THE CONTEXT

Holman Webb is a highly respected and award winning commercial and insurance law firm employing four generations of skilled staff with the desire to be the legal firm that ‘offers something different’ to their clients.

 Legal is a highly disrupted sector where clients are demanding a lot more as part of the value add, from proactive reporting to shortening timeframes for work delivery.

 As a constantly growing and evolving firm, the Partners and Senior Leadership Team (SLT) wished to host a National Partners Conference in Sydney, Australia that would involve a robust examination of how the firm could bring innovation into the strategic and day to day fold, so that it is consistently front of mind for all Partners and staff.  

THE BRIEF

The SLT engaged Claire at Launchpad9 to educate and empower Partners and Leaders through an energised and informed session where they could:

• Explore how Partners can serve their clients in even more innovative ways, balancing both short (immediate project delivery) and long term (customer lifetime engagement) thinking.

• Harness the energy and fresh perspectives of younger Partners whilst leveraging the experience of more established Partners.

• Review how Risk and Innovation is viewed and acted upon so that great ideas can be surfaced quickly for consideration.

• Bring to life the values of the firm in real and meaningful ways.

• Empower new ways of thinking and working so that the Client and the Employee benefits.

HOW WE APPROACHED THIS WORK

 Interview and mapping work

Following a briefing session with the core team, Claire set to work on defining current and future state desires so that the session could align to and support this direction. Value clarity and behaviours significantly underpinned this work and so a value mapping piece was also captured.

The three core pillars examined were:

• Strategy: how we think and act as a result.

• Culture: how we lead and embrace our why

• Systems: how we deliver with excellence, using technology as an enabler

Strategy Session Facilitation at Partner Conference

Armed with internal insights, which were then cross referenced with industry best practice Claire facilitated a high energy, thought provoking session with the SLT and all Partners; “Rethink. Recharge”.

The goals of this session were to:

• Walk away with clarity around key priorities and some key next steps to realise opportunities.

• Increase collective intelligence and cohesion of the Firm, bringing insights, inspiration and action around strategy, innovation and growth.

• Hold open robust conversations, balancing expertise with being comfortable learning and exploring.

OUTCOMES

Claire delivered a piece of work that really understood the values, make-up and ambitions of Holman Webb, short and long term; 

• A user friendly document which was broken down into sections for quick reference and action, taking the reader from current work to future state ambitions. 

• Clarity and recommendations around priorities, roadmap activities and approach to maximise performance of the Firm. 

• This was supported with a talk track to ensure key deliverables remained front of mind for next stage growth.