No Shortcuts

I'm back on a running kick at the moment and, having avoided running through the spring, I have suffered in the summer as I regained some fitness and some strength in my legs.

I was thinking about this yesterday morning as a hauled myself through Wimbledon Common on a cold and rainy early morning. If you want to run some distance, there is no shortcut to building up the fitness. No matter how much I might want to, I can't just start running a 10k distance - I have to build up to it. I have to put the time in doing the less glamorous things, the boring preparation.

It is exactly the same in business. I speak to lots of clients and potential clients who suddenly decide that change is necessary and then want to implement that change tomorrow. This is especially true with staffing decisions. 

I understand the frustration of dealing with staff, I really do. The firm - or chambers - may have put up with poor service for a long time and finally enough is enough. So they call me - or someone like me - and want 'something done'. Often we then have a difficult and frustrating conversation along the lines of it not being that simple. It takes time, it takes planning, it takes procedures. It takes patience if we are to do the thing properly.

There are no shortcuts in business. Plans have to be considered and then confirmed. Strategies have to be arrived at and then followed. Procedures have to be in place (and then followed). I cannot come up with a plan that gets around employment law...

If you want to run a business, you have to put your time in to understand the business, to understand the industry (so far so good for some lawayers) but also to understand staff and people, to understand the technicalities of how businesses work and of how to get the best out of them. That's the tricky bit.

So as in running, so with business. The boring preparation has to be done. The hard early work has to be put in. The plan needs to be established and followed. As with running, that means some difficult early mornings and evenings of just slogging away. As with running, however, it is all worth it in the end because suddenly you are in a position to not just do things better - you can do better things.

Training, then. There are (sadly) no shortcuts.

Building a Network

My alternative title for this blog was "Developing People Out The Door", but I was told that was rather negative, so...

I have been chatting to law firms this week about staff and fee-earner development. This is not really my field, but I'm able to discuss it at a strategic level and to put clients in touch with some functional experts. I've been interested to see that for most senior managers, staff development is seen as a pain and something that 'just needs to be done' - so far as I could see, there was no value placed on it at all.

I disagree with that point of view. Partners, fee-earners and staff should all be developed and trained as much as possible. It adds to the resources of the company, helps people to do their jobs better, can be a valuable asset for clients, and make those who have been developed and trained feel valued by the firm. In a classic piece of 'consulting-speak' it is 'win win'.

The point that is so often raised is that people take the training and the gain in experience and then leave the firm "and so all that good stuff leaves the building", to quote a client earlier this week. That is only true if you let it happen.

Training staff and lawyers is a good thing (see above) and if that means that they then leave the firm to get a new challenge then so be it. As the sponsoring firm, however, you do need to ask yourself why they are leaving. If they are good people, why haven't you been able to provide them with the challenge they are looking for? Why not promote the hell out of them and keep them in the firm?

Of course it's not always that simple. Sometimes there aren't any promotion slots for people, almost no matter how good they are. In that case you should be celebrating the fact that they are moving on. Make them feel great about it and help them in every way that you can. Keep in touch with them, whether during a period of gardening leave or afterwards in their new post. Communicate with them regularly and arrange meet ups - partly just to keep in touch but also so that you know what they are up to, what skills they are learning and what they are getting better and better at. That way you will know if there is a good time to entice them back to the firm.

A strong alumni network can be a great asset - but only if the firm works at it. I have been asked to join a few, but there has never been any follow up (to the point that I don't know if I am still a member or not). The communication needs to be regular, frequent and useful. In an ideal world, firms would work almost as hard with their alumni as the do (or should) with their client base.

So - work hard to develop and train you people. Celebrate their success - even if that means the move to another firm (even a competitor). Keep in touch with them. Even when they no longer work for you, they can continue to be an asset to the firm.




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Attentive readers, and my blog stats assure me that there are some, will have noticed a bit of a gap since my last posting. The joy of the sole trader, self-employed consultant, is that jobs are 'lumpy' - I am usually either too busy or too quiet. For the last six weeks or so, I have been running all over the place both in the UK and on Continental Europe. I had some jobs 'stack up' - where a piece of work that was going to fit perfectly around other clients had to move suddenly. In those circumstances we all just work a little harder, or a little longer - and try to look forward to the quieter times coming!

Looking after the future

Some good news at last. Even I have become worn down with what can sometime seem like endless bad news. If it's not "firms going bust" it's the "return of the old management style" for those firms which think that the recovery has started.

It is good, therefore, to see that Herbert Smith are playing a bit of a long game with their 'Networked' programme (more here) in which they will support five Year 12 students from 'some of London's most deprived boroughs'. In response to complaints that the legal profession was essentially a closed-shop to people from poorer backgrounds (as reported by Alan Milburn in 2009) this does seem to be a serious attempt to show that background need not be a barrier to success in the law.

It is interesting to see solicitors getting involved in this. The Inns of Court have, for many years, run scholarship programmes in order to ensure that access to the bar is not restricted to the rich. It's good to see that solicitors are joining in.

Strategic Thinking

I've been spending the last couple of weeks engaged in the first two of a four session course on strategy with a law firm. It has been really interesting to be able to start at first principles - to think about what strategy actually is, and what the firm wants to be.

It is rare to find any firm - and certainly any law firm - that is willing to admit that it needs a complete re-think so far as its strategy is concerned and so I have really enjoyed debating areas where strategic thinking is going to provide real competitive advantage. We have been discussing frameworks which, of course, means looking at Porter. I went through a short phase when I was at business school where I was scathing of Porter - thinking that it was too restrictive, not dynamic enough, and seemed to refuse to see rivalry as, potentially, a positive force. Now that I've worked with more firms - and am, hopefully, a little wiser as well as just older - I think that it is still a very useful way of examining the strategic environment - perhaps with the addition of an other model as an audit. My clients seem to have accepted the usefulness of the model and talked well as we examined the forces acting on the industry. I think we've already started to add value to the firm.

I've already spent 6 hours or so with partners from the firm and am looking forward to the final two sessions next month - they are engaged and willing to learn. What is more impressive is that they are willing to admit that they may not be expert at every aspect of law firm management - which is sadly not true of many law partners. We discussed Malcom Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule. To paraphrase, he suggests that expertise in any field  - whether sport, music or business - requires 10,000 hours of practice. I was pleased that the partners accepted that, while they will have put in their 10,000 hours in the practice of law, they had not had the opportunity to put in the 10,000 needed for effectively managing a business.

So - a good few weeks behind me and the prospect of two more exciting and engaging sessions.

I have been doing these sessions in my capacity as a consultant with Geotrupes. James has done most of the grunt work in putting each session together and in preparing the slides - leaving me to personalise them, and to deliver the training - something that I enjoy doing. I think we've made a good team - I've certainly enjoyed the teamwork!

The consideration of strategy itself would certainly benefit almost any firm. If you'd like to discuss a programme for your firm, please contact either me or James.