Monday, January 29th, 2007
Coaching is a broad area of practice. There are life coaches - who help people with personal challenges and goals, career coaches - who help people with career change, and executive coaches - who help people facing issues and challenges in their professional lives. There are also numerous consultants who use coaching approaches towards their work but who have never received any professional training in the practice.
With this in mind, when is it best to work with a trained executive coach?
The answer can be found in the three levels of learning that coaching touches upon: single loop, double loop, and triple loop learning.
Single loop learning is used to describe the learning that facilitates people getting things done and improving upon current skills. Coaching in this way is an “accountability partnership”, with the coach helping the client to set goals, take action, and then “staying on” the client to ensure follow-through. Coaching for single loop learning can be implemented by lawyers mentoring their associates, by legal marketers working with lawyers and staff, and by most any other professional. Consultants without any professional training in executive coaching generally work with their clients on single loop learning.
A couple of examples of this kind of coaching are:
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A single coaching conversation with an lawyer helping her to establish some goals and actions to take in the following six months.
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A sales trainer providing coaching to lawyers who are keen on improving their rainmaking skills.
When learning needs move up one level to double loop it is time start thinking of working with a trained executive coach.
Double loop learning involves teaching people to do entirely new things, reframing a person’s perspective so that they are able to see new possibilities and are empowered to re-think and re-design their actions.
Pamela Weiss, a Master Certified Coach (MCC) has a great article on the web about the levels of coaching. In the article she describes working with double loop learning:
At this level, we help our clients learn something new. We work with the person so that they can not only accomplish a goal or task one time, but also learn to continuously do it on their own. We help open new possibilities, so the client is able to take new action. Our aim here is to teach them how to do something, rather then just telling them what to do. This requires more skill on our part, and it takes more time, more patience, and a deeper relationship with the client (p.6).
An example of double loop learning would be working with a lawyer who is averse to the idea of selling legal services but who is facing the challenge of expanding his client base.
Triple loop is in my view entirely the realm of qualified executive coaches. Triple loop learning is most valuable when a person is blocked. When the approaches and strategies they adopted successfully in the past are now holding them back.
Triple loop learning is based on the principle that the human personality is fluid. Learning at this level fundamentally transforms a person by altering their personal definition of self. Coaching at this level supports a person in adopting new characteristics and personal qualities and supports the individual in implementing entirely new strategies.
If you want to think outside of your box, triple loop learning will get you there.
An example of a situation requiring triple loop learning is a leader who has learned to use the winning strategy of micro-managing to succeed. Now, as Managing Partner, this strategy is breaking down. The leader is bogged down in details, caught up in the day to day issues, and loosing sight of the firm’s overall strategy, and goals. Triple loop learning will be required to help the leader see and acknowledge the limitations of the current strategy and empower the leader to adopt a new approach.
There has been a lot of writing on these levels of learning and coaching. If you are interested in reading more on the subject I particularly recommend Robert Hargrove’s book Masterful Coaching and Pamela Weiss’ article mentioned above. In my description of single loop learning I borrowed the term “accountability partnership” from Weiss’ work.
Posted in Executive Coaching | Permalink | 1 Comment »
Thursday, January 25th, 2007
A quick tip: The Legal Marketing Association Vancouver Chapter has just updated their web site. I was on it today and found a number of great articles in the reading room with information on networking, business development, client appreciation, and a primer on law firm finances among other topics.
The homepage also lists a number of the upcoming events. I’m looking forward to attending the lunch session on February 6 - How Public Sector Counsel Select Their Outside Counsel.
Paul Reynolds of 2nvision consulting will be leading a panel discussion with public sector in-house counsel from British Columbia on the factors influencing the decision to retain external counsel; their choice of lawyers; why they fire some firms and how they feel about various legal marketing approaches.
Reynolds held a similar session at this time last year, but with private sector in-house counsel. It was a highly informative event and the speakers shared candid feedback on their evaluation of legal service providers. One of the points I remember from that meeting was that only one of the counsel had been involved by their lawyers in a client satisfaction survey, and all of the speakers said they wished the law firms they hired would take the time to carry these out. I saw many local lawyers in the audience that day. I wonder if a few client interview programs were finally launched following that disclosure?
I look forward to learning more from the public sector counsel in February. If you plan on attending please stop by my table and say hello. You won’t be able to miss me - I’ll be the one giving the introduction!
Posted in Marketing | Permalink | No Comments »Friday, January 19th, 2007
One of the coaches I most admire is James Flaherty in San Francisco. Flaherty is the author of Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others which is truly one of the definitive texts of the profession.
Flaherty advocates five key principles for coaching: relationship, pragmatism, two-way learning, context, and full engagement.
One. The foundation of coaching is the relationship between client and coach. There must be a base of mutual trust, respect, and freedom of expression. The coach and client have to be able to speak clearly and openly with each other. In the coaching relationship, feedback, insights, and observations are respectfully and honestly shared between both parties, coach to client, client to coach. Complete confidentiality is demanded on the part of the coach.
In law firms this lawyer-coach relationship creates a new space for learning that I believe has never before existed in the profession. Mentor-associate relationships involve one-way feedback, as do evaluations, and other regimented feedback mechanisms. For the first time there is the opportunity for a professional to “look in the mirror” as it were and obtain neutral feedback, while at the same time providing feedback for the coach on her own performance.
Two. Coaching is essentially pragmatic. The goals set are practical and observable. The coach is always observing the outcomes and self-correcting along the way. Flaherty writes:
…it’s a discipline that requires freshness, innovation, and relentless correction according to the outcomes being produced. In other words it is invalid for a coach to say, “I did everything right, but the coaching didn’t work.” My view is that the coach who makes that statement wasn’t self-correcting as he went along, and instead followed a rote routine that may have worked before (p. 11).
Three. The principle of two-way learning means that both the client and the coach are engaged in a learning experience. On one hand is the work the coach does with the client. On the other, the coach works on herself. She must be vigilant in self-observing, checking assumptions, and remaining focused.
Often coaching fails because of the blindness, prejudice, stubbornness, or rigidity of the coach, and not because of the “uncoachability” of the client (p. 12).
Four. The next principal, context, emphasizes that as adults we come to everything we do with a personal history. We all have our own perspectives, view of the world, commitments, and take on things. Flaherty does not advocate giving up on the “tough cases”, or in other words the individuals who are not instantly motivated to try something new, or who are in some way “stuck”. This is particularly valuable in the law firm context where, given the conservative nature of the profession, the majority of professionals will be cautious, and at times seemingly unmotivated, to try new behaviors and approaches. In many cases, the “unmotivated” individual, is in fact very motivated, just not by the stimuli or methods that have been presented! As one lawyer said to me about a behavior a sales trainer was asking him to adopt: “That just isn’t me. I am never going to be one of those people that does that.” All people are attached to a particular way of being in the world. Coaching must be adapted to fit individuals.
Five. The fifth principle is that coaching calls for the full engagement of the coach with the client. This means that the coach does not rely on a series of techniques to influence the client’s behavior. Coaching does follows a structure, and employs tools and learning exercises, but it never relies on a set formula.
Flaherty advocates an approach to coaching that is authentic, rigorous, and most importantly for clients, powerfully effective. The coaches are engaged in continual learning and are responsible for their actions. Coaching of this nature is designed around both short-term and long-term objectives. In the short-term the coach supports the client’s progress towards set goals, while at the same time enhancing the competence of the client to take on new challenges in the future.
Posted in Executive Coaching | Permalink | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007
In several of my blog posts since December I have been stressing the importance of strategic planning. A lot of time, money, and effort gets wasted because lawyers and law firms engage in meaningless acts of marketing. Strategic plans are the most important tool for ensuring you act wisely. In order to help you to accomplish this, I have developed a rough guide to strategic planning, which I will share with you in blog posts over the next month.
The first chapter of my guide starts with Mission, Vision, and Values - three simple concepts that are easy to get mixed up.
Your Mission Statement describes what your firm does and who your clients are. It captures the very essence of your practice – the relationship with the client. A Mission Statement is focused on what you do in the present.
A Vision Statement describes how the future will look if the firm achieves its mission. A Mission Statement gives the overall purpose of an organization, while a Vision Statement describes a picture of the preferred future result your firm is after. Your Vision Statement will tell a compelling story about the future you are going to create.
Once you have your Mission and Vision figured out, it is important to take some time to think about values. Values are the core beliefs at the heart of your firm’s culture, and are the foundation of all the actions you will take, and investments you will make.
Here is a list of questions to guide you through the process of determining your firm’s Mission, Vision, and Values. You can also use these questions for developing your own personal plan.
Mission questions:
What do we do?
Who do we do it for?
What is the benefit to the clients?
Vision questions:
What do we ultimately want to achieve with our practice – in terms of service to others?
What do we want the firm to be known for?
What reputation do we wish the firm to have in the business, legal, or other communities?
Value questions:
What professional and personal attributes do we value most?
What professional and personal qualities do we wish to be known for in the legal community and by our clients?
What qualities and attributes do we wish to characterize our firm?
The answers to these questions form the foundation of your plan. The next step is strategy. Stay tuned for that next week!
If you have your own questions and ideas on this topic, I would really enjoy hearing from you. I am always interested in learning powerful new questions for exploring Missing, Vision, and Values. If you have some you’d like to share, or other suggestions, please add them in a comment below or send me an email.
Posted in Marketing, Goals, Planning | Permalink | No Comments »Tuesday, January 9th, 2007
“In its rough form, a diamond is a lusterless, translucent crystal that resembles a chip of broken glass. For it to be transformed into a jewel, it must be cut into a particular gem shape and then polished, facet by facet.” (Edward Jay Epstein)
A colleague recently told me how at her firm, practice group marketing was the domain of the partners, with the associates kept, for the most part, out of the loop. Yet at the same time, the firm runs a highly developed training program for associates with a marketing and business component – so what gives?
This post applies to all firms with associates. If you’ve got them use them. Young lawyers can be creative, enthusiastic, hard working, and dedicated contributors to your firm’s marketing efforts. Introduce them to your clients from the start. Promote their involvement in client events. Provide them with some training and give them a chance to put it into action. Get them involved in organizing seminars and events. Set them up with speaking opportunities. Encourage them to develop personal marketing plans. Compensate them for their marketing efforts.
I have seen how associates, when given these opportunities from their first year of call, develop into valuable members of client teams, bring in referrals, generate new business, and are prepared to become positive additions to the firm’s partnership when the time comes.
Easier said then done of course! There are many hurdles along the way in the form of compensation complaints, disinterested and uninspired lawyers who just want to grind hours, and the usual pressure of the billable hour. But at every firm you will find some associates who GET IT. They might like working with the clients, be interested in business development, have great networking skills, or enjoy writing articles.
The key is to take the time, one-on-one, with each individual associate to discover their interests and abilities and match these to an appropriate part of your firm’s marketing program. The result will be a committed team of associate marketers, who contribute in more ways then one to the success of the firm.
Posted in Training and Retention, Marketing | Permalink | No Comments »Saturday, January 6th, 2007
Kevin O’Keefe’s post today “Decline in enthusiasm for law blogging? Hogwash” addresses some recent discussion that law blogs have reached their peak. I agree with Kevin that legal blogging is far from peaking, and I thought I might be able to provide a little bit of a Canadian perspective on this.
Legal blogs are in their infancy over here. For the vast majority of lawyers in Vancouver blogs were “too new” and “too untried” for their liking until recently. We do have a small number of legal bloggers out here, such as Lang Michener’s Law of the Land Blog, and Clark Wilson’s Canadian Trademark Blog, but the trend is only just emerging. Just visit Steve Matthews blog roll for the complete list of Canadian law blogs. The number currently stands at about 60 law blogs Canada-wide.
In November 2006 the Legal Marketing Association Vancouver Chapter held a Blogging Panel. The panel provided a group of local lawyers and legal marketers a chance to learn more about how blogs work and to ask a number of questions. The top concerns for the lawyers here were: (1) How much time is it going to take? (2) Does blog content constitute a legal opinion? And in the same vein, (3) how can a lawyer ethically and safely blog on legal topics? The panelists answered these questions most effectively and as a result we are going to have at least two new legal blogs arise from just the small group that attended.
I predict that in the next year, as lawyers and law firms become more comfortable with the medium, we are going to see the emergence of many more legal blogs in Canada, and that this number is going to escalate fast in the next three years.
Let’s not forget, less than ten years ago, many law firms here didn’t even have a web site!
Posted in Marketing | Permalink | No Comments »
Friday, January 5th, 2007
Lawyers, legal marketers, administrators, if you do one thing today have a quick look at Seth Godin’s blog. He offers up a most eloquent distinction between strategy and tactics, and sends us a valuable reminder on when it is time to re-think strategy. Here’s an excerpt:
Here’s the difference: The right strategy makes any tactic work better. The right strategy puts less pressure on executing your tactics perfectly.
Here’s the obligatory January skiing analogy: Carving your turns better is a tactic. Choosing the right ski area in the first place is a strategy. Everyone skis better in Utah, it turns out.
If you are tired of hammering your head against the wall, if it feels like you never are good enough, or that you’re working way too hard, it doesn’t mean you’re a loser. It means you’ve got the wrong strategy.
Here’s the big question for consideration. Are your tactics bringing in the big wins or are they just barely keeping your head above water?
For another story that describes the distinction between strategy and tactics we can look to the Second World War when Winston Churchill proposed the strategy:
“Attack the soft underbelly of Europe.”
This strategy determined the tactic of advancing on the German empire from North Africa, Egypt, to Sicily, and through Italy. The strategy was dead on. The tactics worked.
Here’s the caveat. Once we have bought into a strategy, and are deep into tactics, it’s easy to loose sight of the distinction. When the tactics fail or underperform it is tempting to look to different tactics rather than back to the strategic vision and plans.
In addition, many lawyers, administrators, and legal marketers, are trapped in a tactical silo, as so many firms still lack the strategic plans that come first.
If your firm, practice group, client team, or your own practice is struggling, take the time this January to review and re-think your strategy and ask:
“What is our strategy?” This should be answered in one or two sentences.
“Is this strategy paying off?” If not, “what’s working?” “What’s not?” “What could make a difference?”
And if you don’t have a strategy, make this the year that you develop one.
Posted in Strategy, Marketing, Goals | Permalink | No Comments »
Thursday, January 4th, 2007
Is there any more contentious issue at law firms then compensation systems? At most of the firms I have worked with there is dissatisfaction with the current system but nobody wants to take on the challenge of developing something new.
In late 2005, I attended a seminar held by David Maister in Seattle. When he opened the floor up for questions a lawyer immediately brought up the issue of compensation systems and a long and fiery conversation ensued. The merits and drawbacks of performance-based compensation systems vs. lock-step systems were debated at length.
Maister advocates for a compensation system that emphasises a firm’s active management of performance. I recommend his blog post of April 3, 2006 for a valuable review of the two systems. Here’s an excerpt:
The disadvantage of pay-for-performance compensation systems is that they provide a wonderful excuse not to manage. If someone’s performance is down, instead of management seeing that there is an obligation to go help that person, they have a wonderful cop-out. They say – “We cut his pay. We’ve done our job. The rest is up to him or her.”
Contrast this with what happens in a system where everyone gets a relatively fixed salary or share of profits, which changes as you get more seniority – if you survive.
In such a system (often called a lockstep system because people move in lockstep up the pay scale), if someone underperforms, you have only two choices. You either (a) work with that person and help them improve to deserve the same income as their peers or (b) if you cannot restore them to full share, you have to ask them to leave. Notice that having lockstep without the guts to deal with performance issues is clearly a disaster! A fixed-share or fixed salary system FORCES YOU to manage, ie to be intolerant of underperformance.
In other words, by not paying for performance, you end up with higher performance by tackling performance issues. By paying for performance, you get less performance because the system allows you to accommodate underperformance.
I have always been a fan of lock-step compensation systems. I began my legal career with an international law firm based in London. When the firm opened their New York office one of the attractions they offered their lateral hires was lock-step partnership. At the time, the New York office Managing Partner conducted many interviews with the US legal press on the advantages of the lock-step system. The system gave the international firm a great deal of flexibility in deploying their lawyers strategically around the globe. The New York office Managing Partner was a top-class securities lawyer from London. Because of the lock-step system he was able to move from London to the New York office to support the expansion even though it meant his billings were significantly reduced for a number of years.
Now many years later in Vancouver, one of the complaints I hear from many partners is that firms do not adequately encourage nor support them in managing practice groups, nor in engaging in business development activities. When I have spoken with these partners about the problem I have learned that for some the issue is a lack of flexibility in the compensation system for billable hour targets when a fee earner is undertaking additional managerial responsibilities.
In Vancouver we have yet to see anything approaching a lock-step system. I did though recently learn that a local law firm has taken the bold step of implementing a blended form of compensation which rewards the performance of the team rather than the individual.
Over lunch in late December, Simon Taylor from Catalyst Consulting told me about some very interesting work he had been doing with a Vancouver mid-sized firm. Working with the Managing Partner, he has helped the firm design and implement a compensation system that rewards the work of the practice group. Individual partner’s compensation is tied to the performance of the practice groups they are involved in. One of the measures of performance is client satisfaction. The firm has implemented a client satisfaction survey. Lawyers are only compensated when they reach a level of client satisfaction of 94% or higher. The goal of the system is to reward teamwork in the practice group, and promote an emphasis on client service.
This compensation system is basically saying “we will reward you for achieving this set goal”. That works fine for the lawyers who naturally work in this manner. But for the others, how is the firm going to help them to learn the new behaviors required to succeed? Incentives alone are not enough. They don’t get around the essential work of managing the people and supporting their efforts to adapt to the new system.
What I wonder is, what is the firm doing to support the lawyers in effectively managing their practice groups? How is the firm helping the lawyers to deliver this outstanding service? How is the firm setting up these lawyers to succeed?
I spoke with Simon this morning and he will be adding a comment today that elaborates on the above. Thanks Simon!
Posted in Business Development, Compensation | Permalink | 2 Comments »Monday, January 1st, 2007
Goals - make them bold. Make them powerful. Make them compelling.
Learn - something new every day. Watch and listen for the lessons that will present themselves.
Enjoy - the journey. Tie your happiness to the process, not the outcome.
The joy is in the doing. I have a friend who recently launched a new boutique law firm. He has big goals for his firm, and lots of hard work ahead. And you know what? He is having the time of his life, because he enjoys being a legal entrepreneur. He likes the management of the practice as much as the practice itself, and his enthusiasm is contagious. His first six months have been very successful, and his clients like the feel of the new firm.
What is working for my friend is that his personal interests, goals, and the process are all in alignment. When you are making your own plans this year, consider a similar strategy. What goals are most meaningful to you? What actions can you take to move your plans forward that resonate with your own personal interests? What would you most like to invest your time in?
Posted in Goals | Permalink | No Comments »
