Post # 878 – May 4, 2021

Fixing Firm Compensation Models:

To Fuel Value Focused Legal Delivery Systems

This article evolved from the collaborations between a Fortune 500 GC, a Managing Partner, a leading practitioner in alternative fee arrangements and an international law firm management consultant.  It was initially written in 2009 and pretty much forgotten about until now.  

Then a European-based lawyer and author of “Billion Dollar IP Strategy” reached out and graciously commented “I came across this article and it is revolutionary even today.  The fact that this article still looks fresh points to the reality that the profession has hardly changed in the intervening years.” 

 Is that true?   We welcome your observations and comments.

In this article, the four of us attempted to explore how a progressive firm might deal with one of the great impediments to adopting any new change – your firm’s compensation system.  And while there is no one standard framework or precedent to follow, each of our four propositions is intended to provoke you to look at this challenge through a slightly different lens.

Read the complete article - HERE

Post #877 – April 29, 2021

Listen to Our Latest Managing Partners Webinar

Last week I was pleased to moderate a panel discussion focusing on the subject of Leadership Succession.

We discussed how under normal circumstances transitioning a new Firm Leader is challenging, can be disruptive, and how this lingering Covid pandemic may have created even greater challenges.   

We polled our audience of over 80 participating Firm Leaders on 6 issues, and discussed amongst our four panelists - adequate preparation time for any new leader to get ready; what specific training was provided; formal efforts to identify traits wanted in leadership candidates; formal succession planning; skills felt important for the next generation of firm leaders; how important diversity and inclusion was in succession; and specific lessons that could be learned from this pandemic.  

I’m pleased to advise that the video recoding of this one-hour Webinar is available for you to view at: https://youtu.be/TDSZCs1riNY

A 3 minute taster has also been created at https://youtu.be/FHwvq8UoAuM

Post # 876 – March 23, 2021

Learning Faster Than Your Competition Can Be Your Strategic Advantage

Firm and group leaders need to pose a few very serious questions to their colleagues in one-on-one (virtual) coaching discussions:

1.     “Do you believe you are adding real value or simply passing along legal information to our clients? In other words, my beloved partner, what is it that you can specifically do for clients today, that you could NOT do for them at this same time last year?” 

2.     “What do you need to do, in the time that you have available right now, to build your skills and reinforce your opportunities for when we come out of this pandemic so that you can have an even more successful practice?” 

3.     “As you see this pandemic continuing to unfold, are you plugged into what is happening around you and inside your client’s industry, such that you can interpret whatever is transpiring and be the source of proactive counsel – before the client has to ask?” 

4.     “Are you trying out any new ideas, new techniques, new technologies and I mean personally trying them, not just reading about them? Or, are you waiting for others to figure out how to innovate and re-engineer your practice – (and re-engineer you . . . right out of that practice)?”

To Access and Read the Article - https://lnkd.in/gzjNVNr

Post# 875 – March 18, 2021

Listen to our Managing Partners’ Forum Webinar: 

“Dealing with The Underperforming or Misbehaving Partner”

In tackling this thorny subject our four panelists also explore a number of DIFFERENT definitions of underperformance, some of which go entirely overlooked in many firms.  

For example there is:

• the Obvious – the partner who for whatever reason is not achieving their billable hour performance standards;

• the Hoarder – that partner who holds tight all of their billable work to make themselves look good, without bothering to delegate that portion that they know full well could be done by juniors thereby providing better value to the client;

• the Gate Keeper – the partner who will not introduce any other lawyers to their clients even though they know full well that the more lawyers from the firm serving the client, the more loyal that client becomes; and

• the Deadbeat – that partner who is meeting billable goals, but meeting those standards by doing the same old schtick, often only marginally profitable, without bothering to invest any time in building their skills to make themselves more valuable.

Latest Webinar Episode - https://youtu.be/v83--eJQGyo

Post #874 – February 16, 2021

Upcoming Managing Partners' Forum North America WEBINAR:

Dealing With The Underperforming or Misbehaving Partner

The underperforming or misbehaving partner in a professional firm is hard to ignore. It can be costly in addition to the risk of a potential time bomb regarding client relationships. In many cases the underperforming partner might not be a ‘newbie’ but a once high achieving partner that is now floundering due to any number of reasons. The misbehaving partner can be anywhere in a firm even amongst the star billers. Other partners are now pointing the finger at the firm’s leadership to deal with the bubbling animosity. Overall it creates an interesting challenge for firm leaders, firm values and firm cultures.

In this relevant moderated panel discussion hear from two firm leaders (accounting and law) that have had to deal with underperforming or misbehaving partners and also joining the panel are two leadership specialists that advise professional services firms.

https://lnkd.in/g6iyKJs

Post #873 – January 28, 2021

When A Leader Needs to Confront Underperformance

One of the more difficult decisions that any firm leader or practice leader will be faced with, is when you have to confront and possibly remove someone on your team who is no longer “pulling their weight.”

When you are faced with this challenge (and you definitely will be at some time in your leadership tenure) you need to understand that the consequences of taking decisive action are rarely as dire as they might seem to you at first glance. Nevertheless, there are numerous reasons why intelligent and capable leaders will go to great lengths to avoid taking any action. In reality, not taking action is the same as announcing that you will continue accepting unacceptable performance.

There are always reasons to put off the decision to take decisive action. A number of leaders have admitted to me, that in hindsight they came up with all kinds of rationalizations to postpone a painful decision that they just knew was inevitable. In the end all they succeeded in doing was hurting both their team and crippling the team’s possible progress in a highly competitive marketplace.

No leader would ever tell you that this is the easy part of the job.  It isn’t!

https://www.legalbusinessworld.com/post/confront-underperformance

Post #872 – January 8, 2021

Strategy Innovation: Getting To The Future FIRST

I am pleased to report a total online readership of 47,712

over the past 18 months since my latest e-Book was released,

according to metrics just reported to me from the good folks

at Legal Business World.

Thank you LBW!

https://lnkd.in/grsexeq

Post #871 – December 27, 2020

Top Global Thought Leaders on Business Strategy

My sincere thanks to Thinkers360 for the honor in being acknowledged among their Global 20 Thought Leaders on Business Strategy.

Congrats to the Top 50 Global Thought Leaders & Influencers on Business Strategy.  To see the full list -OR- to participate by sharing your own content, sign-up (free) for Thinkers360 today:
https://lnkd.in/evrmFGn

Post # 870 – December 17, 2020

The Managing Partners' Forum North America Webinar Recording

A few weeks back we officially launched the Managing Partners' Forum North America with an Inaugural Webinar and firm leaders attending from not only all parts of North America but also from countries as far afield as Spain, Bulgaria and Australia.  The Webinar was entitled: "Aftershocks and Opportunities” and featured Keynote Presenter Rohit Talwar, a global futurist, award winning speaker, author and strategic advisor to CEOs; with panelists Beth Wilson, CEO at Dentons Canada and Sean Denham, Global and US Industry Leader with Grant Thornton LLP.

The Managing Partners’ Forum was initially formed in the UK in 1995 comprised of firm leaders from law, accountancy, consulting and other professions to share their experiences and ideas to enhance excellence in professional service firm leadership.  For those who are interested, here is a link to the recording of this event which I was pleased to moderate:

https://youtu.be/nP-c_491iiY

Post # 869 – December 1, 2020

Looking Back on 2020: Ten of My Most Popular Insights

It’s been an unprecedented year and I sincerely hope that sharing my articles and insights, here on LinkedIn, have helped to answer some of your leadership and strategic challenges.  Below is a list of some of my most popular articles in case you missed any of them the first time.  Happy reading, stay well and future focused, and please share these with your team & colleagues. 

• Memo to Firm Leader: Are You Getting Minutes from Group Meetings?

Many groups may spend time talking about workloads and about what might be new with a particular client that everybody is familiar with – but few actually engage in collaborating on projects that could advance the group’s ambitions - https://lnkd.in/dxeVjJW

• Suffering Obsolescence (Part 2): Are You Fostering a Skill Building Culture?

Since your firm sells professional skill rather than time (hopefully), it makes sense that one should probably think of those skills as valuable assets and have some kind of program to manage and prevent those assets from inevitably becoming obsolete - https://lnkd.in/gNnF4Z8

• Suffering Human Capital Obsolescence: Partners Doing the Same Old Schtick!

In most firms, my observation is that we seriously over-invest in the efficiency (“let’s provide a discount” or “do more for less”) arena and under-invest in having partners working to build their skills –  https://lnkd.in/gPATwt3

• Is Your Industry Group Monitoring Trends?

One activity that I have learned that only high-performance industry groups do, is they engage their members in a monthly meeting specifically to review the trends impacting their clients - https://lnkd.in/giD_fdv

• Embrace Thought Leadership as Your Industry Group’s Strategy for Growth

Here are 12 recommended actions for how you and your group might develop a position of being recognized industry thought leaders - https://lnkd.in/dtapazw

• Enough with The Visionary Leadership BS

While many books on leadership suggests that a leader needs to have a vision, I think it is all very nice in theory, sounds profoundly intelligent as a concept, but is absolute BS in its application         - https://lnkd.in/gq2dN4P

• Big Industry Groups Suck!

Here’s a half-dozen important reasons why big groups suck, why we need to strive for smaller teams, and some prescriptive options for you to consider in making a course correction - https://lnkd.in/g8UKkpK

• In Matters of Strategy: Beware of Best Practices

What is it about this term, ‘best practices’ that makes it sound so persuasive, and yet why don’t they always seem to work as well as some might be suggesting?  I would caution that it is nothing more than the myth of a single standard of excellence; the one right way to compete - https://lnkd.in/g7rYpNY

• What to Do When Your Chosen Industry Falters

What happens if the industry focus that you happen to have selected, like retail, is now being decimated by the coronavirus pandemic - https://lnkd.in/gJrNyhf

• Having Your Groups Firing on All Cylinders

My work with literally hundreds of practice leaders over the past two decades confirms for me that there are at least ten structural impediments, in no particular order of importance, all of which should be addressed if you ever hope to have effective groups - https://lnkd.in/gqCTbSJ