Rating: 
Summary: Great concept but boring at times and too many suggestions..
Review: After reading Chapter One I was very excited about this book, as it was basically a statistical analysis of what makes managers succeed and what is most important to employees. Maister crunches the #'s and provides case studies with interviews from top managers surveyed. The book is essentially that great companies are a function of great managers, who know how to manage employees and offer them a fun, fast paced, creative environment. Maister's analysis backs this up with numbers! Any good manager will tell you that their people are their #1 asset, especially in a day and time when intellectual capital is the most valuable asset in our information economy. It is tough to retrain your workforce over and over and businesses lose momentum as a result. At times the book can be boring. I was initially very bullish on the book because his analysis provides some quick lists for which you can try to improve upon but what I was not happy about was that he gives another list of 200 things that most successful managers must incorporate into their style to attain above average results. This would be very difficult because, and Maister admits this, most successful managers have these traits as values (they are part of their core attitude in life.) Unless you are great at retraining yourself it maybe difficult.
Rating: 
Summary: Professionals Profit from an Energized, Enabled Work Force
Review: Almost everyone will agree that professional firms must provide great service and terrific relationships to their clients. Some firms will provide these attributes at the expense of their own employees and others will not. Practice What You Preach establishes a quantified relationship to higher profitability in one publicly held marketing communications firm between those offices that nurtured their staffs as much as their clients. What made the difference? The attitudes and practices of the managers in the higher profit offices accounted for almost all of the variation. General Schwartzkopf once said that you should "be the leader you want to have." That's the essence of the message of this book for achieving higher profitability. To make more money in pofessional offices, select and encourage leaders who will set high standards, serve as a good example, police the culture to improve it, and enable people to learn and make progress. Few works about management and leadership have the superb quantifications involved in this book. The foundation comes in 5589 individual responses (to about 10,000 questionnaires distributed) in 139 offices of 29 firms owned by the same public company. Each office was characterized by four profit tests to establish a profit index. Then differences in employee survey responses were tested against the profit index. Taken in many different cuts, Mr. Maister tells you which questions best correlated statistically with higher profit index numbers for an office. Each key observation is supported by a case example of one office that did well in this dimension. First, he relates what the head of the office said about the office's success and culture. Then he provides a composite interview with the people who work in the office. By comparing the two sets of responses, he then points out the key intersections. It's a fine way of making statistics come to life. He goes on to use more sophisticated statistical methods to establish which factors together are most significant, and how these factors appear to interact on one another. I was impressed by the quality and thoroughness of this work. He goes on to drill down to find even more nuances. For example, testing how the youngest employees feel about their work, compensation, and opportunities is the acid test of how well you are doing. As you would expect, cultures usually work better in smaller offices where communication is less likely to become diffused. The book ends with long lists of practices that seemed to have helped. If you want to know what to do, you should pay the most attention to the summary lessons in chapters 20-25. If you have trouble following all of the statistical analysis early on, just skip back to those sections. Then go back and read the case studies. At that point, you may be ready for the statistical chapters. The only weakness in the study's design is that it failed to include a comparable set of surveys with clients of the offices. That would have made the richness of the conclusions greater and the persuasive value of the work higher. How can you set high standards that delight clients and make everyone want to exceed those standards while enabling them to do so? You will find many excellent ideas in this impressive book. Be the professional service firm you would like to hire!
Rating:
Summary: Professionals Profit from an Energized, Enabled Work Force
Review: Almost everyone will agree that professional firms must provide great service and terrific relationships to their clients. Some firms will provide these attributes at the expense of their own employees and others will not. Practice What You Preach establishes a quantified relationship to higher profitability in one publicly held marketing communications firm between those offices that nurtured their staffs as much as their clients. What made the difference? The attitudes and practices of the managers in the higher profit offices accounted for almost all of the variation.
General Schwartzkopf once said that you should "be the leader you want to have." That's the essence of the message of this book for achieving higher profitability. To make more money in pofessional offices, select and encourage leaders who will set high standards, serve as a good example, police the culture to improve it, and enable people to learn and make progress. Few works about management and leadership have the superb quantifications involved in this book. The foundation comes in 5589 individual responses (to about 10,000 questionnaires distributed) in 139 offices of 29 firms owned by the same public company. Each office was characterized by four profit tests to establish a profit index. Then differences in employee survey responses were tested against the profit index. Taken in many different cuts, Mr. Maister tells you which questions best correlated statistically with higher profit index numbers for an office. Each key observation is supported by a case example of one office that did well in this dimension. First, he relates what the head of the office said about the office's success and culture. Then he provides a composite interview with the people who work in the office. By comparing the two sets of responses, he then points out the key intersections. It's a fine way of making statistics come to life. He goes on to use more sophisticated statistical methods to establish which factors together are most significant, and how these factors appear to interact on one another. I was impressed by the quality and thoroughness of this work. He goes on to drill down to find even more nuances. For example, testing how the youngest employees feel about their work, compensation, and opportunities is the acid test of how well you are doing. As you would expect, cultures usually work better in smaller offices where communication is less likely to become diffused. The book ends with long lists of practices that seemed to have helped. If you want to know what to do, you should pay the most attention to the summary lessons in chapters 20-25. If you have trouble following all of the statistical analysis early on, just skip back to those sections. Then go back and read the case studies. At that point, you may be ready for the statistical chapters. The only weakness in the study's design is that it failed to include a comparable set of surveys with clients of the offices. That would have made the richness of the conclusions greater and the persuasive value of the work higher. How can you set high standards that delight clients and make everyone want to exceed those standards while enabling them to do so? You will find many excellent ideas in this impressive book. Be the professional service firm you would like to hire!
Rating:
Summary: THE RIGHT ATTITUDE - A FUNDAMENTAL ELEMENT FOR SUCCESS
Review: David Maister has learned what many business managers strive to attain and many never truly accomplish. Maister has learned that attitudes drive financial results; success is not dependent on a company's systems and policies, but on the character and skills of its manager. Financial rewards often come in proportion to the high standards set by the company. Many floundering companies have not yet learned that you invest in employees, and that if you must reduce expenditures, you cut in other areas of expense. Strong, well-trained managers have already learned that you treat employees with dignity and respect, pay them what they are worth, and provide a motivating, positive work environment. Employees should feel as if they are working with you to help the company achieve its full potential; they should not feel they are simply working for you to satisfy your personal demands and bring home a paycheck. If that is the case, either management has hired the wrong employee(s) in the first place, which is a lack of human resource management skills, or the employee is no longer being motivated. Top-notch managers know, as this author clearly advocates, that attitude means everything.
I have found from doing diagnostic assessments on thousands of businesses over the past thirty years that many companies crash and burn because managers actually believe they have adequate business knowledge and management skills, when in reality they do not. Other companies who have held on and achieved a measure of success, could greatly increase their profitability, with an attitude which fosters employee motivation and productivity. Any individual with the desire and commitment to improve their management skills will benefit from "Practice What You Preach;" it is an excellent, well-written book with a straight-forward approach. In business, one can never know enough; learning is an on-going life process for as long as you are part of the business. This book, along with Maister's other books, "Managing the Profession Service Firm" and "The Trusted Advisor" offer sound, practical advice and are highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH STARS FOR THIS ONE!
Review: David Maister has learned what so many managers have failed to understand. This book should be a staple in every manager's office from the day he enters the management field. As a teacher and counsellor in business management, I can attest first hand that Maister's approach works. Through the author's Path to Performance, he shows the importance of instilling trust and respect. This translates to productive and motivated employees, strong and successful management by objectives (as opposed to management by crises) and satisfied clients/customers. The end results: maximizing a company's full potential, increasing profitability and becoming recognized in the community as a respected corporate entity. I highly encourage anyone in management, whether it is a two or three person operation or a multinational corporation, to read this well-written book. There is always room for a company to grow no matter how successful you think you may be. Even some of the most historic, well-established, successful conglomerates have crashed and burned. Do you and your company justice by reading the book - there is always room to learn and grow!
Rating:
Summary: Professional Firms Flourish By Following Higher Values
Review: David Maister's latest book again breaks new ground. In "True Professionalism," he showed how authenticity in professional practice increased the satisfaction of both clients and practitioners. Now, with this impressive study, he presents sound empirical evidence that firms whose critical values and actual culture mesh, enjoy greater financial success. Amazing! But if some of these conclusions seem easily intuitive, then why do not most firms enjoy these results? Maister says the answer is they lack the courage to do those things the evidence suggests ought to be done. Having the courage to actually implement the strategy adopted and the values professed may be the key step to both the clients' and the firm's success.
Rating:
Summary: Professional Firms Flourish By Following Higher Values
Review: David Maister's latest book again breaks new ground. In "True Professionalism," he showed how authenticity in professional practice increased the satisfaction of both clients and practitioners. Now, with this impressive study, he presents sound empirical evidence that firms whose critical values and actual culture mesh, enjoy greater financial success. Amazing! But if some of these conclusions seem easily intuitive, then why do not most firms enjoy these results? Maister says the answer is they lack the courage to do those things the evidence suggests ought to be done. Having the courage to actually implement the strategy adopted and the values professed may be the key step to both the clients' and the firm's success.
Rating: 
Summary: Statistical Ignorance
Review: Despite having a wide body of experience in business criticism and a credible approach towards analyzing business culture, David Maister exhibits far too many episodes of 'statistical ignorance' in his conclusions and statements to capture my attention or even allow me to finish reading the book. Perhaps the audience was not engineers, mathmeticians, or anyone else who know their way around 'correlations' and 'significance' -- I frankly don't know. But I can assure you that David could have dealt himself a greater dose of credibility and 'statistical significance' if he'd had more experienced statisticians review his staggered conclusions. I definitely credit him with opening my eyes to a handful of new 'culture management' techniques. But my eyes still sting from the idea that this gentleman has made a career out of mishandling simple correlational numbers and the science behind them. A simple example is the assertion on page 49 that 'positive' correlation is equivalent to 'significant'.
Rating:
Summary: Highly Recommended!
Review: Heavy but invaluable reading, this book presents the results of author David H. Maister's study of 139 offices of 29 professional service - more specifically, marketing and communications - firms in 15 countries. His objective was to identify the attitudes that correlate most strongly with financial success. He found what's been known all along - that financial success correlates very strongly with the perceived good character and integrity of management. When employees believe that management practices what it preaches, they seem to give extra effort and get astonishing results. The idea that character counts as much as, or perhaps more than, structure and corporate policy will be hard for many to accept. It takes courage, commitment, faith and humility to become the kind of person this study recommends. But this information shows us that, to contradict baseball player Leo Durocher, nice guys finish first.
Rating: 
Summary: weLEAD Book Review from the Editor of leadingtoday.org
Review: How many times have you heard or read leadership thinkers or managers talk about values or culture? How many times have you heard them dogmatically emphasize the importance of modeling the right example? How many times did they offer concrete statistical proof to support their statements? Author David Maister doesn't just talk about it...he proves it! The heart of Practice What You Preach is the result of an extensive worldwide survey Maister conducted in 139 offices throughout 15 countries in 15 types of businesses. Seventy-four questions were asked along with an analysis of financial information. Maister also conducted extensive interviews with the organizations managers and workers. In analyzing the top 20% of the most financially successful companies, he came to the conclusion that the behavior of managers played a large and powerful role. The survey demonstrates that employee attitudes are directly linked to financial success. Good managers effectively listened, demonstrated values, were trustworthy, good coaches, communicated well, treated others with respect and practiced what they preach! Maister also encourages managers to inspire their team by demonstrating and modeling the values they proclaim to others. Practice What You Preach is interesting reading and sure to keep you engaged. Maister has a way of getting straight to the point with concise comments and points throughout the entire book. For those who desire to dissect the survey data, it is published at the end of the book in the appendices. Like pieces of a puzzle, Practice What You Preach reveals the results of the survey one point at a time and interweaves major lessons to be learned from a number of case studies. Building from the simplest analysis and lesson to the most complex, the impact of the book is cumulative. Maister also provides an excellent summary in the later portion of the book. Rarely does an author of Maister's caliber offer personal detailed data to support his conclusions along with relevant case studies. Perhaps David Maister sums it up best when he passionately mentions that the "story is richer" than simply reading the chapters which discuss the main conclusions. He continues, "I hope that most readers will come with me as I recreate the journey of discovery that this research took me on."
It's a journey well worth taking and it will enrich your understanding of effective management and leadership. ...
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