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Why Law Firm Leaders must prioritize Human Transformation in Times of Radical Change
The legal profession is at a defining moment. Rapid technological advancements, evolving client demands, shifting workforce expectations, and fierce competition for top talent are reshaping the very foundations of how law firms operate.
From digital innovation to cultural shifts and workforce evolution, transformation is happening everywhere – and it’s rewriting the future of law firms, whether they’re ready or not. In these times of constant change, those firms that prioritize fast and ongoing transformation will secure their place at the forefront – regardless of the type of transformation.
This article explores the multi-faceted nature of transformation – beyond mere change – highlighting the need for leaders to foster adaptability at individual, team, and organizational levels. Discover why human transformation should be at the top of your strategic priorities to future-proof your firm and learn about nine critical areas that leaders must master to successfully transform their organizations.
Transformation is “change2” – requiring leadership skills well beyond leading change
Transformation isn’t just change; it’s “change2” – a deeper shift that touches identity on multiple levels:
This makes transformation more radical – and often more challenging – than typical change. It demands leaders with new tools and skills to guide their firms through these profound shifts at every level.
Adaptability: a keY competitive advantage in transformative times
What drives success for your firm in times of constant transformation?
The answer lies in organizational adaptability – your firm’s and its members´ ability to continuously and quickly learn and seize opportunities.
For law firms, adaptability translates into sustainable growth by enabling
Research by Chatman et al. reveals that firms with high organizational adaptability deliver better financial performance.[1]
For leaders, the mandate is clear: fostering adaptability is a leadership imperative to future-proof your firm. And a key driver of adaptability is a leader´s ability to foster human transformation.
And at the heart of adaptability is human transformation.
Leading human transformation is what drives your Firm´s Adaptability
At the heart of any transformation lies the human ability to learn and grow in at least three different ways:
At its core, human transformation is about letting go of outdated mindsets and behaviors and adopting those that empower individuals and teams to thrive amid change.
As a leader, your responsibility is to foster these learning processes across all levels of your firm: the individual, team, and organizational.
Leadership Compass: Driving Adaptability through Human Transformation
Supporting human transformation requires a distinct and additional set of leadership skills that go beyond the “leading change” playbook.
In essence, there are 3 tasks a leader should focus on:
Drawing from extensive research on success factors in leading transformation, and from insights from over 25 in-depth interviews with Managing Partners, CEOs, COOs, CHROs, I have identified nine focus areas for leaders to foster greater adaptability of their firm.
Figure 1: Leading human transformation across the whole firm.
Skilled leaders know how to navigate seamlessly between the individual, team, and organizational levels. Let´s briefly explore just one focus area on each level:
Whatever transformation you’re aiming to implement – be it cultural, technological, or enhancing internal collaboration – success depends on people (leaders and employees) being ready to fully engage. They need to believe they can rise to any challenge, learn what’s needed, and persist through setbacks.
Here's how these three elements play a role.
With a growth mindset – a term coined by researcher Carol Dweck – challenges are seen as opportunities to learn and grow. Learning is valued over perfection. This encourages experimentation and viewing failures and mistakes as opportunities for growth.
Fostering a growth mindset among individuals increases flexibility and empowers them to adapt to changing circumstances with curiosity and courage.
In recent times, more and more law firms have shifted their strategy from a “clients first” perspective to a “people first” approach. This move is often driven by a critical realization. As one managing partner put it, “we realized that wanting to serve more clients while failing to attract and keep top talent isn´t sustainable and would eventually stall growth”. This shift demands a growth mindset across the firm’s leadership, emphasizing that everyone has the potential to learn, develop, and thrive. For leaders acting with a growth mindset, investing time and energy in continuously supporting people to develop and grow is considered essential for long-term success.
Ask yourself: How do you support your fellow leaders in your firm to embrace a growth mindset?
Teams thrive in an environment where trust and “psychological safety”, as defined by Prof. Amy C. Edmondson, are prioritized. Psychologically safe teams feel empowered to voice ideas, ask tough questions, and challenge the status quo which are all essential behaviors for transformation success.
As a leader, your role is to create and model this safety by fostering open dialogue and demonstrating vulnerability.
In one law firm, a managing partner grew increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress on the firm’s shift from a “clients first” to a “people first” strategy. Despite agreeing on the priorities, key leaders – including the COO, Head of HR, and his co-managing partner – seemed reluctant to take decisive steps forward. On reflection, the managing partner realized the problem wasn’t their lack of action but his failure to provide psychological safety in their conversations. While he encouraged his team to challenge his ideas, in fact, he often dismissed differing views with lengthy explanations about why his approach was best. Over time, this stifled open debate, leaving his colleagues hesitant to engage. While they didn´t want to be seen as blockers to the intended transformation, they started to disengage from discussions as they felt their suggestions and concerns weren´t heard anyway. Often, they failed to follow through on what had been “agreed upon.” The managing partner came to understand that creating space for genuine debate and feedback was critical to driving the firm’s transformation forward.
Ask yourself: How do your actions and words model psychological safety for your (leadership) team?
At the organizational level, systems thinking ensures strategies align with transformation goals. This includes:
With systemic thinking, you explore behavior in context:
One of the major challenges for many managing partners I have interviewed was how to create a truly collaborative culture in their firms. The issue often isn't a lack of willingness to collaborate per se but compensation systems that over-reward solo specialists and “rainmakers” which, if taken too far, undermines collaboration. Instead of simply urging partners to collaborate more, it’s more effective to examine how the compensation structure might be driving this behavior. Brazilian law firm Mattos Filho offers an inspiring example, having radically redesigned its system to foster collaboration, “moving away from the formulaic eat-what-you-kill approach to one that included a combination of objective, outcomes-based performance metrics and subjective decisions by a compensation committee”[2].
Ask yourself: How well do you apply a systems perspective when shaping your transformation strategy?
A three-step process to drive human transformation on each level
To leverage the power of all nine focus areas, leaders can follow a three-step process:
Step 1 – Acknowledge the current status and leverage diagnostic tools to uncover barriers and opportunities on the individual, team, and organizational level.
Step 2 – Challenge so far unquestioned assumptions, behavioral patterns and systems that don´t serve your firm’s transformation goals. This requires leaders to ask the tough questions, encourage experimentation, and disrupt old patterns that hold the firm back.
Step 3 – Transform assumptions, behavioral patterns and systems using targeted tools and techniques to embed transformation into the fabric of your firm.
Figure 2: A 3-step process to increase adaptability through human transformation on each level.
A Call to Action for Law Firm Leaders
Ultimately, transformation rises or falls on people. Research shows that of the approximately 70% of transformations that fail, only about 25% are due to structural or budgetary challenges. A staggering 75% of outcomes hinge on the human factor.
The takeaway is clear: human transformation must take center stage in any strategic transformation effort.
By fostering adaptability, championing learning, and leading by example, leaders can position their firms for sustained success in an era of constant change.
So, the question is: How will you lead your firm’s transformation? The time to act is now.
Let’s start the conversation.
📘 My book, including these insights, will be available in early summer 2025. If you’d like to be notified when it’s out, send me a message.
#DeepHumanScience #Leadership #GrowthMindset #Transformation #LawFirms
[1] Chatman, J. A. et al. (2014). Parsing organizational culture: How the norm for adaptability influences the relationship between culture consensus and financial performance in high-technology firms. Journal of Organizational Behavior Vol. 35. Issue 6.
[2] Gardner, Heidi K. (2017). Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos, p. 171. Harvard Business Review Press.
[1] Chatman, J. A. et al. (2014). Parsing organizational culture: How the norm for adaptability influences the relationship between culture consensus and financial performance in high-technology firms. Journal of Organizational Behavior Vol. 35. Issue 6.
[2] Gardner, Heidi K. (2017). Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos, p. 171. Harvard Business Review Press.
From digital innovation to cultural shifts and workforce evolution, transformation is happening everywhere – and it’s rewriting the future of law firms, whether they’re ready or not. In these times of constant change, those firms that prioritize fast and ongoing transformation will secure their place at the forefront – regardless of the type of transformation.
This article explores the multi-faceted nature of transformation – beyond mere change – highlighting the need for leaders to foster adaptability at individual, team, and organizational levels. Discover why human transformation should be at the top of your strategic priorities to future-proof your firm and learn about nine critical areas that leaders must master to successfully transform their organizations.
Transformation is “change2” – requiring leadership skills well beyond leading change
Transformation isn’t just change; it’s “change2” – a deeper shift that touches identity on multiple levels:
- Organizational identity: What value does our firm provide, and how do we deliver it?
- Team identity: What makes us a high-performing team?
- Individual identity: What value do I contribute, and how do I create it?
This makes transformation more radical – and often more challenging – than typical change. It demands leaders with new tools and skills to guide their firms through these profound shifts at every level.
Adaptability: a keY competitive advantage in transformative times
What drives success for your firm in times of constant transformation?
The answer lies in organizational adaptability – your firm’s and its members´ ability to continuously and quickly learn and seize opportunities.
For law firms, adaptability translates into sustainable growth by enabling
- effective multidisciplinary collaboration
- enhanced talent retention and development
- creation of truly innovative products and services.
Research by Chatman et al. reveals that firms with high organizational adaptability deliver better financial performance.[1]
For leaders, the mandate is clear: fostering adaptability is a leadership imperative to future-proof your firm. And a key driver of adaptability is a leader´s ability to foster human transformation.
And at the heart of adaptability is human transformation.
Leading human transformation is what drives your Firm´s Adaptability
At the heart of any transformation lies the human ability to learn and grow in at least three different ways:
- Behavioral patterns: adapting how individuals, teams and leaders act to drive stronger outcomes – for example embracing collaboration in multidisciplinary teams
- Mindsets: shifting for example from individual expertise to collaborative solutions, and prioritizing curiosity over “looking smart”
- Roles and identity: redefining roles and contributions as part of the identity – evolving for example from delivering legal advice to creating value for all stakeholders or shifting from “exerting control” to empowering distributed leadership.
At its core, human transformation is about letting go of outdated mindsets and behaviors and adopting those that empower individuals and teams to thrive amid change.
As a leader, your responsibility is to foster these learning processes across all levels of your firm: the individual, team, and organizational.
Leadership Compass: Driving Adaptability through Human Transformation
Supporting human transformation requires a distinct and additional set of leadership skills that go beyond the “leading change” playbook.
In essence, there are 3 tasks a leader should focus on:
- Foster transformation readiness in yourself and others
- Strengthen critical meta-skills like tolerance for ambiguity, curiosity, the ability to challenge deeply held assumptions, and fostering a growth mindset
- Establish systems that support transformation readiness and competencies across individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole.
Drawing from extensive research on success factors in leading transformation, and from insights from over 25 in-depth interviews with Managing Partners, CEOs, COOs, CHROs, I have identified nine focus areas for leaders to foster greater adaptability of their firm.
Figure 1: Leading human transformation across the whole firm.
Skilled leaders know how to navigate seamlessly between the individual, team, and organizational levels. Let´s briefly explore just one focus area on each level:
Whatever transformation you’re aiming to implement – be it cultural, technological, or enhancing internal collaboration – success depends on people (leaders and employees) being ready to fully engage. They need to believe they can rise to any challenge, learn what’s needed, and persist through setbacks.
Here's how these three elements play a role.
- Shift to Growth Mindset (Individual Level)
With a growth mindset – a term coined by researcher Carol Dweck – challenges are seen as opportunities to learn and grow. Learning is valued over perfection. This encourages experimentation and viewing failures and mistakes as opportunities for growth.
Fostering a growth mindset among individuals increases flexibility and empowers them to adapt to changing circumstances with curiosity and courage.
In recent times, more and more law firms have shifted their strategy from a “clients first” perspective to a “people first” approach. This move is often driven by a critical realization. As one managing partner put it, “we realized that wanting to serve more clients while failing to attract and keep top talent isn´t sustainable and would eventually stall growth”. This shift demands a growth mindset across the firm’s leadership, emphasizing that everyone has the potential to learn, develop, and thrive. For leaders acting with a growth mindset, investing time and energy in continuously supporting people to develop and grow is considered essential for long-term success.
Ask yourself: How do you support your fellow leaders in your firm to embrace a growth mindset?
- Nurture Trust (Team Level)
Teams thrive in an environment where trust and “psychological safety”, as defined by Prof. Amy C. Edmondson, are prioritized. Psychologically safe teams feel empowered to voice ideas, ask tough questions, and challenge the status quo which are all essential behaviors for transformation success.
As a leader, your role is to create and model this safety by fostering open dialogue and demonstrating vulnerability.
In one law firm, a managing partner grew increasingly frustrated with the lack of progress on the firm’s shift from a “clients first” to a “people first” strategy. Despite agreeing on the priorities, key leaders – including the COO, Head of HR, and his co-managing partner – seemed reluctant to take decisive steps forward. On reflection, the managing partner realized the problem wasn’t their lack of action but his failure to provide psychological safety in their conversations. While he encouraged his team to challenge his ideas, in fact, he often dismissed differing views with lengthy explanations about why his approach was best. Over time, this stifled open debate, leaving his colleagues hesitant to engage. While they didn´t want to be seen as blockers to the intended transformation, they started to disengage from discussions as they felt their suggestions and concerns weren´t heard anyway. Often, they failed to follow through on what had been “agreed upon.” The managing partner came to understand that creating space for genuine debate and feedback was critical to driving the firm’s transformation forward.
Ask yourself: How do your actions and words model psychological safety for your (leadership) team?
- Apply Systems Thinking (Organizational Level)
At the organizational level, systems thinking ensures strategies align with transformation goals. This includes:
- Developing a firm-wide culture that embraces a growth mindset, led by example from leadership
- Aligning systems like remuneration with transformation objectives (e.g. do you reward innovation and reasonable risk-taking? Do you support those who learn from mistakes?)
- Removing contradictions within the organization that otherwise would undermine transformation effort and success.
With systemic thinking, you explore behavior in context:
One of the major challenges for many managing partners I have interviewed was how to create a truly collaborative culture in their firms. The issue often isn't a lack of willingness to collaborate per se but compensation systems that over-reward solo specialists and “rainmakers” which, if taken too far, undermines collaboration. Instead of simply urging partners to collaborate more, it’s more effective to examine how the compensation structure might be driving this behavior. Brazilian law firm Mattos Filho offers an inspiring example, having radically redesigned its system to foster collaboration, “moving away from the formulaic eat-what-you-kill approach to one that included a combination of objective, outcomes-based performance metrics and subjective decisions by a compensation committee”[2].
Ask yourself: How well do you apply a systems perspective when shaping your transformation strategy?
A three-step process to drive human transformation on each level
To leverage the power of all nine focus areas, leaders can follow a three-step process:
Step 1 – Acknowledge the current status and leverage diagnostic tools to uncover barriers and opportunities on the individual, team, and organizational level.
Step 2 – Challenge so far unquestioned assumptions, behavioral patterns and systems that don´t serve your firm’s transformation goals. This requires leaders to ask the tough questions, encourage experimentation, and disrupt old patterns that hold the firm back.
Step 3 – Transform assumptions, behavioral patterns and systems using targeted tools and techniques to embed transformation into the fabric of your firm.
Figure 2: A 3-step process to increase adaptability through human transformation on each level.
A Call to Action for Law Firm Leaders
Ultimately, transformation rises or falls on people. Research shows that of the approximately 70% of transformations that fail, only about 25% are due to structural or budgetary challenges. A staggering 75% of outcomes hinge on the human factor.
The takeaway is clear: human transformation must take center stage in any strategic transformation effort.
By fostering adaptability, championing learning, and leading by example, leaders can position their firms for sustained success in an era of constant change.
So, the question is: How will you lead your firm’s transformation? The time to act is now.
Let’s start the conversation.
📘 My book, including these insights, will be available in early summer 2025. If you’d like to be notified when it’s out, send me a message.
#DeepHumanScience #Leadership #GrowthMindset #Transformation #LawFirms
[1] Chatman, J. A. et al. (2014). Parsing organizational culture: How the norm for adaptability influences the relationship between culture consensus and financial performance in high-technology firms. Journal of Organizational Behavior Vol. 35. Issue 6.
[2] Gardner, Heidi K. (2017). Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos, p. 171. Harvard Business Review Press.
[1] Chatman, J. A. et al. (2014). Parsing organizational culture: How the norm for adaptability influences the relationship between culture consensus and financial performance in high-technology firms. Journal of Organizational Behavior Vol. 35. Issue 6.
[2] Gardner, Heidi K. (2017). Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos, p. 171. Harvard Business Review Press.