Take Your Firm to the Next Level
Leaders must reinvent themselves along with their firms

by Rena M. Klein, FAIA
RM Klein Consulting

How do you . . . “grow” your firm?

Summary: Joe is the principal of a small firm that has grown from 4 to 12 staff members in the last two years. Despite the turmoil created by rapid growth, Joe dreams of heading a firm twice this size. He imagines taking on larger projects and creating a firm that has value beyond his personal reputation. He’s seen other firms move up to the next level, but he wonders how.

Before the how question can be answered, the what question must be posed. What does the next level mean? To increase in value, firms must continue to grow, but growth could come through expanded services, increased productivity, or cultivating expertise—not only through increase in firm size.

Be what you want to become
A firm keeps growing and moving to the next level by having the ability to change and reinvent itself. This is similar to the familiar self-growth adage: Be what you want to become. Organizationally, a firm must act as if it already is what it wants to become.

Once this vision is understood, there must be commitment. Getting to the next level takes discipline and actions such as strategic planning, commitment to continuing education, and sometimes significant systemic change. Because architecture firms are project-based, project delivery often is the first system that needs examination.

In many small architecture firms, partners are the primary project managers. Partners do all the client contact and project tracking, all information flows through them, and they are the main decision makers. Not surprisingly, partners in these firms frequently work 60-hour weeks and complain about not having time to design. Although they may want to grow the firm, these firm leaders can’t imagine how to manage more projects, employees, or even find the time to plan.

The pyramid problem
The project management model used by these firms is known as a pyramid structure. Partners, at the top of their pyramid, often become a bottleneck in the production process, causing delay and wasted effort. Because partners are frequently gone from the office, critical information can be missed and last minute design changes may be common. If a partner were to disappear completely for some reason, much critical knowledge would also disappear, debilitating the projects and the firm.

In a pyramid model, growth is only possible by adding more pyramids (partners), but growth through adding pyramids is limited. While the firm may get bigger, it is unlikely it will be more profitable, more productive, or more innovative. At worst, there may be a tendency toward competition for resources as each partner’s pyramid becomes more separate from the others.

The matrix solution
To allow a firm to grow, partners need to focus on firm management and market development and on building expertise or design innovation. In the matrix model, professional staff members other than the partners are the primary project managers.

When a talented staff member assumes a project manager role, he or she is given responsibility and challenge, inevitably resulting in increased commitment and enthusiasm. The partner in charge of a project can then support the project manager with mentoring and quality review. Some partners will also serve on the project team as the lead designer or technical expert.

By letting go of project management, firm leaders are able to focus on work that enables a firm to grow, instead of dashing from deadline to deadline. Even in a firm of two people, one owner and one professional employee, a matrix model can be applied, freeing a sole proprietor to focus on design and market development.

Transforming mental models
Although the pyramid model often causes overwork and significant stress for firm leaders, many will tell you it is easier to manage projects themselves than to trust anyone else. They fail to understand the power of mentoring instead of managing, delegating instead of doing, and trusting instead of controlling. Transforming these mental models is as important to a firm’s growth as changing the project management model, and the two shifts need to support one another.

Changing mental models of how things work is probably the most difficult aspect of this process. It has been said: “Our habits are our destiny.” In small firms, the habits of the principals substantially influence every aspect of firm operations. These habits, good and bad, often become entrenched organizational patterns, copied and deepened by the staff.

Facing the weaknesses of an organization (and its leaders) and working toward improvement has huge potential for positioning a firm for growth and change. For a small firm to develop, firm leaders must grow to trust and support the intelligent people they have hired.

It’s not hard for most designers to envision a preferred future, but actually taking the steps to get there may be another story. It is a process that takes discipline, personal commitment, alignment of purpose, and a willingness to be challenged. It must start at the top. To get to the next level, firm leaders may need to reinvent themselves along with their firms.