In the legal profession today there is an increasing recognition that executive coaching is much more than a remedial tool that can be used to support professionals facing specific challenges. It is generally recognised that coaching can also be very effective in enhancing performance at inflection points in a career, such as entry into partnership or taking on a management role within a firm. However, the firms who provide coaching support on an ongoing basis to their real high flyers are still relatively few and far between.

Why would you need this? you might ask.

Afterall, the star partners in a law firm are already performing highly effectively; why would they need a coach? I’d turn this statement on its head and ask instead:

Is there even more you could get out of your star performers?

In the world of elite athletes, the support of a coach is without question. In fact, the more successful the athlete, the higher the number and calibre of coaches surrounding them. These coaches are needed to ensure that every ounce of peak performance is squeezed out of the star athletes on the specific day or in the few seconds that can make the difference between a gold and silver medal.

Further on, I run through a few possible reasons for why treating your star legal performer like an elite Olympian may produce fantastic results.

Peak performance

So, your star may be performing at a highly accretive level, but there is, perhaps, even more that you could get out of them. For lawyers performing at the very top of their game, even an increase in effectiveness of a few percentage points can have a material effect and usually, even for the most talented, highly motivated and committed of us, there are always small adjustments that can be made to make us just that little bit stronger, fitter and faster. For example, are you delegating as effectively as possible – “only doing what only you can do?” Are you applying your experience and expertise to maximum effect for the benefit for the firm? Are you taking time out to think strategically about how to develop and enhance client relationships, consider new product areas and introduce more efficient ways of working for the team? Stepping back and taking time out to consider questions such as these with the support and challenge of a coach could repay the investment of time multiple times over.

Expanding performance

Usually, star performers are either recognised experts in specific fields or excellent lawyers who are also great at developing client relationships. In both of these areas, a useful question to ask is: are they effectively spreading that expertise? If you are amazing at a specific aspect of your role, can you leverage that expertise, disseminate that knowledge and pass the skills on to others, helping your practice, your team and your firm attain even greater levels of performance? Barriers to lawyers being able to do this doing this include having sufficient time, having the confidence to do so and making it a sufficient priority.

Coaching can support this goal by delineating the time, focus and commitment to this as an aim, building confidence to pass skills and relationships on and identifying the personal pay-off in doing so. We all want to believe that we would do what we can to help others grow and succeed, but when there are many other competing demands on our time and concern about our own standing within a firm, making it a priority to do so can be challenging. Coaching addresses these issues and helps your star performer confidently leverage their talents and skills.

Legacy performance

Another reason why both firms and partners may directly benefit from coaching support is succession planning. Succession planning is now a fairly accepted part of life in the corporate world, both mandated by regulators and recognised as additive in ensuring, not only that potential successors are identified, but that their development is supported and accelerated to allow them to step into the new role with confidence. It is, however, an area that many law firms have still not grasped with conviction. This can be down to a mixture of uneasiness on the side of the partners running successful practices, that any talk of succession means the firm is contemplating requiring them to leave or concern on the part of the firm, that some of their most productive partners may not feel valued.

Supporting succession planning through coaching can be enormously helpful in getting partners comfortable with planning for a time when they may start to hand over the reins of their practice and their client relationships and ensuring that their successors are fully able to take on the ongoing role required of them with no disruption to key relationships.

Performance through Transition

Coaching can also be used to support more senior partners plan their transition out of the firm and both identify, and prepare for, the many exciting opportunities available to them as and when the heavy demands of full time practice start to ease and they embrace their increased flexibility. Again the demands of the day job mean that partners often leave thinking about the future until it is almost upon them.

It can be really helpful to start thinking about the possibilities of the future from mid-career when it still feels a long way off, when the prospect is perhaps less daunting and when there is still plenty of time to start slowly building experience, relationships, knowledge and experience and expand possible options for the future.
Longevity of Performance

Star lawyers are impressive, awe-inspiring individuals, but they are not super-human. Often the most successful performers in an organisation are the ones that are given greater and greater responsibility and the ones that most feel the weight of that responsibility. Bolstering the resilience of these individuals, supporting them in working through where to dedicate their time and ensuring that appropriate work life balance is achieved, is invaluable in terms of ensuring longevity of peak performance by that individual. The balancing act required is difficult to achieve alone. Working through this with a thinking partner, who can reflect back what they hear and both support and challenge the individual in question, can make the difference between a feeling of burn-out at some point in a career and continued sustainable success at the highest levels of performance.

Fulfilled Performance

A key issue that many firms are grappling with is how to retain their stars. Coaching is a clear signal of investment by the firm in that individual. Investment in the cost of coaching, but also the recognition that it is important for the partner in question to be given time and support away from the day job to focus on their own personal development and both current and future strategic goals.

By making a coach available, the firm is supporting the partner to identify how they can live their most effective and fulfilled existence. This support can feel invaluable and it is often these less tangible benefits that make a huge difference to someone working through whether they would consider a move to a competitor that comes calling. The coaching space also allows the lawyer to work through the decision making process, should it become an acute question, in a structured manner that allows all angles to be considered.

The outcome may ultimately be that the lawyer leaves the firm but it is more likely that all pro and cons will have been considered with the support of an objective thinking partner, avoiding the risk of a more emotionally driven response that can tend to favour the novel suitor over the known quantity.

My challenge to you

My challenge to those operating in the world of law is therefore the following:

★ are you perhaps delineating the use of coaching too narrowly?

★ does the cost benefit analysis of coaching your high performers make sense?

★ are you clear who is on your Olympic Squad?

★ are you doing everything you can to get and keep your Olympic Squad “Games-ready?”