Graeme Davies and Geoff Garrett offer advice to leaders in the professions.

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.

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.

The authors draw 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.

Published by Triarchy Press ISBN: 978-1-9094702-0-0
List Price: £15.00