Kerry Neill
MD at The Futures Group | PRINT Coach| Change Management/Organisational Dev | Strategic HR
Crafting a positive corporate culture is the ‘holy grail’ of firms, but many lawyers lack an understanding of what culture really means. Felicity Nelson reports.
‘Workplace Culture’ has become the latest catchphrase around firms, plastered across recruitment materials and corporate websites. Yet for many lawyers the true meaning of culture remains a mystery, according to consultant Joel Barolsky, a managing director at Barolsky Advisors.
“Culture is quite hard to get your head around,” he said. “There is a complexity and fluidity about it that makes it challenging.”
Culture has both “visible and invisible elements” that manifest in innumerable ways. “The visible elements are how people behave and relate to each other and clients day to day,” said Mr Barolsky.
These are “simple things”, such as how work gets done, how long people take to return emails, whether staff turn up to meetings on time, or how lawyers treat administrative staff, he explained.
These behaviours are largely produced by the invisible elements of culture – the belief systems and values that operate within a firm.
As an example, he suggested employees at a workplace where quality and excellence were valued were likely to emphasise attention to detail.
In a standardised workplace, such as McDonalds, many of these behaviours will be codified through manuals and scripts, he continued
“In a professional environment […] you can’t codify everything, so it is much more reliant on a sense of values.”
Culture as a strategy
The legal market is “flat in many respects” and law firms face increasing pressures from clients and competitors, according to Mr Barolsky.
In this context, just having a strong collegiate culture is not going to cut it. “[Culture] needs to be taken on a slightly harder commercial edge an service edge […] if it is going to be a source of competitive advantage,” he said.
Cultural change starts with leadership from the top, but also hinges on reform of remuneration and reward structures.
Creating productive politics that reduces infighting, resource hoarding and client ‘ownership’ is a positive step, according to Mr Barolsky.
Firms should also focus on promoting collaboration, consistent high standards, diversity, continuity, alignment of values, self-sufficiency, busyness, agility and the ability to execute strategy.
Firms that are perceived to genuinely care about their staff do better, Mr Barolsky explained. Toxic cultures lower productivity and make staff less willing to go that “extra mile”.
Re-engineering culture is a difficult task because so much about a firm’s culture is embedded in narratives, myths, symbols and rituals.
“Cultures are shaped by the stories that get told in and around the firm,’ said Mr Barolsky. “Who are the heroes and heroines of the firm? Even things like who gets corner offices and who gets certain privileges, who gets ‘car parks’ [matter],” he said.
He compared culture to a dot diagram: “Each one of the dots in its own is not important but, when you look at it as a whole, it forms a picture.”
Sincerity and success
Many lawyers take a sceptical approach to value statements, viewing it as “management jargon” and pure “puff puffery” according at Mr Barolsky. “In some firms, people’s scepticism is justified – it is just a decoration.”
On the other hand, a lot of lawyers are “quite proud” of their culture and view it as a core part of their business
“When you see [culture] operate in some firms – you can just walk into a firm and you can smell it, you can see it, you can feel it.”
Expressing values and promoting culture can only unleash commercial potential when it is authentic.
“It has to reflect the truth, or else people will be quite dismissive of it. Lawyers, by nature or by training, are sceptics.”
Recruiters often use the term ‘cultural fit’ when describing the qualities they are looking for in a lawyer.
However, the search for a ‘cultural fit’ rarely goes deeper than whether a candidate is likeable and presentable, according to Neal Ashkanasy, a professor of management at the University of Queensland.
“People do recruit for cultural fit, but they don’t quite know what that is,” he said.
Mr Barolsky said the term ‘cultural fit’ was used “very generally” by law firms. Many firms screen candidates to ensure they are not offensive, egotistical or disruptive but do not go beyond that, he said.
“They look at that aspect rather than seeing if they fit with the prevailing culture,” he said. “It is not so much cultural fits as cultural misfits.”
