Golden Practices Blog

Law Firm Adopts High-Tech Scarlet Letter to Motivate

Humiliation is a great way to boost productivity, isn't it? After all, we can get some results when we chew someone's ass out in front of his or her peers.

Sure. When results matter a lot more than respect. And loyalty. And, you know, people's feelings. 

In the what-the-hell-were-they-thinking category, there's a London law firm that found a high-tech way to slap a scarlet letter on "underperforming associates." This per "Red Faces for Poor Billers," an article in Lawyers Weekly, Australia:

According to RollOnFriday, an insider reportedly complained that RPC has implemented a program that changes the colour of associates' computer screens, depending on their level of profitability.  

A red screen is obviously not so good, meaning the lawyer is losing the firm money, while yellow means they're coasting along okay but could do a little better. Those staring at a green screen can look forward to a few long lunches with the partners some time soon.

Unfortunately for those not hitting the big numbers, their red screens are viewable by all within the firm's open plan office.

Despite the public display of a lawyer's profitability — or lack thereof — a spokesperson for the firm confirmed with RollonFriday that colour coding was used, with the system designed to enable lawyers to "develop their commerciality and understand the work they're doing and the amount of time they're spending on it" and not to shame unprofitable staff in front of their colleagues.

Really? Not the aim to shame people into different behavior? This management approach went out decades ago. 

The professions are fans of "Best Practices" and this needs to be added to the "Worst Practices" list, for sure, right along with blocking social media. 

 

Where Have I Been? Have You Found the Lazy Trap?

I'm not gonna lie. I'm embarrassed that I haven't posted to my blog in about 6 weeks. Especially since I'm a huge fan of blogs, someone who loves to write, and a person who recently wrote a book about how effective blogs can be (if'n ya post at least once or twice a week). So, yeah, I feel like a heel.

Where've I been? I was hoping you could tell me. 

I'm doing lots of speaking and consulting. And some innovating with VeraSage Institute.

But I'm still about the online community and I've remained fairly active on twitter (@michellegolden) and LinkedIn, and I have two biz pages on Facebook.

Those are: Golden Practices, my company, on which I share all sorts of practice management stuff for professionals and the other is the living, breathing portion of my book on social media where we continue the conversation about the constantly changing topic. 

I've come to really enjoy the ability to share links to great stories either VERY fast with just a little context on Twitter or LinkedIn, or still pretty quickly on Facebook with 400-ish characters of supplementary text. I've fallen into the "lazy trap."

Where about half my blog posts were inspired by something I've read and felt compelled to build on, disagree with, or just reference for the benefit of the reader (that would be you) - I now find that I can do that much more quickly in Facebook. Or the ultimate lazy: Twitter. Have you found that too?

Now don't get me wrong, I think Twitter is awesome for link-sharing and news or info hunting. In fact, I find useful nuggets every time I check my Twitter feed. I think the key to Twitter, as a user or a reader, is the well-crafted headline. Don't know about you, but I never click a link without a good intro or headline. I never, ever post a link without one. Hope you don't either. But I digress.

Guilt and sincerely "missing my blog" (and you) are bringing me back. I finished my book about 8 months ago and confess that I've been in a writing funk ever since. It's time to shake that off and return. 

So feel free to beat me up and bug me if I appear to be neglecting you. I need any encouragement I can get. Oh, and please see my other social accounts for the brief snippets. Because I know you don't have time to read long musings every day anyway. 

Here's to balance! May we all find it.