|
|
This book is not intended to be the latest diagnosis of prevailing
market trends or some serious academic tome . . . but rather
a collection of unusual, quirky, provocative and bizarre questions
to clear out the cobwebs at your next meeting, jump-start
your creative thinking, launch your partners' minds moving
in productive directions, pop some new ideas out of your intellectual
toaster and get energized to take action.
The quality of the questions asked by any managing partner
or practice leader drives the quality of the conversation
about the future of the firm and the practice group. You can
greatly influence your group's innovative instincts by asking
good questions and then turning your professionals loose to
try to find imaginative answers.
Change the way you think about your practiceopen eyes,
open minds, open meetingswith these 16 cage-rattling
questions.
|
|
- Introduction: Are you asking the right questions?
- What would your leadership epitaph be if you weren't around
tomorrow?
- What things that made us successful in the past do we need
to forget, unlearn, or discard to be successful now and into the
future?
- If our most demanding client ran this firm, what experiments
or pilot projects concerned with doing something totally new would
they have underway?
- What are the key reasons why our great ideas fall apart during
implementation?
- If our firm (practice group) were an organized religion, what
would our beliefs be and what would constitute having committed
a sin?
- What do our professionals and support staff grumble the most
about over lunch?
- What benefit should accepting any new client transaction convey,
other than more revenue?
- What top three business issues are keeping our best clients
awake at nights?
- What stupid things do we do that irritates clients and should
be keeping us awake at nights?
- What could we do (without hiking compensation) to get and keep
a larger share of the kind of extraordinary talent we want in
our firm?
- How do we develop the kind of skills that will make us indispensable
to clients?
- Why should a client choose our firm (practice group), what
makes us distinctive, and what specific added-value do we bring
to particular business matters . . . that a client can not get
anywhere else?
- How do we ratchet-up our profile when we are either the newest
or the smallest kid on the block?
- What crazy ideas, if acted upon, could result in our being
able to double our per partner profitability in three years?
- What would motivate you to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week,
for an entire month or longer?
- Brillant! Practical Ideas and Concepts That YOU CAN USE! Neat
and crisp book. Ideas that are relevant and useful whether you
have a team of people, are an attorney within a small firm or
a huge firm, an advertising firm or a consulting firm. Want to
jump start the team? - focus people on what's important? - get
buy-in and commitment? - build your firm's reputation? - McKenna's
book has the answers - AND questions which makes you think from
perspectives and angles you never looked from. Whether you are
an employee or manager, read and heed. Also read Herding Cats
- McKenna's other book.
Joseph B. Murphy, Managing Director, Keane Inc.
- "I LOVE beyond Knowing ...... the content is wonderfully
(and characteristically) provocative."
Merrilyn Astin Tarlton, editor Law Practice Management
- "Your new tract is as stimulating as it is handsome. Amidst
the dreariness of most professional service publications it's
a delight to see something that's designed with flare. A great
read - and fun too."
Simon Chester, partner, KNOWlaw Group, McMillan Binch
- "I LOVED beyond Knowing. Well done!"
David H. Maister, author Managing The Professional Service
Firm
- "I'll bet even you don't know how good this is. I'm brimming
with ideas and thoughts generated by it. Is it on a par with Herding
Cats? Easily! Herding Cats was a foundation for a way of thinking
about the most vexing problems facing the professions today. beyond
Knowing builds on that foundation with some extraordinary insights.
This is a first step in breaking the motivation barrier - understanding
that change is inevitable, and that you have the option to learn
to work with it, or to be drowned by it. Knowing enables that
in thoughtful leaders."
Bruce W. Marcus, author Competing For Clients and The Marcus
Letter
- "At a recent meeting of our Asia-Pacific region in Perth,
I used one or two of the questions in your 'Beyond Knowing' book
in one of the groups. The discussion that was generated was one
of the most animated - and beneficial - that I have heard for
a long time."
James Mendelssohn, Executive Director
MacIntyre Strater International Ltd
* *
* *
* *
* *
*
- "I am pleased to announce that beyond KNOWING has garnered
a top award for design excellence in a judged competition in Los
Angeles. Other entries were from throughout North America. Thank
you for the creative opportunity. This is a major award."
Byron Dowler, President, CoastLines Creative Group
|
|
|
|
|