Deposition Skills Hindering Effective Law Firm Leadership?
Gerry Riskin, author of the Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices blog picked up on a recent Wall Street Journal article about how depositions require a skill set that leaders don't use in their normal job. The post is worth your reading. Gerry takes the issue from one of deposition training and makes an interesting observation about how the skill sets lawyers rely on to succeed in their profession really hurt the management of the business of the law firm. According to Gerry:
Lawyers must be highly critical and analytical when creating or improving documents or winding their way through the strategy of litigation. These are essential behaviors for lawyering but lousy for managing or being managed. Therefore, unless attorneys become aware of their propensities, they will bring this mode of behavior into all they do, including how they react to management, whether firm-wide or at the practice-group, industry-group or client-team level. Support professionals like Chief Marketing Officers walk away from encounters bewildered and frustrated by these strange (to them) lawyering behaviors that people outside the profession rarely exhibit (especially in corporate settings).
My friends have heard me make this same point, albeit less effectively than Gerry. I've tried to draw on the lawyer's propensity for doing things only after every possible risk has been analyzed and planned out of the matter under consideration. Of course, dealing with every possible issue in this manner usually leaves reading the Sunday paper as the only non-contentious course. Businesses take risks, lawyers avoid them. Its not a comfortable mix. Add in the out-dated legal structure of most firms, and you have the "herding cats" problem that has been discussed elsewhere. Gerry puts it this way:
Leadership requires "followership" which means that the more an internal meeting resembles a deposition ("examination for discovery" in many jurisdictions) the less productive the business meeting will be.
"Followership" is not a normal attribute of many lawyers. In the business world, it is the norm. Even people with leadership skills know how to follow. The chain-of-command is not a notion limited the military. Presidents are higher up the ladder than Vice Presidents. Organizational charts and reporting structures can take on too much importance, but they do have value. The help identify the ultimate leader.
Law firms should consider hierarchy: it could actually help improve performance. Hierarchy would help lawyers focus on what they ought to be focusing on-providing great service to the firm's clients. The business people should be doing the business and calling on the practicing lawyers when appropriate and needed. This avoids the "too many cooks in the kitchen/herding cats" problem.
If you read Gerry's post, you know he believes it can be done. I am not that sanguine about the problem. I look forward to being able to talk to Gerry about his experiences that lead him to his viewpoint.