In this episode of GMT (and the next) Rob and Murray are joined by Bill Schroeder principal and founder of Clarity Group Consulting, the premier professional services brand advisory. Bill and the Clarity team have worked with some of the most notable names in global law. In his trademark down to earth style Bill shares Clarity’s simple yet profoundly actionable definition of brand. We cover a multitude of brand and culture issues relevant to the modern law firm, especially those merging or considering a merger. Please make sure to listen to part two in which we take a deep dive into brand and cross-border mergers.
Contact Rob and Murray:
Robert C. Bata, Founder and Principal, WarwickPlace Legal
Email: rbata@warwickplace.com
Murray M. Coffey, Founder and Principal, M Coffey
Email: murray@mcoffey.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Robert, welcome to GMT, the podcast for globally minded
(00:05):
law firm leaders with your host.
Robert Bata, principal ofWarwick place legal and Murray
Coffey, principal of M Coffey,between them, Rob and Murray
have about three quarters of acentury's experience working
with some of the most notablelaw firms on the planet. This
podcast is designed to helpthose law firm leaders tasked
with growth make great decisionsabout whether and how to
(00:28):
implement cross border expansionfor their firms and what it
takes to succeed. And now. RobBata, you
Rob Bata (00:43):
Hello everybody. This is the GMT Podcast. I'm Rob
Bata. I'm here with my co host,Murray Coffey, and we're
delighted to have Bill Schroederwith us, who is a wonderful
expert on branding, and we'regoing to be talking a lot about
what branding and culture haveto do with success and also with
(01:10):
its role in mergers and even atcross border mergers. So Murray,
take it away.
Unknown (01:14):
Sure, absolutely. Well, first of all, welcome, Bill. We
are We are thrilled to have youwith us, and just so we have
pure transparency here. Bill andI have known each other a long
time, and Bill and I have workedon a couple of different
projects together professionallyover the years, including a very
(01:35):
significant brand work with withone of my former firms. So I can
testify that Bill and his teamare fantastic, but Bill
Schroeder is co founder andprincipal of clarity group
consulting. Bill and clarity,which everybody calls them,
clarity, are truly one of themost sophisticated and
(01:58):
influential brand consultantsworking in professional services
today, Bill has broad basedexperience conducting brand work
at some of the world's largestlaw firms, including Davis,
Polk, Simpson, Thatcher, Dentonsand many others. Bill and
clarity have also consulted onsome of the most recognizable
global brands, includingAssociated Press, BBC, news,
(02:20):
Morgan, Stanley, IKEA,timberland and Rainforest
Alliance. Before he and hispartner, Siobhan burns founded
clarity. Bill worked in house invarious creative capacities at
such high growth firms as DLAPiper and then across multiple
brand development agencies,serving in a variety of senior
roles. And if that is notenough. He has also taught
(02:43):
graduate level courses atColumbia University and at Pratt
Institute, lectured at New YorkUniversity and the new school.
He received his master's degreein design management from Pratt
Institute, a Bachelor ofarchitecture from Virginia Tech.
He holds an executivecertificate, executive
certificate in organizationalconsulting and change leadership
(03:03):
from Georgetown and was born inOkinawa, raised in Bangkok, then
Athens Frankfurt and WashingtonDC. So Bill has earned his
Global Citizen badge from veryearly on in life. So Bill,
welcome,wow. Thank you. You make me
sound really, really good. Iappreciate it, because you
(03:23):
are really, really good. Sostarted, I thought we would
define terms. You know, bunch oflawyers on this call, and
lawyers always like to definetheir terms. So I would like to
ask Bill to define the termbrand for us, what a brand is,
(03:45):
how we think of brand, and it's,generally speaking, not what you
might think. So, Bill, why don'tyou take it away? You've got a
great, very direct way ofdescribing this, and I think
it's going to be helpful to allof our listeners to hear this
and kind of think about this aswe're proceeding through the
discussion.
Great, yeah, thank you. Thanksagain for having me. I'm really
excited to be here. You know,when I start teaching my course
(04:08):
at Columbia, the first questionI asked the students is, how do
you define brand? And there's amillion different ways to talk
about brand, you know, andsometimes you hear people say,
Well, it's the impression peoplehave about your organization.
You hear, it's the way peopletalk about you when you're not
in the room. You know, you hear,it's your logo, it's your
website, it's all those kinds ofcommunication vehicles. But at
(04:30):
clarity, we really define itthis way. We say a brand is a
promise of performance, and thatperformance must be delivered
consistently to be effective.
And the reason we really likethis definition is because it
really says that you havecontrol over your brand and how
it's seen in the marketplace. Itisn't just somebody's
impression. It's reallysomething you're delivering
upon. So it's not really if youthink about it that way, it's
(04:52):
not just about how clients thinkabout you. That's more your
reputation brand is really aboutwhat you do. Know and how you do
it and how you do thatdistinctively, right, separating
you from the pack. And also,when you think about brand this
way, it also means that having astrong brand is not only
marketing's responsibility,which is where most people think
brand lives. It's reallyeveryone's responsibility. And
(05:13):
as we're going to, I think, talkabout it, it really comes sort
of at the nexus of people andmarketing, so that sort of HR
talent and leadership area ofthat world, particularly in a
professional servicesenvironment where it's all about
your people. Yeah, it's
Rob Bata (05:34):
a very interesting point which people don't really
think about, certainly in thelaw firm context, that what you
just said, it puts aresponsibility on everyone. So
it's not, you know, peoplesometimes think of brand or
branding and marketing and soforth. You know, there are
people who do that for us. Youknow, they'll create a logo and
(05:55):
so forth. Instead of thinkingit's my job to show that I'm
going to perform according tothese criteria, these
requirements, theseresponsibilities that that I've
created for myself with the helpof people like you, very
interesting,
Unknown (06:12):
exactly, exactly. And I think that has to be sort of
driven from the top down, butyou have to get everybody in the
organization engaged with theidea that they're part of this
and they're delivering on it,and have to know how to do that
in a way that's consistent.
And I think it's very importantthe definition that you've just
(06:33):
talked about in terms of brandbill, it's very important in a
professional services context,because, you know, we are and
everybody who's listening tothis is involved in professional
services in one which one formor another, we are, what we're
selling, if you will. And and somaybe you can talk a little bit
(06:54):
about the particularities ofbrand and professional services
in you know to and how that, youknow how that, where that
interplay is, and why that'sespecially important for
organizations like law firms andconsultancies, etc. And law
(07:14):
firms have a hard time withbrand, and we'll talk a little
bit about that, but, butthoughts on perfect you know,
the peculiarities ofparticularities of professional
services?
Yeah, exactly. So, you know,I've worked in consumer branding
before. You know, you mentionedsome of the brands I worked
with, and the real differenceis, in a professional services
(07:34):
environment, there's no product,right? There's no iPhone,
there's no shoe, there's notangible product that we're
trying to sell. And in thatworld, the quality or the
performance of the productreally is a major way the brand
is experienced. Right? If youriPhone isn't working well,
you're going to have a badimpression, and it's going to
start to tarnish the brand. Butin professional services where
(07:57):
you don't have those products,essentially the people, their
skills, their talents, theirapproaches, their style, the way
they interact with each otherand with their clients, that
really is the brand experience,right? So how you get your
people to deliver again, as wewere talking about, that's
really what's critical, andthat's the big difference we
(08:17):
really point to. You know, whenI first started working with law
firms and other professionalservices organizations, we would
draw from other servicecategories. So we would look at
brands like four seasons, orbrands like, you know, retail
brands, while they do have aproduct, right, the Four Seasons
has a hotel room and anexperience. A lot of what they
(08:38):
do is train their people in theway of the brand. So what are
our shared values? What are ourcore values? How do we deliver
on that? What's our tone when weinteract with customers? And so
we would start to draw examplesfrom other services categories
to try to get our law firmclients to understand what we're
talking about, and how we startto do that in a professional
services environment. So whilethe brand does need to come
(09:02):
through, and things likemessaging, design, other types
of communications, it's muchmore important, we think, for it
to come through, and again,actions and service and the way
you interact. And I think theother important link to make is
that organizational culture andbrand are also intrinsically
linked, particularly inprofessional services. So I
(09:24):
would give a working definitionof organizational culture as a
pattern of shared beliefs,values, behavioral norms, the
way we do things around here ishow I like to think about
culture. So with that in mind,it's really not too big of a
stretch to say that the law firmculture is your brand in action,
right? If you have a reallyconsistent, clearly defined
(09:45):
culture, that's how you're doingthings around here, and that
becomes the brand in action. Soat clarity, what we'd like to
say is we help our law firms andother professional services
clients with building a brandculture. We're really trying to
get to that part that. Reallyget to the essence that this is
about how we do things aroundhere, for our clients, for each
(10:05):
other, in a way that is reallydistinctive and relevant and
authentic. Those are kind of thepillars of it.
And you know, it's, it is a itis. It's when you see the when
you work on these, these, thesekinds of projects that Bill and
I have, and you see the lightbulb go off, start to go off in
(10:27):
in the above the heads of the ofmanagement and partners and even
your marketing and businessdevelopment team members, it
becomes, it becomes a, itbecomes a sort of a joint
purpose that maybe didn't existbefore. And I think that also,
you know, talks it also talks tous about about culture, and this
(10:50):
kind of leads into, you know,what, what the what happens, or
whether it does happen, brandwith in the context of of
mergers, and we're, you know,we've got domestic mergers,
we've got global mergers, we'vegot big brands, you know, we rob
we've been talking, it feelslike for months and months now,
(11:13):
about the AO Sherman merger, tworeally strong brands out in the
market who are, who are joiningup, and we're all watching that
from various from our variouspurchases and various
perspectives. I'm watching itfrom a comms and branding
perspective. I know there'sfolks who are looking at it from
(11:35):
an operations perspective, butyou know your experience bill,
and you know, when you thinkabout from like a DLA, I mean,
DLA, DLA formed, Dentons formedthrough maybe dozens of mergers
during the as they were kind ofdoing the run up, talk to us a
little bit about that, aboutabout brand, about what, what
(11:59):
happens in mergers, or shouldhappen in mergers, and if, in
fact, you have to have a perfectmatch of brand and culture in
order for a merger to besuccessful,
yeah, I don't think it'spossible to have a perfect
match. And I'm not even sure youwant that, you know, I think
it's, it's not something you'regoing to achieve. You know, in
(12:20):
the case of these mega mergers,obviously, then you guys are
probably more equipped to talkabout this than I am. But
obviously, they're looking forbusiness synergies, if you will,
right? They're looking forcomplimentary services,
practices, geographies, andbeing able to leverage that
right, and, you know, to growprofitability and those kinds of
(12:41):
things, revenue. What we wouldargue is, in order to make it
successful, you not only have tohave a communications approach
that reflects who we want to be,who we want to be as a new firm
in the marketplace, as acombined firm, but you need to
do the work to ensure that youhave complementary cultures and
(13:05):
you're not going to have again,identical cultures. And when we
talk about culture, thefoundation of culture are things
like shared purpose, right? Apurpose for the organization,
shared values, personality andcharacteristics that are true to
the way we do things aroundhere, things like mission and
vision come into this. These areall sort of the building blocks
(13:25):
of brand. So you're looking tosee where the commonalities are,
and in some of these big firms,or even smaller firms, where
they're bringing in a group fromanother, just a lateral group,
perhaps they might be very, verydifferent, and the answer might
be, we don't have a lot ofsynergy, but this still makes
sense from a businessstandpoint. So you least need to
be aware of what the issues aregoing to be culturally, so you
(13:48):
can start to address them. But Ithink the ideal scenario is that
you're building a new culture,bringing the best of both, and
trying to leave behind anyaspects that weren't so great or
won't serve the new firm, is abetter way to think about it. So
we try to think about as webuild the brand, how do we
future proof the new firm? Howdo we create the new firm and
(14:10):
with a and Oh, Sherman? I thinkthat is the challenge. Is to
say, how do we create somethingnew that brings the best of Aono
and the best of Sherman togetherand lifts them both up as this
new firm?
Rob Bata (14:22):
Yeah, I think, I think that that's a that's a very
important point, that thatmerging doesn't really mean
you're going to just stay withthe same brand or same culture,
if you will. That you know, howwill that merger play out in
terms of what's new, but at thesame time preserves what's
(14:45):
what's best about the old. Sothis, this brings me to kind of
a sideways kind of question,which is, I'm very fortunate
that most of the clients I'veworked with who wanted to merge
and who've done mergers. Iusually have said, Look, culture
is really, really, reallyimportant to us, and it's very
important that there be somesynergy, and that the cultures
(15:07):
match, you know, even if they'renot the same. And I like hearing
that, and that's all, I thinkthat's very positive, but, but
the reality is that you go onevery single law firms website
and they say that they have, youknow, some sort of unparalleled
culture that's greater thananybody else's culture. And
people become a little bitcynical about those kinds of
declarations. And so I wonderwho, who cares about culture?
(15:35):
Because to me, there are twoconstituencies, lateral, hires
or or or new recruits, entering,entering law students, and
presumably the the non lawyersin the firm who want to be in a
(15:59):
place where you don't throw yourtelephone at a secretary, or,
you know, and you know that thatsort of thing. So I just want to
get your sense of what is thisdiscussion of culture all about,
and what's real about it, andwhat's just words.
Unknown (16:21):
Yeah, that's a good question. I think you have to
dig further into, you know, justhearing that we have a great
culture, right? We have to digdeeper and find out, what do we
mean by that, right? So apartner at a Skadden, or a
Kirkland, or, you know, one ofthese big sort of New York
powerhouse firms, if you will,global powerhouse firms, they
have defined cultures, but itmight be very different than a
(16:44):
regional firm, or it might bevery different than, you know,
frankly, DLA Piper, when itmerged, which was Baltimore, San
Diego and, you know, sort of nonLondon, UK. You know, this was a
different kind of firm, anddifferent kind of values and
norms again. So yeah, they bothhave cultures, and they could
define them. But how do youstart to really dig in and see
(17:06):
what that means? Not just, oh,we're very collaborative. We're
very collegial. At the surface,you hear those kinds of things,
but to really do it right, youwant to dig in to really find,
get a sense for what does itreally mean to be one of us,
because we're real in branding,it's always about
differentiation first. So we'rereally trying to dig down to
(17:26):
figure out, how do we separateyou from other big, globally
merged firms or other firms inyour peer group? So we do a lot
of research. We do a lot of oneon one interviews with partners.
When we worked with you know,Dentons, we talked one on one to
hundreds of partners in threelegacy firms in order to get a
sense for what they thought wasreally distinctive about their
(17:50):
approach to their clientservice, among other things. And
in our research clients, theydon't say they care about law
firms brand or culture per se,but they do talk about the
qualities they appreciate intheir firms and the lawyers they
see as best to work with. Wehear a lot about that. Not
surprisingly, the things theytalk about are emblematic of
(18:10):
culture, to how the peopleinteract with them and with each
other. I will talk to lawyersand firms and they'll say, my
clients don't care if we getalong. That is not true. Clients
care that you get along, andthey talk about it. They want to
know that you are going toservice them well. And they want
to know that you interact withyour own partners and other
people at the firm well. Theynotice those kinds of things.
(18:33):
They want to know about howlikable you are as a person,
relationships that you have, andin the best cases, they say that
everyone on the firm delivers onthose qualities consistently,
and that's how they start totalk about firms.
I've heard, you know? I'veheard, sorry, oh, go ahead. I've
(18:53):
heard, you know, when I've haddiscussions with clients about
about, you know about culture,although they don't, we're not
talking about culture. What Ihear that comes up is I have a
great relationship with thispartner at firm X. What I want
with that relationship with thatpartner is more than just what
(19:18):
we've got on the table thatwe're working on today. I want
to know that when I have my nextissue that may not be in that
particular partners wheelhouse,that they're going to find and
introduce me to the very bestperson at the firm who can, who
can work with me on this, ratherthan the person who they share,
(19:39):
you know, origination creditwith, or the person that's, you
know that that's, that's intheir regional office and and I
think that that's that, that isa that speaks to, sort of an
expectation, maybe unsaid, thatclients have about the impact of
culture and. On their ability toget the services and the advice
(20:04):
that they need. I've seen somepretty extreme early in my
career, pretty extreme examplesof partners that did not get
along and had clients that hadbig needs and weren't getting
introduced into those clientrelationships because the
partners did not get along,which to me, seemed like, Whoa.
(20:25):
That's, I think, how I werehere.
I think a couple things, right?
We talked about brand as apromise or performance, which
implies action and behavior,like what we do delivered
consistently, right? So when wego in and we talk to partners
and firms and other people inthe firms and we talk to
clients, you get into thingslike maybe 80% sort of operate
in a certain way, and maybe 20%aren't quite there yet, but we
(20:47):
need to know how we're going toget the other 20% to live up to
certain standards of behaviorsthat, again, represent who we
say we are and who we aspire tobe. But you get into nuance, so
you'll hear words like proactiveor responsive. You know, there
we need them to be incrediblyresponsive, and the firm is
incredibly responsive. Well,what does that mean? What does
responsive mean? And how do wedemonstrate that? So to one
(21:10):
partner in Milwaukee orwherever, responsive might mean
I return a phone call within twohours to a partner in DC, in the
same firm, it might mean within24 hours, or it might mean
Monday, because it's Thursday orit's Friday afternoon. So that's
just a really simple example,but you have to dig into not
only what is, what are thesewords that we throw around mean
(21:34):
that are representative of howwe do things around here, but
also to what effect like, whatis the end game of that trait
that we say we live and then howdo we get everybody to live it
and deliver on it? And then thecommunications parts of brand
are Curie key. You can't talkabout being all these things and
give specific examples if you'renot doing them. And I think
(21:55):
that's kind of the mistake firmsand lots of organizations make.
We're going to put out all thisnew messaging. We're this new
merge firm, or we're this firm,and this is our brand, and this
is what we stand for. But youcan't just put out the
messaging. You have to actuallybe living it so people see it in
action. You can. People do itall the time, but it's not going
to be as effective.
Rob Bata (22:16):
Yeah. Is it possible for a brand consultant to
actually, if you will, lecturethe firm or individuals within
the firm to say, look, I've notspoken to 50 of your partners,
and they agree on a, b, c, d andso forth. But one of the things
(22:39):
that I keep hearing is thatpartner X thinks that she's the
big dog and everything has tokind of go through her and
whatever's her client stickswith her and so forth. And
there's this one personeveryone's afraid of, or
whatever. Is there a pointwhere, where the brand
(23:01):
consultant sits down with theManagement Committee, or with
the senior lawyer, or with both,perhaps with that partner who
exhibits bad behavior and says,Look, you have the you have the
potential to have a brand thatdoes All of these things that
(23:21):
you hired us to do, but you kindof stand in the way of that. Can
you say that? Do you say that?
Does it happen? We
Unknown (23:31):
do. We do say that? I will say, you know, we comment
brand, I think, from a differentperspective, with clarity, we
say we're helping our clientsdeliver brand driven change. So
we're using brand research andstrategy and clarifying what the
brand is about in order to helpthe leaders in the organization
transform in ways they want tosee the organization move
(23:53):
toward. So if we have clients,and all of our clients buy into
that, or we don't work withthem, they don't hire us.
Because if you're a law firmleader or chief marketing
officer, says, I just need awebsite. That's not clarity,
right? Clarity is coming in tohelp you figure out, who are we,
what do we stand for? How are wedifferent? How is that relevant,
and how is that going to comethrough in everything that we
do? How is that going to be atouchstone for everything that
(24:17):
we do? And if you buy into that,then you're buying something
more robust, right? And so ourwork certainly talks about what
differentiates the firm, but wealso talk, as you know, a lot
about culture and a lot abouthow things are done around here,
and if things come up, it is ourresponsibility. We're being
(24:38):
hired to report that back. Now,we're careful, and I think it's
important for all consultants todo this. We're careful to try to
be as objective as possible. Soif I'm having 15 quotes on a
topic, I'm definitely going toreport that. If I have one
quote, I might not report it,you know, I might put. Something
(25:00):
in someone's ear, but it's notour opinion. I'm always really
careful to say, here are thechallenges we're hearing. Here
are the so we're actually sortof crossing a bit in the
business strategy, in a way,because we're not just talking
about the experience of thebrand outward in the market. I
know that answers your question,
Rob Bata (25:19):
yeah, no, I think it does. I think that's very
important for people to knowtoo, that that you're you're not
just out there creating, youknow, you've taken a survey,
you've talked to people, and youcreate a product that you drop
in people's laps, but you'rereally talking it through. And
when you identify a problem, ifit's if it's pervasive enough,
as for example, your example ofyou know, you hear the same
(25:42):
problem from 15 people then thenit's your responsibility to
convey to the decision makers tomake sure that that's known and
dealt with. And I think that'simportant, because I think very
often consultants of all sortstend to be a little shy about
(26:02):
what they think is rufflingfeathers, whereas, in fact, the
consultants job consultants gethired, and I think this is
across the spectrum ofconsultancies. They get hired to
to be a an objective observerand advisor, and also an extra
pair of eyes when you need them.
So that level of honesty isreally important. And
Unknown (26:26):
I think it also comes through, not just in reporting
the data and the research, butthen when you get into strategy,
that's where I think theconsultant role really comes
into play, where you're like,Okay, now, based on what we've
learned, and based on the marketconditions and based on who your
competitors are, and based onwhere you want to go, here are
the recommendations we think forhow you want to position
yourselves and what that mightmean. And here's some ways to
(26:47):
start to approach that changeprocess
and the the follow on, thefollow on that, that in my
experience, multiple times whenyou get to that point where you
have the you have the got thedefinition of the brand out
there, you've got some level ofof consistent buy in across the
(27:10):
across the partnership. And ifyou do it right, which I think
you do Bill, you get great buyin. And it's not because you're
putting something so generic outthere that everybody can agree
to it. There's like, there's,it's very specific and
actionable. Then the otherthings that happen, that have to
happen, that come out of thatbecome, I wouldn't say, easier,
(27:32):
but the decisions become easier.
So, you know, it's, you know,well, gosh, we're, you know,
we're, portraying ourselves inthe marketplace in a way that
our clients say is outdated.
Okay, then what do we need to doto portray ourselves as a more
modern, contemporary law firm?
It might be a website, it mightbe, you know, digital
(27:54):
communications, whatever thecase might be, but that you're
always going back to that, thatthat core, that anchor, if you
will, in a good way, that thatthat allows you to say, well,
you know, is what we're doing,furthering these things that
we've talked about and thesethings that we've said that we
have valued. And if you and thisis where the this is where the
(28:17):
CMO, this is where the managingpartner, this is where the X com
has to, has to come in, to notforget what we all agreed to and
and to and to and to stick toit. And, you know, I that's,
that's where, that's where someof the challenge comes in. And I
know that that, you know, one ofthe things that clarity is is
doing, more and more often, isis activation work to to help
(28:39):
that go on. All right. And thatcloses part one of GMTs
discussion with clarity groups,principal and founder, Bill
Schroeder, please stay tuned forpart two, which will be dropping
in about two weeks. Thank you.
You.
Robert, welcome to GMT, the podcast for globally minded
(00:05):
law firm leaders with your host.
Robert Bata, principal ofWarwick place legal and Murray
Coffey, principal of M Coffey,between them, Rob and Murray
have about three quarters of acentury's experience working
with some of the most notablelaw firms on the planet. This
podcast is designed to helpthose law firm leaders tasked
with growth make great decisionsabout whether and how to
(00:28):
implement cross border expansionfor their firms and what it
takes to succeed. And now. RobBata, you
Rob Bata (00:43):
Hello everybody. This is the GMT Podcast. I'm Rob
Bata. I'm here with my co host,Murray Coffey, and we're
delighted to have Bill Schroederwith us, who is a wonderful
expert on branding, and we'regoing to be talking a lot about
what branding and culture haveto do with success and also with
(01:10):
its role in mergers and even atcross border mergers. So Murray,
take it away.
Unknown (01:14):
Sure, absolutely. Well, first of all, welcome, Bill. We
are We are thrilled to have youwith us, and just so we have
pure transparency here. Bill andI have known each other a long
time, and Bill and I have workedon a couple of different
projects together professionallyover the years, including a very
(01:35):
significant brand work with withone of my former firms. So I can
testify that Bill and his teamare fantastic, but Bill
Schroeder is co founder andprincipal of clarity group
consulting. Bill and clarity,which everybody calls them,
clarity, are truly one of themost sophisticated and
(01:58):
influential brand consultantsworking in professional services
today, Bill has broad basedexperience conducting brand work
at some of the world's largestlaw firms, including Davis,
Polk, Simpson, Thatcher, Dentonsand many others. Bill and
clarity have also consulted onsome of the most recognizable
global brands, includingAssociated Press, BBC, news,
(02:20):
Morgan, Stanley, IKEA,timberland and Rainforest
Alliance. Before he and hispartner, Siobhan burns founded
clarity. Bill worked in house invarious creative capacities at
such high growth firms as DLAPiper and then across multiple
brand development agencies,serving in a variety of senior
roles. And if that is notenough. He has also taught
(02:43):
graduate level courses atColumbia University and at Pratt
Institute, lectured at New YorkUniversity and the new school.
He received his master's degreein design management from Pratt
Institute, a Bachelor ofarchitecture from Virginia Tech.
He holds an executivecertificate, executive
certificate in organizationalconsulting and change leadership
(03:03):
from Georgetown and was born inOkinawa, raised in Bangkok, then
Athens Frankfurt and WashingtonDC. So Bill has earned his
Global Citizen badge from veryearly on in life. So Bill,
welcome,wow. Thank you. You make me
sound really, really good. Iappreciate it, because you
(03:23):
are really, really good. Sostarted, I thought we would
define terms. You know, bunch oflawyers on this call, and
lawyers always like to definetheir terms. So I would like to
ask Bill to define the termbrand for us, what a brand is,
(03:45):
how we think of brand, and it's,generally speaking, not what you
might think. So, Bill, why don'tyou take it away? You've got a
great, very direct way ofdescribing this, and I think
it's going to be helpful to allof our listeners to hear this
and kind of think about this aswe're proceeding through the
discussion.
Great, yeah, thank you. Thanksagain for having me. I'm really
excited to be here. You know,when I start teaching my course
(04:08):
at Columbia, the first questionI asked the students is, how do
you define brand? And there's amillion different ways to talk
about brand, you know, andsometimes you hear people say,
Well, it's the impression peoplehave about your organization.
You hear, it's the way peopletalk about you when you're not
in the room. You know, you hear,it's your logo, it's your
website, it's all those kinds ofcommunication vehicles. But at
(04:30):
clarity, we really define itthis way. We say a brand is a
promise of performance, and thatperformance must be delivered
consistently to be effective.
And the reason we really likethis definition is because it
really says that you havecontrol over your brand and how
it's seen in the marketplace. Itisn't just somebody's
impression. It's reallysomething you're delivering
upon. So it's not really if youthink about it that way, it's
(04:52):
not just about how clients thinkabout you. That's more your
reputation brand is really aboutwhat you do. Know and how you do
it and how you do thatdistinctively, right, separating
you from the pack. And also,when you think about brand this
way, it also means that having astrong brand is not only
marketing's responsibility,which is where most people think
brand lives. It's reallyeveryone's responsibility. And
(05:13):
as we're going to, I think, talkabout it, it really comes sort
of at the nexus of people andmarketing, so that sort of HR
talent and leadership area ofthat world, particularly in a
professional servicesenvironment where it's all about
your people. Yeah, it's
Rob Bata (05:34):
a very interesting point which people don't really
think about, certainly in thelaw firm context, that what you
just said, it puts aresponsibility on everyone. So
it's not, you know, peoplesometimes think of brand or
branding and marketing and soforth. You know, there are
people who do that for us. Youknow, they'll create a logo and
(05:55):
so forth. Instead of thinkingit's my job to show that I'm
going to perform according tothese criteria, these
requirements, theseresponsibilities that that I've
created for myself with the helpof people like you, very
interesting,
Unknown (06:12):
exactly, exactly. And I think that has to be sort of
driven from the top down, butyou have to get everybody in the
organization engaged with theidea that they're part of this
and they're delivering on it,and have to know how to do that
in a way that's consistent.
And I think it's very importantthe definition that you've just
(06:33):
talked about in terms of brandbill, it's very important in a
professional services context,because, you know, we are and
everybody who's listening tothis is involved in professional
services in one which one formor another, we are, what we're
selling, if you will. And and somaybe you can talk a little bit
(06:54):
about the particularities ofbrand and professional services
in you know to and how that, youknow how that, where that
interplay is, and why that'sespecially important for
organizations like law firms andconsultancies, etc. And law
(07:14):
firms have a hard time withbrand, and we'll talk a little
bit about that, but, butthoughts on perfect you know,
the peculiarities ofparticularities of professional
services?
Yeah, exactly. So, you know,I've worked in consumer branding
before. You know, you mentionedsome of the brands I worked
with, and the real differenceis, in a professional services
(07:34):
environment, there's no product,right? There's no iPhone,
there's no shoe, there's notangible product that we're
trying to sell. And in thatworld, the quality or the
performance of the productreally is a major way the brand
is experienced. Right? If youriPhone isn't working well,
you're going to have a badimpression, and it's going to
start to tarnish the brand. Butin professional services where
(07:57):
you don't have those products,essentially the people, their
skills, their talents, theirapproaches, their style, the way
they interact with each otherand with their clients, that
really is the brand experience,right? So how you get your
people to deliver again, as wewere talking about, that's
really what's critical, andthat's the big difference we
(08:17):
really point to. You know, whenI first started working with law
firms and other professionalservices organizations, we would
draw from other servicecategories. So we would look at
brands like four seasons, orbrands like, you know, retail
brands, while they do have aproduct, right, the Four Seasons
has a hotel room and anexperience. A lot of what they
(08:38):
do is train their people in theway of the brand. So what are
our shared values? What are ourcore values? How do we deliver
on that? What's our tone when weinteract with customers? And so
we would start to draw examplesfrom other services categories
to try to get our law firmclients to understand what we're
talking about, and how we startto do that in a professional
services environment. So whilethe brand does need to come
(09:02):
through, and things likemessaging, design, other types
of communications, it's muchmore important, we think, for it
to come through, and again,actions and service and the way
you interact. And I think theother important link to make is
that organizational culture andbrand are also intrinsically
linked, particularly inprofessional services. So I
(09:24):
would give a working definitionof organizational culture as a
pattern of shared beliefs,values, behavioral norms, the
way we do things around here ishow I like to think about
culture. So with that in mind,it's really not too big of a
stretch to say that the law firmculture is your brand in action,
right? If you have a reallyconsistent, clearly defined
(09:45):
culture, that's how you're doingthings around here, and that
becomes the brand in action. Soat clarity, what we'd like to
say is we help our law firms andother professional services
clients with building a brandculture. We're really trying to
get to that part that. Reallyget to the essence that this is
about how we do things aroundhere, for our clients, for each
(10:05):
other, in a way that is reallydistinctive and relevant and
authentic. Those are kind of thepillars of it.
And you know, it's, it is a itis. It's when you see the when
you work on these, these, thesekinds of projects that Bill and
I have, and you see the lightbulb go off, start to go off in
(10:27):
in the above the heads of the ofmanagement and partners and even
your marketing and businessdevelopment team members, it
becomes, it becomes a, itbecomes a sort of a joint
purpose that maybe didn't existbefore. And I think that also,
you know, talks it also talks tous about about culture, and this
(10:50):
kind of leads into, you know,what, what the what happens, or
whether it does happen, brandwith in the context of of
mergers, and we're, you know,we've got domestic mergers,
we've got global mergers, we'vegot big brands, you know, we rob
we've been talking, it feelslike for months and months now,
(11:13):
about the AO Sherman merger, tworeally strong brands out in the
market who are, who are joiningup, and we're all watching that
from various from our variouspurchases and various
perspectives. I'm watching itfrom a comms and branding
perspective. I know there'sfolks who are looking at it from
(11:35):
an operations perspective, butyou know your experience bill,
and you know, when you thinkabout from like a DLA, I mean,
DLA, DLA formed, Dentons formedthrough maybe dozens of mergers
during the as they were kind ofdoing the run up, talk to us a
little bit about that, aboutabout brand, about what, what
(11:59):
happens in mergers, or shouldhappen in mergers, and if, in
fact, you have to have a perfectmatch of brand and culture in
order for a merger to besuccessful,
yeah, I don't think it'spossible to have a perfect
match. And I'm not even sure youwant that, you know, I think
it's, it's not something you'regoing to achieve. You know, in
(12:20):
the case of these mega mergers,obviously, then you guys are
probably more equipped to talkabout this than I am. But
obviously, they're looking forbusiness synergies, if you will,
right? They're looking forcomplimentary services,
practices, geographies, andbeing able to leverage that
right, and, you know, to growprofitability and those kinds of
(12:41):
things, revenue. What we wouldargue is, in order to make it
successful, you not only have tohave a communications approach
that reflects who we want to be,who we want to be as a new firm
in the marketplace, as acombined firm, but you need to
do the work to ensure that youhave complementary cultures and
(13:05):
you're not going to have again,identical cultures. And when we
talk about culture, thefoundation of culture are things
like shared purpose, right? Apurpose for the organization,
shared values, personality andcharacteristics that are true to
the way we do things aroundhere, things like mission and
vision come into this. These areall sort of the building blocks
(13:25):
of brand. So you're looking tosee where the commonalities are,
and in some of these big firms,or even smaller firms, where
they're bringing in a group fromanother, just a lateral group,
perhaps they might be very, verydifferent, and the answer might
be, we don't have a lot ofsynergy, but this still makes
sense from a businessstandpoint. So you least need to
be aware of what the issues aregoing to be culturally, so you
(13:48):
can start to address them. But Ithink the ideal scenario is that
you're building a new culture,bringing the best of both, and
trying to leave behind anyaspects that weren't so great or
won't serve the new firm, is abetter way to think about it. So
we try to think about as webuild the brand, how do we
future proof the new firm? Howdo we create the new firm and
(14:10):
with a and Oh, Sherman? I thinkthat is the challenge. Is to
say, how do we create somethingnew that brings the best of Aono
and the best of Sherman togetherand lifts them both up as this
new firm?
Rob Bata (14:22):
Yeah, I think, I think that that's a that's a very
important point, that thatmerging doesn't really mean
you're going to just stay withthe same brand or same culture,
if you will. That you know, howwill that merger play out in
terms of what's new, but at thesame time preserves what's
(14:45):
what's best about the old. Sothis, this brings me to kind of
a sideways kind of question,which is, I'm very fortunate
that most of the clients I'veworked with who wanted to merge
and who've done mergers. Iusually have said, Look, culture
is really, really, reallyimportant to us, and it's very
important that there be somesynergy, and that the cultures
(15:07):
match, you know, even if they'renot the same. And I like hearing
that, and that's all, I thinkthat's very positive, but, but
the reality is that you go onevery single law firms website
and they say that they have, youknow, some sort of unparalleled
culture that's greater thananybody else's culture. And
people become a little bitcynical about those kinds of
declarations. And so I wonderwho, who cares about culture?
(15:35):
Because to me, there are twoconstituencies, lateral, hires
or or or new recruits, entering,entering law students, and
presumably the the non lawyersin the firm who want to be in a
(15:59):
place where you don't throw yourtelephone at a secretary, or,
you know, and you know that thatsort of thing. So I just want to
get your sense of what is thisdiscussion of culture all about,
and what's real about it, andwhat's just words.
Unknown (16:21):
Yeah, that's a good question. I think you have to
dig further into, you know, justhearing that we have a great
culture, right? We have to digdeeper and find out, what do we
mean by that, right? So apartner at a Skadden, or a
Kirkland, or, you know, one ofthese big sort of New York
powerhouse firms, if you will,global powerhouse firms, they
have defined cultures, but itmight be very different than a
(16:44):
regional firm, or it might bevery different than, you know,
frankly, DLA Piper, when itmerged, which was Baltimore, San
Diego and, you know, sort of nonLondon, UK. You know, this was a
different kind of firm, anddifferent kind of values and
norms again. So yeah, they bothhave cultures, and they could
define them. But how do youstart to really dig in and see
(17:06):
what that means? Not just, oh,we're very collaborative. We're
very collegial. At the surface,you hear those kinds of things,
but to really do it right, youwant to dig in to really find,
get a sense for what does itreally mean to be one of us,
because we're real in branding,it's always about
differentiation first. So we'rereally trying to dig down to
(17:26):
figure out, how do we separateyou from other big, globally
merged firms or other firms inyour peer group? So we do a lot
of research. We do a lot of oneon one interviews with partners.
When we worked with you know,Dentons, we talked one on one to
hundreds of partners in threelegacy firms in order to get a
sense for what they thought wasreally distinctive about their
(17:50):
approach to their clientservice, among other things. And
in our research clients, theydon't say they care about law
firms brand or culture per se,but they do talk about the
qualities they appreciate intheir firms and the lawyers they
see as best to work with. Wehear a lot about that. Not
surprisingly, the things theytalk about are emblematic of
(18:10):
culture, to how the peopleinteract with them and with each
other. I will talk to lawyersand firms and they'll say, my
clients don't care if we getalong. That is not true. Clients
care that you get along, andthey talk about it. They want to
know that you are going toservice them well. And they want
to know that you interact withyour own partners and other
people at the firm well. Theynotice those kinds of things.
(18:33):
They want to know about howlikable you are as a person,
relationships that you have, andin the best cases, they say that
everyone on the firm delivers onthose qualities consistently,
and that's how they start totalk about firms.
I've heard, you know? I'veheard, sorry, oh, go ahead. I've
(18:53):
heard, you know, when I've haddiscussions with clients about
about, you know about culture,although they don't, we're not
talking about culture. What Ihear that comes up is I have a
great relationship with thispartner at firm X. What I want
with that relationship with thatpartner is more than just what
(19:18):
we've got on the table thatwe're working on today. I want
to know that when I have my nextissue that may not be in that
particular partners wheelhouse,that they're going to find and
introduce me to the very bestperson at the firm who can, who
can work with me on this, ratherthan the person who they share,
(19:39):
you know, origination creditwith, or the person that's, you
know that that's, that's intheir regional office and and I
think that that's that, that isa that speaks to, sort of an
expectation, maybe unsaid, thatclients have about the impact of
culture and. On their ability toget the services and the advice
(20:04):
that they need. I've seen somepretty extreme early in my
career, pretty extreme examplesof partners that did not get
along and had clients that hadbig needs and weren't getting
introduced into those clientrelationships because the
partners did not get along,which to me, seemed like, Whoa.
(20:25):
That's, I think, how I werehere.
I think a couple things, right?
We talked about brand as apromise or performance, which
implies action and behavior,like what we do delivered
consistently, right? So when wego in and we talk to partners
and firms and other people inthe firms and we talk to
clients, you get into thingslike maybe 80% sort of operate
in a certain way, and maybe 20%aren't quite there yet, but we
(20:47):
need to know how we're going toget the other 20% to live up to
certain standards of behaviorsthat, again, represent who we
say we are and who we aspire tobe. But you get into nuance, so
you'll hear words like proactiveor responsive. You know, there
we need them to be incrediblyresponsive, and the firm is
incredibly responsive. Well,what does that mean? What does
responsive mean? And how do wedemonstrate that? So to one
(21:10):
partner in Milwaukee orwherever, responsive might mean
I return a phone call within twohours to a partner in DC, in the
same firm, it might mean within24 hours, or it might mean
Monday, because it's Thursday orit's Friday afternoon. So that's
just a really simple example,but you have to dig into not
only what is, what are thesewords that we throw around mean
(21:34):
that are representative of howwe do things around here, but
also to what effect like, whatis the end game of that trait
that we say we live and then howdo we get everybody to live it
and deliver on it? And then thecommunications parts of brand
are Curie key. You can't talkabout being all these things and
give specific examples if you'renot doing them. And I think
(21:55):
that's kind of the mistake firmsand lots of organizations make.
We're going to put out all thisnew messaging. We're this new
merge firm, or we're this firm,and this is our brand, and this
is what we stand for. But youcan't just put out the
messaging. You have to actuallybe living it so people see it in
action. You can. People do itall the time, but it's not going
to be as effective.
Rob Bata (22:16):
Yeah. Is it possible for a brand consultant to
actually, if you will, lecturethe firm or individuals within
the firm to say, look, I've notspoken to 50 of your partners,
and they agree on a, b, c, d andso forth. But one of the things
(22:39):
that I keep hearing is thatpartner X thinks that she's the
big dog and everything has tokind of go through her and
whatever's her client stickswith her and so forth. And
there's this one personeveryone's afraid of, or
whatever. Is there a pointwhere, where the brand
(23:01):
consultant sits down with theManagement Committee, or with
the senior lawyer, or with both,perhaps with that partner who
exhibits bad behavior and says,Look, you have the you have the
potential to have a brand thatdoes All of these things that
(23:21):
you hired us to do, but you kindof stand in the way of that. Can
you say that? Do you say that?
Does it happen? We
Unknown (23:31):
do. We do say that? I will say, you know, we comment
brand, I think, from a differentperspective, with clarity, we
say we're helping our clientsdeliver brand driven change. So
we're using brand research andstrategy and clarifying what the
brand is about in order to helpthe leaders in the organization
transform in ways they want tosee the organization move
(23:53):
toward. So if we have clients,and all of our clients buy into
that, or we don't work withthem, they don't hire us.
Because if you're a law firmleader or chief marketing
officer, says, I just need awebsite. That's not clarity,
right? Clarity is coming in tohelp you figure out, who are we,
what do we stand for? How are wedifferent? How is that relevant,
and how is that going to comethrough in everything that we
do? How is that going to be atouchstone for everything that
(24:17):
we do? And if you buy into that,then you're buying something
more robust, right? And so ourwork certainly talks about what
differentiates the firm, but wealso talk, as you know, a lot
about culture and a lot abouthow things are done around here,
and if things come up, it is ourresponsibility. We're being
(24:38):
hired to report that back. Now,we're careful, and I think it's
important for all consultants todo this. We're careful to try to
be as objective as possible. Soif I'm having 15 quotes on a
topic, I'm definitely going toreport that. If I have one
quote, I might not report it,you know, I might put. Something
(25:00):
in someone's ear, but it's notour opinion. I'm always really
careful to say, here are thechallenges we're hearing. Here
are the so we're actually sortof crossing a bit in the
business strategy, in a way,because we're not just talking
about the experience of thebrand outward in the market. I
know that answers your question,
Rob Bata (25:19):
yeah, no, I think it does. I think that's very
important for people to knowtoo, that that you're you're not
just out there creating, youknow, you've taken a survey,
you've talked to people, and youcreate a product that you drop
in people's laps, but you'rereally talking it through. And
when you identify a problem, ifit's if it's pervasive enough,
as for example, your example ofyou know, you hear the same
(25:42):
problem from 15 people then thenit's your responsibility to
convey to the decision makers tomake sure that that's known and
dealt with. And I think that'simportant, because I think very
often consultants of all sortstend to be a little shy about
(26:02):
what they think is rufflingfeathers, whereas, in fact, the
consultants job consultants gethired, and I think this is
across the spectrum ofconsultancies. They get hired to
to be a an objective observerand advisor, and also an extra
pair of eyes when you need them.
So that level of honesty isreally important. And
Unknown (26:26):
I think it also comes through, not just in reporting
the data and the research, butthen when you get into strategy,
that's where I think theconsultant role really comes
into play, where you're like,Okay, now, based on what we've
learned, and based on the marketconditions and based on who your
competitors are, and based onwhere you want to go, here are
the recommendations we think forhow you want to position
yourselves and what that mightmean. And here's some ways to
(26:47):
start to approach that changeprocess
and the the follow on, thefollow on that, that in my
experience, multiple times whenyou get to that point where you
have the you have the got thedefinition of the brand out
there, you've got some level ofof consistent buy in across the
(27:10):
across the partnership. And ifyou do it right, which I think
you do Bill, you get great buyin. And it's not because you're
putting something so generic outthere that everybody can agree
to it. There's like, there's,it's very specific and
actionable. Then the otherthings that happen, that have to
happen, that come out of thatbecome, I wouldn't say, easier,
(27:32):
but the decisions become easier.
So, you know, it's, you know,well, gosh, we're, you know,
we're, portraying ourselves inthe marketplace in a way that
our clients say is outdated.
Okay, then what do we need to doto portray ourselves as a more
modern, contemporary law firm?
It might be a website, it mightbe, you know, digital
(27:54):
communications, whatever thecase might be, but that you're
always going back to that, thatthat core, that anchor, if you
will, in a good way, that thatthat allows you to say, well,
you know, is what we're doing,furthering these things that
we've talked about and thesethings that we've said that we
have valued. And if you and thisis where the this is where the
(28:17):
CMO, this is where the managingpartner, this is where the X com
has to, has to come in, to notforget what we all agreed to and
and to and to and to stick toit. And, you know, I that's,
that's where, that's where someof the challenge comes in. And I
know that that, you know, one ofthe things that clarity is is
doing, more and more often, isis activation work to to help
(28:39):
that go on. All right. And thatcloses part one of GMTs
discussion with clarity groups,principal and founder, Bill
Schroeder, please stay tuned forpart two, which will be dropping
in about two weeks. Thank you.
You.
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