http://www.resolvedigital.com

Preparing Your Firm for the Economic Turnaround

A Free 1-hour Webinar April 15th

10am - 11am PT / 11am - 12pm MT 

12pm - 1pm CT / 1pm - 2pm ET

Are you ready for the economic recovery? Are all the pieces in place to take maximum advantage of the upcoming opportunities?

During the go-go years of never ending economic expansion most firms had more work than they could handle. Their main focus was on hiring enough people to get the work done on time. An unfortunate consequence of too much work is that it masks the problems that invariably creep into most organizations. When revenue is running at 110% of maximum capacity some areas of the firm simply get neglected. Now that we are seeing the first signs of an economic turnaround every firm should be taking action to identify and resolve these problems

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This Webinar will outline an action plan that will help you to take maximum advantage of the economic recovery.

Presented by Herbert Cannon of AEC Management Solutions, Inc.

Herbert Cannon founded AEC Management Solutions in 2000 with the simple goal of helping A/E firms of all sizes earn the profits they deserve for their creative efforts. He has over 25 years of hands-on experience and is one of the nation's leading experts in the management of A/E firms.

Sponsored by Axium Software

Register at http://axiumae.com/resources/webinars/

Brian Kinihan

Summit Performance Systems

I recently wrote about a universal framework that business leaders can use to reliably generate greater profits and higher morale. The framework I described is similar to other powerful business methods, processes, frameworks, and interventions in one important way: you have to actually use it to get the benefit. That's what I call the flashlight dilemma: a flashlight is a powerful and simple tool, but a flashlight that isn't turned on will not light the darkness.

 I think most of us who have been around for a while have observed thatknowing what to do is often easier than doing it. This is clearly the case in business, where there are thousands of business books, seminars, experts, and consultants. Most all have something valuable to offer. But all present the same challenge: how to get people to act on what they've learned.

 One reason people don't act is because the solution seems simple at first but is actually more complicated than expected. We can't really know what it takes to do something until we try it ourselves, and when we do we sometimes find it's too hard.

But we also fail to act in situations when the solution is quite simple. For example, we all presumably want to be fit and trim, and it's simple enough to do -- i.e. eat less and exercise more -- but do we? We usually don't, and that's because we don't want it badly enough to start with or we get discouraged and stop half way through.

 Another challenge mentioned by David Maister (a management guru for professional service organizations) in his recent book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, is that people find it hard to sacrifice today for a long term payoff when things today seem "good enough".

 To overcome these challenges, individuals sometimes hire coaches (e.g. fitness coaches, life coaches, career coaches), and sports teams always have coaches. But what about companies? Companies have leaders (aka CEOs). Leaders:

" Help people accept short term pain for long term gain

" Identify practical, doable ways to achieve the gain

" Keep the team motivated to go the distance

What are some ways leaders do this? Short term pain for long term gain

" Leaders help the organization identify vivid and exciting long term objectives (e.g., #1 in our industry) that drive the requisite new behaviors. In doing so they create a sense of excitement about how things could be better and simultaneously create dissatisfaction with today's "good enough" so that it no longer appears so.

Practical ways to achieve the gain

" Leaders find time-proven, practical ways to achieve business success. (e.g., strategies, tools, processes). Some of these are better than others and some are more appropriate to a company's needs than others. Picking the right one is critical.

" Leaders also give people the training and tools they need to do what is necessary. They don't set ambitious goals without appropriately equipping people to achieve them.

Staying motivated

" Leaders keep the long term vision alive so that people remain excited about it even when faced with daily difficulty in achieving the vision.

" Leaders provide encouragement by celebrating interim achievements.

" And, perhaps most importantly, leaders convey through their words and actions that they will most definitely see the project through to the end.