CLE Leadership & Management
Ideas, Resources, and Techniques
for CLE Professionals
A periodic e-newsletter
By Chuck Bingaman - chuck@chuckbingaman.com
#5 April, 2003
We’re living in complex,
disturbing, sometimes depressing times. It’s difficult to keep our
thoughts—even during working hours—on CLE and how to manage it as well as we
can. I wish I had a brilliant, inspirational
message to make the world situation seem less daunting. As addictive as they are, I do think
we all need to take breaks from the news media, perhaps for some lengthy period
every day and perhaps for a day or two each week. And maybe we need to get away from the
office and have a real coffee break with an old friend once or twice each
week. I’m doing that, and I’m finding
it refreshing, fun and therapeutic!
Leadership
In
the course
of recent consulting engagements with CLE organizations, I’ve been reminded of
the importance of governing board chairs and board members understanding their
roles and of the necessity of CLE staff leaders’—supported by their board
leaders—teaching new board members their roles. Even though most of our directors or
trustees are lawyers, few have thought about the importance, contrasting nature
and limits to board and staff roles. And
few CLE organizations seem to offer the needed training to help directors or
trustees appreciate and perform in their
roles.
Very
simply
stated, a governing board’s roles are to set and keep current the major policy
directions of the organization and to recruit, employ and evaluate the head of
staff. Beyond those roles, which
are quite substantive and vital to the organization, the entry of board members
into day-to-day operations of a CLE entity invites confusion, tension and
disruption. The staff leader’s roles
are to manage the enterprise consistently with the board’s policy decisions,
to recognize and raise policy issues for board guidance and to report on the
execution of the board’s policy decisions. If the staff intrudes into the policy-making
role, it invites either conflict with the board or diminishing interest on the
part of the board. In healthy organizations,
both the board and the staff play their roles fully and well and respect the
other’s vital domain. Unfortunately, in some cases, the parties
do not understand the differing natures of their roles, don’t communicate clearly
where the roles may overlap, blunder into each other’s domains and create unnecessary
conflict and business problems.
I
suggest two
approaches to minimizing board/staff confusion and conflict. First, make thorough orientation of new
board members—at least a day on-site with the key staff—an integral part of joining
your board. Required participation
in such orientation should be a policy decision endorsed by the board to see
that new members understand the business thoroughly and get up to speed with
the information they need to make future policy decisions. Second, ask the board, as a matter of
policy, to adopt a board member’s job description that clearly sets out its expectations
for and limits on directors’ actions. Part of the new member board orientation
is the review of the board member’s job description. I attach below a draft job description
that can be tailored for most CLE entities.
We as professional staff leaders in CLE—the people who provide much of the continuity for our organizations—must provide a significant part the leadership in assuring that the differing roles in CLE governance are honored and kept in balance. Of course our board officers must also understand and help maintain the proper balance of roles. That balance requires periodic discussion, maintenance and flexibility. If we do not provide that education and maintenance, the balance can easily fall into dangerous disequilibrium.
Management
We’re all looking for ways
to grow—some even just to maintain—CLE customer numbers and revenue levels
in
difficult economic times. A very
provocative article titled “Double Digit Growth in No-Growth Times” by Adrian
Slywotzky and Richard Wise in the April, 2003 Fast Company magazine, actually
drawn from their new book titled How to Grow When Markets Don’t (Warner
Books, 2003), is well worth considering.
The authors note
that, “in an era of global overcapacity, product-centered strategies alone—even
those executed by the most nimble companies—won’t create the kind of growth” that
we seek. That analysis rings true
to CLE as I observe it in many places. There IS overcapacity in CLE, and I do
not see product-centered strategies producing significant growth. The good news is that Slywotzky and Wise
have found companies that have created new ways to grow “by addressing the issues
surrounding their products rather than by simply improving the products
themselves.” Such companies
have exploited a seldom-noted truth that, while the product sale may be the culmination
of the supplier’s efforts, it usually marks the beginning of
the customer’s efforts. The authors
argue that there may be some real products or services that sellers may provide
to ease or make our customers’ efforts more effective.
To bring it home to CLE, however effective our CLE courses or print materials may be, lawyers still must translate or apply what they learn from them to their practices. Perhaps we can maintain and grow our CLE organizations by providing new services to build upon those wants and needs to apply what we teach. Nowhere is it written that we are limited to providing traditional courses and publications. I’m just now digesting the insights in the article. And I wonder if we can find ways to grow CLE businesses by expanding into “follow-on” areas. What about providing professionally prepared notes from our courses? What about versions of courses for legal secretaries and paralegals? What about special teaching materials to enable course registrants to teach our subjects to colleagues or to clients when they return to their firms? What about offering MCLE record keeping with built-in reminders of available courses in subjects in which lawyers have indicated past interest? I’d be interested in YOUR take on this growth idea and ideas you suggest for pursuing it. (Note that the authors remind us that the pursuit of issues surrounding our products cannot be allowed to diminish focus on maintaining excellence in our core businesses as they create the opportunities for the other pursuits.)
Resources
& Strategies Speaking
of Fast Company resources,
have you checked out the Guides available on the www.FastCompany.com web
site? Actually, they’re
selected
short articles organized by subject matter. They offer free, pointed, practical
guidance—many with great examples—in a number of business areas that we all visit
from time to time. Did
you know that you can add the fantastic searching power of Google to your web
site
through free downloadable software on the Google site? (I’m suggesting that you
look at the possibility—not necessarily that it’s for everybody. And, at least in my case, I would not
recommend installing it at home or at the office without teenage
supervision. See www.google.com/searchcode.html for
details.) Also, did you know that
you can have your Google search results reported in your choice of many languages?
Including Elmer Fudd? Our
old friend Nick Olley from
the College of Law in York, England, reports that the College is reorganizing
and eliminating his program by September. Nick’s
thinking of possible ways to morph his CLE career and would be glad to speak
with people or groups that might use his worldwide contacts for
CLE offerings. You can contact Nick
at Nick.Olley@lawcol.co.uk. Finally,
did you know that
several new studies reported in the March 25 Wall Street
Journal have
reinforced a practice that most of us know intuitively—but some of us have not
consistently followed? Taking our
vacation time can yield marked improvements in our mental and physical health
for substantial periods of time even after we return. And vacations can increase our
longevity. Take your vacation
time!
Following an award-winning 20 years as Executive Director of Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, Chuck now consults full-time on business opportunities and management challenges with CLE organizations, legal publishers, and law firms. Chuck also teaches a course on law practice marketing and writes a monthly marketing column for lawyers. You can contact him at chuck@chuckbingaman.com, at 603-756-9268, or at P.O. Box 390, Walpole, NH 03068 where, incidentally, he is a member of the Walpole Society of Pursuers of Horse Thieves and Pilferers of Hen Roosts and Clothelines.