Positioning to Win From the Inside Out

We find ourselves in one of the longest sustained economic expansions in the history of the U.S. engineering and construction industry. As such, we think...

Texas: Lessons from the Lone Star State

In this Quarterly edition, our authors describe Texas’ business climate and reasons for success, share important lessons learned, and explore some of the key reasons...

Succession and Transition: Building the Future

At its core, succession is a deeply emotional process for leaders. For seasoned executives, it often requires reflection and insight into one’s career journey and...

Innovation and Transformation: Paving the Way to Tomorrow

FMI often hears stories about innovations and positive disruptions occurring in and around the engineering and construction industry. These new ideas are often associated with...

Leading in Uncertain Times: Adapt to Win

This edition of the Quarterly focuses on helping leaders and organizations understand what it takes to operate in a VUCA world.

Engineering, Construction and Risk: Improving Your Odds of Success

Engineering and construction firms are dynamic and inherently risky businesses. Historically, owners, chief financial officers or risk managers were the sole administrators of risk management....

The Talent Challenge: Winning in the New Reality

Today’s engineering and construction (E&C) industry talent challenges are not new. However, we are at a critical inflection point: Ten thousand baby boomers are retiring...

Convergence

This issue of the “FMI Quarterly” takes the opposite tack as its theme: convergence. Rather than focus on the bleakness of Yeats’ imagery, we turn...

Tackling the Big Data Challenge

Data is the currency of the 21st century. If you believe this perspective, then your engineering or construction organization may be the mint. With all...

Transformation and Transformers

Transformation. Reformation. Alteration. Conversion. Renovation. These are familiar terms within the design, construction and real estate industries. But these terms are somewhat less familiar when...

Interpreting the Future: The Value of Strategic Thinking

What leadership skill set is 10 times more important in driving perceived effectiveness than others? And what skills are almost 50 times more important than...

Why a Board of Directors?

Benefits of collaboration withstanding, why in the world would a leader ever want to relinquish powerto a lesser-experienced, outside board of directors? To be blunt,...

Increasing the Effectiveness of Incentive Compensation

Having an effective incentive compensation plan in place can mean the difference between success and failure in today’s competitive business environment. With economic conditions improving...

Changing the Future

Creating the Future is a lofty, ego-centric, even audacious notion, isn’t it? The future is created by something else or someone else. Surely, it is...

Teams Work

In this issue, we bring you some thoughts regarding using teams to land projects more effectively, tips for selecting team members, building teams, achieving teamwork...

60 bright ideas from our first 60 years (Vol. 2)

In this issue, we finish our description of 60 Bright Ideas from FMI’s first 60 years. This concluding 30 ideas range from building business acumen...

60 bright ideas from our first 60 years

This issue brings you the first 30, and our next quarter's issue will round out our offering of 60 ideas by bringing you the second...

Growing business

Many contenders might compete for the title of What Matters Most. Good people. Skilled production. Satisfied customers. Informative systems. Creative problem-solving. This list can become...

Passing the torch

In this issue titled “Passing the Torch,” we deal with succession planning. Several of our features and departmental pieces deal with this theme directly. Other...

Going global

Consider globalization in a couple of contexts. First, many view globalization to involve planetwide matters or at least the interactions and implications on economic engines...

Finance: fact or fiction

Our theme for this issue concerns finance: the management of money or that branch of economics concerned with resource allocation, management, acquisition and investment.

Creative construction

Much of this issue of FMI Quarterly is aimed toward those who aspire to perform better through performing differently. The changes in our lifetime are...

Tough people lead

Any time is a good time for great leadership. Sometimes effective leadership is urgently needed. These are those kinds of times. Without organizational effectiveness, even...

The slow road to recovery

The rules of financial physics being what they are, it seems that catastrophes occur suddenly while recoveries are achieved with the speed of glacial movements....

Winning strategy

Economic resurgence is agonizingly slow in some markets but beginning to warm a bit in others, while members of the architecture, engineering and construction worlds...

Grow your business

For anyone in business, the need for genuine and continual business development should be obvious. Revenue from new business fuels the economic engine of the...

Do right

Do right. Don’t we all? Well, it depends. It depends upon our values, our worldview, our life experiences, what we read, what we talk about,...

Value drivers

Someone once posited, “It is the business of every business to make a profit.” We might stretch that notion to propose that the business of...

Compensating measures

Total compensation of the workforce comes in many forms, and certainly the culture of a company provides some of that compensation. Ron Magnus and Kelley...

Maintain your assets

In highly competitive times, less human productivity isn’t acceptable. Increasing safety costs won’t work. Mistake after mistake can’t be afforded. Solution: Maintain your assets …...

Leading edge

This quarter’s issue deals with development of leaders. In tough times, the strategy for your investment in talent development, more than ever, should be focused...

Skillful execution

This issue focuses on something never out of fashion in the competitive construction marketplace: skillful execution of the work itself. While common to hear in...

Banking on the future

Investment banking, of the sort conducted by FMI, provides a number of services. FMI’s Investment Banking Group helps sellers and buyers of construction enterprises achieve...

Mining in tougher terrain

This quarter’s issue of FMI Quarterly brings you the theme of strategic direction and business development. We hope that our work can help you sharpen...

Changing tides

We’ve all experienced extraordinary changes in our lifetimes, in our businesses and in our marketplaces. Since everyone confronts change, then why consider it anything special?...

’Staining green

In this quarter’s publication, we provide some thought material on the Green movement. Few agendas have had as profound or as fast an impact on...

Globalization is not a foreign concept

It has been a long, long time since my fourth grade geography lessons. Names and boundaries of countries have changed, emerging nations of earlier years...

Capital ideas

Capital Ideas is our theme for this issue. We hope that within these pages you will find a few ideas that you can put into...

Tech time

The articles this issue focus on Technology. While technology stimulates some of us, it has the ability to outperform Thanksgiving turkey in putting others to...

Get work

Building a business is hard work. Much of that hard work is expended putting work in place. It also takes hard work to secure the...

Producing for profit

Hugh Rice and Art Heimbach weigh in with both the longest piece and one of the more thought provoking pieces in FMI Quarterly’s history. They...

The talent war

The War for Talent in the construction industry is ablaze. Companies are starting the long battle for a limited resource, labor. The war is expected...

Managing risk

What better theme than Managing Risk to lead FMI Quarterly’s partnering relationship with Zurich in North America? We are very pleased to inaugurate this issue...

Building loyal customers

Which has greater value, “satisfied customers” or “loyal customers?” While you can’t get loyal customers without those customers being satisfied, satisfaction alone doesn’t always mean...

It’s all about execution

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan are consultants and writers who are almost always worth the read. In 2002, they published Execution, The Discipline of Getting...

Linebackers

Key defensive support is the linebacker’s role. Stars in the construction industry need plenty of linebackers to make their big plays. Not all the effort...

Risky business

Rainmaking

Rain is the friend of farmers and sometimes the foe of those in the construction industry. So why have we focused this issue on Rainmaking?...

Strategic action

Our theme this issue deals with Strategic Action. Constructing great strategy is fine, but if no action results, strategy is only theoretical at best. You...

Leading examples

Our theme this issue is Leadership. Making optimum use of our assets, large or small, is a matter of management and leadership. As long as...

Building value

This issue of FMI Quarterly brings you wealth-building ideas and wisdom from both current and former FMI associates. Our focus is on Building Value using...

It’s all about the people

Welcome to the sixth issue of FMI Quarterly. Our theme this month: It’s all about the people. Catholic social teaching says people matter more than...

Looking for the profitable work

Publius Syrus posited Maxim 149 in 42 B.C.: Many receive advice, few profit by it. That may speak more for the quality of the advice...

The next generation of leaders

We at FMI Quarterly look to this New Year as an opportunity to build upon our short past, to bring even better thinking and information...

Strategic organization

In this issue, you will find an op-ed, debating a key organizational issue — centralization vs. decentralization in a multi-location contracting firm. Our debaters will...

Growth or no growth?

Through the FMI Quarterly, we invite you to tap into FMI’s memory and speculation, using both to help you build your intentions and to reduce...

50 lessons learned in 50 years

Thought leadership. That’s what we plan to bring to you each quarter with the FMI Quarterly. Our premise is ambitious, given the many sources of...