Commando Consulting: July 2008 - 15 Pillars Of Agile Practice Management - Part 3 Of 3

Or...

Practice Development Strategies From The Ultimate Professional Service Firm: The Military Commando

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur

Summary: In part three we continue reviewing a series of concepts I've gathered over the years on what makes a great consulting firm. And for this I use concepts from agile project management and operating principles and practices of military commandos that are some of the most flexible and highest performing teams on the planet. No, no one is perfect, but the overall success rate of Special Forces units around the world makes them a pretty good role model to build top-performing consulting units. Audio Version (MP3): 1 hour 4 minutes.

And here we'll continue with part 3...

11. Fixed Priced Service Agreements As Opposed To Itemised Menu Pricing

I've heard somewhere that the typical airliner drinks up some 60% of its fuel while taxiing out to the runway and taking off. While this may not be 100% accurate, it's fair to say that, just as in any areas of life it takes a huge effort to get started from a standstill when there is no more momentum than in a running race between somnolent slugs and sedated sloths.

Consulting engagements are pretty much the same, and therefore they cannot be subjected to itemised pricing. Value is not created and dispensed linearly with the passage of time.

What happens when we itemise our pricing?

We start focusing on completing more and more tasks, regardless of whether or not they contribute to the overall success of the engagement.

I believe consulting engagements must be delivered using the least amount of the consulting firm's time, effort and money, provided the pre-agreed value is delivered to the client. If a skill development programme can be done through five workshops, there is no point in running seven workshops.

If a coaching client "gets it" after 30 minutes, there is no point in stretching the coaching session to the pre-agreed 45 minutes. It's better to leave clients alone at that point, so they can ponder on their "Aha" moments and integrate the new discoveries into their lives. Extra coaching at that point is useless.

We get hired to help clients to achieve a newer, higher level of performance not merely ploughing through a rigidly determined task list and checkmark them one by one, so we can get paid for performing those tasks.

The pilot of the above-mentioned airliner doesn't have to document how many times he changes gear or slams on the breaks. The stewardesses don't have to count and document how many steps they take to serve passengers. Pilots have one single job: Safely transport passengers from point A to point B and make sure they enjoy the process.

This cannot be itemised because it cannot be broken down to a rigidly defined list of tasks. One passenger may have a heart attack on the plane, while the other may be in the middle of giving birth, and yet another one is running up and down in the isle with a machinegun in his hands and yelling in heavily accented English. What all three situations have in common is that they all are unexpected. Nevertheless the crew must be ready and prepared to deal with the situation.

Every consulting engagement starts out as a pretty amorphous mass of tasks. Yes, tasks can be itemised, but what tasks? We don't know that. We learn what clients want to achieve by hiring us.

So, we have certain results clients want to achieve. E.g. 25% increase in monthly sales with at least 65% net margin.

Then we have a scope of objectives that must be fulfilled to maximise the probability of reaching this 25% improvement. The objectives (strategies) can be...

1. Putting together an online direct response marketing system


2. Writing and getting to publish two articles a month. One online and one off-line in a trade magazine buyers read


3. Speaking at industry associations and conferences. Minimum one speech per month

And each of these objectives (strategies) has its associated action steps (tactics). But we don't know how many tactical steps it takes to execute each strategy.<'p>

There is a sequence of tactical steps when cooking a gourmet meal. But the steps get drastically mixed up if you, halfway through the process, chop your finger off with the meat cleaver. Then you need first aid and surgery. But you're selling the benefits of the gourmet meal not the tactical steps that lead from the live pig to the roast pork. Guests don't care about the tactical steps you took to serve that meal.

Similarly in consulting. We don't get paid for the number of action steps we take to deliver certain values.

We get paid for delivering those values. How we deliver them is none of the client's business. After all, we're not getting paid based on the sweat on our brows.

This obsession with itemisation is retarded, and it originates from ill-educating clients. I remember, when I was working as a gravedigger, we didn't itemise anything. We got paid for providing a dignified and memorable burial for grandpa. That was all.

How?

It was our business to figure it out.

We give clients one fixed price that is in alignment with the value they expect to derive from our help and support. And that's it. There is nothing to itemise, nothing to justify. Not a sausage.

12. Collegial "No Promotions" Environment As Opposed To The Traditional Cut-Throat Hyper-Competitive Environment

When we look at most consulting firms, what we find is that most people work in their positions not because they really love it, enjoy it and want to give their best and brightest in those positions to become world-class, but because working in those positions is part of the path that leads to higher positions in their firms.

What they call career is nothing more than a never ending climb on the corporate ladder, and staying on each rung for as short of time as humanly possible, thus reaching the top as quickly as possible.

With this attitude there is a constant and never-ending battle for getting promoted. Instead of giving their 100% to their current positions, people start playing political games and pushing their personal agendas in order to win the next promotion and hop on the next rung of the pecking order ladder.

And this is where firms start suffering. Instead of doing their work at the highest quality, people are too busy focusing on the next rung ahead of them.

Imagine a coach horse that accepts a position to pull a coach, knowing that if he behaves well, soon he'll be promoted to be the coach driver, and after some more good behaviour he may obtain even an executive position at the coach company's corporate head office.

Personally I believe that a consulting firm should be an absolute non-promotion environment. If a young woman starts out as a receptionist, she will remain a receptionist. And before you say this is restricting and typical glass ceiling, here is the twist. She remains a receptionist because she wants to become the world's best consulting receptionist. She loves her position and wants to become a master receptionist.

And as the firm is getting more and more profitable, her salary keeps going up, regardless of so-called competitive going rates for receptionists. Remember, you don't want to condemn her to be merely a competent and competitive receptionist. She's inspired to be world-class, and as her manager, you have to support her inspiration and ambition.

And the same happens in every single position of your firm, including the janitor. The janitor is not merely a cleaning lady who cleans things for minimum wage because she can't get another job. She cleans because she's a clean freak, and for her getting and keeping things spotlessly clean is the second greatest thing after sex... on some days.

Since we've already established that the form of the firm is not a partnership but proper one-person leadership model, there is no internal competition and brown-nosing to make partner.

You hire people who want to stay in the position they get hired for, and want to become world champions in those positions, be it webmaster, telephone support person, diagnostician or documentation specialist.

It's totally amazing that when you remove internal competition and have your people work as a team, overall performance goes through the roof. People stop rivalling with each other and start collaborating to achieve more together.

13. Written Change Requests As Opposed To Whimsical Modifications

Most consulting firms are excellent at practising their expertise but are pathetically poor at managing their engagements, which often leads them to scope creep.

And the problem with scope creep is that many firms are too worried about losing these demanding clients and just give in to clients' demands and do whatever clients order them to do.

I also believe that this wimp behaviour undermines firms' positioning in the marketplace, and sooner or later, clients realise that there are serious problems with this firm.

No, not every client likes tough consultants in their corners.

But...

Unreasonable, irrational and demanding behaviour comes from the innate weakness of bottom-performing and bottom-feeder clients.

So, how do we get top-performing tough clients whose words are really their bonds? Well, consider this...

In the mid 90s the US Army, the Navy and the Air Force kept coming short on new recruits. They wanted to better appeal to people to join the military by softening their standards. There was only one military division that decided to further toughen the already very tough training and in doing so to further improve the quality of recruits and the quality and the overall strength of the whole unit.

The Marine Corps, under General Charles Krulak, introduced "The Crucible" concept to Marine training. The Marine Crucible is a 54-hour non-stop life fire exercise peppered with long forced marches, sleep deprivation and other survival exercises, marking the completion of basic Marine training.

As a result of increased demands, the number of new recruits has increased to unprecedented heights. And not only in quantity but also in quality. It's not only that the very high standards, demands and expectations didn't turn off candidates; they have attracted even more and better of them.

What does all this mean?

You have to start with a scope document that clearly outlines what has to be done. And also let's remember that as a consultant you're not the doer. You're not a contract labourer for the client but an advisor to help to figure out what to do.

So, this scope document is a list for clients as to what to do, and a document for you as to what you have to hold your clients accountable to.

And this requires a bit of clarification. Many people erroneously believe that consultants are hired to perform tasks clients have neither time nor willingness to perform using their own people.

Realistically, consultants are hired to help clients to diagnose their current situations and make better decisions as to what solutions to implement to improve the situation. That is, consulting is a "doing WITH clients" business, not a "doing FOR clients" business.

So, in order to avoid scope creep, we have to precisely document what gets done. This is the scope, and is defined jointly buy buyers and sellers.

And if clients realise later on, well in the project, that some more work has to be done to fulfil the project's objectives, then they have to submit a change request, and then we can review the project.

In project management this is usually called changer order, but in a good consulting relationship we don't order or boss each other around. We present requests and the other party has the right to say yay or nay.

And of course, every time clients submit a change, request they have to build a business case for that specific change. Why is this important? Because as they are building cases for their decisions, they will quantify their expectations. And when you have quantified projections, then you have a basis to set a fee for the change.

And this is another huge point. Bottom-feeder clients expect these changes to be implemented without extra charges. They say you should go the extra mile. But that's retarded. You sell what the client has purchased. If the client buys a beaten up Jalopy, then you sell a Jalopy in the most professional, ethical and courteous manner. As the "extra mile", you may send a postcard the next day and wish the client good luck with the car. But the extra mile is not about selling the client a brand spanking new Mercedes.

The change request is an extension on the existing engagement, and therefore must be evaluated and priced accordingly. It's like making pancakes. If you forget to buy eggs, you go back to the store and buy some. And you pay for them separately. No shop will lump the price of the eggs into your previous purchase. Although you may not have to justify why you want to buy eggs.

14. Chief Value Officer (CVO) As Opposed To Self-Assessment

"The final question needed in order to come to grips with business purpose and business mission is: 'What is value to the customer?' It may be the most important question. Yet it is the one least often asked. One reason is that managers are quite sure that they know the answer. Value is what they, in their business, define as quality. But this is almost always the wrong definition. The customer never buys a product. By definition the customer buys the satisfaction of a want. He buys value." ~ Peter Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, 1993

Traditional engagement management is about managing the tasks that have to be performed as per the collaboration agreement, and most consulting firms have no problem with it. After all, it's just about checking the tasks as they've been performed.

But what happens when you're practising value-pricing?

Then you have to go beyond managing tasks and manage the delivered value.

And this is where it's important to have a Chief Value Officer (CVO).

The CVO constantly monitors the value sellers are dispensing and clients are receiving. This person is a sort of liaison between the value creator (seller) and value receiver (buyer). The reason for this setup is that while buyers and sellers are engaged in projects, they can't keep their fingers on the "value pulse" of the project. After all, since they're creating the value, they can't measure it in an unbiased manner.

So, the VCO makes certain that consulting firms are actually dispensing the required and paid-for value and clients actually receiving all the value elements. And the CVO is NOT part of the engagement team, but is an objective liaison between the client and the firm.

The sole purpose of a consulting firm, or any other business as a matter of fact, is to create wealth outside itself.

That is, creating successful clients and successful associates. And while associates are parts of the firm, they volunteer to come to work every day, so in a way, they are outsiders too.

So, what skills are we seeking in value officers? Expertise to quantify various value components and attach the appropriate value-based price to them. This is vital if we consider that 1% price increase can add as much as 11.7% to your net profits. And McKinsey & Co. established these numbers for manufacturing companies. For consulting firms this number is much higher. No other factor can do this.

So, one part of the CVO's job is to oversee the value that is delivered, but even before that, the CVO helps to quantify the value clients request from consultants and price those value ingredients.

This is a close collaboration between the CVO and the consultant who works on the engagement. They jointly price this specific consultant's engagements.

This approach also makes certain that there is no random, haphazard proposal writing going on in the firm but only highly committed prospects' requests are responded to. So, the proposal is more than a standard proposal where consultants invest many hours in developing approaches for prospects to consider.

By the time it comes to writing a proposal, there must be a 99% chance of going ahead on the project, so prospects shouldn't oppose to paying your a few thousand bucks even before you start writing. If they kick up a fuss, they show they're tyre-kickers and they just have to go to strengthen the competition.

In order to avoid biases, I suggest to clients that CVOs don't know the clients whose engagements they're pricing. This can eliminate unnecessary emotional ties between CVOs and clients whose gigs they price.

Different people say different things about profitability. My belief is that when it comes to profitability the number 1 force multiplier^[1] is price.

And here is one more thing to consider. Using a CVO slows down the pricing process. And while many people may say this sounds counterintuitive, the sooner you quote a price, the lower it will be. This is why you can recognise low-end firms by having "request a quote" pages on their websites. They provide instant pricing at the profit margin of fast food.

Instead of consulting fast food, you can provide a sophisticated consulting gourmet meal, and as we know a gourmet meal takes longer to prepare. Not to mention the heftier profit margin.

15. Salaries As Opposed To Hourly Wages Or Sales Commissions

In point #2 we discussed the result culture as opposed to the busy-ness culture. So, if we want to see results, we have to pay people for them.

What that means is that we have to pay them proper salaries as knowledge workers, not hourly wages or retarded sales commissions as manual labourers or peddlers.

In the words of Clarence Francis...

"You can buy a man's time, you can buy a man's physical presence at a certain place, you can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But you cannot buy enthusiasm, you cannot buy initiative, you cannot buy loyalty; you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things."

As professional knowledge firms, we are after our people's brainpower. More accurately, we want to make sure our people are in top condition mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. The brain can only operate in top gear if and only if the other compartments are in top condition too.

I somehow don't buy into the notion that...

"Although I'm an emotionally screwed up 400lb lard bag, but I'm extremely creative and my mind is incredibly sharp."

Knowledge work is a 24/7 activity. People come up with million-dollar ideas in their "spare" time under the shower, when they are not strictly working, but their brains are pondering over the problems they started working on during their working hours.

But let's take a quick look at the alternatives.

Hourly wages are not for doing serious brain work but for manual labour. Also, I've recently read a study when hourly workers were told they could go home after doing their normal daily - eight hour of - work. Well, they completed their daily work in just over three hours. So, hourly or any kind of time-based wages are retarded.

So are commissions because they attract the wrong type of people. The kind of people who are predominantly motivated by money. They don't have a higher sense of achievement, only to make more money than everyone else in the firm.

Now you may say, without this "incentive" people don't work. The wrong people don't work. That's a fact. But the right people do work because they don't work for the money. Using Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's definition, these people operate in flow, that is...

"being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost."

And when you look around in the world and look at the richest people, they have one thing in common: Whatever they do, they don't do it for the money, but for a much higher level of good.

So, the following is a rather odd approach but wherever I've helped to implement it, it's been successful.

First I look at a team as an immune system, so when a bad cell, that is, inappropriate team member, manages to get into the team, the team will reject him without interference from high above. What that means is that you have a team where members give their 100%. And the immune system kicks out the dead cells, the slacking team members. Or more likely, the immune system blocks dead cells from entering in the first place.

And since I believe in giving first, I like the idea of paying every team member the same. After all, I expect the same 100% contribution just like in a military commando.

So, first we establish a base salary for every team member. Add up the current salaries and divide the sum by the number of team members.

Here is a problem. Some egomaniacs won't understand this and start rebelling that their jobs are more valuable than others. Don't you believe that! An MBA guy may say he deserves more than a receptionist. Why? Without a great receptionist, the MBA guy wouldn't have a client. Without the support of a great admin person, the MBA guy would die to death.

Also, anyone who has an issue with this equal money stuff, I know is mainly motivated by money and I want him off the team and off the firm as quickly as humanly possible. Sorry, no business whores here.

Machiavelli writes in the Prince...

"The forces of adversaries are more diminished by the loss of those who flee than of those who are killed."

I would rephrase it for business: In business, the forces of competitors are more diminished by the loss of passion, excitement and enthusiasm of people who stay than those geniuses who leave the company.

And when people work on engagements and their minds are constantly on the money they make, this thought weakens the quality of the work they can provide, and lower quality lowers the fees they can charge. So, the more they have money on their minds, the less they earn.

In the next step you establish what percentage of the total revenue is to be put aside for bonus, and then split the bonus equally among team members.

Now I know many people rebel against this approach, but my objective is to build a peak-performing team and a super profitable firm. My objective is NOT to create super rich team members. Look at governments and wonder how super rich civil servants can be employed by institutions in super perpetual deficit.

So, if you have a highly profitable firm, you can have super rich people, but just because some people are stinking rich, the institution can be dirt poor. See communism.

Now you may say that with this approach you can't get superstars. I try my damn best to avoid superstars like the plague. I need excellent team players. And they're not the same.

A tight-knit team of competent and dedicated people will always outperform a loosely-connected bunch of superstars. When you offer equal pay to everyone, internal competition and rivalry vanish, so people can dedicate 100% of their best and brightest to their clients. This leads to amazing client success, incredible reputation, extremely high fees and super high sense of fulfilment among consultants and all support staff.

And some people may accuse me of being a socialist. Well, hell, yeah. Outwards to the marketplace I'm a capitalist, but inwards to my own people, I'm a bit of a socialist. Or more like a nurturing parent. I create a high-demand, high-support environment in which people are naturally inspired to do their best and constantly improve. And I've never motivated anyone in my whole life. Every time I was in such positions, I demanded a helluva lot of my people, but also did my level best to support them to pull it off at the highest level.

And people who are primarily motivated by money aren't suitable for this. So, why try?

"The essence of management: Pay your people well and fairly, and do your best to help them to forget about money." ~ Alfie Kohn in the Harvard Business Review (Nov/Dec 1993)

American writer, John Steinbeck, the author of "Of Mice And Men" put it this way...

"It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him."

So, remember, people don't rise to higher levels of greatness when you chuck more money at them. There is one more vital point here to consider...

Absolutely and positively no time sheets for your people. Proper consulting is brainwork, and creating value through brainwork has nothing to do with the passage of time. I've recently heard of a consultant who spent two weeks thinking of a solution for a client. Nothing.

Then one morning under the shower he got the idea and that was the solution. And dumb clients may say that he shouldn't be paid for those two weeks.

But without the previous two weeks of pondering the solution couldn't have come to him. The previous two weeks were part of the thinking process.

Conclusion

So, we have gone through a couple of concepts which I consider as major building blocks for premium "commando style" low-headcount, high-impact consulting firms. And to run such a firm, we need pretty special people. Using the words of English artist and sculptor, Henry Moore...

"The secret to life is to have a task... something you bring everything to... And the most important thing is it must be something you cannot possibly do."

In a 1997, organisational psychologist, Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski of Yale University School of Management, did an extensive study, and categorised employees into three groups. However, the same categorisation applies to independent professionals like contractors and consultants too.

Group #1 views work as a job. For these people the motto is, "Fair work for fair wage." They don't care about what they do. They do it because the money they receive pays the bills. There is no pride and fulfilment in the work. It's merely another chore like taking out the rubbish or mowing the lawn. It's just another necessary evil to kill time between weekends. Loyalty is non-existent. These people leave their companies for the smallest wage increase. In society, you can compare these people to the lowest level of hookers: "We do anything for anyone for money."

Group #2 views work as a career, but the main goal is still mere promotion and financial advancement. These people work because it gives them social status, prestige and title power. These are the people who love using their designations after their names. They also make significant investments in their careers and keep advancing their skills. But their work satisfaction still depends on promotions and other external conditions (motivation), while the internal conditions (inspiration) are missing. When promotion stops, they move on to the competition.

Group #3 views work as a higher calling. They do the work for the sake of work. These people don't have balance in their lives. They seamlessly blend life and work together. No they're not workaholics. Workaholics are driven by external motivation not by internal inspiration. These are people who also have happy, healthy and fulfilling personal lives. They would do the work for free too because they work for the love of what they do and who they do it with. These people do their work to serve a higher purpose, and in doing so they make their societies and the world a better place.

While you can find competitive(ly cheap) people in Group #1 and mediocre people in Group #2, but you're better off hiring people from group #3, and get the best of the talent pool.

The 20%-ers

We've touched on this puppy earlier, but it's worth repeating.

Quality guru, W. Edwards Deming said many years ago that 97% of under-performance is caused by sub-par systems not by people. He also said what used to be 80/20 in Pareto's time, it's about 95/5% in our knowledge-based economy.

But let's be conservative and calculate with 80/20.

Here is a 100-employee company producing $100 of revenue. From these 100 people, 20 produce $80. Let's call them the vital minority: $80 / 20 people = $4 per person.

And the other 80 people produce $20. Let's call them the trivial majority: $20 / 80 people = $0.25 per person

The vital minority outperform the trivial majority 16 times.

Before we hire new people, we have to optimise the performance for maximum revenue per person.

In the movie Rules of Engagement Col. Terry L. Childers (Played by Samuel L. Jackson) asked his former Vietnam comrade-in-arms, now lawyer, Col. Hayes 'Hodge' Hodges (Played by Tommy Lee Jones) to defend him in a nasty court martial case that could break his Marine career. Childers is accused of mass-murdering innocent civilians to defend the US embassy in Yemen.

Childers: Hodge, I want you to defend me.

Hodges: Terry, I'm a very weak lawyer. For such a case you need a much better lawyer than me.

Childers: Hodge, there may be better lawyers, but you know combat. You've been shot at and know the feeling. That's what I need.

So, it's not merely academic accomplishment, but attitude, innate talent and experience.

In CSI: Miami, when Horatio was hiring Ryan Wolfe, there were two "interview" questions:

1) Weapon? Clean!

2) Backup weapon? Clean!

Fine. You're hired.

What we have to understand is that 20%-ers don't even apply the same way as the 80%-ers. Remember George Bernard Shaw's words from his "Man and Superman: The Revolutionists' Handbook"

"The reasonable man adopts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adopt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

80%-ers apply as reasonable people. 20%-ers won't follow your hiring instructions because the process irritates the living daylights out of them. And their application approach is likely to irritate the living daylights out of you.

The question is this: Can you take that irritation? Because this is the price of finding 20%-ers. They are oddballs, mavericks and renegades.

Talent Alone Is Useless

The application of talent must lead to wealth creation outside the firm, which, in turn, leads to wealth creation inside the firm. As you help your clients to create wealth, be it financial or otherwise, in return clients contribute to your firm's wealth in the forms of profit, brand, reputation, contacts, etc.

A highly talented chimneysweeper can't create and deliver much value in a coffin making business, thus can't create wealth for the business. This is why the indiscriminate hiring of Ivey League MBA's doesn't automatically lead to the hiring firm's blazing success. No doubt, these folks are excellent at passing exams. But what about the rest?

I don't think Mick Jagger is 16 times more intelligent than his contemporaries from the 60s, like Ray Davis of The Kinks or Roger Daltrey of The Who. Not even 16 times more talented. But he has incredible business sense with splendid ability to deliver value for the Rolling Stones' audience, thus creating wealth in excess of 16 times higher than the other bands.

So, wealth is all about the blend of talent and wealth creation vehicle.

For the Rolling Stones, Wembley stadium in London is a great wealth generation vehicle. So is BC Place in Vancouver. The Champlain Heights Recreation Centre in Vancouver is not a hell of a wealth generation vehicle due to its small size regardless of the talent of the person who shows up there.

How Does It Apply To Business?

Your people are the talents and your business (products, services, culture, values, environment, systems, processes, etc.) is the wealth generation vehicle. Your people are driving this vehicle. If you put highly talented people into a shoddy business, they get demotivated and don't produce and soon leave.

If you put less talented people into the great business, they produce incredible results. Just see how the military transforms laypeople and even criminals to decorated soldiers. But there is one more factor we have to discuss here...

Intelligence vs. Wealth

If wealth were about sheer intelligence, college professors would be the wealthiest folks on the planet. But they are not. Far from it. So, be careful when you're about to hire some impressive resumes with fancy degrees on them. They mean nothing in the trenches of the business world.

So What You Have To Offer

By now we know that Group #3 (Dr. Wrzesniewski's research) 20%-ers operate drastically differently from the 80%-ers. And of course, they have different expectations. They want to focus on the work itself because they love what they do. And they are extremely inspired to do great work.

As a manager, you have to focus on helping them to maintain and improve their expertise. So...

You pay an annual salary plus bonus, so your people know they can sustain a healthy and happy lifestyle, and focus on doing amazing work. Unlike hourly workers and commissioned salespeople, they are not in constant hour- or money chasing mode. They are, just like all good knowledge workers, in constant value-creating mode.

You keep your firm as politics-free as possible and fire the arses of those who start playing the politics card

You show personal interest in landing great people in your firm and never farm out talent acquisition to headhunters and recruitment agencies

You maintain a ROWE (Results Only Work Environment) culture and let your people do excellent work without micromanaging them

You must understand that the value your firm has to offer is the brainpower between the ears of your people. And dispensing that knowledge and wisdom is not the same as shovelling shit or making coffins at the rate of five coffins per day. There is no correlation between the passage of time and creating brainpower value.

You switch from being a boss to being a mentor and a coach. Regard your people as your clients and you are a trusted advisor to them. They are really clients in a way because they can either leave your firm for the competition or start their own firms at the drop of a hat, and there is not a dickybird you can do about it.

You have to change your mentality from commanding and controlling employees to connecting and collaborating with volunteers, and understand - as Peter Drucker wrote in Practice of Management - that you need them more than they need you. Without you, they go next door to your competition, but without them you are toast.

So, with that we've ended this journey. I hope you've found it helpful, and while we could add some more points to the list, I thought these 15 points are really the foundations of a great premium consulting firm. Peter Drucker introduced the concept of the knowledge work and the knowledge worker in 1959. Let's do something to catch up and leave the industrial age behind once and for all.

In a few weeks I'll compile the three parts into a PDF file and maybe podcast that will be available to you to download for further reference. I will probably expand on some points for I've had some new thoughts as I've been writing this three-part series.

In the meantime, happy reading and listening.

Footnotes

^[1]Force multiplication is a military term referring to factors that dramatically increase, that is, multiply the effectiveness of a military unit and the impact of a military manoeuvre. Continue where you've left off...

"Dynamic Duo" Mentor Programme... ...has 3 openings for August and 4 for September 2008. Click here to continue to the fiendish details.

Recommended Reading

Mind Over Matter: Why Intellectual Capital is the Chief Source of Wealth

by Ron Baker

Peter Drcuker coined knowledge work and the knowledge worker in 1959. What have consulting firms learnt from him regarding knowledge work? Nothing. Not a sausage.

Many of them are glorified manufacturing plants churning out mass-produced one-size-fits-all solutions, developed in isolation by young inexperienced MBAs.

In this book of Ron's "Intellectual Capitalism" series, he takes a closer look at how wealth creation has shifted over the years from tangible things to intangible thoughts, ideas, knowledge, wisdom and imagination. And this is fairly easy to recognise if we just think of Google. Google is a huge brain farm, producing... what really? An opportunity for people to find on the web what they're looking for. There is nothing tangible. Google has basically invented an industry for itself and has become world-class at it.

And Google has pulled this off by acquiring the best brains it can find. Not the best technology. Not the best location for the office building. But the best brains, knowing that whoever owns the best brains with ambition and inspiration can rule the land.

In this book Ron discuses in great detail...

• The general misbelief that wealth creation is still about applying manual labour to tangible things


• Why more and more manual workers have to become knowledge worker to be able to earn a living in the new knowledge economy


• How to capture intellectual capital in your firm and turn it into wealth outside the firm and then inside the firm


• The art and science of attracting top-tier talents to your firm


• How to compile a wisdom vault in your firm and leverage it to your best advantage

I believe Ron is one of the greatest thought leaders on intellectual capitalism and every consultant should read all of his books. They are truly eye-opening.

Place your order with Amazon.com for Mind Over Matter. You'll be glad you did.

Value Pricing Assault Course... ...has 2 openings for August and 5 for September 2008. Click here to continue to the fiendish details.