Finding the Fulcrum & Tipping Boulders:

Strategic Approaches to Effecting Change

Richard Clark

Director of Conflicts & Records,

Haynes and Boone LLP

Our Panel

Jeff WillingerSally Gonzalez

KM & IT Strategy ConsultantMichael Farrell Group LLC

Social Business Strategist,Rightpoint

@jwillie

Agenda

• Creating a sense of urgency

• Common barriers to change

• Psychology of change; how to foster listening

• Identifying and prioritizing opportunities

• Case Studies

• Q&A

Change is easier when theplatform is burning…

1. Create urgency

8. Anchor new approaches in culture

7. Consolidate gains; produce more change

6. Generate short term wins

5. Empower broad based action

3. Form vision and strategy

4. Communicate the vision

2. Broad-based coalition

Low

Organizational

Reach

High

Low

Number of

Leaders Needed

High

Source: Leading Change; John Kotter

The Legal Platform is Finally Burning…or Smoldering

The Good Old Days…Pre 2008

The Legal Platform is Finally Burning…or Smoldering

Pre-2008

Demand Exceeds Supply

• Demand growth of 4.5% per

year

• Rate growth of 6-8% per year

• Modest competitive pressures

• Healthy growth rates even for

firms lacking strategic focus

Post-2008

Supply Exceeds Demand

• Organic growth dependent

on stealing market share or

finding market niches

• Strategic focus becomes

critically important

The Legal Platform is Finally Burning…or Smoldering

Pre-2008

A Seller’s Market

• Law firms control basic structure

and processes of legal work as

well as pricing, organization, and

scheduling

• Focus on rates and billable hours

• Few incentives for efficiencies

Post-2008

A Buyer’s Market

• Clients demand efficiency

and cost effectiveness in

delivery of legal services

• Firms beginning to work in

different ways

• New competitors in market

“Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.”

“A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”

Lewis Carroll, Through the

Looking Glass and What Alice

Found There

Barriers to change

• Leadership coming from same background

• Closed-minded attitude

• Client demands / external pressures

• Absence of financial incentives or motivation

• Scale of change required

Psychology of Attorneys

What makes attorneys good for their clients?• Critical Thinking:

• Skeptical• Cynical• Pessimistic• Negative

• Attorneys all come from the same background• Always top of class• Smartest person in the room• Result oriented, rather than process oriented

Psychology of change; how to foster listening

• Avoid coercive or incentivized approaches

• Make sure you understand the objective

• Obtain attorney buy-in

• Solicit input, or

• Make them think it is their idea

• Listen to Needs

Identifying Opportunities --In A Target Rich Environment

Identifying Opportunities --Measure Against Business Value

Identifying Opportunities --Setting Priorities

Identifying Opportunities --Transform Into a Roadmap

Case Studies

Case Study: Driving Change in Project Athena

“Kotter Step” Approach

Create urgency Powerful business case presented in KM Strategy

Broad-based coalitionProject team included representatives from all stakeholder communities (KM,

IT, Firm Management, Lawyers)

Form vision and strategy Spent 2-3 months envisioning and strategizing

Communicate the visionFormal communications plan; tightly controlled and consistent messaging

and language throughout

Empower broad based

action

Outreach to KM Community and Practice Groups; engagement of IT

resources

Generate short term winsAgreement on work flows, policies, and procedures; culling of legacy

collections; agreement on doc types; system pilots

Consolidate gains; produce

more change

Policies & procedures enabled work flow changes; system enabled desired

behaviors

Anchor new approaches in

culture

KM Central team conducting individualized consultations with practice groups

in each office to foster/reinforce behaviors

Cross fertilization from other organization types

The US Military after

WWI

Gulf War

The US Military in

WWII

VietnamKorea Iraq War Afghanistan

WHY?DEFINE BUSINESS CONTEXT• Business Case• Definition of ROI• Stakeholder Deep Dive• Milestones

DEFINE THE HUMAN CONTEXT• Who are the end-users?• What do we want them to do?• How do we engage them?• What’s in it for me?

DEFINE PROCESS & TECHNOLOGY CONTEXT• Process• Platform Requirements

o Functionalityo Contento Workflow

HOW?

ENSURING ALIGNMENT OF

GOALS, USERS, AND SOLUTIONS

To deliver accelerated acceptance, adoption, and

advocacy.

WHO?

CRAWL, WALK, RUN….

5 step process to achieve social collaboration

goals

DefineCreate Personas & User Requirements

Discover

Conduct Stakeholder Workshop

DesignCreate Collaboration

Adoption Strategy

DevelopCreate Roadmap

DeployExecute Roadmap

Project Management and Quality Assurance

1

Roadma

p

2 3 4 5

WHY WHO HOW

Collaboration goals

OVERALL COLLABORATION GOAL:Develop a purposeful social collaboration approach that unleashes the power of ORGANIZATION’S people and knowledge and helps form a “culture of collaboration”.

GOAL FOR INTRANET:

1. Enable INTRANET to be a model for how best to manage and grow collaborative communities that meet clearly defined business goals.

2. Lead by example - influence the company’s behavior and culture by making collaboration a regular practice – not an isolated event.

3. Enable the Portal to leverage collaboration to:

Drive innovation for products and capabilities

Energize decision making by putting together the right information with the right experts

Accelerate the spreading of new ideas

Collaboration Maturity model

Level 1:

Traditional

Collaboration

» Face-to-face, phone, email

Level 2:

Experimentation

» Point solutions; departmental/business unit focus

» Prompted by specific user needs

Level 3:

Proliferation

» Tools in use on widespread basis

» Lack of interoperability; duplicate functionality

» Basic enterprise standards / governance

Level 4:

Standardization

» Enterprise strategy in place

» Standardization on collaboration platform

» Collaboration partially integrated into business

processes

» Anytime / anyplace access

Level 5:

Culture of

Collaboration

» Integrated workspace strategy in place

» Collaboration fully integrated into daily processes

» Cultural integration

If current

collaboration

maturity level is

at Level 1, with

steps taken

Level 2.

To achieve

effectiveness, we

recommend focus on

attaining high Level 3 /

low Level 4 capability.

Collaboration Adoption Barriers

“We’re not

seeing the value

of social

collaboration”

“We don’t know

how to use

SharePoint to

collaborate.”

“We don’t really

understand the

value social

collaboration”

“Our

leadership

team doesn’t

get social

collaboration”

“Our culture

doesn’t

support this

whole social

thing”

“We can’t

collaborate

socially because

of compliance”

“The tools are

hard to use

and

cumbersome”

“We don’t have enough

resources to focus on adoption

right now”

“Straw man” adoption plan

Collaborating using social tools is often a behavior change for an organization. A thoughtful communication plan will help prepare your users and drive fast adoption.

Pre-launch Ideas

1. Create multi-channel communication plan.

2. Conduct Collaboration Adoption Strategy Workshop.

3. Define the core goals for end-user participation and create an incentive program.

4. Create an idea generation initiative

5. Enable sponsors and champions to build buy-in and enlist participation.

6. Send teaser emails to end-users to create buzz and awareness.

Launch Ideas

1. Create a focused contest

2. Disseminate Trivia to create engagement

3. Implement Gamification / Badging Program

4. Incorporate a “No Email Day” into the Launch

4. Celebrate great use, encourage users, address frequent questions

Ongoing Ideas

1. Conduct Listening Tours to guide the Communities – based on feedback and observation, provide gentle guidance to drive the right behaviors

2. Celebrate Success – share great use cases, quotes, etc. to show value and drive the right behaviors

3. Disseminate “Tips of the Week” via different channels

4. Conduct User Experience Testing

Questions & Answers

Reading List

• Leading Change; John P. Kotter; 1996

• The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their

Organizations; John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen; Harvard Business

School Publishing; 2002

• The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference; Malcolm

Gladwell; Little, Brown & Company; March 2006

• The Village; Bing West; Simon & Schuster, Inc.; 1972

• One Tribe at a Time; Major Jim Gant; Nine Sisters Imports, Inc.; 2009

• “What Makes Lawyers Tick” (www.lawyerbrainblog.com); Dr. Larry

Richard

• Jeff Willinger www.linkedin.com/in/jeffwillinger