The Trusted Advisor is alive and well – I told you so!
David Maister’s The Trusted Advisor, (co-written with Charles Green and Robert Galford) has been a huge success and never out of print since its 2000 publication. It struck a chord with the professional service firms who attended his program at Harvard University.
I still treasure the copy he signed for me when he came for dinner after a training program in Sydney.
David Maister’s The Trusted Advisor
He drew a simple diagram of 3 interlocking circles.
He described the circles as the different ways in which professional service firms seek to compete and differentiate.
The big ‘aha’ he delivered was recognising that most firms focus on technical and process excellence – making it increasingly difficult to use them as differentiators.
Relationships are different.
In a world where it is really hard to tell one high quality professional service firm from another, the ‘client experience’ does remain something that can set a business apart from its competitors. Maister said it was this which generated the trust that makes business relationships enduring.
Co-author Charles Green took the analysis further, developing The Trust Equation to demonstrate the compelling power of trust in business. Stephen Covey added his voice with The Speed of Trust which, among other things, demonstrated that in a trusting environment deals proceed faster and cost less.
So what happened?
In simplest terms, the “cheapest is best” management mantra got a foothold.
Businesses began to set up procurement divisions and inserted them between service providers and clients. The result was that price, not relationship (or quality, service and value) determined who got the work.
Many businesses lost their nerve and focused on price competition. ‘Deep Discounting’ entered the lexicon and became a dominant business model.
There was a lot of talk that the trusted advisor as a differentiator was finished.
My own business model is based heavily on Maister’s work. My goal is for my clients to say ‘I have a problem – I don’t know what to do – I’ll ask Rosemary. She’ll know what to do or where to send me’. This is how business has come to me for 20+ years.
But recent events have shown The Trusted Advisor is alive and well and as important as ever.
A few weeks ago The Australian published its glossy Legal Review, snippets of which have been published in its Legal Affairs page in the Friday Australian. Last week’s snippet headlined trust as a key element.
Soon after, the SMH Corporate Governance column reported the fast-food billionaire Jack Cowin speaking at a panel discussion on ‘Building trust through Boards’. Cowin took pains to point out that just because Boards were a necessity in many cases this did not displace the value of the ‘Trusted Advisor’.
What a relief.
Further Reading
This article was published on 1 July 2019 on LinkedIn.
Maister, D., Green, C. and Galford, R., The Trusted Advisor (2001, Touchstone).
Speed of Trust (Web Page).
Trusted Advisor, ‘Understanding the Trust Equation’ (Web Page).
Dr Rosemary Howell is the Principal of Strategic Action a business dedicated to providing tailored Mediation, Coaching, Facilitation and Skills Development services to business, government and not-for-profit organisations.
If you would like to talk with Dr Howell about your organisation’s needs please email rosemary@strategicaction.com.au
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