As is true of all professional service firms, the value of a law firm is stored in its people. And while the legal knowledge and skills of the attorneys is a critical component of any firm’s success, the character and performance of the staff are just as important. How well people do their work has an impact on everything, from the service that clients receive to employee job satisfaction to bottom line profits.
Whether you’re a solo with two employees, an AmLaw 100 practice group leader overseeing a team of attorneys and paralegals/assistants, or the managing partner of a midsize firm, you cannot escape the reality that there is a direct correlation between how well you manage the people on whom you rely and the results you get from them.
You didn’t go to law school to become a manager, an HR expert, a psychologist, or for that matter, a “boss”—it’s not what you were thinking about. But here you are, responsible for managing people and how they do their jobs. As it turns out, if they report to you, you’re “the boss.”
The title of Bruce Tulgan’s book could not be more direct: it really is OK for you to feel and act like the boss—and Tulgan lays out a clear process for how to be a great boss. (Tulgan also wrote the widely-acclaimed books Winning the Talent Wars: How to Build a Lean, Flexible, High-Performance Workplace
and Managing Generation X: How to Bring Out the Best in Young Talent
; he has studied thousands of managers throughout the world to distill his knowledge on how great bosses do what they do. Of particular interest to the readers of this review, he’s also a former corporate attorney.)
Tulgan believes that too many organizations suffer from an “under-management epidemic.” Head-on, he tackles seven “myths” that explain why managers tolerate compromised performance. The “Myth of Empowerment,” for example, is too often used as an excuse to let people manage themselves when they really need more guidance rather than less. The “Myth of the Difficult Conversation” says that being a strong manager requires having to confront people in ways that will be unpleasant. The “Myth of the Natural Leader” enables managers to let themselves off the hook because they’re just not good at it. What’s the mother of all myths? The “Myth of Time.”
This final myth is the most challenging and beneficial pill to swallow. As an executive coach working exclusively with attorneys, I have repeatedly seen extraordinary, measurable benefits when my clients devote as few as 30 minutes per day to consciously managing their people more effectively. Their first reaction, of course, is something like: “Bill, are you nuts? You want me to give up another 2.5 billable hours a week to do what?”
Well, no, I’m not nuts, and the gains—fewer errors and interruptions, increased billings, greater enthusiasm—become apparent almost immediately. As the boss, it’s within your power to manage for—and to actualize—these outcomes. Here’s Tulgan’s approach:
1. Get in the habit of managing every day
2. Learn to talk like a performance coach
3. Take it one person at a time
4. Make accountability a real process
5. Tell people what to do and how to do it
6. Track performance
7. Solve small problems before they turn into big problems
8. Do more for some people and less for others
Tulgan is a realist about the challenges bosses face. He explains each of the eight steps clearly (in language refreshingly free of management jargon) and provides illustrations to flesh out his guidelines. For example, he describes helping one of his clients address this common question: “How can I suddenly raise my standards and start holding people accountable when I haven’t been doing that all these years?”
Too many attorneys still cling to the antiquated notion that the law is a profession, not a business; that law firms constitute a unique cultural environment unlike other organizations; that as long as there are top-flight lawyers, things will be fine. This, of course, is bunk. Law firms are business organizations that must be led and managed effectively—which means that the people who do the work of the firm must be led and managed effectively. Tulgan’s book will teach you how.
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