Professional Service Firms Are Different
From our many years of working with Professional Service Firms, we have discovered that they have significant differences from other sectors, including motivation patterns, culture, ownership, leadership and ways of working. For success consulting and development solutions need to recognise these factors and use them to shape sustainable solutions. Here is a summary of some of the main differences, their positive impact and the challenges they create. A summary of current challenges for PSFs can be found on PSF current trends.
For more information on how our services can help address these challenges please go to our services page.
| FEATURES | POSITIVE IMPACT | CHALLENGES |
| Partners are owners & managers | Collegiality (especially in smaller firms & business unit) | Reluctance to develop overall strategy & vision |
| Perception that tight strategy undermines entrepreneurial autonomy | ||
| Partners’ actions set tone for whole business | ||
| Partners do client work in all roles | Absolute commitment to client work | Weak motivation to lead others |
| Desire to serve clients drives everything else into second place | People running practices & firms often great client handlers | Senior appointments can create client handling vacuums |
| Leaders focused on client delivery | How to link initiatives to the client imperative | |
| Highly motivated & autonomous professionals | Very smart people who ‘get it’ at speed | Resent highly directive leadership & over management |
| High levels of engagement and commitment | How to maintain engagement & commitment | |
| Collective knowledge & insight of its people is key | People motivated by a strong need to tackle complex problems | How to get people to share, organise & access |
| Real earning power comes with partnership | Huge drive to get to partner | |
| Profits distributed annually | Drive for strong profitability per partner | Short term horizons for investment & payback |
| Lock step remuneration in some firms | Transparent & promotes collegiality | Hard to use reward as a lever for change |
| Multi-disciplinary teams which evolve around client assignments | Can build effective teams very quickly | People often have many leaders rather than one |
| Avoidance of conflict and people issues |