Welcome to the Positively Legal website.
Successfully enabling performance improvement for customers since 2001, we provide consultancy, coaching and training services throughout the UK and internationally to:
We enable you to improve your performance – as individuals, a team or an organisation. It might be winning a tender, establishing a range of pricing models for clients, implementing a system to appraise partners, developing your departmental strategy or effectively leading a team. Most of our work falls within one of our core specialisms.
All Positively Legal programmes are designed specifically for each customer, ensuring maximum impact. Feedback confirms this - see what people are saying about Positively Legal.
It was a privilege - and enjoyable too - to be a guest on Stephen Moore's podcast series. I hope the chat is insightful, useful and at least mildly entertaining!
A new toolkit business has launched to help transform the way law firms and businesses in other sectors approach strategy and planning.
Founded by legal sector expert Murray Mathieson, better@business has released its first product ‘Your Strategy and Planning Toolkit’ at a time when strategy and planning is more critical than ever.
A comprehensive and detailed online package comprising 7 modules with over 70 resources, this toolkit is a step-by-step practical guide to developing a strategy, putting it into a plan and implementing it. It includes videos, presentations, templates, checklists, exercises and much more.
The Toolkit can be used for plans for the whole business, teams and individuals – whether it’s for creating a new strategy or reviewing and updating your current one.
This is a completely new approach - innovative, simple and practical - which will enable you to develop a strategy and make sure it’s successfully executed..
And to celebrate its launch, the price of the first Toolkit has been brought down by 50% for a limited time only. If you decide to purchase you will own the Toolkit forever - so everyone in the business can use it again and again. It’s a one-off purchase with no recurring charges.
Click here for more info:- https://better-at-business.com/
About better@business and Murray Mathieson
better@business is a trading name of Positively Legal Ltd, a company owned and operated by Murray since 2001. Murray is a non-practising solicitor and accredited business coach, with extensive legal and business experience worldwide. Positively Legal provides specialist coaching, consulting and training services to law firms and other businesses, and has clients in the UK, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and the U.S . Before setting up the company, Murray worked in law firms in Scotland and the British West Indies and held senior in house counsel positions in the aerospace, football and construction industries. He is also a trustee of The Geno Project, a charity which provides children from the Homa Bay District in Kenya with the opportunity to follow their academic ambitions.
Enquiries
For further information, please contact:
better@business
24 Harling Drive,
Troon,
Ayrshire,
KA10 6NF
UK
https://better-at-business.com/
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
+44 (0) 1292 318256
If there’s one thing 19 years of consulting, training and coaching in the legal sector has taught me – it’s that lawyers hate plans!
But some strange things have happened in the sector over the last few months, including the sudden appetite for lawyers to make plans.
I wrote in my first Insight blog of this mini-series;
“Partners and indeed firms who have previously had an allergic reaction to even the merest thought of a strategy and a written down plan have effectively been forced into upping their game”.
It's clear that the turbulence caused by Covid-19 has triggered a significant increase in planning at firm, team and individual level. For example, one of the most popular areas of my coaching and consulting work since March has been individual development plans for partners – not for moving firm or career development, just to document exactly what they’re doing and what they’re trying to achieve.
As well as being good for productivity and overall performance – at firm, team and individual levels – a plan can reduce anxiety and provide comfort, confidence, and direction.
In this blog, I will look at
And I’ll follow Rishi Sunak’s lead – he’s dispensed with his usual budget and instead is concentrating on the short-term. Likewise, given that most firms are doing the same I’ll focus on short-term planning rather than long-term strategy.
Here’s a common scenario at a Positively Legal training workshop on planning. We do a survey with the delegates either in advance or at the start of the workshop. Questions include
Usually, over 50% answer Yes to 1, but most respond No to 2. Among most groups of lawyers on average only around 1 out of 6 has a written down plan of any description. The frequency of written plans at firm and team level is higher but – again, most of the time but not always – still way short compared to other sectors like aviation, pharmaceuticals and engineering. Bear in mind also that there is of course a big difference between having a plan and actually implementing it!
Undoubtedly, Covid-19 has triggered an increase in the development and usage of plans in law firms, covering a multitude of areas, including, people, financials, IT and facilities, client relationships, service delivery, business development, etc. Currently, these are mostly short-term plans, focusing on tactics over the next few weeks or perhaps months, but lacking longer-term strategic vision and objectives.
Below is my analysis of what has happened since February / March in terms of planning in law firms.
Having been consumed with the immediate and the short-term, some firms are now starting to look again at long-term strategy.
“Implementation is the graveyard of strategy”.
How often does the following scenario happen? A series of strategy meetings, partners and business support involved, often off site, analysis work carried out, heated debates, strategy developed, a plan created and finalised, off to a pub or restaurant to celebrate the new, shiny strategic plan.
Then no-one looks at it until the day before the next strategy awayday.
The challenge is that as a more plan orientated culture has developed in the past few months, the focus on planning continues. Key to that is for plans to be seen as worthwhile. And key to that is for them to be constantly used, reviewed and updated – in other words, they become ‘living documents’. I give some advice on how to do this successfully in my top tips section below but it’s worth talking about the fundamental point here.
There is no right or wrong format for a plan. It can be in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, handwritten in fountain pen or felt tip. It can have bullets, tables, mind maps, paragraphs, infograms, whatever. It doesn’t matter what it looks like as long as it works for you. Usually the simpler the plan, the better it is – if it’s going to win Best Law Firm Plan Ever at an awards ceremony it’s actually unlikely to be practically useful!
As the New Norm evolves, lawyers revert to previously learned attitudes and habits. Crisis management goes, and with it focus. Plans are left on the shelf, tactical changes aren’t documented, and team engagement in planning becomes a distant memory.
Remember, this is the honeymoon period of the New Norm. We’re only seven months in.
The key points are
Here’s my recommended Plan for Planning for firms to adopt over the next 6 months.
What? |
Who? |
Action |
Short-term plans |
Whole firm and teams |
Update or create short-term plans with objectives and tactics to take you through the next week/month/3 months. Use whichever time period suits the group best. Ideally have aligned plans for all teams. |
Review and update (i) use as the business agenda at meetings |
What? |
Who? |
Action |
Development plans |
Individuals |
Make sure everyone has an individual plan – this can include longer term objectives and short-term tactics. Some of these will be aligned with the firm/team plans, some may be individual career development objectives. |
Review and update (i) for the individual, as often as works for them to be effective |
What? |
Who? |
Action |
Long–term strategy |
Whole firm and teams |
Update or create your long-term strategy (usually 3 or 5 years but 1 year may be right at the moment). Ideally have aligned plans for all teams. |
Review and update (i) combine short-term plan and strategy to create a strategic business plan including overall vision, objectives, tactics |
Individual engagement in the process is key. A big influence of how successfully firms come through this change period will be how the firm’s strategy, objectives and tactics make people feel.
Remember, the plans don’t have to be works of art. If they’re effective, they’re good.
An American ex-colleague of mine said to me early on in my in-house lawyer career “Murray, a checklist is merely a chronology of corporate mishaps”. Applying that to my experience of lawyers and their approach to planning, these are my top tips;
No guarantees, but if you adopt some or all of these you have a decent chance of creating a living document and achieving successful implementation!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this read and, more importantly, found it useful. My third Insight blog will look at the impact of Covid-19 on business development behaviours and how to get better at BD in the New Norm – there are plenty of opportunities to do so.
Do you want to make planning easier? Do you want to use a simple and effective structure to create your strategy? Do you want to turn strategy and planning into an opportunity rather than a chore? Fill out the form on your screen to get our brand new:
As part of the build up to the launch of better@business, Murray Mathieson of Positively Legal is giving away some of his tips and techniques on strategy and planning through videos and guides. Submission of the form will entitle you to full access to his free materials.
Our customer-focused approach, combined with knowledge, experience and enthusiasm, ensures that Positively Legal delivers results.
Find out moreWe will improve the performance, profile and value of your department.
We provide a range of solutions for businesses drawing on our core specialisms & our business specific services.
Find out moreFirms, teams and individuals should have focused strategies supported by practical implementation plans.
Find out more
We have a fantastic track record of success for our clients. How can we help you win tenders?
Find out more
From trainees to partners we will provide the skills and confidence to win more business.
Find out more
Strong and profitable relationships with clients need thought, planning, structure and application of the right skills.
Find out moreSmooth client handover, effective succession planning, a calm and prepared retiring partner...
Find out more