Amid discontent in the legal profession, Phil Gott calls for a more sophisticated approach to career development and talent management

A partner in a major law firm tells me, with real emotion, he would willingly give up a substantial portion of his profit share if only he could spend some weekends with his family. An associate wonders just how long she can continue billing 200 hours a month, contribute to business development, and still have a life. A department head confesses he sees managing people as no more than a time-consuming chore and a distraction from his client work.


Is the legal profession really doing its best in managing people? The evidence (high staff turnover rates, disillusionment, under-performance, and difficulty in attracting and retaining talented professionals) would suggest not.


Spiralling remuneration packages indicate that the easy, if expensive, solution is to wave more money at people. Yet without addressing the underlying issues, the effects will be short-lived. Money is like a short-term energy boost that leaves people under-nourished yet craving another fix.


There seem to be four inter-related factors conspiring to create this situation.


First, billings and business development are often the sole basis for measuring and rewarding performance. Can this be right? Surely a practice leader should be rewarded based not on individual performance but on that of the team, and a thought leader should be judged not on billings but on ideas and the recognition they attract.


Second, the hierarchical management structure has crudely served as a single-track career ladder. Is this really sufficient to meet the needs of sophisticated and ambitious professionals? It has led many into leadership roles they neither want nor are good at, and leaves others with no route to advance.


Third, there is a myth that professionals need to be well-rounded and should strive for excellence in some contrived list of competencies. Can lawyers really be excellent at everything expected of them? In reality most successful professionals are not well-rounded at all. They are sharp - their excellence at something more than compensates for being just satisfactory in other respects.


Fourth, money is used as the main or only motivator. Yet is it really an alternative to intrinsically satisfying work and advancement? There is sadly a growing band of professionals who devote themselves to an unfulfilling 'career' driven by financial rewards rather than a desire to achieve something genuinely worthwhile.


The ways in which talent is managed in law firms must change, and sooner or later it probably will, as firms acknowledge the significant benefits they could reap. So what changes are required?


The career ladder needs to be replaced by a more sophisticated model. There are perhaps three dimensions to this: client development, leadership and pioneering. By choosing to become excellent in one or two of these dimensions, several new and inspiring career paths emerge (for example, making a successful career of becoming a thought leader, or a trusted adviser).


In this new model, training and coaching should equip all professionals to perform to an excellent level in their chosen roles. This means moving away from wastefully sheep dipping people through training not because they necessarily need it but because they are at a certain stage in their careers.


New performance metrics should track not only financial performance but also such aspects as client satisfaction (using client service feedback), marketing and business development (not looking just at new business wins), and leadership (using 360-degree surveys and looking at whole-team performance).


Making these changes will not necessarily be simple but the benefits could be substantial for firms, their people and ultimately for the clients they serve.


Phil Gott is a conference speaker, trainer and consultant, specialising in people and performance in professional service firms