Latent talent: How to align partner development with firm strategy

Des Woods and Nigel Spencer discuss how to align partner development with firm strategy

Des Woods discusses how to develop an effective firm strategy and Nigel Spencer considers which L&D activities can best support this agenda

 

Four things you will learn from this masterclass:

1. The relationship between '¨firm strategy and partner development'¨
2. Why you should set a development agenda for partners’ leadership roles'¨
3. Which areas of leadership development to focus upon '¨in partners'¨
4. How to maximise the impact '¨of learning and development programmes

 

What is an effective strategy in a professional services firm (PSF)? We are often confronted with this issue. Some firms simply exist in their markets, others have detailed plans that have been painfully negotiated but never move past the paper they are written on, and many firms have bold ambitions but no focused actions. It is the firms that manage to turn focused strategic thinking into focused actions that will win in the disrupted and volatile market we will experience in the coming years.

In general terms, the professional service sector is in a period of consolidation. There is heavy pressure on fees and a need to provide increasingly sophisticated buyers with a means of differentiating between very similar suppliers. With so many ‘mirror image’ firms competing for the same clients and people, if a firm is not clear about how it will differentiate itself, its ability to persuade people to select it over its competitors will be dramatically reduced.

An effective PSF strategy is not:

• a well written and argued document – though it helps;'¨

• a thorough analysis of the market and competitors – though that helps too;'¨

• a list of ambitious objectives – they '¨are needed, but are only dreams; or'¨

• a broad range of actions to please everyone – though it may feel like '¨it should be.

An effective PSF strategy is:

• the activities of partners as they operate in the market – matching '¨the clients’ experience to the strategic purpose of the firm;'¨

• clarity of purpose and the application of limited resources, painful as it '¨may be to define, allocate and '¨maintain these;'¨

• every partner understanding in a similar way which clients the firm needs, the type of work the firm will do and, critically, what the firm will not do;'¨

• what gives the firm’s target and key clients the confidence to use the firm – because of the credentialising reputation of clients, the work the firm is known for and what distinguishes it from its competitors; and'¨

• something which provides busy partners with the means of navigating in-the-moment decisions about what to do and what not to do, by focusing their efforts on delivering the firm’s strategy.'¨

Typical practice partners are bright overachievers who engage in a continuous series of sprints focused on executing '¨their work for their clients, rather than '¨on the firm itself. They don’t typically '¨read the corporate plan or work steadily '¨to deliver it.

Every so often, they come up for air, have a bit of discretionary time and then dive back down into the needs of the client in front of them. If they sprint off in different directions, the firm is just a collection of jobbing professionals sharing the same building. If they sprint in roughly the same direction, the firm has a cohesive strategy.
In this article, Des Woods, chairman at Møller PSF Group Cambridge, gives an update on law firm strategy, while Nigel Spencer, director of learning and development at Reed Smith, talks about the L&D input needed to help the firm’s leaders to implement the strategy.

Awakening leadership attributes

Every partner is a leader. They hold an unusual position as both managers sitting at the top of an organisational hierarchy and also holding a ‘brand’ as owner, principal, key direction-setter and entrepreneur in their firms: not just with more junior professionals, but also with each other and clients. As such, the issue is not if they are leaders, but rather whether they are good or bad leaders.

All partners are under an intense and continuous scrutiny of their behaviours, motives and intentions. Their role modelling of the effort, quality and direction of their work informs everyone around them, for good or ill.

The need for strategy to provide '¨points of focus and to align these in the behaviour of each partner is critical to the firm’s ability to succeed in its aims. For example, a firm that holds itself out as international in its capability but only ever lets its client work with a couple of partners and associates living and working in London is not delivering the right strategic message. Furthermore, the firm needs to consider if its partners need development support to underpin their capabilities in these areas that are defined as strategically important.

The typical drivers of strategic differentiation for firms in today’s markets are trending towards:

• client intimacy: getting very close to the client’s business and personal agendas; '¨

• efficient work delivery: providing service not just to a high perceived quality, but also in a cost assured and efficient way; and '¨

• commerciality: focusing primarily on client outcomes and not on the nature of the professional work done to achieve this.

These drivers represent significant challenges for firms, whose professionals didn’t – initially at least – sign up to '¨the profession to sell or love supply-chain logistics, lean management or whatever else is driving their clients’ business models. Ultimately, however, a firm’s strategy lays out the personal '¨development agenda for its partners, '¨who need to learn and grow new '¨skills, tactics and techniques to '¨compete effectively.

Aligning strategy with leadership

It is useful to compare this development agenda with one of the best-known models of professional leadership, developed by Tom DeLong et al.¹ Figure 1 provides an adapted version of their model. The elements of the framework illustrated are all interrelated, and the link with delivering on the strategic and client imperatives which a firm defines for itself touches many areas of it.

 

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Figure 1: The producing-managing-leading framework of professional firm leaders

Note: published with the permission of Harvard Business Press

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As graphically represented in the model, the ability to lead a firm strategically, give direction, gain commitment and drive execution all ultimately link to the individual actions and abilities demonstrated by the firm’s partners, whose personal example will be the key determinant in whether a firm’s strategy gains momentum.

Perhaps the most obvious link between a firm’s strategy and the leadership model is the area of direction. As noted by Delong, one key activity which can sound relatively straightforward, but is often overlooked, is the importance of clear and precise goal setting. A firmwide plan/strategy will only come alive in partners’ minds when they are clear about the daily actions and activities that are required of them between their periods of intense, client-facing busyness. Clarity on goals is vital to ensuring partners deliver on other key elements of the framework: communicating to others their part in the plan and reinforcing that progress is being made in the right direction.

This clarity of goals as granular actions leading towards a longer-term objective has long been recognised as a fundamental prerequisite to creating followership and momentum in social groups, whether it is to generate support for successful strategy implementation or to generate buy-in to change programmes – which strategy implementation often involves. John Kotter’s classic advice on how to motivate others to mobilise behind a leader in his eight-step model for leading change reiterates the same point.²

Partners who are managing groups or offices need to allow their teams to readily understand which of their own and their teams’ daily activities will help with implementing the firm’s strategy. This will enable them to give regular feedback and show them that both individually (as practice groups/offices) and collectively (as a firm) the targets are not only realistic but that, for example, steps 1, 2 and 3 have been reached and step 4 is in sight.

This clarity of goals also enhances other areas of DeLong’s model, making it possible to communicate in a motivating and energising way. It allows the leader to demonstrate his passion, give credit to others for helping to achieve early goals and to recognise the ‘right’ behaviours which are key to the firm’s progress.

Another area of the model not to be overlooked is the execution phase, especially as a key element of successful teams and leadership is holding each other accountable for achieving strategic goals.

This is where professional firms often falter: it can be relatively straightforward to look forward and know what the firm should do, where it should focus and, importantly for strategy, what it needs to stop doing in order to focus on the most important elements. But this analysis still requires a leader to ‘map’ the present onto the future and decide upon the steps and changes that are more possible. The leader will need to determine what will generate the greatest support among partner groups to generate a coalition of advocates supporting the forward trajectory.

L&D activities

To help partners to develop the capabilities needed for delivering on all of these needs, learning and development activities can be a useful tool. There are two main ways in which these have been successfully employed by firms.

First, some firms have developed a curriculum of L&D programmes at partner level which develop what the firm sees as core skills the partners will need to develop in order to implement its strategy. The challenge here is to ensure that the programmes are flexible enough to evolve with the firm’s strategy – they should be regularly revisited in close collaboration with the firm’s leadership.

The best way to ensure that these programmes implement the model in Figure 1 is to mix both reflective and experiential techniques. Given the skills development needed for successful strategy implementation, L&D sessions are particularly useful as they can be a challenging but safe environment for this development; partners can also simultaneously build stronger relationships as a group.

Tools such as 360-degree feedback can also be very helpful in holding up a mirror to individuals where change is necessary to align with the strategic direction of the firm. Given that research proves that cross-selling at partner level only happens where levels of trust are high, the relationship building through this style of learning is very much a strategic element. Building relationships that will enable honest interaction and greater peer challenging will allow the firm’s leader group to better execute the plan they have developed.

A second way in which L&D activities can support the firm’s strategy implementation is to exploit the need '¨of partners to be personally involved in '¨the firm’s decision making by running one-off events specifically linked to the clarification and implementation of the firm’s strategy. This approach is particularly valuable for helping with the execution aspects of strategy.

Known as accelerated learning events, these involve seeking views from around the leadership group in structured 1:1 interviews before the event to clarify strategic issues, particularly which elements of the firm’s strategy need to be discussed in more detail or finessed.

Following this activity, a limited number of themes are formed and agreed to be the subject of focused discussion during the meeting. All stakeholders then attend the meeting, work in small groups to input their views into the strategic issues and reach action-oriented decisions on some strategic issues at the event (often by majority voting). Where there are unresolved issues on specific details of the strategy, specific issue-focused teams are formed to continue the work, having been given a strict timeline to report back to the board and take action.

Such events have been used for many years within the strategy groups of the '¨big four accountancy firms to gain support and views on strategic issues. They have also been used successfully at some '¨large international law firms to drive strategy implementation.

Uniting the firm

The development of partners is about providing a compelling sense of direction that all of the firm’s people can unite behind, building and sustaining a culture that persuades people to commit to the firm and what it stands for, and driving execution to a level that differentiates '¨the firm from its competitors.

The three roles of producer, manager and leader (which are inherent in what every partner does) must be delivered as an integrated set of behaviours focused on delivering even more effective service delivery – it is the only true way to differentiate.

Partners are the culture in a professional firm – what they say and do determines what gets done and how it gets done. This puts personal example at the core of the leadership task. When partners act together to deliver an unsurpassed level of service in a way '¨that truly differentiates, they are part of what is probably the most effective organisation on the planet.

Developing partners in a PSF cannot be achieved solely through traditional skills-based or process-heavy learning. Development must be linked to a partner’s personally-held beliefs and based on practical evidence that developing their leadership capabilities will improve their performance, their people’s performance and, ultimately, the firm’s performance. '¨The learning itself should be challenging, fast, near-to-practice and developed with their involvement and permission.

 

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Ensuring learning and development programmes are effective

There are two basic rules to bear in mind when designing and delivering learning '¨to partners:

1. partners will only turn up if they believe the time spent on learning will outweigh the time lost by not servicing clients; and

2. the learning should be immediately relevant and delivered in a visibly time-efficient way by professionally credible people.

• Design courses without the personal involvement of the partners.'¨'¨

• Have content that focuses on managing a process.'¨'¨

• Have courses that last too long. '¨'¨

• Provide training that has a significant follow-on process built into it, i.e. asking partners to behave in a particular way or do a particular task as a result of the course. '¨

• Present topics as a challenge to current competence (e.g. selling skills because you need it).'¨

• Treat partners as ‘populations’ (with the exception of new partners), e.g. '¨mid-career partners or those who have plateaued and distinctly resent being labelled in this way.

'¨Do

• Provide intellectually stimulating content, such as data-led, research-based content or near to practice types of case studies based on real organisations and events. '¨

• Have high-reputation speakers who occupy similar or greater status to the self-perceptions of participating professionals and can translate their knowledge into the professional’s language and world view. '¨

• Provide content that addresses the immediate or short-term needs of the partner, e.g. negotiating fees with clients. '¨

• Ensure content is bespoke to the current world view of the participant, i.e. provide coaching that fits with their agendas. '¨

• Offer the opportunity to network and share perspectives with professionals of similar or greater reputation.'¨

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des.woods@mollerpsfgcambridge.com; nspencer@reedsmith.com

Endnotes

1. See When Professionals Have to Lead, T.J. Delong, J.J. Gabarro, R. Lees, Harvard Business Press, 2007

2. See Leading Change, J.P. Kotter, Harvard Business Press, 1996