When Your Assets Have Feet
By Ginger Grant
“There is nothing permanent except change.”
Heraclitis, approx. 500 BC
Today, the main nightmare within the minds of managers in law firms is the ability to retain valuable employees. Hiring good people is tough. Keeping them is even harder. Demographics tell us that the cycles of available staff have substantially decreased and will continue to do so for some time to come. Technology adds to the problem in that globalization provides an open marketplace ... people not only move from their current place of employment, they move from their current geographical location.
Those who choose law, choose a career, not a job. Most people within the practice of law are motivated by deeply embedded life-interests. If the law firm and the individual share in those interests, a match is made and valuable knowledge workers will be retained. That is why it is critical for any partnership to openly espouse its values and why the practice group leaders must openly adopt and support that vision. Behaviour must flow directly from the claimed value system. In short, you must walk your talk. You draw and retain your staff through your tacit structure. The more flexible that structure, the more able the corporation to provide a stimulating and creative environment.
Tacit structure is the foundation to your corporate culture. But, if by its very nature a tacit structure is hidden, how do you find it? Corporate culture is a buzzword that makes little sense unless you can grasp what your particular culture entails. The question then becomes what you do with the information. We know that intellectual capital is our most valuable resource. But how do you know if your staff retention efforts are actually working? One way to bring this type of information into concrete form is to conduct a cultural measurement. This provides any manager or practice group leader a baseline for continued use.
One of my favourites to use is the Q12 devised by the Gallup Organization. This series of 12 Questions can be found in the book, First, Break all the Rules by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. It is a measure that is simple to conduct and informative in results. I would recommend that your associates and key knowledge workers within your law practice complete the questionnaire and then have the results interpreted. I favour keeping the results from associates and other key staff separate for two reasons. One, the aggregate responses provide a baseline by which to measure any internal development program for a specific group. The second reason is that these responses will give you an indication of whether a potential problem is endemic to one group or systemic of your organization. You can then tailor your approach in change management.
There is a difference between managing and coaching knowledge workers. When the majority of assets possess feet, a parent-child management relationship is no longer functional. Knowledge workers demand choice as exemplified in today’s move towards cafeteria-style benefits. The employee chooses which package suits their lifestyle and their needs. Terms of employment are also shifting towards such an approach – allowing the corporation to specify areas of competency required and the knowledge worker to move laterally between competency groups. Flexibility inside an organization is the key.
Law firms provide a special challenge as they are not usually known for flexibility. But, as the practice of law becomes more and more competitive, even the most conservative of partnerships are coming to the realization that their previous style of management must change. For example, take at look at your turnover statistics. If they are high, it is time to review your management style and underlying philosophy. It may also be time to communicate with your staff and ask for input from all levels of your organization. Why would anyone stay with your organization if they have no voice in their own future? Again, participatory management enhances your ability to retain staff.
If your organization is not aware of the deeply held beliefs of your key people, how do you hope to retain them? Most people remain within an organization that actively supports and enhances their common belief structure. Skill-sets can be moved in many directions, but if those directions do not complement embedded life interests, you run the risk of employee dissatisfaction and fostering a lack of commitment. There is much talk today of work/life balance, especially in the professions such as law. It seems as if we must choose between a career and personal relationships.
How do we find a balance between work/life issues? How to hold the two and give value to both? Must we choose one over the other? When you have no time to give, in the legal professional it is the home front usually that suffers. What is wrong with our culture that we value the persona more than the person? If we live only by our persona, we live an inauthentic life not resident in our own skin. Such a life is characterized by a longing for something that cannot be expressed, dissatisfaction in general ... anything purchased or accomplished brings but temporary relief. Then, once more, we are faced with this hunger that seemingly cannot be fed.
We ignore this condition at our peril. If we do not pay attention we will fall ill; psychically, physically or both. How to respond? The answer can partially be found in myth. A myth points to something beyond itself; such is the function of metaphor. Myth can link us to that mystery which is the ground of our own being. We tend to forget that anything created by our race, first existed in the mythic imagination. Whether it is a work of art, a winning argument, a cure for some disease, a mathematical formulation, a sculpture or the “Little Egypt Bump” ... the vision first existed in fantasy, the realm of the muses. In order to innovate for ourselves or for our clients, we must have vision.
To be visionary is to be passionate, to be filled with and consumed by something much larger than one individual can hold. Where is the passion in your life? Joseph Campbell told us to “Follow our Bliss.” By that he meant the passion that can sustain a life, enrich it beyond measure. How do you combine this directive with an economic climate that is uncertain; a world that is now facing global, not local realities? One way of combining both theory and praxis is through the act of creation itself. You may argue that you are not creative but I would beg to differ. Creativity is innate to our race. It is a part of all of us; resident in our very cells. Where do you find creativity in an organization? In the myths we tell at the water-cooler. It is the stories that carry the ethos of the organization. It is in the stories that we find tacit knowledge.
Anyone can have an idea and by the birth of that idea, the creative act is manifested into everyday existence. To bring the creative mind to work is an unusual experience. What are the limitations facing you at work? If you take the problem and place it outside the constraints of your organization ... how might your circumstances change? If you face the exorbitant cost of office space ... can you consider what would happen if two people with the same value set shared an office and a group of clients? What would happen if you had the option of telecommuting? What would happen if you were in charge of the “process” of your work and accountable only for the “result”? What would happen if your entire organization thought that way? What current limitations could you surpass?
What are the soft costs within your organization that are not factored into your analysis? Perhaps the solution to the work/life balance does not lie in changing our work but rather in changing how we think about the work that we do. Use the creative juice that demands recognition in a life ... bring it to where you spend at least half of your time.
Developing Your Corporate Creativity
What passions have you set aside? Where is your creative source and how do you feed it? To integrate passion into what we do seems a simplistic comment. The practice is much harder. To live from a place of passion takes courage as you clearly show your vulnerable side. You openly display what you value. If you “Follow your Bliss” there is no duality of existence; there is no split between who you are and what you do. If you follow your passion you live your life from a place of authenticity. Such is the ability to live mythically. You feel the impact. You recognize a truth that resonates through the body as well as the mind. Creativity does not originate with logic; it stems from eros, our passion to create. To deny our creative spirit, is to deny our ability to innovate. To lose our ability to innovate is to lose our competitive edge, whether it is resident in a law firm or a nation.
Our fascination with culture has been around for a long time. Instead of gathering around the fire and telling war stories, we hang-out at the water cooler and tell our tales. Organizations consist of people and a corporate culture is created by how the various members of the organization interact with each other and with life circumstances that change all of us. Adaptation to change is never easy and yet, it is always required for change is a constant. The other constant we frequently forget is our innate ability to create. Perhaps that is why we need to emphasize a return to creativity in our organizations. Whether senior partner or a member of support staff, each individual desires recognition for the value they bring to a task, relationship with others, and meaning to the life they live.
Along with a growing commitment to ethical behaviour in organizations perhaps it is time to reawaken our spirit of adventure, our passion to create and our commitment to innovation. Maybe, we can even come to the realization that a solid commitment to an ethical value system does not conflict with corporate profitability. When we dare to admit that creativity belongs in our organizations, perhaps we can also dare to acknowledge that such an admission creates a collaborative community dedicated to the service of a corporate mythos which increases our productivity, generates new ideas and invigorates our economy as well as our organizations.
To use creativity in business provides organizations with a competitive edge by helping to foster and develop the powerful creative potential within individuals and teams leading to greater innovation. True creativity in business results from the contagious energy of inspired and creative individuals.
When was the last time you examined what blocks your personal creativity? What is getting in the way of realizing your passion, purpose and vision by which you started your career? As Albert Einstein reminds us, “imagination is more important than knowledge.”
To work with creativity in business develops a strong sense of community and trust among colleagues. To work with creativity in business inspires increased risk-taking, innovative problem-solving and breakthrough thinking. To work with creativity in business builds motivation and passion for work by helping you discover the alignment among your personal mission and purpose, the purpose of your organization and that of your profession. To work with creativity in business enhances and supports a healthy corporate culture which in turn helps retain intellectual capital. Utilizing intellectual capital to the fullest brings satisfaction to the individual concerned and increased profitability to the organization.
In today’s globalized marketplace when the search for talent is intense and getting more so, how many of your assets are walking away?
Lessons to be Learned
1. If you want to increase profitability, improve your corporate culture. It doesn’t get much simpler than that.
2. Listen to your employees. Find out what their perceptions really are instead of assuming you already know.
3. Before a culture can be changed, it must be assessed. Get a baseline measurement that has proven validity (i.e. Gallup’s Q12 First, Break all the Rules).
4. Specifically address the issues that surface during your baseline measurement and link personal development ideas for your staff with solutions for your organization.
5. Never discount the power of enthusiasm. Create role models instead of leaders.
6. Performance is a function of expectation. Recognize and reward performance. Often.
7. Create a climate of innovation. How could your culture be changed to improve your baseline? Again, ask your employees. No one person can ever come up with all the solutions to one problem.
8. Determine your target change agents (turnover, training costs, etc.).
9. Hire good people and then get out of their way.
10. Act! Understand that innovation is something you DO.
Note: The “Little Egypt Bump” was a tax loophole found by Davies, Ward & Beck for their client, Olympia & York during the 1980’s.
About the Author
Ginger Grant, M.A. is a consultant and doctoral candidate whose dissertation addresses Corporate Culture and Creativity. She is the President of Creativity in Business Canada Inc., a consulting firm that specializes in corporate culture, employee retention and change management, and is the only Canadian certified to teach the unique Stanford Graduate School of Business course “Creativity in Business”. Her new book, entitled “When Assets Have Feet” is scheduled for publication in early Spring. Ginger can be reached at: ginger@creativityinbusiness.org or 604-255-5374. http://www.creativityinbusiness.org
Neither the author nor the CBA should be construed as endorsing any product or website listed in this article. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CBA.
In this document, any reference to "jurist" or "lawyer" includes, where appropriate, "Québec notary". |
