FEATURE/New Study Confirms Companies Managing for Enthusiasm and Integrity Make More Money than...

Business Editors

FEATURE...

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE FEATURES)--May 9, 2001

A new study reveals that financially successful businesses do better on virtually every aspect of employee attitudes, and those that do best on employee attitudes are measurably more profitable.

This is one of the major findings from a survey that examined what impact if any employee attitudes have on a company's financial success. The survey is part of a new book, PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH: What Managers Must Do to Create a High Achievement Culture by David H. Maister (The Free Press, June 2001), which provides concrete advice about what companies and their managers must do to succeed.

Among the findings in the Maister study:

- Employee attitudes actually drive financial results and not the other way
around.

- Fully 23 percent of all the variations in financial performance can be
explained by the degree to which employees agree with the statement "We
have an uncompromising determination to achieve excellence in all that we
do."

- More than 50% of all variations in profit performance can be explained by 9
key attitudes, with none having to do with technical skills nor financial
acuity.

Maister surveyed more than 5500 people from 139 offices in 29 firms in 15 countries. The offices accounted for 15 different lines of autonomous businesses, all owned by one holding company. Employees were asked to rate how well they think their office is doing in such areas as quality client service, quality of work, market reputation, long-term client relationships, profitability, growth, quality of the workplace, innovativeness and creativity, collaboration and teamwork, and skill and career development. Financial performance of each office was measured by an examination of margin, profit-per-employee, two-year growth in revenues, and two-year growth in profits.

In-depth interviews with managers and employees of the firms in the Maister study further revealed that the keys to success were not the strategies or systems of the firm, but rather the character and skill of individual managers who practice what they preach and recognize the importance of their role in coaching employees.

The nine key attitudes in the Maister study found to most affect financial performance were stated as:

- "Client satisfaction is a top priority at our firm;"

- "We have no room for those who put their personal agenda ahead

of the interests of the clients or the office;"

- "Those who contribute the most to the overall success of the

office are the most highly rewarded;"

- "Management gets the best work out of everybody in the

office;"

- "Around here you are required, not just encouraged to learn

and develop new skills;"

- "We invest a significant amount of time in things that will

pay off in the future;"

- "People within our office always treat others with respect;"

- "The quality of supervision on client projects is uniformly

high;"

- "The quality of the professionals in our office is as high as

can be expected."

David Maister is widely acknowledged as the leading authority on professional service firms, which Tom Peters calls "the best model for tomorrow's organization in any industry." An advisor to firms worldwide, Maister is a former professor at the Harvard Business School and author of three previous books on client relationships, individual professionalism, and management of professional service firms.