CLE Leadership & Management
Ideas, Resources, and Techniques for
CLE Professionals
A periodic e-newsletter
By Chuck Bingaman - chuck@chuckbingaman.com
#25 December 2005
Leadership  John P. Kotter, Matsushita Professor of Leadership at
Harvard Business School, argues that “producing change is about 80%
leadership—establishing direction, aligning, motivating and inspiring
people—and about 20% management—planning, budgeting, organizing
and problem solving.” Unfortunately, he says, “in most change
efforts, those percentages of effort are reversed.” Think about that—and
act accordingly—in planning your efforts at bringing positive change
to your organization. Business consultant Patrick Lencioni, author of Death
by Meeting, recommends improving your meetings by adding drama—stating
issues with conflicts built in so everyone is engaged with the issues and
possible solutions—and by precisely planning the context and purpose
of each meeting. He suggests a regimen of four different types of meetings
in most enterprises: a Daily Check-In (ten minutes to keep everyone aligned
and updated), a Weekly Tactical (no more than an hour to discuss and resolve
issues affecting near-term objectives), a Monthly Strategic (the time to
cover big topics with long-term strategic impact where people can brainstorm,
debate, and wrestle with one another in search of long-term solutions), and
a Quarterly Offsite Review (where leaders can reassess issues of strategy,
performance of teams and individuals, competitive threats, and industry trends.)
Management
Peter
Drucker, the most influential management thinker of the past century, died
a month ago. His suggestions for managing organizations, often expressed in
shrewd questions, have guided me for years. An article from 1992, “Be
Data Literate—Know What to Know” is typical of valuable suggestions
he shared for over 60 years. “Few executives,” Drucker said, “yet
know how to ask: What information do I need to do my job? When do I need it?
In what form? And from whom should I be getting it? Fewer still ask: What new
tasks can I tackle now that I get all these data? Which old tasks should I
abandon? Which tasks should I do differently? Practically no one asks: What
information do I owe? To whom? When? In what form?” A key question
Drucker constantly raised with managers was, “When do you should stop
pouring resources into projects that have served their purposes or failed?” Most
of us have a few of those losers on our hands at any given time! E.g. annual
courses that are worn out or book titles that really struggle to justify new
editions. Drucker always wanted his consulting clients to report on what had
been dropped recently—not just what had succeeded. “Purpose
branding” is
explored in an article by Christensen, Cook and Hall in the December Harvard
Business Review. As Harvard professor Theodore Levitt used to say: “People
don’t want to buy a quarter inch drill. They want a quarter inch hole.” We
CLE people might see that lawyers don’t want to buy courses or books
but rather the ability to plan estates or manage divorces properly, efficiently
and profitably. Following Levitt’s thinking, our task is not so much
to understand lawyers as to understand the tasks they want to master now and
to build products that will help them do it. If we can do that well, we can
become tightly associated with the JOBS lawyers perform and have brand names
associated with mastering those jobs—an association closely tied to their
hearts and minds.
Resources I recently
was honored to speak to a group of high level legal executives on “Bingaman’s
Almost Perfect CLE Hiring System.” I have been successful
in hiring a lot of absolutely terrific people in my CLE career. And,
I have to
admit, I’ve learned a few things the hard way! That’s why
my system—any hiring system—is only “almost perfect!” If
you have critical hiring needs for your organization, I’d be glad
to discuss my system with you. Oh! And it’s not really a “system” but
rather a sequence of steps and procedures designed to find the right
people with the right attitudes. Have
you had a CLE course registrant or faculty member collapse at one of
your programs? It is not that unusual.
You and your staff should be prepared for it. The American Stroke Association
recently issued a simple three-step test that non-medical people can
use to look for stroke symptoms: 1. Ask the individual to SMILE.
2. Ask him/her to RAISE BOTH ARMS. 3. Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE
SENTENCE
(i.e. ‘It’s sunny out today’). If he/she has
trouble with any of those tasks, call 911 immediately and describe the
symptoms
to the dispatcher. Check
out Generations
at Work: Managing the Clash of Veterans, Boomers, Xers, and Nexters in
Your Workplace by Ron
Zemke, et al (October, 1999). I’m finding
it a fascinating, highly accessible book for understanding people dynamics
in our businesses and elsewhere.
I
attended the World High Performance Forum in Chicago
last month sponsored by a New York seminar firm called HSM. Interesting
firm to watch: their
format is to present BIG NAME speakers (Colin Powell, Stephen Covey,
Rudy Guiliani, Bill Clinton, Jack Welch, etc.), give scanty materials
and charge BIG prices. And advertise with big Wall Street Journal and
magazine ads along with web ads, email, direct mail, etc. Might be worth
your following their activities to see what works for them—and
might work for you. See www.HSM-US.com.
I hope you have a rewarding and inspiring holiday season. I welcome your feedback! Please
keep in touch! CCB
Following 20
years as Executive Director of a major American CLE organization, Chuck
now consults
and teaches on strategic planning, marketing, blogging and management challenges
with CLE and other legal organizations, law firms, law schools and others.
He also offers economical in-house training through conference call courses
for CLE and bar association staffs. He welcomes your inquiries on projects
designed to enhance your organization’s effectiveness.
You can contact
him at chuck@chuckbingaman.com, at 1-603-756-9268, or at P.O. Box 390, Walpole,
NH, USA 03068-0390. Past issues of this newsletter are archived at www.chuckbingaman.com.
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