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360 Degree Feedback
Our 360 degree feedback process helps partners and senior professionals pinpoint perceived strengths and areas for development and is an excellent catalyst for performance improvement, either as a one-off or as part of an ongoing performance management process.
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Winning Firm Alliance
Phil is a member of the Winning Firm Alliance a group of leaders in their respective fields who share a passion for bringing about positive change in professional service firms.
As someone who trains lawyers and accountants in presentation skills, I have never seen dancing as a necessary part of my skill set (and it certainly is not part of my skill set).
Yet you are now being urged by molecular biologist John Bohannon to ‘dance your next presentation’. In this TEDx talk he perfectly illustrates his point by using dancers to help explain some complex scientific concepts.
I certainly agree with him that PowerPoint, at least as it is currently used by most presenters, has had its day. Even if dance is not your thing, John Bohannon’s memorable presentation should make us all stop and think about how best to convey our messages using boldly different approaches.
Here is an excellent example of getting a point across in a memorable way. Do you think those kids in the audience will remember this? Will they tell their friends about it?
As educators we need to look for interesting and memorable ways to communicate our messages.
Often when I am providing training and coaching to professionals I hear confessions that they are not good presenters or communicators because they are not naturally outgoing.
As an introvert myself, I know that introversion can, but need not, hold people back. Indeed, for the first half of my life I viewed introversion as a weakness, whereas I am now much more comfortable with myself and I know that it need not prevent me from doing outgoing things.
It is therefore heartening to see that lawyer and self-confessed introvert Susan Cain has started a ‘Quiet Revolution’ in which she champions the many qualities of introverts. She explains her cause in a wonderful TED video . Susan admits that presenting to a TED audience (where the standard of presentation skills is excellent) was daunting but she has certainly mastered the challenge. Her delivery is of a very high standard indeed.
Which of the following areas would you expect to cause equity partners greatest concern if potential shortcomings were identified:
• Client care / business development
• Leadership / management of people
• Financial performance
• Compliance with professional and ethical requirements.
We have just completed 360 degree feedback/appraisal reports for around 50 equity partners. The feedback they each received was overwhelmingly positive (as is always the case) but with some useful pointers for improvement, spread pretty much equally across each of the above areas.
Yet here is the interesting thing: the constructive criticisms that caused most obvious concern to the partners were all in the ‘compliance’ category. Whilst they are right to want to address any potential shortcomings in this area, I wonder whether their level of concern is overly weighted towards the risks in this area alone. What about the risks of losing clients through inattentive service or failing to win clients through poor selling? What about the costs of under-performance through poor people-management and the risk of losing talented professionals? What about the risks and costs of excessive lock-up and taking on unprofitable work?
Though less easy to identify, these risks should surely be of no less concern?
A new survey, recently reported in Legal Week, may seem like another blow for law firms already facing enormous business pressures. Yet in reality, for forward-looking firms, it presents an opportunity to become more competitive in the key area of client care.
Based on a secret shopping exercise to large regional and hybrid firms (including alternative business structures, which actually fared worse) the survey revealed that 33% of calls to firms were disconnected before they reached a legal adviser and 44% of those which were put through went to the wrong person.
Other research shows that even small improvements in client care will lead to a leveraged improvement in profitability (ie improving perceived client care by just 1% can improve profitability by 8%).
Investing in carefully designed client care training can therefore pay major dividends for law firms.
To be successful, professional service firms have to find common ground between the capabilities of their people and the needs of their clients.
It follows that the performance of the people within a firm will need to be alignedwith the requirements of the firm’s clients. Learning & Development can help to achieve this but, to do so, needs to be properly positioned within the firm.
It is only relatively recently that training started to be seen as an important function which deserved a dedicated resource, rather than just being left to happen through on-the-job experience and apprenticeship. Then training officers were appointed and, in larger firms, training departments sprung up. In some firms training fell under the remit of human resources, whereas in others, it was the offspring of a research function and its focus was very much on technical skills.
More recently it has been recognised that training (or L&D as it has become known) has a broader role to play in helping firms achieve their business aims. The focus has therefore shifted more towards understanding the firm’s goals and equipping people to help achieve them. L&D has become more in touch with the needs of the firm.
Past
Present
Future
However, perhaps there is a further shift that needs to take place. If L&D is to fully serve the needs of a firm, then its reach must extend further – and as directly as possible – to clients of the firm and even its target clients.
What does this mean in practical terms? By way of example, I have designed L&D interventions using specially created video interviews with a firm’s clients, and have even helped firms set up client advisory boards with recordings of meetings being used in workshops with fee earners as part of client service training.
If L&D is disconnected from the business and clients of a firm, then its relevance and value must be questionable. To contribute real value, L&D has to have access to whatever intelligence exists about a firm’s clients and, if that intelligence is insufficient, it should play a part in providing it.
Mark Sanborne has an interesting blog post about heeding wisdom in which he reminds us of 7 levels or stages that people go through in learning and changing behaviour:
We don’t know (we are ignorant).
We know but don’t believe (we don’t think a particular truth applies to us or our situation).
We know and believe but still don’t do it ( we lack conviction because it’s difficult, inconvenient, or unnecessary).
We know and believe, and we would if we could (we lack the skills to do it).
We know and do it but inconsistently (we get lazy or forgetful or distracted).
We know and do it consistently (we’ve formed a good behaviour that we consciously cultivate).
We know and make it second nature (it’s become part of who we are, a good habit).
I find that when I am training partners and professionals in skills such as leadership, communication and business development, I rarely need to start from stage 1. Usually they know what they should be doing.
For example, when it comes to giving constructive feedback to staff, most professionals know they should do it (ie they have got past stage 1) but relatively very few have made it through to stage 7. Many get stuck at stage 3. If they ever get past that, stage 4 isn’t much of a problem but stage 5 can become a sticking point.
Whenever we are trying to create behavioural change, I think Mark’s 7 stages are a useful guide to help in bringing about change.
Those in positions of leadership within professional service firms serve two masters – their clients and their people. Both are essential for a firm to exist and both must be kept happy for the firm to thrive.
Client Relationship Management has taken hold as a process to help ensure that firms keep their valued clients happy. CRM processes and principles help to ensure that the needs of clients are identified and that the firm positions itself to meet and exceed them. It is, of course, not an altruistic approach. CRM benefits the firm but it does so by placing the emphasis firmly on building strong relationships with clients.
HRM, on the other hand, stands for Human Resource Management (rather than Human Relationship Management) and there is a direct emphasis on squeezing value from those resources for the benefit of the firm (rather than indirectly by meeting and exceeding people’s needs and aspirations).
Now, of course, the relationship a firm has with its clients is different from the relationship it has with its staff. However, I suspect firms could benefit by applying some good CRM principles to the people side of the business. Effective but under-used processes such as career mapping and job sculpting would take on much more significance, and feedback through employee opinion surveys and 360 degree feedback would be taken much more seriously.
It is rare to feel a sense of shock and loss when someone I have never met dies, but Steve Jobs is an exception.
So many times have I quoted him when training, shown videos of him presenting, and used Apple as a stand-out example of best practice.
How would professional services change if an Apple-like firm were led by someone with the vision and courage of Steve Jobs? The new regulatory regime for lawyers – parts of which come into effect today – are supposed to free up the profession to competition and change. Yet without real leadership, of the Steve Jobs kind, little will really change.
