Lawyer Monthly Magazine - February 2020 Edition

Most lawyers like to be in control and find it hard to empower and allow senior management to design workflows, document management systems or procedures. I have worked with several law firms in the UK and in the Middle East. The most effective are those firms which work across practice areas, business units and interact effortlessly with the non-fee earning support functions. This enables everyone to communicate clearly and efficiently across the firm and better serve each client. Many of the successful law firms have looked to professionals to help them with their governance, processes and systems. The partners and senior lawyers focus on lawyering and leaving it to the professionals to manage the workflows to interact seamlessly within the procedures and governance structure. This allows everyone to work more effectively and enables lawyers to focus on the client and client work for better realisation ratios and ultimately higher profits. What would you say is key for law firms to improve their corporate needs, whilst also satisfying their clients? Empowerment of employees and a focus on the career development for lawyers, fee earners and non-fee earners is vital for more effective collaboration. There, of course, needs to be greater transparency on fees and billing to manage the client experience. Out of all the initiatives that are needed for change, where do you think law firms fall short? When they are not really focussed on implementation and are mainly transactionally focussed. Too many caveats and legal advice don’t normally provide commercial advice or assistance with implementing the advice given. I think implementation is an area where most law firms - and even main consulting firms - fail, as the policies and advice are given without the need to also embed the proposed changes. Howmany times havewell-drafted policies and elaborate strategic plans failed to be implemented? John Kotter - Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at the Harvard Business School - suggests that 70-90% of change initiatives fail; this is a staggering number. Why do 70-90% of initiatives fail? Change needs to be ultimately accepted and embedded in order to become part of the culture and working practices of an organisation. I successfully led a multi-office change initiative for Clyde & Co across the Middle East, a 13-country transformation project for PwC in the MENA region (forming the Arabic Centre of Excellence in Jordan) and a largescale governance project for a semi-government group in Dubai. Successful change doesn’t happen by accident. Change must go through the eight stages set out by John Kotter; the key to successful implementation is ensuring you keep buy- in momentum and don’t celebrate success too early. Win the war not just a battle; change is a very complex and challenging matter and requires patience, tenacity and perseverance. We work with law firms and other businesses to design and successfully implement their transformation projects. LM Contact Robert L Ford Executive Director Governance Gurus FZE 17 Iridium Building, Al Barsha, Dubai, PO BOX 391186 Telephone: +971 (0)4 3873554 Website: www.governance-gurus.ae Governance Gurus is one of the few regional corporate training and governance consulting companies which provides internationally accredited continuing professional development (CPD) for directors, senior executives and company secretaries. The company designs and facilitates interactive and engaging masterclasses for senior leaders and managers through in- house corporate training or public workshops and courses. Governance Gurus have recently worked with Hawkamah Institute of Corporate Governance and the Pearl Initiative, both UAE based organisations and the Institute of Corporate Directors Malaysia (ICDM). If you want the support of a successful change management and transformation leader or want specialist accredited CPD corporate training get in touch with Robert or one of the Governance Gurus team. GOVERNANCE GURUS “Change needs to be ultimately accepted and embedded in order to become part of the culture and working practices of an organisation.” 61 FEB 2020 | WWW.LAWYER-MONTHLY.COM Thought Leader Robert L. Ford, Governance Gurus