Create avenues to share your direction.
We have a number of different opportunities to talk to our folks at different levels. We have monthly partner meetings where we share with our partners as much as we can.
Obviously, certain things can’t be completely opened up because they may not be ripe for discussion, but we try to share that, too. We share with each of our partners how the firm has done against plan for the prior month and why, and we share with our department chairs how their different departments have done on at least a monthly basis, so there’s a pretty clear understanding here how the firm is doing and where it’s going.
We also have regular meetings with our associates where we share information on the firm, and we have periodic meetings with our staff where we do the same thing. And I wouldn’t say anything is unique, but I think we’re more open than most people.
In terms of our strategic plan, we’re planning to have meetings where I’m going to address the associates separately and staff separately just to make sure they understand where we’re headed as well in terms of the plan. So always look for ways like that to try to be more open to solicit feedback and conversation with people.
It gives them a better sense as to where we are, what the future is and less of an opportunity to worry about it. In the sense that you can eliminate uncertainty, that’s always a positive thing.
Involve the next generation.
When you talk about how a firm grows and thrives, you can’t ignore its young leaders and up-and-comers. We can clearly see looking at the firm where the next generation of leadership is, and I think that’s real important.
I had a great predecessor … and he had us in a real good direction that I’m trying to continue. Part of what we decided was maybe there wasn’t a clear understanding of who we were among our stakeholders here and who we wanted to be.
So one of the things that was high on my list of priorities was the strategic planning in terms of getting younger people or the next generation of leadership involved. We formed a strategic planning committee that was made up of about half of our executive committee and half of our partners outside the executive committee as well as some senior staff.
And we pulled into that process some folks who we believe we want here for the long haul and whose opinions we value and who we know we needed to listen to and who, frankly, have some constituents of their own because they’re doing a real great job here. You take advantage of opportunities like that to pull people into the process.
I don’t think we have the luxury nor do I think it’s smart to not involve them. You have to make this their firm. I think our folks feel a strong bond to this place, but you have to work.
It’s like a marriage — you have to work to keep relationships strong, and you have to pull them into those processes to understand or try to understand what concerns people have and also what opportunities they see, because they are your primary assets.
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