Developing a Thriving Client Team Program

Comparing this to human nourishment may seem silly, but it works. Humans can exist with a fundamentally basic level of nourishment ' the amount of food that would keep us from starving. But to grow and prosper, get smarter, live a healthy life, and do so in the face of all the things slamming our immune systems every minute we live, we need much more. More and better food, for instance. And not just for a day or a week, but on a continuous basis, because every new day brings new demands on our bodies and the systems that allow us to thrive instead of just staying alive. Continuous support will vary as our needs change ' as we grow, prosper and flourish.

Continuous support from the firm is needed for client teams to thrive. This includes acceptance, funding, recognition, compensation and a host of other marketing and administrative activities committed to allowing client teams to grow, prosper and flourish over time. Most of the support will fall out or fade away if the client team program does not get and sustain buy-in from all of a firm's management, practice group and office leadership. But that is just the beginning. What about other partners sending mixed messages, opting out through active or passive behaviors, or just plain starving the program over time in ways too numerous to describe?

Some Basics on Buy-In

For purposes of this article, I am using buy-in to mean the commitment of management, committees, attorneys and others to the client team program and how it will be executed and supported over time. The level of this buy-in must be such that the firm is willing to risk a substantial investment of human and financial capital, provide support and recognize what 'over time' really means. The upside is that a thriving client team program will deliver financial results, and can meet or exceed expectations that are set in gaining and sustaining buy-in. Connecting the dots between expectations, execution and results is often the greatest challenge.

So how do you get this buy-in? Who do you get it from? What is needed to sustain it as things change over time?

Some Tips from the Battlefield

First, begin at the beginning. It seems obvious, but get clear explanations in writing around each strategic and operational aspect of your client team program. Include lots of process detail as well as your fully developed strategy:

• Analyze the criteria for selecting a client team and the process for getting practice groups, office managing partners and other stakeholders to agree on a proposed client team (ie, the client or target) selection. Understand the process for identifying, proposing, vetting and approving, or rejecting, proposed team members;
• Identify and describe the goals and metrics set to measure performance. Think through and explain how these goals, if achieved, will benefit the practice group, the office and the partners;
• Develop a uniform team structure with well-defined team member roles; and
• Build in the resources and other firm processes that will be critical to daily operations, the execution of your strategic plan and the daily workings of your client teams. Things such as master codes for each team, travel and logistics for team meetings, team communications, document rooms and teleconferences.

If this sounds like building a strategic plan and drilling down to a clear business plan, it should. After all, you are asking for a lot, so modeling good business practices in making your request is great way to secure buy-in.

Ideally, a lot of this is probably occurring within your group, along with some consulting expertise (highly recommended).

Involve Everyone

Who else should be involved in obtaining buy in?

Almost everyone. The executive committee or its equivalent, your managing partner, your department chairs, practice group chairs, office managing partners, other powerful partners and even the pesky noise makers. Some will be involved in approving, revising or rejecting your program. Others will remember being included in the process (well, maybe not, but you will have a trail of documentation to jog their memory). Err on being over-inclusive. You will never have your beginning opportunities again, so get buy-in from as many stakeholders as you can. Plan for lots of road show time, natural and seemingly odd resistance, many questions and baffled or bored looks. Take along patience, a big smile and aspirin.

Don't forget your full marketing and business-development team, the finance team, attorney-development stakeholders and the technology team (there could easily be more). These groups provide logistics, reporting, funding and alignment with other initiatives, and are quick to spot the difference between theory and reality in your firm's operational environment. Your success depends on great execution, often requiring your firm infrastructure to do new things. Give these process changes the time and attention they need up front. Do not expect others to respond well if they feel out of the loop or bypassed.

Be Flexible

Gaining buy-in is a process, not an event. As you discuss strategic, business and operational issues, be willing to compromise (but not to the point where your program will not succeed) and to explain things from very different points of view. Do not expect the financial team, for example, to buy-in with the same enthusiasm as a partner thinking you have solved his or her revenue gaps for the next 5 years. Different agendas will drive different perceptions. Listen, model understanding needs, learn from feedback, and be diligent in doubling back after changes to ensure others feel you have captured agreements in revisions to your program.

Reduce Fallout

Once you have initial buy-in, how do you keep January's agreements from becoming March's arguments? From experience, some of this is just going to happen. Even the best plan, with blood signatures from everyone in the firm agreeing to every detail, will become a source of disagreement as time changes the needs, perceptions and expectations of those very same people that originally signed on. Trying to eliminate this buy-in fallout is probably not realistic, but reducing the noise levels and minimizing your support dropouts is possible. Some things I have learned include:

• Communication. I confess to learning this the hard way, even though it is my job to be good in this area. Assumptions are the enemy. Do not, for example, assume anyone is going to communicate on your behalf, or that the message will be what you expected to be conveyed. Practice group heads are busy, and they may summarize your proposals into sound bites for their group members. Or they may never forward that e-mail you drafted for them explaining all the details of the program. And of course, even if they do, these e-mails often do not get opened, or get skimmed instead of read, or conveniently forgotten. In a partnership environment, partners learn to reserve their political capital for moments when it can have impact, and that may mean challenging you at a meeting over something you thought was long ago resolved. The lesson: Communicate directly to partners as much as possible. Respond to questions quickly, and expect most of what you send to be misunderstood in some way, or just not read. Communicate more often than you feel is needed, and explain things over and over to get your messages across. Be patient and persistent.
• Reporting. This is communication, but on a different level. Two fundamental types of reporting will help sustain buy-in. General team activity reporting includes success stories, new matters won, upcoming pitches, meetings and whatever else is going on with the team. This creates transparency and will let others in the firm know there is active, ongoing activity. There will be less surprise when the team needs support to undertake those activities, and you will foster team spirit as others see what the teams are doing. Second, and perhaps equally important, is to develop detailed reports for management that track revenues, costs and other performance metrics for the team. Get these out monthly so everyone with an interest can see where you are against goals throughout the year. Plan to modify the reports after they are first sent out and reviewed, because different people will want to see different things.
• Team Meetings. Teams need to meet regularly, and part of the continuous buy-in process is to have good team meetings that engage all team members. The sheer number of attorneys involved will then be on your side as they go back to their fellow partners (many not on your teams) and discuss their involvement, the knowledge they pick up about firm capabilities outside their area of law (yes, they didn't know you had an environmental law section, or if they did, exactly what they did as lawyers) along the way, their feelings on being part of a team and the results the team is achieving.
• Internal Champions. Nurture your internal champions. There may be precious few, but they are exceedingly effective at winning the hearts and minds of others. A good internal champion can do all kinds of things to help sustain and grow buy-in ' in ways your team simply will not be able to achieve on its own. You must help these champions support you by keeping them informed and involved in the process so they feel they are making a difference in driving the success of the teams. Give them what they need to help you.

Promote Success

Finally, celebrate success. Your teams will work hard, follow processes, face challenges, go through natural cycles of any team, but succeed in many different ways. Some will have quick wins, others will develop best practices, and some will be frustrated as they work hard and find that it takes longer to gear up than was expected. Use success in any area to motivate all the teams and keep management aware of the bigger picture. Sustaining buy-in over time requires understanding the many ways that success can be achieved, and underscoring those benchmarks through stories, reports and feedback.

Conclusion

Some of this may sound simple because it really is common sense. But confusing simple with easy is often where execution fails. Gaining and keeping buy-in for a client team program is anything but easy. You can achieve sustained buy-in over time if you work at it and plan for the long haul. Securing this continuous support will help you have a thriving client team program and achieve dramatic results in the market.

Law firm management is still battling to build and maintain a thriving law firm client team program. Thrive is used purposely to emphasize a point. Programs and initiatives come and go, often without meaningful impact, but to thrive is to make steady progress; to prosper, flourish, and grow vigorously (courtesy of dictionary.com for this purpose). Client teams need to thrive to succeed because anything less will not produce the revenue and relationship goals the program promises to deliver. Success will depend on continuous support from many sources, motivated teaming, rigorous processes and probably fundamental cultural change. That would be tough enough if it was the absolute top priority of any business. Would you be surprised to learn that client teams have not yet reached this exalted status in most law firms?

This article highlights the importance of continuous support ' the 'nourishment' needed by client teams.

Feeding Time

Comparing this to human nourishment may seem silly, but it works. Humans can exist with a fundamentally basic level of nourishment ' the amount of food that would keep us from starving. But to grow and prosper, get smarter, live a healthy life, and do so in the face of all the things slamming our immune systems every minute we live, we need much more. More and better food, for instance. And not just for a day or a week, but on a continuous basis, because every new day brings new demands on our bodies and the systems that allow us to thrive instead of just staying alive. Continuous support will vary as our needs change ' as we grow, prosper and flourish.

Continuous support from the firm is needed for client teams to thrive. This includes acceptance, funding, recognition, compensation and a host of other marketing and administrative activities committed to allowing client teams to grow, prosper and flourish over time. Most of the support will fall out or fade away if the client team program does not get and sustain buy-in from all of a firm's management, practice group and office leadership. But that is just the beginning. What about other partners sending mixed messages, opting out through active or passive behaviors, or just plain starving the program over time in ways too numerous to describe?

Some Basics on Buy-In

For purposes of this article, I am using buy-in to mean the commitment of management, committees, attorneys and others to the client team program and how it will be executed and supported over time. The level of this buy-in must be such that the firm is willing to risk a substantial investment of human and financial capital, provide support and recognize what 'over time' really means. The upside is that a thriving client team program will deliver financial results, and can meet or exceed expectations that are set in gaining and sustaining buy-in. Connecting the dots between expectations, execution and results is often the greatest challenge.

So how do you get this buy-in? Who do you get it from? What is needed to sustain it as things change over time?

Some Tips from the Battlefield

First, begin at the beginning. It seems obvious, but get clear explanations in writing around each strategic and operational aspect of your client team program. Include lots of process detail as well as your fully developed strategy:

• Analyze the criteria for selecting a client team and the process for getting practice groups, office managing partners and other stakeholders to agree on a proposed client team (ie, the client or target) selection. Understand the process for identifying, proposing, vetting and approving, or rejecting, proposed team members;
• Identify and describe the goals and metrics set to measure performance. Think through and explain how these goals, if achieved, will benefit the practice group, the office and the partners;
• Develop a uniform team structure with well-defined team member roles; and
• Build in the resources and other firm processes that will be critical to daily operations, the execution of your strategic plan and the daily workings of your client teams. Things such as master codes for each team, travel and logistics for team meetings, team communications, document rooms and teleconferences.

If this sounds like building a strategic plan and drilling down to a clear business plan, it should. After all, you are asking for a lot, so modeling good business practices in making your request is great way to secure buy-in.

Ideally, a lot of this is probably occurring within your group, along with some consulting expertise (highly recommended).

Involve Everyone

Who else should be involved in obtaining buy in?

Almost everyone. The executive committee or its equivalent, your managing partner, your department chairs, practice group chairs, office managing partners, other powerful partners and even the pesky noise makers. Some will be involved in approving, revising or rejecting your program. Others will remember being included in the process (well, maybe not, but you will have a trail of documentation to jog their memory). Err on being over-inclusive. You will never have your beginning opportunities again, so get buy-in from as many stakeholders as you can. Plan for lots of road show time, natural and seemingly odd resistance, many questions and baffled or bored looks. Take along patience, a big smile and aspirin.

Don't forget your full marketing and business-development team, the finance team, attorney-development stakeholders and the technology team (there could easily be more). These groups provide logistics, reporting, funding and alignment with other initiatives, and are quick to spot the difference between theory and reality in your firm's operational environment. Your success depends on great execution, often requiring your firm infrastructure to do new things. Give these process changes the time and attention they need up front. Do not expect others to respond well if they feel out of the loop or bypassed.

Be Flexible

Gaining buy-in is a process, not an event. As you discuss strategic, business and operational issues, be willing to compromise (but not to the point where your program will not succeed) and to explain things from very different points of view. Do not expect the financial team, for example, to buy-in with the same enthusiasm as a partner thinking you have solved his or her revenue gaps for the next 5 years. Different agendas will drive different perceptions. Listen, model understanding needs, learn from feedback, and be diligent in doubling back after changes to ensure others feel you have captured agreements in revisions to your program.

Reduce Fallout

Once you have initial buy-in, how do you keep January's agreements from becoming March's arguments? From experience, some of this is just going to happen. Even the best plan, with blood signatures from everyone in the firm agreeing to every detail, will become a source of disagreement as time changes the needs, perceptions and expectations of those very same people that originally signed on. Trying to eliminate this buy-in fallout is probably not realistic, but reducing the noise levels and minimizing your support dropouts is possible. Some things I have learned include:

• Communication. I confess to learning this the hard way, even though it is my job to be good in this area. Assumptions are the enemy. Do not, for example, assume anyone is going to communicate on your behalf, or that the message will be what you expected to be conveyed. Practice group heads are busy, and they may summarize your proposals into sound bites for their group members. Or they may never forward that e-mail you drafted for them explaining all the details of the program. And of course, even if they do, these e-mails often do not get opened, or get skimmed instead of read, or conveniently forgotten. In a partnership environment, partners learn to reserve their political capital for moments when it can have impact, and that may mean challenging you at a meeting over something you thought was long ago resolved. The lesson: Communicate directly to partners as much as possible. Respond to questions quickly, and expect most of what you send to be misunderstood in some way, or just not read. Communicate more often than you feel is needed, and explain things over and over to get your messages across. Be patient and persistent.
• Reporting. This is communication, but on a different level. Two fundamental types of reporting will help sustain buy-in. General team activity reporting includes success stories, new matters won, upcoming pitches, meetings and whatever else is going on with the team. This creates transparency and will let others in the firm know there is active, ongoing activity. There will be less surprise when the team needs support to undertake those activities, and you will foster team spirit as others see what the teams are doing. Second, and perhaps equally important, is to develop detailed reports for management that track revenues, costs and other performance metrics for the team. Get these out monthly so everyone with an interest can see where you are against goals throughout the year. Plan to modify the reports after they are first sent out and reviewed, because different people will want to see different things.
• Team Meetings. Teams need to meet regularly, and part of the continuous buy-in process is to have good team meetings that engage all team members. The sheer number of attorneys involved will then be on your side as they go back to their fellow partners (many not on your teams) and discuss their involvement, the knowledge they pick up about firm capabilities outside their area of law (yes, they didn't know you had an environmental law section, or if they did, exactly what they did as lawyers) along the way, their feelings on being part of a team and the results the team is achieving.
• Internal Champions. Nurture your internal champions. There may be precious few, but they are exceedingly effective at winning the hearts and minds of others. A good internal champion can do all kinds of things to help sustain and grow buy-in ' in ways your team simply will not be able to achieve on its own. You must help these champions support you by keeping them informed and involved in the process so they feel they are making a difference in driving the success of the teams. Give them what they need to help you.

Promote Success

Finally, celebrate success. Your teams will work hard, follow processes, face challenges, go through natural cycles of any team, but succeed in many different ways. Some will have quick wins, others will develop best practices, and some will be frustrated as they work hard and find that it takes longer to gear up than was expected. Use success in any area to motivate all the teams and keep management aware of the bigger picture. Sustaining buy-in over time requires understanding the many ways that success can be achieved, and underscoring those benchmarks through stories, reports and feedback.

Conclusion

Some of this may sound simple because it really is common sense. But confusing simple with easy is often where execution fails. Gaining and keeping buy-in for a client team program is anything but easy. You can achieve sustained buy-in over time if you work at it and plan for the long haul. Securing this continuous support will help you have a thriving client team program and achieve dramatic results in the market.