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The Professional Service Firm 50 (Reinventing Work): Fifty Ways to Transform Your "Department" into a Professional Service Firm Whose Trademarks are Passion and Innovation!
Transform white collar departments into "professional service firms" whose sole, powerful asset is knowledge.
You are boss of a 23-person finance department in a division of a big company. Or, rather, you were boss of the finance department. Now, per our suggestion-model, you are Managing Partner, Finance Inc., a full-fledged professional service firm which is a wholly owned subsidiary of your division.
Learn from the best professional service firms! Transform your unit! Today, even after re-engineering done well, the "department" doesn't look much like McKinsey, Andersen or Chiat Day. (And that's an understatement!)
Aim, in Cool people (call them "talent") working on cool projects with cool clients. The aim A cool Finance/Purchasing, IS, HR, Sales department. Why not?
The cool professional service firm is just cool people/talent, a portfolio of cool projects, cool clients. Period. It's only asset -- literally -- is brains. It's only product is projects. It's only aim is truly memorable client service.
So step #1, then, is the organization (PSF) . . . transforming "departments" in which white collar folks work into way cool professional sercie firms adding way cool value by doing way cool "stuff".
Peters discusses making the most of presentations, working with outsiders on market analysis, how to imporve brainstorming meetings, how to develop relationships with clients and get the most out of them.
50 of Tom Peters's trademark insights on how to get the most our of your department.
See also the other 50List titles in the Reinventing Work series by Tom Peters -- The Brand You50 and The Project50 -- for additional information on how to make an impact in the professional world.
You are boss of a 23-person finance department in a division of a big company. Or, rather, you were boss of the finance department. Now, per our suggestion-model, you are Managing Partner, Finance Inc., a full-fledged professional service firm which is a wholly owned subsidiary of your division.
Learn from the best professional service firms! Transform your unit! Today, even after re-engineering done well, the "department" doesn't look much like McKinsey, Andersen or Chiat Day. (And that's an understatement!)
Aim, in Cool people (call them "talent") working on cool projects with cool clients. The aim A cool Finance/Purchasing, IS, HR, Sales department. Why not?
The cool professional service firm is just cool people/talent, a portfolio of cool projects, cool clients. Period. It's only asset -- literally -- is brains. It's only product is projects. It's only aim is truly memorable client service.
So step #1, then, is the organization (PSF) . . . transforming "departments" in which white collar folks work into way cool professional sercie firms adding way cool value by doing way cool "stuff".
Peters discusses making the most of presentations, working with outsiders on market analysis, how to imporve brainstorming meetings, how to develop relationships with clients and get the most out of them.
50 of Tom Peters's trademark insights on how to get the most our of your department.
See also the other 50List titles in the Reinventing Work series by Tom Peters -- The Brand You50 and The Project50 -- for additional information on how to make an impact in the professional world.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
15 people are currently reading
102 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 9, 2007
Call Tom Peters anything you want but don't call him a man without passion. If you subscribe to the knowledge worker, than you need to read this book.
July 26, 2016
Not everyone is going to like Peters' style, and I'm not sure I do either. But he had many important things to say in this book, and I found it very helpful. I also recommended it to people at work.
November 14, 2020
I was working on a major project for the Government, examining service exports and their potential, when Tom Peter's book.....In Search Of Excellence was still a major best seller. (Though I was informed that most of those "excellent" firms had not been able to maintain their "excellence"). Nevertheless Tom Peters managed to sustain himself as a management guru. (I think he initially started out with McKinseys). And this little book, I think, is part of a series of little books that Tom Peters wrote. (I have another titled "The Brand You"...which is written in very much the same "Rah Rah style as this current book). Nothing wrong with that, I guess...but maybe just slightly annoying and slightly "preachy". His basic point here is that the majority of jobs are now white collar jobs and whilst business has been active in seeking productivity improvements in manufacturing etc. they have been rather slow to adopt improvements in the white collar area.
He suggests that work can be transformed by approaching it in a different way. For example,
1.The Professional Service Firm (PSF) is well known for something and has a distinguishable approach to problems.
2. The PSF leaves a legacy/does work that matters.
3. A PSF isn't afraid of the word "sell" is proud of its capabilities and wants the world to know about them.
4. A PSF has a client list ....to die for ....and dumps dud clients.
5. A PSF is the "place to be"....a magnet for hot talent...hires COOL and pays accordingly.
6. A PSF provides stunning growth opportunities for energetic individuals.
7. A PSF is exciting/vibrant/rockin' cool.
He has a few mottos: Work can be beautiful; Take charge of your life: Make every project a wow!; Be distinct or extinct!
My observation (with a couple of McKinsey alumni in the family) is that he draws heavily on his experience with McKinsey and their mode of operations. And clearly, this is not a bad role model....though he does touch on the crushing pressure to perform on one and (mostly) all. But he doesn't really seem to explore the impact of this crushing pressure on families and personal relationships. And it seems to me that this is a fundamental oversight.
Perhaps by establishing his own business and developing his own PSF he has been able to have slightly more control over his own destiny...though my impression from reading his books is that he still operates under considerable pressure ...whether or not it is self imposed.
Overall, quite a nice little self-help/inspirational book which can be read very quickly and there are certainly some pearls there that each of us can use in our work or daily lives. And, Certainly, the average white collar department could boost their performance and satisfaction from adopting the strategies recommended here by Tom Peters.
Four and a half stars from me.
He suggests that work can be transformed by approaching it in a different way. For example,
1.The Professional Service Firm (PSF) is well known for something and has a distinguishable approach to problems.
2. The PSF leaves a legacy/does work that matters.
3. A PSF isn't afraid of the word "sell" is proud of its capabilities and wants the world to know about them.
4. A PSF has a client list ....to die for ....and dumps dud clients.
5. A PSF is the "place to be"....a magnet for hot talent...hires COOL and pays accordingly.
6. A PSF provides stunning growth opportunities for energetic individuals.
7. A PSF is exciting/vibrant/rockin' cool.
He has a few mottos: Work can be beautiful; Take charge of your life: Make every project a wow!; Be distinct or extinct!
My observation (with a couple of McKinsey alumni in the family) is that he draws heavily on his experience with McKinsey and their mode of operations. And clearly, this is not a bad role model....though he does touch on the crushing pressure to perform on one and (mostly) all. But he doesn't really seem to explore the impact of this crushing pressure on families and personal relationships. And it seems to me that this is a fundamental oversight.
Perhaps by establishing his own business and developing his own PSF he has been able to have slightly more control over his own destiny...though my impression from reading his books is that he still operates under considerable pressure ...whether or not it is self imposed.
Overall, quite a nice little self-help/inspirational book which can be read very quickly and there are certainly some pearls there that each of us can use in our work or daily lives. And, Certainly, the average white collar department could boost their performance and satisfaction from adopting the strategies recommended here by Tom Peters.
Four and a half stars from me.
May 2, 2020
21 years old and stands the test of time. Mostly.
This is a brilliant work. Some of it is a little dated, like the references to Andersen, but they were valid in 1999. This is going to be my guide to reforming my department at my CPA firm. Now I go back and slowly reread the first chapter (50 chapters), implement, and then read the next chapter. And the next.
And have a lot of fun along the way. Because my work matters.
This is a brilliant work. Some of it is a little dated, like the references to Andersen, but they were valid in 1999. This is going to be my guide to reforming my department at my CPA firm. Now I go back and slowly reread the first chapter (50 chapters), implement, and then read the next chapter. And the next.
And have a lot of fun along the way. Because my work matters.
September 1, 2017
Had some good ideas to get people started, not a fan of the writing though.
February 17, 2019
Quintessential of its time. Still all true.
May 18, 2013
Tom does again what he is known for... inspiring us to work differently... to make it mean something... to find clients (even if internal) who make us better, who are thought partners, who are revolutionaries. This is a book to pick up again and again for a short bit of inspiration or another idea to try.
June 3, 2008
Loved it! More of a reference book then a read, but its got some great concepts.
August 1, 2007
It was a short and great book. I got a lot of ideas about client servicing and account management.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews