Anti-Consulting with Gerry Murphy

Is it possible to run a professional services company without individual goals, without billable hours, without performance ratings? Gerry Murphy and Nua Group certainly think so... Gerry Murphy is a co-founder and partner at Nua Group, the San Francisco firm that describes itself as the anti-consulting firm. He qualified as an actuary in Dublin, spent eight years in Europe, and was a senior partner at Mercer with earlier leadership roles at Watson Wyatt before he, Joe and Chris set Nua up ten years ago. We cover the anti-consulting model, what happens to accountability when you delete the machinery, managers who never wanted the job, job architecture as a system of control, and whether any of it survives at ten thousand people. What we covered: Anti-consulting as a playful poke at billable hours, sales goals and internal meetings Clients love their consultants, not the firms those consultants work for Two internal meetings every two weeks, and what the rest of the week is for Nua consultants asking the partners whether they could please track their hours The nickel and diming that comes with the hourly model Everyone at Nua gets the same bonus, whatever their individual performance The bonus that moves from 20 percent to 21 and pleases nobody Four job levels on paper, two in practice: partner and consultant Majors and minors in place of practice areas Gerry's rules of management, starting with do nothing, ending with two blank rules Managers who never wanted the job and took it for the pay Mercer's manager charter, and Jensen Huang's thirty direct reports Electing your own manager, and where Gerry pushes back on the idea The client whose job architecture, bonuses and equity created an incredible amount of work Whether AI makes experience and education requirements irrelevant Stock options, RSUs, dilution and growth The Ryland Report, and why the team asked for more financial detail, not less Scaling to ten thousand people, and the naming of Uber Nua People: Joe Farris, co-founder of Nua Group Paul Reiman, compensation consultant and previous guest on this show Dan Walter, equity compensation specialist and the first guest on this show Jack Stack, who led one of the most leveraged employee buyouts in US history Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia Books: Close the Gap, James Alexander Seechurn Articles: Are CEOs Paid for Performance? Evaluating the Effectiveness of Equity Incentives, Ric Marshall and Linda-Eling Lee, MSCI ESG Research, 2016 https://www.msci.com/research-and-insights/blog-post/are-ceos-paid-for-performance Organizations: Nua Group, Mercer, Watson Wyatt, Radford, Irish Pensions Trust, Morning Star, Nucor, Handelsbanken, Buurtzorg, Nvidia, Gallup, MSCI, Stripe Find Gerry: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerrymurphynuagroup/ Website: https://www.nuahr.com Email: gerry.murphy@nuahr.com Music licensed through Soundstripe. Code: DLQOKHPSWUMSTCMH.