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

by David H. Maister

Firms that are perceived by their employees to actually practice what they preach are more financially successful than their competitors, says consultant David H. Maister, based on a worldwide survey of 139 offices in 29 professional service firms in 15 countries in 15 different lines of business. Maister asked the simple Are employee attitudes correlated with financial success? The answer, he found, was "an unequivocal 'Yes!'" Further, the author shows that high levels of employee commitment and dedication " cause (yes, cause) a demonstrable, measurable improvement in financial performance." Maister proves that if your firm doesn't promote enthusiasm and high morale in your employees, your firm will make less money. So, how can you create a culture in your firm that promotes growth and superior financial returns? Maister discovered that the most successful firms surveyed excelled by doing well on things to which most, if not all, firms pay only lip commitment to clients, teamwork, high standards, employee development, and other familiar topics. However, what distinguishes the best from the rest is that the best live up to their own standards. Digging deeper by conducting in-depth interviews with managers and employees of the firms he surveyed, Maister has found that the key to success is not the systems of the firm, but the character and skills of the individual manager. He explores in detail the central role of the manager (what he or she must be, must do, and must require of others). The reader will find specific action recommendations from the managers and employees of these "superstar" businesses on how to build an energized workplace, enforce standards of excellence, develop people, and have fun -- all as powerful profit improvement tactics. Practice What You Preach can help any manager increase firm growth and profitability, and will provide proof to firm executives that great financial rewards come from living up to the high standards that most businesses advocate, but few achieve.

Genres: Business, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

David H. Maister is a renowned management thinker, author, and former Harvard Business School professor, widely regarded as a leading authority on professional service firms. Educated in mathematics, economics, statistics, operations research, and business, he began his career in academia, teaching and researching logistics, transportation, and operations management in Canada and at Harvard. He later left academic life to work full time as a consultant, advising professional organizations around the world. Maister is best known for influential books such as Managing the Professional Service Firm and The Trusted Advisor, co written with Charles H. Green and Robert M. Galford, which reshaped thinking around trust, leadership, and client relationships. Named among the world’s top business thinkers, his work consistently emphasizes passion, people, and principles as the true drivers of success. Maister argues that sustained performance depends on energizing people, living stated values, and mastering relationships, viewing human motivation and accountability as the only lasting competitive advantage in business and professional life.

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Practice What You Preach" preaches to the choir. Those who already believe in creating a genuinely respectful, fun, and challenging work environment, and managers with zero tolerance for slackers, abuse or any kind of disrespectful, bad behavior will find support in the survey results and anecdotes here. Sure, it's great to hear that companies with exceptional financial performance credit treating co-workers well as critical to their success. And it's worth the emphasis on how much more office culture matters than goals and vision statements. I think this book can help managers to recommit to their goals to be all that they can be. But it felt a bit overblown to use an entire book to describe one self-report survey. One survey taken at one time point only seems like enough data for one chapter of a Ph.D. thesis. Maister claims that the brave commitment to training and positive, effective people management is enough to improve financial performance. Fantastic, but fancy statistics don't turn correlation into proof. It would be more convincing if he had data over time, showing that companies see finances improve as they improve management and office culture. A second important limitation of this study is that the main advice it gives with regards to individual differences and psychology is to avoid them; Maister simply recommends hiring to fit office culture, which could be interpreted as intolerance of diversity. This is not practical for many fields. For example in sciences and engineering, successful managers need to learn how to effectively manage both introverts and extroverts and how to help bridge the differences between cultures in teams.

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

The lessons of this book are simple. And they are things we already know. But they are important and worthy of repeating. “Treat your employees with respect. Expect excellence. Challenge employees. Keep work interesting. Turn down work that is boring or not in your area of expertise.” And so on. Written primarily for the manager of a professional services firm, it would be of some value to all managers. Unlike the typical management self-help book, this one is packed with hard data to back up its analysis. This is a strength that gives it credibility, but also a weakness that makes it tempting to skip many a page. That said, it was still worthy of a read.

[Bassel · Rating 4 out of 5]

read the full book and found it to focus mainly on how to keep your employees happy and motifated. although i am not into statistics i could not judge if the information is constructed preperly or not. its a good book though.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my all time favourite management text book.

The title says it all.

[Elizabeth]

As seen in FYI: For Your Improvement.