The “Mahler´s Approach”: A lesson of leadership and innovation.

One recurrent topic in my institutional development programs in Latin America is the difficulty that lawyers face when they have do deal with rules within the law firm. It is difficult to create meaningful rules and more difficult to comply with them. Partners are permanently faced with the dilemma of not complying with rules that they find individually burdensome and, at the same time, feeling frustrated about the negative effects when other partners do the same thing.

In addition to the inherent tension between individual and collective interests that always bother less-institutionalized firms, I often find two other related problems in the process of establishing rules: lack of smart and strategic thinking, and lack of leadership. For many partners internal rules and obligations are normally considered bureaucratic restrictions that empede the normal work and restrain the natural automony lawyers –specially partners- should have. And the truth is that many times that´s what they are. The natural difficulty of lawyers in dealing with management isues makes them believe that imposing rules to other lawyers is the best way to exercise that function. But sometimes they fail to give enough thought as to the strategic purpose of those rules and how they are framed within a larger objective, which would make them more acceptable to other partners.

On the other hand, the collegial and peer-to-peer culture of many firms create a wrong approach to leadership, since firms are poor at creating enforceability and accountability mechanisms to make sure that rules, once approved, are there to be complied with. Political and personal reasons exert tremendous influence on firm´s management to avoid internal confrontations due to rules unfulfilment. That changes the very essence of what a rule means –a tool agreed by the members to enhance the achievement of firm´s goals- turning it into a “best practice, optional behavior”. Although the collegial approach is in the essence of a partnership model, it is quite wrong and inefficient to believe that a strong leadership is inconsistent with a healthy firm and partnership.

The “Mahler´s Approach”

In my trips and readings I always look for stories and lessons that could help understand management challenges faced by lawyers. This time I found a nice story in Vienna while attending the IBA, and it was provided by Gustav Malhler, the famous composer and director of the Vienna State Opera. While Mahler was director of the Opera House in the early 20th. century, apparently it was customary that people attending the opera would play cards and eat food during performances. Nobody complained about that since it was part of the normal environment in opera houses. Operas were considered part of social life, and so eating and playing cards was totally normal. However, Mahler considered that music should have it´s own space and time, free from other social activities, to allow both performers and public to concentrate and enjoy more deeply this beautiful art. So he prohibited playing cards and eating food in the opera, raising rejection and criticism by his fellow Vienisseans of those years. Off course we know the end of the story, and now it would be inconceivable to allow eating food and playing cards while an opera is being performed, but that was not the situation when Mahler decided to change the rules.

The vision behind de rules”

As much as it was nice to eat something and play cards with friends during the opera, Mahler had the vision to understand that there was something more important at stake: the music. He thought it was more convenient to restrain these social activities –which could be done elsewhere- in order to enhance the specific purpose of the opera performances. This vision created a clear set of priorities that justified altering some existing habits which looked harmless in the existing context but clearly detrimental if you have a higher and longer vision of what an opera really means.

A visionary leadership

Maybe other folks also considered this issue in Mahler´s days. After all, any real lover of operas could get easily annoyed if he had people eating food and playing cards around. But still, who would have the guts to change the rules for a better –but still unknown- opera environment? Getting people out of the comfort zone is always problematic so unless it is strictly necessary, why bother? It did´nt seem obvious at that time that social rules at the opera house should be revised. But Mahler not only had the vision to foresee a better way to perform and listen to operas, but also had the leadership to actually make it happen. He was willing to defy –apparently he had quite a temper- the existing social norms for a better purpose, disregarding negative reactions and criticism.

Rules in the law firm

Is there something to learn from Mahler´s story?

Lawyers are very conservative in the way they see their profession. They are reluctant to recognize that the world might change and that they need to adjust to the new scenarios. This pervasive attitude is in the core of the risks that law firms are facing in light of the radical changes that the law profession is experimenting in the last years –and which will increase dramatically in years to come-. Partners need to take a longer view and perspective of their work to understand what might need to be revised from their current professional environment. An innovative approach requires a defying attitude towards established criteria, if only to confirm that some things still makes sense under this new ever-changing scenario, but others maybe not.

But, as in the case of Mahler, innovation will not suffice to adapt to new circumstances. Strong leadership to push forward required changes, will be equally important. Politically-correct positions will need to be waved to give space to a stronger and visionary leadership, that is willing to pay the cost of difficult –but neccesary- changes.

In his days Malher was probably considered stubborn and senseless by introducing these and other changes in the opera house. It is unlikely that he received any significant praise in the inmediately-following years, since the impact of changes takes time to be recognized. But I´m sure that his purpose was not related to obtaining recognition by his peers but rather with improving opera performances. Nowadays, we are all grateful that he took that stance.