October 2010

This Month's Features

+	Leadership Book Series
+	FMI's 360 Feedback
Leadership Videos Online
+	Introduction to the Leadership Institute
+	An In-depth Look at the Leadership Institute
+	Leadership Institute Testimonials

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FMI's Executive Coaching

Just as the best athletes have coaches, strong leaders often have coaches as well. In tough times, the need for coaching is even greater. Our FMI coaches bring more than 100 years of combined coaching experience, coupled with specialized industry knowledge, that can help you through these turbulent times.

Click here to learn more about FMI's Executive Coaching.

What FMI Executive Coaching clients are saying:

• "When you have the ability to make change and improvement to someone who affects your business, affects the growth of team members and affects your image – can you afford not to complete something like this? My answer is no!"

• "I already have made a greater contribution to this company as a result of coaching – both from a performance and a supervisory standpoint. In working with my group of a dozen people, they have their subordinates as well; I think it’s important how the impact transcends my group."

The "Practical Tools for Exceptional Leaders" booklet series is designed to help you learn and apply best-of-class leadership principles in your life and within your organization.
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A Letter From Ron Magnus, Managing Director

This fall, the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) officially declared the end of our national recession. The NBER, a group of economists who identifies the start and end of recessions, uses a variety of technical measures to make the determination. Needless to say, the announcement offers little comfort for many of our friends in the construction industry, where the overall unemployment rate hovers close to 20 percent and nearly two million jobs have evaporated since the beginning of 2008. The official duration of the recession was 18 months, a period in which A/E/C leaders faced (and continue to face) the adversity of closing offices, making layoffs, fending off fierce competition and trying to find work in an environment where project funding dried up seemingly overnight.

In these challenging times, we have observed that the strongest organizations are using this adversity to take a hard, probing look at their beliefs about their business models and assumptions about their position in the marketplace. They are integrating lessons learned into the fabric of their culture and future leaders. Great organizations use adversity as levers to build resilient organizations and to develop leaders who have the capacity to think strategically.

This issue of the leadership E-newsletter examines the role of leadership in adversity.

Ron Magnus

Making Difficult People Decisions in Tough Times

Jake Appelman and Tim Tokarczyk

Great organizations have clarity about two critical factors: a shared sense of identity defined by purpose and values, and a shared set of aspirations for the future.

The role of a leader has never been easy. Even during the best times, it requires making tough calls with incomplete data that can have wide-ranging repercussions on an entire organization. These decisions became even more difficult with the economic meltdown that began in the spring of 2008.

In addition to decisions on how to find work and fend off fierce competition, many leaders face the emotionally draining task of making personnel choices affecting co-workers, communities and families. These situations require leaders who have a strong, unchanging internal foundation as well as the courage to do what is best for the long-term interest of the organization.

Read on to learn how leaders make tough people decisions.

Leading Organizations in Turbulent Conditions

Jim Schug, Tim Tokarczyk, and Willie Hepworth

Good leadership can support the company during difficult times while at the same time preparing it for growth in the future.

Over the past two years, the residential market has seen drastic changes. These changes have sparked instability across companies and upended business plans. Profit margins have disappeared, and many otherwise profitable top builders quickly changed tunes from writing about their successes to declaring major write-offs and quarterly losses. As evidence of this new climate, housing starts (combined single and multi-family) reduced significantly from 1.8 million in 2006 to a little more than 1.3 million in 2007 (see Exhibit 1).

An unhappy working climate, uncertain conditions, and employees who no longer feel they are making a difference result in decreased sales, poor customer service, decreased quality, and flat production. The normal silo effect within departments is magnified during stressful times. Added to this stress are the demands placed on leaders to operate with reduced budgets and reduced overhead.

Read on to learn how leadership is the essential ingredient for success during these turbulent times.