On February 12, 2008 Muir is scheduled to discuss with students at Northwestern University's Business Institutions Program how to improve decision-making. Based in large part on the information contained in "Promoting an Effective Board or Management Group," the discussion will explore, among other subjects, optimal personality traits for good decision-making and how to avoid extreme decisions.
What's the route to higher efficacy and productivity? Might that be by staffing with "messy" groups? So suggests a recent book entitled The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools and Societies by Scott E. Page, professor of complex systems, political science and economics at the University of Michigan.
Using mathematical modeling, Dr. Page shows how variety in staffing produces organizational strength-- and bottom line results. In his models, diverse groups of problem-solvers outperformed groups made up of similar individuals with high problem-solving ability. The diverse groups got stuck less often that did the smart individuals, who tended to think similarly.
According to Dr. Page, different talents and perspectives, which he calls "tools," bring more and different ways of seeing a problem and result in faster/better ways of solving it. Diverse cities are more productive, diverse boards of directors make better decisions, diverse companies are more innovative. Interdisciplinary work is the biggest trend in scientific research, he says, and should be the route that business and the professions pursue.
So what does this have to do with lawyers? Law departments that stretch across many countries are often diverse by necessity. And by going global, many firms are diversifying by circumstance. In both cases different cultural, personality and economic perspectives come into the mix. While trying to preserve the benefits of diversity, these departments and firms are also confronted with the morass of confusion that many different people doing things differently can make. Molding those differing perspectives into the "BigLaw" firm or department way of doing things--either purposefully, by circulating the administrative memo or lecturing the new recruits, or inadvertently, perhaps by unconsciously discouraging lawyers from ringing an alarm when they spot missteps, can leave you with unintended consequences.
KPMG's program to test all US partners (see our KPMG Model Delivers Risk Management, Teamwork, Client Satisfaction and Diversity Too) and then use that information to balance various teams--marketing, client, industry and management, to name a few--is a shining example of the usefulness of diverse approaches to every type of issue facing professional services firms. KPMG is affirmatively pursuing and integrating diversity in their business model to great benefit.
Finding the right balance to both capitalize on the benefits of diversity and to minimize the administrative and management fallout produced by those differences is a modern law firm's challenge. There is every reason to believe that getting it right is worth the effort.
In a report released October 1st, Catalyst, a New York consultancy, found that Fortune 500 companies with at least three women on their boards strongly outperformed those companies with fewer or no women. Based on a study of four years of corporate results, the correlation was found to be so direct that the more women who serve on a board, the better the bottom line.
The companies with the highest percentage of women on their boards had equity returns 53% higher, returns on sales 42% higher and returns on invested capital at least 66% higher than those companies with the least number of women board members. Higher returns kicked in once at least three women served on the corporation’s board, the study found, with companies having only three women board members raising each of those returns an average of 5% over corporations with fewer women.
Why would female board participation produce such concrete financial results? Various consultants and academics speculate that women are better able to understand the customer base, particularly of consumer goods companies, and that showcasing women on the board helps attract and retain women employees throughout the company.
Another reason may well be women’s often strong collaboration skills, empowering them to better resolve conflict and move boards through the thorny discussions necessary to make and carry through critical decisions.
There is no substitute for face time, as people in my business are wont to insist. But maybe there is.
During an interview with Mark Chandler, General Counsel of Cisco, to discuss the evolving legal marketplace, see Leaving Behind the Medieval Model, he demonstrated for me Cisco's newest entry (competing with Hewlett-Packard, Polycom and Tandberg, among others) into the web conference market— a small meeting room that boasts an IP (Internet Protocol) phone, three broadcast-quality cameras, three ultra-sensitive mikes, three 60-inch plasma screens, a crescent-shaped table that seats six and soft back-lighting. The result, as one satisfied client related, is that "you can literally see and hear a pin drop a continent away." The sensation is of simply being in a small conference room with well-lit colleagues across the table--I admit to the eerie feeling of being able to reach out and touch someone, only I couldn't.
At $300,000+ for each of these pods (and it takes two, of course) and monthly maintenance costs in the thousands, it would require a lot of deferred traveling to pay for the luxury of not having to sit on tarmacs. Nonetheless these systems seem to be enjoying brisk demand, with prices down from $550,000+ two years ago and double digit increases in sales annually.
There are a number of circumstances that might prompt law firms to take advantage of these technospheres. In light of how time-consuming air travel has become, the need for rapid decision-making and the globally far-flung nature of more and more law firms and their clients, they offer a reasonable and efficient tool in law firms' management and delivery arsenals.
But my interest in this product (in case you've been wondering why I, a techie manqué, am going on about this) relates to something one of the true techies touting this system remarked when I saw it. "The name of the game today is collaboration," he said, and went on to discuss the myriad tech tools now available that promote collaboration—web-conferencing, intranets, extranets, wikis, individual attorney blogs, etc.
Unfortunately, as we all know, the name of the game at many, if not most, law firms has not historically been collaboration, whether we are talking about firm management, practice group, committee or even client and document issues. Lawyers are notoriously independent and skeptical/untrusting of others. The impact of many firms' broad dispersal of offices and lawyers has not necessarily been to produce more of what wasn't much there in the first place. Compounded with the arrival almost daily of lateral lawyers from different work and culture environments, cities, and even countries, the tendency among lawyers towards isolation is often only magnified.
So here comes the possibility of virtual face time, whether you think you need it or not. While we can agree that what needs face time, and what that term means, is often subjective, the absolute necessity of it among lawyers, their staff and clients is indisputable. I concede that web conferencing still lacks a certain something—building a critical relationship, hiring and firing, and even congratulating might still best be done in person. Real person. Where a shoulder to cry on, a slap on the back or a firm handshake can make a difference.
But if a firm determines to include one of these technologies amongst its tools or toys, it should not forget to put introducing, acknowledging, appreciating, recapping, explaining, consolidating, networking, socializing, rewarding, giving feedback, even gossiping and complaining on the list of things they are used for. It is an efficient way to build rapport and community and the productivity associated with that cost assuredly drops to the bottom line faster than whatever productivity associated with paying for either lunches at everyone's desks or sitting on the tarmac does.
Behavioral science is not often invoked in the halls of law departments, but maybe it should be. Two recent articles highlight the importance to a GC's success of understanding why people think and act as they do.
General counsel are in the position of having to reconcile two jobs: being both a business partner in the management of the company's business and the guardian of the company's integrity. One aspect of their work requires creativity, risk-taking and far-sightedness. The other requires careful scrutiny of every corporate action in the short and long term for potential regulatory, liability and just plain reputation pitfalls. Achieving high productivity with high integrity might strain even Superman's talents.
An article in Corporate Counsel by Ben W. Heineman Jr, former GE senior vice president-general counsel, entitled "How GCs Can Avoid Being Caught in the Middle" recites some of the recent scandals that attest to how difficult that balancing act can be: the fraudulent financial practices at Enron, the pretexting at Hewlett-Packard Corp, and the wave of options backdating.
Perhaps what chilled GCs to the bone most recently were the guilty pleas by Purdue Pharma L.P., its president, GC and former chief medical officer to misleading the public about the drug OxyContin's risk of addiction. They have agreed to pay a total of $634.5 million in fines. Rather than relaying focus group concern about potential for abuse, Purdue Pharma gave false information to its sales representatives that the drug was less addictive than other painkillers.
Heineman mentions a number of attributes that can help GCs successfully straddle their two roles. Vis-a-vis the other corporate managers, the GC must have the ability to stand his/her ground on clear illegalities and to make sure he/she has enough time to assess those situations that are not clear cut. And GCs must be able to take those stands in the pressure-filled environment of a board meeting where the CEO is likely to be a ferocious skeptic and many board members will side with the CEO. See our July 18, 2007 entry on Promoting an Effective Board about the importance of personal attributes in good decision-making.
The Texas Lawyer article "It's All in Your Head: Cognitive Theory Can Help GCs Lead Organizations to Better Decisions" by Michael Maslanka, a managing partner at Ford & Harrison in Dallas, contends that a GC's real power--the ability to influence decisions-- comes from understanding the way people think, which requires tapping into cognitive science.
Maslanka lists a number of biases that people in general and managers specifically can suffer from if they aren't on the alert:
Maslanka encourages GCs to be open to all possibilities and to question rather than dictate. Heineman also points out the importance of maintaining within the law department a culture that welcomes, even requires, lawyers to raise concerns about financial, legal, ethical or reputational issues. We refer to this as a "culture of dissent"-- one that invites concerns, follows up on them and does not punish anyone for raising them, but rather praises them. See our March 16, 2007 entry on the article Handling Conflict and Dissent in Law Practice (and Life).
While it may not be mind reading, being cognitively aware of your own personal attributes and biases, as well as others', can help steer you toward that Superman performance to which all GCs aspire.
Oddly enough, where it is most needed, Boards and other management groups may be the last frontier for achieving enhanced performance management.
Historically, the perceived advantages of relying on a managing group, instead of one individual, include access to the group's collective wisdom –"several heads are better than one"–as well as the ability to spread an increasing management workload over a number of people.
A recent Center for Creative Leadership study identified an additional advantage. Effective management these days requires the resources of several people, rather than the lone hero, in order to meet the global challenges of collaboratively connecting across boundaries of all kinds—geography, language, culture and expertise.
Avoiding "Extreme" Group Decision-Making
Yet there is a well-documented propensity for groups to drift toward "extreme" decisions, that is, a committee often makes a decision that none of the individual members of the committee, acting alone, would make. These group decisions can be extreme by being either extremely risky or extremely conservative, and you see lone Directors routinely disavowing their cohorts’ actions after the fact. There seem to be a number of reasons for this tendency:
Diffusion of Responsibility. An individual's part in a group's decision evidently weighs less heavily on him/her than an individual decision would, the implication being that not as thorough an evaluation of the issues is made when the decision is attributed to the group.
Ignoring the Lone Voice. Often groups do not properly take into account the most relevant expertise in the room. Most small groups tend to make decisions based on the information all members share about a topic, overlooking important facts that one or several people bring. Although management committees are usually looking for creative, out-of-the-box strategies, a solitary opinion is often taken lightly or ignored in the flow of debate within the group.
Social Pressure. The more bonded the group, the more committed they are likely to be to reaching a decision, particularly one that pleases most of the members, even if a decision should be delayed or a less pleasing one would in fact be best.
Competition. When committee members agree on the parameters of an issue, individuals may try to one-up each other by suggesting more and more extreme solutions, then promoting their solution as the best.
Stress. Groups under pressure act very much like individuals under stress, only more so. They often procrastinate, calling for further information, or become committed to bad decisions primarily to protect themselves and each other against criticism. This effect may account for the popular notion that committees tend to "split the baby," resulting in a less controversial solution that does not in fact work very well.
Seeing What Others Say
The impact of psychological factors on group decision making may go even further, to actually alter each person’s perceptions. A study using advanced brain-scanning technology shows that, in effect, group members often in fact see what the group tells them they see. In an exercise involving mentally rotating images of three-dimensional objects to determine if the objects were the same or different, subjects were assured of an incorrect conclusion by confederates and then agreed with those wrong answers 41% of the time. The brain activity of those who went along with the group was markedly different from those who took independent positions. When subjects concurred with wrong answers, activity increased in the area of the brain devoted to spatial awareness, meaning that their actual perceptions were being influenced. Those who made independent judgments showed activity in the region of the brain associated with conflict management, signifying an emotional toll for going against the group's perception.
Based on the results of this study, one of the potential major advantages of a group decision—"several heads are better than one"—can disappear if the group successfully, even if unintentionally, co-opts individual insights. The most problematic aspect of these results is that not only does the group lose the "lone voices," but also the lone voices lose their very awareness of their differing perspectives. The change in their perception makes them incapable of raising their idiosyncratic flags.
Continue Reading...Should lawyers “do the right thing” in addition to “being right”?
A favorite cartoon depicts two lawyers at a desk evidently discussing strategy. One lawyer says to the other: “Is it right?… Is it fair? Get a grip, Carlton—we’re a law firm!”
In an interesting study issued recently, the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence found that financial advisors who demonstrated high levels of “moral and emotional competency” nearly doubled the S&P 500 return on their client portfolios in the years 2001 through 2004, delivering an average return of 25%.
Of the various attributes studied, integrity had the single strongest impact on client returns. “Results showed that Integrity was the key behavioral competency which predicted the most positive returns for clients."
Integrity was defined as acting consistently with what one says is important, in other words “walking the talk.” An example was an advisor willing to give up a lucrative client rather than compromise his/her principles, such as ultimately recommending that a client seek advice from another advisor because the advisor could not in good conscience implement a plan believed to put the client at significant financial risk.
In the process of updating his 1996 book The Honest Hour: The Ethics of Time-Based Billing by Attorneys, William George Ross determined that lawyers in 2007 are significantly more likely than a decade ago to pad their bills with unnecessary hours or bill two clients for the same time. Almost 55% (up from 40%) of associates and partners surveyed report performing unnecessary work, and 35% (up from 23%) say they bill two clients for the same time. The number of lawyers who believe double billing is ethical also rose from 35% in 1996 to 48%, and more than two-thirds of lawyers say they have specific knowledge of bill-padding by others.
Morals
In a May 2, 2007 Law.com article entitled “From Moral Partners to a Moral Firm”, Gregory S. Gallopoulos, the managing partner of Jenner & Block, suggests that the integrated enterprise model that many successful law firms are adopting now, in which strategy and vision belong to the entity as a whole rather than to individual partners, risks producing a vacuum in the area of firm morals.
“Under the entity model, as individual attorneys cede decision-making authority to the firm, including authority for decisions regarding professional responsibility and ethical behavior, they tend to renounce (at least implicitly) personal responsibility for moral decision making. Law firms as entities, however, have no inherent mechanism for replacing personal moral responsibility with institutional moral responsibility. In consequence, morality can fall through the cracks, allowing corruption to ooze into the enterprise. “
Ronda Muir, Esq., Senior Consultant at Robin Rolfe Resources, was featured as a speaker at a conference on Risk Management for the Modern Law Firm, sponsored by ARK Group. The conference was held in Chicago on April 17 and 18, 2007.
Muir's presentation was on the risks that arise in managing a law firm's greatest asset: its people. She pointed out the ways in which lawyers are different from all other professionals, the challenges and risks that those differences pose to management, and how to use those differences to make good lawyers better.
Participants raved:
ARK Group also lauded Muir's participation: "Your involvement was pivotal to the success of the program… and brought a fresh perspective to the agenda."
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Muir Conducts Associate Compensation Audioconference
On Wednesday, March 12, 2-3:15 pm EST, Muir will be conducting an audioconference for the Center for Competitive Management on Associate Compensation: Remain Competitive Without Breaking the Bank. Included in the discussion will be a review of current trends and out-of-the-box ideas for dealing with the impact of escalating associate compensation, how to find the best strategy for your own law firm and overcoming the problems and pitfalls in making that strategy work.
