The strength of a law firm depends depends not only on the quality of its legal expertise, but also on the abilities of its people to lead internal teams and the ability of its lawyers to develop the business acumen to contribute commercially.
Developing these capabilities can be difficult when lawyers are already busy serving clients and managing demanding workloads.
The more effectively we are able to help colleagues understand how to lead, how the business works and how they can create value beyond their technical expertise, the stronger the firm becomes.
Here are some thoughts.
The six areas below are a practical high level lens for thinking about the business you are running and the environment you are creating.
'When we're looking to improve our B2B business, I think a good place to start is to consider and, where necessary, take action in these six areas:
-- Firstly, the clarity and appropriateness of our offer in the context of the markets we serve and the resources, both operational and financial, available to us. We don't want to be stretched too thin or applying our efforts in areas that don't suit us or our configuration well.
-- Secondly, the quality of our customer base, paying particular attention to their ability and willingness to pay for what it is we have to offer. The better the quality of our customer base the stronger our business.
-- Thirdly, the environment we have designed, consciously or otherwise, for our people. A good question to ask and to listen carefully and take positive steps in response to is "are we as a team, are we as an individual, easy to work with and easy to work for?"
-- Fourthly, the business and people acumen of each member of our management team. The more adept our leaders are in these areas the likelier they'll set a positive, collaborative and commercial tone for their respective teams and make good decisions.
-- Fifthly, the confidence, consciousness and capability of our sales professionals to engage on a business level with business leaders and other budget holders. The more of an asset our people are to our customers the likelier we succeed.
-- Sixthly, the confidence, consciousness and capability of our non-sales customer facing professionals in building strong productive relationships both externally and internally. The closer we collaborate the stronger our bonds.'
- Rob Evans, Founder Of Outperformance Highway, Based On 35+ Years Working Inside 150+ Businesses Worldwide
Don’t accept a leadership and customer facing role if you don’t want to invest much of your time with others and if you don’t want to run a business.
Actually this isn’t really an option.
Because all of us are in customer facing roles.
All of us have stakeholders, many are internal customers.
Our line manager is one of our most important customers.
And all of us are in business.
We all have to deliver something to someone.
And we never have limitless resources available to us to deliver what we must deliver.
And we never operate in isolation.
We always need at least some help from others.
And we need to find ways to lead others, most of whom don’t report to us.
And they don’t have to go out of their way to help us.
And we get a lot more help when they want to help us.
We can choose a role that requires not so much of our energy on commercial considerations, communication and collaboration.
But we can never fully eliminate it.
How well developed is our business and people acumen?
And how do we want to allocate our energy?
Just because they buy from us, it doesn’t mean they’re good for us.
Not every dollar of revenue is equal.
Bad revenue comes with hidden cost.
Physical energy for too little reward.
Emotional energy that drains us.
Lost time and attention.
Bad revenue gets in the way of good revenue.
Is our customer base serving us well?
We need all four.
Careers tend to follow a similar pattern.
As our career evolves, the demands placed on us evolve.
Career stages tend to direct us to a focus on one or two of the four.
We still need all four.
Think of these collectively as the four big picture acumen’s.
Technical acumen.
People acumen.
Business acumen.
Cognitive acumen.
Without strength across all four, our road is treacherous.
Wherever we are on our journey.
How consciously do we work on our four acumen’s?
Your Short Free Programme
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Introduction
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No Pudding Thanks
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What A Joy It Was
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The Several Elements
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Thinking Holistically About Our Environment
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A Final Word
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About This Programme
- Free
All of the above is drawn from 35+ years working inside 150+ businesses worldwide. It's not theory, it's what I discovered and observed working and where I saw people come unstuck.
'Luck may play a part but outperformance is never a fluke.'
- Rob Evans, Founder, Outperformance Highway