Challenge

A top 50 law firm wanted to invest in their leaders of the future, to help drive the firm’s ambitious growth plans.

Having grown both organically and by acquisitions it was also a great opportunity to consolidate the expectations to gain a consistent calibre of associates and partners.

At this level of course, time is at a premium and fee earning is everything, so it is absolutely essential that any development activity has significant practical value – they needed a flexible solution which would deliver a return on the investment. Any time spent ‘away from fee earning’ had to represent value for money and deliver long term benefits and any resources created had to have clear impact on performance

Solution

Step 1 – Definition of expectation. This was tough for the partner team to articulate but the goal must be clear and precision around expected behaviours and values is critical.

Step 2 – Creation of an aspirational development process that could lead talented associates through to legal director and from legal director through to partner (Our Pathfinder programme )with plenty of time for job shadowing, coaching, mentoring and skill development.

We developed specific 18 month solutions for each level that included:

• Individual development plans
• Individual research, knowledge building, learning and analysis
• Monthly half-day group collaboration sessions which focused on real leadership challenges (combining external and internal facilitation) and the sharing of experiences and stories
• Individual coaching and mentoring
• The creation of resources and toolkits to help individuals deal with leadership challenges in the ‘flow of work’

The key focus areas of the Leadership solution included:

• Financial performance
• Negotiation and influence
• Business Development
• Leading People, Teams and Talent
• Communication, Personal Impact and Influence
• Clients, the Firm and Finance
• Strategy, Culture and Values

Results

Now in our third year of partnering with the firm, we deliver what is seen as a flagship Leadership solution. The selected leaders and future leaders of the business have achieved outstanding results, both for themselves and for their teams being exemplars of the firm values, driving great client relationships and financial performance.

Each cohort has worked tirelessly to break down silo working, develop best practice for clients and drive financial performance.

The delegate ‘sponsors’ confirmed that all had ‘stepped up’ performance and that this had positively impacted the quality of project work the firm was able to undertake. Other benefits included:

• Enhanced integration
• Improved client service
• Improved communications across the firm
• Enhanced financial performance
• A large proportion of the cohorts were subsequently promoted and are now leading teams effectively

Contact us

Call us now on 0333 7722061 or email hello@thegrogroup.com to discuss how we can help you improve your business performance