Feature

posted 2 Aug 2005 in Volume 8 Issue 3

Trend tracker

Coaching conundrum

Executive coaching is still a new concept for the legal profession, with many firms feeling sceptical about the benefits. With the promise that it will help firms better manage change, however, the opportunities and potential pitfalls cannot be ignored. By Julie Harrison, Portland International Consulting Group

I have recently become a consultant in change management and leadership, following a period of 12 years working at the firm that is now Addleshaw Goddard, where I was change management director. It is that experience that I now draw upon to look at:

Why changing partner behaviour is critical;
How executive coaching helps the specific issues facing law firms;
The benefits of executive coaching;
Who executive coaching is for;
Some common pitfalls;
How to know it has made a difference;
How to get started.

We are seeing increasing numbers of law firms spending time developing strategic plans, visions, values and business plans; there is also a developing awareness of the role of leadership in achieving and managing that strategic change.

Imagine the scenario: your leadership team spend time off-site reflecting on your firm, and the changes and opportunities that exist in the marketplace.

You develop a clear strategy and vision for the firm to go forwards. A partner conference is held and all of your partners discuss and agree the strategy. This is followed up with firm-wide communication and everybody in your firm is clear on the way forwards – great, this is a major step for the firm.

Next, however, comes the tricky part. How do you get the partners truly engaged with that strategy and their role in leading and delivering the achievement of it? You are convinced leadership talent and skills will play an important part in your transformation – you have some stars and some problem children – but how do you get the partners to become the leaders of the change your strategy requires?

Worse than that, within days of the partner conference, a partner behaves in a way that does not reflect the agreed strategy – he/she behaves exactly how they would have done historically. How can you get them to understand and implement what they need to do differently to add greater value?

One part of the answer is executive coaching, which delivers real, tangible benefits to individuals, their firms and the bottom line.

For instance, Addleshaw Goddard runs an executive-coaching programme. The firm’s managing partner, Mark Jones, says: “As our firm has grown, we have had to become capable of leading and managing high levels of change. A critical tool in helping us to develop our capability to do that has been executive coaching for our partners. I have seen real tangible changes in individuals’ performance, which have helped us to become a successful business, as well as a successful law firm.”

Professional personal change – a critical issue?

In any business, one of the most critical elements in achieving strategic change is the behaviour of its leaders – this is especially true in a law firm where the partners have the multiple roles of owners, managers, fee earners and perhaps, most importantly, leaders of the change within their firm. Their behaviour and levels of engagement set the tenor of the mood of the business.

Add to that the volume of change in the legal market: consolidation, structural and regulatory changes, increased client demands, quality standards, increased employee expectations, technology, increased competition, social changes etc. Firms have to develop clarity on their place in the market, their ambitions, future mergers, acquisitions or organic growth.

All of this presents a large change agenda for partners; the only certainty is that what they were doing last year will probably not be good enough next year, and that the demands and expectations of the business will have moved on. Senior professional individuals have to develop new skills, attitudes and ambitions at the same time as delivering increasingly tough targets in increasingly tough markets. In short, they have to constantly change and develop personally while delivering results.

In considering executive coaching it may be helpful to have in mind some of the particular challenges that emerge around individual partners and their behaviour. There are many examples, but three partnership types that will feel familiar are:

A highly experienced partner who has been very successful at earning fees and holding critical client relationships, and who will need to produce results as a leader and role model of the strategic change. This will require him to display more effective leadership and interpersonal skills within a larger market, a larger team and indeed with larger clients;
The newly promoted, ambitious partner who is anxious to climb up the equity ladder by exploiting an opportunity in the market, by leading a department and large transactions for the first time. The partner lacks the leadership skills, however, to make immediate impact;
The middle-ranking partner who has been a partner for a number of years and who will need to perform at a significantly higher level after a merger (taking on new clients and leadership responsibilities, as well as relocating to a different office).

Bear those in mind or other similar ones you may be reflecting on, where individuals need to perform differently in a role, or indeed face major personal changes, before considering executive coaching in more detail.

What is executive coaching?

Coaching effectively works on the principles of emotional intelligence: the better you know yourself, the better you are able to manage yourself and therefore to develop increased empathy and effective relationships.

Melinda Beckett-Hughes of Portland International describes it as: “A process of discovery, through guided discussion with a coach, combined with hands-on experience, encouraging an individual to learn and stretch, enabling a continuous increase in performance.” It is increasingly recognised that coaching cultures are necessary for business to manage change.

Coaching occurs in an organisation from many different sources – HR, leaders, managers, mentors or colleagues. Executive coaching is a form of coaching that is:

An overt and interactive process that is designed to help individuals
to develop rapidly, and clearly linked to the change agenda of the organisation;
Focused on achieving the objectives of two clients – the individual and the organisation itself;
Usually work related and focused on improving performance or behaviour;
A confidential, goal-oriented form of personally tailored learning for a busy executive/partner;
A ‘contract’ with both the individual and organisation, which clearly defines the required results to add value, and against which, progress is reviewed;
A process of reflection that benefits from the coach’s knowledge of organisational change and business, with the coach and coachee meeting regularly over a period of time;
Short term and time limited;
Paid for by the firm;
An instigator and feedback mechanism that also offers objectivity.

It is also distinct, but highly supportive of other interventions, such as internal coaching from HR specialists or leaders/managers, skills development, mentoring, and leadership-development programmes.

External coaches, because of the above features, usually deliver executive coaching, although some organisations are investing in developing executive-coaching skills for internal specialists, supplemented by external assistance.

The specific issues for law firms

We have already acknowledged that the pace and volume of change in the legal profession is high and that the challenge is to engage the senior people in that change. The personal challenge for partners is that this business change is leading them to roles that demand different things off them than may have been traditionally valued and developed.

Is this different from other organisations? There are some aspects of partner development, which mean that executive coaching can yield greater benefits than other interventions. Consider the following challenges to engaging partners as leaders in your firm:

Partners are highly individualistic by nature and need time to reflect before they change their behaviour. For those leading the firm, this can feel like high levels of resistance to change, but can in fact be a symptom of the need to reflect;
Because of that, group-development programmes for partners generate a lot of discussion, but do not result in personal behavioural change. Executive coaching provides one-to-one reflection time and focuses on what the partner commits to do differently;
Partner education has developed a keenness to get things right - understandable in the legal-service context – which means that their ability to accept and reflect on weaknesses, to try new skills/activities and learn constructively from their own mistakes benefits from additional one-to-one input. Executive coaching provides a safe but challenging environment to acknowledge and address weaknesses;
Perceived vulnerability while developing new skills and ways of working can lead to high levels of stress for partners – feelings of the rules having changed and no longer being in control. Executive coaching provides a confidential discussion to express that and decide what to do differently;
There are generally low levels of personal feedback within law firms – and effective feedback drives personal behaviour change. Executive coaching provides objective feedback;
Busy professional lives do not lead to quality time for partners to reflect on themselves and plan their own development. Executive coaching is regular time-out to review progress and re-plan. Coachees feel accountable for progress;
Professional education, training and experience generally deal with the tangible, rational, conceptual processes in life, leaving half the brain relatively untouched. The leadership role requires lawyers to develop leadership and interpersonal skills. Executive coaching ensures discussion and skills building in areas that many people have not previously operated in;
‘Management structures’ within law firms generally do not operate as
formally as those in corporate organisations, which can lead to a lack of knowledgeable and trusted sounding boards for partners. Executive coaching provides a confidential, experienced sounding board.

The benefits of executive coaching

What do the HR professionals think? The CIPD survey ‘Coaching and Buying Coaching Services’ (2004) showed that:

Ninety-nine per cent of respondents agreed that coaching can deliver
tangible benefit to both individuals and organisations;
Ninety-six per cent of respondents agreed that coaching is an effective way to promote learning in organisations;
Ninety-two per cent of respondents agreed that when coaching is effectively managed it can have a positive impact on the bottom line.

But HR professionals would say that wouldn’t they? What are the tangible results? Value can be provided to the firm by:

Increased awareness of an individual’s leadership style and role as a leader – what I need to do to develop into an effective leader;
Increased skills in leading and communication with teams, colleagues and clients – how I lead my teams;
Increased understanding of and skills in the delivery of change – how I lead change;
Increased strategic presence and capability within a new role – how
I can hit the ground running;
Increased understanding and acceptance of a changed role and requirements from a new strategic direction – what the firm needs of me;
Increased commerciality and wider business understanding – how the business operates and why its requirements of me have changed;
Greater understanding of the requirements within strategic change of a business, plus alignment of personal objectives – what I can personally get out of the change;
Changes in priorities and activities through reflection and use of a knowledgeable sounding board – what it is that I can do that will
add value;
Fast tracking personal and team change issues – resolving issues affecting me in a timely fashion;
Greater retention of corporate talent– how I can continue to add value.

Referring back to the three partnership types at the beginning, what could be the possible value of executive coaching for each of these people?

The senior partner who needs to be a leader and role model of change within the business, while developing new skills. Executive coaching could provide:

A greater understanding of personal leadership style and the impact it has on the business;
A plan to develop new leadership styles and demonstrate those
within the business by delivering business results;
An increased understanding of what a successful role model needs to do within high periods of change;
A plan to ‘settle down’ and lead critical members of this team so that all are retained and deliver value.

Newly promoted ambitious partners, anxious to climb up the equity ladder and to lead a department and large transactions for the first time, but who lack the leadership skills to make an immediate impact. Executive coaching could help them achieve their potential within the firm by providing:

An increased understanding of leadership styles and their current personal strengths and weaknesses as leaders;
A clear plan of priorities to establish effective relationships within the department/transactions;
An action plan to develop a mentor from among the senior partners of the firm who can deliver regular feedback on the partner’s progress.

For ‘middle ranking’ partners who have been partners for a number of years, but who will need to perform at a significantly higher level after a merger. Executive coaching could provide significant improvement in performance with:

Objective feedback on performance issues and personal styles;
Challenges on the level of change required;
A greater understanding of their personal concerns about the change, and a series of activities to overcome those concerns;
The identification of the critical relationships in the new offices and teams that have to operate effectively, and an understanding of how they need to behave to develop those relationships;
A series of meetings with key people.

Who is executive coaching suitable for?

The simple answer is all senior people to whom you need to deliver real value during the strategic development of your firm would benefit from executive coaching.

The most common scenarios identified by respondents in the CIPD survey (Coaching and Coaching Services 2004) were primarily the need to improve individual performance when dealing with underperformance, improving productivity, personal development/career planning, growing future senior staff, fostering a culture of learning and development, motivating staff, and accelerating change in the business.

A final point – don’t neglect yourselves. The demands on the leadership and interpersonal skills of top leaders of law firms have probably never been greater for all of the reasons stated earlier. Leading a partnership also represents a unique set of challenges. To provide leadership to partners in such times requires great understanding of yourselves so that you develop effective relationships, so as to be able to lead. It is not uncommon for leaders and top teams to be all too willing to authorise executive coaching for key individuals, but to fail to allow themselves the same advantages.

Some common pitfalls – when does executive coaching not work so well?

Executive coaching may not work as well as it could if:

The firm does not take ownership of the process, and the value it wants to see in terms of behaviour change and bottom-line results;
It is seen as expensive training, rather than a unique development intervention that can yield results where traditional methods may not. It is not about coaching versus training that is appropriate;
It is approached as ‘learning new tricks’, rather than a process whereby individuals gain a greater understanding of themselves and learn new skills;
The coachee is not fully briefed, leading to them behaving in a guarded way and not being fully engaged in the process;
Trust and rapport are not established early in the process;
Another intervention, for example, job shadowing, formal training, mentoring or counselling, may be more appropriate.

How do you evaluate the effectiveness of coaching?

Again the simple answer – by the change that you see in the performance, attitude and behaviour of the coachee and the impact this has on achieving your strategy and the bottom line. It is important for the firm to stay close to the process and be informed of overall progress – avoiding specifics for confidentiality issues.

Other harder measures used to assess the effectiveness of coaching include feedback from participants, appraisal systems, feedback from coaches, employee-attitude surveys, exit interviews, assessment against original outcomes, business-performance indicators, 360-degree team feedback, staff turnover (CIPD Coaching and Buying Coaching Services 2004).

Getting started – where do you begin?

If you think you could benefit from executive coaching but don’t know what to do next, then consider the following points, adapted from ‘10 step guide to better bosses’ in Human Resources Magazine, September 2003, by Melinda Beckett-Hughes of Portland International and Trevor Clawson:

Establish a clear business case – what is the return and value that you specifically want to see, how can you create buy-in at the highest levels of the partnership?
Decide who you want to develop – is it a wide group of partners or is it a core group who are seen to be critical to the achievement of the strategy?
Decide what standards you are measuring performance against – whether you have a partner-competency framework or a simple definition of the definition of a role of a partner, it is important to provide clarity of expectations and role;
Seek out and take advice from a professional supplier – learn about different coaching styles and providers, and then select the best fit for your firm;
Link it to all the other work your firm is currently doing – don’t undermine good development work already being done within the firm, supplement it with executive coaching where appropriate;
Select your coach. There are many suppliers in the market and you can distinguish professional providers by formal study through an approved coaching body, a coaching log with verifiable coaching hours and client testimonials. Personal referrals are an excellent source;
Communicate to those involved what you are seeking to achieve – be clear what the change is you are trying to bring about with individuals, and what the
organisational change agenda is – contract effectively;
Introduce assessments – various tests are available, which can increase individuals understanding of themselves and others;
Get started – initiate executive coaching with individuals who can sell the sale for you, and who can demonstrate measurable performance change that will be valuable to business performance;
Assess the results – what are the observable changes in the behaviour of the coachees? Have the results been achieved?

And, finally, experience executive coaching yourselves so that you will enjoy the benefits, and understand what you are asking others to do – ‘be the change you want to see’ (Ghandi).

Julie Harrison is regional director at Portland International Consulting Group, consultants in change management and organisational development. She can be contacted at julie@portlandinternational.com