Description

Transform white collar departments into "professional service firms" whose sole, powerful asset is knowledge.

Idea: You are boss of a 23-person finance department in a division of a big company. Or, rather, you were boss of the finance department. Now, per our suggestion-model, you are Managing Partner, Finance Inc., a full-fledged professional service firm which is a wholly owned subsidiary of your division.

Goal: Learn from the best professional service firms! Transform your unit! Today, even after re-engineering done well, the "department" doesn't look much like McKinsey, Andersen or Chiat Day. (And that's an understatement!)

Aim, in short: Cool people (call them "talent") working on cool projects with cool clients. The aim redux: A cool Finance/Purchasing, IS, HR, Sales department. Why not?

The cool professional service firm is just that: cool people/talent, a portfolio of cool projects, cool clients. Period. It's only asset—literally—is brains. It's only product is projects. It's only aim is truly memorable client service.

So step #1, then, is the organization (PSF) . . . transforming "departments" in which white collar folks work into way cool professional service firms adding way cool value by doing way cool "stuff".

Peters discusses making the most of presentations, working with outsiders on market analysis, how to improve brainstorming meetings, how to develop relationships with clients and get the most out of them.

50 of Tom Peters's trademark insights on how to get the most our of your department.

Extended Copyright Information

Copyright © 1999 by Excel/A California Partnership.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.

A Borzoi Book, originally published by Alfred K. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House.

Cover design by Chip Kidd.

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About the Author

"In no small part, what American corporations have become is what Peters has encouraged them to be."—The New Yorker "Peters is...the father of the post-modern corporation."—Los Angeles Times "We live in a Tom Peters world."—Fortune

Like this author? Check out the list of books by this author available on DailyLit.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

The White Collar Revolution will envelop 90+ percent of us. And quickly. The commonplace, if traumatic, changes that came to the factory, the distribution center, and the London docks are now racing toward the relatively unscathed world of “purchasing,” “finance,” “HR,” “IT,” ...

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Copyright

Copyright 1999 by Excel/A California Partnership.

All Rights Reserved.

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