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Practice What You Preach
Book

Practice What You Preach

What Managers Must Do to Create a High Achievement Culture

David H. Maister
Free Press, 2001

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

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 getAbstract.com that, to contradict baseball player Leo Durocher, nice guys finish first.

Take-Aways

  • Firms achieve more financial success when their employees believe in the integrity of management, according to a study of 100 marketing-related companies.
  • This is likely to be true at any professional service firm.
  • What you are is more important than what you do. Character matters.

About the Author

David H. Maister is the author of Managing the Professional Service Firm, True Professionalism and, with Charles H. Green and Robert M. Galford, The Trusted Adviso. A native of Great Britain, he holds degrees from the University of Birmingham, the London School of Economics and Harvard Business School, where he was a professor for seven years.

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