Usually we draw lessons from other law firms, or (even more usually)
from the massive managerial literature of corporate America, which,
as regular readers know, I have always believed offers us a relatively
untapped stock of wisdom (and cant, to be sure) on managing complex
multi-national organizations.

But today we have a lesson from "I,
Cringely," a PBS-sponsored
weekly columnist who you should be following if you have an iota
of interest in the tech industry.  Here’s this week’s lead:

"After 29 years of working in high-tech companies and
writing about them, I have noticed how insular they tend to be,
often not seeing either the world or themselves at all clearly.
Whether intended or not, this cultural artifact comes to control
how the world in turn sees them, which rarely works in their favor.
The classic example is Microsoft, where hiring smart people fresh
from school and working them 60 hours or more per week — in an
environment where they don’t even leave the building to eat —
leads to a state of corporate delusion, where lying and cheating
suddenly begin to make sense. But it isn’t just Microsoft that
does this. It is ANY high tech company that hires young people,
isolates them through long hours at work, feeds them at work, and
effectively determines their friends, who are their co-workers.
This trend even extends to the anti-Microsoft, to Google, where
the light of day is sorely needed.

"Google is secretive. … Google
folks don’t understand why the rest of us have a problem with this,
but then Google folks aren’t like you and me.   The result
of this secrecy and Google’s “almighty algorithm” mentality is
that the company makes changes — and mistakes — without informing
its customers or even doing all that much to correct the problems.
It’s all just beta code, after all. But the business part is real,
as is the money that some people have lost because of Google’s
poor communication skills combined, frankly, with poor follow-through."

Who recognizes a familiar industry?

My point is not to laud or lambast Google, or Cringely for
that matter—and it is certainly anything but to suggest that
"lying and cheating" can ever "begin to make sense"—but
it is to shine a momentary spotlight—and
momentary, I have a high degree of confidence, is all it will be—on
the acculturation principles abroad in the land of sophisticated,
large law firms.

Specifically what "principle of acculturation" do I have in mind? 

Today, it’s the increasingly questionable presumption that associates
will work themselves to distraction in exchange for a presumptively
fair, even if long, shot at partnership.

First comes this from Legal
Week.  In a survey of 2,500 young lawyers, which they
summarized as "foot soldiers turn backs on partnership dream,"
the key finding was:

"The Legal Week Employee Satisfaction Survey, carried
out with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development,
found that work/life balance was ranked ahead of other key factors
in choosing a firm, such as culture and treatment by partners.

"The issue was even ranked as more important than ‘concrete’ factors
such as salary, billable-hour expectations and partnership prospects
in the research, which also includes detailed evaluations by assistants
of individual law firms."

Perhaps even more shockingly, while 62% of males claimed they
still aspired to partnership, only 40% of females did. 

As Legal Week‘s editorial summary of the results say:

‘Signs are emerging, however, that the appeal of the
traditional reward and career structure offered by law firms is
diminishing, leading to growing levels of dissatisfaction among
assistants and associate solicitors and some serious motivational
and staff retention challenges for the profession."

Essentially, the juniors are feeling a disconnect between the relatively
high ratings they give "hard" business and professional factors
such as quality of work and reputation of their firm, and the quite
poor marks they give the more "personal" aspects of work such as
collaboration, partners’ attitude towards them, and recognition
and praise for good work.

This is even more so for those who feel alienated about the
partnership carrot itself:  "Those
who do not aspire to be partners at their own firms report significantly
lower levels of satisfaction in almost all categories."

To me, the handwriting is on the wall:  With women constituting
50% of law school graduates, firms that have a reputation for
being unattractive to people who will permit the words "work/life
balance" to pass their lips will find themselves drawing from
a smaller and smaller talent pool.

Meanwhile, David Maister responds to
readers who want to know how to "keep the kids," and his answer
is:

• challenges
• growth
• training
• stretching.

"What a young person needs (in addition to a good paycheck)
– in fact what he or she MUST have … the chance to
build skills.  Without this, they can not develop themselves
and have a career."

Of course, this puts an icy clarity to the question the firm
must ask itself:  Are we really willing to trust that
associates want to "stretch," will rise to the challenge of learning
new skills, and—perhaps the key scary, unspoken thought—if
I as the senior partner make sure I delegate some difficult assignments,
will I remain valuable and rewarded?

I believe firms may increasingly find themselves in two camps.

• One set of firms will cling to the "safety" of tradition,
  keeping associates in the dark, as the second-class citizens
  they are presumed to be,  pointedly oblivious to "work/life"
  issues, letting the fungible young things sink or swim in the
  deep end of the pool they’re being paid well to inhabit.
• Another set of firms will embark on the adventure of embracing
  this generation of graduates as true professional peers and
  colleagues, every bit as ravenous for challenge, stretching,
  and unfamiliar new assignments as we were—and will also
  embrace the reality that the highest form of human happiness
  comes not with work alone, but with work
  and with love.

The good news is that those of us blessed in work and in love
are often the most productive and creative as well.  This
is nothing more than centuries-old wisdom, but some of us lost
sight of it at the end of the 20th Century.