Book Brief: First Among Equals

First Among Equals: How to Manage A Group of Professionals
By Patrick J. McKenna and David H. Maister
Free Press, April 2002
288 Pages, $26

Once you've aligned your corporate stars, use this book to figure out exactly how to organize your professionals into groups. What consultants McKenna and Maister understand well is that most talented people hate to be managed. The authors break the task of leading groups of professionals into three parts: What you have to do as the leader, how you should interact with individual group members and how you should deal with the group as a whole. Then they offer suggestions for succeeding at each step in the process.