Aligning the Stars: How to Succeed When Professionals Drive Results
Mechanical Engineering-CIME  9/1/2002
Every company relies on talent to succeed, but none so much as professional service firms. Within this rapidly expanding, trillion-dollar sector, people are more than valuable assets; they are the source of competitive advantage. In this book, academic Jay W. Lorsch and practitioner Thomas J. Tierney draw from research and long experience to provide a perspective on how to win in professional services. They argue that strategic success is achieved by building an organization of executive-level stars whose day-to-day performance achieves the goals of the business. Through real-world examples, the authors show how strong firms create and sustain success via strategy, people systems, structure and governance, culture, and leadership.


June 2002

Business bestsellers
The Globe and Mail  6/17/2002
#7: Aligning the Stars: How to Succeed When Professionals Drive Results by Thomas Tierney and J.W. Lorsch (Harvard Business School Press, $47.95)


May 2002

Business Books
Richmond Times-Dispatch  5/20/2002
by Theodore B. Kinni
"Aligning the Stars: How to Succeed When Professionals Drive Results" by Jay Lorsch and Thomas Tierney (Harvard Business School Press, $29.95). The secret to growing the professional service firm is by aligning the desires and development of talented individuals with the needs of the firm. You create that alignment, say the authors, who studied the best practices in 18 successful firms, through the design of organizational strategy, structure and systems, culture, and leadership.

Aligning the Stars: How to Succeed When Professionals Drive Results- Review
Civil Engineering  5/1/2002
by Ray Bert
The authors are authoritative voices from two different parts of the business world. Lorsch, a professor of human relations at the Harvard Business School, cofounded an executive education program at the school called Leading Professional Service Firms (the only such university-based program focusing on PSFS). Tierney comes from the practice side, a director and former chief executive officer of the management consulting firm Bain & Company. Since 2000, he has chaired the Bridgespan Group, a nonprofit affiliate of Bain & Company that he founded to provide consulting services to foundations and nonprofit organizations.


April 2002

An astronomical challenge - Book Review: Aligning the Stars
Financial Times  4/11/2002
by Stephen Overell
According to the authors of Aligning the Stars, Jay Lorsch, professor of human relations at Harvard Business School, and Thomas Tierney, former chief executive of Bain & Company, the one sector where the slogan "people are our greatest asset" is nothing short of the absolute truth is professional services. "The central difference - and distinguishing characteristic - of the professional service firm business model is its reliance, its absolute dependence, on skilled and motivated professionals," they write. The "stars" are those employees whose stellar performance is critical to an organisation's success.
Go to Financial Times  

The Business Reader Review: Aligning the Stars review
The Business Reader Review 4/1/2002
The secret to growing the professional service firm is by aligning the desires and development of talented individuals with the needs of the firm. You create that alignment, say authors Jay Lorsch and Tom Tierney, who studied the best practices in eighteen successful firms, through the design of organizational strategy, structure and systems, culture, and leadership.