Partnership Agony Uncles Mark Briegal and Paul Bennett are lawyers specialising in professional partnerships and have helped many lawyers with their partnership problems.

Here they continue their irregular series of answering partners’ problems.  This one comes from a South American partner in a London law firm.

Dear Mark & Paul

Many years later, as he faced the partnership board, Partner Aureliano Buendía, was to remember that distant afternoon when his training partner took him to discover intercreditor deeds.

He had started as an articled clerk in the firm and was left alone to prepare immense documents that seemed to develop a life of their own and in the hours of darkness would sometimes get up and leave the data room of their own accord, trailing letters and sometimes even whole words down the stairs of the large glass building and, as they wandered off round the city, they left thoughts and ideas with other late night city-workers and sometimes even with the tramps sleeping rough in the doorways, who would wake up in the morning to find half a can of Special Brew and a “hereto” or even a whole “for the avoidance of doubt” by their bundle of soiled clothes.

As his long solitude of billing continued he slowly progressed up the ladder and made partner, but he soon acquired the forlorn look that one sees in vegetarians.

Once he had become a partner, he became lost in the solitude of his immense power and he began to lose direction.

And so he faced the Partnership Board, not knowing what to do or say and they had no idea what to do with him.

Please can you help? Even resorting to the descriptive power of magic realism has failed to address this effective performance management issue so far…

Gabriel

Dear Gabriel

Paul:  Effective performance management is key to improving the overall firm’s performance and developing staff.  It looks like Aureliano has been left to his own devices for too long and has no clear direction and no idea what skills, knowledge or competencies he needs to achieve his objectives. He also seems to have retreated into his own strange imagination.

Mark:  It’s also important that the performance management system fits into the firm’s business plans so that each partner knows what he and his team need to achieve in order for the firm to deliver its plans.

Paul:  You then have to look at the development needs for each individual.  Just telling them to bill more, win new clients or learn more about their specialist area is not enough.  The conversation must be about what they need to deliver their bit of the plan and what support they need to do it.

Mark:  You also need to discuss succession planning.  Your firm has been there for a hundred years and is on its umpteenth generation of partners, with a very complex organisation chart.  Why did Aureliano not develop the experience he needed to become more effective and who is developing the right skills to replace him?  Your firm cannot just hoist the yellow cholera flag of poor performance management and sail up and down the Thames ignoring the world around you, even if that idea is a pastiche from the wrong performance management handbook.