David Maister first coined the term ‘one-firm firm’ in a brilliant Sloan Management Review article published in 1985. It described the common elements underpinning the success of five preeminent professional service firms at that time, namely, McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Arthur Andersen, Hewitt Associates, and Latham & Watkins.

Maister concluded that the one-firm firm approach was not simply a loose term to describe a ‘culture’, but rather a “set of concrete management practices consciously chosen to maximise the trust and loyalty that members of the firm feel both to the institution and to each other”.

The Barolsky 2018 version

Here’s my take on the 2018 one-firm firm. It’s explained by drawing a contrast with ‘the club’ – the dominant operating model amongst mid-sized, full-service law and accounting firms:

So how about your firm?

Using the elements described above, how would you characterise your firm – is it a collegiate club or a deeply collaborative one-firm firm?

Source: strikingly.com