Review: Managing The Professional Service Firm

Managing The Professional Service Firm by David H. Maister
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was one of best business management books I have ever read so far. Although based on research articles published mainly back in the 1980s-1990s, it is a priceless collection of well-structured thoughts on how to manage people, clients and organisation of a company providing professional services (such as law practice, accounting, management consulting, custom software development, training etc).

There are so many questions discussed that a manager of a professional service firm (or a business unit) faces on an everyday basis. Almost every chapter has some eye-opening observations and conclusions. Here is a selection of some:

How clients choose a service provider?
It is inherently uncomfortable experience – and it is important to be emphatic towards your (potential) clients.

What a buyer looks for in a service provider?
Someone who listens, who is sensitive, helpful and is well prepared.

How to predispose your client towards selecting you as a service provider again and again?
Through building personal relationship, going the extra mile in the assignments you do, constantly investing into own asset building.

"Above all else, what I, the client, am looking for, is that rare professional who has both technical skill and sincere desire to be helpful, to work with both me and my problem.”

What is a good marketing?
It should be a seduction, not an assault. Instead of screaming “Hire me!” it should attract clients by doing something that causes them to want to take the next step (such as telling you about their problems).

How to manage smart professionals?
They are people getting bored easily and they are always seeking out new challenges. One therefore needs to constantly satisfy their drive for the new, the unfamiliar, the challenging.

What kind of a leader is best for a professional service firm?
Someone who is a good coach. The only truly effective way to influence people is an one-on-one, highly individualised counselling.

What is a source of motivation of highly intelligent people one works with?
How highly motivated I am to fulfil some task depends on whether I can see where the challenge in the work lies, and whether or not I feel that piece of work is a “worthy” application of my talents.

How to create strategy for a professional service firm?
Professional marketplaces are too changeable and fluid to “bet the firm” on a single vision of the future. Besides, most analytical exercises on “where the market is going” tend to result in firms reaching the same (obvious) conclusions as their competitors. Rather, the goal is to create the responsive organisation.

What one can learn from the best organisations in its class?
These firms create an atmosphere of a special, private club where people feel that “we do things differently around here, and most of us couldn’t consider working anywhere else.

„While all professional firms will assert that they have the best professionals in town, those firms claim they have the best firm in town, a subtle but important difference.“

How to make a firm truly collaborative?
Groups don’t cooperate, people do. If some person has worked with another person in another unit, there is a greater chance that help with be forthcoming. Hence, firms should create opportunities for individuals to get to know each other and work together.