Monday, July 14th, 2008
A new study on coaching prepared by the American Management Association has some valuable information for law firms planning to launch coaching programs and for individual lawyers who are thinking of hiring a coach.
The study is very well researched and provides an up to date report on what’s working for coaching in organizations. You can download the report from the Canadian Management Centre website here: http://www.cmctraining.org/whitepapers/?wp_id=22
One highlight from the study looked into the most important factors in determining the success of a coaching engagement:
“The strongest correlations were found between coaching expertise and coaching success and between personality and coaching success. In general, this suggests that companies that match based on the coach’s expertise or based on complementary personalities are more likely to report successful coaching programs.”
In other words, retain coaches with experience that matches your needs and interview the candidates to ensure you find a coach who fits your personality. This just seems like common sense. If you are a lawyer looking for practice development coaching then you are best retaining a coach with experience in the legal field and practice development and interviewing them to find out if they are a good “fit” for your personality.
Don’t feel like downloading the report? Here is an excerpt of the some of the other key findings from the study:
Posted in Leadership, coaching | Permalink | No Comments »Finding One: Coaching is used by only about half of today’s companies. In the
North American sample, 52% report having such programs in place, and, in the
international sample, the proportion is 55%.Finding Two: Coaching continues to gain in popularity. Among respondents
who say their organizations don’t yet have coaching programs, a sizable proportion
(37% in the North American sample and 56% in the international sample) say such
programs will be implemented in the future.Finding Three: Coaching is associated with higher performance. Correlations do
not necessarily imply causation, but respondents from organizations that use coaching
more than in the past are also more likely to report two kinds of advantages:
1. They’re more likely to report that their organizations have higher levels of
success in the area of coaching.
2. They’re more likely to say that their organizations are performing well in the
market, as determined by self-reports in the combined areas of revenue
growth, market share, profitability, and customer satisfaction.Finding Four: Coaching is primarily aimed at boosting individual performance.
The desire to improve individual “performance/productivity” is the most widely cited
purpose of coaching.Finding Five: Clarity of purpose counts. The more a company has a clear reason
for using a coach, the more likely that its coaching process will be viewed as successful.Finding Six: Evaluating coaching’s performance may help boost success rates. The
more frequently respondents reported using a measurement method, the more likely
they were to report success in their coaching programs.Finding Seven: It pays to interview. Having an interview with the prospective
coach has the strongest relationship with reporting a successful coaching program.Finding Eight: It pays to match the right coach with the right client.Matching
people according to expertise and personality seems to be the best strategies.Finding Nine: External training seems to work best. Externally based methods of
providing training on coaching are most strongly correlated with overall coaching
success, though they are less often used.Finding Ten: Coaching’s international future looks bright. Compared with the
North American sample, organizations in the international group have not had
coaching programs in place for as long, but more in this group plan to implement
coaching programs in the future.Finding Eleven: Peer coaching needs to become more effective. Although a little
over half of responding organizations use peer coaching, only about a third of
respondents who use it consider it to be very effective or extremely effective.
Thursday, May 8th, 2008
This is a message for all my law firm readers in British Columbia.
The British Columbia Courthouse Library Society (BCCLS) is currently planning the redevelopment of the Courthouse Library Website and they would appreciate your help.
An online survey has been launched for practicing B.C. lawyers. This survey will help the BCCLS to obtain better insight into your current technology and online usage patterns as one aspect of the development process.
The short 13 question web-based survey takes approximately three minutes to complete. Please help out by taking a few moments to complete the survey and/or encourage the lawyers in your organization to take part. Your participantion will help create a more effective resource that benefits everyone in B.C.’s legal community.
Survey respondents will also be entered into a draw for one of two 8G iPod Touch music player/portable internet devices.
On behalf of the Courthouse Library Society I’d like to thank you in advance for your anticipated assistance.
Posted in Leadership | Permalink | No Comments »Friday, February 22nd, 2008
I was in Toronto this week to attend the launch of the Legal Marketing Association’s (LMA) Toronto Chapter. Eighty attendees filled the conference room at the St. Andrews Club yesterday to celebrate the launch and hear from guest speaker Marcie Borgal Shunk from BTI Consulting Group, a Boston-based business and research company.
Congratulations to LMA Toronto
First I would like to send congratulations to LMA Toronto President Nanette Matys and Board members Elizabeth Gill, Karyn McLean, Diana Lawrence, Lynda Monteith, Dianne Rychlewski, Stuart Wood and Elizabeth Cockle, for successfully undergoing the considerable work of forming a Chapter and for organizing the impressive launch event. The LMA Toronto Chapter promises to be a valuable addition to the Toronto, and indeed Canadian, legal landscape.
Top Legal Trends in 2008
Now on to the BTI Consulting Group report on the top legal trends to watch for it 2008. Of the ten trends reported the four I will report on today are:
- Outside counsel spending is slowing. After a five year period of growth the trend is now turning and “projected market growth for 2008″ is estimated at 6.1%.
- Legal work is moving in-house, AGAIN.
- Convergence is back - more dollars for fewer firms. If you aren’t one of a client’s top two law firms then your share of the wallet is getting smaller. Side note - over 50% of companies switched their primary firms in 2008. That means if you have the position of primary firm guard it closely! And if you are a secondary firm, dislodging a primary firm can result in a considerable increase in wallet share so start planning your approach now.
- The top goal for corporate counsel for the second year in a row is cost management and value for the dollar. Don’t equate lower fees with value.
What do Corporate Counsel Mean by “value for the dollar”?
Value for the dollar is the perception of the value of the work received from the lawyer, law firm. BTI reports that this is the top unmet need expressed by Corporate Counsel. If you are seeking to take over a primary law firm spot, then build your strategy around this. Value for the dollar does not mean lower legal fees. Indeed, the firms rated highest for value are also high fee firms.
BTI reported on several measures of value:
- Understanding the client’s business: This means providing solid business solutions to the client grounded in a deep understanding of the client’s business, industry, and the specific needs related to each transaction or file. The law firm invests non-billable time in learning as much as possible about the client’s business.
- Responsiveness: Responding in a timely fashion. Responsiveness is not just about responding to phone calls and emails promptly. It more generally addresses the lawyer and law firm’s ability to meet a wide-variety of client requests. For instance, on five separate occasions BTI heard from corporate counsel that when requesting quarterly instead of monthly bills from their law firms they were told by their lawyers that their accounting departments were unable to accommodate this request.
- Commitment to help: The lawyer is truly interested in helping to solve the problem not just bill the hours.
Old News
Value for money is not a new concept. The ideas listed above make up the content of a library shelf full of books. Law firms have invested countless dollars in retreats, seminars, and conferences on the topic. The question is: why is it so difficult to get this right? The answer is time. What David Maister has referred to as investment time. It takes time, non-billable time, to get this right. And time is the one thing no lawyer has today. The billable hour demands keep going up. The “investment time” any lawyer has is scarce. If you want to achieve value for money then give your lawyers the time to deliver it.
Posted in Leadership | Permalink | No Comments »Friday, February 8th, 2008
Why are business development skills more important then ever for women lawyers?
Because in my opinion as female professionals we have reached an impasse.
In the words of Alice Eagly and Linda Carli in the September 2007 issue of Harvard Buisness Review (HBR) the glass ceiling is a misnomer. There is not artificial barrier beyond which we cannot ascend but rather a labyrinth of challenges and obstacles that must be overcome throughout our careers.
The statistics tell the story:
“According to the National Association for Law Placement, a trade group that provides career counselling to lawyers and law students, only about 17 percent of the partners at major law firms nationwide [US] were women in 2005, a figure that has risen only slightly since 1995, when about 13 percent of partners were women.” New York Times, March 19, 2006
“Gender inequality continues to exist in management functions, and the increase in the number of female university graduates will not itself be sufficient to close the gap.” Women Matter, McKinsey & Company, 2007
“The latest findings from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR), released today to coincide with International Women’s Day, reveal that 38% of businesses do not have any women in senior management roles, a figure that has remained unchanged since 2004. The survey, which covers the opinions of 7,200 privately held businesses in 32 countries, represents 81% of global GDP.” Press Release, Grant Thornton, 2007.
“Consider the most highly paid executives of Fortune 500 companies – those with titles such as chairman, president, president, chief executive officer, and chief operating officer. Of this group, only 6% are women. Most notably, only 2% of the CEOs are women, and only 15% of the seats on the boards of directors are held by women.” From HBR Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership
The rising number of women graduating from law school and entering the legal profession is not enough to shift the balance. The same applies to women entering the business world with MBA’s and other professional degrees. More women entering the labyrinth doesn’t result in a corresponding rise in the number of women making it through.
Business development in this context becomes a means for advancing. It’s about taking leadership of one’s practice. It’s about determining what you want and how to get there.
Keep in mind that your female clients are experiencing the same challenges. How can you assist them? What can you do to help them get ahead?
Now it is up to each and every one of us to take this in our own hands.
“The lessening of activism on behalf of all women puts the pressure on each woman to find her own way.” From HBR Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership
In January I presented on this topic for the Legal Marketing Association (LMA) Vancouver Chapter and then again in February to the TAGLaw legal network. Watch for my upcoming article in The Lawyers Weekly.
I also recommend reading Larry Bodine’s list of ten recommendations “that law firms should adopt to reduce turnover among women lawyers, geneate more business and thus boost firm revenue” with one caveat:
Women lawyers are busier than ever. Business development activities must be implemented as a vital and strategic component of the lawyer’s own career plan. Not as yet another hoop jumping exercise.
Posted in Leadership, Business Development, Women lawyers | Permalink | 3 Comments »Monday, October 15th, 2007 Posted in Leadership | Permalink | Enter your password to view comments
Saturday, September 1st, 2007
As a business coach working with lawyers one of the most common concerns that arises for my clients is the fear of coming across as insincere and in the words of some associates I know: “salesy” or “oily”.
They have a point.
When business development is badly done that is exactly how it can come across. We have all met sales people and other professionals who have made us feel like some commodity they are trying to get off the shelf.
David Maister has drawn the analogy between our relationships with clients and our relationships with our romantic partners. In those terms, asking for business right away is like asking someone to get into bed with you on the first date.
I have even heard some business coaches tell their clients to “just get over” their reluctance to ask for business. I don’t agree. That reluctance likely stems from your own deeply held values. It comes from wanting to do the right thing. The right thing is always to focus on building a trusting relationship first. The right time to ask for the business will present itself, or in many cases the client will ask you for help. By starting with a focus on the trusting relationship you will not risk coming across as insincere or salesy.
How do you start building trust?
Start with listening.
We naturally trust those people who genuinely listen to us and take the time to understand us.
In David Maister’s post on “Earning trust when there is too little time” he writes:
“The first point I’d make is to ensure that, in the limited few interactions you can afford the time for, you succeed as coming across as sympathetic and understanding. I don’t necessarily want a lot more of my doctor’s time when I see him or her, I just want to be treated a certain way when we are together.”
Listening is the key to coming across as sympathetic and understanding. As Stephen Covey points out in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, use empathetic listening to first seek to understand, then be understood.
To get ready to do your best listening, prepare for meetings with potential clients by thinking about what challenges they might be facing. Develop a few truly thoughtful and open ended questions that you can ask them during the meeting. These are questions that will open up the conversation and help you learn more about their interests, background, work, company, and any challenges they are currently facing.
Engage your curiosity.
When the person responds, listen attentively, watch their body language, try to keep the analysis in your own head to a dull roar and instead really focus your attention on the other person. Let them know they have been heard by repeating back a little of what they have told you and then follow with another insightful question.
Insightful questions highlight your intelligence far more than a soliloquy on your experience ever could.
Posted in Leadership, Business Development | Permalink | No Comments »Sunday, August 19th, 2007
First the CBC aired its radio documentary this summer “Mother’s in Law” about the increasing exodus of women lawyers from private practice. Now in an address to lawyers at the 2007 Canadian Legal Conference held in Calgary last week none other than Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin has spoken out against the unhealthy legal business model in a panel presentation entitled “Supporting Women in the Law”.
The Globe and Mail on Wednesday August 15 offered the following quotes from Chief Justice McLachlin:
”The reality is that women entering the profession in droves have suddenly found themselves confronted with a very difficult, inflexible model of practice.”
“The strict, inflexible business model is increasingly questioned by men,” she said. “This is the question, I believe, for the future. How do we structure the way lawyers - women and men - work; the way they live, the way they serve the public?”
As a lawyer coach I see many of my clients grapple with these issues. The expectation in many big city law firms is that lawyers will work 70 to 80 hour weeks. The billable hour target for lawyers has steadily climbed, as have the demands that lawyers invest additional non-billable time in marketing and business development activities. Many male and female lawyers are no longer interested in sacrificing parenthood to their legal careers and are leaving private practice.
The lawyers I know aren’t afraid of hard work. They are not against putting in long hours. The issue is that the demands of the profession have become extreme. How will the legal profession respond to this central question raised by Chief Justice McLachlin: “How do we structure the way lawyers - women and men - work; the way they live, the way they serve the public?”
There is an opportunity here for the Canadian Bar Association to get involved by convening a task force. This is an issue that deserves to be discussed by Managing Partners and Executive Members of law firms and indeed lawyers of all year of call around the country. The legal profession will always be a hard working profession, but there are ways to adapt the business model such that it becomes more flexible, more supportive of lawyers who parent, and healthier for legal professionals in general. Law firm clients should also be involved. What are the expectations and needs of Corporate Counsel from their lawyers? The Corporate Counsel subsection could be invited to take part in these discussions.
As for making time for business development, there are many innovative ways to bring family life into the picture. Lawyers with young children can connect with other professionals and business people with children. Instead of going to a hockey game, arrange for tickets to the children’s festival. Or ask your client to bring his/her children to the game. Hold social events for parents and their children. Your clients with young children face similar time challenges. Since one of the primary goals of client entertaining is to build trust and deepen the relationship what could be better than to make the focus of these events the children who are such an important part of your clients’ lives? I know one firm that holds a large skating event for clients, lawyers and their children in December each year which is hugely successful and greatly enjoyed by all. But entertaining of this kind needn’t be so large scale, smaller scale events for key clients and contacts can be held throughout the year.
The answer to the very important issues raised by Chief Justice McLachlin and others isn’t to accept the status quo. It’s time to begin the discussion and truly explore the opportunity for revamping an old and outdated business model.
Posted in Leadership | Permalink | No Comments »Sunday, July 29th, 2007
I was speaking with my colleague Joan Paul in Calgary last week. Like me, she is a Royal Roads University trained business coach who works with lawyers. She and I like to share ideas, and collaborate on articles and projects. This week we were talking about the optimum investment of lawyers’ non-billable time in business development.
How much time do lawyers really need to invest each week in business development activities?
Joan quoted Sally Schmidt’s book “Business Development for Lawyers, Strategies for Getting and Keeping Clients”, which suggests that if you are new to the practice of law you should spend 50 to 100 hours a year or 1 to 2 hours a week. If you are a senior associate then you are advised to spend somewhere between 100 to 200 hours annually. And if you a partner rainmaker you are likely spending in the range of 250 to 500 hours a year.
Joan and I both find that the challenge for many professionals is about how then to invest this business development time for best results. Joan told me she always begins by asking her clients:
- What are the results you want to achieve and by when?
- Who is your target audience for best results?
- What is the best way to reach that audience?
- What are the skills you can capitalize on to reach out to that audience? Are you a great writer? Speaker? Networker?
- How do you hold yourself accountable for your business development activities?
- How do you market yourself inside your firm or organization?
- What’s stopping you from developing and implementing a business development plan?
These questions can serve as a guide to making the best choices. In addition I like to consider the lawyer’s network of relationships. How developed is it? For newly-called lawyers it is important to be building relationships, and raising their profile both within and without the law firm. For senior lawyers with a well established network the question is how are you keeping actively in touch with the people you know?
And always it is vital to start with current client relationships. Existing clients are the best source of new and repeat business. Communicating with clients about their level of satisfaction, their needs and concerns, is always the first place to invest.
Posted in Leadership, Business Development | Permalink | No Comments »
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
Delegation is one of those soft skills that when mastered will have a major impact on your profitability, quality of work, and overall success as a lawyer. The hitch is that like so many of these essential skills, it’s not taught in law school, and is generally not on the CLE curriculum.
This week I met with Adam Pekarsky, Director of Professional Development and Recruitment at Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP (FMC). Pekarsky is great to speak to about soft skills like delegation. He is a former securities lawyer who discovered he had a passion for training and development. He gets excited about stuff like delegation, much like a senior litigator talking about his most recent court appearance. Pekarsky’s associate training program at FMC includes a seminar on the art of delegation. Over coffee he shared the highlights with me.
Delegation from 20,000 feet.
Pekarsky started by giving me the big picture: “It’s all about leverage”.
Law is a business. There are revenues and expenses. Partners are the biggest users of overhead. They have bigger offices, use more support staff, and more resources than associates. They also have much higher rates and can generate considerably more income. Pekarsky likened them to expensive race cars. If partners don’t delegate the lower level work then it’s like “driving a formula one race car around a Safeway parking lot”.
Delegating work to others is known as spin, as in “how much work did you spin down to the associates this year?”
Really successful partners keep the high quality work for themselves and spin the rest to others. They meet their billable targets as well as generating considerable spin. Pekarsky gave the example of a partner who bills a million dollars and no spin vs. a partner who bills 700,000 dollars and spins an addition million. It’s much better for a firm’s profitability (not to mention the lawyer’s lifestyle) to bill less and spin more. And Pekarsky added, the savvy compensation committees will reward partners accordingly.
What are the other rewards of spin?
Interesting work. A lawyer who spins down the work, keeps the most interesting, highly paid work for his/herself.
Making more money. The lawyer who spins doesn’t have to write down bills and gets paid at a higher rate.
Given the advantages, why wouldn’t a lawyer delegate?
One reason lawyers don’t delegate is they don’t have enough work. They might need to hold onto every piece of work in order to meet their billable targets. But when a partner is doing all the work – including the low level stuff – it means that he/she is going to have to reduce the fees. As a result their effective billing rate lowers and they have to work more hours to hit their target. They would be better off spinning work to juniors and investing some non-billable time on marketing and business development to bring more work in the door.
Another reason is that the lawyer may have picked up the bad habit as an associate watching other lawyers at the firm. Many firms have chronic hoarders, and they set a bad example.
When is it best for associates to begin delegating?
As an associate you are ready to spin work when you are at the level where you have some experience under your belt and there’s legal work that you have done twenty times and don’t really need to do again.
Pekarsky divided delegation into two types – healthy and unhealthy.
Heathly delegation is:
- Well intended. You want to pass on a piece of work to a junior who will have a chance to learn something new.
- Based on experience. You have done this type of work many times previously and no longer have anything to learn from it.
Unhealthy delegation is:
- Getting rid of a dog file. This is when you have a tough file that you are struggling with and instead of working through the issues you just pass it to someone else.
- I’ve never done it and don’t want to. You pass some work on that you have never done yourself.
To illustrate Pekarsky offered a quote from his drama instructor at Brentwood College:
“You can’t act on a stage unless you’ve swept it.”
Or in other words don’t delegate your dirty work to subordinates and hit the golf course. Don’t unload your dog files.
What can get in the way?
Here are some of the common objections to delegation:
“I can’t delegate because it takes too much time. It’s faster if I do it myself.”
That’s true, the first time. But the second, third, tenth, thirty-eighth times, it’s faster. And by delegating you will get to spend more time on interesting work at your top billable hour. If you don’t delegate you are going to get stuck in the trenches working even longer hours for a lousy effective rate.
Another common objection is:
“I don’t trust a junior to do the work as well as I can.”
Pekarsky’s response – “drop your ego.” Successful people surround themselves with talent. Your challenge is to help develop the juniors so that they do the work as well if not better than you do.
Closing thoughts…
Delegation is one of the lawyer behaviors that need to be rewarded by compensation committees. For a law firm to be most profitable partners are required to spin work down to juniors. Savvy compensation committees look at the combination of billable hours and spin earnings when allocating partner income.
For associates, delegation is one skill to start practicing early. Share the work that has become routine with the juniors. Reach for work that is challenging.
Spin your way to more interesting work for better money. Get out of the parking lot and onto Route 66.
Posted in Leadership, Training and Retention, Compensation, Delegation | Permalink | 1 Comment »Wednesday, June 20th, 2007
For those of you who are interested in learning more about executive coaching or are thinking about working with a coach Fast Company’s blog site features a helpful introduction to coaching by Grace Andrews.
Andrews writes in her post Executive Coaching - Fuel or Folly?:
I believe that the answer to this question comes down to who is selected as the coach and how the selection process is structured. Just like most things you search for, like a good doctor, dentist, hair stylist or mechanic, it generally comes down to how well you know what you want and how good you are at researching who is the real deal versus who is a quack.
You have to be careful. I agree with Andrews that it is important to have a clear goal for what you want to get out of coaching and that you find a coach whose approach best suits you. She also provides a great list of questions for you to ask your potential coach, here are a few of them:
1. Tell me about your coaching process and philosophy? (Here, you are looking for a feel of what type of coach the person is and the length of the process, time commitment, and frequency of meetings. Also probe for some of the tools and resources the coach might use.)
2. Give me an example of a previous coaching experience that you would consider a success and what made it so?
3. How would you describe your coaching style?
4. How do you measure success?
In addition to the questions she recommends I would say look into the coach’s background. What education and training have they received? How much experience do they have? What references can they provide? Try out a couple of coaches. Many coaches will provide you with a short sample session. It’s a great way to find the coach that will work best with you. The key to achieving powerful results is in the relationship you form with the coach. It is essential to have a strong foundation of trust, respect, and communication. Don’t settle for less!
Posted in Leadership, coaching | Permalink | No Comments »
