Learnings from The Lab #2
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Session 3 had us focusing on an exercise generated by Quddus which aimed to distill the essential directive or theme from the “ingredients of a future law firm” when compared against the management functions that are involved with delivering this in private practice.
The exercise was aptly called “the Distillery”.
We began by selecting one of the “ingredients” we were happy to distill and placed it in the top box.
We then chose which management functions would potentially be involved in the delivery of that “ingredient”.
We then were asked to “distill” the ingredient and the multiple management layers into the core theme we were trying to achieve.
Key Findings:
Before starting the exercise we spent a bit of time addressing the Management layers and one of the participants shared how important the ingredient ‘pro-activity’ is within the Strategic Ambition layer of a firm. Essentially, in the past lawyers have been reactive and as a result have created a culture of being brought along only when there is a fire. We explored how the nature of this firefighting posture has been exacerbated by the multi-layered relationships between private practice and the business looking to buy legal services. This also raised an important conversation around understanding and bridging inhouse and private practice, the subject of a second series of workshops.
In the Distillery, we ended up choosing “Data-Driven Marketing & Business Development” as the ingredient we wanted to distill. The management functions that we identified involved in this ingredient were: Strategic Ambition, Clients and Services, People and Culture, Data and Technology.
The result of this distillation was “Client Buying Trends: based on what they’ve bought, here’s what they might also want.”
The exercise was extremely helpful in distilling an ingredient considered integral to a future facing law firm and the various management functions into a common theme that clarifies directives for both the leadership and body of lawyers in terms of a goal or outcome. It became clear that “Client buying trends”; making recommendations based on past behaviour, was a much more specific and actionable directive, far more useful if it was laid out in this way from the managing board and encouraged a clear breakdown of how (and when) this might be achieved. Culturally, It assists in cutting past naming conventions, invites participation and produces a clear outcome that can be pursued across multiple layers and functions in a firm.
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Q.