Don't Tell Me What You Think I Want to Hear, Tell Me What I Need to Know!

Have you ever been placed in a situation where someone protected you from a painful truth, but in so doing left you at a disadvantage because you couldn't make a fully-informed decision?  A common complaint I hear from in-house counsel is that outside counsel often don't share small problems, and some of these grow into big problems.  This applies whether it's a budget overrun or a curve ball in the legal matter they're addressing. I've written previously about the critical need for in-house counsel to budget accurately for legal matters -- matters that from the perspective of corporate chieftains are no less variable or uncertain than global supply chain costs or revenue projections.  At a recent discussion on the topic, a Chief Legal Officer explained the impact of a cost overrun in her legal department.  As a big box retailer with profit margins in the mid-single digits, there is very little excess spending in the organization from which they can divert funds to address cost overruns.  As a result, some cost overruns are distributed as a sort of "tax" on sales, or in other words, for every $50,000 overage in the legal department, the organization must sell an additional $1,000,000 of product above forecast.  And since there are incremental costs associated with additional sales, and in some cases revenue cannot be fully recognized immediately, the actual surcharge is something on the order of $2,000,000.

Think about that for a moment.  Imagine the GC addressing her peers in the boardroom in late Q3 of the fiscal year.  She claims that because legal matters are so uncertain there's no way to submit a proper forecast, and as it turns out she'll need an additional $50,000 in her budget, maybe more, and so Sales must step up and deliver an additional $2,000,000 in revenue.  Someone's going to be eating alone in the executive cafeteria.

Of course this applies to legal matters that start out small but grow into big hairy complicated messes.  If the outside counsel doesn't provide early warning that the matter is growing beyond the expected scope, the GC can't properly re-assess the situation.  Since legal matters are, at heart, business issues, it's critical to inform business management how new developments impact expectations.

Does the discovery of a smoking gun during document review warrant a fast reversal of course in the SEC investigation?  Will previously unknown IP infringement claims that surface in acquisition due diligence alter the calculus in a make vs. buy decision?  The earlier a GC knows of the potential issues, the better she can advise business management.  This is not to say outside counsel routinely and purposely withhold information, not at all.  But when project scope is ill-defined in advance it sometimes takes too long to understand when the scope has materially changed, and this lag time is unacceptable.  For help on defining scope, look into Legal Project Management.

As with many of my life lessons, I learned the hard way.  I vividly recall a product development project for which I was an executive sponsor.  Each month for nearly two years the development team provided progress updates, sought additional funding, looked for guidance on feature/function decisions and otherwise adhered to the development schedule.  However, two months before launch, long after we had incorporated significant new revenue streams into our current year forecast, the development team advised that they were six to eight months off schedule.  They had hoped to make up time and they didn't want to deliver bad news, so they hadn't raised the alarm earlier, but other projects interfered and now there was no way to meet the deadline.  As executive sponsor I wasn't necessarily expected to be sitting with the developers each day, looking over their code and analyzing their progress, but I was expected to know if the launch date would be delayed into the next fiscal year, putting all of our revenue projections at significant risk!  I ate lunch alone quite a bit that year.

Let's close with an unrelated anecdote.  Because of my heavy travel schedule, much of it at hours when others in my time zone are fast asleep, from time to time I hire a car service to take me to and from the airport.  I grew fond of one car service owner-operator and hired him exclusively for several years.  Needless to say, I was a lucrative client for his small business.  For one return trip I had a tight schedule:  land at the airport, dash to the car waiting at the curb, try to shave off some time on the hour-long ride to my home, and make it to my daughter's band concert a few minutes late.  There was no room for error, such as an unanticipated (but quite common) traffic jam, so I also consulted the train schedule.   I could take a train and almost certainly have no delays, but I would miss more than half the concert.  I gambled on the car service.

When I left the plane, I called the driver to alert him that I was walking to the airport exit.  He said he was slowly circling the airport, as is his custom so he doesn't have to park.  The flight was long so I needed to visit the restroom and it was maybe 20 degrees (F) outside, but instead I waited outside for 10 minutes knowing the airport police would shoo away the driver if he approached and I wasn't there.  After a few minutes I called back, and the driver revealed he was actually pulling into the airport now and would be there momentarily.  Another ten minute delay.  I called again and as the driver was telling me that he drove by but didn't see me, I heard a toll booth agent in the background.  The driver then sheepishly admitted that he was just exiting the nearby interstate highway, and now he really was about 10 minutes away.

You know how this ends, don't you?  By now I had missed my train.  There was no way I would see even a moment of my daughter's concert.  I had been standing in below-freezing weather for nearly half an hour expecting the driver to arrive at any second, and, not to put too fine a point on it, I was in dire need of a visit to the restroom.  So I told the driver I would no longer need his services, then I went inside, visited the restroom, bought a Starbucks and headed to the next train.  A week later the small business owner sent me a letter scolding me for throwing away our cozy relationship merely because he was a little late.  And, by the way, he claimed I owed him for the trip since I didn't cancel in time.

The real error was not giving me the information I needed.  I could have visited the rest room, secured a hot beverage and stood inside the door.  I could've taken the train -- and I still would've paid the driver for his time.  In other words, I could have explored my options.  Instead, his misguided effort to protect me from the truth eliminated all of my options, leaving me furious, cold and in search of a new business partner.

I'm presently conducting several client satisfaction interviews for law firm clients.  Often we hear about poor communication and poor budgeting skills.  Sometimes my Biglaw partner clients will dismiss these as one-time easily-explained situations that are blown out of proportion, certainly not the sort of issue to derail a longtime relationship.  I caution them to put themselves in their client's shoes.  Are these the comfortable loafers of a well-informed client?  Or are these shoes hopping from one foot to another, trying to stay warm in the absence of information?

Timothy B. Corcoran delivers keynote presentations and conducts workshops to help lawyers, in-house counsel and legal service providers profit in a time of great change.  To inquire about his services, click here or contact him at +1.609.557.7311 or at tim@corcoranconsultinggroup.com. – See more at: http://www.corcoranlawbizblog.com

Law Firm Cross Selling Basics

In today's vignette, let's react once again to search engine key words that have led recent visitors to my blog.  Law firm cross selling is a search term that quite frequently appears in my search logs. Most lawyers perceive cross selling as the other guy's job.  "I told them what I do, now it's their responsibility to introduce me to their clients."  This is a waste of time, whether due to apathy, or busy schedules, or -- in large firms in particular -- the inability to really know what everyone else does.

So many firms, or the firm's marketing team, create elaborate Intranet sites and internal newsletters where success stories are published and deal lists and practice descriptions are housed, so that each lawyer may spend time perusing his or her colleagues' area of specialty.  But no one really does this.

Let's assume for a moment that there is no financial disincentive, such as a compensation system that rewards isolationist behavior or at least fails to reward collaboration.  These systems exist, but like wallpaper they're a big pain in the neck to remove and replace, so they remain.

Why, then, do so many lawyers fail to go out of their way to cross sell?

First, many lawyers are bad at math.  If every lawyer is more fully utilized, and we're doing more work with existing clients (or, in other words, our cost to acquire new work is lower than it would be to seek new clients) then the firm overall will be more profitable and all shareholders will benefit.  Instead, many tend to focus on their personal performance and origination.

Secondly, many lawyers fail to recognize that cross selling is MY job.  If I want my colleagues to recommend me to their clients, then they need to know what specific problems I solve, and what specific triggers or flags should lead to an introduction.  Vaguely advertising that I do real estate work is less specific than educating my colleagues that, for example, any client with distressed assets in need of protection or disposal, or clients conducting an acquisition that includes real assets with unknown liabilities, should speak to me.  It's incumbent on each of us to educate our colleagues about the top two or three problems we solve, and how to identify one of these problems in the making.

Yes, yes, I know that if we limit it to two or three problems, then we'll be completely overlooked by our colleagues when a separate but equally lucrative issue comes along, and since we didn't identify it they'll recommend that their client seek another law firm with more relevant experience to handle it.  Or so we think.  Have you ever gone to a steakhouse with a vegetarian? She doesn't starve! Or to a seafood restaurant and ordered a steak?  Just because we promote one or two or three compelling ideas doesn't mean we can't or won't provide services outside this range.  So narrow it down, make it easy, and trust your colleagues to know you also do other work in this field.

Finally, cross selling requires familiarity and trust.  We've heard the maxim that clients buy from people they like and trust.  This applies within a law firm too.  So make time to get to know your colleagues.  I've been in law firm practice group meetings where two partners had never met in person, yet they practiced in the same group for a couple years, and presumably attended the same annual practice group offsite meetings, but their schedules had never really coincided.  In today's growing law firm, it's hard to get to know everybody.  But try.  Work from another office periodically.  Pick two or three colleagues you don't know, even if your clients have never had a need in this area, and take them to lunch this year.  When traveling to a client site, if there's a satellite office nearby, drop in and walk the halls.  Your colleagues will refer business to you when they trust you, and they won't generally trust you until they know you.

This is also why every law firm retreat I'm asked to organize includes some pub time, or golf time, or spa time.  This is sometimes eliminated due to cost or optics, but in fact it's critical to spend time off the clock with your colleagues.  Work the room, get to know people.  You'll be amazed how frequently your name will come up in their client meetings when they know you, know what problems you solve, and how to spot the issues when they arise.

Good luck!

Corcoran's Greatest Hits, Volume 1

A long time ago when I was a radio and club DJ, I owned a lot of Greatest Hits albums and CDs so I could fulfill listener requests for popular songs. Some of these collections were hastily compiled by an artist's record company in order to fulfill a contractual obligation. But sometimes the collections were compiled with care and enthusiasm and included never-before-released songs from the vault, liner notes from the artist and other material to appeal to the true fan. With that in mind, I present the top five posts from this blog over the past year along with additional insights of my own and public and private reader reactions. Legal Project Management Q&A - For quite some time I've been writing about the need for law firms to embrace business concepts to improve operations.  Last year I adapted some of the concepts and techniques I learned in my corporate life and developed a curriculum for educating lawyers about project management.  Turns out there's a whole discipline growing on this topic, now dubbed Legal Project Management, and there are some quality trainers offering insights.  But there are also a number of folks hopping on the bandwagon.  In my view, one can obtain certification in a discipline, one can even teach the concepts, but one doesn't really know the topic until one applies these techniques in a commercial enterprise to make money.  Ask your project management consultant for real commercial examples of these concepts in action.

In addition to imbuing my approach with real-life experience, I also focus on the big picture and keep away, at least initially, from the statistical and quantitative basis that others believe is necessary to commence a project management process.  One Six Sigma Black Belt criticized my approach, exclaiming in disbelief that no program that addresses project management and process improvement could possibly succeed without a heavy dose of analysis and math.  I disagree.  Well, at least I disagree insofar as I'm confident few law firm partners will sign up for a course that's heavy on math and analysis.  But many will sign up for a workshop such as mine (and hundreds have!) where we cover the basics, whet participants' appetites for how project management skills can be applied to a law practice and generate sufficient interest to go to the next level where -- surprise! -- we get deeper into the underlying math and analysis needed to truly benchmark and track performance.  On a few occasions my colleagues and I have replaced a consultancy that specializes in engineering firms, or that applies a standard Six Sigma methodology to any business process with little customization.  I've learned that the practice of law, while not as unique as some lawyers would have us believe, does require customization and care to ensure that the concepts are properly applied.

If you lead a law firm and you're convinced that with an improving economy everything will go back to the way it was, and this is a good thing because it's right that lawyers should demonstrate value primarily by billing time, and it's right that lawyers should treat each new engagement as if it's the first of its kind because this is the only way to ensure the client receives the most thorough work product, then you don't need project management.  But write down these beliefs and note how firmly you believe in them, and then let's talk again in a couple years.  I'm certain your views will have changed, because once everyone else has adapted you will too.

A Note on Reducing Law Firm Compensation - This post generated a number of emotional responses.  It's also one of the most commonly searched topics on the blog, suggesting that it's a hot topic elsewhere.  When I wrote this post, quite a few large law firms were conducting public and stealth layoffs of staff, associates and even non-equity partners, and just as many were reducing compensation of these same groups.  Popular legal gossip blog Above the Law teamed with Law Shucks to track these layoffs, and according to their research as of today's writing there have been nearly 15,000 job losses in the legal sector.  This is an unprecedented statistic in a business segment that is typically known to perform well in good times and bad.

It's challenging to write academically on such an emotional topic while the lives of real people are so significantly impacted, but the original intent of this post was to provide some context for why the same market dynamics of supply and demand that influence other industries are certainly factors in the legal profession.  In short, when demand for a product or service declines, there tends to be an oversupply of the product or service, and this drives prices down.  When product or service producers experience lower revenues from lower prices, they look to reduce costs in order to maintain profitability.  It should have come as no surprise that associates and staff, the lowest members on the Biglaw totem pole, would experience the greatest pain when demand dropped and law firms cut costs.  But as I said then, when demand returns, hiring and compensation will increase.  And it is, and they are.

That's the thing about markets -- they tend to operate efficiently when you look at the big picture.  Unfortunately, real people and their livelihoods were sorely impacted, often through no action or inaction of their own.  Which is why this blog is intended to help business leaders make smarter choices, to run more efficient and effective businesses, so we can enjoy profitability while also delighting customers and attracting quality employees.

Law Firm Leaders: Save Money Now By Cutting Marketing - The title is ironic.  I would not counsel any business leader, especially a law firm leader, to limit the organization's visibility to its target audience, particularly when there's a good possibility that buyers are actively seeking new providers.  But I figured the title would catch the eye of leaders looking to do just that, because after all, isn't marketing a nice-to-have, not a must-have?

There were a few different points in this post.  First, every marketer will claim that one should spend more on Marketing during a downturn, but like a politician who's developed a nice ten-word sound bite but doesn't know the next ten words, i.e., the substance behind the rhetoric, many marketers repeat this mantra without offering salient details such as when, where and how to increase marketing in a downturn.  As marketers, we can't just try to protect our jobs without regard for the consequences, like auto workers refusing to negotiate labor rates even if it means the plant must close.  We should be thoughtful and prudent in our spending during a downturn, because while surely there are opportunities to be had, there are also a lot of people willing to take our money in return for a lot of empty promises because they too are suffering.

I also wanted to take on the lazy business leader who applies cuts across the board without regard to growth potential or profit contribution.  In tough times we all need to tighten our belts.  But if Mom loses her job, do we sell the car to save money, and now Dad can't get to work and he loses his job too?  A corny analogy, but in effect many business leaders our of some misguided sense of fairness try to spread the pain evenly.  Hogwash.  The current and potential growth engines might need relatively greater investment in tough times, and the slow growth or cash cows might deserve nothing, so long as we're willing to acknowledge that this will effectively kill them.

The other point was to distinguish between marketing as defined by many lawyers and marketing as defined by experts.  Just the other day I was reminded that this is a long-term battle.  A Biglaw partner asked me if I could help the firm get its RFP response approach "right."  I suggested we might have very different views for what is "right."  An elegantly bound booklet full of deal lists, league tables and lawyer bios, accompanied by boilerplate responses to an RFP's standard questions is very often a waste of everyone's time.  An RFP that addresses the client's business challenges and offers potential solutions along with a project plan and a budget is very often a winner, even if it's a tenth of the size and weight of the alternative!  But lawyers want the former (and so do many marketers).  If a law firm leader wants to cut marketing costs, my suggestion is that in addition to reviewing the marketing budgets and org chart, he should look in the mirror and identify the silly things lawyers do under the guise of Marketing.  And the marketers can help.  After all, we're in this together.

Addressing the Martindale-Hubbell Question - I receive calls nearly every week from law firms big and small asking if I'll help them negotiate their Martindale-Hubbell contract.  Many, but perhaps not all, readers of this blog may know that for a period of time I led the large law, international and corporate business for Martindale-Hubbell.  Obviously I know where the bodies are buried and how to negotiate against my old team (actually, now that LexisNexis manages the business, nearly everyone I knew is gone).  But I have no interest in doing so.  Despite the unethical, short-sighted, juvenile and profoundly incompentent manner in which I was treated when I left the organization, I spent too many years building its brand to take any joy in knocking it down.  Besides, the leaders of the parent company need no help from me or other alumni to harm the franchise.

Of more interest is that when it comes to directories, everyone continually asks the wrong questions!  There is no list of "good" directories and "bad" directories.  Even comparing Martindale to Ted's List of Blond-Haired Left-Handed Lawyers of Southern North Dakota is a misnomer, because one is a multimedia network connecting buyers and sellers, and the other is a vanity listing which lawyers buy to feel good.  But I'll leave it to the Martindale marketers to tell their story.  Despite the title, the post is about how one measures the impact of any legal directory to influence your prospect's buying decision.  After all, isn't that what it's about? 

The calculus is fairly simple: define your target market, identify the ways to reach this market, identify the manner in which they make buying decisions, and then be in those places and do those things.  If the cost to do this effectively is too high, seek out proxies.  If a legal directory has access to the target market and influences a buying decision --and it can prove it -- then perhaps an investment of a dollar there gets you ten dollars of return.  If not, move on to the next tactic.

Marketers are just as bad as lawyers when it comes to judging legal directories, just on the opposing side of the argument.  Typical legal marketer discussion of directories:  "Does anyone use the Tall Lawyers of Montana directory?  One of my delusional lawyers thinks it's an important investment.  I've tried to tell him that all directories are a waste, and he should spend time developing a Facebook fan page instead because I think it's a better investment."  In Biglaw land, few buyers will identify, evaluate or select a law firm based solely on its representation in a legal directory (or network), but sometimes it can be a differentiator when all other factors look the same.  It's important to know when this is the case and when you're throwing your money away.

Web 2.0 / Social Media Update - I've long been active in social media, before we even used those terms.  I had the good fortune of joining Steve Brill's team in the early '90s when Counsel Connect was launched as a sort of AOL for lawyers, which was several years after I joined AOL and participated in its chat groups, which was a year or two after I joined Compuserve.  For many of you, these names mean nothing.  That's okay.  Suffice it to say, I've long been a fan of learning from experts wherever they hang out, and occasionally I'll have something to say that I think others might find useful.  The venues change, but the concept still applies.  In this post I shared the many legal and non-legal blogs I read daily, and the legal and non-legal social networks where I spend time, as part of my effort to stay connected and stay informed about the changes in my chosen field.

This was an enormously popular post a year ago, and while untold millions of users have joined the social networking bandwagon since then, I suspect many are still looking for a roadmap of what's good and what's a waste of time, from the point of view of someone who's been there.  Rather than point people to the year-old summary, I'm updating the post and I'll publish that shortly (Update here).  My daily reading list has expanded yet the frequency of my commenting (on this blog and elsewhere) has declined somewhat as I try to strike the right balance between studying my field and working in my field.  I know that I'm not alone in seeking this balance.

So there you have it.  The top 5 posts from this blog in the past year.  I hope you enjoyed them the first time, perhaps enjoyed reading them a second time, and I hope these liner notes were helpful additions.  Feedback is always welcome.

Are Your Conference Speakers Teaching or Selling?

Raise your hand if you've attended a panel discussion at a conference and one of the speakers sounds suspiciously like he's selling a product or service rather than educating the audience about the panel topic.  Judging by all the raised hands, it's nearly unanimous that we've all been insulted (or is it assaulted?!) in this way.  This is a topic with which I have close  familiarity from a variety of perspectives and so I was interested to read the post at Sharon Nelson's "Ride the Lightning" electronic evidence blog (HT to @ronfriedmann for pointing it out) debating the pros and cons of allowing vendors to purchase conference speaking slots. The debate is a familiar one:  should legal conference panels be comprised solely of neutral parties such as academic types and buyers and users of legal services?  And if we allow vendors and sponsors and consultants to participate, parties who may have some commercial interest in promoting their products (or themselves), will this erode the quality of the content and turn the panel into a one-sided affair, or worse, a long infomercial?  Does the risk of commercialization increase when the vendors are also financial sponsors of the conference?

I've spent years managing sales teams or leading businesses that invested heavily in consumer education as part of the process of selling our products and services.  This meant that my team sponsored conferences or conference sessions and, yes, I've spoken on many panels which I had also sponsored.  I also led the business development function at a global law firm where I was considered a trusted insider and so I was asked to join conference panels to provide the buyer's or user's perspective on numerous topics.  I'm now a legal management consultant who's asked to speak regularly on conference panels as an independent observer debating issues of the day in our beloved legal profession.  Amusingly, on more than a few occasions, statements I've uttered as a consultant or as a law firm insider were deemed more credible and unbiased than the exact same statements I've made as a vendor.  Perhaps some audience members hear what they want to hear?

In fairness, I've had vendor colleagues who perceived any opportunity speak on a panel as an opportunity to pitch their product.  This type of behavior ruins it for the rest of us, and it usually stems from one of two sources:  the vendor representative is just that, a vendor rep, who knows little about the market dynamics beyond the features and functions of her particular product and therefore is in no position to offer consumer education on broader issues; or the vendor does such a poor job of consultative (a.k.a. "needs based") selling that he believes he gets one chance to pitch his wares, and as a result behaves in such a way as to make this a self-fulfilling belief.  I've written about the need for vendors to become part of the market they serve, to participate in the community alongside their clients, competitors and colleagues.  Sadly, many view their vendor role as a day job and when their sales call or booth shift is over, they want to do anything but spend time in their marketplace.

In Sharon's post she shares the inside scoop from a conference organizer who is incensed at the arrogance of vendors who try to buy selling time at the podium.  But conference organizers aren't without sin in this debate either.  One challenge with conference committees is that there is often little continuity from year to year.  On two separate occasions in my career my panel was rated the highest of all panels at the conference.  The following year, neither conference committee would take the time to even consider a follow-up session, a 201-level course, if you will.  In a more recent example, the new conference planners retained by a national legal organization specifically prohibited all but the most prominent consultants and vendors from participation in the educational panels, out of some apparent misguided sense that users and buyers are the only credible sources for peer education.  Does anyone really think that a neutral consultant, or an objective, education-oriented vendor, either of whom has spent time in dozens or even hundreds of firms, can't shed additional light on a topic as compared to a user who, almost by definition, has experience at just one firm?  Conference organizers, and in particular conference programming committees, tend to want to leave their mark, which often manifests itself in finding new speakers and not relying on prior speakers... regardless of how well they were received.  Eliminating all past speakers, and eliminating all but the buyers, are dumb ideas, but no more dumb than lazily inviting the same speakers year after year.

The moral of the story is that there are few hard and fast rules which apply when organizing conferences.  I should know, I've been the conference chair of a national legal industry conference, and I and my teams have organized (not sponsored, but ran) many dozens of conferences.  We often invited industry experts, some of them vendors, sometimes even competitors, to participate on panel discussions in order to present compelling educational programming.  However, we checked references of potential speakers -- starting with evaluations from prior speaking engagements and on multiple occasions polling past attendees to assess a speaker's propensity to sell from the podium.  The vendors who sell rather than educate are usually well-known.  Those who offer new, insightful, relevant contributions year after year should not be constrained because some poorly-trained hack in the same field conducted a product demo in lieu of a didactic approach.

I understand the emotion behind the pay to play debate.  But it's not the fact that a vendor sponsors a panel, or the fact that a panelist derives an income from selling products or services to audience members, that causes the problem.  After all, I've wasted as much time listening to biased users who, for example, resolutely believe their firm's technology implementation is perfect for everyone else on the planet, as I have listening to vendors pitch their wares.  The key is to discard prejudices and evaluate each speaker on his or her own merits.  And let's not be afraid to discard a panelist -- even after the program guide is published -- if during the rehearsals a panelist is incapable of educating rather than selling.  Do this a few times and the word will get around to the community:  send your best or don't send anyone at all.

As for me, my past teams often accused me of not once mentioning my company or my products. One colleague remarked dryly, "Tim, I don't think anyone would be offended if you thought to mention our company name, or mentioned that our company offers products that help users address the business issues you were discussing."  Of course, at one conference, immediately after the panel chair introduced me, an audience member stood up and  exclaimed, "I'll learn nothing from a vendor trying to sell me something!" and then he stormed out... before I had even said a word.  And I'm the one accused of having a bias?

Are Layoffs Via Email Ethical?

This blog receives quite a bit of traffic from the search engines, according to my Wordpress stats report.  Sometimes it's obvious why certain key words lead to my blog; other times, it's mystifying.  Many of the key words and phrases are amusing.  Some are quite sad.  So here's the first in an occasional series of vignettes reacting to some of these key words or phrases. Yesterday, a visitor searched for "Are layoffs via email ethical?"

There are so few black and white answers in today's complex world.  In my climb up the corporate ladder, I eventually learned that what looked to be a dumb decision or action by my superiors was often a good decision, informed by facts that were not at my disposal from my lower perch.  So over time I learned to give the benefit of the doubt when I observed what appeared to be a dumb action by another manager or leader.

Which is why you might expect me to say that there may very well be certain conditions under which a layoff can and should be conducted by email.

But you would be wrong.

I've been through numerous layoffs over the years, primarily on the winning side.  I've seen all the shenanigans that take place before, during and after a layoff, by those whose jobs are eliminated, by those who are making the decisions, by those who are tasked with executing such actions.  I have not seen, ever, in any context, a valid justification for conducting a layoff via email.

Whether it's to manage legal risk, or to conduct unfortunate but necessary business processes with a dose of humanity, whether it's to maintain positive relations with soon-to-be-ex-employees who may one day hold a position of influence in the marketplace, or whether it's to minimize the inevitable confusion and communication gaps that result from email correspondence, there's always a reason to conduct a layoff in person.

Perhaps a temp employee who's contracted on a day-to-day basis may expect to wake up each day to check whether she should go to work that day.  But that's not really a layoff anyway.

I challenge an accomplished business leader to make a case for why an email layoff is a better choice for either the enterprise or the impacted employee.  But be ready with facts and figures.  Because no matter what you say, you're wrong.

In a somewhat related post I wrote last year during a period when companies and law firms were laying off lawyers and staff nearly every day, I suggested that one can conduct challenging business affairs and drive change, and do so with compassion.  I continue to fervently believe that's the case.  Yet I've observed, and worked with managers who took a different path out of sheer laziness, incompetence or, more likely, sheer terror at facing the consequences of the decisions that are so easy for them to make behind closed doors.

There's no reason to conduct a layoff via email.  I can't speak to the legality or even the ethics, but by my standards, it's just not right.

Thanks for asking.