The Search for a Competitive Advantage
| Publication year | 1993 |
| Pages | 291 |
| Citation | Vol. 22 No. 2 Pg. 291 |
1993, February, Pg. 291. The Search for a Competitive Advantage
Law firms' organizational climate and culture have changed and are still changing. The hardest part about such change is "unlearning": being willing, even eager, to abandon the old rules. What worked to ensure a law firm's success ten years ago guarantees nothing in the future. The forces driving these changes include clients who are more savvy, demanding and challenging; greater competition; doing more with fewer resources; and the continuing deterioration of the industry's reputation. American business and industry mirror the effects of these changes.
This article examines how law firms can take advantage of, rather than suffer from, these changes.
Employees are the one sure weapon that can help organizations---including law firms---meet these changes successfully. Employees are a law firm's most essential and most available resource, and perhaps its best competitive advantage.
Whether it is openly admitted or not, the traditional rules state that "employees are here to do what we tell them to do, to do 'it' when we tell them and to do 'it' how we tell them to." The old rules create employees who perform their jobs in a half-hearted, detached manner. In order to meet current and future challenges effectively, firms need every single employee directly contributing to meet strategic goals.
This is where the unlearning portion comes in for employees, administrators, attorneys and partners. Employees need to feel a sense of ownership for their jobs and organizational success. Firm management needs to create an environment which encourages, and perhaps even demands, employee innovation and contribution. There are two key ways to ascertain this type of climate. The first is to remove fear from the workplace. The second is to teach every firm employee to think and act entrepreneurially in his or her job.
Fear is a rarely discussed but very real barrier to productivity, quality and innovation in most law firms. As stated by the president of the American Quality Foundation:
Fear is the final barrier to a fully engaged and productive workforce ... a tough and nasty subject that management has ignored for too long.(fn1)
In a law firm...
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