The industry has spent the better part of a decade talking about the shortage of engineers. It is a real shortage and it deserves the attention it gets. The number that should worry a firm leader more is the shape of the bench above that shortage. What the engineering workforce data actually says Three sets of numbers, read together, describe the problem better than any of them does alone. The ACEC Research Institute's Workforce of the Future study found that 42 percent of en

We put real design into hiring. A structured interview process, an offer conversation, a first week planned in detail, a buddy, equipment ready on the desk, a thirty-day check-in. Then we promote someone internally, and the process is a conversation, a title change, a pay adjustment, and a calendar invite for their first team meeting. The person who has been with us four years and knows the business inside out gets less onboarding than the person who walked in from outside la

Think about the last meeting that showed up on your calendar without much explanation. Now consider that your client has the same calendar, the same pressures, and the same quiet resentment about time that gets taken rather than earned. Meetings are so ordinary that most teams stop thinking about them. That's exactly why they're such a powerful differentiator. The way your team runs a customer meeting is one of the most visible signals you send about how much you value the re

Most finance and HR leaders I work with can quote their revenue per employee, their gross margin trend and their attrition rate from memory. Ask the same group how strong their manager layer is, and the answer changes shape entirely. It turns into adjectives. Solid. Mixed. A few standouts and a few we are watching. That difference is worth sitting with, because the manager layer is where strategy either becomes execution or quietly stops. Everything around it gets discussed i

For twenty years I was the person firms called to buy leadership talent for engineering-intensive businesses. I built and led a retained executive search firm, and I saw the real cost and the real failure rate of hiring senior leaders from the outside. Today I help those same firms build their own leaders instead. Changing seats like that teaches you something about how engineering careers actually work, and more usefully, about where they stop working. Why engineering career

I have seen organizations wait too long to think seriously about their leadership bench. For a while, the business keeps moving. High performers continue carrying extra weight. Senior leaders step into gaps. Managers rely on instinct. Promotions happen when a role opens, and the organization hopes the person will grow into leadership quickly enough to keep pace. That approach can work for a season. Then growth exposes the weakness. A newly promoted manager struggles to let go

For many CEOs, COOs, and CHROs, talent conversations become urgent only after a role opens. Someone leaves. A business unit grows faster than expected. A senior leader is not scaling. A succession event moves from future concern to current problem. Suddenly, the organization is asking, “Who can we put in this seat?” That is when talent decisions get reactive. I spent more than twenty years helping companies hire A players. I believe deeply in recruiting. There are moments whe

Sales teams often describe a strategic relationship by pointing to activity. “We meet with them every month.” “We know several executives.” “They always take our calls.” “We have been working with the account for eight years.” All of those facts may be encouraging. None of them proves that your team has earned a real seat at the table. Relationship depth is revealed by buyer behaviour. It shows up in what customers are willing to share, how quickly they engage, when they invo

Internal promotion can be one of the strongest succession moves a board or CEO makes. The internal candidate knows the organization. They understand the culture, the history, the people, the operating model, and the informal networks that make the business work. They may have earned trust over many years. They may also represent continuity at a moment when the organization needs stability. But internal succession also creates a hard question. Can this person lead at the level

For years, leaders have been told that trust, emotional intelligence, empathy, and relationships matter. Most executives agree with that in principle. The difficulty begins when budgets tighten, performance pressure rises, or leadership development competes with other business priorities. Human-centred leadership can quickly get placed in the category of “important, but hard to measure.” I think that framing is outdated. The evidence keeps pointing toward the same conclusion:

A lot of sales teams say they want to become a trusted advisor. I understand the ambition. A trusted advisor has earned unusual access, influence, and confidence. The customer seeks that person’s point of view, often beyond the original product, service, or problem that brought them together. But there is an important relationship stage before that, and it is where most healthy revenue relationships should live. I call it the Professional Peer dimension. A Professional Peer i

Pressure changes the way leaders see. It narrows attention. It increases urgency. It makes certain risks feel larger and certain options feel less available. It can push a thoughtful leader toward a fast answer, a defensive response, or a decision shaped more by emotional momentum than clear judgment. That is why decision making under pressure is rarely a purely analytical process. Data matters. Experience matters. Technical knowledge matters. But leaders do not interpret inf

A newly promoted executive has a short window to shape how others experience them. The first few months in a top functional seat are not only about learning the role. They are about establishing trust, creating clarity, and showing peers that the function will help the business move. This can be difficult for leaders promoted from within. They know the organization. They know the history. They know the people. They may also know where the risks, bad habits, and weak processes

One of the most valuable coaching opportunities is helping a strong executive improve their own performance while also strengthening the person behind them. That is what made this CFO case so interesting. The CFO was in a professional services firm and was being asked to step up as a more strategic leader. The business needed clearer financial insight, stronger executive presence, and more leverage through the finance organization. The CFO had the ability. The opportunity was

AI adoption is often introduced as a technology initiative. A new platform is selected. A pilot is announced. Employees receive access. Leaders talk about productivity, speed, and new ways of working. The organisation may have a capable technology partner, a strong business case, and an implementation timeline that looks reasonable on paper. And still, adoption stalls. People hesitate. Managers struggle to answer questions. Some employees experiment quietly while others avoid

The Evolving Role of the CFO In a recent piece by CFO.com, the discussion centers on how the traditional metrics of success for CFOs—delivering results and strong financial performance—are now just one piece of a larger puzzle. Today, finance leaders have unprecedented opportunities to shape their professional reputations beyond the confines of company performance. The article highlights a significant shift: a personal brand, once an afterthought for many executives, is now a

Senior-team settings are not the place for cautious updates alone. That is a hard lesson for many strong functional executives and practice leaders. They are capable. They know their business. They prepare carefully. They show up with the facts. They tell the executive committee what is happening in their area. And then they wonder why their influence does not grow. The problem is usually not intelligence, effort, or preparation. The problem is that updates do not create the

I think middle management is one of the most misunderstood layers in an organization. In many companies, middle managers are treated like administrative necessity. A layer to tolerate. A cost to manage. A reporting structure to keep as lean as possible. When pressure rises, they are often one of the first groups leaders question. Do we need this many? Can we flatten? Can senior leaders stay closer to the work and remove a layer? I understand why those questions come up. On pa

In enterprise sales, most teams know how to communicate when things are going well. It is easy to send the upbeat update, confirm a milestone, or share a clean success story. The real test comes when the news is not good. A date is going to slip. A cost assumption no longer holds. A capability will not be ready when expected. A project is heading off plan. That is the moment when many otherwise capable teams get nervous, hesitant, and vague. I understand why. Bad news feels t

As reported by CFO.com, veteran NBC Sports Philadelphia broadcaster Michael Barkann recently shared his insights at an AchieveNEXT leadership webinar, emphasizing active listening as a critical, yet often overlooked, leadership skill for executives, including CFOs. Barkann, drawing from decades of interviewing athletes and coaches, highlighted that the most effective communicators prioritize understanding before responding. His core message to business leaders, delivered to a