Aligning the Stars: How to Succeed When Professionals Drive Results: 0 - Hardcover

Lorsch, Jay W.; Tierney, Thomas J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1578515130 ISBN 13: 9781578515134

Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press, 2002

Synopsis

Most businesses rely on talent to succeed, but none so much as professional service firms. Within this rapidly expanding, trillion-dollar industry, professionals--and how they're managed--are the primary source of competitive advantage. In fact, success in this sector is determined more by the people you pay than the people who pay you. This path-breaking book provides readers with a practical and integrated perspective on how to win in the unique and tumultuous world of professional services. From strategy to organization to culture, it offers customized insights for businesses in which professionals drive bottom-line results and long-term company success. Respected academic Jay W. Lorsch and accomplished practitioner Thomas J. Tierney apply their broad experience to the realities of "Monday morning" decision making. Their work reflects decades of personal experience, combined with a rigorous study of outstanding professional service firms in industries that include law, information technology, accounting, advertising, investment banking, executive search, and consulting. Aligning the Stars explains what differentiates the "best of the best" within professional services. By describing how to attract, retain, motivate, organize, and lead the stars that shape a company's destiny, this book provides valuable lessons for the current and future leaders of every talent-driven business.

About this title

From the Publisher

Fills a void by providing practical guidance about how to manage a professional service firm, addressing the unique strategic and organizational choices of these private partnerships as well as how turmoil, technology, and a shifting competitive environment impact firms.
Gives readers a better understanding of how to lead, organize, and create strategy by uncovering the strategic and organizational approaches of successful professional service firms.
Large built-in market: Professional service firms—those firms that provide accounting, advertising, management consulting, IT consulting, and other professional assistance to the business community——comprise one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy, with a global market of $911B.
Based on the popular Harvard Business School course on leadership in professional service firms (the leading program of its kind in the world) and a joint research project between Bain & Company and HBS.
Includes interviews with the leaders of the following firms: accounting firms Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young; advertising firms Grey Advertising, Oglivy & Mather, and Young & Rubicam; investment banks Goldman Sachs, Hambrecht & Quist, and BT Alex Brown; and management consulting firms Bain and McKinsey, as well as other professional service firms.
Stellar authorship: Combines the authority of both a prominent academic and a prominent practitioner in this area, blending their cumulative experience and judgment.

Synopsis

Every company relies on talent to succeed, but none so much as professional service firms. Within this rapidly expanding, trillion-dollar sector, people are more than "valuable assets"; they are the source of competitive advantage. Indeed, success is determined more by the people these firms pay than by the people who pay them. What separates the best professional firms from their less-successful competitors? And what lessons do their experiences hold for other talent-driven businesses?In this comprehensive book, respected academic Jay W. Lorsch and accomplished practitioner Thomas J. Tierney draw from rigorous research and decades of experience to provide a practical perspective on how to win in professional services. Their work is based on an analysis of industry leaders in fields as diverse as law, accounting, investment banking, advertising, information technology, executive search, and management consulting. "Aligning the Stars" argues that strategic success is achieved by building an organization of executive-level stars whose day-to-day performance reinforces and ultimately achieves the goals of the business.

Outstanding firms align stars across business lines, geographies, and even generations.Through compelling real-world examples, Lorsch and Tierney show how successful firms create and sustain alignment via: Strategy - determining which elements of strategy are most important and why - and how effective implementation incorporates organizational realities; People Systems - converting talent into stars, while nurturing "firm first" behaviors; Structure and Governance - organizing around partnership principles - even in a corporate environment; Culture - actively managing the culture to guide - and control-individual behavior; Leadership - exercising effective leadership when the power to control "partner-peers" is limited; and, Careers - aligning individual stars by helping professionals build a life, not just a resume.By showing how to integrate strategy, organization, and the needs of individual stars, this book offers valuable lessons for the current and future leaders of every talent-driven business. Jay W. Lorsch is the Louis Kirstein Professor of Human Relations at the Harvard Business School. Thomas J.Tierney is the former Chief Executive of Bain & Company, and currently serves as Chairman of The Bridgespan Group, Bain's nonprofit affiliate.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1578515130
• ISBN 13: 9781578515134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256