Dream chasers: Developing an entrepreneurial law firm culture

Key takeaway points:

1. Challenge your team to constantly challenge the status quo. Ask yourself and your team regularly: what is wrong with the firm?

2. Have no sacred cows. Other than your values, everything should be up for debate.

3. Create systems that ensure you are listening to and capturing the voice of your team. Build into those systems the ability to express concerns anonymously.

4. Never be scared to take risks. If you have high achievers that buy into the decision, you will figure it out, whether it works out or not.

 

I consider myself an entrepreneur first and a lawyer second. At the age of 14, I started a greetings card business and, at 18, Ghana’s first youth television show. In 2006, I was part of the team that built from scratch United Bank of Africa Ghana where, in addition to my legal role, I was responsible for its market entry strategy.

In between the TV show and the bank, I was involved in a number of successful and unsuccessful ventures and, since 2005, have taught entrepreneurship at a local university.

Given these antecedents, it might be assumed that I would structure and implement an entrepreneurial culture when founding Oxford & Beaumont. I didn’t. With a capital outlay of US$5,000, being entrepreneurial was a matter of survival. It was the only way we could credibly compete, given the established players and the audacious (or as some thought, at the time, ridiculous) goal I set for the firm – to become the undisputed leading provider of advisory services in Ghana.

Six years on, we have advised on over US$12bn worth of deals. We are one of the largest and considered one of the best law firms in Ghana. Our growth, which has been entirely organic, has been driven by three pillars:

1. high achievers with high levels of dissatisfaction;

2. leadership by listening, management by debate; and

3. a dynamic and anticipatory culture.

Power of dissatisfaction

Of course, most professional service firms say they hire high achievers. For us, being a high achiever is only the starting point. We insist ?that, in addition to sharing our values, team members must have a high level of dissatisfaction (a high D).

High achievers with high Ds are particularly difficult to please and, by definition, can never be entirely happy ?with the status quo. In a firm made up of high achievers with high Ds, one of two things will happen:

1. they will become frustrated and ultimately leave because they feel stifled; or

2. they will flourish and take the firm ?to places the founders could never have imagined.

The latter is what happened to us. ?The firm we have today is markedly different from the one I started in 2006. I have been challenged by the team to take the firm to places beyond what my imagination could conceive.

How do I tell who has a high D? Typical clues include deep curiosity, demonstrated entrepreneurial leadership at school, in the community and, if they have worked, at previous workplaces.

They are likely to have been active in student government (even better if they have been involved in peaceful demonstrations) and other extracurricular activities in university.

They also tend to have and juggle many passions. Multiple passions by no means implies extroversion, simply a tendency to venture beyond the predictable. Our high Ds have different personalities and points of view which diversity has contributed to our success.

Leadership style

Based on my prior experiences and frustrations as an employee, my approach as managing partner is characterised by leadership by listening and management by debate.

If you ask my previous bosses, they would probably say I was not a model employee. Some might even describe me as a rebel; they will all say I was difficult to manage. In my defence, I will say that, in many instances, I felt that my creativity and ability was stifled by established practices and policies. Consequently, I spent too much energy ‘fighting the system’.

High achievers with high Ds cannot be managed en masse. They must be managed as individuals and continuously listened to. To do so, their superiors and the firm must invest in getting to know them and be flexible, if necessary, to accommodate their aspirations and expectations.

So, we developed a team member questionnaire to ask detailed wide-ranging personal and professional questions of our team members, covering work styles, aspirations, sources of inspiration, immediate and long-term goals and direct questions like ‘what will it take to keep you at the firm?’.

By way of example, one of my previous direct reports, David, now a partner, said to me that he did not like to be disrupted in the morning, a time when I preferred to meet my direct reports. Simply by conferring with him later in the day, I was able to get more out of David. For other team members, we have had to make more fundamental changes.

Listening is an effective tool for leading high achievers with high Ds, because they almost always have something worthwhile to say. More importantly, though, listening creates buy-in and gives a good indication of what is important to the individuals at ?the firm.

In addition to the team member questionnaire, we have institutionalised listening at the firm in various ways ?(see box: Institutionalising listening ?at Oxford & Beaumont).

 

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Institutionalising listening at Oxford & Beaumont

• The entire firm meets weekly for a ‘health check’, where we discuss the health of the business across all areas. This provides an opportunity for me as managing partner to check in with team members.

• Before developing the firm’s annual plan, I meet individually with every team member to obtain their views on life at the firm and how we service our clients. I often start by asking them: what is wrong with the firm?

• I present the draft annual plan to the entire firm (from concierge to senior partner) at our three-day retreat, where we debate the plan. Everyone has a voice and my role is limited to initiating the plan, coordinating inputs and, once agreed, ensuring execution. I wouldn’t dare execute anything that the team has not bought into. Although in theory the partners have a veto, in six years we have never had to exercise that veto.

• We actively encourage informal regular dialogue across all levels of the firm.

• We administer a bi-annual anonymous online survey (the climate survey), asking team members questions about how they feel about life at the firm – everything from the food we serve to compensation and training.

Allowing anonymity is important because, although many people speak up, without anonymity I may not be getting an unadulterated view, particularly as challenging authority is contrary to Ghanaian culture.

• Not all issues can wait till the next climate survey. So, we have a director of team relations whose job objective is to ask the questions that matter and to assist in framing appropriate responses to questions, situations and other issues.

The broad and ambiguous nature of this role is deliberate. It requires being a counsellor, best friend, lifestyle coach, mentor, cheerleader, barometer of the conversations around the water dispenser, a shoulder to cry on, ombudsman and firm chaplain. Unless given permission to do otherwise, confidentially is guaranteed.

The director of team relations’ role is different from the role of our associate director of talent management and strategy. We combine the traditional HR function with strategy development and execution because, for us, our only strategy is our people strategy.

We also insist ours is a ‘talent manager’ and not an ‘HR manager’ because, while other HR managers manage human resources generally, ours only manages talent – high achievers with high Ds. 

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Anticipating opportunities

Naturally, we like to pat ourselves on the back from time to time, but constantly remind ourselves that yesterday is history, tomorrow is what counts.

Our firm evolves daily and we require that it does, inspired by Starbucks founder Howard Schultz. He advises firms to self-renew regularly, even if they frequently hit home runs. Schultz says it is important to change even a winning formula “because the world is changing... Nothing can stay the same forever, in business or life, and counting on the status quo can only lead to grief”.1

We are always thinking of how to serve our clients better and take to heart our mission to proactively and creatively assist clients in meeting their business objectives. If it appears that an idea we have, given our resources, is consistent with our mission and will generate an attractive financial return in the long ?term, my question is always: why not? ?We are not scared to take risks. Below ?are three examples.

1. Spotlight on Aberdeen

Earlier this year, I came across data that a significant number of Aberdeen-based companies were actively pursuing or intended to pursue opportunities in Ghana’s oil industry. On a prearranged visit to London the following week, I dispatched our chief operating officer to Aberdeen.

Seventy-two hours later (and after a few conference calls with our Accra office), we made a decision to become the first Ghanaian law firm to open an Aberdeen office. A week later, we had signed contracts and developed a plan to launch the office.

2. Value in tax

In 2010, I met a bright ex-Price WaterhouseCoopers tax consultant about to start his own tax consulting firm. Following that meeting, I made a quick decision for us to start a full-service tax advisory subsidiary.

Over a hastily-arranged partners’ meeting, it took my partners less than an hour to agree that it made sense. Our tax subsidiary has surpassed our expectations with its unique value proposition – a mixed team made up of lawyers and tax accountants (including lawyers who are qualified accountants).

3. Developing a contentious practice

Until 2009, we were a non-contentious firm. However, one of our brightest senior associates had, before joining us, worked predominately in litigation. Although ?he was adapting well to being a transactional lawyer, it was clear that he missed the drama of court and was restless drafting transaction documents. ?I suspected he might leave us to return ?to contentious work.

Given that we had a fair number of clients who could potentially benefit from our developing a contentious practice, we charged this senior associate with the responsibility of developing a top-tier litigation practice in Ghana.

Barely two years later, our litigation and dispute resolution practice is highly regarded by clients, peers and competitors and is a key contributor to our bottom line.

Risks and rewards

The ability to make such big bets quickly is important to us. Like most entrepreneurs, I would rather take a risk (with limited information, but based on a sense of what the market wants) than wait to be 100 per cent certain when it might be too late. Much as our decisions are backed by sound analysis, we never get caught up in paralysis by analysis.

Admittedly, we do sometimes get carried away – for a small firm chasing big dreams, that is easy to do. That is where our external advisory board has been so valuable. It operates like a statutory board and I therefore have to go before them to justify key decisions. Given the calibre of the board members and their rich experience, their insights are invaluable and, when they need to, they rein us in.

 

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Developing an entrepreneurial culture

Do

• Develop a team member questionnaire and, as much as possible, manage the team based on their individual preferences.

• Share the results of the questionnaire with all team members to enable them to know how best to collaborate with colleagues.

• Assign the responsibility of facilitating feedback and concerns to ensure everyone has an opportunity to be heard.

• Be explicit about your values and be clear that those are the sacred cows.

• Broaden every conversation to include as many team members as possible.

• Act quickly and be willing to take risks.

• Set up an advisory board made up entirely of people external to the firm.

Don’t

• Worry too much about your financial resources if you are starting out. Just make sure you compensate for that with human resources.

• Get high on today’s success. Instead, seek to constantly renew your firm.

• Compromise on the quality of team members you hire. If you cannot find a good fit, keep searching until you do.

• Wait to be 100 per cent sure about a decision. If 80 per cent of the information can help with making that decision, use it or miss the boat.

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