Can We See the Log In Our Own Eye?

Usually we draw lessons from other law firms, or (even more usually) from the massive managerial literature of corporate America, which, as regular readers know, I have always believed offers us a relatively untapped stock of wisdom (and cant, to be sure) on managing complex multi-national organizations.

But today we have a lesson from "I, Cringely," a PBS-sponsored weekly columnist who you should be following if you have an iota of interest in the tech industry.  Here's this week's lead:

"After 29 years of working in high-tech companies and writing about them, I have noticed how insular they tend to be, often not seeing either the world or themselves at all clearly. Whether intended or not, this cultural artifact comes to control how the world in turn sees them, which rarely works in their favor. The classic example is Microsoft, where hiring smart people fresh from school and working them 60 hours or more per week -- in an environment where they don't even leave the building to eat -- leads to a state of corporate delusion, where lying and cheating suddenly begin to make sense. But it isn't just Microsoft that does this. It is ANY high tech company that hires young people, isolates them through long hours at work, feeds them at work, and effectively determines their friends, who are their co-workers. This trend even extends to the anti-Microsoft, to Google, where the light of day is sorely needed.

"Google is secretive. ... Google folks don't understand why the rest of us have a problem with this, but then Google folks aren't like you and me.   The result of this secrecy and Google's "almighty algorithm" mentality is that the company makes changes -- and mistakes -- without informing its customers or even doing all that much to correct the problems. It's all just beta code, after all. But the business part is real, as is the money that some people have lost because of Google's poor communication skills combined, frankly, with poor follow-through."

Who recognizes a familiar industry?

My point is not to laud or lambast Google, or Cringely for that matter—and it is certainly anything but to suggest that "lying and cheating" can ever "begin to make sense"—but it is to shine a momentary spotlight—and momentary, I have a high degree of confidence, is all it will be—on the acculturation principles abroad in the land of sophisticated, large law firms.

Specifically what "principle of acculturation" do I have in mind? 

Today, it's the increasingly questionable presumption that associates will work themselves to distraction in exchange for a presumptively fair, even if long, shot at partnership.

First comes this from Legal Week.  In a survey of 2,500 young lawyers, which they summarized as "foot soldiers turn backs on partnership dream," the key finding was:

"The Legal Week Employee Satisfaction Survey, carried out with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, found that work/life balance was ranked ahead of other key factors in choosing a firm, such as culture and treatment by partners.

"The issue was even ranked as more important than ‘concrete’ factors such as salary, billable-hour expectations and partnership prospects in the research, which also includes detailed evaluations by assistants of individual law firms."

Perhaps even more shockingly, while 62% of males claimed they still aspired to partnership, only 40% of females did. 

As Legal Week's editorial summary of the results say:

'Signs are emerging, however, that the appeal of the traditional reward and career structure offered by law firms is diminishing, leading to growing levels of dissatisfaction among assistants and associate solicitors and some serious motivational and staff retention challenges for the profession."

Essentially, the juniors are feeling a disconnect between the relatively high ratings they give "hard" business and professional factors such as quality of work and reputation of their firm, and the quite poor marks they give the more "personal" aspects of work such as collaboration, partners' attitude towards them, and recognition and praise for good work.

This is even more so for those who feel alienated about the partnership carrot itself:  "Those who do not aspire to be partners at their own firms report significantly lower levels of satisfaction in almost all categories."

To me, the handwriting is on the wall:  With women constituting 50% of law school graduates, firms that have a reputation for being unattractive to people who will permit the words "work/life balance" to pass their lips will find themselves drawing from a smaller and smaller talent pool.

Meanwhile, David Maister responds to readers who want to know how to "keep the kids," and his answer is:

• challenges
• growth
• training
• stretching.

"What a young person needs (in addition to a good paycheck) - in fact what he or she MUST have ... the chance to build skills.  Without this, they can not develop themselves and have a career."

Of course, this puts an icy clarity to the question the firm must ask itself:  Are we really willing to trust that associates want to "stretch," will rise to the challenge of learning new skills, and—perhaps the key scary, unspoken thought—if I as the senior partner make sure I delegate some difficult assignments, will I remain valuable and rewarded?

I believe firms may increasingly find themselves in two camps.

• One set of firms will cling to the "safety" of tradition, keeping associates in the dark, as the second-class citizens they are presumed to be,  pointedly oblivious to "work/life" issues, letting the fungible young things sink or swim in the deep end of the pool they're being paid well to inhabit.
• Another set of firms will embark on the adventure of embracing this generation of graduates as true professional peers and colleagues, every bit as ravenous for challenge, stretching, and unfamiliar new assignments as we were—and will also embrace the reality that the highest form of human happiness comes not with work alone, but with work and with love.

The good news is that those of us blessed in work and in love are often the most productive and creative as well.  This is nothing more than centuries-old wisdom, but some of us lost sight of it at the end of the 20th Century.