• "Because you've hired us before."
• "Because of our excellence and expertise." 
• "Because we'll do your work for a bargain-basement fixed fee even though we have no idea how to turn a profit on it."  

Here, on the other hand, are some great answers to those questions:

1. They positively differentiate you from other firms that can't (yet) say the same, and
2. They can be accomplished, or can at least start to be implemented, this year. 

You cannot let 2013 go by without using your leadership and influence to differentiate your firm - to create an identifiable, remarkable, memorable narrative that sets you apart from the faceless law firm crowd. And if you can pull it off, then by January 1, 2014, you'll be able to tell Bono just how wrong he was.

Contact the author, Jordan Furlong.

It is vitally important that leaders (managing partners, CEOs or COOs) remain in touch with their direct reports, whether they be support service managers or practice group leaders. This seems obvious doesn't it? How could leaders possibly not do this?

Unfortunately, it happens more often than one would imagine. I have had no fewer than three assignments in the past six months where issues in this area have caused enormous disruption and in some cases incumbents to lose their jobs. It is that serious.

• A CEO of a 50-office, +$100m national professional service firm practice (which was sold to external investors with an independent board) so lost touch with her managers and vice versa that when her board and chairperson asked for a 360° review of her role it proved terminal. With memories of Steve Jobs at Apple, this arose notwithstanding that she had founded the organisation only five years prior;
• The successful CEO of a trusted, large national charity had consistently failed to provide timely or in fact any structured feedback to managers, despite urging and advice to the contrary. She has since found the management group have become disconnected, trust and respect has broken down and in some cases this has seriously undermined her role and authority; and
• The managing partner of a mid-size legal practice became so embroiled in and distracted by his professional practice that he overlooked the importance of taking a professional and personal interest in support service managers and team leaders. It has caused various issues and a feeling amongst direct reports that he doesn't care, is incapable and in any event 'they are doing the job.'

What are the danger signs? How does this detachment and misalignment commonly arise? Here are some examples:

1. A lack of understanding by the leader of their own natural style of thinking, behaving and interacting with others, coupled with low levels of emotional intelligence (EQ);
2. A lack of direction, clarity of vision and strategy by the leader causing confusion and frustration amongst direct reports;
3. Leaders, particularly in recently established firms, constantly throwing up new ideas which have little to do with existing priorities, key objectives and strategy but in regard to which immediate implementation is demanded;
4. A leader who is more interested in his own priorities and successes and who tends to look in the mirror rather than out the window when dishing out praise where successes have been achieved;
5. Not truly listening or hearing what direct reports are truly saying, coupled with poor body language related to this;
6. Not taking a personal and professional interest in the development, progression, success and well-being of direct reports;
7. Paying favourites and engaging in political side plays;
8. Being guilty of passive avoidance styles of behaviour in addressing issues amongst reports or questions of underperformance which undermine the whole team or the firm;
9. A leader who micro-manages others to such an extent that it disempowers and undermines confidence on the part of direct reports;
10. A leader who believes their sole job is to think big and strategically and shows no interest in or respect for structured systems and processes in an orderly way of doing things in following up and following through.

There are various ways to prevent these issues arising in practice. In many cases it simply requires an adjustment of thinking or behaviour on the part of the leader, possibly supported by personal leadership development coaching. In serious cases it might require careful analysis, scientific diagnostics and possibly even expert psychological treatment to address issues.

In all cases I believe that leaders should:

1. Clearly understand their own strengths and weaknesses around emotional intelligence and styles of thinking, behaviour and interaction with others;
2. Have an understanding of and know how to apply the various accepted styles of leadership which are appropriate depending on circumstances;
3. Ensure that there is clarity around vision, strategic key objectives and a clear strategy which is being implemented and followed up on to achieve these, with all this ideally summarised on a page or two to provide ready reference;
4. A genuine interest in the personal and professional development, progression and well-being of those who report to them;
5. Truly live the firm's values and cultural attributes, bearing in mind it is what they do not what they say that counts.

The danger, if leaders do not do these things, is that by the time a managing partner or CEO/COO has awoken to the issues, the relevant relationships and underlying trust and respect may have disintegrated to such an extent that they have irretrievably broken down. Sadly this happens all too frequently. Equally sadly, it is entirely unnecessary and avoidable.

Make sure you are doing all you can in this regard or get advice to ensure you are.

In his new book, Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (the bestselling author of The Black Swan) divides businesses and institutions into three categories: the fragile, the robust, and the antifragile.  An organization is fragile if it is vulnerable to unexpected and consequential events -- what Taleb has labeled "Black Swans."  An organization is robust if it can withstand shocks, at least for a time, but does not improve or benefit from the trauma.  And an organization is antifragile if unexpected adversity helps it to grow stronger and more creative, better able to adapt to new challenges. Because of the difficulty of predicting Black Swans (witness the 2008 financial crisis), Taleb believes that organizations need to be antifragile.

Taleb's concept of antifragility is useful for law firms struggling to adapt and thrive in the changing market for legal services.  For decades prior to the 2008 recession, corporate law firms benefitted from a surge in demand for corporate legal services, dramatic gains in compensation, and relatively stabile firm infrastructure.  In recent years, however, the nation's corporate clients have tightened their legal budgets, pressured their outside counsel to do more with less, and turned to new types of service providers in search of greater efficiency and more predictable fees.  Harsh economic conditions have also accelerated changes in law firm structure and culture: the erosion of partnership as a permanent status though de-equitization and mandatory retirement, increasing lateral movement between firms, and greater acceptance of large differentials in compensation.  

Taleb does not specifically address any of the challenges currently faced by law firm managers, but he does offer general principles to help organizations reduce fragility.  Here are three of his suggestions that have relevance for law firms

1. Learn from your mistakes. In the airline industry, every plane crash makes travel safer.  A tragedy leads to a thorough examination and elimination of the cause of the problem.  Taleb argues that this process is the essence of antifragility, because the business as a whole benefits from the fragility of individual components.  The same thing should happen in law firms.  Setbacks such as client defections and prominent partner departuresare opportunities to identify and improve weaknesses in firm processes and capabilities.
2. Minimize debt. Taleb points out that a highly leveraged company has no room for error; it has to be extremely good at predicting future revenues.  A corporation with equity financing, on the other hand, can survive unexpected drops in income. The collapse of Dewey & Le Boeuf provides a cautionary tale of the risks of debt expansion and compensation guarantees to lateral recruits.  When the financial crisis flattened demand for legal services, Dewey was left without sufficient cash flow to cover its capital expenses and fulfill compensation expectations.
3. Small is beautiful? Taleb argues that while size may bring economies of scale, it also increases exposure to the probability of large losses.  Decentralization of decisions and projects mitigates this effect, by spreading errors across a wider range of sources and reducing their impact.  He compares the success of canton-based decision making in Switzerland to the failure of the authoritarian regime in Soviet Russia. Historically law firms have been managed much more like Switzerland than the USSR, with partners given wide berth to manage their individual practices.  But as law firms have grown into complex multimillion dollar international enterprises, many have moved to stronger centralized management.  Taleb's analysis suggests that while the traditional approach of loose committee management may no longer be viable for today's large law firms, centralization has a downside.  Firm managers who insist on standardization and uniform procedures at the expense of individual innovation and entrepreneurship may ultimately weaken the firm.

At bottom, Taleb's book cautions managers against making themselves and their firms too comfortable and cosmetically stable.  Instead the challenge is to learn to love volatility.