Talent Management in the current climate Brewing up ... - Ashridge

An award-
winning
partnership
By Chris Nichols and Alison Jones
The overall learning process for Lovells’
population of Senior Associate lawyers
has been acclaimed for its innovation
and impact by participants and observers
alike. It won The Lawyer HR Award 2009
for Innovation in Talent Management,
and was finalist in two others: the 2008
Managing Partners Forum awards, where
it received second place for innovation;
and the Financial Times Innovative
Lawyer awards 2008, where it was highly
commended by the judges.
20
With over 3,300 people (including
350 partners) operating from 26
offices in Europe, Asia and the
United States, Lovells is one of the
world’s leading international law
firms, advising many of the world’s
largest corporations, financial
institutions and governmental
organisations. In 2007 Lovells
created a new career framework
for its lawyers globally, including
the introduction of the role of
Senior Associate. This role reflects
the increasing responsibility of
lawyers for being more than just
excellent technical experts. At
this level, lawyers are expected to
have acquired their specialist legal
expertise and to be developing
into fully rounded business
managers, with responsibility
for client management,
business development, financial
management and participation in
the development of junior team
members.
To support the launch of the
new framework, Lovells wanted
to offer Senior Associates a
development event that would help
them make sense of their new role
and start to equip them with the
skills they would need to make the
role a success in their own part of
the firm – both for themselves and
for the business.
A learning conference big
enough to fill the magnificent
Grand Hotel in Eastbourne,
England, is quite something in
itself. But add to that 150 of
the sharpest young legal minds
engaging in an action learningbased
‘working conference’.
Support that by a global virtual
action learning process over the
next six months. Then you have
an alchemical event!
Alison Jones, Head of People
Development at Lovells, began
a conversation with Ashridge in
the Spring of 2007, as part of a
competitive process to select a
partner with whom to design and
deliver an innovative learning event
that would be part of a substantial
change in the approach to learning
within the organisation. Alison
recalls:
“Ashridge stood out during the
pitching process in two ways. First,
they had understood our verbal
brief really well and had done a
fair amount of thinking before they
came to the pitch meeting. The
second, and probably the most
important, stand-out was that
they then talked through with us
their initial ideas in such a way as
to start to engage the group in the
process of co-creating the design.
This was very important because
the group to whom the pitch was
made included a number of our key
stakeholder partners – people who
would be influential in the buy-in we
needed to make the programme
a success, and who themselves
had no experience of this kind of
learning. Ashridge were able to
give this group an understanding
of how the programme would be
designed and delivered, as well as
confidence that Ashridge were the
right people for us to partner with.
“From my personal point of
view, I was excited to be working
with an external partner who
was genuinely willing to push the
boundaries and attempt something
ambitious and innovative. Their
willingness to work closely with the
in-house learning team and other
internal experts and partners was
also critical to our choice.”
A core steering team was
formed, with colleagues from
Ashridge and Lovells meeting
together on three or four occasions
to undertake initial design work. The
sessions at Ashridge were a mixture
of analysis and creative imagining,
resulting in display boards filled
with potential design elements.
Ashridge also undertook several
rounds of inquiry work, exploring
with both potential participants and
other stakeholders.
The result was a clear intention
to respond to the inquiry findings –
which had emphasised the need
for choice, activity, learning from
experience and the opportunity for
network building.