Good To Good? Or Stated Another Way, Is Greatness Just Marketing Fluff?
I'm a big fan of Jim Collins' book, Good To Great. Look here, here, here and here for some posts that discuss the book. In a twist on Good To Great, David Maister asks whether marketing consultants can help firms that have decided to eschew greatness and remain satisfied with Good. His post is "Good To Good,"
I found the comments to be especially interesting, since most implicitly assume the desire to be great exists in every firm. I firmly believe the contrary is so, though not all firms would admit that they have decided that good is good enough. Certainly, some have. But perhaps the greater number are the ones that pay lip service to greatness but refuse to take the steps necessary to be great. I am not for an instant castigating firms for following this road--most are small firm where personal relationships trump other issues that may be roadblocks to greatness. But the fact remains that there are precious few great firms in the world, far less than would be expected is those who claim to seek greatness actually did.
This made me wonder whether clients played a role in this issue. I think they must. If clients actually demanded greatness, there would be more movement to firms that actually achieved it, and thus far more pressure on firms to actually become great rather than merely talking about doing so. But most clients don't leave their "go-to" firms even though few of them qualify as "great." Why? I think there are a mixture of reasons. Personal relationships, to start. The next is that good frequently is good enough. And lastly, I believe clients are reluctant to rock the boat, in large measure because it is impossible to rock your boat without also rocking their own. So the great middling of law firms continue to exist without real pressure to achieve greatness.