Your silent stars can be a great source of management inspiration

Having just completed our firm's annual salary review, I should be elated. The job is done, we have talked about our stars and how motivated they are and we believe we are rewarding them as well as we can, taking into account the economic and market pressures - there is some good news to deliver. But, the process somehow has an element of frustration about it that runs the risk of extinguishing what should be a motivating and inspiring experience for those of us leading the business.

I have spent time (probably too much) thinking about why that might be. It comes back to the conundrum of why we try but never succeed in spending the larger part of our quality time working with and talking to our stars. Instead, we get absorbed and sidetracked by the underperformers or the individuals who make the most noise.

Management priorities

Commentators suggest that we spend 80 per cent of available management time on underperformers or complainers (the high maintenance gang) and only 20 per cent of our time on the silent stars who work hard, lead well, align themselves to the firm's strategy and silently but effectively move the business forward. I have no idea whether this statistic is correct, but definitely agree that too much management time is spent dealing with complaints, moans and problems.

Recently therefore, I have made a conscious decision to spend time with our stars: newly promoted lawyers; our business support teams who believe in and drive our business strategy silently but effectively; and our next generation of leaders.

The time spent with these groups is hugely beneficial to the business, not because they perform better as a result of the interaction with the management team - they are self-motivated, ambitious and driven regardless - but because it motivates and inspires me as leader of the business.

It helps me to drive the brand values, demand the excellence in client service which underlies our brand and gives me confidence to promote our firm in a competitive marketplace. It also sparks debate and discussion, and produces ideas that a management team entrenched in the day-to-day running of the firm might not think about - ideas that can cost little, take little time but reap huge rewards.

At a recent lunch with associates, they were full of ideas about how we can improve time recording, how we can better engage our people and how we can promote ourselves in the marketplace. These were simple ideas, but they were dripping with value.

Bypassing the noise

I suppose I will never crack why we spend so much time at salary review time trying to work out if an average performer will leave if we don't pay the salary he/she is demanding. But, at least I am consciously joining up our stars, listening, coaching and watching them develop into our future leaders. It is an experience which is inspiring and motivational and which will definitely move our business forward.

Perhaps we should all take the time when immersed in our daily issues and deafened by the noise of the high maintenance gang to reflect, to encourage views from our silent stars and to listen to their thoughts. As we all know, silence can often be far more effective than shouting.

Vicky Brackett is managing partner at UK law firm Thomas Eggar (www.thomaseggar.com)