Stay Out of My Sandbox!

“It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.” ' Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592, French Renaissance philosopher and writer)

For decades, most organizational structures have been designed to encourage specialization and subject-matter expertise. Business units and/or departments employ professionals who share particular skill sets and who are focused on achieving specific functional-area objectives. As a result, it only made sense for these teams to share common workspaces, resources and best practices in order to improve communication, enhance efficiencies, and drive individual and group results.

While successful in many respects, this approach has shown its age and limitations when applied to today's knowledge-based, time-sensitive and rapidly changing global economy. Though certainly not intentional, this mindset has created very inward-focused, isolated, segmented, inefficient and often stagnant corporate cultures. Unfortunately, it has also been branded. This so-called “silo mentality” has come to be defined as an attitude found in many organizations that occurs when several departments or groups do not actively share information or knowledge with others within the same company and have little to no understanding of what the others are doing.

In the long run, it is imperative that organizations abandon this mentality because cross-department coordination and cooperation provide the strongest platform on which to drive and adapt to change, encourage innovation, stay competitive, attract and recruit thought leaders, and enhance morale and individuals' value to the organization. And while the silo mentality or practice can (and will) dramatically hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of all departments across a given organization, marketing might stand to lose the most if such a change in course is not made. To be successful, marketing, by its very nature, requires access to, and awareness of, various facts and figures, as well as key internal processes, procedures and systems. As the legal landscape becomes increasingly complex, the ability of marketing departments to identify, capture and leverage those resources will no longer be just a competitive advantage, but an essential business requirement.

Since change often comes at a snail's pace, the purpose of this article is not to propose some revolutionary concept for dismantling the long-entrenched culture or inner workings of a law firm (or any organization for that matter). I will leave that venture to those far more knowledgeable on such matters. Rather, it is my hope to present some specific, proactive and realistic steps law firm marketing professionals can take to minimize the negative effects of silos and, in doing so, enhance departmental and firm-wide results.

So let's begin:

Facilitate Interaction/Develop Teams

When it comes to entrenched issues and behavior such as those found within a silo mentality, solutions are unlikely to arrive without a paradigm shift in thinking. Since the fundamental basis of the silo mentality is isolation, efforts must be made to facilitate, if not force, interaction across various groups. To this end, marketing leaders should require more diverse input into their programs, projects and initiatives. This can even take the form of actual teams or committees. Areas to consider include such items as website redesigns, rebranding campaigns, CRM platform rollouts, practice group marketing plan development and attorney retreat planning. This effort is not about relinquishing authority or power, but allowing more people to be heard. You might be quite surprised to see what is gained through the perspectives, constructive feedback and fresh exchange of knowledge with “outside” departments.

Leverage Liaisons

Just as legal marketers often serve as the liaison between their departments and specific attorneys and/or practice groups, the same approach can be used with virtually every department within a law firm (information technology, accounting, human resources, etc.). The goal is simply to initiate regular, two-way discussions between different groups. Individuals are responsible for their specific functional roles, but also for expanding the knowledge base of their respective departments. Once these sessions have an opportunity to take hold and foster trust, it is not uncommon to see multiple liaisons form within each discipline. This approach is also instrumental in helping employees develop mentors in other departments.

Reward Performance

While collaboration, sharing and teamwork are very popular concepts, when it comes to recognition or reward, the focus is often on individual achievement. Marketing leaders should develop, define and include collaborative performance metrics as part of each team member's annual review process. In short, recognize and promote those who work across organizational confines. Again, what might very well be a “forced” or contrived approach to interaction at the outset will, over time, transform itself into an organic and accepted component of the inner-office dynamic.

Internal Roadshow

Early in my career, I had the opportunity to work in the strategy department of a Fortune 500 high-tech company. One of my first assignments was to work with my director on developing an internal roadshow presentation that we would give to literally dozens of groups within the company. The presentation goals were to ensure that all employees had a basic understanding of the corporate strategy, elicit feedback from various departments, and promote the efforts of our team to a broad audience. To this day, I have not found a more valuable tool to spark collaborative engagements than this simple dog-and-pony show technique. Don't reinvent the wheel. Schedule time to attend other department staff meetings to give a 15-minute overview of your department, summarize current initiatives and identify possible areas for cross-department efforts. You can also reverse the process and ask other department heads to present briefly at future marketing staff meetings.

Focus on Clients

I really do not need to say this, but I will ' clients are important. Unfortunately, when the silo mentality is at work, the focus within a law firm or any organization is often on internal issues rather than on providing clients with outstanding legal services. Marketing can help realign the focus of the firm by acquiring and sharing, among other resources, industry research and client feedback. This can even include occasional client roundtables that will provide employees with a 360-degree view of the client experience. Regularly scheduled strategic communications can be distributed firm wide and can serve as a starting point for more extensive inter-department discussions.

Earn Trust

True collaboration occurs when the parties in question fundamentally trust each other. Such trust does not come overnight or via casual interactions. It is nurtured over a period of time and is the product of a genuine exchange of ideas and the opportunity to appreciate and know people beyond standard work titles and roles. Until this takes place, it is quite easy for departments to minimize the work of their colleagues. Therefore, hold offsite social functions or in-house events with social/interactive elements to provide a forum conducive to developing camaraderie and personal relationships.

Promote Results

As marketers, we understand the power of metrics. We understand the need to define, track, measure and report results and outcomes. And as with any initiative, the strongest way to build momentum for your collaboration efforts is to promote your various successes across the firm. Schedule meetings with the intent to hold each employee accountable against assigned tasks. Working against established infrastructure is difficult and time consuming. A great deal of effort is required to ensure momentum. To assist in the movement, leverage past examples where cooperation between departments led to success, and build off those instances.

Conclusion

In the business world, and certainly the case in law firms, processes, protocols, procedures and defined roles serve a valuable purpose. But after years of application, and usually when taken to the extreme, they can become entrenched in, and perhaps even define, a corporate culture ' often one of isolation, independence and routine, rather than one of interdependence, collaboration and synergy.

The goal in breaking down silos is to address the issues that create a lack of information flow and that generate workflow redundancies. And while the elimination of silos is a noble goal, they will most likely be the norm across most law firms for the foreseeable future. Consequently, success in the near term will be achieved by those departments that see the big picture and understand the long-term rewards of taking the initiative to chip away at existing structures and to drive small, incremental changes within their firms. For a self-proclaimed group of creative geniuses, risk-takers and outside-the-box thinkers, this sounds like the perfect assignment for us marketing and business development professionals. Are we up to the challenge?

David McCann, J.D.' is senior manager of marketing and communications at Snell & Wilmer, a business law firm with offices throughout the western United States and in Mexico. He can be reached at 602.382.6517 or [email protected].

“It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.” ' Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-1592, French Renaissance philosopher and writer)

For decades, most organizational structures have been designed to encourage specialization and subject-matter expertise. Business units and/or departments employ professionals who share particular skill sets and who are focused on achieving specific functional-area objectives. As a result, it only made sense for these teams to share common workspaces, resources and best practices in order to improve communication, enhance efficiencies, and drive individual and group results.

While successful in many respects, this approach has shown its age and limitations when applied to today's knowledge-based, time-sensitive and rapidly changing global economy. Though certainly not intentional, this mindset has created very inward-focused, isolated, segmented, inefficient and often stagnant corporate cultures. Unfortunately, it has also been branded. This so-called “silo mentality” has come to be defined as an attitude found in many organizations that occurs when several departments or groups do not actively share information or knowledge with others within the same company and have little to no understanding of what the others are doing.

In the long run, it is imperative that organizations abandon this mentality because cross-department coordination and cooperation provide the strongest platform on which to drive and adapt to change, encourage innovation, stay competitive, attract and recruit thought leaders, and enhance morale and individuals' value to the organization. And while the silo mentality or practice can (and will) dramatically hinder the efficiency and effectiveness of all departments across a given organization, marketing might stand to lose the most if such a change in course is not made. To be successful, marketing, by its very nature, requires access to, and awareness of, various facts and figures, as well as key internal processes, procedures and systems. As the legal landscape becomes increasingly complex, the ability of marketing departments to identify, capture and leverage those resources will no longer be just a competitive advantage, but an essential business requirement.

Since change often comes at a snail's pace, the purpose of this article is not to propose some revolutionary concept for dismantling the long-entrenched culture or inner workings of a law firm (or any organization for that matter). I will leave that venture to those far more knowledgeable on such matters. Rather, it is my hope to present some specific, proactive and realistic steps law firm marketing professionals can take to minimize the negative effects of silos and, in doing so, enhance departmental and firm-wide results.

So let's begin:

Facilitate Interaction/Develop Teams

When it comes to entrenched issues and behavior such as those found within a silo mentality, solutions are unlikely to arrive without a paradigm shift in thinking. Since the fundamental basis of the silo mentality is isolation, efforts must be made to facilitate, if not force, interaction across various groups. To this end, marketing leaders should require more diverse input into their programs, projects and initiatives. This can even take the form of actual teams or committees. Areas to consider include such items as website redesigns, rebranding campaigns, CRM platform rollouts, practice group marketing plan development and attorney retreat planning. This effort is not about relinquishing authority or power, but allowing more people to be heard. You might be quite surprised to see what is gained through the perspectives, constructive feedback and fresh exchange of knowledge with “outside” departments.

Leverage Liaisons

Just as legal marketers often serve as the liaison between their departments and specific attorneys and/or practice groups, the same approach can be used with virtually every department within a law firm (information technology, accounting, human resources, etc.). The goal is simply to initiate regular, two-way discussions between different groups. Individuals are responsible for their specific functional roles, but also for expanding the knowledge base of their respective departments. Once these sessions have an opportunity to take hold and foster trust, it is not uncommon to see multiple liaisons form within each discipline. This approach is also instrumental in helping employees develop mentors in other departments.

Reward Performance

While collaboration, sharing and teamwork are very popular concepts, when it comes to recognition or reward, the focus is often on individual achievement. Marketing leaders should develop, define and include collaborative performance metrics as part of each team member's annual review process. In short, recognize and promote those who work across organizational confines. Again, what might very well be a “forced” or contrived approach to interaction at the outset will, over time, transform itself into an organic and accepted component of the inner-office dynamic.

Internal Roadshow

Early in my career, I had the opportunity to work in the strategy department of a Fortune 500 high-tech company. One of my first assignments was to work with my director on developing an internal roadshow presentation that we would give to literally dozens of groups within the company. The presentation goals were to ensure that all employees had a basic understanding of the corporate strategy, elicit feedback from various departments, and promote the efforts of our team to a broad audience. To this day, I have not found a more valuable tool to spark collaborative engagements than this simple dog-and-pony show technique. Don't reinvent the wheel. Schedule time to attend other department staff meetings to give a 15-minute overview of your department, summarize current initiatives and identify possible areas for cross-department efforts. You can also reverse the process and ask other department heads to present briefly at future marketing staff meetings.

Focus on Clients

I really do not need to say this, but I will ' clients are important. Unfortunately, when the silo mentality is at work, the focus within a law firm or any organization is often on internal issues rather than on providing clients with outstanding legal services. Marketing can help realign the focus of the firm by acquiring and sharing, among other resources, industry research and client feedback. This can even include occasional client roundtables that will provide employees with a 360-degree view of the client experience. Regularly scheduled strategic communications can be distributed firm wide and can serve as a starting point for more extensive inter-department discussions.

Earn Trust

True collaboration occurs when the parties in question fundamentally trust each other. Such trust does not come overnight or via casual interactions. It is nurtured over a period of time and is the product of a genuine exchange of ideas and the opportunity to appreciate and know people beyond standard work titles and roles. Until this takes place, it is quite easy for departments to minimize the work of their colleagues. Therefore, hold offsite social functions or in-house events with social/interactive elements to provide a forum conducive to developing camaraderie and personal relationships.

Promote Results

As marketers, we understand the power of metrics. We understand the need to define, track, measure and report results and outcomes. And as with any initiative, the strongest way to build momentum for your collaboration efforts is to promote your various successes across the firm. Schedule meetings with the intent to hold each employee accountable against assigned tasks. Working against established infrastructure is difficult and time consuming. A great deal of effort is required to ensure momentum. To assist in the movement, leverage past examples where cooperation between departments led to success, and build off those instances.

Conclusion

In the business world, and certainly the case in law firms, processes, protocols, procedures and defined roles serve a valuable purpose. But after years of application, and usually when taken to the extreme, they can become entrenched in, and perhaps even define, a corporate culture ' often one of isolation, independence and routine, rather than one of interdependence, collaboration and synergy.

The goal in breaking down silos is to address the issues that create a lack of information flow and that generate workflow redundancies. And while the elimination of silos is a noble goal, they will most likely be the norm across most law firms for the foreseeable future. Consequently, success in the near term will be achieved by those departments that see the big picture and understand the long-term rewards of taking the initiative to chip away at existing structures and to drive small, incremental changes within their firms. For a self-proclaimed group of creative geniuses, risk-takers and outside-the-box thinkers, this sounds like the perfect assignment for us marketing and business development professionals. Are we up to the challenge?

David McCann, J.D.' is senior manager of marketing and communications at Snell & Wilmer, a business law firm with offices throughout the western United States and in Mexico. He can be reached at 602.382.6517 or [email protected].