In Search of Perfect Client Service

I just came out of a meeting that included by inside and outside lawyers.  I was stunned by the lack of self-critical thinking on the part of the outside counsel.  Not that inside counsel were immune to the notion, but I was hearing a lot "we're not the problem, it's other firms" or "the problem is really with the clients."

Everyone is familiar with the concept of zero-based budgeting. For those who are not, this is how Wikipedia describes it:

Zero-Based Budgeting is a technique of planning and decision-making which reverses the working process of traditional budgeting. In traditional incremental budgeting, departmental managers justify only increases over the previous year budget and what has been already spent is automatically sanctioned. No reference is made to the previous level of expenditure. By contrast, in zero-based budgeting ^[1], every department function is reviewed comprehensively and all expenditures must be approved, rather than only increases. ZBB requires the budget request justified in complete detail by each division manager starting from the Zero-base. The Zero-base is indifferent to whether the total budget is increasing or decreasing.

It occurs to me that the same concept should guide our thinking on most any issue, certainly the major ones.  Instead of making all sorts of assumptions, we should start our thinking from scratch.  Maybe not everyday, every time, but at least once in a while.  Just think what might happen if we ever critically evaluated the premises that underlie our business models and practices.

Rethink is part of the re-engineering process... Thinking out of the box is dangerous because it upsets the lay of the land and may upset the food chain... Control is what the power brokers want and by starting to rethink assumptions you will be perceived as attacking the order of things... A very dangerous action. That's why people don't want to change their thinking unless they have to... You might want to take a look at Lean Six Sigma for Service (George - McGraw Hill). Visit the business section of your local used book store (has to be somewhat big because critical thinking is not something that is common).