Bates Wells are not your typical law firm. They were the first UK law firm to be a B-Corp and cared long before it was cool.

The trouble was, the industry had caught up and the words that once helped them stand out were being watered down by other law firms that talked the talk, but didn’t walk the walk. 

They turned to theSHIFT to act as their creative cultural provocateur, looking for someone as progressive as them that could help revitalise their values.

Matt’s engaging workshops and insightful guidance have truly resonated with all levels of our firm. His ability to facilitate meaningful discussions and provide actionable insights has been invaluable.

I highly recommend Matt for any company looking to align their values and enhance their workplace environment.

Scott Sullivan

HR Director

Challenge

Bates Wells was one of the first law firms to lead with values back in 2018 when they set out to define them.

However, since then, the rest of the industry had caught up and copied the essence of the values without copying the action behind them. Language which was once inspiring now sounded clichéd and tired, the values generic and ubiquitous, to the point where colleagues in the firm actively avoided using them.

They needed values that signified a step change and a shift forwards. Language that was energising and captured their culture so that employees would be proud to say them out loud and, crucially, inspired to act in accordance with the values.

APPROACH

This wasn’t a reset, but a refresh. An evolution, not a revolution. The core of who they were hadn’t changed but they needed to find a new way of expressing their values.

We started by immersing ourselves in the culture, reading documents and speaking to people to see how the current values showed up in their language.

We then ran a series of workshops with a core team of partners exploring:

• The Past, Present and Future of Bates Wells
• The difference between hollow values and useful values
• A creative exploration of inspiring values from other organisations
• New and fresh language that resonated with Bates Wells’ culture

We invited the whole firm into the discussion to get their perspective on the language and began the process of co-designing the new cultural values.

We gradually narrowed the language into useful clusters and settled on a handful of options which were voted on by partners and the firm.

After 6-months we had landed on Bates Wells’ new values!

So that’s it all done then?

Well, not quite…

IMPACT

Although we had helped create new values, the end of that process was only the start of the values journey for the firm. 

Language is important: we wanted to find inspiring and memorable language to bring them to life. But action is more important: values are only meaningful insofar as they guide behaviour.

Embedding the right behaviours and processes into the firm to support the values would be critical to how well the values are received and used.

To support the rollout of the values we took learnings from behavioural science, working with Partners, Business Leaders and the Employee Forum to translate the values into meaningful behaviours.

A great example of success for us was when we heard that partners had started using the values in interviews again. They were avoiding them no longer, actively bringing them into important conversations.

We liked Matt and his approach from the moment we met him, and he has guided us skilfully through our values refresh project. His workshops were not only engaging but also thought-provoking, encouraging participation from everyone involved.

Matt’s insights have helped us think about who we are and how we want to express ourselves and I am grateful for his contributions and would highly recommend his services,

Sally Procopis

COO