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Imprint: Triarchy Press
Published: 2013
Extent: 148pp
Size: 12.7cm x 20.3 cm
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-9094702-0-0
List Price: £15.00
Offer Price: £13.75
Tags: Leadership, management, professions, knowledge capital, workplace culture

Herding Professional Cats:
Being advice to aspiring leaders in the professions
Graeme Davies and Geoff Garrett

The Authors
Reviews

Herding Professional Cats:
Being advice to aspiring leaders in the professions
Graeme Davies and Geoff Garrett

“This is a gem of a publication.”
Geoffrey Green, formerly Senior Partner, Ashurst LLP, London

“This is one of the best business books I have read! The way you have structured the book really resonates with me. It was a joy to read, and offers some great insights.”
Satu Aavikko, Team Leader, Accenture Ltd, Sydney
Read the reviews here

About the Book
In increasingly competitive, ‘knowledge worker’ environments, people working at all levels prize their freedom and resist direction. The challenging job of leading them can often feel like the business of ‘herding cats’.
The benefits of having a highly educated, independent and proactive staff include gaining a competitive advantage, enhancing creativity and nurturing innovation.
The down side is that many professionals resist direction, question authority and like to be their own boss.
Professionals of all sorts can be difficult to manage. New graduates have been schooled to question instructions rather than follow them; old timers have mastered the art of appearing to follow instructions whilst ignoring them in practice.
Herding Professional Cats  offers advice and insights to leaders in the professions who find themselves facing the classic ‘cats’ dilemma – how to manage intelligent, opinionated, independent and frequently difficult people without losing the competitive edge a professionalised workforce can bring.
 “There is a real difference when you’re having to get everything done through influence as opposed to through authority.”
“Building credibility and respect takes ten times longer than losing it.”
“Leading in our environment is an odd role. Most of the pleasures – and they are real – are vicarious, experienced through the successes of others; most of the achievements are by stealth.”
With 40 years’ combined experience in leading top international academic and research institutions, Davies and Garrett have learnt strategies for dealing with the ups and the downs, the old and the new.
Herding Professional Cats is a new edition of the authors’ 2010 bestselling book Herding Cats. It draws on their own top-level leadership experience and contains the information current leaders might wish they had known when they set out on their leadership careers.
Davies and Garrett combine wisdom from senior academic and research colleagues around the world with new insights from experienced and perceptive leaders in a variety of professions, from lawyers, accountants and architects to consultants, doctors, journalists, public servants and even politicians.
Davies and Garrett offer views on new leadership and management themes, such as governance and ethics, work-life balance and social media, while developing their previous thoughts on subjects like:
  • understanding the culture, and conflict
  • managing the people
  • making the tough strategic choices and setting (big) goals
  • leading change effectively
  • getting out of the way
  • allocating resources and managing the cash
  • focusing (obsessively) on effective implementation
  • the all-important ‘communication, communication, communication’.
These are presented in a pocket-sized guide in clear, easily navigable sections so that any professional leader faced with their own cats to herd and inspire will have all the tips readily to hand.
 “Herding Professional Cats is a lovely book ... many pearls of wisdom. I found myself constantly thinking ‘That is so true.’”
Sheridan Ash, Director, PwC, London

 “Herding Professional Cats is even more inspiring and instructive than its inspiring predecessor.”
Prof Bai Chunli, President, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing

Praise for the original book, Herding Cats:

“‘Herding Cats' is brilliant... a 'must read' for all academic and research leaders - before and after they take up these positions...The book is full of extraordinary insights... it should not be read once, but again and again, since the strategic guidance it provides is so invaluable."
Dr Ramesh Mashelkar, FRS, formerly Director General, Council of Scientific & Industrial Research, CSIR, Mumbai, and presently President of the Global Research Alliance

"This is a little (literally) book large in wisdom. It captures countless years of contemporary wisdom gleaned from experienced managers of research and academic enterprises, and it will appeal to the experienced and the novice alike. I can see an immediate use as an aid in mentoring new-comers to management. Short, pithy, well-signposted and easily navigable, it is an essential 'how-to' manual that all leaders in research will want to keep close at hand. A great read!"
Dr Shaun Coffey, formerly Chief Executive, Industrial Research Ltd, Wellington, NZ

Readership

People in, or aspiring to be in, a leadership role in one of the professions as well as anyone with responsibility for leadership development in professional companies and organisations.

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