legal sanity

I’ve previously discussed the importance of inspiring law firm associates to become law firm evangelists. I’ve also suggested that this transformation can be accomplished in part via employee engagement initiatives like mentoring and coaching.

While these engagement initiatives can do a lot to foster a sense of passion and purpose in the associate workforce, they’re bound to fall way short unless the firm’s partners/leaders are equally invested in the change effort – an effort that, in most instances, will require them to reinvent the typical partner-associate business relationship.

This kind of top down investment in law firm sustainability seems like a no-brainer; especially in light of recent stats on the high rate of associate attrition. Yet, a post by Tom Collins at the morepartnerincome blog titled Why Law Partners Hoard Work suggests that it may very well be a tough sell.

Referring to a current survey of midsize law firms, Collins reports that partners are not sharing the workload – or their knowledge and guidance - with associates. Instead of delegating, “mentoring talent” and “training others,” they’re hoarding work because their distribution is largely keyed to their “individual production.” Collins asserts that this status quo will only change if midsize firms “rethink partner compensation” and embrace personal production as just one of several determining factors.

David Maister offers us another spin on the hoarding partner problem Collins highlights. In a post called Don’t Compromise – Take Turns, Maister shares that a key to any great business relationship is mutual give and take. He says: “Employees know that most of the time, the organization is going to be run for the benefit of the owners and the bosses. But if occasionally, just occasionally, the employees needs become front and center and receive true attention, the commitment to the relationship is strengthened.”

Maister and Collins offer some great insight into reapproaching and nurturing the associate-partner business relationship. The subject of reinvention is also under discussion at Rosa Say’s blog, Talking Story. Say and her Ho’ohana Community are hosting a forum on Reinventions at Work and in Business. Their insightful posts offer up some good food for thought on employee evangelism, leadership, work creativity and more.

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A recent blog post from Susan Abbott’s customer experience crossroads alerted me to a Deloitte study and report entitled: It’s 2008: Do You Know Where Your Talent Is? (pdf). The study looks at the “emerging talent crisis” and related “contest for human capital” in the new marketplace – an increasingly competitive global market characterized by “creative and technological advancements” and imminent vacancies created by a wave of Baby Boomer retirements.  

Although the report offers a wide variety of insights and examples relevant to law firms on a quest to attract, develop and retain talented practitioners, I found its coverage on The Disengaged Employee particularly important to the legal profession.

Against a backdrop of some eye-opening statistics, the report addresses steps managers can take to “reduce the losses caused by an exhausted and demoralized workforce.”  Notably, the report identifies “workplace relationships” – specifically, the employee-boss relationship - as “a crucial and often overlooked source of disengagement.” To remedy this problem, it suggests that organizations make leadership development a priority when revamping their “talent strategies.”

After reading the Deloitte report, I came across an interesting CareerJournal.com article that meshes well with the report’s message. Titled Construction Firm Rebuilds Managers to Make Them Softer, the piece focuses on the positive impact that executive coaching has had on the managers and employees of one construction company, the Kitchell Corporation. Kitchell started its coaching program in 2001 in response to “a looming management shortage.” According to the article, its executives believe that “the coaching is producing better bosses and more motivated staff.”

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Some time ago, I commented on Thane Rosenbaum’s book The Myth of Moral Justice. In my review, I focused on his perception of the legal profession as devoid of morality and his concomitant call for lawyers to once again regard themselves as members of a healing profession.

A very interesting aspect of the book that I didn’t highlight, however, is Rosenbaum’s belief that the key to the law’s much-needed morality boost is the proverbial day in court. Only at trial, he asserts, do people have a real opportunity to share their stories of hurt, grief, disappointment and other injury. It’s this storytelling – this chance to speak up and be heard - that promotes the healing that the law and lawyers are meant to facilitate.

A nice companion piece to Rosenbaum’s theory is this recent mediate.com article on The Satisfactions of Litigation. In it, lawyer and ADR professional Charles Parselle states that "very good reasons exist why people routinely prefer the litigation system rather than alternative dispute resolution systems." They see the courts as optimum forums for gaining vindication, a sense of empowerment and "a stamp of legitimacy." As Rosenbaum does, Parselle likens courtrooms to "the public square, the place where citizens gather to be heard and to vent."

Giving visual and other support for the courthouse as public square analogy is a recent, photo-captioned New York Times article titled State to Pay Woman Injured by a Flying Beach Umbrella [tipped by WSJ.com’s Law Blog]. The photo depicts the injured woman and her attorney, courthouse in background, standing under a replica of the large beach umbrella that flew up from its mooring and struck her forehead. In the piece, the lawyer says that he and his client intended the display to send this cautionary message: "Summer's coming. [ ] Believe it or not, beach umbrellas like this can be a real hazard to your health."

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Yesterday, my wife made a late-night run to one of our local big name supermarkets. As she approached the checkout area, she saw a line of about a dozen people waiting for the sole cashier on duty. Noticing the store manager, my wife politely asked if another cashier could open up. He looked at her and gruffly responded that someone was coming out, but that people should expect to wait when they shop so late at night.

Being the shrinking violet that she is (not), my wife pointed out that the store is open until midnight and prominently displays a sign saying “we’re open late for your shopping convenience.” She also told the manager to remember that there are other late-night supermarkets in town and that his words actually impact way more than the dozen or so individuals consuming them in that moment.

To be sure, my wife’s experience last night – which she’s since shared with a number of local friends and acquaintances - was far from unique. We’ve all been on the receiving end of poor customer service. But, it does point up the potential dangers of treating client connections as ephemeral transactions rather than lasting relationships. It also highlights the fallout – in the form of negative word-of-mouth - that can come from sending mixed messages about our willingness and ability to serve our clients.

Most of us can see how we shoot ourselves in the foot when we regularly overpromise and underdeliver in our client dealings. We understand that we damage or ruin our relationship with the client and lose them as a referral source.

But what’s not always so clear to us is that, much of the time, our failure to meet client expectations derives from our own lack of authenticity. We’re simply not honest with ourselves about the work we’re adept at and passionate about, the deadlines we can reasonably meet and our desire to be available to clients. If we aren't coming clean to ourselves about our strengths and weaknesses, boundaries and sincere interests then, chances are, we’re treating our clients to the same deception.

As a timeless post from What’s Your Brand Mantra so aptly relates, we need to "be the change we want to see."

  Perhaps, then, my wife would have fared better if the supermarket had posted this sign last night: "We're open until midnight, but we can't provide you with fast and efficient checkout or plentiful and affable employees after 9pm.

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Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the making of client evangelists. Specifically, I’ve been looking at how this kind of consumer zeal fits into the larger canvass of the emerging experience economy.

The question that keeps coming up for me is: What really steers the client experience in this new era? According to a recent post and related comment thread from Seth Godin, the consumer experience ship may have co-captains. That’s because businesses are starting to consider a new version of traditional CRM (Client Relationship Management) - - it’s called CMR (Client Managed Relationships). Dubbing it a “third generation” CRM strategy, a post from the Customer Relationship Management blog says that this new wave is all “about listening to the customer and enabling companies to finally put the ‘C’ in CRM.”

Adding to the discussion is a post in which David Maister asks What Does Client-Centricity Really Mean? Maister’s reasoned answer comes in the form of a list depicting “increasing levels of client focus.” At the base “Level 1: We do a better job than our competitors at listening to customers and work hard at finding out what they like and don't like about dealing with us.” At the list’s optimal opposite end, “Level 11: Clients believe that if it is ever a trade-off, we will put the clients' interests ahead of our own.”

Making another point on the subject of consumer experience is this article on The Meaning of Hybrids. It discusses research into why people buy hybrid cars. According to researchers interviewed for the piece, saving money isn’t “the primary motivator” for the purchase. Rather, we’re motivated by a desire to add to or edit the personal narrative that underlies our identities. We’re “looking for either new ways to either advance the storyline we like, or change the one we don't like. The idea of what a car means can be one of those important story elements.” The personal storylines of hybrid car purchasers often include a strong “desire for a society and a world where people work together for common goals.”

It will be interesting to see how our clients’ personal narratives influence the way we package and deliver our legal services as the experience marketplace continues to manifest.

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For some time now, I’ve been reading Pamela Slim’s terrific blog, Escape from Cubicle Nation. Two of her newer posts sound candid wake up calls for all of us considering the cause and effect of the rampant disengagement and attrition plaguing lawyers and law firms today. Her words are powerful and, judging from the response they’ve garnered in cyber space – including a big nod from blogger-of-note, Guy Kawasaki  - resonate with many people contemplating their lives in and outside corporate America.

In her first post, Slim crafts a letter to the corporate leaders of the world. From her perch as a “newly minted rebel,” she address the drastic steps they’d have to take to help their “brightest, most creative, hard-working and passionate employees” resist her call to throw off “the yoke of lethargy, oppression and resentment” and start their own business. Among the nuggets of wisdom Slim offers are these: (1) “If you help your employees grow and develop in their career even if they plan to leave the company, you will create an extremely loyal workforce;” and (2) “Imagine what their life is like. Who is waiting at home for them? What kind of dreams do they have? What makes them really happy?”

In a later post, Slim writes a companion letter to the employees of the world’s large corporations. A running theme of her message here is that we’re ultimately responsible for our own misery and happiness. So, she says, people should plan for the long-term by considering what kind of work energizes them, where they want to live, how much money they really need, how much time they want to spend at work and the kind of people they want to be around.

Slim’s insights pair well with an article I recently read on maximum workplace engagement by Dean Robb, Ph.D [hat tip to the Be Excellent blog]. In it, Robb cites a recent survey finding that just “20 percent of workers feel very passionate about their jobs; less than 15 percent feel strongly energized by their work; and only 31 percent (strongly or moderately) believe that their employer inspires the best in them.” Based on these and similar statistics, Robb declares workplace engagement and commitment to be at an all-time low. The antidote for the dip, he proposes, is to cultivate a workforce of people who “actually care, emotionally and spiritually, about the purpose — the raison d'etre — of the enterprise, and about the part they play in it.” This connection to purpose, in turn, is rooted in an “authentic, two-way give-and-take between individual and organization” – an exchange that values the individual as a unique being and not just a corporate cog.

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I came across a trio of articles that shed some light on what’s fueling the lawyer burnout and lawyer attrition that’s prevalent in our profession today.

In Lawyers and the Success Trap, we’re told that that achieving in the law can be a double-edged sword. Lawyers typically succeed by devoting themselves to “a particular specialty or focused area of the practice.” This takes many years of intense effort. The lawyer’s dilemma, the piece asserts, is that we end up jettisoning our own fulfillment as we navigate the terrain of job expertise toward our ultimate goal of success.

A second article, titled Problematic Perfectionism, illustrates another aspect of the lawyer’s dilemma. Opening with the assertion that the legal world still requires (and rewards) a mindset of perfectionism, the piece explores the price we pay for our “quest for a flawless existence.” Innovation is one of the identified victims of the quest since our drive to be perfect keeps us from “jumping in and trying new things” and “being creative.” Some think that we should choose to innovate rather than perfect. But others suggest that, if we can’t stand the fire (of perfectionism), we should get out of the legal profession.

Offering yet another perspective on what’s ailing lawyers today is a CareerJounal.com article discussing why Life-Firm Life Doesn’t Suit Some Young Associates. It quotes one expert’s finding that attrition among big firm associates is at an all-time high. Their departure results from a coalescence of factors. Because the road to partnership is “long and arduous” and partners “are working harder than ever,” many associates think that big firm rewards simply aren’t worth the personal sacrifice. Their perspective is fueled by a generational attitude about the importance of having a life and “contributing to the greater good.”

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I first heard about client evangelism through Matt Homann’s blog, the [non]billble hour. Matt had just finished reading Ben McConnell’s and Jackie Huba’s great book on the subject, Creating Customer Evangelists, and was in the process of conducting a client audit in accordance with its core principles.

Based on Matt’s introduction, I became an avid reader of the Church of the Customer Blog , also by McConnell and Huba. Their ideas and observations have sparked my own inquiry into the possibility of cultivating evangelical legal service consumers and providers. Although I’ve now covered the issue from various vantage points, I still regularly revisit this question: what compels employees and clients alike to shout a firm’s (or a practitioner’s) praises until the rafters ring?

Always on the hunt for input on this front, I was pleased to find a pair of articles on fostering client fidelity. The first, called Making Clients Loyal through Service and Satisfaction, opens with the popular statistic that it “costs five to six times more in time and expense to acquire a new client than to retain and expand business from an existing one.” The piece goes on to describe ways to “build a fold of loyal clients,” including: projecting the right image; maintaining a positive and helpful attitude; communicating in a courteous and reliable manner; producing excellent work; and getting client feedback.

Similarly practical advice is dispensed in an article titled How to Think Like Your Client. The heart of its message is that we gain client loyalty by becoming well acquainted with the client’s industry and by convincing the client that we “truly care and are committed to its well-being.” The authors provide detailed “to-do” lists to guide us on the path to understanding our clients' "concerns, current business strategies, and industry.” But we’re left to discern for ourselves how we can instill client confidence in our ability to care for, and commit to, their well-being.

I like the clear and straightforward tips these articles offer. Yet, I think there’s more to the mix. A quote from a recent McConnell-Huba article - Customer Evangelists: Spreading the Word – points to the missing ingredient. It says: “A customer evangelist is more than just a loyal customer. He or she has an emotional connection with your company.”

This kind of client connection can’t arise from a lawyer’s task mastery alone. It requires two-way, authentic human-to-human exchange, intimacy and understanding. It requires us to be well versed in feeling and conveying compassion and passion for ourselves and others. And it requires that we fervently believe in the quality and integrity of the services we provide.

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Last year, I wrote a post about reforming the typical law school curriculum. I stated: “As law students, we learn how to translate human relations into rules, rights and responsibilities – the three “rs” of legal education. As a result, we’re well-versed in transforming complex situations into a dry set of facts and applicable laws. But, we gain little to no insight into meeting the needs of the people behind the legal matters we take on. Law schools will go a long way towards fostering happier lawyers and a healthier profession if they recognize and teach the human relations skills that are so vital to optimal lawyering.”

In a recent post titled The Person Behind The Mask, David Maister similarly reflects on the importance of separating the humans from the roles they play out in our daily interactions. He observes that our success in business and life largely turns on our ability to “access the human beings behind the mask” in a way that elicits and engages their “true wishes, desires and concerns.”

Maister’s words and my own observations about this human-to-human skill set resonated loud and clear as I read a csmonitor.com article discussing why some professors are banning laptops from classrooms. The piece opens with the perspective of University of Michigan law professor Don Herzog, who shares his findings that at “any given moment in a law school class, literally 85 to 90 percent” of the students were online shopping or reading the news. As I took in Herzog’s and others’ laments about this problem of “continuous partial attention,” I wondered whether laptop use was really to blame for the students’ disengagement from the lesson of the day.

If the professors really engaged the people behind the students in front of them – if they took the time to create a curriculum that met their true wishes, desires and concerns as budding professionals and seasoned consumers of educational services – would the students still tune them out by tuning in to the laptops’ many offerings? I don’t think so. As I wrote in this post about the benefits of experience-based (or active) learning, students need to own the learning process. They need to become active participants by listening, responding and doing – all in a way that honors their needs and desires.

Once students are engaged with the course material and their professors in this interactive-participatory way, they’ll be able to benefit from the live connection talked about in this post from Kathy Sierra on Why face-to-face still matters!  The post explains why experts decree “live interaction with another human” “crucial to the brain” and superior to “any other form of communication.”

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As you know, I’m a big fan of Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen. In one of his latest posts, Garr poses a question about presentations that applies equally well to everyday business and personal communications. He asks: “What can you do to consciously reduce the nonessential?” In other words, how can we pare down our language and messages so that they’re “simple yet not watered down, trivialized, or compromised?”

Garr gives us a taste of this “elimination of the superfluous” by sharing the story of a fish monger who pares down the words on his store’s sign until he realizes that they’re entirely unnecessary - the store, by its very nature (and odor), speaks for itself. I really like this post and the accompanying comments because they highlight why story + simplicity can be powerful allies in our effort to make our communications memorable.

The importance of storytelling as a business tool is also the subject of a recent post at Mark Beese’s blog, Leadership for Lawyers. Beese cites a terrific Forbes.com article by leadership expert John Kotter titled The Power Of Stories. Kotter builds his piece around the central point that business leaders who understand the profound impact stories have on people and who “use this knowledge to make their organizations great” are the leaders “we admire and wish others would emulate.”

For more insight into storytelling for business success, check out Seth Godin’s blog post (and related Ode article) on How to tell a great story.

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I’m thrilled to announce the official re-launch of legal sanity. The blog sports a new look, updated features and a publishing platform upgrade courtesy of the talented and patient folks at lexblog. They’ve worked tirelessly to bring my concept of simple, clean and organic layout and navigation to fruition and I’m a very happy and grateful client. We’ll continue to tweak the site until it’s just right and I’ll return to my regular posting schedule this week.

As you’ll see at sidebar, this revamp also marks the debut of legal sanity’s affiliation with the Law.com Network. In that capacity, I’m joining some terrific bloggers teamed as Inside Opinions: Legal Blogs. You can catch coverage of our work at the Legal Blog Watch.

As legal sanity moves into its third year of publication, I look forward to sharing fresh and engaging ideas, observations and news on building our skills, success and satisfaction in the law and beyond. I’m also looking forward to sharing my experiences as I continue to grow my training + development business.

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