Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices

Is your “winning streak” about to become a “losing streak”?  I believe it is likely unless you prepare for the test you didn’t ask for but are about to take.  Let's be honest, most law firms have had a pretty good run and your partners are well accustomed to it.  Will your partners understand what a decrease is? Will your firm maintain the winning attitude that brought you this far?  If you don’t think the next few miles of road are bumpier than you're used to then the following may be of little interest (except perhaps for the reference to “denying the facts”).

I Irecommend that you visit (or revisit) Confidence - How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End by Harvard’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter. 

Rosabeth Moss Kanter's biography for those interested

Confidence is a road map that helps you react more constructively than you might otherwise have to the challenges you will face (like this deteriorating economy).  The losing streak is fraught with a disease whose symptoms will infect your people - they include::

• Stop communicating
• Criticize and blame
• Disrespect others
• Become isolated
• Focus inward
• Let inequalities develop and persist
• Lose initiative
• Forget goals and aspirations
• Spread negativity
• Deny Facts

• Accountability
• Collaboration
• Initiative

Check out Soundview Summaries and getAbstract.  If there are others, let me know.

PUNCHLINE:  Put Rosabeth Moss Kanter on your informal advisory team by buying the book or subscribing to one of the summary services above.  You cannot prevent the legal profession from having a losing streak here – but you can prevent your firm from having one.

...you would have seen my Edge International colleague and friend, Robert Millard, present the findings from the latest Managing Partner Forum Survey related to differences in approach to strategy in firms in the United Kingdom vs North America, and also in CPA (Accounting) Firms vs Law Firms.  (Click on the sample slide to enlarge)

Download your own copy from Robert Millard’s Blog, Adventures in Strategy, post: Slides from Managing Partners' Forum meeting at White & Case LLP, New York on Thursday, 18 October 2007

Is the UK's wealthiest man also its wisest?  If you have about 1/2 hour to sit in on a fascinating conversation with Sir Richard, head over to Adventures in Strategy, my Edge colleague and friend, Robert Millard's blog post: Richard Branson on Life, Succeeding in Business and Everything
(Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 30:44.)

I am very biased - Richard Branson is one of my heroes - nevertheless I will risk exclaiming that there is no Managing Partner who could experience this discussion and not be inspired.

Harvard Business Online has a coach named Marshall Goldsmith who has written or co-edited 22 books.  In answer to the question:

How Do I Provide Meaningful Recognition?

Marshall references the following:

1. List the names of the key groups of people that impact your life -- both at work and at home (customers, co-workers, friends, family members, etc.).
2. Write down the names of the people in each group.
3. Post your list in a place you can't miss seeing regularly.
4. Twice a week -- once on Wednesday, once on Friday -- review the list and ask yourself, “Did anyone on this list do something that I should recognize?”
5. If someone did, stop by to say "thank you," make a quick phone call, leave a voice mail, send an email, or jot down a note.
6. Don’t do anything that takes up too much time. This process needs to be time-efficient or you won’t stick with it.
7. If no one on the list did anything that you believe should be recognized, don’t say anything. You don’t want to be a hypocrite or a phony. No recognition is better than recognition that you don’t really mean.
8. Stick with the process. You won’t see much impact in a week – but you will see a huge difference in a year.

PUNCHLINE:  Many of the Managing Partners and Practice Group Leaders I serve do not have time for business publications (there are notable exceptions, of course).  Perhaps this introduction to Harvard Business Online will whet the appetite for and lead to requesting a free subscription.  The eight items above may not be perfect for your situation but I hope it stimulates your deciding the kind of recognition protocol you want to follow.

Read the entire Harvard Business Online post: How Do I Provide Meaningful Recognition?

As most Managing Partners are aware, during 25 years as CEO of GE, Jack Welch added more value than any other CEO in history.  Accordingly, some folks think it worthwhile to analyze what Jack Welch did that fueled those exemplary results.

Much has been written about him and by him but now there us a book called:  What Made jack welch JACK WELCH: How Ordinary People Become Extraordinary Leaders by Stephen H. Baum and Dave Conti.  (I borrowed from this title in naming this post because I believe that Managing Partners might find this analysis helpful.)

Here is an excerpt from a blog post today on Management Craft, Discussions About State of the Art Management which highlights an article called Shaping Experiences by one of the book's authors, Stephen H. Baum. 

This excerpt from the article is what I believe may be a useful self-assessment checklist for managing partners:

"Archetypal shaping experiences contribute to the cake turning out well. The ten broad categories of shaping experiences are listed below and are shown with a brief definition and explanatory quotes from the leaders I interviewed for this book:

1. Swim in Water over Your Head. Take a calculated personal risk without specific knowledge of how to succeed.
"You gotta do things outside your comfort zone. On purpose."

"I figured I'd get beat up pretty good in this fistfight, but I had to do it. I got a big lump on my head, but I didn't die."

2. Make the Tough Choice. Choose group benefit over personal interest, or choose between two "rights."
"Sometimes you have to take a good friend off the team and make him feel okay about it. Or do it anyway."

3. Solve the Key Puzzle. Even if it is not your job, figure out the root of the problem or opportunity.

"Sometimes the crowd runs in circles. You have to concentrate and see what everything hangs on -- even if it is not your accountability."

4. Parent at Work. Help others to grow and to perform exceptionally.

"You learn a lot from your parents and by parenting your own children; sometimes thinking as Mom or Dad at work helps."

"Ask what you would do if your people were family -- you get some good approaches."

"Treat your employees as you would want your children treated."

5. Sell Something/Get Others to Buy In. Win hearts and minds to create followers.

"Sell an idea. You'll be doing it a lot."

"Get people to vote with their feet, part with their money -- it's what life is all about."

6. Connect with Others. Understand what motivates others -- walk the talk and speak their language. Enlist them as much by your deeds as by your words.

"This plane will get fixed a lot faster if the mechanics want it to. It won't fix itself."
"A lot of bosses treat their people like they're nobodies. My guys do their best because it's about us, not about me."

7. Build a Team. Gather and lead a group in a common endeavor, and succeed. Or fail at first and try again. Get average players to play like stars. Add new members and weed out underperformers. Set direction and change it while keeping the team together.

"When you have to deliver, you need experience in selecting people and getting them on the same page."

"Pickup football taught me how to handicap horses -- who will perform and who will not."

8. Get Good on Your Feet. Learn to communicate, dialogue, and project your authenticity in real time.

"I was the leader of the singing group. That is when I got used to speaking in front of others. It came in handy later."
"I ran for student council. That's when I learned to handle the hecklers."

"I wanted to create an atmosphere of fun around a serious proposition. I organized and led a parade in the building. It not only did what I wanted, it also got me noticed in a good way by the boss."

9. Develop Your Crap Detector. Practice your intuitive ability to read subtexts of conversations and to detect individuals whose words and behaviors are not what they pretend them to be.

"In the military police, we had to ask questions and make quick judgments about people -- a guy who seemed real nice might have beaten someone up a few minutes earlier."

10. Look in the Mirror. Assess your own values, beliefs, and behaviors critically.

"I didn't want to hear it, but the criticism made me look inside myself. I changed my career, headed for operations. "

"He made me see my passion -- it's why I stayed in this field against all odds."

"He told me I'd never make partner if I could not disagree without being disagreeable."

See the full blog post here or order the book here.

Incidentally, about Stephen Baum:

"Stephen H. Baum has been an adviser and coach to CEOs for more than twenty years, first as a partner with Booz Allen & Hamilton, the global consultancy -- where beyond the client work he was also on the appraisal and development committee and mentored young associates -- then as an independent practitioner."

Ahhhh yes… seduction! 

Many great firms that I serve have a common enemy ”complacency” which Is indeed the result of decades of success.  Managing Partners complain that they are unable to get their partners to pay attention to their future.

Read Jim Hassett’s blogpost, Have lawyers been seduced by success? In his fantastic blog: Legal Business Development.

Here’s a teaser quote: 

If you like money, it's a great time to be a lawyer. In Citigroup's Law Watch survey of "153 US law firms broadly representative of the industry," law firm revenue has gone up 9.8% per year since 2001. But as Bill Gates put it: "Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." We know lawyers are smart people. Do some think they can't lose?

Read why Jim argues that you ought to read:

*According to the largest-ever research program in the UK legal profession, it appears that as the Beatles sang “money can’t buy you love”

I am not certain that the numbers would be different elsewhere in the world but at least are informed by recent and credible statistics.

The Lawyer.com article: Twenty four per cent of lawyers want to quit said in part:

 "Although the City [London] has seen a series of hefty salary rises and increases in partner profits, the rise in earnings has not contributed to overall happiness."

I speculate that there are three reasons for the responses of the Managing Partners (whom I believe have one of the toughest jobs on the planet):

1)  they are frequently under-trained and undereducated in management;

2)  they lead people who too often have little desire to follow

3) they have tasted a life that is a departure from the grind of finding work, recording hours and billing clients and they seek an environment that will value their learned managerial and leadership skills. 

Your thoughts?

Check out the full article

I am not willing to bet against Cravath Swaine & Moore, are you?  In fact their strategic decision in creating an insolvency practice may be cause for additional respect rather than cheap shots.

The Wall Street Journal in a post called:  The Horror! The Horror! Cravath Starts a Bankruptcy Practice is quite hard on Cravath by referring to its new practice area as "declasse" and by asking whether " the ultimate white-shoe firm, has decided to scuff up its oxfords a bit".

But before deciding that the recruiting of former Skadden partner Richard Levin,  "one of the authors of the 1978 U.S. Bankruptcy Code" might be in some way negative, think about this. 

Perhaps the brilliant minds at Cravath have peered into their crystal ball and decided that $4.00 per gallon fuel, an expensive war, continuing low interest rates, a sliding dollar and a rapidly deteriorating housing market mean that many significant businesses are on a collision course with insolvency.

PUNCHLINE:  It will be interesting to see what the hindsight analysis on this event is two years from now when my speculation is that  Cravath Swaine & Moore and the word "ultimate" will be used in the same sentence without any reference to scuffing up its oxfords.

Thank you to Law.com and to Bruce MacEwen's Adam Smith Esquire for referencing our Edge International Most-Admired Law Firm Leaders

We have released a survey in which top law firm managing partners identify their most admired peers.

Over 60 law firm managing partners responded to the Edge survey, which asked them to identify which law firm leaders, from firms other than their own, they admired the most for their management and leadership competence. They were also asked what qualities made their selections admirable.

The survey concluded that Robert M. Dell, chairman and managing partner of the law firm Latham & Watkins LLP, is the most admired law firm leader, receiving 13% of the respondents’ total votes.

Regina M. Pisa, chair and managing partner of the law firm Goodwin Proctor LLP and Lee I. Miller, Firm joint chief executive officer of DLA Piper US LLP, tied for second place for respondent votes in the poll. Other firm leaders who rounded out the top ten most admired law firm leaders include: Ben F. Johnson III, of Alston & Bird LLP; Cesar L. Alvarez, of Greenberg Traurig, LLP; Bob Odle, of Hogan & Hartson LLP; Patrick McCartan of Jones Day; Ralph H. Baxter, Jr., of Orrick and Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP; T. Kennedy Helm III of Stites & Harbision, PLLC; and Keith W. Vaughan of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice LLP.

It is notable that Odle and McCartan were selected by those surveyed, as both have retired from their respective firms.

When asked what leadership and management qualities made their selection admirable, the most common responses included: a willingness to make change, promote ambitious agendas, the ability to handle tough issues and get people within the firm aligned, and a commitment to maintaining the core values of the firm.

According to Patrick McKenna, my Edge International partner who initiated the survey: “One of the interesting developments was that we heard from another dozen or so firm leaders, who took the time to send us e-mails apologizing that ‘they were not familiar with other managing partners’ or ‘didn’t know enough to identify anyone specific.’ I guess our profession is not yet rife with numerous well-recognized management role models, but this survey shows that we’re evolving.”

As a Managing Partner (or other member of the senior management of your firm), it is extremely important that you look beyond the incestuous offerings from inside the legal profession. Internal thinking sometimes has us gazing at our own navels.  If you want a glimpse of the outside world but in a way that is extremely time efficient, suggestica may be the answer.

Today at 8:00 AM PST, suggestica launched both the suggestics web site and the suggestica blog.

You can sign up for a newsletter at the web site and if you do not have an RSS aggregator you can sign up for an email alert at the blog.

Knowing the genius of the people who are behind this site, (including Rajesh Setty), I am optimistic that the "suggestions" from "suggestica" will be highly valuable to you as a thought leader in the legal profession.

You might start with Rajesh Setty's blog post called Paradox of Choice for Books which will link you to a fabulous free pdf download containing fascinating research by Barry Schwartz.

The other people you see referenced at suggestica will either be people you have heard of (like Oprah Winfrey) or people whom you should know, if you don't already (like New York Times Columnist and prolific author, Thomas L. Friedman).

Punchline:   Look outside our legal profession for catalysts for thought and the learnings that can be translated back into our profession for great benefit.  As a leader you want to keep it fresh and keep it powerful.

Dear friend, Sue Stapely, FIPR FRSA is thought to be the UK’s only practising solicitor providing comprehensive strategic communications counsel, with unrivaled experience, particularly working in the legal sector.

Read her July 20th article in UK's Law Gazette:

When reputations are on the line

Here's a tiny excerpt:

…we should also worry about the reputations of our firms. One slip, one oversight, one badly handled complaint, one aggrieved staff member can destroy overnight reputations that took decades to establish.

.

Seth Godin's blog post on Receptionists is 100% correct.  When I was a managing partner, my firm required a receptionist for our largest office.  I personally reviewed 215 applications myself and created my "A list", about 42 applicants, whom I invited for interviews late one afternoon.   I asked 6 of my partners to help me and we interviewed 6 applicants each.  Any WOW applicant was interviewed separately by at least two partners.  Were we insane to take so much partner time on this?  You decide.

PUNCHLINE:  For many years thereafter, we had a legendary receptionist whom clients loved on the phone and in person.  I personally received an average of two positive remarks about her every week.   Many of my partners and associates reported similar experiences.  She created the "positive experiences" that Seth blogged about.

I remember a call from New York one day and the lawyer started by saying: "before we get to the business at hand, I just have to tell you...".  I did not have heart to tell him "yeah, I know, you are the 100th person this year to tell me". 

By the way, I told that receptionist about every single positive comment I heard, personally or second hand (and no, that did not lead to extortion - she appreciated the recognition and the credible praise). 

Cynics - who are tempted to guess that she was the winner of a beauty pageant – don't go there –  she got the job as the best applicant and got her praise on merit - her performance was awesome.

"Law Seven" and conclusion from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

7) Turn a spotlight on your initiative and leave it on

Many firms have fabulous meetings, sometimes in retreat venues where everyone participates in the creation of the master plan that will make the firm the “be all and end all”. All participants leave the process feeling a sense of pride and excitement that is palpable. It is only after the passage of a few months and the absence of any visible accomplishments that the disillusionment sets in. The cynics and skeptics have a field day — they might as well all buy red tee shirts with yellow words emblazoned across their chests “I told you so”. Well, Managing Partner, you must not allow this outcome. It is lethal and you cannot recover from it. Instead you need the lights that were on at the retreat to remain on. This is accomplished by not allowing the insects to crawl back under the rocks — (out of sight, out of mind). Instead you need to design processes that keep your people (not insects at all) in plain view. You can decide for yourself what might work best for you, but here are some of the techniques I have observed or recommended:

a) Monday Morning Memos (as referenced earlier) giving weekly status reports to showing everyone’s progress on the distinct steps (actions) that have been agreed upon. This creates healthy peer pressure and allows no-one to hide.

b) MBWA (Managing by Walking Around) coined by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman in their business classic In Search of Excellence — this means frequently dropping in, unannounced, to ask the right questions and to offer help — “How is that list coming… I see you are struggling to get this done in light of your particularly heavy case load at the moment… let’s explore some options… to whom could you delegate some aspects of this… I need you to make progress because others know you have an exceptionally heavy work load and if they see you getting your tasks done you will have effectively removed their excuses — I need you to do that… I will do anything to help short of doing your task for you…”

c) Convene follow up meetings that exchange “learnings” that individuals have gleaned from their respective tasks, for example, how they worked with difficult people internally or how they overcame client resistance. This should not be a meeting where everyone reports progress — progress meetings become meaningless exercises in seeing who can offer the most creative excuses for failing to deliver. This is a peer level training meeting where the objective is to become ever more effective at accomplishing quality non-billable tasks.

Conclusion: Fostering change in a law firm seems impossible because most Managing Partners treat the activities associated with such change as if they were component pieces of a legal transaction. Partners are so reliable when it comes to their substantive legal work that it seems unthinkable that they could not complete mundane simple tasks associated with management initiatives. Well, the real world is that the non-billable activities are not even on the same psychological map as the billable ones. Billable work means everything to a lawyer from income to professional satisfaction to garnering the respect of peers (internally and externally) to being respected in social circles. Non-billable work, no matter how important, and regardless of the value to our futures, will always take second place to billable work unless you, Managing Partner, manage for a different outcome. The score in many firms is billable work “100” and quality non-billable work “0”. By following these seven immutable laws of managing change, you will change the latter score from zero and even if you only to “99 to 1”, you and your firm will be the beneficiaries of the infinite improvement from “0” to “1”. Further, in the legal profession, those who make continuous slight progress win the race, because most competitors are still tied to that pier.

Law #1
Law #2
Law #3
Law #4
Law #5
Law #6

(…thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)

"Law Six" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

6) Tell the world

Do you know why betrothed people say their vows in front of friends and family — to cement their commitment. It is the same reason a banker friend told me the bank does television commercials: “not just for our customers but for our own staff so that they can see the service promise we make to our customers and as a result they are more likely to live up to that promise”.

Tell the world what you are shooting for, whatever that may be – in fact, you can say it before it is so: “striving to be the firm of choice for the wholesale industry”. I am not advocating misleading or untrue advertising but I am saying it’s OK to declare what you are striving for. Your current and prospective clients will hold you accountable but that’s OK because it helps define the standard for your people and gives clarity to their target and therefore their everyday performance.

(Law 7 and conclusion)

Law #1
Law #2
Law #3
Law #4
Law #5

(…thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)

"Law Five" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

5) Ask for commitment – not agreement

One of my most successful friends (and clients from my law practice days) has a One Sentence Journal and he posted the following wisdom one day:

"Commitment and Doubt": Commitment does not require the absence of doubt; often commitment means acting despite your doubt.
(From Larry Anderson's One Sentence Journal June 17 entry.) (Larry’s success is not only financial — it transcends to a long-term happy marriage and philanthropy.)

Think about it. You do not need your entire firm to agree with you and should not even ask for that. What you must demand, and accept nothing less than, is that your people commit to help you achieve your objectives even if they have doubts. At worst, someone who is not pivotal to the initiative may remain neutral and that means not sabotaging the effort in any way. But for that exception, those who offer passive or active interference must be confronted. If you don’t have the support to pull that off, step aside. You are allowed to lobby for that support but it must be forthcoming or else your resignation should be tendered. This is not hypothetical – this is how the well-managed firms are run. Choose your initiatives carefully because you must succeed in attempting them. They don’t all have to work but you have to be allowed to try them and give them the firm’s best efforts. If not, call the election.

(Law 6)

Law #1
Law #2
Law #3
Law #4

(…thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)

"Law Four" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

4) Create cult-like internal promotional communications

This is where your capable support professionals can shine. They can help you create imaginative ways to keep the initiative in front of your people. The internal trainer in a major firm showed me high gloss promotional announcements that were sent internally to remind audiences about various internal workshops. I asked about the “commercial nature” of the alerts and he responded that “I have to break through the noise” to get their attention. He’s right, of course. It’s like paying attention to your spouse. If you take your spouse for granted, you may not end up alone but you will not reap the rewards that would have been yours had you been more attentive.

Some firms use Monday Morning Memos to catalogue progress on the action checklist, person by person. Others celebrate to congratulate for achievements (compete with cake and silly hats — perhaps tee shirts adorned by appropriate slogans).

(Law 5)

Law #1
Law #2
Law #3

(…thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)

"Law Three" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

3) Paint “the first step” in vivid colours

"Take the first step, and your mind will mobilize all its forces to your aid. But the first essential is that you begin. Once the battle is started, all that is within and without you will come to your assistance." Robert Collier (1885-1950)

As leader, you are going to have to foster the taking of the first step by every individual whose participation is essential to your change initiative. This means that the first step must be crystal clear and painted by you in vivid colours so that no individual hesitates because of lack of clarity. The simplest way to do this is to facilitate a discussion that results in “to do” lists that include actual initial steps and time lines, and if necessary, methodologies. For example, the first step might be compiling a list of prospective clients in a particular industry that would have need of a particular service. The action may involve delegating internally (or even outside the firm) the task of creating the initial list and might include identifying precisely the parameters within the list, like numbers of employees, locations etc.

The punch line is to have a first step that is clear enough that you can ask if a specific thing has been done. For example, “is the initial list ready” is only a sensible question if it is clear that the first step was to create such a list and precisely what that list would be comprised of.

(Law 4)

Law #1
Law #2

(…thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)

"Law Two" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

2) Create a vivid picture (vision) of where this initiative leads

It is tempting to be vague because then you are not committing to anything. Not committing avoids scrutiny and criticism. But without certainty, your troops cannot get excited about your change initiative.

Be specific: “If we dominate the provision of X legal services to the Y industry, we will not only increase our revenues in both the A and B practice groups by at least 25% in the next two years, but we can also expect increases in the C and D practice groups of at least 10% attributable to cross selling initiatives from the A and B practice groups”. Obviously the particulars are customized to the situation but the point here is to be specific. While quantifiable measures are essential to your firm’s success, qualitative ones may be equally motivating to your people. For example, many of your people will work hard for the prize of having more work of a preferred nature or to do more work for preferred clients.

You will rarely be exactly right when it comes to strategy and tactics — and that is OK. You will almost always do better or worse you’re your forecast. Get comfortable with being wrong because that is what management is all about. If you meet your objectives all the time, you are way too conservative. You will learn from your performance and continually correct and fine-tune. This is not the practice of law — it is the management of the business. In a real estate transaction, we expect to get good title for the purchaser on closing. This is not a guess or a hope or speculation. It is precise and we had better get it right — it’s what we’re being paid for. But a percentage increase in revenues from a particular kind of work is a crap shoot. No matter how smart you are, there are some variables beyond your control and many that are beyond your capacity to predict accurately. Worse, even if serendipitously your strategy is perfect, your tactics may be quite imperfect, at least initially. Business winners constantly monitor outcomes and frequently change or at least fine-tune tactics in an effort to continuously improve results.

The punch line here is to create a vivid quantitative and qualitative description of a desirable outcome that everyone in your organization can relate to, knowing and accepting that it is not perfect.

(Law 3 - Link to Law #1 if you missed it)

(…thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)

"Law One" from my article: "The Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management (with thanks to Cameron Cooper of the Australian Law Journal where my article first appeared)

Managing Partners: Why is it that your intelligent (no, make that “super intelligent”) lawyers seem to react to your change initiatives like you were asking them to drink a tankard of poison, even when they know full well that the brilliant changes you are proposing would be beneficial to them individually and collectively? When we get Managing Partners from various firms together, many of them want to commiserate with each other about the impossible task they have in managing the unmanageable – I suppose my Edge International co-founder Patrick McKenna, and I did not cure that perception when we named one of our books Herding Cats. Some Managing Partners with whom I have had the pleasure of working are exceptions to that rule and what follows is what I think I have learned from them over these many years.

Here are the seven immutable laws of creating change in your firm. I guarantee that if you respect these rules, you will get the cooperation you need to effect the changes that will catapult your firm forward.

1) As Managing Partner, propose imperfect change initiatives

YES, I said IMPERFECT and when you saw that word a feeling of anxiety overcame you and you were tempted to react as a lawyer and not as a change-agent for your firm. Let me be clear. As a lawyer, your job is to do “the right things, perfectly”. That calls for unflawed effectiveness and efficiency. You probably hope your surgeon, if you ever need one, practices to the same standard. But face reality — as the manager of your firm, you do not have the luxury of doing only “the right things” because nobody, including you, knows what the “the right things” are except in hindsight — and hindsight is too late.

As a result, most good firms are paralyzed by the tedious, never-ending and totally ineffectual process of divining the perfect strategy accompanied by the perfect tactics. These firms are ships tied so firmly to the pier that no matter how well steered, they go absolutely nowhere. In fact, their biggest claim to fame is that they hit no icebergs — few ships do from the pier. Such firms may do “industry-average” well, but they are not going to consistently break out of the pack. Temporary successes come from individual initiatives that the firm is likely unaware of and therefore does not impede with excessive policies and standardization.

In strategy, you must make the best decisions you can with what you know and what you can speculate about. I am not against a little market research – in fact I advocate it but I am against the notion that you can know enough to comfortably make strategic decisions with the confidence that you are most certainly right.

Most good collegial firms make the mistake of trying to convince the whole firm (at least the partners) that a decision is “right” before proceeding. There is no collection of competent lawyers exceeding one in number that can or will agree to any single course of action mainly because their training is not to find the wisdom and potential in an idea but rather to reveal the concealed risks within it. No idea will ever be good enough so looking for unanimous approval is antithetical to creating change.

You as Managing Partner and your close team (executive committee, board if necessary) must make a decision. You must choose what you think your best option is from among the available alternatives.

The punch line here is “abandon perfection in favour of action”. Force the decision–making process within a reasonable time frame and then get moving. Release your ship from the peer. This will give you immediate competitive advantage. It will also contribute to the esprit de corps of your firm and that will literally add fuel to your change initiative. If you are going in the wrong direction, you can alter your course.

Please note that this is your initiative as Managing Partner — not your approval of the initiative of a support professional (like the marketing director in your firm). You can work together with such support professional side by side, you can even give them most of the credit if the initiative is successful but it must be your initiative, at least in part, or you have no hope of succeeding.

(Law 2)

(Click on photo for bio.)

Bruce adds this terrific article to The Marcus Letter:

ALL TOGETHER NOW – IT’S OUR CLIENT
The Client Service Team As A Growing Phenomenon

The article features Iris Jones who breathed life into this concept at Akin Gump. Bruce speaks very highly of her and her achievements - click on photo for bio. Bruce does a nice job of describing the elements that had to be in place at Akin Gump to support their client team initiative.

Visit Bruce's newsletter regularly. Just click on The Marcus Letter logo below.

I am generally critical about how law firms are managed, although always out of a sense of affection and respect for my profession. Even I was shocked by what I read about the management in Dorsey & Whitney's London office:

But old-fashioned bad management is apparently playing its part too: one partner issued an email after the London bombings explaining that he had billed 7.5 hours on that day and expected his team to do the same. Apparently, he also refused to allow anyone from his team to attend the funeral of a partner who died shortly after leaving the firm.

This is actually excerpted from a news story on the rollonfriday.com site (which is supported by advertising from major London law firms).

On Dorsey & Whitney's web site, the firm proclaims of its own management that:

Our management team is comprised of experienced law firm professionals, dedicated to creating an environment in which our attorneys can put clients first.

Reconcile that with this excerpt from the same story which says:

…at least eight associates have resigned.

There may be hope! In the recruitment section of their web site, under the heading "Firm Structure/Management" appears the following Q&A:

Are non-partner attorneys involved in firm management and governance?

The Council is a representative body that serves to strengthen the voice of Dorsey's non-partner attorneys. The Council welcomes feedback with respect to concerns, issues and ideas from all non-partner attorneys. The Chair of The Council regularly reports to firm management.

PUNCHLINE: While the behaviour alluded to here is about as bad as I have seen, I promise you that Dorsey & Whitney is not alone in having socially dysfunctional, destructive lawyers in their midst. Do not imagine for a second that this kind of negative influence comes without expense. What does it cost to recruit eight associates? I'll bet no firm would dare subtract that number from the billing revenue of some maniac in order to determine compensation.

One Managing Partner confided in me that the greatest contribution he has made in his tenure as leader of his highly profitable international firm is the firing of 60 partners, including some that so demoralized others that their impressive billings just "were not worth the pain and suffering they caused, emotionally or in extra expense".

MY WIFE'S WISDOM: Sometimes my wife Bethany really nails the point - her reaction was: Dysfunctional people with power are going to have to realize that their behaviour simply is not anonymous anymore.

Peter Cornell, Managing Partner, Clifford Chance

I admire 53 year old outgoing Clifford Chance Managing Partner Peter Cornell for his integrity and self awareness in saying that "his skills as a lawyer were too rusty for him to return to practice" according to an article in today's New York Law Journal by Anthony Lin titled: Clifford Chance Managing Partner Stepping Down

I am not worried about Peter Cornell who is likely in sufficient demand to have his choice of lucrative careers after he steps down as MP. The importance of this story is not about Peter Cornell or Clifford Chance. My point pertains to the many managing partners in much smaller firms who risk their futures for their firms every day. Many have no built in compensation safeguard to allow them to gravitate back to practice after retiring from their Managing Partner role. There is a serious period of adjustment to attract work and to ensure that work is of the highest quality.

The worst part for many firms is that their Managing Partners are well aware of this vulnerability and therefore refuse to dramatically diminish their law practices and therefore do not spend serious time and effort on management. I have worked with a number of firms where the managing partner is too busy to manage but won't (or can't) delegate much to others. These firms pay the biggest price of all because the meander through the years virtually unmanaged.

It is time for all law firms of more than a handful of lawyers to realize that there is a return on the investment of management and a competitive disadvantage for ignoring that fact. They must create safety valves for Managing Partners who can then lend themselves to the management of the firm with enthusiasm rather than dabble in it while carrying a heavy caseload.

Managing Partners — start thinking of ways to harness this little philosophical gem in your firm:

Fun is not a distraction from work or a drain on our revenue; it is the very source of both our inspiration and our value. A genuine sense of play ignites our creativity, eases communication, promotes goodwill and engenders loyalty, yet we tend to shun it as detrimental to the seriousness with which we think we need to approach our businesses and careers.

Extracted from a wonderful recent post in influxinsights - I encourage you to read it in its entirety.

Thank you Tom Peters for this tidbit from a post called "Stuff…":

ALL THERE IS. Damn it! I keep forgetting this! Leaving it out of presentations! Namely, a PP slide that simply reads : You = Your Calendar. THIS IS MY #1 BELIEF ABOUT MANAGEMENT. Or: "You can't bullshit your calendar." Or: "Your calendar knows ... do you?" All we have is our time. The way we distribute it is our "strategic plan," our "vision," our "values." Period. So how'd you spend your precious time today? Tell me, and I'll tell you what you actually care about—it's simple and unerring.

FASTFORWARD: I have an expression I use when talking for senior power partners in client firms: "Your behaviour is so loud, I can't hear what you're saying". This is usually in the context of seniors lecturing juniors about perfection but the juniors have their eyes fixed firmly not on what the seniors are "saying" but what they are "doing" Tom Peters has this so right — a reminder to every single one of us to make sure that our 2006 calendars consist of the behaviours that are in harmony with what we aspire to (otherwise we are engaging is self deception). Thanks for the reminder, Tom

Mandi Fleiser

If esprit de corps in your office is so fantastic that you are looking for ways to suppress it, then skip this post. However if you want to see a brilliant, simple and time efficient way of enhancing it, then treat this as a mini case study. (Esprit de corps is "a feeling of pride, fellowship, and common loyalty...")

Mandi Fleiser is a partner in Grant Thornton's Johannesburg office — she transformed an abstract thought into action… she breathed life into her idea.

The Misty Hills Country Hotel outside of Johannesburg