legal sanity

All of us in the law have dealt with difficult coworkers. The resulting drain on our personal energy stores can be immense. The deep holes that spates of difficult people punch in a law firm’s culture often go ignored and unfilled. In the wake of this inaction, firms lose lawyers, clients and business repute.

John Moore at Brand Autopsy sent me on a blog-a-thon of sorts with a clever post on this theme. Titled the The No Asshole Rule, the post refers to the soon-coming book by the same name in which author Robert Sutton discusses the business damage that difficult people wreak.

From Moore’s commentary, I headed over to Guy Kawasaki’s blog  for his great review of Sutton’s book. I then took in a May 2004 article by Sutton called Nasty People. From there, it was on to David Maister who adds his perspective on the subject by asking us all to consider times when we might have taken the plunge and acted like the proverbial hole in the doughnut.

This ride around the Web naturally ends right here at home. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a regular contributor to an online help site called Office-Politics, which just underwent a sweet redesign. You’ll find lots of good information and insight there on navigating the toxic workplace.

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Here’s a quick note from the road (or the train, as it were) as I make my way to a give a program on advanced mediation skills at the Association for Conflict Resolution’s Sixth Annual Conference.

I just finished Jones Day partner Mark Herrmann’s very funny and quite practical guidebook for budding and seasoned lawyers alike: The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law. I really enjoyed it and suggest that you grab a copy for yourself and the other lawyers in your life.

Monica Bay (who goes from e-mail to post at a rate of speed that would make any New York Yankees pitcher reel with jealousy) nicely captures my thoughts on Herrmann’s book in a mailbag roundup at her terrific blog, The Common Scold.

Check it out.

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There’s been an evolution in consumer ethos. There’s a new market culture that lawyers can no longer afford to opt out of. It’s been called by different names: the experience economy, the conceptual age, the creative age and the culture of meaning (among others).

But, the given name is largely irrelevant. It’s the market’s core message that matters to lawyers and other service professionals.

And that message has been beautifully captured by blogger Hugh MacLeod in his now-classic commentary, The Hughtrain. For those of us needing the quick-fix version, MacLeod gives voice to the new legal consumer in this memorable quote: “We are hungry. Meaning is the prey.”

I believe that their quest for meaning – in the form of feeling valued, valuable, important and visible – fuels a client’s decision to retain or relinquish a legal service provider. So, as lawyers wanting to meet our clients primary needs and build our book of business, we can’t ignore the power and pull of this quest. We need to be open to the two-way conversations and continuous connections that allow our clients to co-create their legal representation experiences. 

The essence of this approach is conveyed in a thoughtful Customer Experience Crossroads post in which Susan Abbott reflects on market trends driven by the desire of people to be the producers and creators of their own lives.

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Since launching this blog in 2004, I’ve visited and revisited the topic of conflict here a number of times. Although radiating from the same hub proposition – that it’s vital for lawyers to learn how to handle conflicts they regularly encounter as participants or neutral managers – each commentary offers a slightly different take on this important theme.

The conflict coverage at legal sanity to date includes:

• The importance of understanding our attitude about conflict
• The high costs of everyday conflicts
• Listening as a vital conflict resolution skill
• Conflicts as opportunities for personal growth

Continuing the conversation on conflict are two posts from a new-to-me blog called Client Service Insights (CSI). Both posts consider the ripple effects of coworker conflicts. The first one makes the apt observation that “how we treat one another as employees in the workplace, whether it's in front of the client or not, can have a direct impact on our ability to deliver truly excellent service to our clients.”

The second post highlights the point that not all workplace conflicts are bad for business. “Good conflict” is the byproduct of people’s passion about something they’ve created. According to the piece, this kind of dialogue-infused dispute provides a “fantastic learning experience” that “almost always results in taking a team's collective thinking to the next level.”

In an interview at Mediate.com, conflict and communication skills trainer Judy Ringer weighs in with some practical tips for improving our ability to handle workplace conflcit. Professional service consultant David Maister also adds his voice to the chorus with a very thoughtful post on Repairing Fences. Maister recognizes that the ability to step back, pause and put things in perspective in the face of relationship discord is a very valuable, albeit often elusive, talent.

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Some time back, I wrote about an ongoing cyber dialogue on gender gap issues in the law fueled by a New York Times article questioning Why Do So Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms? That article featured the opinion and work of Lauren Stiller Rikleen, a law firm partner and author of the book Ending the Gauntlet: Removing Barriers to Women’s Success in the Law.

I recently met Rikleen when we presented programs at the same ALM conference. She was gracious enough to forward me a copy of her book and I just started reading it. Even at first blush, it’s fair to say that Rikleen offers fresh, thorough and well-written commentary on a subject that’s critical to the future of our profession.

If you want some additional insight into Rikleen’s research and findings, she’s interviewed and otherwise profiled in the Spring 2006 issue of the Women Lawyers Journal (pdf).

Providing some more food for thought on this front is a washingtonpost.com piece called Working Mom Top Fears. It conveys some telling information culled from a recent AFL-CIO Ask A Working Woman survey (pdf). The steps companies are taking to prevent or allay such fears are set out in a CareerJournal.com article on The Mommy Drain. Completing this roundup is lawyer Karen Asner’s incisive take on Creating Win-Win Flexible Work Arrangements.

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It’s common thought that fear is a primary motivator and deterrent of human action. It can spark our most basic fight-or-flight response or stop us dead in our tracks. It’s also become the go-to emotion for media outlets like the network news (which my kids affectionately call “the bad news”) and other television programs.

A great example of fear as a mainstay of our culture’s entertainment diet is the popular show Fear Factor. In each episode, contestants submit to fear (if not sheer terror) inducing stunts in order to advance in a competition for prize money. The show is engaging, first, because it’s hard to imagine why anyone would voluntarily submit to such torment and, second, because we all know what fear feels like and want to witness how other people confront – or run from - it. I suppose, viewed in their best light, shows like Fear Factor enable us to access this basic emotion and see it as a common denominator of human experience.

Taking this subject-matter to the business world, it’s also important to understand the fear factor in the practice of law. In most dispute scenarios and transactional matters, the parties experience fear to some degree. There’s fear of monetary or property loss. Fear of being denied rights and justice. Fear of being taking advantage of or disempowered. Fear of not being seen or heard. Then there’s the lawyers’ own fears concerning win, loss, monetary gain, reputation, recognition and billable hours. The list goes on and on. So, it’s fair and honest to say that fear is a big factor when it comes to the delivery and consumption of legal services.

Just acknowledging the role of fear in our professional lives is a productive step. Blogger Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users takes this productivity a step or two further in a terrific post explaining just why - in business as in life - Reducing fear is the killer app. Recounting her experiences in a dental office and hospital setting, Sierra observes: “Our users [read clients] might be more afraid of us and our products than we think. And those who can reduce or eliminate that fear have a huge advantage. Not to mention a passionately loyal following.” So, as lawyers looking to optimize our business, we’d do well to consider how fear is factoring in to our clients' perception of their legal issues and their legal representation.

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Just a post-on-the-fly here as I make my way home to watch the New York Mets in playoff action. I’m a lifelong Mets fan and now I’m thrilled to share my passion with my kids. Our time watching the games and building our baseball card collection connects us in a meaningful way. It de-stresses me after my work day and recharges my personal energy stores. 

There’s much cyber commentary on recognizing and relieving workplace stressors. Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to find and walk our personal path to career sanity. But, we can all use a little helpful guidance along the way. 

For some telling empirical data on our society’s workforce, we can peruse the statistics dispensed in a csmonitor.com article called Backstory: Office hours by the numbers. This statistical overview pairs very well with a CareerJournal.com piece profiling the Top 14 Reasons We’re Stressed Out. 

Moving on to some preventive measures we can take to counter job stress and refuel; Carl Honore – an advocate for living well by slowing down – offers us a view into what some companies, towns and parents are doing In Praise of Slowness. 

And those of us who don’t equate de-stressing with slowing down can take heart and inspiration from a set of articles on people exploring work-life synergy through sport. I particularly enjoyed this look at women lawyers who take out their workplace frustrations in the roller derby rink.

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My 5-year-old son is a mega fan of the Transformers toys and television show. For all of you in the dark about these “robots in disguise,” you’ll find a nice overview here. These aren’t your standard-issue machines fighting the ultimate battle of good vs. evil. They’re “more than meets the eye” in many ways. Primarily, they stand out because they experience and project the full gamut of human emotions – they’re passionate and dedicated warriors who think and feel deeply. A fusion of the robust and robotic gives these characters their mass appeal.

Blogger Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users picks up and runs with the robotic-robust theme in a post called Knocking the exuberance out of employees. In it, she questions why some companies pursue a mode of management that kills off employee energy and excitement (along with their “desire to learn, grow, adapt, innovate, and care") and breeds automatons.

Sierra comes up with a brilliant, 16-point list of reasons why many managers believe that “Robots Are the Best Employees.” I won’t reiterate the whole roster. But here’s a snapshot of its contents. Managers prefer robots because robots (as opposed to robust humans): “have no strongly-held opinions; have no passion, so they have nothing to "fight" for; are always willing to do whatever it takes (insane hours, etc.); never make the boss look bad (e.g. stupid, incompetent, clueless, etc.); and don't need ‘personal’ days ... because they don't have a personal life.”

Firms recognizing the dangers inherent in fostering mechanical employees can look to the wisdom that John Moore shares in a recent post on Aligning the Employee Experience with the Customer Experience. Drawing from his book, Tribal Knowledge, Moore states that “creating meaningful employee experiences revolves around making the company something employees can believe in.” He goes on to posit that the best companies (you can sub in law firms) “realize that happy, knowledgeable employees will usually translate into happy, knowledgeable customers.”

Those of us wishing to proactively avoid robotic employment will benefit from the guidance Jim Citrin  offers in an article compelling us to consider the fit of any job we apply for. Towards the end of the piece, Citirn identifies the underpinnings of job contentment as an “environment of trust, a person or people with whom you enjoy spending time, feeling at home in the workplace, [and] relationships that nourish you.”

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I'm very pleased to announce that tomorrow, October 10, 2006, at 9:00 p.m. EST, I'm hosting a live interactive podcast on BlogTalkRadio.com. I'll be engaging a dialogue on a topic that's become a mainstay of my Training + Development programs for lawyers and other service professionals - XE Factor: Relationships for Business Success.

As I've discussed here before, the XE [Energy Exchange] Factor is a teaching model of human energy exchange I devised to help people better understand how a particular person, issue, interaction or job impacts them on an energetic level. I believe that much of the work-related conflict, stress and discontent we experience stems from our inability to gauge, protect and renew our personal energy stores.

You can read more of my archived posts on the XE Factor here; here; and here.

I look forward to sharing some ideas and conversation with you on this important topic during my pocast tomorrow night.

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Sometimes you run across a written piece that makes a point so simply and elegantly that there’s not much to add. And so I offer you Lisa Haneberg’s recent post on The Awesome Power of Thanks.

Haneberg opens with this apt observation: “Few of us feel truly appreciated. During those moments we do feel valued, it feels great - like a mental high.” She then encourages us to dig down deep and foster connection by genuinely acknowledging the good deeds and intentions of our co-workers and clients. As Haneberg instructs: “When someone is amazing (we are all amazing at sometime), let's let him or her know. You are amazing” (or some similar accolade like “you rock;” “you’re outstanding;” “you blow my mind”). Just saying those kinds of words – letting them roll off the tongue and into the air – makes me feel good. It’s filling, uplifting and energizing. It lifts us in part because it’s what we want and need for ourselves. In giving kudos freely to others, we naturally absorb some, too.

Acknowledgement’s companion in the lawyering toolkit is apology. It’s a subject I’ve touched on here before.

Now, in an insightful post titled Nobody’s Perfect, blogger Spike Jones considers apology’s business value. Recognizing that firms often concoct a series of lame excuses in lieu of taking responsibility for their client service missteps, Jones issues this wake up call: “People don’t want to hear your excuses. They want an apology. When you apologize, there’s an opportunity for forgiveness. When we expose our imperfections, we allow people to get closer to us.” The resulting authentic, organic communication and conversation is the heart and hub of healthy lawyer-client relationships.

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In my house, you’ll often here the rousing cry “Go Blue” on a football Saturday. Yup, although my wife threw away my beloved plastic Wolverine helmet years ago, I’m still a faithful fan of the Maize and Blue. So, it’s not surprising that my attention was grabbed by Debbie Weil’s terrific blog post connecting word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) and passionate UM sports fans.

Titled Michigan vs. Wisconsin: rock concert meets WOMM, the post relates Weil’s experience of a recent Big House contest attended by a “record 111,000-plus fans.” Marveling at the call to action that inspired the fans to all wear the same, newly issued shirt; perform well-choreographed waves; and cheer, chant and groan in unison, Weil ends with this great marketing query:

“Now how do you get 111,000-plus people together and create that same kind of energy, enthusiasm, and cooperation (there was no pushing or shoving) for your own cause? How do you harness the kind of passion Michigan Wolverine fans exhibit? To persuade and inform whether it's a political campaign or a new product?”

I’ve previously discussed my views on creating passionate legal service providers and consumers. As with the Big House fanfare, this kind of passion arises organically from the larger cultural milieu. It’s not the byproduct of some directive from on high stating “now get out there and act passionate, people.”

Some additional insight into the organic nature of passion, inspiration and motivation is offered by Kathy Sierra in a post called Motivating others: why "it's good for you" doesn't work . She points to studies and other support for the proposition that joy, fun and meaning are much more powerful motivators than fear (including the oft-cited fear of death).

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