{"id":28858,"date":"2022-11-16T18:46:24","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T17:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/?p=28858"},"modified":"2022-11-16T18:47:37","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T17:47:37","slug":"a-rich-meal-on-law-firm-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/a-rich-meal-on-law-firm-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"A Rich Meal (on law firm strategy)"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I am regularly surprised about the focus of many public or semi-public discussions around law firm strategy.\u00a0More precisely, I think that a bit more clarity on one particular item could help.<\/p>

A good start is a quote often (probably mis-)attributed to Peter Drucker (it’s true, no matter who actually said it):<\/p>

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„Culture eats strategy for breakfast.“<\/p>

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Let\u2019s skip all fancy definitions.\u00a0Culture in this sense is the default of how things are handled here (wherever „here“ is). Or, as Seth Godin puts it, the notion of „people like us do things like this“.<\/p>

Culture is factual.\u00a0It is the sum-total of what tends to be done, encouraged and tolerated (or not). Good or bad, helpful or not, there always is one.<\/p>

Different from strategy, culture cannot be altered by decree. Only indirectly by getting people to actually behave differently. Top down or bottom up. Mostly slowly.<\/p>

Which makes it so difficult. And that in turn might be one reason, why it gets ignored a little. Which is a shame, because culture indeed tends to win (at breakfast, lunch and dinner).<\/p>

An example might help.<\/p>

A firm\u2019s strategy demands deep integration. At the same time, profit allocation and internal recognition for years has incentivized short-term profitability of each practice group in isolation. Consequently, that orientation is reflected and deeply ingrained in people’s day-to-day behavior. No matter how sound, the strategy\u2019s call for cooperation across silos on its own will have a hard time to show effect.<\/p>

There is quite a bit to unpack here.\u00a0<\/p>

As a starting point, in practice the clear distinction between strategy and culture has proven extremely helpful. Together with the realization that if the two are pitted directly against each other, it\u2019s not even a real challenge.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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I’d love to hear from you.\u00a0<\/p>

If you haven’t already, please consider subscribing here<\/a>.<\/p>

And if you know somebody else, who might also be interested, please share.<\/p>

All the best,
Malte<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am regularly surprised about the focus of many public or semi-public discussions around law firm strategy.\u00a0More precisely, I think that a bit more clarity on one particular item could help. A good start is a quote often (probably mis-)attributed to Peter Drucker (it’s true, no matter who actually said it): \u00a0 „Culture eats strategy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized-de"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malteholthaus.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}