Strategic planning within AEC firms — post pandemic
The leadership teams at Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) firms must restart their strategic planning efforts that were in process prior to the pandemic. Leaders realize they need to create new strategic planning initiatives for a post-pandemic world. This also may include re-initiating leadership transition plans that were paused in 2020.
There is a critical need to embrace and understand how different the strategic decision-making environment is for leadership teams now, compared to pre-pandemic days.
In-person approach strategy pre-pandemic: Pre-pandemic, leadership teams emphasized being together physically for strategy and board meetings. In-person was the norm for strategy and leadership felt it was imperative to meet in-person regardless of the cost and logistics challenges.
Chosen virtual approach to strategic decision pre-pandemic: Leadership teams chose to meet in person pre-pandemic although there was growing use of virtual and video meetings within their own firms and with clients. In-person was the one and only strategy and/or board format that leadership teams knew. They inherited it from prior leadership teams and saw no need to change it.
Paradigm shift during the pandemic: Leadership teams unable to meet in person because of travel restrictions discovered they could effectively “lead as a team” in a virtual environment and mirrored the success seen with their employees being able to work effectively virtually. They discovered they could have the same quality of discussion virtually that they had in person and found their firm’s bottom-line performance actually improved in 2020.
New fragmented leadership model emerges: Today there is no homogeneous strategy and board making decision model across the industry as it was pre-pandemic. There are three distinct decision-making categories currently deployed in the industry.
Pre-pandemic — 2019: These are the leadership teams and boards that are able to meet in person and eagerly embrace the opportunity to do so. They’re getting together for off-sites at conference centers and resorts. And they are more open than they were in the past to accommodate teammates who do not want to or who are unable to travel.
Pandemic mode — continues: These are the leadership teams that want to but are unable to get together in person and have had to meet virtually since the start of the pandemic. One reason is the delta variant is spiking in California, Florida and other places.
Virtual by choice: Some leadership teams face no municipal code or travel restrictions that prevent them from holding strategy or board meetings inperson. However, they choose to meet remotely because they are comfortable with their existing virtual workplace model that they have become accustomed to over the past year.
The environment and context for strategic planning and decisions — post-pandemic: We may wonder if one strategic decision-making format is superior. Pre-pandemic, every leadership team had access to the same market information and chose to access or not access that information. Leadership made strategic and governance decisions together and in-person, which is the same way that their peers and competitors did.
Today different leadership teams are gathering, consuming and processing market and best practices information differently — some remote and some in-person. Some teams are meeting in-person, while others meet remotely to make high stakes strategic decisions about the future of their firms.
The question is which model will become best practice in the AEC community — the traditional in-person model or a new virtual strategic decisionmaking format?
What do you think?