Law School 17

With the deepening discussion on the integrated management mode of law firms, many lawyers have begun to explore the application of various performance management tools in the integrated management of law firms.

among them, there are some who admire KPI and some who admire OKR. It is commendable to try to apply the performance management tools of modern enterprises to the management practice of law firms. After all, most law firms with commission system do not have the concepts of performance appraisal and target management, but I also find that many lawyers seem to ignore their own characteristics and the development stage of law firms when adopting a certain performance appraisal tool. It is tantamount to putting the cart before the horse to cover up their strategic laziness with tactical diligence.

let's first introduce two popular performance management tools: KPI and OKR. However, it seems to me that the former is overcorrected in practical application, while the latter seems to be acclimatized in China.

KPI, the full name of which is Key Performance Indicator, is a tool to decompose enterprise strategic objectives into operational work objectives. Different from simple task decomposition, KPI is to decompose the target into measurable indicators and think at the level of "how to manage".

In recent years, the problem that KPI stifles creativity and easily deviates from management objectives in the process of implementation is often criticized, but I think this is not a defect of KPI system itself, but a practical problem.

first of all, the premise of adopting KPI is that the enterprise has clear strategic objectives and perfect rules and regulations, which has actually ruled out the application of those start-ups or enterprises in transition. These enterprises don't even know their next steps, and their strategic direction may change every few weeks. How can they implement their strategies into specific job responsibilities? Law firms basically belong to this kind of enterprises without clear or long-term strategic goals, even if there are small internal teams, conflicts will occur at the level of the whole law firm.

Secondly, enterprises that adopt KPI have to clearly divide their responsibilities internally. For those enterprises with small scale or project production industry, each employee is not clear about what he should do. How to divide the dimensions of measurement? The vast majority of commission law firms are like this, and their scale ranges from a few to dozens, so it is basically unnecessary to set up special departments and corresponding positions; For law firms with integrated management, apart from setting up individual auxiliary departments, they are basically project production industries, and their responsibilities in different projects may vary greatly.

thirdly, the number of KPI indicators must be strictly limited, and the assessment content must have clear standards. And those enterprises that do not perform well in the process of using KPI, most of them are unable to focus their work energy because they set too many indicators; Moreover, many assessment contents are written in an ambiguous way (or it may be impossible to set reasonable standards or indicators at all). For example, a legal popularization lecture should be completed throughout the year to achieve a performance income of 8, yuan. As a lawyer, the number of jobs and income from performance in a year can hardly be accurately predicted, and there is no necessary connection between them.

Since KPI is not suitable for law firms, what about OKR, which is likely to replace KPI?

OKR, whose full name is Objectives and Key Results, is a set of management tools and methods for defining and tracking goals and their completion. OKR originated from Intel, and then developed and optimized by Google. Now OKR has become a popular target management tool for Internet companies such as Oracle Bone Inscriptions and linkdein.

The core of this is the second and fourth items: challenging goals and assessment results have nothing to do with salary.

OKR effectively solves the shortcoming that KPI stifles creativity, which also makes it win the favor of Cheng Xuyuan and engineers. However, OKR has its own problems:

For example, OKR emphasizes that enterprises should have innovative soil, and employees should be brave enough to set ambitious goals for themselves. However, most positions do not require much creativity, and even professions like lawyers are mostly step by step, avoiding risks as much as possible, so no one will be willing to take the initiative to raise their goals.

For another example, the assessment result of OKR has nothing to do with salary and bonus, which is consistent with the spirit of self-challenge of excellent employees. It can prevent employees from simply pursuing interests and ignoring other goals with more long-term value. The reason why an Internet giant like Google adapts to OKR's performance management system is precisely because Google only hires the best employees, and these employees have enough self-motivation to create greater value, and Google has provided these employees with enough excellent salary. It is almost impossible for lawyers to decouple their work from salary and bonus.

besides KPI and OKR, what other performance appraisal tools are available and suitable for a special organization like a law firm? Yes!

it is GST, Goal Science Thinking, and goal science thinking.

GST, as profound as it sounds, is actually a target management and assessment tool based on OKR, combined with human behavioral psychology, enhancing interaction and promoting customary practices.

If

KPI is "asking me to do something" from top to bottom;

OKR is "I want to do something" from the bottom up;

then GST is for everyone to help "I am used to doing things".

According to the research completed by BetterWorks team who put forward GST,

Through the above seven steps, I believe that the newly joined team members can coordinate the relationship between personal goals and team goals well, and help to effectively implement the goals, and the flexible and humanized supervision and feedback mechanism that matches them is more suitable for the characteristics of the lawyer profession.

Of course, whether it is KPI, OKR or GST, these are just performance management tools at the tactical level. If you want to lock the target, you must lock the target first. Don't use tactical diligence to cover up your strategic laziness. For law firm directors and managers who are interested in becoming stronger and specialized, before choosing which performance management tools to use, you really have to think about their development stage, their future development goals and their staffing.

welcome to communicate with me.

I look forward to growing up with lawyers in this column.