Business development | Change means going forwards, not back

"The organisations we created have ?become tyrants. They have taken control, holding us fettered, creating barriers that hinder rather than help our businesses. The lines that we drew on our neat organisational diagrams have turned ?into walls that no one can scale or penetrate or even peer over."

Zero Space: Moving Beyond Organisational Limits by Frank Lekanne and René Tissen

I spent 14 years in practice. In most businesses that would be an age and you would expect to see change of some sort. Not seismic in all cases, but at least movement beyond zero on the innovation meter. However, I can honestly say that legal practice wasn't just resistant to change, it positively blocked it at every turn.

It may be one cliché too far, but since when did any great, dare I say, world-class business become that way by standing still? You know, driving the strategic bus by constantly looking in the rear view mirror.

Of course all those hardened, seen it, done it brigade will always sit on the fence or crow from the side lines that if the business sticks to the knitting, and deliver on their word that the good ship PEP will keep rolling in. But we all know that this Dickensian view is a fallacy. Not least because clients will decide more or less what you do. The simple point. If you don't provide them with what they want or need, they will go elsewhere. In the glory days, they were ignorant because the choice didn't exist but with so many offerings coming up the rails, even those practices that thought their firms immutable from change are having to address the reality that they may even have to open for lunch.

I appreciate that this message is a little threadbare now but even if you have refreshed the technology, buffed up your website and started to think about business development, the fundamental aspects of your business remain static: people management, training, leadership and systems development.

Word on the street

Right now, there will be a few partners jumping up and down, chastising me for my ignorance of their business. But, having spoken at my fair share of legal events, I can tell you that the word on the street (or should I say shop floor) is that the good ship out-of-date still looks much the same. And, if I needed proof, you can think about putting this in your pipe. The biggest differentiator for any professional service firm is its people. If that's right then how many firms have:

1. Thought of transforming their firms by "first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it"? (Jim Collins, Good to Great)

2. Invested serious money in people development. And I don't mean the obligatory CPD, but proper management training with a world-?class centre of excellence?

3. Despatched a few of the elephants in the room, like underperforming partners, or addressed those people that are holding the firm back?

4. Installed a first class and recognisable mentoring or management programme?

?I know that many of you will scoff at this list, not least because of the P&L constraints but, frankly, until you address these and other soft issues, it's pointless going ?round the houses about change. It just ?won't happen.

Even if all this people stuff seems like hard work, you could try appointing someone to sort out the internal grunge. Tom Peters calls them a 'Chief Hurdle Removal Officer' (CHRO). I suspect that that is bit too tongue in cheek for most but rather than allowing the managing partner to get mired in the goo, why don't you find someone, preferably from outside the industry, whose sole objective is to turn all those yawn-worthy and verbose to-do lists into action plans. I wouldn't have any great expectations in the early days, but, over the long haul if the partnership is prepared to cede more than a miniscule amount of control and not have to convene meeting after meeting to ratify every decision then you might just get things moving forward.

Redefine and refine

One final point to bear in mind. It's great to see projects take off, and I'm a firm believer that more often than not execution determines, or at least influences, the strategic direction of a department. But, if you are not careful, with all this unblocking going on and tactical frenzy you might just wake up one morning to discover you have turned the firm into something distant from the vision you had in mind. I recognise how hard it is to redefine or refine who or what you are - your vision, purpose and mission. But take it from someone who spent many years in the trenches, having a great leader is one thing, but knowing the general trajectory is essential when it comes to getting yourself up for another month of fee earning.

And without wanting to get into ?the semantics, what you do is a given. ?How you do it is usually well articulated. But why you do it (and not the money) ?is much harder. Nail that one and unblock the thinking on change, and you might ?just find that you need more than the obligatory away day to capture the brilliant ideas that pour forth.

Change. Who's up for it?