Articles Posted in Talent

Published on:

Exec. Counsel, April/May 2010 at 26, in an article by Hildebrandt consultants, explains that a “leading utility company has been successfully working with its retired lawyers for the past five years.” The former lawyers can work much more flexible hours and at much lower rates than outside counsel. “The negotiated billing rates with the contractors are typically a third of outside counsel rates, and the arrangement has reduced this law department’s outside counsel cost by 75 percent.”

That statement suggests that the utility pays its retired lawyers $175 to $200 an hour and that it has turned to them significantly. Since the ex-inhousers know the company and its legal issues, they do not require any ramp-up time. In short, to cope with succession planning difficulties, the mass retirement of baby boomers, and rising costs, the use of independent contractors who formerly worked for you is a neat trick (See my post of April 20, 2009: Procter & Gamble allows certain retirees to work on temporary assignments; Oct. 8, 2007: IBM’s extensive use of retired patent counsel; and Sept. 17, 2005: retired general counsel retained as legal consultants.).

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

No, the first step is not to count to ten, although that can’t hurt. Instead, talent mgt., June 2010 at 37, offers these suggestions. They have a whiff of the therapists couch, “Give Peace a Chance,” New Agism and tie-died shirts in battered VW buses, but here you go. Don’t get mad at me for this post.

(1) “Name the emotion.” If you are pissed off but in a diffuse, formless way, you fester. “Some examples are fear of the unknown, anger over mistakes or confusion concerning organizational direction” (See my post of June 18, 2010: emotions with 8 references.).

(2) “Be nonjudgemental.” Don’t blame someone else or criticize their mis-step. “Instead, examine the facts of the situation without judging oneself or others.”

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

From talent mgt., June 2010 at 36, we can find out about five varieties of conflict. Each of them flares up in legal departments.

Process: such as if two managers of litigation each believe that their way to handle litigation holds is the right way.

Role: such as if the patent lawyers think they should take the lead drafting licensing agreements that cover IP but operational lawyers that serve the business units disagree.

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

In his recent book, Amartya Sen refuses to elevate rationality above feelings. In fact, “reason and emotion play complementary roles in human reflection”(at 39), he observes, and later he reiterates the point. “Indeed, in celebrating reason, there is no particular grounds for denying the far-reaching role of instinctive psychology and spontaneous responses” (at 49).

While corporate lawyers pride themselves on their perspicuity and celebrate their cerebration, they teem with emotions, bubble up or boil, struggle with passions. The degree to which we reach conclusions through logic or through visceral, pre-conscious emotions is an open question.

This cool, calm and collected blawg rarely dips into the volcanic world of law department emotions, but it would enrage me for readers to think me gormless (See my post of July 31, 2005: emotional awareness and analytic ability; Oct. 1, 2005: Johari windows open up emotions; Aug. 28, 2006: DeBono and Red Hat thinking; Nov. 22, 2007: sad moods but good thinking; Dec. 3, 2007 #3: monitor your feelings before you decide; June 22, 2008: neuroscience tackles emotions; March 27, 2009: pattern recognition and emotional tagging; and Nov. 10, 2009: bracelets for emotional insights.).

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

I got a kick out of these two points about goals. A manager can set two kinds of goals for an employee. One kind, the most common, sets a performance outcome. For example, “You should submit applications for 15 patents this year.” Less well-known is a second kind, a high-learning goal. “You should understand the major drivers of why claims turning to litigation.” Performance outcome coals can sometimes make people so anxious to succeed that they lose some effectiveness.

A second idea about goals is that it is possible to set multiple gold levels with multiple bonus levels. “For every sub-lease you complete, your bonus eligibility will increase two percent.” A tiered objective helps avoid the problems of a binary you-get-it-or-not approach.

Net net, my goal on this blog is both performance and learning (See my post of April 8, 2005: SMART objectives; Feb. 23, 2006: SMART goals; March 15, 2006: combination of competencies and goals; Feb. 24, 2007: does a bonus elicit goal achievement; Nov. 27, 2007: comp increases for added productivity; March 2, 2008: to set targets is not as effective as to promote behaviors; Jan. 22, 2009: goal at Ernst & Young’s law department to respond to all calls or messages within two hours; Feb. 23, 2009: BHAGS (big, hairy audacious goals); and Sept. 27, 2009: from corporate goals down to individual lawyer objectives.).

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

Research indicates that selectivity in staffing is positively related to firm performance, according to an article in the Acad. of Mgt. Rev., 1996 Aug., at 952. Perhaps there lurks in that finding a comparative metric for law departments.

If we had data from a number of law departments as to how long it took them to fill open positions over several years and how many applicants they interviewed, we might discover that the more discriminating departments have better benchmark ratios, such as lawyers per billion. If you are very picky and careful about whom you select, it is more likely that your talent is better, fits your needs more precisely, and performs more effectively.

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

“To the dismay of many, relative to homogeneous groups, members of diverse groups display less attachment to each other, show less commitment to their respective organizations, communicate less with one another, miss work more often, experience more conflict, and take more time to reach decisions.” Ouch.

This discouraging summary of research on the drawbacks of groups made up of different demographics, with many citations omitted, comes from the Acad. of Mgt. Rev., 2004 #1, at 9 (See my post of May 26, 2010: downsides of heterogeneous work teams.).

Do general counsel who push their departments to hire diversity firms and diverse in-house staff disagree with these findings (See my post of June 10, 2010: Inclusion Initiative.)? Are they ignorant of such research? If they are aware of them and have no reason to disagree, they must be advocating based on values other than efficiency.

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

A stimulating article in strategy+business, Summer 2010, at 80, describes research into the comparative performance of companies after CEOs are appointed from within (“insiders”) or from outside the company. “Four out of five times, boards around the world choose insider candidates when selecting a CEO, and that ratio has been broadly consistent for ten years. Their intuition or logic has been borne out. Based on market-adjusted shareholder returns, insiders promoted “tend to perform better and last longer.”

My impressionistic sense about general counsel selections, however, is that less than 80 percent of general counsel positions are filled from inside. If so, fewer executive search firms would be in business, I suspect (See my post of May 18, 2010: promotions to general counsel with 9 references.). One difference between the two positions is that a group (the Board of Directors) selects a CEO, but the CEO alone can select a general counsel.

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

An excellent panel at the SuperConference presented the top legal officers of Allstate, Ford, and P&G. Three of their comments may be old hat to veteran GCs, but they struck me as worth a mention.

Discussing why all three had government experience on their resumes, two of the general counsel reflected that “being in a senior government position is to be shot at all the time from many directions” and that to top lawyer for a big company is similarly under the gun, under fire, and under water in constant “crisis mode.” Only hairy problems reach that desk and the flow can never be staunched.

Second, “There is a huge learning curve when you become a general counsel.” The new general counsel’s leadership demands enlarge enormously, the scope of oversight and expectations of familiarity with the business magnify, massive doses of the cultural and historical roots of the company need to be absorbed, and the legal issues range far beyond what experience has brought their way. Hitting that curve, to mangle my metaphors, challenges any general counsel.

Posted in:
Published on:
Updated:
Published on:

The only post here that discusses pros and cons of secrecy about high-potential lawyers comes down on the side of non-disclosure (See my post of June 24, 2007: identification causes problems.). But an article in the Harvard Bus. Rev., June 2010 at 54, observes “a growing trend toward transparency.” As the job market revives, I suspect it will be increasingly useful for general counsel to call out their highest performers for special praise and opportunities.

Other posts here have addressed so-called hi-pos (See my post of July 29, 2007: high potentials with 10 references.). Since that initial compilation, a number of related posts have followed (See my post of Dec. 19, 2007: legal department as incubator for lawyers who move out; April 24, 2009: nine boxes and star lawyers; May 13, 2009: 3M sends three hi-po lawyers a year to a leadership development program; June 26, 2009: a neglected but high priority; Aug. 25, 2009 #5: Novartis and its extensive tracking of hi pos and successors; Dec. 17, 2009: high potential for information processing; Jan. 4, 2010 #2: a definition on ability to move to another area; and March 29, 2010: succession planning is muted recognition of potential.).