December 27, 2006
Law Firms Should Avoid the Tyranny of the OR
Dennis Kennedy in making his 2006 Blawggies Awards selected morepartnerincome.com as the Best Overall Law Practice Management Blog with David Maister's Passion, People and Principles and Bruce MacEwen's Adam Smith, Esq as runner-ups. To be selected as the best blows me away; just being in the company of Maister and MacEwen is an honor in and of itself!
While the name morepartnerincome attracts the attention of most managing partners, there are some who are put off by the name. What they miss is its core message. More partner income is the result of “doing the right things and doing them right”.
You do not have to make a choice between higher income and better client services. Higher income is the result of better client services. It is not a choice between placing the interest of clients first or driving income higher. Higher income is the reward for serving the client’s interest. It is not a choice between higher margins and the proper concern for treatment of the firm’s talent. Higher income comes from the quality of the team and their environment.
To think of those alternative choices is to have fallen victim to what Jim Collins refers to as the “Tyranny of the OR”. Excellent organizations practice “And Thinking” rather than “Or Thinking”. For example, how do we provide exceptional services to our clients and exceptional compensation to our legal professionals and employees? These are not incompatible choices. To the contrary, the very process of “And Thinking” leads to breakthrough innovations. The genius of “And Thinking” is that greater success results from the effort to achieve both rather than limiting an organization’s efforts based on the belief that we could only have one or the other.
Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris, Inc. For information about Juris® products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income, go to www.Juris.com.
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Filed under Firm Culture by Tom Collins