Quotes from David H. Maister

There is an old saying, "It is amazing what you can achieve if you are not wedded to who gets the credit." The

It is ironic that a business in which the serving of clients depends so heavily on interpersonal psychology should be peopled with those who believe in the exclusive power of technical mastery. And

My experience has taught me that success comes not to those who swing for the fences every time at bat, but to those who commit themselves to a continuous program of constant improvement, base hit by base hit.

In busy times there is also a temptation to let investments such as training take a back seat to getting the work out the door. Only adherence to the firm's principles and values prevents opportunistic behavior that may have short-term benefits but long-term adverse consequences.

The attitude of exclusive professionalism (which restricts the label of professionalism to the advisor) manifests itself in a number of dysfunctional ways. It reinforces a misleading belief that the advisor's job is to solve problems rather than to help the client solve problems.

Sincerity, the way we usually mean it, has to do with intentions; we assume it comes from within. But our clients have no way to observe sincerity except through external behaviors. From certain behaviors (attention paid, interest shown, advance work done, empathetic listening), we infer the internal state we call sincerity. Thus

Send meeting materials in advance

Reconfirm scheduled events before they happen. Announce changes to scheduled or committed dates as soon as they change. Intimacy

It ain't what you do, it's the way that you do it: That's what gets results.

Reliability in this largely rational sense is the repeated experience of links between promises and action.

It is not enough for a professional to be right: An advisor's job is to be helpful. David

Profitability will not come from managing hygiene factors alone: Future profitability depends on health as well—and firms' methods of measuring, reporting, and managing need to reflect both.

life is too short to work on the uninspiring. Being

McDonald's likes to describe professionals that serve them (such as advertising agencies) as having "ketchup in their veins.

I was amazed at how many fools I ran into until I noticed the common denominator in all those interactions: me." Why

treating financial success as the goal rather than as a by-product of a well-run firm

The flip side of credit is blame. A tendency to blame others, or circumstances, is generally a recipe for unhappiness in life.

We need structures that don't squash flexibility and creativity but minimize inefficiency and confusion.

We try to elevate the empowerment of our people over the organizational niceties of structure and process except to the extent that those structural and process features work to empower our people

A new $100,000 engagement can be very profitable, or be one that loses the firm a lot of money. Yet many firms reward partners for the volume of fees (top-line) that they bring in, not whether or not they bring in profitable work.

By starting with caring (working from the inside out), we open ourselves to possibilities and become willing to go where the client will take us. The skill or action behaviors can then fall on fertile ground. By

The biggest leverage for reliability enhancement probably lies in the emotional realm. The more a provider can do to understand and relate to the usually unconscious norms of the client, the more the client will feel at ease and experience a sense of reliability. Some

Make sure meetings have clear goals, not just agendas, and ensure the goals are met. 4.

In early Greek society, particularly in Athens, democracy meant the equivalent of a permanent town meeting—all decisions of consequence were made in public assembly. As many professional service firms have rediscovered, this view of democracy tends to result in much wasting of time, slowness of response, and extreme conservatism in action.