Passion, People and Principles
Another reader question: A partner of a large firm specializing in training and development asks how to make sure that the clients develop loyalty to the firm, as opposed to the individual trainer?
When the firm gets a contract to train managers of a company X, the firm assigns a trainer (who is, most commonly, an independent contractor) to the company. If the company likes the results of the training, they would most likely invite the same training firm again and again, most commonly asking for the same trainer. Over time, the relationship between the trainer and the client company flourishes to the degree that the company starts offering training assignments directly to the trainer, without even notifying the firm.
How can the training company protect itself from such an unfortunate turn of events? I realize that there are some “half-baked” solutions like, for instance, try not to send the same trainers to the same company, but there should be something else.
***
There are two dimensions along which this can be examined. There is a triangle formed by the individual consultant (or trainer), the client and the consulting (or training) firm. The question makes clear the strength of the link between the individual and the client. But what strengthens the link between (a) the client and the firm and (b) the individual and the firm?
In both cases, we are asking how the firm “adds value†above and beyond the talents of the individual service provider. Some possibilities:
- On-going enhancement of the consulting / training product or service
- Access for both the individual consultant and the client to proprietary tools owned by the firm
- Access for both the individual consultant and the client to research conducted by the firm
- Access for both the individual consultant and the client firm to regular “solonsâ€, discussion groups, seminars and other learning opportunities, so that there is Value in belonging to the network.
Does anyone else have other ideas?
post # 450 — October 15, 2007 — a General post
The Blawg Review, weekly showcase of the best recent posts on blawgs (law blogs), has again invited me to host the Review for this coming Monday, October 22.
I would like therefore to encourage my readers and contributors to submit your own articles for review.
If you aren’t familiar with the Blawg Review, you can look at the Blawg Review home page, as well as the current issue: northern hemisphere edition and New Zealand edition.
Blawg Review Submission Guidelines
- Deadline for submission is 11:59 p.m. PST on Saturday, October 20
- I greatly appreciate if you can send your submissions well before the deadline!
- You are welcome and encouraged to submit blog posts by other people which you’d like to recommend as well as your own writing
- Articles on law practice management, marketing, business strategy and career development are especially welcome
Click on this Blawg Review submission link to submit your article
With your support, I look forward to presenting readers here as well as the Blawg Review regulars with an excellent roundup of blog articles on the business of law and life as a lawyer.
Last Wednesday, I sent out an email to everyone who had opted in to be placed on my subscription list to receive notification about my new articles.
To my surprise and delight, enough people clicked on the Amazon pre-order button to make the new book number 577 overall in sales among all books on Thursday. Of course, the ranking has declined since then — this was an early, temporary peak. Nevertheless, I hope there will be “buzz” benefits beyond the initial pre-orders
My first reaction was gratitude for the loyalty of those who follow my work.
My next reaction was astonishment about how powerful it really is to have built up the (voluntary opt-in) database. It truly was more valuable and powerful than I had realized!
***
Oh, and by the way, here’s the email I sent:
***
I wanted to give you advance notice of the release of my new book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker. It will be published on January 2, 2008 (and is currently available for pre-order at Amazon.com.
The book is formed from 19 of the articles I have written in the past two years, organized and structured to provide (I hope) a consistent argument with a logical flow.
I’ve also included a link to a special ebook executive summary of the first chapter, (which I will be publishing along with my new podcast series) to accompany the launch of the book. Please feel free to pass it along to anyone you know who may be interested in its content, or in my book.
Here’s some of the advance praise I have received for Strategy and the Fat Smoker:
Strategy and the Fat Smoker is a masterpiece – a rare blend of wisdom, experience, and humility. Every manager, and anyone who works in a professional services firm, ought to read this lovely book.
– Robert I. Sutton, Stanford Professor and co-author of The Knowing-Doing Gap
David Maister has built a career on giving unerringly wise advice to those of us in the business of advising and leading. He offers the reader the motivation, tools and wisdom to achieve more than we might ever have thought possible. This is essential reading for anyone determined to succeed.
– Paul A. Laudicina, Managing Officer and Chairman of the Board, A.T. Kearney
David Maister reminds us remorselessly that knowing what your company needs to do is relatively obvious: the test for us all is actually making it happen. Through anecdote, metaphor and case history, he shows us how to turn empty aspiration into hard reality.
– Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO, WPP
David has a knack of explaining what is really going on around us in our business life in a way which brings clarity and insight to the issues. His long experience in the professional services sector shines through. His observations on decision making in my own industry, law, make painful but essential reading. David doesn’t let anyone off the hook in his evaluation of where professional service firms often go wrong. He forces us to confront the real issues of lack of resolve, leadership, values and trust which so often hold firms back. This is a book which all those with an interest in how professional service firms should be managed and led should read.”
– David Morley, Managing Partner, Allen & Overy
Best Wishes,David
***
Does anyone else have lessons and experiences to share about the benefits of building a subscriber list?
Adhering to agreed standards
If sticking to diet and exercise programs is difficult for an individual, the challenge is exponentially more difficult for a group. Agreements on group strategy might be reached, but there is always the problem of ensuring that everyone (powerful people included) act in ways consistent with the strategy.
The most basic (and blunt) instruments for achieving this are pay schemes (reward the right behavior) and terminations (fire those who don’t act in ways consistent with the strategy.) It is amazing how many firms still rely just on those two tools.
A third approach is to try and establish agreement on “values,†achieving performance consistency through “ideological influence.â€
To make this approach work, it must be recognized that something is a value if and only if you are willing to enforce it. A value is NOT a high aspiration you plan to strive for (that’s a dream). A value is a non-negotiable minimum standard to which everyone has agreed to comply.
However, the agreement alone is clearly insufficient. To have values, there must be a system for responding to and eliminating non-compliance. Such a system would, preferably, begin gently with a closed-door office visit from a group leader (or manager) and a counseling session to provide help would result.
If this does not induce compliance within a finite time, then the group must be prepared to contemplate exit — asking people who do not live up to standards to leave.
However, I am continually surprised when firm and group leaders tell me they don’t have the time to (a) spot non-compliance with standards and (b) devote the time to help people who are not meeting standards get back on track.
Without having this time available to manage, they are thrown back on using the pay scheme to deal with egregious departures from standards, and no system for dealing with minor departures.
The question then gets posed: what else can a group or firm do to ensure that its standards are, in fact executed? Beyond, pay, termination and managerial attention, what else is there?
Some groups try to argue that peer pressure can create a culture, even if no one person has the responsibility (and time) to monitor (and follow up on) the new behaviors.
I’m skeptical. Peer pressure can work to sustain a culture but is weak when introducing a new standard,
For example, in the face of the war for talent, many organizations want their senior people to live to higher standards in coaching, supervising and mentoring juniors. But if it’s left to the group to police itself in this “new†behavior, I think it unlikely that higher standards of excellence will result. More likely would be a “you forgive me and I’ll forgive you†culture.
As we know, new (visible) scorecards can help. Even if there is not managerial time to spot and follow up on non-compliance, a new metric tracking the new behavior (if appropriately visible) can create the incentive to change.
But still I get asked “What else?†We know what we should do, my clients say, we’ve agreed among ourselves to do it, but we don’t have the managerial culture that allows group leaders to spend time monitoring the group.(!)
So, they ask, what else can we do?
What would YOU say?
post # 446 — October 9, 2007 — a Managing post
I received an email from Susan D. Strayer, theDirector of Talent Management at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. She included a press release letting me (us) know that students from the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management who focus in human and organizational performance issues are hosting the nation’s first-ever competition focusing solely on human capital challenges.
The National MBA Human Capital Case Competition will be held in Nashville, Tenn. on Oct. 19-20. The teams will be judged by a panel of industry executives, including leaders from General Electric and Deloitte, who are sponsoring the competition. The teams will have the chance to win more than $30,000 in cash prizes.
Strayer (a 2007 grad of the Owen school) said “Some of the biggest obstacles companies of any size will face have to do with their employees. It’s imperative that business school students make employee-related issues as important as other avenues of business. That’s why Owen is taking the lead to elevate the study of human capital to be on the same level with marketing, finance and operations.”
For more information on the National MBA Human Capital Case Competition, log onto www.humancapitalcasecompetition.com.
I’m sure other business schools will take issue with the assertion that Vanderbilt is “taking the lead†here. Any current or recent B-school grads have anything interesting to report about the extent to which the “study of human capital†(horrible phrase) is being integrated into the curriculum and treated “at the same level with marketing, finance and operations�
post # 445 — October 8, 2007 — a General post
In this episode, we are going to look at what it takes to get another human being to want to give you what you want. It’s a tricky skill and it requires careful attention to the ebb and flow of the relationship, but as we will see, there are very simple skills that make this possible.
Audio Timeline
00:39 — Introduction
01:08 — A personal account of relationship building skills
03:29 — The lessons
03:52 — Conclusion
You can download Earning a Relationship or sign up to receive new Maister Moments videos automatically with iTunes or other video players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.
post # 442 — October 4, 2007 — a Managing post
Nick McCormick has written a slim, large-type paperback book (with cartoons) called “Lead Well and Prosper.â€
His 15 chapter headings are:
- Adopt a Serving Attitude
- Teach
- Provide Honest and Timely Feedback
- Share Information
- Listen
- Treat People Like Human Beings
- Set Goals, Plan and Execute
- Learn
- Do the Right Thing
- Embrace the Uncomfortable
- Clean Up Your Own House First
- Persist
- Do what You Say You’ll Do
- Always Follow Up
- Plan your Week
That’s a pretty good summary checklist for any manager!
Which of these would everyone say tends to be done best? Which are usually least well done?
Almost every firm (and individual professional) I know SAYS (and has said for a long time) that they want to build their strategy on having deep and broad relationships with key clients.
But the percentage of firms that have pulled this off is (in my experience) relatively small. I explore this in part in STRATEGY AND THE FAT SMOKER where I explore the fact that while firms say they want romance, too many firms still act in a transactional “let’s win this one†mode.
But there’s more that needs to be said. It’s not enough to argue that relationships are a good thing, or even prove that they are economic. We must understand why they are difficult to pull off.
Here’s a preliminary list of some of the possible barriers:
- Many clients, in fact, don’t want relationships. They prefer to buy on a transaction-by-transaction basis.
- Too many providers are not really trying to build a relationship, they’re just trying to sell more product and services — and clients can tell
- Firms or individuals are too short-term focused, overinvesting in short-term sales opportunities and underinvesting in long-term relationship-building: it’s a time allocation problem
- Senior professionals just don’t have the time to invest in relationships: it’s a time problem
- Senior professionals are actually not that interested in clients: it’s an attitude problem
- Individuals are not skilled in earning clients’ trust: it’s a skill problem
- Internal barriers in firms — for example, excessive “silos†mean no incentive to create opportunities for colleagues to provide additional services to “your†clients: it’s a structural problem
- Lead professionals see it as too risky to introduce their colleagues — they worry that their own PERSONAL relationships would be threatened by any attempt to turn the relationship with a client into an INSTITUTIONAL relationship: it’s a quality or cultural problem
- Firms are not discriminating enough in selecting which client relationships actually have a chance at succeeding: they try to develop relationships with too many clients — they should focus more effort on fewer, carefully selected opportunities: it’s a focus problem
What would you add to the list? What do you think is the most common explanation of why most firms’ relationship strategies fail to succeed as often as they hope?
post # 444 — October 2, 2007 — a General post
It has already been three months since I expressed my gratitude for all your thoughtful contributions. Your generosity and enthusiasm are clearly essential to the success of this blog. I am looking forward to another season of engaging discussions as we all move forward with new ideas and projects. My new book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker, is officially coming out in three months from now. In the meantime, let’s keep the exchanges going. Thanks to all of you for the comments and trackbacks.
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As everyone who reads this blog regularly knows by now, the theme off my new book STRATEGY AND THE FAT SMOKER is that if you don’t want to get on the diet, you can’t achieve your goals.
Stated that way, it’s a pretty tough message, and I sometimes struggle to find a way to soften it while maintaining the point.
For example, in my seminars, it’s almost always the case that people ask how to make their practice groups more effective.
As a starting point, I feel it’s necessary to go through the (simple, familiar) points that (a) the key is the group manager’s time and skills and (b) that it is economic and effective to allow — even require – group leaders to take the time to manage the people in their groups, and not just expect them to carry a full personal “sell and deliver†load, and then manage their group on top of that.
Yes, I know these are old points, but that’s the message — “eat less, exercise more†is the answer to losing weight, and everything else is commentary.
But that frequently doesn’t satisfy my audiences and clients.
“But what do we do if our culture and systems don’t reward people for managing, and pays them on their personal production?â€
OR “What do we do if none of our partners wants to take on the role of being a manager, each preferring to build his or her own book of business rather than taking the time to helping other people succeed?â€
In essence, I say (with as supportive and comforting tone as I am capable of) “Well, if you don’t want to do what works, then just don’t expect to get the benefits. Your choice!â€
Not surprisingly, people are often frustrated with this “tough love†answer. All of us want the “magic pill.â€
So, here’s the challenge: What do you do if the problem posed by your client is presented with excessively binding constraints?
It is remarkably common to hear clients ask “We don’t want to change how we do things, that’s our culture, but tell us how we can get more of what we want!â€
Can anyone shed some light on the best way to help when people pose things this way?
