The Time for 2021 Planning Has Arrived: Some Advice
Labor Day is behind us, marking the unofficial end of summer, the newly uneven opening of back-to-school season, and the artificial marker of the start of the fourth quarter. As we approach Q4 2020, there is no better time to reassess where this past year has taken you, and to be more purposeful about how you finish the year—and perhaps look ahead to 2021 with a clearer picture of what you want the future to look like.
Consider this the moment at which you regained a degree of control over events, rather than being a victim to circumstances unforeseen and out of your control. The time to take charge of your fortunes is now, but it will require not only a shift in mindset, but also an admission of what has changed...some things permanently, and most indefinitely.
Mindset: Accepting Reality and Moving On
There are plenty of books out there to help lawyers who are motivated and open to addressing mindset challenges and resets. If you’re stuck in a scarcity mindset, marked by difficulty in imagining a brighter future, you will find it difficult to have the courage and optimism it takes to plan for a successful end of the year and prosperous 2021.
No longer can we consider this massive upheaval in our lives to be temporary or fleeting. Many attorneys are being told by their firms that there are no immediate or predictable timelines for returning to normalcy. Rather than waiting for the Godot of “normalcy” to arrive, attorneys should be settling in and accepting the circumstances for what they are: lamentable, but largely acceptable...in some ways, preferable...and to a large degree, manageable. We can work remotely, we can service clients imperfectly, and we can even capture the new business that moves forward apace, despite our worst fears that the world would stop earlier this year.
There are matters to pursue, there are clients to serve, and there is new business out there for the taking. Aligning your mindset around abundance (rather than scarcity) is the critical first step in mapping out the next 15 months of your career.
Read a book if you need to, hire a coach if you need some inspiration and accountability, but get that mindset right before you do any level of long-term planning, or you’ll be overly cautious or pessimistic about your prospects for growth.
Leaning In and Charging Ahead
Firm leadership has no doubt grappled with the management aspect of their roles under these imperfect conditions. Collaboration, culture, accountability, commitment and productivity are all vulnerabilities waiting to fall prey to the void left by the person-to-person workplace and management styles we knew so well. But this new reality has gone on for months now, and will likely continue for months, to some degree. Allowing those hazards to fester and mature is not an option for the C-suite and senior partners of sophisticated law firms.
Instead, take solace in some of the pleasant discoveries and surprises we’ve uncovered out of necessity. Who knew just how valuable and viable remote working technologies could be? Words like “Zoom,” “virtual” and “webinar,” though not new, became part of our everyday vernaculars. Now that we are comfortable with once foreign technologies and environs, it is time to leverage their power and make up for some of what is lost through distance working.
Training: If your partners and senior associates are not there to mentor, train and nurture junior associates in person, who will? Invest in online, group training that can be delivered affordably and effectively, one-to-many, to make sure your team is staying engaged, educated and growing. Everything from business development to client service can be trained virtually by experts. Rely on them and the ubiquity of technology to fill the gaps that may have popped up the past several weeks.
Coaching: Similarly, coaching can be an effective supplement to management, whether we are in virtual environments or traditional office environments. A coach can help you get unstuck, develop a plan of action, surface fresh ideas, and hold you accountable to the promises you make to yourself. Consider bringing in coaches who can develop your talent in areas that supplement management’s strengths (such as building a book of business, for example).
Marketing and Business Development: I wrote back in May that I thought this pandemic would, in many ways, change legal marketing forever. I think we’re seeing that bear out as time unfolds. Traditional methodology for networking and developing business is not returning to “normal” anytime soon, as conferences are being moved to virtual platforms and many are still reticent to take “unnecessary” meetings face-to-face. The digital tools to network, sell and market your firm or an attorney’s expertise are mature to the point that a lawyer truly can thrive remotely.
Accept the new reality, adopt the available technologies, train your teams to become adept at leveraging them, and move into the fourth quarter and beyond with the confidence and skill set to master the art of digital content business development.
Think Both Micro and Macro
My last piece of advice is to consider the whole firm when it comes to strategic planning for Q4 2020 and 2021: both as a cohesive unit and as a set of distinct and cooperative parts of the whole. There should be strategic initiatives for the entire firm, but each practice group should be reassessing and realigning their short- and long-term planning.
Relative to marketing, for example, it’s certainly advisable to have and revise a marketing plan and roadmap for the firm at large, but I would also urge legal marketing teams to work with each distinct business unit in a very granular, customized way. Consider smaller teams but in greater numbers (10 small teams, versus one large team of 10), each working on discrete priorities and initiatives.
For example, perhaps a mature practice area needs to pivot to address a new market. What’s the plan for that? And perhaps a new practice area may need to quickly penetrate a growth market with few competitors? Those tactics and strategy may look totally different, with different time horizons, different tools, different metrics, etc. Perhaps one practice area needs to embrace digital marketing and lead-generation activities, while another should be launching a podcast, developing a webinar series, or planning a virtual conference. One size never fits all; and it certainly won’t going forward.
In short, the future’s not what it used to be. Let’s accept that. Let’s embrace it, to the extent reasonable. And let’s get busy taking greater control of our uncertain futures...with purpose, strategy and enthusiasm.
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