When Professionals Have to Lead: A New Model for High Performance

This is a fantastic read on professional service firms (PSFs). I've read most of David Maister's content on the subject which is primarily from the 90s. This volume gives a much needed update to the management thinking behind PSFs. I am a practicing professional engineer in the consulting realm and I highly recommend this book. I'm not quite done reading it but here are a few of the highlights for me:Most of the information here is qualitative in nature (few statistics and graphs) but it's obvious that the authors are speaking from experience in researching a numbers of PSFs. The authors have been very active in researching management science behind PSFs and training through the Harvard executive education series on PSFs and their experience shows through. One thing I like is that the book is concise yet packed full of good tidbits. I can't stand it when authors draw out the same point over hundreds of pages just to make a long book. This book it pithy and straight-forward. I like to read a chapter then put it down and reflect on the content.The book makes some great points about managing a PSF in the 21st century. They speak about relentless competition and price transparency with clients as well as the trend toward commoditization of services. Just like other industries, it is very difficult to create and maintain competitive advantage in today's marketplace. The book gives plenty of tips on how to protect against this phenomenon.The book takes a couple of chapters just to describe characteristics of PSF employees. Employee skills and professional development are important for all companies but they are especially important for PSFs because they are selling the expertise of their professionals. There are lots of implications in here about employee retention which are great. I've seen firms crumble from the inside out if they can't challenge and retain their professionals.All in all, highly recommended.

Good starter book but there is so much more out there on running a successful PSF (Profesional Services Firm), but it is definitely worth reading.

Although the nature of professional services is changing, with firms experiencing greater internal demands from professionals and greater external demands from clients, the majority of leaders are using old frameworks and ways of thinking to fashion makeshift behaviours to meet the new challenges, according to Thomas DeLong, John Gabarro and Robert Lees in this book. The book provides a new framework for leading and managing professional services firms, called the integrated leadership model.The new model proposed by the authors consists of four interrelated sets of leadership activities:* Setting direction, which involves articulating the firm's objectives and how the work of professionals relates to those objectives* Gaining commitment to the direction, which is necessary to make professionals feel involved and included* Execution, which involves follow-through and accountability to ensure that financial goals are met and people do what they promise to do* Setting a personal example, which requires the leader to embody the firm's stated values and goalsWhile I thoroughly agree with the importance of these four sets of activities, I am left wondering whether there is anything particularly new about them. I would have thought that these have always been important activities for successful leadership of a professional services firm.The book contains chapters on why professional service firms require a different style of management from that required by product-producing businesses, using segmentation to respond to commoditisation pressures, the importance of strategic differentiation, how to motivate and develop high achievers, and the important role played by professionals who are "solid performers" rather than stars.The book's title refers to the fact that professionals are often not well equipped for leadership in a firm. It is often quite confronting for a newly-promoted professional to be faced with the demands and opposition of erstwhile friendly colleagues. I expected the book to deal more extensively with this problem, including in particular how to identify the best candidates for leadership positions and how professionals can work towards acquiring a suitable range of leadership skills.Notwithstanding these minor issues, in my opinion the book makes a valuable contribution to the field of professional services firm management, and is useful reading for anyone in or aspiring to a professional services firm leadership role.

Some useful and interesting nuggets in here. The concept of B-players is worth pondering. However, the writing/editing of this book really gets in the way. Be prepared to sift through similar paragraphs or stories repeated in multiple chapters.

As a consultant to department Chairs in Medical Schools; CEOs of large medical group practices; and partner/leaders of a Big 4 consulting firm, my consistent experience has been that the barriers to aligning incentives to leverage the power of teams are almost insurmountable. Most of the leaders I have worked with have relied on a combination of relatively impotent fear tactics (i.e 'do this or else...) or cajolery (i.e. 'c'mon Jack, take one for the team...) that rarely drive persistent change or significant results.When Professionals Have to Lead integrates credible research into the root causes of the obstacles to teamwork and presents clear, actionable strategies that enable leaders to make the business case for why enhanced team performance (and incentives) will benefit all of the reluctant players. As importantly, the authors provide solutions related to core competencies and creation of a common purpose for senior teams rare in the mush of writing on teamwork. Given the gnat like attention span of most of my clients, I rarely advise reading in excess of 3 pages. This book is the exception. I read it in a single sitting and wish I had written it.Daniel J. AndersonHard [email protected]

David Maister war der Klassiker der 80er Jahre. Inzwischen wiederholt er sich nur noch. Dieses Buch hier ist der Klassiker der Neueit. Ein eher schmales Buch, das einen guten Überblick über den Stand der Dinge gibt. Lesenswert ist es wegen der Themen zum Integrierten Leadership und zur Commoditisation von Beratungsdienstleistungen. Ich finde, das Buch ist Pflichtlektüre für alle diejenigen, die in Professional Service Firms arbeiten.