Managing People in a Law Firm

Managing people in a law firm

The importance of high performing people in a law firm.

Historically, managing people in a law firm has often been seen as little more than an irritating necessity and has taken a back seat to the more important priority of client service. This attitude, however, can no longer be relied upon to lead to success for law firms. While managing and developing clients must continue to be top priority, it can only be achieved if an equally high priority is given to managing and developing the people who ultimately deliver the service to clients.

Professional firms are people businesses, perhaps the ultimate people businesses. All value flows from people. Managing people more effectively can therefore be expected to have a substantial impact on financial performance. It is difficult to estimate just what the financial benefits are, but when partners in law firms are asked. “If most of your people did most of the things you would like them to do what would the financial payoff be?”, the answers are never in the thousands, rarely even in the tens of thousands, but usually in the hundreds of thousands of pounds for each and every partner. The potential gains from tackling underperformance of people are therefore enormous.

Managing people is sometimes referred to as a ‘soft skill’, but getting people to do what you want is not a soft issue at all; it’s a hard issue. It is hard in terms of the hard business results that can potentially be gained. It is also hard in that it is not easy. It is, however, well worth the effort and firms cannot afford to continue ignoring its importance.

Managing people cannot simply be delegated to a HR department, any more than client service can be delegated to a marketing department. A HR department can support and guide the efforts of the partners and professionals, but managing people to achieve high performance is a core business process that must transcend every part of a firm.

Managing people into the future

Predicting the future is always dangerous, but it can hardly be controversial to suggest that law firms will change at least as much over the next ten years as they have over the past ten years. It may be more controversial to suggest that in ten years time, attracting and developing people will be as highly prized as attracting and developing clients, and that those partners with a genuine talent for bringing out the best in people will be lionised alongside partners who have a talent for bringing in the best clients.

To be successful, law firms have to find common ground between the capabilities of their people and the needs of their clients. This is the challenge facing the leaders of law firms and neither side of this relationship can be neglected.

Another change that can be expected in future is a more flexible approach to employing people. Law firms seem to be stuck with a full-time (very full time in some cases) office based culture, yet increasingly this is not what professionals want. Some firms will no doubt find it easier to attract the people they seek by offering a more flexible package. This does not just apply to staff. One senior partner in a major law firm, with genuine sadness, confided that he would happily take a £50,000 per annum cut in his salary if only he could spend some weekends with his children. Expect to see more portfolio working, more part-time working, more career breaks and more working from home. (Indeed, firms that want to get the best from their people might insist on some of these practices.) however, these are symptoms of a deeper underlying shift in attitudes, where professionals increasingly want their work to provide not only the means for life, but also a purpose to their lives. Firms that can offer a sense of purpose and intrinsic value in their work can rightly expect to get the very best from their people.

Getting the very best from people

Getting the best from people in a law firm requires the following:

 A culture of high performance that matches the firm’s strategy;  Leaders throughout the firm chosen because of their abilities to get the best from people, and support to develop their leadership skills;  Teamwork pervading the whole firm;  People management processes supporting (or at least not hindering) achievement of high performance.

There are no quick fixes here. Attempts to micro-manage people performance, without attempting to build the right culture, select good leaders and instil teamwork, are designed to fail and are not so much short cuts as short-sighted.

Each of these keys to the successful management of people is dealt with below.

Creating a culture of high performance

What culture is and why it helps in managing people

Culture has been defined as ‘the way things are done around here’. It is an unwritten, and often unspoken, guide to what really matters in an organisation. In any business organisation, corporate culture plays an important role; in a professional firm it is crucial. Every firm, every office, every team has a culture of some kind. In the best organisations there will be a strong consistency across the whole organisation, with each unit free to introduce cultural nuances that best serve their needs. Law firms usually have a different culture in the corporate department from that in the property department, and there will be noticeable difference between litigators and non-contentious departments. Different offices may have different cultures too depending on their size and the markets they serve. Yet in the most successful firms there will also be some common values that underpin the localised variations.

A strong culture that supports high performance is a major contributor to success because people know what is expected of them. The culture transmits invisible signals to guide their actions. It is therefore a key component in managing and getting the best from people. Conversely, a weak or patchy culture, or one that runs counter to the firm’s aims, hampers progress. People will ‘do their own thing’ – some will do what they think is right, others what they can get away with.

Strong cultures have their downsides as well as their upsides: in times of change a strong culture can become an unwelcome ballast that holds back necessary change. Any attempts to change the firm must focus on changing the culture. What is ‘high performance’?

The heavy emphasis on fees and hours that pervades many law firms is, rightly or wrongly, part of their culture. This emphasis on financial performance has helped to make many firms highly successful businesses. The hours and billings culture runs deep. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be so.

Each firm needs to consider what it means by high performance. Is it about achieving high billing targets? Is it about profitability per partner? Is it about becoming the biggest or best in some particular niche? Is it about being recognised as innovative, or dedicated to client service?

There is no single definition of high performance. Yet it could be argued that financial results are a consequence of achieving high performance, rather than being high performance itself. It is therefore worth considering just what drives financial performance.

David Maister carried out research across 130 offices in professional firms (it’s the office unit that makes the difference, not the firm as a whole) (David H. Maister (2001) Practice What You Preach, Free Press).

From this he drew out a ‘predictive package’ of nine key factors that account for more than 50 percent of variations in financial performance in professional firms. In summary, firms were found to achieve significantly greater profits and faster growth where employees agreed with the following nine statements:

1. Client satisfaction is a top priority at our firm. 2. We have no room for those who put their personal agenda ahead of the interests of the clients or the office. 3. Those who contribute the most to the overall success of the office are the most highly rewarded. 4. Management gets the best work out of everybody in the office. 5. Around here you are required, not just encouraged, to learn and develop new skills. 6. We invest a significant amount of time in things that will pay off in the future. 7. People within our office always treat others with respect. 8. The quality of supervision on client projects is uniformly high. 9. The quality of the professionals in our office is as high as can be expected.

Maister has proved statistically that there is not only a link between these factors and financial performance, but that these very factors collectively cause financial performance to improve. Nonetheless, different firms will place different emphasis on various cultural values, and quite rightly so. It is the differences that give a firm its personality.

How culture is formed

A firm’s culture exists only in the minds of each and all of its people. So what influences the way each person perceives the firm’s culture?

At the top level the firm’s management will usually try to influence the culture. They will have policies and rules; they will have procedures to measure the things that are regarded as being important; there will be power structures and control systems; certain types of success will be acknowledged and rewarded; some things will be tolerated, whereas others will not. The firm’s leaders will talk about where they see the firm going and what they regard as important. And some things they will leave unsaid. All of these things will have an influence on the firm’s culture.

For most people in a firm, particularly where there are multiple offices in multiple countries, the top level of the firm is quite remote. For them, the culture is much more influenced by their own specific office or department – there will be local variations of policies and processes, there will be certain rituals and celebrations that help to reinforce and strengthen the culture. Where there are differences between the signals sent by the firm and by the office or department, people are more likely to be influenced by what they see happening close to them. Likewise, people will be more influenced by what they see and hear from individual partners than from the management of the office or department.

So, the answer to the question ‘who determines what the culture of a law firm will be’, is ‘the individual partners’. They determine it through what they do, what they overlook, and what they say. If there is consistency amongst partners, in line with what the firm is trying to achieve, then a firm can hope to create a strong and powerful culture. Where there is inconsistency, a law firm has little hope of creating a strong culture.

Changing an undesirable or weak culture

There is usually remarkable conformity amongst a firm’s partners about the type of culture they would like to see, with only differences of emphasis rather than fundamental differences. That does not mean that consulting partners about the choice of culture is a waste of time. The best way to get partners to shake off the behaviours that reinforce undesirable aspects of a firm’s culture is to involve them in determining what the culture should be. If a firm’s top management simply hand down what they believe, they will achieve much less commitment from partners.

Partners will also often be more than aware of the chasm between what they would like to have as a culture, and that which currently exists. However, it can still be helpful to carry out a climate survey obtaining feedback from staff across the organisation. These surveys are likely to reinforce partners’ existing knowledge but they will usually contain some surprises too. More importantly, a survey provides tangible evidence that cannot be ignored.

Some years ago a firm undertook a climate survey for an organisation. The results highlighted some fundamental issues to be addressed. Management published the survey in full (and every organisation that carries out such a survey should do so) and involved its people in identifying the actions required to change the culture. It was not all easy going but two years later, when the survey was repeated, the scores on every single question were higher than in the first survey. The organisation went on to be a beacon for best practice with a very strong client- focused culture.

In order to bring about culture change, it is necessary to move beyond broad value statements to look at what they mean in terms of specific partner behaviour: that is, what will partners need to be doing more of, less of or differently. Working with partners to draw out these points engages and involves partners and wins their commitment. It also gives the firm’s management a valuable tool in enforcing the development culture.

In so far as culture change is concerned, there is no doubt that actions speak louder than words. In the organisation mentioned above, one of the criticisms was that there was poor communication form management. An idea that came forward was to introduce a regular weekly meeting for all staff. Thus, every Friday at 11 a.m. a 15-minute briefing meeting was held in every location. It had an immediate impact and was very successful. In another organisation, the management team was criticised for being remote. This surprised the management team but when it was pointed out that their offices were along a corridor in a remote part of the building they knew what they had to do – they relocated around the building and in that single action made an important shift in culture.

Leadership throughout the firm

Choosing the right leaders

Every professional needs to have a healthy dose of leadership skills because part of their role will involve getting the best from the people around them, particularly those who report to them. For some people in a law firm, having good leadership skills will not be enough; they will need to develop their skills to a level of excellence. This applies to practice area leaders, office heads, leaders of market sector groups, etc. The reality is that in law firms these people are too often appointed to their positions not because of their excellence in leadership, but because of their excellence in client development.

A firm needs people who are excellent in client development, but it does not necessarily need them in leadership positions. A law firm’s senior partners therefore need to get the right people in the right positions with the right skills. Those in positions of leadership need to be, or to become, excellent at getting the best out of people for the benefit of the firm.

The skill of ‘managing people’

First, forget everything you know about managing people. It’s probably wrong. Most of us have been subjected to role models of management that are simply inappropriate for the challenges of getting the best out of people in a law firm.

From our parents, to school, to our first experiences of work, most of our role models are likely to have relied on a ‘telling’ approach to managing people. We were expected to do as we were told, and similarly we therefore expect people to do as they are told. But the reality is that professional people simply will not be told. More sophisticated influencing tools have to be found.

Often partners already possess the skills needed to bring out the best in their staff. They use them daily with their clients. However, once they get back to the office they can slip too easily into a different mode, relying on their ‘position power’ and ineffectively exerting this in a vain attempt to influence their staff. The training should therefore be designed not to equip them with new skills but to help them transfer the skills they already have to a different situation, i.e. dealing with their staff as though they were clients.

Indeed, it can be fruitful to think of people as clients. Leaders in professional firms have to attract talented people, help them get what they want, keep them delighted, ask for their feedback, trust them, show them utmost respect – just the kind of approach successful professionals adopt towards their clients. This is not traditional management as we know it.

Management and leadership; choosing the right style

The terms ‘management’ and ‘leadership’ are often loosely used as synonyms. However, in the purest sense they are opposite ends of a variable scale in getting the best from people. If management is about … Leadership is more about …

Enforcing rules Instilling values Setting objectives Offering a vision Instructing Coaching Pushing Pulling Telling Involving Delegating Empowering Being supported Supporting Having ideas Bringing out others’ ideas Demanding respect Showing respect Processes People

Management and leadership styles

Following this through, four distinct management/leadership styles can be identified along a scale that ranges from very hands-on to very hands-off.

None of these styles is necessarily wrong, but they are distinctly different. Each style has its place but, if used in the wrong circumstances, will fail to bring out the best in people. Good leaders are able to adapt their style to the circumstances. Unfortunately, some people stick with the style that feels most comfortable to them (whether it be hands-off or hands-on) and wonder why it sometimes works and other times does not. Management Leadership

The boss The hub First among equals The strategic leader

This is the traditional Here the manager is Here the manager is Here the leader is management the centre-point of his one of the team, with detached, yet not relationship. A team, acting as a go- additional responsibility remote from the team. hierarchal authority between, allocating for facilitating team Team members need structure is in place. work and resolving activities. Direction is no-one to impose issues between team provided by a common authority and make Subordinates support members. sense of purpose and decisions. The team’s and are answerable to shared values. common purpose and the manager, Team members shared values have implementing his support each other but Team members are become ingrained so instructions. are still largely answerable to the team everyone knows what is answerable to the as a whole. So is the expected. The manager manager who manager, and without delegates, directs, continues to provide the co-operation of the The leader adopts a monitors and controls. direction. team his position would longer-term view, be untenable. planning the team’s future direction, providing inspiration, and coaching team members and the team as a whole to achieve peak performance.

Four distinct leadership styles Teamwork and how team leaders can develop it

A mosaic of teams

Professional success depends on teamwork. The firm as a whole is a team and within this there will be a multiplicity of overlapping teams: offices, units, client service teams, project teams, etc. Some of these teams might even include clients, suppliers, alliance partners and others previously considered outsiders.

This mosaic of overlapping teams across the organisation has usurped the traditional structures previously enshrined in organisation charts. The old hierarchy, and even the once leading-edge matrix organisations, can no longer cope when what is called for is not structure at all, but flexibility. Team-based organisations can be more responsive and purposeful, but at the same time are more difficult to manage in the traditional sense. The command and control style does not work where there is no obvious command structure. Leaders in law firms must therefore exercise their leadership through the looser team-based structure. This heightens the need for a strong culture that binds a firm together. Achieving effective teamwork is not easy and is not simply a matter of forming people into groups and calling them teams. True teamwork runs much deeper.

Several years ago a firm identified a strategic need to become a leader in its field in client service. With this aim, it re-engineered teamwork from top to bottom with real commitment. The result? Within two years they had won a prestigious national award for client service excellence. But there was more: as a by-product, they found that productivity has increased by some 30 per cent. That’s what good teamwork can deliver. Teamwork is a route to high performance and it generates a noticeable sense of buzz, an energy that binds together those who buy into it and that resonates even beyond the team.

There are three key elements present in highly successful teams:

 A common purpose;  Playing to the strengths of team members;  Leadership and communication.

Common purpose

Many organisations have developed mission statements or corporate visions. They are usually ambitious; to become a leader in a particular market or to attain a worthy goal. Some are even inspiring. A team’s common purpose is different from an organisation’s vision or mission statement, although it should complement and be consistent with it.

The team’s common purpose should be as specific as possible and the team should be able to achieve it. Without a common purpose there simply is no team but a collection of individuals. To have a successful team, every member needs to know the purpose, understand it, and accept it as attainable, challenging and worthwhile. To achieve this level of buy-in it is essential to consult the team in advance. Achieving unity of purpose does not mean getting the team to adopt what the team leader sees as its purpose. It means taking pains to find the common ground, the overlap of each team member’s own driving forces, that will move the team forward while also advancing the aims of the individuals. Discussing and debating the team’s purpose can be one of the most powerful team building activities available.

Undoubtedly, differences of opinion will emerge. Some of these will be minor, others will be possible to reconcile. However, it may not always be possible to accommodate everyone’s wishes and it is not appropriate to compromise. To do so would fudge this all-important issue and result in a bland and meaningless statement of purpose. Through determining the common purpose it may emerge that some team members no longer fit in the team because there is little overlap between their aims and the aims of the team. It is best for all concerned that this state of affairs be recognised as soon as possible.

So what might a common purpose look like? There is no right or wrong answer to this and teams should explore all possibilities. The more original a purpose is, the more powerful it may become.

By way of example, a law firm might have a vision to become an acknowledged leader in certain specific practice areas. A team within that firm might take this and set it as its own common purpose to become a recognised leader in employment law in the North West within three years. To be more specific (and it would need to be), it might state its aspiration to become one of the top three in terms of fee income’ to be working for at least five FTSE 100 companies; and to be mentioned in the Legal 500 for the quality of its work.

Such a common purpose can be a worthy and inspiring goal that people want to become part of achieving. If a team’s common purpose does not send a tingle down the spine of its members, then it is unlikely to be sufficiently challenging and inspiring. Furthermore, it is unlikely that a goal expressed purely in financial terms (for example, achieving a certain level of fee income) will be sufficiently inspiring for members of the team, even those who might profit by sharing in those financial results. People not only want to be rewarded for their work, they also want to gain meaning from their work; the two are not incompatible but they are not the same thing.

Playing to team member’s strengths

Successful teams have members whose qualities complement each other’s. a team made up of outstanding individuals will not necessarily be an outstanding team. Likewise, a team made up of people who all think and act the same way would be unbalanced. An unbalanced team can overcome its weaknesses by:

 Forcing itself into the roles not naturally covered by its members  Inviting outsiders to join it either as permanent members or for ad hoc activities.

Balanced teams, while having the potential to be more successful, will inherently have more conflict because there will be differences of view-point amongst members. So long as such conflict is open and is dealt with, it can be constructive rather than destructive.

The key is to recognise each individual’s strengths and to give them roles that allow them to play to those strengths. That is not to say they cannot develop their less strong areas if they wish to do so but, to be successful, a team needs to draw on the very best that each team member has to offer. Unfortunately, team members too readily overlook the strengths in their fellow team members and focus on what they perceive to be weaknesses.

Leadership and communication

Teams need leadership, but it does not need to be heavy handed, and it does not all need to come from a nominated team leader. Indeed, it is helpful for all team members to exercise their leadership skills to move the team towards its common purpose. If everyone looks to a nominated team leader for decisions, the team is likely to be less effective. The aims should be to develop a team in which people know what is expected and in which those closest to each decision are empowered to decide.

Developing teamwork

Teams typically go through four stages of development in striving to become high performing teams. See figure below.

When people are initially put together in a new team, they tend to be cautious and non- committal because they do not yet know each other, nor do they quite know what is expected of them. They adopt a polite social code in their communications, avoiding treading on toes or over-stepping the mark. In the beginning, they are poor in achievement because they are new to the task, and they are only just beginning to form working relationships. t u p t u O

Stage 2: Stage 4: STORMING PERFORMING

Stage 1: Stage 3: FORMING NORMING

Relationships

Four stages of team development (A model created by Tuckman and Jensen) in the absence of good leadership, differences of opinion will emerge and, if allowed to fester, can give rise to anger, frustration, resentment or disillusionment. Some team members (usually the stronger-willed) might attempt to adopt an authoritarian style to get things done. This tends to create conflict and, while output might increase because at least someone is making something happen, in this ‘storming’ stage relationships reach a fairly low ebb.

Less effective leaders are likely either to ignore the situation or try to dampen it down to keep a lid on the conflict. Yet when properly harnessed, this conflict can be very positive; it is the differences between people that strengthen a team, not the similarities. Conflict is inevitable where there are differences of outlook. A good team leader therefore will attempt to use it to drive the team forward, taking the team through the conflict, not retreating from it. This can be done by starting a constructive process for facing up to differences.

Many teams find it helpful to create some ‘norms’ of behaviour to define how the team will work together (these norms form the foundation of the team’s culture). Through this process of ‘norming’, working relationships are strengthened although, because the team is being introspective, output might temporarily suffer.

It is only really from these early stages, that the later stage of high performance can emerge. This is characterised both by strong working relationships and high levels of performance; team members know what’s expected of them and they get on and do it.

Progressing through the stages of team development does not have to take a lot of time. Indeed, good team building exercises are designed to take a team safely through the process. A team leader needs to exercise different styles of leadership at each of these four stages of development:

 A recently formed team needs direction. Members need to know what is expected of them and may need careful management. Here a more traditional management style provides the answer.  Once the team is becoming established, team members need more headroom and freedom to play to their strengths, freedom of expression, and even the freedom to make mistakes. At this stage the team leader needs to be at the centre, the hub of things, to provide support and encouragement, and to handle conflicts as team members rub up against each other.  Only as the team moves from stage three into stage four will a team leader be able to slip quietly into the ‘first among equals’ style and, from there, take up a more strategic role.

Overlaying the leadership styles onto the stages of team development, the result looks something like the figure below. t

u Stage 2: Stage 4: p t u O

Stage 1: Stage 3:

Relationships

Leadership and team development

People processes that support high performance

Attracting and retaining the right people

Attracting good people to a law firm is not so much a question of recruitment as of courtship. Leaders throughout a professional firm need to be talent spotters, networking to find the right sort of people (perhaps those who are already seeking to move are not the right kind of people at all).

Creating a clear vision and common purpose for various units within a firm, and developing a high performance culture, will be key factors in attracting people. So firms need to ask themselves, ‘Why would highly talented people want to become part of our firm?’. It goes back to the purpose. Is it inspiring? Is it worthwhile?

Unless a firm can answer these questions positively, they will be driven into having to offer high monetary packages to compensate for the lack of intrinsic reward they can offer. The starting point for recruitment is therefore not to recruit at all, but to establish the kind of firm that people would want to be part of. The parallel with clients is unmistakeable. You want to build a reputation that has them knocking on your door, rather than having to chase them down the street to persuade them to join you. A firm should therefore market itself not only to clients but to professionals too.

It follows that attracting people to the firm is not a responsibility that can simply be pushed to a HR department. Attracting good people is a leadership responsibility in firms that depend wholly on the talents of their people. Some firms talk about having to attract the ‘best’ people. This begs the question ‘best at what?’ It is much more instructive to think about attracting the right kind of people who share the organisation’s goals and values, and who will love doing what the firm wants them to do. They are best for that firm.

In recruiting professional people, the traditional style of reviewing CV’s and conducting interviews provides little benefit. Perhaps it would be more instructive to ask individuals about their future CV (i.e. about what they want to achieve) to ensure there is a match with the firm’s own aspirations, than to dwell on what an individual has done in the past (which often bears little relation to what they will do in the future).

It is unwise to make assumptions about what drives law professionals. Each professional will have their own motivations and goals. Part of a leader’s responsibility is to uncover those and ensure that there is a match with what the firm is trying to achieve. It is sometimes assumed that law professionals are driven almost entirely by money. In attracting people, firms should be wary of placing too much emphasis on financial rewards alone. Recently, Peopleism conducted a survey to find out why partners switch from one law firm to another; i.e. what attracts them to the new firm. We contacted 50 partners who had recently moved firms and asked their reasons for doing so. The figure below shows the results.

26 Financial 29 21 Quality of work 33 21 More opportunity 25 10 Number of times as 1st Culture of firm 25 or 2nd reason 4 Total number of Equity sooner 7 mentions 11 Profile of firm 15 2 Pushed out 2 1 Personal reasons 1

0 10 20 30 40

Some key points to note are:

 The firm’s culture was a factor mentioned by half the partners, and for 20 per cent it was the first or second reason given;  Opportunity for advancement was cited by half the partners, being the first or second reason given by more than 40 per cent of them;  Quality of work was mentioned by two thirds and mentioned first or second by more than 40 per cent of partners;  Financial considerations were mentioned first or second by half the partners but not by the other half, and financial considerations were not mentioned at all by more than 40 per cent of partners.

Some firms talk about the need to retain their good people, yet retention strategies are negative. Would you want to be ‘retained’? The strategy should be to get people to want to stay longer. That does not mean throwing more money at them or locking them in so that they cannot move. It means involving them in worthwhile activity that supports their own goals.

It should be noted that a manager cannot create motivation in people, all they can do is draw out the motivation that lies within. Unfortunately, many leaders, and the processes they use in the name of people management, do not draw out motivation. Inevitably some, perhaps many, people will move on to pursue their ambitions elsewhere. That should be accepted and when people do move on their success should be celebrated. Exit interviews should ensure they are moving on for positive reasons rather than because of some dissatisfaction with the firm.

A new model for successful professional careers

Achieving success in a law firm in the future is likely to mean being excellent at something. Being good will not be good enough. In contrast to specialising in ever more refined areas of the law, the roles expected of law professionals are varied and broad. They are expected to develop clients, to deliver excellent service to those clients, to bill huge numbers of hours, to manage client service teams, to take some responsibility for the firm’s management by leading an initiative or setting up a practice group, etc.

The skill sets required to be successful in each of these roles are unlikely to ever be found in a single individual. Indeed, some of the attributes required actually conflict with each other. The old notion of the ‘well rounded’ professional is no longer tenable. The reality is that most successful professional are not well rounded at all, they are sharp. They are excellent at something and that makes up for them being just OK at other things.

It is therefore time to jettison the old model of the well rounded professional. As many firms create comprehensive competency profiles for their partners and professional staff, it must surely become obvious that expecting everyone to take on the same mantle is both unrealistic and fails to play to individual strengths.

There is no single way to become successful in a professional firm but there are a variety of opportunities to meet individual needs. The figure below shows a new model for achieving success in professional firms.

Learning & Emotional Intelligence Thought Leader

Project / Initiative Creative Leader Solutions Provider

Practice Trusted Leader Adviser

Client Team Leader At the core there needs to be a passion for the kind of work the professional will be doing. Professional life demands commitment and enthusiasm. This cannot be faked – there has to be a genuine urge to pursue a worthwhile career with energy and self-motivation.

There are also some essential skills that all professionals need to have. Emotional intelligence is one: the ability to build relationships and communicate effectively. Learning is another key skill; the profession is in a state of change and being prepared to develop is essential for anyone seeking success in the future.

Beyond these essential skills are three main dimensions. All professionals need to be good in each of these areas, but to become successful they will need to become excellent in at least one, possibly two. It is unlikely that any individual can become excellent in all three.

Someone who has a passion for client development might set their sights on becoming a ‘trusted adviser’. Trusted advisers have very close professional relationships with their chosen clients. They are excellent at developing new relationships and bringing in new work for the firm, and they are highly regarded by clients. Often, trusted advisers are closer to their clients than they are to their firm.

Someone with an enthusiasm for innovation and new ideas might set their sights on becoming a ‘specialist guru’. This does not just mean specialising in something – it means being at the very leading edge in their chosen field. They have probably written the book and are very active on the lecture circuit. They are certainly regarded as a leader in their chosen specialism. They may however be less effective with clients because to them ideas are more important than relationships and their ideas may lack the practical edge that clients demand.

People with an enthusiasm for leadership might aim for a management role in their firm; perhaps as a practice group leader, head of an office, a market sector leader, etc. They need to become excellent at attracting, developing, and bringing out the best in their team of people. They need to put team success above their own personal success, recognising that the latter will only follow from the former. Traditionally, practice group leaders have been chosen not for their leadership skills but often for their client development skills. In the more demanding and competitive times ahead, leaders will need to be chosen for their leadership skills.

Between each of these roles are other roles, which combine excellence in two of the other dimensions.

 The unique client solutions provider is creative with a practical client-focused edge. They are good at developing individual solutions to unique client problems. They are able to demand high fees for their work because their contribution is of high value.  A project or initiative leader spearheads a new initiative for a firm, combining their skills in leadership, to motivate a team, and innovation to explore new avenues.  A client team leader knows how to bring out the best in the client service team to the benefit of their clients.

The old model for careers was that of the career ladder: from trainee, to junior assistant, senior assistant, salaried partner and eventually equity partner. Firms that offer such a ladder have only themselves to blame if people do what they think is expected and climb to the top of it to demand equity status, a demand that the firm may be unable to meet.

Firms need to find new models that reflect a diversity of opportunities and aspirations. At a minimum, the career ladder needs to be replaced with a career climbing frame in which professionals can move around, developing their skills and exploring new opportunities. Career opportunities might include internal moves, secondments, new ventures etc> All of these can be designed to meet individual needs. Indeed, firms need to offer as many career paths as they have people, because each person has different motivations.

Some firms provide career mapping services, helping their prized people create career goals for themselves, even helping them prepare CVs to highlight the gaps that may need to be filled through further experience. Firms offer these services not because they want their people to leave, but because they want them to stay. They know that only by offering their people a stepping stone to success can they expect the talented and ambitious people to stay with them.

People will only really be motivated towards the aims of the firm if those aims coincide with their own aims. Of course, every individual will have different drives and it is necessary to recognise what these might be. Good leaders therefore help their people to formulate career goals and then achieve these goals.

Performance management

Encouraging self-management

The best form of performance management is self-management. This means that people understand what is expected of them, are committed to achieving it, and seek feedback, guidance and support to help them do so. Performance management systems that remove responsibility from individuals are bound to be less effective. The processes put in place – whether formal or informal – should therefore be designed to encourage self-responsibility. Every element of the performance management process should pass this test of encouraging self-management. Every person responsible for applying the process, should live by this mantra of encouraging self-management, not attempting to manage from above.

Setting goals and measuring performance

The starting point for performance management is to define ‘performance’ through goal setting. Professional firms should hold very high expectations of their professional people, and professional people should hold very high expectations of themselves. People’s performance tends to be limited not by their abilities, but by the expectations held of them. The vast majority of under performance results from mismatched expectations.

It has become a cliché to say that goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, agreed, realistic, and time scaled). This is a good guide to goals but the rather convenient acronym omits some central features. Rather than ‘measurable’ it is better to think of goals as being ‘trackable’; because it will not be possible to accurately measure some goals, the approach should not be to avoid measuring them, but to find some tools for tracking them. The ‘realistic’ aspect overlooks the fact that goals should be inspiring and challenging – they will be more motivational if they are.

Most law firms are good at setting financial targets and ensuring that people meet them. Unfortunately the targets set are rarely related to the strategic imperatives of the firm and over- emphasise top-line fee income and chargeable hours when this is only a small part of the picture of performance. As a minimum, it is more effective not only to measure top line fee income but also to look at the profitability of clients and the profitable contribution made by each partner. When performance goals are not aligned with strategic goals, all kinds of counter-productive outcomes can emerge. Some firms herald their one-firm culture and their team-based structures, but continue to target partners and fee earners with individual hours and billing targets. Little wonder partners and professionals cling on to their clients and even perform work that would be better suited to expert colleagues.

It is possible to develop imaginative goals, and to measure performance against those goals (not necessarily perfectly but at least with the ability to track performance) for such aspects of performance as:

 Client satisfaction (using client service feedback for example);  Marketing and business development (looking not just at new business wins, but at numbers of contacts and classifying them as to whether they are cold, warm, hot etc.);  Leadership (using climate surveys and 360 degree appraisal to obtain feedback and track performance).

What gets measured gets done. Measure the wrong things and you get a wrongly directed organisation. Putting systems in place to track performance will help individuals manage their own performance. This kind of feedback is essential to help people perform to their full potential. Without useful feedback people are likely to carry on doing what they have always done.

Appraisals and informal feedback

Appraisals are another tool in providing feedback. Law firms are increasingly moving to introduce once or twice-yearly appraisals. Even so, it is surprising that even some of the biggest and best firms have very unsophisticated appraisal systems (if any).

Regrettably, some of the appraisal systems being introduced by law firms follow what is becoming outmoded corporate practice. In contrast, other firms are quite rightly starting to experiment with 360 degree feedback, which provides input not only from above but also from peers, subordinates and even clients if appropriate. While many people resent and resist traditional style appraisals, 360 degree appraisals seem to be much more positively received. Professional people take their feedback very seriously and have no difficulty committing themselves to actions that will improve their performance and perceptions of their performance.

Appraisals, though important, are no substitute for regular ongoing feedback. Indeed, they can become an excuse for not giving regular feedback but unwisely storing it up for the formal appraisal. Throughout my training contract with one of the big accountancy firms, I received a comprehensive written and oral appraisal following each and every assignment, approximately every two to three weeks. These were not always comfortable to receive, because like all trainees I was on a steep learning curve, but there is no doubt that this frequent feedback contributed enormously to my learning. I know of no law firm even today that offers this amount of feedback.

Rewarding performance

High performance should be recognised and rewarded because what gets rewarded gets repeated. Acknowledging and saying thank you, celebrating successes and giving public recognition are all positive ways of recognising and rewarding performance. They should be used liberally to reinforce positive behaviour, particularly for people who rely on external recognition as their main motivational source. It seems that approximately 40 per cent of people are primarily internally motivated (and for them recognition has less impact on their motivation and performance) with the remainder equally externally and internally motivated. (Shelle Rose Charvet (1998) Words That Change Minds, Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company).

The main source of motivation for most professional people is their desire to achieve and to develop personally. The best way to recognise and reward high performance is to offer ever more challenging and intrinsically satisfying work (the survey of why partners switch firms, referred to above, demonstrates the importance of offering quality work).

Of course, financial rewards are important too. Professional people expect to be rewarded for their contribution. But should money be used as a lever to manage performance? Doing so has both advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, financial rewards linked to performance can help to reinforce positive behaviour. This may be because they explicitly recognise high performance, rather than because they are financial. A public ‘thank you’ might do more good for less cost!

There is also a danger that offering merit-based financial rewards, rather than nurturing a genuine desire to achieve, simply motivates people to seek ever-increasing financial reward. Ever-rising salaries and benefits packages, with no commensurate improvements in either performance or job satisfaction, belie the all-to-easy ‘throw more money at them’ solution.

A further downside of using merit-based financial rewards is the potential for de-motivation of those who feel themselves wronged by the system (and again, their perception that performance has not been recognised will have more effect than the mere absence of financial reward). Unless the reward system is very closely aligned to a firm’s strategic objectives (which invariably implies an overly complex system), there will be some people who have performed well but whose performance is not picked up by the reward system – for example, those who have less impressive chargeable hours because they have spent time on worthwhile business development initiatives, or have passed client work to better qualified colleagues.

It can be argued that these negative effects can be lessened by making merit based rewards only a small proportion of total earnings; a token. The problem with this argument is that token amounts are insufficient really to make a difference to those who receive them, but more than enough to cause resentment by those who don’t. if merit-based rewards are to be used, they should be sufficient to matter.

The conclusion is that financial carrots can have more disadvantages than benefits. They are all too frequently grasped at as an easy, if expensive, solution to performance and retention issues. The reality is, however, that without tackling the underlying issues, their effect will be short-term at best. Nonetheless, in UK law firms the trend seems to be towards offering financial incentives to non-partners and, for partners, shifting away from pure lockstep to introducing elements of merit-based pay.

To maximise the benefits and minimise the dangers of merit-based rewards, they should be designed to pass certain tests:

 The system should be seen to be fair. The absolute level of reward seems to be less important than the perception of fairness. The formula therefore needs to be transparent and people need to know what they have to do to succeed.  The parameters should be closely aligned with the objectives of the firm or business unit. Certainly, the reward system should not, but frequently does, run counter to the firm’s goals. Firms will need to become more innovative in designing their reward systems to achieve alignment.  The system should make people feel they are not competing against each other, but that they are competing with themselves against concrete goals.

Dealing with individual under-performance

Partners fail to deal with under-performance. They leave things until it’s too late and then overreact.

This is a quote drawn not from a textbook on managing professional firms, nor is it the wisdom of an experienced professional firm leader. It is a comment made during a focus group meeting with staff in a law firm. The point? Staff themselves recognise the need to manage performance and they expect partners to do so. Unfortunately many partners find it easier to abdicate their responsibility for performance management; others overreact and grasp at performance management tools that lead only to the worst possible outcome.

The starting point is to ensure that individuals know what is expected of them and are committed to achieving it. This first hurdle is where many leaders fail. Once there is clarity of expectation then good leaders offer constructive feedback so that an individual can manage their own performance and so that they know when they are off track. They can also offer coaching and support to help the individual gain the skills and experience they need in order to achieve. All of this is directed at supporting self-management, rather than managing performance from above.

It is worth considering the root cause of under-performance; is it due to a lack of skill, or a lack of will? The way to respond will be different for each person. l l i W

Empower Train

Supporting self-management If someone is fully able and motivated to perform to a high standard then they can simply be left to do so. Attempting to manage them will probably do more harm than good. Where the motivation to perform exists, but skills are lacking, training to build knowledge and skills is the best solution. Coaching can also be used to raise performance levels. For people who have the ability, but whose motivation is lacking, coaching can be particularly helpful as a means of tapping into their self-motivation.

Coaching has been mentioned here as both a development technique and in the context of leadership styles. At its purest, coaching involves drawing out performance from within, using carefully worded questions. In coaching, the questions are more important than the answers and are used to have the coachee take full responsibility for their own development, and to heighten awareness of performance issues. A good coach resists the temptation to ‘tell’ and instead helps the coachee see solutions for themselves.

Here are some common under-performance issues and suggested strategies for dealing with them. In each case, the solution lies in understanding what motivates the under-performer and using their own reasons to leverage higher performance. (see table).

What (might) matter to How you might deal with Common situations them them

1. The upstart:  Promotion (to know what  Ask, listen, understand they need to do and when and acknowledge their They have a high opinion of it will happen) point of view themselves and, oblivious to  To be valued/recognised  Reassure them that you certain weaknesses, are as a high achiever would like to see them pushing for promotion.  More money, but mainly promoted (if so) as a means of recognition  Tell them what they need to prove – be specific  Plan with them how they can do this  Ask them what help and support you can give  Make them realise there can be no guarantees  Agree a timetable to review progress

2. The moaner:  To be listened to  Ask and listen to  More fulfilment understand their real They feel under too much  More life balance concern, which may be pressure, or that they are  Less pressure that: being expected to work too  More support * they are not fulfilled many hours. (see what can be done give more interesting work) * their life is out of balance (help them to see it is their choice. Perhaps the firm’s culture is not right for them, but they cannot have the benefits that the firm can offer without commitment) * they fear not meeting targets, or they do not know how to (use questions to help them see this for themselves, offer training and support)

 Explore the issues openly in a non-threatening way  Give positive feedback and encouragement  Agree a way forward, offer support, arrange a time to review progress.

3. The drifter:  To know what is expected  Ask and listen to of them understand their point of They are falling short of  Less pressure view, do they: expected standards, or  More challenge * know the coasting. expectations (use questions to find out what they think, and to help them see the situation for themselves) * feel under too much pressure (see 2 above) * lack motivation (help them review career goals, ask what work they enjoy most, see what can be done to give more interesting/challenging work)

4. The heavyweight gorilla:  Not to be managed – to  Ask, listen, understand be left alone and acknowledge their They bill huge numbers of  To be highly regarded point of view hours but trample over their  To be rewarded for their  Assure them that their colleagues, whom they see contribution contribution is recognised as less productive, and they  For others to pull their and valued resist being managed. weight  Make them realise that others contribute in different ways  Assure them that they will be left alone so long as they live the firm’s values, which extend beyond fee earning  Explain that the firm’s values are being enforced to ensure that everyone pulls their weight, and ask for their support in this because there can be no exceptions  If appropriate, explain that merit rewards will be linked to overall performance, not just fee earning.

5. The individualist:  Freedom to do their own  Ask, listen, understand thing and acknowledge their They go along with decisions  To be allowed their point of view but then carry on doing their idiosyncrasies  Try to find ways to use own thing.  To be valued/listened to their individuality for the benefit of the firm  Assure them that they can have freedom to do their own thing, but with limits. Be clear about what those limits are, why they matter, and the sanctions for non-compliance  Make sure you have their genuine commitment and agree a time to review progress.

To expect that these positive approaches will always work would be unrealistic. If after having exhausted them it becomes clear that an individual is not going to rise to the expectations demanded of them (i.e. it is unlikely that they will ever possess the skills and the will), then action needs to be taken to move them out of the firm. Under-performance cannot be permitted except in the short term where there is a clear plan to address it. If under-performance is allowed to persist, it has a negative effect not only on the individual concerned, but also on others who witness what is happening and wonder why nothing is being done.

Where it does prove necessary for an individual to move on from an organisation it is important to separate out the decision to take action from the manner in which that action is taken. Put another way, the decision should be made objectively, and it should be implemented compassionately. Again, others will witness the way a person is dealt with and will be negatively affected if they see their former colleagues being dealt with unfairly.

Supporting people’s learning

To some firms, helping people to learn simply means sending them on a training course. In fact, a blend of development tools is usually the best way to address all but the simplest development needs, which can include live presentations, exercises involving actors in role- plays, e-mail and web site resources, a survey and focus groups, and professional one-to-one coaching. It’s a powerful cocktail designed to make a real difference, and a million miles away from just ‘putting on a training course’. Table: A rich array of development tools available

Development method Advantages Disadvantages

Action planning  Simple, easy to use  May lapse if not and review managed Formal process to aid self-  Cost-effective  May not be perceived discipline, looking at what will  Individual takes as development be done, by when, what the responsibility drivers and inhibitors are, etc.

Coaching  Benefit can be  Time-demanding on the immediate coach Line manager, experienced  Performance can  Not suitable for building peer, or professional coach surpass that of the new knowledge helping to develop a person coach  Can be seen as from within  Builds relationship with favouritism coach  Can be integrated into normal working

Delegation  Promotes trust  Takes time to explain  Stimulates a sense of requirements Passing responsibility and achievement  Quality standards may authority for a task to a direct  May free up some of drop report. Must be prepared to the manager’s time empower.

Distance learning  Can be paced to suit  Impersonal the individual  Often little opportunity Individual learning supported by  Messages often ‘state to challenge or benefit web sites, e-mail, CD ROMs, of the art’ from interaction, though video, audio, or workbooks  Wide choice and this is improving flexibility  Can lose  Relatively low cost interest/commitment  Still relatively little choice, though again, this is improving

Formal courses  Usually special  Can be costly and time environment to promote consuming Lectures, lessons, exercises learning  Limited effect other etc., in classroom situation to  Exposure to experts than in transferring transfer skills, knowledge  Opportunities to knowledge and/or behaviours. challenge, reinforce  Often of general and network application, unless tailored to individuals

Further  Shows commitment of  Benefits may only be to education/professional the firm the individual qualifications  Transferable  Time-consuming qualification  Not necessarily the Short courses or longer term  Networking hallmark of quality academic qualifications. opportunities  Usually of general Evening classes, day release,  Can extend skills application, not tailored etc., covering a broad range of inventory of the subjects. organisation  Can capture latest developments

Learning teams  Usually cross-  May be difficult to functional, promoting release people to Groups of individuals with good working attend common development needs relationships working in ‘focus groups’ on  Can address a need projects to jointly address their intensively needs. Usually supported by an expert.

Mentoring  Demonstrates  can be seen as commitment to favouritism Usually a senior professional, development  time-demanding on the not the line manager, assigned  Brings experience to mentor to induct, develop, guide, bear  depends on mentoring counsel, etc.  Can build strong ability of the mentor relationship

Networking  Shared learning  Can develop over-  Builds relationships reliance at expense of Formal or informal way of  Pools best ideas other relationships sharing ideas. Can be within the firm or outside.

Perception surveys  Can provide an  Sometimes feared excellent catalyst for (usually unnecessarily) Surveys, including 360 degree development so needs to be appraisals to heighten  Brings immediate focus introduced carefully awareness of others’ to areas for  Must be used as a tool, perceptions of a person being development not a weapon developed.  Often confidence- building by helping individuals recognise their hidden strengths as well as areas for development

Project group  Has a practical pay-off  Can be time-consuming  Broadens awareness  Development is a by- A group of people, usually  Enhances teamwork product rather than the multi-function, working on a skills main focus practical task  Minimal cost  Develops ownership of issues

Secondment  Opportunity to get  Can be difficult to deeply involved in other extricate the person Generally a medium-term move work following the to another unit, function, project  Can broaden outlook secondment group or client  Productive whilst  May require cover for learning existing role

Seminars/conferences/lectur  Opportunity to hear  Can be thin on e on specialist subjects by other’s views on a transferable knowledge experts subject  Not useful for building  Networking skills opportunities  Can be costly  Useful in ‘new’ areas  Can be run in-house if enough demand

Shadowing  Builds breadth of  Can be difficult to knowledge schedule Spending a defined period  May enhance working  Can be time-consuming observing the work of someone relationships  Without practice may who is regarded as excellent in  Builds practical be limited in building a particular skill knowledge skills

Team-building programmes  Immediate results  Can be costly  Can address very  Some so-called team- Specially designed and practical issues building has little to facilitated series of activities to  Helps to get the best contribute develop teamwork, involving from all members of a the whole team. team Too often people are given training not because they necessarily need it, but because they are at a certain stage in their careers. For those who don’t need it, this is obviously wasteful and it is also de-motivational. For those who do need it, the training is often spread too thinly and is insufficiently focused on their real needs to be of any genuine value.

Furthermore, too much training is aimed at overcoming people’s weaknesses. For most, however, their greatest potential for improvement lies in building on their strengths, not in overcoming perceived weaknesses. To a large extent, this obsession with overcoming weaknesses stems from the already discussed mindset of developing the well-rounded professional. As a result, much training investment is wasted.

In a continually changing workplace, learning is perhaps the most important skill of all. Law professionals need to be learning fast. If they are not learning faster than the rate of change, they are falling behind. Equipping people with the knowledge, the skills and the attitudes they need to become high performing professionals is a crucial business process. But it is no simple task.

They need to absorb a body of professional knowledge that is constantly changing and expanding. Added to this, they are expected to be up to date in the client industries they serve, they need to keep abreast of the latest management theories and techniques, and they need to know what is happening in their firm and in the corporate world at large.

Today’s professionals have to hone their skills in self-management, in dealing with people and building relationships, in delivering client service and winning new clients, in becoming team players and effective leaders, and in a seemingly endless list of other expected competencies.

And they need to develop professional attitudes with the commitment and drive to succeed, and to share in the firm’s values.

Each of these three types of development outcome requires a different approach. In summary:

 Acquiring new knowledge: offer people a framework so they can get their minds around a subject. Keep repeating memorable messages. Use stories and practical examples. Provide an easily accessible reference source.  Learning new skills: motivate them to want to develop, make it safe for them to experiment and practice. Provide encouragement and feedback. Build their confidence.  Changing attitudes and beliefs: start from where they are. Unfreeze (or undermine) their existing beliefs. Give them an alternative belief. Re-freeze the new belief with evidence, facts, examples etc.

This is challenging for individuals and it is challenging for firms too. It cannot be achieved by ad hoc training, nor by generalised training programmes. It demands a focus on individual and collective needs with innovative development solutions. Conclusion

In summary, to get the best from people, leaders in law firms need to:

 Create a sense of purpose and facilitate the development of a high performance culture that supports the purpose and that will attract and energise people.  Get the right people into positions of leadership throughout the firm.  Have those leaders: o Interpret and extend the purpose and culture to their teams; o Develop their teams, adapting their leadership vs management style as needed; o Attract the right people to their teams and the firm; o Recognise and help individuals achieve theirs and the firm’s goals and so be motivated; o Coach, give feedback and otherwise develop their people; o Deal appropriately with under-performance;  Support those leaders with performance management processes that facilitate (or at least do not conflict with) achieving high performance.  Ensure that in all instances individual under-performance is dealt with supportively and decisively.

The most successful law firms of the future will have learned how to draw out the very best from their people. They may not be the biggest firms, but they will be the leaders in their fields and the places that the best and brightest talents want to be. No-one involved in managing a law firm can afford to ignore the central importance of getting the very best from their people.