Adventure of Strategy

I was asked recently to recommend a range of books as essential reading for a professional service firm strategist (in this case, a law firm managing partner.) Not too difficult a task, I thought, speaking as one who makes a substantial personal contribution to Amazon.com's profits each year. After all, while there is a deluge of business books published every year, relatively few of them are specifically relevant to the professional service sector; fewer still on strategy in that sector; and only a handful really have anything new to say. Wow! It proved far more difficult than I thought, even after focusing the criteria so narrowly. These are the "Top 10" that I eventually decided any professional service firm strategist should have on his or her bookshelf (and, of course, actually read as well!)

David Maister - Managing the Professional Service Firm First published in 1993 and probably the first definitive work on professional service firms that is still relevant today, this 'classic' remains a must-read. 5 Stars on Amazon.

David Maister - The Trusted Advisor 2000. Nobody, I think, would argue against the premise that if a firm's strategy is not focused on its clients, it is doomed. This work explores in very practical terms, how professionals need to go about earning the trust and confidence of clients (as opposed to just trying to "sell.") 4.5 stars on Amazon.

Henry Minzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel - Stategy Safari (1998) Subtitled "A Guided Tour Through The Wilds of Strategic Management," this book gives a very good overview and grounding in the different models of strategy that have evolved over the past few decades, with the pro's and con's of each. At least one business school makes this book the primary strategy textbook on its MBA programme. 4.5 stars on Amazon.

Henry Minzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand and Joseph Lampel - Stategy Bites Back (2005) This is a thoroughly enjoyable read, lampooning those that make strategy into a boring slog. It's not (or at least it shouldn't be.) A must-read for anyone who dreads the prospect of an upcoming strategy cycle. 4 stars on Amazon.

Paul Niven - Balanced Scorecard Step-By-Step (2002) Whether or not you use the balanced scorecard (BSC) model as the basis of your strategy (and you could do far worse,) the BSC model does drive home the need for measurement of strategy execution and other key performance areas to include metrics other than financial or billability. I chose this book rather than Robert Kaplan and David Norton's orginal classic The Balanced Scorecard because it is more focused on the practical implementation of the BSC, rather than the underlying theory. (Ideally, a strategist should read both.) 4.5 stars on Amazon.

Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan - Execution, The Discipline of Getting Things Done (2005) In my humble opinion, one of the most important strategy books to be published in 2005. Everyone has heard the horror stories about how little strategy actually gets executed. Bossidy and Charan's solution? Focus strategy itself on the execution of that strategy. Unrated at time of writing on Amazon.

Thomas Friedman - The World is Flat (A Brief History of the Globalized World in the 21st Century.) (2005) Another one of the most important strategy-related business books to be published last year. Friedman describes in the exquisite style that one would expect of a three times Pulitzer Prize Winner (which he is,) the three forces that are flattening our world into one market. An understanding of these forces is critical for any strategist, not only those in professional service firms. They are: (1) the explosion of advanced technologies that now means that knowledge pools and resources are being linked across the planet in ways unheard of before, (2) the entry of previously marginalized countries (China and Japan being the most obvious examples) into the mainstream global market, and (3) the critical mass of "Generation Y" youngsters entering the market, that have grown up with technology, and can use it to its full potential in ways that even "Generation X'ers" can't even really conceive. 4 stars on Amazon.

J. Stewart Black & Hal Gregersen - Leading Strategic Change (2003) One of the few business books that I have read front to back TWICE. Subtitled "Breaking Through the Brain Barrier," this book looks at the barriers to change that need to be overcome in a new and refreshing way, that makes it far easier to get to grips with change than is the case with books that simply present recipes or templates for change management processes. 4.5 stars on Amazon.

H Edward Wesemann - Creating Dominance (2005) Ed is one of my partners in Edge International, and this quite remarkable book, which is a light and interesting read at just over 100 pages, addresses the issue of dominance as a strategic issue. It is focused on law firms, although the principle holds equally true for other kinds of professional service firms too. Ed points out that in any market, most of the decent work goes to a handful of dominant players, so it is a good idea to be one. His book describes how to achieve dominance and, once this is done, to sustain it. 5 stars on Amazon.

Charles Hampden-Turner & Fon Trompenaars - Building Cross-Cultural Competence (2001) Culture is, of course, an extremely important aspect of professional service firm's performance. Cultural incompatibility is often cited as the major cause of merger breakdown (although personally I think that post-merger integration, including cultural integration, is more often the culprit and culture is often a handy scapegoat.) Culture can and should be proactively evolved to align with and drive strategy, and is a major factor in multinational business dealings within firms and also between firms and their clients and markets. Fons Trompenaars is one of the top brains when it comes to managing inter-cultural differences, and over the years has written a slew of books on the topic. I chose this one for this list because of the focus on building competence to resolve these issues, rather than just describing them. Unrated at time of writing on Amazon.

Any list of this nature inevitably ends up being a bit arbitrary. If anyone has any comments or would propose any other books (remembering the particular focus on strategy and the skills needed by strategists in professional service firms) then I'd be delighted to hear from you. Please post comments below.