By David Maister
Two trends suggest where the bulk of the market lies. First, clients are buying fewer services as if their problem is totally unique. They more frequently want to tap into a firm’s accumulated experience and methodologies in order to benefit from the efficiencies that come from dealing with providers who have done it before. They are buying less brain surgery and more aspirin. (The widespread use of technology also has the effect of allowing complex analyses formerly performed by Brain Surgeons to be conducted by junior staff, thus reinforcing this trend.)
Second, clients are increasingly reluctant to say to their professionals, “You take care of things and report back when it is done.” More and more, clients want to be involved in the process, or at a minimum be kept informed of their options, kept up-to-date on progress and assisted in understanding what is going on and why.
From these two trends, we can hypothesize that the bulk of the market is moving towards Nursing (established, proven procedures with high client contact) and away from Brain Surgery. As reflected by the amount of price competition in most professions, the Pharmacy also represents a high percentage of fees. While critical, the role of Psychotherapist is not a high-volume area. It is filled with those few individuals who have sufficiently earned their clients’ trust and confidence so that, whenever the client has a problem, the Psychotherapist is called in to diagnose what is needed.
Most professional firms put new entry-level people to work in the Pharmacy first, so they can learn the key technical skills of their profession. As time progresses, people have historically moved in one of two directions, either following the technical career path to Brain Surgeon or the client contact career path to Nurse.
Psychotherapists have tended to evolve from the more creative Nurses, although not all Nurses can make the transition to being accepted as the client’s prime diagnostician. While it is possible for Brain Surgeons to become Psychotherapists, it is rarer. Unless a professional learns the basic client contact skills early in his or her career, they are difficult to develop later.
This traditional approach to career development (often called “paying your dues”) is increasingly under attack. Consider the Pharmacy service. Under the traditional career model, the aspirin is being dispensed by professionals temporarily working in the Pharmacy, serving their time until they are promoted to a higher-level service. This method of having the aspirin dispensed by “Brain Surgeons in training” is not entirely aligned with the clients’ interests.
Unlike the Brain Surgeon firm, which can only afford to hire the best and brightest from the top schools, a focused Pharmacy practice would, appropriately, view these as the wrong people to bring in. Not only do they command higher salaries, but their superior intellect may be inappropriate for the service the Pharmacy is trying to provide. If a firm’s business is making hamburgers, it will not want to hire people who are dreaming of the day they can leave and become Cordon Blue chefs. It will want and need people who are excited about hamburgers.
A focused Pharmacy practice should be able to hire people without a formal education in its specific area, since smart people can learn to apply well-defined methodologies and tools. Training and development should be structured and formal to ensure that new people can quickly learn to apply the firm’s established methodologies. (This is exactly what is happening in some management consulting firms, which now hire people with degrees in such diverse fields such as anthropology and liberal arts.)
Employees in the Pharmacy are not promised a fast-track promotion and career path. In fact, there should be no traditional “up-or-out” policy. (This is one reason why the big accounting firms, increasingly realizing that much of their business is Pharmacy, have recently moved away from such policies).
The Nursing practice requires capable people who are not only able to apply methodologies but who are able to work well with clients. One common approach is to hire individuals who have prior industry experience working in client environments in order to maximize the chance that these individuals can empathize with the client situation.
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét