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Transform white collar departments into "professional service firms" whose sole, powerful asset is knowledge.
Idea: 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.
Goal: 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 short: Cool people (call them "talent") working on cool projects with cool clients. The aim redux: A cool Finance/Purchasing, IS, HR, Sales department. Why not?
The cool professional service firm is just that: 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.
Idea: 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.
Goal: 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 short: Cool people (call them "talent") working on cool projects with cool clients. The aim redux: A cool Finance/Purchasing, IS, HR, Sales department. Why not?
The cool professional service firm is just that: 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.
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The starting point of all significant change is mindset. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The starting point of all significant change is mindset. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Tom Peters is a perfect example of a management guru - he plays well to the middle management audience in trying to make potential life so much cooler than it actually will be. The fact that he really cannot empower people to change their lives that all the lectures and books will more or less be a flash in the pan for most people coming in contact with them notwithstanding. They are meant to be feelgood and motivational, not instructive.
But while something like In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-run Companies is generally readable, even if produced with very unsound methods and thereby unlikely to equip one with sound managerial principles, this book is not. As pointed out by other readers there is more punctuation than content, way too many wows, cools and phats. It is frankly embarassing for the author, even if I can see how it would work with some of the intended audience. It is very much like an outsider trying to blend into a group and trying much too hard, without having any sense of balance or proportion - and thereby creating an effect that is hard to take seriously.
The author is right in the assumption that if a transformation is to take place in a workplace, enthusiasm and drive are essential components but these can hardly be induced by a book, much less one like this. The only use I can see for it is to show to someone senior that small, incremental change is unlikely to produce the desired effect, especially if it in effect means more of the same, just named differently. On the other hand, even for that purpose the book is its own worst enemy - because someone might get the hare brained idea that renaming a department and giving one or two motivational speeches with 'wows and kewls' is all it will take.
Unfortunately, also, Peters left real consulting before a professional colleague of his came up with the Lewinsky curve - in effect prescribing optimal proportions of cool to uncool clients a professional service firm can afford to keep, if it is to continue paying its bills.
Even something as old as Ogilvy's Confessions of an Advertising Man will be a much more practical, timely and useful guide to a professional service firm than this, as will be stuff by David Maister - another management guru but at least of a much more respectable kind (Managing the Professional Service Firm comes to mind as an example).
But while something like In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-run Companies is generally readable, even if produced with very unsound methods and thereby unlikely to equip one with sound managerial principles, this book is not. As pointed out by other readers there is more punctuation than content, way too many wows, cools and phats. It is frankly embarassing for the author, even if I can see how it would work with some of the intended audience. It is very much like an outsider trying to blend into a group and trying much too hard, without having any sense of balance or proportion - and thereby creating an effect that is hard to take seriously.
The author is right in the assumption that if a transformation is to take place in a workplace, enthusiasm and drive are essential components but these can hardly be induced by a book, much less one like this. The only use I can see for it is to show to someone senior that small, incremental change is unlikely to produce the desired effect, especially if it in effect means more of the same, just named differently. On the other hand, even for that purpose the book is its own worst enemy - because someone might get the hare brained idea that renaming a department and giving one or two motivational speeches with 'wows and kewls' is all it will take.
Unfortunately, also, Peters left real consulting before a professional colleague of his came up with the Lewinsky curve - in effect prescribing optimal proportions of cool to uncool clients a professional service firm can afford to keep, if it is to continue paying its bills.
Even something as old as Ogilvy's Confessions of an Advertising Man will be a much more practical, timely and useful guide to a professional service firm than this, as will be stuff by David Maister - another management guru but at least of a much more respectable kind (Managing the Professional Service Firm comes to mind as an example).
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This must be the strangest business book I have ever read (and I've read loads). There is more punctuation than words. More slang than English. Almost every page has the words Wow! and Cool! somewhere on it - often many, many times. The text also includes a lot of profanities.
The basic thesis is that absolutely every type of worker must be a COOL consultant and spend all their time doing WOW! projects. As a business philosophy, it seems shallow and unrealistic to me.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book has several potential uses. Although I have worked in professional service firms almost my entire life, I found this book to be a useful reminder of what makes a professional service firm great. Although Tom Peters did not intend this purpose, I think it may be the best use of the book. The second use is the intended one: Turn your internal business department into a professional service firm look-alike. The book will work well for those who have driving ambition to be the best. For those who do not share Peters' passion, this book may seem over the top. Peters is a very qualitative thinker, so it would be easy to misapply his ideas in a way that created a tough work environment that created little benefit. For example, The Dance of Change warns against trying to create new language and culture in an organizational sector because everyone else may think you are weird and ignore you. Peters could create that kind of tension for a group if you followed his advice too literally (he suggests that you use questions like "How can we wow you?" when working with colleagues in the firm). On the other hand, Peters is at his best when he is a little off-the-wall because he makes you think. There are plenty of references to outstanding books, and he is really trying to create a picture of perfection. That is helpful, because most business books simply share dated information about past best practices. As someone who helps executives design simple, effective approaches to perfection, I applaud the effort. Peters would do well to accommodate other perspectives. Being totally committed to work and perfection through maximum effort often does not appeal to people as a permanent life style. What should the other people do? If you are an ambitious MBA who wants a mentor, you could do a lot worse than adopt this book as your guide. If you want balance in your life, you had better read Life Strategies as well. Keep up the good work, Tom Peters!
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