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Post #470 – Sunday, June 6, 2010
When Strengths Become A Liability
 When helping practice group leaders assess their performance, I’ve observed that many managing partners / firm leaders unconsciously act like only negative feedback should have any real and practical value.
There is now empirical evidence to show that we need to focus far more on capitalizing on people’s strengths, then simply obsessing about their minor weaknesses. In other words, we need to help people improve, but let’s not become overly obsessive about fixing what’s wrong at the expense of stressing the positives. In my experience, many practice group leaders don’t even fully appreciate their people’s strengths and often underestimate what it is that their fellow partners find supportive and inspiring.
Now that said, there is a consequence in going overboard on any dimension of leadership.
I’m sure that many of you probably utilize performance assessment instruments that have some form of rating scale going from 1 to 5. These scales can lack a way to pick up strengths that may be taken to an extreme. So for example, if you are trying to get a read on the extent to which a particular practice group leader follows up to help members of the team execute effectively on their projects, the highest and best score is presumably a “5.” But a “5” does not distinguish between whether that follow-up is always perceived to be helpful (just right) or whether it is perceived to be micro-managing (too much). The scales we often use to assess performance can mask excess.
The truism – strengths taken to an extreme can become liabilities – leads to the conclusion that you owe it to these practice leaders to help them, not only recognize the strengths they have, but also to help them discover if they are overusing any of those strength.
Post #469 – June 1, 2010
What’s On The General Counsel’s Mind
 According to the just published results from the Corporate Board Member annual survey, the 250 plus responding GCs seem to be a pretty laid-back bunch. But they do have their hot zones. A full 49% fret about governance and compliance, for example. The only other issue that gets GCs really warmed up is outside legal fees. More than 48% say they’re concerned or very concerned about what they pay their outside law firms.
Some high points of the survey . . .
• Where GCs say they’ll be needing outside counsel:
Labor / employment 95%
Compliance / governance 89%
Mergers and acquisitions 84%
Intellectual property 81%
Disputes 77%
Executive compensation 65%
• What they base their choice of outside firms on:
A track record in specific practices 96%
Reputation 74%
Price 74%
Personal relationship 68%
Only 14% say the size of a firm is a significant or very significant factor in their selection process.
One big change from the 2009 survey: This year 49% rate a chosen firm’s location as significant or very significant, down from the 86% who thought so last year.
• Do you expect government regulation and oversight to increase, decrease, or remain the same?
Increase 92.0%
Remain the same 7.6%
Decrease 0.4%
• What areas will require you to work significantly more?
Compliance 63%
M&A 58%
Executive comp 58%
Post #468 – Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The Lost Generation
A palindrome reads the same backwards as forward. This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite.
This is only a 1 minute, 44 second video and it is brilliant! Make sure you read as well as listen . . . forward and back. This is a video that was submitted in a contest by a 20-year old. The contest was titled "u @ 50". This video won second place.
When they showed it, everyone in the room was awe-struck and broke into spontaneous applause. So simple and yet so brilliant. Take a minute and watch.
Watch: Lost Generation
Post #467 – Wednesday, May 26, 2010
My New Slaw Column: Rules of Engagement
Well, I’m pleased to acknowledge that I have been invited to become and am now an official columnist for Slaw – “a cooperative weblog on all things legal.”
Slaw has been publishing for nearly five years now, and in that time has gained 2000 subscribers (RSS and email). I’m told that the site gets 30,000 unique visitors each month and about 100,000 visits every month. It is read principally by visitors in Canada and the U.S., but also enjoys having regular readers all over the world. For the past two years running the site has been the winner of Dennis Kennedy's award as the best legal blog (Dennis is an old friend and perhaps America's foremost law blogger) and has been awarded the 2009 "Clawbie" as Canada's best legal blog. In 2009 Slaw was awarded the Hugh Lawford prize for excellence in legal publishing by the Canadian Association of Law Librarians.
Anyway, I’m scheduled to provide commenting every second month on practice management matters. I invite you to read my first submission entitled: Rules of Engagement.
Post #466 – Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Transitioning Clients To The Next Generation
 I’m honored to be doing some strategic work with PKF International and just recently had the pleasure of participating in discussions about how one might pragmatically approach transitioning their clients as they face impending retirement. Laura Sparks (Creative Sparks LLC), a very talented writer, captured these comments in an insightful White Paper (specifically for the PKF firms) that builds nicely upon what we produced in response to a similar question (Handling Boomers Approaching Retirement) of our Managing Partner Leadership Advisory Board (the LAB).
Read the White Paper entitled: Practical Steps For Transitioning Clients 
Post #465 – Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The General Counsel of the Future
 A note from friends at Egon Zehnder International last week reported upon a survey they conducted of 300 chief legal officers to set criteria that distinguish an excellent general counsel from one who is merely adequate. The authors (Gilbert Forest and Stephen Kelner) maintain that their analysis has implications for boards and CEOs that want to develop top GC succession talent, and for individual legal executives who want to improve their performance.
Their analysis, surprisingly reveals that top GCs do not outrank their peers when it comes to functional expertise. Instead today's top GCs tend to have competencies that even match those of CEOs. The authors postulate that this trend is driven by CEOs seeking GCs who can be effective business partners.
Legal and regulatory knowledge in the company’s area of focus was what distinguished the outstanding general counsel in the past. Today the outstanding GCs have developed their leadership skills to the level of the average CEOs on almost every competency, including team leadership, developing organizational capability and customer impact.
Among the findings: In the future, outstanding GCs will likely strengthen their skills in the two areas where they lag outstanding CEOs: market knowledge, and change leadership. (See my Post #454: The Firm Of The Future – Is All About Change). Over the next decade, the so-called “soft skills” — those that address issues of people and the organization — will play a greater part in the general counsel’s role than they have in the past, because organizations are increasingly diverse, international and collaborative. In fact, they believe that tomorrow's top GCs will increasingly make it to the corner office.
Post #464 – Saturday, May 1, 2010
Experiences That Develop Leaders
 I’ve just had the occasion to participate in a brainstorming session with a couple of seasoned managing partners wherein we were attempting to identify what developmental experiences might have the greatest impact on shaping a potential firm leader. We identified the following:
• Having the experience of leading a major substantive client project
• Fixing or stabilizing a floundering project
• Turning around an idea or client deal that fell apart
• Chairing an internal committee, project or task force handing a temporary assignment
• Being mentored by a gifted senior professionals with exceptional qualities
• Confronting and guiding a junior professional with an identified performance problem
• Attending an intensive formal leadership skills-building program
• Actively engaging in an outside industry, civic or political leadership role
• Taking on a new career challenge in response to identifying a specific opportunity
• Taking control of a sensitive personal crisis – serious illness, family breakup, death
• Starting a practice or office - building something from nothing
• First time as a practice group leader or office head and having to manage peers
What do you think we’re missing?
* * * * *
Gratefully received May 3rd from Shauna Mireau at Field Law:
I would add one thing to the list . . .
• Identifying a problem and determining the solution to it.
It seems to me that leaders, or potential leaders are those that refuse to halt momentum. If they see a problem, they use their resources to find and implement a solution.
Thanks Shauna
Post # 463 – Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Roundtable Discussions at the ACC
 The Association of Corporate Counsel (ACC) recently hosted a roundtable discussion among a number of their senior general counsel. The discussions featured general counsel from major multinationals including Coca-Cola, Kimberly-Clark, BT, Astellas, NEC Europe, Boston Consulting Group, and others. Here are some of the highlights that grabbed my attention:
• A flat budget is the new norm.
“We’ve kept spending flat, and that’s something we really need to continue doing.”
Most agreed that over the past three years internal legal teams had been subject to cost-cutting constraints that had resulted in reduced staff and efficiency drives. They agreed that in-house budgets were likely to remain flat in the coming years. In addition, the biggest driver was reducing external legal spend and attempting to keep as much work in-house as possible.
The push to drive down costs is being pursued by a variety of means, including:
- increased use of technology and standardizing work, such as non-disclosure agreements;
- making it mandatory for all legal spend to be signed off by the legal department, thus reducing the ad hoc legal spend by departments such as HR; and
- demanding that senior partners be involved in doing the legal work, instead of a team of associates, ensuring the work is completed quicker and, as a result, often cheaper.
• Things aren’t going back to the way they were.
“There’s now an increased pressure to increase efficiency and I can’t see us going back to how things were a few years ago.”
The bad news for law firms is that changes introduced as a result of the recession are here to stay. Firms were warned to expect a “sea change” in their client relationships over the coming years, while any expecting a return to the halcyon days before the collapse of Lehman Brothers were ”deluding themselves”.
• The changes are just beginning.
“There’s a great deal of diversity in the legal profession, but having said that, I think many external counsel will have to change their business models and become more efficient and more cost-competitive in all but the most high-end areas, They need to recognize that most work isn’t strategic, ’bet the company’-style work. Most matters can be handled by any number of firms.”
What particularly struck me about much of this discussion was the sense that the changes were not only here to stay, but that they were just beginning.
Post # 462 – Thursday, April 15, 2010
A Brilliant Bit of Planning and Execution
 In the April issue of American Lawyer magazine there is a must-read article about Seyfarth Shaw (disclosure: Seyfarth is not currently a client). The article informed us about how the firm had identified an opportunity, five (5) years back, to focus on implementing 6-Sigma within their firm – something that even today the majority of lawyers when reading this, would respond “six whatttt?”
Well, not only did the firm have the strategic foresight to see a means of differentiating themselves in ways that clients might value, they’ve also been highly proactive in utilizing that feature to open new doors with prospective clients.
Here is an example (shared with me by a friend) of how a Seyfarth attorney is currently and 'aggressively' going after a General Counsel (perhaps one of your existing clients) to show them how Seyfarth has meaningful differentiated themselves:
Dear Lynda:
Over the past few years, Seyfarth has been on a journey. We are continuing to build on our long history of high quality and efficient legal service, transforming those ideals into a disciplined, focused way to approach the practice of law. This is a way of thinking that we call SeyfarthLean. For us, SeyfarthLean is a fundamental, continuous review of "how we work," using a strong business improvement methodology that works in the law firm environment.
The attached article, from the current issue of The American Lawyer, is the most recent media coverage that explains where we are on our journey. The story recounts how we began this effort, well before vast changes took place in the economy and the legal profession. It describes how we are looking at innovative ways to approach a growing range of client needs; and, as a result, we think it shows that we are ahead of the curve, and in stronger position than ever, to deliver the high-quality work that you have come to expect from us.
SeyfarthLean is not a product or a marketing tool, nor is it a "one size fits all" approach. We think this approach has captured some of the best practices that have long been associated with Seyfarth -- efficient, high-quality service and outstanding legal expertise -- and has applied them in some new ways, combining the core principles of Lean Six Sigma with robust technology, process management techniques and practical tools.
If you have a few minutes, take a look at the article. It includes quotes from a number of in-house counsel leaders. There's also a video interview on the publication's web site with our Firm's managing partner, Steve Poor: http://bit.ly/deQwb0. You may find some interesting insights, or it may spark an idea with you. I will follow up with you in the near future to solicit your reaction. Because we are trying to constantly improve, we are always interested in hearing new ideas. If you have ideas or would just like to have a further conversation, I would be happy to have a member of our SeyfarthLean leadership group join in our follow-up conversation.
Best regards.
 Notice some of the techniques used in this correspondence:
1. They draw on the third party credibility of American Lawyer magazine;
2. They cite their effort as something they embraced long before any copy-cat imitators;
3. They make the reader believe that they are innovative at addressing the reader’s quality, service and cost issues;
4, They utilize the testimonials of in-house counsel peers to provide blue-ribbon endorsement of their offering;
5. They’ve provided a video of the managing partner to personalize things;
6. There is a specific offer to follow-up with the recipient (rather than the usual: “give me a call sometime”); and
7. Finally, there is an invitation for the reader to offer any ideas for improvement.
Well planned, brilliantly executed. I’m impressed!
AND, you are invited to join me, with Steve Poor from Seyfarth and other notble presenters, at the University of Chicago on August 16th when we explore how you actually bring about these kinds of changes and innovations within a law firm. You may download an advanced copy of the program here.
Post # 461 – Thursday, April 15, 2010
Get Ready For These Changes
I received this in an e-mail from a friend who was unaware of the author’s identity, so I’m unable to give proper attribution – but enjoyed the content . . . whether these changes are good or bad depends on how well we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come!
• The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
• The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
• The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
• The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music from iTunes. But once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
• The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they're always had it.
• Music. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit.
• Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing all lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
• The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
• Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7 "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.
ALL we will have that can NOT be changed are our memories!
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