legal sanity

A few weeks back, I wrote about the importance of creating a connection culture in the law . One of the best ways for law firms to create connecting points for their lawyers is to gain insight into points of disconnection. As I’ve previously noted, two frequently cited causes of lawyer disconnect are the competitive nature of the business and long working hours.

According to a post from Chris Bailey at the always-interesting Bailey Workplay blog, another major cause is invisibility. Bailey attributes this problem to incompetent leadership. Specifically, he asserts that managers can do a lot of damage when they ignore employees. Ignoring actions, in turn, can take different forms, including:

• Not acknowledging contributions
• Not recognizing expertise
• Not seeing the individual worth
  

As this post from Matt Homann suggests, anxiety can also promote lawyer disconnection. Homann points to a Harvard Business article that tells us How to Deal with Anxious People. The piece leads with an anatomical fact: When we’re anxious, our minds constrict and we’re more apt to cut off our rationality and act impulsively. Consequently, law firm leaders looking to alleviate anxiety – and the disconnection it can foster – need to talk to or with anxious lawyers rather than at or over them.

The article goes on to instruct that the best way to navigate these challenging talks is to observe the anxious person’s body language. People who feel that they’re being talked over will “leave the conversation at the earliest opportunity.” When they’re talked at, people tend to tuck their chin down or stick it out to show that they’re intimidated or ticked off, respectively. By contrast, when you talk to an anxious person, they’ll “nod from the neck up.” Similarly, someone who senses that they’re being talked with will usually relax their shoulders and neck, “as if you've told them: ‘It'll be okay. We can work this out.’”

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In past posts, I’ve discussed the broken windows theory as it relates to the practice of law and, more specifically, to the creation and cure of client service problems. In a nutshell, the theory holds that firms should focus on identifying and quickly repairing their broken windows – those aspects of their operation that signal an indifference to client satisfaction.

As this Small Firm Business article conveys, law firms looking to stem client dissatisfaction - and the attrition it can compel – often conduct client surveys. The surveys are drafted and administered to obtain feedback about:

• Clients' satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the attorneys and staff who served them

• The timeliness, responsiveness and value of work performed

• The need for additional services and greater cost or quality control

• The need for greater lawyer specialization

• Whether clients would use the firm again and refer the firm to friends and associates

As the article suggests, it’s a fairly futile and wasteful for firms to undertake these surveys if they don’t follow-up and redress the client service issues brought to light.

To bridge this gap between intelligence gathering and action, some firms are “creating specific positions to facilitate and organize communication between major firm clients and the attorneys representing them.” That’s the message in a recent article from The Recorder featured at law.com.

Led by client service executives with titles like Chief of Practice Excellence; law firm client relations teams “provide attorneys with news on the clients' activities and goals, serve as point people for clients with questions or issues and help attorneys maintain regular contact with clients.”

It would be interesting to compare the client opinion on firms embracing this team approach with the client perception of firms that do little or nothing to inspect and repair their broken windows.

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A little while back, I wrote a post on creating a more fulfilling legal career. It conveyed my thoughts on a New York Times article describing the diminishing lure of the law.

One of the resonant complaints I hear from lawyers is that they feel very disconnected from their colleagues and firms. They attribute their sense of isolation to, among other things, the competitive nature of the business and long working hours. These kinds of complaints inspired me to write posts like:

• fostering connecting points for employee engagement

• connecting with others – a key lawyering skill

• making the connection: engagement, evangelism and experience management

Their common theme is connection – the damage caused by its absence and ways to build it in the legal profession.

Connection is also the theme of a new ChangeThis manifesto by leadership expert Michael Lee Stallard. Titled The Connection Culture: A New Source of Competitive Advantage (pdf), the manifesto poses the compelling question: What is it about connection that makes it so powerful?

Stallard offers up this gem of an answer:

“[W]e are humans, not machines. We have emotions. We have hopes and dreams. We have a conscience. We have deeply felt human needs to be respected, to be recognized for our talents, to belong. [ ] When we work in an environment that recognizes these realities of our human nature, we thrive. [ ] When we work in an environment that fails to recognize this, it is damaging to our mental and physical health.”

He then explains and explores the core elements of a workplace Connection Culture:

• Vision (“everyone in an organization is motivated by the organization’s mission, united by its values, and proud of its reputation”)

• Value (“everyone in an organization understands the universal nature of people, appreciates the unique contribution of each person, and helps them achieve their potential”)

• Voice (“everyone in an organization participates in an open, honest and safe environment where people share their opinions in order to understand one another and seek the best ideas”)

Stallard aids our understanding, and amplifies his message, by giving examples of businesses and business leaders who have successfully embraced these core components.

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