Introduction
Why a Fieldbook
When my first book The Trusted Advisor was published in 2000, I (Charlie), along with my coauthors David Maister and Rob Galford, had no idea how many lives it would touch. To our delight, it has proven to be a perennial favorite for people in professional services. The Trusted Advisor is routinely recommended to and read by people at the middle manager, prepartner, and partner level in law firms, consulting firms, and accounting firms around the world. Much the same is true for industries like financial services, health care, architecture, and project management. In the decade since the book’s release, tens of thousands of readers on every continent have gained insight into developing and maintaining trust-based relationships that are prosperous and rewarding. Yet, at the time we wrote it, none of us envisioned the impact the ensuing decade would have on the importance of trust in business and society at large. The case for trust is even more compelling than we had imagined.
The Trusted Advisor, for all its virtues, did not address how to apply the principles, models, and practices to sales—which I subsequently wrote about in Trust-Based Selling. What was now needed, I felt, was a more detailed how-to guide for people in any professional role. This latter need is met by this fieldbook, a hands-on addition to The Trusted Advisor and Trust-Based Selling.
Your success as a leader will always be based on the degree to which you are trusted by your stakeholders. ...
