I was probably a month into my first investment banking job when the CEO called me into his office.
Being 20, fresh off the boat from Kalamazoo and filled with the confidence of ignorance, I strode straight in.
He sat me down and asked how I’d been getting on and if I enjoyed the work. It’s fine, I replied, although perhaps fewer Ferraris than I thought there’d be.
After the pleasantries he looked at me and told me that he called every new hire in and passed along the thing that would make them successful.
You don’t get what you don’t ask for.
I didn’t quite understand it the first time he said it. Luckily for me he repeated it slowly as he leaned back in his chair.
He said it a third time, rather more softly, and it was clear that the meeting was over and I left.
It didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time.
You don’t get what you don’t ask for? What does that even mean?
The phrase stuck with me though.
As I got a bit older it made more and more sense.
When I was in important deal negotiations, I couldn’t achieve an outcome unless I pushed the other side for what I wanted.
Similarly in many personal realms. We can’t be fulfilled unless we get what we need from relationships. That doesn’t happen without asking and being clear about what makes us happy.
The fear, of course, is that the other side says no.
That by asking somehow we’ve damaged our relationship.
Or worse offended the other party.
Is that really true though? Do we do damage by asking? Or do we actually just inform the other side about our expectations and help them understand how to help us?
So why don’t we ask law firms to deliver what we want?
We hear it over and over again from clients.
The law firms we work with don’t deliver what we need.
A client a few days ago said that she was sick and tired of the ‘value-added-services’ her firm was delivering. I asked if she had communicated that to the firm.
She hadn’t.
She thought that if she told the firm what she really valued that they would feel that she was ungrateful for what they were currently delivering.
So we asked the firm. They had assumed (the topic of many previous blogs) that they were delivering what their client wanted.
Problematic to say the least.
Are you getting what you want from your firms?
If not, why don’t you ask?
Is money tight at the moment? Why not ask for deferred or lower fee arrangements?
Need something critical done to the highest standard? Explain the stakes to your firm and outline carefully what your objectives are.
Interested in improving diversity or inclusion? Ask how your firms are staffing and allocating the work you give to them.
To get better outcomes the first step is to be clear about what we want.
We don’t need technology to explain to firms what’s important to us.
Sometimes though, it can help us get exactly what we want.
Get what you asked for,
Christopher Thurn
Founder – Alacrity Law
