October 27, 2006
What Law Firm Partners Need To Agree About
David Maister was prompted to write Guns for Hire when he started to think about the actions of a leading PR firm that transgressed many people’s sense of ethics – creating a blog consistently favorable to Wal-Mart® without disclosing Wal-Mart’s (or the PR firm’s) involvement. This led him to question why people in an organization take on work (or make decisions) that they would have rejected if they had been on their own. He hit the nail on the head when he wrote the following:
“If I knew that all my colleagues, bosses, partners, owners, etc., shared a common set of standards, then I would have the courage to make selective decisions based on those standards.”
I have written quite a bit on the importance of law firms having a core set of beliefs. Partners need to know what they agree about and they need to communicate those beliefs firm-wide. By doing so, the “If I knew” portion of Maister’s remarks would be satisfied and individual partners and others on the law firm team would be in a position to deal with many issues as if the organization was their business (law firm). Without a core set of beliefs, enterprises are left without a moral and sound business compass.
It isn’t difficult—the partners need to talk, agree, and communicate to the organization the common set of beliefs that guide the firm. It is empowering for the partners to do it. It is inspirational to the entire team to know that their organization believes in a guiding set of principles and sound business beliefs. An organization’s culture develops around those common beliefs. They become the glue that tends to hold a firm together through bad times as well as the good times. Without that culture, firms take on a strict “eat-what-you-kill” mentality where everyone is out for No. 1. When what you can eat takes a downward turn due to temporary economic or competitive reasons, loyalty goes out the window.
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Filed under Firm Culture by Tom Collins