"The First 100 Days as Managing Partner:" Everything You Need to Know

My good friend and colleague Patrick McKenna just released a new e-book, "The First 100 Days:  Transitioning a New Managing Partner," which is available for free download and reading here, using the nifty "Nxtbook" publishing platform.  Both Ernie the Attorney and David Maister, as well as others I've surely misseed, have already taken heed.

The book is both short, and terrific—an easy on line read in one sitting, even for someone who has long believed that "the paperless office" would as a minimal prerequisite require the banishment of all computers from the workplace—anything much longer than one scrollable screen sparks the irresistible reflex to hit the "Print" button.  

I don't want to steal Patrick's thunder, but in an email to me today he urged me to spread the word, so I'll offer enough to, I hope, whet your appetite for the whole thing.

The entire monograph consists of about a dozen pages of Patrick's distilled wisdom on "The First 100 Days," followed by another dozen pages of invaluable observations from Managing Partner's themselves, all in response to Patrick's asking them where he'd run off the rails in his advice.  (The answer:   Nowhere that you'd notice.)

First, the essence of Patrick's advice for you, the Newly Minted Managing Partner:

1. Begin Before The Handoff (during the countdown before you officially take office)

• Position yourself as a leader who is eager to listen to the opinions of your peers.
• Build a working relationship with the departing Managing Partner.
• Create constructive dialogue with key thought leaders and power brokers within your firm.
• Tie up loose ends with key clients.
• Try to deal with sensitive problems before you take office.

2. Plug Your Gaps

• Figure out what you need to know and learn it as rapidly as you can.
• Establish your advice network.

3. Establish Performance Standards

• Negotiate your specific metrics for success.

4. Seize Your Day

• Pay attention to personal habits.
• Make symbolic gestures.
• Convey basic information.

5. Set Your Agenda

• Identify your one burning imperative.
• Get critical partner buy-in.
• Develop an action plan to implement your initiative.
• Launch a pilot project.

6. Exploit Early Successes

• Identify something that would not have happened had it not been for your burning imperative.

Next, and equally fascinating, is what the Managing Partners themselves have to say.  Here's my subjective sampling:

• "Personally, I enjoy the ability to float an idea, secure reactions, and decide what to do on a collaborative basis.  That was very easy when I was Deputy Managing Partner.  Shortly after becoming MP, I realized that many people in the firm, including even close friends and trusted advisers, were being considerably more deferential than they had been in the past. 
  I also realized that some things I said rather casually, on an exploratory basis, were being taken far more seriously than I intended--sometimes as an edict.  You have to make your colleagues and support team very comfortable that you welcome differing views and even dissent in discussions and policy formulation--understand that, once we set the policy, we all support it."--Michael Nannes, Dickstein Shapiro, Washington, DC
  
  
• "If one has never been a manager of a law firm it is amazing how much you don't know.  You can intellectually understand the five levers of profitability, but it takes a long time to understand how those levers act in different practice groups in different circumstances, and how they can be manipulated to create seemingly good PPP numbers that in fact are not healthy.  It takes a long time to understand the personalities of partners and PGL's, and how they affect the operations of the firm.  It takes a long time to understand the benchmarking, both objective and subjective, of your firm against peers.  It takes a long time to understand how to sell lateral partners and how to separate the good ones from the bad.  It takes a long time to know when you are being rolled by your partners and wehn you are not.  I could go on. [...]
  
  "I would encourage a new MP to reach out to experienced MP's of other firms and ask for help.  They are always glad to do it, and I have developed a core of close relationships as a result.  They are an excellent source of knowledge about new developments and new ideas.
  
  "I would emphasize how important it is to be prepared to live wtih and facilitate compromise. New leaders often think they can make great changes just by having the will to do it (I certainly did). Unfortunately, when your inventory can walk out the door, compromise becomes the name of the game."--Francis Millone, Milbank Tweed, New York
  
  
• "A lack of strength in finances/accounting will likely be common for new managing partners given the normal undergraduate tracks to law school and the utter failure of most law schools to discuss, at any level, the business operations of being in law.  In this area, I have spent a lot of time with our Executive Director being schooled on the finances."--Stephen Plunkett, Rider Bennett, Minneapolis
  
  
• "Law firm managers are a confident lot, but they usually have little background to run a  large business--they have no academic training as managers, and their instincts as lawyers usually are more of an impediment to success.  So, in my view, new managing partners should begin with the humble recognition that they are not terribly well qualified for the job."--John Montgomery, Ropes & Gray, Boston.

Here's my takeaway: (a) Nannes drives home the recognition that when you go from partner, PGL, or even Deputy MP, your voice goes from acoustic to 24/7 all-news cable; whatever you say will be heard resoundingly. (b) Millone makes it clear how much one has to learn as a new MP, and how humble one must be about grand schemes and visions; without the sincere, consistent, heartfelt buy-in of your partners, you may as well be forging plans with your dog. (c) Plunkett and Montgomery both underline one of my favorite themes, that law school (i) utterly and completely short-changes students on the business side of life; and (ii) that indeed many of the skills drilled into one there (issue-spotting, precedent-worshiping, micro-analyzing) do one an enormous disservice if one is later in a leadership position at a firm.

So, if a tour of duty as a Managing Partner is on your horizon, either distant, indistinct, and as vaporous as a dream, or if it's beckoning as clearly as F. Scott Fitzgerald's green light at the end of the dock in The Great Gatsby, you need to read this. 

And if you don't know Patrick, you should.