Fixing Firm Compensation Models
Patrick J Mckenna
May 04, 2021
This article evolved from the collaborations between a Fortune 500 GC, a Managing Partner, a leading practitioner in alternative fee arrangements and an international law firm management consultant. It was initially written in 2009 and pretty much forgotten about until now.
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Tags: Management, Legal and IP
15 Innovation Questions to Ask Yourself
LinkedIn
November 05, 2020
It is my honor to be Chairing, for the third consecutive year, Ark’s Law Firm Innovation Summit, being conducted virtually. In my opening remarks today, I posed the following provocative questions for the participants to ask themselves:
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Tags: Innovation
How Difficult a Job It Can Actually Be
Patrick J Mckenna
October 05, 2020
The very concept of leadership is elusive and tricky. Every business-book author coins a
new "type" which is then sold as the latest elixir to problems. We see these everywhere:
authentic leadership, transformational leadership, charismatic leadership and other
faddish titles. It is hard to define leadership in a way that is satisfactory to everyone
although most professionals tell me that they believe they know it, when they see it.
What these same professionals may not appreciate is how difficult the job of leading a
firm can actually be. There are a number of truths that aren’t identified in any
guidebook;
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Tags: Management, Leadership, Business Strategy
Embrace Thought Leadership As Your Industry Group’s Strategy for Growth
Legal Business World
September 18, 2020
Successful thought leadership does not arrive by virtue of having a published idea linked to a hope that someone will recognize brilliance and sweep your industry team from obscurity into prominence. Thought leadership only matters if you address a specific audience and can present new ideas that improve their life or work. The best thought leadership, therefore, helps people in an industry do something better or gain insight that helps them better understand their market or their problems. There is little generic thought leadership that is useful. In a globalized online world, clients can quickly find an alternative to you. To establish your group as having an expert reputation – including those who don’t just participate in the industry discussion but drive it, requires consistent, diligent effort.
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Tags: Management, Leadership, Business Strategy
25 Quotes to Jump-Start Your Innovative Mindset
Patrick J. McKenna
September 02, 2020
Innovation does not require some exotic new technology by rather it requires an innovative culture. Today, firms need more radical and game-changing inspiration to be able to meet the challenges that we are all facing. We need new ideas. We need progress. We need positive change. Here is a collection of some of my favorite quotes on innovation to inspire your next move forward. When I need a dose of inspiration or advice, I often turn to these insightful words of wisdom for an added touch of motivation.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Culture
Lessons BigLaw Could Learn from BigTech
LinkedIn
August 25, 2020
As the economy contracts and many companies struggle to survive, the biggest tech companies continue to grow and innovate, putting them in a position to dominate U.S. businesses with an unprecedented reach into shaping how we work, communicate, shop, relax and even where we invest our money. The encroachment of these companies into our lives can be evidenced by the more than one billion daily visits to the big four sites and by last week’s record $2-trillion stock market valuation of Apple – double what it was just 21 weeks earlier.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Business Strategy
Effective Leaders Are Not Necessarily Nice!
Patrick J. McKenna
August 19, 2020
Having spent a good number of years studying, working with and coaching new firm leaders, I have concluded that the greatest challenge for any of us in leading others is the way in which we are hard-wired; our natural instincts to preserve our sense of pride and our need to be (and appear to be) “nice.”
The truth is, most of us would rather have the rock-star surgeon available if we needed a coronary bypass operation, irrespective of the individual’s bedside manner. Having a great bedside manner . . . would be a definite plus! BUT, our critical requirement would be to work with a medical technician with the best possible expertise and exemplary track-record for delivering results.
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Tags: Management, Leadership
What to do with your industry focus when your chosen industry falters
Legal Executive Institute
May 14, 2020
Retail is among a number of industries that are experiencing severe stress, previously from the trade wars and now largely due to the shuttering of many brick-and-mortar stores due to the ongoing pandemic. Indeed, we are currently witnessing something akin to collapse in the clothing apparel retail segment, with J.Crew, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman all filing for bankruptcy. While these business failures appeared to result from a dramatic and immediate reduction in demand, other factors were largely observable and predictable to anyone monitoring developments in the retail industry.
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Tags: Leadership, Retail, Business Strategy
Hanging Up The Crown
CBA National
March 29, 2020
Taking over from some long-serving firm leader or a founding partner can present an enormous challenge for a new managing partner. In some firms, it gets ridiculously difficult when the new leader is given only a few weeks, or even days, to prepare themselves before having to step into the role -- or when the incumbent is not fully supportive of the transition.
A departing firm leader can undertake a number of actions to make the leadership transition much smoother.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Legal and IP
Are You Ready for “The Social Distancing Recession?”
LinkedIn
March 15, 2020
Wise law firm leaders will be balancing dual agendas – with their first priority toward navigating unprecedented challenges while also looking past the storm to a time when valued clients will need help in handing deals that are once again possible and attractive assets that are up for grabs at significant discounts. Most of us are hunkered down, but as markets stabilize and we get used to video conferencing with clients, deal-making promises to kick back into high gear.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Legal and IP
Clients Value You Having a “DEEP” Industry Focus: So Do You?
Legal Executive Institute
March 11, 2020
While attorneys tout their deep technical or functional expertise, most clients view that as table stakes. They assume you’re an expert in employment law, international tax or complex litigation. And as clients face increasingly complex business challenges that go well beyond any one (traditional practice group) area of the law, they wonder if you really understand the key aspects of their industry. To be fair – they don’t care if you don’t know the intricacies of making their widgets – but they DO want you to know the idiosyncratic aspects of what they are having to deal with.
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Tags: Leadership, Business Strategy, Legal and IP
Does Your Firm Have A REAL Industry Focus?
Legal Executive Institute
February 20, 2020
Understanding Your Client’s Industry is the single biggest differentiator among law firms. Unfortunately, for too many firms, any pretense of having a real industry focus is simply a list of industries displayed on their website – without any recognition that perhaps clients can discern the difference. Bad News Flash: you are not fooling anyone! Here are a dozen diagnostic questions (not intended to be comprehensive) that you might internally review and discuss, to evaluate where you stand with respect to having a genuine industry focus.
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Tags: Leadership, Business Strategy, Legal and IP
xHow Do You Get Your Practice and Industry Groups Firing on All Cylinders?
Legal Business World
February 15, 2020
You appointed professionals to positions as practice group leader whom you thought would do the job (and who promised you that they would try); you provided them with some basic training; and you endeavored to periodically meet with them all as a group to provide a bit of a pep talk. Despite all your efforts, only a FEW of your groups are functioning as you had hoped. So what to do?
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Tags: Leadership, Culture, Business Strategy
The Art Of Leadership
fivehundred magazine
November 01, 2019
This article is intended to outline for new firm leaders the eight challenges that they often do not expect when first taking the reins and certainly don't talk about amongst their peers.
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Tags: Leadership, Change Management, Risk Management
Strategy Innovation: Getting To The Future First
LinkedIn
July 10, 2019
Download your copy of my new 240-page eBook - Strategy Innovation: Getting To The Future First – https://lnkd.in/grsexeq
If you want your firm to WIN in today’s highly competitive environment you need to possess an unwavering and intentional focus on tomorrow. This book is intended to help you advance your innovative, entrepreneurial, and strategic thinking to develop a thirst for pulling the future forward on behalf of your firm and it’s various competitive practices.
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Tags: Innovation, Business Strategy, Legal and IP
e-Sports Practice
Legal Executive Institute
March 28, 2019
eSports has become a specialized micro-niche of opportunity over the last few years. The stunning rise in the popularity of particular teams of video gamers competing against one another in front of a live and broadcast audience is becoming big business.
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Tags: Innovation, Marketing, Business Strategy
Digital Transformation - Part 2
Legal Executive Institute
February 27, 2019
The US market, the largest and most mature as to digital transformation, is also one of the fastest growing and was the first to go all out in this area. And while law firms have been slow to identify this micro-niche as a lucrative area of focus, the consulting profession has not.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Leadership
Digital Transformation - Part 1
Legal Executive Institute
February 20, 2019
Today, successful companies realize the costs of failing to innovate in a business landscape that is seeing incumbents displaced at an increasingly rapid speed. Intel, which has more than 100,000 employees, holds quarterly innovation days where employees can report the digital threats and opportunities they see in the distance.
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Tags: Digital Transformation, Innovation, Leadership
Strategic Challenges That New Firm Leaders Face
Legal Business World magazine
January 14, 2019
Most lawyers have NO idea what the huge scope of this job entails (ever seen a job description?), how much exhausting travel can be involved, how much time it really requires, how lonely it can be at the top, and how ill prepared many new firm leaders are when they assume office! There are a number of common questions that I find are asked about leadership transitions and the challenges that new firm leaders often face and so I have identified those with my observations and experience with respect to each
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Business Strategy
How Conventional Strategizing Can Be A Waste of Time
Legal Business World
June 09, 2018
Many firms that have been involved in conventional strategic planning are failing to improve their ability to differentiate themselves, their competitiveness or their relative growth, in spite of the investment of time and effort in the planning exercise. One needs to recognize that the typical strategic planning exercise now conducted and infused with massive quantitative data misses the essence of the concept of strategy and what is necessary for being innovative and differentiated.
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Tags: Innovation, Management, Leadership
Developing Your Growth Strategy: Seeking Clear Blue Waters
Legal Business World
June 09, 2018
One of the little ironies I’ve observed over the years is firm-wide strategic plans that get drafted and finalized without any allowance for input from the various business units that comprise your firm. In other words, what I’m proposing here is that what you, as firm leader, are managing is NOT one homogeneous firm but rather a portfolio of very different business units – such that what may be required to develop, market and grow a very successful and profitable Health Care Group will be very different from that required for a highly successful Labor and Employment practice. Like many clichés, this one turns out to be true – a successful firm strategy is largely built around having strong practice groups, positioned in growing market (micro) niches, developing a distinctive presence, doing higher value work.
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Tags: Innovation, Management, Leadership
Leading to the Future: Evolution of Blockchain and Its Impact on Your Clients
Legal Executive Institute
April 26, 2018
It was only back in mid-2015, while speaking at a couple of legal conferences (including one on Client Growth Strategies), that I would ask, “Show of hands, how many of you have heard of blockchain?” only to confront an audience that had no idea what I was talking about. Fortunately, I would speculate that most of these same folks have now heard of blockchain and have some notion of what the label refers to… but do they really?
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Tags: Blockchain, Innovation, Fintech
Sound Advice for New Law Firm Leaders (Part 2)
Legal Executive Institute
March 27, 2018
If you are like most who have traveled this route, I guarantee you that you will go through several distinct stages in the early days of your leadership transition. It starts with anticipation, where you are eager, excited, and thinking to yourself, “I guess my partners really do think that I can lead our firm to greater heights.” Unfortunately, it may not be long before your initial excitement gets bogged down by the reality of daily tasks as the urgent crowds out the important, and you now find yourself thinking, “What the hell did I get myself into?”
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Tags: Management, Leadership, Business Strategy
Sound Advice for New Law Firm Leaders (Part 1)
Legal Executive Institute
February 21, 2018
Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of conducting research and one-on-one interviews with at least 50 law firm leaders who provided their real-world perspectives and experience on all aspects of becoming a firm leader — from the agony of deciding to take on the job, to making the difficult transition from just practicing law, to also leading an entire firm. All of my work unhesitatingly confirms for me that there are some critical actions that new leaders will need to take to ensure a successful tenure at the top.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Management
The Challenges in Sharing Leadership
Legal Executive Institute
June 01, 2017
The job of leading a law firm may certainly be demanding enough for two professionals; but the test is selecting the right two people to share the role. From my vantage point I have witnessed multiple examples of attempts to split the firm leadership job that led to clashing egos and crippling power struggles, especially if one of these two partners conceals any ambition for holding the position alone.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Management
The Myth of Visionary Leadership
Legal Executive Institute
October 03, 2016
While almost every book on leadership suggests that a true leader needs to have a vision (with more than 400 books listed under “Visionary Leadership” on Amazon) I think it is nice in theory, sounds profoundly intelligent as a concept, but is absolute nonsense in its application with highly talented professionals.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership
Solving the ‘Commitment Drift’ Frustration
Legal Executive Institute
July 28, 2016
If there is one single frustration that I hear from firm and practice leaders on a continual basis it is trying to determine how to deal with the “commitment drift” of those partners who make promises but don’t always follow through. In other words, how do you ensure task completion on important projects when your partners agree to do something at the implementation stage, and you’re uncertain that you will see the necessary committed follow-through?
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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership
Involving Firm Leaders in Selecting their Successors
Legal Executive Institute
June 06, 2016
Firm chairs and managing partners can play a very critical role in identifying and developing leadership talent within their firms — most specifically those lawyers ready to head up offices, practice groups and industry teams. But in my experience, there are a number of reasons why I would be cautious about having your current firm leader choose his or her successor.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership
The Art Of Leadership Succession: How To Select Your Next Firm Leader
LBW Publishing
April 15, 2019
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Tags: Leadership, Culture, Change Management
When It Comes Time To Instigate Change
Legal Business World Publications
March 20, 2019
Every few years a new theme emerges in law firm management. There was a time and perhaps it still exists where we witnessed resistant attorneys being forced to take the marketing of professional services seriously. We have all since observed initiatives like total quality management, branding programs, alternate billing methods, and project management assume center stage. Meanwhile, many of our skeptical and often times, senior partners have chosen to sit on the sidelines.
So why is it that these professionals are so skeptical?
From understanding the “Challenges of Implementing Your Initiatives” and “Helping Your Partners See The Need to Change” to “Helping Your Partners Take Action” and
“Nurturing Your Partners To Follow-Though” this 50-page eBook provides advice and counsel on how to convert best intentions into best practices.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Change Management
The State of Law Firm Leadership
Legal Executive Institute
August 09, 2018
This extensive White Paper is based on a comprehensive 30-question survey, distributed in June and July to a group of about 300 law firm leaders, many among the Am Law 100 and 200 ranked firms. The data uncovered some surprising and potentially valuable findings
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Legal and IP
Leadership Lessons From The Trenches
Legal Business World
June 20, 2018
This 120-page book is a compilation of some 34 concise, leadership tips containing pithy, pragmatic and sometimes, provocative advice on everything from how the best leaders get exactly what they expect to being a good coach to your colleagues (contained in Part One: In The Trenches With Colleagues) – and – from how to signal what you value as a leader to why those supposed ‘best practices’ are not always best (in Part Two: In The Trenches With Your Team).
These meanderings were inspired by those I’ve had the honor of working with, were fun to write and so I hope equally rewarding to read; but more importantly provide some guidance on how you can make your leadership journey more meaningful for those you serve and more personally gratifying for yourself.
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Management
Serving at the Pleasure of My Partners: Advice to the New Firm Leader
Thomson Reuters
March 15, 2011
Serving at the Pleasure of My Partners: Advice to the New Firm Leader provides straightforward guidance about your tenure as manager – your leadership style, compensation, time management, and responsibilities – and the people you manage.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Legal and IP
First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals
Free Press
April 04, 2005
Professional service gurus David Maister and Patrick McKenna have created a practical handbook on how to lead professional colleagues or peers when you lack formal authority. Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge calls it “a timely, easy to read work leavened with action plans and examples.”
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Tags: Innovation, Management
Legal Micro-Niche: Anti-Aging & Regenerative Medicine.
Legal Executive Institute
November 08, 2019
A Chinese scientist who announced that the first set of CRISPR-engineered female twins had been delivered; stem cells that can now grow eye retinas; a collagen bioprinter that should soon provide 3D printed lungs; the global longevity industry is primed to reach $17 trillion this year and on track to crack $27 trillion within the next five years.
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Tags: Healthtech, Health and Safety, Legal and IP
Lucrative Micro-Niche: Synthetic Biology
Legal Executive Institute
September 18, 2019
Biology is already changing the way we live, eat, manufacture, and treat human health. In the next few years, synthetic biology — a $40 billion industry — will be the premier technology of the 21st century that will be used to solve real-world problems facing millions.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Digital Disruption, Open Innovation
Lucrative Micro-Niche: Deep Learning
Legal Executive Institute
July 10, 2019
The amount of data we generate every day is staggering — currently estimated at over 2.6 quintillion bytes. 2.6 quintillion! It’s a number so large that 2.6 quintillion pennies would, if laid flat, cover the entire Earth… five times. And that number is only growing with the increasing number of devices being made available and being used. If data is the new oil, what new products can we make? That’s where deep learning comes in.
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Tags: AI, Digital Disruption, Innovation
A Lucrative Micro-Niche: The AgTech Practice
Legal Executive Institute
June 06, 2019
Imagine driverless tractors tilling acres of crops, produce growing in massive climate-controlled warehouses, and seeds genetically altered to require less water. These and other modern marvels are among the high-tech innovations changing, or about to change, the centuries-old face of agriculture.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Management
A Lucrative Micro-Niche: Climate Change Practice (Part 2)
Legal Executive Institute
May 02, 2019
Oil companies are taking climate change litigation cases very seriously. Exxon Mobil, the world’s largest, launched a million-dollar push in 2018 for carbon tax legislation that includes immunity from climate change-related lawsuits. Exxon is also facing lawsuits for allegedly misleading investors about the risks of climate change to its business as well as the risks of future climate regulations.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Management
A Lucrative Micro-Niche: Climate Change Practice (Part 1)
Legal Executive Institute
April 24, 2019
In 2016, the nations of the world created the Paris Agreement, an international call to action in the battle against a rapidly changing climate. The agreement outlined limits to greenhouse gas emissions and other major changes to economies and infrastructure — the kinds of things that might be inconvenient but worth doing when the alternative is widespread climate catastrophe. Nearly every country in the world signed the agreement. But today, nearly every country in the world is falling short of its commitments — and the science behind those commitments is getting scarier.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Management
The Advent of the Legal Practice’s Micro-Niche, Part 2
Legal Executive Institute
October 18, 2018
Today, firms are facing yet another structural and marketing challenge, that which I have come to call, “Tech-Driven Hybrids.” These are practices that are not simply conventional in that they require a level of expertise that goes beyond any one vertical (e.g., may require regulatory plus tax, plus IP), and they are practices that extend beyond impacting just one industry in that their effect will likely be felt in a good number of different industries.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Management
The Advent of the Legal Practice’s Micro-Niche, Part 1
Legal Executive Institute
October 04, 2018
I have a new word that I share with lawyers whenever I’m speaking at conferences — “Infobesity.” It is meant to help them try to conceptualize that we now live in a time where we all suffer from an information epidemic, wherein we are exposed to the digital equivalent of more than 176 newspapers worth of data every day!
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Tags: Business Strategy, Leadership, Management
New Insights from Managing Partners On a New Kind of Crisis
LinkedIn
March 26, 2020
No one knows what to expect. But the near term is not good – or worse depending on who you talk to. This week I was pleased to have the opportunity to join Michael Rynowecer, President of BTI Consulting to see what we could learn from leadership partners about what law firms are doing and how they are thinking. We canvassed about 25 managing partners (or equivalent) at firms with more than 500 attorneys. Here are key insights from their thinking, together with a few of our observations:
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Tags: Innovation, Leadership, Business Strategy
Law Firm Pay Cuts, Layoffs Will Likely Multiply
Law360
January 04, 2020
The reports on cost-cutting measures taken by midsize and large law firms will likely flood in as firms realize the gravity of the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Tags: Leadership, Business Strategy, Legal and IP, COVID19
When Your Strategic Plan Needs to Get Implemented
Legal Business World Publishing
February 27, 2019
Whenever I think about the effort that is required to go into implementing your firm’s strategic plan, I’m reminded of a particular business book title that grabbed my attention when I first saw it . . . Hope Is Not A Strategy! To effectively transform your best intentions into tangible action, there are several common hurdles that you may need to overcome. Thinking through the following will help you make the leap.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership
Innovative Metrics to Stimulate Innovative Action
Legal Business World
November 26, 2018
At a recent gathering of firm leaders, while bemoaning the flat demand for legal services and the increasing power of clients, one discussion centered around metrics – financial and performance-oriented measures. While we are all familiar with the usual billable hour, collections, matter profitability, and so forth, this discussion provoked me to think about some of the more unorthodox, but vital metrics that I believe law firm leadership should ALSO be looking at. Here are a five unusual metrics that I think are worth taking a very serious look at in your firm.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership
The Power of What Your Client’s Say
Legal Business World
December 05, 2017
It’s hard to deny: clients today are particularly skeptical. So, one difficult challenge each of us as professionals face, is coming up with a convincing response to one critical question (whether it is articulated or just being thought about): “As a prospective client, tell me please, why should I choose you (your firm or your practice group); what makes you distinctive and what added-value do you bring to my business matters … that I cannot get anywhere else?” (and please do notice those last six words).
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Tags: Business Strategy, Customer Experience, Marketing
What Leadership Messages Are You Sending?
Legal Executive Institute
January 09, 2017
One of the more profound things I’ve learned and try to pass along to new leaders (be they managing partners or practice heads) is to “act like you are on stage at all times… because you are!” Everything you do and say will send messages, set a tone, establish expectations and communicate direction about what is of priority to you.
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Tags: Business Strategy, Innovation, Leadership
Strategy Innovation: Getting To The Future First
Going Beyond Technology: Innovating in Law Firms Through People and Process
The Fearless Leader’s Advisory Board
Are You Interested In Getting To The Future . . . FIRST?
Imagine Having Your Own CEO Advisory Board