How to Lead a Values-Based Professional Services Firm

Conclusion: Use the Three Keys

This book is not for professional services firms that want to rest on the laurels of their past successes. We wrote this book for leaders who are driven to achieve incredible results through values-based leadership. Purpose-led firms learn and live their Three Keys to achieve enduring success.

Human beings are hardwired for group cooperation and shared values. Your firm is a group of humans who collaborate to create a service that is sold for the benefit of other humans. The Three Keys leverage the human desire for shared values. Shared values provide the channel for your story to strategically flow forward to achieve its mission. Shared values create an essence—a visceral feeling—which becomes a path to develop stories, which trigger emotional connections. Apple provides an illustrative example.

Apple's product line differentiation has been based on challenging the status quo and urging the world to “think different.” Their customers buy the Apple story as much as they purchase their products. Apple's shared values inform everything they produce. Their products are beautiful, simple to operate, and extremely user-friendly—these are shared values at Apple. This example is a simple distillation of the Three Keys in action. Throughout this book we have applied this thinking to the management of professional services firms.

The Three Keys create the brand foundation that guides how you communicate everything your company does and strategically drives ...