USING CONFLICT RESOLUTION SKILLS FOR MARKETING SUCCESS

Most professional firms are "shared power environments." Even though all partners or shareholders are not equal, the power is dispersed rather than held by one person (or a very small group). In the case of business development, authority can be shared among individual professionals, with marketing professionals, with marketing partners or committees, and with firm management. And most of them want to express an opinion. That's why it can take an extraordinary amount of time to produce a brochure or other promotional material, for example. Add in outside consultants, graphic designers, publicists, etc., and you really have a myriad of potential factions to knit together in order to fulfill objectives.

The law firm marketer, whether in-house or a consultant, is an advocate for particular projects, strategic thinking and planning, changing behavior and sometimes getting beyond the lawyers' comfort zone, innovation and adding new systems. There are always partners to persuade, nudge, negotiate with, and there are firm decision-makers to convince: from acceptance and approval of never-tried-before ideas to budgets to hiring of outside experts to training attorneys and visibly supporting marketing initiatives.

At the same time (or at least on the same day), the need may arise for marketers to use what are essentially mediation skills to gain consensus on projects, get business development teams to work together, and to bring harmony to different viewpoints between outside suppliers and the attorneys comprising project committees.

In-house marketers or consultants frequently use conflict resolution/mediation skills to:

The last two are usually most effectively done by someone outside the firm. A typical example in my work occurs when I train and coach associates and junior partners in business development and client relations and help to develop new niche areas in their practice. While ostensibly the work is with these groups of attorneys, it is management who engages me to assist and who needs to understand how they can help and support the group being trained for the good of the firm.

In most cases, although the firm management has agreed to the training and coaching, and may even have initiated the idea, they have not clearly articulated directly to the group in question what their expectations are, and what results they want to see and reached mutual agreement on them. For their part, the group being trained and coached usually has not expressed clearly to management of the firm or their practice group heads the obstacles they see to marketing effectively, what they need the firm to do to support them, and what type of recognition they need for their efforts in order to stay motivated and go beyond merely fulfilling their billable hour requirements and going home. While there is no overt dispute, tensions exist, at least under the surface, and the latent conflict issues must be confronted and resolved for ultimate and sustained success. Typical key issues are building mutual trust and confidence, improving internal communication, and encouraging recognition and celebration of success, no matter who in the firm has the success, and recognizing budding rainmakers for their small successes.

We begin to address the project outlined. However teaching the marketing skills to the trainee group is not enough. Bridging the gap between the group and management is a necessary part of the project, whether or not that has been explicitly stated or even consciously recognized by one or more of the parties. I work with both the groups of younger lawyers and the managing partner or committee to surface the issues, present the other party's perceptions, develop with them suggestions for change, present the possible solutions and ways they can be implemented, and then gain agreement. Assuring confidentiality and anonymity when requested, I not only report progress in learning skills to management, but equally important, point out issues and obstacles in the firm that need to be addressed and suggest solutions initiated or agreed to by the group. I then take management's responses, which I may help to shape, back to the group. Over the course of the project, this intermediation process is repeated, often with occasional meetings between the parties which I facilitate. We map out means to implement change with specific tasks assigned.

While it is useful to have as much of this process as possible occur with both parties present and hearing each other directly, the reality is that because of individual sensitivities, pre-existing baggage, and time pressures on the lawyers, much of the resolution is developed in the process of the neutral party going back and forth between the others. In order to remove barriers to productivity and get the best work from the people in a firm, the hindering issues need to be confronted. However that can't always be done in an open forum of both sides. Lawyers, particularly, are so trained and experienced in being adversarial that preparation is often needed for them to deal with their own problems.

The person who serves as the intermediary needs to have and use skills to:

The person who performs this role needs to be a facilitator - and more. The ability to be objective and neutral is critical. The ability to get beneath the surface and identify underlying motivations and what each party needs in order to come to agreement or consensus is very important. Knowledge and experience in dealing with difficult behaviors may be called upon. The ability to give feedback in positive terms and to coach is necessary. An understanding of and ability to use persuasion techniques is usually required.

Law firms are the scene of many types of workplace conflict that aren't the stuff of litigation. In many firm cultures, mixed messages, insecurity and desire for personal gain may lead to selfish maneuvering, lack of desirable risk-taking and loss of productivity because of considerable emotional expenditures on political dealing, worrying and stress. Talk about the greater good for the firm needs to be backed up with recognition and rewards - tangible and intangible - for those who put the firm first. The conflict resolution process and skills used in the earlier example can be applied in resolving these issues.

In various internal situations, whether explicitly marketing-related or not, firms need to use the positive and creative aspects of conflict to generate needed change. This can be done by identifying common interests and focusing on the objectives and the future. Most conflicts can be managed, they can be used to build relationships, and they can be a motivator for change.

There are a multitude of sources of conflict relating to marketing/business development in a firm, not unlike causes of conflict in general. Some of the most common are: lack of communication or mis-communication;. Simple or more complex misunderstandings; differences in values; different information bases or stores of knowledge; differences in perceptions; competition for the same resources; poor chemistry; rivalry for power; and fear of the unknown, particularly the unknown consequences of change.

Lawyers and other professionals and businesspeople are accustomed to negotiating an outcome and may have become quite skilled at that. (They may even try to negotiate with the marketer.) However negotiations are adversarial, and it is crucial that the parties to an internal conflict be able to work well together in the future. Mediated solutions may be better in the long run.

Effective marketing and business development requires collaboration. Taking a collaborative, rather than an adversarial, approach, to surfacing conflicts and "unwritten rules" and resolving them in the interest of harmony, productivity, and better morale is the winning secret of long-lasting, true partnerships.

© Phyllis Weiss Haserot, 1998.

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This article originally appeared in The Rainmaker's Review, (Andrews Publications), December, 1998.