Leadership
Selling the big picture
How Peter Van Cleve engages employees to work toward a common set of goals at Bryan Cave LLP
By Mark Scott
Smart Business St. Louis | June 2008
Page 1 of 4
It is a tradition at just about every company. The new guy
comes in on his first day and gets paraded around the office to
meet all of his new co-workers. Perhaps he will remember a few
names and faces, but, more than likely, they will slip into the
blurriness that is the first day on a new job for most people.
But if you can provide opportunities beyond the first day for an
employee to get to know his or her colleagues, your new person
will stand a much better chance of fitting into the culture, says
Peter Van Cleve.
Van Cleve, managing partner for the St. Louis office of Bryan
Cave LLP, a $411 million law firm, says the opportunities start at
his organization with first-year lawyers having a chance to go to
lunch with any other lawyer in the firm on the company’s tab.
“There is a lot of informal learning that takes place,” Van Cleve
says. “Not only are they meeting people, but they are learning
about the organization through those people. It really pays dividends in terms of getting to know other people and being able to
have the availability and the access to ask questions they did not
learn going in.”
Van Cleve himself has played a prominent role in welcoming new
employees by serving as a mentor to newcomers. He says that he
probably gets more out of the interaction with rookies than they
do.
“I get a perspective from them about their view of things that is
very hard for me to get otherwise,” Van Cleve says. “When you
develop a close relationship with somebody, just like I am telling
them things that I perceive, it’s a two-way street. I am learning
brand-new things about the way some of our programs or policies
are perceived by people. It is very much a two-way learning
process.”
Being an effective leader means gathering a group of individuals
and maximizing each person’s value by building all of them into a
cohesive team that can move your organization forward to serve
its clients.
Van Cleve likens his role to that of former New York Yankees
manager Joe Torre or Phil Jackson in his first tour of duty as head
coach with the Los Angeles Lakers.
“It’s very debatable how much he was responsible for versus the
superstars,” Van Cleve says. “It’s really about getting the superstars
to play well together and maximize their potential.”
Bryan Cave has succeeded by being able to find people that
thrive in a culture where they are part of the big-picture goals of
the organization. Van Cleve says the key is recognizing your place
as the leader in your company.
“You start off with an understanding that it’s about them and it’s
not about you as a leader,” Van Cleve says.
