Leading and Managing the Individual Contributor

As law firm marketing and practice continue the transition into increasingly collaborative, multidisciplinary team-based forms, we hear a lot of dismissive comments about the Old Days of Finders, Minders and Grinders.  Attorneys who love to practice but hate marketing or self-promotion are derided as "service lawyers" whose only bottom-line contribution is billable hours. Powerful practice princes who for years have successfully staked out their own fiefdoms and protected a personal client base are derided as dinosaurs unwilling to share their wealth or pass the baton to the successor generation.  Lone wolves no longer are held up as role models.

You can hardly expect the grinders, feudal lords, dinosaurs and resolutely autonomous practitioners to be thrilled about all this. The time-honored basis of their power and their compensation is undergoing serious erosion.  The issue goes beyond power and money, however.  It touches on their fundamental motivational make-up and temperamental style.  Put another way, the culture of collaboration isn't going to come easy to many lawyers -- present and future. A lot of new cats will enter the profession that firm leaders will find hard to herd.

The Autonomous Personality
Organizational consultants often call distinctly autonomous performers “Individual Contributors” (hereafter "ICs").  ICs are the people whose temperament and aptitudes impel them to flee the flock and take their fortunes into their own hands.  There is a disproportionate number of lawyers among them, people who self-selected into the practice of law because it seemed to reward personal achievement and competency above all else. 

In Soloing (Harper Business, 1999), Harriet Rubin wrote, “I have learned that the word solo has two meanings: ‘going it alone’ and ‘being complete in oneself.’ Those who go it alone want…to be free to work on their own, to manage no one but themselves, to find the success that is the true measure of their worth.” 

Noted organizational psychologist Edgar Schein was talking about ICs when he wrote, “If your career anchor [your dominant motivational value] is competence in some technical or functional area…you derive your sense of identity from the exercise of your skills and are most happy when your work permits you to be challenged in those areas.  You may be willing to manage others in your technical or functional area, but you are not interested in management for its own sake and would avoid general management because you would have to leave your own area of expertise.”  

IC’s not only are wired differently from the joiners, affiliators, conformists and stability-seekers of the world, they are greatly outnumbered by them. Standardized personality assessments suggest that no more than 12-15% of the general population prefer to operate outside the herd.  Yet well over 70% of the hundreds of lawyers I have formally assessed over the years fall on the IC end of the personality spectrum. 

The Hallmarks of the IC
The IC personality spans a broad spectrum of autonomous personalities and behaviors.  There is a difference between someone who "prefers to work independently" and an overtly selfish or self-aggrandizing loner.  Those managing or working with ICs should understand that they generally are not shy, isolated loners who play by themselves because no group, club or team will have them.  Autonomy is a positive choice for them.  They tend to be more task-oriented than relationship-oriented, so it's no great loss for them to forego the interpersonal grip-and-grin of business development or the interpersonal politicking of firm governance.

On the positive side, the sweeping changes in the profession excite many ICs, who tend to be natural change agents. ICs derive little satisfaction from conformity, tradition, precedent or authority conferred by title. Pushing the envelope, thinking outside the box and smashing icons often come quite naturally.  You’ll find a lot of happy IC’s in assignments that are project-based, that is, where the work is comprised of creative or non-recurring  tasks or challenges – whether trials, transactions, entrepreneurial adventures.  They also tend to be "challenge junkies," responding positively to opportunities to take on new responsibilities, learn new substantive skills, or take risks. Moreover, while many young lawyers today are complaining about being forced into specialized practice silos, ICs often are happiest in roles where they command respect as knowledgeable subject matter experts, not broad-based generalists. 

Without meaning to be difficult, ICs may create headaches for practice leaders and supervising partners because they don’t like to do things the way they have been done before, and they don’t like to do anything the same way twice.  Many ICs show a pronounced gift for conceptual, creative and strategic thinking, while chafing at repetitive, detail-intensive activity. They love variety and novelty -- cases of first impression, innovative transactions, new interpretations of old law. However, they get bored with repetition and detail, so they are prone to "cut-to-the-chase" or to cut corners. Their autonomous energy and gifts can be controlled and channeled, but they need a short leash and clear, very specific performance standards.

Loners in Good Company
While some ICs are happiest as soloists, many function perfectly happily in organizations, even large organizations.  Their leaders and managers should understand, however, that ICs often feel little emotional bond or loyalty to the entity where they work.  Rah-rah exhortations and touchy-feely cultures will not increase their commitment nor improve their performance. Their enthusiasm is expressed in terms of pride in personal successes and achievements.  “This is a good place for me to do my thing,” they say.  “When I do well, the firm does well and we both win.  My employment here is an economic exchange, not a marriage based on love and devotion. If the firm understands that, we’ll get along great.” 

Particularly for IC associates, however, management's challenge may to be to create individual incentives that don't create the appearance that the IC is exempt from general standards of performance or the firm's expectations regarding collaboration, professional demeanor or active participation in the social fabric of the firm.

The “Team Thing” and the Un-Leader
ICs' independent demeanor often results in members of project teams, committees and other collaborative groups proclaiming, “You’re not a team player!”  “Of  course I am,” the IC replies, “if you define a team as a bunch of experts with complementary skill-sets engaged in achieving a common goal, rather than a bunch of buddies.”  Of course this point of view is alien those who experience a team as an "affinity group" that shares values and common traits, or those who see a team as conferring status and stability through mere membership. ICs often are not joiners, echoing Groucho Marx’s sentiments: “I wouldn’t want to be a member of any club that would have me.” 

Hard-core ICs often express a disinclination to lead, manage or take responsibility for the performance other people. Many say they want no part of the current leadership development boom.. “I don’t want to do any of that visionary leader stuff,” they'll say.  “I don’t want to lead others, motivate others, manage others, critique others, develop others or affiliate with others.  Just give me a task and leave me alone."

Actually, while some IC’s prefer to do everything themselves, many perform well and happily in roles where they supervise others, particularly if they can avoid organizational politics and the need to adjust their styles simply to make others comfortable. They can get really turned on by an opportunity to drive a project or task team – as long as they can exercise a relatively direct span of control over a “lean and mean” group of other experts working on some discrete task.  They do not, however, aspire to climb the hierarchy to obtain lofty roles that interpose multiple layers of subordinates between themselves and where the action is; they work best in flat organizations or practice groups and in peer-to-peer relationships.

How IC's Lead
Still, whether they want to or not, IC’s do lead. Do inspire. Do frame others’ agendas.  Emotional Intelligence guru Daniel Goleman describes six distinct leadership styles, which one might paraphrase as Butt-kickers, Visionaries, Good Buddies, Consensus-builders, Nurturer-Enablers…and Exemplars.  IC’s generally want nothing to do with the first five styles, all of which rely on building some sort of relationship with other people.

But, as competency-based achievers, ICs can’t escape leading by example.  When experts display their expertise, they create a model for others. Goleman notes that the Exemplar style of leadership works well to get superior results from an already skilled and highly self-motivated team, but tends to demoralize mere mortals who can’t keep up with the perfectionist.  Overall, it is a leadership style that focuses on coordinating others' activity, rather than collaborating or affiliating with them.  ICs may delegate tasks, but often are loath to delegate total accountability for a project to others, lest they lose the feeling of personal ownership and control.  This is why many ICs are criticized for being “turfy.”  On the plus side, some lawyers and clients – particularly other ICs – really like working with competency-based leaders. They praise their objectivity, rationality, candor, fairness, integrity and insistence on clear and consistent performance standards.

Laying Down the Law
In large law firms handling sophisticated matters where lawyers are necessarily interdependent, highly autonomous partners can be a real turn-off for younger lawyers looking for mentoring or avenues for advancement. Their overcontrol of their client relationships and personal billings also can make them seem selfish to colleagues. 

Firm leadership cannot address these problems simply by drafting a team-oriented strategic plan, ordering ICs to be collaborative or suggesting they undertake a fundamental personality transplant.  In particularly problematic cases, however, it is appropriate for the firm to negotiate specific standards and parameters for appropriate professional behavior and for participation in firm life. Although ICs may not be able to alter their fundamental temperament or attitudes, it is not unreasonable to ask them to adjust their outward behaviors to support team-oriented cultural norms.

True, in today's "free agent economy," it can be risky to suggest to high-billers or ICs with a lucrative client base that they "care-n-share." Given the enormous amount of partner mobility these days, heavy-hitters are not hesitant to peddle their portables to appreciative bidders. However, at Altman Weil we see a real risk to firm morale (and retention of younger lawyers) if extreme ICs -- both at junior and senior levels -- are not confronted with the negative impact of their behavior.  At all levels, the firm must clearly set forth the consequences of unacceptably independent or self-aggrandizing behavior.  A strategic plan that articulates clear and consistent standards for all lawyers can be a powerful vehicle for exerting this pressure toward team play.  And if the firm is going to impose new expectations at an individual level, it is essential that it communicate any new standards before imposing any form of sanction. Unexpected punishment for behavior that was considered desirable a decade ago can have a disastrous motivational impact.