We had a meeting today with SugarShaker, the designers and advisors who are helping us to revamp our existing website. 'You need to do a blog' they said. Being a lawyer at heart, this unnerved me. 'What is a blog?' I thought; then 'can I be sued for what I say on it?!' Then I pondered the rather excellent in-house blogs I have seen written by chief executives of firms and the equally effective blogs I have read which are written by organisations with a view to enticing readers like me to read more about the business which is the subject of the blog.

A quick scan of some of the best leads me to the view that a weekly blog could serve our clients well -it would enable us to bring to their attention developments in the 'outside world', developments in our own services and would foster closer relationships with them so that we can better serve them. A few 'phone calls later and we have signed up a number of contacts and clients to be guest bloggers - so that our own musings do not become the only ones... Watch this blogging space!

For some interesting corporate style blogs, try: www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors http://www.seeingthepossibilities.com/ http://direct2dell.com/one2one/default.aspx

I recovered from my morning's course at the MOD Training Academy in Shrivenham last week by deciding it was time to increase my fitness levels (or at least I would try to attempt to...). Not because I was on a fitness training course whilst there (sadly no - delivering a programme relating to HRM and employment law instead...). I became involved in a conversation with Dan Whiter, who was one of the delegates on the course.

Dan runs marathons to raise money for the Army Benevolent Fund.

A feature of this website will be to raise awareness of various charities and fund-raising activities in which our clients are involved. Dan's chosen charity is therefore our Charity of the Month for April - our first charity after the launch of our new website.

To find out more about Dan, and the charity, click on http://www.justgiving.com/danwhiter We shall be keeping in touch with Dan and we hope you do too. If you have any questions for Dan, or wish to make a donation, please contact him direct but do let us know that our site has made a little difference to the charity's income.

I was a guest of TocH at the Royal Albert Hall, sitting in their box watching Madam Butterfly (a superb performance, with a particularly interesting set - involving water, large boulders and a small temple!).

TocH is one of those charities that we have probably heard of but are not sure what it does. (TocH will later be one of our charities of the month). It gives us a good feeling but we are not sure why. A bit like the numerous car adverts which we love - but the name of the car?

Amongst some members of my old profession (lawyers) there is little understanding of the concept. Amongst others, there is a great deal of understanding. You just have to look at the number of law firms in the various lists of top 100 organisations whose brand is known to the public - and at the bottom-line effectiveness of the brand. The same can be said for accountants, surveyors, manufacturers, services organisations and charities. Why is it so difficult for some organisations to see the value in investing in what makes them different/significant/special - in other words, in what can ensure that they remain competitive? The issue of branding of organisations is one with which Branko in particular helps a number of clients.

And the same goes for individuals - why do we spend so little attention to our personal brand? This is something on which we shall be working with our Firm Elite members at one of the forthcoming seminars this year.

We recently held a dinner, at the Royal Overseas League, for a few clients and respected contacts. The purpose of the evening was to discuss our forthcoming Firm Elite programme.

Our guests were wide-ranging: lawyers, marketing professionals, and we even allowed somebody 'involved in finances' (that would be me!). Between us we had worked in small and large firms, professional practices and corporations, and had been involved within a range of industries - from professional services, to charities, software companies, utility organisations... With Branko and Kehrela there, we even had a global turn to the discussions.

What became clear was that we all enjoyed the company, opinions and guidance of those we did not normally work with. In an age where people tend no longer to feel loyalty or long-term obligation to employers, the need to feel part of a 'band of brothers' remains. Furthermore, regardless of professional background, the business issues remain the same. Too often, we tend to work with, take opinions from, and surround ourselves with others who are like we are. What a wasted opportunity to find out how others deal with the business world.

Our thanks to the two Johns, Kehrela, Debbie, Andrew and Marcus.

In a pub, on the shores of a remote northern coast, fishermen used to gather, share their stories and exaggerate about the size of their catch. One fisherman always had it his way: he used his long arms to show that the fish he caught were the biggest. One night sceptical fellow fishermen decided to sit him in the corner so he could not open his arms wide open. He still tried to win the argument: he formed a large circle with his arms and added, 'that was the size of its eye'. Their scepticism was confirmed.

Referring to trust, Guy R. Powell argues in his book Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI), that 'There's no better way to ..... get more money than using a language that the money people can understand.'

I tend to share Powell´s concern about the lack of clear, direct, unequivocal communication between 'marketing people' and other departments. But does the introduction of yet more jargon really help? Investment and marketing used in the same sentence are still received with cynicism and distrust. And who's to blame? Obviously, the 'money people' who don't understand marketing!

Ok. What if the opposite is true? What if some marketing professionals are not earning trust and confidence through their day-to-day commitment and professionalism? Marketing success stories of IBM, NSPCC, World Rally Championship, etc. prove that when they do, they get recognition, more responsibility and...money to invest in marketing.

People from different departments should work together, in synchrony, mutual trust and without barriers. The alternative is being alienated, without ability to influence the business, and a perpetual battle to avoid being seated in the corner.

Did the Orient Express deliver on its promise? Do your professional services deliver on the promise?

Having bored people rigid with the build up to my trip on the Orient Express (2 nights Venice, 1 night back to London on the train itself), I thought I would report on the experience.

The administration arrangements were worrying. Slow to respond, incorrect details on the gift voucher/tickets, forgetting to invoice for the final amount. The other-side-of-the-channel train itself was immaculate, the staff were highly professional and seemed to take pride in delivering what was an excellent service, the food was superb. The crockery - not what I would expect (reasonable china but not the best - although the way the train rocked at stages, probably just as well...). Yet up until Calais, I was not disappointed and I felt that the brand lived up to its name.

At Calais. we had to disembark (the train has a kitchen on it and apparently cannot therefore go under the tunnel), board a coach (a luxury one) and under the tunnel we went.

At Folkestone we were greated by a superb jazz band and boarded the British Pullman (also part of the Orient Express brand). The carriages needed a good clean. The waiters in our carriage varied in attitude and ability and seemed not to take pride in delivering a service. The food, again, was superb and the decor, although a tad dirty, was impressive.

So - one brand, delivering differing experiences at different stages of the journey. I had been looking forward to the experience of an age-old form of travel, in historic carriages, with beautiful marquetry, and stunning scenery. This, to me, was the brand. So the experience delivered on it. However, had the brand only meant excellent administration, consistent experience across Europe regardless of train AND superb crockery... I might have been sadly disappointed.

What does your brand mean to you? And to your client? And if different clients have different, and possibly conflicting, expectations of your brand, why is that? What if the journey for your client is inconsistent? What do you do about it?

My name is Dan, and I am a runner.

That’s not to say that I spend my whole life running (though sometimes it feels like it), but in a way, that is the easiest way to describe myself. Five years ago I would have said “I am in the Army”. Twelve years ago I would have said “I am a student” and fourteen years ago I would have said “I am a rider”. Everything changes, and devil take the hindmost. I have been in the Army for a little over 11 years now, and am due to retire in 2011. Retiring means getting a real job, and having real responsibilities and a complete change in the way I live my life and do my business. To that end, I have had to re-think what I want out of my current life – and having seen far too many of those “Things to do before you die”, I began looking around for a real challenge. Added to that, the only thing I have ever been (or at least have thought myself to be) good at is physical stuff. So it had to be something physical. It was a fairly short leap from those two concepts, with the fact that I enjoy traveling, to find a physical challenge somewhere I had never been to. When I was flying out to Toronto for the marathon in September last year, my two like-minded mates and I started discussing what we could do. One option was the Polar Race – a 350 mile race to the North Pole, in teams of three, dragging a 100lb pulk. You pay £19,000 up front and the organisers get everything you need, right down to the shotgun to scare off the polar bears.

Now, as 90% of you will agree, £19,000 is generally not something that you find down the back of the sofa (the other 10% of you can log onto www.justgiving.com/danwhiter and hand it over). Even so, we actually got to the point of arguing about which of the three of us would get to carry the shotgun. Once we finished the marathon, I was surprised about how I felt. Everyone tells you that the elation is amazing and despite the pain (and there was plenty of that), you want to sign up straight away for the next one. In the last 2 or 3 miles, I was surprised by the emotions I was experiencing - running through one of the cheering stations, someone shouted out “Come on, Dan!” and I felt tearful. Two minutes later, I ran past a police car, parked sideways to control the traffic. Next to the car stood a policewoman, complete with cap and gun on her hip. I was within a whisker of slowing to make a date with her for that evening – something I would never even consider. Strangely, the mood swings were slightly scary but exhilarating. Then at the end of the race, I didn’t feel the elation everyone seemed to suggest I would. I just felt that I had worked hard, got a reasonable time and was glad it was over. In the next couple of months I looked around for something to do, and the Racing the Planet series caught my eye, including the blog of a guy called Will Laughlin. Will had also thought about this and his reasoning was as follows “ After hours and hours of sustained physical discomfort and exhaustion, the state of a runner’s mind can begin to shift and slip. Especially when racing, many ultra runners experience visual and auditory hallucinations, and/or exaggerated mood states”. This is what I had felt, although at a much lower level, in the marathon. And I wanted to feel it again. This encouraged me to write about what I was doing and how I felt about everything. I suppose what I really wanted was some online therapy – a way of dumping all my concerns and worries onto a computer screen, allowing me to read it back and actually do something about whatever it was I felt unhappy about. Of course, it also satisfied that closet egotist in me. If you want to feed my ego, please read it at www.4deserts.com/blogs/ and look under Top Blogs, or click on the Gobi March tab. Luckily, being in the Army means that there is a lot of support for ventures like this. My current job is in the Army Medical Directorate in Camberley, Surrey and as a staff job, the hours are pretty much what I make them, within reason. Once I had decided to do it and signed up, I thought that there is no reason not to raise money at the same time. I cannot claim to be doing this all for charity – I chose to do it for myself, and raise money at the same time. The automatic choice was the Army Benevolent Fund. Many of my friends have raised money for them, and in my eyes, there is certain sense of parity in a fund that helps those who gave their lives to something higher than themselves. I am a great believer in the social contract, and when I joined the Army, I was content that I had given up some rights and placed myself in a position where I had to behave in a certain way. On leaving the Army, through injury or age, the ABF is there to compensate for those privations and demands. The wives and families of serving personnel deserve the recognition for having put up with the times their relatives could not come home for Christmas, or be there for the birth of their child. Anyway, here I am within 6 weeks of flying to China, wildly swinging between outrageous confidence and utter despair. So far, the most I have done is a marathon on the South Downs Way with about 15lbs on my back. Is this enough? I know I am going to have to really step things up for the next 3 weeks or so, before tapering off. But every time I get a twinge in my knee, or I finish a run feeling tired, I wonder if I can really stand up to a marathon a day for six days. But what is it that will actually see me through? What do I have that others do not? The answer, I think (to the second question) is actually, not a lot. I do not physically have anything that puts me ‘above’ anyone else. All I have is what is in my head. In my case, I see this more as stubbornness than anything else. In my time, I have never collapsed, fainted, vomited, developed disabling injuries or anything else during hard exercise. But others have. You could say it was pride in doing what others are doing but without stopping. Possibly it is masochistic – trying to get to that point of collapse, to show that I really am trying as hard as I can, to see exactly how far I can go before my body really does throw the towel in. I suspect the truth is something less exciting. As a teenager, I was very self-conscious, and hated myself for it. The only times I felt truly confident was sat on a horse, playing squash or out running. It was my escape from a lifetime of introversion (which is ironic considering these are individual sports). I ran, swam, rode, fenced, skydived, scuba-dived, bungee-jumped and rugby tackled my way out into a more confident place, where I was an equal, and every once in a while, was something more than equal. I remember looking at myself in the bathroom mirror when I was about 16, and thinking “I do not like feeling like this. I am not going to feel like this anymore”. In a slightly primeval way, the stronger and fitter I get, the more confident I feel. If I lose fitness, if I feel flabby and soggy, my self esteem suffers, and I tend to become more introverted. The other reason I do this, is because it is a damn sight easier than a lot of things. Running a business, driving a company forward, instigating wholesale change, emigrating to America with £200 in my pocket to start a new life with – those are the really challenging things that take motivation, vision, perseverance, mental agility and long hard work. 7 days in the desert is a walk in the park compared to the 5 years it can take to establish a company. In the desert, I don’t care who overtakes me. If someone overtakes you in the marketplace, you need to make damn sure you either catch them up, or that you are in a different market. Those are the things that scare me, that intimidate me. This is something I can do, and do well. I know that I will never break a world record or make a million, but this is something I can do. The problem now is that can I ever be satisfied? Every time I do something, there is something harder, longer or tougher waiting for me to do. Can I ever be satisfied that I have done as much as I need to justify myself, or am I doomed to run in ever increasing circles, seeking that next challenge that could, finally, make me content with where I am, and possibly more importantly, who I am.

I spent many years working for an agency delivering corporate marketing and communications services to a variety of different organisations (generally with very healthy marketing budgets), including profit making and membership associations.

Just over a year ago, I decided it was time for a change in direction and was offered the position of marketing and communications manager for national charity Toc H. Not only was this my first encounter with the Third Sector – but incredibly it was also Toc H’s first real encounter with an in-house marketing professional.

The charity, which was established in the First World War, had a Christian ethos: To Love Widely, To Build Bravely, To Think Fairly and To Witness Humbly. Unfortunately, the reality of this was to do lots of great work in communities, but not tell anyone about it. While biblically this is the correct way to deliver Christian values, in this day and age with numerous charities all vying for the same pot of money, it certainly doesn’t help with fundraising!

To be honest, my very first obstacle was trying to understand what Toc H was all about and identify what its main aims and objectives were. The charity seems to have its fingers in so many pots – working in communities delivering training, social activities to the isolated and elderly, language classes to ethnic minority groups, family support, youth training and mentoring, community cohesion campaigns. It operates several nurseries, is actively supporting three new academies and even owns several residential properties which are used by groups for holidays and activity breaks. I’m sure there are even more projects that I’ve forgotten to mention – so you can see why identifying our mission was such a challenge.

Also, the overall objective of Toc H’s marketing strategy, other than raising profile and awareness, is primarily fundraising, something that until now I had very little experience of. Yes I have sales experience, but the products I had previously promoted were tangible – my customer could see what they were getting for their money. With Toc H, I am trying to sell a concept and my customer doesn’t even get anything in return for his money, apart of course from an inner glow from having helped someone less fortunate than himself.

To sum up Toc H’s objective, I finally identified its all-round aim to eliminate social exclusion whether that is young people, the elderly, because of culture, religion or race. Toc H promotes friendship and equality and works to bring community cohesion. Actually talking to the people who benefit from Toc H’s work was the biggest eye opener of all. We really are making a huge difference to people’s lives and giving them fresh hope for a better future. Young people who have spent their lives in local authority care and have never had the loving guidance of a mother or a father. Many expelled from school, no education or training, drinking alcohol, taking drugs and generally living life on a downward spiral. Toc H has given numerous young people like this, who society looks upon as a lost cause, a second chance. Offering one-to-one mentoring and alternative education programmes. Visit: http://www.tochparticipation.co.uk/youth-initiatives/case-study-1---horizons-youth-mentoring.htm to read Jonathan’s story.

I listened to a mother whose son has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Her family were isolated and couldn’t socialise or go out and enjoy normal family activities because of her child’s anti-social behaviour. She explained how Toc H has made life bearable by offering support and a social network for her family. Visit: http://www.tochparticipation.co.uk/adhd-support/what-is-adhd.htm

A simple Tea and Cake campaign saw communities which were segregated by religious and cultural differences and lack of understanding of each other brought together and offering friendship to each other. Visit http://www.tochparticipation.co.uk/be-inspired/tea-and-cake-campaign.htm

In actual fact, the work that Toc H does simply markets itself. You couldn’t read some of the stories on our website, without being moved.

So my job is really all about communication – telling the World about this wonderful organisation and how it has touched so many lives.

Do visit Toc H’s website at www.toch.org.uk and dig deep into its content to read stories and case studies. There are also volunteering opportunities and news about work all over the UK. Feel free to leave your feedback on our forum – and of course all donations, however small are always greatly appreciated.

Christine Scippo
Marketing Manager TocH

Used as blog readers are to hearing about madcap exploits of Daniel Whiter, we can add two more Firm Elite guests to the fold of madness...

Jer O’Mahony of Killik (www.killik.com) is running the London Marathon. For details of his previous exploits, this current one and planned future ones, go to: www.justgiving.com/jeromahony.

Neil Grant (Mizuho Bank) is rowing for charity – but not on water... To find out more, go to: www.justgiving.com/neilgrant1.

But please do more than just go to.... Please donate and show these guys your support.

How does a dinner discussion about culture lead to talk about cash? Via the medium of the latest Firm Elite dinner. And with the help of wine, food and good company.

As usual, dinner on Thursday February 21^st involved a number of professionals (ranging from law, to risk management, to charities, to asset management) sitting down together to discuss issues of the day. We were enthused by the presence of Kehrela Hodkinson who started the discussion on culture by regaling us with her experiences of being a US lawyer, practising in the UK. Those around the table chipped in with their experiences – South Africa, various states in the US, the Middle East... What came across was the excitement and benefit gained from doing business with those whose background and expectations and method of conducting themselves differs from our own. Experiences, and tips, were shared. Questions were asked. Conclusions were drawn. For more on Kehrela’s talk about culture, go to: http://www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/resources.php

Conversation, as usual, further developed and we found ourselves discussing how as business people we provided value to clients and customers. Then we compared that with how we charged for our services or products... There is a disconnection in many ways between the value that we add and how we connect the fee for our services to that value. So, typical example, we charge for a document, which we say takes one hour, so we charge for that time. The reality is that that ‘document’ is simply a record of or a controlling mechanism for an idea or a solution to a problem which is worth far more than ‘simply’ one hour of time. Why does a lawyer charge for a will, based on x minutes of time, or who describes it as ‘a document called a will’ when in reality the lawyer may well have created a mechanism by which the client is saved thousands of pounds worth of tax and which that document merely puts into effect? The value added to the client is a potentially large saving, and yet lawyers still use terminology by which they charge a client for a ‘document’. The client thinks they are just paying for a document; hence the intake of breath when a fee is charged at a certain amount. In reality, the client is being charged for a saving of tax/cash outflow at a future point in time. Why not phrase it with the client in that way from the beginning?

The reality is that many businesses still do not understand what value they add to a client’s business or particular need. If we do not understand how we add value to a situation, how can we expect the client to? If we do understand how, we need to start using terminology with clients and customers which enhances their understanding of what we are doing and which prepares them for the fact that they will need to pay for that added value.

The example of the nail and the hammer and the plank of wood may illustrate this further. When buying a hammer and a nail and a plank of wood, are you paying for three objects? Or are you paying for the means by which you can display and keep your limited editions of Charles Dickens’ works? Which would you pay more for – 3 objects or keeping safe possessions which mean something to you or which are worth a significant sum of money?

Now look at what you provide for others via your business. What are you adding to their lives or businesses? Do you charge for that?

Once again, dinner with Firm Elite leads to changes in how we conduct business...

Recent trips to Jersey and Copenhagen have given rise to ponderings about the nature of doing business with those whose methods and rationale for doing business are different from one’s own.

In Jersey, there is little in terms of the competition that is not known to those in the same business – it is a small island, there are common social networks and there is much movement of personnel between organisations. This means that for those businesses who move to Jersey (or other such geographically or industry limited places), the attitude towards informal sharing of business knowledge is often unexpected.

In Copenhagen, the importance of politeness at all times, of taking time to come to conclusions regarding strategic investments etc, of not socialising with colleagues outside of work time – all these play a role in the relationship between those who are used to that environment and those who are not.

Don’t be unprepared for doing business with other cultures. Whilst certain parts of business life make us realise that the world is a small place with many similarities, be prepared for the differences as well.

The great strength of the Firm Beliefs Consultancy Team is that it practices what it preaches.

A two day session (in a EUROPEAN CAPITAL) which reviewed the growth, success and challenges of Firm Beliefs as an organisation resulted in new focus and renewed energy for all concerned. Any organisation that claims to be able to help your firm perform more effectively or more efficiently must be able to give itself either a health check or a reality check.

How is this achieved? The main components are honesty and trust - the same components that law firms base their relationships with clients on. The two pillars of honesty and trust allow for robust debate - with all concerned wanting to know how they can contribute to the future of the firm and whether they have the technical knowledge, experience and energy to do so. If not they may need to commit to more training or commit to buying in the right expertise at the appropriate time.

Often, successful businesses like law firms are already doing most of the things they need to in order to succeed. The review process can help refocus where resources need to be concentrated.

Firm Beliefs is built on the talent, knowledge and experience of its team and as such teamworking and synergy between its team members is what will determine its success. This is also true of the clients Firm Beliefs works with.

If there is trust in a partnership, and indeed friendship and camaraderie, the difficult challenges that a firm may face can be overcome because less time, resource and energy is dissipated through in fighting and petty rivalry.

The Firm Beliefs team spent 100 percent of its time focusing on service development, client relationships and market issues. How many law firms can honestly say that they spend 100 percent of planned "strategic" meeting time being focused on the real issues?

What made a firm successful in the past is unlikely to keep them successful in the future as the market evolves - book your firm in for a reality check and start to focus on what really matters.

'Mr K'

Madrid 2007

How often have we heard that being attractive makes life easier? Are attractive people really more successful? Attracting staff and clients is the key to success so making your firm more attractive and differentiating it in the market place is where much of your strategic thought should be focused - and may be a key to successful growth.

Take a look at how you attract staff. Most of us look at websites when considering a new job. Does yours concentrate on what technical services you provide (which may attract professionals but not necessarily clients) or on what market sectors you serve (which may attract clients but perhaps not always professionals). So does your site attract both clients and potential staff? Does it show potential staff what it is like to work there, does it give a glimpse of your firm's values, does it show potential staff what other staff think of working there?

How do you treat your staff? In your market place for staff (which may be different to that for attracting clients), is your firm known as a good employer, a firm that manages and develops people well, that invests in staff development, in their welfare and in their good will? What would the local lawyers say about your firm? What would young solicitors say about your firm? What would lawyers serving the same client market as yours say about your firm? Most importantly, what do you own staff say about you? And where are they saying it? In your
community? On web chat pages? On websites? At functions? At client events? Is what they are saying good?

Set about getting, and keeping, staff just as you do clients. The world of legal practice is getting smaller. So therefore is your pool of talent. In a small world, your reputation as a good employer is key to attracting much needed talent.

Am I satisfied? Did I achieve what I wanted, or thought, that I would achieve? Of course the answer is no.

So why am I not satisfied? I came 45^th out of 157 (182 started the race). My final time was 34 hours quicker than the slowest man, but 13 hours slower than the fastest. I have infected blisters, tendonitis in my right foot, torn muscles across my shoulders, my hips feel like they are being crushed in a vice and I have lost 11lbs in bodyweight. But I am alive and I can walk.

I had three aims in running this race. The first was to finish, the second to keep my feet in decent condition and the third to finish as high up the rankings as possible. In my opinion, I only achieved the first of these. If I had done the second I may have been able to manage the third. But it would be all too easy for me to shrug off responsibility for not hitting these second two targets and to say my body had let me down. Nine years ago, I was in Brunei for two months. In this time, I got immersion foot, or trenchfoot. During extended periods of immersion, the feet swell up and the skin softens. If you walk on them while they are wet and swollen, the skin will blister and rip quickly. As they dry, layers separate, again causing blistering. As with cold injuries, once you have had it, you are always susceptible. Each subsequent time, damage happens more quickly and more intensely. If I had thought this through, I would have been able to take a little more care with my feet and prevent some of the damage. As it was, by the end of Stage 3 (which involved several river crossings) my feet were not in a good way. Will Laughlin (who, by complete chance, I shared a tent with), described my feet to a reporter as “covered, barely, in a hanging sheath of skin that looked like a loose sock”. I spent the second half of Stage 3 (about 4 hours), and first half of Stage 4 (about 3 hours) in some discomfort, unsure of whether I would finish. This was, without doubt, my lowest ebb. I felt physically sick before the start of Stage 4. Initially I was worried I was reacting badly to the freeze dried food, but then realised I was scared. I admitted this to a friend. He couldn’t understand this at all. Where I do things to bolster my confidence, he does them because (I think) he is confident.

Personally, I was scared of not finishing, scared of looking pathetic, scared of not being capable. Scared of losing status. Because that is what this was all about; my status in my own eyes and my perceived status in the eyes of others. During these lowest hours, I ran on my own – physically and mentally. My world shrank to a 3 metre bubble, creeping along the valleys and villages of north-west China. In my bubble was me, my blisters and my doubts. In a strange way the doubts became comforting – much like the irritating habit of a friend can become endearing after a long time. The trick was never to answer the questions my head was asking. Could I finish? Would people laugh if I didn’t finish? What would they think of me? What if I don’t succeed? The questions became a looped tape that didn’t need an answer because I knew I would have to answer the same question a thousand times again. I retreated within myself and stayed there – letting my body plod along until I was forced to emerge for a checkpoint, or to make a decision (where to cross the river, better to walk along the smoother path in the open or on rougher shaded ground?).

The route was marked with pink flags every 30 metres or so and for a long time I just existed from flag to flag. Checkpoints were 10 kilometres apart, but this was an unimaginable distance. I reached a checkpoint on Stage 4, and the crew told me I was the fiftieth person they had seen that day. Suddenly everything changed. I had subconsciously set myself a target to come within the top third of finishers (the Army having a thing for placing people in thirds according to their ability), and suddenly realised that this was possible. My mood changed radically in the space of a minute, and instead of walking within myself I began to look up and move forward. I set my sights on the person ahead of me and aimed to catch them or stay with them. Having caught and overtaken four or five people, I took strength and began an upward spiral. I was covering the ground well at this point. After about two hours of this, I came to the next checkpoint – an open sided tent in a scorching river valley. The staff there cheerfully told me it was just 8 kilometres to the campsite for the night. I looked up from filling my water bottles – “To the next checkpoint, then 10 k to the finish” I corrected her. “No” she said, “To the finish”. I had miscounted my checkpoints – it was 8, not 18 kilometres to the campsite. I could feel my strength growing; my chances of finishing improving. It felt like my numbers had come up on the lottery, and the girl behind the counter was telling me, again and again, that I really did have all six numbers! I dared to hope, and asked again. And again she told me it was just 8 kilometres away. I set off and set myself to catch as many more as I could. In the next 60 minutes, I caught three people, and got into a running battle with a guy from Wales. I overtook him, he overtook me. We paced each other for about 3 kilometres, before he moved ahead by about 20 metres. He walked around a corner of the valley and I heard him say “At last!”. As I rounded the bend, I saw the line and smiled. He started to jog, and predictably, I did too. I came up to his shoulder and he sped up to a run. So I sprinted – after 150 kilometres, or 94 miles, I managed a sprint. W crossed the line together.

Whether it was the adrenaline from sprinting or the endorphins from the pain, I don’t know, but I rode that high for the next two hours. And I knew then that I was going to finish. Stage 5 was 80 kilometres, 50 miles, and was no picnic. I started high, and by this time knew that when you are high you have to get every last drop out of yourself before you fall. I didn’t hit the wall until 40 kilometres, and I was lucky to have only 10 kilometres of hard work (although it felt like 30). At the 50 kilometre checkpoint, there was an Italian guy, Giovanni Simonetti, who had been consistently beating me on every stage. I came into the checkpoint after him, and left before him – which again was a pivotal moment for my mood (it was becoming increasingly easy for the smallest thing to induce the biggest changes). We left the checkpoint and climbed onto the plateau that covers a large chunk of North-West China. The view was spectacular, but it was like standing on a baking tray. I set a hard pace, and soon could see the guy in front of me. All I could see was a dark dot. After a while, I could make out his shape, and that of another guy ahead of him. As time went on I could make out more and more detail, so I knew I was closing, and this spurred me on. Just before the next checkpoint, I caught and passed them both. But I didn’t finish that day until 1.07 am – falling down a rocky gully in the pitch black, with feet that I was scared to look at.

It had taken me 14 hours and 5 minutes and I was very, very tired. But it didn’t matter – because I remembered the feeling from the end of the previous day. Come hell or high water, I was going to finish.

And I did. In 42 hours, 27 minutes and 53 seconds. But I will always doubt myself. And what is success if we didn’t have any doubts? For me, success is all about doing something that you are not confident about. If you are confident, then there would be no challenge and no success. If you’re not scared, how can you be brave? But to conquer your doubts and triumph over them? Maybe I was successful, but I still have my doubts.

One of my favourite quotes about journalism is by author and illustrator Nicolas Bentley: “No news is good news. No journalists is even better.”

I imagine there are a fair number of senior lawyers out there who secretly sympathise with this sentiment. Like others in all walks of business, they might feel articles and interviews on their activities can only be looking for trouble – unnecessary to invite and potentially perilous. In a worst-case scenario they may be paving the way for PR disasters or negative publicity; if not, they are wary of giving people any undesirable insight into their strategic thinking.

Such an impression would not really be that surprising. The modern media – that “feral beast” with a thirst for blood as Tony Blair described it – has taken quite a bashing of late. Whether or not the hostility is justified is open to debate, but some of the tension is probably inevitable. Politicians, in particular, have engaged journalists in an ongoing war of words in recent years – revenge perhaps for the relentless use of terms such as ‘spin doctor’ in political coverage. Interestingly, online encyclopaedia Wikipedia makes the point that calling a PR professional a spin doctor is, after all, effectively the derogatory equivalent of calling a journalist a ‘hack’.

I have now been editor of Managing Partner for almost a year, and while the law firm/press relationship is hardly as stormy as that between the government and the nationals, many people at least appear apprehensive of talking too much. Not long after I started one very senior figure of a prominent firm I approached specifically told me – albeit somewhat apologetically – that firm always tried to minimise any comment in the press.

Of course, lawyers will always be naturally cautious too – risk-avoidance being a basic part of the job. Sensibly, they like to be ultra-prepared for interviews – almost more as though they were being questioned in a legal scenario than what we like to construct more as a conversation. Putting people at their ease – friendly rather than forceful – encourages them to be more open, but lawyers are perhaps a shrewder group than most.

Again, however, any suspicion is perhaps not surprising given what they do for a living. An awareness of all the possible implications of something said or written is the very essence of the work. Even so, I was a little amused when talking to one managing partner about their firm’s flexible-working policy and preparedness for the age-discrimination legislation now in effect. Impressed with what I was told and given its own employment-law expertise, I suggested the firm felt it had a ‘handle’ on the subject. I was told they would not want to come across as complacent.

Nevertheless, compared to other business areas I have covered as a journalist, lawyers do like to write, and they are also usually quite good at it – even if their prose could do with some pruning at times. A few years ago I spent two years on some magazines in the international oil and gas industry, where persuading people to write was much more difficult. Then, when they did commit, deciphering the engineer-speak – not to mention the finer points of welding and corrosion when English was sometimes not the first language – was an ongoing (and I have to admit, occasionally irritating) challenge. As for Managing Partner, I write myself of course – interviews and subject overviews – and we also have a pool of freelance journalists to draw on. But having many willing contributors is useful when it comes to commissioning case studies and columns, which is the basic format of the magazine.

Managing Partner is certainly the strongest title I have been involved in to date in my career. It is also an exciting time to be leading it. Its success is thanks to the strength of the editorial board (all drawn from the profession) and the growing number of practitioners who are not afraid to share their thoughts with peers and engage in sensible, non-sensational debate about where the profession is headed and the challenges in store.

To end with another quote, award-winning US playwright, the late great Arthur Miller, said: “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” Replace ‘nation’ with ‘profession’, and I think you have a good sound byte for what Managing Partner is trying to do as a magazine.

Richard Brent

http://www.mpmagazine.com/

What’s the biggest difference between an American’s behaviour in the workplace and a British employee’s behaviour in the workplace? I asked this question of several British colleagues who have spent time in the US and the almost unanimous response was that, in a meeting in the US, everyone is very expressive, anger or discontent is freely expressed and accepted, and when the meeting’s over, what happened in the meeting stayed in the meeting. In the UK, there is not the same openness or display of emotion so that resentments tend to mount and remain unresolved.

There are certain rules of the American business game: make as much money as you can as quickly as you can. This game theory comes from the economics of abundance rather than economics of scarcity and invasions so well known in Asia and Europe. Imagine my chagrin, when arriving in the UK in 1993 10 days before Christmas, when all of the shelves were empty. I couldn’t understand the fact that there was no more merchandise in the back room. When the supplies ran out, they were out for good. It did prove rather difficult to explain to my then very young daughters how Santa went to the shop to buy them presents, but the shops had already sold out of toys...

In American business culture, doing the deal is more important than building relationships and getting to know the other parties to the deal. Americans may neglect to offer coffee/tea at the beginning of a meeting since the deal is foremost in their minds. Small talk is saved for the end of negotiations.

Because the number of weeks for annual leave in the US is low relative to other countries, true insights, empathy and understanding of other national and business cultures is weak.

Despite the insularity of Americans in business, their openness, informality, optimism and friendliness instantly puts people at ease.

There are certain foundations of American culture which, when understood, lead to more successful business dealings:

• Americans are obsessed with time. The world’s cultures are divided into two distinct approaches to understanding and using time. Monochronic cultures emphasize tasks and schedules. Time is a tangible thing. It can be spent, wasted and lost. Time is linear. Tasks take precedence over people. Interruptions are not welcome. In Polychronic cultures, relationships outweigh rules of the clock. Time is bountiful and ongoing, flowing, a river. People come before the task. Interruptions are acceptable. Americans are probably best known for their focus on time, schedules and deadlines. The clock is the master. Keeping to schedule is critical. Relationships will wait. Americans focus on the future. Things can be changed for the better. A deadline or due date is more than a goal. It is a promise which must be kept. Punctuality is crucial. Meetings must start on time. Americans want everything instantly.

• American culture is, above all, individualistic. Americans separate themselves from the group, while English value the eccentric within the group.

• No age limits “down-aging”. A person is never too old to start something new. Mature students are the norm in universities in America.

• American business culture puts a premium on confidence, leadership and self-assertiveness. British business culture puts a premium on “towing the line”, “not making waves”, and following tradition.

• Informality. Nike’s “Just do it” reflects the American concept of equality. The founding fathers eliminated many traditional, formal rules that were reminders of royalty, courts and the rigid class system they left behind. Not only was informality symbolic of that basic American idea-equality, but it also served as a way to blend a population with a variety of backgrounds.

• Americans emphasize schedules, time and tasks rather than people. Their relationships are transitory, connected to projects or places. They are less likely to take time for spontaneous conversation, thereby missing opportunities for information. British culture puts more emphasis on relationships and a sense that time flows endlessly so there is time for those extra minutes of conversation that can offer information.

Kehrela Hodkinson (Guest Blogger).

For more on Kehrela’s views, plus insight into the historical, geographical and social aspects of the US which lead to how they do business, please go to: http://www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/resources.php

'Partners give responsibility with one hand, and then take it away with the other!' So said a strategic IT manager the other day. Not an uncommon complaint by those working within law firms. Why is it that those who own law firms appoint highly qualified and experienced professional managers, with the skills needed to take a firm forward into an exciting future, and then disregard their advice or limit their freedom to implement their plans?

Some would say it is to do with the ownership structure of those firms. Personal liability makes an individual avoid risk where possible. And if a business owner is not in control of a part of that business, how can the risk be avoided? There are many professional managers in LLPs who face political/ownership issues as well, however, where personal liability is less of an issue - so can fear of risk be the real reason?

Others would say that lawyers' lack of business acumen and experience means that they do not recognise the benefits which professional managers can bring. They do not understand, and therefore do not trust them, to manage that risk, rather than avoid it.

Others say that lawyers choose to employ strategic level managers yet expect them to limit their actions to operational level issues - or vice versa.

Our latest newsletter highlights the frustration of some professional managers who work in law firms.

There is another reason for professional managers often feeling unloved and unwanted - and, for once, we cannot blame the lawyers for that! Good managers understand the implications and impact of other management areas on their own field. Yet frequently in practice, Firm Beliefs comes across HR professionals who do not know how to calculate the return on an investment in expenditure on training, finance professionals who do not understand the role that IT can play in providing good management information systems, IT professionals who do not understand how to design a 'what if' scenario for an HR succession planning programme, or marketing professionals who do not understand the value that a performance management programme can have on achieving better cross-selling throughout a firm. So professional managers themselves, by not practising joined-up management, do not perform as well as they might, and this in turn contributes to the partners' lack of confidence in their ability to add value to the organisation.

Both lawyers and professional managers need to understand where their own strengths and weaknesses lie. They then need to work together to achieve closer working relationships which, ultimately, will lead to that relationship adding value to the firm as a whole. The business owners and the professional managers need to understand more about each other's world. A common language is needed.

Firm Beliefs runs a number of skills development programmes which, ultimately, enable both lawyers and professional managers to enhance their management skills. These result in closer, and more effective, working relationships because there is then a shared understanding of business and management, a common language and greater trust between lawyer and manager. Click on our Professional Skills and Firm Elite pages.

‘This firm doesn’t have a strategy! Have we come to the wrong firm?’ These were the words that greeted us when we went to visit some new trainee solicitors. These new entrants to the firm had noticed a lack of ‘strategic direction’ in the literature and the talks which they had had during their first few weeks.

But we pointed out to them that that was not the first key question: the first key question is ‘where are we going?’. In other words, it matters not how a firm is going to get somewhere unless it knows where it is going! The question they ought to have asked was ‘where is this firm going’ and only thereafter, ‘how are we going to get there’. The strategy is only the ‘how’; it needs a ‘where’ to work!

We frequently hear lawyers tell us, when instructing us to assist them in various ways, ‘this is our strategy’, but rarely do we hear ‘this is where we want to be and this is how we will get there’. Thus, their strategies are bound not to deliver, are bound to fail, because they are not connected to an aim, a purpose, a goal.

Too many firms get lost in measuring, analysing, implementing, aspects of their strategy (usually contained in a myriad of documents!), and they forget to go back to basics which is to remind themselves where they want to be and then to assess their strategy against that aim. We have come across large, respected, firms with ‘Strategic Group’; ‘Executive Committee’, ‘Strategy Team’ and yet when we ask them what their organisational objectives are, they are not sure. Their strategies appear to have taken on a life of their own!

The question for most firms at the moment ought not even to be ‘we want to be here’ – it ought to be ‘where do we need to be’ in order to enhance the potential of the firm – or even, sadly, still, in some cases to survive. For our profession, where do we need to be has not until recently been an issue – we have never really needed to be anywhere! For centuries, we have had clients who seek us out, we have had a monopoly on the work that we do, and the only place we needed to be was usually on the golf course or in roomier offices! Now, we have to create our markets, we compete for the provision of legal services and wherever we think we need to be, somebody else is likely to be there before us and be doing it more successfully than us!

It is only by constantly reviewing where we want to be, and adjusting where we need to be, that we keep focused on our objectives. They come first – then we can work out our way of getting there. So don’t look for a strategy first, look for the objectives.

With the so-called ‘war on talent’ hotting up throughout the UK, regardless of trade or profession, it seems that employers still do not appreciate the role that they must play in the retention of good staff who are the ones who will deliver on the organisational objectives.

Take this for an example: a very old organisation, which has allowed the changes in society and in the expectations of consumers and employees to pass it by, had an emergency retreat in order to deal with the major financial problems it faced. At that retreat, the business owners and key managers undertook to support all staff in their roles and in their efforts to turn the business around. In other words, they made staff a ‘promise’, at a key time in the organisation’s change process.

They later broke that promise. A member of staff asked for help and, because procedures had apparently not been followed, that request was ignored. This had an impact on other staff who, understandably, began to realise that they could not rely on the promises made by the business owners. Talented individuals realised that they too could be treated in the same manner.

In HR parlance, the ‘psychological contract’ had broken down – not just between one individual and the employer, but between a great many individuals and the employer. There are many definitions of the psychological contract: ‘the set of expectations held by the individual employee that specify what the individual and the organisation expect to give to and receive from each other in the course of their work relationship’ (Sims RR (1994) Human Resource Management) is an example. My favourite is ‘a part of the glue that binds employees to organisations’ (Guzzo R and Noonan K (1994) Human Resource Management).

So, beware what you promise. If you cannot keep to your promise, expect to lose staff. The legal employment contract may remain in existence, but the psychological one will not.

What do the following have in common: Mizuho Bank, Clifford Chance, Turbervilles, Rooks Rider, Brand Remedy, Managing Partner magazine, Norton Rose and Firm Beliefs? Some of their employees and partners met for drinks and dinner at the Royal Overseas League for the September Firm Elite dinner. The range of experiences and skills meant that lawyer, professional manager, editor and business owner each had something to contribute, to disagree about, to discuss, to challenge... All ages were present too ((but we shan’t reveal too much about the spectrum of those!).

Firm Elite events are for those who are passionate about business – regardless of profession, skills, experience or role in the organisation – and that was certainly shown by all of those present (helped no doubt by the beverages...). Do you often go out for dinner and meet people who are just there because they feel they ought to be, and with whom discussion seems such a chore? Firm Elite events are not like that. Conversation is wide-ranging, full of humour, and never dull.

We had to operate a waiting list for this one and we will have to do the same for the ones next year. Click here for details of future events: http://www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/firmelite.php

A huge thank you to Richard Brent, editor of Managing Partner, for being our main guest and for so persuasively extolling the virtues of keeping up to speed with new thinking and new developments in our profession by reading Managing Partner. Richard has also been a guest-blogger on our site: http://www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/blog.php?id=17

Managing Partner can be viewed on-line if you are a subscriber on: www.mpmagazine.com.

‘Your head kinks to one side – it can make you look unsure’ was an observation that somebody made about me recently - actually the most interesting thing I have heard about myself lately! Clearly I am not a very interesting person... This observation was made to me by Helen Chadwick who, along with Richard Hahlo, ran the day’s session on ‘Personal Impact’, part of the National Theatre’s Theatreworks programme.

I had put my name down to see whether the experience would be useful for Firm Elite clients. What I did not expect was that it would be hugely useful for me! From this I learn two things: (1) apparently I think I am immune from the need to keep my skills honed (2) I think only of clients, not of myself...

We are never immune from the need to improve our skills, regardless of how long we have been in business. Life changes, techniques change, the need to use different skills changes. Furthermore, in the service industry we can become so focused on the clients being the key to the future, that we forget that we need to be at our best if we are to serve them properly.

Along with others on the programme, I spent a day learning new skills/honing others, and I spent a day with other people looking at me, just me, for a few minutes and giving me supportive, valuable and effective feedback. It put me in mind of a number of people I know who are so driven to managing their clients and their people, that they forget about themselves as being in need on occasions – both of further development and of support.

The content of the day ought to remain a secret – you ought to experience it for yourselves to get maximum benefit. I can however, reveal that we ate in the actors’ canteen (fabulous!), that Helen and Richard are quite the best people I have ever come across for giving positive feedback and for getting nervous people to use new techniques. And I can confirm that not once were we asked to pretend to be trees (which is a shame as my willow imitation is second to none!). The other people who took part were wide ranging – different professions, different industries, different attitudes – but we all shared in a day of camaderie and mutual support that really made the new skills we learnt so easy to now implement ‘in the outside world’.

I am not easily impressed by ‘coaches’, voice trainers, image makers, presentation skills developers – yet I honestly cannot recommend enough that you spend a day in the hands of Richard and Helen, who very effectively made me aware of how I come across in different situations. More importantly, they enabled me to control the impression I make - to suit the situation. They enabled me to 'be myself, but just better'.

We are delighted to announce that we will be offering the programme for Firm Elite members and guests next year – date to be announced shortly. Click on:www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/firmelite.

I expected an evening full of business people raising money for Merlin. I did get an evening which contained business people but I also got an evening full of actors, a film about the search for 'being in love' and a film about being in parts of the world where the search is for survival.

The Soho House hotel was host to an evening dedicated to publicising and raising money for a medical charity called Merlin (www.merlin.org.uk ). Like most, it does what it does well, and quietly. Or should that be it does what it does well, BUT quietly. I confess that I had not heard of it before. I had heard of Medecins sans Frontieres, but never of Merlin. Merlin is different from Medecins, its strapline tells you how - ‘medical relief, lasting health care’. Its volunteers go into the areas of greatest need at crisis points, and then they stay. They stay long enough to establish systems and structures to ensure that health care is not short term. It aims to last into the future. The short film was harrowing, but uplifting because we could see how a difference can be made IF support is given.

The film which followed was a first ever showing. ‘French Film’ (http://www.frenchfilm.com) is a story about love – middle class angst ridden individuals wandering if they are in love with those they are with and then what they do when they realise they are not... (Reminded me of a few law firms!). Starring Hugh Bonneville, Dougie Henshall, Victoria Hamilton, Anne Marie Duff and Eric Cantona, it was funny, engaging, squirm-inducing in parts as some thoughts and comments seem horribly familiar... Interestingly, for somebody like me who bemoans the fact that so many lawyers and accountants have no imagination or artistic bent to how they approach business or life, the CEO of Slingshot is a qualified solicitor – Arvid Ethan David. Although I did recently meet a practising lawyer who writes plays... So perhaps there is hope for the hidden talents of unit-burdened professionals to have an outlet...

French Film was shown as a way of supporting Merlin. One, a film about survival of the most basic kind – food, water, and health. The other, a film about survival of a different, but equally basic, kind – the need to feel that we live our lives with others, not just next to them. And in both films, the quest to achieve that.

At 2 ½ years’ PQE my overwhelming attitude towards life as an associate in a “magic circle” firm was “anything has to be better than this”. It was the height of the debt market bubble and I had had enough of the continuous slog of churning out transactions. At the time of resigning I had no idea what I should do next and, more to the point, it really didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was to get out of the existing job.

A couple of weeks later, it was suggested that I should take advantage of some career coaching sessions the firm offered to departing members of staff. At the time the cynic in me saw this as little more than an attempt to convince me that leaving was a mistake, and that it still wasn’t too late to change my mind. Add to that an inbuilt reluctance to open up to strangers, and it would be fair to say that I was sceptical about the value of these sessions. However, after the second or third time the topic was raised, I felt it might be easier to go along with idea, if for no other reason than to get people off my back about the whole thing.

There was little magic about the coaching sessions themselves. An hour or so with a blank piece of paper jotting down background on why I had originally chosen law as a career, why I had now decided to move on, what ideas I had for the future, and so forth, followed by an hour discussing these subjects with the “career coach”. After a couple of weeks, there was a second hour-long session to discuss my thoughts after the initial discussion, and to see how things were progressing in deciding what to do next.

The sessions were of enormous benefit in several ways. Firstly as an opportunity to identify honestly and constructively that as a person I have particular character traits, both strengths and weaknesses, that would always be a factor in the success (or otherwise) of whatever role I moved on to do. Appreciating and accepting these traits was fundamental in ensuring that the move I made was a positive one for me, both professionally and personally. The time I spent with the career coach helped me to be honest with myself about where my strengths were and to see that certain of the roles I was considering might not allow me to make the most of them.

The sessions also focussed me on what specifically had motivated me about my original career choice. They helped me to realise that there were aspects of my existing job that continued to motivate me on a personal level, even though at the time various other emotions made it very difficult to see that. Having recognised that fact, it became much easier to see that actually a radical change of career path was neither necessary nor appropriate at that particular time. By focussing on whether potential roles emphasised the aspects of my existing job that continued to motivate me and whether they would also enable me to maximise my own personal strengths it became far easier to identify those positions that would offer the balance of professional achievement and personal purpose that I was looking for.

It also surprised me how much it helped to discuss the decision to change jobs with someone from outside my usual circle of friends and family. Getting an opinion from someone who was completely objective about the whole situation was extremely useful. To discuss the issues that I was encountering with someone who has helped others face them before, and to realise that I was not the first person to encounter these scenarios and career decisions, was reassuring. On reflection, whilst it might well have been naive to feel that I was the only person to have faced these issues, it is easy to lose perspective when your principal focus is on coming to terms with the fact that the existing role, the upshot of ten years’ hard work, has not worked out how you had hoped.

In summary the time spent with the career coach helped me to get away from the mindset that says “take anything – it has to be better than this”. With the benefit of the sessions I was able to take a more structured and thought-through approach to moving careers, whereby I sought to understand properly the challenges and requirements that I was seeking in my future career, and the coaching helped me to evaluate better how suited I was for the roles I was considering and vice versa.

No, sadly not a reference to the England footie team... Rather, a reflection of the focus for discussion on the evening of 24th January 2008 when 15 managers, owners and leaders of businesses got together to discuss what issues will arise for us all in 2008. Whatever the issues, we wondered how we arrive at dealing with them, in a focused, effective and hopefully sensible manner...

Dan Whiter (he of the Firm Beliefs occasional guest blogger and mad Gobi desert running habit), steered discussion towards how we set, and achieve, our goals. Granted his method of illustrating his points centred upon a series of graphic photographs of festering feet and tantalising terrain; however, all of us were able to discuss with passion what the issues are that tend towards hindering us in the achievement of our aims.

It appeared to those of us who attended the dinner that leadership and strategy are the key issues for 2008 - whatever happens in the market place and in whatever area of business we find ourselves. It was interesting to note that the issues facing those who run a marketing or a technology business are the same as those in the legal profession. Furthermore, those who were new to running a business were able to listen to the experiences of those who have been running a business for quite some time, and to learn how one's experience of running a business changes as the leadership role becomes a more familiar one.

A good evening which gave us a good start to the new year.

OK so I am boring everybody with my enthusiasm for my new found activity in life – pounding around the Chilterns with ipod in ears, nike plus shoes talking to ipod, voices from nike plus pod telling me how fast/slow/abysmally I am running... how far I have run; how much further I have to go... Passers by who know me in disbelief that one so unfit as I could even contemplate getting out of bed quickly, let along run at what is (for me) a fairly decent pace!

Regardless of weather (I particularly love running by the sea in mid storm – although obviously not in the Chilterns!), there I am, making a complete fool of myself as my ipod ear plugs fall out (thereby making me run with my hands in my ears to keep them in), my heart rate strap seems to fall down to my waist (all to do with the type of sporting bra, so my navy (male) friend tells me...), my pink heart rate monitor beeps all the time telling me that I have reached the ‘you should be dead’ zone, my water bottle lid keeps falling off, soaking me, making me look like I am in a Miss Wet T shirt competition, my bananas (nicely cut up for ease of swallowing) mulch with my blackberry which I have foolishly put in the same pocket... And then, I am overtaken by an old lady walking her two Chihuahuas.

But I still love it. I have had to ask myself why (enough people have asked me the same question!). Then, I got a bit of advice from Dan (already known to those of you who read our blogs) and he said, in response to my ‘I hate hills’:

It hits you as your body goes from comfortable status quo into extra effort. Try preparing for the hill by imagining the extra effort you'll need to do. Just wake up your body to the fact that it is not allowed to get too comfortable.

And I realised that it is that that I love. To look ahead, be prepared to change pace, to think about dealing with issues that you have you not yet even imagined. It is the same for business – you cannot amble along at the same pace because around you are hills, woods, swamps, water, etc – none of which you can control. You need to be ready to deal with whatever the business world (competitors, clients, staff, colleagues) throw at you. If you are too complacent, you cannot run up that hill. You give up half way. You need to look ahead and see the hill and then mentally prepare to go up against it with vigour. .

The other thing that he said was ‘are you going to compete or complete? the strategies are very different.’ When I first started this running, all I wanted to do was complete. And I always did. Now, I want to beat the person in front of me (one can dream...). That is how it is for our business. We simply wanted to break even in the first year or so. We were careful and cautious – somewhat bland perhaps. We tried to do things in the same way as our competitors: wore suits, spoke management jargon, pontificated about how we got our MBAs... Now, we want to beat our competitors. We have been asked to do projects which had originally been given to the established stalwarts of law firm consulting. When we asked why, we were told that we were easier to talk to , to deal with, they trusted us not to turn our noses up at their attempts to be proactive in running their business, that we helped firms make real changes, not just cosmetic document-based ones. ‘Bright, young and zippy’ said one firm! So we now know that we can compete – not necessarily by doing it in the same way but by achieving better results for clients.

So it is with my running – I cannot compete with the hardened runners (the Dans of this world) who can run without music, at a pace a bird would find hard to keep up with, over very long distances, carrying half a city on their backs, their feet falling apart and their body weight diminishing by the second. But I can compete with those who want to have fun running, who want to raise a bit of money for charity and who are happy to chuck water all over themselves when they cannot work out how to get the cup in their mouth which the nice lady on the side of the course gives them... And at the end of the day, the Dans of the world, and the Saras of the world achieve what they set out to do, they achieve their goals – and get that same feeling of achievement and obtain the result that they want at the end.

And in order to reach my running goals, I surround myself with people who can provide me with the skills I do not have. Dan – mentor and experienced runner, mentally and physically running along side me – technical skills (stop breathing like that!, do this and your stitch will go) and mental skills (if you cannot play music to give you a lift, imagine something that makes your heart beat fast!); John – do NOT eat the butter Sara eat the olive oil; put the nuts in your handbag and eat them mid-meeting to keep energy levels up; Esther (aged 12) – always wear pink when running, it makes people smile at you more (an early understanding of the concept of brand identity I feel!); David – of course a charity will want you, trust me we will find one! Run this half marathon, it is a flat one...; my mother – are you mad, you will die, pace yourself.So it is with business – we cannot do everything to equal excellence. The trick is to know what you can and cannot do and surround yourself with those who can fill the gaps – that way you get to where you want to be quickly, efficiently and you learn a lot along the way from others.

At Firm Beliefs, we each have different skills and we learn from each other. When you find somebody who can do something that your business needs better than you can, use them in your team! So – running a marathon, running a business. What’s not to love?!

To read about ‘real’ running, go to Dan’s blogs...

I sat in the Sheraton Park Lane hotel on a Tuesday evening on 25th March with a colleague, both of us mesmerised by the Art Deco (or was it Nouveaux) interior of the large ballroom, full to the brim with chairs and, soon enough, people sitting on them. The event, hosted by the Rotman School of Management in Toronto, Canada, promised a discussion led by Professor Roger Martin, Dean and Professor of Strategic Management and Integrative Thinking, which would answer the question ‘How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking’.

Once he had taken us through how he had researched his latest book on the subject ("The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking" (Harvard Business School Press, 2007), with very engaging anecdotes about some of the best known leaders of industry, we began to see the commonalities that each leader had. Each leader had the ability to take opposing business models or potential business situations and, rather than making a decision as to the one or the other, they were able to take the best of each and improve on them.

The most fascinating discussion took place between the Professor and his invited guest, Taddy Blecher, President of CIDA City Campus (www.cida.co.za). An ex-consultant, Taddy started the first free university in South Africa, providing higher education to the poorest students in the country. Rather than follow the traditional models of such provision, he and others came up with a completely different way of providing the education – encompassing old methods but enhancing them by introducing hitherto untested or unimagined methods.

In the current marketplace, it is important that leaders of organisations are able to think differently. The old adage that if you act the same, the outcomes will be the same, is never more appropriate than now.

Integrative thinkers look at the old models and if they do not fit – they build a new one – they do not waste time in wondering why their business does not fit into an old mold!!

Firm Elite is populated by and nurturing more "integrative thinkers". If you want to see such thinking in action, go to http://www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/firmelite.php

A Knight's Tale - of passion, energy, risk, chances taken... A modern version of Chaucer's finest you may think. In fact, the tale of a solicitor who decided to do things a little differently.

James Knight of Lawyers-Direct regaled us with his story. How somebody from one of the most conservative professions decided to set up a firm using ex-city lawyers to offer city services at a non-city rate. By enabling those lawyers to work from home. By focusing on the need to keep the lawyers happy, by specifically focusing on the need for support and team work, by ensuring that the lawyers benefit from bringing in new work (more than they ever would at a traditional firm), Lawyers-Direct delivers the service that many clients expect, but don't always obtain. Lawyers-Direct is about to be rebranded 'Keystone Law' (from 1st May) - and it would appear that this firm of lawyers certainly shows signs of completing the bridge between legal advice that clients want, delivered at a rate they like, and the experts who can provide it.

As always, other guests at our latest Firm Elite dinner (most of whom were not from the legal profession) were able to discuss and direct questions at James, and each other. By the end of the evening, as usual, new ideas had been gleaned, and new practices considered for the future.

For more on the firm: go to http://www.lawyers-direct.biz/

Recent weeks have seen Steve and Sara wandering the drinks parties and lunch meetings and business events of the UK. We have focused on those events at which the topic of conversation has been 'the credit crunch' or 'the recession' or 'new markets, new opportunities' etc etc etc - you get the drift.

Why, you might ask, would we surround ourselves with those who are facing financial ruin, moving into a business world of misery and poverty, and who see no future in their businesses or organisations any more? So said a law firm managing partner to me the other day. A managing partner of a firm which ought to know better than to view the future as a negative and dark black hole...

What we noticed, as we did the rounds, was that there were no professional advisors at many of these events. And yet at these often high profile events, individuals were talking about finding new ways of doing business, looking for new openings as old markets died and new markets opened up, and moving on to replace those businesses which do not harness the future opportunities that a changing commercial world can provide. Even at the smaller trade events, where entrepreneurial and 'new market/new product' businesses were present, there was a paucity of professional advisors on the ground, listening to what the market players are saying about future opportunities as they see them.

Some events (too few) however did contain professional advisers who understand that if they are to support their clients in their endeavours, they need to be as au fait with future opportunities as their clients are - and indeed they need to be even more so. One such event was the Kleinwort Benson Entrepreneur's Evening (www.kleinwortbenson.com) at which Andrew Halper, partner at Eversheds (www.eversheds.com), spoke compellingly about how he supports clients who wish to make a business move to or who wish to partner with organisations in China. As a profession, lawyers need to ask themselves how they can produce such innovative forward thinking lawyers and yet at the same time still manage to produce those lawyers who think that they should wait for clients to come to them and then respond to their clients' needs retrospectively and passively.

Whilst it is always pleasant to be at an event that does not contain other professional advisors (unless they are of the proactive kind!), and to be able to immerse onesself in a world where business risk is an opportunity and not something to be avoided, one does have to ask where professional advisers can add value to clients if they are not out there, listening and talking with those whom they purport to support.

A recent conference run by the Network of Leading Law Firms (www.nllf.com) gave rise, indirectly, to a question with which many organisations are currently grappling - should we grow and structure our business to cover many regions about the globe; or should we enter into collaborative arrangements with other businesses and form a network?

There are clearly many complex factors to be taken into account in such a decision - as clients often grapple with when they seek our help.

One observation I made on that day, when watching attorneys from different countries interact with each other, was this - they gave time to listening to the issues which their fellow delegates faced in their own countries. They particularly listened to the issues which clients faced in the various parts of the world. I heard stories of one lawyer in the US who provided what was termed 'an outstanding service' to the client of a lawyer from Europe. It seems that each firm pulls out all the stops for their network connections' clients and I heard stories of immediate responses to communications and excellent service to the attorneys which of course in turn enables good service to the clients.

Compare that with a recent experience I had of a law firm with an international practice. There was an issue with how different offices based in different countries serviced the clients of the firm as a whole. One office in London complained that their counterparts in Italy did not (a) respond to requests for co-operation from the London office; (2) did not take the time to ascertain the real needs of the London solicitor or the client and (3) in the end did not enhance the service delivery of the law firm as a whole.

In essence, the NLLF network style lawyers treat their NLLF network colleagues as clients. The international practice lawyers appear to treat their colleagues as, as one such solicitor told me, 'irritants' or 'yet another internal email or 'phone call to return', which clearly will impact on the service that the international law firm's clients receive.

Just two situations, from which a sweeping generalisation cannot be made! But an interesting one. So, if you are part of a multi-office organisation, are you certain that the structure, the culture and the relationships between staff in different offices serve your clients as well as they might? What can international organisations learn from the network structures - and vice versa?

Tuesday night’s Firm Elite dinner was my first one since joining the team in April. I’ve never posted a blog before either, so a couple of firsts in a week. Sara’s blogs are hard to compete with. She probably kept a hilarious diary as a teenager, and became an expert in wittily deconstructing her ever expanding network of fabulous friends. I listened to The Smiths on my own in Northampton.

The Firm Elite dinner was similar to a three act play:

Act 1: Arrival. Having rushed around sweaty London all day, and sweated over tourists on tubes it was a pleasant surprise to arrive at the Royal Overseas League in Mayfair. Having a beer and good conversation with Ruth, guest speaker and CEO of Stop The Traffic (STT), we were looking out from our posh castle over Hyde Park - great.

Act 2: Dinner. Sara insists that everyone rotates after each of the three courses, so by the end of desert I’d had increasingly animated chats with most of the group, and had a sore neck. The food was very good, and the wine was a bit too nice.

Act 3: Debate. Ruth spoke passionately about the need to stop people trafficking around the world, and about how STT had presented 1.5million signatures to the UN and had won UN Ambassador status. So far in its short three year life, STT had been extremely successful, but was now encountering issues of funding, organization and strategy similar to many charities.

Ruth is clear about targeting the younger generation with the STT message, and that grass roots is the way forward operationally. STT has grown exponentially and come to a crossroad – how to keep their integrity as a campaigning organization with an independent voice while maturing organisationally to accommodate rapid growth?The debate was then free-flowing and fast ranging, looking at everything from strategic income generation to pleasing the different stakeholders to growing grass roots in London schools. I will be meeting Ruth soon to help develop some of these thoughts.

The Firm Elite dinners are, I believe, pretty unique as far as networking goes. Interesting, fun, thought provoking, and ultimately about connecting diverse people from different walks of life to discuss business problems. After all, life is all about making connections.