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CCCA_V7No2_Q&ARoger Martin-FIN_CCCA 13-05-16 4:23 PM Page 33 CCCA Who in the legal marketplace outside of Canada Feature — Conférence Nationale du Printemps do you think is following the right approach? RM Historically, a firm like Wachtell Lipton, that [focus- es on] M&A transactions… Or Skadden Arps, which grew from nothing to a big firm by engaging in proxy fights and being the law firm of choice that had special- ized expertise in that area. Those would be “where to play,”“how to win” choices that have caused those firms to be distinctive. Now Skadden Arps then got gigantic and it looks more like a tier one kind of a law firm. It’s one of these things. In the U.K. … there are the Magic Circle firms and what I would worry about [is] they have the catbird seat in that they are the most impor- tant firms in that market, but they don’t try and establish enough distinctiveness among one another because they’re too satisfied being one of the Magic Circles firms. I think the only safety for a firm in any industry long- term, is to be distinctive. CCCA And you like to remind people that strategy is an iterative process, right? RM Absolutely. One of the key things about strategy, is that there’s a natural order to it. You ask what is our aspi- ration before you ask where to play, before you ask how to win, etc. But… sometimes you will set out what you would love to have as your winning aspiration and then you can’t find anywhere to play or how to win that’s con- sistent with that. Or you do but you say, ‘boy, we can’t actually build distinctive capabilities to bring that alive.’ And so you’ve got to keep revisiting, revisiting, revisiting. The other thing is that even once you have a strategy… what you have to do is lay out the logic behind those choices and write it down.These five choices make sense because this is how we think the market is going to evolve, what customers want, what capabilities we have. And then it’s important to watch what actually unfolds. Then you can ask yourself what you could change that would make those customers happier.You should want to revisit strategy any time something happens in the mar- ketplace that causes you to question whether you’re basic assumptions behind your strategy choices are right or not. Roger Martin has also published seven books including: Fixing the Game (Harvard Business Review Press,2011):The Design of Business (Harvard Business School Press,2009);The Opposable Mind (Harvard Business School Press, 2007). This interview has been edited and condensed for publication. ÉTÉ 2013 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association 33