Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do to Create a High Achievement Culture

by David H. Maister

Book Overview

Are employee attitudes correlated with financial success? Unequivocally yes according to consultant and bestselling author David H. Maister. Based on a worldwide survey of 139 offices in 29 professional service firms in numerous lines of business, Maister proves that companies perceived by their employees to practice what they preach in matters of client commitment, teamwork, high standards, and employee development are more successful than their...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743223209
• ISBN13: 9780743223201
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Professionals Profit from an Energized, Enabled Work Force

Almost everyone will agree that professional firms must provide great service and terrific relationships to their clients. Some firms will provide these attributes at the expense of their own employees and others will not. Practice What You Preach establishes a quantified relationship to higher profitability in one publicly held marketing communications firm between those offices that nurtured their staffs as much as their clients. What made the difference? The attitudes and practices of the managers in the higher profit offices accounted for almost all of the variation. General Schwartzkopf once said that you should "be the leader you want to have." That's the essence of the message of this book for achieving higher profitability. To make more money in pofessional offices, select and encourage leaders who will set high standards, serve as a good example, police the culture to improve it, and enable people to learn and make progress. Few works about management and leadership have the superb quantifications involved in this book. The foundation comes in 5589 individual responses (to about 10,000 questionnaires distributed) in 139 offices of 29 firms owned by the same public company. Each office was characterized by four profit tests to establish a profit index. Then differences in employee survey responses were tested against the profit index. Taken in many different cuts, Mr. Maister tells you which questions best correlated statistically with higher profit index numbers for an office. Each key observation is supported by a case example of one office that did well in this dimension. First, he relates what the head of the office said about the office's success and culture. Then he provides a composite interview with the people who work in the office. By comparing the two sets of responses, he then points out the key intersections. It's a fine way of making statistics come to life.He goes on to use more sophisticated statistical methods to establish which factors together are most significant, and how these factors appear to interact on one another. I was impressed by the quality and thoroughness of this work.He goes on to drill down to find even more nuances. For example, testing how the youngest employees feel about their work, compensation, and opportunities is the acid test of how well you are doing. As you would expect, cultures usually work better in smaller offices where communication is less likely to become diffused. The book ends with long lists of practices that seemed to have helped. If you want to know what to do, you should pay the most attention to the summary lessons in chapters 20-25. If you have trouble following all of the statistical analysis early on, just skip back to those sections. Then go back and read the case studies. At that point, you may be ready for the statistical chapters. The only weakness in the study's design is that it failed to include a comparable set of surveys with clients of the of

Achieving success by never compromising your high standards

Many books before this one have made the case for doing good business by treating people respectfully and in a trustworthy way. And several books before this one have preached courageous and long term oriented leadership. This book confirms these messages but does more: it presents convincing evidence to support these well known conclusions. Maister has done a very elegant yet sophisticated study which he very lucidly and accessibly explains throughout the book and which very clearly proves his point. But don't worry: the book isn't dull and boring. Maister illustrates his research conclusions with fascinating case stories. Of course the message of this book is very positive and hopeful. Like Maister says: "Making money by having high standards [respect, trustworthyness, courage, etc] and never compromising them. What a concept!" But, you might think, is this not all idealistic soft talk? Is this not too good to be true? Is it that easy? Not really! Practising what you preach requires courage and determination. What I found particularly interesting is the following: this book is more than anything about the difference in what you believe in and what you actually execute. And this is where courage comes in. For example the courage to say 'This far and no further!' when people show disrespect to others, or when other essential standards are violated. It also means saying 'no' to lucrative business which does not fit with your companies' vision/mission. And there is more, but you can read that in the book. This book can inspire you to escape from the idea that you have to find the right balance between idealism and profitability; it invites you to be both highly idealistic and higly profitable. It can be done. Maister proves it.

The ROI of Employee Attitudes

The dust jacket suggests that David Maister is "widely acknowledged as one of the world's leading authorities on the management of professional service firms." That is indeed true. To me, his intellectual curiosity and reasoning skills resemble those of a highly-skilled anthropologist who has studied hundreds of cultures throughout the world inorder to understand why some are healthy and others are not. The results of his research are obviously of interest and value to professional service firms but also, in my opinion, of greater importance to organizations which are not (as literally defined) professional service firms. I presume to assert, moreover, that precisely the same values and principles which Maister affirms are those which characterize any healthy community. Specifically, one in which trust, respect, and integrity are cherished; in which there is an appropriate combination of fun and discipline; in which there is an uncompromising determination to achieve excellence; and one in which the development of each person is a shared commitment. In this book, Maister shares the results of his study of 139 offices of 29 firms in 15 countries in 15 different lines of business. To the approximately 6,500 people who participated in this study, he asked "a simple question": Are employees' attitudes correlated with financial success? The answer is an unequivocal "Yes!" Maister already knows that the world's most highly admired companies (e.g. those at which competitors' employees seek employment) are also the most profitable and have the greatest cap value in their respective industries. "What is even more powerful, as the book shows, it is [employee] attitudes that drive financial results, and not (predominantly) the other way around. Why do so many people want to work for Southwest Airlines? The airlines' most frequent fliers know the answer: employee attitudes. It is no coincidence that Southwest Airlines has consistently out-performed all other airlines, financially and operationally, for more than 20 years. Maister offers what he characterizes as "new evidence to support important, but perhaps familiar, conclusions. (Hence the significance of the book's title: the message is not to preach new things, but to practice what most managers and firms already preach.)...The summary is deferred until the latter portion of the book." As is his style, Maister urges his reader to be alert to "lessons" he (Maister) may have missed or failed to stress. He also urges the reader to judge for herself or himself which "lessons" are most important. For me, the most valuable material is found in Chapter 7 when Maister explains what he calls "The Predictive Package." He identifies and discusses nine key statements such as "Client satisfaction is a top priority in our firm." He suggests that affirmations of these nine statements "represent a great place to get started" and that is true IF everyone involved fully understands what the implications of each "key s

THE RIGHT ATTITUDE - A FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENT FOR SUCCESS

David Maister has learned what many business managers strive to attain and many never truly accomplish. Maister has learned that attitudes drive financial results; success is not dependent on a company's systems and policies, but on the character and skills of its manager. Financial rewards often come in proportion to the high standards set by the company. Many floundering companies have not yet learned that you invest in employees, and that if you must reduce expenditures, you cut in other areas of expense. Strong, well-trained managers have already learned that you treat employees with dignity and respect, pay them what they are worth, and provide a motivating, positive work environment. Employees should feel as if they are working with you to help the company achieve its full potential; they should not feel they are simply working for you to satisfy your personal demands and bring home a paycheck. If that is the case, either management has hired the wrong employee(s) in the first place, which is a lack of human resource management skills, or the employee is no longer being motivated. Top-notch managers know, as this author clearly advocates, that attitude means everything.I have found from doing diagnostic assessments on thousands of businesses over the past thirty years that many companies crash and burn because managers actually believe they have adequate business knowledge and management skills, when in reality they do not. Other companies who have held on and achieved a measure of success, could greatly increase their profitability, with an attitude which fosters employee motivation and productivity. Any individual with the desire and commitment to improve their management skills will benefit from "Practice What You Preach;" it is an excellent, well-written book with a straight-forward approach. In business, one can never know enough; learning is an on-going life process for as long as you are part of the business. This book, along with Maister's other books, "Managing the Profession Service Firm" and "The Trusted Advisor" offer sound, practical advice and are highly recommended.

THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH STARS FOR THIS ONE!

David Maister has learned what so many managers have failed to understand. This book should be a staple in every manager's office from the day he enters the management field. As a teacher and counsellor in business management, I can attest first hand that Maister's approach works. Through the author's Path to Performance, he shows the importance of instilling trust and respect. This translates to productive and motivated employees, strong and successful management by objectives (as opposed to management by crises) and satisfied clients/customers. The end results: maximizing a company's full potential, increasing profitability and becoming recognized in the community as a respected corporate entity. I highly encourage anyone in management, whether it is a two or three person operation or a multinational corporation, to read this well-written book. There is always room for a company to grow no matter how successful you think you may be. Even some of the most historic, well-established, successful conglomerates have crashed and burned. Do you and your company justice by reading the book - there is always room to learn and grow!