Passion, People and Principles
post # 179 — August 31, 2006 — a General post
I thought people were supposed to take vacations in August? Yet look below at all those who stayed around to join the fun during this past month.
(Don’t tell me they were using blackberries at the beach!)
Ta very much!
Yee’re greet, the lot of ye!
commentors
Stephanie West Allen, Antoine Henry De Frahan, Mark Baker, Deepa Balaji, Martin Bamford, Eric Boehme, Leo J. Bottary, Bob Brown, Bruce, Duncan Bucknell, James Bullock, Tim Burrows, Shawn Callahan, Jimmy Campbell, Charles, James Cherkoff, Todor Christov, John Clough, Colin, Tom Collins, Petri Darby, Bob Daugherty, Mike DeWitt, Dean, Stephen Downes, Francis M. Egenias, Eric, Raissa Evans, Steve Farber, Anna Farmery, Doug Fletcher, David Foster, Allan Freeman, Jordan Furlong, Michelle Golden, Brooks Gould, Mark Gould, Lisa Guinn, Jim Hayward, Ken Hedberg, Joseph Heyison, Dennis Howlett, David Jacobson, Eric C Jaffe, Jaylpea, Jennifer, David Koopmans, David Law, Ed Lee, Bruce Lewin, Karen Love, Tom Lowe, Ludwig, Andrew Lumsden, Tim MMF, Peter Macmillan, Greg Magnus, Stephen Marshall, Steve Matthews, Lex McCafferty, Jim McGee, Jeff Merrifield, Ann Michael, Cristian Mitreanu, Johnnie Moore, Matt Moore, Mike Myatt, Liz Nash, Steve Pearce, Bill Peper, John Eric Pollabauer, Gregory Price, RJON, Jeff Risley, Rolf Van Der Meer, Bill S, Kosol S., Shuchetana, Carl A. Singer, Brijinder Singh, Andrew Smith, Prashant Subhedar, Nut Suwapiromchot, Charles Tippett, Eric Tong, Fiona Torrance, Coert Visser, Dan W, Curt Wehrley, Ian Welsh, Fred Wiersma, Mott Williamson, Darren Woolley, Hyokon Zhiang
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Tim Burrows, from GHD in Australia, has submitted the following question for us to discuss. Here’s Tim:
Across the spectrum of industries, there is a wide variety of client needs, ranging from repetitive and regular advice through to one-off projects. In the latter case, some of these clients you may never serve again. How do you market yourself if you are in a “one-off†industry?
I’m not arguing that word of mouth referrals are not useful, and that’s still where you start to build a reputation and a lead flow. But does the emphasis need to change if you are mainly or mostly working on one-off jobs? Are there other activities that would be useful in this situation that would not be that useful in the case of “repeat business clients”?
I would be interested to see what kind of responses you get from the rapidly growing community that is participating in the discussion on this blog.
OK, Tim. You clearly want the views of others as well as me, so I’ll try and keep my views concise.
I still believe that the best tactics for attracting new clients (even or especially) in a one-off industry are those I wrote about in Managing the Professional Service Firm:
b) Keep up a regular stream of little articles
c) Put on seminars (on-line) and
d) Do surveys and other data-gathering research that can position you as the source of “Facts no one else has got†– even if those facts are just opinion surveys among your target audience asking them about current trends.
The surveys provide the regular, fresh content for the speeches, article-writing and seminars.
Those were my opinions, 20 years ago, and so we have to add in everything we’ve learned about online marketing (see my recent article Adventures in Modern Marketing), so you probably especailly need, in a one-off business, a website – with lots of content – where people you don’t know (or who don’t know you) can find you easily and be easily impressed with what you have to offer. (The second part is harder)
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So, that’s my contribution to get us started. Others? How do you market in a one-off business? What do you do DIFFERENTLY than you do in a “repeat transaction” or”ongoing relationship” world?
post # 177 — August 30, 2006 — a Careers, Managing post
In Are Law Firms Manageable? (Also published as “The Trouble with Lawyers”) I described a common culture where individual partners did not really want to be teamplayers, working for the “greater good” of the firm. Instead, they focused on their own practice or that of their own small group.
(Lawyers are not unique in having this individualistic, lone-wolf culture, as we have frequently seen in this blog.)
However, as a result of this culture I get lots of emails from people in firmwide staff support roles – like marketing, HR, IT – who ask me “How can I perform my role if the partners won’t cooperate? How do I get individualistic partners to work for the common good and invest time or resources in HR,IT, marketing? How can I do my job if the partners won’t let me?”
(By the way, this is not just a problem of partnerships. The dilemma exists wherever there is an internal corporate shared services group. I’ve worked a lot wit those people, too.)
My answer is always the same: Forget the common good. As a lowly, subordinate staff person it’s not your place to try and convince people who are effectively your superiors to be better team players. If top management has failed in that, you’re not likely to pull it off.
Instead, my advice is to start small and go for an early success. Find a single person, partner or small operating group who WANTS your help. Help them with what they want to accomplish as an individual or small group. Prove that you can help.
You’re not looking for where you can make your biggest impact, but where you can make your quickest impact. If an powerful individual says “I worked with this staff person and they really helped me” then you’ll have your advocate to help get you used by others in the future. You will slowly build influence and power.
When many of them are using you, then you will be well-known enough and influwntial enough to drive for common approaches and collective action.
So, that’s my initial advice for a staff person trying to have an impact in an individualistic culture. Anyone else got suggestions?
post # 176 — August 29, 2006 — a General post
I greatly appreciate the contributions of the many readers who take the time to comment on this blog.
It has been suggested that I should offer some general comment guidelines in order to set expectations for new readers and to assure a consistently positive experience for ongoing readers of this site.
However, I don’t want to do this alone. You’re part of this, too. So, I’ve drafted some comment guidelines here, and I’d like your reactions. What should I add, delete, modify?
When we’re done, I’ll post the finished guidelines on the blog.
Humor is always welcome on the blog, but please take this topic seriously.
COMMENT GUIDELINES
Please recognize that the comments on the blog are part of a conversation between real people. We interact here with professionalism and courtesy.
Also please recognize that this is a conversation between and among all of us, not just between you and me. Try to address your comments to the broader community.
For the sake of your own privacy and that of others, please do not post phone numbers or email addresses in the body of your comment – you cannot assume the good intentions of everyone who reads them.
Please do not post raw URLs — which may be long and skew the page or the comment sidebar — but make the URL an actual HTML link. (Just highlight the term you want to hotlink and then click on the “link” icon in the comment editor to add the URL.)
My blog is not the place to promote your services or products to readers.
I will edit/delete spam comments and trackbacks, duplicate comments, unsupported accusations, personal attacks of any kind, terms offensive to groups when used in a pejorative manner, or comments that explicitly promote a product or service.
In addition, I reserve the right to edit/delete comments that are some combination of vulgar, vile, cruel, without redeeming qualities, and an embarrassment to the site.
If you have left a valid email address, I will let you know by email if I editor or delete your comment. If you prefer to keep your email address private, and I support your right to do so, then I will edit your comment without notice.
As an absolute last resort, I will ban repeat or particularly egregious offenders.
In short: please behave here as you would in any other public space surrounded by your family or professional peers, and all should be well.
Thank you for your understanding and support in making the discussions on this blog a productive and enjoyable experience for our entire community.
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So, what do you think? What Should I add, delet, modify?
post # 175 — August 28, 2006 — a General post
MACONOMY will be conducting a conference in Copenhagen on People and Profitability: A Time for Growth on October 5 and 6. I will be a speaker on the first day.
post # 174 — — a Managing post
a) That he /she really wants to make this place customer-centric
b) That he / she really cares about the long term
c) That he / she really wants us to be team players
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Suggestions?
post # 173 — — a General post
“The One-Firm Firm”, last week’s free seminar in my Business Masterclass series, explored how businesses can achieve distinctive competitive advantage by achieving company-wide collaboration.
In this week’s seminar “Play Nice: Creating the Collaborative Firm” (downloadable at no cost), I follow up with a more fine-grained examination of tactics for achieving collaboration.
The seminar explores the questions:
How do you make company-wide collaboration happen in all types of companies? What are the specific tactics that get people in multiple disciplines, industries and offices to work for the good of the firm?
This seminar is based on a chapter of my 1993 book, “Managing the Professional Service Firm”, and explores:
- The Principles of collaboration
- The 16 Top-tier tactics to promote collaboration (in order of effectiveness)
- The incremental approach to increasing cooperation
You can listen to this week’s seminar with the player shown just above, or download this episode directly to your computer. You can also 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.)
The ideas in this seminar were further explored in these previous conversations on my blog:
Would you agree with the priorities I have given to the most effective tactics? Do you have an explanation as to why companies tend to use the least effective tactics first?
post # 172 — August 26, 2006 — a Careers, Managing post
In my post about “The Best Advice I Ever Received” a wonderful lesson was contributed by Jeff Risley:
“Just remember, wherever you go, there you are.”
In other words, if you think change is needed in a situation, think about changing yourself first before changing everything around you.
I particularly like that lesson. In fact, I’m struggling to write an article with that theme, aimed at CEOs and other top executives who always want their people to change but overlook the fact that they have to go first.
If you have a story or an insight on that theme that I can use in the article, comment here or drop me an email (david@davidmaister.com ).
Wasn’t it Gandhi who said something like “You must become the change you wish to see”?
post # 171 — August 25, 2006 — a Strategy post
I was recently facilitating a strategy discussion with a company in an industry that has a long tradition of hiring, celebrating and rewarding individualistic solo operators. In spite of that tradition, the company’s leaders wanted to develop a company-wide reputation and strategy.
(This is normal. The industry I was working with is only unusual in that people there actually say things like this out loud. In other industries and professions, they just think it all the time, without actually saying it!)
The first dimension (or choice) is whether people actively want to be part of a team, with joint accountabilities, responsibilities, and rewards (team players), or whether, (as solo operators), they would prefer to be in situations where they can avoid being tied down, tied up or tied into working with other people, preferring to rise or fall or their own personal efforts.
I may have used biased language here, but the point is that people really do differ here as to how they want to live their lives. (Disclosure – I admire the heck out of the true team players, and would bet on them to win, but prefer to be what I am – a solo operator.)
The second dimension we explored was that some people have an appetite for high-investment strategies (invest a lot to get the chance to reap high rewards) while others are reluctant to invest that much, even in their own future. They prefer to focus on “winning today,” letting tomorrow take care of itself. Combining these two dimensions led us to analyze 4 kinds of preferences that individuals (and companies) have. The labels were developed in conjunction with “Linda.” (Thanks.)
Type 2 is the individual who prefers to act in coordination, but doesn’t like to invest too much. Call these people (collectively) the Wolf-Pack. “If we act together we can kill bigger animals, but it had better pay off soon or I’m joining another Pack!”
Type 3 is the individual who wants to act as a solo operators, not really enjoying collective action, but is interested in taking care of their future by investing resources to get somewhere new. We weren’t sure what to call these people, but they remind me of Beavers building dams to provide a home for their family. (The reason I have difficulty coming up with the right species for this one might not only be that I’m a city boy, but also because this category is the one I think I’m in.)
Type 4 are individuals who want to be part of something bigger than they can accomplish alone, and have the patience, the ambition and the will to help the collective organization invest in that future. I want to call this “The Human Race” since one of the rare things about Homo Sapiens that differentiates it (at least in scale) from other species is its ability to act collectively to build and develop. (It’s called civilization.) However, Linda pointed out that Type 4 could also be a description of an Ant Community.
“Ant Community” doesn’t sound very appealing as a self-image, does it? Yet it’s what I and a million other business consultants and CEOs and political leaders are trying to get their people to do whenever there is talk about strategy – join together for a common purpose and stretch for common achievement. Are we trying get people to be more fully human, or be like ants?
To many people, the OTHER types seem so attractive. Who wouldn’t want to be a Mountain Lion and or part of a Wolf-Pack ( so muscular, so strong, so energetic,) rather than an ant (or just a homo sapiens.) Why wouldn’t you vote for that?
We had secret voting machines in the room which allowed people to remain anonymous, so I asked people which of these four preferences best described their own, personal desired way of behaving. ( I took the vote before coming up with the animal labels.) Guess what? All four groups were well represented. Only 10 to 20 percent in this particular company put themselves in the “I want to be part of something bigger than me that is working to build for the future.” (I don’t know if that’s shockingly low to you, or matches your experience.)
What do you think the chances are of melding people that describe themselves that way into an institution that has a differentiated reputation?
I’m really interested in how misaligned the very concept of “strategy” can be for some companies with the type of people they attract, hire and retain. Firms and their leaders PRETEND and HOPE and SAY that they want to invest and build collectively, and everyone else pretends to go along as if that’s what they want too. But, when you look closely, that’s not actually the truth about what the people in the company really want to do.
Can anyone help me make sense of all these thoughts? What do you think?
post # 170 — August 24, 2006 — a Careers post
Get over it. Let it go. Move on.
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What was the best advice you ever received?
