In busy times there is also a temptation to let investments such as training take a back seat to getting the work out the door. Only adherence to the firm's principles and values prevents opportunisti...
In early Greek society, particularly in Athens, democracy meant the equivalent of a permanent town meeting—all decisions of consequence were made in public assembly. As many professional service firms...
It is important to note that while goods are consumed, services are experienced. The professional service provider is (or should be) as much in the business of managing the client’s experience with re...
It is ironic that a business in which the serving of clients depends so heavily on interpersonal psychology should be peopled with those who believe in the exclusive power of technical mastery. And
By starting with caring (working from the inside out), we open ourselves to possibilities and become willing to go where the client will take us. The skill or action behaviors can then fall on fertile...
Less formally, we consider the time it takes someone to return a phone call, whether meetings are canceled or kept, and whether to-do lists are completed. Reliability
Make specific commitments to your client around small things: getting that article by tomorrow, placing the call, writing the draft by Monday, looking up a reference. And then deliver on them, quietly...
Profitability will not come from managing hygiene factors alone: Future profitability depends on health as well—and firms’ methods of measuring, reporting, and managing need to reflect both.
Reliability in this largely rational sense is the repeated experience of links between promises and action.
A new $100,000 engagement can be very profitable, or be one that loses the firm a lot of money. Yet many firms reward partners for the volume of fees (top-line) that they bring in, not whether or not...
Send meeting materials in advance
Sincerity, the way we usually mean it, has to do with intentions; we assume it comes from within. But our clients have no way to observe sincerity except through external behaviors. From certain behav...
Speak with expression, not monotonically. Use body language, eye contact, and vocal range. Show the client you have energy around the subject at hand. 5.
Success, no matter how you define it, is attainable only by persuading another person-a boss, a client, a colleague, a subordinate, a friend or loved one-to give you what you want.
The attitude of exclusive professionalism (which restricts the label of professionalism to the advisor) manifests itself in a number of dysfunctional ways. It reinforces a misleading belief that the a...
The best service professionals excel at two things in conveying credibility: anticipating needs, and speaking about needs that are commonly not articulated. For
The firm exists to help its people succeed, not the other way round.
Are there any topics I should avoid because they are too delicate to discuss in a large forum? • Are there any topics on which the views of your colleagues are significantly divided? •
We try to elevate the empowerment of our people over the organizational niceties of structure and process except to the extent that those structural and process features work to empower our people
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