What excites you?
Lawyers tend to be very creative, especially in groups, and they can generate enormous lists of interesting ideas, most of them based on good information and reasonable hypotheses about the future direction of their firms. The volume of plausible tactics and action plans is often very impressive, and sometimes is almost frightening in terms of the combined intellectual power that they represent.
So, why do so many law firms fail to implement their plans or, at best, achieve only disappointing results? Frequently it is because they overlooked the importance of asking How are we going to do this? as part of the later stages of the planning process. Often even apparently brilliant plans give only superficial treatment to, or overlook entirely, five important questions:
1. Will achievement of this objective make a profound difference to our measurable performance?
2. How will we measure success?
3. Is each implementing tactic clearly relevant to one of our goals?
4. What resources will we need?
5. Who is the best person to be responsible for implementation of each objective?
In other words, these firms forget that, in a very real sense, implementation starts now.
There is one other question that I would like to suggest that law firms ask themselves when trying to prioritize a long list of good ideas: What excites you?
Most lawyers in law firms are practical, often skeptical, business people. They are seldom motivated by lofty visions. Instead, it is innovative action — making a difference in a professional services world in which differentiation is becoming more challenging — that attracts passionate commitment. This is what motivates professional people to strive for great goals, not the latest business school buzz-words or shiny slogans that are devoid of any practical meaning.
After you and your partners have done the detailed collection and analysis of the information that you need to make a well-informed decision about a list of equally attractive tactics and actions, ask yourselves: What ones are exciting?
A good business case can be persuasive.
Excitement is what can make it compelling.