You are probably as unfamiliar with the UK insurance-defense
firm Ricksons as was I before I read this
piece, but this
case study, written by the Ricksons managing partner, Tony
Hughes, is a useful tool to explore lessons in change management.
And,
the beauty of it is that almost none of us can say under
our breath things that distract from the general learning.
In other words, no inside-baseball gossip such as
"Well, Fried-Frank would never have merged
because so-and-so can’t stand so-and-so," or "Of course
Reed-Smith needs to be in Chicago, so that explains their
talking to [X]." Think of it as an abstraction from what would otherwise claim our attention: A clean palate, if you will.
As our story opens, Ricksons is a regional UK firm with
90% of its business coming from personal injury insurance-defense
work. The founding/name partner, Peter Rickson, is
about to retire and a new managing partner is selected—the
youngest partner in the firm. Recognizing the firm’s
over-reliance on insurance defense, he did the following:
- Recognized that while the partnership was traditional,
it was open to new ideas and acknowledged that the firm
had to change to survive. - Introduced rigorous financial-management controls,
combined with "transparency"—monthly
results for all departments were published firm-wide,
with the goal being "simply to make people feel part
of the business." - Next came something more audacious: Purposely
and publicly announcing the goal of making Ricksons a
top-100 UK firm, which would mean increasing their revenue
from £5.6M (2001) to £15M. What did
this entail? For starters, revising the entire
structure. For example, the Birmingham office was
profitable but didn’t fit within the profile of a firm
specializing in insurance litigation. Bye-Bye! - Paying attention to the human factor: From a
base when Hughes assumed leadership in May 2001 of 80
staff and 13 partners the firm is now 220 staff and 37
partners, and he says without reservation, "The human
element is without doubt the most important aspect …Withholding
information leads to wild speculation and resentment."
"Lawyers do not always make the best managers," he confesses,
but at the same time Hughes realizes that "if we, as law
firms, are going to compete in the business world," you
have to nurture your home-grown talent.
So how did he bring everyone along?
- Communication
- Transparency
- Presence (for example, try, as did Tony Hughes, spending
half a day every day at a merger candidate’s offices
to inform, inspire, and reassure) - Consistency
And last, nurture talent for purposes of leading within the
firm, not just rainmaking. You might find yourself
surprised how much it can contribute to rainmaking in the
long run. Think any F500 company thought worse of
signing a contract with GE because Jack Welch was in charge?
