The request
What we heard.
You’re looking for an objective, outside assessment of how WDG works today. It should bring in leadership and staff perspectives, and it should end in recommendations the firm can put to use.
- Communication, within each office and between Washington and DallasCommunication
- Collaboration across studios, offices and levelsCollaboration
- Decision-making, and who owns each decisionDecision-making
- Accountability, and the work habits that support or undercut itAccountability
- Overall efficiencyEfficiency
- What is working well and should be preservedWhat works
Turnover this year has made the timing matter, and the findings should feed straight into your strategic planning.
WDG has 88 years of history behind it. Before anyone recommends a change, the assessment should name what makes the firm work, so that every recommendation protects it.
The portal
Questions written for each person.
Every person at WDG gets a private link to our secure portal, with questions written for their own role from their job description. A project architect and a managing principal are not handed the same generic survey. Choose a role to see the difference.
Sample roles
Long Drive Partners
Questions for: Managing principal
Sample question 1 of 4
Decision-making
When a decision affects both offices, who makes the final call today, and how does the other office find out?
Only Long Drive Partners sees individual answers. Nothing you write is attached to your name in any report.
Sample questions. Every set shares a core that everyone answers, so results compare across roles, offices and years; the rest is written from each person’s job description. About 20 minutes on any phone or computer, and people can stop and pick up where they left off.
How it works
Three workstreams. About six weeks.
Both offices, every level of the firm, all online. No one is pulled off project work, and nothing depends on who happens to be in the office that week.
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Questions written for each person
Private links to our secure portal, with each role’s questions written from its job description. People answer on their own time over two weeks.
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Work habits and how the work moves
Project staffing, handoffs between studios and offices, decision rights, meeting load, and where work stalls.
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What you already know
Exit conversations, past surveys, turnover by role, tenure and office, and staffing and utilization data if you track it, plus how pay, titles and career paths compare with published architecture-industry benchmarks.
Proposed timeline
- Week 1KickoffA working session with leadership on goals and scope, and the note that tells the firm what’s coming. We write each role’s questions.
- Weeks 2 to 3ListeningEvery person answers privately in the portal, in both offices.
- Weeks 4 to 5AnalysisThemes, root causes, and what to preserve.
- Week 6ReadoutYour sponsor sees the findings first, then a working session with principals from both offices.
- After the readoutReport backWDG tells the firm what was heard and what comes next, with our help.
What we’d need from you
- One sponsor on the leadership side, and one point of contact for the work.
- Every person’s email address and job description, so we can write questions for each role.
- A staff list by office, role and start date, along with any exit information you keep.
- About 20 minutes from each person, at their own pace over two weeks.
- Your IT contact, to make sure portal emails reach inboxes rather than junk folders.
Confidentiality
Why people will speak freely.
People tell a neutral outsider things they won’t say to their own leadership. We have no internal politics and no stake in any office or studio. That only holds if the protections are real, so here is where every answer goes.
- A private linkEach person gets their own link by email. No login, no shared survey.
- Our secure portalAnswers go straight to us. Only Long Drive Partners reads them.
- Themes, never peopleReported by theme. No group under five, and no role held by one person on its own.
- Sponsor, then leadershipYour sponsor sees the findings first, then the principals’ working session.
Individual answers never enter WDG’s systems. Email addresses are used only to send each person their link.
- Individual answers never go to leadership, and nothing is quoted in a way that could identify who said it.
- Everyone hears, before they take part, exactly how their answers will be used.
- Leadership sees participation by office, never who has or hasn’t answered. We send the reminders.
- Encrypted in transit and at rest, hosted in the United States. Individual answers are deleted after the 90-day check-in.
- A mutual confidentiality agreement is signed before any staff list, job description or exit data changes hands.
- One exception, agreed with you in advance. Reports of harassment, discrimination, safety risks or illegal conduct follow a protocol we set together before the work begins.
The readout
What leadership walks away with.
A working session with principals from both offices, after your sponsor has reviewed the findings privately. Not a slide show: themes by office and level, what to preserve, where work stalls, and who owns the first 90 days, built to drop straight into your strategic planning.
Five areas, both offices
What to preserve
Where work stalls
The first 90 days
Illustrative layout. Every theme, bar and word comes from your people.
- A findings reportWhat is working, what isn’t, and why, organized around the areas you named and written in plain language.
- Why people stay, and why they goThe drivers behind this year’s turnover, by role, tenure and office, and what keeps the people who stay.
- A leadership readoutThe working session above, after your sponsor has seen the findings privately.
- A prioritized roadmapWhat to address first, who owns it, and what the first 90 days look like.
- What to preserveThe things WDG does well that should survive any change.
- Support for the report backPeople who took part hear what was learned and what happens next. When questions are followed by silence, people stop answering the next time.
- A 90-day check-inA short follow-up round of questions and a conversation with leadership about what has changed.
- The questions themselvesThe questions and the de-identified results are yours to keep, so you can run them again in a year and compare.
The assessment stands on its own, for a fixed fee agreed up front. Nothing in the recommendations depends on hiring us for anything else.
Questions
What leadership usually asks.
How is this different from an engagement survey?
A survey asks everyone the same questions and returns a score. Here, each person gets questions written for their role, most of them open, so you hear why, not just how many. The result is a working session and a roadmap with owners and dates, not a dashboard of percentages.
If the questions are written for each person, how do answers stay anonymous?
We know who received each link, so we can send reminders. We never report who said what. Findings are grouped by theme, no group under five is shown on its own, and a role held by one person is folded into a wider group. Individual answers are deleted after the 90-day check-in.
Can leadership see the questions before they go out?
Yes. Your sponsor reviews the core questions and the announcement, and we check each role’s questions against its job description with you. Leadership can correct the facts about a role; the topics stay in. That is what keeps the answers credible.
What if people don’t answer?
We send the reminders ourselves, and leadership sees participation by office, never names. What matters most is a short note from leadership explaining why the firm is doing this, and we write it with you.
How much of leadership’s time does it take?
Your sponsor: about an hour a week. The principals: the kickoff session and the readout, about three hours in all. Everyone else: about 20 minutes.
Is our information secure?
The portal is encrypted in transit and at rest and hosted in the United States, and only Long Drive Partners can see individual answers. We sign a mutual confidentiality agreement before any staff list, job description or exit data changes hands.
What is in the findings report?
What is working and should be preserved; the areas you named, by office and level; why people stay and why they go; the root causes behind the patterns; and a prioritized roadmap with owners, dates and the measures that will show progress.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee, agreed up front, set by the size of the firm and the number of roles. We will put it in writing within three business days of our first conversation.
About us
Operators, and the tools behind them.
Long Drive Partners is an operations consulting firm, part of Long Drive Group alongside Long Drive Marketing and our own technology team. We work with leadership teams on how their organizations run: structure, decisions, accountability, and the systems behind them. The people you meet are the people who do the work.
When the findings point to a next step, it’s one conversation away. Hire one company, or one piece of the work. It is not a package you have to buy.
- Long Drive PartnersHiringJob descriptions, work tasks, scoring rubrics and interview guides, so every candidate is judged the same way.
- Long Drive PartnersOnboarding and offboardingThe right access on day one, and a clean exit on the last, so nothing lingers.
- Long Drive PartnersWorkflow studiesWhere the week goes, what repeats, and what should be automated or cut.
- Long Drive MarketingWebsites and recruitingSites and campaigns that carry the work and help win the next hire and the next client.
- TechnologySecure portalsThe portal on this page is our own. We build them for firms that deliver client work.
- TechnologyPipeline and follow-upEvery lead, proposal and follow-up on one record, so nothing serious dies in a side file.