As law firms of all shapes and colors work to adjust their structure, operations and practice to today's dramatically changed legal environment, Edge International is receiving an increased number of inquiries about our cultural assessment capabilities and, thereafter, our approach to working with firms to reinforce, reshape or even dramatically recast their organizational cultures.

A surprising number of these inquiries come not from out of the blue, but from out of the dark. That is, some firms thinking about a cultural assessment are not sure either about "Why this?" or "Why now?" or about the utility a cultural assessment can provide, or the uses to which its results may be put.

Some people regard the concept of "culture" as a vague and amorphous way of describing vague and amorphous touchy-feely Kumbaya-like things: team spirit, collegiality, the firm's kindness/gentleness quotient, commitment to diversity or general organizational well-being.

In fact, the implications of an organization's internal operating norms and external game face are a lot more concrete than that - and effective leadership can learn to shape and guide culture as a practical operational tool for promoting strictly economic desiderata, such as revenue production, productivity, retention, and, of course, profitability.

Put simply, a cultural assessment should be thought of as a power tool targeted to some specific purpose. Stripped to basics, it is an evaluation of two operational correlates: morale and incentives, as they play out in terms of current real-time events. These two factors both shape and are shaped by the firm's culture; in real life they are represented less by abstract values than by informal but powerful norms - the winds you find blowing at the interface between historical legacy, current economic pressures, group dynamics and personal incentives (including, front and center, compensation). Norms also are what you see and what you get in response to various leadership and management influences or initiatives. That's why leaders commission cultural assessments.

Whether one is taking a simple whole-firm perspective or making slice-and-dice comparisons of such "subcultural" variables as level, practice group, office, geographical location, gender, or history with the firm, a good cultural assessment paints a multi-hued picture of the factors that drive desirable attitudes and behaviors. Or, conversely, of the forces that trigger undesirable and dysfunctional forces.

The question of what defines "desirable" attitudes and behaviors is answered by looking hard at the context in which a cultural assessment is to be conducted. Perhaps the impetus is to find out whether a firm's members are likely to follow if leadership takes the firm in a new or risky strategic direction. Perhaps it is in connection with a potential merger as a measure both of how much buy-in the idea enjoys and of the priorities of the firm's members (which, of course, can be compared with those of the potential partner to test the likelihood of the always-elusive "alignment"). Cultural assessments also can serve as a moist finger in the wind to detect the early winds of change or seeds of discontent, or they can act as a diagnostic in firms torn by discord, acrimony, turf wars, power struggles, confusion about succession and unfocused or uncommitted leadership.

The bottom line is that a cultural assessment is like a ruler, and any firm about to spend considerable time and money on applying that ruler must have a clear sense of what they are measuring and what they will do with the information the assessment provides. Put differently, a cultural assessment should never be an abstract information-gathering "exercise." It is best used as a strategic and tactical support tool, a measure of the energy, commitment, resiliency, and collaboration that can be brought to bear on any leadership priority.

 Contact the author, Douglas B. Richardson