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Post #450 – Monday, February 22, 2010
How Would You Describe How Your Firm Is Differentiated?
 A few weeks back, at the PLI Law Firm Leadership and Management Institute, three prominent law firm leaders opined on this question: “Why Must Law Firms Be Strategic?” Each leader described his firm’s approach to issues of strategy.
Bill Perlstein of WilmerHale kicked off the discussion by asking the audience, to ask themselves: What is your firm’s brand? In other words, what do you want your clients and your lawyers to think of when your firm name is mentioned?
He used his own firm as an example. WilmerHale focuses on five key practices that reflect its strengths and its clients:
- Intellectual property: The firm has deep expertise in this area, with one hundred lawyers with technical degrees.
- Government and regulatory affairs: WH has 140 lawyers with government experience. The firm’s lawyers understand how regulators think because they once sat where the regulators sat.
- Litigation: There’s a difference between trial lawyers and litigators. WilmerHale does trials. Last year the firm conducted 11 trials to verdict and 25 arbitrations.
- Securities: This is a distinctive practice at WilmerHale, not just a subgroup within another practice, and it is about 160 lawyers strong. The firm has many lawyers with experience at the SEC, FINRA, and other government agencies, as well as lawyers who were in-house with financial services companies.
- Corporate: The firm’s core competency is on the company side. It does a lot of IPO work and is especially strong in life sciences and technology.
One commentator later mused: “It is rather sad that none of them answered the question of why be strategic, or even Perlstein's question of "what is your brand?" Even Perlstein resorted to a laundry list of practices, which is not a brand. A brand is what causes a client to chose your firm over the dozens of others that claim expertise in that same laundry list of practices.”
So as to assure you that this is not just endemic of law firms, Deloitte Consulting’s new CEO, Punit Renjen, the leader of the $6.5 billion in revenues consulting firm, was asked a similar question in a Consulting magazine feature article: “What do you view as Deloitte’s main differentiators from your competitors?”
Renjen’s response: “We are not affirmed or defined by comparing ourselves to someone else. There are a lot of firms out there that are wonderful at what they do, and that is wonderful for them. We are unique. We produce insights that produce results. We are a firm that has world-class insight on various topics, whether it’s a large merger, transformation, a large human capital issue or finance . . . we have insights, but we also have the ability to take the insights and help our clients execute on them. This is a unique capability that we have.”
Duhhh . . . WHAT!!!! Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up!
Post #449 – Monday, February 22, 2010
The Demise of the CMO
As a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for LSSO (Legal Sales and Service Organization), I’ve been reading a flurry of e-mails this past weekend concerning a trend toward not rehiring Chief Marketing Officers in major firms. Apparently, more law firms are choosing the option to:
• have a highly respected partner overseeing business development and marketing;
• have a highly respected partner serve as the CMO (maybe with the title of marketing partner/business development partner);
• simply remain content with the director of marketing and/or director of business development who the original CMO hired;
• have the marketing managed by the practice group managers; or
• have marketing and business development managed by the COO.
Another LSSO member reported that there are currently over 40 jobs open, some of which have remained unfilled for over two years. These firms have made the judgment that marketing (branding, brochures, newsletters and so forth) has failed to bring in any business compared to the dollars that have been invested (CMO = no ROI).
While partners thought they were going to effortlessly improve their sales when they hired these CMOs, the CMOs simply did their “marketing thing” since they do not have the authority or the clout to drive sales. The great promise was that the business would come in without the lawyers having to do much – and we all know how well that has ever worked! The consequence – some firms have fired their entire marketing and business development departments. Others have outsourced any need for marketing assistance.
The big buzz currently amongst many managing partners and marketing partners is client teams. The firms that get it have gone to very structured client teams using firm-wide account planning similar to what IBM and HP have done for the last 40 years. The firms that didn’t understand how to effectively run their client teams have universally failed. (You might want to revisit my articles on this subject: Protecting Your Crown Jewels – 2006; and Client Teams: A Look at Current Practices – 2009) wherein I predicted exactly how this would be the outcome of not approaching client teams correctly. And in all fairness, commented one observer, few CMOs have any sales, client team and account management experience.
Current indications are that the average partner spends less than one hour a week meeting with clients and prospects face-to-face in a business development/sales situation. The real problem remains since I first developed a video-based training program entitled Rainmaking® back in the mid 1980’s – 90 percent of lawyers do not want or are not skilled to do business development (the lawyer code words for sales).
Meanwhile, lateral movement and having your own book of business rules. Those with significant client relationships are hoarding the work like crazy. The fabric of firms is being stretched to the limits. No one seems to be focusing on how to drive firm loyalty. Free agency is rampant. Many firms are beginning to look like NBA teams where a few power partners (stars) are running the show.
Of Related Interest:
> Protecting Your Crown Jewels
> Client Teams: A Look at Current Practices
Post #448 – Monday, February 15, 2010
Counseling New Firm Leaders
In addition to my semi-annual master class at the University of Chicago for new managing partners, I’ve increasingly been called upon to provide one-on-one counsel to those whose appointment dates do not coincide with the dates of our one-day program. During the past few weeks I’ve had the pleasure of spending some time with new firm leaders like Tom Frantz at Williams Mullen (300-lawyer Virginia-based firm) and Ralph McDowell from Bodman LLP (150-lawyer Michigan firm).
 While there are a couple of good books (like First 90 Days by Mike Watkins) that provide context for the first days in a new leadership role, many of these texts have been written from the prospective of a corporate (top down) environment and where the new leader is usually brought in from the outside. We all know that in a professional service firm, the situation is very different. Among a vast array of issues and challenges that Brian Burke (Chair Emeritus at Baker & Daniels) and I review in our one-day master class, here are a dozen quick tips for new leaders to reflect upon:
1. Prepare for some challenges you might not have expected. Your first 100 days will pose some new job challenges for which you may feel ill–equipped to handle, such as: the need to build some new networks and forge new internal relationships while contending with having inherited a team of internal professionals (COO, CMO, HR, etc) that you do not fully understand; the risk of being overwhelmed with immediate ‘firefighting’ and partner-driven requests which serve to distract your attention from establishing the right strategic priorities; dealing with the legacy issues from your predecessor; and getting the balance right between moving too fast and moving too slow.
2. Fine-tune your listening system. Spend time with individuals from across the firm. Let them know you are counting on them to fill you in on any important issues so you can be both more effective and more sensitive to people’s perspectives. Let your partners know you need their input to be effective. Encourage them to identify issues that they believe need your attention, as long as they are not attacking or criticizing someone behind their back.
3. Develop your strategic agenda. Write down what you consider to be the two or three most important priorities for you to focus your time on, over your first 100 days. When things get out of hand (and they will) and you are overwhelmed reacting to everyone placing demands on your time, revisit this list to remind yourself about what is most important.
4. Continually make “To-Do” lists. It’s a trivial technique but critically important – if you make a list of all the important things that you want to get accomplished, it serves to get them out of your head and you don’t have to waste any further time thinking about them.
5. Prioritize your activities. To feel a sense of control you should make it a regular habit to prioritize your responsibilities using the old A-B-C process. Your A’s are those tasks that correspond with implementing your strategic agenda for the coming months, the B’s are important but can wait; and the C’s definitely need to be delegated to someone else.
6. Don’t allow the urgent to crowd out the important. Plan each day and plan your week. Check your daily schedule every morning before reading your e-mail. Preview your week on Sunday evening and preview your upcoming month’s commitments a couple of days before the end of each month.
7. Get comfortable with discomfort. Most of us think of anxiety as something to be avoided, but it can actually be fuel for positive change. Anxiety is that natural emotion that lives in the gap between where you are currently and what you want to achieve. Think of anxiety as your productive energy for moving forward.
8. Write your leadership memoir. Pick a professional publication that will be meaningful to you if someone writes a cover story about you, your firm, and your accomplishments in three years. Write your 100-word memoir answering as many of these questions as possible:
- What was the firm like when you first became managing partner?
- What was your initial role?
- What is the specific set of accomplishments you hoped to achieve (in your competitive marketplace, inside the firm, with clients, et al)?
- What is the firm now positioned to do that it couldn’t dream of doing when you became the leader?
- What have you changed and what have you preserved?
- What are the consequences for your partners in achieving that new set of capabilities or reputation?
If you do have yet have a good feel for your answers to these questions, then write a first draft and work to improve it over your first year in office.
9. Identify a few signals to project your leadership message. Translate your priorities into quick, highly visible, tangible “signals” — some symbolic, some substantive, that convey to everyone what you believe to be most important. Start by defining what beliefs the people in your firm would need to hold in order to buy into the behaviors and performance that support your agenda; and then design and execute deeds — perform very visible signals that will begin to shape those beliefs.
• Here is but one example:
Belief: “The managing partner doesn’t really mean it when she says we are going to focus on better serving our key clients.”
Signal: You develop a visible poster displaying the names of all of the top fifty clients of the firm for your office wall that allows you to identify in writing (and for all to see) which client CEO you have personally visited with, and on what date.
10. Know when to say “No.” When you feel overwhelmed or sense that you are beginning to accumulate too much on your plate, you need to be able to say “No” without feeling guilty. That’s when good delegating practices can help. A great leader will always relinquish tasks that others can do so that you can focus on your highest value priorities.
11. When under stress call a time out. Just like a basketball coach will call a time-out to slow down the pace of the game and regroup when the opposing team is on the run; you need to disengage in times of high emotion and reflect on your core values before proceeding any further. When you feel a tide of anger or frustration rising, leave the situation to retain your composure. Disengage; go for a walk, do a deep-breathing exercise, find some comfortable way to call your time out.
12. Find a trusted confidant. Have you ever attempted to bench-press your maximum weight without having a spotter at your side to help out if anything were to go wrong? So too with the burden of leadership. Every successful leader has a confidant, at his or her side, that they can lean on in times of need.
Post #447 - Monday, February 15, 2010
Federal Government Salaries
There was a joke going around Washington recently that the very best bar pickup line now is: "Hi, I work for the governament." Well, perhaps that joke is grounded in some sound statistics. The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a recent analysis of federal salary data. In fact, federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months - and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time - in pay and hiring - during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector. The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available. Meanwhile, when the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.
Data from Cato Institute of Federal Pay Vs Private (i.e. taxpayers) shows federal pay and benefits in 2008 of $119,982 vs. $59,909 private industry. Twice as high! And, the gap is growing fast. A decade ago, the average federal civilian employee earned 66% more in wages and benefits than the average private taxpayer. Today, it is double. The Federal Government budget for wages is up 3%, while private employees are losing their jobs and pay is being reduced. And, state and local town employees are paid about 35% more than private taxpayers.
The federal employees are now the elite, upper class. It is the reason why Washington and suburbs are the highest priced housing in the US. How will the government arrest its deficit by paying their own bloated
bureaucracy more money, you ask? What? Haven't you been paying
attention at all? There is no plan to reign in the nation's spiraling
debts. But you needn't worry too much. They're only paying themselves in US
dollars, and eventually will succeed in killing the currency.
Post #446 – Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Growing Interest in Australia
 This week heralded a surprise announcement from UK-based Allen & Overy: A&O is set to enter Australia after hiring 17 new partners to open offices in both Sydney and Perth. It’s been rumored that A&O spent over three months researching this move in earnest. The deal, which includes highly-regarded, former Clayton Utz corporate partner Michael Parshall, will bolster A&O's credentials in the mining, energy and project sectors. The launch is due to go live on 1 March. Apparently the two offices will cover energy, mining and natural resources; finance; infrastructure; investment funds; M&A and private equity; tax; and telecoms, media and technology.
A&O senior partner David Morley was quoted as telling Legal Week that “the firm made the decision to enter the market after spotting increasing amounts of inbound and outbound investment activity. The firm intends to target high-end M&A and finance work.”
A&O’s move follows an announcement whereby Norton Rose became the first top 10 UK firm to formally launch in Australia – when its merger with Deacons went live on 1 January.
So, what is going on here?
My sources in the Far East tell me that Australia is on its way to becoming to natural gas what the Middle East is to oil.
Asia is the fastest growing market for liquid natural gas (LNG). And that is where LNG from nearby Australia comes in. The amount of money going there is just staggering. The Gorgon project alone - a joint venture between Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell in Australia - will cost some $50 billion. It already has supply contracts from India and China worth $60 billion and will surely get more before it opens in 2014.
There are also other firms pushing ahead with aggressive LNG ambitions. Woodside Petroleum, an Aussie oil and gas company, wants to be the leader in LNG by 2020. As a result of all this activity, Australia will challenge Qatar as the world's largest LNG exporter.
It's quite possible that in the next decade, LNG will surpass coal as Australia's most valuable export. The government is certainly supporting LNG projects - it will add a gush of tax revenues to its coffers. Look at what oil did for the Middle East; the same kind of thing could well happen for Australia.
The question now on many minds is: will there be a major merger announcement between some UK or US firm and one of the Australian giants? Interestingly, the top Australian law firms are the product of a series of national mergers in recent years, and viewed as far too large for most potential suitors' appetites. They remain too big to slot into a global network but not large or profitable enough to go convincingly cross-border on their own. According to one market analysis I reviewed, the money is on targeted raids over mega-mergers.
To this point in time the major independent Australian law firms (Clayton Utz, Mallesons, Freehills and others) have been rather insulated from any real international competition . . . but, as is happening in all corners of the profession, change is rampant!
* * * * * *
Monday, February 15: I received a few comments to last week’s blog . . .
From my colleague Robert Sawhney in Hong Kong: Interesting post. I would only add that the UK firms see it as much cheaper to bring on talented Oz lawyers and then relocate around Asia as part of their Asian strategy. Seems to be the major rationale for Norton Rose merger as well. Hence A&O stealing partners from Clayton.
Post #445 – Monday, February 1, 2010
The Question of Whether to Focus On Core Practices
In March 2008, together with Baker & Daniels Chair Emeritus Brian K. Burke, I co-founded what is now known as The LAB (the Managing Partner Leadership Advisory Board) – a forum designed to provide recently appointed managing partners with a source for obtaining pragmatic advice on their leadership questions and critical burning issues. The formation of this group was the result of suggestions made during our bi-annual First 100 Days master class for new managing partners and has proven to be a valuable resource for new leaders.
Here is the latest question in a series of different queries that The LAB members have now responded to:
As managing partner I believe that this is an important time for our firm to assess our strengths and strategically choose those practices for which we want to be known. There are three practice groups that I’ve identified as our best prospects for the future – for our competitive market position and for the firm’s profitable growth. These would be the core practices in which I would envision that we invest the majority of our time and resources to build in 2010. The question (that I would sincerely appreciate the LAB’s advice on) then becomes how do I sell this internally without causing certain partners (and staff) to feel that they are second-class citizens or incite a palace revolt?
Read: The Question of Whether to Focus On Core Practices 
 An excerpt of this article, entitled "Support System" appears in the February 2010 issue of American Lawyer magazine.
LAB responses derive from its members' many years' experience as law firm leaders. Along with Brian and I, the LAB is comprised of the following distinguished current and former law firm leaders: Angelo Arcadipane (Dickstein Shapiro LLP); John Bouma (Snell & Wilmer LLP); Ben F. Johnson, III (Alston & Bird LLP); Keith B. Simmons (Bass Berry & Sims PLC); William J. Strickland (McGuire Woods LLP); Harry P. Trueheart, III (Nixon Peabody LLP); R. Thomas Stanton (Squire Sanders); and Robert M. Granatstein (Blake Cassels and Graydon).
Post #444 – Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Looking Behind The Numbers
In discussion with my colleague, Ed Reeser, this morning, we were reviewing an interesting article in today’s AmLaw Daily wherein Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft posted a 28% increase in profits per partner – the firm's first positive results since 2007. In fact, their reported numbers were curiously intriguing:
- 28% rise in PPP.
- 21% drop in equity partner headcount.
- 10% drop in gross revenue.
- NOI up about 1.4%.
Hmmmm we wondered. How does this happen?
 Here’s Ed’s insightful take: They lost those equity partner heads in a defection of 7 partners in London to PHJW, and a couple of bankruptcy heavy hitters to GT. The departures did not have the smell of moves initiated by the firm, but defections for greener pastures by people in a position to "know" how things were shaping up.
They got the dynamics back by cutting 130 some associates in 2008, another 25 in 2009, and 34 sabbaticals, or being "right sized" for the work they did have. OK, that had to help.
It would be easy to equate drop in equity partners with rise in net distributable to the remainder. But the key is the NOI pool did not really change. Normally a drop in gross has a multiplier effect on the net . . . like three times. But instead of crashing 30% they went up almost that amount. Astonishing really.
Being "right sized" in the associate ranks was not the factor that was determinative here. It helped, but it did not make it happen. You cannot cut your workers like that and deliver the same income numbers. Ranks are down by a massive number, but gross only 10%. So how does that happen?
It has to mean that some significant income was generated by other than the billable hour model.
Looking at their biggest deals, they did some work for the $68 billion Wyeth acquisition, and there was the Barclays plc share acquisition play. And the Lyondale bankruptcy where heavy NYC fee rates on $40MM would help. I think that there is some "old school" M&A multiplier fee in there, that added several tens of millions of net fees, on at least the Wyeth deal. It is simply impossible to cut costs to work this dramatic a bottom line turnaround. It has to be a top line driven element. Without a material cost component to create it. Which means, it is not a reliably sustainable component in the future. But, hey, take it when you get it, baby!
Think about it for just a moment.
Assume you have 60 equity partners, and you get a $20MM performance kicker on your M&A project, with a January start on the billings in 2009. (A very reasonable if not low performance fee figure for a deal that large). A one tenth of one percent fee would be $68 million. That $20 MM kicker is the equivalent of $60MM in billings and collections without the overhead, roughly calculated. And for partners it is about a $325k boost in PPP, all by itself. I remember a couple of contingency wins in my old firm that were in the $10MM range and they had a very palpable positive impact on the distributable income we received, even though there were more of us and the amount was smaller.
If there is another path that makes more sense, I wish someone would please let me know. This is great news for their firm, and sure helps for 2009. But the numbers don't suggest all is well on the good ship Lollipop. They just got some more time. And, under the circumstances, I seriously doubt that money was "equitably" spread. It went to the horses that brought it disproportionately, and perhaps skewing even further the difference between arithmetic average and mean in the profile of partner net income allocation.
Years ago, Graham & James had a big IP litigation matter that it worked at for the better part of five years without pay. As the firm was coming apart, the matter settled and the firm received a $40million payday. It went to the few that worked the case in actual distributions, and the rest that was allocable to the other partners as their share was "confiscated" to apply to the holes in the leaky financial boat. Once the rank and file realized that they were not going to get a distribution of that money, but only enough to pay taxes on it, with the rest effectively going to address the capital crisis from bad management – they left. And the guys that had their nice payday from the case . . . took their share and left too. The firm was dead in less than 24 months.
So, never forget that just because you report a PPP does not mean the partners actually received it!
But of course, (as Dennis Miller ends each of his famous presentations) that is just my opinion, I might be wrong! If somebody is willing to give us real numbers and answer a few additional questions, I can report exactly what happened.
Post #443 – Thursday, January 14, 2010
Getting Your Partners To Follow-Through
How do you ensure task completion when important projects need to get implemented, when partners seem to agree to participate, but when you are not really certain that you are going to get committed follow through?
 Whether it is in a practice group setting, around the table with the members of your Strategic Planning Committee or wherever you happened to be working with your fellow partners, this seems to be one of the most common challenges. That said, there are seven important steps you can take to ensure results (in most cases):
1. Ensure that the undertaking is voluntary.
Far too often the group leader (in their wisdom) thinks that George is the best person to do a given task and publicly arm-twists (or subtly embarrasses) George into taking on that task. Now ask yourself: just how motivated is George really going to be with an assignment that was delegated to him under those circumstances? Even worse, I often see those instances where one particular committee member was absent from a meeting and the others debated about what project “to stick Jennifer with responsibility for.” Now, once again, should we really be surprised when people don’t follow through? Keep in mind that when someone voluntarily takes on a task they are far more committed to ensure the completion of that project. Your role as the leader is to seek out voluntary undertakings from each of your fellow partners, even though you might strongly feel that someone else is better equipped to do a specific project.
2. Where possible, break the endeavor into smaller steps.
Some of the tasks that need to get done may be fairly huge in that to complete the total undertaking will take more than two or three hours of some partner’s time. When that happens get the partners to break the task down into its logical and sequential phases and estimate a time-frame for doing each phase. Even if you think you know how long each step should take, you want buy-in from the individual doing the work. Then when someone is taking on this task we can examine which steps of the task to start with and ensure that they are not setting themselves up to fail.
3. Ask each partner, specifically, what he or she will deliver back to your next meeting.
It is quite conceivable that even an enthusiastic partner might go off and tackle some project only to ultimately deliver a result that was not anywhere near what everyone in the group was anticipating. Therefore, it is helpful for everyone to think about any particular task in terms of the desired outcome or deliverable - what they expect to bring back to the next meeting – whether it is simply a written report or evidence of what action was undertaken. Ideally it is something tangible to show that progress has been made. As the leader, you need to ask each partner to briefly summarize (for the group) what they understand the work is that needs to be done, how they might approach the task, and whether they forsee needing help from anyone else in the group. Doing this will put them in the right mindset to owning the task and ensure that both they and you understand exactly what the outcome or deliverable will be. You might say something like, “I wan to ensure you and I both understand how this will unfold. Could you describe to me what you will do and when?”
4. Ask for a personal commitment. 
When you have finally determined the parameters or scope of the undertaking, you then need to look your partner in the eye and say, “Now George, you understand that what is required here should take about three hours to accomplish. Given your current and anticipated client obligations, are you comfortable that you can invest three hours and deliver your report for our next meeting?” When people give their word, especially in front of their peers, that generates an even deeper level of personal commitment.
5. Determine an acceptable completion deadline.
Ideally you want to have tasks accomplished before your next meeting such that any status reports might be circulated to everyone to review ahead of time and not waste the time of everyone at the meeting. For some strange reason, I’ve noticed that we often will pick a Friday as our deadline. Where possible, a Monday may make for a better deadline as most people don’t really jump on their individual project until the last minute anyway; and a Monday often allows the weekend for more reflective thought.
6. Produce a written summary of the commitment.
When working through the various tasks that need to be undertaken during a meeting, it is advisable to written them all down – on either a whiteboard or paper flip chart – for all to see who is going to do what and by when. To help people remember their individual commitment, you can then transcribe those flip chart sheets into meeting minutes and circulate (within 24 hours) to all attendees. Most organized people agree that there is something about the physical act of writing down a commitment that makes it easier to remember and more likely to be acted on.
7. Follow-up with each partner one-on-one.
One of the most valuable ways in which you can spend your leadership time is following up with your partners, between meetings – to offer your help in ensuring that they complete their task. You know that your star performers don't need to be managed. They absolutely do what they say they will do, which means being really careful about what they say they will do. Others in your group may well need someone with the patience to prod them a bit and offer their assistance, so that best intentions actually do get implemented.
Finally, carefully manage your (leadership) time.
If you accept the proposition that your work is infinite and time is finite, you realize you have to manage your time and not your work. You need a laserlike focus on doing first things first. And that means having a ferocious understanding of what you are not going to do. The question used to be which phone call you wouldn't take. Now, it's the discipline not to have your e-mail on. The skill is in knowing how to sift through the blizzard of information that hits you all the time. That's a different skill from what you may have needed 10 years ago, but the fundamental principles don't change.
Post #442 – Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Saying Goodbye To My Mentor
While I may have been the first person to really know, over a year ago, that this was coming . . . it still stimulated a tear (or two) to read David Maister’s retiring comments on his blog.
 "After nearly 30 years of advising and writing about professional services, I have decided to retire. I no longer plan to consult, speak or write."
I’ve often been asked what it was like to work with David and especially when we were writing First Among Equals together. While I have enjoyed a long-term working relationship with David that dates back to our earliest years in consulting, I can not tell tales out of school. I am however reminded of a story that I'd heard, that exemplifies the relationship I've enjoyed with David, as a co-author, a collaborator and as my mentor.
The elder summoned the junior into his office and explained that while the junior had not yet had the occasion to do a certain task as important as he was about to give him, he was confident that the junior had the knowledge, the skills and the talent to excel. He explained that this task would need to be completed within the week. So off the junior went, new task in hand.
It was but only a few days later when the junior returned to the wise elder’s office and placed the completed task on his desk.
Without even looking up, the elder quietly asked, “Is this your very best work?”
The junior stammered for a minute and suggested that perhaps he might review his materials a bit more before he submitted his final effort.
The next day the junior returned once again to the elder’s office, task in hand. This time and before even looking at the work the elder asked, “Are you completely certain that your efforts here will make us both proud?”
“Well,” the junior hemmed and hawed “maybe just give me one more hour to make absolutely sure that it is perfect.”
Returning an hour later, the junior was greeted with the question, “So, am I to understand now that this is your best work, something that would make us both proud and something that you feel is truly excellent?”
“Yes, sir.” came the meek reply.
“Then why,” commanded the wise elder, “did you not give me this in the very first instance?”
Words alone cannot express how grateful I am to David . . . for collaborating with me on the book; in the writing and development of our PracticeCoach® initiative; in helping me develop a program for effective strategic planning; in allowing me to provide input to five of his business bestsellers; in stimulating the birth of this web site; in serving as a sounding board on challenging client issues; and for always being there to give me a good swift kick in the ass when I needed it the most!!!
Congratulations to David once again on his being presented an Award For Excellence from the Association of Management Consulting Firms. I think Tom Peters said it best when he commented that “David Maister is the world's leading authority on the management of professional service firms.”
He is not the first among equals - he has NO equals!
I am consoled by the fact that David and I, and our wives Kathy and Monique continue to get together a couple of times each year, in some part of the world, to share quality time. And so while my most generous mentor has retired, my good friend remains.
Post #441 – Sunday, January 3, 2010
Make January Your Gateway Into A Year of Renewal
January, for the Romans, was the month named after Janus, the gatekeeper. "Since a gate opens both ways, Janus was thought to be able to see back into the past, and forward into the future, and he was usually represented in pictures as having a double head that looked both ways."
 As we pass through the gate from 2009 to 2010, it is only useful to look back to the past for learning. We have an opportunity to ensure we bring with us only the things that work and leave behind the old and unproductive habits and approaches. Plan to make your January a month of renewal and the beginning of a year of growth and development.
Here are a few suggestions for what people will treasure from their leader:
• Accept the new reality
Recognize that there is no returning to the good old days. The changes we are experiencing today and have been experiencing over the past two years will radically transform the way your firm functions, interacts with clients and competes for business. Success is a moving target such that you are now being required to do everything faster, leaner and quicker than ever before.
• Fight complacency
Winning leaders know that their firm needs to refresh the gene pool. That happens when you forget about old (or supposed best) practices and begin to open up your mind to new ones. That can also happen when you bring in and expose yourself to new people and new partners with a diversity of new ideas. The many years of prosperity lulled firms into a sense of comfort – comfort in having a profitability that always increased and clients that always came back for more. Our uncertain economic times now demand that we challenge these comfort zones such that new behaviors, new thinking and new approaches flourish.
• Focus your energies
Abandon those activities that don’t progress your strategic results. If something isn’t working, stop doing it. This means that you need to voluntarily let go of things that may be close to your heart. Ask yourself:
- What do I need to do more of?
(what do you need to continue focusing on to leverage results);
- What do I need to do less of?
(and identify the ineffective things that consume your time)
- What do I need to start doing?
(identify anything you are not yet doing that could be the key to improving or implementing your strategic agenda); and
- What do I need to stop doing?
(eliminate low-impact activities like getting sidetracked by colleagues with trivial matters rather than investing time on your more critical tasks)
 Also consider:
- What matters most?
What was most important a year or two ago may not be the driving force today. Press the reset button and, together with your leadership team, clarify priorities and commit to keeping them in focus.
- What leadership skill should I get better at?
The fact is, your personal effectiveness affects the success of your firm. Pick the leadership skill that most needs your attention—listening, coaching, problem-solving — and commit to improvement. Small changes really can make a big difference. Just ask your partners on the receiving end.
• Strategize on an ongoing basis (as I ranted about in my last post)
Strategic planning isn’t an event—it’s a discipline. In less volatile times, developing a strategic plan every three years was the norm. Today, planning once a year in not sufficient. You now have to learn how to evaluate, test and revise your plans and strategies several times a year to maintain your competitive vitality.
The next few years are going to be an economic roller-coaster ride. That means that firm leaders are going to be challenged repeatedly not just to make fact-based decisions, but also to make some sense out of all of the conflicting and hard-to-detect signals that come through the fog and the noise. You need to get comfortable with handling gobs and gobs of ambiguity.
• Ramp up the energy level
Every successful firm, every team, and every new initiative runs on one thing: energy. And it is your job to be the energy source that others feed from. Leadership, in the end, is all about having energy, creating energy, showing energy, and spreading energy. As the firm leader you should be seen to emote, erupt, flame, and have boundless enthusiasm. The cold logic of it is unassailable: If you do not love what you're doing as a leader, then why in the world are you doing what you're doing? And why in the world would you expect anybody to follow you?
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