Merchandising

I just received a complementary copy of a new book(let) by David Cottrell called "Leadership Energy (E=m x c squared)".

It's a 100-page large-type (very clever) packaging of some key management lessons, using Einstein's famous equation.  In this case, the energy is the organisation's output, the m is the mass of the people and the c is the leader's impact on energy.

What caught my attention was this sentence:  "To help you facilitate teaching these concepts to your team, a Powerpoint slide presentation is available at www.CornerstoneLeadership.com"

What you discover when you click is that the slide presentation sells for $99.95, compared to $14.95 for the booklet.  And I bet it generates training and consulting opportunities.

Very clever!  Are any of you merchandising yourself (or your business) this way?  What's been your experience?

I wonder what would have happened if, starting 12 years ago, I had been charging for slide presentation versions of my material?

Finland's Best Place to work

Hannu Terävä writes:

"Our company, Reaktor Innovations, just won the Great Place to Work competition in Finland last month.  It means that we are, according to this survey, the best work place in Finland.  It was the first time we attended and we got the best points ever in Finland.

"What you might find interesting is that we operate very much the same way as you teach (again, based on articles and the blog).  If I remember correctly, "Practice What You Preach" was one of the first eye-openers for me that we might be actually doing things properly.  In the book I found many things about successful companies familiar from Reaktor.

"So my point was to let you know that there's one more successful company (and happy people) in the world that is pretty much aligned with your thinking.  Of course, we don't just follow your articles but think ourselves what's best for the people and the company in the long run.  Not forgetting the customers.

Oh yes, it's financially wise too.  We have now about 90 employees and are doing excellent."

Congratulations, Hannu and Reaktor!

Recession Responses

So now comes the test.  You're a professional firm, with a variety of practice areas or target industries.  Due to turmoil in the markets, business is down (or is forecast to be down) in one or more of our major areas.  What do you do?

Choice One:  Lay off some of the junior staff, thereby cutting costs to keep them in line with declining revenues.

Choice Two:  Have the partners take a "haircut" (ie reduced profitability) and continue to show loyalty to the juniors by keeping them busy with whatever work we do have (ie delegating as much as possible) and using the relative underutilisation of partner time to free them up to go out and and work against the weak year (ie client service, marketing and selling).

• Guess which one most firms are going to do?
• Guess which approach builds a more profitable firm over time?
• For extra points:  how much is this decision really going to be affected by firms declared programs for retaining scarce staff in the war for talent?

Get ready for a dropping of the facade of idealism and principle, and a return to the pragamatics of sustaining short-term earnings at all cost.

As always, I have to stress that this is not a moral issue but one of pragmatics.  If one of your key competitive issues is attracting and retaining key staff, how can you have a policy of laying them off (or "asking them to re-apply to another part of the firm", as one firm describes it) at the first sign of trouble?

New Book from CPA Firm Consultant

Normally, I'm not a big fan of business books written in the form of fictional fables.  But there's anew book by Gale Crosley (a consultant to CPAs) and Debbie Stover (a freelance writer) called AT THE CROSSROADS:  The Remarkable CPA Firm that Nearly Crashed Then Soared.

It describes a small accounting firm with realistically-drawn issues based on all-too-human partner types.  The managing partner of a friendly firm (the proxy for the consultant author) guides them through a retreat and planning process to turn the firm around.

What I liked about the (well-written, well-paced) story is that it avoided idealism, drew attention to the tough choices that improved performance requires, and didn't pretend (too much) to have a magic formula for success.

The book probably won't appeal to big-firm types, but is relevant across a broad spectrum oof industries and professions.

New Service for Law Firm Managing Partners

Patrick McKenna and his firm, Edge International, have just launched, in concert with Managing Partner Magazine, a service through which new law firm managing partners will have access to advice through a newly formed Leadership Advisory Board (the "LAB").

The following description is adapted from their press release.

The LAB will be comprised of experienced and knowledgeable managing partners, and will offer new law firm leaders a forum in which to pose questions about issues of greatest importance to them and to receive from the LAB advice and guidance based on its members' many years' experience as law firm leaders.

The LAB is the brain child of both Patrick and Baker & Daniels' Chair Emeritus Brian Burke.  Burke says, "While teaching a Managing Partner Magazine-sponsored program that Patrick and I conduct for new managing partners, it became evident that these leaders of law firms have very limited resources from which to draw guidance.  While their firms might belong to a network of law firms or they might get together with other managing partners in their local markets, it can be awkward for managing partners to ask questions in such settings about the more sensitive strategic, interpersonal, or operational issues that they find themselves confronting."

Any managing partner can now seek advice (anonymously, if preferred) by logging on to the Managing Partner Magazine web site.  Once there, managing partners may pose questions, challenges, or issues.  McKenna and Burke will circulate the inquiry to all members of the LAB, asking for individual guidance, views, and examples;  gather and synthesise the group's feedback;  and draft a cogent response to the individual presenting the inquiry.

Explained one of the LAB members, "I believe that there is a dearth of good advice and mentoring available to new managing partners.  It is staggering to think that corporate CEO's and other C-level people in the corporate world train their entire careers in order to be prepared when it is their turns to take the helm, but law firms put people at the helm of an enterprise whose revenue numbers have two commas in them with little or no formal training and almost no mentoring."

For further information contact Patrick McKenna at (780) 428-1052 / (800) 921-3343

The Beatles' Worst Album

A review of my recent article referred to it as an "uneven collection of essays", which is fair comment.  I took consolation in the fact that no-one ever achieves a consistently high standard.

For example, (and for fun), the Beatles released about 187 official recordings in their career.  Here are my nominations for the 20 tracks that would make up "The Beatle's Worst Album":

1. Act Naturally
2. All Together Now
3. Baby You’re a Rich Man
4. Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
5. Dig A Pony
6. Dig It
7. Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My
   Monkey
8. Flying
9. For You, Blue
10. Good Morning, Good Morning
11. Happiness is a Warm Gun
12. Helter Skelter
13. I Want You
14. Maggie May
15. Revolution #9
16. Why Don't We Do it in the Road
17. Wild Honey Pie
18. Yer Blues
19. You Know My Name Look Up the Number
20. Your Mother Should Know

***

Any other nominations?