February 7, 2006
The Purposeful Law Firm
The best ideas for improving any organization, including law firms, are often discovered by paying attention to ideas and practices occurring outside of one’s close-knit community. In other words, to improve the law firm’s performance, pay attention to what is happening outside of the legal community.
The Harvard Business Review (HBR) is one of those windows to the outside world. The February 2006 issue included a special section recapping some of Peter F. Drucker’s previous articles that appeared in HBR. The section was titled “What Executives Should Remember.”
Drucker believes that an organization must be organized for innovation and engaged in constant change. What some executives overlook is that the drive to break away from what is old must be focused for success. Drucker put it strongly. “An organization is effective only if it concentrates on one task. Diversification destroys the performance capacity of an organization.”
There have been several posts in the blog community lately concerning law firm growth as an objective. Take heed, no organization can stand still. Growth is a by-product of success. If you aren’t growing, you aren’t succeeding. But the wrong kind of growth can put you out of business and, more commonly, make you weaker as an effective organization.
Don’t interpret Drucker’s “one task” admonition too restrictively. In Drucker’s book, that could be to “Save the World” or “Cure the Common Cold”. The point is the organization requires a defined purpose around which all of its talent is focused. Growth in pursuit of that purpose is good. Growth that distracts from it or diversifies the focus of the organization is destructive.
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Filed under Planning by Tom Collins