Tom Peter has lunched a wiki- called PSF-Wiki based on the idea of his PSF50 book. This was one of my favorite books in late 1990s.
Here is the link to the book.
In this wiki which is based on the 50 lists in his book, you can share your story. There's even a playground at the end where you can create your own pages or have PSF-related discussions that you don't think fit elsewhere.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
Professional Services: The Leader's Role
Sean Silverthorne , editor of HBS Working Knowledge has interviewed Thomas J. DeLong, the author of the book "When Professionals Have to Lead" in recent Research & Idea article- New Challenge in Leading Professional Services.
Thomas DeLong , the Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, has studied the leadership issues in Professional Services firms and observes that ineffective leaders in PSFs are excellent professionals but as leaders they are unable to create a clear sense of direction, inspire others, or get results; or if they do get results, they are attained at great organizational and human cost.
He has proposed a leadership framework which deals with distinctly observable actions. The model consists of four distinct but highly interrelated sets of leadership activities. They are:
Setting Directions: PSF leaders should be able set-direction for the organization where churn rate is quite high- and work towards helping the professionals to relate to those long term objective to the short team assignments.
Gaining commitment : Leaders in PSFs should work towards gaining commitment from all the members of the organization so as to drive the firm, practice or project in the direction set by the leadership.
Execution: PSF leaders have a challenge to be both people oriented as well as task oriented at the same time. They need to ensure that the financial objectives of the firm are met while keeping the professional on board.
Setting a personal example: Finally, when one of the key ingredients of the PSF are people, leader should show display personal integrity, support their professionals, and take responsibility for their own actions—including mistakes.
Thomas DeLong highlights the importance of these four leaderships behavior as an integrated model and when practiced it will help help leaders in managing the conflicting requirements, intensifying client demands, and other stress-producing factors that make leading other professionals such a challenge.
Thomas DeLong , the Philip J. Stomberg Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business School, has studied the leadership issues in Professional Services firms and observes that ineffective leaders in PSFs are excellent professionals but as leaders they are unable to create a clear sense of direction, inspire others, or get results; or if they do get results, they are attained at great organizational and human cost.
He has proposed a leadership framework which deals with distinctly observable actions. The model consists of four distinct but highly interrelated sets of leadership activities. They are:
Setting Directions: PSF leaders should be able set-direction for the organization where churn rate is quite high- and work towards helping the professionals to relate to those long term objective to the short team assignments.
Gaining commitment : Leaders in PSFs should work towards gaining commitment from all the members of the organization so as to drive the firm, practice or project in the direction set by the leadership.
Execution: PSF leaders have a challenge to be both people oriented as well as task oriented at the same time. They need to ensure that the financial objectives of the firm are met while keeping the professional on board.
Setting a personal example: Finally, when one of the key ingredients of the PSF are people, leader should show display personal integrity, support their professionals, and take responsibility for their own actions—including mistakes.
Thomas DeLong highlights the importance of these four leaderships behavior as an integrated model and when practiced it will help help leaders in managing the conflicting requirements, intensifying client demands, and other stress-producing factors that make leading other professionals such a challenge.
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