After experimenting with this Blog and evaluating the results, we decided that more individual and personal methods of communication are better suited to our clients’ needs and to our own abilities and inclinations. If you would like to know more, ask one of us. As always, we are happy to share experiences.

What worries you about the process?

• Where do I start when reviewing the personal qualities or competencies?
• I haven’t had an interview for years, so I have no idea how I come across to others in an interview scenario
• I’m usually the one asking the questions.  What kind of questions will they ask me?
• What can I do to prepare for a competency based selection process?

How can we help?

We understand how you feel and we can help you make the most of this opportunity to prove yourself.  In one or more confidential sessions you will have the opportunity to:

• Understand the competencies or quailities required
• Practise some interview questions
• Address any other issues that concern you about your application

A 2 hour interview preparation session with two of our coaches is £850 + VAT.

What our clients say about us

“Thanks very much for Friday; it was a great help and comfort – particularly to have a structure to work to in answering the questions.”

“Much enjoyed yesterday’s meeting, which I found very useful indeed.  I have spoken of you to Miss X, who I have copied in on this email.  She is interested in having some assistance too.”

“I found my mock interview with you both very informative and exceptionally useful.”

For further details and information about the members of Sherwood who are available to help you, contact Kate Blackburn:

• By email: kate.blackburn@sherwoodpsfconsulting.com
• By telephone: 01458 211 087 or 07710 553 045

This course will be of particular interest to firms that recognise the importance of the transition to partnership and want to accelerate the capability of their new partners, but may not regularly promote sufficient partners to consider providing an in-house development programme.

The style is interactive with a mix of short presentations, realistic case studies, facilitated discussions, practical exercises and individual attention. The programme will be limited to 20 people to enable active participation.

This is a residential programme and will be held near Newbury, Berkshire. It provides 15 hours of CPD.

Download a PartnerShift brochure with more details, including the timetable and a booking form. Or call Julian Boardman-Weston, Simon McCall or Des O’Connell.

There may well be a need for new and creative solutions to systemic issues such as ‘work/life balance’ and ‘alternative career paths’; and yes it may take some form of meltdown before all parties (including clients) are prepared to contemplate new paradigms of working; and yet, I can’t help thinking that a lot of the current wringing of hands fails to confront an inconvenient truth. It is this; in many firms, responsibility for increasing staff turnover – and hence the remedy for it – lies not in the HR department (or even the Boardroom) – but in the hands (and mouths) of the front line professionals.

In my thirty years experience of working with lawyers and other professionals, through times of feast and famine, of growth and retrenchment, the complaint that emanates most consistently and most often from all levels is that ‘my ‘boss’ just doesn’t understand what really matters to me’; or ‘if (s)he does, (s)he can’t be bothered to do anything about it’. Like the ‘bigger’ topic of ‘Leadership’, motivation is a complex subject; it is also one that has absorbed vast amounts of time and money of academics, consultants and employers. But in some ways the solutions are fairly simple; what is lacking is often the leadership will to act on them, to encourage others to find the will and develop the skills to do the same and to tackle those who can’t or won’t (even if they are big hitters).

Why bother?

Retention (and real opportunity costs of turnover) apart ‘how do we motivate people’ is a question worth addressing even when there is no ‘war’ for talent. The research consistently shows that it is the level of motivation of people in a know-how business that determines how successful that business is relative to its competitors. For those who like equations…

P = M * A * D

Where

• P is performance in relation to the ‘task’ – ie the results achieved
• M is motivation – the amount of energy and enthusiasm applied to the task
• A is the level of relevant ability (including access to resources, including time!) and
• D is the [sense of] direction in which the motivation and energy is channelled. (Hence the importance of this for leaders)

Or putting it colloquially and in the negative, lack of M equals “can’t be bothered”, lack of A equals “can’t”, and lack of D equals “can’t see or don’t like the purpose”. So if any one of these factors is missing or less than it could or should be – the result is either zero or impaired P; (and even minimum performance for so long as there are no attractive exit routes.)

This ‘equation’ holds good at the level of the individual, the group or the whole organisation.

The most important factor is thus Motivation because the presence or absence of Ability and (sense of) Direction will itself affect the level of an individual’s motivation. This is common sense but, as in so many areas of management people do not always seem to apply common sense in the way they behave as managers and leaders.

How to bother?

In looking to motivate people, the short answer is that there is no one size fits all approach. You need to find out what will work for the individual given where he or she is at the relevant time in terms of needs, aspirations and abilities, confidence and commitment to the direction or purpose to which you are asking them to apply their energy. This is tough and on top of this there are the needs of the client or firm to contend with, which in the short term may well appear to conflict. This makes the management task even tougher.

But arguably we are starting with the wrong question. A better – and less challenging – question is ‘what first can I do to remove or prevent behaviour and other things that undermine the inbuilt motivation of highly educated people to continue to learn, to give of their best and to make a contribution?. I will return to this subject later.

Whose need is it anyway?

For those attempting a more proactive approach to talent management, there is plenty of advice from the ‘experts’ as to how to plan and execute a differentiated approach.

Psychological research suggests that individuals have a hierarchy of needs

5. Self-actualisation (development, autonomy, responsibility)4. Esteem (recognition, achievement) 3. Belonging and love (social/emotional needs) 2. Safety and security 1. Physical needs

It also suggests that we may well not be motivated by things aimed at satisfying higher level needs if lower order needs are still unsatisfied. Whilst professionals often have high needs for responsibility, achievement and other higher order needs, they are still human and things that go wrong ‘lower down’ the hierarchy may interfere with the things that usually give them satisfaction.

Knowing this is helpful to avoid us wasting time – e.g. in trying to give more development to someone who is worried about their own (or their family’s) security or health.

Hierarchy apart, individuals differ in how much of something they need– e.g. security; sociability; responsibility; personal development; and thus in exactly what it takes to satisfy it.

These needs also vary over time with age, psychological state and other factors. When I was young and had no mortgage and no kids and school fees, I was less concerned with security of income than I am now!

Some people who have high social needs may thus lose motivation if there is unresolved conflict in the team or a sense of resentment or unfairness because of eg work allocation or performance issues that are not tackled. You may need to tackle these issues if you are going to get any discretionary effort out of these people; and if you don’t they may leave even if the work itself is just the sort of work they want to do and they can find it elsewhere. Managers who are motivated more by achievement of the task than by social needs may find this behaviour inexplicable.

Finally, we do not (and often cannot) get all our needs satisfied at work – sometimes organisations can help sustain morale and motivation most by ensuring that we get opportunities to get some needs satisfied outside it – e.g. by getting some free time to spend on personal development. This issue lies behind a lot of the work/life balance debate which actually is not new but has become more acute because of changes in technology and competitive pressures.

Many professionals assume that they are intrinsically different from ‘non-professionals’ – such as secretaries. This is simply not true – though the opportunities that the ‘non-lawyers’ may have to satisfy some higher order needs through their job may be limited (though not so limited as the professionals often think).

Is it worth the effort?

Other research shows that we all, consciously or not, use a ‘calculus’ to decide whether to put any or extra effort into something. If we don’t think that our doing so will make a relevant difference, then we will not make the extra effort. For example, we may not be motivated to do more than enough to get by if we think that we will get no ‘reward’ anyway, because the targets won’t be achieved; or that we will get the reward anyway, irrespective of our own efforts; or if the ‘reward’ is irrelevant to us – because we have enough of whatever is on offer, or we are not interested in it – such as in being a partner. This calculus explains why it is so difficult to make incentive and bonus schemes work when people do not see a clear link between their actions and the money payment or other reward on offer. It is better often to use bonus as recognition of a job well done rather than as an incentive to extra effort.

Money is often seen as a prime source of motivation – in fact in many cases it is not helpful except when it is a proxy for other ‘rewards’ such as recognition or a token of relative success in a competitive environment. This suggests that finding some other proxy might be useful.

Money is an example of what some writers describe as a hygiene factor – once you have enough (for your own needs) then giving you more will not result in greater effort. Other examples of such factors may be status; congeniality in the working environment; or a sense of autonomy.

Positive motivators are those rewards where the more we have, the more we want – typically those things that satisfy higher order needs; but even here there are limits to how much a manager can give and how much an individual can cope with at any one time. Examples of these positive motivators are responsibility; difficult tasks to give sense of achievement; or new tasks to give a sense of personal development (i.e. they are aimed at satisfying mostly the higher order needs).

For these motivators to work they must be supported by a good performance management system (for partners as well as staff), which clarifies expectations and goals, agrees resources (including time and training), gives feedback on progress (and not just at appraisal time) and then delivers on the promised ‘rewards’. All this means that managers must be willing and competent to manage well; and also that the firm’s leadership must give them time and recognition (and if necessary some skills training) to do so.

In summary, it may be easier to avoid de-motivating people than to find ways of positively motivating them. I am sure that readers can list the behaviours of managers that cause normally enthusiastic people, including ‘self-motivated’ professionals, to become disillusioned, or even rebellious. These include the opposite of many of the positive things listed below. Taking people for granted; ‘dumping’ them in it; taking the credit for the work they do; failing to deal with sources of resentment and conflict in the group, and keeping people in the dark about how they and the group are doing, hoarding good work, having ‘favourites’ are all prime examples in many professional firms.

Here are some rules of thumb for more positive things you can do and encourage others to do:

• Know yourself, and your people including those peers whom you need to influence– and try to assess their different levels of tolerance/need for ambiguity, responsibility, reassurance and feedback etc; be aware of what is happening outside work that might affect their capacity to be motivated by the work itself. This means you do need to find the time to talk to them about ‘non-chargeable’ issues – and at a time that is convenient to them, not just you!

• Recognise and respect differences between people – do not assume that if they do not behave or respond like you, that there’s something wrong with them or that they are being ‘difficult’

• Use work allocation in a positive way to encourage learning and development as well as a means of getting the work done most cost effectively; there is a need to balance short and long term aims here. Using the ‘safe pair of hands’ should not be an automatic choice

• Use a coaching style of management where practicable, especially when setting objectives and giving feedback. This means leaving as much scope as you can for the individual to think things through and develop their own ways of achieving the task. At the very least, ‘ask before you suggest’ how to go about the work you delegate. Excellent questioning and listening skills are at the heart of a coaching style. Remember to ask for as well as to give feedback. Sit down with the team – perhaps over a drink after a deal is done and ask ‘OK so what do we want to make sure we avoid/do better next time?’ and if they tell you – listen.

• Be prepared to grasp nettles – deal with bad behaviour and underperformance (and find out how to do so skilfully); failure to do this breeds resentment and a climate where excellence is impossible to require

• Ensure that you set SMART[1] objectives wherever possible so that people know what is expected of them, and what success looks like; ensure targets are realistic and relevant – and agreed. Here too ask before you suggest what individuals would like to contribute

• Use ‘fair process’ – explaining the rationale behind decisions and consulting where practicable with people affected by them; this applies especially to the criteria for and the process for promotion (or redundancy)

• Do not expect people to be able suddenly to change behaviour without adequate support and resources – even if they genuinely want to

• Think carefully about what information you collect and how and to whom you report it; consider the impact it can have on people’s motivation and behaviour; remember the old adage – what you measure is the behaviour you get

• Many people want a sense of involvement in and of belonging to a successful team – share plans and celebrate successes; do not expect them to trust you unless you demonstrate that you trust them.

• Take time – even just a few minutes – from time to time to reflect and ask yourself how you are behaving as a manager and how people appear to be responding. Self-awareness and awareness of others are the two cornerstones of so-called ‘emotional intelligence’ – shown to be a hallmark of effective leaders. If you know that self-discipline is a challenge, you could exchange ‘nagging rights’ with a colleague – giving each other permission to say ‘stop and take stock’ of how you are doing, and even to give a well-aimed ‘kick’ if you see each other behaving inappropriately.

• And finally, do recognise that some of the strategies mentioned require considerable sensitivity and skill to make work; these behaviours do not come easily to everyone and there should be no sense of failure in admitting that they don’t come easily to you. Many firms are now investing large sums of money and considerable amounts of management time in off the job ‘training and development’ for younger members of the firm. Far fewer law firm leaders are investing time and effort in developing themselves and their partners; and, even those who are often do not intervene when fellow partners fail to invest similar effort or engage in behaviours that undermine motivation and retention. Walking the talk is as essential here as in any area of leadership.

Good HR policies and processes are very helpful in enhancing the right environment and for dealing with the ‘hygiene’ factors (such as pay and benefits), but a good or bad manager can enhance or kill anyone’s energy, excitement and enthusiasm. Research shows that good managers can get tremendous motivation and success in even the worst environments and the opposite also applies. This inconvenient truth needs recognising and addressing, as well as firms investing in exploring new paradigms of working and extrinsic reward.

Contact Sally Woodward

[1] SMART objectives are Specific, Measurable, Agreed, Realistic and Relevant and Timed

It’s a truism that the hard part about business strategy in a law firm is actually getting it implemented. The same applies to departmental business plans, initiatives to improve know-how and drives to improve financial performance. Whatever you are planning, however hard it seems at the time to work out and get agreement on what to do, the really hard part is making it happen. The same applies to individual development plans and even those great ideas about what we all want to do with our lives.

Great implementers have discovered a secret. It’s this. Your firm, your team, you – you all have only so much time. Getting something new onto your agenda isn’t enough. It has to be far enough up the agenda that it will get sufficient time and attention to get done. And the secret is . . . to find time to do something new, you have to stop something you are already doing. It really is as simple as that.

There are people in the world without enough to do, but hardly any of them work in law firms or read the Sherwood e-newsletter. You are busy, busy, busy.

Strategy is lots of things. It’s analysis, it’s creativity, it’s being in touch with clients and the market. It’s about analysing your competitors. It’s having your feet on the ground – being realistic about what you and your firm can really accomplish. It’s about clarity and a sense of purpose. Also it’s about prioritising the allocation of resources – and doesn’t that sound dry and boring? Perhaps. But your time and attention are key resources. To be high priority, a project or an activity or a person has to have the ability to jump the queue of things demanding your attention. We know this. So why do we find it hard to see the natural and necessary corollary. That to move something up the queue means that everything else has to move down it. And unless you spend much of your time thumb twiddling, getting done something new means that something you were already doing must drop off the end of the queue.

You see, we all try to squeeze in the new project. I’ll work harder. I’ll work more efficiently. I’ll find time somewhere. It’ll get done somehow. But it won’t. Most of us have already used up all our spare capacity, improved our efficiency as far as we are ever going to, and found all the extra time we can. So forget all that nonsense. Instead identify what you are going to stop doing in order to give that new thing sufficient time and attention. Then name it and stop doing it. Be deeply suspicious of yourself, your colleagues, your firm until you see the old activity actually stop and stay stopped.

Politicians seem – or perhaps just pretend – to be very bad at this. Our priority will be education. The Health Service is our top priority. We will reduce gun crime. We will work to reduce Third World debt. Great. So, if that is now high up your agenda, what have you resolved to pay less attention to? And what have you actually dropped off the bottom of the agenda completely? Because unless you can tell me that, I can have no confidence that you will invest real time and attention to what you say is your priority.

Contrast some people that are really good at putting their plans into action – great athletes and musicians. They make space in their lives for practice – not as an extra, but instead of something that’s less valuable to them.

So if your firm decides to build that new practice area, if your team is going to improve its profitability, if you are going to do the things you know you want to do with your life. . . identify what you will stop doing. Then stop it. Then make sure it stays stopped.

Happy implementing.

Contact Julian Boardman-Weston

So, here are some tips on the art of asking the right kind of questions. For a start, we believe there is an appropriate sequence to the type of questions you ask. Sherwood has designed a process, using the acronym BICS to explain the sequence:

B – ‘Background’ questions

I – questions to uncover ‘Issues’

C – questions to review the issues and build ‘Concerns’ in the mind of the client

S – questions to draw up an action plan to provide appropriate ‘Solutions’

We are not advocating going through this whole process in one go either! A pushy style should be avoided because it will undermine the trust you are trying to build.

Examples of Background questions

Background questions provide you with facts and sound like this:

• How is business?
• How is the German acquisition going?
• How long have you worked here?
• What is your role?

The ideal is to prepare before meeting the contact, perhaps by reading recent press articles and reviewing databases. This allows you to channel the conversation towards particular areas (eg the German acquisition referred to above). Preparation should be possible if the meeting is planned, perhaps with the contact attending an in-house seminar. But the process works even if you just bump into somebody at a reception.

Notice that some of the questions are about the business and some of them are about the person. Clients typically buy from lawyers when they feel there is a personal connection (ie rapport). It can help if you open up a bit about yourself, perhaps by talking about some aspects of your personal life, such as where you live. But, because everybody is different, you need to find a way of connecting that suits the client.

I walked into a partner’s office once and saw lots of photographs of mountains on the wall. I don’t know much about mountains, but I’m a keen amateur photographer, so we talked about the pictures and started to build a good personal connection.

The discussion should not be an interrogation. Avoid the sequence question-answer-question-answer etc. Instead, try question-answer-comment/question-answer-comment/question etc.

Also, you will accelerate the process if you ask good probing questions based on what the client has just said.

• Can you say more about that?
• In what way?

Examples of Issues questions

Assuming you have successfully built credibility, rapport and trust during this opening phase, you will find the conversation moves on. Sometimes the client will escalate the conversation and disclose particular challenges they are facing. This might happen in your first discussion

Questions that can draw out challenges, include:

• What are you working on at the moment?
• What priorities do you have over the next year or so?
• Are there any particular challenges you’re facing?

Notice how these questions are deeper than the ‘background’ questions and require a closer relationship for the client to be comfortable answering them.

Examples of Concerns questions

Empirical research shows that buyers don’t necessarily buy anything to address their challenges. They need good reasons to make a purchase, particularly if this involves giving work to a new law firm! The most effective lawyers do not offer solutions too soon. If they do, the client will probably give you a polite ‘no’.

The most effective approach is to help the client appreciate the benefits of addressing the issue, as well as the risks or implications of them not addressing it!

Questions designed to achieve this include:

• If you could avoid these disputes, what effect would that have?
• What would be the impact of resolving this? On the business, on you or your department?
• What’s the worst that has happened?
• What could happen if this is not addressed?

A partner skilled in this technique managed to sell his services to a contact who said early on in the meeting that he used a magic circle firm and he was very happy with the service from them. The prospect of work did not look promising. However, some skilled questioning raised the awareness of the risks in not having a second string firm ‘in the wings’, in case their usual firm was conflicted out. He won some work on the basis that the client could now be assured that there would always be a firm which could help!

Examples of Solutions questions

This phase is relatively straightforward. Questions designed to move towards a solution involving you helping the client include:

• Would you like to talk about ways of addressing this issue?
• What exactly would you like to achieve?
• Who else might need to be consulted to move forward on this?
• Would you like to know how we could help?

Try asking more questions, using ‘BICS’, to improve your ability to win more work.

Contact Tony Reiss

• Can we do this ourselves, or do we need an outside firm to help us?
• Do you have the expertise?
• Will you be too expensive?
• Will my boss think I’m an idiot for appointing you?

The more important the work, the more rigorous this process usually is. Public sector bodies tend to do this review more formally than companies in the private sector.

So, if you are a firm trying to win work from competitors, the first part of your challenge is to understand what these important criteria are.

Step 1: Find out what criteria the client is using to select their professional service firm.

Let’s look at what some of the criteria might be:

• Relevant experience – the prospective client may never have been involved in a project raising finance for investing in a private motorway in Hungary before. So they may find it reassuring to appoint a firm with a good deal of experience in infrastructure projects in Central Europe.
• Strength in depth – some clients want to know that you have sufficient numbers of staff available to handle large, complicated or urgent transactions.
• Brand name or credibility – if you know you’re up against other big names on the project, your prospective client may feel more secure with a recognised big name batting for them. Or the client may be more concerned about what their boss would think of their appointment (what used to get referred to as ‘no-one ever got fired for appointing IBM’).
• Level of attention – small or medium size companies can feel uneasy selecting larger firms because they feel that they will not get the attention or speed of service that they would like.
• Value for money – this doesn’t just mean ‘cost’, it also includes ‘added value’.
• Personal chemistry – this is obviously a subjective area but is often the most important, particularly where a client is looking for a long-term relationship. A commercial businessman looking for quick decisions may, for example, be put off by a shy or academic type.

How to find out the selection criteria

The only way I know how to find out what criteria are being used is to ask the client. But it’s not as easy as it sounds, because the client, as I’ve said above, is often going through this process unconsciously. This means that they find it difficult to articulate the process that they go through. It helps if the prospective provider of the service has good questioning and listening skills. Most of us think we have these skills, but the truth is that few of us are good at this. It can help to find different ways of asking the client what are effectively the same questions.

Having completed this process of finding out the criteria and how important each of the criteria is, the firm can draw up a list, as follows:

Having ascertained the list of criteria, the firm needs to rank its ability against these criteria. Honesty is required at this stage.

Step 2: Honestly appraise the ranking of your firm and the competitor firms against these selection criteria

The position may look like this:

In this hypothetical example, I have assumed that our firm is a medium-size firm, with some relevant experience, but perhaps not as much as some other firms. I have also assumed that the personal chemistry ranking might be high, perhaps because the person at the prospective client that you would be dealing with on a daily basis used to work at your firm.

You may, of course, not know which firms you are up against. Sometimes, even if clients don’t give you actual names, they are prepared to tell you which type of firm you are competing with (eg niche, local, regional, international, American, big 5 etc) and this is helpful. Even if you do not have information on competitors, to make the most persuasive case for the client to choose you, you should assume you are competing against firms that might appear to have a competitive advantage over you in the eyes of the client.

In the legal market, useful information to help you in the ranking process, particularly on relevant experience, strength in depth and brand name can be obtained from the legal directories. The client may well also be using such information to help them choose.

As a rule, clients other than the major multinationals tend to view the larger firms as being stronger in terms of relevant experience, strength in depth and, usually, brand name, but weaker in terms of level of attention. Value for money and personal chemistry as aspects of service are not necessarily seen to be related to size.

From this analysis it is clear that it is difficult for small or medium size firms to be seen as more attractive than larger firms on quite a few criteria. The main sources of competitive advantage for smaller firms is in delivering the impression to the client that they will provide a higher standard of service because the client will be more important to them than they would be to a larger firm.

So, according to our analysis, you are looking weak compared to the larger competitor on relevant experience and brand name and looking weak compared to the smaller firm in terms of level of attention. You are looking unnecessarily strong on strength in depth and personal chemistry. The question now is how can we persuade the client that we match what they are looking for, when we clearly are not a perfect fit. The answer is that we try to move the goalposts!

Step 3: Find ways of influencing the client to change their perception of you or your competitors or change the weighting of their criteria

This sounds impossible but the really skilled practitioners find ways of doing this.

Your first option is to change their perception of your firm. Maybe you sense they are judging you to be relatively weak on relevant experience. This may be a harsh judgement because you have recently hired a team to strengthen this area, but the client was unaware of this. This is clearly a relatively easy aspect to address.

Your second option is to change their perception of a key competitor. This is trickier, because any direct attempt to criticise a competitor will usually backfire. Again, if we choose the criterion of relevant experience, it may be that the competitor is seen as having the best experience, but that this experience does not exactly match what the client is looking for. For example, for a project to finance a private motorway in Hungary, the client might judge that experience in financing lots of motorways in Britain and Western Europe might be most valuable. If your firm has less experience it may be valid to enhance in the client’s mind the relative importance of experience in similar financings (eg other infrastructure projects, such as ports) in Central Europe.

The final strategy is to get the client to change their weighting of selection criteria. This sounds rather sneaky but I think it is entirely fair. After all, the client has usually not thought about the criteria in the first place and usually welcomes thoughts from potential service providers as to what is and is not important. Also, the other firms in the frame are probably doing the same. However, you must believe you are fully competent to carry out the work for the client and not mislead the client about your competence.

Using the example above, if it was possible to influence the client so that personal chemistry was seen as an important factor, then your firm would be in a better position to be given the work. This might be achieved using the following tactics:

• Emphasising the benefits of a fast learning curve (eg cost benefits or work being done faster)
• Pointing out the potential problems of not having good chemistry (eg misunderstandings that might lead to mistakes or work having to be repeated)
• Making clear how much more enjoyable it is to work with people that you get on with)

Step 4: Develop a proposition that makes it easier to win work from competitors

Finally, if a systematic approach can be taken to evaluate what your clients are looking for and how your firm ranks against key competitors, you can start to develop an improved proposition. Most firms do not appreciate the value of the information that can be obtained from adopting a more rigorous approach to analysing client perceptions.

If we take the example of a firm that has a poor track record of winning e-commerce related work, it may be because the firm has a too traditional brand to be seen as credible working with polo-shirted IT types. The firm could then go about adapting its brand proposition via a special web site or through marketing initiatives in e-commerce trade journals.

Summary

Firms may see the benefits of this approach when competing against others in beauty parades. The really go-ahead firms use this approach as part of the Customer Relationship Management efforts to win the work without a formal pitch.

Can you afford not to be using this technique?

Contact Tony Reiss

Previous versions of this article have appeared in Managing Partner and Professional Marketing magazines.

• We all know that we’re doomed to failure if we go around telling partners or staff what to do – they might nod apparent agreement but they usually won’t do anything
• We all know that our one main source of competitive advantage is the performance of our people and the successful collection and dissemination of know-how
• We all know that just giving people an annual appraisal is a waste of time – they perform better when they have clear objectives and constructive feedback throughout the year
• We all know that we need to create a climate in which people can learn – often this requires a culture which encourages risk-taking and forgives failure
• We all know that coaching people rather than telling people is at least part of the solution

So far, so good. The only problem…and it’s a big one….is that very few firms have got anybody that can be effective as a coach or even wants to be a coach! Assuming firms are interested in introducing a coaching approach, what should firms do to address this?

Remind me again…what exactly is coaching?

The usual definition of coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximise his or her own performance. Coaching is helping people to learn rather than teaching them.

So what skills do coaches need?

Good coaches tend to have a number of skills, as follows:

• The ability to observe well and not make judgements – this is much trickier than it sounds
• Good listening skills – not of course just to the words but also for clues as to what might really be going on for the person being coached
• Good questioning skills – most managers ask too many closed or leading questions to be effective as a coach
• The ability to provide positive and negative feedback – most of us don’t give enough praise and struggle to give negative feedback in a way that motivates the other person
• The ability to get agreement to an action plan – the trick here is for the manager not to dictate a solution

Good coaches tend to be good at working one-on-one with people in an informal way.

Some commentators (like Max Lansberg in The Tao of Coaching) believe there are direct rewards for coaches. Others believe good coaches tend to be the sort of people who are happy to get their rewards indirectly through the success of others (a bit like parents!). Let’s face it….there are never likely to be many of such characters in senior positions in professional firms.

So who could provide the coaching role for partners in your firm?

There are really only four options:

• Partners in leadership roles, such as the managing partner or practice group leaders
• Other partners in the firm who are naturally good coaches
• Senior support professionals, such as the marketing director or HR director
• Outside coaching specialists

In the next section I go on to discuss the pros and cons of each option.

Partners in leadership roles (ie the boss)

This would seem to be an obvious place to start. They should at least have some time available…assuming time has been budgeted to be a leader. Also such partners might be thought of as being well equipped to provide coaching across a range of areas, ranging from technical professional issues to business development and people-handling.

However there are some problems in practice. For example, some people say it is difficult to be both a coach and an appraiser, because the person being coached often does not trust the coach.

Also being a technical expert in the same field as the person being coached can get in the way of good coaching. The temptation to be diverted on to technical issues can be too great because many would find this a safer, more comfortable area to address.

However, the most fundamental problem is that, even though they’re happy to be leaders, it doesn’t mean they want to coach or have the skills to coach. It’s difficult to know how best to deal with this. Some firms have achieved some success by promoting these leaders to chairman-type positions and use better coaches as leaders.

Other partners (ie peers)

This may not seem an obvious way of providing coaching but it should be recognised that some of the best coaches have not been technical experts in the same field as the person being coached. An interesting experiment was carried out in the sports world that showed that there were certain circumstances in which ski coaches performed better than tennis coaches at coaching tennis! This was because the ski instructors were forced to focus more on the person than the technique and this has often been shown to produce better results. This is the so-called inner game in which the opponent in tennis was considered to be more in one’s head than on the other side of the net!

And if you think about it, why should a good coach also have to be a leader?

So, if you’re interested to explore this option, where are you going to find the good coaches in your firm? I reckon a good place to start looking is for the partners that already have a reputation for running motivated assignment teams and are generally popular.

One of the difficulties of adopting this approach is engineering opportunities for providing on-the-job coaching. For example, in a law firm it is difficult to see how a lawyer specialising in personal injury claims arising from road traffic accidents could sensibly receive on-the-job coaching from a corporate finance lawyer.

Another potential barrier is that you would need a particular culture in the firm (ie a true partnership culture) to accept this idea of using coaches outside the practice group.

Nevertheless, despite these issues, this approach provides some exciting opportunities to get coaching off the ground and I know one eminent law firm that is making this work.

One of the potential spin-off advantages of using peer coaches is that it could also be good for cross fertilisation of ideas and help break down some of those potentially unhealthy departmental boundaries.

Senior support professionals

So what about senior support professionals as coaches? A factor which should work in favour of this happening is that coaching tends to work better if there is a specific focus to the session. For example this could be working on business development plans or cross-selling skills with the marketing director or improving team morale with the HR director.

The only problem that stops this happening is that unfortunately most marketing and HR staff are not skilled in coaching. I think most of them tend to feel more comfortable telling people what to do rather than coaching. And maybe we shouldn’t be surprised to find this is the case….after all how many of us have had training (or should that be coaching!) in how to be a coach?

The good news here is that a programme has now been designed to address this need and any readers interested in receiving some coaching on how to coach should get in touch with me. See the end of this article for details.

Outside coaching specialists

One of the obvious advantages of using such people is that they will obviously have the skills. The main downside is that, unfortunately, many may not be sufficiently aware of the cultures of professional firms to be credible or effective.

Also for coaching to work it is essential that trust is established and it is time-consuming for an outsider to do this.

So, if you come across someone outside the firm that can relate to your partners, grab them before someone else does!

So where does that leave us?

The first thing to acknowledge is that it clearly isn’t going to be easy getting coaching off the ground in our firms, despite the obvious rewards. Part of the problem is that many firms try the equivalent of trying to climb Everest every time they tackle an issue and become disheartened when they don’t reach the pinnacle after a short period. I recommend a less ambitious programme. Try some foothills first. Something that you are confident you can achieve.

All firms are different and the option or options you choose depend on your circumstances. One thing is certain. Without a commitment to introduce coaching from the top, you are unlikely to succeed. Good luck!

Contact Tony Reiss

The original version of this article was published in Professional Marketing

The stuff that happens in law firms

Let’s explain by looking at the world of law firms where ‘stuff happens’! Some of it is good stuff. We get the salary increase we were looking for. Our business plan and budget is accepted. But other stuff is less pleasant. There are the negative comments, such as “Why did you do it like that?” Or there’s the mysterious stuff (there’s a lot of this in a law firm), such as “Uh….well….let’s see….I’ll see what we can do…..”

With all this going on all the time, we see people reacting in the following ways:

1. In the absence of knowing why the other person is behaving the way they are, we make up ‘stories’ to explain what’s happening. But because we don’t notice we’ve done that, we see our ‘stories’ as the truth.
2. We take the stuff personally – we experience it as if it was aimed at us and intended to hurt us.
3. We react, by getting annoyed, trying to get even or withdrawing.
4. We lose focus on delivering 100% for the business and are distracted by the stuff.
5. Our actions become the stuff for others. Others now make up their stories about us!
6. There becomes less prospect of a harmonious partnership.

I remember a partner who never said hello to me. My story I made up was that she didn’t like me. So I decided not to like her! The truth, I discovered later, was that she was shy and didn’t say hello to anybody!

Just consider how long it takes you to go through this list of reactions. For some it might be nanoseconds!

The world of ‘Tops’

So, let’s try to understand better the world of ‘Tops’. Tops are heads of departments or directors of support functions or people leading a project. Tops are struggling to survive in a world of complexity and accountability. They are often drowning in difficult, unpredictable issues. Issues they thought were taken care of that keep coming back. Issues concerning vision, strategy, culture or handling difficult situations or difficult, sensitive people.

There is too much to do and too little time to do it. They receive too little information, yet have to make big decisions. Tops feel a heavy responsibility for the way things are working (or not working!). So many people’s fate rests in their hands.

Tops look to Middles for support, but feel they don’t get the support they need. They feel the Middles are too dependent and not entrepreneurial enough. Tops feel isolated.

To build a relationship with a Top, try to reduce the complexity of their world, not increase it. Consider if you can offer to share some of the pressure of accountability.

The world of ‘Bottoms’

With ‘Bottoms’, we are dealing with people who are sometimes struggling to survive in a world of invisibility and vulnerability. They see higher-ups doing things to them. They reorganise. They decide who has to work late. They decide on bonuses and impose new initiatives.

Bottoms see things that are wrong with their situation and with the firm that higher-ups should be fixing but aren’t. Bottoms experience being overlooked and ignored. They don’t have the big picture so can’t commit to it. They don’t see how their jobs contribute to the whole. They don’t get feedback on their work.

Bottoms feel Middles add little value. Middles seem uninformed. They may be well-meaning, but they are powerless and inconsistent. Much of the focus of Bottoms is on ‘them’ (ie higher-ups). Bottoms are frustrated, angry, resentful and disappointed with ‘them’. So they collaborate with other Bottoms and collude against Middles and Tops.

If we can appreciate this world of Bottoms, perhaps we can find better ways of gaining their involvement. And can we position our initiatives in such a way as to reduce their vulnerability?

The world of ‘Middles’

When interacting with Middles, we are dealing with people who are sometimes struggling in a tearing world. You might be surprised to know that many junior partners relate to this position. They are pulled between you and others. People ask them for information that they don’t have, requiring them to seek it from others. They are asked to make decisions they cannot make without consulting others. They try to please Tops and Bottoms, but often feel they satisfy neither. They experience ‘simple’ requests from you as complex tearing between you and others.

Middles are loners in the system – not connected with Tops or Bottoms and not really connected with each other. They are often seen by others as confused and wishy-washy; as if they have no opinions of their own. Some Middles seek an identity by aligning with Tops, thereby alienating themselves with Bottoms. Others align with Bottoms and are perceived by Tops as insufficiently managerial.

How can we acknowledge this tearing, rather than poking fun at it? In what ways can we support Middles whilst getting what we need? How can we reduce this tearing rather than increase it?

The world of Customers

While we’re grappling with all that internal ‘stuff’, what’s happening with our Customers?

When interacting with Customers, we are dealing with people who are sometimes struggling in a world of neglect. They are wondering if they are getting the attention they deserve; whether they will get that call returned or billed the amount they are expecting.

All too often Customers feel ignored, frustrated, angry and powerless. Promises are made and promises are broken. Overruns. Excuses. The system seems focused more on itself rather than on them. Sometimes Customers lower their standards or use panels of suppliers to ensure there is a pressure on each of them to perform. How can we decrease the Customer’s experience of neglect rather than increase it?

What to do about the failings of the system?

Step 1 is recognise the inherent truth about the failings of the system. Then we have to stop blaming the others and recognise that each of us has a responsibility to think and behave differently. We can choose to be a victim of the system or we can choose to see the bigger picture.

As a Top, instead of sucking up responsibility to yourself and away from others, your challenge is to get others to take responsibility. Consider asking yourself, ‘Why am I making this important decision?’

As a Bottom, instead of holding them responsible for your condition, your challenge is to take responsibility for your own fate and for the fate of the system. Ask yourself ‘Why do I tie my fate to ‘them’?’

As a Middle, instead of losing yourself in the service of others, your challenge is to maintain your independence of thought and action. Ask yourself, ‘Why am I so focused on what others need and want?’

When we are in the role of Customer, make the effort to get involved with your supplier. The outcome will be more productive than handing over total responsibility to them. How many times have you been disappointed with what you have received?

And with your Customers, encourage them to engage with you. Ask them for a response. Ask them how can you do a better job for them at intermediate points, not just at the end. That will enable you to do a better job for them and hence build your work with them.

For more on this subject, read Seeing Systems – Unlocking the Mysteries of Organisational Life, by Barry Oshry

Contact Tony Reiss

So what does a firm need to do?

Work out whether you do fixed and capped fee work

This sounds obvious. But there are firms that think they do no fixed price work, who actually do quite a lot.

Perhaps part of a job is fixed price or capped fee. Perhaps the job looks like hourly charging because the draft bill is based on time worked but partners always adjust the bill downwards to reflect what the clients expect or what other firms are charging. Perhaps, in practice, however much they keep time records, partners always charge a regular client the same fees for the same kind of job on a ‘swings and roundabouts’ basis.

If any of these apply to you, you are operating in the fixed price world, possibly without realising it. If you are, then the sooner you face up to it, and grasp the new levers of profitability for the relevant types of work, the better.

Why does this matter? An illustration.

Question: Is it good for profits for a partner to encourage assistant solicitors to do more work on a job, in the sense of charging more hours?

Answer: (As long as it’s going to bring a better result and in the clients’ best interests, of course), when hourly charging, yes it’s good for profits. When working on fixed fees, it’s a disaster as the firm can charge no more if more work is done – the partner needs to discourage assistants from doing more hours and instead find ways to get the work done well – and the fixed fee earned – in the shortest possible time. Suddenly the accelerator has become the brake.

Identify the levers of profitability and train people to pull them

Work out what levers people are supposed to be pulling and teach them what to do.

Lawyers are notoriously uninterested in figures. So, the key thing to do is not to give the impression that this is some sort of accounting exercise where numbers in reports dance and flicker to the beat of some inaudible financial drum. This is about their behaviour – what they do, day in day out. Certain behaviours improve financial performance and others ruin it. Let’s assume that most of your people want to see the firm prosper. The only questions are what do they need to do and how can they learn to do it?

How do you get people to understand how behaviour affects profit, and how to behave to improve profit? The way I do it is by means of a law firm finance simulator. For years, my colleagues and I have used a simulator that is based on hourly charging. More recently, I have developed a simulator for the new world of fixed and capped fees, along with the training exercises and materials that go with it. These are designed to help people grasp the significance of the levers of profitability and give practice in using them. It is very important that partners get beyond abstract figures to make the connection between the normal activities of their working days and the financial performance that results. The exercises require partners to explain and plan out what they will need to do, who they will need to speak to in order to make happen in real life the things they can see happening in the simulator.

The advantage of a simulator is that no real money is lost, no real staff made redundant, and no partner is left looking stupid in real life. Also the same situation can be replayed to try different approaches, unlike real life.

Build expertise in the right places

One of the new levers is Expertise. Start by identifying who in the firm has a hand on each of the levers, and see that they are suitably experienced, trained and supervised. Simple really. There isn’t space here to go into a lot of detail, but the key roles and the expertise you need from the people filling them are clear.

The critical tasks of Top Management (in your firm this will be the managing partner and team, or the equity partners acting together, or a chief executive) are strategic and long term.

They must steer the firm into attractive markets where the firm’s services are in demand and where the prices are good. This is a difficult and time consuming task, and there are risks involved. This is pulling the Price lever.

They need to make sure that decisions to take on work and agreements on fees are made by senior people, and that these people are informed about and familiar with the financial consequences of the decision they make. They will need to train them to do this. This is training the people who pull the Price lever

They need to build capacity in some areas and reduce it in others, by setting up and closing down areas of work or even whole departments, based on how much work the firm can sell. This is pulling the Capacity lever.

They will need to deploy expertise in the most useful places – such as selling, pricing, financial management and process improvement. This may involve winning round or overruling influential partners who traditionally have seen this as their turf. This is pulling the Expertise lever.

Senior managers (in your firm this will be partners, and senior non-legal professionals, like the marketing, finance, IT and HR managers) need to focus on pulling the Price, per Item variable cost and Speed levers. They need to step back to see the whole picture of what the clients expect, what the firm agrees to provide and what outcome the clients value and will pay for.

They need also to become skilled pitchers for business, fee negotiators and trouble-shooters, to make sure jobs are completed to agreed specification, on time and on budget.

Put good measures in place and use them

In addition to choosing the right levers, you need the right gauges. Someone once said you get what you measure. So you need to measure what you want to get.

It’s no good encouraging people to believe that, for example, the Price lever is important, if what you measure and report on is gross fees billed. You need to measure and report on average price/fee by specific types of matter. For the Repeats lever, it’s no good reporting on chargeable hours. You need to watch matters completed, broken down by team.

Where to start

If all this seems daunting, perhaps you should start with a single step. Tell your managing or senior partner that his or her top priority for the coming area is to think about and then equip the firm to compete effectively in a market where there is less and less true hourly charging, and that you will support what comes out of it.

Contact Julian Boardman-Weston

This article first appeared in Managing For Success, the magazine of the Law Society’s Law Management Section, and is reproduced with permission.