legal sanity

I spent the weekend with my extended family celebrating my brother Steven’s wedding. I had the great honor of being the rehearsal dinner’s master of ceremonies as person after person stood up to share an anecdote or two about Steven as a man, successful entrepreneur and imminent husband to a fantastic, strong, funny and very patient and giving woman.

Steven is a special guy and one of the common threads weaving through the toasts in his honor was the recognition of his extraordinary ability to befriend, relate to and interconnect people he’s met throughout his life. His social intelligence is simply outstanding and he brings this aptitude to his work at the broadcasting and marketing representation firm he founded in 1996. By all accounts, the empathy, genuine interest and humor Steven infuses into his leadership have cultivated a true sense of community and family within his firm that naturally extends out to his many clients.

So, for Steven, work in the world has really become a reflection of who is in his larger life. There’s none of the misfit or dissonance between self and career that throws so many people into a tailspin. It was very inspiring to see, hear and otherwise experience just how much has come from his efforts to put himself wholly into his career.

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Bruce MacEwen of Adam Smith, Esq. recently announced the publication of InnoVaction (pdf), the College of Law Practice Management’s new e-zine covering innovation in the practice of law. Among the noted and notable contributors are MacEwen himself and Gerry Riskin of Amazing Firms Amazing Practices.

I’m about midway through the magazine and it’s terrific. It approaches the subject of innovation from a variety of perspectives and, in doing so, demonstrates the power of collaborative thought and action.

As Riskin points out in a recent post, the collaboration on this important topic continues in a new blog, Blank Sheet of Paper And a box of crayons. The blog is the work of Merrilyn Astin Tarlton, the editor-in-chief of the ABA’s Law Practice magazine.

Collaboration is something that fortifies any effort to compel positive change in the legal profession. A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to experience this kind of collaborative power when Riskin and MacEwen volunteered their time and energy to help me test run my new training and development program on the XE Factor.

The input and diverse ideas they offered during our day together have proven invaluable and the program - as it’s since evolved – reflects the boons of our very constructive collaboration.

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I’m back from my travels and gearing up for a return to my regular blogging schedule. It was a great two weeks. I saw many historical sites I’ve wanted to visit for some time. I also had the chance to spend time with my extended family and reflect on different aspects of my life to date.

As I wound my way back through New York, I stopped at the Chautauqua Institution for an overnight with my cousins. Chautauqua is a very special community where people gather to take in the arts, learn and discuss important issues of the day in a beautiful, natural setting. Families and individuals return year after year to find “intellectual and spiritual growth and renewal.” Through the unique activities and environment it offers, Chautauqua fosters great inter-generational dialogue and understanding.

Having just been steeped in this generational exchange, I was happy to come across a recent Fast Company article touching on the topic. Titled The Future’s So Bright…, the piece captures a conversation between John Seely Brown, former chief scientist at Xerox Corporation, and high school senior Shannon O’Brien.

At the outset, Brown refers to the innovation explosion happening today and shares his “belief that we will see a new form of education emerge--not one based on being taught but one more oriented to passion-based learning within niche communities of interest.” With this new type of community-based learning, he sees the “rise of the pro-amateur class--serious explorations and creations we do for the love of doing it.”

Responding to Brown, O’Brien passes along the teenager’s perspective that “the future is a giant leap into the hopeful unknown.” Acknowledging the innovation and technological advances Brown cites, she observes that they can have the detrimental side effect of keeping people from “communicating and bonding like they used to.” She hopes that “the people of the world” will take note of this fissure and “learn to find balance between the real world of people and relationships and the cyber world, [that can be] time consuming and overpowering.”

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Executive coach Doug Sundheim has written a great post for FC Now on the Gift of Risk. In it, he relates how his coaching work has lead him to conclude that people feel “most alive” at times when they’ve “pushed themselves out of their comfort zone” and taken risks. And he’s found this to be the case regardless of the outcome of the risk-taking opportunities. Based on his conclusion, he offers this bit of wisdom: “The gift of risk-taking doesn't lie in what you achieve by risking - it lies in who you become as a result of the process. Confident. Engaged. Alive.”

Sundheim’s obeservations very much resonate for me. A couple of days ago, my vacation travels took me back to my college alma mater, the University of Michigan. When I left home for UM, it was a big leap outside the comfort zone I experienced as a sheltered suburban New York kid. But, the next four years proved to be some of the most engaging and energizing of my life. Walking the campus this week, I reconnected with the feelings of freedom, growth, learning, fun and higher purpose that I so often felt during college. Although I went to UM in the year 5 BCCE (Before Computers, Cell Phones and Emails), it seemed like I’d never left; that no time had passed since I was a student there.

Those of you who went to UM will appreciate my journey up and down South University, through the diag (stepped on the block M), to the graduate library reading room, up to the Michigan League, Bell Tower, Rackham’s grand reading room, down to State Street passing by Angel Hall, into the Michigan Union, to the Law School Quad, then to Ulrich’s. Of course, I went to the Big House and, even though it was empty, I could feel the palpable energy of 110,000 enthusiastic fans on football Saturday. I ventured to North Campus and to the Gerald Ford Presidential Library. Afterwards, I had a great dinner at Zingerman’s. The next morning, I took in Angelo’s for breakfast and then went to the incomparable arb for an amazing one-hour walk to the river, prairie, woods, open spaces and beyond.

By embracing that first opportunity UM afforded me to move outside my zone of safety, I opened myself to the many business and personal ventures that have since taught me to appreciate the gift of risk.

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At his blog, Dan Pink points us to a synopsis of a Gallup Panel poll finding that “American workers most often say they like that their jobs offer them a sense of fulfillment, provide opportunities to help people, and give them autonomy in how they accomplish their tasks.” It’s notable that personal fulfillment and altruism rank at the top of the favored job attributes. I think that many of us left law school firmly believing that we would experience both as part and parcel of life in the law.

On the road this week, I’ve thought a lot about the ways fulfillment and helping others have featured in my own career and in our country’s history. Thus far, among other places, my travels have taken me to the National Constitution Center; the Supreme Court building; Arlington National Cemetery; and to the site of Flight 93’s crash on 9/11.

This last location was particularly significant for me since my good friend, Alan Beaven, was one of Flight 93’s heroic passengers. As I’ve set out on this blog’s dedication page, Alan was a very talented environmental lawyer who saw the law’s great potential as a healing profession. He inspired me to the same vision of my profession and it’s that inspiration that continually motivates me to help others and find personal fulfillment through my work.

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A couple of months ago, I wrote about the nexus between leading and serving in the law. Contemplating “how many law firm leaders and managers think that – and act like - they’re in the business of serving the attorneys they lead and manage,” I concluded that, to “really embrace the role of a servant, they would also have to embrace the kind of business intimacy that lawyers typically eschew.”

Addressing a related topic in a recent post titled You Gotta Serve Someone, David Maister stresses the importance of cultivating a server mentality when you work for a customer or client. Noting that human beings “look for relationships, even in minor transactions,” Maister observes that the “more you focus on serving others, the more they want to be with you and give you what you want.” In a post expanding on Maister’s insights, Michelle Golden of Golden Practices notes that “service types” are often the “real stars in firms.” They’re carried to the top, in her estimation, by a potent fusion of “great attitude” and skill.

From the above commentary, it seems that law firms would be wise to consider how serving others - clients, client prospects and their own lawyers – factors into their firm culture and business philosophy. To help them along, Dick Richards of Come Gather Round shares an article he wrote on Creating A Mythology Of Customer Service.

Richards posits that, in addition to the “physical, mental, emotional and spiritual;” there’s a fifth dimension of human energy that leaders looking to optimize customer service must understand and harness. It’s the dimension that poet Robert Bly calls mythic energy. As Richards interprets it, we might “better understand customer service by examining myths about people serving other people.” Unfortunately, he continues, our culture’s “mythologies do contain tales about serving a country or god, but not serving one another.”

Given this dearth of mythic reference points about “service to others,” Richards suggests that business leaders “practice the art of leadership by creating” them. They can accomplish this by: (1) culling and sharing stories of extraordinary service from “their organization’s past and present;” and (2) encouraging employees to engage in dialogue about exceptional customer service they’ve received.

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Dick Richards of Come Gather Round has a great set of posts on the nexus between distress and change. In the initial commentary, Richards writes that distress is a prerequisite to any change in our lives. So, he concludes, “if you manage others and they need to change, don’t shield them from distress. If friends or family members need to change, don’t shield them from distress.”

In a follow-up post, Richards tells us how his theory played out for one minor league catcher with major league dreams. When an interested big league team passed on him, the player asked the team’s General Manager why he lost out. Instead of shielding him from the harsh reality, the manager explained exactly why the man would never be a major leaguer. Although this was an incredible blow, the man was later grateful for the opportunity it afforded him to change course and move on to a successful career in business.

Like Richards, I’ve always believed that some of the most positive changes we make in our lives derive from difficult times and situations that cause us pain, anxiety and uncertainty. This is actually good news for the legal profession, which is suffering from the collective distress and discontent of many lawyers. We seem to be reaching that critical point in this ailing business trajectory when resistance to change is ebbing and firms and professional associations are looking for ways to optimize our lives in the law.

In my Web wanderings today, I saw that Rob Millard of The Adventure of Strategy blog has also picked up on Richards’ post, applying its core message to the change process in professional service firms. In giving his take on the subject, Millard states that “an appropriate degree of distress is a critical ingredient for overcoming resistance to change.” He also sets out a very handy formula to back his position.

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I’m preparing to embark on an extended business-pleasure trip that will take me to Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Gettysburg; Pittsburgh; Cincinnati; Springfield; Chicago; Ann Arbor; and Cleveland. It will be a time for me to refresh and enjoy new sites and experiences. It will also afford me some space and opportunity to hone the latest addition to my Training + Development curriculum - the XE Factor.

My trip is just one in a series of steps I've taken in recent years to augment fulfillment and eliminate depletion in my professional and personal life. The concepts of fulfillment and depletion play out in real time via my energy states. Something's fulfilling to me when it literally fills me up with positive energy. Something's depleting when it leaves me drained, stressed, stifled or angry. The key has been learning to recognize my personal depletion zone and how I can move myself out of it.

It’s been a pretty big learning curve. I initially resisted acknowledging the depletion I experienced in – and beyond – the law. Even when all the signs evinced that I was running on empty, I pushed myself to work harder and do more for my clients and others. Once I became acquainted with the signs and symptoms of my depletion, I still had to do some trial and error to figure out how to reclaim my energy stores. Now, when I find myself energetically depleted at work, I know that there’s remedial power in an uplifting change of pace like a quick nature walk or bike ride; playing with my kids; watching a good ball game; or going on vacation.

I’ve previously noted the connection between taking time off and personal energy renewal. The topic is addressed from a slightly broader perspective in a CareerJounal.com article addressing how Sabbaticals Can Offer Dividends for Employers.

The piece focuses on company-sponsored sabbaticals that allow employees to work with nonprofit groups. The sponsoring businesses see sabbatical assignments (also called community engagement programs) as means of recruiting and retaining top talent. They’re also recognized as conduits for leadership building and for identifying “potential markets.” Acknowledging the revitalizing aspect of the programs, one sabbatical provider quoted for the piece states: “The goal is ‘to get employees re-energized and re-engaged, give them a broader sense of themselves, the company and the community.’”

If there’s a familiar ring to the sabbatical concept, it’s interesting to note that the article likens such programs to law firm pro bono initiatives. Both, it says, “appeal to strong performers who ‘seek more than a paycheck; they seek significance.’” Significance and renewed energy is a very potent combination.

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