Page 26 - Pierce County Lawyer - May June 2024

OBJECTIVE AND OUTCOMES:
A Procedure For Closing The Client’s File
By David Shelvey
Back in 2022 I was sitting in the TPCBA Lawyer Lounge at the Pierce County courthouse, enjoying a cup of coffee mixed with chocolate. There were two lawyers
there discussing a new management procedure their firm
was adopting for closing their client’s files. This procedure they called ‘Objectives and Outcomes.’ Now, I have heard
of Management by Objectives, which about 90% of U.S. companies implement as part of their strategic management model. I have also heard of the newer management model known as Objectives and Key Results. After listening to the discussion and taking mental notes, I researched the term
on the Internet. My research shows that this management technique may become very useful for attorneys to use. And, yes, this procedure adds a small amount of time to closing the client’s file.
In my personal opinion, it would be very useful for attorneys who need their minds jogged about a closed file or when closed files need to be reopened. I would also rename this closing process as ‘Goals, Objectives, and Outcomes.’ Although most of you reading this know of the importance of setting goals and establishing objectives to reach those goals, I did some research about goals and objectives, which I briefly discuss below.
GOALS
In the 1930s there were two published articles that set the foundation for the importance of goals and how to set them. In 1935 C. A. Mace conducted the first empirical study on goal setting and published the importance that goal setting is to reach the desired target. He discovered that money is not the only incentive for which employees work. Later, psychologists Gary Latham and Edwin Locke expanded Mace’s research, discovering that setting goals can increase productivity by between 11–25%. A 2015 study by psychologist Gail Matthews revealed that when people wrote down their goals, they were 33% more successful in achieving them than those who just formulated outcomes in their brains.
I bring this up as a reminder: one incentive could be money, and a few others could include doing legal representation pro
bono, customer satisfaction, or researching a legal issue for a learning opportunity.
Although there are many articles and books discussing the traditional ways of setting goals, Napoleon Hill is widely known for his philosophy that business leaders are more successful when they set goals to hit targets. After studying over 500 affluent men and women of his time including Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Theodore Roosevelt, etc., in 1937 Mr. Hill published his classic book Think and Grow Rich which, according to the Napoleon Hill Foundation, has sold over 100 million copies worldwide. The bulk of his book addresses how the people he interviewed, mainly successful entrepreneurs who make money, pursue their visions for their companies by setting objectives to reach their goals. Hill did not propose a new goal-setting strategy. Instead, he discussed how company leaders make money by completing projects by setting goals. He wrote that each goal needs to be specific and written out in detail.
And, yes, I am aware that Mr. Hill’s focus was setting goals to make money. However, I think I read somewhere in his book he says to replace ‘money’ with your personal goal. Building your practice, client retention, and recommendations by word of mouth are a few substitutes.
OBJECTIVES
In 1954 Peter Drucker, who had already studied and written about GM management, proposed a new type of management model, Management by Objectives (MBO). Drucker is recognized as the first researcher to look at management as
a separate responsibility. In the past, as mentioned earlier, company leaders set objectives based on their goals that middle management needed to complete to reach the company’s vision. In fact, as Drucker found out, most middle managers do not even know what the vision of the company is, just what objectives they are expected to accomplish. Drucker proposed that middle management be allowed to set the objectives for achieving company goals, then let managers monitor their employee’s progress. After the concept of MBOs was published,
26 PIERCE COUNTY LAWYER | May/June 2024