Nishith Desai
If there is one metaphor I aspired to pin
our firm with, it is to be a North Star. We dreamt about
being a timeless beacon of bold new thinking, about invention and
innovation in the legal firmament.
We crowned this ambitious quest to a significant
extent as our firm crossed the 25th year milestone. We were recognized
as the Financial Times (FT) ‘Most
Innovative Asia Pacific Law Firm 2016’ with a score that put
us among the best innovators amongst global law firms. It is heartening
that our innovation journey has inspired other innovation-keen law
firms from different parts of the world including in the US, UK,
Korea, Israel, Mauritius and so on.
The nub of it is: we were fearless about
disruption, where we believed it was needed. We sought to lead and
carve the best path, rather than be driven by the market and its
prevalent methods and models. Consequently, I have been labelled
as ‘constructively contrarian’ many a time. But fact is, we have
broken many perception barriers and assumptions to be a ‘distinctly
different’ but thriving brand and institution, which delivers its
clients a high value equation of trust.
For sure, research, education and thought
leadership have been our primary instruments to break new ground.
However, there has been another crucial enabler – a secret sauce
- that I believe has engineered our firm’s evolution and character.
It is our application of philosophy-driven organization design and
behavior. Our most forward-looking efforts have been in shaping
an organization model and culture that adds huge fillip to our vision
and strategic intent.
This brings me to the crucial disquieting
question: has the conventional Partnership model of law firms that
evolved a few hundred years ago run its course as the ‘model that
works’ in our industry? It may have served the last few centuries
well enough, but is it enough for this one and beyond? Or do we
need to envisage a radically different organization construct to
truly flourish in the future?
Over the last couple of years, I have ruminated
long and hard on the incredible challenges we face in this millennium.
The forces and pace of change in the environment have thrown our
organizations and systems out of gear. Even as technology hurtles
ubiquitous transformations, complexity and plurality in our world,
our workforce and workplace, law firms are still sticking to the
structures, systems and cultures of the past. If we think that we
can keep the last century edifice, and dabble in incremental changes
to manage these new-age calls on our firms, we are being rather
short-sighted.
Time is perhaps right for an overhaul. Let
me tell you why.
The traditional Partnership-led structure
of law firm is based on hierarchy or pyramid. It is defined to mean
'relationship' only between the 'partners' and not with the organization
as a whole (see section 4 of the Indian Partnership Act1).
It fosters centralized command and control by a closed elite club
at the top and parks most of the power and decision-making in those
few hands.
My submission is this: today’s world is too
complex for a few heads at the top to make sense of it, leave alone
muster the entire range of knowhow and competencies needed to stay
on top of the multifarious demands. Our organizations need all hands
on the deck blazing at the top of their game. In other words, you
need many more liberated, courageous, accountable and unconstrained
leaders across levels, who step up, take charge and lead their spaces,
as per their competencies. The present bureaucratic law firm structure
is ill-equipped for this.
Also, law firms continue to be rigid, soulless
sweatshops demanding ‘hours’ and the formatted ‘professional’ submits
to this system. Few firms can claim to be inspirational workplaces
that allow their members to fulfil their life’s purpose and be ‘who
they are’ in the workplace. Rather, a stereotype of an ideal lawyer
prevails and professionals wear ‘the necessary front’ they need
to fit in. This does not truly bind an individual to an institution.
What’s interesting though, is that globally
and in an array of industries, next-gen workforces are ushering
in new concepts of work-life and workspace. These significant new
trends are currently outside the radar or scheme of law firms. But
for how long can we evade it?
The lines between the ‘professional’ and
the ‘personal’ are blurring to bring the ‘whole person’ to the work
and workplace. Then again, the workplace is becoming virtual – with
an ‘anywhere, anytime’ mindset that plugs in work along with other
priorities in a person’s life. Also, working structures are morphing
into networks and clusters of self-directed inter-linked roles –
jettisoning need for downward delegation or supervision.
Integral psychologist Ken Wilber calls it
the ‘Teal’ or evolutionary wave, and Frederic Laloux’s
book ‘Reinventing Organizations’
2 paints a compelling
picture of this alternate organization of the future. Self-management
is the cornerstone of this, and advocates powerful, fluid systems
of distributed authority and collective intelligence.
Teal sees the world “as a place where we
are called to discover and journey towards our true self and unfold
our unique potential.” The Teal concept proffers some notable elements.
For one, ‘dis-identifying or taming the ego’ and believing
in ‘abundance’ over ‘scarcity and fear’. This calls for expanded
ability to trust others and life itself. Second, inner rightness
acts as the compass. Third is ‘wholeness’. So people are
encouraged to drop the mask and be themselves.
While such next leap organization architecture
is still nascent and unfolding, I am convinced that the ‘Teal’ philosophy
will yield agile, innovative, democratic and compelling workplaces
fit to tackle the next hundred years.
Sounds esoteric? Yet, what is fascinating
is that our own path at NDA seems a ‘Teal-like’ story.
First, the use of trust, transparency and
democracy as foundations of our culture. In line with that, we created
a non-hierarchical, title-agnostic and mostly flat organization
in architecture and mindset. (People join the firm only after agreeing
to these ethos3).
With philosophies like ‘freedom to think, freedom to act and freedom
to earn ' in a team based environment, we championed equal opportunity
and voice, and nurtured a climate of initiative, ownership, commitment
and passion. We resisted any system where power accrued to a few
at the top.
Tuning this further, we sought to embed an
evolved form of inspirational leadership that drives ‘great
will with great humility’. Defined as Level 5 Leadership by
management thinker, Jim Collins, in an acclaimed Harvard Business
Review article, we set to develop ‘egoless leaders’ at every
level. We propelled ‘expertise’ to the heart of our thinking on
career development and made sure our firm was a platform for our
people to realize their professional greatness. That apart, we decided
on a nano firm model that would ‘stay small, think big
and do big’. We have constantly done mega deals with mini teams
using power of our research, technology and culture. We focused
on fortifying ‘braincount’ – or accentuated capability and capacity
in every headcount.
While we professed and ingrained such novelty
in our organization system for two decades, we missed seeing a striking
pattern. All future gazing in organization and workplace design
were pointing to the merits of ideas that we had embraced way before
their time.
And we have now made a brave move to deconstruct
and rebuild our firm. In April 2016, our ‘Partners’ collectively
deliberated and opted for a bold, new inclusive leadership model.
As a symbolic gesture, we decided to drop ‘Partnership’ and its
baggage of connotations from our vocabulary and use word 'Leader'
instead for competent people. After months of internal socialization
of the big idea, we are determined to reconstruct NDA over the next
three years into a self-managed, flat, dynamic and inclusive 'Networked
Leadership'.
Watch this space, as our exciting new journey
unfolds.
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