by Robin Dicks | Aug 22, 2014 | Uncategorized
For most professional services firms, successful growth remains driven by how well aligned marketing, business development and the activities of fee earners are – and, of course, how well they are executed. But it’s not a perfect world: what is there is a gap in the key activities you cover, or people duplicate effort, or the person responsible for the activity doesn’t have the skills (or desire) to do it? Effectiveness declines. Accountability, ability and appetite. Not all is lost if you don’t have all 3, and people can still drive results. But you do need to understand where people are at and how to maximise the impact of what you do. How can you optimise the effectiveness of all the people involved in the marketing and BD effort? Phil Gott, my colleague in the Winning Firm Alliance, and I have created a diagnostic which very inexpensively and quickly identifies how the whole firm, a practice/team, or an individual can really enhance the results from their activity. Contact me if you’d like more information on 44 (0)7940 886677 or at robin @ thrivingcompany.co.uk ...
by Robin Dicks | Mar 12, 2013 | Uncategorized
As a judge in the recent Managing Partner Forum awards in this category I was pleased to see some of the efforts being made by firms in this area. There is no doubt that many firms are recognising that more informal, judgemental forms of performance management, that often are not linked to the firm’s strategy OR the capabilities needed to survive in the future, just don’t cut it. That said, it seemed to me that entries were of three types: Firms which did not really have a consistent performance management system before and were implementing one (including appraisals across all staff for the first time) Firms which had very imaginative and creative processes in place to disseminate information, and empower and support managers, but still focused on backward looking measures such as billing and utilisation. Firms that recognised the need to put in place and manage capabilities for the future, and had created a balanced scorecard approach. The third, to my mind, is the only appropriate place to finish, but you can need a route map to get there and to evolve in this direction. ...
