When leaders announce the latest strategic pivot, digital transformation, or cultural shift, employees aren't hearing it with fresh ears. They're filtering every word through the lens of past experience. That's because organizational change doesn’t happen in a vacuum. People’s perceptions of change are informed by what has come before. This historical context influences how employees perceive new changes and can fundamentally shape perceptions of initiatives going forward. In

There are hundreds of moving parts in M&A integration on the path from signed deal to full integration. Every moving part matters. But what drives success or derails progress is rarely about tasks or deadlines, it’s about leadership. Leaders set the tone. Not necessarily through press release quotes, Day One decks, or welcome videos, but through everyday actions and behaviors. Trust is the currency of successful integrations, and it comes from the top. In times of change all

From sustained M&A activity and private equity investment to the challenges of retaining top talent and operationalizing new technologies, the pace of change in the AEC industry is brisk. Managing change in this environment requires more than strict adherence to standard frameworks. It requires new ways of thinking about how we lead change in the AEC industry. The standard framework problem. Most change management frameworks were developed decades ago for traditional corporat

Successful integrations aren't just about checking boxes and merging systems, they're about people. Investing early to engage teams, build connections, and create sustainable knowledge-sharing practices helps you integrate faster, capture value sooner, and retain top talent for the long term. Build a conference culture Conference culture : that energy after a great industry conference when you feel connected with people in your field, inspired by their expertise and project w

A well-executed reorganization is more than a structural change, it’s a strategic enabler. By anticipating challenges, leading with action, and maintaining open communication, AEC leadership teams can turn change into opportunity and deliver on a reorganization's true value. According to the Stambaugh Ness 2025 AEC Industry Outlook, survey respondents from engineering/environmental firms cited improving operational efficiency (71%) and managing company growth (68%) as key cha

Overly crafted messages full of corporate jargon that say nothing while trying to say everything are trust killers. "As we continue to optimize our organizational structure to leverage synergistic opportunities and enhance our value proposition in an increasingly dynamic marketplace, we will be implementing a strategic realignment initiative designed to right-size our human capital resources while maintaining our commitment to operational excellence..." Wait, what? Employee

More so than in generations past, employees and leaders today are asking consequential questions about our work, beyond what the next step on the career ladder looks like. The questions we’re asking ourselves now are more expansive: What kind of an impact do I want to have? What is the “why” in my work? What legacy do I want to leave behind? We’re looking for purpose. Companies that know and understand – beyond the pursuit of profit – what their purpose is, their raison d'êt

Adopting new technology, introducing new programs, and revising processes that impact workflows all require behavioral change and, therefore, early collaboration and tailored training for those affected. For initiatives like these, starting small and building capacity slowly and intentionally is the path to realizing sustainable results.    The case at hand. A mid-sized environmental consulting firm was moving forward with implementing a Client Relationship Management (CRM) p

We’ve all heard the phrase: that meeting should have been an email.   It's often painfully true that time is wasted on meetings with no purpose or agenda that produce circular conversations resulting in no decisions and no action items. In many instances, it is absolutely the case that those meetings or calls could have easily been emails. But the flipside can also be true: sometimes an email should have been a meeting. When emails, particularly key announcements from leaders

As companies scale and grow and teams expand, the complexities of managing the business grow as well. One way to manage that complexity is to create a team-based organizational structure focused on different business functions. It seems like a logical move, but absent a thoughtful and intentional approach to how the functional teams will interact and collaborate with one another, these teams can morph over time into organizational and communication silos. Leaders don’t set ou