Aligning Mentoring Programs with Core Competency Models

Core Competency

First, a brief discussion of core competency models is necessary to give context to this discussion. The concept of core competencies came as an outgrowth of psychology and the hypotheses of David McClelland in the 1970s. McClelland, David, “Testing for Competence Rather Than for 'Intelligence'.” Amer Psychol, 28(1), 1-14 (1973). Organizational development researchers identified core competencies as a method to improve an entity's performance in the marketplace. Many studies have addressed how entire companies could better perform by identifying their core competencies within the market place and focus on those business lines. Eventually, those ideas were applied to internal standards and individual performance expectations. A variety of industries studied corporate performance and found that companies that had core competencies and related activities (advanced employee feedback systems, quality programs, selection techniques tied to those competencies, etc.) increased their public market value between
$35,000 and $80,000 per employee.

Simply stated, “core competencies” have evolved to be the skills and abilities superior performers demonstrate in particular roles. These competencies can be specific within practice groups in law firms, general for all successful lawyers in a particular firm, or even very broad and applied to lawyers across types of legal work. For example, excellent legal reasoning and analysis is a core competency for any attorney, while a law firm that requires rainmaking would identify the ability to nurture relationships and bring in new clients as a core competency of its partners (but perhaps not its junior associates). There are now several research papers and books on how to develop and use these competency models in law firms.

Despite the proliferation of core competency models, unfortunately, not all organizations using core competencies have the financial investment to statistically validate them, so some experts remain unconvinced that entities are using accurate competency models. Until they are validated, they are merely hypotheses. Nonetheless, the research on core competencies, generally, and their use in evaluating performance remains tempting and convincing: The top 10% of performers in professional occupations are 48% more productive than those rated as average.

One-by-one, large law firms began paying attention to the development of core competencies. At the same time, law firms as institutions were succumbing to market pressures that emphasized the need for attorneys to hit the ground running, which lead to a recognized need for institutionalized mentoring. To stay competitive, law firms started hiring consultants and internal professional development specialists to assist in a few areas: identification of law students who would be more likely to succeed in their respective law firms, and identification of skills that could be taught formally to decrease ramp-up time and increase client satisfaction. In addition, in the 1990s, law firms competed for the highest profits per partner in AmLaw rankings in order to recruit lateral partners with the largest books of portable business. As the emphasis turned to billable hours and revenues, the expectations effectively decreased the traditional emphasis on informal mentoring. At the same time, competition for new law graduates from top schools became fierce. Many law firms saw that they could woo those law grads with formal training and mentoring programs. Despite that trend, numerous articles have appeared indicating the near failure of most of those mentoring programs.

New Lawyers Still Want Mentoring

Despite some of that negative press, being a successful attorney remains challenging and new lawyers want mentoring more than ever, as research on Millennial workers has indicated. For example, PWC's 2011 Annual Global CEO Study indicates 98% of Millennials believe having a mentor will help them succeed.

We think we have found some answers to what plagues many mentoring programs; we have been able to keep our attrition numbers below the national average for firms of our size as a result. Our experiences confirm numerous articles and opinions that indicate the following: When done well, mentoring programs can be beneficial at all levels of an organization.

As we created a new mentoring program following the introduction of our core competencies three years ago, we wanted our program to complement those competencies, which our training and evaluation systems follow. Our mentoring program and how it relates to our firm's core competency model is designed to respond to the complaints we hear from mentors and those being mentored. Here is a sample of the concerns we heard before implementing our program:

Concerns from a Mentee

I walk in the door and am assigned a mentor. It may be someone I like; it may be someone I don't. If I don't trust or respect my assigned mentor, there really is no point. Most importantly, if I don't know the mentor, we are starting from ground zero in an artificial setting, so I am starting from a disadvantage. If the mentor doesn't care if I succeed, I don't feel comfortable reaching out and certainly don't feel comfortable discussing long-term goals. Great, I have a mentor.
What do I do with him or her?

Concern from a Mentor

If I don't know this person or understand why we are paired together, we are less likely to have any meaningful discussion. I don't have a lot of time for this, so the associate needs to drive this a bit.

Best Practices

In designing the program, we developed and continue to test what we believe are best practices. Following are several practices we found useful.

First, have a formal nomination process in which associates identify their own organic relationships that are becoming mentoring relationships. After an associate has spent a few months at the firm, it may be the best time to ask for his or her nominations because they know the different players, and they are able to assess their own goals and where they need help achieving specific competencies. The associate needs to be able to trust his or her mentor, and developing trust naturally is a critical advantage in establishing successful mentoring relationships.

Second, have a liaison between the associate and the partner to ensure the person nominated as a mentor is a good choice. Moreover, that liaison, preferably a partner in that local office, needs to confirm with the nominated mentor that he or she feels comfortable with the associate and truly believes the associate can and will succeed at the firm. Having a partner in this role demonstrates the firm's commitment, even if an administrator is helping behind the scenes.

Third, provide resources and training, and help set expectations for both parties. For example, in addition to providing mentors training and a handbook that includes thoughtful questions to pose to an associate, our associates receive their own set of tools. Every new associate, whether a lateral or new graduate, receives a hard copy of our Associate Development Notebook, “The Notebook.” This introduces associates to the firm's core competencies and includes self-assessment tools to help associates identify the level at which they should be performing in different areas. It also provides tools to develop those skills. The Notebook provides associates with tips on how to work with a mentor on those skills as well as how to enlist the mentor's assistance in obtaining opportunities to develop and practice those skills.

Fourth, identify a member of firm leadership who keeps mentoring top of mind for all associates at firm meetings and executive committee meetings. That person can use metrics to communicate results to the rest of the firm. In the case of our own firm, Greenberg Traurig has appointed Bradford Kaufman, a member of the firm's executive committee and a co-author of this article, to lead this charge. The metrics can be tracked as long as the firm starts with some baselines and surveys. Here are some survey questions and statistics we find helpful to ask and track: 1) Attrition rates. 2) Number of associates who nominate mentors. 3) Number of associates who annually indicate they have a mentor. 4) Number of mentors who state they spend time working with mentees on career goals, including specific work opportunities. They help associates find within the firm. 5) Number of attorneys who plan to stay at the firm at least five years.

Fifth, promote the concept of a Board of Advisers rather than one career-long mentor. We encourage our associates to reassess their mentor relationship every June and celebrate it as an anniversary of our mentoring program. During those events, we try to emphasize the fact that their goals and focus changes over the course of their career and they need different mentors to help them focus on different skill sets and competencies. This follows new thinking from organizational development psychologists ' that it takes a village of mentors
to develop someone's career.

Sixth, promote the goals of the program, not simply the importance of a mentor in the abstract. We talk about our program a lot ' to anyone who will listen, whether it is to associates and shareholders at office visits, at management meetings, or at shareholder meetings. We emphasize the goal of ensuring mentors help associates identify gaps in their skills and ways to fill them, as well as ways to leverage their strengths. We think this is beneficial for all attorneys, but it has an even greater impact on women and minority attorneys who might be missing some work opportunities due to unconscious biases. Overall, we try to ensure that everyone has a level playing field as long as they are committed to focusing on their goals and owning their careers. As any reader can see, these programs take time and commitment at every level, but they pay off in a variety of ways.

Conclusion

As a result of our efforts over the last two years, we are managing to keep our attrition low despite an increase in associate mobility. More importantly, our associates are fully engaged and generally a happy group. It shows in our productivity, formal surveys, and in our office visits where we hear managing shareholders tell us how their associates are more engaged overall. The metrics are helpful, but the positive feedback everywhere we go is the key that helps us stay focused on our programs' goals. We hope these practices help all legal organizations provide the foundation that all lawyers need to thrive and succeed in the long term in an ever-increasingly challenging legal market.

Jennifer Bluestein is Director of Attorney Professional Development at Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Bradford D. Kauffman is Co-Chair, National Securities Litigation Group, in the firm's West Palm Beach, FL, office. References used in writing this article are available on request from Ms. Bluestein, [email protected].

Attorney development has many goals, but the primary objective is to improve client satisfaction through consistent quality lawyers who perform in a cost-effective way. That is a long way of saying our goal is to increase client value. All of our other objectives relate to that primary goal, whether it is associate retention, developing core competencies, or enhancing supervisory skills.

In order to achieve those goals, law firms have adopted competency models as well as formal mentoring programs. Competencies are the skills and behaviors needed for success in the practice of law. On the one hand, we would hope that law schools teach and develop those skills; however, years of experience have taught us that lawyers are made, trained and mentored on the job rather than trained in law schools.

This article discusses the best practices to intertwine competency models with career-focused mentoring programs. We believe aligning these two structures offers the best way to develop and retain legal talent.

Core Competency

First, a brief discussion of core competency models is necessary to give context to this discussion. The concept of core competencies came as an outgrowth of psychology and the hypotheses of David McClelland in the 1970s. McClelland, David, “Testing for Competence Rather Than for 'Intelligence'.” Amer Psychol, 28(1), 1-14 (1973). Organizational development researchers identified core competencies as a method to improve an entity's performance in the marketplace. Many studies have addressed how entire companies could better perform by identifying their core competencies within the market place and focus on those business lines. Eventually, those ideas were applied to internal standards and individual performance expectations. A variety of industries studied corporate performance and found that companies that had core competencies and related activities (advanced employee feedback systems, quality programs, selection techniques tied to those competencies, etc.) increased their public market value between
$35,000 and $80,000 per employee.

Simply stated, “core competencies” have evolved to be the skills and abilities superior performers demonstrate in particular roles. These competencies can be specific within practice groups in law firms, general for all successful lawyers in a particular firm, or even very broad and applied to lawyers across types of legal work. For example, excellent legal reasoning and analysis is a core competency for any attorney, while a law firm that requires rainmaking would identify the ability to nurture relationships and bring in new clients as a core competency of its partners (but perhaps not its junior associates). There are now several research papers and books on how to develop and use these competency models in law firms.

Despite the proliferation of core competency models, unfortunately, not all organizations using core competencies have the financial investment to statistically validate them, so some experts remain unconvinced that entities are using accurate competency models. Until they are validated, they are merely hypotheses. Nonetheless, the research on core competencies, generally, and their use in evaluating performance remains tempting and convincing: The top 10% of performers in professional occupations are 48% more productive than those rated as average.

One-by-one, large law firms began paying attention to the development of core competencies. At the same time, law firms as institutions were succumbing to market pressures that emphasized the need for attorneys to hit the ground running, which lead to a recognized need for institutionalized mentoring. To stay competitive, law firms started hiring consultants and internal professional development specialists to assist in a few areas: identification of law students who would be more likely to succeed in their respective law firms, and identification of skills that could be taught formally to decrease ramp-up time and increase client satisfaction. In addition, in the 1990s, law firms competed for the highest profits per partner in AmLaw rankings in order to recruit lateral partners with the largest books of portable business. As the emphasis turned to billable hours and revenues, the expectations effectively decreased the traditional emphasis on informal mentoring. At the same time, competition for new law graduates from top schools became fierce. Many law firms saw that they could woo those law grads with formal training and mentoring programs. Despite that trend, numerous articles have appeared indicating the near failure of most of those mentoring programs.

New Lawyers Still Want Mentoring

Despite some of that negative press, being a successful attorney remains challenging and new lawyers want mentoring more than ever, as research on Millennial workers has indicated. For example, PWC's 2011 Annual Global CEO Study indicates 98% of Millennials believe having a mentor will help them succeed.

We think we have found some answers to what plagues many mentoring programs; we have been able to keep our attrition numbers below the national average for firms of our size as a result. Our experiences confirm numerous articles and opinions that indicate the following: When done well, mentoring programs can be beneficial at all levels of an organization.

As we created a new mentoring program following the introduction of our core competencies three years ago, we wanted our program to complement those competencies, which our training and evaluation systems follow. Our mentoring program and how it relates to our firm's core competency model is designed to respond to the complaints we hear from mentors and those being mentored. Here is a sample of the concerns we heard before implementing our program:

Concerns from a Mentee

I walk in the door and am assigned a mentor. It may be someone I like; it may be someone I don't. If I don't trust or respect my assigned mentor, there really is no point. Most importantly, if I don't know the mentor, we are starting from ground zero in an artificial setting, so I am starting from a disadvantage. If the mentor doesn't care if I succeed, I don't feel comfortable reaching out and certainly don't feel comfortable discussing long-term goals. Great, I have a mentor.
What do I do with him or her?

Concern from a Mentor

If I don't know this person or understand why we are paired together, we are less likely to have any meaningful discussion. I don't have a lot of time for this, so the associate needs to drive this a bit.

Best Practices

In designing the program, we developed and continue to test what we believe are best practices. Following are several practices we found useful.

First, have a formal nomination process in which associates identify their own organic relationships that are becoming mentoring relationships. After an associate has spent a few months at the firm, it may be the best time to ask for his or her nominations because they know the different players, and they are able to assess their own goals and where they need help achieving specific competencies. The associate needs to be able to trust his or her mentor, and developing trust naturally is a critical advantage in establishing successful mentoring relationships.

Second, have a liaison between the associate and the partner to ensure the person nominated as a mentor is a good choice. Moreover, that liaison, preferably a partner in that local office, needs to confirm with the nominated mentor that he or she feels comfortable with the associate and truly believes the associate can and will succeed at the firm. Having a partner in this role demonstrates the firm's commitment, even if an administrator is helping behind the scenes.

Third, provide resources and training, and help set expectations for both parties. For example, in addition to providing mentors training and a handbook that includes thoughtful questions to pose to an associate, our associates receive their own set of tools. Every new associate, whether a lateral or new graduate, receives a hard copy of our Associate Development Notebook, “The Notebook.” This introduces associates to the firm's core competencies and includes self-assessment tools to help associates identify the level at which they should be performing in different areas. It also provides tools to develop those skills. The Notebook provides associates with tips on how to work with a mentor on those skills as well as how to enlist the mentor's assistance in obtaining opportunities to develop and practice those skills.

Fourth, identify a member of firm leadership who keeps mentoring top of mind for all associates at firm meetings and executive committee meetings. That person can use metrics to communicate results to the rest of the firm. In the case of our own firm, Greenberg Traurig has appointed Bradford Kaufman, a member of the firm's executive committee and a co-author of this article, to lead this charge. The metrics can be tracked as long as the firm starts with some baselines and surveys. Here are some survey questions and statistics we find helpful to ask and track: 1) Attrition rates. 2) Number of associates who nominate mentors. 3) Number of associates who annually indicate they have a mentor. 4) Number of mentors who state they spend time working with mentees on career goals, including specific work opportunities. They help associates find within the firm. 5) Number of attorneys who plan to stay at the firm at least five years.

Fifth, promote the concept of a Board of Advisers rather than one career-long mentor. We encourage our associates to reassess their mentor relationship every June and celebrate it as an anniversary of our mentoring program. During those events, we try to emphasize the fact that their goals and focus changes over the course of their career and they need different mentors to help them focus on different skill sets and competencies. This follows new thinking from organizational development psychologists ' that it takes a village of mentors
to develop someone's career.

Sixth, promote the goals of the program, not simply the importance of a mentor in the abstract. We talk about our program a lot ' to anyone who will listen, whether it is to associates and shareholders at office visits, at management meetings, or at shareholder meetings. We emphasize the goal of ensuring mentors help associates identify gaps in their skills and ways to fill them, as well as ways to leverage their strengths. We think this is beneficial for all attorneys, but it has an even greater impact on women and minority attorneys who might be missing some work opportunities due to unconscious biases. Overall, we try to ensure that everyone has a level playing field as long as they are committed to focusing on their goals and owning their careers. As any reader can see, these programs take time and commitment at every level, but they pay off in a variety of ways.

Conclusion

As a result of our efforts over the last two years, we are managing to keep our attrition low despite an increase in associate mobility. More importantly, our associates are fully engaged and generally a happy group. It shows in our productivity, formal surveys, and in our office visits where we hear managing shareholders tell us how their associates are more engaged overall. The metrics are helpful, but the positive feedback everywhere we go is the key that helps us stay focused on our programs' goals. We hope these practices help all legal organizations provide the foundation that all lawyers need to thrive and succeed in the long term in an ever-increasingly challenging legal market.

Jennifer Bluestein is Director of Attorney Professional Development at Greenberg Traurig, LLP. Bradford D. Kauffman is Co-Chair, National Securities Litigation Group, in the firm's West Palm Beach, FL, office. References used in writing this article are available on request from Ms. Bluestein, [email protected].