Executive Coaching – A Secret Weapon of Success
for lawyers in leadership and senior management Transition

Mary-Louise Angoujard, Founder, Rapporta Ltd

Lawyers are trained to a very high standard in the intricacies of the law. Many have a focus on clients and a focus on service that sets them apart. However, in many small to medium sized law firms, very little time and resources are dedicated to developing business and people skills.

Almost anyone can manage a practice and team of well-motivated professionals when the economy is healthy. Perhaps that is an overstatement, but certainly in prosperous times, practices can easily grow despite being poorly managed.

It can be a different story when new business isn’t rolling through the doors. In this environment, there are a host of leadership and people management issues for which lawyers have not been trained.

This is when the management skills of many solicitors can be brutally exposed.

Missed Business Opportunities
Some of these skills gaps can not only lead to lack of motivation within the organisation, but also to missing out on much-needed business development opportunities.

In today’s market, the pressure is on to deliver more value, increase effectiveness and maximise every opportunity for the best possible results. Since many firms are downsizing, both junior and senior partners are stretched to cover more clients.

Even where there is a clear business development strategy, it is often being carried out without coherency between partners in terms of the client approach and methodology. Whilst the expertise of each individual may be of a high level, the service and interpersonal communication skills any client encounters can be a mixed bag due to this lack of common approach and strategy. Most professional firms admit that effective cross-selling of the full range of services is also limited.

Communication and Leadership Inside the Organisation
For instance, many lawyers will announce a major change simply through presenting a logical and well-argued case - typically only to the partners, probably by email, with a further debate at a partner conference. The message then gets diluted, if not downright distorted, as it makes the rest of the journey down through the various levels of the firm. Regardless of the importance of logical arguments, King Henry did not inspire the troops at the gates of Harfleur with a long memo and 101 Powerpoint slides. Where leading people is concerned, technical ability and professional knowledge are just the start – interpersonal skills, personal impact and focus also play a big part.

The role of Coaching
In the professional world, more and more business leaders are turning to a coach to provide essential support, feedback and mentoring when they are taking on new or difficult responsibilities. This is perhaps even more relevant to partners, especially those who have had little or no formal development in interpersonal communication or people management. There will be few people in their firm they feel comfortable turning to (or who has the necessary know-how, not to mention time) for such advice and feedback.

A coach helps the partner to identify – quickly – specific areas where they need to improve and helps them develop know-how in those specific areas. A good coach then goes on to assist the partner to translate it into practice -- for real, bottom-line impact on the organisation.

Business coaching, like sports coaching, is based on a few key principles: to improve one’s game overall, it is helpful to focus. Focus on objectives, focus on your specific skills, and on making continual, sometimes small improvements, one by one. Overall, this makes a tremendous impact on your performance and results. On this basis, the best approach to executive coaching is usually personal, professional, dynamic and focused, and is tailored specifically for the individual’s circumstances and goals. And, identification of key issues and specific actions needed to address them can be quite rapid, which is essential for effective use of a partner’s time.

Coaching – a Management and Business Development Tool
Specific outcomes are designed to match the objectives of the coaching, as appropriate to each situation. Some examples:

1 Improved focus on the 20% which can produce the 80% improvement
2 Team Management and Motivation
3 Greater skill in Strategic planning and execution
4 Improved Management, Delegation and Coaching skills
5 Better time management – through improved focus
6 Identification of self-defeating habits
7 Enhanced interpersonal communication and image
8 Better relationships both inside the firm and with client organisations
9 Enhanced image and leadership

Whilst the specific benefits depend greatly on the business you are in, one thing is clear – Executive Coaching has proven to have the capability to create these kinds of results. There are a number of times when it is particularly useful:

Pivotal Points of Career Progression
Transition Coaching applies specifically when role activities and focus change, such as stepping up to new roles and responsibilities, many of which carry heavy burdens of people and business development responsibility. In law firms, making the transition from client manager or associate to junior partner, and from junior to senior partner can be particularly demanding and the right skills and focus are essential to get the best results.

Why during these transitions particularly? Because these roles are the most strategic. They have the most impact on the business results and also managing and mobilising the key people in the organisation to do the right things, at the right times, in the right way. In business, the relationship between goals and activities is not always so clearly defined – which is where coaching comes in.

Guy Facey, an international lawyer currently with KSB Law as Head of Corporate in London, says that since taking up his most recent role he has read a number of management books to help him define his thinking through the transitional phase. His conclusion: you haven’t got to suddenly conquer the world to become effective in a new role; you do have to work on doing lots of small things differently, on several fronts at one time. The way he compares translating theory into practice is by relating it to a simple thing like saying “I must get fit” and following that up with a small but significant new activity “I’m going to spend 30 minutes working out at the gym next Thursday.”

Whilst self-development on a continual basis is essential, busy professionals find executive coaching helps them to sift through the “nice to know” information and get straight to the heart of their particular issues.

Business Transitions and Market Changes
Transition Coaching also comes into play during business transitions, such as during business mergers, or a strategic business development initiative by the firm. Transition coaching can also play a big role in preventing the loss of a key partner or future leader in the firm.

Simple lack of direction and focus keeps many newly appointed partners from being their most productive and effective during the first year. The fact is that new roles require new skills (or a new application of current skills), and it is often unclear exactly what changes are needed, and how to effect the changes in practical terms for the best and quickest results.

Facing challenges involves not only realising which skills are required, but also exactly how to translate those skills into specific, purposeful and effective actions to address said challenges.
A transition coach can help, by providing insights and guidance specifically related to the demands of the individual’s role as needed, according to the situation at hand.

Building Competitive Strength
Transition Coaching is an essential business tool that can be used to build competitive strength by supporting individual top law professionals to become more effective, deal with changing market and company situations, and achieve the best possible performance from themselves and their teams, in the face of new challenges -- especially when the economic and competitive climate demands ever greater effectiveness and efficiency.