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Leadership During Stressful Times with David Pivnick of McGuireWoods LLP 5-8-26
00:18:01
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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Scott Becker
This is Scott Becker with the Becker Business and Becker Private Equity Podcast. We're joined by a brilliant leader and lawyer today, David Pivnick. David was the valedictorian of his law school class and since then has had a valedictorian like professional career. He's a partner, Maguire Woods. We're going to talk today about leadership during stressful times. David, I'm going to ask you five or so questions about leadership leadership teams and would love your wisdom. We're going to start with this. What keeps some leadership teams really calm and effective during changing and stressful times? And just to put a quick footnote on it, obviously with the advent of AI, the market's going up, but job loss is still very serious. Three companies announced layoffs this week. I think he had PayPal, Coinbase and Meta platforms continues on layoffs. Just a lot of different stresses out there. How do you keep leadership teams calm or how do they stay calm during changing and stressful times?
- [01:38]
David Pivnick
Yeah, Scott, thanks for having me and always, always a pleasure to chat. I mean, look, the first and easiest part of that answer is effective leaders, which I recognize is a bit of a dodge to the question, but I do think having effective leaders at the top of an organization or the top of a given team are going to be key because they're going to have built a rapport with the various members of the team. They're going to have a good vision. They're going to know what makes their team members tick and how to get through and resonate and communicate effectively to keep everybody growing in the same direction and relatively calm and keeping them moving effectively. I think more precise there more broadly, I guess, beyond just individual leaders. I think it's critical to have a plan in place, a vision or a direction for a company, for a project, for a team, whatever it might be, might be on a macro level, might be more micro, but having a real plan that you're working towards I think is critical. There's always going to be challenges, there's always going to be tough times, but understanding and making sure that it's clearly communicated what the team or the organization is attempting to accomplish directionally, having good checkpoints along to measure progress and then constantly revisiting the plan and making adjustments as necessary when challenges arise. Because it is very much when, not if, I think is critical. And I think taking those steps where you have effective leaders in place and importantly, you have a real concrete plan with meaningful steps and progress evaluations and updates along the way, I think it's something that people could really buy into, get behind and then use that as a sort of internal mental level set when challenges or tough times come up because you know, you're working towards a broader goal, that there's been intelligent and deliberate thought put into that goal and that things are still on it on a more macro level, moving forward and progressing even when you've got, you know, general challenges on a day to day basis.
- [03:46]
Scott Becker
And let me ask you this question. You know, there are. You do an incredible job in this compartmentalization and staying really focused regardless of what's going on around you. How do leaders, how do you stay focused when there's so much constant noise and change out there? How do you go about doing that, staying focused on the task at hand? I know recently you're responding in rfp. You've always got a ton of great cases going on, big ticket litigation and a lot of competing interests. How do you stay very focused on the most important thing with so many different things going on?
- [04:20]
David Pivnick
I mean, I think there's a lot that goes into that. I mean, some of it is just a mental skill set and being able to separate personal from business and prioritize things again, both personal, family, friendships, business, clients. There's always lots of demands on anybody's life and anybody's time. So being able to compartmentalize those things I think is critical. And it's something I'm able to do. And I think it is just bearing in mind that there are different facets of everybody's life and trying to work within that in terms of, you know, on given tasks and prioritizing. I think it's trying to do exactly that. I look at every week at the beginning of the week. I mean, I do at the beginning of the year, I put together a business plan and I also put together a sort of analysis of inventory in terms of work caseload and what priorities are coming up, what deadline. I do that at the beginning of every month. I think about what travel I'm going to have coming up, what are real deadlines in terms of trial date, a significant argument date, a deposition or a briefing date. And then I look at the more softer deadlines, things that need to get done to keep clients happy and to move the ball forward in litigation where there might not be deadlines. And then I start working through my schedule and prioritizing what is truly most important that could be the most pressing in terms of the urgency of a deadline. It could be most significant because the matter is the most demanding on my time or has the most significant potential ramifications. But I actively am thinking about that stuff. And then I do it on a weekly and even daily basis. Every night before I go to bed, I look at my calendar for the next day and make sure that I'm going to have the time to accomplish what I need to accomplish or adjust. And every day when I wake up, I revisit that because sometimes there's emails that come in overnight. So I think I am not necessarily the most organized in every facet of my life, but I have a pretty good ongoing recognition of the various components of my life and what needs to be done. And I'm constantly checking in, whether it's on my calendar or with family or just calling my wife for personal things and getting a level set of what's going on with her or our kids. So for me, it's just constant attention to priorities and tasks, waking them up into component parts and then constantly, constantly, constantly going back and revisiting what needs to be done and making sure I'm tracking appropriately and where I'm not, where I'm lagging in some way, adjusting time or trying to bring in more team members, you know, to help and make sure that we can get back on
- [06:59]
Scott Becker
track and talk about. We periodically see leaders that are all over the place. And that doesn't mean they're good or they're bad, but they're all over the place. And, you know, obviously President Trump periodically seems to be all over the place. Leaders on the other political side, you can't quite follow what they're trying to do. Mamdani wants to raise revenues while he's chasing away people that are wealthy and pay the revenues and attacking them. So periodically see leaders that are all over the place. Certainly you see it with some of our sports coaches, some of the coaches we look to to try and lead some of our favorite team. Give us an example. When you see a leader all over the place versus really focused. And the impact potentially on organizations.
- [07:44]
David Pivnick
Yeah, I mean, look, I think the impact is significant because I started with the first answer. I believe it's sort of critical for people within a company or a team to have goals that are well aligned with one another. Which means you need to know what the organization is aiming towards and what the goal is. It needs to have been well communicated and you need to have buy in. And so that is usually going to be a top down process driven by management or a coach or the CEO of an organization or a leader of a given team. So where the leader is all over the place, that whole concept of a when things are going well, making sure that everybody's optimizing their performance to drive in the right direction is really tough because the leaders all over the place. But when things are going poorly, it's even more difficult. And so I look at it, if we have a case where there's lots of differences in strategy, we're going to end up spending a lot of time and money and upsetting a client by not pulling together the right resources and putting together a comprehensive plan and then pushing towards it. Obviously plans are going to change, we're going to make adjustments, there'll be factual development, things will change, that will force some pivot. But I think it's critically important to have that internal initial level set and goal so that you're at least giving the organization the opportunity to succeed. And so your question, when you're talking about leaders who are all over the place, I think it ends up just being a significant distraction for the team in good times or bad times. Because you can't get everybody to be optimizing performance and moving together effectively if they don't know where they're supposed to be moving. And that's what the leader should be trying to accomplish.
- [09:34]
Scott Becker
Give me a question. Any answer. Answer this question. Best example of a sports leader stays calm under pressure. Anybody that you could think of and anybody you could think of that is that has sort of blown the boat on this. Did not stay calm under pressure. Anybody that comes to your mind around these two questions.
- [09:56]
David Pivnick
So I, I think Greg Popovich has always been a coach and a leader. You know, I think he's got lots, lots of opinions he leans on these days that I don't always outside the basketball court necessarily always agree with. But he's got, I think a great way with the players. He always kept his teams composed and playing well. Their, their team defense never wavered. They never really felt like they were out of, out of a game. He put his players consistently in a position to succeed. He managed to keep a lot of cohesion. There were some guys who came in and out. But over the years, they were just a consistently excellent team, except for the couple years where they had bad injuries. And I don't think it ever really wavered, whether it was playing LeBron in the Finals and dealing with injuries, whether it was managing difficult situations with Kawhi being out, but sort of keeping the team culture intact. In later years, earlier years when he was navigating a transition from David Robinson to Tim Duncan, he always seemed to prioritize excellence and the team vision and coming together and winning. And I think he always did an exceptional job. In terms of, you know, poorer examples of that, I think it's hard to pinpoint one or two examples. There are lots of coaches who I think have made decisions that didn't reflect the broader goals or the broader vision. The one that I think is most painful to me, and I've even repeated later in his career as well, when Tom Thibodeau was the coach of the Bulls and built a team that was entirely designed around Derrick Rose and then completely overworked Derrick Rose, including continuing to play him in a playoff game. But they were up 14 with a minute to go. And that always felt to me like a complete unforced error and was never necessary. They were going to win that game. And the whole trajectory of the Bulls and of Derrick Rose's career might have been very different if he hadn't been playing garbage time minutes in a game that was already over. And I think that that says a lot because part of what I think makes coachimito effective is the fact that he drives his players hard. He's very intense, but I think the inability to adjust. And we see so many teams and players now embracing load management. And I think sometimes that goes to the opposite extreme. But I think recognizing time and place and the need to protect your star is also critical. And I think that's an instance where he just let his overall intensity and desire to push forward at 110% at all times get in the way of the greater good of the team.
- [12:39]
Scott Becker
Let me ask you one more question. We've had great leadership over the course of my career at McGuire Woods. I've been there for almost 30 years. We've had three different transitions of chairmans and managing partners in the time I've been at the firm. Each one of them has really been fantastic. Whether Bill Strickland is managing partner with Bob Burris back in the day, Richard Cohen, Tom Cabinets, and now Jonathan Harmon and Tracy Walker. Talk for a moment of the stability of John and Tracy's Leadership. Just talk for one moment about that because it's really been something to watch, quite frankly at our law firm. And he lessons from that stability.
- [13:18]
David Pivnick
Yeah, look, I think first of all, John and Tracy are both, and I say this not just because of their roles in my relationship to them, but with sincerity. I could not ask for two better leaders for the law firm, both as people where they're just high character men who take personal interactions very seriously as well as professional interactions and are just great people to spend time with and to be representative of a firm that I invest so much of my time in. But they also do instill confidence. They both have terrific vision. They communicate that vision clearly when big changes or meaningful, smaller changes are coming. They're constantly advising the partnership and making sure associates and other members of the firm are involved and aware. And they're actively thinking about the future, not just a few months down the road, but years down the road. And so some of that, and it's top of mind recently, and I just had a discussion with Tracy about this about a week ago, is the firm being very active in thinking about how AI is going to impact the legal industry and how the firm needs to be thinking about AI and carefully, cautiously, but prudently relying on and incorporating AI because it's necessary in some ways for client service and being effective. And so I think having that vision, the transparency of communication and the knowledge that they're looking at the market and the industry as a whole and thinking about where we're going years ahead is critical. But that also ties back to your initial question about the cohesion. It's very helpful having folks who have been in those roles for several years and where we know they're going to continue with those roles for several years. Because I think there is an intuitive comfort in knowing it's not just people who are, you know, making, for example, short sighted decisions because it may juice the numbers this year or may pay off financially with a bonus in a given year. These are folks who are invested in the long term future of the firm because they're going to be there for that long term future. And I think that's incredibly critical to an organization's success, but also really resonate with everybody else within the organization where they know leadership is very much tied in as well. And I think it's harder to pinpoint examples like that on the business level. But certainly there are many sports teams over the years where a general manager has made decisions on a sort of all in basis at the trade deadline because they thought they could save their job and it didn't really matter what happened to the organization long term. I think there's a lot of positive to be said for management continuity and knowing that leadership is going to be bought in and tied in for many years to come.
- [16:12]
Scott Becker
Thank you. And one more question. Any other business leader that you've seen inside, outside the law firm, I'll give one, which is this Judy Faulkner. Judy Faulkner, who runs Epic, who's done this incredibly calm, steady, continuous job over the long term of improving and upgrading Epic, which has become the leading EHR company in the world. Any particular business leader that you think of who's just been calm and disciplined through all this different noise over the years? A Jamie Dimon type has done an incredible job at JP Morgan. Anyone else that comes to mind as an example?
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David Pivnick
Yeah, I mean, it's not a JP Morgan level example, but it's someone we both know and I have a tremendous amount of respect for. But I, you know, I think Brian Cole, Dr. Brian Cole at Midwest Orthopedic is a great example where he has served in various roles within the practice currently, you know, as his managing partner. And I think he has done a terrific job as that practice has grown, as some of his business relationships have expanded and shifted. In some times he's done a really good job staying at the pulse of the medical practice, of the medical teaching practice, of working with various teams, of taking care of patients, but also of navigating the personality conflicts that could come up when you have a group of very sophisticated, very talented, successful physicians working together, understanding each of their interests and building a unit and a team that has really come together in a way that's been very successful for the practice of regional individually. But I think Brian and Chuck Bush, Joseph, you know, his predecessor, very much similar in nature and also very talented. I think they've done a great job and you know, I've built a good relationship with them over the years, but it's been fun to watch as they've grown and navigated challenges that confront many of their peers in the healthcare industry.
- [18:13]
Scott Becker
No, I absolutely love that and couldn't agree more. David Pivnick again, one of our favorite guests and partners, Quite frankly, at McGuire woods on on the Becker Private Equity and the Becker Business podcast. Truly remarkable as always. David, thank you for joining us today.
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David Pivnick
Thanks for having me, Scott.
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