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Points of View

The Paradox of the Poisonous Performer

Anyone who has ever played 6-a-side football will know there are certain personalities found in most groups. Typically, on the pitch you’ll find there’s…...

Points of View

Reverence or Regicide?

Points of View

Special Report: Is it worth it? Examining the ‘always-on’ culture in professional services

A Special Report examining the prevailing ‘always-on’ culture in professional services, its impact, and what can be done by individuals and the firm’s leadership....

Points of View

Why the ‘always-on’ culture continues to dominate in professional services

Sarah Green Carmichael, an Executive Editor at Harvard Business Review has outlined three key reasons why the ‘always-on’ culture continues to dominate in professional...

Points of View

The costs of the ‘always-on’ culture to individuals and firms with important caveats

Managerial pressure, technology, economic incentives and psychological drivers: it’s easy to understand why the ‘always-on’ culture continues to dominate in professional services. As Sarah...

Points of View

What can individuals and their firms do to mitigate the ‘always-on’ culture?

There is little doubt that the ‘always-on’ culture of professional services comes at a high cost for both individuals and their firms. From research...

Points of View

Challenging the ‘always-on’ culture – lead from the front

The first four suggestions we outlined earlier in this Report are strategies – tangible rules or steps that firms and individuals can take to...

Points of View

Is it worth it? Is the ‘always-on’ culture in professional services worth the cost?

Is it worth it? At the beginning of this Special Report we asked, is it worth it? Is the dominant ‘always-on’ culture in professional...

Points of View

Proposals: How to make them a point of difference, not a point of reference

There is a memorable short scene in the Disney Pixar film A Bug’s Life which finds two mosquitoes flying close to a blue fluorescent light....

Points of View

The Professional Services Procurement Conundrum

All business support functions have been on an evolutionary path during the past 30 years but none of these journeys have been written about...

Points of View

Posters from IBM’s ‘Quest for Quality’ Exhibition, 1985

Posters from IBM’s ‘Quest for Quality’ Exhibition, 1985. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, when I was delivering introductory ‘Consulting Skills’ training worldwide...

Points of View

The dilemma of being a principal in consulting

No-one can accuse consultancies of under investing in their staff — the cost of developing a junior consultant to principal level runs into hundreds...