Managing Professionals and Other Smart People

The idea for this book emerged as a response to requests from managers in professional firms (accountants, doctors, architects, lawyers, and so forth) as well as companies at the core of the knowledge economy (software, IT, design, media) who found that there was precious little guidance available on how to manage professionals and other people with highly specialised skills.

Managing Professionals and Other Smart People is designed to answer this need. It takes the best, most up-to-date theories and research about leadership, motivation, organisational strategy, etc., and applies them to real situations in professional firms and companies. The book addresses:

• How to manage clever people
• How to motivate people who do creative, abstract and knowledge-based work
• How to increase the effectiveness of professionals at work.

Contributed by a range of experts in this field, specialised chapters and extended case studies will also make the book of practical use to those leading and managing in such knowledge-based environments.

Download a FREE extract of this book here.

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Strategy and the Professional
3. Developing Leadership: in Yourself and Other Professionals
4. Leadership in Practice: Managing Professional Peers – Case Study (with Dr Jimmy Sheehan)
5. Personality and Professionals: Releasing Potential
6. Engaging and Motivating Professionals: A New HR Framework by Dr Mary Collins
7. Motivating Professionals: New Discoveries
8. Developing Know-how: Managing Knowledge and Innovation (with Louis Brennan)
9. Managing Knowledge Productivity in Practice (with Gerry Prendergast)
10. Managing Different Professions (with Nick Koumarianos and Colm Russell)
11. Developing Self-confidence in Professionals
12. Managing Professional through Emotional Intelligence (with Mary Collins)
13. Coaching and Mentoring Professionals at Work (with Hannah Carney)
14. Managing Senior Professionals: An Insider’s View (with Mary Goulding)
15. Managing Professionals and Other Smart People: A User’s Guide.

For further information contact publishing@charteredaccountants.ie or telephone on (+353) 01 637 7204

The Author

Dermot Duff is Strategic Company Projects Co-ordinator at Trinity College Dublin, and an Executive Learning Director at the Irish Management Institute. He specialises in the strategic developmental of organisations, particularly professional firms. Dermot has held senior management positions in ITT Alcatel in Holland and Digital Equipment Corporation. He is a member of the boards of several companies and continues as a business advisor and coach for Enterprise Ireland. He is co-author of Strategic Cost Reduction, now in its second edition (published by Chartered Accountants Ireland, 2012). Dermot holds a BE (Eng) from UCD and a MSc (Mngt) from TCD.

The Contributors

• Dr Mary Collins, Senior Executive Development Specialist, RCSI Institute of Leadership
• Dr Jimmy Sheehan, orthopaedic surgeon; co-founder of the Blackrock and Galway Clinics
• Hannah Carney, individual and organisational coach and consultant
• Mary Goulding, strategic business consultant
• Nick Koumarianos, Chair at Soft-ex Ltd and Saadian Technologies Ltd
• Colm Russell, Engineering Manager, ICT sector
• Gerry Prendergast, Engineering Manager, healthcare sector