Seat at the Table: Understanding and Building Your Firm’s Culture

Episode Notes

Transcript

Christopher T. Anderson:

On The Unbillable Hour and here at The Seat at the Table, we often talk about things that we can measure in the firm. We talk about numbers, we talk about metrics, but that’s not what really drives a firm most of the time. It is building a healthy firm culture, and we’re going to be talking about that today.

Announcer:

Unbillable Hour, Seat at the Table, a monthly round table discussion between industry professionals about topics most relevant to law firm owners today.

Christopher T. Anderson:

All right. Welcome to your Seat at the Table. We are talking today about something that’s a little bit different than what we usually talk about on The Unbillable Hour or here at Seat at the Table. Like I was mentioning earlier, we’re often talking about metrics, how marketing works, how the sales numbers work, what is your production targets? How do you do your recruiting and get those things through? We’re talking about things we can measure. Today we’re going to talk about, well, something that I am suspecting we don’t measure quite as directly, but our guests that we’ve invited may have different perspectives on that. The topic of the show today is managing firm culture as the firm grows, which means going beyond the books and building a healthy firm culture. And in order to illuminate that subject and really shed some light on something that we can all do better, we have three wonderful guests.

I’m going to ask Hannah Hembree Bell, Ben Hockema, and Lori Brown-Simmons to take a moment and introduce themselves in just a moment. But before we do that, I just want to go around the table one time and ask you guys, I’m putting you right on the spot, what does a firm culture mean to you? Let’s start with Hannah.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind always is that quote that culture eats strategy for breakfast. And I think of a firm culture as both the personality and backbone of the firm. Sometimes it looks like personality, but really the underpinning of the backbone is the thing that kind of keeps the whole thing standing up.

Christopher T. Anderson:

I like that. I like that. Ben, what do you have to say about that?

Ben Hockema:

Yeah. I think Hannah, great insight there. I would add that it’s what happens when the boss isn’t around and it’s how you treat the clients and treat each

Christopher T. Anderson:

Other. What to do when mom’s not looking.

Lori Brown-Simmons:

Lori? Well, first I would say that your firm has a culture, whether you know it or not. And the culture is demonstrated by what everyone is saying about your firm when you’re not in the room. What are your clients saying? What are your employees saying? What are the partners saying? So who are you as a firm?

Christopher T. Anderson:

I love it. There used to be a show on PBS called the McLaughlin Report, and I’ve got to talk to the producers of this one and see if we can change to that format where I get to go wrong and then say the real answer is. No, I think those were all great answers. For me, I would adopt each and every one of them. For me, the culture is what you are willing to be punished for. The firm culture is how you act, how we behave as a firm, no matter what. And that’s how you really know culture from either aspirational or something we want it to be or that we put on as heirs. So we’re going to be talking a whole lot about how to build that healthy firm culture. And to Lori’s point, and I think Lori, that was a really good insight, is also how to discover it.

Because if it already exists, then we have to know what it is and if we’re okay with that. So Lori, because you gave that last comment, we’re going to go backwards around the table and let’s just do a little bit of introduction. Everybody’s been on the show in one form or another, but to remind our listeners, Lori, just a little bit about where you’re coming from and what your perspective is on the business of law.

Lori Brown-Simmons:

Sure. Thank you so much, Christopher. Lori Brown-Simmons. I have been working within and with law firms for 17 years. My firm is Fractional Firm Advisors, and we work with mid-size law firms that have outgrown their administrative management. And we help them understand where they are in terms of their growth. And we provide them with long-term part-time leaders on the operations side, like CFOs, COOs, CMOs, and any type of management support they need.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Perfect. Thank you so much, Lori. Ben, reintroduce yourself to our listeners.

Ben Hockema:

Sure. So I’m Ben Hockema. I’m founder of Illuminate Wealth Management. We started as a personal finance side and then just started to get a lot more business owners, particularly lawyers as clients. And we turned into kind of biggest growth area is our virtual CFO services that we’re also helping the personal clients on the business and finances and how do you use that? Mostly for small businesses. So I think Lori’s getting the people that outgrow me probably on that front, but great to see a lot of entrepreneurs that we call reluctant entrepreneurs. So they are great at being attorneys. They love what they do. They don’t necessarily love the business side of it. And that’s not why they got into the game, I guess. And so kind of help partner alongside them.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Ben, just to follow up on that, you said reluctant. How would you differentiate between reluctant and accidental?

Ben Hockema:

I would say they’re probably the same. Most of the people we work with, they couldn’t find a better way than just become the entrepreneur themselves, start the business. And then we help them from the startup stage all the way through having several partners and growing from there.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Fantastic. Thank you, Ben. AndHannah Hembree Bell, please reintroduce yourself.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

Yes. So I am Hannah Hembree Bell I am the founding attorney at Henbry Bell Law, where we help marriages end well in the greater Austin and San Antonio, Texas region. And also the founder of My Confident Divorce and the My Confident Women’s Circle, the group for women who have divorce in common, host of my own podcast, Not Saving It for Later. So just like basically that all means I love talking about divorce related topics, which got me to the point, I guess, where I’m here talking about the business of so doing.

Christopher T. Anderson:

All right. Thank you, Hannah. All right. The first thing, and this is being thrown out to the panel, just jump on top of each other. Let’s make this a complete melee, or we could be orderly. So we all touched on what the definition of firm culture is. None of you said it, so thank you. But a lot of people think about that poster on the wall that has three or four pithy words that somebody with a consultant came up with and put on that wall and that everybody becomes a part of the furniture. So beyond that, is culture something we build, something that happens while we’re not looking? A little bit of both. In that case, is that how we should leave it or is that something we should get intentional about?

Lori Brown-Simmons:

One thing that I have learned in law firms is that a lot of the firms don’t even have that poster on the wall. A lot of law firms, they just don’t think that it’s important to have a culture. And as I said, they do have one, but I think part of the traditional culture of a law firm is you’re there to generate work and you reward the most productive partners and the staff is there to support that. But that is an antiquated way of looking at management of a law firm. And now the most successful law firms do have that thing written on the wall. And they have gone much far beyond that in terms of defining what that is and taking other steps to make sure that they are living. Everyone understands what it is and they are living that culture.

Ben Hockema:

I agree. I will add from my perspective, the first round, I’ve never seen someone get it right the first time around on putting those things in place saying, okay, this was what goes on the wall. You have these aspirations and that’s what you want the firm culture to be. And then in practice, it needs to probably tweak and change a little bit. But I agree. I think having the buy-in, everyone’s on the same page, moving the same direction is what makes firms thrive.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

When you’re very first starting out, I mean, at least for me, I wasn’t trying to set up any kind of culture. I mean, I wasn’t even thinking about that. I was trying to get the lights on and keep them on. And didn’t even think about the culture or personality of the firm until several, several employees in. And really it was just an extension of my own personality and way at first. And I thought of culture in the beginning. I think if somebody would have asked me, it would have been like the fun stuff is what I would have been mostly thinking about. And then sort of I think of the journey for me of the firm. We’re up to about 65 team members now. So it’s been like multiple iterations. And there’s the first kind of phase where it is about the fun stuff and the good stuff and the personality part.

And then pretty soon you realize that’s a lot of personality, but without the backbone. And so then the next phase is figuring out how can we make sure this thing keeps standing through the next cycle of the firm. And for me, what that looks like was intentionally bringing in things I wanted to see that were not there. So specifically adding in the culture of accountability. And we made these agreements when we started working here. We started talking about it as an agreement. It’s like how many hours you’re going to bill in a month, for instance. We made certain agreements. And then those seemed optional to a lot of us. And so adding in the culture of accountability, I mean, I did that because I had to, because the firm was. I had a meeting with a fractional actually CFO. It’s basically like you’re going to go under unless something changes.

I mean, my next level of culture, finding the backbone came out of necessity in needing to add in accountability. And I didn’t want to take away from the personality and the fun parts, but had to add in another facet of that. We keep our agreements, we keep our word, we’re accountable to what we say. So I think it changes at the different phases that you are. And I think probably from zero to some certain threshold, it happens mostly on accident. Unless you’re an experienced entrepreneur and you know what you’re doing and you’re starting something fresh and you know to set in place a certain way of doing things. But for me, when I was doing it, I had no idea when I was starting, but it’s changed over time for sure. Mostly intentional after that first go round of needing to get the backbone in place.

Christopher T. Anderson:

I like that. I’d like to kind of follow onto something you said in the middle there, Hannah, which to me just really leapt out. And I’d like everybody to kind of chime in, which is, and I don’t remember your exact words, but you distinguished culture from personality or personality from culture. And I think that’s really, really important because I think most people don’t. And what’s funny about it is, from my perspective, is that they should because when we talk about, oh, what’s the culture of. Name a country, what’s the culture of Argentina? What’s the culture of Russia? What’s the culture of South Africa? Now people will start talking about things that are probably cultural, like how they experience the place, how it makes them feel, what the values tend to seem to be like there. But when they talk about their own business or their firm, I think a lot of people jump to maybe people of my age, but in the dot-com boom, for instance, culture was foosball tables and free lunch.

That seemed to substitute for culture, but that’s not culture. So Lori and Ben, how would you talk about the difference between personality and culture when we’re thinking about this and trying to think about building things intentionally, how you make sure you don’t confuse them?

Lori Brown-Simmons:

First, I would say really I was impressed with what Hannah said. And I would describe what she said as truly a success story. And talking about the growth she’s experienced and the success she’s experienced. I would say that’s probably directly attributable to the things that she just described. And it’s interesting, if you make it accidental, it could end well or it could not end well, but I think that, well, she described some things that are intentional, but the wrong person doing it accidentally could really destroy your firm. And then I think some of the things that she described, maybe some of the fun things, that could be part of the personality. But I think the culture is something that is intentional. And it’s sort of, you could see it throughout the company, throughout the firm. So you see it on the wall, you see it written on the wall.

You see it with the way that you onboard. You see it in the way that you reward certain behaviors and through the performance review process. And you see it when you have meetings with your partners and what you say to your partners and the types of behaviors you permit from your partners and the way that you treat your staff and the way that you treat your associates. I think culture is something that sort of flows consistently and is something that’s reinforced through the behaviors. And it’s the way that people outside of your firm describe you. So I think that it could be nuanced there, but I would describe the culture as just something that it’s part of your mission and your values and that type of thing.

Ben Hockema:

Yeah. And I’ll take it slightly different perspective. I agree with everything that you said, but when I think of basically every employee we’ve had that hasn’t been a good fit, I liked them. I liked working with them. There’s a personality there. We get along, the stuff, but it was a cultural issue. We either didn’t vet them out upfront. We weren’t clear on what our culture was early on. Kind of same situation where you’re just trying to keep the lights on and build the business and have the offering that people want to pay for and don’t really know what the culture is. And so I didn’t know how to screen for it on early hires. And so that’s really what a lot of them didn’t fit culturally, but I liked all of them, the personality fit. So I think there’s a lot as you’re growing and going through the business, why didn’t it not work out is really insightful into what is your actual culture?

Because that’s why I would say we just recently had to let somebody go and it’s cultural fit. That’s the problem.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

Yeah. And I think for me, the distinction I’m making too is I was thinking about it like you as a person, your personality, pretty much everybody you meet gets to interact with. So if I’m at the grocery store or if I’m at my job or if I’m at church or if I’m at the kids’ soccer game, everybody’s going to encounter my personality. It may be sort of different facets, et cetera. But the cultural aspect, when you dig a little bit deeper, it’s who you are in a way that the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily know. So it’s like one of our core values is teamwork. And I’ve said it several times like, “Hey, you know you’re on an amazing team and we know what that core value means when things are challenging and hard.” And nobody’s like, “Oh yay, everything’s great. What teamwork? Woo hoo.” I mean, you’re not really owning those core values, I think, until they’re put to the test.

So I think the distinction I’m making is like anybody can put out this personality, foosball tables. They can write about that in a news article. Oh look, some.com, Google, whoever has ping pong tables. Cool. That to me is personality because everybody can see it. But the cultural aspect is a layer deeper that has a component of personality, but it doesn’t stop there. And you have to know the organization better or have interacted with it in some more substantial way than just this observation to really know what its culture is, I think. And probably there’s a component of when it. Christopher, you alluded to that too about what are we willing to be punished for? I don’t really think of things in terms of punishment, but who are we when times get tough

Is a different maybe way to say that. And what are we willing to. Where will I not, for my own self, I was actually, Christopher, there was a clip when you were on my podcast that we did together and there’s this little clip the team posted recently about how when I’ve really made up my mind about. I was saying when I really made up my mind about something, I will not be moved, period. Strong beliefs loosely held except for a few things and they are not. And those for our firm, they are not loosely held. On those issues, we will not be moved. And so I think that that’s the difference between those two.

Christopher T. Anderson:

I think that makes a whole lot of sense. Thank you for that. Yeah. I think it is different ways of looking at it, but the notion of what are you willing to be punished for is exactly the same in that when times are tough, will you stand your ground even if it costs you? Because that can be the measure for some folks. Or quite honestly, the Converse, when things are just going gangbusters and it feels like you can do no wrong, will you still hold? Or will it seem less important?

Lori Brown-Simmons:

Just to add to that, I was thinking also, if you are at a firm where you have different practice areas or different offices, you may find that there are different personality that represents a different practice or a different office. But underlying all of that, the foundation is built around a consistent culture and the way that you treat people, the mission and the values, that type of thing. So it could be sort of just the different layers, but the foundation and the structure that holds everything together is the culture.

Christopher T. Anderson:

I think we’ve talked about what culture is and a little bit about how to protect it. As the unbillable hour does, to make things kind of actionable for our listeners. Okay. Tana, to your point, you can’t just go to the store and get me some culture. And it’s also not something that you can hire someone to come in and do for you and go ahead and inject that culture into the firm and then you’ll have it. I’d like to just start talking a little bit about how to indeed get intentional because everybody here kind of agreed that it’s an intentional process. And we’ve used the word values a bit too. So let me ask it this way and just throw it out. How do we take these words of values or things that we do value or that we think should be in the culture and start to shape it, start to infuse it as to something that our people, our team feels every day?

Ben Hockema:

So it starts with writing down what those core values are. You have to identify what it is and then lean into it. So I’ll use our firm as an example. We had what I though were good core values to begin with the first iteration. And then we didn’t do much. It wasn’t inspiring. It wasn’t something that really flowed through. And mostly because it was too high level, it wasn’t actionable. And it was just words that weren’t wrong. They just weren’t specific enough. And so we spent a lot of time, talked to all of our employees and really gathered all the information to get, I think, a much more honed in list of core values. And then me and our management team, we looked at everything that we did through those lenses and said, are our company benefits packages that we’re giving to all of our employees, is that consistent with the core values that we had?

Do we have any clients that we need to fire because the way they treat us is not consistent with what we said is important to us. Are our employees, the right people in the right seats, consistent with the core values? And so it’s not just put the words on paper. It’s then go and apply that. We looked at our SOPs and said, are operating procedures pulling something from the core values out? Are our performance reviews consistent with doing the core values? Is that what we’re holding as the standard? And if they’re not, maybe we don’t have the right core values yet. And so just iterating on that to get to the right standards is how we’ve done it.

Lori Brown-Simmons:

I totally agree with Ben. I mean, the importance of really getting the people in the firm involved and getting their alignment is really critical to get them to have buy-in. A firm that I was working with when I visited their office in the conference room, the first thing I saw on the table in the conference room was this little table tent. And it had the mission and the values written right there. And so anybody that walks into that conference room, whether it’s an existing employee, whether it’s a partner or whether it’s someone interviewing, understands that this is who they are and this is what they believe in. So I think it’s just important once you get that alignment and you get the buy-in, you have to communicate it regularly. So you want to communicate it at regular meetings. You want to communicate it to people that are joining the firm, communicate it in the performance review process.

You do want to have it on the wall, but it just becomes a part of the language of the firm and sort of the bloodline of the firm is what your culture is. And then you build the systems to reinforce it, like what Ben was saying, where you have your standard operating procedures and your performance reviews and recognition programs. And when you’re making decisions, do your decisions align with these things that you said? And then over time you reevaluate as you grow. Does it still align with who you are today now that you’re a bigger firm or now that you’re in a different market or maybe you have different leadership? Maybe it does still apply, but you just want to make sure that you are considering who you are now when you’re looking at your culture versus where you were maybe five years ago when you first created it.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

For me, ways to kind of grow it. I don’t know, but the things I’ve done along the way that seemed to yield some benefit for us. First thing I did when I was still doing all the interviews was I talked about it in the interview. I told the people, these are what our core values are. So from the very first conversation they have with me, they know what those are. And so later, if as and when there’s coaching or something that needs to happen with them, they’re going to go back. And I think that really matters to people. Whatever I would have said, unless I said something like totally stupid or something, but whatever I would have said probably would have been, or maybe not, but mostly okay with them. But the fact that I took the time in the interview to say something about core values communicated a lot to this person that we’re a sort of place who’s thought about that.

I think it really legitimized us as an employer, et cetera. So there’s that one point at which to inject the culture. I think the best thing we’ve done is we have once a month team meetings. And this is sort of part announcements, parts what’s happening sort of thing. And each unit, each team within the firm does a core value highlight. And so the leader of that team brings up something that someone. And usually the slide is full. I mean, it could keep going where they shout out somebody on the team for something they did and they say what the core value is that they embodied. And I think that is the single biggest factor in what we’ve done is bringing that up every single month. So if you’re new and like, I don’t know, you watched something or saw something about core values, but then here we are talking about excellence, integrity, service, teamwork again and again, it starts to stick.

The other thing, it’s in our job advertisements. So if I’m posting about a job, it’s listed on there so that people can read it. And I actually had the experience recently because I thought core values is like excellent service integrity team or character. I don’t know, whatever these kind of generic sounding words. Ours all have a little sentence with them. And I thought, oh, all core values that are part of the culture part. Everybody agrees with everybody’s.That’s kind of BS. It’s a little bit generic. But I read actually the core values in the bottom of an email signature of a gal that I know local to Austin. And I like her. As far as I know, she runs a good business. But when I read her core values, one of them, I was like, “Ew.

I do not know.” And it was a sentence. It’s hard to agree with in word. But where you write the sentence, I was like, “Oh, there’s one where I do not align with that.” The fact that you needed to say something along the lines of the glass is half full. To me, as a listed core value just didn’t hit for me. It wouldn’t hit for me as an employee. Well, duh, why are we even talking about the glass? I got a full glass. I’m going to fill up my glass. I’m not worried about empty. So it did, and it did its job. I mean, I wasn’t trying to apply for a job with her, but it did communicate something that wouldn’t resonate with me. So anyway, for what it’s worth, I think bringing that forward, I like having the word with the sentence. And then it just adds to.

Why I say that adds to, we’re talking so much about core values for the culture and imbuing that into others is the repetition of it. Or putting on little things and stuff. To me, it just sounds boring, honestly. All that stuff and all these little things is boring. I’m bored with it. I’m bored with everybody’s one word. But when it has legs and when you live it out, I think it’s a lot more interesting and exciting. So I think just for anybody who’s trying to figure out how to do this, bringing it forward, could you give an award at some sort of an end of year thing, start of year thing? Maybe we do a yearly, I say that all the time. I’ve had one so far and I’m doing it again. A gala, a big party. So maybe at the party, we’ll have some sort of an award this time for the person who’s embodied the core value the most or something like that.

But just walk in the talk instead of just talking about it with like a post-it note or something. I think you just waste your money on that swag. No one cares about that.

Lori Brown-Simmons:

I really like what you said, Hannah. And one of the things that I like that we do along those lines is just taking the time to recognize successes and reward people for their successes. And when you do that, you’re showing them how to align with your values and you’re showing them what you as a firm value. So I think that’s good. So like at the end of the year, we have a meeting and we talk about what we did over the course of the year and who was the most responsive when they spoke to clients or who was most responsive with the other members of our team or who demonstrated positive firm values. All those types of things are, it’s a way to reinforce the behavior. And even with, that’s the way you train your children to be courteous. And positive reinforcement, even if it’s a thank you for your child.

And not saying that these people that we work with are children, but these types of enforcement work with all kinds of people. So I think that is a really important thing that we should all do in terms of rewarding that positive behavior and highlighting it and talking about it and celebrating it.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Let me get us to take a little pivot to the dark side because we’ve spent some good time talking about now how to implement good culture, how to see good culture, what tools to use to kind of get it in. But I think we’ve also made it clear that it’s not a one and done. That is something we’ve got to keep working on, keep working on. So let me ask, because we’re going to be a little bit short on time on it, I’m just going to drive right to it because this is one of those areas where we get challenged on it. You have a team member who’s a really high performer, just really gets it done for the business, but is consistently in violation of what you believe or what you’re trying to instill as the firm culture. If your culture is cooperative and they’re not, they’re aggressive and combative.

If your firm culture is combative and they’re overly conciliatory, whatever it might be, what do you do? How do you deal with a really high performing employee that’s not meshing with the firm culture?

Hannah Hembree Bell:

I mean, head on, I guess. Like for me, I had to earn that. I mean, if this would have been early on, top performer when I didn’t have that much team, that would have been a harder question. And there’s certain areas that are go, no, go. Like integrity.

Could be a big fat liar over something important, especially if it affects the client. You give me no other choice. But I think as I’ve gotten bigger, I can have a little bit more of the courage in my convictions too. But I’ve had to have conversations to tell the. You know I care about you. You know I think you’re awesome. You do a great job. But ask yourself, do you think that I would keep someone who is actually inconsistent with my core values? And that versus said, “No, I don’t. So you’re going to back me into a corner and give me no choice. Here’s the thing. Here’s where you’re out of line. Here’s where the behavior we need to see.” And I think you have to be honest with yourself. And look, I think there’s sometimes excellence. We level up. Somebody’s maybe doing crappier work.

Am I going to fire them over that immediately? It’s sort of degrees and how much coaching have you done with them and whatever. But I mean, I think if you won’t be moved and you really do have the courage of your conviction, you got to get straight at it. And I think how much have you earned the right to ask the question? What do you think I’m going to do? You’re going to give me no choice. And then that person respects. They will respect that.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Might not like it.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

Yeah. Right. If they’re not a total crap head or whatever.

Christopher T. Anderson:

But they will respect it.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

Yeah. They’ll respect it even if they don’t like it. And probably that person knows they’re acting out of alignment and. And people don’t want to be out of alignment with their word. Even though they may act that way, sometimes they don’t actually want that. Push comes to shove. So it’s like, look, here’s the agreement we made about these core values and you said you agree with and will uphold, et cetera. Here’s your behavior. There is a gap. I don’t know if I’m ever doing it. I don’t have to do this that much anymore, but put it back on that person. So what you going to do about it? How are you going to get me out of this corner because you’re painting me into a corner and I will do it. But it’s tough and tough, especially if you’re a growing firm and someone’s been there for a long time.

Christopher T. Anderson:

That’s the toughest and sometimes the most necessary. Yeah. Yeah.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

Yeah.

Ben Hockema:

I don’t know if I agree with your question. Okay. You don’t have to. I actually would argue if it’s a true core value, you cannot have someone that is an A+ superstar if they’re not also living out the core values. I understand you could be generating a bunch of revenue, but part of your job description is if you are here, you’re living out the core values. Now, that doesn’t mean you’re always perfect and people go through stuff in their personal life that affects them. But to me, it’s pretty black and white. You are an all-in fit or you’re not. And so if it’s a pivot that happened that they used to really live by it, I would dive deeper. Okay, what changed? Were you just putting on a face so that you could have a job and be here and maybe prove it? Or did something change and how can we support you?

Bring you back. We want you a part of our team.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah. Well, let me make it harder for you, Ben, on that. Because since you disagreed with me, we’re not going to make this easy. Great. But let me make it harder. What if the real problem is actually that as most of us do, the ownership, the leadership of the firm just didn’t define that core value before or that culture before. And now we have, and that has surfaced inconsistencies with the firm or with the business. And so I don’t want to use the word fault, but in a sense it’s not their fault, right?

Lori Brown-Simmons:

Sure.

Christopher T. Anderson:

That because they didn’t know for whatever reason. And I think the owner should always take 100% responsibility for that not knowing. So how do you deal with it then? When you’ve listened to this show, you talk to one of us a little bit more and you say, “Okay, we’re really going to clarify the culture in our firm and whatever accidental culture we have, that unintentional culture that we have, we’re going to shift it to the one we wanted. And oh boy, this person’s starting to look like a real sore thumb.” What do you do then?

Ben Hockema:

So I’m a pretty black and white person. I think it’s still pretty black and white. If that’s truly a core value, then you figure out a way to part ways on the right terms. If they aren’t going to live by them and you take responsibility, say things have changed, our priorities changed. This is what’s important to us. And the reason why that’s my response is everyone else in the firm will see what you did. So if it’s truly a core value and you’re not willing to say, we want people that buy into these, then I would argue they’re not a core value or everyone else on your team’s going to argue they’re not core value because you’re not living by them and you’re not holding people accountable on them and you’re not making decisions with that in mind when it’s hard to make the decision.

So if I was in those shoes, I would really say, how important is this core value? And is it a true core value? Is it a true part of our culture that we must abide by? And if the answer is yes, then we talk to that employee. How do we either you buy in, let’s change behavior, let’s become a part of this, or we’ll just agree that it’s not a cultural fit and that’s okay. Let’s help you find another place that you are a better cultural fit for because you’re a great performer and we really liked having you here.

Lori Brown-Simmons:

I totally agree. These people in a culture are a risk for the firm and it could be like a poison. I mean, having a right culture could affect your firm’s performance, your firm’s profitability. This person who does not align with your core values could be a trigger for people leaving, for associates not staying on, or for unintentionally communicating to others in the firm that this type of behavior is allowed. So if you want to be on track to grow your firm and to meet the goals that you set for yourself, I think it’s really important to get everybody on the same train, moving in the same direction with the same values, at least understanding what the values are and living by those values. I just think if the person is with you already and you’re implementing this new process, you just have to start communicating it and then holding people accountable.

And if they don’t fit where you’re going, then you might have to make a hard decision.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Yeah. I mean it sense like what you guys are saying is in a very dangerous way. We will get the behavior we tolerate. And Ben, I think you said everybody’s watching all the time to see what that is because tolerance is seen as permission. And for anybody that might not naturally exude the culture that the firm has got. We’re going to take one last pass around the horn. We started that way. We’re going to end that way. So we’ll go with Hannah, Ben, then Lori, you’re going to get the last word. If you’re successful at putting together a healthy firm culture and at protecting it, what does that free the owner up to do?

Hannah Hembree Bell:

Really to continue to build, to suit your goals, dreams, purpose. Because I think when the culture is locked in, it will attract those people to it that are meant to be a part of it. And it will likewise repel those who are not. And so what I think having that really defined culture allows you to do is to market it, to leverage it, because it’s just like reputation, right? It’s pretty hard to build and easy to lose. And so I think with culture, just a few decisions and you can be in a real world of trouble. I’ve been in a couple of those spots along the way, but I think what it does is free you up to use and leverage it as a part of your path and your plan without it being a thing you’re stuck in dealing with. Because until you’ve got it landed, you’re really kind of stuck dealing with that.

And it never goes away. It’s not something you just are like, “Oh, check, nailed, done.” But it’s not your biggest, hottest fire, your biggest problem. So you can move on. Basically, you get to move on to different, bigger, hotter fires and problems basically. And it may come back around, circle around as your biggest, hottest fire problem. That’s happened to me a couple of times. But generally speaking, it allows you to move on to other things to worry about and to build and then leverage it.

Ben Hockema:

Yeah. I’ll echo that. I think it allows you to lead. If you’re all rowing the same direction, you don’t have someone pushing against you, you’re able to lead the way that you should. And like you said, it’s not check the box and move on and never look at it again. But it puts out that fire that it’s not going to just be a problem that now you got to deal with and stop the direction where you’re going. You can lead the whole company. You can help everyone go the same direction. And I think on the compounding, it compounds, the culture compounds and so does the benefits. It becomes something that you see in all the different areas, the hiring, the new clients, the way you serve your clients, all that just compounds because you got it right.

Lori Brown-Simmons:

And I would say that, just remind us all that this is a people business. So our greatest assets are the people. And so if you have the right culture in place, it will allow you the time as a leader to hire and retain the best people. You’ll create a culture and a firm where people want to work and where people want to stay. And the people that are best suited to give your clients the right experience for the investment they’re making in your firm.

Christopher T. Anderson:

I think what I’m going to say borrows from the theme of all of you, but it struck me when I was asking the question actually. And that is it enables you as the leader, the owner, to stand strongly in your truth, to be your authentic self, which leads you and enables you to be your best self because it makes a lot of decisions really easy. Is that our culture or isn’t it? And if you’ve communicated it well, then you don’t have to apologize for enforcing it. And that enables you to stand in your truth, which gives you the strength to, as Hannah and Ben and Lori, you all said to lead and to be that effective leader. And quite honestly, to polarize, just to say to those that will follow you, you’re following not me, but this culture, this set of values that this organization exudes.

And if you don’t like them, you’re going to probably elect yourself off the island. So Hannah, Ben, Lori, thank you so much for joining and taking your seats at the table.

Ben Hockema:

Thanks for having us on.

Hannah Hembree Bell:

Thanks, Christopher.

Christopher T. Anderson:

Thank you. This is Christopher Anderson, and we invite all of you to join us every month to take your seat at the table on another great topic that helps you build the law firm business that works for you.

Announcer:

Thank you for listening. This has been Unbillable Hour Seat at the Table by the Legal Talk Network.

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