Since taking the title of managing partner in 1999, Greg M.
Nitzkowski has had a unique challenge at Paul, Hastings, Janofsky
& Walker LLP: The international law firm is extremely successful.
It’s not a bad problem to have, but it gives Nitzkowski fits when
he has to get his people to buy in to the changes the firm has to
make to stay on top of the market.
“The challenge is, how do you get people fired up to recognize
that as hard as they’ve worked, that the bogey is just going up?”
says Nitzkowski. “How do you go about giving people who have
been doing better each year for 10 or 15 years running a sense of
urgency? That is really what a leadership position is about.”
The basic thing that Nitzkowski must do when he wants the
firm to grow is create buy-in from his entire staff. That’s not
easy when you have 1,200 lawyers and 3,000 total employees
spread over 18 offices, so he goes through a process of building up momentum by keeping in touch with his people.
“We’d all like to stop and say, ‘Gee, isn’t this comfortable?’”
Nitzkowski says. “But the goal is getting people to recognize
that a sense of comfort is certain poison and that you always
have to push yourself because we’re in an extraordinarily
competitive marketplace. It amps up the need for communication. You have to project very specifically the need for
change and how it relates to the decisions individual partners
are making each day.”
Using that idea, Nitzkowski built a strategy to get buy-in for
new direction at the firm. By making himself available to his
people and understanding their jobs, he is able to tie the
vision to a context that puts emphasis on how the firm’s success will benefit the individual. In turn, Paul Hastings has continued its success, growing from $667 million in 2005 to $815
million in 2006.
Show your face
It’s not easy to push new ideas for an already successful business, so Nitzkowski starts off with a very simple strategy at
Paul Hastings: He shows his face around the office.
Nitzkowski spends more than two weeks of every month visiting some of the firm’s 18 different offices, making the time to
attend smaller partner meetings to listen to new ideas and to
be seen.
“The most important thing is just being in the offices and
being available,” says Nitzkowski. “It’s important for the other
leaders in our law firm to see that we are really one of them. I
want them to see that we are derived from them, and our
authority derives from their skills every day — that’s essential
to culture.”
To Nitzkowski, the first step to improving Paul Hastings is to
get in touch with as many people as possible to find out where
the firm can sharpen its acumen. And while he can communicate some strategies via e-mail or conference calls, he says the
best bet for step one of building buy-in is working with
employees to get new ideas and to give them a good look at
the leader behind the plan.
“There is no substitute for being across from somebody, answering their questions, and having them challenge you and
them seeing some of their own influence in the ultimate shape
of the decision,” Nitzkowski says. “People respect that you
ultimately have to go a certain direction, you have to make a
decision, but as leaders, our decisions are very much touched
by that input.
“E-mail is terrific, but it’s not the way to have meaningful
dialogue. It’s terrific for information conveyance, but I don’t
think it’s a good tool for consensus issues that you face or
communicating about the successes or challenges of the firm.
Somebody being inspired by the personal qualities and visions
of a leader is very motivating, so you have to have someone
people want to follow at the head of the enterprise. Very few
enterprises succeed over the long run without having someone in the leadership position that others want to follow.”
Nitzkowski knows that he can’t be best friends with all 3,000
employees, but the idea is to make a human connection with
every employee so that new strategies come from a leader, not
a corporate signature.
“I try to be there for orientation and training so that we’re
the human face of the firm,” Nitzkowski says. “Part of gaining
consensus is you have to demonstrate that you have all the
qualities that they admire in their colleagues — and the understanding of what’s going on in the market — so that you build
the case in a logical way to get them to understand whatever
kind of change you need to make to keep up.”
Finish your homework
While it’s nice for Nitzkowski to spend time in the office, he
knows that’s just the first step. He has to come in with his
homework finished.
“In doing this job, you have to accept that no matter how
smart you are or talented you are, when you’re in the room
with other lawyers, 99.9 percent of them secretly believe they
are smarter than you,” Nitzkowski jokes. “You have to accept
that, and recognize that ambition and pride is a great part of
what drives them, so it’s a good quality.”
Before he talks with a partner at the firm, he insists on
knowing what he or she has been working on and how it ties
to the strategic plan for the firm.
“When I speak to a partner, I know exactly how they spent
their time for the last five years, I know what their team looks
like, I know the concept of that team, I know how the model of
that team relates to the profitability model and the strategies of
the firm,” Nitzkowski says. “I can meet with them and talk in a
very specific way, some of it having to do with metrics, some of
it more conceptual, about the direction of the firm, talk about
mismatches, things that we need to see from them in order for
Paul Hastings to reach its goals.
“When you ask, ‘How do you drive people toward the
changes in behavior that they’re going to have to adopt in
order for the enterprise as a whole to succeed?’ It’s about
communicating deeply and clearly and being viewed as very
prepared and knowledgeable about the marketplace in a way
that helps us build consensus.”
A big part of that is going to the partners at Paul Hastings
with a good bit of background on how individual work fits in
with the market and what changes must be made. At the heart
of building buy-in is a need to communicate but also a need to
back up that communication with hard evidence on where
Paul Hastings needs to go.
“It has to come from the needs of the enterprise itself,”
Nitzkowski says. “Looking into the future, looking into the
market, understanding what kind of enterprise you have and
saying, ‘What do I need to drive us to a more successful future
and what are the changes that are going to be out there on the
market?’ Being familiar with their work makes the message
much more powerful and helps me talk about the direction of
the firm. That’s the key part of changing behavior, understanding what people are doing and connecting up where their
strategy ties to the model and then showing them the mismatches in what they’re doing in a direct and thoughtful way.”
Put the vision into context
Once Nitzkowski has done all of his homework, the final
step to building buy-in is to roll out a vision that is based on a
mixed concept of the firm’s strategy and how it fits in to the
context of his people. The idea is to make a personal connection with what may otherwise seem like merely high-end firm
goals.
“It becomes about putting into context the decisions that
we’re making that affect their daily lives,” Nitzkowski says.
“Why we’re doing it, how does that relate to what’s happening
in the marketplace, why it will give them greater opportunity.
Making a connection between the things that matter to associates and the decisions that we’re making, that really is the
job of the leader’s communication with employees. For those
that aren’t as deeply invested in the firm, it’s very valuable that
their career here is connecting to what they want their future
to be.”
The contextual part is where it’s easy to get confused. While
Nitzkowski would like to believe that he can put together a
vision that will keep all of his employees deeply engaged in
the future of the firm, he realizes that just won’t happen.
Instead, he draws up a plan that shows how individual success
drives company status — and how that company status will
drive individual success.
“Retaining people is a combination of them believing in the
vision, seeing the trajectory of the enterprise, understanding
how the decisions being made will help propel that trajectory,
them feeling richer in every way because of their connection to
the enterprise,” Nitzkowski says.
“One of the things you have to accept as a leader is that people come for all sorts of different reasons, and not everybody
shares the goal of going to the top of the firm. You have to
communicate with them why your vision to be an elite player
in the marketplace will help — because no matter what their
personal goal is, if the enterprise itself is building up to be an
elite institution, their trajectory is enhanced, as well. You give
them that combination of self interest and the firm. You want
people to believe that by hitching their wagon to a star they
are going to soar much higher and farther than they would
otherwise. That’s a big part of helping them see their own professional opportunity because regardless of what they are
doing, they want to be part of the best team possible.”
To Nitzkowski, it makes sense to view getting employees to
buy in to the firm in the rule of thirds: One-third of your
employees will be on board with any company strategy, one-third can be convinced in time, and one-third won’t care about
the company goals. Knowing that, he tries to make a connection with those people who may be not staying for the long
term so that they still desire success in their tenure. By showing them how they can grow, he gives them a road map to a
better future and a reason to get there.
“You can’t make the direct personal connection with every
person about their goals,” he says. “But it’s about describing
the vision and trajectory in a way that they can link their own
future to it. They see where they hook their strap to that star
so they can get that ride out of this. And when they see where
they hook their strap, they can see that this place is going to
take them much, much further.
“You have to have that human capital day in and day out,
connecting with the big strategy so that they understand that
the things they choose to work on, how the time they spend
training an associate or not, will help the enterprise. You need
them to understand how important what they do is so they
feel connected to it.”
HOW TO REACH: Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP, (213) 683-6000 or
www.paulhastings.com
