Why do some professional service firms (PSFs), such as Goldman Sachs, prosper extraordinarily, while others fail? What, precisely, makes Goldman Sachs excellent?
‘On Becoming Extraordinary: Decoding Goldman Sachs and Other Star Professional Service Firms’ answers these questions. The book unlocks the key performance drivers of leading PSFs and explains how a small elite consistently outperforms peers in the most competitive professional services businesses.
The practices of Goldman Sachs are streets ahead of most competitors. The critical question, therefore, is: what can other firms learn from the best-of-the-best? Challengers seeking to reach the ‘peak of the pyramid’ must excel across eight core competencies:
1. People development — there is no substitute for world-class professionals
2. Client development — systematically deepening high-value client relationships
3. Practice development — building a superior knowledge and support infrastructure
4. Office management — managing key internal and external stakeholders (for example, alumni) effectively
5. Reputation management — enhancing and protecting the firm’s identity and image
6. Information management — delivering the right information to the right employees at the right time
7. Innovation management — systematically and continuously developing and implementing new products or services
8. Continuous performance improvement — a relentless focus on better and best practices
The study’s findings are based on a rigorous empirical research process:
1. 338 interviews with senior managers, directors, and partners of PSFs, providing insights into the voice, character, and internal dynamics of those firms.
2. 366 interviews with client executives, primarily board members and senior decision-makers from public companies, state-owned enterprises, and private (family-owned) firms, spanning many geographies and industries.
3. Extensive secondary research and archival analysis.
4. Interviews with ‘knowledgeable outsiders’ — for example, industry experts, professors, academic specialists, and experienced journalists; these interviews strengthened the robustness and generalizability of the findings.
The strengths of Goldman Sachs — particularly in people development and managing client relationships — create a powerful, self-reinforcing ‘wheel of fortune.’ This flywheel helps them defend their dominant market position over time. The bank outperforms most competitors on what truly matters: reputation and presence, profitability and total fee income, status and influence.
‘On Becoming Extraordinary: Decoding Goldman Sachs and Other Star Professional Service Firms’ (ISBN 9798411954883) is available via Amazon and other major retailers.
— published on LinkedIn | 02.17.26