law firms and lawyers: welcome to the age of radical transparency
I’ve been interested in psychologist Daniel Goleman’s work since reading his book on Emotional Intelligence years ago.
Along with thinkers like:
Goleman has inspired me to look at the legal profession through a broader social-cultural lens.
As a culture, we’re becoming more and more right-brained in orientation. We now place a premium on authenticity, emotion, creativity, meaning and honesty in our personal and professional interactions.
In a recent post for Harvard Business, Goleman writes that consumers are calling for a new kind of openness - a radical transparency that “converts the chains that link every product and its multiple impacts — carbon footprints, chemicals of concern, treatment of workers and the like — into a force that counts in sales.”
To keep up with this demand, Goleman notes, businesses should engage their consumer community (in the law, this would be a firm’s clients, lawyers and non-legal staff) and make it easy for community members to offer feedback and comments. If they drop the ball on this front, big brother is ready to step up in the form of open mike watchdog sites like GetSatisfaction.com.
