Why we chose these as April's #FFs

April's Follow Fridays were all a question of time...

@slowfooduk  (http://www.slowfood.org.uk/)  For me, choosing the food I buy, cook and eat used to take an age. 'Has it been kindly lived and kindly killed?'; 'Does it have chemicals?', 'Is it local?', 'Is it fattening or good for me or even better both!'.  I still ask the questions but the answers appear more quickly these days - on the packaging (HATE packaging...), from the vendor/waiter/internet site, and now my own knowledge is greater too. And I used to find cooking took ages too - once I had scraped the burnt bits off the pan from the last time I had used it.  These days I have rediscovered my old cookery books, found my old slow cooker, and even plan my menus - the only way, if you travel out and about to clients as much as I do, to  juggle a husband, 2 dogs, me and a few rogue rodents, ants and birds and our various food requirements. I try not to feed the rodents and ants of course but they do seem to take without being asked so clearly they have expectations...

I came across Slow Food UK at an @acevo event.  ACEVO stands for the Association of  Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations. I declare an interest in their organisation now (as every good business person who is an ex-lawyer should for governance purposes I guess) and say that I am on their list of approved consultants for those seeking recommendations for folk who can help them take advantage of all the changes that charities face right now.  ACEVO has a time significance for me too - regular updates about latest issues in the third sector/civil society arena.   And they are on twitter. Such a help. Alerts are short and frequent.  Just what I can handle.  And not too long so no long turgid e-newsletters to put into my 'To Be Read' folder and which stay there until my quarterly clear out...

As for @legalfutures, well the wonderful Neil provides me with updates about regulatory issues but more importantly enables me to focus legal services clients' minds on issues regulatory, with it all in one accessible place, so that we can get on with issues market growth, staff performance, new business, profit maximisation etc.  The problem many traditional (and not so traditional) law firms face is that they drown in the detail (which they love as that is what we as solicitors were trained to take care of - 'take care of the sections and the act will take care of itself'...). And heaven knows the Legal Services Act as an example has stacks of detail.  In the meantime, the world moves on and so do clients and so do markets and so do the competition.  So the site is worth a daily check: http://www.legalfutures.co.uk/home.  Clients need to get their focus right on matters timing - look after the detail but at the same time look after the strategy....  So this site is a quick way of dealing with the detail of the regulatory arena of business.

Finally, @brianinkster.   What to say on matters time, timing and speed about this one? Go to: http://brianinkster.com/  And follow him on twitter.  Check out his blog: http://thetimeblawg.com/    The main reason I recommend him, apart from the fact that his blogs have time in the title, is that he is to twitter what Firm Elite is to dinners I feel!  Our dinners bring together folk who think differently about life, business and the universe and who are always willing to chat with others to challenge, exchange views, have a laugh, a glass of wine etc.  Firm Elite dinners and drinks facilitate new thoughts and ways for folk.  Brian on twitter seems to do the same, in my opinion, but using social media.   A collection of folk come together (no idea if they are on wine at the same time as twitter!) and exchange views, ideas and just general chat.  So worth a follow of him I would suggest.  And even better many of his devotees are solicitors (Go us! Yes, we may have had respect for wig, pen and ink drilled into us but we can also do typing on a mobile phone with a connection to the ether known as the internet to faceless folk to whom we have not been formally introduced...)

So - there you have it. April's Follow Fridays.  For once I have found a theme connecting them all!

One step forward - and another one back...

I nearly stood up and shouted 'I told you so' I was that pleased to see the line up at yesterday's Legal Futures Conference (if you only go to one legal services sector conference a year, this is the one). Hopefully my fellow attendees and new best friends won’t realise how close I was as the day got underway to standing up and shouting ‘I told you so!’ to all those in the legal profession who have been saying for years ‘it will never happen’.  

What, you may ask, did they think would never happen? 

Well dear Reader, take a breath and imagine... Non-lawyers providing legal services to consumers,  or customers, or purchasers.  Yes, folks, no longer will qualified solicitors charge clients by the  hour, for ‘perusal’, 1/L in, 10/R etc.  No longer will a lawyer be able to blame a difficult client if the bill is queried.   And hopefully no longer will the word 'sell' and 'services' be a dirty word in some parts of the profession.  At least, not without some competition from others who won't show the same disregard for the needs of those  purchasing their services.

Take yourself back to 1989 = when I was a lowly articled clerk and my Principal asked me what I was in the building to do, I answered ‘sell our services to people who need them’.  Huge intake of (his) breath followed and he boomed ‘young lady we do not sell…  we are good enough to provide our professional knowledge to those who are in need of it in return for some recompense’.   Huge intake of breath by me  for all those years afterwards as I thought ‘lordy, what have I done entering this world of never giving a price that is fixed; never providing a service which can be productised; never being encouraged to get excited about thinking and asking what the clients really need’.

Thankfully for those in the room yesterday there were very few of the naysayers attending – most there were either non-legal professionals or, if they were, they were the ‘savvies’ as we at Firm Beliefs call them.  (We stopped categorising lawyers years ago along the lines of magic circle, national, high street etc and started to use ‘savvy’ and ‘non-savvy’. Or even 'going places and investor ready' or 'wouldn't want to invest in the firm myself, bless them'. And a few other descriptors that a professional consultant ought not really to reveal… Our clients naturally are all savvy.)

I recalled the scene some years ago now when I attended the Law Management Section conference at which ‘the men from the RAC/Co-op/large non law firm corporate’ stood up and said ‘We are coming and we will take your business – we are more in touch with our customers’ needs than you are; we will employ  your professional staff; and we will take your clients’.  The ex-solicitor in me shivered slightly at the time. I remain very fond of those in my old profession and I felt major concern for them.  But the management consultant in me, the business person, the entrepreneurial spirit was completely aghast at the majority of the audience who said ‘it will never happen and if they try it they won’t even get it off the ground’.  Even then, the words ‘heads in sand’ sprang to mind. 

I do not know if the Law Management Section of the Law Society still attracts the same proportion of non-savvies – certainly others used to tell me that the same old names seemed to attend, same consultants seemed to speak the same old warnings, the same words and questions seem to emanate from the same old attitudes. One would hope not by now.

So yesterday, to attend Neil’s Legal Futures event, see the ‘ABSers’ as they are known by some; to see the traditional  law firms that had made the changes to move forward in full gung ho energetic flow; to hear the insightful questions and chat going on during the day made me realise even more than before that yes life as we had been told would never happen is indeed happening.  Exciting times.  Great opportunities.  There are legally trained folk out there who can actually be good business people and who can meet head on those who are from other sectors in this new market place – a market place which is bigger than before.  Because those  who think that law firms retain their traditional market, and that ABSers are entering that marketplace, are wrong – we are  now in a whole new market place.  A place for all to shop and all to serve. And the non-savvies must compete in that marketplace.

So a step forward.  And then… a step back.  Yes, the Bar… (by which I mean Barristers, not the venue at the end of the conference where further chat and jollity took place…)

During February 2011 I heard Peter Lodder, Chairman of the Bar, speak at a conference.  Although he very much took the trade unionist approach overall – stating his aim to protect his union members from changes afoot (again, slightly concerned at that was I) – he did in fact outline the opportunities, albeit difficult ones involving change, for his members.  The Bar could seize opportunities and  harness change.  So imagine my sadness yesterday when, impassioned advocate for justice and the rule of law ‘which must come first before consumers’, Baroness Deech, Chair of the Bar Standards Board, described a profession (the Bar) in a manner which simply doesn’t ring true any more with those who use the services (sorry – skills and professionalism) of the Bar.  There are of course those who will defend the duty to the law and advocacy best practice to their dying day – but most want to make a buck or two and have interesting cases. The fact that, through her illustrations of what she felt ‘the ordinary man’ would require in terms of legal advice etc (how to leave their holiday home in Marbella, sorry Benidorm, in their Will), she demonstrated a woeful lack of understanding of ‘the ordinary man’ and what services he might need which simply detracted from an admiration of her gusto in the face of attack from the Ministry of Justice (‘We must avoid control of the legal profession through the Ministry of Justice).  I admired her passion to protect a world gone by – but had to keep reminding myself that she is the Regulator of the Bar not even the Union Rep!

So, all in all, a very good conference.  Others have written far better summaries of the day, the ABSers, the speakers, the strategies, than I can and I suggest you read this one in particular:

 View from Row 3 #lfconf

 In the meantime,  I shall focus on the steps forward, not the ones back.

Why we chose these as our March #FFs

@CarersTweets and @CrossroadsCare.  Tweets from The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care.  Two charities representing carers who have now merged.  Not all charities are meeting the needs of their stakeholders by merging (some are involved in joint ventures with profit making organisations for example) but these two charities have and are now Carers Trust.

@allenovery.  Sara and Gareth attended their excellent Business of Law seminar during March.  Whilst that was memorable for its usual high quality, what was more memorable was a conversation which took place beforehand when a member of the Allen & Overy Innovation Board talked about its work. And one of their trainees expressed surprise that it existed as she had not heard of it.  Moral of the story - brief all staff about attendees at such events, particularly if involving a connection with the organisation itself.

@LancsGlobalEd.  Lancashire Global Education Centre concentrates on working to educate young people and the education sector about global issues.  One of the many charities which has relied upon traditional funding but unlike many one which also has relationships with organisations that will pay for the benefit of working with the charity.

@OpEyesight.  Operation Eyesight presented at a Canadian High Commission event.  An excellent presentation which focused well on the numerous impacts of eyecare in certain countries - financial, social and environmental. 

@PHBARGATEMURRAY. Unlike the average lawyer tweeter, Philip Henson looks at the business issues facing his stakeholders and tweets about the impact of employment law on those issues.  Rather than tweeting about legal issues and then leaving the reader to apply them to their own situation.

@filippoaddarii.  CEO of the Euclid Network - a network of civil society leaders across Europe.  Always challenging the status quo and traditional views.

@THEPPAF.  Alleviating poverty in Pakistan. 

@green_goddess.  Caroline Taylor of IBM. Challenges the traditional view that you cannot implement latest ideas in a large organisation. Or that there is no place in a large organisation to develop those ideas in the first place.

@hnesbittltd.  How you can take what works in one sector and use it to benefit other sectors.

Support Firm Eliter Jer O'Mahony's extraordinary marathon escapade...

Jer O'Mahony is running the Marathon des Sables - 6 marathons in 6 days across the Sahara. For The Cure Parkinson's Trust.   He is doing it now!

You can support him here: http://www.justgiving.com/crazy2012

Could you be a Firm Beliefs Associate Consultant?

There is much to be done by those in our sectors - and we are being asked to support them more and more.

So we are looking for more Associate Consultants - part-time or full-time.  The requirements are challenging.  There are after all plenty of consultants around.  We turn away quite a few.  Unless they have what we look for.

Who are we looking for? Those who have:

1. Experience:

(a) of our sectors

Experience - in the third sector/charity sector but with the need to understand the social impact sector more broadly (profit making organisations with a social purpose where the profits remain in the organisation;  profit making organisations with a 'traditional' purpose but with an impact-making focus through financial, environmental and social sustainability programmes, for example)

Experience - in the legal sector, be that law firms or  barristers chambers, but with the need to understand the legal services sector more broadly (so not just law firms or chambers but also service organisations generally who offer a legal advice/law management support service, for example)

(b) of management

Be that in-house as an employed professional manager (so with proven skills in the usual business functions) or as somebody who has developed basic management skills as part of their technical role. 

Experience as a consultant is not a bar to working with Firm Beliefs - as long as the consultancy role in the past has not entailed 'a one size fits all/model' approach.

(c) of change...

This is critical.  The emotional ups and downs; the trials and tribulations; the technical skills pertinent to change programmes in organisations and individuals; the patience needed in terms of project management of programmes entailing change. ETC...

And the acceptance that experience in the past is just the starting point... The world is changing and sometimes past experience just cannot translate into the needs of the future.

2. Skills and knowledge

(a) of business techniques -  e.g. HR, Finance, Technology, Operations, Marketing (including comms and stakeholder issues), sustainability around finance and environment and society - plus the usual strategic aspects of organisational development and design.  If  you specialise in one, there needs to be an understanding of the impact of the others on your specialisation and vice versa - in terms of joined up management.

(b) of the sectors and of the consultancy role

(c) and a demonstrable record of keeping yourself up to date and in touch with latest thinking - and maybe even a bit of future thinking...

3. Attitude

(a) Intrigued by latest technology developments and willing to use it where effective and to support clients to do so.

(b) Inspired by latest thinking generally - and willing to adapt it to make it practical and realistic!

(c) Learning from the others in the team - and willing to share what you know with them.

(d) A positive approach to clients and to supporting them - no matter how tricky or what  your experience has been with 'that sector' in the past!

4. Networking and contacts

(a) Experience of office politics, different types of networks and all the foibles that they bring to getting the job done.

(b) A willingness to share your network with clients insofar as it helps the client to develop business and its own network.  A willingness to support our Firm Beliefs network of contacts and clients generally - with sharing of ideas and our contacts.

If this sounds like you, do contact: sara@firmbeliefs.co.uk or bill@firmbeliefs.co.uk for an informal chat.