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Managing Partner Magazine presents:

Hit the Ground Running: Master Class for the New Practice Group Leader

January 21, 2009
AMA Executive Conference Center
San Francisco, CA

Congratulations! You have just been appointed as one of your firm’s newest practice group leaders and you now have the care and custody of a group of your peers. This may be your first experiencing in managing or leading (or whatever you call it) a group. To be effective you must now forge a team out of a group of autonomous individuals. Only one small problem  . . . you were never trained or given any guidance on how to go about organizing and managing a group of your fellow professionals. So, now where do you turn?

Who Should Attend?
New Department Chairs, and Practice / Industry Group Managers/Leaders (or those who feel like they are languishing) in law firms who want to learn how to be effective in their new roles, learn how to motivate their peers (even those attorneys who may be more senior than you), and explore where to direct your limited and precious (non-billable leadership) time in order to maximize your investment.

ABOUT YOUR MASTER CLASS LEADER:

Patrick J. McKenna (www.patrickmckenna.com) is an internationally recognized authority on law practice management.  Since 1983 he has worked with the top management of premier law firms to discuss, challenge, and escalate their thinking on how to manage and compete effectively.

He is the author of numerous works including Herding Cats: A Handbook for Managing Partners and Practice Leaders (1995); and Beyond Knowing: 16 Cage-Rattling Questions To Jump-Start Your Practice Team (2000).  One of the profession's foremost specialists in practice leadership, his book (co-authored with David Maister), First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals, (The Free Press, 2002) topped business bestseller lists in the United States, Canada and Australia; has been translated into nine languages, is currently in its sixth printing, and received an award for being one of the best business books of 2002.  In 2005, the book Management Skills (John Wiley) named McKenna among “leading thinkers in the field of management;” and in 2006, his e-book First 100 Days: Transitioning A New Managing Partner (NXTBook) earned glowing reviews and has been read by leaders in 63 countries.

His published articles have appeared in over 50 of the leading professional journals, newsletters, and online sources; and his work has been featured in Fast Company, Business Week, The Globe and Mail, The Economist, Investor’s Business Daily and The Financial Times.

McKenna is the founder of Edge International, one of the top three highest rated management consultancies serving law firms. He did his MBA graduate work at the Canadian School of Management, is one of the first alumni of Harvard’s Leadership in Professional Service Firms program, and has professional certifications in both accounting and management.  He has served at least one of the top ten largest firms in each of over a dozen different countries on issues associated with strategic differentiation, improving profitability, client service excellence, and effective firm management.

PROGRAM AGENDA--

8.30AM   Registration & Refreshments

9:00AM Introduction and Overview
Patrick McKenna will begin with a discussion of the evidence of why practicing together in a group can make a measurable difference to your law firm’s quality, service, profitability, skills and professional morale, motivation and enthusiasm.

9:30AM One-on-One Management Skills
This session will examine, in depth, the four critical elements to becoming an effective group leader.

We will determine, together, what precisely is the job and what does it require of the individual holding the position

We will identify how, as a practice leader, you add value and what specifically is it, that you can do, that is likely to actually affect the success of the group you lead

We will explore under what circumstances people accept counsel, how to get people to accept your influence and why someone would follow you

We will identify the various options you have available to you and what you need to do, to develop personal credibility with the people you manage

Every aspect of this session is designed to provide hands-on checklists, interpersonal techniques and exercises to make it completely applicable for you to use immediately.

12:00PM
Networking Luncheon (with guest speaker)

1:15PM One-on-One Management Skills (Cont’d)
Understanding Your Colleagues Differing Styles: When you bring together a group of lawyers who have different substantive skills, diverse experiences, a variety of work styles, and sometimes conflicting priorities, the process of managing the interactions can be challenging.

How to avoid personality clash and achieve instant     rapport
Effective communication skills for understanding and  appealing to your team members

2:00PM One-on-Group Collaboration Skills
Developing convergence on common goals as a team is important. Good practice group leaders recognize that in order to get the group working together effectively, you must invest in some conversations with your team to determine:
- why we should work together as a group;
- what is in it for each of us to collaborate together;
- how much time is going to be required to participate in                                                                a meaningful manner;
- what kind of behavior we think we have the right to  expect of each other; and
- what we must do to get professionals to consider   abandoning individual egos to the pursuit of some  greater purpose.

This session will equip practice leaders with the tools and techniques to explore with their group - what kind of group you want to be, what benefits you want to get, and whether you are prepared to do what it takes to truly be a team.

3:00PM Effective Group Meetings & Getting Action
                   Implemented
If you were to ask your partners, “what benefits should we expect to get out of meeting together as a group?” the answers you elicit would fall into one of two categories. These partners would tell you that the benefit would either be to better share knowledge (on what everybody in the group was doing) and keep current (on new developments in our area and with clients) or secondly, the benefit of our meeting together would be to work on some joint projects as a team. And it is in this second category, doing joint projects, where most practice groups fail.

Nowhere is the vitality of your team more visibly apparent than in the fundamental workings of practice group meetings. Since practice group meetings remain the principle vehicle for effective group action and the most visible aspect of the group’s progress, they require that a practice leader adhere to some interrelated principles that together will help energize these meetings and make them far more effective.

This session will focus on how to have your team working together on joint projects, determine an action plan for moving the group forward, and a means for absolutely ensuring that best intentions actually get implemented.

4:00PM Q & A
This concluding session is designed to summarize, synthesize, debate, question and answer any of your “real world” practice group management and leadership issues. As a group, we will determine and discuss coordination and
leadership challenges. 

FOR MORE DETAILS PLEASE CONTACT KEVIN KLEIN AT kklein@ark-group.com