Why Getting Back in the Box Isn’t Such A Bad Thing
In these fast moving, high tech times where it seems that everything’s about buzz and hype, no one wants to be caught thinking inside the box. But as Douglass Rushkoff explains in this essay Get Back in the Box (Fast Company 11/2005), more companies should think about climbing back in the box and returning to the basics that made them great. And guess what – when it comes to focusing on doing what you do best, solos have it over big firms once again.
Take a look at what Rushkoff means by in the box thinking. Though he’s talking about large corporations like Dell or the Gap, his observations apply equally to biglaw:
It’s time for business to reverse this trend toward fragmentation and instead integrate its products, communications, and marketing. This means identifying the one thing you really do best (hint: It’s the business you’re already in) and letting this core competency guide your decision making. Your next big thing should really be a new beginning–a chance to do what you do, and do it incredibly well. Make it fun again.
Getting back in the box fills many corporations with dread. Why? Because they’ve outsourced, even abandoned, their core competencies. Dell built a computer empire on its ability to assemble components and the promise of reassuring customer service from acres of highly qualified reps sitting in Round Rock, Texas. Now it farms out technical support to the phone banks of Bangalore, just like any other computer company.
Our disconnection from the essence of our businesses is a sad side effect of the Industrial Age. Mass production required a mass media to do mass marketing as efficiently as possible. The factory floor manufactured goods in discrete, separate steps. Customers were viewed as target markets to be stimulated into purchasing behavior. And managers were reduced to balancing the spreadsheet, even if that meant separating themselves from the people and processes making and using their stuff.
Large firms have effectively outsourced their core competency, the practice of law. Paralegals overseas or teams of new graduates review documents, associates delve deep into slivers of major cases and clients rarely have a chance to speak with the person in charge. Maybe that’s why so many large firms resort to vacuous taglines: because they’ve lost their vision.
We solos may be small, our websites far less slick than our large firm counterparts, we may not always be identified as trendsetters in the legal media. But who cares if we generate buzz or hype because what we do is cool enough: we practice law and we serve clients. And if our mission makes us retro or in the box, well, that’s fine by me.
Great post.
Great post.
While I agree that focus on core competency is essential, it is also essential that firms continually innovate. Any firm that does not innovate will be marginalized by competitive forces duplicating their value proposition. For example, as Dell shows the world how to more efficiently organize, manufacture, and deliver goods, they teach their competitors who enter the field with similar offerings. If Dell does not innovate to new efficiencies or values, then Dell will be just a me-too provider as other competitors catch up. Thus, “thinking outside the box” does not necessarily mean learning to do something else, it really means coming up with new ways to provide value in you core competency, or to come up with an break through solution that replaces the nature of your core competency.
While I agree that focus on core competency is essential, it is also essential that firms continually innovate. Any firm that does not innovate will be marginalized by competitive forces duplicating their value proposition. For example, as Dell shows the world how to more efficiently organize, manufacture, and deliver goods, they teach their competitors who enter the field with similar offerings. If Dell does not innovate to new efficiencies or values, then Dell will be just a me-too provider as other competitors catch up. Thus, “thinking outside the box” does not necessarily mean learning to do something else, it really means coming up with new ways to provide value in you core competency, or to come up with an break through solution that replaces the nature of your core competency.