legal sanity

By now, many of us have heard and read the buzz about Time Magazine naming the denizens, creators and consumers of “the new digital democracy” – namely, me and you – its Person of the Year.

Anyone who frequents this blog knows how thrilled I am to have this forum for sharing my views and filtering information on optimizing the practice of law.

Although I blog for my own enjoyment and outlet, it’s always great to hear from readers that one of my posts sparked a meaningful conversation or contemplation. So, naturally, I was very pleased to learn that legal sanity has won this year’s Blawg Review Award for the Best Mentoring Law Blog. Thanks very much for the honor and recognition.

What I appreciate most about blogging is the opportunity it provides to raise awareness about our ability to, as Mahatma Ghandi so beautifully suggested, “be the change” we want to see in the legal profession.

This is a message that redounds through the Time cover story about the online world of citizen journalists and change agents. It’s also a core message running through a post on citizen marketers from the Church of the Customer Blog and a recent BusinessWeek article called True Believers. They discuss customer evangelists who are so passionate about a product, service or company, that they volunatrily “generate media” about it – shouting its praises (or sins) from the virtual rooftops.

Over the summer, in a post titled lawyers as user-innovators, I wrote about the power of this evangelical force that’s readily available for law firms to acknowledge and tap. I also noted that many lawyers are embracing the role of the citizen-innovator and coming together in communities – such as the blogosphere - in which they openly share ideas on legal service innovation.

On January 9, 2007, I’m giving a free teleseminar called XE Factor: Creating Work-Life Synergy. The program’s hosted by Lisa Solomon’s Legal Research and Writing Pro. I hope you’ll join me. You can register and get additional information here.

I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

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In this time of giving and receiving, I want to thank everyone who reads and engages this blog for receiving what I have to offer in the form of ideas and commentary on bettering the practice of law. I’d also like to thank you for giving me the gift of your great insight and input on legal sanity. I wish you all joyous and fulfilling holiday celebrations.

Here are a few resources offering the gift of guidance for lawyers. The first is a roundup of Inc.com’s  best articles on mentoring, an important inroad to employee engagement in law firms.

The next guidepost comes through a Fast Company article called Finding Their Calling. It highlights the point that employee engagement and fidelity derives in large part from a particular kind of fitness -- the degree to which an employee’s values match (or fit with) those of the organization and/or team that he or she is a part of. The greater the level of fitness, the more likely it is that employees will deem their work “meaningful, purposeful, and important.”

The final source of guidance is the October/November 2006 issue of GP/Solo Magazine. In it, you’ll find an array of articles addressing lawyer distress and pathways to wellbeing. Among the subjects covered are: ADHD; addiction; mental illness; lawyer assistance programs; and meditation. It’s always comforting to learn that we aren’t alone in facing personal and professional challenges and that there are people and programs here to help us.

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In a post about the new legal marketplace, I said that a “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.” Our clients are seeking meaningful connection to the experiences, goods and services they consume. Lawyers are no different. We’re engaging the emerging culture of meaning as service providers and as consumers. And, on the consumer side, more and more of us are looking for meaningful jobs and work assignments.

I’ve previously discussed the ingredients of meaningful work. One of the main ones is play. Work that’s infused with a good measure of play is more enriching for many of us than play-free pursuits. Echoing this point is a Fast Company article called The Future of Work. In it, Richard Watson notes that work life is changing as we move from the second industrial revolution -- the information revolution -- to a third industrial revolution that involves a “shift from left to right-brain economic production.” According to Watson, “child-like receptivity and cognitive flexibility” as well as “playfulness” may be prevailing, adaptive traits in this new economy characterized by rapid change, flux and uncertainty.

The intersection of work and play is also the focus of a terrific blog that I’ve pointed to several times before: Bailey Work Play :: The Alchemy of Soulful Work. Its publisher, Chris Bailey, has culled a lot of great information on the subject and candidly shares snapshots of his quest to help himself and others “integrate the principles of the soulful workplace, leadership, and relationships into day-to-day business practices.”

Additional insight into steps we can take to bring a sense of play into our law work can be found in a Small Firm Business feature about bringing more ease to our facial expressions. Stating that many lawyers walk around all day with “a sour look that puts off our colleagues and clients,” the piece suggests that we consider smiling more because it connects us to our clients and builds relationships.

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Blogging is a boon to me in so many ways. It gives me a wonderful avenue for engaging and sharing my own and others’ thoughts on optimizing the practice of law. It allows me to express and experience how my life as a lawyer intersects with the values I hold most dear. And it exposes me to a host of powerful and inspiring ideas for cultivating a meaningful career.

Another great boon is the network of people I've met through the blog. While some of these people remain virtual friends, others have crossed the cyber border for real-time interaction.

Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting a program at fellow blogger Mark Beese’s Colorado law firm, Holland & Hart. Mark set the tone for a terrific, interactive session with a warm and welcoming introduction that included a nice ping for my blog. On this same trip, I met with Stephanie West Allen, who writes about many interesting aspects of lawyering at her blog, idealawg. Stephanie recently interviewed me for her regular Legal Highlights feature.

The blog-fostered connection continued with an invitation from fellow blogger, coach and author Rosa Say to contribute to her Ho’ike’ike 2006 (blog forum) on leadership. This was a gem of an opportunity to join in a community of like-minded thinkers by sharing my views on leadership in the law. You can check out all the thought-provoking leadership forum contributions at Rosa’s excellent blog, Talking Story.

I really enjoyed the sense of kinship that came from answering Rosa’s call to action. But it was her generosity of spirit – her spirit of aloha - that really touched me. Soon after submitting my post for the forum roundup, I received two fabulous gifts from Rosa – twin copies of her highly regarded book on business management, Managing with Aloha. It was clear that these were gifts from the heart. Rosa inscribed one copy with a personal note to me and my wife, Lori. The other copy is, in Rosa’s words, “to share.”

Sharing, community and connection – all attributes that Rosa Say personifies – form the triad of influences that keep me blogging along.

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It’s that “most wonderful time of year” again. As people clamor to find just the right gift for that special someone, the debate about the commoditization of the season rages on. Is it the meaning or the money that’s at the heart of the holidays?

While this question comes into sharp focus at this time -- intensifying in pitch as we contemplate our life’s course for the New Year -- it’s really a query that pertains to many aspects of our lives that we experience year round.

In a thought-provoking post over at Brand Autopsy, John Moore asks: “Does money matter more or does meaning matter more when hiring and retaining employees?” Drawing on his experience working for two values-based companies, Moore observes that people often trade in a higher salary so they can “leave a company they [don't] believe in to join a company they [do] believe in.” But, once they become “weathered and tenured employees,” making meaning alone becomes an insufficient reward. They also desire a paycheck that adequately reflects their experience and worth.

So, it seems, meaning and money are both strong business forces. In the law’s private sector, however, it’s typically the lure of big money that gets newly minted practitioners through a firm’s door. Then, once these lawyers become “weathered and tenured,” they find themselves ready and willing to sacrifice their high salaries for more meaningful work in the law or elsewhere.

I’ve previously talked about the ways law firms might acknowledge and honor this money-meaning interplay. Lending some more insight into the subject is a fascinating BusinessWeek online article called Smashing the Clock [hat tip to Pamela Slim].

It profiles Best Buy’s latest experiment in revamping its hardcore workplace culture. According to the piece, the initiative – named ROWE, for results-only work environment – aims “to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity.” Now, headquarter employees “are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done.”

Perhaps the most inspiring part of this endeavor to infuse work with more meaning is that it started from the bottom up. It is “an idea born and nurtured by a handful of passionate employees” responding to a company that – like many law firms – has a history of being heavily afflicted by “stress, burnout, and high turnover.”

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In my last post on the new law firm environmentalists, I mentioned research findings that burnout within a business or organization really reflects more on the employer than the employee. Picking up on this idea is a recent Knowledge at Wharton article discussing how Lack of Organizational Respect Fuels Employee Burnout [thanks to Susan Abbott for the tip].

According to the piece, respect is critical to inducing or avoiding burnout because it fuels employee engagement in the workplace. Respect gives people the conviction that what they’re doing is important and meaningful. Conversely, when employees experience disrespect directly or vicariously through coworkers, they conclude that the company doesn’t care about its workers and demoralization follows.

Law firms experiencing the fallout from employee burnout need to examine their culture of respect. If it’s lacking – with disrespect being the prevailing cultural norm --- they’d be well-advised to embrace the leadership advice contained in an article offering Five Steps to Engaging Your Employees [flagged by George Ambler and the folks at Be Excellent].

In it, respected business advisor Ram Charan points out these self-evident truths: A “leader who creates the right ambiance and kindles the fire in people gets that extra something that drives organizations to new heights. [ ] Great leaders understand the numbers, but they also touch people's hearts.”

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