Practice What You Preach: What Managers Must Do To Create A High Achievement Culture by David H. Maister

Author:David H. Maister [Maister, David H.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2001-10-17T14:00:00+00:00

What was new here? What have we heard before, and what have we not? Here are one or two of my reflections:

Most obviously, what is innovative here is the very idea of appointing a “culture cop,” in part to keep management honest on the ideals it espouses. (I’m not sure this is a good metaphor, but it reminds me of the slave who used to sit behind the Roman Emperors and whisper “Remember, Caesar, you, too, are mortal!”)

Like the ombusdmen at Tramster (chapter 2) this company has put in place systems to ensure that management does its job properly, that it practices what it preaches. Most companies worry about systems to ensure that employees do what they should, but how many have methodologies to monitor and hold management accountable? To state the obvious, it is more important to the success of the office that management operates properly; yet few firms have the systems to ensure this.

Another Mortimor Ransford theme, similar to what we have seen elsewhere, is the courage to say “No!” They turn away inappropriate clients, and they have what they call nonnegotiable cultural minimums. As always in these interviews, what is impressive is not the fact that they have standards, but that they have the guts to live up to them.

I know more than a few firms and firm leaders where saying “No!” would be considered a mortal sin. It is inconceivable to them that you could ever be allowed to say “This far, and no further!” to clients, individualists, people who show disrespect to others. One of the scarcest managerial skills may, indeed, be the ability to say “No!”

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