A few tails of Truth and Anquish

I think these stories are important to share because they provide the best possible context for why the PSMM is so important. Of course, these are important to me because they involve me. The most formidable lessons that are learned are those where you suffer significant anquish or defeat. And, I've had many of those in my career. Instead of wallowing in these defeats, I instead used them as a foundation to learn from. My anquish inspired me to understand, and to do better the next time. I hope in sharing these personal stories that you will be able to gain an understanding, and I hope that you will be able to share your stories of anquish as well.

Story 1 - The inspiration of the PSMM

I had spent 7 years humping it as a consultant. Earning money for my firm and helping them improve their reputation based upon all of the hard work I had completed for my clients. I was not only doing my job, but I was influencing my clients to buy more consultants from my firm. Truth be told, I was doing what a good consultant should do. Finally, I had gotten my chance to make a difference. I had been promoted into a leadership position. For 2 straight years, I worked my tail to the bone to close more business. And I did. I closed (relative to the size of the branch) significant business. It was not only new business, it was higher value business. We were selling services at billing rates my branch had never even imagined were possible in this market. I had become a difference maker and I knew it. My name was starting to be thrown around in new circles both in my local market as well as nationally.

I personally built new capabilities and attracted some of the top talent to come to work for us. Times were great, and at that point, I was absolutely at the highest point in my career. I had personally developed a very high level of ethusiasm for the firm I worked for and for the services we provided (read into this developing a high level of arrogance). It would soon come crushing down in the anquish of truth.

I began to realize the truth on a plane flight. I happend to be sitting next to a nationally known figure in the consulting world. I was very eager to talk with him - and learn as much as I possibly could. I introduced myself, and told him that I was a big fan. We talked for awhile and I was really enjoying and learning from our conversation. Finally, he asked what I did. Truth be told, I couldn't wait to tell him what I did and who I worked for. Finally that time had come. So I did - with utter enthusiasm and arrogance. After I told him who I worked for, he responded "oh yeah, I know you guys - you're that staff augmentation firm". My first thought was, this guy is crazy - doesn't he know what we really do? As I tried to expain to him that we were more than that, I found he became less and less interested in talking to me. My anquish began creeping in at that moment.

About a year later, the largest services deal I had ever sold at that time came crashing down around me. Everything about our delivery on the project was extremely poor. My client ended up kicking us out. Talk about personal anquish. I later came to realize that not only was our delivery poor, as I evaluated the entire situation, I discovered the firm I worked for really was a staffing firm misrepresenting and selling itself as something else.

I had done my client no favor. The anquish now was very real. The next thing I'll tell you I've never told anyone until now except for my wife. When I had my intelligence level tested, I tested out in the top 1% of our country. I'm not telling you this to make myself appear to be smart. I'm telling you this because consulting companies are full of smart people just like me. But, just like me at that time, just because you are smart doesn't necessarily mean you understand the professional services business.

Don't feel bad for me. Quite the contrary. This was my turning point. I had finally realized that the gentleman on the plan was correct. We were a staffing company. This is when I decided that I really needed to understand the professional services business. If I were going to really service my clients better, I needed to really understand how our business works. I needed to understand the differences between staff-augmentation firms and firms who are more highly regarded by clients. This personal anquish of defeat was the birth of the PSMM.

As the anquish really settled in, I recognized this specific situation represented an opportunity. If I were able to really learn and understand the professional services business better than anybody else, not only would I service my clients better, I would be invaluable to numerous professional services firms.

Story #2 - The PSMM gets validated - and more personal anquish

For the next several years, I kept up with my passion to study the professional services business. I developed early models of the PSMM and would test them against new situations I was running into. I continued to flesh it out. Around Version 2, I would have the chance to present it against a real business situation.

The firm that I was working had a serious issue. As they were continuing to acquire new firms with enhanced and new capabilities, Wall Street began to weigh in. Wall Street was noticing that the firm wasn't increasing organic revenue as a result of the acquisitons. In response, they tried all of the mind numbing strategies we've all heard of to improve their organic growth from the acquisitions. You guessed it - their strategies didn't work.

Here was my chance to make a difference. I worked during all of my free time to create a presentation on the PSMM and the strategies based upon the PSMM to solve their organic growth issues. I have to say, this was an awesome presentation.

You guessed it, here comes the point of more anquish. After I presented it, I realized that it had fallen on deaf (or dumb) ears. The model and the strategies went unnoticed because either a) they were too arrogant to think that someone could teach them something new about the business or b) they didn't understand the business to begin with. Of course, I'll never know the real reasons- but I suspect it was really a combination of both.

This situation only inspired me more. It inspired me to write the book, which became the blog. I've realized there are so many people in the professional services industry who could benefit by understanding the maturity model.

Are you ready to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

In my last post, I discussed the common trait of arrogance that is prolific in the professional services industry. If your goal from reading this blog is to improve your professional services business, you must be be prepared to suffer some personal anguish.

For you to get value from this blog series, you have to be prepared to honestly assess your business, and be truthful in that assessment. Yes, I'm intending to have an emphasis on the truthfullness. :-)

If you aren't prepared to be completely honest (in otherwords, you can't release yourself from your own arrogance) I would suggest you check out someonelse's blog. Sure, there may be a nugget of knowledge you can glean here and there. Just know, the real knowledge, the real value, comes from embracing the PSMM.

em·brace
1. to take or clasp in the arms; press to the bosom; hug.
2.to take or receive gladly or eagerly; accept willingly: to embrace an idea.
3.to avail oneself of: to embrace an opportunity.
4.to adopt (a profession, a religion, etc.): to embrace Buddhism.
5.to take in with the eye or the mind.

This blog series is going to require you to be truthful. Truthful about your company. Truthful about your consultants. Truthful about the services your firm provides. Truthful about your office staff. Truthful about your sales staff. Truthful about your partners. Truthful about the manner in which your client spends with you. Most importantly, you're going to get at the truth for how your Customers perceive you.

Truth hurts. It really really does. In a future post, I will describe to you that you that if you really do want to mature, you're going to have to ask your customers for their perspective of you. That's when it will really hurt. Why is it going to hurt so bad? Well, the answer gets back to the arrogance that embodies our industry. Chances are the feedback you'll receive from your client is very different your own personal arrogant perspective of your company.

Hold on, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

The real Truth, however, will set you free. Once you know the truth of how your firm is positioned on the PSMM, you will be in a much better position to accelerate your maturity (think innovation, think competitive strategies, think growth). This process will only work if you come at it from a purely objective point of view. Challenge yourself at every question. Play devil's advocate with your answers. Being truthful is tough, especially in the professional services industry. But, I will tell you, the truth can be, and should be, addicting. As an added benefit, not only will your firm improve by being truthful, you'll obtain a higher level of personal satisfaction as well. And by the way, your customers will love you for it.

Why a maturity model?

The reason for a maturity model is so simple for me to think about. I've been thinking about it for years. Yet, when I try to write about it, it becomes much more difficult. I'd been writing a book on this topic for about 6 months. I decided to move it to a blog, and in doing so, I need to rethink the content and shape it for a blog.

In my 19 year career, I've worked for several professional services firms and have provided strategic consulting to countless others. I've worked with large, medium, and small firms. I've worked for good ones, and bad ones. I've worked for firms my clients loved, and (very shortly) worked for firms my clients hated.

Over my career, I've made it one of my passions to study the business models of each organization. Identifying what makes them unique, valuable, and trusted. I can tell you that every firm I've been around is very very different.

Eventhough all of these firms have different business models, the most interesting aspect of my studies has shown one unique trait each of these firms share. It is how they all perceive themselves and their business. Consider this, consulting, by its very nature, is arrogant. I mean, our clients hire our consultants because we supposedly know more than they do. So, why shouldn't this innate fact create an arrogance in our industry that no one knows more about the professional services industry than we do? Don't get me wrong, every firm is doing something right... I mean, you couldn't make money if you didn't have a model that works (to some degree). The question becomes then, can we actually mature as an organization? Can we make ourselves more valuable? Can we grow? Can we keep customer satisfaction?

There are a few good books out there that discuss professional services. We've all read "Managing the Professional Service Firm" by David Maister. It's a necessary read for anyone in our industry. But, this book is about the basics. It misses the tactical moves a company needs to understand. It doesn't help us understand how to improve and become more valuable.

The issue with our industry that strikes me the wrong way, which becomes more prevalent as the entire economy revolves around customer-centricity, is how many firms actually have the audacity to believe internally and tell their clients they are a "solutions" firm. We'll talk a whole lot more about this topic in future posts. The truth is, achieving "Solutions" status is one of the pinnacle levels on the maturity curve, but it is also one of the most elusive and expensive levels to achieve. Remember what you say you are and how your customers perceive you can be, and probably is, entirely different.

So, back to the question, "Why a maturity model". That's easy to answer, to mature as a professional services firm, one must answer the question, "What level am I on today"?. The second question a firm should ask is "What can I do today to be better at my current level" and finally, we should ask "What do I need to do (and how much is it going to cost) to climb to the next level on the maturity curve?"

So, now you have basis for my blog "The Professional Services Maturity Model"