“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)