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A leading full-service engineering firm renowned for our trusted, high quality, and innovative approach to solving complex challenges.

McLaren's CEO talks about
Cohesiveness + Culture

Anthony Fasano, PE, F. ASCE from the Engineering Management Institute interviewed our President and CEO, Jeremy Billig, P.E. Billig, PE in their latest episode “Building Cohesiveness and Culture in Your Civil Engineering Firm”.

Listen in on how Jeremy worked his way up from Jr. Engineer to the CEO of McLaren, how his fearlessness comes from the team around him, and how McLaren Day helped build up culture and cohesiveness.

Transcript

0:00

every civil engineering firm looking to grow today must focus on two things culture and cohesiveness the challenge

0:08

is that these things are tough to wrap our heads around and really grow continuously well in today’s episode of

0:14

the civil engineering CEO I am thrilled to have with me Jeremy Billy Jeremy is the CEO and president of McLaren

0:20

Engineering Group and Jerry’s going to talk about how McLaren ran a one-day event that helped them to really build

0:27

these two things culture and cohesiveness now before I jump in with Jeremy a quick word from our sponsor

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foreign [Music]

1:40

excited to welcome my guest onto the show today Jeremy billig is the CEO and

1:46

president at McLaren Engineering Group Jeremy welcome to the civil engineering CEO

1:51

thanks Anthony happy to be here yeah great to have you um I’ve had the pleasure of kind of knowing Jeremy for a

1:56

long time we’re both young Engineers together um working in companies that were

2:01

probably around the corner from each other for some time and did a lot of extracurricular stuff together and had

2:07

the chance of doing some stuff recently with McLaren through Emi which we’ll get into a little bit but it’s happy to have

2:12

Jeremy on the show here and just talk a little bit about McLaren and what they’re doing in terms of kind of culture building and things of that

2:18

Nation but Jeremy just I guess to get us started for those that are not familiar with McLaren Engineering Group maybe we

2:24

could just talk a little bit about where you located the services you offer your size

2:30

absolutely thanks Anthony so yeah we’re about 210 strong um predominantly located in the east

2:36

coast um New York Connecticut Albany New York New Jersey Maryland all the way down to

2:42

Florida a few offices in between uh with folks out west as well but we’re really working internationally and nationally

2:50

um our companies really found it on civil and Structural Engineering at its core but with that core line of services

2:57

we support everything from structural civil uh facade envelope work we do some

3:03

unique work in the marine and coastal areas as well as geotechnical

3:08

um one of our fun to talk about groups in Entertainment Group which does everything from Broadway shows to touring concerts

3:16

um but you name it we’ll do it we don’t get into architecture or MEP Services of that nature but um you know most of our

3:24

work tends to be the Northeast um and just a great company all around

3:29

yeah I mean like I said earlier I you know known Jeremy for a while no McLaren for a while and they do do some pretty

3:36

interesting exciting work like Jeremy mentioned with the entertainment stuff the the underwater stuffs and the diving

3:41

stuff so um definitely some unique services that are always interesting to learn about kind of keeping up with them so Jeremy

3:49

let’s talk a little bit about your career journey to date I think a lot of civil engineers they’re just engineers

3:54

in general you know we start our careers in a very technical nature and a lot of us kind of have aspirations to go into

4:01

management and kind of maybe get to that high level of management one day like you’ve gotten to in your career talk a

4:07

little bit about your journey and how that progressed and how it evolved for you in terms of going from technical

4:12

into management and to can just just curious I think people want to learn and they hope to take steps like you

4:17

sure uh happy too yeah I mean it’s it’s interesting I kind of feel like sometimes life pushes you in a certain

4:23

direction um I was fortunate enough to start an Entertainment Group uh where my my boss

4:29

and Mentor was just great and he he loud myself and the team the opportunity to take those chances right

4:37

so very early on there was exposure to coins things like writing proposals

4:42

um and that’s where I think I got that first you know bite at the Apple that first taste of what success can feel

4:49

like and what sort of my version of success was and it was kind of simple it was that satisfied client it was that

4:55

emails good job or that did a good job here’s another project so that really

5:01

opened my eyes into okay what else is there to to do in terms of growing

5:07

myself so I found the technical over time came somewhat naturally as it often

5:13

does for us Engineers um but I felt the sort of Business Development and working

5:18

with clients and working with my peers there’s so much more to do there so very

5:24

quickly um and with uh the guidance and uh willingness of my supervisor to take

5:30

such chances I got more into client management working with clients you know somewhat developing my own thing and I

5:37

would say that’s what came in an opportunity a little bit less a little bit more side of the technical

5:43

and client management mentorship so it’s very quick that I was I would say doing

5:48

less of the technical myself and managing more of the technical quality control but doing that interface with

5:53

clients and in the entertainment industry that was very easy because we’re moving very fast so you have that

6:00

need to be dealing with clients make sure the product deliverables are getting out and the to entertainment

6:05

clients even older more so than some of the other typical engineering clients have very specific expectations so and

6:13

they are very um honest and candid with their feedback so you get that real-time feedback of okay

6:19

I did good here I did that here so that was allowed me I think on an accelerated Pace perhaps to hone in on my client

6:26

management skills and project management skills um and so you know perhaps that’s the

6:31

reason why I got a little bit of an acceleration but then with that came a stronger appetite for growth

6:38

um so knowing you know some of the the plans of the firms expected anticipated

6:43

growth wanting to get more into New York city so on um came up with the business plan to

6:49

start and grow in your city office we did a lot of work in New York but without a presence there you know again

6:55

area codes today are a little bit of a I guess an ancient thing but you know 15

7:02

years ago you know having a 212 area code in New York New York address uh was

7:07

much more relevant so being there you know was a game changer for clients so

7:13

we ventured on the New York City um uh regional office expansion plan

7:20

which really just opened a lot of doors for growth um

7:25

with that I think it was just [Music] um you know having a thirst and appetite to take anything on you know you spoke to

7:32

some unique work we do and that is a bit of our DNA our personality of that willingness pretty much do anything that

7:39

this has some root and civil or Structural Engineering Services so knowing that and knowing I had a

7:46

fantastic team behind me that could solve any problem I was felt pretty Fearless to go out and grab any project

7:52

or take on any project even if I personally had no clue you know how to actually solve the problem I knew I had

7:57

a team behind me to accomplish that task interesting no that’s a lot of good

8:04

stuff there and you know what I guess one follow-up question to that is talking a little bit about like you said some determination

8:11

for growth you know once you had some experiences you kind of wanted to get more experiences and I’m just wondering if

8:17

do you feel like prior to your career like you had a

8:22

determination for growth or like you know motivation like that or do you feel like once you engage in some of these

8:28

opportunities that you saw to be exciting that kind of grew in you because I’m just curious as to some

8:34

people I think have that going into their career some people get a taste of it and really want more of it I’m wondering like what your experience was

8:40

with that yeah that’s a great question um you know I’m not sure I’d have to put

8:46

myself back into my middle school and high school shoes I mean like most Engineers you know I I think a lot of us

8:52

have that story where we recruiting math and science so we went to engineering um you know for me as my brother said you

8:58

know you’re really good at math and science you know you may want to be a civil engineer and I said what the heck is that

9:03

um but once I got a taste first it makes sense you know um yeah I think everyone at their core

9:09

has certain fundamentals and competencies about themselves I definitely always had a interest in

9:15

continually learning and developing my skills um I would say I didn’t know how I would

9:22

apply them I think until I got some of that exposure um okay I think even the first week on

9:27

the job I remember my uh my boss asked me to email client and again you know putting yourself back in right out of

9:33

school and not dealing with a client you know the first responses oh my God I have to interact with another human that

9:39

is hiring us to perform Professional Services just writing that first email could be so intimidating but once that

9:46

feedlot group starts building and you learn and perfect and continue

9:52

to perform I think that for me I would say builds my confidence and built my

9:57

thirst to do more and you know when winning one job wasn’t enough now it’s one two now it’s been five okay I got

10:02

really good at um rock and roll sages okay so what else is there you know next thing we’re doing

10:08

Alternative Energy okay I figure that out let me train My Success worth Alternative Energy okay what else can we do planetarium Dome School figure it out

10:14

okay what’s next so I think it’s a little bit of you know my inherent thirst in getting bored very quickly and

10:21

just doing one thing over and over again um so I would say my competencies

10:26

aligned um not say perhaps they couldn’t have apply to different Industries in a

10:32

similar way but obviously it was a bit of a build well that’s great and that’s kind of what I was going for in that I think a

10:38

lot of Engineers out there maybe in the back of their minds want to do some of the things you’ve explained

10:44

like engage with clients you know grow their careers help grow their companies and I think that the there’s a lot of

10:51

fear around it like you said you have low confidence when you graduate like how can I even do that and I guess so

10:58

kind of what I was getting at there was that in your case I think it’s a good example of you don’t have to be the most

11:03

confident person in terms of dealing with people when you come out of school because most Engineers aren’t including

11:09

probably myself and Jeremy but I think you have to kind of maybe just try to push through a little bit get enough

11:15

confidence to take one small step and that’s also where I think management really comes into play and we’ve talked

11:20

about this on a lot of our content at Emi is that hopefully the manager that you have or the mentor that you have can

11:26

help you to take that step of you know hey you got it you can deal with the client you know I’m confident in you and

11:31

and for those of you that are transitioning into managers you know maybe that’s a message for you too is that the person that you’re managing

11:38

depending on what you say to them may push them to be able to have that conversation with a client to kind of

11:44

get the flywheel going for them like Jeremy said so you keep getting more and more confidence every time you do

11:49

something else and so I guess that’s really the key point that I wanted to get out of that was that

11:55

you know Jeremy didn’t come out of college and just be like hey I can call clients no problem do that one thing to

12:00

the next you know it’s clear that he had to build up that confidence and I think everybody has to do that yeah I

12:06

absolutely agree with you I mean if I can stereotype and it’s probably someone accurate stereotype I mean Engineers or

12:12

stereotypical introverts right so inherently we sort of tend to have a

12:17

head down crank away mentality um but one good lesson uh my boss time

12:24

taught me is you gotta advocate for yourself always and for some of us especially you know for a

12:30

bit more modest we’d only talk about ourselves or what may be seen as brightening by ourselves but there is a

12:37

way to do it without having that tone right it’s okay to

12:42

Advocate meaning sell yourself right especially chair manager and it could be as something as simple you know an

12:48

example I remember you know a new opportunity came in through myself at the time and my manager said you know

12:54

great good opportunity to give it to you know make the name Bob I said no you know I’m an advocate for

13:01

myself I would really like to own this relationship Bob can do all the work but I want to be the interface with the client I want to

13:07

get that opportunity to grow this relationship and own it and I think he’s happy to see me

13:13

advocate for myself he said okay great right so if I didn’t advocate for myself I wouldn’t have gotten that opportunity

13:18

opportunity would have been lost and move on to the next calculation but I

13:24

think you’re absolutely right you know be respectful be humble but when you see

13:30

those opportunities what do you have to lose to say put your hand up and say give me a give me an

13:36

opportunity at that and I think I can succeed yeah no I love that point I mean I think

13:41

it’s really important I mean I remember as a young engineer I asked if I could attend the planning board meeting just

13:47

because I wanted to learn and I was told that we didn’t have enough budget to bring you and so I just said whatever

13:52

I’ll just go like on my own you know and I went on my own a few times and I have to say that the investment I thought for

13:58

me paid off because number one I learned a ton of stuff that I wouldn’t have learned about client interaction and why

14:04

I like when I drew you know when I drew the plans what my boss was showing them for and how he was presenting them which

14:10

helped me like in the office but also I think it also showed my company that

14:15

hey this guy like wants to go I mean he’s coming to meetings on his own at night till you know midnight doing whatever it takes and I think that

14:23

you just kind of can’t take no for an answer and you have to say like like Jeremy said obviously being respectful

14:29

at all costs but like I want to do this you know I feel like I’m capable of doing this and I want to learn about it

14:35

and you know and you go from there and I think it is a good message for you and your career for sure and one other thing

14:40

that I want to mention just about Jeremy’s path just for context so everyone knows Jeremy graduated as I think you got your

14:47

Bachelor’s in Masters in structural engineering and then came to McLaren and that was and you’ve been with McLaren

14:54

the entire time and the only reason I say that is because I’m not that it’s the only way to do it but I do think at

14:59

Jeremy’s position in the company it’s helpful that he’s kind of been through every stage of his career kind of with

15:06

McLaren to understand some of the things we’re going to talk about now in terms of culture and the growth of the firm and stuff like that again not the only

15:13

way to do it but I think it is very beneficial for someone who has to kind of lead the company understand the different facets of it which which kind

15:20

of leads us into the next thing that I want to talk about and again this word culture you know is really defined differently

15:26

by different leaders and organizations how would you describe culture at

15:32

McLaren in your own words yeah good question I mean yeah culture complicated yet simple word there’s a

15:39

lot of aspects to it um I mean it’s it’s what is it it’s it’s the personality of a firm it’s it’s the vibe you get when

15:45

you walk in the door when you’re interact with people you know it kind of that’s more reliable to our brand right what’s your brand

15:52

um you know great example being I remember being in a client’s office and I was talking to a woman there and she

15:58

said every person I talk to about your firm is so nice and that was that was like the best moment of that year was

16:05

that our our culture of of nice doesn’t mean collaborative necessarily but just how

16:11

we work with people and how people see us it was bleeding out to our clients but culture you know it’s it’s our

16:18

personality right some of it is this idea of Applied Ingenuity solving any problem you know like I said when I went

16:24

to New York City the the roots that I was built on was we can solve any problem you know we don’t get into MEP

16:31

or architecture or some of that other stuff but is it can be solved with a WL squared over eight or some variation of

16:37

that we’ll take it on and um so some of that culture is sort of are entrepreneurial mindset of willingness

16:43

to take on new work and into new markets even a new subservice that is associated with our work but the other aspect of it

16:50

is the people right it’s the how we work together you know it’s it’s cliche to say you know we’re pro-team work and

16:57

working you know all for one month for all but those are real things now executing that is not as easy as it

17:04

sounds you know creating an environment for teamwork especially in a state of hybrid can be very challenging it takes

17:10

relationships so you know culture is about fostering relationships it’s about we work together collaboration

17:16

interaction um you know it’s it’s about the energy of solving a problem together you know

17:23

we are an employee on firms who do believe strongly that success of one is success success of all but on the flip

17:29

side you know a failure of one can be the failure of all but that’s we’re all here to pick each

17:34

other up and help each other through um whatever that challenge may be but that culture really starts I think

17:42

at the you know at the hiring process right it’s easy to look back and say why why is our culture getting off pace and then

17:48

you look at the people and you say well how did that person get in the door they don’t want their culture

17:53

um and for me that was a learning process right you know to have the right culture you need the right people to have the right people and that starts

17:59

when you hire them and I’ve always personally believe the hiring process really breaks down very simply you know

18:05

it’s really two two categories right I mean we’re Engineers so you need to have technical competence do you need to be

18:12

perfect no but I think you need to have some of the Baseline fundamentals with the commonly quiz younger Engineers

18:18

um 100 doesn’t mean you get the job in a zero doesn’t mean you don’t but showing that you have some of those Baseline

18:24

fundamentals um is important but more important that I think is that culture of the person

18:29

that fit you know do they have a passion for the industry do they have a passion for Learning and growth

18:35

um do they care you know sound silly but do they care you know they care do you think you’re going to care about you and

18:41

your team your firm um and a lot of time that is a little bit of a gut feel which you know it’s

18:48

hard to pinpoint sometimes but um I’ve always found people that I know

18:53

are going to work out well they sit with me for a few days and then the people that probably aren’t a fit you know if you

18:59

ask me about them three days later I’m saying who all right right I didn’t interview that person um so it’s it’s a little bit you know

19:07

visceral and you have a feeling about it but I find the folks that have that

19:12

passion to try for growth um are always far more successful yeah

19:19

yeah I really like that a lot that philosophy especially around hiring for those of you that may be tuned in to

19:25

learn about culture which may be one of the reasons you’re listening there’s a wonderful book that I read not too long

19:30

ago called the culture Solution by Matthew Kelly the subtitles is good as

19:36

well a practical guide to building a dynamic culture so people love coming to work and accomplishing great things together and the reason I mention it

19:42

here is Jeremy kind of just reminded me of it because when I opened the book initially to read it I was thinking more about like what you could do internally

19:49

to build a culture but he really talks a lot about hiring right because you know you could spend all the time in the

19:55

world creating this great culture within the company but every day or every week or every month you’re bringing more

20:00

people into this kind of culture and there then impacting the culture right they’re then shaping it further so you

20:07

know if you feel really good about your way of life so to speak within your company your culture and your people and what you’ve built you have to kind of

20:14

maintain that and an important way of maintaining that is to have some kind of standard for hiring that is ties back

20:22

into that culture and not just back into hey what kind of engineering projects have you worked on you know do you know

20:27

how to use all these programs and all these other types of things yes those are important as well

20:33

um but it’s really worth spending a little extra time which I know in some right now all the companies I talk to

20:38

are just like running running running need to hire higher higher and I understand that a lot of work out there

20:43

you don’t want to lose out on the work but at the same time there’s consequences down the road based on how

20:49

you build your team yeah and you have to be willing to listen nobody gets hiring perfect every

20:56

time no um so you also then have to be willing to make those hard decisions later on and I admit you know we always haven’t

21:02

been perfect about it but um what one bag hey can really run the

21:07

bunch uh I got this thing right but um you have to be willing to deal with

21:13

um somebody creating a toxic scenario yeah and it’s hard to do and especially thinking as a business person

21:21

um you know sometimes that person can be driving revenue or sales or something that nature but on the flip side they

21:28

could be creating a toxic environment and those are very hard conversations and decisions to make but

21:34

you will I’ve always found that once you deal with that and stay true to your

21:40

culture over some of those other drivers like perhaps Revenue um those other

21:46

other metrics tend to work themselves out you know create the right culture which are harder and a lot harder than

21:52

it is to say it but yeah um creates a very culture I think it will have a positive impact on retention

21:58

keeping the good people that ultimately do drive to business in the right direction yeah for sure I think it takes a good

22:04

leader to be able to make some of those difficult decisions where there are trade-offs like hey you know what this person’s been a great bringing in a lot

22:10

of Revenue but at the expense of you know hurting a lot of other people here you know a lot of other people here not

22:16

being able to work as well with this person so we need to make a decision and you know one of the words that’s come up

22:21

a lot Jeremy and me talking with the CEOs and leaders in the engineering field these days is the word

22:27

cohesiveness and you know building cohesiveness and culture in any

22:33

organization today is difficult as you mentioned earlier even when people aren’t working in person together as

22:38

much as we used to um however one way to really I think build culture and and kind of keep

22:45

cohesiveness going is to get people together from time to time and that’s kind of I think was maybe one of the

22:51

original ideas from McLaren day or at least that’s what McLaren day served its purpose for when I was there recently so

22:57

maybe you could talk about um kind of the Genesis and McLaren day and the thought process of of you know

23:03

how that came about sure and it actually that the concept McLaren date to some respect is predated

23:10

by uh two years two and a half years ago we did something similar then it was just called a holiday all company

23:15

meeting um but some more idea we brought everybody from all offices together Under One Roof for a full day of events

23:22

uh in 2020 we did something similar which is a little more business corporate focused but then we had an

23:28

expose where every Department got to talk about themselves showcase um what they do their contributions to

23:34

the ESOP and then some morning session in the afternoon and that created a

23:39

cohesiveness that unfortunately one month later we enter covid the the pandemic

23:45

but I do think that cohesive cohesiveness made us stronger going to the pandemic now what happened the

23:50

pandemic I think was much longer than anybody originally anticipated so that cohesiveness did start to suffer you

23:58

know and as we spent more time like this behind the screen I think some of those relationships and connections got lost

24:05

and then combined with some of the impacts of the great resignation which we felt and I think our industry overall

24:11

has felt um so now we have some good people leaving some great people coming in but

24:16

now nobody sort of knows each other we’re not we we have a team of All-Stars but we’re not cohesive right you know

24:22

we’re the uh the All-Star NBA All-Star team but you know that doesn’t mean we’re gonna win the Olympics um so you

24:29

said in our bones we just knew we had to get back together you know we we knew we had a world-class team

24:35

that they had us to work together interacted together collaborated together so we said we got a good throw all the

24:41

corporate business stuff to the side we need a day that’s fun engaging

24:47

just gotta have interaction it’s got to remind ourselves a little bit of what our roots are about um

24:52

we need we just need a a good time disguised in the form of um lessons and and some orchestrated

25:00

events so McLaren D came about which was a fantastic day on October 5th we had um

25:07

probably about 990 people almost almost everybody in attendance uh just a fantastic day learning about

25:14

ourselves we did some personality I think a pretty modern upbeat version of a personality test telling a little bit

25:20

about ourselves and how we communicate with other people how other people have to be communicated to in the afternoon

25:26

we had what what some may deem as a middle school project an ahrock but I

25:32

think we did a fun spin on it and made it a a silly way to really learn about how to work together collaborate

25:40

I think one of the great takeaways was folks learning that ideas come from across company not just technical staff

25:47

you know a lot of the non-technical support staff were equally contributing and sometimes even had the better ideas

25:55

but I think it was learning how to engage one another again having some laughs uh accomplishing a mission

26:01

together which I think always makes people feel good about themselves um and of course we brought in some

26:07

fantastic food trucks meal a day which um good food always trumps all

26:12

yeah no I mean it was a it was an excellent day um and I think what was nice about it

26:18

was that whenever you have 200 people together for a full day there obviously is a lot of planning and structure that

26:24

has to go into it but it didn’t feel very structured during the day which I think was what we were kind of going or

26:29

we wanted people to be comfortable learning about the other people and having fun really and I think that that

26:35

was kind of I know that was Jeremy’s directive from the beginning of the planning process was that the ultimate

26:40

goal here is for people to have fun connect and build relationships right not we have to do a project like this we

26:45

have to do this we have to do this we have to talk about the company XYZ it was like we have to have make sure everyone has fun and I thought it was

26:52

great and some of the stuff that I heard during the day that was just awesome was like you like to your point with some

26:57

people saying you know I’m just meeting a bunch of people for the first time that I’ve been working with let’s say for months or a year like partially

27:04

because of cobit partially because we hired a lot of people over the last year whatever the case may be which I think

27:09

is awesome another thing I heard from someone was like I think they learned something like you know my supervisor has like a black belt and I didn’t even

27:16

know that like he did did that at all like you know like so you learn things about people personally which I also

27:22

think kind of just Fosters that word cohesiveness that we were talking about because you feel like you know you work

27:28

with people so much hours and hours a week um the more I feel like you know with

27:35

them and you can connect with them it just helps you to be you know more satisfied in what you’re doing which

27:40

kind of goes back to what we talked about earlier if you’re more satisfied you’re going to want to stay with your company and kind of your friends at that

27:46

point you know and help grow that organization and so I see that as a huge

27:51

benefit and and you know the one thing that I’d like to ask about this as well because there may be some people

27:57

listening and I’ve heard this from some of our clients before is that you know when you put on an event like this Jeremy it’s obviously a huge financial

28:03

commitment um or as I like to call an investment but you’ve got money and expenses but

28:09

you’ve also got a lot of billable people obviously getting together not being billable for a day um how does a firm kind of measure

28:16

something like that I know it may not be totally possible on a quantitative state

28:22

but maybe it goes back to what you talked about a little bit earlier like with hiring even with your gut feeling stuff but you know how do you think

28:29

through something like that as a leader you’re like you know does it make sense to put this on how will we know if it

28:35

worked yeah it’s a it’s a great question and somewhat impossible to answer right

28:41

um you know to measure Roi and event like that is what’s the metric right I mean you can

28:49

look at retention and attrition you know um we we recently did an advanced

28:54

professional development program really focusing on investing our people and we said you know we’ve constantly got asked

28:59

what’s the metric if you’re going to consider a success we said people don’t quit right if they understand that we’re investing in them and their success in

29:06

this company and they want to stay here right because they can get good people to stay here then all the other problems

29:12

are solvable um so certainly look at retention um the engagement

29:19

um you know to try to look at the direct impact on revenue and profitability I mean those things take time to filter

29:25

out so you never be able to pinpoint it back but it may sound terrible to say but um Instinct gut I mean I think you

29:32

can feel the energy you see it bleed over into the future you know simple things about now people are connecting

29:37

on things they didn’t connect before where people have very directly said I feel more comfortable reaching out to

29:43

someone now I know that person you know it sounds crazy but until you interact in person or know that um dental black

29:51

belt right you see them more as people versus a two-dimensional image on a screen

29:56

so it is hard I mean yeah the expense of the day you know the food the tents

30:02

and facilitators I mean that I would say is fairly uh nominal uh the big cost

30:08

like you said is that lost a day of Billings but um you know it’s pretty simple you you

30:16

know when I was managing New York City office I always thought my two jobs one was take care of my clients the other

30:22

was take care of my people and we do those two things the other items work

30:27

out you’re more profitable you know you know people stick around longer people are enjoying their job so how do you

30:35

measure that you can assess all the metrics you want but the only ways to Benchmark perhaps again somewhere that’s

30:41

not doing those things and um which we do of course trying to do yeah but you

30:46

know leadership a lot of times is got Instinct and in response you know I

30:51

think we did a survey and I think we um got fantastic remarks especially the food

30:57

um across the board after the events and and to me that says a lot yeah and I I think you’re right I think

31:04

a lot of it is um a lot of it is the feel of it and I

31:10

think as a leader you kind of have that feel for the company for your team and what’s going on and I always think back to an article I

31:17

read um Peter Thiel who’s like a billionaire venture capitalist I remember he helped

31:23

he was a co-founder of PayPal and then he helped Airbnb raise like a couple hundred million dollars and when they

31:28

invited him back Airbnb they said well listen you helped us raise a couple hundred million dollars like what do we

31:33

do with it now like what do you recommend and basically the only thing he said was don’t f up the culture like

31:38

that was that was like his message to them and they were like that’s all you’re going to tell us we just you just helped us raise 200 million dollars he’s

31:44

like he’s like well that’s the most important thing essentially so um and I’ve heard you kind of you know

31:49

mention the word culture as we were going through the event designing it you know having fun people are important so

31:55

I think that those are things that you know like you have to get a feel for that in your company whether you’re leading a

32:01

company or leading a team of five to ten people you can still get a feel even for the culture and the feel of your team and do things like that with your team

32:07

go out to lunch get together once in a while right whatever the case may be I mean most of the companies that we’ve worked with that have done well in the

32:14

hybrid environment have had some kind of schedule where they’re getting the people together once in a while right

32:20

even if it’s like you know everyone comes in one day a week or whatever the case may be just kind of continuing to try to build that cohesiveness so so I

32:28

think that that’s that’s a really important way to think of it all right so Jeremy just to wrap us up here for

32:33

today are there any other takeaways or anything else you want to mention based on your experience with the event or

32:38

things that have gone on here in the last couple of years or so with McLaren

32:43

and I’m going to trust your instinct I mean again we’ve we saw a pretty overtime direct impact

32:49

from that loss of cohesiveness to our bottom line you know as coveted weighed on you could see in the numbers you know

32:56

it’s always hard to pinpoint to one thing and then as we start to come back together you saw the numbers tick up you know so I do think that real time that

33:03

exists but you gotta you gotta trust your instick and you got to stay consistent you know I think you can’t

33:09

you gotta like I said before sometimes you’re forced to meet those tough decisions between culture or metric

33:15

level Revenue so I think you got to trust your instinct and stay consistent with that you know once you get off that

33:21

beat in that example you gave um you’re going to sacrifice a lot yeah

33:27

but you know I’ve seen examples you know what one of our divisions this year I saw a drastic turnaround from one of the

33:34

year through the rest of the year and I I firmly believe the culture of the group

33:40

to chemistry the group changed you know it was uh I think it was addition of a hire uh perhaps losing another person

33:47

and then all of a sudden the group was just gelling and the outcome was

33:52

phenomenal so did the people matter that the chemistry and the culture they

33:58

create matters I don’t think any of that can ever be um uh underestimated

34:03

awesome well Jeremy Billy the CEO president McLaren Engineering Group Jeremy thank you so much for spending

34:09

some time with us here on the civil engineering CEO thanks Anthony I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Jeremy

34:14

building culture and cohesiveness is everything today to grow a civil engineering firm and I hope you can take

34:20

some tips away from Jeremy’s experience please consider subscribing to our channel here we put out videos like this

34:27

on a weekly basis that help Engineers become better managers and leaders I’ll see you next week

34:34

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