David Maister is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading authorities on the management of professional service firms.

   In 2002, he was identified as one of the top 40 business thinkers in the world (BUSINESS MINDS, Financial Times/Prentice Hall.)

   For twenty-five years he has advised firms in a broad spectrum of professions, covering all strategic and managerial issues, building a global practice that finds him spending about 40% of his time in North America, 30% in western Europe, and 30% in the rest of the world.

   His first book on professional businesses, Managing the Professional Service Firm, was published in 1993. It was followed in 1997 by True Professionalism. In 2000 he wrote The Trusted Advisor, with Charles H. Green and Robert M. Galford. In 2001 he published Practice What You Preach. In 2002, he co-authored First Among Equals with Patrick McKenna. In January 2008, he self-published his latest book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker based on a series of articles written during the previous year.

   His books are currently available in English, Arabic, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, Spanish, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Russian, Serbo-Croatian and Chinese.

   A native of Great Britain, David holds degrees from the University of Birmingham, the London School of Economics and a doctorate from the Harvard Business School. He began his teaching career at the University of British Columbia, Canada, and then joined the Harvard Business School faculty, where he taught courses in managing service businesses from 1979 until 1985.

   Maister lives in Boston with his wife and coach, Kathy. He is an avid collector of popular music, and owns more than 15,000 CD’s and a rapidly growing number of DVDs. In March of 2005, he finally took his own advice, gave up smoking and lost 30 pounds.

Article: David Maister on The Only Competitive Advantage

Topics:  (Originally for Consultants, Legal, Accounting Professionals - Adaptable to Financial Services, Executive Search, IT, Architecture and other related sectors)

1) Strategy and the Fat Smoker

   In most industries, the keys to competitive success are well understood: client intimacy, teamwork, developing people and innovation. But if we all know what to do to succeed (and live more healthily) why don’t we all do it? This presentation focuses on the key issues of discipline, accountability and commitment.

2) Do You Really Want Relationships?

   Many companies (and people) say that they want the benefits of long-term, mutually committed relationships (ie romance) but they often act in ways that suggest that they are more interested in the immediate transaction. This presentation outlines the differences, and what it takes to be really skilled at relationship-building.

3) The Trusted Advisor

   Beyond the ability to win a client’s confidence is the need to earn a clients’ trust, and know how to provide advice in such a way that the advice is received as helpful counsel, rather than just as an ‘experts’ assertions.” This presentation provides specific suggestions for winning and sustaining trust.

4) Are We In This Together?

   In this presentation, the preconditions for a successful firmwide strategy are discussed: a willingness for key players to be (a) collaborative and (b) willing to invest in their future together. The consequences if these conditions are not met are explored.

5) It’s Not How Good You Are, But How Much You Want it

   In this presentation, David explores the only sustainable competitive advantage: the drive, determination and discipline necessary to succeed.