January 16, 2007
Eight Steps to Transform the Law Firm
Over the course of my career, I have been involved in 40 or so acquisitions-situations where, unknown to those affected, I suddenly had to step into the position of being their leader. What you do in the first hours and in the following early days will determine the success or failure of the organization during your tenure. Assuming a new leadership role with the mission of transforming the organization isn’t limited to acquisition situations. It applies equally to situations where you are moving into a new position of authority such as assuming the role of managing partner.
I referred to “transformation” for a reason. No one assumes a leadership position with the mandate of preserving the status quote. No one can be a leader without leading the troops through a transformation to a new vision.
I was struck by John P. Kotter's view of the eight critical success factors originally published in 1995 and later embodied in his 1996 book, Leading Change. The 1995 article was recently reprinted in the Harvard Business Review’s Best of HBR series.
Kotter pointed out that leaders who successfully transformed their organization did eight things right and, more importantly, they did them in the right order. What are those eight things in order?
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Successful leaders established a sense of urgency—a sense of crises or fleeing opportunities involving market or competitive conditions
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They formed and encouraged a powerful guiding coalition among those in the organization with the power to lead the change
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They created a vision to direct the change and strategies of achieving it
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They communicated the vision continuously (frequently), teaching new behaviors by the example of the guiding coalition
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They empowered others to act on the vision, eliminating obstacles to change and encouraging risk taking and nontraditional tactics to achieve the vision
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They planned for and created short-term wins, reinforcing the vision through ceremony—recognition and rewards
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They consolidated their gains and produced more change—hiring, promoting, and developing employees who can implement the vision by reinvigorating the process with new project and themes
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They institutionalized the new approaches—articulating the connections between the new behaviors and resulting successes, and they developed the means to ensure leadership development and succession
Transformation, putting one's stamp on an organization, is a process requiring that the right things be done and done in the right order.
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