s-m-l-xl

[Margaret and Rijk Rietveld]

In the mean time I'm thoroughly enjoying breading this book. It is very helpful for me, and it makes me think a lot about how we run our own organization.

[Koen Eykhout]

Originally Posted by Margaret and Rijk Rietveld

I think that firms like SOM are structured the way Maister envisions. The higher you get up into the organization, the more time you have to spend on the health of the business and the future of the business, and not the profession itself. While I can easily see why this is necessary, I would not be happy to work for the business and not for the profession. Then everything becomes about money.....

I once heard a new partner at SOM say that from the moment that he became a partner, his sole task was to pick and grow his successor. He obviously read this book.

I don't think he really "envisions" a whole lot.. The way I read it, his basic message is more something like "stick to your guns", "do what you are", or something like that.
I don't know if you've already read his "pharmacist/nurse/brain surgeon/psychotherapist" story? If you have built a name for yourself as a low-cost, no-frills supplier of easy solutions (pharmacist type) then going for really complex solutions that your company just isn't ready for might result in unhappy clients and overstrained workers.
Similarly, if you're really good at complex projects that require a lot of creativity, and a client asks you to prescribe him some aspirin, then that client, your workers, and your company might be better off if you just referred him to another office that's more specialized in that kind of stuff.

What we had at Origin back then, was actually an entire hospital, with relatively autonomous divisions working either as a pharmacist, or as surgeon, or you name it, and then management tried to turn the whole thing into one vast pharmacy. That didn't work out well for us.

[Margaret and Rijk Rietveld]

In my 8.5 years at Richard Meier I mainly worked on the Cityhall and Library in the Hague. Over those years I had 98 different people work on my team. A lot of people came and went, and the largest team size (briefly) was 18.

In Maiers book, he emphasizes how important it is to build on the quality of your team members. Developing a team that only exists of excellent people.

However, there are just not enough good people available to build a consistent team. Of the almost 100 people that streamed through that project, I would like to have 5 in our firm. But that is not possible, because three of them went on to have their own business.

[Piet Meijs]

Originally Posted by Koen Eykhout

A bit tangential perhaps, but have you guys ever read David Maister's "managing the professional service firm"?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Managing-Pro...8313416&sr=8-1

Maister is one of those management guru's, but he specializes in the type of company that can only sell the skills of it's employees: law firms, consultants, IT stuff, and architects I suppose. This one was required reading for me when I did my stint in IT, and I thought it was a fantastic read. He goes into subjects like why it's much more important to build up ties with your current clients than to create ties with new ones (although almost every firm focusses on the exact opposite), why it's more important to increase productivity than to increase the amount of workers (although almost every firm... yup).

It has a bit of a tilt towards the larger companies (say: several thousand at least), and the larger consultancy companies in particular (probably because that's where he makes most of his money), but I think there's a lot in the book that touches on this type of discussion. It certainly had a lot of lessons for us back then (not that we learned those lessons, but hey - you can't blame Maister for that..).

Rijk likes the book so much it now became mandatory reading material for some people in the office, including me. I am curious what all the buzz is about!

[Koen Eykhout]

Originally Posted by Margaret and Rijk Rietveld

Now I have to read it.....

Originally Posted by Piet Meijs

Rijk likes the book so much it now became mandatory reading material for some people in the office, including me. I am curious what all the buzz is about!

Told ya so!
(Sorry, I just need to gloat a bit every now and then.)

On a strategic level, it's really very, very simple: just be who you are (and improve on that).
He then expands on that on a tactical level. Client management: work for the clients you're already working for (and improve), people management: work with... you guessed it, and so on.
It's on the technical level that he comes with a ton of great tips and little insights and so.

There's a ton of difference between knowing what to do and actually doing it of course. Maister himself, also a professional service worker after all, is a great example of that. This book is filled with encouragements to improve yourself, keep working on yourself and your firm, it just goes on and on about it (rightfully so, imo). Then, a couple years later, he co-wrote another book with two others: "the trusted advisor". It was bland, very dull written, and lacked any new insights whatsoever. Total waste of my money.
Then, a couple years after that one he wrote another book "strategy and the fat smoker", about how hard it is to actually stick to your guns. No sh*t Sherlock. I didn't bother with that one anymore.

[ardbuijsen]

Rijk, Piet, where is this book downloadable as an e-book (can I try my iBook on my iPhone)?

[Piet Meijs]

Originally Posted by ardbuijsen

Rijk, Piet, where is this book downloadable as an e-book (can I try my iBook on my iPhone)?

Rijk has it on his iPad, so yes, you should be able to find it through iBooks. Not sure if there is a difference between the Dutch store and the US store. I know that for iTunes there is definitely a difference.

I however got a classic paperback version. Nothing wrong with that. Easier to scribble notes in the margin!

[Margaret and Rijk Rietveld]

It was hard to find on iBooks. A simple search on the author did not show any result, but one you are in the subsection, it will show up. I thought that was pretty unusual for Apple.

[Vera Kuipers]

Originally Posted by Koen Eykhout

Told ya so!
(Sorry, I just need to gloat a bit every now and then.)

On a strategic level, it's really very, very simple: just be who you are (and improve on that).
He then expands on that on a tactical level. Client management: work for the clients you're already working for (and improve), people management: work with... you guessed it, and so on.
It's on the technical level that he comes with a ton of great tips and little insights and so.

This book is filled with encouragements to improve yourself, keep working on yourself and your firm, it just goes on and on about it (rightfully so, imo). .

The book is in my bag as well and I'm very interested in the strategic highlights you are referring to. Rijk and I were discussing some of that over the phone and will most likely discuss more of this once I am through the first chapters. When you're working in a company for a few years, you keep taking on new tasks and responsibilities and sometimes this will result in literally work piling up and not taking a moment to focus on what works, what you're good at and improving those skills. I am driven to learn from the book an discuss with Rijk and Margaret of course. They've been around the block more than me after all :-p