IN A UNIQUE YEAR, THE NEED TO REDISCOVER OUR UNIQUENESS

“You have your own special way of turning the world so it’s facing the way that I’m going”. Your own special way, GENESIS.

We won’t forget 2020. The year we had to stay home most of the time. The year planes and cars stopped. When we could only hug and kiss our immediate family living with us, and the rest of the world felt strange and threatening. The year most of our world occurred through our computers and cell phones. The year everything became uncertain to an extent we had not experienced before. And yet, we managed to survive. We adapted according to our specific circumstances and life moved on. After the initial shock, we regained confidence and reprogrammed ourselves to live under the new circumstances and limitations.

The legal industry in Latam was not an exception to this type of response. All law firms I know were in conditions to operate remotely at a 100% capacity. No firm ever thought that all the professional and support staff would need to operate remotely at the same time, and yet all of them were able to do it almost instantaneously without much trouble. In addition to technological challenges, the dynamics and culture of lawyers are not prepared to work under those conditions, but they were able to do it quite well. A combination of a collaborative and tolerant attitude between firms and clients made possible a reasonably effective system to sort needs and problems. For many, new circumstances showed new efficiencies that will be incorporated as innovations or changes to working conditions and service to clients even after the pandemic has substantially disappeared.

As we approach the end of 2020 (the craziest year we’ve ever experienced), our industry has obtained high marks for survival and performance. Can we now relax and enjoy our Holidays? Yes and no. I believe law firms can feel proud about their response to a crisis of this magnitude. When years go by everybody will remember, with a bit of humor and nostalgia, all the stories surrounding the Covid experience, like in times of war. But there is second look to this unusual experience.

Crises not only bring problems that we need to figure out and try to solve. Crises occur not only to get through them. Crisis always bring opportunities to change and improve things that have been left behind or that remain unheard during normal times. Our tendency to delay solving difficult situations or facing uncomfortable realities decreases during a crisis. When a crisis knocks at our door, it comes with an initial message: something needs to change. Once we get into a “crisis state-of-mind” we are more open in general to other perspectives and change do not look so threatening. It is a good time to look into ourselves and see what needs to be reassessed or rediscovered.

In the book “The Founder’s Mentality” by Chris Zook & James Allen (Harvard Business Review Press, 2016), the authors analyze the defining elements of those start-ups that remain successful after experiencing substantial growth. I always considered that law firms have many similarities with start-ups and the challenges they face as they move to subsequent phases of evolution. The book indicates three distinctive elements in successful start-ups (which are summarized under the concept of “founders’ mentality”) but I will concentrate on only one of them that I believe is relevant to make my point today: the need to maintain a sense of insurgent mission. Many founders may describe the initial years of the start-up or a law firm as waging war against an industry on behalf of underserved clients. This war is about doing something different or offering a kind of service that wasn’t there before. It’s about being unique. Founders focused relentlessly on the essence of their insurgency while they were growing and never forgot what made them different in the first place.

It seems inevitable that we need to strive a lot to become somebody in whatever we do, but once we achieve it we tend to relax and seek to enjoy and reap the results of that effort. But successful start-ups (and law firms as well) do not feel that way. They never reach a certain point when they are considered done. They are always reassessing what they are doing and who they are. Then don’t step away from their original mission that gave them identity and success. They actually reconfirm it by adapting it to the new circumstances. They never feel an incumbent and they never stop feeling like a start-up, at least in some way. This is not only a motivational approach, it is an identity statement. The authors say “A sharp insurgent mission should provide a company with its focus and purpose, both inside and outside. It is at its most powerful when pushed down into personnel systems, advertising, product features, and customer focus in a way that makes it real and forces trade-offs that shape the company, by helping determine who to hire and promote, which suppliers to choose, and what investments to make. Great statements of insurgency jump right out at the people they are supposed to reach.” Change a few words and it is perfectly applicable to law firms.

One of the big purposes of life is to discover and accept our uniqueness, and then put it into action with others to build unique relationships. In a unique relationship we feel there is something different that cannot be replaced with another relationship. We acknowledge, value and nourish that uniqueness. It is that special way of being and doing things that makes it different and important. The rush of life and work makes us forget many times who we are. That also happens with law firms. What made them great once might not be there anymore. Rediscovering our uniqueness is a way of bolstering again our insurgent mission, what gave sense to the firm when it started. And we are always starting again, whether we want to accept that or not.

In this special year, with all of our losses and grievances, and also our won battles and resilience, we need to find again our soul and identity. What made ourselves and our firm who we are. We need our clients to feel like in the Genesis’ song, that we are turning the world so it’s facing the way that they are going. We can only do that from our uniqueness. I hope we can all do that as we learn from our lives in 2020.

I wish you Happy Holidays and a great 2021!