A Woman of Substance

Over the past few months I have picked my way through Maureen Broderick's new book The Art of Managing Professional Services. A very good book, written by a woman of substance.  I love seeing work that is thoughtful, thorough and pertinent. Any PSF leader will find wonderful points and meaty examples in its pages.

Here are two points I found particularly worthy of discussion:

PSFs perpetuate silos. Broderick's Chapter 3 (and one of the book's stated best practices) focuses on People (recruiting, training and evaluating). Great points throughout this section. But like DeLong's book When Professionals Have to Lead, Maister & McKenna's book First Among Equals, and Lorsch & Tierney's book Aligning the Stars, The Art of Managing Professional Services mainly focuses on client-facing practitioners. (The p. 50 example of Booz Allen Hamilton does specifically say "for all staff" -- hurray).

But the sad truth is that most PSFs largely invest in recruiting, training and evaluating for only a segment of their people! By definition, in my opinion, these firms are not as well run as they could be. Non client-facing staff in marketing, business development, HR, IT, Finance, and more, are left mostly on their own to become better integrated into the business. And the turn-over figures published by observers like SpencerStuart support this fact.

My just-published research certainly supports my point that too many PSFs have yet to think critically about some of their other critical resources. PSFs actually perpetuate their own silos! The sooner PSFs grasp the competitive advantages of professionally developing -- and integrating -- their administrative talent, the more competitively effective they will truly be.

Organizational Infrastructure should be much higher on the PSF management agenda. The book's Chapter 10 recounts the relative lack of importance PSF leaders assign to their governance and management decision-making. This issue is huge. I could write a book (and maybe I will!) on the bifurcated decision-making that exists in most PSFs. Broderick rightly points out that "using professional nonbillable support teams" (p. 241) -- including adding them onto the firm's executive management committees -- is essential for successful governance.

But the traditional partnership model (where equity ownership is offered only to practitioners of the profession) still prevails at most privately held firms. As such, decision-making is too often conducted without the sage advice of those "support" professionals who actually have the expertise and experience to help a PSF grow more effectively.

Thank you Maureen Broderick, for your substantive book!

Comments

[Maureen Broderick]

Suzanne, thank you very much for your review of my new book. You are so right that most PSFs are still "plantations" where the landowners,ie partners,have all of the power.And don't get me started on the lack of women in leadership positions throughout all segments except for public relations and advertising.There are many excellent practices in professional services--client relationship management, teaming, and talent management(for professionals)--for example. However,diversity and empowering the non billable teams still have a long way to go. Maureen Broderick

[Suzanne Lowe]

Agreed, Maureen. That's another reason why I entitled my post "A Woman of Substance." You are one of them, but there are others.

How can we help PSFs better recognize and develop women? I'd love to help you work on this.

[A10MarketingMan]

Thank you for this post; I did not hear of the book until today, but definitely plan on reading it!

[Rochan]

Suzanne, could you please explain what is a "bifurcated decision-making"?

[Suzanne Lowe]

Hi Rochan. Bifurcated means a split of a body into two parts. In the case of most PSFs, we're talking about decisions that are made by two parts of a company -- the client-facing practitioners and the mostly client-facing and non-billable marketing and biz dev staff.

You'd be amazed at how many times each side makes decisions without consulting the other side. Well-integrated firms do a good job of incorporating multiple sides into their decisions. They avoid the unintended consequences of bifurcated decision-making.