Managing The Professional Service Firm

Yet it is only by understanding the profit per partner of different practices, services (and even engagements) that the firm can manage its “equity investments” (partner time) wisely.

Only increased fee levels or leverage move the firm forward. All else is hygiene. It is the nature of the work brought in, not just its volume, that contributes to profit health.

There are no simple rules for finding high-leverage changes, but there are ways of thinking that make it more likely. Learning to see underlying structures rather than events is a starting point; each of the systems archetypes developed below suggests areas of high-and low-leverage change. Thinking in terms of processes of change rather than snapsh