denotes premium content | Aug 30 2008 Managing Partner archive
Volume 11 Issue 2
Editor’s letter
Managing Partner rarely enters the murky realms of politics. However, it seemed impossible to ignore a major event with the potential to affect the city in which so many of our readers live. Or at least work – at least some of the time.
I speak, of course, of Boris Johnson’s successful campaign to be Mayor of London.
Now, it remains to be seen whether the elimination of ‘bendy buses’ will have much of an effect on law firms’ fortunes either way. Perhaps they can let me know. Few, however, will find much fault with a pledge to take tougher action on crime and violence in London – with a specific focus on the exposed nature of public transport. Just a few days into the job, Johnson said of a meeting with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair: “I made it very clear that I want to see a dramatic reduction in crime, beginning with so-called minor crime.”
As for the broader political significance, the Conservative Party has since triumphed in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election, while, love him or loathe him, it has to be acknowledged ‘Mayor Boris’ is a remarkable strategic coup for David Cameron’s new-look Conservatives. Could there, in retrospect, have been a more canny choice of candidate for a party trying to refresh its image? Johnson will surely be key to the ongoing ‘re-brand’.
Moreover, while they may be Oxford drinking buddies of old, Johnson can perhaps do more than anyone to shift the perception of Cameron as being a mere ‘heir to Blair’ in terms of the so-called ‘spin’ machine. At times a PR team’s nightmare in his former life, when ordered to apologise for offending the city of Liverpool in 2004, this is the man who later termed his trip ‘Operation Scouse Grovel’.
His going ‘off-message’ hit headlines a number of times and some of the ‘gaffes’ are well remembered – fondly or otherwise. On saying, as education spokesman, he would “tell people to eat what they like” at the 2006 Conservative Party conference, even Cameron himself said the Conservatives didn’t mind “if people go off-message” from time to time. “Just try not to do it all the time,” he joked. Of course, Johnson was a columnist and editor before he entered politics. He knows the power of an apparently off-hand quip, as much as a carefully worded comment.
Compare this to the doggedly on-message Prime Minister on the Sunday after May’s local elections, repeatedly stressing his “ordinary” background and alluding to the “difficult economic time” that has so overshadowed his first year in the job.
A humble Brown also acknowledged that his leadership style is different to his own predecessor’s. He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr: “It’s true that I’m a more private person in a public arena, and perhaps I’ve spent too much time looking at the detail of solving people’s problems. I’ve spent too little time thinking about how we can get our arguments across to the public.”
The Prime Minister insists he is still the man for the job. However, does his own diagnosis go at least some way to encapsulating the distinction, often discussed in these very pages, between manager and leader? A leader understands and surrounds himself with strong managers certainly, but the ultimate goal of any leader must be to build buy-in for new ideas and communicate a strategic vision for the whole organisation to advance in the face of greater competition, or indeed adversity.
Meanwhile, Brown routinely dismisses the Conservative agenda as that of “slick salesmen” – show without substance.
But as any modern professional knows, the ‘sales’ effort is at the frontline of any business. Business development teams invariably collaborate with today’s legal workforces to maximise cross-selling opportunities, for instance.
Ideas have to be ‘sold’, the same as products. And as Mayor Johnson well knows, it’s sometimes the way you tell ‘em…
Richard Brent
Editor
Features
Case study: Irwin Mitchell - Keeping it confidential
Irwin Mitchell achieved BS7799 certification, with business-focused policies and procedures, in 18 months.
Advertorial: Ortus Professional Search
Advertorial: Merging or Contemplating a Merger?
Thought leader
By Bruce MacEwen, AdamSmithEsq.com, New York City
Incorporation: salvation?
The arrival of the Legal Services Act in the UK means many firms may be reconsidering how they fund major investments for the future.
Profile: Arthur Ferry
Chief financial officer Arthur Ferry has further developed the business-planning process at the London office of global law firm Baker & McKenzie.
Masterclass: Back to basics
A 10-point plan to becoming a more financially-successful firm.
Powers of persuasion
When Dale Carnegie said: “There is only one way to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it”, he struck at the essence of the art of persuasion.
Back to the future
While many are looking to the implementation of the Legal Services Act and predict a major shake up of the profession over the next four years, it may also be worth revisiting how things changed for firms in the first years of the 21st Century.
Case study: On closer analysis
A business-analysis team will deal with both the gathering and the analysis of information, and law firms are now increasingly looking to their team to help them understand how to remain competitive, profitable and viable.
Going out
In June 2007 CMS Cameron McKenna LLP entered into a ₤10m, five-year agreement to outsource IT infrastructure management, support and application development.
Keeping track
In an increasingly competitive market, understanding the value of the work, as well as the quantum by volume, becomes an imperative for a successful legal practice.
Caught in the Act
After ‘Big Bang’, many, if not most, of the historic financial institutions in the City of London disappeared – replaced by the global giants that feature so prominently in today’s reports of turmoil in the financial markets. Will the Legal Services Act have a similar effect on the law firms of today?
