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    Wisconsin Lawyer
    August 01, 2001

    Wisconsin Lawyer August 2001: Leading and Managing Change

    Leading and Managing Change


    To be successful in the future, lawyers must be positioned to quickly adapt their practices to our fast-changing society. Strong leadership, a compelling reason for change, a clear vision of how to achieve change, and team involvement are all factors that lead to successfully implementing change.

    Butterflyby Libby Hartman

    When talking with my clients about ensuring that their business strategies are successfully implemented, I generally begin by discussing their business case for change. Only true visionaries change without the presence of real pain; almost always there are significant "pain points" that drive people and organizations to change. How many of us give up our cheeseburgers and fries, smoking, and Krispy Kreme donuts prior to having a health problem? So I inquire, "What is the 'burning platform'? What is the compelling reason you are asking your people to work, think, and interact differently?"

    Burning platforms include such things as "Our firm will no longer be able to serve the indigent community if we don't reduce costs," or "Our market share is being eroded by the new law firm down the street," and so on.

    The Case for Change

    Why should Wisconsin lawyers begin adapting how and what they practice? You already have the case for change - it was presented at the State Bar's Seize the Future conference; through the conference insights written by Gary A. Munneke from the ABA's conference on the same topic; in the Wisconsin Public Trust and Confidence Report; by a colleague who fired her lawyer because she didn't have email; and by consumers who surf the Web for their own legal information. There is a business case for the legal profession to adapt the way it does business.

    So with all the information available on the need to change, why do Wisconsin lawyers generally resist change?

    Resistance to Change: Why and What It Looks Like

    There are practical and emotional reasons why people do not like change.


    Sidebar: Five Technology Trends That Will Impact You This Year


    The emotional reasons for not wanting to change. What is change? At its most basic level, change is a disruption of the status quo. Human beings are extremely control-oriented. We feel the most competent, confident, and comfortable when our expectations of control, stability, and predictability are being met. Change means these expectations are disrupted. Change shakes the 4 Cs: competence, confidence, control, and comfort at their core.

    Try to imagine waking in the morning and everything is different than it was the day before. The clothing in your closet is a different style, fabric, and color than you are used to. Things in the kitchen have been moved around. Your spouse announces that he or she wants to change how you as a couple interact within the relationship. On this morning you now drive on the opposite side of the road, with the steering wheel on the right side of the car. Your favorite coffee shop no longer serves the same kind of coffee. The streets have been changed to "one way."

    If you could imagine yourself in this obviously very dramatic depiction of change, it isn't hard to see how you would show up to work feeling completely out of control, confidence shaken, very uncomfortable, and with a sense of diminished competence. While many of the scenarios above are not likely to happen, how our world has changed in the last two to five years brings the same disruption of "the way we have always done things." So, we resist. We like the comfort that comes with familiarity and don't easily recognize the benefit of doing things differently.

    The practical aspects of change. For many Wisconsin lawyers, there is no clear roadmap about what needs to change in their specific situation. People keep talking about technology and how it is impacting the legal profession. What does this mean? What do I need to do? Not only is it difficult to understand what needs to be done to adapt, it is very time-consuming to implement. Lack of time is a key practical contribution to resisting change. Change takes time away from your practice, family, and free time. From a practical perspective, why would anyone take time away from other critical things to jump into what isn't clear?

    Other practical barriers to change include: poor experiences with other change initiatives, colleagues and staff who also will resist change, financial implications, lack of belief that change is really necessary, difficulty seeing and articulating the benefits of change, and lack of resources and support to manage added workload and tasks resulting from managing the change initiative.

    It would be simpler if we could deal with the emotional reasons for resisting change and then address the practical barriers to change and get on with changing. But being human, we of course intertwine the two, which is messy and puts us behind the curve on a change imperative. All of this is to say - resistance to change is normal!

    Page 2: How Does One Overcome Resistance to Change? >


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