days to form a new habit. Some of us run our practices out of habit – this can be good or it can be bad.

A habit is "a settled or regular tendency or practice that has become custom, practice, routine, pattern, convention or norm." It may or may not have any reason behind it. Sometimes decades of repetition foster a habit that bears no relevance to effective firm management in the present day.

I have two client that serve the AEC industry in different markets. When I asked the principals why things are the way they are (in human resources, accounting, time management), the point of reference for both was 25 years ago, when they were working in other practices, as employees! Their ways of doing things had no logic or relevance, they were just habit.

This set me to wondering: What are the habits of highly effective practices? I offer you my observations in this 5-part series.

The Habit of Responsibility

My clients with the most effective practices are those that establish roles and responsibilities. I don't mean job descriptions! Roles and responsibilities, among other things, define an individual's decision making capacity and jurisdiction within an organization, and allow the "buck to stop" with a designated person. As a result, the individual's performance can be established as an expected outcome that achieves a company's objectives such as profitability, client service or service-delivery.

In today's environment, it is not enough to say that Tim is a Project Manager and hand him a job description that outlines his responsibility as "managing projects on-time and on-budget." Effective organizations define the role, quantify and qualify their expectations, provide the employee with feedback on performance and may, if they chose, reward staff for contributions.

Many smaller firm leaders feel it isn't necessary to define roles and responsibilities because everyone does everything. However, in these instances it is even more critical for employees to know which contributions are valued and which are less important. This alone resolves most issues of unmet and unrealistic expectations for both employees and employers.

Of the firms I've worked with, I estimate only 15% have adopted the Habit of Responsibility. If the percentage is roughly the same throughout the industry, is your firm in this effective minority?

Karen Compton, CPSM. Karen Compton is principal of A3K Consulting (Glendale, CA), a business development and strategic planning firm specializing in the architecture, engineering and construction industries. Ms. Compton is also the founder of Industry Speaks™, a web-based business-to-business portal that connects AEC firms with experienced consultants, provides peer reviews of consultants, reports on key industry trends, and publishes expert reviews of professional courses and books. Contact her at kcompton@a3kconsulting.com.