Taking on the role of CEO has been easier and also more difficult than I imagined. Some of the things that I thought would be most challenging have gone smoothly, and there’s been some new challenges that I hadn’t anticipated that have been a little harder to navigate.
I had good support going into this role, including training opportunities approved by the Board of Directors for some financial management classes and working with a consultant to update our strategic plan. As with all things, classes and training can only take you so far and some things you just have to learn on the job.
I’ve leaned on my leadership team to help in such situations, including Courtney and Andy and our other principals, June Mechure and Nick Baker. I knew I had a pretty strong team around me, but I found out this past year just how strong they are.
You always hear about delegation being a key aspect of leadership, and it can be hard to do. But if you trust your people and give them opportunities to learn and grow and shine, it makes a difference. Really, for some tasks, they’re better at them than me. Just because it may be something that’s normally a “CEO role,” I have no ego about it. Whether it’s Andy or Courtney or June or Nick, if one of them can do something better or more efficiently than me, asking them to support me means the right person is doing the job. Having a good team that you trust, who complement your skills, and are people to whom you can delegate is a key to success.
I’ve realized that weird things will inevitably happen, and these things that you can’t imagine or plan for will come out of left field. As the company’s leader, I’m the one responsible for managing them. We’re on the 10th floor of our building, and there was a flooding incident that caused water damage in our space. We had to be out of our office for several weeks. What do you do when you can’t access your building, and your servers may or may not be working? You don’t expect flooding on the 10th floor, but things happen, right? They come at you hard and quick, and you’ve got to adapt.
Seeing our leadership team step up and grow and find their places. Seeing how tight we are and how well we work together as a team. I wouldn’t have taken on this role if I didn’t know I had a strong team around me, but they have surpassed my expectations. They’ve given me great advice and helped keep me—and Wood Harbinger—on a good track. This has been especially important as I continue my role as a principal-in-charge on several projects and maintain and grow client relationships in multiple markets. Having this team I can trust is huge.
We made a concerted effort to grow our culture of business development. Being a small business in a time when our industry continues to consolidate, it’s tougher to get work. We’re a company of 30 people competing with companies of 300 or even 3,000 people. They have 10 times our portfolio or more, so we have to show clients something different and more valuable than just our project experience. By broadening who participates in business development to include our project managers, our engineers, and even our designers, we’re cultivating relationships at every level, and have more eyes and ears paying attention to potential opportunities. And it’s working! It’s really great to see the creative ideas that people have and to see our designers going to events and meeting clients. The energy is great.
Continuing this evolution of our business development approach. Last year everyone was excited about it, and we were also a bit disorganized. This year, our mission is to take it to the next level by being really strategic and coordinated in our approach and efforts.
This year will be about continuing to develop our design and engineering talent as they take on project leadership roles and continuing to work in collaboration with my leadership team in leading both the business and projects, as active PICs.
I’ve been thinking about ways to continue mentoring, training, and growing people. We have a lot of talent on our team, but mentoring isn’t easy; it takes longer than you think to grow in this industry because it’s complex and relationship based. It seems simple, but one of the things that works really well for me is just bringing designers and engineers into more project meetings and having them get to know our clients directly. It helps them develop connections, learn how to engage with clients, and learn about the priorities and issues that shape projects at a deeper level.
I see how in the first few meetings people attend, they’re quiet, but then they start to develop a rapport with our clients, they start speaking up, and clients start contacting them instead of just me. It’s cool to see that shift happen as they grow and find their confidence. It’s worth Wood Harbinger’s investment to engage people in projects this way. They’re developing relationships, and relationships are the foundation of our industry.
I’d like everyone to know that our focus on relationships and taking care of each other and our clients is real. Everyone says it, but as a smaller company, and because of who I think we really are as people, I really mean it. We really mean it. We truly value relationships; no one is just a number or just another project. Good service and partnerships are our lifeblood.
A lot of people choose to work for or with a smaller firm because of the tight relationships we’re able to create. The close relationships I have with my leadership team have made all the difference for me in becoming CEO. I’m fortunate to have many great client relationships as well. I’m excited to see our whole team develop relationships like this with each other and with our clients, too.
