Managing The Professional Service Firm

International expert and consultant David Maister offers a brilliant and accessible guide to every management issue at play in professional firms.

Professional firms differ from other business enterprises in two distinct ways: first, they provide highly customized services and thus cannot apply many of the management principles developed for product-based industries. Second, professional services are highly personalized, involving the skills of individuals. Such firms must therefore compete not only for clients but also for talented professionals.

Drawing on more than ten years of research and consulting to these unique and creative companies, David Maister explores issues ranging from marketing and business development to multinational strategies, human resources policies to profit improvement, strategic planning to effective leadership. While these issues can be complex, Maister simplifies them by recognizing that “every professional service firm in the world, regardless of size, specific profession, or country of operation, has the same mission statement: outstanding service to clients, satisfying careers for its people, and financial success for its owners.”

• The Trusted Advisor
• True Professionalism: The Courage to Care about Your People, Your Clients, and Your Career
• Art's Principles: 50 years of hard-learned lessons in building a world-class professional services firm
• The Art of Managing Professional Services: Insights from Leaders of the World's Top Firms (paperback)
• First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals
• Strategy and the Fat Smoker: Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy
• It's That Simple: How to Build the Professional Service Firm of the Future
• How Clients Buy: A Practical Guide to Business Development for Consulting and Professional Services
• The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook: A Comprehensive Toolkit for Leading with Trust
• Professional Services Marketing: How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands, Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and Cultures of Business Development Success