Last month I launched a three-part article on the subject of collaboration. The piece is based on my past and current research and observations, and follows a recently released Harvard Business Review (HBR) study. In Part I, I and the author of the HBR article, made the case for collaboration in professional services firms and the direct correlation to business growth. In this segment, I will focus on the challenges of making collaboration work.
The study and I are in agreement: the key factors preventing professional organizations from taking full advantage of collaboration are organizational structure, compensation model and culture.
While in several of my articles I discuss narcissistic or hyped self-preservation behavior and the lack of common strategic goals and systems in professional services firms as the main roadblocks to building a healthy collaborative environment, the compensation models and culture are just as critical for that. I’ve especially emphasized on those in my piece based on the collapse on Dewey & LaBouef. The Dewey & LaBouef case clearly demonstrates that a compensation model, mainly incentivizing rainmaking can encourage wrong behaviors and be counterproductive. Similarly, a culture allowing for a digression from the clearly defined traditional firms’ values of loyalty and collegiality, often has a hefty price.
The HBR survey notes that organizational structure, compensation systems and culture in professional services firms favor individualistic approach. Most firms still value rainmakers higher. From professionals’ standpoint that’s not a bad thing, as professionals’ security is tied to their client relationships. External recognition from professional organization rankings further influences professionals and pushes them to focus on individual performance. The last notable obstacle to collaboration, according to the survey is the lack of collaboration skills. I concur. The skills in reference here are such that go beyond the usual delegation of work to junior professionals; these skills support an advisory approach to client management of asking questions, which benefit the client, and having client conversations that reach outside of the comfortable technical points and are actual business dialogues. These collaborative skills encourage giving and receiving team member feedback, allowing both jr. and sr. level professionals to contribute and learn from one another. These are the skills that most professional service providers are not equipped with…
So, what can you do about it?
After a careful study of the characters, the various circumstances and the storyline of the events, leading to the bankruptcy of Dewey & LaBoeuf, in The New Yorker piece, “The Collapse”, James B. Stewart concludes that “cooperation and mutual respect” is at the heart of successful professional services firms. That’s the culture that successful firms foster and Dewey & LaBoeuf blatantly ignored, according to Stewart. In some of my other articles I refer to that as collaboration and encourage organizations to reward it, because it provides for learning, best practice sharing, better solutions design and a team client approach…for the greater good.
Stay tuned for the last segment of this series, which will take a prescriptive approach and will outline tangible points to inspire collaboration(CLICK HERE).
For a copy of the HBR article visit: https://hbr.org/2015/03/when-senior-managers-wont-collaborate?utm_content=buffer98a13&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin.com&utm_campaign=buffer
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By Mira Ilieva-Leonard | Mira.ilieva-leonard@istile.com
