Product Description
We often (or even usually) know what we should be doing in both personal and professional life. We also know why we should be doing it and (often) how to do it. Figuring all that out is not too difficult. What is very hard is actually doing what you know to be good for you in the long-run, in spite of short-run temptations. The same is true for organizations. What is noteworthy is how similar (if not identical) most firms' strategies really are: provide outstanding client service, act like team players, provide a good place to work, invest in your future. No sensible firm (or person) would enunciate a strategy that advocated anything else. However, just because something is obvious does not make it easy. Real strategy lies not in figuring out what to do, but in devising ways to ensure that, compared to others, we actually do more of what everybody knows they should do. This simple insight, if accepted, has profound implications for 1. how organizations should think about strategy 2. how they should think about clients, marketing and selling and 3. how they should think about management. In 18 chapters, Maister explores the fat smoker syndrome and how individuals, managers and organizations can overcome the temptations of the short-term and actually do what they already know is good for them.
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 Chugging Out Gems ( kenlizottecmc )
I have been an avid follower of David Maister's for over 20 years and he keeps on chugging out gems. This latest work is no exception. Get it, read it, learn from it!
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Another Great Maister Book ( rudy_flyer )
David Maister did it again. For any CEO of a small business make sure you read Chapter 18.
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 Wisdom ( bradshorr )
Although Maister is writing for and about professional services companies, I think his ideas about strategy apply to almost any type of business. The "Fat Smoker" analogy is memorable, and it means that we don't always do what we know is good for us, even when it comes to running a business. In order to achieve great results, we have to break the old habits that have kept us in the same old ruts. Most of the book concentrates on ways we can develop the right attitude toward our own work, interact more effectively with co-workers, and build inspired, cohesive organizations. For some people, this book will be like preaching to the converted. But for business leaders and professionals who think the individual is more important that the organization, or who lead by intimidation, it will be a challenging read. Although Maister has an easy to read style, there is nothing easy about his ideas. He shares great wisdom obviously the result of long years grappling with organizational problems at a high level.
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A Handy Resource
David Maister's newest book, Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What's Obvious But Not Easy, is a good one if not a cohesive one. Written in a very engaging style, packed with stories that illustrate the point, it is both an easy read and a thought-provoking collection. While it is not a seamless, chapter-building-on-chapter "how-to-do-it," it is full of individual sections that independently are brilliant. The first section alone (on strategy in general) has several great takeaways. Particularly if you are building a personal services company, this is a very handy resource.
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Useful, Lucid, Helpful ( mpmaslanka )
Maister gets a lot right: appeal to an employee's own needs, not the greater corporate good(more work, less support makes for a bad rallying cry); embrace a relationship mentality in business deverlopment not a transaction on(as he bluntly puts it, go for romance and not a one night stand although many talk the first but do the second); understand that all can be rainmakers if you speak to their needs and intererests first with the money a nice side benefit, a consequence and not a motivator. His chapter on law firms is disheartening.He says that they are so different from other PSFs that they need their own chapter. His analysis:"(law firms are made up of)bands of warlords,each with his or her followers,ruling over a group of cowed citizens and acting in temporary alliance---until a better opportunity comes along." Beacuse of billing pressures, he says many partners hoard the work that needs to be pressed down. A final point, and one I disagree with---he seems to suggest that PSFs must only cater to the elite clients and there is no room for commodity work. Yet it is the commodity work which trains newer employees and, at times, fills in the dry periods between the more margin filled engagements.
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