Engineering Influence from ACEC

Business Continuity and Adaption in the Time of COVID-19

Sean Goldwasser, Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for Black & Veatch's Water Business in North America, joined the podcast to discuss how the firm is adapting to the challenges of conducting business in the age of COVID-19.
Transcript:
Host:Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. And we're coming to you today with another part of our ongoing series that really focuses in on the big new story of the, of the day that we're all living through, which is the coronavirus pandemic and specifically how the industry, the engineering industry, is dealing with this really unforeseen and unprecedented challenge. And today I'm very pleased to be joined by Shawn Goldwasser. He is the Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for Black and Veatch's water business in North America. And Sean really brings some good perspectives from the industry as far as how Black and Veatch has adapted the main concerns that they have related to the coronavirus pandemic, both internally from a business standpoint and external also from a client side. And Sean, I really appreciate you coming on the show to provide your perspectives here. I guess first off, let's just talk about, you know, how are things where, where are you working now and, and, and kinda how is the, how's the environment that you've adapted to.
Sean:Jeff, thank you for the opportunity. Yeah. So, so like a lot of people today I'm working from my house. I've got a family of four, a college student and a high school student, and we're all sharing bandwidth and they're doing their home studies. And as I'm doing work from home and, and it's, it's a good problem to have, I'll put it this way. So Kansas City both on the Kansas and Missouri side, it's been relatively mild here. We don't have the same size of populations that you're talking about. And some of those coastal areas we still do have international travel covers, but again, not to the same level you'd expect to see in California or New York, that type of thing. So the actual number of cases that have happened here have been quite a lot fewer if for no other reason than just because the population is smaller as well. I would say that people in the community at large seems to be dealing with it with relative calm but with the same concern and uncertainty you see everywhere.
Host:Absolutely. And how's your firm dealing with the the change to remote work and and how are you dealing with the work still with the clients on sites?
Sean:Yeah, so that's actually been as much as you can say some things like this is success, right? I think for our discussions today I'm going to be positive because think having a positive attitude is important. But I also want to make sure we say there's a lot of people that are going to become, if they haven't already become seriously ill and some people are easily going to lose their lives over this. So I don't want any of my positive attitude to trivialize the very nature of what this is. But I think having a positive attitude and looking at the bright side and what opportunities are as important for this. We've been looking at our response to this essentially unprecedented event in sort of a three part approach because you've got to break it apart into something that you can get your arms around. You know, first and foremost we're looking at, well what do we need to do to best ensure the safety of our professionals?
Sean:That includes effectively people and their families, right? Cause if professionals get ill, families get ill. That whole thing unwinds the same thing extends very quickly to our clients. So we moved to a work from home model very quickly. You know, once you've got that basic safety issue, reasonably taken care of, not perfected, but regionally taken care of, then we're talking about, well how do we adapt now that people are in their homes, can we continue to function and how's that gonna work? So what technology are we employing as a business to allow the nature of the work that we do that is usually in normal traditional office spaces and in client spaces. How does that work in a, in a world where face to face contact isn't prudent. And then once we've gotten that stabilized into a functional level, then we start talking more nearness about what does that mean to the longer term business here in the mirror, the mid and long term of opportunities and, and to make sure that the clients continue to get their needs met. That's the important part as well.
Host:Absolutely. And especially in your sector, which is so critical because it is essentially critical infrastructure and an essential role dealing with water, water pipe, you know, water networks ensuring that people have continual, uninterrupted access to clean water. That we're dealing with water management properly. I mean these are things which are, they need to be stepped up. Not this is when you put the pedal on the gas instead of slowing down.
Sean:Equally true when it comes to power, telecommunications and oil and gas, other aspects of the businesses that we serve in terms of critical given infrastructure just as true.
Host:Absolutely. I mean this is, this is really where the value of what you do comes into play because people relying on those public services to stay active and open. I mean I, for one when I went into the grocery store and I noticed all the water, you know, flying off the shelves and my mind was like, well, you know, this is the water systems are staying on. But then the thought crossed my mind, what would happen - God help us - What would happen if there was some lapse or breakdown in our critical infrastructure, like our power, like our water systems and what would that mean for communities and for regions and being able to pivot to a work from home model, a remote, you know, socially distant model while still enabling the clients that you have in the water space and in, in the public infrastructure space to get their job done. That an in such a short time. I think that's the most amazing thing that you're able to pivot so quickly is, is really impressive. And, and, and must be, you might be you know, writing, writing the manual as you, as you live it.
Sean:Yeah. I'm, I'm afraid to get too cocky with that because the universe has a way of humbling people that get that way. You know, it, it hasn't been perfect, but it's been pretty good. I will tell you we have, we didn't, we didn't make up how to respond to this overnight. Right. There were things that we had in place. Not, I wouldn't say that we anticipated this kind of an event cause we didn't. But from a business practice standpoint, we engage in something called business continuity planning where we're really more looking at what happens if the professionals can't in the Kansas City office couldn't come to work because there was a fire in the building that day. But what if there was an earthquake in Los Angeles and the professionals couldn't get into that office. And that day our business continuity plans talk about how are we going to respond if that happens.
Sean:We weren't really thinking about it from the standpoint of everybody in every office globally needs to work remotely. But as it's happened, as it happens, the things that, that we had put in place to mitigate these risks have served us very well in terms of remote working tools and network connectivity. We use a lot of video conferencing. We used it before on people's individual machines. Well that actually serves, there's no substitute for face to face contact, but it served us very well. So when I look at things like things, again, things that we didn't anticipate to be used in this, but our, our strategic plan talks about working in new ways, being rapidly evolving and highly innovative. We were really thinking about that from the standpoint of business disruption and how businesses changing evolve over time. When I look to what this has resulted in the need for us to do, those things are just as equally important as we respond to this crisis as opposed to just changes in business.
Host:Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think the the important lesson there is regardless of the size of the firm doing that business continuity planning doing that crisis management exercise and having a plan in place and being able to have something to rely on in cases like this is so critically important. And out of curiosity, how, I mean, how, if you, if, if you can go into detail on this, I'm not sure, but you know, how, how frequently does Black and Veatch reassess over time It's continuity plan in, your experience, you know, is it the kind of thing which was done on an annual basis, biannual or sooner so you can keep, you know, keep that fresh.
Sean:Yeah, there are aspects of it that I probably shouldn't share with you or couldn't share with you, but this is a fair question to ask. And it so happens that I am responsible for this business continuity process within the water business anyway. And we look at it yearly, every year and we look at what did we say last year and what would our response be given the tools, systems, practices and demands we have in front of us. And if the event happened this year, what would be different? Our offices changed. Our needs changed. Digital risks can change. So it doesn't, once you have something in place, it doesn't take a lot to update it and it's proven to be pretty important to us.
Host:Yeah. I guess the main lesson is to get something in place and then just don't put it on a shelf but, but keep it out and refresh it once in a while so that you can quickly pivot and move to a, you know, put it in action. So that, that's really important for I think at all executives understand the importance of that. So I mean, from an internal perspective, it seems that you had a plan in place, you're able to act on it from the external side, the client facing side. How has this impacted or, or created opportunities potentially to apply your expertise into areas related to really the situation right now with the, with the pandemic, not just healthcare of course, because this is widespread. There are many other areas where, where you know, agencies and, and, and utilities and public sector clients need help.
Sean:Yeah. I would say there's probably a, what comes to mind anyway as a sort of a two part answer to your question, there's the ability to work with your clients, which are our long-term business partners. These are entities and people that we've worked with for a long time on these critical human infrastructure issues. Their needs are changing as well. What's coming at them is coming at them very quickly, both in terms of real technical and delivery challenges and the public perception issues. We're working with a lot of water entities that are having to go out while having to not having to choosing to go out and be very public saying, don't worry, your water system is not at risk. This is not a waterborne illness. It doesn't represent a risk of disruption of service. There is no real risk of that, but the public procedure to be when it becomes a problem for those clients, so working with them to help understand what that means to how the communicate it is useful. We've been sharing some of our tools and practices with them because we are pretty good at working remotely because we travel. A lot of our business people travel across different sectors. Our clients don't always have that same structure. So their ability to work remotely and be dispersed is different than ours is. We've talked a little bit with some of the clients about how to adapt in near term and being remote because not all of them have the IT systems in place to do this kind of thing.
Host:Oh no, I was just going to save that. That, you know, that kind of goes to the idea that we always say if, of course a normal times of you know, engineer's and their client, that relationship, it's that trusted advisor relationship. It's not always just you know, the direct day to day of either designing or maintaining or acting in support of a utility and making sure that things work on time. It's also providing that leadership, that experience and best practices to help their clients understand and approach problems with solutions. So that's, I think that's a good example of that.
Sean:And those who had been a lot of our initial conversations, not all by any means, but a lot of our initial conversations with clients talking about, well, what, what has this crisis to you as an, as an, as a client, as a different business? What does that done? What new challenges is it causing you to have to face, you know, in some cases we're going to have solutions to that. In some cases we're going to help you work for your solutions to that. Some of those are relatively simple. Some of them are not.Host:In certain circumstances like this. And I think you put it very well that it's managing perception and it's helping the clients understand the best way to communicate something that you're fighting. The idea that PR perception becomes reality and people might react incorrectly in crisis situations. Largely have you seen an impact from you helping your clients communicate the fact that you know, things are gonna happen. You know, things are still going up. You turn the tap water is still going to happen. You don't have to worry. That doesn't involve water. You know, has that seen success in your mind?
Sean:I think so. I think most of our clients were reasonably well along the way to solving those issues. I don't know that that was the most pressing issue facing them. I think for most of our clients, the more pressing issues are how do they maintain business continuity. The issue of public perception is real. It very much is real, but it probably was not as much of a threat to their business as the disruption of not being able to work in the same way as they were used to working with working under I think is probably a bigger threat. Absolutely. And then some instances, you know, if you're, if those clients is, supply chains are disrupted, that kind of thing. That's, that's a much more, that's a much more serious challenge. You know, and it's causing some, some new things altogether. Some new things that's not very specific, but we, we talk about one of the things as an example.
Sean:I mean there's, some of this is run of the mill and some of his brother mundane, but some of it's actually a little bit sort of potentially pretty exciting. You know, one of the things you keep hearing about is the testing, right? We talk about testing, well we, the news talks about testing for this virus and the number of test kits that are available and the duration of time it takes to get results. One of the things that public entities across world, not just the U S are looking at is how do we know when we've peaked? Right? That's a key question here. How do you know when you've peaked? And if you, if the metric for that is the number of tests you can run, but the test kits are limited and the analytical capacity is limited. Is there a different way of doing it?
Sean:But one of the things we were already working on is a business and still in an experimental stage where essentially data analytic side of sensors and I'm not a technology expert in this kind of thing, but we were looking at sensors that could be put in wastewater streams to test for certain pathogens. And with the idea being, could you test for the presence and concentration of pathogens in a wastewater stream? And when we apply that kind of concept today, what if we were able to take that same technology, apply those sensors to wastewater streams and be able to track the presence and quantity or relative presence of this pathogen, COVID-19, the virus in a wastewater stream that would eliminate the need for the public health agencies to have to go test every single person to then go know what, what is the path? Are we peaked on a curve or not, because at least use that wastewater stream data to say has a given location peaked? It wouldn't tell you anything about individuals, but it might help you make good public health decisions at a city or state level. That's still in development. You know, we're not looking - I don't think it's realistic we'll say, we'll roll that out tomorrow. It's not that kind of thing, but it's a real technology. So as we were already working on that we've converted to see, can we apply it to this?
Host:That's a, that's a great example of the use of and the importance of data. And it's not just the collection of the data, but it's, it's just the interpretation and how can you apply different technologies that are being developed to different challenges. And that would be, you know, I could, I could immediately see how useful that would be for a governor or for, you know, FEMA or the CDC to get a better regional or, or scatter a map of, of potential concentrations of a pathogen. Not just COVID-19, but anything. If you're able to use those sensors and leverage that data in a way where you can assist policy makers making decisions it's a perfect example of applying a technology to a different problem, and adapting it to meet it.
Sean:Yeah. Other examples like that where we're sort of looking at things that we were already trying to put in place. Things were already exploring, you know, something else we were trying to do. I was telling you earlier about the, the company focused on being rapidly evolving and looking at that from a different way of being a disruptor in the business. We've got something we call our incubator and we use that as a way to try to draw out new ideas, whether they're directly connected to our core businesses or whether there potentially somehow tangential to that. And using that to find partners that are, again, not necessarily part of our normal supply chain to see could they come up with something clever and interesting that disrupts a given business that comes up with a new idea. We've got some press releases out now actually that are reflective of this. Trying to find, are there other partners that have ideas about how, some idea that they have that could improve our, our society's ability to deal with this virus.
Host:Yeah. I see that front and center on your website with the ignite X code 19 response accelerator as, as,
Sean:And our growth accelerator. We can put money into that and find ways to collaborate.
Host:Absolutely. And that's, that's, that's the power of just, you know, getting, I, it's great to see because a firm like yours can can play that pivotal role of connecting someone with a good idea and turning that into action. And it's a good example of the private sector innovation kind of, you know, playing a large role into responding to situations like this because you can move quicker. And you can present solutions faster than, you know, let's say the government would be able to and you'll be able to provide the government the solution that they might've been looking for and not even knowing that they actually needed. So that, that is great.
Sean:One of the other things we're looking to do here is to see how we can in a more traditional sense probably, but how we can be a part of helping mitigate one of the potential real risks that we're facing from a healthcare industry and standpoint. And that is you see the news for New York city and none of this is critical of New York city that are facing a huge wave of numbers coming at them. But you see the news stories that have a hospitals and emergency rooms jammed with people and people lined up in hallways. They're just absolutely being overwhelmed with the number of cases coming in. Both have terms of COVID potential COVID-19 patients plus our normal load of people that are just sick for other reasons. Somebody breaks their arm, that kind of thing. You know what, what we find, I think we're seeing is that the healthcare systems understandably, are not set up.
Sean:The physical infrastructure is not set up to deal with the numbers of people you have to triage to make that work. And also you have a secondary risk when you put that many people in proximity, even ones that are coming in for a different reason may end up becoming infected due to the proximity of the people. So is there a way to look at creating these modular temporary hospital setups? We were looking at that right now. Modular, rapid modular health system where we could go essentially augment existing health systems, hospitals and put a, you want to think of it like a treatment diagram, a flow diagram, put a module for additional physical infrastructure to allow for triage ahead of the hospital emergency room to alleviate some of that difficulty. That's something that we're working with some of our private partners and potentially in government agencies with to see if there's an opportunity there to go provide that assistance because we have the infrastructure experience, building experience and process and technology experience to help in those arenas.
Host:And that's, that's something which is going to be I think, increasingly important, not just in this circumstance but in, in as, especially from the policy side in Washington, we start talking a lot more about resilience in term of in terms of essentially everything, social infrastructure, physical infrastructure, responding to potential disasters, manmade or natural and having that capability to assist you know, public health in responding quickly it could help change the way that we respond to future disasters which is of critical importance.
Sean:And I think your point about responding quickly really is one of the key pieces. Any of these entities could decide that they need additional triaged capacity ahead of a given medical facility, but normal practices would take years to get that put in place. We don't have years to get that put in place. You know, if this is going to be effective and mitigate the risks to people in a system that could easily become overwhelmed with patients, it's going to have to be done quickly.
Host:It's going to be interesting coming out of this and, and kind of looking ahead in the crystal ball about how Congress and policymakers are going to be looking at this. I mean there's talk of course about the committee that's already been drawn up, but the relevant agencies that deal with our industry, especially in the House side with Transportation and Infrastructure, they have jurisdiction also over FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers. It's going to be interesting to see how they, how this opens their eyes to these different aspects of the need to move quickly, to move rapidly. And what kind of systems are in place or could be in place and to create the flexibility for companies like yours to be able to partner with agencies to really get these things from the testing phase or, or the drawing board into rapid implementation. And that'll be something that I'm sure we'll be looking at from ACEC National's perspective. And of course, you know, regionally from the state level and local. So that's, that's a really important thing. Is there anything else that you are kind of working on right now that could potentially be applied to this or any other kind of situation of national concern?
Sean:I think the thing comes to mind for me at the moment in response to that question probably has more to do with the longer term implications of what this pandemic is going to teach us all about how position, how to prepare, how to be able to respond to something that you didn't see coming. Because again, certainly there are people that have been warning globally about this type of a pandemic, but that's been going on for a long time. What is the opportunity for us as a business but for society at large and for our clients as well to look at, okay, what can we learn from this and what would we put in place to allow us to be flexible and responsive and resilient? That resilience discussion is probably one that I think will play very strongly. It will be very important for our clients in the future and for us as well as a business. Right? Absolutely. A lot of what we did, it hasn't been perfect, but it's, it's served us pretty well and having the ability to arrange yourself in a way that provides resilience is probably going to be increasingly important and better understood moving forward.
Host:Yeah, I mean today's emergency is tomorrow's kind of manual for best practice too. So the work that's being done now, like I said, it might not be perfect, but it's working can be the testbed for a future response, which is know critically important for everyone. From the public sector, you know, policy side down to the people who are going to be receiving the the care where there's going to be, you know, health care or, or disaster recovery or, or what have you.
Sean:And even if we take it outside the realm of public health and just think back to the providers of infrastructure, you know, the, the power generation, the telecommunication providers, water providers, all that kind of thing. The, the cost of providing resiliency measures for yourself and you can do it upfront before there's a crisis can be quite a lot less expensive than dealing with the crisis where it prevents you from operating.
Host:Right. Yeah, absolutely.
Sean:We'll see an improved understanding of that and then increased willingness to spend reasonable amounts of money to achieve better resilience.
Host:Absolutely. And, and, and knowing the past work that was done in previous, previous legislation on the Hill moving towards that the pre-disaster mitigation work you can lower the cost. It's always cheaper if you can do it on the front end than if you're forced to do it on the back end and if the engineering industry and firms like yours can get in on that conversation at the start, help shape that policy work, it can lower the burden for taxpayers and speed up the process. And it's that focus on pre disaster mitigation, which is so important.
Sean:I agree. Very much agree.
Host:Well, Sean I really do appreciate you coming on the show. I think that your perspectives both the firm-wide from Black and Veatch and then also individually from your position in the firm in the public public sector side and the water side is critically important for, for our audience and for our members to hear. I would say enjoy a nice weekend coming up. I hope you can get outside a little bit. I, it's a, it's a daunting challenge these days with, with separation - social distancing.
Sean:Yup. Well we'll, we'll find a way, right? There's way to do that. Able to get outside enough to stretch our legs and keep our bodies. Well, I appreciate the ability to talk to you today and your listeners on this podcast. I think it's an important discussion to be having at the level of our industry and I think there are meaningful things we can learn from this and take forward to make it to improve society in general at large.
Host:Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there is a, there is a, there is a very bright silver lining in the storm cloud. And I think that together industry-wide, we can learn and we can improve from this and, and come out stronger for it. And, and the work that you guys are doing at Black and Veatch is definitely helping to make that a reality. Keep us apprised of any new developments. We'd love to have you back on but thank you so much.
Sean:Very welcome, Jeff. Thank you. Thank you.

The Chairman's Corner - Engineering During the Coronavirus Pandemic

ACEC Board Chair Mitch Simpler stopped by the program today to discuss the new world our industry finds itself in with COVID-19 and how the engineering industry is adapting to meet the challenges ahead.

Coronavirus Special: Government Affairs Update for 4-2-20

ACEC's SVP for Advocacy, Steve Hall, and Katharine Mottley, VP for Tax and Regulatory Affairs, joined Engineering Influence to discuss the new guidance for small businesses stemming from the enactment of the CARES Act.  
Resources discussed on the show:
The new law establishes a Paycheck Protection Program to assist qualifying small businesses, nonprofits, and individuals through the Small Business Administration’s 7(a) loan program.  $349 billion is authorized for 7(a) lending from Feb. 15 through June 30, and SBA would fully guarantee the loans.  Loans would be available during the covered period for:
Any business, nonprofit, veterans group, or tribal business with 500 or fewer employees, or a number set by the SBA for the relevant industry. ACEC is seeking clarification on this point – whether SBA will implement the loan program using the traditional size standard for engineering, or something broader.
Sole proprietors, independent contractors, and eligible self-employed workers would be eligible.
Eligible recipients could receive loans up to $10 million or 250% of their average monthly payroll costs, instead of $5 million, with interest rates capped during the covered period at 4%.  Loans can be used to cover eligible payroll costs -- salaries, commissions, regular paid leave, and health-care benefits -- as well as mortgage interest and utility payments. Firms would be required to make a “good faith certification” that funds will be used to retain workers, maintain payroll, and pay for rent and similar expenses.  Funds cannot be used to compensate individual employees at an annual rate above $100,000, or to pay for emergency sick or family leave under the second coronavirus response package.
The ACEC Coronavirus Resource Center: https://www.acec.org/conferences/coronavirus/
The Department of the Treasury provided initial information on the Paycheck Protection Program loans for small firms that are part of the CARES Act.
IRS Notice 2020-22 provides relief for employers from penalties for failure to deposit employment taxes in connection with the payroll tax provisions in the FFCRA and the CARES Act.
DOL issued a temporary rule to implement the emergency paid leave provisions in the FFCRA.
Fact sheet on COVID-19 and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Fact sheet on COVID-19 and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
Required poster on emergency paid leave under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA:)
Employee rights poster.
Q&A on the poster.

The Macroeconomic Outlook with Anirban Basu

Anirban Basu, the President and CEO of Sage Policy Group came on the podcast to give his outlook on the economy in light of the coronavirus.

Coronavirus Special: Government Affairs Update for 3-28-20

ACEC's Steve Hall joined the program to review the congressional action on the CARES Act stimulus bill, which was signed into law by President Trump on Friday.

The Importance of Ethics in Business Success with Tom Topolski of Parsons

Engineering Influence sat down with Tom Topolski, Parsons' EVP for Infrastructure Business Development to discuss the company's rigorous ethics and compliance program and being recognized as one of the world's most ethical companies by the Ethisphere Institute.
Transcript:
Host:Welcome back to another episode of Engineering Influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. Now America's engineering industry is engaged in a daily effort to improve the lives of every American, but how they go about doing that work is just as important as the work itself, which really brings us to today's topic - the importance of ethics in business and the role of compliance and how that plays in corporate success.
Host:And I'm really pleased to be joined by my guest today. Tom Topolski. He's the Executive Vice President for Infrastructure Business Development at Parsons. In his role, Tom oversees efforts to achieve top and bottom line growth by identifying market opportunities to extend Parsons' infrastructure portfolio. And really what sets Tom apart from many of his peers in the industry is - especially in business development - is the fact that he is also a Certified Compliance and Ethics Professional and serves on Parsons' ethics committee.
Host:And that is interesting in itself. But beyond that, Parsons for the 11th year running was just named one of Ethisphere's most ethical companies in the world. And it's not a small, small honor. It's something that is, that is very, very competitive and very highly sought after. So 11 years in a row, first time Parsons has won it as a public company. And it's great to have Tom on the show today to talk about the award and also just kind of the outlook that the company has on ethics, compliance, you know, business practices and why it's so important for the engineering industry and why it just helps, you know, accentuate what we do. So, Tom, thank you for being on.
Tom Topolski:Jeff, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, it's just great to have the opportunity to talk to you about this.
Host:Could you tell us a little bit about what you, what you do at Parsons?
Tom Topolski:Well, as you mentioned, I'm the Executive Vice President for Strategy and Business Development across our critical infrastructure business. So that includes all modes of critical infrastructure. It's highway, bridge, rail and transit, aviation ports and marine, smart cities, intelligent transportation systems. You know, the gamut of - Parsons is very much a full service company providing services from the conceptual planning feasibility studies through to design, construction, asset management.
Host:So really it's that whole infrastructure portfolio that you cover.
Tom Topolski:Right, and solutions. And I think why ethics and compliance is really important in that space too is people take it for granted, right? But everybody uses some form of transportation to get where they are today, Right?
Host:Exactly.
Tom Topolski:We serve hundreds of millions of people when you think about it in terms of the infrastructure, right? Whether it's people driving on our roads using our bridges, riding on the Metro system, using an airport. And so there's a lot of public trust that's put into making sure those structures are designed properly, they're constructed properly and that they're safe.
Host:Absolutely. I mean Parsons is an international company. You do business around the world. You have about 10,000 employees, I think is...
Host:16,000 employees.
Tom Topolski:How, how important is it to drill the message down of doing business in an ethical way, especially when you're dealing with other countries that have different rules and regulations and practices on business?
Tom Topolski:Well, Jeff, let me give you a couple of good examples. I was running our business in the middle East for a number of years and I can give you two examples that is, that I'm particularly proud of and I've always used these as ethics and compliance moments when we start meetings and so forth. In one case there was a country in the middle East after nine 11 that they started to surveil communications. And they were basically looking to see if there was money laundering going on for any terrorism activities, things like that. I don't know if they ever found that, but what they did find was a very large corruption scheme at one of the public works authorities. And what I'm proud of without going into a lot of details is that our company was the only one in our peer group, our company that not even had anyone questioned.
Tom Topolski:So what that told me, I mean, every one of our other competitors either had their managing directors deported, put in jail, people were questioned top to bottom, but we weren't even questioned. So what that said to me was not only did we have the tone at the top correct, but it was the mood in the middle and the buzz at the bottom as they say in the compliance industry, that it was in our DNA, that we didn't get involved in any of those kinds of activities. Another example was in a, in the middle East was when we participated in a design competition and we spent a lot of money on that. When you're doing a design competition, you have to come up with the concept design, the architecture of it and so forth. As the procurement proceeded, we and I was called to a meeting with the director of the public works department. At that time I realized that it was not going to be a transparent procurement and essentially said that we would withdraw from the competition. And again, what's important wasn't my decision on that. But when I called the president of our global business unit, I had full support. It wasn't like, Tom, are you crazy? Get back in, you know, I have the full support. And so again, it's a culture right top to bottom. Everybody knows to do the right thing. And I think that's one of the things that's always differentiated Parsons in the industry.
Host:For our members. I mean we have firms of varying sizes. We have, you know, of course, solo to small practitioners all the way up to Parsons and your peers in the international space. And we had one of our executive committee members on a couple programs ago when he was talking about leadership. He's the, he's the chairman of another firm out of Michigan. And he, he was really talking about the need to kind of drill down through all the layers to try to get a when he was talking about business, it's more of the vision, strategic vision. And I guess it's the same for really an ethics and compliance program.
Tom Topolski:Let me give you another good example of how you apply that and how you build up the client trust. Also going back to the middle East, and this is about 18 or 20 years ago. So it's not a new thing with Parsons. It's been in our DNA I think really since the inception of the company. But in Dubai when there was just massive construction going on, well and it's continued, we introduced the concept of integral abutment bridges. And so by doing that, we reduce the cost of bridge construction by about 50% with reduced quantities, which we demonstrated. But more importantly to it was the life cycle cost. Because when you're using integral abutments, you eliminate the need for the expansion joints and the bearings in most cases. So from a life cost, from a maintenance cost is greatly reduced. Now in doing that and why this is important is our design was on a percentage of constructed value. So we actually reduced our design fee by doing that quite substantially. But the client could obviously see what we were doing. We earned the trust and ultimately ended up with a tremendous amount of market share because they knew they could count on Parsons to do the right thing and you know, create the most efficient and effective design for them considering life cycle.
Host:Absolutely. Yeah. As a lasting effort if you can prove that you're doing things right.
Tom Topolski:Yeah. And especially where you're really, again, you're using it, it's the public trust, right. And it's using money in the public interest. And so if you can demonstrate that you're using that, those funds again for the beneficial purpose of the project, delivering it as efficiently as you can. I do think that no better way to gain trust.
Host:Yeah, absolutely. And an award like Ethisphere is, like I said, it's a, it's a sought after award. Some of the most recognizable brands in the world are our recipients. And you are just one of, I think one of two engineering firms that actually were named. And what does that mean for your role in business development to be able to go out to potential clients to potential markets and be able to say, you know, we were able to achieve this thing.
Tom Topolski:I think it means a lot. It's a, it's a huge differentiator. And I think what adds to that is that we've done it 11 years in a row. So it shows that we, it's not just something that we've decided to do because it was seen as something that was important in a given year. No, it demonstrates, I think, the ongoing commitment that just like our commitment to health and safety, environment, quality, sustainability, innovation, all of those core values, integrity, ethics and compliance is central to the way that we conduct ourselves, the way we do our business. And it is, it's it, yeah. As you know, very well winning the Ethisphere recognition. It's, it's not an easy task. I mean, there, it is a very rigorous process. So it demonstrates the commitment amongst all the 16,000 of my peers. Yeah. Yeah.
Host:And from your position, both as a certified ethics professional and then also on the on on the ethics committee at Parsons for if you were, if there was a firm there that was looking to either revise or to strengthen its own compliance program and you know, what, what are some of the top things they should keep in mind if they were to do that?
Tom Topolski:Great question Jeff. And I think because I've seen the other side of it, of firms that really haven't had quite the same commitment that Parsons has always had. I believe having someone, for example, I and indeed I may be the only a business development professional in our peer group who has a CCPI. But what it does is it demonstrates to the larger population the commitment that ethics and compliance is not here as a police force or an enforcement. No, it's rather we are here working with you to address concerns. You may have to address questions. You may have to ensure that we're imparting what it means to do business with integrity.
Tom Topolski:You know, to have the highest commitment to ethics. So having people from the business to, so for example, having me on the ethics committee, I know what it's like to run the business. I know what it's like to pursue with a procurement processes like or challenges come up so I can add a lot of value rather than just having somebody on the ethics and compliance compliance side who hasn't necessarily been in the operation. So we on the committee, we have two other of my colleagues. We have the EVP for corporate operations and then we also have a VP for corporate compliance operations. So it's a very tight group. We interact with each other on a daily basis, reviewing questions that come up, cases that come up. And the other thing that I always try to do too is I get the FCPA blog.
Tom Topolski:I don't know if you've ever heard of it. And so what I do is I share the FCPA blog, not all the time because then it's overload and people can look out of this perfunctory. But I give a good example when there was a Houston Astros scandal with the, with the cheating and the world series, and there was some articles about that and the FCPA blog. I was really delighted actually about the amount of dialogue that came out once I forwarded that article. And people expressed personal, very passionate stories about how it affected them because they were Houston Astros fans and so forth. But it's in that way, I believe that you build up the culture and people recognize, look, I need to not only do this from my peers, I need to do it for myself. Right? I mean, can you imagine if you had a compliance issue, right?
Tom Topolski:And you had to, you know, you had to, you lost your job or worse, you had, maybe you, you know, had a criminal case against you. How do you face your family, your friends, you know it's you never get your reputation back after something like that.
Host:And kind of a shameless plug for our webinars, but we actually do have a webinar available that, that focuses on FCPA compliance. Bill Steinman who contributes to the FCPA blog, actually, it actually held that webinar. So that's up there for members. If you want to go take a look, that's the foreign corrupt practices act. Of course that's more international work. Of course. But still, you know it's a body of law, which is the DOJ is doing a lot to enforce increasingly. So
Tom Topolski:Just like to let people know if they didn't know I last year in 2019, it was a record year for DOD DOJ enforcement of the FCPA violations, $2.6 billion dollars. So you know, even when we always talk about health and safety, of course the overall overarching objective is to make sure everybody goes home at least as healthy or more healthy than they were when they started out. But the same but the results. So of course the financial impact of it, right? Cause you don't want workman's compensation claims and so forth. Same thing with ethics and compliance. We want to do things the right way, but there is I, if you look in our peer group of all the firms that have either gone out of business or have become acquired that aren't on the map, firms that have had compliance issues tend to not survive it.
Tom Topolski:You know, because the fines are steep. Then you tack on the legal costs associated with that, the lost opportunity costs. It can kill the firm and you need to think about, you know, the jobs lost reputational issues.
Host:It's not an add on. It has to be a core business practice.
Tom Topolski:Yeah, you can't. And again, that's why you know, it is kind of glib to say tone at the top, mood in the middle, buzz at the bottom. But, but the point of that is, is to really drive home to everybody that it has to be in the DNA and that people can't just give a wink and a nod. You really, you have to believe it. You have to. And that's what's wonderful about Parsons too. It's always, you know, I've been with the company 12 years, over two stents and I missed the company while I was away because I did miss that really strong commitment. But I've always seen it from the earliest days I was with the company through to today right from our chairman, our board all the way through to people out in the field. People take it seriously and and believe in it. And you can feel that.
Host:Yeah. Well I wanna I want to take advantage of your expertise also in business development because some, some wider industry questions because we always try to get a handle on where things are trending and wanted to get an idea from you from your perspective looking at the infrastructure space and and, and where do you think technology is taking us? Where do you think the, you know, the next 10 years lays for firms or the industry doing work in the public sector? And, and you know, where's technology going? What's Parson's kind of looking at? How are you positioning yourselves?
Tom Topolski:Great question. I, I liked it. Well, first of all, I, what I always say to people too, I feel very fortunate to be in this business at this time because I think it's the most exciting time in our industry and probably over a hundred years. And you know, if you really look back, it was just over a hundred years ago that automobiles started to really take hold and have mass you know, ownership and replace the horse and buggy. And I think that right now the opportunities are immense. I liked it. I think Parsons with our focus on technology, our focus on innovation, always our quest for doing things better. You know, making it things more efficient and effective position us where the nexus between the traditional infrastructure, which we had been doing for over 75 years and technology enabled infrastructure. You look at construction, you're going to more modular construction, you're going to drones, robotics, you know, for example, if it's signaling in a subway system, right?
Tom Topolski:It's easier to have a robot go into some of those confined spaces than put people at risk. It's more efficient. And you know, again, sometimes there's labor shortages as well. So I think you'll begin to see more robotics in some ways, scheduling and programming, artificial intelligence coming into play. But I think some of the big transitions are, you know, you look at the smartphone, right? 10 years ago, if I held out a smartphone and said, you're going to be able to do your banking on that, you're going to be able to call a taxi on that. You're getting kind of all your videos, your music on that. You'd say you're crazy, right? Yeah. But think of the disruption that the smart phone has had on so many different industries, right? So I think Uber and Lyft are the first stage of getting us to connected and autonomous vehicles.
Tom Topolski:Now, right now, the impact is more traffic, but the convenience factor of Uber and Lyft, it took hold immediately, right? I mean, people adapted to that. They're willing to spend a little bit more money for the convenience and comfort. So the next step, and I think where we'll begin to really realize the benefits is when we do have the adoption of more autonomous vehicles. And I don't think that that's that far away. And I think the combination of that with electric vehicles as well is going to be transformational. And then a lot of it, what we, I always like to say I'm an airport is really a city with runways. And so I think that's another place where you can incubate a lot of the smart cities technologies that you can then more broadly apply across two cities and States. And so it's an exciting time for us.
Tom Topolski:And I think I'm, I'm delighted to be with Parsons because I think with the technology we have, we're incredibly well positioned to capitalize on the trends and shape the trends. In fact, absolutely. I think that, that, that sentiment is shared that technology is going to unlock a whole host of new opportunities for the industry regardless of size. Well, just as an example to think about airports, again going back there, you know, if you look at manufacturing and if you ever watch a manufacturing floor, most of that has robotics, right? Whether it's bringing parts, whatever, you know it's a very, very automated. If you look at the air side in particular, there's no reason why a lot of those activities couldn't be automated that are now you know, where you have people driving around on your, so from a safety factor and efficiency factor to automate the air side, I think we're not far away from something like that.
Host:Yeah. And that's, that's something which from a policy side ACEC has been working with the airports is the facility charge. It's getting that increased so that airports can look to make investments in physical plant.
Tom Topolski:We hope to work with ACEC on the land side as well because I think there is a massive opportunities for them.
Host:Without question, without question. We've got, we have a, we have a great opportunity for a, for a long term and substantial infrastructure bill and hopefully one that does take advantage of policy and policy pro projects and, and, and kind of test beds for bringing a lot of this from, from the drawing boards in the reality.
Tom Topolski:And, and Jeff, I think what we need to do, you talked about policy and funding and I think what we really hope to do working with the AECC in concert is, is ring fencing the funding because sometimes it, it, it's we don't have that consistent funding, right?
Tom Topolski:We're always sort of wondering, is a transportation bill going to be passed? Is there enough funding? Is chasing our tail in one way. And so consequently, if you look and you compare us globally, we've fallen behind and our infrastructure is in pretty dire shape. So we really need that focus and making sure that the funding is there, that it's consistent and allows us to really do her job and deliver infrastructure that again, will serve millions of people every day. Without fail. Yeah. And that's one of the things we always take to the Hill when we have meetings is, you know, our industry are a bunch of problem solvers. We know there's a problem and there's a solution and the solution just has to involve longterm predictive, sustainable funding to actually get this stuff done. Think about it, right? You look at, I don't know if you're aware, but the average travel speed in Manhattan during peak commute hours is about four and a half miles an hour.
Tom Topolski:Okay. So think of the economic impact that has where you can't move people and goods effectively and efficiently. So this is a, it's things like that and there are ways to solve it. And I do think technology is going to end up being a big part of improving congestion.
Host:Well it's, I think we should a good place to leave it off there. I'd love to have you back on the program later. We can kind of expand on this and maybe get into specific areas of infrastructure that have great promise. But again Tom Topolski, thank you so much for being onto the show on the show today with us. Talking about ethics compliance. Congratulations on the award. We'll have a link to that in the show notes and again just great having you on and thank you so much.
Tom Topolski:Jeff, It's been my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
 

What You Need to Know About The New DoD Cybersecurity Regulations

Engineering Influence sat down with Michael Flavin of SaalexIT to talk about the impact of the Department of Defense’s new cybersecurity regulations for federal contractors. Engineering firms not in compliance with the regulations, whether they are primes or subcontractors, will be barred from working on DOD contracts.
 

HED's Michael Cooper on Leadership

Host:Welcome to another edition of Engineering Influence, a podcast by the American Council of Engineering Companies. Today. I'm very pleased to welcome back to the program. Michael Cooper. He is the managing principal of HED out of Southfield, Michigan. He is also a new member of ExCom. You might remember our last conversation when the new ExCom members came down for orientation and we had them on the show, and he mentioned that he was very active and engaged on leadership development and coaching business leaders to really maximize their effectiveness and grow as leaders. And that's something that we want to talk about today. So, Michael, thank you so much for coming back on the program.
Mike Cooper:Well, thank you Jeff. Appreciate it.
Host:So how did, how did you get involved with, with leadership as, as kind of a thought leadership kind of project for yourself? I know that you speak at conferences, you do podcasts and you talk about these things. How did, how did that really become a passion of yours?
Mike Cooper:So, you know, I think it started because it paralleled my professional development, right? So I started out in, in the industry in the design community as a mechanical engineer working on projects and designing systems. And from there I went a little bit into project management where I had a chance to not just design projects, but we teams that were designing projects. And from there more participation in business development as I became a little bit more expert into projects, managing them project delivery, that became a natural extension. And then onto leadership of office and people and such. And so I, over the time, you know, I came to realize that I'm leading people, leading organizations. It's really its own skillset. It is, it is separate from, you know, engineering and sort of the technical world that I was educated in and I grew up in you know, if you look back at the industry 25, 30 or more years, it was not uncommon for, you know, the, the most talented engineer, architect, technical professional to become the manager to become the leader of the organization. I think that may be less common today as organizations are realizing that the business side of what we do separate from the design and the creative side requires professionals with a unique skill set to lead organizations and strategic plan and lead people. So it's something that I was involved with as I developed professionally. Something I realized was an important part of running our business and something that I found that I really enjoyed separate from the technical challenges, leadership comes with its own set of challenges.
Host:That's correct.
Mike Cooper:That I did, I enjoyed those as well. And so I think my career moved me in this direction and as you said, my interests and passion continued that and I was fortunate to get the opportunities to practice in this part of the industry.
Host:And over the course of your career, I mean, do you think there's a watershed moment where things kind of shifted? Like you said you had at in times you know, in past the most talented engineer, the one who is the best of problem solving and maybe on time performance for project delivery rising up the ranks and becoming the manager and then find themselves managing people more than they are projects. Was there a watershed moment in your mind where that kind of shifted away from just, you know, that focus to looking at executives who also had the soft skills of people management of developing their teams? You know and kind of where we are today?
Mike Cooper:Well, you know, I feel like if I, if I look back in the 80s, when we really started to hear more broadly about total quality management, about greater efficiency, I think that was the point in which you know, not in select pockets, but where broader industries and across countries, continents, professions. We started to see a greater push for efficiency and quality and process. And I think organizations started to look at their own processes the way, not just what they're doing but the way in which they do them and the way in which their people are trained in the way in which their people interact with one another and take on tasks. And that to me is where we really started to separate the, you know, the say the, the engineering or their creative design side stuff from the process and the leadership and the organizational stuff.
Mike Cooper:And I to me that's where I started to see that discussion happening. You know,, in a wider swath of people. And then I think it's just continued from there. And then global competition, Jeff might be the other thing that has has really driven this, I think all industries have felt in the past two or three decades more competition coming from more places. And so the drive to utilize new technology the drive to be more efficient and to be able to pass on the benefits of that efficiency to and customers has further driven us to be to try to be more effective in our, in our businesses and tried to have more sophisticated marketing systems and finance systems and technology systems and all of those things. I think you've just led us to a focus on leadership and management in addition to the focus on the core business, which in my cases is design, architecture, engineering.
Host:And I, that really just is a great segue into a really, one of the first points that we kind of discussed in advance of this show you know, outlining about six different points that kind of guide a conversation on leadership and that's purpose and strategic focus. And I think you touched upon that in your last answer, but, and essentially that, that focus in on - with the increased competition internationally with really an industry which is, which is evolving with increases in innovations in technology. The demands for both on the public side and the private side for a different kind of engineering work to be done. A greater focus on sustainability, resiliency LEED, all those things. How purpose and strategic focus is critically important in today's marketplace. How has the industry kind of coalesced around those two points?
Mike Cooper:Well, I think there's two places where that becomes critical. I think the first place is because the next generation of talented professionals, the one that are the ones that are entering the field today, they, I think are more purpose-driven than generations past. You know, and, and so I think they're looking for that. And so I think on one hand, organizations are needing to be able to define that as, as part of a mechanism to recruit and retain top talent. But I think further to that, and touching on something you said earlier about change and the rate of change, I think the, the, the evolution of technology of systems and such has, has never been faster. The rate of change is accelerating very quickly. And so we often find ourselves day to day dealing with what appears to be constant change and that makes the need and the ability to define a clear purpose for the organization. So much more important because we can get lost in the day to day. And it's one of those things, you know, separating the urgent from important. We've got to remember that there needs to be a clear purpose, a clear direction out there so that the organization and everybody in it knows where the finish line is they know what road we're on. And they can, and they can follow that path.
Mike Cooper:It's also the thing I think that inspires us to do great work. You know, when we coalesce, as you say, around a common person, a purpose, a common set of ideals a direction, that's what enables everybody in the organization to say, okay, I know where we're going. I know what I have to do to help us get there. You know, let's go. And we find we all end up pulling in the same direction. We find that we accomplish more. But the lack of that purpose, you find people spending their days very busy, but, but then at the end of the day wondering what it is that was accomplished that day. And I think we've all had days where we feel that way.
Host:Absolutely. And it's, and it's really important to keep that strategic goal moving forward. So everyone sees the bigger picture and doesn't get lost in the day to day work, which may be unrelated to something, but you're working towards a larger purpose. And, and keeping that in everyone's mind is a challenge, but is critically important to keep things moving ahead. And you mentioned, you know, having everybody kind of coalesce around that idea that, that one purpose, the strategic goal. Once you get to that point and everyone's kind of bought in, what's your philosophy on setting those teams up of how do you select talent? How do you balance teams and kind of set them up to achieve their objective and motivate them along the way?
Mike Cooper:So so when I, when I look at teams, I generally look at them through two lenses. The first is talent, and then the second is chemistry. There's, there's so you start out with the idea of talent and there's a quote by Jim Rowan that says you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And that to me is a reminder that when you surround yourself with great people, you yourself become better simply by being around them. And, and I'm a, I'm a believer of that. So I think you start out with the idea that I'm going to, I'm going to recruit the most talented people, the smartest people, the most strategic people that I can and begin there and then really have to focus on chemistry. I'm providing them tools, resources, and opportunities for that team to spend time together, get to know one another and grow together.
Mike Cooper:You know, I'm always reminded in the world of sports usually all-star teams struggle against championship teams. You could argue that they have more talent, but they can, they never seem to be able to win. And that's because championship teams, while they don't necessarily have the best individual players, they've coalesced and they've become a team and they've gotten to know one another the way that they play, how they can complement one another. So they've sort of mastered that one plus one equals three philosophy. And that's where I think we want our teams to be. We want to put teams together, let them get to know one another so they can anticipate their moves, what they need and how they operate so we can truly complement one another. And then as leaders, I think we have to make time for the team.
Mike Cooper:We've got to spend time with them. We've got to help them and support them. You know, there's, there's a saying that we've all heard right? When all is said and done, more gets said than done. And I think as a leader, it's really important that we focus on doing things, supporting things in a tangible way, and helping them to get better. It can't just be talk. There are times where we've got to roll up our sleeves and, and, and, and do some things. And, and as leaders we've got a great opportunity to lead by example and help teams come together and be successful.
Host:The point used the analogy to the sports teams is really good. I think the idea between an all-star team and a championship team you know, the, I guess the flip side of that is when you have an all-star team, you have a lot of competing personalities and they're very good at what they do and they want to make sure their voices are heard and that they're leading. You have a bunch of people who are leaders and they're very, very high level performers versus a championship team where you might have some standouts, but overall the team together pushes forward to get the championship. And that's a question of culture. How do you deal with I guess the, the different kind of voices that you can have in the room, you know, and how do you set a culture that really puts that strategic goal, purpose and mission ahead of individual accomplishment? Not to say that individual accomplishment is bad because you know, that's what leads to group success. But how do you put the team before the individual personality?
Mike Cooper:Yeah you know, the, they say, and I, and I believe this also people join firms, but they quit their managers. And I'm a, I'm a believer of that and I think that's true for our clients as well. I think that they hire firms, but if they gravitate away, it's the team and the leaders of the team that they're moving away from. So you know, I sort of begin all of this with the idea it's all about people. And particularly when we're talking about engineering, design, service, a service profession. It's about people and, and we need to make them are our top priority. If somebody says, you know, you know, Mike, what's the most important thing to I would tell them, don't listen to what I say. Pay attention to how I spend my time.
Mike Cooper:Time is the most valuable commodity for all of us. And if you want to know what's important to me, simply look at what I choose to spend my time on that that will tell you everything you need to know. And for me by focus is on the people making time for them. You know, making sure that we are celebrating our successes and making sure that we're celebrating our failures and we're learning from them and we're understanding that when we don't succeed, it's often the path to greater success. Making sure that we're giving back to our community and we're, you know, and we're free to try to make the world a better place. It can't only be about what is on my desk. We, we in our world, we are working on projects that help our communities and help our societies. They make people's lives better every day. And I think it's important that we understand that. And that we embrace that and we foster that.
Mike Cooper:We need to mentor one another. We know we don't have enough people entering our profession. We know that we need more people. And that's one of the great challenges that we all have. And so let's mentor people and let's help bring people into the profession and let's help develop them. And so I think it really starts with this idea that you've got to focus on your people. You've got to make them your top priority, not because somebody tells you to, because you, we have to know that in a service business, everything happens because of people. People do everything. And so you know, whether we're talking about our markets and understanding our clients and doing the research to know the trends, those things are critically important.
Mike Cooper:But then when we do those things, at the end of the day, we're going to ask our people to put those things in motion and use all of those tools to serve our clients and help our communities. And and I, and I think you know, you sort of start there. The other thing with respect to culture that might be worth mentioning is the importance of sort of an inspirational message to motivate hard work. You know, we talked about focus and purpose and creating a rallying point for the organization. It also often is what motivates us to leapfrog and to make great jumps. And there's nothing, you know, that's more powerful for a culture than a rallying point that gets people super excited and super fired up to do something. Back in 1962, when John F. Kennedy talked about going to the moon, you know, we choose not to go to the moon. You know, not because it's easy, but because it's hard. You know, in 1962 we had no business talking about going to the moon with confidence. We were not winning the space race. I, a lot of people felt that Russia would get there first. They were more advanced than us, but that was the rallying cry. And that was, was one of the things that galvanized the country. It got us working towards a common purpose and inspired us and though we weren't positioned in 62 to get there, we got there in 69 and we got there first. And, and I don't know that that would've happened without JFK first putting that stake in the ground. As unlikely as it seemed at the time. You know, all, all big things start as small things. All great initiative started as small as a small ideas.
Mike Cooper:The last thing I'll mention on the subject I have in my office an all company photo of Microsoft from 1978. It's one of my favorite photographs because it's got 11 people in it and it was taken in a garage. And most people can't picture Microsoft Corporation being a startup. Microsoft Corporation was a startup and not that long ago. All big things begin as small little nuggets. And I think when we build a culture and we look to inspire ourselves, we've got to think big and remember that we can think big even when it doesn't look like we can get there. Nelson Mandela said it always seems impossible until it's done. I think a, another way people say that is, you know, when you're going through hell, keep going. You know, keep pushing, keep pushing, you'll get there. And, and, you know, a big part of culture is a reminder that we've got to put our stake in the ground and get fired up and work towards it because we can do much more than we think we can do when we, when we begin working.
Host:Yeah, absolutely. And, and that kind of you know, it's, it's interesting because I think there's always in organizations, there's always a drive or a desire by a number of people to try to, you know, shoot higher to try new things. And they might not have the immediate tools to do that or they might not have the confidence because they've never been in a position to do that or they're a little bit, you know, afraid of the blow back for maybe trying something different or suggesting something. That really comes with just like you said, professional development for a firm of varying size. I mean, if you're a large firm, you can easily invest in, you know, expansive leadership development and coaching and things of that nature. But how important do you think it is for firms of all sizes, quite honestly, to have some sort of structured professional development program internally or even retaining the services of a coach or some executive out there who can help groom talent.
Mike Cooper:You know, I think it's critically important. You know, and so everybody can gain from seeing how other people do things, from seeing how other industries and professions do things, the other perspectives that are out there. You know, we can't grow if we aren't learning, if we're not being educated, if we aren't being exposed to new things, different things. And so you know, not certainly smaller organizations may have less resources than very large ones, but they have resources to to do this. And there isn't a right way or a wrong way. But helping our people continue to learn is what is what fosters their growth. And so you know, pairing people up in apprenticeship kind of a model. It's an old school thing, but it's incredibly effective. If a young person is paired up with somebody who's more experienced in the field and they're working together on a project, but they're taking some time to spend talking about what we're doing and why we're doing it and how we're doing it.
Mike Cooper:And a little bit of the background. You know, it always, it surprises me, but it shouldn't, how fast somebody newer to the profession can grow when we take the time to help them. The folks that come into our profession are really smart. They're really smart, they're really committed, they're hardworking. If we put in a little bit of time to help them they can grow very quickly. And then I think you mentioned something which is, you know, let's take advantage of some of the opportunities that are, that are out there where we don't have to do it all ourselves. So, you know, ACEC as an organization provides lots of opportunities for growth. Some of them in the form of webinars which are inexpensive and very easy to engage in. Others are in the form of more structured classes, which are a little bit more of a commitment, time and money, but you probably get a little bit more out of that. You know, that way. But there are organizations out there and places where we can find, you know, whether it's an executive coach like you said, or an organization that has educational programs where we don't have to figure this out or invent something, we can simply leverage the tools that are already out there that were created by somebody else and we can put them to use for us.
Mike Cooper:And I think in some cases we, we learn from, you know, other industries and other professions and other organizations who show us new ways of doing things. We always take the biggest leap in our organization when we, when we're able to learn something, something that our profession isn't doing and we're able to adapt it and we're able to leapfrog a lot of what's happening and get into a new place be able to offer a different kind of a value proposition, maybe one that's unexpected and that's new.
Mike Cooper:But then our clients who are really clamoring for and just didn't see being offered anywhere else. That opportunity comes from professional development. And in particular getting exposed to, to things happening outside of your organization. A long way around saying it's absolutely critical and there's no, there's no point in time where you reach a level where you don't, you don't need to continue to grow. You don't need to continue to learn. I think it'd be a sad day to wake up one day, you know, and say, you know what? I've plateaued. This is as good as it gets for me. You know, I come to work every day, you know, looking for those opportunities to learn something new, to do something new, experience something different to grow to, you know, I'd like to think that tomorrow I can be more effective, be better than I am today. I believe that's true, but only if I'm still learning.
Host:Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's kind of ties up almost all the stuff that you said because if you have a strategic goal and a mission and you're able to foster a culture that pretty much enrolls everyone into that that mission. And you create, like I said, the culture that allows people to think maybe outside the box or look at opportunities that might not be readily present. And again, this also goes with the whole idea of an engaged workforce and a diverse workforce with different perspectives and different backgrounds who may be able to see things other people don't. You're able to look at new opportunities in the marketplace and like you said, offer things to clients or open up new client sectors that you never thought you had, which is the key to growth.
Mike Cooper:Absolutely. And it is - a lot of these things tie together cause you know, you talk about some of these things in the context of you know, of culture and a learning organization. It's, it's, it's part of culture. The, the other, the other thing that learning does, I think is it's, it sets a foundation that says it is okay to experiment. It is okay to explore. It's okay to fail. In, in, in design and engineering we know that the first solution we come up with is very, is rarely the one that actually gets built. The one that actually is constructed. There's an editor of process that goes along. We get better, we get stronger.
Mike Cooper:And one of the favorite stories that I heard when I was in school was the story of WD 40. Right? We all know what WD-40 is. The name WD-40 stands for water displacement formula number 40, the inventor so strongly about the 39 attempts that came before that that he named the product to celebrate that. His story was there was no way to go from one to 40, you know formula number one taught him something that he used to develop number two, which taught him something he used to develop number three, and so on and so on. And you get to 40. There's no way to go from one to two to 40. It was a scientific process, a process of discovery. He realized that one through 39 weren't failures. They were steps right on the way to success. And a learning organization I think frees up people to explore and to look for new ways. Understanding that if, if this one way, if this thing doesn't work out, that's not a failure, we'll learn something from it, we'll come back stronger and we'll get there. But that, that trial and error mentality often gets us some of the products to rely on every day.
Host:Yeah, absolutely. I'd say it's always interesting to look at what we actually use every day and realize that the end product wasn't actually the goal of the company or organization actually doing something that's just a byproduct of it. It's, I think a it wasn't oh, I forget what I remember in the, in the early, you know, early 20th century when, you know, the rubber manufacturers and, and the, and the, and the petroleum manufacturers. And I think some of the things that we use, I was some nylon derivative, I think was a complete mistake. And, and that's, you know, something that, that, that we know today and I forget exactly what it is, but it's, it's interesting to look at that kind of history. So really, I, you know, coming in and looking at all of these different ways to organize and develop you know a firm - when you, when you acquire talent, how critical is that onboarding stage and how important is it to start laying the groundwork for this kind of more inclusive and open a workplace that, you know, puts an emphasis on, on culture, on mission? How critical is it in that first 90 day period to really get someone into that system?
Mike Cooper:Yeah, it's, it's sorta like the story of the first impression where you, you know, you've got one chance to make that first impression. And in a lot of ways that sets the tone for the relationship moving forward. It's really, really important. We talk a lot these days about the difference between engagement and employment. And so if, if you want people to be engaged, if you want them to really feel like they're a part of something bigger and act that way, then it starts with the recruitment. Just as you said, we, you know, you to you want to get them engaged in the organization, even through the interview process. You want people to feel like this is a place where they could find a home where they could be a part of and would give them a real satisfying, rewarding kind of an experience.
Mike Cooper:And boy, when you're in, when you're in a 50 year low in unemployment I don't know that I can emphasize enough the importance of recruiting new talents and pulling out all the stops. It has never been harder to find people because we are so over employed, right? As a country. And so you know, we want to begin on day one. In fact, even, I'm looking at interns differently. If you can bring interns into the organization and maybe not just for summer, but maybe they work year round part-time and they work full time in the summer, but we're, we're building a connection. And we're building a relationship. So that when they, when an intern is ready to begin looking for a full time job, they don't really have to look. They already have a home. They already understand. And that's something that our organization does. And I know a lot of organizations are looking at.
Mike Cooper:You know, bring people on, making that first impression. Jeff, as you said we want our staff to stay. We want them to recruit their friends and people that they know perhaps to come to our organization. And the way to do that is to really get them engaged. You know, you've got to, you know, we're asking people to work hard in return. We've got to communicate with them and we have to share information. If you want somebody to feel a part of the organization, they have to know what we do, why we do it, how we do it. There's very few things out there that that for me are, you know, out of bounds that we don't share.
Mike Cooper:You know, we don't share, I wouldn't share health history of, of our, of our employees. I wouldn't share compensation or salary information. I certainly wouldn't share information that I'm contractually prohibited to share. But, but beyond that we should be open and honest. We should be authentic and make sure people feel like owners, they feel like they're a part of this thing because that's when they're going to buy in and they're going to rally around our purpose and they're going to do the work that needs to get done to help the organization succeed. Sort of goes back to what we talked about earlier. People do everything in an organization, so the more engaged they can become, the more a part of the organization, the stronger the emotional connection is. That's going to translate directly to the work.
Host:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's a lot of really good food for thought. For leaders, organizations and, and kind of how to approach just people and people management. And just getting everyone together on the same page, bought in on the same mission and, and just following through to success.
Mike Cooper:And Jeff it's more fun.
Mike Cooper:People that we ask people to work really hard when you're part of a winning team and you, you know, you like the people around you and you and you, you're working well, a cohesive unit, then those are the people who wake up in the morning and look forward to going to work.
Host:Yeah
Mike Cooper:Absolutely. And that's a part of this too. We work really hard, you know, there's gotta be a part of this that we really enjoy.
Host:Yeah. And when you have that sense of ownership that that organizational success becomes individual success because you are part of that process and if you're part of that team, yeah. That, that, that really makes it personal. And it's beyond the, the numbers of course, you know, benefits and all that. And of course, salary, everyone you know, is working not just because it's personally beneficial and enriching, but also because, you know, you have to pay the bills. But that other intangible quality, that you're accomplishing something and that you're moving the ball forward and you're doing something greater than just, you know, on its face it could just, you know, be a a design task, could be an administrative task to be anything like that. But and I think the other, the other story right, is, is for NASA, you know, when, when they brought people down to Kennedy and they were talking to everyone about, you know, the space program and you know, a guy, a janitor was, was, you know, you know, sweeping the floor and, you know, the, the government people said, you know, what do you do here? And the janitor said, I'm, I'm putting somebody on the moon. Because he wasn't, that was, that was the overriding purpose of their existence there all the way down to the person who is sweeping the floors, they're all part of the same team that's going to put a man on the moon. So I mean, if you can get that into an organization that just leads to success.
Mike Cooper:That's a great, it's a great story. You know, I, I sometimes I look at the organization like a jigsaw puzzle in that there's lots of pieces and if one piece is missing, it's not complete. And it doesn't matter which piece it is. And I think it echoes your story really well. We all are and we need every one of us to get where we want to go. That's a, it's a great story and I, and you hope that all of your people will, will feel that way, that we've done what we need to do so that the people who are part of the organization really feel that way. That that's, we're all, we're all here for that single purpose. That's great.
Host:Absolutely. Well, Michael, thank you very much for, for taking the time today. There's a lot more to go into and I want to come have you back on the show because there are other aspects to this which we need to cover because I think the next time we should talk about how that new generation of engineers coming out of universities, the way they view work, the way they view their purpose. Like you said, it's moved into more of a purpose driven field. And how firms are kind of changing to meet that because it's not just a goal of people management. And then you get into the other issues that are equally important for clients to look at, which is, you know, CSR programs and things like that, which you know, potential clients are looking at more than just delivery. They're also looking at the type of organization that they're contracting with to do work for them. And that's a whole different, different conversation to have, which we should have pretty soon.
Mike Cooper:Well, I would love to come back. I would look forward to that. There's an awful lot to talk about and all of it is really important. The next generation are not just going to be, you know, our employees. They're going to be leaders of our firms. They're going to be our clients. They're going to be leaders in government and in community. And so understanding, you know, their sensibilities and where they're coming from and leveraging that is going to is help all of us get to a better place. Got to start the conversation. Oh, that's great.
Host:Yeah. Well, Michael, again, Michael Cooper, he's managing principal of HPD out of Southfield, Michigan. And he is a new vice chair on our executive committee at ACEC and look forward to seeing you, of course, at our conference coming up in in April. And hope to have you on sooner than that. Thank you again for being on.
Mike Cooper:You're welcome. Thank you, Jeff. Have a great day.
Host:You too.