How's Your Mood?

In the article I published on my website last Friday entitled It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Much You Want It.

I argued that the key to the success of individuals and firms is the level of drive and determination that they have.

As a follow up, here is the scale I use when I am running meetings. I put the following alternatives up on a screen and ask everyone to tell me what percentage of the people they know in the organisation fit into each of these categories. (It works much better if you have anonymous voting machines, which I use a lot.)

1. Burned out
2. Jaded, Cynical, Sceptical
3. Bored or Complacent
4. Dutiful
5. Satisfied
6. Hopeful
7. Interested
8. Intrigued
9. Enthused and Excited
10. Passionate and Energetic

I don't have enough research to report reliable averages to you here, but I can tell you some general patterns.

First, if you ask people to use this scale and tell you how their employee / subordinates are feeling those higher up in the organisation always give much higher ratings about how the subordinates feel than the subordinates do themselves. Those on top routinely underestimate the disaffection of those below.

Second, people tend to rate themselves more highly than they rate their peers (ie how excited are you right now versus how excited are you colleagues?)

I'm not entirely sure what this means, but I have learned that people tend to exaggerate their own dynamism, and they are skeptical about the engagement of their peers. Which is the truth I don't know, but I'm always suspicious about what people tell you about themselves -- my slogan is that what you think of yourself is always irrelevant data. What everyone else thinks of you is going to influence things much more.

Anyway, you can probably guess where the overall trends seem to be. Every organisation talks about delivering on exciting careers for its people, inspiring them with its vision and so on forever. My polling data suggests that most firms have a ways to go.

What's your mood right now?

Why Business Schools Cannot Develop Managers

This past Saturday I participated in the 7th Annual MIT Sloan Leadership Conference. My topic was the title of this blog: why business schools cannot develop managers.

This is not a new topic for me. As I have often reported, I have every business degree the planet has to offer. Yet at the end of all that I knew quite a lot about business and nothing about managing.

"Business" as a subject (and a degree program) is all about things of the logical, rational, analytical mind: Mike Porter's five forces, the numerous P's of marketing, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, etc, etc. It's about knowledge.

Managing, on the other hand, is a skill, and has nothing to do with rationality, logic, IQ or intelligence. It's a simple issue of whether or not you can influence individuals or organisations to accomplish something. It's about influencing people, singly or in groups (or in hordes.) No amount of intelligence will help if you are not able to interact with people and get the response you desire. (Believe me, I have experienced the difference. I know a lot about management from my education. That doesn't mean I'm any good at doing it.)

And of course, this is not accomplished by taking a college course in psychology, sociology, anthropology or any other "ology" where we sit around and intellectualise about "human resources" but never have to actually deal with a real live human being. (It reminds me of the Linda Ronstadt / Dolly Parton / Emmylou Harris song which contains the line -- you don't know what a man is until you have to please one!)

To help people develop as managers doesn't mean discussing management (or even worse -- leadership), but rather requires putting people through a set of processes where they have to experience it, try it out, and develop their emotional self-control and interactive styles.

MBAs are not getting the right education for management, although in developing their analytical skills the business schools are perfect for developing consultants, investment bankers and other professionals, as evidenced by where their graduates actually go. Henry Mintzberg, a professor at McGill has recently published a book -- Managers not MBAs -- which makes many related points.

There's also a misunderstanding going on with executive education. Many large professional firms, in an attempt to develop their own managers, are linking up with prominent business schools to train their partners in management. The partners may be learning about business, but when it comes to managing it's a case of the blind leading the blind. If you want to get experience (or even understanding) of how people actually respond and function, individually and in groups, it's not clear that a group of scholars who are super-intelligent but have never actually managed anyone are the best providers of that service. Firms would be better off hiring the Dale Carnegie trainers.

The title of my blog may be too pessimistic. I found out that, at MIT, there is a course which put students through a simulation of a Bosnian peace-keeping force, and another in which students have to learn and put on a production of Shakespeare's Henry V as an exercise in teamwork. These are creative and encouraging signs. I wish I had been required to take part in and occasionally lead such group projects during my education. It would have been nice to make my mistakes there instead of in more high-profile, high risk and career-threatening situations.

But such approaches remain the exception rather than the rule, and, I suspect, are still being designed and conducted by faculty who were specifically selected for their interest in things of the mind -- intellectuals who predisposition is to draw analytical lessons from the experience, rather than to help people hone practical skills. Business schools are becoming MORE scholarly places as the years go by, not less.

I'm not saying business schools don't do wonderful things for people (and perhaps to them.) I'm very grateful for what my education did for me, and proud of the institutions I was affiliated with. I just don't think any of it had anything to do with making me a better manager -- or much of one at all.

Self Promotions -- new careers podcast

While learning to network is essential to your success, it is difficult for many of us (myself included!) to get comfortable with the topic of promoting ourselves.

In a previous Business Masterclass podcast episode, Cultivate the Habits of Friendship, I offered some thoughts on one slice of this topic by arguing that each one of us does indeed need to develop what I called friendship skills -- the ability to earn relationships and build our network of people with whom we have sincere friendly relations.

In today's podcast, Self Promotions, I dig deeper into this topic, examining why self-promoting and networking are sometimes the hardest thing for professionals to do, and exploring tips and techniques you can use to get past your resistance and tap into your potential for success in self-promotions in any context.

Timeline

00:48 -- Two examples of self-promotion from opposite ends of the spectrum
01:08 -- The common awkward approach to self-promotion
01:46 -- The alternative effective approach you can model
02:22 -- How our personality affects our own self-promotion
04:11 -- A short quiz on self-promotion
05:06 -- VistageConsulting.com readers on self-promotion
05:12 -- Joerg Weisner on going against childhood conditioning
05:51 -- Bryan I. Schwartz on the fine line at the end of humility
06:18 -- Jordan Furlong on acting with class
07:53 -- Heidi Ehlers on belief in a product or service as the fuel for promotion
09:21 -- Shaula Evans on the analogy between self-promotion and cold calls
12:27 -- Deborah Katz Solomon on offers vs requests
13:41 -- Steve Roesler on delegating promotions to an expert

You can download Self Promotion or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

Welcome Malcolm Gladwell

Now it gets classy. Malcolm Gladwell (author of The Tipping Point and Blink) has begun to blog here

People used to say they would listen to anything Dylan, the Beatles or Elvis recorded -- my version is that I want to read anything Gladwell chooses to write. Welcome, sir!

The Brutal Truth About Other People

There are some wonderful people, clients and firms out there. If you're lucky, you'll spend your whole working life with them. However, unless you are very, very lucky, you're going to encounter some (or all) of the following --

• People drunk on power
• An incompetent superior
• Ungrateful bosses
• and clients
• People who don't share your values
• Colleagues who act like competitive jerks
• Organisations where no-one will look out for your career
• People out to make a buck, and who will do anything to get it
• Cynics and sceptics who are hard to energise (about anything)
• People who won't trust you, and are themselves untrustworthy.
• Incompetent colleagues with whom you'll have to work anyway
• A boss who cares only about what you produce, and not about you
• People and organisations characterised by inertia and the fear of action.
• Superiors and clients who place unreasonable demands on you (e.g. last-minute requests or demands to work over the weekend)
• People who look after themselves alone, inconsiderate of the needs and interests of others
• Hypocrites who say they are dedicated to certain things, then act exactly opposite to them.
• Clients or customers who seem to care only about price, and treat you like a vendor
• Organisations that tolerate egregiously bad behaviour from those around you, in the name of making money.
• People who will say bad things about you behind your back, much of it unfair and false

The question, then, is -- How do navigate your way through this minefield? I'm assuming, of course, that you're not one of the types described in the list above!

Broadly, you have two choices. You can become a defensive, suspicious, cynical person, or you can learn to get people to treat you right and give you chances, even where that is not their first instinct.

Without idealism or morality, I have been led to the conclusion that the first approach, matching the negativity of your environment, is self-defeating and self-destructive. By being negative, you only serve to reinforce the suspicions of those who show the behaviours above.

The minute you are non-cooperative, or withdrawn, or do only what you have to, people get a clear message about you that only serves to make them feel they were right in their behaviour.

The second path, being optimistic, energetic, reaching out to people to form relationships, may not always work, but it's the best shot you've got at eliciting the response you want and need to live an enjoyable and fulfilling work life.

Of course you don't let yourself be exploited. If people don't reciprocate, you walk. Life's too short to work with or for idiots.

There is a textbook theory wich backs up this principle of behaviour. It's called "Tit for Tat" and it goes as follows -- always start by being nice, and then treat the other person the way they treated you last time. If they were nice, be nice back. If they were uncooperative, give them a taste of their own medicine.

Escalating Appeals

What do you say to someone on your team who is not in compliance with your standards? (for example, he or she doesn't get involved in marketing, doesn't treat people with respect, doesn't show up to meetings on time.) What appeals can you make to them that might tempt them into cooperating?

Here's a list of possibilities.

1. The Personal Request -- Do it as a favor to me. I'll owe you one.
2. The Ego Protection Ploy -- You'll look bad in the eyes of others.
3. The Team Play Appeal -- It's important to the team.
4. The Fun Promise -- You'll enjoy it once you start doing it.
5. The Isolation Gambit -- You don't want to be the odd person out.
6. The Guilt Plea -- You're a better person than that.
7. The Values Volley -- It's consistent with what you believe in.
8. The Perspective Point -- It will pay off for you in the long run.
9. The Have Mercy Message -- Other people will suffer if you don't.
10. The Contractual Comeback -- You agreed to this when we discussed it.
11. The Principle Principle -- It's the right thing to do.
12. The Context Framer -- When you do this, it has the following consequences for others.
13. The Achievement Temptation -- You could get good at this if you wanted to.
14. The Recognition Response -- People will really think highly of you if you do this.
15. The Desperation Resort -- Do It and We'll Pay You (We promise.)

Anybody out there have an opinion on which of these work most often? Least often?

Which ones have I forgotten to list?

What Does it Take to be Truly Great?

Jim Collins' book Good to Great is now (deservedly) one of the all-time best-selling business books and I think it is essential reading. Collins has just published a follow-up booklet Good to Great in the Social Sector, about governments and non-profits, and reading it has forced me to reflect on the great and not-so-great professional businesses I have seen. (Charlie Ellis, the founder of Greenwich Associates, the financial sector research firm and now at Yale, is writing a book on this topic.)

There are relatively few generally-accepted, consensus nominees for truly great (not just good) professional firms. When I ask people to suggest candidates for this title (other than their own firm) I tend to receive lots of nominations for the usual cast of characters (McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, etc) but rarely detect broad agreement.

People I talk to seem to associate true distinctiveness to particular periods of different firm's history, i.e. certain eras. There is widespread consensus that Ogilvy & Mather was great in the David Ogilvy years, as was the Leo Burnett agency when the man himself was at the helm. However, without implying any lack of respect for subsequent leaders, the consensus of outsiders doesn't seem to be that they have been truly distinctive since.

The same might be said of McKinsey. Insiders may know differently, but the outside perspective is that true greatness coincided with the Marvin Bower years. (I'm sure the insiders find this very annoying, if they care at all what outside observers think!) Similar things are said about Goldman Sachs: the glory years, according to the outside perspective were either those when Sidney Weinberg was crafting and sustaining the culture, or when John Weinberg and John Whitehead were transforming the firm. Many observers are watching closely to see if, having gone public, Goldman can sustain the characteristics that made it so admired.

The Great Man or Woman theory of professional firm excellence (if there is any validity to it) could go as follows. True excellence only comes if you find the courage to resist temptations and stay true to your strategies, business vision and principles of operation. If one person with strong convictions can be allowed to lead, consistency in implementing the strategies, vision and principles can be achieved and the firm can become distinctive.

However, the theory might argue, as hard as this first level of individual courage is to achieve (and it is truly hard) it is a yet more monumental achievement to institutionalise a courageous culture that will adhere to strategies, vision and principles through thick and thin. Can guardianship of these things be successfully entrusted to succeeding generations if the next generation does not have a singular leader who enshrines the culture? Can it be achieved by designing processes that are self-sustaining and which correct for deviations when temptations lure individuals or the firm off the chosen path?

I must rush to observe that all this may be nonsense. After all, the focus on specific individuals as creators and sustainers of famous professional firm cultures may just be a misconception created by our desire to find heroes. Firms like McKinsey, Goldman and Ogilvy have all done very well indeed in the years since their original charismatic leaders achieved their fame or notoriety, and the outsiders' perspective (including my own) may be biased towards wanting to find individuals to celebrate. Jim Collins' conclusion, in the Good to Great book, is that the great firms have leaders who are ambitious for the firm but who are NOT personally ambitious or in need of the glory.

Since professional firms do not disclose the kind of information that is available on the publicly-held corporations that Jim Collins studied, it's very hard to be scientific about all this. Even the definition of (or characteristics of) truly distinctive, great firms is hard to provide. For what it's worth, here are some of my (far-from-final) thoughts.

First, I don't think you can create a sustainable, ongoing great firm unless there is a broadly-held sense of stewardship, with each partner or senior officer feeling that they do not own the firm in perpetuity, but hold it in trust to be passed on in better shape to the next generation. Anything other than this culture will fail to build an institution that can live on.

Second, most of the candidates I hear about to be identified as great firms are "class acts" -- they are classy people driven by principles. They are honourable, noble, idealists who you would trust with your kids or your aged grandparents. Left unobserved, they'll do the right thing. I don't think you can build a lasting institution with anything less.

Third, I suspect that there may be more truly great firms among the small-to-midsize firms, but we observers always get tempted to discuss the mega-firms. This may be limiting our definition of what it means to be great -- does being truly distinctive mean you have to be big? There may be a lot to learn by changing the focus of our lens.

Finally, I wonder whether a firm has to be at the high-price leading edge of its profession to be deemed to be great? In its prime, and for decades, McDonalds was considered in business circles to be a great firm, but obviously was never high-cuisine or high-price. Is there an equivalent in the professions? Can't you serve the middle market and be great? Or are we in the professions too snooty to concede this?

If you want to join in the discussion, comment here or send me an email. Points to ponder -- who do you think are the truly distinctive professional firms? Who has sustained this distinctiveness through generations of leadership? If you have candidates, how did they pull off this challenging accomplishment?

What Kind of Provider Are You? -- new careers podcast episode

Stop and ask yourself: over the course of your career, what will you be recognised for? At any given point in your career, there is a need both to understand what kind of role you are specialising in, and, if you wish to progress, how the skills for the next role in your career differ from those that brought you to where you are.

This week's podcast episode, What Kind of Provider Are You?, discusses a paradigm of four distinctive roles you may play on your path to greatness: the Pharmacist, the Nurse, the Brain Surgeon, and the Family Doctor; along with a guide for how to pick the best role for yourself, and how to nurture your resulting competitive advantage.

Timeline

• 00:43 -- 5 critical career distinction points
• 02:25 -- The 4-role model: Pharmacist, Nurse, Brain Surgeon, Family Doctor
• 02:57 -- The Pharmacist
• 06:12 -- The Nurse
• 07:46 -- The Brain Surgeon
• 08:53 -- The Family Doctor
• 10:08 -- Towards a deeper understanding of the differences between these important roles
• 13:23 -- The importance of focusing on your competitive advantage
• 17:17 -- How to determine which role is for you

You can download What Kind of Provider Are You? or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

Partnerships and Equity Shares

I received the following question about the economic structuring of a professional business: "Although legally a corporation, our firm is run as a partnership. Each year we pay out all our profits to the partner/owners. Should we consider retaining our earnings and using an equity plan as part of our compensation plan?"

Equity plans are not traditional among large professional firms, although there is a growing interest in them. Like the professions of accounting and law, most consultants earn their reward from the income they derive while practicing, and not from capital appreciation. In most tax jurisdictions there is little attractiveness in retaining cash inside the firm unless there is a significant, real investment purpose.

There are at least six reasons that I have heard for considering an equity plan:

1) The LONG-TERM-THINKING reason. If principals can share in the increasing value of the firm, they may be led into more long-term thinking, and more willing to support long-term firmwide investments. I consider this to be the most powerful reason to have an equity plan.

2) The TAX reason -- create a vehicle for firm principals to convert income to capital gains. Naturally, whether this is feasible depends on the jurisdiction in which you operate.

3) The RETENTION reason -- create an incentive for valuable people to remain with the firm. Equity is is an effective means of structuring a deferred compensation plan, but it is not the only means to do so.

4) The TEAMWORK reason -- create institutional behaviour and teamwork. If all principals have a stake in the value of the overall firm, it can be argued that collaboration is more likely. It should be noted that the teamwork effect can be obtained without using equity by structuring a compensation system based on current income (e.g. by tying rewards less to individual results and more to collective firmwide results.)

5) The MOTIVATION FOR JUNIORS reason -- by allowing for ownership, "partnership" can be made more attractive. (I find this reason less than compelling: the more reliance is placed upon the equity value of the firm, the harder it will be for juniors to buy in. While the other reasons for an equity plan may be convincing, this one is not.)

6) The SUCCESSION reason -- equity allows the current principals to capture the institutional value they create, without "giving it away" to newly admitted owners or partners. In principle, this should encourage the current principals to be more open in admitting new principals, thus promoting the growth and dynamism of the firm.

It is most common to find the use of equity in professional businesses with extensive investments in tools, methodologies, and systems, so that the value rendered to clients is not only the skills of the specific professionals on the job, but also the accumulated wisdom, experience and knowledge of the firm as a whole. This extra value creates a "surplus value" in the firm above and beyond the contributions of individuals, and it is appropriate that this value be captured (and owned) through the use of equity. Therefore, owned firms (particularly those owned in whole or in part by outsiders) tend to offer the more procedural, mature services.

In firms practicing at the creative frontier, where each job is unique, there is less value in the firm itself, and it is hard for anyone to own the firm. Thus, it is most common to find that the elite firms in each profession do not use equity as a primary reward vehicle. If it is used at all, elite firms tend to have an "In-and-out-at-book-value" equity system. New principals buy their shares at book value, and sell (when they depart) also at book-value. While this allows for some capital appreciation (it captures the value of firms investments) it rarely allows for the size of capital gains obtainable in the corporate sector.

Some well-known firms do have equity plans which differ from "In-and-out-at-book." One prominent firm prices its equity by having a valuation performed by an external valuation company every year (!) However, it should be noted that valuing a consultiung company is more art than science. External valuation firms usually rely on "benchmarking" value against equivalent firms to arrive at their valuations, but this is difficult in consulting since so few firms are either publicly traded or otherwise have their financials in the public domain.

I am suspicious about those equity plans I have seen which value equity at multiples of revenue (usually close to one times revenue). These create an incentive to grow the firm almost independent of profits, and lead to a diffusion of strategic identity. Even those plans which value equity at multiples of profit (or, more commonly, the average of profits in the latest three years) can lead to more short-term thinking as pressure builds to show short-term profit gains.

I am also nervous about valuations based on discounting future cash flow. The buyer of such stock would already be paying for projected earnings, and would see a return only if profits were to exceed that projected level. Personally, I would be nervous about buying such a stock, whether as an insider or outsider. Too many ownership transitions have been made at a premium of book and have left the remaining firm burdened with excessive debt. I like to say that the existing owners can either make a lot of money (value the stock at full discounted cash-flow value) or they can leave behind a viable institution. They can rarely do both.

For these reasons, I am most comfortable with an equity system which is "In-and-out-at-book." It allows for the concept of equity, and ensures that the value of firm investments are not lost to individuals but reflected in the stock price. It also makes it easier for new principals to be admitted at a reasonable cost to them without the existing principals having to "give away the shop." Such systems, in my view, maximise the ongoing viability of the firm.

I would make one final recommendation. Since there is always the chance that the firm will be bought by an outsider, I would include "recapture" provisions in the partnership agreement or terms of incorporation. If a succeeding generation of principals who bought stock at book were to subsequently sell the firm for a market premium, then the past owners should have the right (for say, 5 to 10 years) to participate in that premium.

The Managing Partner's Speech

In case your managing partner is in need of a speech, here's one I wrote for the leader of a large, national professional firm who asked me what he should say upon his election to the role. (I wrote it more than 10 years ago, and just found it in my files.)

TO: The Partners
FROM: The Managing Partner
SUBJECT: Our Visionary Mission, and our Missionary Vision

Our firm, like our best competitors, is aiming at familiar goals. We want to be the best, and perceived by our clients as such. We want to be innovative, and at the frontier of identifying and responding to the needs of both global and middle market clients. We want to capitalise on the latest technological developments. We want our clients to receive from us an unmatched level of client service.

In addition to all this, we want our firm to be a place that provides professional fulfillment and personal growth opportunities for each and every one of our partners, non-partners and staff. We believe that doing these things will make us one of the most profitable firms in our profession.

Little, if any of this, is new, and little, if any, is much different from our best competitors. If we are to outperform them, what we need is not a better vision, but a better approach to making it happen. We will succeed not by aiming at different targets than our best competitors, but by devising better ways to reach those same targets. We must develop and adhere strictly to sound philosophies: ways of doing business, ways of dealing with our clients, our staff and each other.

In sum, what we must find agreement on is not our destination, but a way of conducting our affairs. We must design systems to ensure that we are living up to our principles.

In what follows, therefore, I have not attempted to picture what the firm will look like in 5 or 10 years. Rather, I have tried to convey the philosophies I hold about how we should behave as individuals and as a firm. If we follow these principles, we will achieve our goals. If we do not, then we will fail.

As I prepared these thoughts, I have tried to avoid being inspirational. These are the principles I live by, and intend to apply in executing my responsibilities. By sharing these beliefs with you, I am making you a promise that these are the principles I will operate by -- and I expect you to hold me accountable for them. If I depart from these principles, let me know -- in person, in a letter, or even, if necessary, in an anonymous note. But let me know!

I do not expect that all of you will necessarily agree with everything I have to say. That's OK, and we should talk about it. But what is here is what I truly believe. You have the right to know where I am coming from, and how I am likely to react when you ask for my views on issues as they arise.

For better or for worse, then, this is what I believe.

On the Role of the Partner

Since clients hire people, not firms, our success will be built a partner at a time. That means that what really matters is not "firm strategies", but personal career-development strategies for each partner. If, and only if, each partner is finding some way to make himself/herself more valuable on the marketplace each year, then the firm will succeed.

In turn, this means that the role of the firm is to help each individual grow as a professional. The firm exists to help the partners (and staff) succeed, not the other way round. However, it also means that the firm has the right to expect each partner to develop a personal development plan, and to hold that partner accountable for the execution of that plan.

In this profession, the need for personal development is life-long. The minute you begin to cruise, to rely on skills learned last year, that's the moment you begin your decline. All of us, from the 30-year-old's to the 60-year old's must constantly be asking "What new skills can I acquire?". And the firm has the right to ask that same question of you.

My experience has taught me that success comes not to those who swing for the fences every time at bat, but those who commit themselves to a continuous program of constant improvement, base-hit by base-hit.

There are many ways to make yourself more valuable on the market: intellectual leadership, better client counselling skills, greater ability to run large projects, and so on. But one stands above all else: specialised industry knowledge. Regardless of your discipline, and your command of it, I believe that each and every partner should have one or more industries that they know in depth, to the level that the clients perceive you as up-to-date in their industry as they are. There is no better way, in my view, for each of us to succeed than for every one of us to declare a specific industry specialisation.

Partners, in my view, have five key responsibilities, and should expect to be held accountable for all of them. First, and foremost, partners must satisfy their clients, and we should be vigorous in establishing mechanisms which ensure this is happening. Second, partners running engagements are responsible for building skills in themselves and others, for adding to the human capital of the firm. We sell skill and talent, not time. We should devise tracking mechanisms to allow partners to see how well they are fulfilling this responsibility.

Third, partners have a responsibility to contribute to the economic success of the firm by running their engagements profitably, and constantly seeking out ways to improve the economics of their work. We must learn to be efficient in the use of our resources, and vigorous in tracking how well we are using them. Each partner owes us all the responsibility of managing well not only our fee levels, but the costs to the firm in delivering our services.

Fourth, all partners should participate in some way to developing our practice by attracting and winning quality new business that allows us to be in the flow of stretching, learning, growing assignments.

This does not mean just getting more business, it means getting better business, and we should establish procedures to judge not only the volume of our business, but its nature. Our goal should not be to chase any and all new business, but to get more than our fair share of the best business. Being big is not our goal, being best is. When you hear from me, expect to hear more questions about the quality and nature of what you're doing than how much you are doing.

In the pursuit of quality new business, everyone should play a role. Some will do it directly through selling and proposal efforts, others through writing articles, others through deep involvement with existing clients and their affairs. But each one of us must play some part in the improvement of our practice through attracting interesting, challenging new work.

Last, but not least, every partner has a responsibility to contribute to the success of others. We are a partnership, and not a collection of solo operators (or independent offices) trading under the same brand name. If the firm is to achieve its goal of helping each partner succeed, then we must help eachother. Each partner should be able, each year, to point to some specific contribution to the success of others. This might be bringing in work for others to do, it might be developing methodologies or technical ideas that others can use, it might be transferring your skill to others by coaching. But one way or another, we each must do something if we are to be a firm.

The same requirement to contribute to the success of others should (and will be) applied in judging the success of practice units, offices, and disciplines. Any group that focuses only on its own results and does not help others will not be judged a success.

On Accountability

If someone has accepted a responsibility, and agreed upon a goal, then we should get out of their way and let them do it. None of us should wait to be told what to do, or how to do it. We should expect each of our partners to exercise greater judgment. That doesn't mean abdication. It means that we should agree on clear goals, and put in place clear accountability (result) tracking systems, and give individuals the freedom and the responsibility to figure out how to get there, giving assistance only when it is asked for. We must not micromanage.

On Rewards

In judging performance, we must be thorough in conducting performance appraisals which focus on non-financial as well as financial objectives, and we must be vigorous in ensuring that each partner receives in-depth feedback, assistance and coaching on performance.

On Management

We do not have room in our firm for people in managerial positions who spend their time on administration. We need managers, but not to play cop or boss. I believe that the job of a manager or practice leader is to help other partners succeed. Management is a responsibility, not a reward. We must not glorify those who occupy "positions", but choose the person most skilled at managerial duties, and reward them only if they are effective managers.

Managers should be deeply involved in client affairs, not necessarily by being the lead partner on their own engagements, but by spending significant time on client relations with clients of the office, by being a practical source of help on other partners' assignments, and participating in practice development activities.

Managers should also be deeply involved with the activities of the partners in the office. They should be available to resolve issues, form teams, provide assistance and make it easier for partners to focus on their clients. Managers and other practice leaders should be hassle-absorbers, not hassle creators.

We must devise methods to ensure that our Managers operate in these ways, and truly add value. All of us must be willing to be accountable for performing our respective roles well. If client partners are to be held accountable for their performance (financial and non-financial), the same must be true of those asked to accept managerial responsibilities.

On Clients and What They Want

I believe that clients can make few distinctions on the technical capabilities of the best firms, and place great emphasis on the ability of the individual partner to enter their world, relate to them in their language, talk to them about their business. We will never succeed by being technicians alone, no matter how high our level of technical skill. Clients want us to know their business. They want us to be interested in them.

On My Style

I like to be decisive. I have learned that we can often live with a bad decision, but we are certain to be hurt by no decision. I am willing to take risks, and to encourage and reward risk-taking. Call me on that if I depart from it.

I like to ask "What new things have you tried lately?" -- only by trying new things will we get better.

I like to be consultative. That doesn't mean unanimity, or even consensus. It means soliciting views, asking a lot of questions, and then deciding. I like to hear other people's opinions. Don't let me behave any other way.

I don't like to launch things that I'm not prepared to follow through on. If I'm involved on an initiative, expect me to monitor it carefully -- and let me know if I don't. I don't make promises I can't keep -- you should fire me if I don't live up to that promise.

I like to be straight and tell the truth, and I like to be told the truth. I want to hear the bad news, if there is any, and I want to hear it early enough for me to try to help, and do something about it. Life's too short for politics and games playing.

I believe in extensive communications between management and partners, in both directions. This will mean meeting with clients and partners frequently. Keep me honest on this one, and let me know if what I'm doing is insufficient.

Summary

That's not all I believe, but it's enough for now. I hope you found these thoughts of interest, and of help. If not, well then, ... yes, you've got it. Let me know!

So, that's the speech I suggested he make. (Of course, he never did.) What speech components do YOU think new managing partners should include?

Lessons from a Natural Manager -- new careers podcast episode

As a business consultant, it has been my job to teach people how to be effective managers, and how to build successful businesses. Dyelry (Jerry) Labbate, the manager of the exercise gym I attend in downtown Boston, seems to have figured the art of managing out on his own.

My latest podcast episode, A Natural Manager, explores crucial lessons on effective management from the Jerry's intuitive managerial approach.

All these lessons apply in other workplaces, even among highly paid people with advanced degrees in glamorous professions (though they don't always like to admit it).

Timeline

00:51 -- A brief professional history
02:23 -- Essential hiring practices
05:25 -- The importance of clarity in employee training
08:13 -- Structuring monthly meetings with your team
10:33 -- Dealing with underperformers
13:05 -- Takeaway lessons from a natural manager

You can download Learning to Manage or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Principle

I keep meeting (and getting emails from) people asking whether or not I would advise them to stay with firms that operate on principles contrary to those they believe in. I have written and spoken about this before, but I'll elaborate here because I plan to make a full length article of this one day. As always, I eagerly solicit reactions.

Albert O. Hirschman wrote a very famous book called Exit Voice and Loyalty, (Harvard University Press, 1970) basically saying that an individual has three choices -- quit, speak out, or go along.

I can't say what's right for everyone, because I don't know how much people are prepared to sacrifice and how hard they are prepared to work for what they want. If I don't think the organisation I am in acts on principles I believe in, I'll vote for exit every time, because speaking out will get you killed and loyalty to something you view with distaste is not something anyone should be prepared to do with their life.

Would I ever do it? Sure, if staying with the terrible environment will actually help me get somewhere that I can't get to any other way, I'll do my time. (I know what serving an apprenticeship and a rite of passage is like!) But it better be for a finite amount of time with a clear, certain light at the end of the tunnel.

If your short term is crucial to you, you have to just suck it up and take it. You're never going to change an individual who's your boss, let alone a firm culture. So, if you want the rewards they offer (and they can be pretty tempting) then stop complaining about the choice you made, and live out your devil's contract.

Or, you can say "I don't care what it costs me in short term inconvenience, but I'm out of here. I'm fed up participating in conversations with my peers about how miserable we all are and trying to figure out much cash in the bank is enough to stop putting up with what we put up with."

Life's too short, and last time I checked, the common view was that we have only one life. By my arithmetic we tend to be awake for about 17 hours a day or 119 hours per week, and most professionals are working 60 hours a week, plus or minus. So, we're spending fully one half of the one life we are likely to have at work. I can't speak for everyone, but for me that's a terrifying statistic if my work doesn't have meaning and I have to spend it with unprincipled people who'll do almost anything for money.

Am I going to spend that in an environment where I don't respect the people I work with and for, where they treat me and others in inappropriate ways, where they are so short-term driven that they compromise every one of their own declared strategies, policies and standards whenever its convenient and expedient to do so?

Ah, but the question remains, will I live in such an environment if they paid me? What if they paid me a lot! What if they paid me an obscene amount of money? All these questions add up to is: "Do I want to join in and compromise what I believe in for the money. Am *I* as much an unprincipled person, driven by cash, as they are?

Yes you can argue that you have more excuses. If you're young, you can say -- I have a student loan; I haven't had the chance to save anything yet. Won't you forgive me if I buckle under and do it for the cash? Or if you're mid-career, you can say -- But I've got a family depending on me, kids in school and a mortgage. Won't you forgive me if I take the expedient path?

Well, of course, you absolutely don't need anyone's forgiveness. The only question is: Are you prepared to forgive yourself if the bribe is big enough? Many say "YES!" and they have the right to make that choice. But they don't have the right to complain.

Obviously, the choice that every one of us faces, young or old, is the same one the leaders of the firm face. Will you compromise your standards for money? Will you join the enemy, and become what you claim to despise?

There is a glimpse of a fourth path that Hirschman didn't identify. I'll call it the "Stick to Principles" alternative. What I keep trying to convey with my writings is that I am not (primarily) making moral points. I'm trying to report business lessons that end up sounding like moral points.

For example, you'll actually get more of what you want from other people (colleagues, clients, subordinates and even superiors) if you take the time to relate to and understand them as a person, not just someone in a role.

Another example is that you actually do make more money and advance your career more quickly if you put quality before volume, and refuse to take on work that you can't do to the highest standards.

A third example is that you will make more money if you take some time away from today's production to ensure that you are doing the things necessary to make tomorrow better (learning, training, supervision, R&D, listening to your audience, etc.)

These are all career and business lessons, not points of principle, although I must rush to report that they get implemented more thoroughly (and hence produce results more quickly) by people who treat them as points of principle. (There's the paradox of professionalism again.)

So, the fourth alternative is: Do what you know to be the right way to do things in your work life, and there's an incredibly good chance that you'll actually get more cooperation out of the world and actually produce more, even in the short run, that will keep your overlords happy.

Give your bosses what they demand, but do it your way. Because life's too short. You only go around once. And they say being a prostitute is no fun.

How to buy Professional Services (and how not to)

In the past few months, my wife and I have been through the process of trying to buy a variety of professional services. The experience has been very educational, and made me realise that we may not have been approaching it very wisely. Just as there are tips and tactics for marketing and selling professional services, there ought to be a list of tips and tactics about how to be a smart buyer. (Does anyone know of such a list?)

From bitter experience, here's the beginning of our list:

First, don't trust too much up front. Because I write about and consult on professional services all the time, I have been very candid with possible professional suppliers about my buying priorities, which are professionalism first, quality second, speed third, and cost last. I thought that being this candid and open would elicit professionalism in return.

We have sometimes been lucky with fabulously trustworthy (and really skilled) providers, but our approach to buying hasn't always worked out well. In a number of cases, the vendors heard "cost last," saw dollar bills in their eyes and immediately jacked up their proposed bid prices. Rather than helping us, as inexperienced buyers, to understand our choices, they went straight to trying to sell us the top-of-the-line model with all the bells and whistles on it. It has made us a lot more cynical, suspicious and cautious than we wanted to be.

The second thing we think we have learned from our buying experiences is that, as potential clients, we have talked too much (no surprise there for anyone who knows me!) We were so keen to make sure that our providers understood out needs, that we ended up telling them everything about what we wanted, but never really ended the conversations in any better position to gauge their abilities, intelligence, attitudes or commitment.

We didn't want to play games by putting the potential suppliers through a phony proposal processes or conversational gimmicks, but found that just when they were trying to get us to do all the talking, we really needed them to do a lot of the talking. We realised that we needed, as buyers, to really think through the question: "What are we trying to find out about these people, and what's the best way to find it out?"

We concluded that maybe we shouldn't have been so giving and open about our needs, and should have tested the possible suppliers by holding back and seeing if they were smart enough to ask astute questions. It's sad to be this Machiavellian, but it may be necessary.

We also learned that references provided by potential providers are a waste of time. Everyone's got them, and no-one's going to give you the name of a reference who is going to be anything but glowing about them.

Another conclusion, obvious in retrospect, is that we needed to get to a face-to-face meeting with people as quickly as possible if we were to figure out if we wanted to hire them. Everything that happened prior to that was, in essence, a waste of time.

As a possible provider myself, I don't like participating in competitive processes, but it was clear that, as buyers, we had to talk to multiple possible providers. Even when we had found someone we thought we wanted to go with, we realised we owed it to ourselves not to commit too early, not to rush into things, and to force ourselves to comparison shop.

There's more, but I'm keen to hear about other people's experiences. What do you think the rules and principles of being a smart buyer of professional services are?

Should You Write A Book?

Mike Schultz, publisher of RainToday.com , has sent me an email about his company's new publication. For $149 you can get a downloadable version of The Business Impact of Writing a Book which surveyed 200 authors -- all professional services providers -- of over 590 business books. The report overview can be found here.

Some interesting results are that 84% of authors report either Very Strong or Strong improvement in their ability to differentiate their services as a result of publishing their book and 53% of authors report either Very Strong or Strong ability to charge higher fees for their services as a result of publishing their book. The report has loads of quotes from the authors interviewed (I was not one of them.)

Mike said in his email to me that -- quote -- I know you're not very thrilled with the concept of book publishing these days, but it sure seems to be working out for others. Feel free to blog about it and disagree, too -- end quote.

Mike was right that I don't see another book in my future. It's unlikely to bring cheer to the publishing profession, but I think it will be much more effective for professionals to bypass books from now on and make their thoughts and theories available purely through the internet.

In today's world, it makes no sense to take nine months, on average, to get your material together and the same amount of time again (amazingly) to get it through the process of publication. Then begins the complicated business of marketing the book and by that time, the thoughts contained in the book are largely historic. By the time you're in print, the odds are high that someone else has already put similar thoughts into play online.

By publishing work yourself online, through a fast and efficient website, those who want to read the work can be notified electronically of any new material and can read it at their leisure. Who needs a physical book and a bookstore when there's an RSS feed around? If you absolutely have to mail out print copies, you can still do that, too!

Anyone who has ever written a book will tell you that you don't make money on the book itself, unless by some (unknowable) miracle you become the flavor of the month. A book helps build your reputation, and reputation is all, but online, viral marketing is today a much more effective way for most professionals to do things. Books are so 20th century!

It's like the music industry, where an increasing number of performers are happy to give free downloads of their music as an incentive for fans to come and see them perform live or to buy their (subsequent) albums. (Arctic Monkeys, anyone?)

Apart from all this, it has ALWAYS been my advice to new authors that the best way to build a reputation is through a regular, reliable and (most importantly) continuing sequence of individual articles, so that your audience comes to depend upon you as a reliable source of new ideas -- some good, some not-so-good, but always trying to contribute.

The simple truth is that business people don't read books. They may buy them, but they don't read them. If you can hold people's attention for the length of an article, that's pretty good going. You can't impress people much if they don't actually read what you write, and, if they've heard about you at all, with a book they are probably operating on an interpretation of what someone told them they thought you meant in a book someone else told them about. (Believe me, I've been through this!)

And the pace is picking up. Mike Schultz himself told me that the way that people use the internet nowadays is such that shorter pieces are much more effective and that I might want to rethink my strategy of writing 3,000 word articles. (He's probably right, too!) Others keep trying to teach me that my blogs should be shorter (Sorry, folks!)

The second reason a series of articles works better than going straight for a book is that reputations are built up over time. A book is like swinging for the fences, betting everything on one big hit. And do you know what the number of business books published in a week in the US is? Probably 50 or so. Per week! The odds against you are huge.

I can tell you from bitter experience that getting a reviewer's attention is INCREDIBLY difficult. It's like putting out a record: if you're already Mariah Carey or P. Diddy or whomever, then a) your publisher will promote you b) the record stores will stock your book and c) Rolling Stone will review your new CD. If you're not ALREADY a superstar, then, good luck, kiddo! NONE of that is going to happen.

Finally, of course, putting out the series of articles doesn't prevent you from subsequently collecting them together and putting them between hard or soft covers and calling it a book. You even get the chance to bury the fraction of your possible chapters that, in retrospect, turned out to be rubbish.

Oh, sure there ARE virtues to books, even today. For one, speakers' bureaus find it a lot easier to market you if you have a hot book and there is something both effective and gratifying in having a physical artifact which enshrines your (supposed) wisdom.

Still, what many of my friends either don't know or have forgotten is that my own career and reputation (such as they are) were built on a stream of articles. It was eleven (successful and profitable) years between my first article on professional firms and the publication of my first book on the subject. You guessed it -- it was, and is, a collection of my articles. Forget books -- go for the online articles!

Learning to Manage -- new careers podcast episode

Accepting the role of manager means accepting the responsibility not only for your own actions, but also for the actions of other people -- which can be a scary experience. For the first time, perhaps, your fate is determined by the actions of others.

My latest podcast episode, Learning to Manage, examines the skills new managers will need to excite, energize, organise, and produce with your team.

Timeline

00:55 -- Managing = Creating Energy
02:28 -- Require and Relate: the dual focus of effective managing
04:06 -- The importance of one-on-one management
05:48 -- How to engage the individual with the team
08:58 -- How does the manager add value?
11:08 -- 12 Questions to evaluate your management performance

You can download Learning to Manage or sign up to receive new Business Masterclass seminars automatically with iTunes or other podcast players. (Click here for step-by-step instructions on how to subscribe.) My seminars are always available for download at no cost.

Internal Blogs as a Management Tool

I may be coming late to the party and only just catching up, but it occurs to me that blogs could be (are?) an incredibly powerful internal management tool.

Here's one way I could see it working. There is a blog to which, initially at least, only partners have access. The managing partner (firm leader/practice group leader, whatever you want) could blog regularly about what's going on in the firm/practice, not just restricted to the formal announcement of new business wins and losses, but actually addressing issues of interest to partners, answering candidly, and allowing partners (anonymously if necessary) to pose questions to firm leadership about what is happening and why things are happening the way they are.

As firms get larger, more dispersed and more complex, the disaffection of partners (in professions and businesses of all kinds) is becoming more evident. I get calls all the time enquiring about my availability to consult on the issue of partners' unhappiness and their feeling that they are treated like employees in an increasingly corporate culture.

Of course, this feeling exists because it is accurate -- partners ARE treated like employees, and a blog would be a way to involve them, provide interactivity and participation, resulting in the feeling of ownership that all firms say they want their partners to feel.

When partners (and other people) say they want more or better internal communication in firms, it doesn't actually mean that they want to hear more from firm leadership (although that's how it is usually translated.) What it actually means is that people want to be listened to more -- they want the chance to voice their views and to have management take them seriously. Internal blogs would allow this.

Professional firms (along with other types of corporate entities) always SAY they want to be consultative and participative, but the truth is that often managers in such firms are often terrified of participation. They would be frightened of what would be seen as open dialogue and discussion of firm management issues (horrors -- open dissent!) However, there probably could be no better way to re-energise today's bloated partnerships than using today's technology to engage, enthuse and involve the partners.

And one day -- who knows? -- firms might act as if non-partners were real citizens, too.

Are any firms out there doing this already?

Broadcasting Tactics to Generate Enquiries

Beverly Hedrick, Director of Business Development at the Waller law firm in Nashville, TN writes to ask:

I am wondering if the tactics listed below, and their order, are still correct in your view. If not, what has changed?

Proven Business Development Tactics for Professional Service Firms (In approximate descending order of effectiveness)

• Proprietary Research for the client
• Seminars
• Articles
• Speeches
• Attendance at client industry meetings
• Networking
• Referral Sources
• Community Activities
• Getting Quoted
• Website
• Newsletters
• Brochures
• Cold Calls
• Direct Mail
• Advertising

I said in my blog philosophy that I wasn't going to blog about old topics that I'd already written about, but in this case I'll make an exception, Beverly, because it's cleverly phrased by you, asking for an update.

Before I give you a direct answer, remember that this list of BROADCASTING tactics (generating enquiries from people you don't know) is only done long after you do other, more effective business development: achieve such a high level of client service that you are getting your new clients by existing clients telling their friends about you, and investing nonbillable time in your key existing relationships to turn them from a series of transaction into a dependable romance.

In other words (and I'm serious) you really shouldn't have to do too much of what's on this list at all, because it's low ROI compared to other ways of winning business. (Read the books, watch the videos or listen to the podcasts if that's not yet evident to you from real life.)

However, if you do have some left over to do pure broadcasting (the items on the list) it would still be my experience that the ROI is as shown, with one obvious exception -- the implications of the internet.

The top 4 items (research, seminars, articles, speeches) are all at the top because they are attempts to demonstrate not assert -- put some substantive evidence out there that allows me as a client to judge whether you have fresh content or are just making claims about your expertise.

My eternal rule, Beverly, is simple. All you have to ask if you want the answer to any business development question is to ask -- what would work on me? So, look at the list and consider. If you or your firm were trying to hire an accountant, a plumber, a nanny for your kids, a financial management consultant like me -- assuming that we don't have an existing relationship, which of these tactics would most affect YOUR buying behaviour and make YOU want to follow up? A press release you read in the newspaper? Someone you met at a church social? Someone who cold-called you? You figure it out for your part of the world. But face up to the fact that clients, by and large, are influence by the same thing that influences you in your purchases of professional services.

Which leaves us just one BIG topic to address, whether or not the net has changed things. Personally I think it's changed our ability to do the SAME list better, but still in the same order.

The most effective (for marketing purposes) websites and blogs are not those with great graphics, but those that offer fresh content, in absorbable fashion eliciting the reaction (as research, speeches, article, seminars were suppose to do in the old days) -- wow, I'd never thought of it that way, I'd like to talk with that person some more. (See my article Marketing is a Conversation)

The net allows increased effectiveness in make these old-style vehicles entice people to want to contact you, but the underlying approach hasn't changed.

Maybe, just maybe, there's a need to emphasise number 5 on my list a bit more (attending client meetings) since if you end up (as I do) doing a high percentage of your seminars, speeches and articles on-line, (webinars, etc.) you'll be leaving out the flesh-to-flesh, face-to-face meeting people that you did with speeches and seminars in the old days. That's a problem that needs to be corrected, and you do that by going to client industry conferences (which was always high on the list.)

So, Beverly, I think the logic, the real world evidence and the conclusions are still the same all these years later. (Which doesn't mean that many firms continue to rush to do activities with lower ROI than those with higher ROI). Go back to the original book for a discussion of why that -- still -- happens.

Any dissenting opinions out there?

Done at Last! Thoughts on Procrastination

Unless you learn how to manage it, procrastination can spiral. The less you get done, the more you beat yourself up for being worthless and hence the less likely you are to get anything done. No wonder that a study reported in Psychology Today, found that "College students who procrastinate have higher levels of drinking, smoking, insomnia, stomach problems, colds and flu."

Professionals are particularly prone to procrastination, in part because professional projects can be intimidating: long, complex, and stressful.

Procrastination can't be completely abolished, but it can be kept under control by developing mind games that "short-circuit" the procrastination-inducing mental "do-loops" that plague us. Everybody needs to develop their own highly personal arsenal of tricks for living with (and suppressing) procrastination. Here are some of mine:

Preparing to work

Clients and superiors frequently do not explain precisely what they need, which makes procrastination almost inevitable, since it is difficult to begin work on something if you are confused or conflicted about what you are trying to accomplish. Make sure you know what you are trying to accomplish.

Strangely, procrastination can be caused by panic. Urgency makes us fearful and stop working. There is enough time pressure on us without artificially creating more. When accepting the assignment, acknowledge the difficulty of the task, and ask for a realistic time frame. Allow for interruptions, unexpected developments and an outside life. Most assignments in life are not a race -- it's how dependable you are, not how fast, that will make people seek you out.

If you can, have two, three or four projects and alternate till one grabs you. Robert Benchley, the 1930s American humorist said: "I can get anything done as long as it's not what I'm supposed to be working on." Sound familiar? It's sometimes hard to prioritise among the projects that get thrown at you. But you can be surprisingly productive by working for a short time on each one. Imagine your projects as children, each of them clamoring for your attention. Spend time with each one.

Focusing on a Motivating Purpose

Thinking of the client you are doing the work for, and how important it will be to them can be the force that rouses you to action.

Jay Foosberg, author of "How to Get and Keep Good Clients," recommends looking at pictures of your family to remind yourself for whom you are doing the work.

Imagine how jealous your bitterest enemies will feel when you've finished. (Hey, no one said to limit this list to honorable motivations.) One of the most powerful motivators for some people is to imagine the work being praised by someone they resent ("I showed him!")

Imagine having to say: "I could have done a much better job, but he beat me to it. Grrr. I'm going to show him!" Anger, jealousy and the basest of motives can get many of us deep into the task.

Finding Ways to Start

Examine your avoidance habits: what do you do to stall? Eat? Watch TV? Surf the damn, wonderful internet? Stop doing that -- just for ten minutes.

Divide everything you have to do into smaller, easy bites.

Set realistic time goals to complete your bite-size tasks, and then plan to take a break.

Promise yourself that you will only work for ten minutes.

Start in the middle: worry about openings and endings later. Usually, for almost any project, there is one aspect of the work that is most vivid, that is stimulating you to do the work, or is the most daunting to you. Start there.

Just give dictation to yourself. Pretend you're talking to a friend or a fellow professional at a cocktail party, explaining what you are working on and how you are getting it done. Next, imagine describing what you have finished.

Sometimes actually talking to a friend can be the thing that unlocks the logjam. Why not call someone up and ask "Can I just try to explain to you what I need to do?"

Cut Yourself Some Slack!

As Julia Child used to say when she took a shortcut or dropped something in the kitchen: "You're all alone. Who needs to know?" You're allowed to fail a few times before you get it right.

Adopt the mental dump approach: just do something and plan to change it later. You can always revise what you've done. Most work needs refinement. Drafting something -- anything -- helps you to avoid your saying, "I didn't do anything today." You did, it just needs further work!

Evaluate the work, but not yourself. Don't think: "I'm useless," but say instead: "Yeah, that paragraph's garbage, but I'm better than that."

Tell yourself this is not supposed to be the best thing you've ever done. Tell yourself that you can write a "B" assignment. A completed assignment that is adequate is better than the best thing you've ever done that exists only in your head.

Arrange (in advance) with a good friend or colleague to review your first draft. That way, you know you're only producing a first version and have permission to make mistakes. It will be less scary and you'll get more done.

Varying the Routine

Consider working in a different setting. If your work is portable, bring some of it to a coffee shop to see how much you get done. If you are easily distracted, head to a library, close your office door, or create the equivalent of an isolation booth to see how productive you become.

If you've been torturing yourself by pulling all-nighters, go to bed early and see if you are more productive in the morning. Some say that for every hour earlier that you turn in, you gain two hours in alertness the next day.

Sustaining the Momentum

Make up a game with rewards. Plan to reward yourself with a discrete, non-time consuming break such as a walk around the block (or an ice-cream cone.)

If nothing comes in 15 minutes, don't just sit there: go for a walk and come back. Taking a break from work to walk briskly for 20 minutes might kill two birds with one stone. (This is serious advice, similar to what they say about trying to fall asleep: if it ain't happening, get up and go do something. Just lying there thinking about it will drive you crazy and won't work.)

Advanced Techniques

Write down how you are feeling about your tasks and what upsets you about them. You might be angry that you were stuck with someone else's work while they're away on a vacation, or it's just some damn boring anonymous thing that must be done. Or you don't think you can do it. Pin the description on your desk or wall or computer screen. Then keep saying to yourself "All that's true, but I still have to do the work!" A few (silent) curse words at this point can actually help you get it out of your system and get over it.

Some people schedule an artificial deadline before the real one. Say, make plans to go to a play or movie the evening before the project is due. That way you'll have to finish it early, and will have time the next morning to read it over and catch the inevitable typo's.

Make a commitment to someone whose good opinion you would like to keep (the hostage to fortune strategy). This is very effective. The person should not be a friend who will forgive you if you miss the deadline, but someone whom you'd like to impress or who will be very disappointed in you if you don't finish. (Embarrassment can work better than guilt.)

Those are some of our mind-games. What works for you?

What's Our Deal?

At a recent conference, I heard a number of successful firm leaders describe how their firms had achieved significant growth and profitability. A common phrase used by each and every one of these firm leaders was "making sure that all the key people were 'on the same page.' "

Clearly, it was important that something was agreed to and shared among the members of these firms. But what? What does "being on the same page" really mean? And how is it done?

A Hierarchy of Concepts

A common collection of integrating concepts might include choosing:

• Purpose / Mission, then
• Vision / Direction, then
• Values / Principles, then
• Culture / Rules of Behaviour

An organisation that begins with an agreed-upon purpose (or mission), would be able to communicate externally and internally WHY it is in existence.

This would allow the organisation to communicate more easily a vision of its future, and hence its objectives and direction. (what it was trying to achieve.)

It could then, theoretically, derive a set of values or principles that the firm is going to operate by. (HOW it plans to operate in order to achieve the purpose, the vision and the objectives.)

The set of values and principles would then define the firm's culture, the way things are done around here, and hence its rules of behaviour. (This is more "HOW.")

That's just one approach. Notice that it leaves out the word "strategy" and makes no reference to specific objectives or targets.

Unfortunately, in practice, these various integrating concepts rarely achieve what is hoped for when they are developed, and many people have become (appropriately?) cynical about these concepts.

For example, many more firms have "mission statements" than actually have missions, and it is the rare organisation where everyone believes that the officially declared statement of values is strictly adhered to.

Have all of these concepts lost their practical value? Should firms and their leaders still take the time to attempt to build consensus around things like purpose, mission, vision and values? If so, how can it be done in a way that actually has a practical, real-world impact? Where does one begin?

Tempting as it might be, it would be a mistake to abandon all uses of these terms. Some mixture of these things is almost certainly needed to:

• create a sense of common, joint enterprise
• define the organisation,
• set its boundaries,
• give it a direction, and
• mobilise the organisation's members.

If you were a real-world CEO or managing partner trying to lead your organisation, where would you begin to grapple with these concepts?

Starting with Purpose

Among others, Nikos Mourkogiannis stresses the importance of beginning with "purpose" in his book Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.)

Howard Schultz, CEO of Starbucks, has been quoted as saying that "People want to be part of something larger than themselves. They want to be part of something they're really proud of, that they'll fight for, sacrifice for, trust."

Where a clear, believable, palpable purpose exists for the organisation, where its reason for existence and what it is trying to achieve is clear, a multitude of business virtues follow almost automatically. Among these are:

• Decision-making can be made easier (at all levels) by being tested against whether or not they advance or inhibit the organisation's purpose. Things will happen more smoothly, more efficiently and with fewer false starts.
• The organisation can attract energetic, committed employees who believe in and share the purpose (and, what may be equally as beneficial, scare away people who don't want to participate in that purpose)
• Less heavy-handed oversight and management will be required to keep things on track, since everyone will be using the same principles to guide their interactions and decision-making.

Notice what the proponents of "purpose" are saying. The argument is that by (credibly) eliciting commitment to a "cause" other than maximising shareholder value, shareholder value (and other measures of financial performance) will actually increase, not decrease, because people will contribute their extra efforts and dedication.

Purely financial purposes, the argument goes, will fail to elicit this extra energy. "Work hard to maximise the owners' profitability" is not much of a rallying cry if you are not an owner, and may not even be that effective among (for example) the partners/owners themselves in a large partnership, if there are hundreds (or thousands) of them scattered over many distinct departments, numerous service lines, cities, countries and continents.

It's also worth stressing that the practical test of whether having a declared purpose (or mission) helps your organisation achieve greater things is not whether the marketplace believes what you claim to stand for, but whether or not the people inside the organisation truly believe that all decisions are actually made (or should be made) on the basis of that purpose or mission.

Only if they believe the purpose or mission is real will you actually elicit the extra levels of energy, commitment, collaboration, dedication and long-term thinking that will produce the superior results.

This is, of course, a researchable, testable proposition. You could survey all of your people, right now, and ask them how well they think your organisation is living up to its purpose, mission, vision or values. If they say it is, there's a high probability that you are reaping the commercial benefits. If they say it is not, (or if you're not sure you want ask or disclose the findings,) you have to question whether, in purely practical terms, you have learned how to make purpose, mission, vision or values work for you.

Achieving a functioning purpose is hard. It is not only a problem of management actually possessing an "ideology" and having the discipline to always act in accordance with it. It requires that the organisation attracts (only) those who are prepared to help pursue the organisation's purpose, and not keep substituting their own agenda.

As I discussed in a previous article Are We In This Together? not all people are pre-disposed to enjoy mutually dependent activities designed to build for the future. Mr. Schultz of Starbucks may be right about most people being eager to seek out a cause, but not all people.

I'm not saying building a common purpose cannot happen, nor that it's not immensely powerful where it does exist. I'm merely reporting that it's incredibly scarce. There are relatively few organisations that are credible and convincing to their people that they won't take advantage of other ("off-purpose") opportunities to advance net shareholder value.

Note that this is not (primarily) a moral or aesthetic point, but a practical one. Contrary to what many leaders seem to believe, there's no point declaring that your organisation has purpose or mission if your people don't think you will stick to it -- unwaveringly.

As one of my clients said recently: "Inconsistency is very demoralising." Not to mention confusing -- and unproductive. You cannot get your people to dedicate themselves to a cause you stick to only occasionally. As one managing partner said: "You can be certain that, as night follows day, that any ambiguity will be construed against you, particularly internally."

And you cannot build an organisation committed to a purpose, mission, vision or values if you hire (otherwise exceptional) people who are not susceptible to such appeals and do not share a dedication to achieving them.

Building Commitment

So, if you think that your organisation does not (yet) have an energising, motivating purpose, should you try to take your people through some kind of process to see if they are willing to sign up for one?

Maybe. But let's be practical about what would be required. Whether you are talking about purpose, mission, vision, values, goals, objectives or almost ANY of the traditional concepts that people use, the only practical way to make it real is to do two (simultaneous) things:

(a) stop talking about the future destination, and start thinking about the rules you would have to live by in order to get there; and

(b) translate the generalities of the organisation's purpose, mission, values or principles into what it would mean for individuals and confirm that the organisation's members are, in fact, prepared to be held accountable and live by those individual rules.

I explored aspects of this in my article Strategy and the Fat Smoker. Saying that you "aim to get fit" doesn't really indicate that you have chosen anything. It certainly doesn't, by itself, persuade the listener that you are committed to that goal.

However, if you stop talking in the language of destinations (goals, targets, purposes, missions and aspirations,) but instead discuss whether you are prepared to accept (strictly-observed) operating rules such as "I will exercise for 30 minutes five times a week and eat no more than XX calories per day", then it becomes both clear and convincing that you are committed to (and will, with high probability) achieve the goal.

We all know that, as a practical matter, it is insufficient to say "We will try to exercise for 30 minutes five times a week and eat no more than XX calories per day." In both personal and business life, we know that the minute you allow ambiguity or uncertainty (i.e. loopholes and exceptions) into the statement, the less certain people will be about what you will actually do as a leader, what they are buying into and what they are required to do.

So, to see if your firm is willing to pursue a particular purpose, mission, vision or values, the discussion you must have would be: Are people willing to have all decisions, large and small, judged in accordance with that purpose? Are they willing to be personally and individually accountable for progress toward that purpose, mission, vision, value or principle?

Imagine, for example, a group of partners or firm leaders sitting around discussing their firm's future. Imagine that someone proposes that the firm should commit itself to the purpose or mission of being "the leading firm" in its area.

What would be needed would be an in-depth discussion which explored such questions as: What might this mean in practical terms? Does this mean that everyone agrees that the firm should only do high-end work and turn away work if it does not command premium fees? If not, what is the rule going to be?

Does it mean, as an example, that the firm will only work for chief executives and no-one else in the client organisation? Does it mean that the firm will only employ those who are truly superior and will ask the merely competent to leave? If it means none of these things, then what, if anything, would it mean to be a "leading firm?"

As a means of discussing people's understanding and commitment to what is being proposed, notice that it often makes propositions a great deal more clear if they are phrased in the negative.

To say "we want to be the leading experts" is not the same thing as saying, for example, "We will not stay in a business that we cannot charge a premium for." Usually, saying what you will NOT do communicates more than what you say you will do.

If you cannot articulate a set of binding rules that people will agree to be governed by, then you probably do not have a purpose, mission, vision or values.

As always, this is meant to be a pragmatic point, not a moral or aesthetic one. It used to be said that your culture was what people did when no-one was looking. That's not a bad way of summarising all this.

If the people in the organisation share (and use) a common set of decision-rules throughout your organisation whenever they are faced with choices, the likelihood that you have an integrated firm with a common purpose, mission, vision or values is high. If they don't (or won't) accept the same (clear, unambiguous) decision-rules, then you may have a successful firm, but it's not clear that all parts of your firm will be "on the same page."

The test of the existence of values in an organisation was whether or not it had in place "consequences for non-compliance." I believe that this is still a good test for the operational effectiveness of any of the concepts we are investigating here.

You don't have a purpose or mission (or a set of values) when you declare them. You have such things when you put in place processes that respond to each and every instance when the organisation (or individual) fails to adhere to the purpose, the mission, the values or the culture.

Strategy as Journey, Not Destination

What all this reveals is that "doing strategy" is not really about selecting objectives, targets or future states. ("We aim to be the best") That's too imprecise, and too easy to pay lip-service to.

It doesn't matter whether you choose to start by discussing purpose, mission, values or culture (or anything else.) Whichever you begin with, it will turn out to be the rules you choose to live by that determine your future, not the targets you aim at.

You must start by asking yourselves -- what are we going to be uncompromising about? This will tell the world (inside and outside the organisation) who you are, what you are, and what are your vision, mission, purpose and values.

There are a number of other perspectives that shed light on this conclusion. Political science (and history) teaches us that you can determine the very nature of a society by agreeing upon its constitution: establishing the core, inviolable principles and regulations as to how decisions will be made.

By stating, concretely, the rules that would be followed in making decisions and, equally important, the rights and obligations of citizens in the community, the very identity and character (and its future potential) of the society can be determined.

So it is with business organisations. When "doing strategy," it can be difficult, if not impossible, for firm leaders to say definitively what businesses the organisation will get into, what services it will offer and in what parts of the globe it will offer its services.

In fact, making and declaring choices in these areas can be politically risky if they do not include, as priority targets, areas of the business that the organisation is already in. No-one wants to be identified as being in an "off-priority" part of the business.

However, if firm leaders can propose, and build support for, the decision-making processes and rules (i.e. the constitution) that the firm will follow in all of its decisions, then something both meaningful and powerful can be created.

Another insight into this was provided by Cristian Mitreanu in a fascinating article called Is Strategy a Bad Word? He wrote:

"What explains the relative failure of most organisations to create effective strategy? Part of the problem ... can be traced to their interpretation of the word strategy itself ...

In war, objectives can often be clearly defined, and so strategy is thought of as a means to a specific end. ... By contrast, goal orientation becomes arguably inappropriate when success has to be indefinitely sustained."

I call this "acting as if there is no final whistle." It means running the organisation not to attain particular targets in a particular time frame, but recognising that, one way or another, the organisation will continue into the indefinite future.

It's rather like thinking of an organisation as a biological entity or a species. It's not in the choice of objectives that a species differentiates and sustains itself, but through its special ways of adapting and responding to shifts in its environment.

Consider also the well-known computer simulation that, by specifying, in advance, some basic parameters (including the rules of reproduction) and then allowing the game of begin, wonderful patterns emerge, and some species flourish while others die out.

The differences between these "species" are not differences in objectives, targets, purpose or mission. The differences which really determine the future are the rules they employ to make their decisions when faced with choices.

A final metaphor may be instructive. In game theory (a branch of mathematics about decision making) the term "strategy" doesn't refer to any particular decision, or group of decisions. Rather, it is a way to go about making decisions. Defined that way, it's a close correlation to the concepts of "values, ideology and principles" embedded in the organisation's decision-rules.

Where clear, unambiguous decision-making rules exist, there is the opportunity for a clear rallying cry for people either to buy into or to leave, and it makes delegation of decision-making upwards, downwards and sideways a lot easier. Everyone knows the REAL rules.

Participation

It is a well-established principle that people are more likely to live in accordance with rules that they have played a role in shaping.

It is also well established that an organisation's "rules of engagement" have a tendency over time to be taken for granted. They can fall into neglect not through malice but by being taken for granted. The slow accretion of small decisions and actions, none of them actually seriously wrong, can nevertheless cause an organisation to operate in ways contrary to its declared core beliefs, principles and the rules that enshrine them.

Accordingly, even if an organisation thinks it has a clear, unequivocal agreement on purpose, mission, vision and values, it is nevertheless a good idea periodically to revisit the organisation's rules and trace through what rights and obligations they imply for individuals, top to bottom.

Even for established organisations that are confident that they are "on track", there is tremendous power in giving people the opportunity to discuss whether they still wish to be governed by the rules that define the organisation, and have the chance to affirm (or re-affirm) their "pledge of allegiance" to those rules.

At what level do you try and obtain buy-in to these "rules of engagement?"

It is a common tendency to draw up a set of a "values" or "principles" (or, as I would have it, decision-rules) and present them simultaneously to all of the key players at some annual meeting or specially-convened strategic planning meeting or retreat.

I believe this is a mistake. As noted above, an organisation may be worse off, not better off, by pretending to advocate a set of standards it is not actually prepared to live by. And everyone in the organisation will be looking "upwards" to see if "those guys" are truly serious before they commit themselves to the cause.

Accordingly, the best process for approaching all of this is to begin with a very small inner circle of top management leaders, who can look each other in the eye and ask: "Are these really the decision-rules we are prepared to stick with? If we advocate them, will our people believe that we will keep the faith to adhere to these strategies?"

Only when true commitment has confidently been obtained at that level will it be time to (slowly) roll it out to the next level, making the case as to why the organisation should live by the decision-rules, and building the consensus and buy-in necessary.

Only when the top-level is truly committed will it be time to try and convince the junior staff in the organisation that the firm is serious. And only then, when everyone internally has signed on, will it be time to let the outside world know what the organisation is determined to do.

Decision-Making Rules

So what might some possible decision-making, constitution-forming rules be?

Drawing upon a variety of sources (including the best practices among super-successful firms) here are some suggestions for firms to consider.

• All decisions will be made on the principle that we put the clients' interest first, the firm's second and the individual's last. We do not accept people who fail to operate in this way.
• We will achieve levels of client satisfaction that result in client referrals becoming our main source of new business.
• We will have no room for individualists -- those who put their personal agenda ahead of the interests of their team.
• Reward systems will be driven by a judgmental assessment of overall contribution to the success of the firm, not on short-term individual performance.
• Everyone will be required, not just encouraged, to learn and develop new skills. The organisation has an obligation to help each individual achieve this.
• Each year, we will invest a significant amount of time in things that will pay off in the future.
• Those in managerial roles will be selected, evaluated and remunerated primarily on the success of their group, rather than their individual performance.
• Individually and collectively, we will operate with a "stewardship" mentality toward our junior people, accepting the obligation to coach, mentor and develop those who report to us.
• We will not tolerate abuse of power or position, a lack of respect in dealing with other people at any level in the firm, politicking, individuals who cannot be relied upon to keep their word, or shirking or dumping of responsibility. Only those of the highest honour and integrity will be allowed to retain membership in the firm.

These are, of course, only possible decision-making rules. They are not necessarily the best (although a case can be made for their effectiveness in creating organisational success) and they are not the only choices a firm could make.

Indeed, my whole point is that different organisations will have different rules that they are prepared to live by, and that, in focusing on them as non-negotiable decision-making rules, firms will better achieve clarity and effectiveness in their operations.

Once the decision-making rules are in place, it should be easier to trace through the "rights and obligations" that members of the organisation have: what they agree to sign up for when they join, what they agree to be held accountable for, and what they can reliably expect from the organisation (and other individuals in the organisation.)

My recommendation is not: Accept the rules offered here. Rather, it is: Figure out which rules you, your management and all your people are prepared to accept and never compromise. When you are done, you will know your purpose, your mission, your values and your strategy.