"Management by Objective."  "Management by Walking Around."  "Re-engineering."  "Six Sigma."  "Good to Great."  Even "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People," "Who Moved My Cheese?," and "Fish." 

Exhausting, isn’t it?  Everybody, it seems (at least everybody on the business best-seller list, past or current) has the silver bullet.  Do this one thing, and your organization will be healthy, wealthy, and wise.

But what if we had some real data?  Well, guess who does?  McKinsey looked at some 230 businesses from around the world over the past four years, interviewing over 110,000 individuals, and has distilled the results into some fundamental insights—which, blessedly, accord strongly with intuition—about what really matters in driving organizational excellence.

First, let’s start with the sacred cows due for a de-bunking.  I can’t do better than their summary, so here it is:

* The carrots and sticks of incentives appear to be the least effective of the four options commonly used to motivate and encourage employees to perform well and stay with a company.

* Applied in isolation, KPIs ["key performance indicators"] and similar control mechanisms (such as performance contracts) are among the least satisfactory options for improving accountability.

* Relying on a detailed strategy and plan is far from the most fruitful way to set a company’s direction.

* Command-and-control leadership—the still-popular art of telling people what to do and then checking up on them to see that they did it—is among the least effective ways to direct the efforts of an organization’s people.

Now, we know you were at zero risk of employing #4, and #3 is straight from the school of enshrining dusty 3-ring binders on bookshelves, but don’t ##1 and 2 surprise you?

If "incentives [are] the least effective" and specified performance expectations ("performance contracts") are "among the least satisfactory options," then what levers are left at your disposal to push?

First, let’s get fundamental organizational hygiene down.  McKinsey identifies what it describes as no fewer than 34 management practices at which your firm must be competent in order to even be in the race.  Fortunately for your sanity, there are actually only nine, although there are multiple ways to satisfy each.  An example will clarify.  "Direction," a/k/a where the firm is headed," is one of the nine top-level categories, and per McKinsey your options are:

• Visionary: top-down, attractive, personally meaningful
• Directive/strateigc: top-down specifics for achieving a goal
• Engagement:  driven by input from below

You get the idea.

Back to what really creates organizational excellence, which McKinsey has identified as causally related to financial outperformance.  The three key characteristics are:

• Clear roles, and accountability;
• An inspiring vision of the future, a direction; and
• A trusting culture, an environment of trust, openness, and challenge.

I told you they’d be in intuitive accord with what you know in your heart matters.

As McKinsey puts it,
"Employees perform well when they are working toward a future that attracts them, know when they can operate freely, and are encouraged to improve constantly."  Whether or not you have on your bedside table a representative sampling from the current management best-seller list, we’re all subject to the winds of fashion. 

"But the evidence from McKinsey’s database suggests that a company’s performance and underlying health are much more likely to be improved by a combination of complementary practices—especially those that provide for clear accountability, help set goals and priorities, and encourage a high-performing corporate culture. Top managers would be wise to base their actions on this evidence of proven success."

I would add this, importantly:  These McKinsey findings, albeit derived from corporate-land, have particularly dramatic application to law-firm-land.  After all, if there’s anything that motivates high-performing, highly-demanding, Type A professionals, it’s precisely the environment envisioned by these criteria:  An inspiring, well-articulated vision of the future; a clearly defined role for how you can contribute to getting there; and an environment of autonomy, independence, and collegiality every day.

Would you like to work at a firm like that?  So would I.