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Helping organizations fulfill their dreams
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WORK AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT
FLOURISH TOGETHER AT THE SOMMER
BARNARD ACKERSON LAW FIRM
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A law firm determined to practice quality life for its partners, associates, and support staff along with quality law for its clients has step by step worked to achieve a sophisticated model of service leadership. It has also, in the process, grown its own size and profitability and achieved low staff turnover and high staff commitment.
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I spent most of my career in a large telecommunications company, 34 years to be exact. I had some of my best learning experiences as a construction foreman, my favorite job early in my tenure. I worked with people like Buck, Homer, and Slim, construction supervisors who did not owe this college graduate a thing but nonetheless gave willingly of their experience and luridness. I became a good foreman, but they taught me far more than how to bury cable or build a pole line. They did it out of service. They did it out of friendship. They were not college educated, had not been to leadership training classes, and were not likely to have read a single book by any of the latest, hottest leadership consultants. They were authentic, very good at what they did, and probably not even aware of their positive impact on others. Their intention was to serve.
I was a little too inexperienced and too into myself at the time to take full advantage of what they taught me, but their model of service became the bedrock of the philosophy that I brought with me to the Indianapolis law firm of Sommer and Barnard PC (Because of a recent acquisition, the firm is now Sommer Barnard Ackerson). When I joined the 30-year-old firm in February 1999, it had 42 lawyers and 35 support personnel. It was struggling with the question of whether to be a boutique/specialty law firm or a full-service business law firm I brought experience in strategic planning, organizational and human resource management, and business processes, all areas of increasing importance to the firm's future but for which the lawyers had no formal training The executive committee hired me as chief operating
officer and gave me direct accountability for the administrative and support functions, which accounted for 45 percent of the firm's personnel. My new role also included helping the firm develop a strategic focus.
The executive committee had another request of me. Everyone in the firm liked Sommer and Barnard's small-firm culture, sense of collegiality, and core value of quality life/quality law, a concept in which individuals are committed to providing high quality legal services and balancing the needs of work and personal life. The executive committee did not want to lose these characteristics in the pursuit of growth and profits I promised that I would devote as much energy to preserving these qualities as I would to helping the firm put a strategic plan in place— this would be a human strategy to accompany the business strategy. As a firm, we would pay as much attention to the impact of change on people as we would to financial gains, and it would be possible to do exceedingly well on both counts.
Between 1999 and 2001, the firm's size and revenues doubled and partners' profits increased. Early in this period we hired a new senior administrative staff and turned over half of the original support staff through voluntary and involuntary termination. Since then, turnover percentage of support personnel has dropped and remained in the single digits, productivity has dramatically improved, and employees have given us high approval ratings, a trio of outcomes that some business leaders believe to be unachievable in the midst of substantial organizational change
I believe that what we have achieved at Sommer and Barnard is possible in larger law firms, in departments of much larger organizations, and even in larger organizations as a whole— given the right committed leadership and the appropriate resources. Whatever your sphere of influence, you can successfully apply the same philosophy to make the organization, or your part of it, a better place to work.
MY PHILOSOPHY OF WORK
I am passionate about the quality of work life. I believe that all members of an organization should know they are valued when they come to work and feel valued for their daily contribution
when they leave at the end of the day. Work should be enriching, enlivening, a way to reveal your life's purpose. One way to define what we are trying to achieve at Sommer and Barnard is capturing the human spirit in the workplace.
Your spiritual place is where you find meaning, where your life's direction and purpose reside. The human spirit is not a theological notion unless you want it to be. It is that part of you that cannot be defined by the intellectual, physical, or emotional. We talk about the human spirit when we want our sports or work teams to be inspired to succeed, but it is hardly ever something taken seriously in business.
I do take it seriously. Work consumes so much of our time, so why not live our purpose through our work? The best lawyers are those who are living their life's work through their unfailing commitment to serve the law and their clients, we have many lawyers like that in our firm. We have many staff members like that also, who live their life's purpose through the support they provide to other members of the firm and, by extension, its clients. Their jobs have meaning beyond their daily tasks.
My ultimate role as a leader is to create a work environment where this can happen. I intend to live this as my purpose, to capture the human spirit at work, not in theory but by practice and example. It is not my purpose to convert individuals or groups to my belief, but should others come to share my intention, then that is a bonus.
Creating organizations where work is spiritually fulfilling is, I believe, the new frontier of organizational excellence. If work is joyful, inspiring, and creative—an avenue for living our life's purpose rather than just a job—all the important tasks of an organization are then lifted to a new level of significance and results are maximized. Employees perform at higher levels, clients and customers are better served, and the firm flourishes. Organizational excellence is the by-product of service to individuals and the enhancement of their lives, not the motivation. Organizational excellence as the goal masks the importance of the individual, tends to be ego-driven, and, in the end, is not as effective.
THE PATH WE HAVE FOLLOWED
With the executive committee's goals in mind - to grow the business while preserving the best of Sommer and Barnard's small-firm culture - we introduced some new processes and enhanced others that already existed (I use the pronoun we because my senior staff played an integral role in many of these efforts). Some processes are organizationwide, others focus on the support side of the firm. I doubt that any of them are unique - many other organizations practice them as well - But I believe their effectiveness at Sommer and Barnard is due, in some part, to the intention with which we engage in them with a spirit of service and the desire to make work here fulfilling.
Build relationships and rapport. When I joined Sommer and Barnard, the day-to-day working relationship between the support staff and lawyers was good. For the staff members, however, completing their daily tasks did not translate into a sense of being part of the long-term success of the firm. I wanted them to feel they were more important to the firm's future and that it was their firm, too.
One of the very first things I did was to have a personal conversation with every secretary and administrative staff member. In these one-on-one meetings, we each talked about our personal lives. I talked in general terms about my dream for the firm, being careful to point out that the firm was already unique but we could collectively raise it to a level beyond what anyone had thought possible. These conversations helped to develop a common vision of the firm's future and, at the same time, began to build a personal connection and a deeper sense of community. They were a first step toward diminishing the separation between lawyers and staff and changing perceptions about their respective value to the future of the firm,
Affirm values. Sommer and Barnard has always been a law firm grounded in integrity and ethics, with quality life/quality law as its core value. Our first organizational action after I became COO was to undertake a process that would affirm this core value and obtain agreement on other values that defined the firm. Values had been discussed informally in the past, but never in a formal process. We conducted a series of retreats, beginning with the partners' annual retreat. Time was set aside from the business-as-usual agenda for a meeting that I designed and facilitated (Having been with the firm only ten days, I was perceived to be an objective outsider, now I have been on the inside too long and no longer facilitate retreats). The format was interactive, and the meeting produced a draft list of values - a draft because we had two other important constituencies to consult the associates and the support staff. We conducted retreats for each of these groups using a similar format, and each produced its version of the firm's values.
In the next step, we formed mixed teams of partners, associates, and support staff to create a "total firm view" of core values. This was a watershed process for the firm, the first time in its history that all its members were deciding on its future together. In the end, however, the most important outcome of this process was not the list of values but the experience that these different groups had of working together on something of organizationwide importance, which helped to further reduce the gap between the groups. Now, in a psychological sense, it was everybody's firm.
In the second retreat for all support personnel, the staff members developed their own personal mission statements - a process that helped them gain confidence about who they are as a person and an understanding about what gifts they have to give to others. We explained that our concept of leadership is not limited to those who actually supervise someone, giving your gifts to someone else is also a form of leadership. We have continued to conduct annual retreats for the support staff that focus on life skill development. The process reinforces the notion that each person's purpose has value to the firm and that we view each one as a potential leader with an important stake in the firm's success.
Establish the focus. Clear focus is important for any organization. While the partners had some idea of a strategic direction, it was not documented nor was there unanimity about why or how to achieve it. I drew on my experience in strategic planning to help shape a formal strategic planning process, beginning with formation of a strategic planning committee that represented a cross-section of the firm's partners. During the next several months, this committee affirmed Sommer and Barnard's business purpose as a full-service business law firm rather than a boutique that would specialize in only a few practice areas. The committee also identified five critical areas of emphasis - quality life/quality law was one - that became the foundation for our strategic plan. At the next partner's retreat, we engaged the rest of the partners in the process and achieved broad buy-in and support.
The plan that emerged is clear and simple with an action orientation, and the strategic objectives are congruent with our values. It is not a plan that sits on the shelf for occasional review. It has provided us with a clear map on which to base our short- and long-term decisions. Now we frame every executive committee and director meeting agenda around the strategic objectives, the objectives are always in front of us. The plan has contributed greatly to our success in the last three years.
Declare intention. While the firm's directors were engaged in the development of the strategic plan, we continued to work with support personnel. In one of their subsequent retreats, I made this promise to them
We don't know what your personal dreams are. You may wish to keep them private. That, of course, is okay. Whatever your choice is about that, we want Sommer and Barnard to be a place where your dreams can be fulfilled and your lives enriched. We will not knowingly diminish your dreams. When you come to work, we'd like you to believe we are here to serve and value you and enrich your lives.
What was most important about that promise was that (1) I meant it, (2) I wanted the staff
members to know that fulfilling their lives in the context of work is what was most important to all of us, and (3) I was the only one in the room that had to believe what I said. Promises are for the person making the pledge, a statement of what that person is willing to live up to. I am not certain if anyone else in that room believed me at the time. I never had that expectation. I said it to set the course and tone for my actions.
In the final part of the promise to the staff, I said to them
We hope your dreams can be fulfilled here at Sommer and Barnard. That would be the best outcome. But if you can't find your dream here and the pursuit of it takes you to another organization we will be the first to hug you and wish you well, because coming to work every day without a greater purpose will flat out wear you down. This is consistent with our belief that service to you and your hopes is paramount.
I did not take this time to give an inspirational speech on the need to increase productivity or the tactical changes to achieve it. When work takes on the broader meaning of living your life's purpose and is coupled with solid business practices, employees at any level do not need hollow speeches on increasing productivity to get results—results will flow naturally.
Establish high standards. Another critical emphasis area is growth, growth not for its own sake but in those areas where we needed more resources to better serve our existing and future clients. The growth that has resulted from our strategic plan is more than anyone at Sommer and Barnard would have previously thought possible. It required a great deal of change and effort—on everybody's part—to maintain the small-firm culture in the midst of that growth.
An organization is generally not capable of making change beyond some limit that exists in the collective mind of its members. However, I have found that people may verbalize lower limits but, in reality, will accept higher limits if given a process that allows them to participate in and experience the positive aspects of change. We had told the support personnel they were an important part of the firm and its future, now we wanted them to understand that they were capable of change and could perform at even higher levels, thereby contributing not only to the firm's goals but also to their own sense of purpose and satisfaction. With respect to the lawyers, our job was to reinforce or create supportive processes that would make the entire change dynamic and as painless and transparent as possible.
My experience is that most employees want to work hard and produce outstanding results. They are willing to be held to a high standard as long as that standard is evenly upheld—it makes employees proud of their work, their contributions, and their employer. High expectations communicate to the employee, "Your work is important to us, and so are you". The leader's role is then to create the best possible environment for creativity and high performance where the extraordinary can be achieved.
We established and have since maintained higher performance standards for the administrative and support staff. These standards have been communicated and reinforced in numerous ways, such as the conversations I had with each staff person early in my tenure, the retreats, monthly support-staff meetings, clear statements of expectations, performance reviews, coaching sessions for underperformers, letting chronic underperformers go, and consistent and appropriate leadership behavior. In our latest employee opinion survey, 81 percent of our support personnel (those who selected the two highest ratings on a five-point scale) believed they were held to a high professional standard. The higher standards and the staff's willingness to meet them have had measurable benefits for the firm.
Get "the right people on the bus. When we raised the bar for performance, the staff members had a chance to decide if they were willing to work under higher expectations. Some were not, and they left of their own accord. Others were invited to leave. I asked no one from my senior staff to leave, but they did decide to move on, amicably in all cases but one. Turnover among all support staff in the first year was 51 percent.
We "rebuilt" by recruiting the best talent we could find. Our want ads looked like every other law firm's ads, emphasizing the core skills to be sure that a candidate could fulfill the basic job requirements. During the interviews, we began to probe the candidate's work philosophy and values. There is no sure-fire way to do this, but it is critical for ensuring a good fit between the individual and the firm.
The turnover was costly in the short term, but to borrow a phrase from Jim Collins's book, Good to Great: Why Some Companies~ Make the Leap and Others Don 't (HarperCollins, 2001), we now had "the right people on the bus in order to succeed" in the years that have followed. The new senior staff is amazing. We share the same philosophy about work, although that did not happen overnight. We still need to frequently reassure one another and reinforce the need to act in a manner consistent with what we believe.
Build a sense of community. Long before I arrived, Sommer and Barnard had a tradition of food events more than at any other firm I know. Some may dismiss this kind of activity as a waste of time. I see it as important because it supports our quality life/quality law core value. It builds community by connecting people in a different way than typical work interactions. We have welcoming breakfasts and staff appreciation lunches. We have bosses lunches, ice cream socials, Coney Island hot dog days, chili cookoffs, prayer groups, and lunches to celebrate Patsy Kline's life. Make no mistake about it, this is a very hard-working law firm, but we take time out to play.
Communicate. We have instituted regular support-staff meetings to discuss the firm's activities as well as any new policies and procedures. Everybody hears the same information at the same time, thereby reducing the risk of misinformation generated through the rumor mill. We conduct the meetings with an agenda, but staff input is what makes them a success. They also serve as interactive forums in which employees, drawing on their own experience, can coach their coworkers. The investment in time is well worth it.
Give support through feedback. Over the last three years, we have gradually changed our performance review process. Previously, the human resource manager had done the performance reviews for the support staff with only occasional personal participation from lawyers. Now we document performance reviews and ask lawyers to participate in the review conversation. We try to be candid and value-added in the reviews. Underperformers are counseled regularly about their performance. We do not wait for annual reviews because midcourse corrections are far easier to manage than hard turns at the last minute. The process is not about disciplinary action but about training and coaching, helping an employee do the job well. If the review process does not improve performance, we feel we have failed as managers.
Shed the rules. Although we have policies and procedures, we are a rules-adverse law firm. We want to encourage individualism within a team context. Too many rules are for those who need to hide behind uniformity—they stifle creativity and performance. We set broad parameters for what we are trying to achieve as an organization and let each person work toward them. That is usually enough.
Monitor the impact of change. As part of our work philosophy, we have a commitment to accountability, and so we want to measure the impact of our philosophy to see if what we believe in is actually working. As one check of our effectiveness, we survey all staff employees by e-mail every six to eight months. The results are shared with all the participants and the firm's executive committee. However, we will never make the survey results the goal of the process,
nor will we set a senior administrative staff objective to improve the results. That would begin to distort the intention of service, and measurement would become the purpose. To gauge the contribution to the firm's performance, we also monitor overall support-staff productivity and estimate the financial impact of productivity and turnover levels.
Base leadership on service. At the telecommunications company where I worked before joining Sommer and Barnard, we spent several years in what could be broadly defined as managing "change strategies". The entire senior team took it seriously and participated in personal introspective retreats, spouses included. The senior team recognized that if we were to successfully lead the organization through change, we had to come to the planning table with a new perspective, clear of old hang-ups and dysfunctions. Otherwise, it would be the same people looking at the world, the marketplace, the organization, and each other in the same old ways, with the same old perceptions.
That was the beginning of my personal journey of self-discovery, a process at times painful and at times enlivening. Fortunately, the enlivening aspect eventually overshadowed the painful. What emerged from this for me was a simple philosophy of how to approach the world and my work
• Know yourself
• Serve others
• Perfect your gifts
Many people have written about this, but I give much of the credit to everything Robert Greenleaf has written on servant leadership and to John Izzo and Eric Klein's book, Awakening Corporate Soul Four Paths to Unleash the Power of People at Work (Fair Winds Press, 1999). What these authors and others have taught me is that service is the first ingredient of leadership. Serve others first and then if you have the capacity to lead, do so out of that sense of service. Such leadership has greater power and authenticity than leadership motivated by ego.
My intent when I joined Sommer and Barnard was to serve the firm, not lead it. This was a leap for me because my natural inclination is to lead whatever my title or defined role - rather than serve. I had to set that aside. Deciding to lead is ego motivated. It presumes superiority and power over others. Servant-oriented leadership embraces input and collaboration and focuses debate on what is best for all rather than who is right. Who can argue with that? It also alleviates a great deal of personal and organizational stress. My experience at the firm has confirmed for me that leadership born out of service is the best approach.
THE RESULTS
The changes we made in the support organization in the first two years of our efforts had its price in turnover, 51 percent of support personnel in 1999 and 33 percent in 2000. As I said earlier, many people opted out of the new climate of higher performance expectations, thus much of the turnover was in the best interests of both the individual and the firm. Despite such organizational "disruption," the firm's revenues doubled between 1999 and 2001. The organization grew from 42 to 86 lawyers and from 34 to 70 support staff. Profits to partners increased beyond their pre-1999 levels. In 2001, support staff turnover dropped to 8 percent - low by most any standard - and it has remained near that rate.
One of the productivity measurements in law firms is the number of timekeepers (fee-generating personnel) per secretary. In 1999, that ratio was 2/1 Today it is 2/7/1, a 35 percent increase in productivity. The firm has made important technology investments that have aided productivity, and the low turnover has also contributed to the gains, but that does not account entirely for such significant improvements during a time of extraordinary growth and change.
The financial impact of these productivity gains and low turnover rates are huge for a firm
of our size. Although multipliers as high as four times the annual salary of the person leaving are sometimes used to measure the financial impact of turnover, we use a more conservative multiplier of two to calculate the savings from this low turnover. We estimate the annual savings from higher productivity and low turnover to be about $2 million. This makes the partners very happy, and the support staff takes enormous pride in its contribution to the bottom line.
We believe that positive employee opinion is another indication that we have made the right changes. Our surveys of the support staff show that 75 percent of the respondents have confidence in our management and 81 percent feel they are treated with caring and respect. We like those results. In some ways, they are what count the most.
CONCLUSION
All together, the results tell us that we have been able to grow as a firm, produce profits, and create a caring environment that nurtures the human spirit. As part of our growth strategy, the firm recently merged with the Washington, D C, firm, The Ackerson Group, to become Sommer Barnard Ackerson. We now have the opportunity to test our philosophy of human spirit in the workplace with new people six hundred miles away.
We still have our share of anxiety, stress, anger, and personal issues. This is not nirvana. But we also have heavy doses of fun, laughter, irreverence, and hope. My senior staff and I relate to each other with respect, caring, and love—that is the way we intend to be with one another and the way we choose to be with others inside and outside the firm. This is our purpose. Work has become a joy, and after all, that is what it should be.
Written by Clare D. Coxey
Published by Wiley Periodicals Inc.
Spring 2003 issue of Journal of Organizational Excellence
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