People Come First credo is a recipe for Success

Sunday, January 8, 2006
St. Louis Post-Dispatch Business C5
"Clayton law firm finds happy employees result in happy clients."

 


People are the foundation for success in a service business.Strategy must work for employees, customers and owners that order, according to Herb Kelleher, chairman emeritus of Southwest Airlines. If the company does a great job of selecting, training and motivating its employees, they will do a wonderful job of "wowing" customers. The resulting loyal customers are the solid foundation for superior financial performance and happy owners.

Especially in knowledge and service businesses, attracting and fully engaging the right employees is the foundation for business success. Paule Camazine & Blumenthal, a 25-attorney law firm in Clayton, demonstrates that Kelleher's "people come first" credo is becoming more valid every day.

Don Paule, Alisse Camazine, Tom Blumenthal and nine other lawyers established the firm 12 years ago. They wanted a firm that consistently gives its clients legal counsel and services that meet its high standards. Like Kelleher, they realized that this mission required a people-driven strategy.

Such a strategy does not mean abdicating leadership responsibilities or focusing on making employees happy in the short term. A true people-driven strategy requires first-rate leadership that focuses on the long-term satisfaction of its people. It requires a clear, compelling vision and strategy for achieving it, hard and soft incentives so people work together toward that vision, and accountability for results.

"People come first" has many dimensions.

First, within the firm, it means rejecting hierarchy, respecting diversity and individuality and practicing teamwork. Teamwork is especially important. Partners at some firms spend the first three months of every year yelling at each other over compensation.

Paule Camazine & Blumenthal has a simple compensation formula that rewards people for bringing in the work and for doing it. No one argues over compensation, and no one wants any tinkering with the formula.

Second, attorneys and staff deserve a life outside work. Associates are expected to bill a reasonable number of hours a year, but significantly fewer than at many larger firms. Paule Camazine & Blumenthal encourages its lawyers not to make a habit of working late into the night or on weekends. Family is given priority. It's OK to take off an afternoon when a child is in a class play. Others fill in—for sometimes lengthy absences—when there is a major illness or a death in a family.

Third, and perhaps most important, are the people. Those first two aspects of a "people come first" strategy appeal to top-tier attorneys who want to "have a life." But Paule Camazine & Blumenthal also strives to hire lawyers and staff members with a passionate commitment to excellence.

Its concept of excellence is rooted in three non-negotiable values:

The goal is always great client service. Being accessible and responsive, for example, means no screening of phone calls and responding to every call each day.

All employees must adhere to the highest standards of truthfulness, integrity and trustworthiness. Internally, this applies to staff as well as to attorneys. Externally, it applies to legal opponents as well as clients.

"Good enough" is never good enough. Attorneys hold themselves and each other to the highest standards. Support staff are equally demanding of themselves. Each person at the firm develops a five-year plan for professional growth, and each receives candid feedback and coaching from others. This especially includes mentoring associate attorneys, so they can become partners.

Providing candid feedback to partners is not easy. But it is necessary so young partners in their 30s continue to provide excellent legal representation and service 20 years later. Paule Camazine & Blumenthal learned this the hard way. It has let some attorneys go because they no longer met its standards.

I recently facilitated a strategy retreat for the firm's attorneys. One exercise was to answer 12 questions that the Gallup Organization has found over the years best measure the core elements needed to attract, focus and keep the most talented employees. Perhaps the most important of these questions is, "At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?"

Gallup has found that "only 20 percent of people report that they are in a role where they have a chance to do what they do best every day."

But 74 percent of the lawyers and 64 percent of the administrators and staff at Paule Camazine & Blumenthal answered "yes" to that question.

Jobs at a high-performance organization are just as stressful as those at lesser firms. People push themselves. They go home tired.

But they also go home with the satisfaction of knowing they are providing value to clients, achieving their full potential and maximizing the financial security of their family. It's a good tired.




The Gallup Questions‚ that identify high-performance organizations are:


1. Do I have a best friend at work?

2. In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress?

3. In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work?

4. At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day?

5. Is there someone at work who cares about my development?

6. Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important?

7. At work, do my opinions seem to count?

8. Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work?

9. This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow?

10. Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right?

11. Do I know what is expected of me at work?

12. Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person?



They were first published in First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently (page 28), the 1998 best seller by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

Over 80% of Paule Camazine & Blumenthal's people answer Yes to 8 of these 12 questions.

 

 



Bill Finnie, a business consultant and adjunct professor at Washington University, writes about the do's and don'ts for success.

E-mail BIll  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and William C. Finnie share the copyright on this column. Individuals and their organizations may use these columns for their internal use. Publication for use outside of your organization, however, requires written permission from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch or William C. Finnie.