Smart Collaboration : How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos

By having expanded into each other’s practice and geographic territories over the last two decades, law firms have given client companies a broad set of possible service providers. With many potential providers of essentially the same service offering, client companies can, and do, push for lower prices. This has set in motion the eroding price and profitability dynamic that has dogged much of Big Law since the last recession.The way out of this for law firms is to develop more offerings that other firms can’t match. Gardner’s research shows how ‘smart collaboration’ can enable firms to do this: by integrating offerings across multiple disciplines and geographies, law firms can come up with offerings that are more responsive to client needs and truly differentiated from competing providers. Her data show revenues and margins grow in consequence.The book points out an important distinction: collaboration is different from cross selling. Rather than simply introducing your partner so she can provide her standalone service, collaboration is about binding the different specialisms together into offerings that can't be provided on a standalone basis, (Figure 1-3 is worth staring at for a bit to get it).The book has lots of practical tips for leaders on how to make this kind of collaboration happen more, (I read Chapter 6 on compensation twice). None of it will be easy to implement. But firm leaders don’t have a choice but to try. Failure to integrate legal specialisms through smart collaboration will consign firms to a doom loop of eroding profitability and loss of their most commercially-capable partners.Thank you, Professor Gardner, for explicating the why and how so clearly!

This thoroughly researched work by Heidi Gardner is an essential guide for Professional Service Firms who want to thrive in a difficult and uncertain marketplace. Indeed, better collaboration among partners could become the key differentiator because of the benefits that it delivers to clients. Clients have told me time and again that they want to engage with partners who “bring the expertise of whole firm” into the issues that they are facing. But clients also complain that this behaviour is still comparatively rare in a world where partners often hunt alone through their silos of individual expertise. Gardner both explores the differing attitudes and behaviours of various types of partner – whether they are solo specialists or seasoned collaborators - and shows how they can better work together for the benefit of their clients.Very importantly, the evidence is clear that improved collaboration will take the firm into better, more strategic and more profitable work, whilst at the same time improving clients’ loyalty. So, the wins available for firms that learn how to harness the power of collaboration are substantial and long term.I found the book to be written in a very approachable style and it has encouraged me to look again at the way my partners work together and address this key leadership issue. Lots of helpful insights and ideas throughout the book.

This book was bought for coworkers. It was ask for them to read it before a meeting

With Smart Collaboration, Heidi Gardner has done the impossible...she has saved us from our own instincts as experts! This book enables groups of professionals to work together more effectively, not as a goal, but in order to produce better client outcomes and better business results for our own organizations.Like any company, knowledge-based firms tend to organize their business in silos. And these silos can be limiting for clients and the experts who serve them. Gardner, who is ex-McKinsey and teaches at Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School, focuses her research on professional services firms. The principles she discusses in Smart Collaboration, which goes beyond the articles she has published in Harvard Business Review, apply equally well to any B2B organization.This book is well organized, very readable and practical. She does a great job incorporating the voice of the client, and bringing in real examples from her research about what experts believe, do and think. She also includes several chapters that appeal to different audiences within the professional services firm. So regardless of your level, there are valuable comments in here for you. Gardner has a talent for making heavy content approachable for any reader. And the tips she offers are grounded in research and can be immediately put to work.I highly recommend Smart Collaboration. You'll enjoy reading it and, if you're ready, will gain a return from applying it to your interactions with colleagues and clients.

This book is a valuable tool for law firm or law firm leaders who want to understand the why and how of collaboration. Few can argue that creating a collaborative environment is one of the main keys to unlocking latent value in most law firms. This is a profession that naturally inclines towards siloed thinking. Clients and prospective employees will be drawn to the firm that can overcome it. Innovation, client loyalty, fewer mistakes and a more robust practice are the prizes that await.The devil is in the detail and the challenge is to bring about change incrementally. There are lots of good ideas in this book to help the reader make that happen.