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A Fable on Seeing the Possibilities and Having a Positive Attitude
There was once a fool who was thin and poor. He had no luck and wanted to travel to find the wise man to ask why he had no luck. On the way he met a skinny wolf. The wolf … Continue reading →
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Career Progression for Lawyers – Transitions and Reinventions
For many associates there isn’t a great feeling of career advancement. One senior L&D director describes it as more like a process of walking across a barren desert with tumbleweed blowing across a...
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How General Carl von Clausewitz Would Run a Law Firm
Many of the early great thinkers about management and leadership took their ideas from the military world. The words ‘strategy’ and ‘tactics’ originated in the armed forces. So it’s interesting to...
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Why Professional Firms Should Use Scenario Planning – Radical Changes are...
If you’re happy making incremental changes to your strategies or business models, you won’t need to read this. But if you sense there are potentially big changes afoot, this blog article might be an...
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What Law Firms Could Learn from Henry Ford
Erica Andersen has written a great piece in Forbes magazine with 21 pithy quotes from the great industrialist Henry Ford. He is probably a great man to listen to. He was a relentless technological...
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Why Managing Matters is a Serious Matter
Are lawyers good project managers? Some don’t think so and I’m afraid I probably agree! I run workshops with senior associates on the subject and I usually start by asking the question ‘whose job is it...
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Why Lawyers need Juggling and Helicopter Pilot Skills
Lawyers are bright. They get the easy stuff quickly. So when I ask them who are the stakeholder groups they need to focus on when managing matters, they correctly identify the top three: Clients The...
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The Camel Fable – a Way of Resolving Dilemmas
A man on his deathbed specifies that his first son should receive half his camels, his second son a third of his camels and his third son a ninth of his camels. Nice and clear. His camels are collected...
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How Lawyers Could Benefit from a Wimbledon Tennis Coach
In my coaching work, I’ve become increasingly aware that the self critical outlook of lawyers is part of the problem. I consistently hear lawyers saying ‘I’m no good at selling’ or something similar....
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The First 100 Days – A Coaching Programme for New Partners
What a big step it is to go from senior associate to partner. To go from a ‘middle’ to a ‘top’. All those new responsibilities. A sense that the buck now stops with you. All those decisions to make....
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Should Leaders be Loved or Feared?
Niccolo Machiavelli hedged his bets when answering this question and said “one should wish to be both”. But he went on to say “because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to...
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Powerful Selling Questions – Here’s a Hierarchy
Eric Vogt, a strategy and leadership consultant, has considered how to phrase powerful questions and has spotted some fascinating patterns. Those of us needing to be better at selling could learn a lot...
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Selling Strategies for Mid-Size Firms
Are the global elite firms unstoppable? What should mid-size firms do to compete, other than merge to get bigger or get taken over? I believe there are several attractive value propositions for...
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Why Leadership Training Typically Fails
Let’s face it, you can’t really teach leadership in a classroom. Yet loads of partners go off to business schools such as Harvard, INSEAD, LBS where they review case studies and learn about techniques...
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Got that Summer Over and Back-to-Work Feeling? Same old, same old?
If you’re not finding your work a positive experience, full of personal growth, read on….. An important aspect of our approach to work is what we might call our attitude. You can describe this as how...
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Improving Profitability Using a Simple Diagnostic Tool
With the economic downturn, most practice groups are finding it harder to maintain margins, let alone increase them. Firms seem to be a bit stuck, not knowing what to do to tackle the problem. Part of...
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The Essence of Strategy is Choosing What NOT to Do
These wise words came from the great strategist Michael E Porter. Look at it this way: Can you spend even more hours in the office? Are you only operating at 70% brainpower, with some spare neurons you...
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Practice Group Leaders Need Your Feedback
It’s hard being a leader of a practice group. Usually they have no more actual power or authority than the other partners – often they are not even the most senior partners. Then they often get what...
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Managing Matters for Profit
As clients are increasingly asking for fixed fees and driving these fees down, lawyers need to find more efficient ways of delivering legal services to ensure protecting their margins. How can you do...
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A Diagnostic to Assess Where Your Firm Really is on Quality
I was really proud when my old firm, Cameron Markby Hewitt (now part of CMS Cameron McKenna), became the first City firm to be accredited as an Investor in People (IiP). The standard helped us improve...
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