Passion, People and Principles
post # 189 — September 13, 2006 — a Strategy post
If past blogposts are any guide, you folks seem to enjoy giving me advice as much as I like giving it to you, so now it’s your turn again.
In broad outline, here are some of my strategic challenges and choices that I’d like your input on.
I’m 59 years old, with a reputation and track record of consulting with, speaking to and writing about businesses (around the world) in the professional sector (law, accounting, investment banking, executive search, IT services, real estate, consulting, etc.) I don’t plan to stop anytime soon, so (like everyone else) I need to think periodically about my choices for the future.
As time has gone by, a few trends have emerged in my business:
a) When I started, I think I was pretty much a pioneer in writing about professional businesses and there weren’t many people with that as a consulting specialty. Nowadays, there are many consultants focusing in this area.
b) On the other hand, interest in my work spreads to new industries with every passing year, and a higher and higher portion of most economies are becoming made up of knowledge-intensive businesses. The world is moving toward my specialty, and it’s tempting to start writing about business in general. But I’m concerned about losing my reputation as a specialist.
c) As I have tried to make an impact on the world with my thoughts, I find that there are (broadly) two groups in my audience. The bigger group is made up of relatively younger people, or those outside the power structure (staff people, other consultants, small firms and solo operators like me.) This group tends to enjoy my emphasis on core principles and staying true to dreams and ambitions.
d) The second group is made up of top officers in top firms, working at the frontiers of their business, who seem to appreciate me being provocative, challenging the traditional ways professional businesses are run. (Of course, there are often people in these positions who don’t like being challenged that way!)
e) I’m interested in working with and serving both groups but don’t want to get too schizophrenic. Both in content and marketing, the audiences are different. The first audience reads blogs, and writing for them allows me to feel that I’m having an impact by interacting with tomorrow’s leaders.
f) The second audience (top officers in top firms, working at the frontier) is harder to reach, because busy leaders tend not to read articles, blogs, or books. I may also need a different “positioning†for that audience, because a reputation for only pointing out what’s wrong (or could be better) isn’t always considered completely helpful. Senior people also like to believe that I am, in some sense “on their side†— trying to help, and not too much on the side of the revolutionaries trying to overthrow the power structure. I like to think I present a lot of affirmative and constructive advice, but I do have a bit of a reputation as the type of consultant, speaker and writer who talks about the elephant in the room that no-one else wants to talk about. (I know, I know, I wrote about how to do this with charm and style in my book The Trusted Advisor. But it isn’t always easy to challenge and be seen as constructive.)
g) My choices are not really driven by economics, but the desire to make a contribution and receive the recognition and strokes that come from having made such a contribution. However, the economics of serving the two audiences are very different. If I serve the first audience and want to make money at it, it will probably mean selling ebooks, CDs and videos. (I think there’s a demand for that.) If I serve the second audience, it means generating and emphasizing new thoughts in new articles, and deriving an income from high-level face-to-face consulting. So far, I’ve been able to do both, and be accepted as doing both, but I don’t know whether that will continue to be a good model (or even viable) moving forward.
Obviously, I haven’t given you enough information, but hopefully we can have some fun — and I can get some free advice. Here are some (sincere) questions:
Should I continue to try and be a “professional business specialist†or write about general business issues? This might be a question of writing style and language more than anything else, but it affects my “positioning.â€
What can I do to best serve the first audience of other consultants, staff people, younger people and small firms? If I wanted to, what would be the best way to “monetize†my services to that audience?
If I want to keep serving the second, top officer audience, how do I carry on being challenging and provocative without being one more person pointing out what’s wrong with the established structure? Is it possible to pull off the high-wire act of being both a provocateur and a wise counselor? Should I continue to try that?
post # 188 — September 12, 2006 — a Careers post
I’m probably not going to do this ever again, but I’m going to post details about a job opening here. A respected and close friend runs a small but very successful strategy consulting firm, and they are in the market for a Vice President. This is a special favor for my friend, who is one of the good guys who understands true professionalism. Here’s the description:
The Beacon Group is a strategy consulting firm focused on supporting a select group of Fortune 500 clients as they build strategies and tactics to win in their marketplaces. Based in Portsmouth, NH, we are a young, dynamic firm growing quickly with opportunities for new employees to work in a fast-paced, entrepreneurial environment. We offer an exciting and lucrative opportunity to excel through a career in management consulting. A Beacon Group Vice President must be equal parts consultant, leader, and strategic thinker. The following is the job description for Beacon Vice Presidents:
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To build and maintain an individual consulting practice that is consistent with The Beacon Group’s vision, goals and growth objectives
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To contribute to building long-term relationships and developing new business with existing clients
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To create engagement relationships with new clients
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To commit to the professional development of himself/herself and others
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To serve as a senior leader in the office
Top Vice Presidents who have demonstrated outstanding capabilities and a strong commitment to Beacon may earn promotion to Senior Vice President. At 6 month intervals from the Vice President’s hire date, a formal review is given to assess progress and future career opportunities with the firm. Both qualitative and quantitative metrics are used to evaluate performance and recommend potential growth opportunities. Financial rewards increase substantially with outstanding accomplishment at the firm.
A Vice President will have the following responsibilities:
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Identify prospective business with existing clients or new clients
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Determine the scope and nature of potential engagements
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Write successful proposals
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Manage the contracting process with our client
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Oversee the delivery of engagement work
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Supervise project teams
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Sell and deliver multiple engagements simultaneously
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Provide insightful analysis of engagements
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Meet revenue objectives
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Serve as mentor to more junior firm members
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Internally support and further the firm’s cultural, ethical and mission objectives
The candidate should have at least 8 years of professional experience, preferably with exposure to management consulting. He/she should hold a BS/BA and ideally an MBA from a leading business school. He/she will have strong analytical skills, demonstrated sales experience in a professional environment and have the ability to provide Senior-level written and oral communication (both in individual and group settings). We also welcome candidates with foreign language capabilities.
My friend says they are specifically interested in healthcare and financial services consultants who are successful at business development. They will have to be located in Portsmouthand need to be comfortable in a small firm that is a true meritocracy. Compensation is “highly competitive.â€
How to apply? Send a resume to jobs@tbg-online.com or rchristie@tbg-online.com
post # 187 — — a General post
This week’s podcast seminar, “Adapting to the Future: Whatever it is” (downloadable at no cost), poses the question:
How do you ensure that your organization is good at identifying and examining emerging needs — and devising successful responses?
Through planning (and re-examination of current business management practices) organizations can become better at listening to the environment and picking up change signals early. They can also become better at ensuring that they have numerous experiments (or pilots) going on to test new ideas and new approaches. Companies should be constantly testing what the market will and will not respond to. They must avoid complacency and be adaptive by constantly asking “Is there a better way to do what we do?”
You can download Adapting to the Future or sign up to receive new seminars automatically every week by subscribing to my Business Masterclass series with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.)
What do you think the keys are to becoming more adaptable (or more adaptive) to changing environments? What are the key practices that help organizations respond fast (and well) to their environment?
post # 186 — September 10, 2006 — a Careers post
Hyokon Zhiang writes:
The Korean edition of True Professionalism by David Maister (that I and Innomove colleagues have worked on) has just been published. The book has both aspects like a father who strictly persuades us of the meaning and the value of doing things right, and one like a mother at the same time who warmly encourages hesitant us saying that doing things right is ultimately beneficial for ourselves. I strongly recommend this book to people who think themselves as professionals, or want to be professional.
Personally, the professionalism side of David’s advice was the most influential on me – more than strategy, marketing, recruiting, or any other more ‘skills’ related topics. That’s why I translated True Professionalism to begin with. And I believe that there must be other people like that.
I am interested to hear people’s experiences about professionalism. For example,
- How do you have the resolve to do what is the right thing to do vs. what is immediately profitable.
- Taking the high road. In some moments the high road is obvious but hard to give up the temptation to pursue short-term gain. Sometimes you want to follow the high road but it is not obvious which route that is.
- Sometimes you feel uncomfortable about your firm’s or colleagues’ behavior, and sometimes you feel disappointed about yourself in going along
- Some experiences give you life-changing lessons.
So, let’s pass on some advice and experiences, as requested. What have you learned about what it means to be a true professional? How have you learned to sustain professional behavior in spite of the world’s temptations?
post # 185 — September 8, 2006 — a Client Relations post
I just received an email suggesting I blog about waiting times in business. I suspect the author of the email knows about my article The Psychology of Waiting Lines, written more than 20 years ago. The topic here is not how to make the waiting time shorter, but how to make it more acceptable or palatable to the person waiting.
In spite of its age, I still get lots of calls from reporters who want to do stories on this, and the article is among my most frequently cited (for those who are counting). This is a great opportunity to get you all involved. I’ll give you the highlights of what I said back then, and you can tell me what I missed or should add.
I had eight propositions about how people experience waiting and what businesses could do to make a wait feel less onorous.
1) Occupied Time Feels Shorter Than Unoccupied Time.
In various restaurants, it is common practice to hand out menus for customers to peruse while waiting in line. Apart from shortening the perception of time, this practice has the added benefit of shortening the service time, since customers will be ready to order once they are seated, and will not tie up table space making up their minds.
2) People Want to Get Started.
One’s ‘anxiety’ level is much higher while waiting to be served than it is while being served, even though the latter wait may be longer. There is a fear of ‘being forgotten’. (How many times has the reader gone back to a maitre d’ to check that his or her name is still on the list?). Many restaurant owners instruct their service staff to pass by the table as soon as the customers are seated to say “I’ll be with you as soon as I can, after I’ve looked after that table over there”. In essence, the signal is being sent: ‘We have acknowledged your presence’.
3) Anxiety Makes Waits Seem Longer.
Nearly everyone has had the experience of choosing a line at the supermarket or airport, and stood there worrying that he had, indeed, chosen the wrong line. As one stands there trying to decide whether to move, the anxiety level increases and the wait becomes intolerable. This situation is covered by what is known as Erma Bombeck’s Law: “The other line always moves faster”
4) Uncertain Waits Are Longer than Known, Finite Waits
Clients who arrive early for an appointment will sit contentedly until the scheduled time, even if this is a significant amount of time in an absolute sense (say, thirty minutes). However, once the appointment time is passed, even a short wait of, say, ten minutes, grows increasingly annoying. The wait until the appointed time is finite; waiting beyond the point has no knowable limit.
5) Unexplained Waits Are Longer than Explained Waits
On a cold and snowy morning, when I telephone for a taxi, I begin with the expectation that my wait will be longer than on a clear, summer day. Accordingly, I wait with a great deal more patience because I understand the causes for the delay. Similarly, if a doctor’s receptionist informs me that an emergency has taken place, I can wait with greater equanimity that if I do not know what is going on. Airline pilots understand this principle well; on-board announcements are filled with references to tardy baggage handlers, fog over landing strips, safety checks, and air-traffic controllers’ clearance instructions. The explanation given may or may not exculpate the service provider, but is it better than no explanation at all.
6) Unfair Waits Are Longer than Equitable Waits
In many waiting situations, there is no visible order to the waiting line. In situations such as waiting for a subway train, the level of anxiety demonstrated is high, and the group waiting is less a queue than a mob. Instead of being able to relax, each individual remains in a state of nervousness about whether their priority in the line is being preserved. As already noted, agitated waits seem longer than relaxed waits. It is for this reason that many service facilities have a system of taking a number, whereby each customer is issued a number and served in strict numerical order. In some facilities, the number currently being served is prominently displayed so that customers can estimate the expected waiting times.
7) The More Valuable the Service, the Longer the Customer Will Wait
That perceived value affects tolerance or waits can be demonstrated by our common experience in restaurants-we will accept a much longer waiting time at a haute cuisine facility than at a “greasy spoon.” In universities, there is an old rule of thumb that if the teacher is delayed, “You wait ten minutes for an assistant professor, fifteen minutes for an associate professor, and twenty minutes for a full professor.” This illustrates well the principle that tolerance for waits depends upon perceived value of service-perhaps with the emphasis on the perception.
8) Solo Waits Feel Longer than Group Waits
One of the remarkable syndromes to observe in waiting lines is to see individuals sitting or standing next to each other without talking or otherwise interacting until an announcement of a delay is made. Then the individuals suddenly turn to each other to express their exasperation, wonder collectively what is happening, and console each other. What this illustrates is that there is some form of comfort in group waiting rather than waiting alone.
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So, those were some of the principles in my original article. (Here’s the link again to the full piece, The Psychology of Waiting Lines.)
Now comes your challenge to help this discussion along: what “cool” approaches have you seen businesses use to apply these or other principles and make us, the customers, tolerate waits or even turn the wait to the business’ advantage?
Who’s doing clever things with managing waiting lines (or queues, as my English family calls them)?
post # 184 — September 7, 2006 — a Client Relations post
I just received a copy (thanks Steve Rubell) of a speech given by Tommy Fernandez, the journalist who covered the legal beat at Crain’s New York Business , at the July meeting of Law Firm Media Professionals
Taking no prisoners, Fernandez aims fairly and squarely at his audience of the Public Relations professionals who work for law firms – those who are always trying to get his attention and press coverage for their firms. Here are his “reasons why reporters hate you”
There are too damned many of you. (He gets more than 100 calls involving law firm pitches per day. Do the math.)
It’s getting nearly impossible to tell your pitches apart. There is no trend you can imagine that I have heard several times today.
You don’t listen (or keep promises about when you’re going to get back with a quote or supporting evidence for a story.)
You treat reporters like your social worker (“you’ve got to help me out of this situation”.) I am not here to help you. I am not your social case worker. I am not here to protect your job, make you feel good or help your clients. The sooner you accept that reality, the better of you’ll be.
You treat reporters like a social trophy (Come to lunch and meet our top execeutives and discuss the latest developments in document flow management software.” “What do you mean you don’t want to spend three hours with our management committee to educate us on ….)
Your clients are dumbasses and you don’t tell us: “Is that really the right question to be asking? Is this really the right story to be writing? I’ll tell you a story you should be working on, although it won’t really be a story until the winter, but that’s beyond your deadline, isn’t it?”
Reporters hate you (PR) becaude you act like used car salesmen. ‘A study in nausea’ he calls it. -Drop your fantasy. There is no spiel, no gimmick you can use to compel me to abandon my common sense. The attitude of reaching (PR) goals is actually one of the easiest ways you can shoot yourself in the foot.
There’s more, lot’s more, but you get the idea. Not surprisingly, this was Mr. Fernandez’ farewell speech – he’s moving on to cover other journalistic beats.
All of which goes to show.. What exactly? That PR people don’t understand journalists?
You don’t have to be in PR or the law to get a lot out of Mr. Fernadez’ rant.
The real lesson is that all of us get so wrapped up in what we want FROM the other person that we fail to understand what would make them want to give it to us.
It’s beneficial, if painful, to have the other side tell us, in uncertain terms, what it has been like working with us!
post # 183 — September 6, 2006 — a Careers, Managing post
I’m of the belief that the overwhelming majority of recruiting interviewing is a complete waste of time. It’s not science and almost nobody has the practiced craft or art to be good at it. We like to pretend that we can find out important things in a one-hour interview, but we really can’t.
Everyone’s heard the phrase “Hire for attitude and train for skill” and I believe it fully. In fact, I’d go further and say that once you have checked out credentials and qualifications, character, not just attitude, explains the vast majority of someone’s long-term performance and whether or not they will fit into your company. And if the goal of an interview is to judge someone’s attitudes, personality and / or character then its going to take a LOT more training than most interviewers are given to detrmine those things. I don’t know too many people, even with etensive training, who could get a smart person to reveal his or her true character in such a format.
The best firms, in my view find a way to ask the people who already know the candidates to pass judgement. For examples, when hiring on campus, smart recruiters ask faculty members to give them the real low-down truth about the different students. Or they ask this year’s hires to tell them about the students in the year below them or that they met in other on-campus activities. It’s usually well – known on campus which individuals have personality, ambition, integrity. Ask three or four faculty or fellow students and their lists will be close to identical – they have been working with them in close quarters for a year or more and their judgments will be accurate.
In our book First Among Equals, Patrick McKenna and I gave a couple of examples of this:
Two firms in our experience were creative about their interviewing process. The first, a law firm asked all candidates at their final interview to say which had been their favourite course in law school. They then called in a secretary and (with a half-hour to think about it) asked the candidate to explain the content of the course to the secretary. The secretary, in essence, had the final say on whether the person was hired. It was not enough, this firm believed, to know your stuff. Before you were hired, you had to demonstrate the ability to explain it to an intelligent layperson.
The second firm, of accountants, brought all their final candidates together, and put them in a room with a two-way mirror. The candidates were told they would be observed, and were asked to do a joint exercise (equivalent to building a house out of playing cards). The resulting behavior was fascinating to watch. Thinking that they were suppose to be demonstrating leadership, many candidates competed to “take charge” of their group. In fact, the accounting firm was looking for people who felt comfortable being part of a team without the ego need to be its leader, and made offers only to those who did not try to dominate.
I’d be interested in hearing about other creative ways that organizations determine whether potential recruits really have desired character traits. How do you really tell if someone is good with people? Is a team player? Is honourable, has integrity and is trustworthy? Is the type of person who can maintain their composure in a crisis? Has the “good kind”of ambition and detrmination without too much of the “bad kind?”
There’s got to be something better than an interview to uncover the truth about these important things.
post # 182 — September 5, 2006 — a Managing post
I received an email enquiry as follows:
Have you commented in your writings on the value of a firm having both a senior partner and managing partner – akin to the corporate equivalent of a chairman and CEO – or can you direct me to some recommended material?
The first thing to note is that the use of the two terms senior partner and managing partner is not a common phenomenon worldwide. It’s normal in the UK and Europe, but very rare in the US, which tends to combine the roles into one. “Senior partner” is not a term you’ll hear used much in the US.
I haven’t written about this topic directly, although I wrote a chapter on governance in Managing the Professional Service Firm which included these thoughts:
Like a nation state, these (governance) elements can be divided into three groups. The firm’s board represents the legislative branch whose duty it is to approve (or disapprove) the policies under which the polity will operate. The managing partner, together with the executive committee and the business manager, form the executive branch. Finally, the compensation committee represents the judiciary.
The board of partners corresponds closely to the corporate model of a board of directors representing the interests of the “shareholders” (in this case, partners). Like a corporate board, a primary function of this body is to oversee and monitor the activities of the executive (the managing partner) to ensure that the shareholders’ interests are being served.
Many firms have observed that where the firm’s highest committee serves both a policy and executive role, the day-to-day minutiae tend to dominate the committee’s deliberations and real policy debates are neglected. Accordingly, most firms have found it wise to separate the policy and executive functions. This same conclusion is generated by a “division of powers” consideration. By separating the policy and executive functions, the firm avoids having too much power located in one body.
The senior partner or chairman can play the policy / legislative functions (at least in the sense of the firm’s core constitution) or its judiciary functions – setting pay for those in high positions, or serving as a court of appeals for those who wish to protest an executive decision.
The senior partner, as chairman of a board of partners, could exercise the same policy formation and management oversight roles that a chairman in a public company is suppose to fulfill. I say “supposed’ because we all know that there is a lot of charades and facades in corporate governance. In the publicly-held corporate world, few boards really exercise much oversight – governments have had to legislate (i.e. Sarbanes-Oxley) to get them to do some basics. Most corporate boards have been “captured” my management, and do not really exercise an independent function.
All of which is to say that it would be dangerous to assume that the corporate model or terminology is a positive metaphor. It may be exactly the model you want to stay away from!
However, it does help us outline a choice that must be made about the senior partner role. In corporate governance theory, the chairman plays an oversight role towards the CEO / managing partner, holding the managing partner “accountable” in the same way that the managing partner holds top executives within the organization accountable for their targets and performance.
This is actually a very intriguing model, particularly in a partnership where the chairman of the board of partners is supposed to represent the shareholder / partners (as, in theory, the corporate chairman is supposed to represent the corporate shareholders.)
It’s a good idea, but is it achievable and desirable in your firm? Is your CEO / managing partner really prepared to be held accountable? Especially when he or she spends his or her year holding everybody else accountable? It’s my experience that top people will say they want to be held accountable. But they don’t really. They will agree to the forms of accountability being put in place, but will neuter it when it actually tries to exercise any power.
There’s a completely different way of looking at all this, which is actually much more likely to work. That is to make one person (the senior partner) the external face and the other (the managing partner) the internal face of the organization.
In this (quite common) approach, the senior partner represents the firm to the marketplace and other external constituencies (governments, media, communities, media) while the managing partner focuses on actually managing the internal constituencies – partners, junior professionals, other employees.
While this division of labors makes a lot of sense, it’s worth pointing out that the skills (and orientation) involved are quite distinct. As a result, the (equally common) policy of automatically promoting the managing partner to senior partner at the end of the managing term is probably not a sensible idea.
Anyone else out there have a view on the right division of responsibilities between a senior partner and a managing partner?
post # 181 — September 4, 2006 — a General post
This week’s podcast seminar, “Justifying the Company” (downloadable at no cost), poses the question:
In an organization where every decentralized operating unit is responsible for its own strategic plan, what is the role of the company itself?
The seminar explores how to ensure that the company or firm acts as more than just a holding company, a common trading name, or an excuse to share overheads.
The seminar includes:
- The six key elements organizations can share across operational boundaries to create greater value for the whole
- Two versions of managerial added-value that increase performance
- Branding: the true value of a brand as performance standards
You can listen to the episode with the above player, download Justifying the Company, or sign up to receive new seminars automatically every week by subscribing to my Business Masterclass series with iTunes or other podcast players. The podcast is also related to ideas we’ve discussed in these blog posts:
What do you think I have left out? What do you think are the ways in which firms can and do add value? How do they REALLY go beyond being just holding companies with financial management procedures?
post # 180 — September 1, 2006 — a Careers post
Since people know that I used to be a university professor, and that I have a specialty field (professional businesses) I get quite a few emals and letters from doctoral students asking me to suggest thesis topics.
They want to know what CEOs or managing partners would find interesting, what the researchable and challenging issues are.
My reply always surprises them.
I point out that the only purpose of thesis is to get your doctorate degree approved. By very definition, your thesis wll be the worst piece of research you will ever do.
Furthermore, no-one in the real world ever pays attention to a doctoral thesis, so you shouldn’t even try to design it with their interests in mind.
What academics care about and what real-worrld people care about are two different things, and the ONLY people who can graduate you and let you get on with your life are your thesis committee — your professors.
The job of a doctoral student is to forget what the world finds interesting and to focus with a laser-like beam on what the thesis committee thinks is interesting and worthwhile. If yoy’re getting a doctorate, you’re in academia and you MUST play the academic game.
And the whole game is won or lost at the thesis proposal stage. Here’s where you have to deploy your sophisticated negotiating skills.
You have to make sure that what your professors think would be a worthwhile and interesting piece of research is actually doable. So, you have to bargain (subtly, deferentially and with an appropraite amount of grovelling) until you get a contract that says “If I do these things as the research, then, no matter what I find, you’ll sign the completed theis, right?”
Then you fulfil your contract, graduate and only then begin to care about what the real world finds interesting and would consider helpful research (if you still want to do any after your first taste of it.)
Good luck!
