legal sanity

Not too long ago, I discussed the making of law firm evangelists - lawyers and non-lawyer personnel inspired to voluntarily shout a firm's praises from the rafters. In a follow-up post, I explored the interplay of employee evangelism, law firm values and leadership. I concluded that "identification with company values may spark employee evangelism; but it's up to law firm leaders to fan the spark into a flame" over time.

David Maister sheds some more light on this interplay in a recent blog post titled Dangerous Rubbish About Leadership. Maister asserts that "the truly great professional firm builders [ ] led not by the clarity of their vision of the future, nor even because of their better understanding of finances or marketing, but because they were able to get even highly talented, extraordinarily mobile people to rally around a fervently held, common way of doing things - a world view, a philosophy, a set of principles, values or standards."

Maister's words compel us to augment the leadership-evangelist connection by fusing it with law firm success. Advocating the same web of connections is this article on employee engagement. Defining such engagement as "the emotional and intellectual commitment employees demonstrate for the organization for which they work," the piece offers "the math" that makes "the financial case for investing in high employee engagement." This is black letter fodder for law firms skeptical about the importance of employee evangelism. As the article states so simply and clearly: High Employee Engagement = Competitive Advantage.

I'll take it a step further and offer a related equation for the legal profession: High Employee Engagement = Lawyer Happiness. Having inspirational workplace leaders (and managers) and work that aligns with our deeply held values, standards and principles - this is the stuff that career contentment is made of. If more law firms made employee engagement a priority, you'd likely see much less of the lawyer discontent regularly examined here at legal sanity and cited in a recent UK poll - the City & Guilds Happiness Index [flagged by Robert Ambrogi and discussed by Gerry Riskin].

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Pursuant to my latest post on the importance of lawyer listening skills, both Gerry Riskin and Patrick J. Lamb pointed out that there's "a big difference between knowing that you should listen and knowing how to do so effectively" (to borrow Lamb's words and emphasis). We've all been stuck in the should zone at one time or another (think verbal commitment to diet and exercise made time and again). For whatever reason, inability or disinclination, we can't see our way clear from resolution to execution. When it comes to listening to our clients, lawyers pay a price for failing to take action. That cost is conveyed in this article on attorney-client assistance programs. Under these initiatives, state bars first direct complaints about lawyers to an "intake person" instead of leading with a formal complaint procedure. According to the piece, the complaints often stem from clients feeling unheard. As one quoted program director puts it: "If attorneys spent a little bit more time listening to their clients and talking to them about what's going on in their case [ ] I suspect this program would have a lot less business." The ripple effect of our listening lapses can also be gleaned from this Knowledge @ Wharton article on the exponential power of negative word-of-mouth [tipped by Ian McKee at The Power of Influence]. Tracking a recent customer dissatisfaction study, the piece states that people (read clients) are bound to talk about their negative consumer experiences and that their "complaints have an even greater impact on [people] who were not directly involved as the story spreads and is embellished." Researchers reported that almost half of the study's participants said that they've "avoided a store in the past because of someone else's negative experience." Since most lawyers survive and thrive on repeat business from clients and on client referrals, we simply can't afford the fallout from our failure to listen.

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In my readings today, I came upon a great postscript to my commentary on Big Law's Missing Women. The newest Coast to Coast podcast by bloggers Robert Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams addresses the gender gap in the legal profession. Among the guest commentators is Lauren Stiller Rikleen, a law firm partner who - along with her new book Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women's Success in the Law - features prominently in the recent New York Times article that's launched multiple discussion threads on the paucity of women in Big Law's partnership ranks.

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I've been closely following the cyber debate and dialog generated by Timothy L. O'Brien's New York Times article Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms? While I think it sheds light on a very important and thought-provoking subject, the article doesn't answer the title question. Nor does it do much to share the varied voices and stories of women who've opted out of Big Law partnership. Instead, we're asked to view the problem O'Brien spotlights, and its many possible causes, largely through a lens trained on a woman dedicated to Big Law practice and partnership for over a quarter century - Proskauer Rose's Bettina B. Plevan. The piece addresses a lawyer-life issue that engages our emotions. So, I hoped to hear more from women who've lived and breathed the often difficult decision to leave Big Law and/or its partnership track. (Ms. Plevan also seems to need some direct input from departing female colleagues, since she's left querying: "What de-motivates them to want to continue working in the law?") That's why I'm very grateful for the conversation the article's compelled in the blogosphere. The commentary surrounding posts by Carolyn Elefant; Patrick J. Lamb; Bruce MacEwen; The Wall Street Journal's Law Blog; and Monica Bay (among others) have given me some of the first-person insight I was seeking as I read O'Brien's coverage on Big Law's missing women.

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I've written about the ways lawyers can benefit from engaging in reflective practice and boosting our listening skills. I've been a student and practitioner of active listening for much of my legal career and I've found it pivotal to connecting with people and building authentic, rewarding and lasting business relationships. Ron McDaniel of Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing (flagged by blogger Dave Lorenzo) echoes my belief and experience in a recent post captioned Your next conversation: 6 Things that will make it different. Ron challenges us to make the following "minor changes" the next time we converse with someone we know:

1) Listen 50% more
2) Ask twice as many questions
3) Hold eye contact 50% more
4) Make slight contact, or hold contact slightly longer
5) Show sincere sympathy or enthusiasm for something they say
6) Ask them if there is anything you could help out with

These are practical and sound active listening tips that we all can follow. But I would recommend that lawyers take the challenge even further and employ Ron's advice each and every time we converse with current or prospective clients. Since most of his tips - like many aspects of active listening - are readily adaptable to different modes of conversation, it doesn't matter if we're connecting in-person or by e-mail, blackberry or telephone.

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In conjunction with JD Bliss, on Tuesday, March 28, 2006, I'm giving a webinar on "Fearless Networking" How to Get Past Your Fears and Network Effectively.

The 60-minute program offers practical guidance on overcoming the fear and misunderstanding that compels many lawyers to avoid this key form of business prospecting, often to their own detriment.

The program material derives from my own experience as a big firm and solo practitioner. It also draws on information, ideas and dialogue I've cultivated over time as a provider of training and development programs for lawyers and other service professionals.

Along with other networking skills, strategies and pointers, webinar participants will learn:

• Why networking is not about hard sells, palm-pressing and ego-boosting
• Conversation tips that help you instantly connect with other people
• How naturally shy people can become effective networkers by choosing their comfort zones
• Why the typical elevator pitch is a myth
• Networking techniques that foster valuable, long-term personal and professional relationships
• A 15-day game plan to bring your networking to the next level

You can register for the webinar online - the early bird rate applies through March 21, 2006.

I hope you'll join me on March 26th. If you want to sample my take on the topic in the interim, you can read an article on Fearless Networking (pdf) I recently wrote for Strategies: The Journal of Legal Marketing (an offline publication of the Legal Marketing Association).

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Since writing this post about the making of law firm evangelists, I've thought a lot about what it takes to create a corps of lawyers and non-lawyer staff stirred to voluntarily shout a firm's praises from the rafters. I know that this corps might form by way of an organic, grassroots rally around a beloved firm. But, it's more likely that employee evangelists are cultivated over time by an inspired and inspiring law firm leader. This conclusion has (re)kindled my interest in the subject of lawyer leadership. So, I was happy to come across a new article by Hildebrandt consultants Dr. Larry Richard and Susan Raridon Lambreth called What Does It Take to Develop Effective Law Firm Leaders? In it, the authors stress that the need for law firm leadership is "greater than ever" and that leaders are more 'made' than 'born.'" After clarifying the differences between management ("depends on analytical, rational, data-based, cognitive strategies to be effective") and leadership ("much more people-focused, inspirational, emotional, non-linear and visceral"), the article sets out the characteristics of effective leaders - Honest, Competent, Forward-looking, and Inspiring - along with related competencies and behaviors. The first of these characteristics - Honesty - caught my attention because of another article I'd recently read on Corporate Values and Employee Cynicism. That article consists of an interview with professors Sandra Cha and Amy Edmondson, who've studied what happens, and what can be done, when employees view a charismatic business leader (one who motivates "people by creating a vision that revolves around some set of meaningful higher ideals or values") as hypocritical; that is, as acting contrary to corporate values employees hold dear. Their insights confirm that identification with company values may spark employee evangelism; but it's up to law firm leaders to fan the spark into a flame. If you're interested, you can read the larger scholarly work this interview draws from: When values backfire: Leadership, attribute and disenchantment in a values-driven organization (pdf). The Be Excellent blog also has some interesting things to say about Defining Leadership and the Qualities of a Leader.

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Since starting this blog almost two years ago, I've regularly read and pointed to the insightful posts at Chris Bailey's The Alchemy of Soulful Work. Well, Chris has been hard at work revamping his site. It's now called Bailey WorkPlay and Chris welcomes us to his new venture with this message: "Bailey WorkPlay believes that great work and exciting workplaces are defined by their ability to actively incorporate elements of workplay on an everyday basis. It's workplay that drives us toward greater meaning in our work and actions [original emphasis]." In one of his inaugural posts - entitled Is There Room For 'We' In Your Elevator? - Chris provides a great addendum to my recent musings on self-expression and business relationships. I'm grateful for his clarity and wisdom on this and other topics. Also boasting a redo is Patrick J. Lamb's In Search of Perfect Client Service. His blog's sharp new design is courtesy of Kevin O'Keefe's lexBlog, which helped me launch legal sanity back in the day. Check out both new sites and note the changes for your blogroll and feeds.

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In my last post on lawyer discontent and client dissatisfaction, I suggested that this dual malaise has a common cause: a breakdown of the lawyer-client relationship. There are many takes on what it takes to revitalize business relations in disrepair. Adding to the ensemble is "loyalty expert" Fred Reichheld's new book, The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth. I haven't read the book yet, but I sampled its message in Reichheld's recent article for Harvard's Working Knowledge called A Satisfied Customer Isn't Enough. According to Reichheld, companies need to comprehend the "economic value that results from building better customer relationships." There's a direct correlation between great customer relationships and a company's positive, long-term economic growth. To help businesses understand the value of "deep" customer relations, Reichheld came up with a system for measuring an organization's performance from the customer's perspective. The system involves an evaluation of company "promoters" - people who answer "yes" to the "ultimate question: would you recommend us to a friend?" and company "detractors" - customers who "generate negative word of mouth" and readily defect to the competition. The assessment yields what Reichheld terms the company's Net Promoter Score (NPS). As far as metrics go, I find this very interesting. Reichheld's insights pair well with a great post from morepartnerincome in which guest blogger John Remsen, Jr. sheds light on various law firm client feedback programs. For a different angle on facilitating strong lawyer-client connections, check out Jim Calloway's two part article on The Client-Centered Law Practice (and Part 2) [thanks to Dan Hull for the tip].

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When I was a kid, I often pondered the age-old question: which came first, the chicken or the egg? Just when I thought I had the answer, someone would offer input that plunged me back into uncertainty. My memory of this childhood mental exercise was jarred by Gerry Riskin's recent post entitled Client Satisfaction with Law Firms Plummets. In it, Riskin reports that the latest BTI Consulting Group survey of corporate counsel found that only "30.7% of large and Fortune 1000 companies recommend their primary law firms" and that "an astonishing 53.7% of clients ousted their primary law firms in the past 18 months." In addition to capturing my attention, this post and information inspired commentary from bloggers Dan Hull, Tom Kane and Robert Ambrogi. In his post, Ambrogi relays a BTI principal's statement that a root cause of the reported unhappiness and attrition is law firm failure to keep up with what's important to clients. This is not the first report of widespread malaise among legal service consumers and it likely won't be the last. As I stated in an earlier post on the legal profession's Broken Windows, the typical lawyer-client relationship is in a state of decay and disrepair and both sides are suffering as a result. I could accept this as a given and move on to think about possible remedies. But, I just can't shake the begging question about the genesis of the malady: which came first, lawyer discontent or client dissatisfaction?

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Dispute resolution expert Leonard L. Riskin of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law sent me an e-mail about upcoming programs on mindfulness in law and dispute resolution. In a two-part interview he did last year with Mediate.com, Riskin defines mindfulness as a "way of paying attention moment to moment without judgment to whatever is going on in the mind and in the body -- including thoughts, physical sensations and emotions." He adds that "one cultivates mindfulness, or the ability to be mindful, in meditation and then brings a mindful perspective or awareness into everyday life." The benefits of applying mindfulness to the practice of law are also nicely set out in this article on cultivating Peace of Mind. If you're interested in learning more about how mindfulness relates to lawyering and dispute resolution, check out this list of mindfulness events coming soon to a venue near you.

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Last week, I suggested that a "disconnect of self from self" - our losing sight of what sparks and supports our curiosity, interests and desires - is a root cause of the widespread lawyer discontent we regularly experience, read and hear about. I also shared how this disconnect impairs our ability to meaningfully connect with others in our business and personal lives. I understand that many people balk at the notion of self-reflection and self-expression as vital business skills. Some resist self-focus because it raises the specter of the robber barons of yesterday (and today) - people often pejoratively described as Self-Absorbed; Selfish; Self-Centered; and Self-Aggrandizing. Others dismiss it as the stuff of new age rhetoric and pop psychology. Then there are those who believe that there's little to no self in healthy business relationships; it's all about the consumers we serve and what we can do to help them thrive. This last view is memorialized in a recent Law Marketing Portal article on Delivering an Elevator Pitch. Launching from the premise that "[e]ffective networking starts with a great Elevator Pitch," author Cheryl Barbato asserts that "in less than 20 seconds, you can effectively communicate how you offer value and benefit and open the door for business." Describing the elements of the Pitch, she instructs: "When developing your statement, it is key to think in terms of your clients. Don't think about what matters to you [.] Your Elevator Pitch should not be about you, it must be about YOUR CLIENTS." While creating passionate consumers is a great goal, I think Barbato misses the mark. Business relationships are as much about valuing and evincing our selves as they are about reaching and helping others. Both aspects (self and other) need to be expressed and honored to foster lasting connections for business success and satisfaction.

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