Most businesses rely on talent to succeed, but none so much as professional service firms. Within this rapidly expanding, trillion-dollar industry, professionals--and how they're managed--are the primary source of competitive advantage. In fact, success in this sector is determined more by the people you pay than the people who pay you. This path-breaking book provides readers with a practical and integrated perspective on how to win in the unique and tumultuous world of professional services. From strategy to organization to culture, it offers customized insights for businesses in which professionals drive bottom-line results and long-term company success. Respected academic Jay W. Lorsch and accomplished practitioner Thomas J. Tierney apply their broad experience to the realities of "Monday morning" decision making. Their work reflects decades of personal experience, combined with a rigorous study of outstanding professional service firms in industries that include law, information technology, accounting, advertising, investment banking, executive search, and consulting. Aligning the Stars explains what differentiates the "best of the best" within professional services. By describing how to attract, retain, motivate, organize, and lead the stars that shape a company's destiny, this book provides valuable lessons for the current and future leaders of every talent-driven business.

An Introduction to this Special Supplement of "Leader to Leader, "Leaders: Their Education and Development Today""

Presented by the Fuqua School of Business and its Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics (COLE) at Duke University

According to recent studies by Hewitt Associates and the Human Resources Institute, the need for effective leader development programs is consistently one of the top three issues facing human resources managers across the Fortune 500 list of the world's largest companies. With the pending retirement of nearly 78 million Baby Boomers over the next several years, the potential for a huge gap in leadership is a significant threat to this nation's ability to remain the global leader in the world economy. Additionally, the new wave of talent entering the workforce, the Millennials, want - and will even demand - more and better forms of effective education, training, and development in their preparation to be the leaders of our future enterprises.

The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University has recognized this emerging need for leadership - and particularly the need for ethical leaders who will operate in the middle of organizations. At Fuqua, our aspiration is not only to educate outstanding managers capable of administering and maintaining the highest standards of an existing organization, it is also to create ethical leaders capable of developing and implementing new ideas and business concepts while enacting responsible ethical values. In 2004, Fuqua established the Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership and Ethics (COLE) to foster the development of rigorous research in leadership and ethics, expand the repertoire of leadership and ethics teaching materials, and build a leadership-focused educational experience for its students. The center's mission to develop leaders includes initiatives such as the Leadership Fellows program, course development, and advising the student programs in a way that seeds leadership throughout the school's team oriented culture. These initiatives recognize that effective leadership development is a planned change process and that programs must be organized and integrated to achieve desired leadership education and leader development outcomes.

So when "Leader to Leader" offered us the opportunity to describe the efforts of Fuqua and its COLE center at organizing and integrating initiatives to create the conditions for effective leadership education and leader development, embedded in educational programs that have already achieved world-class recognition, we accepted readily. Our efforts are designed to create transformational experiences that enable participants to meet the emerging demand of business and industry for people who are not only competent in the hard skills of technical expertise (our core strength at a place renowned for business research), but also have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies on the softer side to engage others effectively as leaders.

Joe LeBoeuf, "Professor of Practice and COLE Center Scholar"

Sanyin Siang, "Managing Director and Sr. Research Associate, COLE"