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Worldview Archives
Rethinking Performance Metrics
Old paradigms about how to measure performance might be preventing, rather than motivating, your law firm's success.
Law firms thrive on the quality of their legal services and client relationships. In this context, qualitative goals, not just rigid numbers, are more indicative of progress and can have greater diagnostic value in detecting and addressing problems before they become crises.
Beyond Mere Words
Empty slogans, exhortations to work harder, and irrelevant "best practices" are not only ineffective; they often are counterproductive.
They do not promote clarity. Instead, most people are left to wander in the fog, from data point to data point, without understanding where they are going or why.
Driving Fear Out of Law Firms
Law firm leaders must foster environments in which everyone feels secure and valued.
This is the ninth in a series of sixteen articles that will explore the relevance and, for some law firms the existential importance, of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points, especially for small and midsize law firms.
Leading the Way to Quality in Legal Services
The legal services industry is awash in advice about leadership. How can Deming's Seventh Point build better leadership in law firms?
Here are five practical actions that Walker Clark clients are taking that are consistent with Deming’s Seventh Point and the outcomes that they are experiencing from each one.
Continuous Improvement
To remain competitive and profitable in today's legal services market, law firms need to continuously improve how they work.
The fifth of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points, Improve Constantly and Forever the System of Production and Service, calls for a never-ending commitment to enhancing quality and efficiency within an organization. This principle has profound implications for law firms, impacting not only day-to-day internal operations but also bottom-line profitability.
Cease dependence on inspection.
"Cease dependence on inspection," W. Edwards Deming's third point for effective management, is perhaps one of the least understood principles in the context of service industries like law firms.
Conventionally, it translates into the notion that quality should not be an afterthought checked through after-the-fact inspections but ingrained in every step of the production process.
For law firms, this means shifting the focus from reactive measures to proactive strategies that enhance the quality of legal services by reducing or eliminating altogether the causes of mistakes and rework.
Adopt the new philosophy.
The second challenge in W. Edward Deming's Fourteen Points is Adopt the New Philosophy. It is particularly relevant in today's legal services industry, especially as many traditional law firms try to build and sustain a collaborative and productive workplace culture.
Constancy of Purpose
This is the second of a series of sixteen articles that will explore the relevance and, for some law firms the existential importance, of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points, especially for small and midsize law firms.
The first of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points for effective management calls for organizations to "Create Constancy of Purpose for Improving Products and Services." How can law firms do this in the face of changing client expectations and market dynamics?
Why Law Firms Need Deming’s Fourteen Points Now More Than Ever
Quality service, not price, rankings, or size, is what will differentiate successful law from from those that merely survive the 2020s.
Delivering the best quality legal services is a sincere aspiration of almost every law firm. For most of them, however, the word quality is little more than a slogan on their websites.
This is the first of a series of sixteen articles that will explore the relevance and, for some law firms, the existential importance, of W. Edwards Deming's Fourteen Points.
Artificial Intelligence: A Powerful Tool to Improve Service Quality
In today's highly competitive markets for legal service, it is service quality, not technical expertise, that will differentiate your law firm from your equally well-qualified competitors.
Artificial intelligence will never be a substitute for quality management, but it can provide powerful diagnostic tools and methods to build sustainable quality into every aspect of your practice.
