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Evaluating Talent and Building Strong Team with David Pivnick, Partner at McGuireWoods LLP 12-12-25
00:15:02
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- [00:01]
A
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why, hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering. With on time restocks, your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-GRAINGER Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [00:30]
B
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business in the Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're thrilled today to be joined by one of the brightest people I get to visit with regularly. We're joined today by a partner at McGuire Woods, David Pivnick. We're going to talk to David today about talent management issues, hiring, firing, and a lot more. David, can you take a moment and introduce yourself to the audience?
- [00:55]
C
Yeah, absolutely, Scott, thanks for having me on. It's always a pleasure to visit with you, a partner, a litigator at McGuire Woods. And my practice is really focused on both healthcare litigation and private equity litigation and heavily concentrated on responding to government investigations and defending False Claims act cases. And I'm located in the Chicago office and as people who have listened to us before know, I like this. Very passionate about sports. I like to chat about those things as well. Though I think today you have some more serious topics for us which will also be fun.
- [01:30]
B
No, thank you so much. Thank you. And let me start with. We're going to talk about talent today and we'll talk about when hiring, when evaluating talent. And David's done a remarkable job of mentoring other partners, hiring partners, people that have become partners, and his great track record here. How do you think about evaluating talent, especially other indicators, behaviors that matter most to you when you're trying to look at hiring, how do you look at some of those things and what do you think about?
- [02:00]
C
Great question, Scott. I mean, the first thing, it's interesting when we interview at the law firm, you know, I almost take it as a given that the people we're interviewing sort of have the intellectual horsepower to succeed, or at least they passed the level of where you need to be to succeed. They're in law school, they're at good law schools, they're doing well because we have grade cutoffs and we only recruit at certain schools, etc. So I sort of start from the baseline of assuming folks that are sitting across the table from me have the intellectual horsepower. Now, that obviously varies. And if I'm interviewing someone who's top 10 in their class at a Harvard or Michigan or University of Chicago that might land, you know, more heavily than someone who is just at our grade, cut off at a school that's rated a little lower. But, you know, we're meeting with people who are generally very smart. So I'm looking for other things on a resume or in the conversation over the course of an interview that I think is going to lead to success that's going to be indicative of a higher probability of success than just the academics. And so one thing is, is that I think comes across on certain resumes, definitely comes across in interviews is work ethic. I've met with people who have never held a job prior to law school, and I mean no jobs. And I find that very surprisingly troubling. And I met with folks who worked full time while putting themselves through law school, or worked three days a week while in law school, or were on a varsity team While getting a 3.9 GPA in undergrad at an elite university. And so looking through the indicia of does this person have a strong work ethic to back up their academic credentials? Do they have a history of achievement? Against that backdrop of effort, I view that as incredibly helpful. I look at leadership positions. Most people have stuff or talk about things, clubs they're involved in, student associations, extracurricular activities, might be charitable, whatever it is. But I think there's a meaningful difference between saying I'm a member of 10 organizations versus I was the president of this entity and I led X, Y and Z drive, or I spearheaded this initiative, I helped grow the organization from 20 members to 100, or I founded the business and ran it. So again, looking at the actual experiences and how people can talk about those experiences to show meaningful involvement, leadership and drive, I view as all incredibly helpful. And then the other thing, which can be harder to suss out, but I'm looking for consistency. So when, when I see someone who comes in or I'm talking to someone and you know, they, they struggled in undergrad and then all of a sudden they did well in law school or vice versa, or they, they don't really have a demonstrated track record or they had a couple of great classes and then several that were terrible, it might raise questions as to whether they're taking days off or how they're approaching things. Whereas looking for sort of sustained excellence at different levels doesn't have to be at the absolute 99th percentile at every level, although that's obviously great. But showing a history of success consistently over the years before Coming in for an interview, I think is a helpful indicator of future success as well.
- [05:27]
B
I'm gonna ask you a question. The next question I'm gonna ask you in fall is how do you differentiate between high performers that elevate teams and those that may be great individually but aren't so good in a culture of collaboration? Let me ask you that question first, and then I've got another couple questions for you. How do you do? Because we've all seen that people that are just fantastic, but they're challenging to work with or challenge you to work in teams. And as a manager, you just have to accept that. Can you coach them? Or is there. Or is that just very challenging to work with?
- [06:00]
C
I think the answer is yes. I think there's somewhat. I mean, it's clearly challenging and it can be particularly frustrating where you've got someone who is a superior talent, is really just an excellent attorney or excellent, whatever the case may be, but an excellent team member in terms of their individual performance. But does it show other traits that are sort of accretive to the overall success of the organization or the team? I mean, that's clearly frustrating, but there also are elements of it where coaching is appropriate and acceptance is appropriate. My general view is when people come in and we're getting to assess their talent, you know, look, the first standard always has to be, are they a superior performer? We're not going to be able to have folks around who are not great lawyers. That is the baseline. It's what every one of our clients expect. It's what myself and all the partners expect, is that everyone working at the firm is a great lawyer. Figuring out then the other skills and where else people are going to excel and be contributors. I think it's the secondary criteria and can be more challenging. And I think on that front, you know, it's really a matter of, first of all, evaluating the talent and understanding is this person truly a high performer? And then how bad is the lack of leadership or the individual success versus team? Because if they're truly detrimental to the team, if they're mistreating others, if they're really not fitting, coaching is a necessary next step. But that may not work long term. But there are other instances where the assessment may reflect like this person is a great performer, is a great part of the team, but ultimately isn't going to be a leader. And we need to think about how to best deploy that person, how to best use that resource in a way where we're going to get the most value out of the talent that that person offers while also not hindering others on the team or being detrimental. And I, you know, I, I equate that to this. Folks that we hire that are terrific associates and do a lot of things well, but may not ultimately be the right fit for partnership. And figuring out how to reposition them career path wise is very important to keeping otherwise valuable team members. And I think that's an equivalent question here where someone is terrific individually but may not be as great of a leader or as great of a team player as you are. I mean, to me, the first step is coaching. The next step is figuring out, is this person's talent and their strengths enough to overcome some of those weaknesses? Are they truly detrimental to the whole? And if the answer is, yeah, the strengths are worth it, we want to figure it out, then it's approaching and figuring out how to position that person in a way where leadership roles aren't necessarily part of what they're tasked with, and that we're able to use that person and work with that person in a way that's mutually beneficial and puts them in the right position to succeed without some of the pressures of the things that are weaknesses for them.
- [09:06]
B
And take a second on sort of an overall performance issue. When you have someone that's just not performing at the level you expect clients expect and so forth, how do you determine whether that person could be coached versus they're in just the wrong fit, the wrong profession? How do you manage and think about those issues when somebody that's not doing the job you really want them to do?
- [09:31]
C
Yeah, I mean, again, first of all, I think the first thing is figure out what the nature of the failing is. If it's the work is good, but the interpersonal skills need a bit of work. Again, depending how bad it is. But that's generally. Let's sit down, let's talk about it. Let's try to figure out where the disconnect is, give a little bit of a reminder about the firm's culture and our strong belief in collegiality and what we expect of our colleagues and how people treat one another. If it's more of a real problem they're being off putting to others, they're creating issues. That's a more difficult discussion, but fortunately rarely comes up. If it's then figuring out what to do with that person, I think it's a matter of give them coaching, let them know what the expectations are and figure out where. Where we can deploy them in a way that works. I mean, that's really what it comes down to, I always think giving the opportunity to teach, coach, discuss and try and work through the issue and figure out if there's a collaborative solution is the best next step. But where that is failing and it just seems like the message isn't landing or the problematic conduct is continuing, et cetera, then more difficult decisions become necessary. But again, that is the far exception. In most instances, you're able to work through with someone talented and figure out how to help coach them up so that their weaknesses become strengths or at least become neutral or redeploy them in a way that maximizes their strength and sort of minimizes the weaknesses.
- [11:12]
B
Thank you. And take a moment on this. We've talked about this over the years. For the audience that doesn't know this, David graduated number one in his class in law school. He's a really gifted, smart person. You also have the ability to do many things well. I don't know that many people that could do the job you do inside and outside the office that you do. And that's, in all sincerity, really a talented person who's got incredible energy and challenges a lot of things and does them really well, from being a tremendous partner at the law firm to being a tremendous family person and just literally does a lot well. You yourself, extremely bright, extremely hardworking. I think you described me one time, being valedictorian is never taking a test off, literally performing for every single one. When you've got that kind of drive and determination yourself in that discipline, does that ever make it hard for you to manage it? Others, because you're such a perfectionist and so great at what you do yourself, does that. Can that be challenging or how do you think about that?
- [12:19]
C
So, first of all, that's a lot of kind words and I appreciate what you just said. In terms of the real question there, the short answer is, for me, that's actually relatively easy to compartmentalize that. That topic, to look at it and say, I recognize I'm going to do things a certain way, and it's not fair for me to expect everybody to do things the exact same way or to have the exact same approach. And I came to that realization a long time ago, and I sort of live by that every day. And sometimes that's because I think I do things differently and better at it. In other instances, it's because I recognize I'm not a warm and fuzzy person by nature. So some things might require a softer touch and I might want to, you know, have someone else take a particular tact or fill a role there where I'm not the best. So thinking about how to leverage people in the right way and how to put people in a position to succeed is important. But I think to your direct question, I have to remind myself and I tell people that I'm working with all the time. People are individuals, and I think it's important to recognize that people are individuals. I'm going to do things in the way that I think is productive, likely to be successful and effective, but it doesn't mean that my approach is the right approach for everybody else. And one example I give with associates all the time on my team in particular is with regard to vacations, because I work on basically every vacation. I couldn't tell you while sitting here right now, the last time I took any vacation where I wasn't working. And it's because it's hard for me to fully unplug and put things down. And on the matters that I'm leading, I'm very hands on and it's hard for me to walk away from that. So I try and schedule my days and work around that. I've talked to other colleagues, both, you know, partners, but also folks on my team who don't want to work on vacation and are pretty clear they want to draw a bright line. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think vacation should be generally respected, even if it's not a boundary I personally draw. So, I mean, to me, that's just one example, but it's a place where I recognize that the things that I do and the approach that I take has been very effective for me and has fortunately led to success for me. But that doesn't mean that those things are the only way to be successful or to do things well and perform at a high level. And so I try and keep that top of mind for myself as sort of a reminder, you let others perform in a way that's productive for them as compared to expecting others to be, you know, sort of shoehorned into a one size fits all approach.
- [15:02]
B
Yes. No, I think that's actually a great perspective and I think the self awareness that, look, there's things I do really well, but there's things that other people do better than I do is a really healthy perspective and it shows an ego that's under control, which it is. It's a. It's a fantastic leadership trait. David, I want to thank you for joining us today on the Becker Private Equity the Becker Business Podcast. Literally, just fantastic to visit with you. Thank you so much for joining us.
- [15:27]
C
Thanks for having me Scott. I appreciate it.
- [15:33]
A
If you're the purchasing manager at a manufacturing plant, you know having a trusted partner makes all the difference. That's why hands down, you count on Grainger for auto reordering with with on time restocks. Your team will have the cut resistant gloves they need at the start of their shift and you can end your day knowing they've got safety well in hand. Call 1-800-granger clickgranger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.