| |
| |
| Acknowledgments | |
| |
| |
| Introduction | |
| |
| |
| The Unique and Complicated World of Professional Services | |
| |
| |
| Why Professional Service Firms are Different | |
| |
| |
| Why Change in a Professional Service Firm Is Hard | |
| |
| |
| Finding the Success Formula | |
| |
| |
| Broad-Based, Consistent Success Is an Elusive Goal | |
| |
| |
| Why Consistency Is So Hard to Achieve | |
| |
| |
| The Structure Necessary for Enduring Success | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Foundations of Success | |
| |
| |
| |
| Creating an Effective Strategy | |
| |
| |
| How Firms Compete: The Four Fundamental Client Value Propositions | |
| |
| |
| Where the Firm Plays Best: Its Performance Envelope | |
| |
| |
| Critical Mass and the Client Service Model | |
| |
| |
| Market Segmentation and Selection | |
| |
| |
| Strategy Is Essential, but Not Enough by Itself | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Revenue Cycle | |
| |
| |
| Why the Revenue Generation Process Breaks Down at the Firm Level | |
| |
| |
| The Benefits of Treating Revenue Generation as a Cycle | |
| |
| |
| Using the Revenue Pipeline to Generate Insight and Balance Activity Levels | |
| |
| |
| Assessing Backlog to Understand the Firm's Safety Net | |
| |
| |
| Eliminating Leaks in the Billing and Collection Process | |
| |
| |
| Bringing It Together: Making the Cycle a Cycle | |
| |
| |
| |
| Resource Deployment | |
| |
| |
| Basic Economics of Leverage | |
| |
| |
| Time as a Resource | |
| |
| |
| Time Measurement: Visibility and Accountability | |
| |
| |
| Multiplying Effort: The Role of Mindshare | |
| |
| |
| When Money Is Time: Effective Uses of Cash | |
| |
| |
| Creating Balance: Leadership Awareness and Courage | |
| |
| |
| |
| Profitability | |
| |
| |
| Sustained Profitability: Walking a Tightrope | |
| |
| |
| Dynamics and Drivers of Profitability in Normal Times | |
| |
| |
| Balancing Growth and Profitability | |
| |
| |
| Managing Through a Downturn | |
| |
| |
| Sustained Profit and Managing Expectations | |
| |
| |
| |
| Execution Quality | |
| |
| |
| The Consequences of Quality | |
| |
| |
| How Firms Encourage Quality | |
| |
| |
| Measuring and Interpreting Client Satisfaction | |
| |
| |
| Normalizing a Continual Focus on Improving Quality | |
| |
| |
| |
| Differentiating Capabilities That Separate Good Firms From Great Ones | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Growth Engine | |
| |
| |
| Thinking Differently About Sustained Growth | |
| |
| |
| Systematically Boosting Revenues per Principal | |
| |
| |
| Breaking the Natural Limits on Principal Productivity | |
| |
| |
| Making the New Principal Formation Process Accretive | |
| |
| |
| Avoiding the Pitfalls of Direct-Admit Principal Hiring | |
| |
| |
| Knowing the Difference between Good M&A and Bad | |
| |
| |
| Growth Engine vs. Simply Growing | |
| |
| |
| |
| Brand Synergy | |
| |
| |
| Using Brand Synergy to Rise above Sameness | |
| |
| |
| How a Firm's Activities Create Brand Synergy | |
| |
| |
| Managing/Enhancing Brand Synergy | |
| |
| |
| Brand Synergy as Differentiator | |
| |
| |
| |
| The Performance Envelope | |
| |
| |
| The Continually Collapsing Performance Envelope | |
| |
| |
| The Pull Toward Stagnation and What to Do about It | |
| |
| |
| Culture, People, and the Performance Envelope | |
| |
| |
| |
| Talent Flow | |
| |
| |
| The Career Model and Talent Flow: Pipes and Hydraulic Pressure | |
| |
| |
| Challenges in Bringing the Career Model to Life | |
| |
| |
| Designing the Career Model to Create Flow | |
| |
| |
| Success Formula: How to Maximize Talent Flow | |
| |
| |
| The Profound, Long-Term Benefits of Getting Talent Flow Right | |
| |
| |
| |
| Practices That Create a High-Performing Culture | |
| |
| |
| |
| Meritocracy | |
| |
| |
| Meritocracy vs. Pragmatism: Two Contrary Forces | |
| |
| |
| Moving from Merit to Best and Highest Use | |
| |
| |
| Career Model: The Backbone of Meritocracy | |
| |
| |
| Balancing Outcomes: Pragmatism vs. Merit | |
| |
| |
| Precedent and the Corrosive Effect of Values Violators | |
| |
| |
| Cultivating Impact Players and Deployment for Impact-Without Creating a Star System | |
| |
| |
| Meritocracy and Seniority: Stewardship, Legacy, and Security | |
| |
| |
| Why Meritocracy Is Uniquely Important | |
| |
| |
| |
| Successorship | |
| |
| |
| Institutionalizing Client Relationships | |
| |
| |
| Servant-Leaders and Successorship at the Top | |
| |
| |
| Bringing Coaching and Development to Life | |
| |
| |
| Successorship as an Institution: Balancing the Present and the Future | |
| |
| |
| From Successorship to Stewardship: Refocusing Attention from Individual to Firm | |
| |
| |
| |
| Client Values | |
| |
| |
| The Continual Pull Away from the Clients | |
| |
| |
| The Double Life that Great Firms Lead | |
| |
| |
| Motives Matter: Client Values in Their Pure Form | |
| |
| |
| Principals, the Market, and the Firm | |
| |
| |
| Client Values and the Internal Political Dynamic | |
| |
| |
| Balancing Client Service and a Focus on Firm Growth | |
| |
| |
| |
| Alignment | |
| |
| |
| The Dynamics of Alignment | |
| |
| |
| Alignment as a Leadership Approach | |
| |
| |
| The Challenges of Leadership | |
| |
| |
| Cultivating Trust | |
| |
| |
| When Alignment Becomes Culture | |
| |
| |
| Afterword: Discovering the Better Version of Your Firm | |
| |
| |
| Index | |
| |
| |
| About the Author | |