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The Horizontal Imperative

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Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy was summed up in his “categorical imperative:”
 

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Much has been written about this—I won’t add to it. Except to say its relevance is growing due to the “horizontal imperative.”

Think what these themes have in common:
 

Outsourcing
Flat organizations
Declining transaction costs
Joint ventures
Strategic alliances
Open source
Social networking
Wikis
Globalization
Matrix organizations
Project management
Boundarylessness
Mobility

They all deal with horizontal, not vertical, relationships. And they’re all increasing.

Business is increasingly conducted via horizontal relationships—peers, partners, professionals/clients. Yet we still think in terms of vertical relationships—command, control, performance measurement, reviews, rewards.

Our vocabulary is little changed, but the denotation of words is shifting. Think what these words meant 15 years ago—vs. now:
 

Leadership
Management
Vision
Alignment
Collaboration

Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative was:
 

Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.

In a corporate world of vertical relationships, people can preach Kant, but those in power don’t have to listen. They are free to—and often did/do—treat others as means.

In a horizontal world, even dotted-line authority is rare, much less straight line. In horizontal relationships, people can and do insist on being treated as ends.

In a horizontal world, power comes from influence, not authority. Paradoxically, the greatest influence comes from a genuine concern for others. Client focus without the microscopic quid pro quo. Reciprocity with more than a 15-minute leash. A predilection for “we” not “me.”

In a horizontal world, Kant’s abstract principle becomes an empirical descriptor of successful behavior.

The newest New Economy does not imply an egalitarian utopia. But it does mean increased connectivity. Butterfly wings have impact. We are in the same (bigger) sandbox, forced to learn to play together nicely. Those who learn to do so benefit.

Collaboration is the new competitive advantage. Trust rules.

It’s the horizontal imperative.

The Best in the World

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I took my son, a flute player, to see Sir James Galway, arguably the best flautist in the world.

He and his wife spoke informally before the concert.  They said the US under-achieves in international competitions relative to its raw talent. Why? The competitive emphasis we put on technical virtuosity.

The fundamentals are forgotten, they said.  To be great, you need to work on scales and tone.  His concert included two “simple” pieces amidst the virtuoso pieces—to lead the students in the house by example.

His website speaks to his generosity—financial and spiritual.  He talks about the fundamentals of music, and of being human.  It says, "My scales are my prayers; my concerts are the answers."

    Years ago, I took a week’s solo lesson with arguably the world’s greatest pedal steel guitar player (and surely the best teacher), the late Jeff Newman—in a little A frame house at the top of the hill on Jeff’s land 20 miles east of Nashville.

We spent the first half-day tuning.  Tuning.

Once we spent an hour with him leaning back in a chair, strumming 3 guitar chords while I played three steel notes over and over.  He’d grimace at some notes, smile at a few. “If you cain’t make me cry with just three notes, Charlie,” he’d say, “what the hell good are all the rest?”

Once I got frustrated with technique on the volume pedal.  “Charlie, you got to stomp that sucker,” he said. “Either you’re going make that hunk of metal sing for you, or it’s gonna kick your butt. Which is it gonna be?”

Between songs, he’d tell stories.  Like the time Jimmy Day finally played Steel Guitar Rag dead flat perfect, looked up and realized the joint only had 23 people in it—all drunk, and not one who gave a damn.  “You don’t play for perfection,” he said, “you practice, then you play for love—perfection’s just a little gift you get once in a while.”  Jimmy Day, he said, had a cable linking his foot and his soul.

Or the day John Hughey, Conway Twitty’s old steel player, put away his steel for good after Conway retired, despairing of ever again getting gigs for his old-style of playing. Only to get a call later that day from Vince Gill, who featured him in the front of the band, and started a whole new career for Hughey.

Occasionally Jeff would sit at my instrument and just noodle.  Incredible sounds, blending jazz chords and pipe organ tones with Bach-like complexity.  “Why don’t you record some of that, Jeff, that’s absolutely gorgeous, unique,” I’d say.

“Why don’t I record it? I’ll tell you why.  Only four reasons to do it.  One, for the money—I don’t need it.  Two, for my students; but it’d just intimidate them, not help them.  Three, for my ego—again, I don’t need it.  And four, for your ego—but that’s your damn problem, not mine!  I ain’t doin’ it.”

The best in the world often sound like this. They are self-assured but not arrogant. They are technically great, but see technique as a means, not an end.

Their emphasis is on the basics, and on the result. Technique in service.

What are the basics in business?  I suppose quality, integrity, customer focus.  Commitment.  Willingness to give to others. Trust.  Stuff like that.

What are the business analogues to musical flash and technique that  get in the way of tone and soulfulness?  Perhaps systems and measurements; esoteric strategies; clever incentive schemes; complex financing; sophisticated diagnostics and skillsets?

We all need technique.  And complexity is a fact of life.  But the ends are still supposed to be the reason for the means; the means aren’t self-justifying.

It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

The January Top 5

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In order of popularity, they were:

  1. A Better New Year’s Resolution – strictly speaking a December post, the suggestion that instead of making a list of resolutions for the new year, we make list of things we’re grateful for, was also the most popular post in January.

  2. I’m OK, You’re an Idiot – My inner voice says: “I’m OK, you’re an idiot,” and “You’re OK, I’m an undetected fraud.”

  3. Myers-Briggs and Racism – when does categorizing people slide into objectification, and from there into much worse?

  4. The Perversity of Measuring Trust – what does it say to those whose trustworthiness you constantly measure about whether you think they’re trustworthy?

  5. Empowering Incompetents – perhaps you "just believing in yourself" isn’t enough?

Did you have a favourite post?

Why ‘Trust Matters’

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I’ll write another time about "why trust matters." This posting is about why this blog is called ‘Trust Matters.’

Some of you may visit this blog to find a sales tip. Others, because you find something about relationships that touches you. Still others, hopefully, enjoy a different take on issues of business and society.

Trust runs through them all.

If there is any single dominant feature about the economy and the world that is emerging around us, it is connectivity. Whether you’re reading The World is Flat, or Wikinomics, or How We Compete , the message is clear: the world is more and more linked. We’re not just interdependent, we’re all over each other.

1. In the realm of the Trusted Advisor this has always been clear. The relationships that grow up between those who have deep specialized knowledge and those who need it are, of necessity, trust-based.

As someone said, there are no products anymore, everything is a service; and a complex service at that. So the trusted advisor paradigm is increasingly relevant.

2. In the realm of sales, the role of trust is accelerating more rapidly. Selling—always the lowbrow, bastard stepchild of marketing—is about to emerge as a critical function.

As services get more complex, the seller-buyer relationship—call it the “commercial” relationship—is taking over in importance from the seller-competitor relationship. Commerce, not competition, is key in a connected world. And the one place where producer meets consumer is—in the sale and the sales process.

Trust plays a huge role here because, as Jeff Thull says, solutions are now so complex that buyers often can’t articulate what they need. They need a trusted seller to engage with them as equals. Enter Trust-based Selling®.

3. In the realm of leadership development and organizational behavior, trust is becoming the most critical of all. The tolerance for divisional silos, not-invented-here syndromes, or office politics is declining. The business can no longer afford people whose competency at trusting and being trusted are low.

The “soft” skills have “hard” payoffs in a connected world.

They are what permit alignment of organizations, faster go-to-market processes, successful strategic alliances, project teams, creativity, globalization, effective negotiation, people and customer attraction and retention, and execution. Businesses mired solely in the old-think of competitive positioning, behavioral measures-and-rewards, and business processes will find themselves behind the curve.

Through these three portholes—trusted advisor, Trust-based Selling, and leading with trust—we see the same core themes.

Getting along, collaborating, interacting, synergizing, decreasing friction, transparency, plug-and-play people, anger-processing, other-focusing, rapid trust creating, empathizing, fast team-building, relationships-over-transactions, constructive conflict engagement, responsibility-taking, emotional risk-taking, no blame-throwing, straight-talking, truth-telling, always-curious, self-knowing, trust-creating.

These are the things that make a connected world work smoothly, rather than grate and grind.

Matters of trust.

Trust matters.
 

Trust Tip 16: Get Beyond Fairness

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We sometimes think being trusted is about being fair. Then again, we sometimes say “life isn’t fair. Fair enough. But to whom are we speaking in each case? Fairness has two sides. One side is when we’re talking about we are treated—by family, by clients or business partners, by life. The other side is how we treat others—same topic set. The rules are not the same: it depends which side you’re on.

Rule 1, The Receiving End—Life Ain’t Fair

My friend Jon tells me, “life ain’t fair—and boy am I glad of that. Because if I got what I really deserved in life, I’d be a mess. As it is, I can’t honestly think of anyone with whom I’d trade lives.” Now, when I consider that I would not trade lives with Jon, and that he would not trade lives with me, I see the wisdom of what he’s saying. Life’s not treating you fairly? Get over it. Get happy with what you’ve got. Now move along and do something great.Get out of the ‘hood—victimhood—and into optimistic, positive territory.

If you don’t, you can’t trust others. And if you yourself can’t trust, then you probably can’t be trusted.

Reach out across the 50/50 divide, and don’t look back until you hit 80/20.

Rule 2, The Giving End—Ignore the First Rule

You know the phrases. It’s dog eat dog out there. Do unto others before they do unto you. Never give a sucker an even break. Or, more insidiously, let them make the first move. Trust, but verify.

That’s a sure way not to be trusted. Instead, use the Golden Rule. Better yet, use Tony Alessandro’s Platinum Rule: Do unto others as they would be done unto, because they may not want to be done unto the way you might like.

Reach out across the 50/50 divide. Don’t look back until you hit 80/20.

The demand for “fairness” can be the enemy of trust. Mutual trust is founded on reciprocity, which requires we reach out to value the other side. The difference between a suggestion and a demand ought to be evident to all. If we spend our energy negotiating who gets 49 and who gets 51, we kill trust in our quest for “fairness.”

Whether you’re the trustee or the trustor, be bold. Take a risk. Give a little something. Make the first gesture, which allows reciprocity to kick in.

Fairness is 50/50. Leave it behind. Go hang out in the 80/20 territory.

Trust, Democracy, and Capitalism

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One business page, Sunday NYTimes. Two articles. Two distinct visions of our future.

Andrew Sorkin’s “A Growing Aversion to Ticker Symbols” describes the seeming tsunami of private equity money creating a shadow economy, engulfing publicly traded stocks, escaping the scrutiny of Sarbanes Oxley and the SEC, and enabling CEO compensation even greater than we’ve seen in public companies:

As one buyout king put it over drinks… “If one of my C.E.O.’s made $100 million, I’d say that’s great because it means that we probably just made $2 billion.”

Licensed greed, free of oversight.

Or not?

In the same article, John Thain, the New York Stock Exchange’s CEO, reminds us that much of the big money in private equity lies in taking the companies back public again.

Viewed this way, private equity is simply the vehicle du jour for creating efficiency in the financial and asset markets. Take the old company out of circulation for a bit, do a turn in drydock, clean up the turbines, a new coat of paint, voila—new company. A public service.

Au contraire, says Ben Stein in "The Hard Rain That’s Falling on Capitalism. A writer and literate comedian, he has standing as an economist. He came by it honestly; his father was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under the Nixon and Ford administrations.

Capitalism values people as individuals according to contract…not according to the status of our birth. This in itself is a miracle.

This miracle has been vibrant in the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans who have gone from nothing to something, thanks to the dynamics of capitalism. They have seen their pay rise and they have been able to convert their sweat and toil and creativity into capital by saving and investing in the stock market and becoming capitalists themselves — myself.

The system of capitalism is wide open. If you have an idea, you can turn it into capital.

But… in capitalism, the most fundamental building block is trust.

When I see what the top dogs at all too many corporations are now doing to that trust, I feel queasy. Outrageous — yes, obscene — pay. Greedy backdating of stock options, which in my opinion is straight-up theft. Managers buying assets from their trustors, the stockholders, at pennies on the dollar, then forestalling competing bids with lockups and insane breakup fees.

These misdeeds and many, many more are hammer blows at the granite foundation of trust we built in the 1940s and ’50s. How long democratic capitalism can survive these blows before it gives in and gives birth to revolution or to an out-and-out aristocracy, I am not sure.

Stein’s not alone. Professor Bruce Scott, of Harvard Business School, is in the final stages of a forthcoming book tentatively titled Capitalism and Democracy in a New World. He enthralled senior audiences at Harvard Business School’s reunion last fall. A great number of seasoned MBAs, it turns out, share Stein’s sense that something is rotten in the State of Business.

Scott suggests we have succumbed to an exceedingly narrow application of the democratic concept of freedom—economic freedom. Capitalism, he suggests, is strangling democracy. Scott points to the same social tensions Stein mentions—the accelerating gap in wealth across the world.

Financial fine-tuning for fitness is salutary. A nation of laws is a wonderful thing. But a nation whose laws of financial fine-tuning are opaque, written by those with a bias toward more concentration of wealth, and even then brazenly violated, is not a nation whose capitalist system is any longer built on trust.

If capitalism’s best effort at an ethical pronouncement is, “hey, it wasn’t illegal,” then Stein is an optimist.

We can do better.

Seth Godin vs. Peter Drucker

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Following is an excerpt of a panel discussion with Seth Godin and Peter Drucker.

(Well, maybe the panel discussion didn’t really happen; but the quotes are all real, just juxtaposed just to provoke dialogue).

Green: Seth, how’ve you been? What excites you lately?

Godin: I sat next to Cory Doctorow at a conference today. It was like playing basketball next to Michael Jordan. Cory was looking at more than 30 screens a minute…I’m very fast, but Cory is in a different league entirely.

Green: Mr. Drucker, what do you make of that?

Drucker: We rightly consider keeping many balls in the air a circus stunt. And even the juggler does it for only ten minutes or so before dropping the balls. I have yet to see an executive…who could not consign something like a quarter of the demands on his time to the wastepaper basket without anybody’s noticing their disappearance.

Green: Mr. Drucker! Are you suggesting Mr. Doctorow is wasting his time?

Drucker: Most of the tasks of the executive require, for minimum effectiveness, a fairly large quantum of time. To spend in one stretch less than this minimum is sheer waste. One accomplishes nothing and has to begin all over again.

Green: Gracious! Seth, is this phenomenon something new in the world?

Godin: This was never a skill before. I mean, maybe if you were an air traffic controller, but for most of us, most of the time, this data overload skill and the ability to make snap judgments is not taught or rewarded.

Green: Mr. Drucker, you’re frowning. 🙁 What do you see wrong with multi-tasking?

Drucker: Man is not particularly logical, but man is perceptive—that is his strength. The danger is that executives will become contemptuous of information and stimulus that cannot be reduced to computer logic and computer language. They may become blind to everything that is perception (i.e. event) rather than fact (i.e. after the event). The tremendous amount of computer information may thus shut out access to reality.

Green: Seth, is this a real trend, regardless of what Mr. Drucker might think of it?

Godin: As the world welcomes more real-time editors working hard in low-overhead organizations, I think it’s going to be a skill in very high demand.

Green: Any particular areas of business for which that’s true?

Godin: If you’re busy marketing like you’ve got my attention, you’ve already made a huge mistake.

Green: So, marketing must keep it in mind. Mr. Drucker, does multi-tasking hurt some judgments more than others?

Drucker: Among the effective executives I have had occasion to observe, there have been people who make decisions fast, and people who make them rather slowly. But without exception, they make personnel decisions slowly and they make them several times before they really commit themselves.

Green: Mr. Drucker, any parting words of wisdom?

Drucker: If there is any one “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

I once shared a speaking platform with Seth, never met Drucker. Both are wise and provocative.

Seth’s comments are weeks old; Drucker’s date from 1967.

Is there a conflict here—or not?

I think it’s folly to suggest that of two such fine thinkers, one has to be wrong. More likely there’s an over-arching perspective.

Here’s one.

The median level of multi-tasking capability has certainly got to go up across the board as we get more complex. At the same time, the ability to divorce from multi-tasking when it’s required is also going to get more valuable. He who can do both will be very successful.

Think about trust. Do you more trust a multi-tasker, or someone who totally focuses on you? (Right answer: we trust those who multi-task most of their life, except when they’re with us—when they pay attention.)

Massive parallel data processing makes you a massively good data processor. It doesn’t do much for your relationships or your effectiveness with people. How do you react when your six-year-old multi-tasks with you on the phone when you call home from the road? Do you really think you’re hiding it from your clients as an adult?

The world will be wildly more connected in future, but connections still happen one person at a time.

Drucker called efficiency the goal of the industrial age, and effectiveness the goal of the knowledge age. That still sounds modern as we head into whatever you want to call this age.

By the way, read FrogBlog for someone courageous enough to experiment on himself just a few months ago.

Trust, Freedom and Resentment

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Amsterdam, Schiphol Airport, flight lounge 52. I have 90 minutes of work to do in the business lounge.

A few desks away from me sat a very large man, gobbling snacks, sweating—and wheezing, very loudly, with every breath. The more he went to get food, the louder he wheezed on return.

He annoyed the hell out of me.

My head phones couldn’t compete, my iPod was unavailable. All seats were taken, and I had to work. The minutes droned on, his snargling wheezing got worse; I got angrier.

I hurried, mentally rehearsing snide remarks. I finally left early, thinking of noise pollution, gluttony, and the selfishness of other people. He’d put me in a bad mood.

Then I read the NYTimes story, “A 12th Dallas Convict is Exonerated by DNA.”
 

HOUSTON, Jan. 17 — A 50-year-old Dallas man whose conviction of raping a boy in 1982 cost him nearly half his life in prison and on parole won a court ruling declaring him innocent. He said he was not angry, “because the Lord has given me so much.”

The parolee, James Waller, was exonerated by DNA testing, the 12th person since 2001 whose conviction in Dallas County has been overturned long after the fact as a result of genetic evidence….

Prosecutors had joined defense lawyers in calling for the clearing of Mr. Waller, who spent more than 10 years behind bars before he was paroled in 1993…

Mr. Waller broke down once at the hearing, describing how his car crashed on the way to a court proceeding in 2001, an accident that killed his pregnant wife, Doris, and the unborn daughter they had wanted to call Grace. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t want to live no more,’ ” he recalled, mopping his face with a tissue…

By the [12-year old victim’s] account, he [had] heard the voice of his [medium-height, medium-weight] attacker that night at a 7-Eleven near his home, and turned to see Mr. Waller, who was then 25 and lived with his family in the same apartment complex as the victim, the only black family there. Although there were discrepancies in the boy’s account — Mr. Waller is almost 6-foot-4 and was heavy — and although Mr. Waller presented witnesses saying he was home at the time, he was convicted in 46 minutes and sentenced to 30 years. He won parole in 1993 but had to register as a sex offender….

Mr. Waller has started a lawn care business, but remains on parole pending the formal action of the appeals court and must shy from all contact with children. “It has been a long struggle for me,” he said. “They look at you like you’re an animal.”

Mr. Waller—incarcerated, libeled, despised—is free of anger.

I—flying business class internationally—was imprisoned by it. I couldn’t even own my anger, I had to blame someone else—a poor man who had the nerve, the temerity, to continue breathing after I had entered his room.

I am struck—and shamed—by the enormous gap between Mr. Waller’s way of dealing with reality, and my own.

Trust requires the ability to get outside oneself. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. The optional part is vastly greater—if we only choose it.

Why do I find that so hard to do?

 

Empowering Incompetents

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I hate reality TV shows.

So I don’t know why I’m following the umpteenth season of American Idol.

We meet really nice people—who are seriously disconnected. Warped. Out to lunch. They cannot integrate their Big Belief with the Fact of Reality.

One form of disconnect is the diamond in the rough, the undiscovered talent. Undiscovered, most of all, to oneself. This is the premise of the show: that somewhere a gem toils mightily, unappreciated—until (s)he gets a Break. It’s the old American Dream, the meritocracy. Social mobility may be way down in this country, but it lives on in American Idol!

This year, she was hiding in Memphis. She’s a backup singer—the perfect metaphor. And—she has a marvelous voice.

Can she move to the front of the stage? Claim the spotlight? The judges rushed her on to Hollywood, because—that’s what the show is about. Major raw, hard-working talent that doesn’t yet believe in itself, but that will be rewarded.

But—we all know the dream by heart now. In fact, we know it too well. By far the more common disconnect is people who do believe in themselves—but have no talent. Their biggest belief is that Belief Itself is enough.

Millions of poor fools have made a basic error of logic: mistaking a necessary condition for a sufficient one. They try out for Idol, believing that belief is enough. Try jumping off a cliff, believing you’ll defy the laws of gravity. The splat is different, but the odds about the same.

One contestant, asked why he believed his (miserable) performance rated a “yes,” replied, “because I love it [the song].” If I believe, it will happen.

It’s the same in business. Empowerment is great—to unleash organizational talent. But empowering incompetents is absurd—an attempt to defy reality. (The same can be said of other management panaceas-which-aren’t; somewhere, somebody has to have business-relevant excellence and expertise for them to work).

The “just believe” message is ubiquitous: in self-help books, sports (“I guess the other guys wanted it more than we did”), movies ("if you build it, they will come"), fuzzy-think gurus ("start believing and acting like you’re already a millionaire, and you will get there!").

Axed Idol contestants blame the judges, anyone but themselves. The reality-distortion field is huge.

So pick your disconnect: belief unhinged from reality, or hard-working talent that doesn’t believe in itself.

American Idol claims to choose sides. It cruelly mocks those no-talents who have belief only, and crowns those who have been graced with talent and have worked to hone it. It’s the old American Dream—the meritocracy.

But the show suborns as well. The judges ask, "Do you believe you can win?" knowing the Pavlovian response will be, "oh yeah, I believe!" They (and we) are set up to believe it’s a contest of wills. Until Simon et al lower the boom, and the poor schlub is yanked back to reality—it’s still a talent show. "Oops, sorry about that, just kidding."

The winners play their roles in the farce too. They don’t say, "well, dude, I’m simply the best singer in the country, that’s all it comes down to!" No, we want our winners to play the Game; " it’s like my momma always told me, you just gotta believe in yourself…"  (See also Donald Trump in today’s Guy Kawasaki blog).

This lets us, the viewers, have our cake and eat it too. “Yeah, that’s me, my boss doesn’t recognize my talent either!” The lesson we draw is not practice, practice, practice, but—believe in yourself! It’s the New American Dream, the Cinderella story. The problem is not talent or hard work, it’s that damned evil stepmother!

And so, one Dream feeds the other—"he won because he wanted it"—and so the show creates next year’s contestants. What a business model.

Which disconnect error does your firm encourage? Bloodless competence with no soul or enthusiasm? Or empowering incompetents?

Which disconnect do you suffer from?

Or—let’s dare to go positive here—have you actually integrated them? Please do tell how.

Leading Lawyers

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On Monday, the Wall Street Journal online wrote:

The Monday-morning quarterbacking continued today on the failed merger between Dewey Ballantine and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Calling the deal an example of how “now not to consummate a merger…”

Dewey, Ballantine has about 550 lawyers; Orrick, about 900.

LegalTimes.com says it’s painful for both firms:

It represents at least the fourth time in four years that Orrick has failed to cinch a merger, prompting speculation about why the firm can’t close these deals…

..Two more partners last week decamped from Dewey, raising the question of whether the departures will mark the tail end of an exodus of more than a dozen partners…
..like many relationships that end badly, each side thinks it’s all the other’s fault.

Why did it happen? WSJ continues:

Dewey is old school, led by chairman Morton Pierce, an attorney first and manager second. Last year, he billed 3,300 hours; in his “spare” time he managed the firm. “Management is not my passion,” he admits.

Orrick chairman Ralph Baxter Jr., meanwhile, is a more modern, CEO-type leader; he doesn’t practice law, spending all of his time meeting recruits and clients and jetting to the firm’s offices around the world.

The comments on the WSJ blog boil down to:

“How can the chairman of a 550-lawyer firm legitimately bill 3,300 hours?”

But that’s not the right question. The right question is,

“How can someone who bills 3,300 hours legitimately be described as managing, much less leading, a 550-lawyer firm?”

The issue isn’t integrity of billings—it’s seriousness of leadership.

The narrowest definition of management in the law business includes checking timesheets, hiring and firing based on numbers, and hosting a few annual events. It doesn’t involve articulating a market position 5 years hence, not to mention how to get there, how to align an organization, or how to develop human beings.

Mr. Pierce is not alone. Among the professions, law is—in general, by and large—the most anarchically managed. To be fair, this is partly an outgrowth of the nature of the business itself.

Another obstacle is low trust. David Maister quotes a former law firm managing partner, “It’s not that I don’t trust my partners. They’re good people, mostly. It’s that I don’t want to have to trust them. Why give up any degree of control over your own affairs if you don’t have to?”

But industry is not destiny. Larry Bodine notes that 5 law firms made the “best places to work in the US,” including one at #16. In Canada, a law firm is #4 (see this post on Trust and Law Firms). Leadership is a prime suspect in this aberrant behavior.

The best argument for Mr. Pierce’s model is that partners respect a practicing lawyer. This parallels Nebraska Senator Roman Hruska’s response to accusations of mediocrity: “the country has a lot of mediocre people, and they deserve representation too.”

The belief that widget-making is the best qualification for leading widget-makers is alive and well in the law business (I like to think Nebraska evolved).

It’s a belief that implies surgeons, architects, financial planners, accountants and actuaries are all equal in their leadership capabilities. It also belies a belief about leadership that there is no ‘there’ there.

Which firm’s leadership model would you trust over the next 10 years?