It's our people; they're our biggest asset.” “ Talent is the only sustainable source of competitive advantage. Humans as an Asset value. appreciate Law firm leaders that value people as the ultimate asset will optimize a rich, and largely untapped, opportunity to drive sustainable growth. Here's the Problem directly Realize—and Cultivate—What You Have and treating them

• Truly know your people. Start by taking a “forensic look” at your business services professionals, their capabilities, interests and locations. Conduct skill assessments and gauge development potential. Compile all of this data, which can help to identify and address existing gaps, deploy the people you have more effectively, prepare them for future needs, and reduce the costs of duplicating talent. You can use predictive analytics to better understand who you have, where they are, what they are good at and the work they aspire to do. Then you can harness the power of the data to reconfigure and significantly improve how your organization handles each phase of the talent life cycle.

• Use technology to enhance your talent strategies. It is exciting to think that new technologies can help you make smarter hires using insights on the kinds of people who will succeed in your organization and culture. You can increase retention by using insights from employee surveys to help you understand the drivers of employee engagement. Technology can help improve ongoing training and development by aligning people's skillsets with the tasks needed to achieve organizational goals now and in the future; it can also optimize performance management if you incorporate metrics into employee reviews. Moreover, technology can guide succession planning by ensuring the next generation of leaders is motivated and equipped to succeed.

• Embrace networked organizational models. A senior people analytics leader at Capital One suggested that many ultra- productive organizations are moving away from traditional models, with their rigid reliance on reporting relationships and boundaries, and tapping “invisible networks” based on how work typically gets (and should be) done. These new models also use technologically yielded insights to help people slide in and out of projects based on their skill sets, interest levels, and geographic locations. As consultants at Deloitte suggest, you can maintain and refer to a “human capital balance sheet” based on your current needs and assemble a team best suited to carry out specific projects. For example, a project to define a law firm's culture would involve not only attorneys but also pull the right people from human resources, information technology, finance, marketing and business development, and more. One prominent International law firm just adopted an organizational model within their marketing and business development team that customizes and deploys multi-skilled groups to execute on projects for its client response teams. Among other benefits, models such as this help efficiently corral enterprise-wide knowledge of all kinds, eliminate duplicative work, reduce costs associated with external providers who would perform tasks that could be done by existing staff, and imbue the formerly overlooked business services teams – and the broader firm itself – with a sense of shared ownership. And the individual connections thus established will be more likely to endure, continue to bear fruit and improve future results than if everyone had remained in their individual silos.

A Worthy Endeavor and