Welcome to the final episode of the 2021 End of Summer Podcast Series – where I share a fresh take on the 8 most downloaded podcast episodes over the past year! 

Breaking Down the Future of Work in Engineering & Architecture Report 

This series ties into a greater overall theme of issues and opportunities I continue to see express themselves in leadership teams throughout the industry and across the country, and in both smaller and larger firms. 

Our final episode of this series continues to be one of our most downloaded: Episode 66 with Anthony Fasano, founder of The Engineering Management Institute, and myself. In this we breakdown the Future of Work in Engineering & Architecture report we co-authored based on a detailed research study we co-funded over the past year to ask engineers, architects, and engineering and architecture firm leaders directly how they see the “future of work” – and with a special emphasis on the prospects of remote and independent work.

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“The barriers identified that would limit our ability to succeed with more remote and independent work are self-imposed… but the good news is that our success is just a mindset shift away!”

–Peter C. Atherton, P.E. 

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As I relistened to this episode, five key points stood out:

1 – Success is a Choice 

There is a lot of change happening. Some of it is coming fast, much of it we’ve seen for a while, and a good chunk of it looks to be permanent.

How will we, as leaders, leadership teams and senior managers, respond? Will we roll forward or revert back?  

Whether change is forced upon us, like it was during COVID-19, or whether we’re proactively pursuing it, our success is our choice.  

We absolutely need to put the work in to “roll forward” effectively as leaders and leadership teams – displaying our vision of a better, more opportunity-rich future, as well as our ability to engage and inspire others to bring forth that future through great execution… but, as uncovered in the research and as Anthony and I discuss, the barriers identified that would limit our ability to succeed with more remote and independent work are self-imposed… but the good news is that our success is just a mindset shift away! 

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2 – Collaboration is Our Key to Future Success

The future is more about working better together both inside and beyond our organization, and any remnants of “command and control” will only limit our success. 

We much connect at deeper levels if we are to bring out the best in each other and create better solutions for larger and more complex problems.  

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3 – Designing More “Win-Wins”

Allowing our talent more opportunities to “win” at both work and life, as defined by the research, and allowing more of our clients to be served by more “subject matter experts” being demanded by a changing marketplace will require a higher-level of team and organizational re-design.  

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4 – Developing our Ability to Succeed

Our success as leaders and leadership teams moving forward will need to focus more on our ability to create and access healthy and growing talent and client networks within vibrant industry ecosystem and less on our own local pipelines and internal hierarchies. 

Holding on to the past or relying too much on the traditions that brought us to this point, is likely to only break us off from the sources of our future success. 

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5 – Wellbeing is Required 

If we are to make the changes necessary to be successful, be able to collaborate more effectively, design more expansive win-wins, and develop our ability to succeed in a fast-changing world, we need to be healthy individually and organizationally.  We also need to have a much higher level of individual, team and organizational self-awareness and emotional and operational intelligence. 

Although this can take some time, the process can begin immediately – but not if we’re unhealthy or “tired”, which is something Anthony and I discuss – and something that we can fix with better training and development and better process and systems design. 

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“Our success as leaders and leadership teams moving forward will need to focus more on our ability to create and access healthy and growing talent and client networks within vibrant industry ecosystems and less on our own local pipelines and internal hierarchies.”

–Peter C. Atherton, P.E. 

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Thanks for listening to the AEC Leadership Today Podcast!

I sincerely hope you enjoyed today’s episode. Be sure to check out Pete’s contact information and the other resources provided throughout the ActionsProve website designed to help you and your firm grow and prosper in the 21st century.  And, if you like what you heard, please leave a review on iTunes and share the podcast with your friends and colleagues. We look forward to seeing you in the next episode! 

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Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Link to original episode shownotes with Anthony Fasano and Peter Atherton: Breaking Down the Future of Work in Engineering & Architecture Report 

Download your copy of the Future of Work in Engineering & Architecture Report >> HERE