Passion, People and Principles
Three more reviews of my new book this time from bloggers who focus on (respectively) the accounting, legal and marketing communications agency worlds.
First, Dennis Howlett compares some of the points I make in the book to his own experience. He writes:
“When I was in practice I made a conscious decision that I would never compete on price and that I would never take on work I didn’t believe we could execute against. That takes courage – something David notes is rare and therefore a source of competitive advantage. You’ve also go to have unshakable belief in your business model. That’s not the same as a rigid belief. It is one of the reasons I believe in value pricing. People will pay a premium (relative to the general perception of market value) if they know what you stand for and if you can clearly demonstrate differentiated knowledge and ability. The same is true for existing clients.
“That meant at times, I’d enlist the services of firms that were better qualified than ours to handle specific problems. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do the work. I knew the client would be better served elsewhere. In the long run, it meant the client was better served overall.
“These are principles I follow to this day. Last week for instance, I mentioned to a colleague that I will not work with certain companies because I don’t share their values. We’re incompatible from the get go and any relationship is bound to be problematic for both parties. In some cases that has meant turning away otherwise very good business. That’s always a tough call but in life I’ve found material reward is but a fraction of the total reward for undertaking an assignment.
“David makes the point and he’s right – following certain principles involves an emotional investment in the things that matter to you. With that comes pain and pleasure. Fortunately, the upside far outweighs the inevitable lows.â€
Julie Fleming-Brown, in Life At The Bar, picks up on another point in the book that discusses viewing firm personnel in the relationship or transactional mode.
I wrote:
“Are you saying,†they (senior people) ask me, “that I need to show an interest in my subordinates as people and care about their career ambitions?â€
“Only if you want them to respond to you,†I reply. “If your subordinates feel that you are prepared to work at a relationship with them, ensuring that both sides benefit, then they will give you more of what you want. That’s human nature, not a political or religious point.
“But if they think that you, their superior, are just trying to get out of the deal more of what you want from them? Harder work, more billable hours, whatever? Then they will respond in kind. They will view you as you are viewing them: useful only to the extent that they can get out of it when they want in the short run.
“There will be no long-term loyalty and no commitment to the larger interests of the firm, because you have set the pattern that this is truly a temporary transaction, not a relationship. If you treat people as THEM, as objects, or as ‘other,’ they in turn will treat you instrumentally.â€
Julie’s comments were these:
“And that, my friends, is the crux of the associate retention problem in big firms. Maister nailed it, in my opinion. Associates view partnership as a distant, likely unattainable goal, perhaps even a goal they don’t want to attain. Firms offer money as the short-term benefit, “greedy associates†are born, and associates become eager to move on to the high bidder, to the firm where they can get the most short-term benefit, figuring that at some point they’ll end up in a firm where they can and will make partner — but that’s down the road after they’ve switched firms a few times. (Of course, there’s nothing that will motivate a lawyer toward money like facing $100K or more in law school debt, but that’s another thread.) According to a NALP study cited in “Law-Firm Life Doesn’t Suit Some Associates†(which I discussed here a couple of days ago), 60-62% of entry-level associates have left their firms by the end of the fourth years.
“What can law firms do to encourage good associates to stay? Create a sense of mutual loyalty. Pay attention to associates’ professional development, career satisfaction, and concern for the person. Make sure associates know that they’re not fungible, that they’re part of a team, that they contribute to something important. Help them recognize meaning in their work — and I’m not talking the do-gooder kind necessarily (though that often keeps lawyers working in public interest despite low pay, lack of resources, etc.), but the kind that comes from practicing an area of law that fits, taking on advancing responsibilities, receiving appropriate guidance that promotes professional growth. Say “thank you.â€
Finally, Rich, at CopywriteInk says, “Maister expertly paints an accurate, if not frightening, picture of business as usual today.”
“It is not uncommon for me to be told even by the most senor people that their firm’s impressive financial results have been accomplished by a management team which has consistently created an environment of fear and insecurity,†writes Maister. “The simplest explanation for the prevalence of this ‘abusive behavior’ is the simple fact that, in the right situation, it works!â€
Rich goes on to say:
“However, he distinguishes that such short-term work-under-fire tactics are exactly that — tactics that will eventually lose their effectiveness and eventually elicit resentment. In contrast, proactive, passionate, and positive management teams energize and excite people about what they do, which in turn becomes tangible in the way the workforce interacts with clients. Long term, applied wisdom will lead to better financial results.
“He’s right. As I’ve often advised agency owners, especially those who have an account executive background, negative reinforcement can teach mice to press a bar for cheese, but it never did anything for creativity. And even with mice, too much negative reinforcement will eventually immobilize them.
“My net assessment of Strategy And The Fat Smoker is that it provides some much needed advice for the increasingly fast-paced world of random transactions, especially those that occur online. Business, especially communication, is poised for a shift toward relationships that mean something, whether that means people to people or product to consumer.”
post # 470 — November 28, 2007 — a Careers, Managing post
There’s an interesting discussion this month in the print version of CONSULTING magazine about mentoring programs in consulting firms. What’s notable is how diverse the programs are. Some are highly structured, while others are based on encouraging mentees to seek out their own mentors among the senior staff.
One common element is the claim that senior people are evaluated on how well they develop their mentees. I wonder how real this is, and how much is just paying lip-service. I’m sure it’s on the list, but I don’t know how much weight is actually given to it. After all, senior people have lots of other things they are evaluated on.
Do any of you have experience being effectively mentored inside your firm? What were the key elements that made the mentoring program work well in your organization?
There are only a few key numbers to pay attention to in self-publishing, which means that each is very important.
First comes the book’s cover price. There are basically two main strategies that people follow here – stay in line with other mainstream books if you want a shot at a general audience, or consciously set out to extract a premium from the niche audience you are targetting.
I set my new book (STRATEGY AND THE FAT SMOKER) at the mainstream price of US$29.95
Next, you have to factor in the bookseller’s discount, which can be anywhere from 40% to 55% (Amazon requires the latter if you want your book available for pre-order before publication date.)
So now you have anywhere between $13.50 and $18.00 to cover production and distribution.
There are two main technologies today for this: print-on-demand (no inventory) and old-fashioned off-set printing where you choose a print run and store the books.
The prices for these two are still far apart: I was quoted $2.75 per (hardcover) copy for offset printing and $11.75 for print-on-demand. That’s a heck of a difference! The latter would basically have reduced my profit per book to close-to-zero after order processing and other distribution charges.
Not surprisingly, I went with off-set printing!
post # 468 — November 21, 2007 — a Managing post
In many professional businesses, high technical excellence is taken for granted – we assume that having it is “table stakes” for competing.
However, it’s not a trivial issue to ask whether and how a firm goes about ensuring that its employees in fact meet high standards of technical expertise, especially in a world where companies tend to signal that revenue generation is a more pressing (if not more important) topic.
Who is best positioned in a professional organization to judge an employee’s technical quality? I assume that it might be that person’s supervisor, but there could be some built-in conflicts: what if the supervisor is under economic pressure to meet group goals and hence compromise (a little) degrees of technical excellence?
I’m curious about your experience as to how your firm or company goes about ensuring technical excellence. Is it some combination of:
- Training
- On-the-job supervision
- Peer Review Processes at the Job Level
- Annual Performance Appraisals
- Reward schemes
Or something else?
post # 467 — November 20, 2007 — a Managing post
When working with clients on change initiatives, I notice that they have two widely different strategies for appointing the internal person to lead the project. In some cases, they appoint a “true believer” who really wants to see the change happen. In other cases, firms go out of their way to appoint a skeptic, so that only proposals that can overcome the skepticism emerge from the study task-force, and proposals are not made that will not be implemented.
As a consultant, it’s easier initially to work with a true believer, but the implementation success may be higher if a skeptic is appointed.
Does anyone have experience with this? if you were a company manager, who would you appoint to lead the charge on new strategic change intiatives?
My question to you and all your website contributors;
What have been people’s experiences with the strategy of targeting only working with one client per industry sector and deliberately broadcasting to the market that that is your “modus operandi”? It’s a bit clumsy, but, for example- “We guarantee our clients that we will not work for their competitors, thereby preserving exclusively for our clients, the commercial advantage of partnering with us”
I know the applicability may vary with the type of services one offers, but do others have any thoughts on this approach?
One of the most common topics I am asked to advise on is achieving distinctively high levels of client service. I find that many firms underestimate how tough a diet and exercise program (see STRATEGY AND THE FAT SMOKER) it would really take to pull this off.
Among the changes that most firms would need to make are:
- Adopting a culture that no longer allows people to “opt out†on the topic of client service excellence on the grounds that their skills lie elsewhere. A firm can’t get a reputation for something that not everyone does.
- Finding some way to monitor client feedback in real time (not just once a year) and make it credible to everyone that there will be a follow up for anything less than excellence.
- Providing training in client counseling skills
- Providing research support from the marketing department to help service delivery people stay current on client industries
- Enable sharing of experiences (workshops and workbooks) among practitioners on an ongoing basis to establish a continuous improvement approach to client satisfaction.
- Implement disciplined project management systems, including mandatory processes for communications strategies with clients mid-process.
- A systematic program of senior officer visits to clients to “role model” the firm’s commitment.
None of these approaches are new or innovative. (I first wrote about them in the 1980s, and I wasn’t the originator then) However, it is still my experience that firms are less than systematic in implementing a client service strategy.
What systems do you think are need to pull this strategy off? What else needs to be in the “change package?”
post # 464 — November 12, 2007 — a Managing post
A friend called recently and asked whether I thought the principles of managing professional service organizations applied in the not-for-profit sector.
It’s a complex question. Let’s start below the level of the organization and ask whether the principles of managing professionals (not the organization, but the people) differs between for-profit and not for profit.
I suspect that while the principles are the same (manage people through the opportunity for meaningful, challenging work) the actual practices are very different. The monetary dimension in the for-profit sector is both a blessing and a curse.
The blessing is that the availability of money allows generous rewards to be used to attract, motivate and retain talent. The curse is that financial rewards come to be used exclusively as the means to attract, motivate and retain talent.
In the for-profit sector, managers can “get away†with being poor managers, using money to cover up the absence of hands-on managerial skill. In the not-for-profit sector, the need for people management skills is unavoidable.
That’s only one dimension of the not-for-profit difference, but before carrying on with my analysis, let me get yours.
What do the rest of you think? What has your experience been?
I’m grateful to those bloggers that are reviewing STRATEGY AND THE FAT SMOKER.
Clarke Ching says “The book is full of great ideas. I’m just over half way through the book and I’ve had several “ah ha” moments already. If you’ve read any of David’s other books then you’ll lap this one up too.†However, Clarke goes on to stress that he would prefer an audiobook version (which is in the works.)
Brian Sommer writes: “But, we really need to give up our bad vices if we are to become healthier and live longer. And while we all know the logic why we should live differently, we still choose to do that most illogical and irrational of acts. Remember that whenever your company or your client insists that your firm should embark on a new strategy. No matter how rational and logical your arguments are for change, don’t be surprised if countless thousands fail to follow your lead. It’s at that juncture you’ll wish you’d read David’s new book.â€
Tom Collins says,”The uplifting message from Maister is that true believers can be helped and coached to achieve the excellence they desire. The problem is that there are so few true believers in leadership and management positions. If you are one of them, if you are a believer, if you think long term, if you believe that Passion, Principal and People are the path to excellence and that excellence is the only sound strategy, this is the book for you. Maister lays it out. He reinforces what you already believe in and gives you a checklist and guiding examples to become the best you can become.”
post # 462 — November 8, 2007 — a Client Relations post
Yesterday’s post was about whether relationship skills must be “found†by firms in their hiring process or whether they can be developed.
As I reported, about one-third of a conference of leading management consulting firms felt that these values, attitudes and/or skills are mostly “hired in†rather than developed once people have reached the age and stage of being hired by consulting firms.
Which raises these questions:
- How can firms screen for and identify relationship values, attitudes and skills?
- How, in fact, do they screen for them?
- Do formal testing approaches work?
- What about “behavioral interviewing†(I’m still not sure what that is!)
- Do you have to rely on the “take them out for a beer†test?
