Stalled management initiatives: Change the paperwork or change the culture?

As lawyers, we are too clever at attacking paperwork in order to avoid dealing with cultural issues.

Even in this digital age, lawyers are most comfortable when they have a piece of paper in one hand and a red pen in the other. We were trained to concentrate on words typed out on paper. It is in our DNA.

So, when we are asked to look at a management issue, we like to have the comfort of a piece of paper in front of us that sets out the issue we have to consider and the pros and cons. We can then review the arguments, draft amendments and come to a conclusion. It is the way we work, the way our minds work.

There are a number of management issues that have to be reduced to paper in today's law firm. An example, and an important one, is performance management. This now involves the process of setting targets, reviewing those targets and appraising individuals. Since this is, in many firms, now part of the performance-related pay process, it is a matter of great concern to partners.

Typically, HR professionals, guided by management, will have developed models that can be used to set targets, together with appraisal forms and other paperwork to be used in the performance review. The very importance of the activities under review and the number of those activities means that a form cannot be too short or cut corners.

Lawyers should be measured against a number of criteria, not just billing, but also working capital management, risk and compliance, business development and whether or not the individual is promoting the strategy of the business. The structure should give appraisees adequate space to put down their position as part of the review.

We are equally adept at generating paper as we are at reviewing it. We are good with words and will want to make sure that we put our case fully. However, no form that is part of a complex and challenging performance process will be perfect or satisfactory to all of the lawyers who are asked to complete it.

Faced with a form that we do not consider entirely adequate, we find it difficult to resist criticising the document and possibly even seeking to amend it. Inevitably, when dealing with lawyers, particularly senior lawyers, the HR professionals, and indeed those trying to manage them, are challenged.

But, the question is whether, in challenging management, partners and lawyers who may be arguing that the paperwork is inadequate are not addressing the real issue, which is actually about culture.

In my experience, most senior lawyers, in contrast to many, but not all, junior lawyers, find the whole business of setting objectives, testing those objectives and the other elements of performance management a difficult and unsettling experience.

Our instincts as lawyers mean that we immediately examine the process for flaws and then argue that the flaws in the process make the whole objective of the process tainted and unobtainable. So, a discussion that should be about whether or not the principles behind the process are correct gets lost in a criticism of the process.

In my view, this is ultimately a cultural issue. Many of us have yet to come to terms with performance management and so attack the paperwork rather than examine our failure to accept modern management techniques.

Law firm managers have to resist the natural inclination of their colleagues to wield their red pens and have to force them to address the issues that underlie the paperwork. It is too easy for unhappy lawyers to attack the process rather than debate the management structures with which they are not familiar.

Management initiatives that will move the business forward can be lost in arguments about paperwork. Management cannot afford to allow a debate around forms to undermine structures that are fundamental to the future development of not just the individuals but also the business.

Do you agree?