3
Collaboration and
the Solo Specialist
C
hapters 3 through 5 focus on individual cohorts of collab-
orators—or potential collaborators—within the firm. This
chapter’s subject is what I call the solo specialist. This pro-
fessional, usually in the middle or upper ranks of a knowledge firm,
has made a reputation for himself based on demonstrated expertise
in a particular niche. He has a solid client roster that depends on
him for his particular skills and he is the go-to person within the
firm for client service in that specialty.
Let’s suppose that this description fits you. Let’s further suppose
that you’re pretty much satisfied with the status quo, and that you’re
not inclined to disrupt your well-oiled machinery by introducing
collaborators. Of course you delegate to underlings, because you
appreciate the value of their leverage, but you don’t involve peers
from other disciplines unless the client problem truly demands their
specialized knowledge. In other words, when pushed, you can and
will collaborate, but you don’t see the point in doing so proactively.
In this chapter, I am out to change your mind. I argue that to
keep growing and prospering, you need to bring colleagues into
Chapter_03.indd 71 05/10/16 11:42 pm
72SMART COLLABORATION
contact with your clients. In the long run, you’re going to need
them to do the same for you. As the saying goes: What got you here
won’t get you there.
1
Alternatively, let’s suppose that you’re a senior leader in your
firm, and when you see the phrase solo specialist, you know
exactly whom I’m talking about. You have a number of them in
your ranks—thank goodness. They are reliable revenue genera-
tors, and they continuously help buff your firm’s reputation in a
very competitive marketplace. They have a solid franchise in that
marketplace, and they work it well. Put a little more baldly, they
control large chunks of your firm’s key client relationships. Should
you risk upsetting your solo specialists, and disrupting their proven
formula, by encouraging them to collaborate? Do you, as a firm
leader, have a longer-term obligation to broaden and deepen rela-
tionships with the clients in question?
As we will see, the answer to these key questions is clearly yes.
Can the solo specialist benefit
financially from collaboration?
Let’s begin with the punch line. My research clearly shows that
rainmakers who collaborate—that is, who share the work that
they originate—end up with significantly bigger books of business
than those who hoard work.
To illustrate how collaboration enhances a professional’s ability
to generate business, let’s compare the very different paths taken
by two professional firm partners—real-life people, by the way—
who had a lot of superficial similarities: same-aged men who had
worked for the same amount of time in the same practice area at
the same firm, had graduated the same year from law school, and
billed about the same number of hours per year. Take a look at
the two unequal-sized spider webs depicted in figure 3-1.
2
Each
dot on the diagram represents a partner in their firm, and the lines
between them indicate that they’ve spent at least fifteen hours that
year working together on a specific client project (not merely work-
ing on separate projects for that client).
Chapter_03.indd 72 05/10/16 11:42 pm
Collaboration and the Solo Specialist73
What’s going on here? They billed nearly the same number of
hours in a given year, but—as the diagram shows—they spent
those hours very differently. Partner 1 brought six other partners
into client work he generated, half of whom were from outside
his own practice area, as indicated by the square dots in the inter-
sections. (A round dot indicates a within-practice nexus.) Partner
2, by contrast, involved more than thirty other partners in his
client work, two-thirds of whom were from outside his practice.
Clearly, partner 2’s cross-practice approach paid off: total reve-
nue that year from his clients was more than four times higher
than the revenue that partner 1 generated from his client base.
Figure 3-2 carries the analysis forward over time. In this case, we’re
comparing two accounting firm partners who, again, are very similar
according to key demographic and professional measures. The big dif-
ference is that partner A (top) starts in 2011 with a larger network, and
then continues to increase the number of partners that he works with.
As shown, revenues from clients where he’s the lead partner increase
2735
02925
03350
03865
02129
02331
02085
03641
02926
05676
01687
01620
02585
03350
02023
03098
03178
05885
01696
02135
61830
01687
00426
01847
02394
02088
01534
01701
04131
00245
06062
03057
05525
02086
02585
05830
03179
05676
61835
Partner 1P
artner 2
$ $ $ $ $
Partner 2’s business development revenue is >4 times higher than partner 1’s
= Partners from outside own practice area
= Within-practice connection
= Focal partner
61106
FIGURE 3-1
Collaboration and business development
Two (nearly) identical professionals: Same practice, graduation year, time with firm,
annual hours billed
Chapter_03.indd 73 05/10/16 11:42 pm
74SMART COLLABORATION
by 133 percent over the next four years. In contrast, partner B’s net-
work is smaller to begin with and grows only marginally; as a result,
the revenues associated with the clients where he’s the lead partner
increase only 36 percent between 2011 and 2015. These fairly simple
figures can’t tell us whether collaboration led to the increased revenue
or was a result of it. But that correlation is worth investigating.
My research examining these kinds of outcomes over a decade
shows a clear causal pattern. Solo specialists who systematically
involve other partners in their work benefit by significantly grow-
ing their books of business in ensuing years, even after controlling
for the size of the solo specialist’s book in the starting year. In other
175
160
444
416
397
172
217
438
411
301
701
$2.1 million
$1.4 million
2011 2015
$1.9 million + 36%
$4.9 million + 133%
267
341
431
200
214
449
296
416
331
200
444
182
175
301
445
275
302
341
94
441
431
267
267
229
188
294
333
245
291
365
291
113
258
283
358
121
283
97
113
258
387
86
86
13
13
402
210
39
28
Partner A
Partner
B
FIGURE 3-2
Impact of collaboration and network size on revenue over time
Chapter_03.indd 74 05/10/16 11:42 pm
Collaboration and the Solo Specialist75
words: no matter how much work the partner generates this year,
if she refers some of that work to other partners, especially part-
ners outside her own practice group, then her origination amount
will increase significantly the next year, and more so than that of
her peers who hoard their work. Again, this pattern holds, even
after controlling for other factors that are likely to affect individual
billings, such as one’s office, practice group, organizational ten-
ure, and previous year’s billings. I’ve now replicated these findings
using data from multiple professional service firms that vary in
terms of field, size, geographic scope, and compensation system.
If you’re in a sophisticated firm that assesses your performance in
terms of profitability, collaboration helps there, too. Figure 3-3 sum-
marizes research on this issue, in this case drawing on the operating
results supplied to me by a US domestic professional service firm. As
you can see, net revenue—let’s call it “profit” for simplicity’s sake—
clearly increases based on the number of additional practices or services
offered to a client by the lead client partner (or team of lead partners).
What about the impact of the number of other people involved?
On average, a strong correlation exists between net revenue and
$0
$200,000
$400,000
$600,000
$800,000
$1,000,000
$1,200,000
$1,400,000
$1,600,000
$1,800,000
$2,000,000
123456789
Average net revenue
Number of service lines used by lead partner in a year
FIGURE 3-3
The value of including more practice areas
Total profits generated by lead client partners based on service breadth
Chapter_03.indd 75 05/10/16 11:42 pm
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