POWERING BUSINESS PERFORMANCE THROUGH MORE EFFECTIVE CLIENT FOCUS AND TEAMING
PROMOTE COLLECTIVE EFFORT ‘Managing professionals is like herding cats;’ a phrase that reflects the fact that professionals, and lawyers in particular, are by nature independent and autonomous with strong egos fuelled by a stellar record of professional and personal success and client plaudits. They are not natural team players; yet teaming is vital to success in a more competitive market. Why? Because the requirement to demonstrate real depth and breadth, not simply fielding one or two good people, is vital to winning the higher ground and more privileged positions with clients; because no one individual is likely to have all the requisite knowledge about client, industry, practice and geography; because consistently exceeding the high performance expectations of the client can only be achieved by people who have a deep and shared understanding of what the clients’ expectations and ‘win requirements’ are – a consequence of teaming; and finally, the synergistic effect created by bringing people together with complementary perspectives and the shared goal of client benefit is enormous! That lawyers can work in teams is demonstrated by the fact they work in transaction teams all the time. Ensuring practice-industry-geography teamwork takes strong root in the firm will require creating similar conditions to those that exist on a transaction (‘client’ imposed deadlines, a clear end-goal, specified route-map and tasks, defined responsibility and accountability for performance, etc.) and applying these to the client relationship-build and business development activities. TAKE THE LONG TERM VIEW Building ‘richer’ and more ‘privileged’ relationships and ‘fortified’ positions with key clients takes time. Thus it is vital that firms are willing to make a long-run sustained investment for a rich prize. Clients are increasingly sophisticated and discriminating so the burden of proof of capability is far greater, particularly in relation to the client’s higher-value work. Overlay increasing capability of competitors and it is easy to see that that most ‘privileged’ positions and ‘prizes’ will not easily be won! Building deep understanding of a client takes time; developing the platforms from which insights can be leveraged and capabilities demonstrated also takes time; and, finally, building high levels of trust and confidence takes time as well. “...Clients are increasingly sophisticated and discriminating so the burden of proof of capability is far greater...”
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