At a recent gathering of the profession, while bemoaning the lack of demand for legal services, the pathetic state of the economy and begrudging the increasing power of clients, one discussion centered around metrics – financial and performance-oriented measures. While we are all familiar with the usual billable hour, collections, matter profitability, and so forth, this discussion provoked me to think about some of the more unfamiliar and unorthodox, but vital metrics that I believe law firm management should be looking at. After all, it wasn’t that long ago that the late father of modern management, Peter Drucker, reminded us all that “ if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Here are a few unusual metrics that I think are worth taking a look at in your firm:

Metric #1: Management Time Spent Exploring New Opportunities

If you are a firm leader, look at the issues that are currently consuming your time.

I often ask of managing partners a couple of questions that painfully illuminates where they spend their time. First: “What proportion of your management time is spent solving problems versus what proportion is spent on exploring new opportunities?” After a rather awkward reflection period, the answer I usually elicit is about 80% on solving problems and maybe 20% on exploring opportunities.

I suspect that it is really more like 95% on problems and 5% on opportunities, but let’s analyze what this division of time infers. This means that as the firm leader, you are spending 80% of your time and energy looking backwards and fixing things, while only 20% looking forward and creating things. Firms operating in this mode will find it hard to lead in their marketplaces.

So why does this happen? Well, it should be obvious that most professionals are veteran problem solvers. We are trained to resolve the issues, put out the fires, correct the underperformance, and generally “fix” the problem. There is a powerful gravitational pull that unconsciously moves us toward fixing things instead of innovating; toward restoring instead of increasing, and toward reacting rather than being proactive.

We need to understand that fixing things, while however noble, simply restores the prior performance or condition, which is comfortable, but limits value. However, if your focus is on improving the condition, on inspiring entrepreneurial endeavors, on being innovative; then your intent is not on restoring the status quo, but on developing a level of performance that exceeds any previous standards.

There is a follow-up question I then pose.

“Of the time you spend on exploring opportunities, (remember it was reported to be 20% of the total) how much of that time is directed toward pursuing billable production, winning the next big transaction or responding to a competitor, (the present) versus pursuing the development of entirely new skills, new services or new technologies (the future)?”

Again, if I were generous in reporting what I have learned, the average managing partner spends about 60% of his or her time exploring present opportunities and 40% on future opportunities.

That drives a point worth scrutiny: What kind of a future is likely to be created by a firm leader spending about 8% of his or her total management time and energy focused on that future?

And this is in firms that have a managing partner who spends ALL of their available time on management matters!

Those managing partners spending less than full-time usually have next to no time for the future . . . except of course, during that one-day, off-site, annual planning retreat exercise. (AND, is it any wonder why so many of these retreat-generated “strategic plans” are dead on arrival?)

Metric #2: Number of new revenue ideas, practice areas, and/or services launched in the past year

At a meeting of partners I posed a number of questions for the group to both express their views and vote upon. One of the first statements that was posed was: “We are good at identifying new areas of client demand and establishing entirely new areas of practice and specialized skill in advance of competing firms.” I then asked the assembled partners to identify, by virtue of electronic voting machines (secret vote), the relevant importance to their firm of being able to establish new areas of practice in advance of competitors. No surprise here, in that 92% of them identified this as an important attribute to their future success. When I then inquired as to their feelings on whether they were better than or worse than their competitors at establishing new areas of practice, 81.6 % scored themselves as “worse than competitors.”

As I explored this further with a number of subsequent questions, I asked the following ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question: “Do you actually have an idea for a new ‘niche’ area of client demand that with some modest investment and nurturing could become a lucrative new area of practice sometime in the near future?” Surprising to any firm (but not to me as I’ve been asking this question often enough) I will most always elicit an answer of ‘Yes’ from a significant majority (anywhere from 54% to 71%) of partners. In other words, these talented professionals are most certainly aware of lucrative opportunities out there . . . but are they taking any action on pursuing them?

I then ask: “Is there an established procedure or protocol within your firm to encourage new ideas or promote the development of entirely new areas of practice?” And, finally I ask: “Is there any formal mechanism available to advance new ideas or compensate those who might invest what would otherwise be billable time in developing new practices?” Both of these questions continue to receive a resounding “No” by anywhere between 71.1to 93.4% of most partners.

Now what should seem obvious from this and what I have learned is that innovation becomes much harder to stimulate when you are swimming upstream against the currents of firm processes that don’t exactly encourage it. Structures and processes do make a difference. They may not make innovation happen, but they prepare the ground so that any innovative ideas that exist will have some chance of getting a receptive hearing.

Attention is your most powerful management tool. So if you want your professionals to focus on innovation, nothing speaks louder about what is of bedrock importance than where and how everyone chooses to spend their time.

Stay tuned for Part Two.

The Strategic Planning Society recently posted on their Linkedin site the seemingly straight-forward question: “What is a good definition for vision?”

Now please keep in mind that this question is being posed within the fraternity of those who have fostered and perpetrated the belief that every organization should have a vision and that the organization’s leader should be a “visionary” – the originator of such a vision. A flurry of responses came from a community who hold titles like Strategic Planning Manager, Senior Resource Planning Manager, Head of Planning and Control, Senior Manager Strategy Solutions, Strategy Execution Advisor, Managing Partner, CEO, CMO, University Professor and so forth and included:

The position or status a company aspires to achieve within a reasonable time frame.

The vision is a concise measurable statement that defines the mid to long -term (three to ten years) goals of an organization. The vision should be external and market oriented and should express how the organization wants to be perceived by the world.

Vision – a smart ability to look behind horizon

The ability to stay in a balloon above your business, to see beyond the operational issues

"Vision" refers to an imagined state of affairs. All else is elaboration.

Vision consists of thinking ahead and ensuring that colleagues address the right issues.

Picture-painting by the Leader: We're going [over there]. We need to be there [by this time during a reporting-period].

These responses are coming from very smart, accomplished professionals. This question generated in excess of 65 postings over a one-month period without any real consensus amongst the 6800 members of The Strategic Planning Society of what a vision really is!

I believe one aspect of this notion of “having a vision” was confirmed by the recent (150 managing partner) interviews conducted by my UK colleague Rob Lees (co-author of When Professionals Have To Manage) where he related, in a discussion with me:

The managing partner of one of the firms we talked to explained how he had come back from Harvard Business School’s Leading Professional Service Firms program with renewed energy and a determination to drive the firm forward. So, he outlined his vision of moving the firm from its regional base to becoming a leading national firm to his partners and talked about what they needed to do to get there. But, to his abject disappointment, nothing happened. To the partners, the vision was just too aspirational; achievable only through a merger, which they felt they would be on the wrong side of. Concerned about the lack of action, the managing partner visited all of the offices to talk through the plans and, during these visits, the partners’ concerns surfaced.

Meanwhile, in his new book Great By Choice, Jim Collins tells us that his findings dismiss several closely held business world beliefs . . . such as the notion that successful leaders are “bold, risk-seeking visionaries.” Rather, Collins concludes that the most successful leaders are “disciplined,” “empirical” and “paranoid,” building on verifiable results and constantly anticipating what could go wrong.

It is my (personal) strong belief that this constant talk about "needing to have a vision" is just NONSENSE and something that managing partners have elicited from various books on leadership. Partners definitely NEED to have some sense of shared direction (where are we going?) and that shared direction needs to be facilitated by an effective leader; but I find that this idea that in order to be an effective firm leader, you need to articulate a vision, is just not grounded in any reality.

Remember mission statements? Mission statements first came into vogue in the 1990’s. A single-page document filled with more platitudes than you’d find in the average prayer book, spelling out your firm’s business mission. No one remembered the darn things, it was business as usual, and the document didn’t have the profound impact on the fortunes of firms that their creators had hoped for. The mission statement exercise was quickly forgotten — except at those few firms who chose to have them laminated as cards for every professional to keep in their wallet.

Then we were instructed on how every firm needed "a vision." It was a new name, but quickly became the same old silly exercise. All your skeptical partners exchange winks and knowing glances. The Executive Committee will have to be indulged one more time. In all cases the result was to be the same — having a vision changed nothing. I am not aware of one single firm (and certainly not among those achieving above-average performance) who have invested partner time in developing a mission or vision statement.

And I have for years challenged lawyers at multiple legal conferences to please give me just one example of a law firm, anywhere, wherein a firm leader proclaimed a vision and had all of his or her partners excited, eager to move forward and behaving in concert with that articulated vision. I have yet to find one real live example.

Looked at slightly differently . . .

Visionaries tend to narrow their attention onto those phenomena that appear relevant and supportive of their visions. They can, therefore, appear impatient, dismissive and intolerant of any information or ideas that may appear to challenge or question their vision (“don’t confuse me with the facts”). While having a vision may be nice – in a complex world, visions require a psychological sophistication that many of us mere mortals lack. A true vision contains a paradox in that it is not an expression of truth, nor is it necessarily right, but your vision must be treated as though “it was right.“ The thing to consider is that a true vision requires that you have a view of the future that isn’t necessarily supported by evidence.

(And with tongue firmly implanted in cheek): I don’t know about you, but my academic education in social psychology taught me that an individual having visions . . . unsupported by evidence . . . was usually a clear sign of someone who had lost touch with reality!

This post has its origins in a particular incident that compelled me to share some further thoughts with the firm’s managing partner.

Dear Managing Partner:

In our strategic planning committee discussions of earlier this week, we heard from one senior partner about the importance of capitalizing on an opportunity to open a new office in another State. He informed us about this lawyer he knew who could bring us a $2 million book of business. I asked how that would augment or support the firm’s core area of industry strength. We learned that it had nothing to do with the firm’s area of strength. At the time, rather than get into a protracted debate, I abstained from commenting any further on this issue. Upon reflection, while that was still the proper action to take at the time, I should offer my thinking to you on this subject – as I believe it is critical to your firm’s strategy going forward . . .

As counterintuitive as it may sound, the very best growth strategy (in both good economic times and bad) is to decide what NOT to do. If some partners hold to a view that the firm should “keep our options open and not limit ourselves” than you, in essence, will not have a strategy. By definition, having a strategy means that you decide to do one thing and not another. If we attempt to draft a strategy that has us doing a lot of things, inevitably it will end up with the firm actually doing nothing really well. When you try to do everything (full service) for everybody, the only leverage you have is to do more of it faster, better and cheaper.

The best way to expand is by narrowing. Consider: clients don’t hire you for what you do, they hire you for what you know. And what your firm knows better than any other firm is this particular industry. I am reminded that Bain & Company’s Chris Zook (author of Profit From The Core) has long studied the principles of focus exclusively and concluded that “narrower focus and concentration of resources on a single core business provide the best road to sustained profitable growth.

Many lawyers fear focus for numerous reasons. A leading concern is their view that if they focus their efforts on solving a particular problem or serving a particular segment of the market, they won’t get to address other problems or other segments, and therefore be less appealing to everyone. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is in being highly recognized for some specific 'world-class expertise' that opens the door to developing relationships that allow you to then be called upon for your counsel and subsequently develop skills and competencies in other areas that the client needs you to help them with.

These same lawyers also make the mistake of assuming that narrow is the same thing as small; that if you are focused in on any one area you somehow limit your growth potential. While seemingly logical, this is simply not true as evidenced by firms as diverse as Intel to Wachtel. A narrow target doesn’t mean narrow profits. A focused market almost always provides higher returns than a mass market because you meet a very specific set of needs. The old adage of 'better to be a big fish in a small pond' is very true in a highly competitive market.

The only growth that really matters is growth in profitability. It typically costs much more to serve the needs of a broad, mass market of clients than it does a narrow focused market. Too many lawyers have the attitude that every dollar they bring in is a good dollar. But some dollars actually have a negative value.

In today’s market, you have to be lean, simplified and incredibly focused. Resources are limited and clients are discriminating. Be vigilant about how the marketplace is evolving and how you’ll stay ahead of it. It’s not about building for size. It’s about building for dominating a selective practice area. Dominate or leave. There’s no such thing as a “fast follower.”

The simple fact is that the specialist earns more than any generalist. A highly focused firm, as you are in your one specific industry, allows you to draw clients from all over the globe (as one of your partners attests with clients from Beijing to Brussels), to offer a higher level of value, to differentiate your offerings, and is the easiest way to narrow your competition. Instead of being concerned about being focused, we need to be concerned about being mediocre – with opening some kiosk operation with a few lawyers serving a few clients that do nothing to enhance your position or reputation.

As Steve Jobs once said, “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the many things we at Apple haven't done, as the things we have done.”

I witness this same scenario play itself out, time after time, and we never seem to learn.

Imagine this: The practice group leader or managing partner has their attention drawn to the fact that one of our beloved partners is underperforming. This leader knew that the particular partner was underperforming. It didn’t come as a shock. But they were content to let the situation drift without resolution, rather than have to confront the ugly reality of the circumstances. But today we have the facts thrust before us and now something must be done.

Our devoted leader, unaccustomed to having to deal with an interpersonal situation of this nature, makes a case for simply leaving the underperforming partner alone and instead sending this individual a message via the annual compensation review. The rationale is that by cutting this person’s compensation they will quickly come to the realization that they had “better pick-up-their-socks and get with the program.”

Given that we are dealing with rational people the leader’s argument reaches sympathetic ears and after some months, the compensation adjustment is finally executed. No effort is ever made to fully explain the compensation adjustment or to inquire as to why this partner’s performance has declined. Has work dried up in their area of practice? Are they experiencing some personal problems, perhaps afflicted with burnout? Are problems at home creating a distraction? All potentially temporary in nature and capable of being remedied. But no one bothers to ask, “what’s going on here?”

LEARNING #1 – in an earlier era of lock-step compensation, if a partner was underperforming, it was quickly detected and resulted in someone discretely visiting with the individual to offer assistance to get him or her back on track. Today, when that happens, management simply abdicates their job under the guise of adjusting the individual’s compensation.

Now our underperforming partner has had their annual compensation adjusted but after some months, there is still no change in performance. Did this underperforming partner really know that their performance had declined and was below expectations? Absolutely! I have never seen an instance where the individual was ignorant to the realities of their situation. Did this underperforming partner know what they should do to get their performance back on track? Who knows. Not likely. And, certainly, nobody has bothered to ask thus far.

Well, this situation continues to fester for some protracted period of time, sometimes for years (unfortunately) until someone in a leadership position finally (hopefully), decides that maybe they should talk to this partner. So a one-on-one meeting is scheduled.

Now because this situation has been allowed to drag on for a prolonged period of time, it can be far more difficult for our underperforming partner to take the kind of remedial action that might have delivered results, had the discussion happened when the underperformance was first detected.

LEARNING #2 – difficult personnel or performance decisions never get better with age

Nevertheless, our persistent leader sits down with the underperformer and points out the issue and asks the partner “what’s going on here?” The partner now recognizing that they are facing a time of reckoning, at some point will inquire of the leader (guaranteed!) the natural question, “what do you think I should do to get my performance back on track?”

Our naive leader, in an attempt to be of help and offer some genuine guidance, now outlines a number of alternatives that this underperforming partner might want to think about doing. The partner picks one of the alternatives, the leader is delighted to see that action is being taken, and everyone goes back to their office to let the situation percolate . . . for another year.

A year goes by, the performance has not improved and another sit-down is scheduled. Our leader asks the underperforming partner what happened. The partner responds, “I did exactly what you suggested, but it didn’t seem to work for me.” (Interpretation: It was your idea Mr. practice leader and now it is your problem, not mine. I tried what you wanted me to do, but it didn’t work.)

LEARNING #3 – who really owns this problem, or – who’s got the monkey?

It reminds me of an article written in the Harvard Business Review many years ago wherein the author asked his readers to imagine, that every time one of their people has a problem, issue or challenge to deal with, to imagine that problem as a monkey sitting on their shoulder. His message was that the next words out of your mouth will quickly determine who owns that monkey.

In other words while you may, as a practice leader, want to be of help to your partner and indeed that is your highest value activity, by taking ownership of your partner’s problem you have actually hindered their development.

WHAT TO DO

Step One: Confront the partner’s underperformance problem as quickly as possible.

Have a one-on-one discussion with the individual to identify the underperformance. Do not let the situation fester. It will be far harder to deal with a few months down the road and far more difficult to resolve in a satisfactory manner.

Step Two: Listen persuasively

Listening persuasively is the ability to ask questions to help your partner come to his or her own conclusions. Ask lots of questions, seek to understand what’s going on, and help your partner think through their various options. The key question you need to pose is: “So what do you think you need to do to resolve this issue?”

Step Three: Invite your partner to identify a sequential plan of action

Do not volunteer your ideas of what you think your partner needs to do. Rather inquire of your partner, what specifically they are going to do, and by what dates, to turn around their situation. And if they don’t know? Invite them to think about whom within the firm (or outside of the firm) they might want to confer with to get some ideas. But leave the ownership for developing a remedial course of action with the partner affected.

Step Four: Offer your assistance by scheduling frequent follow-up meetings.

Help your partner by determining with them what they are expecting to do and accomplish, by what dates. Set frequent, at least every second month, review sessions with your partner to check in on their progress. Encourage them to maintain their focus and help celebrate small successes.

Early in July I launched Law Firm Leaders – the ONLY group on Linkedin exclusively for and populated by firm chairs, managing partners, and a few qualified executive committee members of (primarily U.S.) firms with over 100 lawyers in size. With an initial membership of over 60 law firm leaders, this question from my colleague, Brian Burke, quickly became one of the most popular, generating numerous responses:

As you think back over your years of service as a managing partner, as you think about some of the leadership lessons that you’ve learned (perhaps some through trials of fire), what one important suggestion, idea or piece of advice would you offer that individual (and assume it's your best friend) who becomes your successor.

So far, about four years in, the most significant positive thing I have learned is the value of hiring well on the staff side. Having really outstanding leaders has both compensated for some of my early naiveté about management and leadership, and quite frequently made me look better than I deserved to. As a corollary, my predecessor was very good about easing out some underperformers, taking any heat and giving me a cleaner slate to work from. (Dave Baca, Managing Partner – Davis Wright Tremaine, Portland)

When I first started in the position, I felt like all I was doing was meeting, talking and exchanging e-mails with partners. I wondered when I was going to find time to get my work done. Three years later I have come to realize that maintaining dialogue with individual partners is the most important part of the job. That is how you win and maintain the trust and confidence of your partners and how you get their buy-in, all of which are necessary outcomes to being an effective leader. You don't have to be able to resolve every concern your partners raise, but they need to know that you are listening. So my advice to a successor would be to make sure you go out of your way every day to stay in close contact with your partners. (Fred Lautz, Firm Managing Partner – Quarles & Brady, Miwaukee)

When working with my board, one of the most difficult things I had to learn was to be patient and respect the decision-making process. Early in my term, I would become frustrated at having to go through a formal procedure to reach a decision that was obvious to me. My predecessor told me that the process is often as important than the outcome, if not more so. Once I learned that lesson, my interactions with the board became much less contentious. (Michael Fandel, Managing Partner – Graham & Dunn, Seattle)

Realize that your most significant contributions to the firm are no longer in the form of billable hours and direct revenue generation, but rather, providing leadership and direction to the firm that will enable exponentially greater value than you could ever provide through traditional lawyering. (David Kleppinger, Chairman – McNees Wallace & Nurick, Harrisburg)

All of the comments so far are spot-on. Another way of expressing Dave Baca's advice (with which I wholeheartedly agree) would be this: Learn to interact with and treat your partners the same way you have treated your clients over the years before becoming Managing Partner . . . understanding that some need more attention than others, some merit more time than others, etc. In many respects, your partners are your clients after you assume the leadership role. (Thomas Terp, Managing Partner – Taft Stettinius & Hollister, Cincinnati)

We've restructured our Board of Directors and as a result of the restructure, we've endeavored to achieve demographic diversity in our leadership. Therefore, our Board consists of 3 individuals under 45; the managing attorney from our largest satellite office; 2 women leaders; and no more than 2 members representing any one practice group. In addition, we've sent one Board member last year (and are planning to send others in the future) to the Lex Mundi advanced leadership program in Monterey, CA for a one-week intensive training program. My goal is to have 3 or 4 attorneys fully prepared to take over my position in 4 1/2 years. The best single piece of advice I can give to my successor is that my successor listen carefully to our universally respected COO before making a major decision. She has great instincts and carefully monitors both monetary and citizenship performance. The second best piece of advice would be to form personal relationships with the eight to ten top rainmakers in the firm. At a recent leadership forum, two things were emphasized: 1. No matter how strong the firm, every firm is only 6 to 8 attorneys away from collapse. I'm sure that each of us can identify who the critical 6 to 8 attorneys are in our shops. 2. Long term loyalty to firms is abating. The forum presenters pointed to the "free agency" mentality among several rainmakers. That presents opportunity and red flags for each of us. (Charlie Miller, Managing Shareholder – Bernstein Shur Sawyer & Nelson, Portland)

Keep your head down and follow through. Head down in the sense of going slow to make changes. Develop a constituency by talking to as many lawyers and staff as you can. Actually by listening to as many as you can. Follow through by having a plan, explaining it, and then executing it. The ability to explain your vision so that others not only understand it, but buy into it, differentiates a leader from a manager. (Julious Smith, Chairman Emeritus – Williams Mullen, Richmond)

I echo many of the comments previously shared by other group members. I would tell my successor to be patient, carefully listen, and work your hardest to develop and strengthen institutional loyalty. Patience and listening are key to maximizing your chances of developing necessary buy-in for implementing long-lasting initiatives, while at the same time strengthening institutional loyalty. (Rudy Parga, Managing Shareholder – Ryley Carlock & Applewhite, Phoenix)

You were selected to guide the Firm to professional and financial success and therefore to make the best decisions for the Firm. In pursing this obligation, you will undoubtedly make some individuals uncomfortable (or downright mad). Don't take it personally. Bolster your decisions by regular communication with your partners, associates and staff and remember to SMILE — this too shall pass! (Rhea Law, CEO & Chair – Fowler White Boggs, Tampa)

First, being a good listener is by far the most important skill for success. You must keep enough time in your day open for your partners to talk to you about their practices and their concerns. Second, the advice above about not taking things personally is also great advice. You have to remember that if you try to do things that are right for the Firm inevitably some of those things will adversely affect individual partners from time to time. For your own sanity you must be satisfied that the decisions you make are fair and you must also develop the reputation for making fair decisions or you will quickly lose your credibility. Third, you can't over communicate your ideas for moving the Firm forward. Consistent and constant communication about Firm direction is critical to buy in. I call it shampoo, rinse and repeat. You know it’s working when you hear other people saying the things you are saying. Finally, if you are also a practicing attorney, lead by example. If you think for example that your partners should be spending more time on thought leadership nothing will add more credibility to your implementation efforts than spending some of your own time speaking and writing and visiting clients. Nothing takes the "I'm too busy getting my billable work done" excuse away from your partners faster than if they know you are walking the walk on the things you are asking them to do. (Tim Mohan, Chief Executive Partner – Chapman and Cutler, Chicago)

As has been eloquently stated, a key ingredient in successful stewardship as a managing partner is creating trust. Developing the right level of rapport with your partners takes time and patience, but you cannot achieve what is in the best interest of the firm without it. Another point made which bears repeating is that the process is often as important as the outcome. Results are better obtained if there is buy in along the way. (Lawrence Murphy, Managing Partner – Varnum Riddering, Grand Rapids)

If you think you have finally obtained a point when you have communicated your strategy and message then you know you are just beginning. (Bryan Scwartz, Chairman – Levenfeld Pearlstein, Chicago)

Never assume that just because you have communicated strategies to your partners that they have either adopted them or even remembered them. You cannot over-communicate on the fundamental elements that drive the firm. (Jim Hill, Executive Chairman – Benesch Friedlander, Cleveland)

Always act in the best interest of the firm, even if it may impact you or your best friends in the firm negatively. And remember that no matter what you do, you'll never make everyone happy–but you can tick everyone off. (Jack Cleveland, Chair and Managing Partner – Thompson Coe, Dallas)

Use your credibility wisely. This means always being prepared for meetings with you partners or partner groups, have the data you need to support any new initiatives, and sound out your proposals with key opinion leaders in the firm before making formal proposals. This means that you need to be patient with moving your ideas forward and it is hard to accomplish your objectives if you do not get buy-in for them. (Alan Becker, Managing Partner – Lichfield Cavo, Chicago)

Be a leader, not just a manager. (Jerry Biederman, Managing Partner – Neil Gerber & Eisenberg, Chicago)

Whenever I think about the effort that is required to go into implementing your firm’s strategic plan, I’m reminded of a particular business book title that grabbed my attention when I first saw it . . . Hope Is Not A Strategy! To effectively transform your best intentions into best practices, there are several common hurdles that you need to overcome. Thinking through the following will help you make the leap.

1. Move seamlessly from strategizing to implementing.

This is, from my experience, the most significant hurdle. Planning is not doing. Unfortunately, some partners believe that implementing the strategy and “getting their hands dirty” is beneath them. They act as if implementation is something best left to the non-legal professionals in the firm. This view holds that one group does the innovative work (“the strategizing”), and then hands the ball off to lower levels. If things go awry, the problem is placed squarely at the feet of the “doers,” who somehow couldn’t implement a “perfectly sound” plan.

Strategy and execution should be mutually dependent and cyclical in nature – the results of developing your strategic plan then drive your implementation efforts, which then requires that you think through the strategic implications. This is why execution needs the active engagement of those very same partners that came together to work on developing your strategy in the first place. In other words, it should be absolutely mandatory, when you first begin your strategic planning, to have those who agree to serve on your Strategic Planning Committee understand that they will also be required to serve when your Planning Committee transforms into your Implementation Committee. I have discovered repeatedly, that if the partners who formulated the strategy have no responsibility for executing the strategy, it threatens knowledge transfer, commitment to sought-after outcomes, and the entire implementation process.

2. Have a single point of ownership.

You need to make sure that you clarify specific accountabilities for each strategy and initiative. Each and every member of your Implementation Committee (formerly your Strategic Planning Committee) needs to voluntarily take ownership for being the liaison on some action element and take responsibility for ensuring that they pull together the right partners and people throughout the firm to execute that task. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to roll-up-their-sleeves and do it (that can be their choice), but it does mean that they are accountable for seeing that it gets done.

3. Do away with “should”

For many firms, a pervasive problem in executing strategy is the existence of ambiguous wording, measurements and tracking mechanisms. Whenever I review some firm’s prior strategic plan, I am always taken back by reading goal statements like: “We intend to clearly distinguish ourselves and rise above the pack.” Or, how about this for a meaningful strategy statement: “We should create a highly visible positive image in the markets in which we are determined to be a first choice” or “We should systematize cross-selling of practice areas by facilitating identification of client opportunities.” All of these are perhaps very noble in principle, but without any hint of HOW it’s going to get done.

Without clarity, strategic execution becomes directionless work. Morale and support quickly erode. Alternatively, with clarity, you can create tasks and routines that keep incremental actions moving forward with holistic purpose and accountability.

4. Involve as many of your partners as possible.

Effective implementation involves many hands. Implementation always involves more people than the initial planning did, so communication throughout the firm or across different practice groups becomes an important ingredient. And linking strategic objectives with the day-to-day objectives at different offices and practice groups can become a demanding task. The complexity of execution increases as more people are involved – but that involvement is exactly what is needed for you to achieve any sense of alignment and success.

5. Think through the sequencing of your action plans.

Sometimes you need to focus your execution efforts by thinking about the timing and pacing. When might it be best to move forward on implementing certain elements? Are you going too fast? Are the action plans you want to move forward in the correct sequence? Think about how you might eat a good gourmet meal. Dessert doesn’t come first; in fact, the same dishes served in the wrong order, will disrupt your entire dining experience. To make your strategy work, you have to observe the right sequence of actions, the right timing and the right pacing.”

6. Meet on a regular monthly basis.

Implementation requires enormous time. Overall, successfully executing a plan takes even more time than the hours and weeks invested in developing the plan. It can be extraordinarily taxing to the billable-time expectations and client obligations of the partners and others involved. It takes stamina to stay the course—but if you can prepare for what lies ahead, you might just reach your goal.

Execution isn’t a short burst of activity on a quarterly basis; it is a continuous and ongoing exercise. Execution requires persistence in taking small incremental steps; it can’t easily be delegated. The challenge for the members of your implementation committee will be balancing the urgency of day-to-day client obligations and activities, versus the importance of working on the future. There is an old joke that goes, if you give a lawyer a project to work on and ask that they report to the group by this Friday, they will definitely start working on their project sometime of Thursday. Taking that behavior into account, it makes no sense to do anything but meet as an implementation group on a regular monthly basis with short turnaround times.

7. Get help when specialist expertise is required

While some firm may get their strategic planning right, they can then struggle with how to specifically transform some element of their plan into executable activities. For example, having a strategy that calls for developing Client Teams to provide enhanced value and service to a select group of your largest corporate clients is a sound approach. However, determining how best to get your Client Teams working effectively may require expertise that does not currently reside in your firm. In those situations you need to retain the best resource you can find to educate or supplement your internal professionals.

8. Constantly measure your progress.

Assign resources and budgets to each initiative. Develop a means (such as a balanced scorecard) to measure results; focus on leading indicators; make the number of metrics small but significant in terms of impacting future goals. Continually monitor implementation to ensure the expected benefits are being realized.

Let’s face it. If there was some secret or shortcut to effectively executing your firm’s strategy – we would all be doing it. Unfortunately, there isn’t. It requires a great deal of dedicated persistent effort and a lot of unbillable time. If there is any good news to this situation, it is that most of your competitors will not be able to pull if off. So can you be the exception and thereby reap the rewards?

You are at the stage of having worked with the members of your Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) for a number of months to finally come to the point where you have a draft strategic plan that has been approved by the partners and now needs some attention directed toward how certain components will actually be implemented. There are a number of actions contemplated that your fellow Committee members feel are critical and definitely need to be properly executed in order to make a significant difference. As an example, one such action item states:

Develop and codify in writing, a set of ‘Client Service Standards’ that are accepted and consistently used by all attorneys in every practice area.>

There is some discussion and concern amongst the members of your SPC as to how this is going to be effectively implemented. The concern emanates from a sense within the group that it has traditionally been very difficult to get lawyers to perform consistently, even so far as getting in their time-sheets on a regular basis is concerned. What to do?

As everyone knows it is common practice to conduct a “postmortem” or lessons learned session upon completion of any major undertaking. If your endeavor achieved its goal, the questions typically focus on what went right, what we did well, and how we might sustain our success. If your initiative fell short or failed to meet expectations, your postmortem efforts tend to focus on what went wrong and how we got off track.

That said, this may be a time to think about conducting a ‘premortem.’ A Premortem is a process to aid in identifying the potential roadblocks, before they have a chance of derailing your implementation efforts. 

In a spirit of full disclosure, I confess to borrowing the term “premortem” from a McKinsey article entitled “Strategic Decisions: When Can You Trust Your Gut?” Not only is the article a fascinating read, it supports my belief that a good way to help ensure effective execution of your strategic planning specifics is to ask postmortem-type questions before, rather than after, the fact.

Here is how a strategic planning premortem could be preformed.

• Ask the members of your Strategic Planning Committee to assume that their draft strategic plan or some critical but contentious component of the plan (like the action item identified above) has either failed in it’s efforts to be executed or has been totally rejected by the partnership.

Your instructions to the group might be: “Everyone take two minutes and write down all the reasons why you think the undertaking failed.” This exercise asks the members of your group to be self-critical, before they prepare to move forward in implementation, and gets people to voluntarily engage in devil’s advocate thinking before the specific action item even gets started. 

The team members can then be given a few minutes to individually write down all the reasons they can think of regarding why the plan has failed. Your role as a facilitator would be to have each member announce what is on his / her list.

In some instances, your fellow Committee members may lack the foresight to spot shortcomings. They may be so confident that they don’t see the need for a critique. In those situations you may benefit from bringing in some objective, trusted partners to read, review and serve as devils advocates to help identify any areas of the plan that may spark contentious debates.

• Now have the SPC members then determine different ways and actions they could proactively take to prevent the implementation of the specific action item from failing or being rejected.

Ask every member of the Strategic Planning Committee to suggest at least one action that they believe could help to reduce the likelihood of the plan being rejected – including possible revisions to the plan. You may likely hear, as I did when conducting this exercise recently, a number of creative ideas like:

We could enlist a group of our more senior partners who are well-respected throughout the firm for their gifted client service abilities, as our ‘blue-ribbon panel,’ to help construct the client service standards based on the kinds of actions that they take on a regular basis.

We could gather together a group of key clients to provide input into what our client service standards might include.

We could publish the service standards on our web site and in engagement letters such that every client was made aware of the standards and knew what to expect from the lawyer serving them. This would serve as a catalyst for ensuring consistent behavior from amongst our lawyers.

Conducting a premortem can help you identify potential problems that otherwise would not have surfaced until they caused major damage to the strategic implementation efforts. This process is intended to heighten your Committee’s sensitivity to potential areas of contention and then prepare to either counteract or address those areas in a proactive manner. The goal is to prevent potential problems from occurring in order to increase the likelihood of success. For the amount of time invested, a strategic planning premortem is a low-cost, high-payoff activity.

One of the more profound things I've learned, that I try to pass along to new leaders, be they managing partners or practice heads, is to “act like you are on stage at all times, because you are!” Everything you do and say will send messages, set tone, establish expectations, and communicate direction about what is of priority to you. With that in mind, you need to carefully orchestrate what symbolic acts you may want to execute to create a lasting impression and convey what you stand for. In other words, you need to always think through:

Where You Spend Your Time.

The primary thing that your partners will always look to is where and how you spend your time. Leaders spend time on whatever issues they think are most important. Examine your day-timer, compare it against the actual activities that consumed your time during just this past week and identify for yourself what your activity says to your colleagues about what you see as your most important priorities? Now, what do you want ‘your time spent’ to say about your priorities in the coming months.

What You Inquire About.

Leaders who are successful are mindful to walk the job rather than get stuck in their offices. They ask lots of questions and listen loudly. The questions you deliberately ask and the attention those questions provoke sends a clear signal about the prevailing themes that occupy your thinking. Are the questions you want to ask of your partners and the topics you plan to focus in on consistent with the signals that you want to convey?

A classic and often misquoted study by Dr. Mehabrian from the University of California stated that the total impact of any message is based 7% on the words used; 38% on the volume and tone of one’s voice; and fully 55% on facial expressions and other body language signals. But, Dr. Mehabrian never claimed that you could view a movie in a foreign language and accurately determine 93% of the content by simply watching people’s body language. What is important to consider as a leader, is that the non-verbal aspects of your communication will reveal to people your underlying emotions, motives and feelings. Your colleagues will evaluate the emotional content of your message, not by what you say or what you inquire about; but by how you say it and how you look when you say it. 

How You Spend Your Budget.

What we purposely budget for and the way in which we choose to spend our money says a lot about our priorities and our values. What will your 2011 budget expenditures tell people about where you are focusing your leadership attention?

What Specifically You Measure.

Usually an important indicator of what you think is important is specifically what you measure, what you generate written reports on, and what you track on a regular basis. If you say, that as a practice group or as a firm, we should be more focused on delivering value to our clients, are you rigorous about looking for more efficient ways to execute your deals and transactions; and constantly measure improvements in efficiency? Are you measuring the quality of the services provided and the client’s satisfaction?

What You Celebrate and Rebuke.

Will what you publicly reward, those behaviors you identify and successes you celebrate within the firm reinforce the values and priorities that you as a leader are trying to emphasize? When one of the partners takes a measured risk with the intent of benefiting the firm and their actions fall short, is there a history of that partner being rewarded for their initiative or reprimanded for their failed efforts?

Again, I’m reminded of the words of one exemplary firm leader who counseled: “I learned that little gestures had significance. Everything you do is magnified, and you have to realize that. Even if you are a bit worn down, smile. People derive a lot of their outlook from the outlook of their leaders, and it makes them feel good if you appear in good spirits.”

I’m currently collaborating with a colleague who is doing a lengthy research project attempting to identify the characteristics, traits and behaviors of the most effective law firm managing partners. In our most recent discussions he posed this question: “In firms you've observed where the managing partner isn't doing well or leadership is weak or dysfunctional, what one or two things do you find are the biggest or most common causes of failure?”

To provide a meaningful response, I went back through a decade worth of notes from training practice group leaders, scrutinized the results from the psychometric data that I have had over 50 new managing partners complete as part of the First 100 Days Program, and reflected upon what I’d observed in working with hundreds of law firms over a couple of decades. Here are some of the more common warning signs that I’ve observed in working with leaders at all levels:

Displaying Arrogance.

These are those leaders who just naturally expect to be admired, praised, indulged, and obeyed. They anticipate that they will be successful in everything they do, believe in their own legacy, and when their expectations are frustrated, they explode with "narcissistic rage." From my observer’s perspective, what is most distinctive about these leaders is their self-assurance which often gives them a certain presence—they are the first to speak in a group, and they do so with great confidence . . . even when they are wrong.

If you think you have all the answers and that your role as leader is basically to direct your peers as to what each should be doing; to assign each a specific project and dictate who will work on which, you may just be in for some critical push back. This leader stumbles whenever they begin to think that their colleagues need to serve them, as apposed to the leader serving his/her people. You need always to be willing to work along-side your people to get the job done. In other words there should be nothing in your practice group or firm that anyone else does, that you would not be willing to do yourself.

The very best leaders recognize that their role is to help those in their groups/firm, become even more successful in their careers than they would have had that leader not been in the picture.

Suffering A Lack of Focus.

This lack of focus can occur in several ways. Oftentimes, the leader unconsciously allows the urgent to crowd out the important and then eventually loses sight of what they are trying to accomplish that will advance the firm. Even more debilitating, the leader ends up trying to do too much or too many things at the same time, appearing to start one project, quickly losing interest, and then gravitating to the next ‘flavor-of-the-month.’ 

Suffering a lack of focus then disorients a leader and sets the stage for poor communication. These leaders delude themselves into believing that their colleagues can sense their goals and carry out their wishes without being told. When misunderstandings arise, they blame others for a lack of effort (or commitment) rather than recognizing their own negligence.

At the present moment, what is your primary focus? If you can't write it in a couple of short, pithy paragraphs, then your leadership suffers from a lack of clarity. Take the requisite time to center your focus on what's most important.

Putting Paper Before People.

Often leaders become so task orientated, that they forget to be people orientated. As a leader you can quickly become so consumed by the day-to-day requirements that all too often you make the mistake of seeing your partners more as interruptions than opportunities. As a leader your colleagues will always be seeking your attention, and that’s what you’ve got to give them.

Leadership is basically a people business. You can’t let paperwork and deadlines create a barrier between you and the opportunity to touch your colleague’s lives. So here’s the key: Never see your people as interruptions, because those kind of interruptions is your work. If your partners conclude that your day-to-day tasks are more important, they come to the conclusion that you don’t care about them. And there is a very old cliché that no leader should ever lose sight of . . . ‘People will never care how much you know, until they know how much you care.’

Being Risk Averse.

The overly cautious leader is careful, conservative, and worried about making mistakes. Even positive feedback can be distorted or discounted. These individuals cannot seem to tolerate the unpleasant feelings associated with making a mistake; and as a result, they seek to avoid the unpredictable events related to decision-making. At their best, they are prudent and careful about evaluating risk; they rarely make rash or ill-advised moves, and they provide sound advice about intended courses of action. At their worst, however, they avoid innovation, resist change, stall, and drag their feet, even when it is apparent that something needs to be done.

These kinds of leaders fear failure far more than they desire success. Past success creates pressure: "Will I be able to sustain my past practicing performance in this new role?" When driven by the fear of failure, these leaders are unable to take reasonable risks. They limit themselves to tried and proven pathways. Any thoughts of trying to be innovative diminish and eventually disappear.

No progress has ever been made without new ideas being accepted and implemented. Leaders need to continually ask themselves: “Which is more important, the journey or the destination?” Are you still taking reasonable risks? Prudent leadership avoids reckless risk, but neither is it paralyzed by fear.

Poor leadership in good times can be hidden, but poor leadership in bad times is a recipe for disaster. The warning signs in life — from speed limits to prescription labels — are intended to protect us from disaster. As you consider these warnings of leadership failure, don't neglect taking an honest look at your situation.

I happened to have had lunch with a new marketing professional recently. I spent some time briefing her on the strategic project that I was doing with her firm. During our discussions she asked if I might have any advice for her, given that I've spent three decades working with law firms and this was her first foray into professional services.

Now, I’ve heard from a number of business development professionals about how they spend far too much of their time having to justify their existence at their firm; how no one knows or appreciates the contribution that they are making, how their reporting structure has become overly bureaucratic, how they are continually having to defend their budgets, and so forth. Some long-term folks are even questioning whether this is still the right career choice for them, feeling that they suffer from the “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately” syndrome far more than any of their other department head counterparts.

I told this particular business development professional that there are a couple of specific actions she might want to think about taking in her new position . . .

One, if you think about law firms, irrespective of size, you can place all the partners across a bell curve. 10% originate the work, 80% do the work, and with the remaining 10% you feed the work through the top of the door, pull it out the bottom, but never expose them to clients. My advice is that you make it a regular habit to visit, one-on-one with all of the equity partners twice a year, and ask of each, what activities they think you should engage in to both support their efforts and to add value. In visiting with these partners, recognize that the top 10% represent the power in the firm and you must ensure that you get them in your camp and understand their views and needs. The middle 80% probably won't give you any answers of much substance, but just asking the question will ingratiate you to them. And the bottom 10% if you are not careful will find never-ending ways to suck the life-blood out of you (“energy vampires”) by consuming your time in meaningless adventures. Any real time invested in them is to be avoided at all costs.

Two, in most professional service firms, money is the currency of respect. Why not consider adopting a reasonable charge-out rate for the services you provide. Institute a “mock” charge-back system, placing a dollar value on the marketing department’s services and issuing an account at the end of each month for the value of the services provided to different practice groups and the firm in general. Do it as if you were an outside marketing consultancy providing these same services. This initiative could well progress into your group developing it’s own engagement process, seeking interesting problems to solve and making “pitches’ to your internal clients.

Three, that said, the bottom line is that you do need to recognize that you are a support center and not necessarily a revenue center. And as a support you must always be sensitive to justifying you and your department's existence as power partners may very well ask what it is that you are accomplishing. My advice is, at the very least, to begin preparing a written, one-page, Friday afternoon wrap-up, in bullet point form, of your core activities and accomplishments for that week and e-mail it to the managing partner and whomever else you think important enough to receive your report. Keep your Friday briefings in a binder and prepare a monthly summation. Keep those monthly reports together and prepare a quarterly synopsis. Keep your quarterly highlights so that you can produce an Annual Report. Never let any partner ask what it is that you are doing or contributing without having others informed enough to quickly provide ample written evidence.

In these past months I’ve been very busy facilitating the strategic planning process for a number of major firms. In every instance the firm has selected a number of well-intentioned partners to serve on their Strategic Planning Committee. And in nearly every instance I have witnessed these Committees, at some point in the process, being inflicted with one of a number of disabling symptoms of what I have come to label as ‘strategy viruses.’ Here are six of the most common:

Inside In. 

This is the tendency to focus on 'what we do' and not on 'what the client wants'. We structure our firms based on law school subjects and not on the industry focus of our clients. We look forward . . . to our past . . . with foresight firmly stuck in the rearview mirror. We are so afraid of losing our heritage that we don’t dare change our culture; we are locked into our habits. Internally obsessed firms, who turn a blind eye to the emerging needs of their clients, the future trends in the profession, and the advancing moves of competitive firms rarely develop winning strategies.

Not Invented Here. 

This is a genetic mutant of the 'Inside In' virus, often diagnosed as the “let’s kill the messenger” syndrome. It can present itself in a number of different ways: 1) not listening to or learning from others on the committee, quickly discounting their point of view; 2) dismissing what other competitive firms are doing as not meaningful or valuable; and 3) strongly believing that we have to have the perfect answer before we do anything – perfectionism before action. Everything requires the usual glacial response of: We need to form a committee to study this idea.

False Positive. 

We engage in “nice-talk,’ being overly gracious to each other even if we disagree. We quietly and subtly defend our own personal turf often to the detriment of the overall firm’s best interests. We think that everyone has to agree before we act, so partners say they agree when they don’t. Thus, partners participate in the strategy discussions, in the strategy formulation process, nod 'yes' in the meetings and then leave the boardroom not fully committed – or worse. This is an example of classic passive/aggressive behavior, which is like acid on the skin of your firm's culture and inevitably makes collaboration and implementation very challenging.

All Things To All.

I see this a lot. We like to be busy; our badge of honor is full calendars, even if it excludes thinking and results. We hide behind our “busy-ness. We subsequently get engaged in doing lot's of 'stuff' and thinking it’s a strategy. We have a host of priorities; each gets energy and attention; we can’t ever say no; and we are not focused on the critical few. There is nothing we love more that the latest ‘flavor of the month.’ Our strategy is that we jump from program to program; without having any integrated initiatives; even though the partners all have a bone-deep cynicism about any “new” program.

Who Else?

The may be the most insidious virus of all. It is quite natural, upon hearing a new idea, for any of us to inquire as to who else is doing that. When some partner asks that question they want reassurance that some other law firm (and hopefully a firm of some stature) has already blazed the trail, so that they are likely to be making a mistake by doing something novel. When an entrepreneur asks that question they also want to know whether someone else has already blazed that trail, because if they have . . . that entrepreneur is no longer interested! We need new ways of thinking to thrive in the face of intense competition.

Marking Territory 

My favorite, this virus presents itself in the form of each partner needing their own personal fire hydrant – insisting on being allowed to micromanage some little change (wordsmithing various documents), all in an effort to 'mark' the final work product as his or her own. It's one thing to customize the strategy output to your firm’s culture, its quite another to get continually bogged down with partners needing to mark every step or initiative before it is allowed to move forward. Developing a winning strategy requires new mindsets, not just new skills.

Whether working with a practice group, an executive team or the members of some firm's strategic planning committee, I continue to be struck by the dysfunctional behavior that is often present in group meetings. I don't know why I continue to be surprised. Working together in groups in not a natural, comfortable or easy thing for many of us to do.

What I have come to learn is that the very best market-performing groups, in the best firms, have established for themselves some written guidelines by which all members have agreed to abide – and often, each partner in the group has physically signed-off on. These groups have discovered that in order to operate effectively they need to formalize what specifically they should expect of each other as members of the particular team. I have come to call these a group's 'Rules of Engagement.'

Rules of engagement are working guidelines which a group consciously establishes to help individual members decide how to act. These rules are intended to define a behavioral model which addresses how individual members will treat each other, communicate, participate, cooperate, support each other, and coordinate joint activity. They may be used to define and standardize the group's procedure, use of time, work assignments, meeting logistics, preparation, minutes, discussion, creativity, reporting, respect and courtesy.

Here are some "Rules of Engagement" that I've seen the best performing groups embrace.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

We are committed to personal and professional growth. To that end, we all agree that:

• Every group member must have, and be working on, a personal career development and skill-building plan: no cruising is allowed;
• we will help each other in the group be the best that we can be;
• we will ask for help from the team or other resources if "stuck" or falling behind;
• we will be honest with any group member who is not pulling her / his weight; and
• every member is expected to freely share their knowledge, experience, time, personal contacts, clients and talents.

WORK QUALITY:

• No group member will work on matters that could be delegated to a more junior professional. If any client matter can be delegated, it must be.
• We will all remain focused on performance, not personalities; and accept constructive criticism and choose to learn from it.
• As team members we resolve to always pitch in, when and where necessary, to help fix problems and catch-up should any important matter get behind schedule.
• We are human; therefore, we make mistakes and we learn from them. We agree to be accountable for our own actions, behavior and choices. We will endeavor to avoid ever trying to blame things on others. We admit our mistakes.

INNOVATIVE COMMUNICATIONS:

• We will always endeavor to be supportive of each other rather than judgmental. We will always promote an environment that is safe for participation, open communication and where group members don't have to fear criticism or retribution.
• We will listen with empathy, hear with understanding rather than being judgmental or defensive, willingly solicit and discuss ideas; and agree to love every new idea for at least five minutes. AND, in that same spirit we will:
• before making a point, confirm to the group that we have understood the views of others by restating their point in our own words;
• whenever we pose an issue or a problem, also try to present a solution or optional courses of action;
• agree to not ever use "killer phrases" or negative body language; and
• if need be, agree to disagree.

MEETING DECORUM:

• All members are expected to attend the monthly practice group meeting – unless out of town, on vacation, ill or attending to an urgent client matter that cannot be postponed. If someone is not able to attend the meeting, he or she should inform the practice leader at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting date.
• Conduct is very important. We agree to avoid words and actions that create a negative impression on any individual, the group, or our objectives. We encourage debate and differing points of view, and we will do it with care and respect. Therefore, we all agree that:
• we will notify the team in advance if we expect to be late;
• we will use our time wisely, starting on time and ending our meetings promptly;
• we will be present, both physically and mentally;
• we will place phones and blackberrys on vibrate (instead of ring);
• we will listen actively throughout the course of the discussions;
• one person speaks at a time;
• we will behave as a participant, agreeing to take initiative and volunteer ideas;
• we will keep to the topic, avoiding side bar discussions while others are talking;
• we will "park" discussion items that don't relate to the meeting's topic;
• what is said in the room, stays in the room;
• we will have fun, but not at the expense of anyone else's feelings;
• all meetings will end with an action list identifying specific responsibilities; and
• everyone agrees to be responsible for the success of our efforts and therefore is expected to help facilitate, critique, and evaluate each meeting.
• We expect to record the minutes of each meeting, clearly outlining the highlights, decisions and individual projects taken and that a minute taker (is a rotating task) will distribute the minutes within 24 hours of the meeting date.

PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION:

• Any and all commitments must be made voluntarily, must be documented as to the expected deliverable or outcome, and accorded a clear and agreed to deadline date.
• Any and all commitments to complete a task or project on behalf of the group, once voluntarily made, must be treated as sacredly as any client promise.

SHOWING MUTUAL RESPECT:

• The group owns all ideas and concepts – and we all agree to not talk disrespectfully about team members or activities in public.
• We take action instead of whining, positively work to inspire other group members, encourage others towards success, and avoid any "us versus them" language.
• We agree not to listen to or allow others to speak negatively about group members behind their backs.
• We ensure that any and all criticisms are made constructively with suggestions for improvement and using nonjudgmental language.

GROUP CELEBRATIONS:

• We will strive to recognize and celebrate individual and team accomplishments; and at least quarterly identify in writing the progress that has been made toward achieving our goals.

To be effective, these rules of engagement must be clear, consistent, agreed-to (by total consensus), and followed. Any group should take the time to create and adopt some sensible written guidelines during its very first meeting. These should then be consulted at each meeting, added to and revised as needed.