Strategy and the Fat Smoker Quotes

“My experience has taught me that success comes not to those who swing for the fences every time at bat, but to those who commit themselves to a continuous program of constant improvement, base hit by base hit.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“The solution for an individual firm must always address three perspectives in any organizational review: structure (how we are formally organized); processes (how different types of decisions are to be made and how conflicts and trade-offs are to be resolved); and people (appointing the right individuals to play the complex roles that will make it all work).
No one dimension will solve the problem: all three must be examined. However, the importance of these three elements in the solution is first, people; then processes; then structure.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“In busy times there is also a temptation to let investments such as training take a back seat to getting the work out the door. Only adherence to the firm's principles and values prevents opportunistic behavior that may have short-term benefits but long-term adverse consequences.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“The most effective organizations are those that are held together by shared and enforced principles, values, and standards.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“Success, no matter how you define it, is attainable only by persuading another person-a boss, a client, a colleague, a subordinate, a friend or loved one-to give you what you want.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“I have learned that we can live with a bad decision, but we are certain to be hurt by no decision.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“None of us should wait to be told what to do, or how to do it. Micromanagement kills initiative, judgment and creativity.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“Managers should be hassle absorbers, not hassle creators.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“The minute you begin to cruise, to rely on skills learned last year, that's the moment you begin your decline.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“The firm exists to help its people succeed, not the other way round.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“These goals are not unique to us. Our best competitors almost certainly have similar, if not identical goals. If we are to outperform
them, we don't need a better vision, but a better approach to making it happen.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“it is better to stop thinking of permanent or semipermanent "departments" and to begin to use the language of "teams”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“We try to elevate the empowerment of our people over the organizational niceties of structure and process except to the extent that those structural and process features work to empower our people”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“We need structures that don't squash flexibility and creativity but minimize inefficiency and confusion.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“treating financial success as the goal rather than as a by-product of a well-run firm”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“Members of the firm must feel that they have approved the leaders and that the leaders are accountable to them.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“Warlord firms succeed when management keeps the "big hitters" happy and productive. The past and the future are not often items high on the agenda. Consequently, over time, the performance of extreme warlord firms often swings through peaks and valleys. Much management energy is expended in modulating the politically charged environment.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“unity, pride, respect, loyalty, excellence, and integrity.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“A good example of ill-conceived (and premature) training approaches is seen in the many calls I get to conduct training programs to help people become better managers. I put my callers through a standard set of questions:
•Did you choose people for managerial roles because they were the type of people who could get their fulfillment and satisfaction out of helping other people shine rather than having the ego-need to shine themselves? (No!)
•Did you select them because they had a prior history of being able to give a critique to someone in such a way that the other person responds: "Wow, that was really helpful, I'm glad you helped me see all that." (No!)
•Do you reward these people for how well their group has done, or do you reward them for their own personal accomplishments in generating business and serving clients? (Both, but with an emphasis on their personal numbers!)
People can detect immediately a lack of alignment between what they are being trained in and how they are being managed. When they do detect it, little of what has been discussed or "trained" ever gets implemented.
"So, let's summarize;' I say. "You've chosen people who don't want to do the job, who haven't demonstrated any prior aptitude
for the job, and you are rewarding them for things other than doing the job?"
Thanks, but I'll pass on the wonderful privilege of training them!
Here's a good test for the timing of training: If the training was entirely optional and elective, and only available in a remote village accessible only by a mule, but your people still came to the training because they were saying to themselves, "I have got to learn this-it's going to be critical for my future; then, and only then, you will know you have timed your training well. Anything less than that, and you are doing the training too soon.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy

“WHAT IS IT?
The one-firm firm approach is not simply a loose term to describe a "culture." It refers to a set of concrete management practices consciously chosen to maximize the trust and loyalty that members of the firm feel both to the institution and to each other.
In 1985, the elements of the one-firm firm approach were given as:
•Highly selective recruitment
•A "grow your own" people strategy as opposed to heavy use of laterals, growing only as fast as people could be devel-1 oped and assimilated
•Intensive use of training as a socialization process
•Rejection of a "star system" and related individualistic behavior
•Avoidance of mergers, in order to sustain the collaborative culture
A set of concrete management practices consciously chosen to maximize the trust and loyalty that members of the firm feel both to the institution and to each other.
• Selective choice of services and markets, so as to win through significant investments in focused areas rather than many small initiatives
•Active outplacement and alumni management, so that those who leave remain loyal to the firm
•Compensation based mostly on group performance, not individual performance
•High investments in research and development
•Extensive intra-firm communication, with broad use of consensus-building approaches
The one-firm firm approach is similar in many ways to the U. S. Marine Corps (in which Jack Walker served). Both are designed to achieve the highest levels of internal collaboration and encourage mutual commitment to pursuing ambitious goals.”
― David H. Maister, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy