Leadership in Motion: Building Momentum for Strategic Change

Change is inevitable, but success isn't - especially when we overlook the human element. Even the most meticulously crafted change management plan will crumble if we forget about the people at its heart. Here's your guide to keeping your change project on track while bringing your team along with you:

Embrace Reality - Your Greatest Ally

Stop sugarcoating it - change is happening, and everyone knows it. When leaders try to downplay significant shifts by suggesting that people’s jobs are not changing, they're not fooling anyone. You can’t change one element of a system without it affecting the processes of other elements. For example, you cannot change the structure without there being consequences for people’s job responsibilities and how they are to be executed. In fact, denying obvious changes can backfire spectacularly, eroding trust and fueling resistance. Instead, take the bold step of acknowledging transformations openly. Your authenticity will build credibility and help dissolve barriers to change.

Master the Art of Validation

Think of validation as your secret weapon in change management. Create safe spaces where your team can process their emotions and voice their concerns - even when their perspectives don't align with the planned changes. Here's a counterintuitive truth: when you accept and acknowledge resistance truthfully, you actually help diminish it. Take a cue from Jack Ryan's advice about leaving critics no room to escalate in the movie Clear and Present Danger. Ryan advised the President, " If a reporter asked you and Harden were friends, I’d say no, we’re good friends. If they asked you if you were good friends I’d say, No, no, we’re lifelong friends. I’d given them no place to go.” When someone talks about their concerns, don't argue - amplify. If they say they're worried, acknowledge that the situation might feel overwhelming for them. This approach disarms resistance rather than intensifying it. Do this because it is the truth of their experience and trying to downplay how they feel, will only undermine your own credibility and their trust in what you say and do.

Become Their Champion

Don't just manage change - support it. Open genuine dialogues with your team by asking thoughtful questions about what they need to succeed. Some might need additional training, while others may seek clarity about their future role. Remember that people don't always immediately know what support they need, so keep the door open for future conversations. Make it clear that you're there to help them navigate this transition, not just push them through it.

Anchor to Your Values - Your Cultural Constants

In times of change, even when you are changing culture, people need something familiar to hold onto. This is where your organization's enduring values come into play. Highlight the principles that remain steadfast - whether it's your commitment to fairness, employee wellbeing, or customer excellence. Show your team how these core values actually guide and strengthen the change process, rather than being threatened by it.

For example, if innovation is one of your cultural pillars, demonstrate how the current changes embody that innovative spirit. If customer service is a core value, illustrate how the changes will ultimately enhance your ability to serve clients better. By connecting change initiatives to your organization's fundamental principles, you help your team see these shifts not as disruptions to your culture, but as expressions of it.

Remember, your organizational values aren’t just a set of words on a wall - they are your North Star during transformation. When team members can see how changes align with the values they've always believed in, they're more likely to move from resistance to engagement. Make these connections explicit:

• "Our commitment to excellence hasn't changed - we're evolving to deliver it in new and better ways."

• "While our processes may be changing, our dedication to supporting each other remains stronger than ever."

• "These changes reflect our long-standing value of innovation, helping us stay ahead in serving our customers."

By anchoring change to your cultural constants, you create a bridge between the familiar and the new, making the journey feel less like a leap into the unknown and more like a natural progression of your organization's story. This approach helps your team see themselves not as passive recipients of change, but as active participants in your organization's evolution, guided by the values they've always championed.

Beyond the Buzzword: Building Systems That Make Collaboration Real

"Collaborate more!" It's the battle cry of today’s organizations, where the hybrid workplace is the norm, as if using the right jargon will shift an entire culture. I believe that buzzwords obscure problems, so what does “collaboration” actually mean? If you assess your leaders, you might read a definition such as, "collaboration is the art of bringing people together to leverage their skills, talents, and knowledge to achieve a common purpose". (Korn-Ferry). If it is the "art" of brining people together, then leadership must be responsible for creating the context that helps it develop. Are job descriptions clear or do they leave employees confused about what they are supposed to be doing, how, and when and leaders wondering why their collaboration initiatives fail?

Here's the hard truth: Adding "must collaborate well with others" to position requirements isn't enough. Moving beyond the buzzword requires building robust systems that enable and encourage true collaboration. Here's what real infrastructure for collaboration looks like:

First, job descriptions need complete rewiring. Skip the vague "team player" requirements. Instead, spell it : which roles work together, when are they supposed to intersect, and most importantly, what should each role bring to and receives from these partnerships. This clarity transforms collaboration from a fuzzy concept into concrete daily actions.

Second, performance metrics must evolve beyond individual scorecards. When you say collaboration matters but only measure individual achievements, you're sending mixed messages. Instead, implement shared, cross-silo objectives. For example, rather than measuring a customer service representative's individual response time, measure how effectively the entire team reduces recurring customer issues through collaborative problem-solving.

Third, onboarding processes need restructuring. New hires should receive a clear relationship-building roadmap: who they need to meet, why these connections matter, and how these relationships drive collaborative success. This isn't just about team introductions—it's about building a collaborative network from day one.

The most overlooked piece? Development planning. Organizations must build in regular feedback sessions, coaching opportunities, and workshops where people can practice collaboration on the challenges and opportunities of job requirements.

Remember, without this foundation, calls for "more collaboration" are like asking people to build a house without tools or blueprints.

What essential pieces is your organization missing in its collaboration strategy? Share your experiences in the comments.

#OrganizationalDevelopment #Leadership #Collaboration #TalentManagement #BusinessStrategy#Hybrid"#Leadership#Structures#Processes#JobDescriptions

Easy-to-Fix Talent Cycle Mistakes

If you are an employer in the United States trying to attract, engage, and retain the best employees to meet your organization’s performance goals, it’s easy for unconscious assumptions and beliefs to creep into the decisions to recruit, hire, or off-board. Why does this matter? Forbes reports that US companies cut more jobs in 2024, most in December and most since 2010, other than the cuts made in the first year of COVID. Who gets selected for cuts affects the shared perception of culture and fairness in your organization and your ability to attract and retain the best people.

Here are few mistakes and quick fixes.

Signaling Recruiting and Hiring Intentions

There are different laws protecting different groups of people. For examplle, Title VII prohibits discrimination based on:

• Race;

• Color;

• Religion;

• Sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity); and

• National origin.

The ADEA protects people 40 and older from discrimination. The ADA protects qualified employees or applicants from discrimination because of a disability. There are so many, that a “best practice” is to have your lawyer review what you post on your website when recruiting, for example, if only for the purpose of avoiding an unintentional message to your next best potential hire.

Here’s an example from a job description posted by a large company “All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or status as a protected veteran.” Can you spot the group that’s been left out?

Is there a fully-inclusive list of all disabilities?

Most employees are “at-will,” which means that the employer can off-board any employee at any time for any reason as long as it is not an illegal reason, yet some terminations can becomes very expensive and even hurt a company’s reputation. First, there is no fully inclusive list of possible disabilities under the ADA. Did you know that stress is included on LA County’s list? Thinking of letting an employee go because you don’t like their personality? Have you even considered which behaviors, tones of voice, or mannerisms may be integral pieces of their personality and also considered a disability? The corollary to “at will” is that anyone can sue anybody for anything (of course that’s no guarantee of success, just expense). The cost might very well outweigh any benefits, especially if an employee’s objectively-measured performance is okay.

What Does Equity and Inclusion Really Mean?

Every process related to employment—recruiting, hiring, promotions, professional development, and employee performance—involves decisions. Where and how to recruit? Whether to invite someone for an interview or hire them? How to onboard and develop them? Whether to promote or bonus them?

One helpful way to assess how equitable and inclusive these decisions are is to consider the criteria used to make these decisions and how those criteria are applied. It’s easy for a criterion to be subjective and susceptible to significant bias and for its application to be equally biased. For example, most people invited to interview for a position are likely to be qualified. So, the decision of who to hire is also a decision of who not to offer employment. To balance the natural bias, develop a strategy that explores the basis for these decisions and ask the following:

• Who is involved in making these decision? Is it a single person or a diverse group of people with diverse experiences and perspectives that inform their evaluation decisions?

• Which criteria were used? Were they checked for levels of objectivity and subjectivity, especially those related to whether someone is a good “fit” for the position and organization?

• How were criteria applied to each person? What guardrails were used to avoid excluding based on subjective reasons (a diverse group of decision-makers and a democratic decision-making process)?

If you are an employer trying to attract, engage, and retain the best employees to meet your organization’s performance goals, counteract unconscious assumptions and beliefs by accepting that they will creep into the decisions to recruit, hire, or off-board and have a written strategy to counteract these mistakes and use it.

Free (100% Reimbursable) Trainings and Workshops for Small Businesses

If you are a small business (up to 50 Massachusetts employees)you may be entitled to free workshops and trainings for your employees through a Massachusetts-based reimbursement program.

The Express Program, an offering of the Workforce Training Fund, provides Massachusetts employers fast, simple access to grant-funded training to help businesses respond to emerging needs. Applications are accepted and grants are awarded on a rolling basis throughout the year.

There are reimbursement limits:

• The Express Program annual maximum award amount is $15,000 per business, per calendar year (January 1—December 31).

• The Express Program will reimburse for approved training at a maximum rate of $300 per instructional hour per course*, up to $3,000 per participant per course. Any remaining amount must be covered by businesses out-of-pocket.

• The Express Program will reimburse up to 50% for larger businesses with up to 100 Massachusetts employees.

To find the courses we offer, in the search box under “Training Provider Name” start typing Letterman White Consulting, LLC and when the company pops us, continue down the page and select the blue “Search” box.

To calculate your reimbursement amount go to: https://commcorp.tfaforms.net/329151?tfa_4=1-50+Massachusetts+Payroll+Employees

New Year, New Possibilities: The Art of Strategic Reinvention

As we embrace 2025, a question echoes across boardrooms and quiet moments of reflection: How do we transform ourselves while honoring the wisdom of our past? In today's rapidly evolving landscape, the art of strategic reinvention isn't just about change—it's about making intentional choices with our most valuable assets: time, energy, and experience.

The challenge isn't simply about pivoting; it's about precision. Whether you're a professional contemplating a career shift, a team leader revitalizing your group's dynamics, or an executive navigating organizational transformation, the fundamental question remains: How do we build on the foundations that got us to where we are today while boldly stepping into new territory?

Drawing from years of experience helping people, teams, and organizations adjust to and intentionally change, I've identified three steps that form the backbone of successful strategic reinvention.

1. Conduct a Strategic Identity Audit

True transformation begins with a clear-eyed assessment of your core identity. Think of this as your professional DNA—the values, beliefs, and behaviors that have shaped your journey. But unlike traditional self-reflection, this audit requires brutal honesty and strategic thinking.

Start by creating three parallel timelines: one tracking significant experiences (victories, setbacks, pivotal moments), another mapping the values and behaviors that seemed to cause these events, and a third, upon honest reflection, your conclusions. Label each element as either "growth-enabling" or "limiting." This isn't just about positive versus negative; sometimes our greatest successes can breed complacency, while our failures might harbor invaluable lessons.

The key is identifying which elements of your identity–values, beliefs, fast thinking, and actions– produce useful growth, which useless risks, which act as anchors to keep you safe, and which uselessly anchor you in shallow waters. Preserve the useful, release the useless.

2. Transform Your Stress Response

Under pressure, we often default to ingrained patterns—some productive, others destructive. The key to strategic reinvention lies not in eliminating stress but in rewiring how we channel it.

Consider your current stress responses as a software program running in the background. Some routines might generate solutions and drive progress, while others consume resources without producing results. The goal isn't to work harder under stress, but to work strategically.

For instance, rather than allowing pressure to trigger scattered multitasking or excessive perfectionism, train yourself to pause and engage in structured problem-solving. Create a personal pressure response protocol that transforms stress from a destructive force into a catalyst for focused innovation. And, if needed, seek professional help to reduce excessive anxiety and improve your mental health.

3. Activate Your Support Ecosystem with Clear Intentions

Success in reinvention isn't a solo journey—it's an orchestrated collaboration. The key lies not just in having a network, but in strategically activating different parts of your support ecosystem at the right moments.

Think of your network as a sophisticated instrument panel, with different gauges and controls serving distinct purposes. Map your connections based on their unique contributions to your reinvention journey. Create four different lists:

• Innovation Catalysts: Those who challenge your thinking and introduce fresh perspectives;

• Stability Anchors: Trusted advisors who help you maintain core strengths while evolving;

• Transition Guides: Mentors who've navigated similar transformations and can provide tactical guidance; and

• Energy Renewers: Those who help you recharge and maintain resilience during challenging phases.

The Path Forward

Strategic reinvention in 2025 isn't about wholesale transformation—it's about intelligent evolution. By methodically auditing your identity, rewiring your stress responses, and strategically leveraging your support ecosystem, you create a framework for meaningful change that builds upon your strengths while embracing new possibilities.

Remember, the goal isn't wholesale discarding of the whole, but rather to become a better version of who you already are. In this era of constant change, the most successful transformations aren't the most dramatic—they're the most deliberate.

What parts of your identity will you carry forward? How will you channel pressure into progress? Who will you activate in your support ecosystem to facilitate your evolution? The answers to these questions will shape not just your 2025, but your trajectory for years to come.

#StrategicReinvention #ProfessionalDevelopment #Leadership2025 #Change #Identity

Mastering Change: How Dynamic Capabilities Drive Organizational Success

In human systems, culture arises from the interplay of all elements within the system, influencing individual and organizational behavior. Systems thinkers agree that systems are inherently complex, dynamic, and transformational.

Donella Meadows defines a system as "an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something." She states that a system consists of elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose. However, the term "purpose" implies intentionality, which isn't always present. Many systems emerge from chance rather than deliberate intent. This notion of an initial "cause" is more rooted in belief than fact.

Margaret Wheatly introduced the idea of "fields," or invisible forces that shape space and behavior. She describes these fields as conscious entities capable of generating and absorbing information, providing feedback, and self-regulating. Wheatly emphasizes "information" as vital for an organization’s survival. Without accurate information, rumors spread and chaos ensues due to a lack of facts.

Danny Burns, contemporaneous with Meadows, valued systems for their ability to help us understand and address complex issues. He focused on intentional action and transformation. Like Meadows, Burns emphasized interconnections, but he also highlighted the importance of the complex relationships between individuals and groups. Additionally, he echoed Wheatly’s focus on reconfiguring "fields'' to address complex issues, rather than relying on individual actions.

Considering these perspectives, it's clear that understanding and managing systems requires a multifaceted approach that balances intentional actions with an awareness of the emergent properties and interconnections within the system. Dynamic Capabilities (DCs) help organizations do that. (1)

Dynamic Capabilities (DCs): Enabling Organizational Adaptation

DCs enable organizations to adapt and thrive in changing environments. They act as ecosystems that interact with external and internal elements to foster adaptation and maintain competitiveness. Unlike ordinary capabilities, which handle static administrative and technical activities, DCs interact with the external environment. They help organizations develop, integrate, and reconfigure resources and processes for a competitive advantage.

DCs combine individual and group capabilities with processes and resources. This combination allows organizations to build, integrate, and reconfigure their resources and competencies, providing a competitive edge. When two or more DCs intentionally recombine, they create internal strength. This strength offers alternative approaches for renewing capabilities, helping organizations respond to external threats and seize opportunities.

Creating a DC System

To create a DC system, organizations need essential inputs: resources, processes, operational capabilities, and environmental factors.

Resources

Organizations must be able to alter, access, and deploy essential resources to sense and seize opportunities and manage threats. Essential resources include:

• People capacity and capabilities

• Finances

• Knowledge

• Technology

• Time

• Social capital

Processes

Processes direct the strategic use of resources. This includes:

• Resource allocation

• Integration processes that connect a process to a resource

• Coordination processes that infuse timing and planning into the use of a resource

• Resource development, which involves using resources to develop new resources

Operational Capabilities

Operational capabilities enable the strategic coordination of processes, tasks, people, and resources to achieve specific results, such as creating a DC or a DC system. Examples of DC-relevant operational capabilities include:

• Shifting to respond to changes in external or internal environments

• Process improvement to create new knowledge and use it strategically

Environmental Factors

Organizations that survive and thrive collect, process, and use knowledge about environmental factors affecting individual and group behaviors and the organization’s ability to achieve its core purpose. They manage risks when noticing threats or weaknesses and seize opportunities when they arise. Key environmental factors include:

• Economic changes affecting talent cycles or customers

• New entrants and changes in marketplace competitors

• New technology that could streamline processes

• Internal culture changes that could strengthen or undermine capabilities and operations

Maintaining and Adjusting DC Systems

Organizations must continuously monitor and adjust their DC systems through effective feedback mechanisms and the collective ability to reflect, learn, and adjust strategy, structures, processes, resources, and DCs. Constant monitoring and adjusting ensure a quick response to any changes, maintaining the organization's adaptability and competitiveness.

(1) Vijaya Sunder M & L S Ganesh (2021) Identification of the Dynamic Capabilities Ecosystem—A Systems Thinking Perspective Group & Organization Management Vol. 46(5) 893–930. DOI: 10.1177/1059601120963636journals.sagepub.com/home/gom

Is Your Short-Term Problem Solving Undermining Long-Term Resilience?

A true crises erupts unexpectedly and for many people that means an inability to respond quickly and effectively. A true crisis is existential. A law firm dissolves because of a split of opinion along power lines. A series of key personnel departures leaves a business division empty of visionary leadership and it loses its competitive marketplace position. Too often a culture of focusing on short-term problems and assigning blame creates a blindspot to noticing the absence and critical need for focusing on long-terms resilience and innovation.

A series of smaller problems—revenue drops, key stakeholders leave, internal conflict goes unresolved—can cause leaders to assume a singular focus on on short-term solutions, which often hide instead of solve the problem. Solutions grounded in avoidance and appeasement responses tend to have little lasting effect. When this happens, the level of organizational vulnerability escalates and even a minor disruption can turn into a significant crisis, from which it becomes impossible to regain stability and get back on course.

It may seem as though there is no alternative to prioritizing short-term fixes, but this is a consequence of binary thinking. Although at the start, it takes time to develop a set of leadership competencies to shift the normative patterns of a stable, but unhelpful culture, the mistake of neglecting the broader strategic vision needed for future stability can lead to a cycle where immediate issues mistakenly seem to be addressed, but underlying vulnerabilities remain.

Long-term resilience involves investing in leadership development. It means paying attention to the drivers of stability and developing people with the competencies of resilient and innovative problem-solvers. It means building a culture that can adapt and thrive despite challenges. Organizations that focus on resilience are better equipped to sustain performance and adapt to new threats and the quickest path to creating a culture of a resilient organization is starting with the people leading that organization.

Best Practices for Running Effective Meetings: A Strategic Approach

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective meetings are crucial for driving progress and fostering collaboration. Yet, many organizations struggle with meetings that feel unproductive, repetitive, or even toxic. To address these challenges, design and run your meetings with best practices that promote clarity, engagement, and respectful debate. Drawing insights from Phillip G. Clampitt's recent article on post-meeting dynamics in the MIT Sloan Management Review and combining it with the advice we’ve given our clients for years, here are some key approaches to enhance your meeting effectiveness.

1. Establish Clear Objectives

Successful meetings are built on a foundation of clear objectives. Before scheduling a meeting, define its purpose: What do you aim to achieve? Clear objectives help participants understand the meeting's importance and stay focused on the desired outcomes. Communicate the purpose in advance to ensure attendees come prepared and engaged. This approach aligns with Clampitt's emphasis on improving meeting choreography to minimize post-meeting misunderstandings and speculations.

2. Curate the Attendee List

Invite only those who can contribute meaningfully to the discussion. In line with Clampitt’s overarching theme of avoiding the unproductive and unhelpful after meeting meeting, he notes that larger meetings increase the likelihood of divisive after-meetings. Keeping the attendee list concise ensures the meeting remains focused and productive. If you want everyone to feel engaged and included, invite only those who have something important to contribute to the meeting's purpose and outcomes.

3. Encourage Respectful Debate

Fostering an environment where respectful debate is encouraged can significantly reduce the need for post-meeting discussions by clarifying uncertainties and building a supportive workplace climate. Leaders should actively solicit diverse perspectives and create a safe space for employees to voice their opinions. Building strong relationships among participants can further enhance the quality of discussions and decisions.

4. Use Effective Communication Strategies

During the meeting, leaders should aim to connect the dots for participants, helping them make sense of the information presented. Provide clear explanations and encourage questions. The meeting leader is responsible for creating a detailed agenda that provides direction and sets expectations, including the purpose, outcomes, and necessary advance preparation.

5. Address Emotional and Personal Concerns

Meetings can sometimes evoke strong emotions and personal concerns. Skilled leaders should acknowledge these feelings and depersonalize concerns to maintain a collaborative atmosphere. As Clampitt suggests, addressing vague or unhelpful sentiments during the meeting can prevent them from festering in post-meeting discussions.

6. Implement Routine Protocols for Communicating Change

Change announcements often spark post-meeting debates. Leaders can mitigate this by addressing key factors such as the decision's rationale, its alignment with organizational goals, and its impact on employees. By thoroughly explaining these aspects, leaders can reduce uncertainty and increase buy-in, as emphasized by Clampitt. Establishing clear roles and responsibilities during the meeting can also help ensure smooth implementation of decisions.

7. Enhancing Group Dynamics

Group dynamics play a crucial role in the success of any meeting. Effective leaders understand that building a culture of resilience and learning within the group is essential. This means fostering an environment where members feel empowered to act and adjust their actions as part of a continuous learning process. Encouraging critical and creative thinking, promoting emotional intelligence, and guiding how team members use their feelings strategically are vital to improving group dynamics. By integrating coaching techniques and emphasizing capacity building, leaders can help their teams navigate complex decisions and enhance productivity and innovation.

8. Virtual Meetings

Virtual meetings come with obstacles absent in face-to-face meetings, such as difficulties in forming strong relationships and maintaining attention. To counter these challenges, use names to keep people attentive and add more details to your written agenda to guide preparation and participation. Check for understanding throughout the meeting to ensure clarity and alignment.

Conclusion

By adopting these best practices, leaders can transform meetings into powerful tools for driving progress, fostering collaboration, and building a positive workplace culture. Effective meetings not only achieve their immediate goals but also lay the groundwork for long-term success and organizational resilience. Effective meetings require careful planning, clear objectives, and a focus on building strong relationships and effective communication.

By integrating these practices, your organization can create a meeting culture that drives success and minimizes the negative dynamics often associated with post-meeting discussions.

UnlockIng Organization Potential with Strategic Planning

Imagine having a clear, actionable roadmap that guides your organization’s efforts, aligns your team, and propels you towards your goals. Using a collaborative approach, LWC’s recent collaboration with the Massachusetts Flood Hazard Management Program (FHMP) to crafting strategic plans led to the first ever strategic plan for the Program.

Why Strategic Planning Matters

In 2024, the FHMP, led by Joy Duperault, CFM, Director/State NFIP Coordinator, partnered with LWC to develop their inaugural strategic plan. Over the course of three months, working closely with their team to leverage the LWC strategic planning model resulted in a comprehensive Strategic Plan for FY 2025 - FY 2027 that introduces a new Mission, Vision, Strategic Objectives, and Implementation Plans, setting a new standard in flood risk management for Massachusetts communities.

FHMP Outcomes

Using a customized, collaborative, expert-driven approach, in less than 3 months, FHPM accomplished:

A Clear Mission and Vision: FHMP articulated a mission that emphasizes proactive, community-centered approaches to flood risk management and a vision of resilient Massachusetts communities.

Strategic Objectives: FHPM identified key areas of focus, including enhanced community engagement, innovative risk assessment tools, capacity building and training, and policy advocacy.

Actionable Implementation Plans: FHPM created detailed implementation plans outlining specific actions and timelines, ensuring the FHMP can adapt and respond to emerging challenges and opportunities.

The Power of Strategic Planning

A well-crafted strategic plan is more than a document; it’s a tool that empowers your organization to achieve its goals, navigate challenges, and seize opportunities. Here’s what your organization can gain:

• Clarity and Focus: Define your mission, vision, and objectives, providing a clear direction for your efforts.

• Enhanced Team Alignment: Ensure everyone is working towards the same goals, fostering collaboration and unity.

• Proactive Adaptation: Equip your organization with the tools to adapt to changing circumstances and emerging challenges.

Laying the groundwork: DEI executives need institutional support in become true change agents

This article quotes Susan White, as an expert in helping clients attract and retain diverse, high-performing leaders.

Important points are:

• If the organizational context and environment isn't set up for success, no DEI leader has the magic want to fix things right away.

• Creating organizational inclusion requires having the authority and resources to change structures—how people are organized to do the work and how people are organized with respect to power. This means that DEI leaders are in a C-suite type role. The person in the role has to have the ability to impact those structures.

• A DEI change leader must understand the intricacies of the organization’s internal and external environment to develop strategies where the right changes are aimed at the right places to affect human behavior and decision-making.

• There is a three-pronged approach to effectively set up a DEI executive for success.

  • First, the DEI executive must be given a budget with appropriate resources (financial, time, space, technology, and people) to hire the right staff and launch and finish required inititives.

  • Second, organizations need to establish their own priorities and know what they are asking a new DEI executive to do. What is the DEI mission, vision, and prioritized goals for the next 5 years?

  • Third, top leadership, like the CEO and everyone else in the C-Suite and must model and prioritize DEI work even after a director is brought on. All organization and culture change project must be leader-led, from the top.

TOP 3 TIPS FOR DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

Years ago, I mediated a conflict between two partners in a law firm. Peter was ten years senior to Jim. They had worked together as partners for five years and over that period, it had become extremely difficult for them to have a civil conversation about anything.  Once they looked back at their history working together, they identified a root of their conflict. 

The root was anchored in Peter’s exertion of seniority to block Jim’s desire to fire his assistant immediately. Both had good reasons for wanting what they wanted. The assistant had been gone from the firm for at least three years.  It seemed like a disagreement of three years earlier, over how best to manage a subordinate, was still alive and affecting the ability of Peter and Jim to work together. Over the years, Jim’s resentment grew as did Peter’s certainty in his decision and exercise of power. They avoided talking about their feelings and instead empowered them.

Why is it easier for professionals to give clear direction and bad news in the midst of of a time-sensitive, critical emergency than have an open and honest conversation about feelings? The words for conversations to resolve a conflict or misunderstanding between two lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, and consultants, making sense of an uncomfortable situation or finding the right words to say and knowing what do are blocked by emotions.

While some emotions, like excitement and anger can feel energizing and bring clarity, others, like humiliation, embarrassment, guilt and shame can be paralyzing. The latter feel so uncomfortable that they block, what Daniel Kahneman calls System 2 thinking – deliberate, logical, and analytical thinking. Instead, they nudge into play the easily accessible options - acting too quickly and paralysis in an attempt to escape these feelings. The end point is the same - unintended consequences.  

The triggers for difficult conversations that trigger System 2 thinking often involve the readjustment of roles and responsibilities or the resolution of conflicting values.  Succession planning, compensation, or the business model are often a source of agitation.  Conflict and misunderstanding are often consequences.

If you are facing a difficult conversation arising out of conflict or misunderstanding, keep these three tips in mind.

1.     Acknowledge emotions and thoughts.

It’s a mistake to ignore emotions.  Doing so, empowers emotions to cause blocks and missteps and impairs good decision-making. Instead of ignoring emotions, notice the signs – the knots in your stomach, a headache, a racing heartbeat, or an increase or decrease of sensation within your torso or limbs. Then ask yourself questions about what you are feeling. Name the emotion if you can. If not, google emotions to expand your vocabulary and your ability to name emotions. You may have heard the phrase with regard to emotions, “name them to tame them.” The power of emotions over thought processes and decision-making lessens with acknowledgement. Emotions are easier to spot than the hidden narratives and thoughts, but know that unconscious thinking also affects emotions.

What are you telling yourself about the difficult situation and conversation? Expand your self-awareness and expand your options for managing a difficult conversation effectively.

Why do you expect an upcoming difficult conversation to be difficult? What are you expecting to happen during the conversation? What emotions do you expect others to experience? What do you imagine they expect? 

After acknowledging your emotions and thoughts, consider the overall message and specific information you really want to convey and how best to do it, so that it will be heard and processed as you intend. Focus on your main message and a good outcome for the conversation so that collaboration for a solution becomes possible. Be clear about what you want, don’t want, need, expect, or prefer. Know your mind and then you’ll be better able to help others, who can’t read your mind, understand where you need help.  

Noticing isn’t just personal.  It’s about noticing the emotions of others and adjusting what you say and how you say it, to keep the conversation flowing productively. Emotions, just like the content of a conversation, provide important information.

2.     Listen.

When your stress level is too high, you may overlook important information and limit the meaning of what you notice and hidden opportunities.  Instead, slow down.  Take a breath. Do nothing other than listen carefully. Listen for content and emotion. What’s being said and how? It’s easy to assume that you understand another person’s position; however, conflict is often not about different positions as much as it is about emotions, interests, needs, and wants that go unnoticed and unacknowledged. The only way to understand another person is to listen to understand. Asking good, open-ended questions will give you content worth your time and effort to listen carefully.

It’s often easier to engage in a targeted listening.  Listening for information that supports or undermines an existing position is easier than listening to understand what matters most to the person communicating an idea or emotion. Instead, if your goal is to resolve a conflict productively, listen without judgment.  Listen to understand. Assume whatever you hear is true for the person saying it instead of trying to correct what you believe is a misunderstanding. 

If you listen to better understand the other person’s interests and concerns, you may find options to resolve a conflict without damaging relationships.  One of my clients put it this way, “R before T.” Relationship before task.  The team and organization falls apart if relationships are not built and solidified at every opportunities. Without relationships, the tasks that can be completed are extremely limited.

3.     Demonstrate that you care.

Even the best listener and the most astute observer and analyst conveys unintended messages by skipping over the opportunity to demonstrate understanding and compassion.   Digest what you hear and observe and share back your summary. Then, ask if you captured everything the other person wanted you to notice and understand. Include emotional tenor and not just content.

Active listening, empathic listening, or reflective listening all suggest the importance of being aware of the inadvertent messages you send by what you do and say during and after the other communicates. During any conversation, especially one with an element of conflict, the opportunity to convey intentional messages to improve relationships exists. If your goal is to strengthen the bonds of a business or personal relationship, take advantage of all such opportunities.

Demonstrate that you care about the other person by asking open-ended questions. Then, acknowledge their feelings, demonstrate concern, and summarize and paraphrase what you hear and then asking if you understood their meaning.

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What do you know about how people make decisions?

By Susan Letterman White

People make decisions based on a variety of factors, including their values, beliefs, and experiences. Decision-making is a complex process that involves weighing the potential costs and benefits of different options and choosing the one that is most likely to lead to a desired outcome.

There are many different models of decision-making, but some common factors that can influence the decision-making process include:

1. Information: The availability and quality of information can impact decision-making. People may rely on their own experiences, or they may seek out additional information from sources such as books, articles, or experts.

2. Emotions: Emotions can play a significant role in decision-making. For example, people may make decisions based on how they feel about a particular option or the potential consequences of their choices.

3. Personal values: Personal values are deeply held beliefs that guide an individual's actions and decisions. These values may include things like honesty, loyalty, or responsibility.

4. Social influences: People may be influenced by the opinions and behaviors of others, such as friends, family, or societal norms.

5. Time constraints: The amount of time available to make a decision can impact the process. In some cases, people may need to make a decision quickly, while in other situations, they may have more time to consider their options.

6. Risk tolerance: People's willingness to take risks can also influence their decision-making. Some individuals may be more risk-averse and prefer to choose options that are more predictable, while others may be more willing to take risks in pursuit of a greater reward.

What do you know about how people make decisions unconsciously?

People often make decisions unconsciously, meaning that they are not fully aware of the factors that are influencing their choices. This type of decision-making is known as unconscious or automatic decision-making. It occurs when people rely on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make decisions quickly and efficiently.

Some common examples of unconscious decision-making include:

1. Anchoring: This occurs when people rely on the first piece of information they receive to make a decision, even if that information may not be relevant or accurate.

2. Framing: This occurs when the way in which information is presented influences people's decisions. For example, people may be more likely to choose option A over option B if it is presented as a gain rather than a loss.

3. Confirmation bias: This occurs when people seek out information that confirms their preexisting beliefs or biases and ignore information that contradicts them.

4. Loss aversion: This occurs when people are more motivated to avoid losses than to seek gains. As a result, they may make decisions that minimize the potential for loss, even if it means forgoing a potentially larger reward.

Unconscious decision-making can be influenced by a variety of factors, including emotions, past experiences, and social influences. It can be helpful in certain situations, as it allows people to make decisions quickly and efficiently. However, it can also lead to biases and errors in judgment if people rely too heavily on heuristics and do not consider all of the relevant information.

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The Dollars and Sense of Leadership Excellence and Competency Modeling

By Susan Letterman White

There is a strong and consistent correlation between leadership effectiveness and the financial performance of all organizations.  How your organization performs matters greatly, regardless of whether it is for-profit, non-profit, private, public, or a governmental agency. Ensuring financial health is a responsibility of all leaders, which means managing processes that affect revenue generation and the costs associated with running the organization. 

Costs that are within the control of leaders relate to employee hiring, engagement, productivity, and retention and to customer/client satisfaction and retention.  Replacing employees or customers/clients is more costly than retaining them. Employees that are more engaged are more productive and efficient and generally do not intend to leave for a comparable job elsewhere. 

Effective leaders positively affect revenue generation, net profit, customer/client satisfaction and retention, employee engagement, commitment, and retention, reduced employee turnover, and increased organizational productivity, efficiency, and profitability. They drive these benefits when they model the right behaviors and help the people they lead and manage adopt similarly valuable behaviors.  Various research studies reported here show that:

• Leaders in the bottom 5% of effectiveness at a mortgage bank correlated with only 21% of employees feeling engaged; those in the middle 50% of effectiveness correlated with 48% employee engagement; and leaders in the top 5% of effectiveness correlated with 85% employee engagement. 

• At a mortgage bank, leaders in the bottom 30% of effectiveness correlated with a substantial net profit loss; those in the middle 30% generated 67.42% more profit than those at the bottom; and in the top 10% nearly doubled the profit of those in the middle. 

• Leaders in the bottom 10% of effectiveness at a retail company experience a 0.7% 5 year growth in sales and an 81% employee turnover rate, while those in 11-35 percentile of effectiveness saw a 2.6 increase, those in the 36-90 percentile experienced a 6.1% growth and those in the top 10% saw a 7.4% increase in sales. 

• Leaders in the bottom 30% of effectiveness, as assessed by their peers and those people they managed, experienced a 19% turnover rate at an insurance company, while those in top 10% had only a 9% turnover rate.

• In a study of more than 90,000 leaders from hundreds of different organizations, 53% of employees expressed an intention to leave when leadership effectiveness was only 5%, while turnover is typically around 25% and for those working under the top 10% of leaders, the rate was only 10%.

• At a high-tech communications company, the top 20% of leaders saw a customer satisfaction rate of 82%, while the bottom 30% saw customer satisfaction at 21%.

Additional empirical studies, reported by Korn Ferry include the following:

• Top-level executive performance was correlated with an estimated $3 million in annual profit per person in a large corporate environment.

• Employee job satisfaction in a study of 62 health care facilities was positively related to leadership competencies after a leadership feedback program

• In a case study that looked at the following specific competencies: Customer Focus, Interpersonal Savvy, Drive for Results, and Decision Quality; a leadership development program influenced leadership competencies among vice presidents in a sales and marketing organization and were positively correlated with increased profits and decreased turnover.

Competency modeling, where a group of 6-8  top Subject Matter Experts across the organization leads to selecting a universal set of competencies that are valuable across the organization to advance the organization’s purpose, vision, values, and strategy. This “forward-looking” approach is considered a best practice for avoiding chaos, driving organizational results, and creating an integrated approach with a common language to describe performance expectations. This process, when properly communicated within the organization, signals strategic intentions of the organization, influences employee behavior, and supports intentional culture development.

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Five Steps to Create a Growth Mindset Culture

By Susan Letterman White

1. Leaders set the stage. They learn and practice noticing who speaks up in meetings and who is quiet. They pay attention to who gets the stretch assignments that make a career and who is left out. They encourage people, who have been marginalized in the organization, to speak up, ask for what they want, and share their ideas. They manage meetings so that no one person takes up too much space and when they see microaggressions in the workplace, like talking over others or not acknowledging contributions to the discussion, they call out the behavior. They also demonstrate their humanity and vulnerability before asking others to share their mistakes.

2. Explain the link between having a growth mindset and becoming a better professional. We build intelligence when we are challenged with changing our behavior and then practice self-awareness and self-management. People cope more effectively with challenges and setbacks when they embody a growth theory of intelligence.

3. Make a growth mindset culture a priority action step for attracting the best and brightest talent to work for your organization and creating an attractive brand when it comes to recruiting, hiring, and retention. Research has demonstrated that more people are attracted to organizations with a growth theory of intelligence because it suggests to them that this is a workplace where they can succeed and be rewarded with hard work.

4. Make having a growth mindset a criteria for performance evaluation and integrate the skill into the organization’s leadership development program. Developing a DEI culture asks people to change how they think, what they feel, and their actions. It is challenging and there will be setbacks. A growth theory of intelligence means that people are willing, able, and expected to practice new behaviors and new communication styles and have new and different conversations. They need to know that it is okay if they are less than perfect and the only way to do that is make it part of their performance evaluation.

5. Developing a culture of equity and inclusion depends on people telling their stories of facing and overcoming personal hardships with the support of sponsors, mentors, coaches, and affinity groups. Reward people, who share these types of personal stories. Publicize those stories. If you want people to embrace a growth mindset culture, make sure to signal that efforts are underway to change the culture. Emphasize the link between a new growth mindset culture and well-being by emphasizing stories of overcoming personal hardships and improvement through resilience, tenacity, practice, and hard work.

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Contextual Leadership: New Roles and Options for Leading

By Susan Letterman White

The ability to lead change projects and influence individuals to change their behavior or follow a particular leader has never been more important than it is today. The world in which every organization operates has become increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. We live in a VUCA world. The term may have been coined by the US Army War College in 1987, but the need to adapt to this situation has never been more applicable than now.

Leadership development has focused on the leader with little thought about the variety of people the leader needs to engage or the context in which the leader must operate. Further, most models of leadership development assume that the leader will use power from the exercise of formal authority and expertise to lead willing followers. This is an outdated perspective for law firms and law departments in a world, whose future is uncertain and unclear, whose context is volatile and complex, and where formal authority and expertise aren’t as powerful as they once were.

Further, not all people are similarly motivated. Some are motivated by a desire to belong, others by a desire for power, and still others for a sense of achievement. The role of today’s leader is to know what motivates their people as individuals and how context influences their motivation and be able to influence behavior by adjusting context and selecting the right leadership style for the situation.

Today’s environmental context is rife with unpredictability and complexity, starting with the people a leader is tasked with leading. Many of the older leadership theories are based on a limited conceptual view of leaders and followers and a limited skill set related to directly influencing behavior through the leader’s ability to persuade or engage followers using the trust and/or fear that used to attach to formal authority and expertise. Today’s reality demands an expanded view of people - leaders and others. Others include quiet followers, vocal supporters, bystanders, outsiders, vocal obstructionists, silent obstructionists, hidden connectors for the flow of information, and hidden influencers of desired changes. Consequently, leadership today will be more effective when the leader identifies the hidden connectors and influencers through the use of social network analysis.

Complexity is also present in the organization’s internal contextual elements, its: (1) people; (2) resources, such as technology, available cash, and time; (3) structures that connect, group, and otherwise organize people for a particular purpose and connect with to power; (4) processes - how people execute the various tasks that must be accomplished to make an organization do whatever needs to be done to effectuate its purpose for existing; and (5) socially constructed narratives about values, identity, vision, and goals. The external context is the world in which the organization or group operates, from the macro forces, like politics and economics to the micro forces, like a single client or new technology.

Leading is a process of collecting and analyzing data about context and then creating the right internal context. For example, a leader, who intends to create leadership bench strength, will evaluate every structure, process, resource allocation, and socially constructive narrative for their effects or potential effects on what is needed to create leadership bench strength. For example, do organizational structures bring high potential leaders and high performing leaders together? Are high performing leaders engaged in modeling, mentoring, and sponsoring processes? If not, the leadership question is: Which structures and processes must change and how?

Contextual leaders are successful by including the right people, at the right time, in making and implementing the right decisions to adjust aspects of the organizational context and create the changes that define effective, resilient, and high-performance organizations. Rare is the leader with sufficient charisma to persuade or power to force into existence the context required for any high performing organization. Instead, contextual leaders begin with a vision and specific objectives. Then the focus shifts to adjusting elements of the context to encourage the right behaviors to emerge.

Context adjustment requires preparation, planning, and implementation of actions to create the desired changes. There are four steps to preparation: (1) define the problem to be solved; (2) describe the desired outcome; (3) collect data about the contextual elements that maintain the status quo; and (4) analyze the data to better understand what is maintaining the status quo and which contextual elements to change. Superimposed on the entire process is the participation of the right people at the right time.

The right people: (1) have data about the status quo; (2) are able to analyze and attach meaning to the data; (3) have the power to close the gap between the present and desired outcome or block efforts to do so; and (4) will be affected by or participate in the context changes. Including the right people builds collaboration, trust, and energy. It also overcomes multiple types of resistance to change, creates inclusion, and builds organizational cohesion.

Getting the right people involved is a function of the leaders’ network and influence ability. A good leader is always building their network of supporters, so that when help is needed, the right people with the right power are willing and able to help. What’s most important is to identify the people who are strongly in favor and will help drive the change forward; those who are neutral and won’t help or interfere; and those who are opposed and will use their influence and efforts to oppose the change. A significant force of resistance will come from people who are opposed and have the power to block your efforts. You must have a plan to overcome this type of obstacle by influencing them to take a more neutral position or removing them, if that is not possible. Additionally, the people strongly in favor and with the ability and willingness to help, your allies, need to know how they can help. Is it to influence someone who is neutral to change their perspective and actively help? Is it to use their formal power to make something happen?

Contextual Leadership is leading this multifaceted change process with a set of skills that affects how the leader thinks, feels, and behaves. Consider the difficulty in getting people to use a new CRM system, the benefit of which, to improve client relations management, is broadcast in the name. Rational argument does not persuade anyone to spend time and effort learning a new technology when the personal benefits are difficult to imagine and the costs much more obvious. Instead, including these people as participants in a collaborative preparation, planning, and implementation process to identify the contextual elements to change and how and when to change them, influences people to learn about and use the new technology.

Contextual leaders are only as effective as their foundation of knowledge in three core areas: organization dynamics that cause the persistence of the status quo; systemic and individual change dynamics; and self-awareness and use of self as an instrument of change. The associated skills fall into four categories as shown in the table below.

This set of skills is best developed through a combination of formal training, action learning (on-the-job learning or learning-by-doing combined with reflection) and coaching. Incorporating Contextual Leadership into your organization builds a foundation for success in all types of change projects.

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Coaching versus Advice

By Susan Letterman White

When a colleague or employee comes to us with a problem, our first instinct, the one we were taught as children by our parents, is to offer advice. “Let me tell you what I would do, if I were in your position.” Yet, positions are not automatically interchangeable.  People are complex. The situations in which a person’s problem arises is complex.  There is a lot of unknown and unpredictability baked into the situation and people involved. As a matter of truth, our belief about advice – that we can put ourselves into the position of someone else – is false.  We cannot. The very foundation on which advice is often based, is unsound.

Advice is also the problem-solving method in relationships of dependence.  When we ask or give advice, we perpetuate the relationship and roles of expert and dependent. Our colleagues and employees are the dependents. In a world where complexity, unknowns, volatile change, and ambiguous facts are the rule, we need our colleagues and employees to be empowered, not dependent. We need them to be able to act and adjust their actions as a process of learning and empowerment so as to strengthen our collective ability to survive and thrive in today’s world.

Your organization needs a culture of resilience and learning to be able to adapt and adjust to today’s complex world. You need a coaching culture first and an advice culture second. You need your colleagues and employees to solve their own problems, thinking critically and creatively as they make decisions, and learn to make increasingly complex decisions while being productive and innovative. This set of needs represents significant changes in behaviors, thought patterns, and emotional intelligence to guide how we feel and use our feelings strategically. 

Integrating coaching into your management and leadership techniques is a means to help your colleagues and employees change their behavior. Instead of trying to be the expert and provide perfect advice, be curious and driven by a desire to learn more about a problem situation and the person with the capacity to address that problem. Instead of advice, ask questions to promote your colleague or employee’s thought process and decision-making skills. These questions should focus on capacity building to think more broadly and holistically about a situation. What do we know about the situation and problem? What do we know about the people involved? What are possible solutions to try? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? How can we prioritize risks and benefits? When can we learn from taking a risk and failing without causing an existential threat?

Are you operating in an advice culture or a coaching culture?

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Legal Innovation: The Biggest Myth or a Path Forward?

By Susan Letterman White

Faced with the discomforting threat of disruption to their business, many lawyers react with fear.  They struggle to innovate and instead end up seeking to sustain profitability by working harder instead of smarter.  Their anxiety reduces their cognitive ability and that leads to a reliance on the skill sets and mindsets that are comfortable instead of those that are useful. 

One example is the number of law schools that are responding to a shrinking applicant pool by cutting costs instead of tackling the problem that what they are selling isn’t delivering as expected. Too many students are not getting a chance at the career path they had expected. Another example is the array of law firms that seek out mergers (read acquisitions of partners and practice groups with very large books of business) instead of addressing a shrinking demand for services at the organization level. 

Most of my clients are leaders. They are leading themselves or others in efforts to innovate. They are solo practitioners or leaders at mid-size and smaller firms. In contrast to firms that can maintain their profitability by optimizing performance through project management, cost-cutting, restructuring their talent management system or any other process aimed to make incremental improvements (like being acquired), my clients need to innovate. They are seeking to attract new clients with new brands and value propositions. They are successful when they evaluate and improve the robustness of their business strategy functional disciplines instead of merely their business strategy.

There are four functional disciplines in a business strategy: (1) Inquiry; (2) Design; (3) Execution; and (4) Adjustment. I’ve named it the IDEA Strategy Model. Each has its own set of skill sets and mindsets that make it possible to carry out the function effectively. Inquiry and Design are closely aligned with innovation, while Execution and Adjustment are closely aligned with sustaining and increasing profitability. If an organization is experiencing an ongoing drop in demand for whatever it is supplying, sustaining profitability isn’t an option in the long-term.  Demand is the cyclical driver of revenue and profitability across a sales cycle and while it is dropping, no measure of cost-cutting and increased efficiencies will offset a dwindling demand. 

When marketplace disruptions threaten an industry, industry practitioners experience rising anxiety levels and react by falling back on the skills they already know.  These tend to be those in the functional disciplines of Execution and Adjustment.  This leads to the legal innovation myth, which goes something like this: 

If I work harder and longer, cut costs, and use existing technology to improve efficiency, my profitability will increase.

However, the reality is more like this:

If I work harder and longer, cut costs, and use existing technology to improve efficiencies, my profitability will initially increase even though I’m not innovating and growing my business. In reality, nothing will really change…except that I’ll be unhappy and exhausted.

Execution and Adjustment will not help you adjust to disruptive change with a new, competitive position in the marketplace. Inquiry and Design do that. A deep dive into these disciplines is the path forward.

The IDEA Strategy Model 

The IDEA strategy model distinguishes the functional disciplines related to innovation and a core focus on marketplace relevancy from those related to incremental adjustment and a core focus on sustaining and increasing profitability.  The model has a red-dotted line to separate the two vastly different skill sets, mindsets, and functions. Many lawyers are more comfortable with the skill sets and mindsets on the right side of the red-dotted line. 

IDEA is an acronym for the four functional disciplines:

• Inquiry

• Design

• Execution

• Adjustment

Each functional discipline has its own core questions a/k/a function, skillset, evaluation criteria, mindset, and role in marketing and business development. The skill sets and mindsets of most lawyers are better suited for sustaining and increasing profitability of an ongoing business endeavor rather than responding to the discomfort of a diminishing market for services with a new idea. The good news is that those left-side skills can be learned and developed through practice.

Inquiry 

The functional discipline of Inquiry is the creative, unconventional process of exploring and theorizing. The core question of this function is: 

What new and as yet unknown “thing” (X) could we create or do that an existing or new target market would want or need?

Unpacking this question reveals the challenge inherent in this discipline. 

1. What are “we” capable of creating or doing now or with practice in the future?

2. How are the boundaries of and criteria of our target market and its sub-segments defined?

3. What does our target market want, need, expect, or prefer today? 

4. What might our target market want, need, expect, or prefer in the future?

5. What might be the right “thing” to attract a new target market?

The skillset for this functional discipline is heavily steeped in curiosity, wandering-with-intent-to-notice, and leadership of self and others. These skills are often associated with resilience, mindfulness, strategic thinking and communication, changing when change is hard, personal development, and branding. They are frequently dismissed as less important by lawyers as they prioritize their use of time. That said, when the tipping point is reached - when the level of fear and frustration leads a lawyer to try something completely new and different –  most of my clients rise to the occasion. Formal training, followed by coaching is usually an integral part of the path forward. Evaluation of performance under this functional discipline is measured by the target market’s willingness, if not eagerness, to expend the time and money to buy the idea, product, or service that is being offered for sale.

For lawyers, the most challenging element of this functional discipline is the archetypal mindset of the creative, unconventional, explorer and theorist. It risks being overshadowed by the skeptical mindset that lawyers are trained to master. While there is a clear benefit for any start-up team to retain a lawyer in a supporting role; one, who will encourage a comprehensive risk-analysis by questioning assumptions and probing for more information and analysis before making any decision, there is a grave problem when the lawyer also owns the analysis and decision-making functions. The mindset overshadows the theorizing function that is central to Inquiry. It’s what moves the process forward. It’s not that lawyers can’t think and behave congruently with the Inquiry functional discipline; it’s that when under stress, it’s much harder for anyone to integrate less preferred ways of thinking and behaving into any strategy work. Therefore, it falls on the leader to include a plan and process to address this reality.

The functional discipline of Inquiry is the combination of brand exploration and development, target market analysis, and developing a value proposition. Much of the leg-work is consumer research discovered through curiosity, exploration, and keeping up with current events. The aim is to uncover an unmet need, tension, discomfort or problem among a target market that you, as a lawyer or law firm, could possibly resolve – an “X.”

Design 

The functional discipline of Design is the tenacious, persistent process of pioneering and experimenting. The core question of this function is:

What are possible ways we could create and/or deliver X to our target market?

This question is answered through trial and error.  This means that mistakes will be made and new lessons learned as a result. Often, it is mistakenly assumed that a lawyer’s natural aversion to making mistakes is the obstacle. The real obstacle is that innovation comes from a deep dive into purpose and learning new skills.  More often than not, my clients are more willing to experiment and less willing to ponder identity and purpose questions about who they are, what they do, and their purpose in the marketplace.

What is the purpose of a lawyer? Lawyers essentially contribute to creating, interpreting, and applying laws. They lobby for or against the creation, elimination, or application of laws. They interpret laws and advise clients or make decisions as a judge or arbitrator.  They use existing laws to advance their clients’ interests. 

With that purpose in mind and the fact that innovation is about adding something new; what new product, service or experience will you offer to resolve your target market’s X? Is there a new law that opens up a new area of practice for you? What are the different possibilities to create and deliver the X better, faster, and more tailored to the exact preferences of the sub-segments of your target market than anyone else? What new skills could you possibly need?

One skill for this functional discipline is the ability to imagine possibilities and experiment with new products, services, or experiences. Be a first class noticer.  Voraciously seek out and notice the novel - new laws, new technology, and new problems for people. Never forget that your business is a community of people serving a community of people. Be curious. How has the “new” created new problems and opportunities for people in their relationships, ability to achieve their goals, feel safe, and satisfy their basic needs for food, water, and shelter?

Another skill is the ability to design and test a hypothesis. When you come up with an idea for something new, design an experiment and test the marketplace interest in a small, cost-effective way. Publish an article about a new law and measure the level of interest in your target market. Try a new way of reaching your core consumer and measure engagement. Play with technology to enhance your speed for delivery and improve your design of X. Every time you experiment, you learn something new about your target market, about your brand, and about the possible ways the two fit together in a mutually beneficial way. Measure performance under this functional discipline by what you learn. What worked? What didn’t? Why? In this endeavor, two heads are better than one. This means that working in teams with the appropriate team leader and team member skills will make a positive difference in the outcome.

The archetypal mindset is of the tenacious, persistent pioneering experimentalist. Failure is to be expected.  Mistakes are to be expected. The struggle is not with resilience in the sense of fearing failure nearly as much as it is with managing frustration and persevering despite extreme conditions.  It’s the climber’s mentality of loving the challenge to get to the top in the face of extreme conditions because the opportunity to learn more about the context - route, mountain, weather, physical ability, and mental ability – feels almost as good as achieving the summit and most certainly reaps highly valued beta toward that end.  The drive to achieve is the hallmark of the Design mindset, while curiosity is the hallmark of the Inquiry mindset.

In this half of the model, you are discovering and testing your relevancy to the marketplace. The functional discipline of Inquiry is the combination of brand exploration and development, target market analysis, and developing a value proposition. Designing is all about testing options for the fit between your brand’s value proposition and the target market you’ve selected. 

Execution 

The functional discipline of Execution is the nurturing and building process of settling into a routine and refining it. It’s doing what you need to do after you have figured out what to do and how to do it. In this second half of the model, you take the X you created and often the associated production and delivery processes and make them better. What can you add to make X even better? What can you do to improve the client experience? What can you do to reduce costs and improve efficiencies? What can you do to reduce the cost of production? Improving a process that already works isn’t disruptive in the same way that changing a brand, value proposition, or target market is. What must you do to keep your clients happy and return your technical skills? 

The skillset and mindset is related to project management, including providing clear direction and coordination of efforts and managing the budget. The goal is to increase and sustain profitability. The measure of success is whether you are doing that.

Adjustment 

The functional discipline of Adjustment is the conventional, methodical process of surveying and measuring. It’s the analysis of outcomes and the decision of what to do next.  While always looking for improvement, the art and subtlety of this functional discipline is knowing the evaluation criteria to use.  If you use Execution evaluation criteria to measure the progress or success of Inquiry or Design efforts, you will always conclude the efforts were worthless and a waste of your precious resources – time, talent, and money. What’s worse, you’ll never learn that innovation is much more within your reach than you had thought it was.

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Four Steps to Successful Recruiting and Hiring

By Susan Letterman White

One of the milestones along the journey to a successful and profitable law firm is reaching the point where you need to hire employees. The need often arises quickly when the warning bell of too much work and too little time rings loudly. The biggest mistake is hiring the first person with a reasonable resume. The better course of action is to consider the processes of recruiting and hiring in the context of your business strategy. Talent strategies are used to attract and select the right people. Even if you are an organization of one person, you need a plan to recruit, hire, develop, and retain the right people.

Here are the four steps to developing such a plan. 

Step One: Identify your business strategy and then distill it into specific tasks.  

Every law firm business strategy can be broken into three parts: (1) The collection of tasks to get requests for the legal services you are offering; (2) Doing the legal work; and (3) Collecting revenue for your legal services. There are myriad tasks associated with each of these parts, including creating the conditions to make it possible to focus on these three core parts of the business.  All of these tasks require people with the right competencies to complete them. 

What’s your business strategy?  Specifically, what are the tasks that you need to be completed for your strategy to be effectively implemented? The answer to this question depends on what you can do and want to do and what you cannot do and would prefer to have someone else do. For example, perhaps you love the marketing aspect of your business in addition to doing the legal work. If that’s the case, then you may need only help with your legal work and the day-to-day firm management work. 

An easy way to think about this is to go back to your list of start-up costs or your annual budget and for each item, ask the question: What management, core work, or marketing tasks are associated with this item? Then, make a list of every task, the necessary capabilities to complete the task, the frequency of occurrence, and importance of the task to your business strategy.

Step Two: SWOT Yourself and Your Environment

SWOT is an acronym. A SWOT analysis is the collection and analysis of data concerning the Strengths and Weaknesses of you and your firm and the Opportunities and Threats in the external environment (everything else) in terms of capabilities to complete the specific tasks you have identified. Determine who is available to do which tasks. This means listing the people in your firm and their capabilities. Then take inventory of what you are missing. Make sure to ask yourself what you will do and what you want someone else to do? Consider the tasks that you enjoy and those you would prefer to delegate. Consider how the competencies related to the tasks you will delegate must be demonstrated and measured?

Step Three: Create your recruitment and candidate evaluation plan.

The way to attract the right candidates and evaluate the candidates you attract is by describing the tasks and competencies you are seeking in a job description. Be clear and specific with your description. You will use the same criteria to evaluate candidates, whose resumes you scan and those you interview.  Next, consider your budget and decide what you can afford to pay to attract the right person. Then, start recruiting and evaluating.

Step Four: Check your management skills. 

Expect to delegate. First, know your specific performance expectations. What will you be looking for when you informally and formally evaluate your new hire? Then, share those performance expectations. Many lawyers assume that anyone they decide to hire will know what is expected of them.  They may not. If you expect a certain style of writing, provide samples. If you want delivery of a project by a certain time and date, convey that. If you want to see the level of progress before the final product, provide a check-in date and time. 

Delegating with specificity, directing others, delivering feedback, and explaining to your new hire how their contributions fit into the bigger picture are all important skills.  Where do you need to improve your skills? How will you do that? Frequently, the need to direct and develop employees is higher than most lawyers expect. 

Expect to develop your employees. The best people present with the right technical and core leadership, communication, and strategy competencies and the opportunity to develop good competencies into great ones and to develop new competencies. You can offer mentoring, solid positive and constructive feedback, stretch assignments, and formal training. Don’t lose a good person because they could be better with developmental opportunities. Instead provide those opportunities.

Now that you know the four steps to getting the right people in the door and deploying them to help you out, you are ready to begin!

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