The role of coaching in law firms
How do we get the best performance from our lawyers? By using a coaching style of leadership and management. I do not set out a complete argument for choosing coaching below, but I proceed on the assumption that you are not happy with your present management style and feel something is missing. For the purposes of brevity, I am assuming all your lawyers are qualified and reasonably experienced.
This is obviously a crucial issue and maybe these days even more so than it has been. From the title, you might guess that I will be arguing that my first sentence should actually read ‘how do we help our lawyers put in the best performance they can?’ This is an aspect of management.
Traditionally, law firms have managed their lawyers by ‘command and control’, or not really managed at all. I needn’t dwell on the latter! The former is, I think, an illusion of control and not real control. I do not accept that by putting in rules, consequences and ‘being the boss’ that means there is control. There is a feeling of control which can be very comforting but, as I say, illusory. People will still do what they do. Increasingly, people reject being controlled and dictated to.
The reality is that we have to have some controls, partly as these are required or at least suggested by the Code of Conduct and good practice such as Lexcel and Investors in People. But I believe that to use control will give only limited success in certain situations and will not utilise the dormant capability of your people. Coaching is designed to help people acknowledge and then develop that capability, if they want to. If they don’t want to. then you can force some or most of it out of them for a while, but you will have a group of lawyers who are very resentful of you and likely to leave.
It is quite hard to define coaching, perhaps by its very nature. Most people accept it originates in the sporting field but do try to remove the normal image of a football coach from your minds! It is not like that. How did you learn to walk? I doubt you were taught, you were probably coached and helped to learn. John Whitmore * suggests coaching is ‘unlocking people’s potential to maximise their own performance’. It is not teaching and it is not mentoring - though mentoring certainly has an important place in the law firm arena. As Odysseus said to his friend Mentor: ‘Tell him all you know’.
It does amaze me how little we seem to trust our lawyers. They are professionals; keen, motivated, anxious to keep up to date and honest. If you do not believe this of them, then you must consider getting rid of them immediately and change your interview process, or get help to change your belief. Of course, you will check your belief is correct from time to time - after all, this is the real world.
If we trust people that we should trust, then we can help them take responsibility for their own advancement and compliance with your rules. If done correctly, there will be a dramatic reduction in compliance issues. Maybe the Solicitors Regulation Authority knows this and it is partly why they are changing to outcomes-focused regulation.
Changing to a coaching style takes some time, certainly months, but the rewards are potentially great. And you, as manager or leader, will feel much more comfortable that things are just ‘right’. But what about some pointers to start? Here are some:
- Tell your lawyers that you intend to do this and ask for their help;
- Explain that there are some rules (‘A’) which if breached mean dismissal. You can find these in the code! Most rules (‘B’) if breached mean that you and the lawyer will work together to see how to avoid that happening again. It might mean training, coaching or even a rule change if in fact it was badly drawn up. Many lawyers live with the horror of finding they have breached a rule buried in the handbook and are ‘out’.
- When thinking of changes to the business, especially procedures or rules, ask the lawyers for their views;
- When there is an issue, ask open questions about it. That allows the lawyer to take their responsibility and come up with a creative solution. It also shows trust in their ability; and
- Share your plan for the business with your lawyers, ask them what they think.
The above is just an indication of the many things needed for a coaching culture. Coaching becomes a ‘way of being’. It is one of the styles of management and leadership that seem to be needed for law firms to obtain the best performance they ethically can.
* Sir John Whitmore Coaching for Performance ISBN 978-1-85788-535-4
Andrew Woolley, an experienced family and business solicitor, founded Woolley & Co in 1996. He
studied business growth at Warwick Business School and is presently studying for an MSc in coaching and leadership.
Comments
More important than coaching is getting the right people
Andrew is largely right to emphasize importance of coaching. However I would submit that more important than coaching is to take a lesson to be learned from Jim Collins excellent book, Good to Great. "The purpose of compensation is not to "motivate” the right behaviors from the wrong people, but to get and keep the right people in the first place... the old adage "people are your most important asset" is wrong. People on the two most important asset. The right people are." In a nutshell, whilst coaching is a very valuable tool, it should not be a substitute for having the right people in the first place, as the right people are likely to need much, if any coaching tool. Far too many law firms will never become great, let alone good while they continue to put up with second rate staff and partners.
How common are coaching cultures in law firms?
I agree both with the benefits of coaching and getting the right people on board who fit with the ethos of the business. However whilst there are a firms who use or have embraced the principles of coaching there still seems some resistance to adopting such a culture or acknowledging the benefits that can be gained. Yet ironically most of us use coaching techniques frequently in our everyday life, at work and home, by questioning, encouraging and motivating.
Andrew Woolley cannot have
Andrew Woolley cannot have read the draft rules from the SRA if he believes that they entail "outcomes based" regulation.
The rules themselves are generally alright and almost comply with commonsense but the prescriptive nature of the "examples" prove that again the profession will be burdened with detailed regulation whereby "best practice" (a meaningless phrase beloved of bureaucrats trying to impose their own views over professional judgement) becomes the box which has to be ticked. If not, there will be a fine (the SRA having just granted itself further powers to do so).
He is however correct that the members of a profession generally seek to do the right thing-it is the essence of a profession (or once was). No amount of rules can replace it.
Another great blog. Thanks
Another great blog. Thanks Andrew.
What a coaching culture also promotes is self awareness - one of the most powerful tools for any personal development programme. 360 reviews and Myers Briggs for instance can give insight to your team members on their areas of strengths and the perception of others of them in the workplace. It can often throw up surprises, but more importantly, lays the foundations for ongoing coaching and development programmes, which set against agreed objectives, will not only improve the performance of the individual, but also impact on bottom line.
We've seen executive coaching programmes have significant impacts on the achievement of teams time and time again. Its another example of how perceived "soft skills" need to be embraced by law firms.
To expand on the Jim Collins reference above, it means that you not only have "the right people on the bus", but that they're also "in the right seats" - then can you decide where you want to drive to.
Agree with the Salibury
Agree with the Salibury Solicitor
"More important than coaching is getting the right people"
if you are coaching wrong people then you are wasting time and money
Coaching Is A Great Way To Increase Profits
I've written about coaching and how law firms need to embrace
it to ensure they make more money.
http://www.greatlegalmarketing.co.uk/LawFirmPracticeDevelopment
Stage 1 – Profitability Measurement
It is important to make Partners responsible for income per Partner rather than income a Partner personally bills. This means that the Partner has a responsibility for his team and the costs associated with his team’s engagements. By working out the costs and the profit for engagements it is then possible to compare each Partner’s profitability. It also focuses their mind on operating efficiencies through delegation, alternative solutions and even time management. This process highlights the type of work which is most profitable.
Stage 2 – Tracking and Rewarding Coaching
Because coaching is often deferred, leading to under delegation, the firm should introduce a management tool to assess staff engagement experience at the end of each piece of work.
This management tool can be a form which enables all staff to rate the engagement experience of staff supervised by the Partner in charge of that engagement. This is then sent to the Managing Partner. Over the year the forms will enable an aggregate score for each Partner’s supervision and coaching to be compared against other Partners and for the office as a whole.
With a measurement tool in place it will encourage coaching, mentoring, transferring of skill and delegation.
Step 3 – Scheduling Process
Most of skill building in the practice comes from the type of engagements that staff are involved in.
The scheduling of engagements is where the under-delegation problem can be addressed. It’s where the trade off of coaching, skill building, and Partner requests for particular staff all come to a head.
The scheduler must have the power to ensure that the right people are scheduled for a task which allows skill building and delegation. If the Partner always gets who he wants, there is the chance that it is always the same people who will always do the same things.
The role of coaching in law firms
Thank you Andrew for a very incisive blog on coaching, a very maligned and misused word today.
However, notwithstanding the hackneyed use of the word coaching, as you point out, perhaps we just need a bit of reflection on this subject.
The subject really is, how do the legal profession get from the old staid ways to a real market originated venture.
With your permission, I would like to refer back to Chrissie's frogs blog, and combining her and Andrew's erudite blogs, may I come up with a suggestion that might just make some sense, but if you disagree please feel free to shoot me down in flames.
The concept is nothing new to the legal profession and it is call the "Retainer".
Over very many years business in general has paid retainers to various legal practices so as to have them to be able to pop in, so to speak, on an ad hoc basis to be of assistance to give advice and guidance.
Now I know there are a few boomers left who grew up the hard way and through determination. self learning and research gained great knowledge. As many will appreciate that these dedicated souls gained great in depth knowledge in many fields of endeavor and some gained great acumen in business, commerce, finance,legal and technological matters and so in those days we sort of had to do mostly everything ourselves and so many acquired a great deal of knowledge about a number of fields and the understanding to go with that knowledge.
I do not, for one minute, suggest that there are not very good people in business today that are doing the same thing and they will become goldmines later in their careers .
I digress, but hope the point is made. In essence my suggestion is as to why do legal practices take on some of these well rounded business people with vast experience on a retainer basis so as to have them pop in when needed to assist in giving some advice and guidance as to the connection between the business real world and the legal expertise, that is so very necessary these days, for a business to go forwards with all their developments and know they have the risks covered or at least minimised and of a known quantum.
I perceive this as a good way for legal practices to get the necessary broad spectrum of the experience knowledge from these business experts, shall we call them for want of a better word, and so the legal practice achieves two things at the least cost, being the ability to communicate better with their clients and also a better understanding of the way contracts and the like actually work in practice on the ground.
Perhaps one might say this is a crazy notion, but give it some thought and then see what you think and comment.
I have interfaced between the business and the legal profession before as a sort of translator, if you will, and that has worked out very successfully.
my best regards
Gary Johnston-Webber
gjw.consulting@vodamail.co.za