Running a law firm just got a whole lot different. Working remotely is at the centre of that and I know lots of law firms and legal businesses are planning their next normal. There is of course no single answer – the world is unlikely to abandon the office entirely, but similarly I doubt many of us will ever return to the old style office permanently. Many firms had already made significant steps towards distributed models, flexible lawyering and management teams spread across the world. For others legacy IT and a sense that more junior staff would be lazy if they were to work at home meant they were completely unprepared.
As firms start to plan a return to offices, they are asking themselves how much floor space they really need and what the layout should look like. Faced with a year or two of lower demand will law firms and legal business need less people? Row upon row of cellular offices looks more like a vanity statement than a modern office. And rows of hot desks look like an invitation to the virus to visit your office more frequently. It will need to be flexible to handle second and third waves of the pandemic, peaks and troughs in work and able to cope with the restructuring of firms that is likely - be that lateral hires, mergers, closing struggling departments or collaborating with clients and other providers.
A month into lockdown I made some
predictions
about factors that were likely to be good predictors for those that will thrive and survive in this changed environment, highlighting a strong balance sheet; being tech enabled; really understanding consumers and their changing needs; and,
managing risk including a proper focus on resilience. I think that I should have added high quality leadership to that list.
What sort of leadership do firms need in 2021 compared to 2019? Of course, it will depend on the firm’s strategy, but that strategy will be different – perhaps fundamentally. Perhaps firms will be thinking of mergers or take overs for the first time to consolidate property costs. Working on multiple locations may become essential or impossible. Needing to deliver on-line and remotely to clients has become essential for some work, including an improved ability to collaborate. There may also be increased pressure for value billing, fixed fees and lower pricing. There won’t be many firms that were thriving before the pandemic that can expect to continue to thrive without making any changes.
Leaders need to be able to thrive in these changing and uncertain times. If they do not welcome the challenge they are probably not the right people for the role. How many law firms have the capacity to test their leader’s resolve? If ever there was a time for non-executives in law firms it is now. It is too late for partners to wait until the next voting round and say ‘you didn’t handle the pandemic well so it is time for a change’. Leadership needs to be pro-active at executive and Board level. And that requires clear lines of sight on performance with balanced scorecards, pulse tests of morale, closeness to customers and market trends, and a clear strategic vision rooted in this new world.
How do leaders hold themselves to account? Non-executives are crucial and part of good governance. Feedback is similarly important – it is a crucial part of the learning and development loop alongside clear goals and a genuine desire to achieve. I always told my teams that there is no such things as good or bad feedback – there is just feedback and it is always a gift. Leaders need to seek out feedback but that does not seem to me to be a common part of law firm governance and management. It is shame.
In a recent
Harvard Business Review article
(bought to my attention by Wilfried Aubron at Elevate) written by Jennifer Porter, there are great tips on getting honest and productive feedback. It stresses among other things, the importance of creating a safe psychological space that removes the risks in giving honest feedback. If a leader cannot create a space where other colleagues feel safe offering feedback they are not much of a leader in my view. Culture underpins everything a law firm does and it is probably the single biggest predictor of success in change or transformation programmes.
Porter also points to the need for feedback to be to be focused on behaviours. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use tools specifically designed for gathering, analysing, collating and presenting feedback. 360 degree feedback tools are common in other industries but as we
highlighted previously,
law firms have tended to shy away from their use. I suspect that this is because they are badly executed and not well designed for law firm partnerships.
I have spent some of the last 12 months working with Michael Coates at Protostar leadership development to develop 360 tools specifically designed for law firms. One is focused on the most senior partner, another for others in important leadership positions and the third for those that aspire to these positions and are getting ready for their next step. They have been developed based on Michael’s experience providing more than two thousand 360 feedback sessions across the world, and with the support of senior lawyers in a range of firms. Take a look at these
law firm dedicated tools
and if you contact Michael let him know you read about it here and he might give you a little discount! Or
e-mail me.
As ever with major events, everything will change and everything will stay the same. The very best leaders see the risks and navigate them, find the opportunities and seize them, create a compelling vision and take people with them. Most of all they remain humble and recognise that if they seek out and value feedback, act on it systematically and put values and behaviours at the centre of their business they will be a leader that others aspire to emulate.
