Snake oil
My colleagues in Walker Clark, LLC, and I are often engaged by law firms to develop lawyer and staff compensation systems.
The big question always is “How can we motivate our people?”
The truthful answer is that you cannot.
Law firms are populated by people who, on average, are smarter, better educated, and more skeptical than those in almost any other industry. They are not easily fooled by a slick compensation formula and assurances that “All you have to do is work hard and you will get rich.”
This isn’t leadership. This isn’t motivation. This approach to motivation is essentially a “snake oil medicine show.”*
Read the next paragraph very carefully.
You cannot motivate professional people to do a good job. That motivation comes from within. External factors, such as the compensation scheme, can contribute to building an “internal business case” for motivation for each person. But no single factor is enough.
For a professional person in a law firm to feel motivated, there are usually several things present:
- A fair and reasonable compensation system that rewards the behaviors that the firm needs for business success. Compensation is not enough by itself, but it is an essential ingredient.
- Management systems and support. You cannot expect lawyers to bill fees, take care of clients, and market the firm if you fail to provide the basic administrative and clerical support that they need.
- Skills and opportunities. If your compensation system heavily rewards origination of new clients, but you do not provide training in marketing and sales skills, you cannot expect a significant improvement. Few things are as demotivating as setting expectations that people cannot meet because they lack the basic skills. Likewise, you cannot expect associates magically to originate new instructions if you do not allow them opportunities to meet and work with clients directly.
This is why so many law firms — especially small ones — are frustrated by the performance of their compensations systems. You can have the most inspiring and most clever compensation scheme in the entire legal profession. But it will fail miserably if you fail to provide the support and skills development that people need to succeed.
Norman Clark
* Note: In the American west in the 19th century, a “snake oil” was a term commonly applied to liquids with supposedly magic formulas (often claimed to be of Native American origins) that were nothing more than alcohol. A “medicine show” was a traveling sales team that traveled from town to town, often only one or two steps ahead of the police, selling such magical cures to the uninformed and gullible.
Tags: leadership, professional development, staff compensation systems, training