legal sanity

Service professionals often find it challenging to connect with clients on a human-to-human level. That’s because we’ve been trained to cultivate a business persona that’s distinct from the person we are in our down time with family and friends. The business face we put on typically reflects just how seriously we take our role as an advisor and advocate to people who don’t know as much as we do …. about the law.

I’ve written a number of posts on the importance of bringing ourselves to our work, including these:

• Finding ourselves in our work

• What lawyers can learn about the power of authenticity

• Self-awareness in the practice of law

• Likeability and the business of law

So, I was very happy to read the practical wisdom and guidance that communication skills coach Joey Asher offers in an article titled Faking the ‘Real You.’ Although he’s writing about public speaking, Asher’s advice applies just as well to any kind of live or written communication. His premise is that people who tend to come off as stiff, formal and standoffish when they communicate have to learn how to “fake [their] own authentic communication style.”

In presenting this “authenticity paradox,” Asher states: “Great speakers know how to fake their own "natural style" even when they don't feel natural at all. It's learning how to act like your real self.” So, instead of being formal, cool and distant when communicating with clients and other business contacts, we need to mimic our “natural personality” – the friendly cadence, rhythm and energy of the communications we have with people that we feel close to and comfortable with.

There’s no doubt that lawyers and other service providers can use Asher’s approach to foster successful business connections. I’ll be sure to incorporate his advice into learning programs I present on the building blocks of successful business relationships. My next offering on this front, a program called the Key to Workplace Success: Building Critical Relationships, will take place on March 12, 2008 at Harvard Law School. You can learn more about it here.

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My vacation presented me with another opportunity to inventory the contents of my blog hopper. I found that much of it pertained to the ins and outs of lawyering. So, I decided to offer it to you here as a chain of related topics:

The top link in the chain is this article addressing why associates bail out of law firm life. Among the reasons cited are the:

• Absence of management expertise and meaningful feedback

• Law students’ misunderstanding about the practice of law

• Lack of work-life balance

The article goes on to outline steps that firms can take to remedy the problem of attrition, including:

• Mentoring Programs

• Hiring in-house professional development directors

• Providing business development training

Logically linked to these points is a post about coping with the anger and resentment that often accompanies career change and this piece questioning the sanctity of, and potential power imbalances in, the law firm mentor-mentee relationship.

The chain continues with information geared to helping young associates build their book of business. Pam Slim explains the business benefits of being a matchmaker and offers some concrete ways to take on that role, such as:

• Introducing like-minded people

• Forwarding information and resources to people who can use them

• Connecting people who have complementary interests, products or services

On a related note, in companion posts, Robert Middleton gives us some practical tips and tactics for quelling our marketing fears (and Part II ).

Jim Hassett rounds off the roundup links with a post profiling one firm’s efforts to help associates hone their relationship-building and business development skills. Noting the win-win nature of these initiatives, the article states: “business development training produces greater associate satisfaction, more satisfied clients and more interesting business opportunities.”

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The FC Experts Blog recently featured a three-part interview with Mike Dulworth (part two and part three), the author of a new networking book called The Connect Effect: Building Strong Personal, Professional, And Virtual Networks.

Dulworth, the head of a professional networking business, defines The Connect Effect as “the positive outcome derived from having a strong, vibrant, diverse network.” He also describes a complementary concept of entering The Network Zone. Like an elite athlete who achieves flow during a game or competition, business people enter the network zone when their “network is so broad and deep that almost anything can be accomplished more efficiently and effectively through” it.

According to Dulworth, we can cultivate this kind of peak networking performance by assessing our NQ (yup, that stands for Networking Quotient). Like our EQ (emotional intelligence) and MQ (moral intelligence), our networking intelligence isn’t fixed. We can raise it. The first step is to honestly appraise the “scope and strength” of our network and our networking activities. Beyond this candid assessment, Dulworth says, the key “is to find a way to build and maintain your network that is comfortable for you.”

I’ve addressed the importance of charting our own networking paths in posts like this one on re-connecting with your business network and this one discussing how to grow an organic business network . My friend Curt Rosengren adds to this point – and does us a major favor -- by publishing this extensive compilation of articles on networking for shy people.

For more insight into the art and science of building strong business connections, you can take a look at lawyer/marketing consultant Cole Silver’s new Expert Audio Series. I’m one of the contributors, along with a host of other legal bloggers, including:

Stephanie West Allen
Larry Bodine
Carolyn Elefant
Jim Hassett
Daniel Hull
Dennis Kennedy
Patrick Lamb
Susan Cartier Liebel
Ed Poll
Gerry Riskin

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Here’s an interesting and, perhaps, daunting question for law firm leaders: If you lost your title, position and power tomorrow, would others still support you and want to work with you?

Executive coach Donna Karlin frames this inquiry in a FC Expert Blog post on defining leadership. Her question - with the commentary she offers around it - suggests that leadership is best assessed and defined by the people being led. This is the thought behind the 360-degree review process that’s become commonplace in the corporate world and is trickling in to law firms.

This point reverberates in an article from the Stanford Graduate School of Business titled It’s Not About You (tipped at Be Excellent). Reflecting on the leadership insights of former General Electric CEO Jack Welch, the piece states: “The minute you move from being a task-oriented professional to being a manager of people, it stops being about your individual talents, your successes, and starts being all about coaching, motivating, teaching, supporting, removing roadblocks, and finding resources for your employees. [ ] Too many people today think leading is exclusively about their own performance.”

For more on defining business leadership, take a look at Lisa Haneberg’s post detailing What we Want from Managers.

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Lots of people theorize about a philosopher’s stone for converting loose connections into a golden resource network of referral sources, prospects and clients.

I don’t believe that there’s one sure way for lawyers to build an effective network. Like any relationship-building endeavor, however, networking requires an element of mutuality - a healthy combination of giving and receiving that’s organic and not contrived.

Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch offers his take on organic networking in a post that asks: Are There Holes In Your Network? Jantsch notes that our clients often come to rely on us for more than the scope of [our] products or services.” They trust us to point them to other reliable resources – plumbers, educators, realtors and the like. So, it’s well worth our time to “build up a network of superstars all for the benefit or [our] customers.” There’s mutual benefit to gain here. As Jantsch points out, “a funny thing will happen on the way to building your network - you will begin to receive referrals from your new partners.”

Judging from the new content initiatives at his blog, Kevin O’Keefe understands this organic aspect of network development. Kevin’s company, LexBlog, builds blogs for lawyers (I was one of LexBlog’s first clients and my blog production partner, Lori Herz, is about to launch her own business site on a LexBlog platform). Kevin’s blog now features highlights from client blogs as well as client interviews, including this one conducted with Lori and me.

Of course, you could claim that this is all just clever marketing. It is. But, it also creates and fortifies a natural web of connections linking LexBlog and its:

• Blog audience

• Current clients

• Prospects

• Referral sources

This inter-connectedness is the foundation of any successful business network.

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I just finished reading a Knowledge at Wharton article on Managing Emotions in the Workplace. It summarizes the latest thoughts on how affect (a/k/a emotion) impacts “job performance, decision making, creativity, turnover, teamwork, negotiations and leadership.” Evidently, due to an “affective revolution” over the last 30 years, academics and managers have come to recognize that people’s emotions – both short-lived displays and more enduring moods or personality traits – “are integral to what happens in an organization.”

The piece considers two topics I’ve covered here before: emotional contagion and emotional intelligence. First, it acknowledges how our negative coworkers can deplete us and the entire workplace because they’re energy suckers. Like a virus, their half-empty vibe passes from person to person. Realizing the toll that emotions can exact on the job, more business schools are teaching executives emotional intelligence skills.

It’s great to learn that emotions are getting mainstream attention in the business world. Law firms and their leaders would benefit from acknowledging and managing the emotions that impact practice group dynamics, relationships between lawyers and attorney-client connections.

We all bring our feelings and affect to work. While we may be able to suppress their public display to some extent, our emotions usually manifest in one way or another during the work day. Our workplace interactions would be much healthier and more effective if we had license to admit and address the interplay of our own and others' emotions.

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For years, I’ve been very interested in exploring how our emotional intelligence (EQ) affects our lawyering and our work relationships. As I’ve noted before, EQ is one of the multiple intelligences that are becoming more and more essential to our professional success as we enter the Conceptual Age.

A while back, I referred to an article by syndicated columnist Penelope Trunk discussing the growing importance of EQ in the workplace. Tipped by David Maister, I learned that Trunk writes a very engaging and insightful blog called the Brazen Careerist where she posts “daily tips for making work life and personal life one happy, synchronized adventure.” I read through the blog’s archives and found a lot of information and ideas that would benefit new and seasoned lawyers alike.

In a recent post on emotional intelligence, Trunk notes that EQ has several facets. It’s grounded in our:

• self-knowledge
• empathy
• likeability
• ability to connect people and ideas   

The post itself is great and it generated a really interesting comments thread (that Trunk participates in). One contributor, citing the work of psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut, defines empathy as “the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person.”

This definition really grabbed my attention because I’d just finished reading an article about the rise of narcissism among college students. One of the experts quoted in the piece states that narcissism leads to breakdowns in relationships.

This doesn’t surprise me. Most of us have dealt with narcissists in the workplace. When we interact with a narcissistic coworker, boss or adversary, there’s no real relating going on. It’s all about one person. There’s an absence of empathetic exchange and mutuality, two prerequisites for healthy and rewarding business relationships.

And, I venture, narcissists feature prominently in the pool of people with the lowest EQ.

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Stephen Rosenberg of the Boston ERISA and Insurance Litigation Blog has an interesting take on my commentary about the importance of mutuality in business relationships.

In a post titled Improving the Insurer Insured Relationship, he asks: is “the insurance regime really best served by a sort of wary, arms length cold war relationship between insureds and insurers?” Answering that it’s not, Rosenberg suggests that all parties would be better served by engaging a mode of conflict resolution - like mediation – that could align interests and facilitate a “more trusting long term relationship between businesses and insurers.”

Aligning interests for mutual benefit is also the theme of a series of posts by Diane Levin on bridging the divide between lawyers and mediators. Levin fuels the discussion with this observation about tainted mutuality: although they could learn a lot from each other, “all too often attorneys and mediators view each other as rivals, not partners, in dispute resolution. There's plenty of mutual distrust and even open hostility to go around.”

Carrying this theme a bit further, Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen tells us a story that illustrates the role of trust in making, or breaking, mutually fulfilling business relationships.

After a birthday lunch in a fine hotel, his friend found herself under the scrutiny of an assistant manager who insinuated that she hadn’t paid her bill. In the time it took for the friend to explain that she had, in fact, paid, the business relationship had been shattered. The friend explained that the hotel didn’t trust her, so she had no reason to give them her business again.

No trust. No mutuality. No enduring business relationship.

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The other day, a new blogger sent a form e-mail asking me to check out his site and link to him from here. He didn’t discuss his blog’s relevance to legal sanity. Nor did he convey any intention of discussing my blog in his space. He said he would add my blog to his blog roll if I agreed to add his to mine. Needless to say, I declined his offer. But, I did send him a reply outlining the reasons why.

In Never Eat Alone, his popular book on achieving business success through relationships, consultant Keith Ferrazzi notes: In the world of relationship-building, it’s “better to give before you receive. And never keep score.” Networking expert Thom Singer shares similar advice in his book on business relationships, Some Assembly Required. He says: “Your goal in any business relationship is to give more than you take.”

I agree. You can’t forge any kind of sincere, lasting relationship on an expectation of quid pro quo (I give to you if – and only to the same degree that – you give to me). We have to be willing to freely give to the other person without expectation of return.

But, there is a limit to the give. There needs to be at least some take. If a relationship is devoid of reciprocity – or mutuality – it’s going to quickly deplete us. We’ll inevitably want to shout, “Hey, enough about you, what about me!”

That’s why, although willing to take the lead in cultivating business relationships, I’m very vigilant about the prospect of mutuality. If I glean that there’s little hope of it, I won’t invest any more time and energy into making the connection.

For more insight into creating mutually-fulfilling business relationships, tune in to David Maister’s new podcast episode on Relationships and Romance.

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Yesterday, many of us talked and thought about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and how he deeply connected with people through his impassioned words. As I was reading my blog feeds, I noticed a beautiful symmetry of insight into the importance of connecting with those we lead, serve and want to inspire.

Contemplating the key markers of successful public speaking, Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen shares that “the greatest assembly of words in the world does not matter much if it does not register with the audience, if it is not meaningful to them.”

I couldn’t agree more. We can talk to clients, prospects or any target audience until we’re (and they’re) blue in the face; but it won’t make a dent unless we sincerely address their needs or concerns or offer ways to make their lives better. It’s the conviction, genuine care and understanding behind our words that gives them credence. Otherwise, they’re just words.

At Management Craft, a post by Lisa Haneberg nicely punctuates this point with a terrific cartoon by Hugh MacLeod and the apt observation: “The content gets you in the door but the connection is what really matters.”

The power inherent in genuinely connecting with people is also underscored in a post on Emotive Leadership from Tom Peters. Tapping themes I’ve discussed here before – the leadership-service nexus and looking beyond people's titles and roles  – Peters remarks that one of the hallmarks of accomplished leader-servants is their desire and ability to authentically connect with people on an emotional level.

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I’ve covered the topic of conflict in the practice of law from various angles. The conversation’s spokes all converge on the hub proposition that it’s vital for lawyers to learn how to handle the workplace, client and other business conflicts they frequently face.

Offering fresh takes on the subject are two new articles from Mediate.com. The first one, titled Providing Learning Opportunities, discusses the attributes of “conflict competent leaders.” These are leaders who are able to offer real time, real world conflict education to the people they work with. When on-the-job conflict arises, they have the clarity of mind and the ability to see the learning opportunities in the situation. Embracing conflict as a catalyst “to breakthrough ideas,” these leaders support and encourage workers through the resolution process.

The second article, called Who are Your Workplace Actors? builds on the idea of the workplace as a conflict education forum. Describing the Who’s Who of the typical business cast, the piece notes that “[e]ach ‘actor’ in the workplace has a role to play both in the engendering of workplace conflict and in its successful resolution.” Taking the theater analogy a step further, it’s asserted that these diverse conflict management roles can best be understood by looking at “the motivation” behind the actor’s particular job in the organization.

On a related note, I recently received an email from attorney-mediator Victoria Pynchon announcing the launch of Mediators Without Borders. According to Pynchon, “MWOB is a non-profit provider of pro bono conflict resolution capacity building within post-conflict communities.” Founded and led by conflict resolution expert Ken Cloke, the initiative aims to bring volunteer mediators into hostile communities at regular intervals over a number of years to cultivate “skills for group facilitation, public dialogue, strategic planning, collaborative negotiation, and peer mediation [ ] consistent with the norms, values, and culture of the locale.” You can follow the above links to learn how you can support this worthwhile effort.

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I’m taking some time off for the upcoming holiday. I wish everyone celebrating a very happy Thanksgiving. I thought I’d leave you off with a sampling of posts and articles that provide some great food for thought on managing the people that law firms rely on for everyday success.

First up is a post from Client Service Insight that relays a story-excerpt from a book called The Leadership Challenge. The story is about a young girl who, when asked why she’s learning sign language, explains that she’s doing so to better communicate with her best friend, who is deaf. Continuing, the girl says: Now “I listen with my eyes and my heart, not just my ears and my brain.”

The ability to listen to others with our “eyes and heart” is a great leadership asset. This heart quotient is also considered in a recent article from CareerJournal.com called Business Is Personal, So Managers Need to harness Their Emotions. The piece quotes one of my favoriite authors, Daniel Goleman, who states: "Good [manager-employee] relationships act like vitamins, while bad ones are like poison -- undermining our cognitive efficiency and creativity."

Last, but not least, on the roster is this mediate.com commentary on Deceiving Others. In it, author Manie Spoelstra explores the act and art of lying - a topic that “has captured the attention of managers” given the recent spate of highly publicized business deceptions.

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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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Earlier on, I wrote a series of posts on positive psychology  - the scientific study of human happiness – and the related field of Positive Organizational Scholarship (pdf) - a branch of the organizational sciences focusing on “the dynamics in organizations that lead to the development of human strength, foster vitality and flourishing in employees, make possible resilience and restoration, and cultivate extraordinary individual and organizational performance.”

This topic duo has kept my attention over time and I often question how law firms might employ some of the relevant field work in redressing employee disengagement, discontent and depletion. As it’s done before, Harvard’s Working Knowledge forum again sheds some significant light on this question. In an article called The Power of Ordinary Practices, researchers share the results of a recent study on the ways business leaders “can influence the motivation, creativity, and performance” of the “knowledge workers who are carrying out the [day-to-day] work of the organization.”

According to the piece, a key discovery the researchers made is that workers’ performance is tied to their “emotions, motivations, and perceptions about their work environment.” These feelings, in turn, are “powerfully influenced by particular daily events” on the job. Positive feelings generated in the workplace lead to “more flexible, fluent, and original thinking” that “can carryover, [via] an incubation effect, to the next day.”

Because of their regular interactions with the knowledge worker population, leaders are the linchpins for generating or squelching the positive sentiments underlying employee happiness and productivity. So, the researchers advise, leaders need to understand how “ordinary, trivial, mundane” things they do in the regular course of business “can have an enormous impact” on an employee’s daily experience and performance.

The article goes on to cite “five leader behaviors that have a positive influence on people's feelings.” Among these five positive reinforcers are: providing emotional support; giving positive feedback on their work; and publicly recognizing people for good performance.

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It’s been some time since the last installment in my series of posts on rainmaking for lawyers. I’ve been looking for something new and different to augment the ongoing dialogue on this important topic.

My weekend Web patrol lead me to a very interesting and relevant post from morepartnerincome called Motivating Law Firm Rainmakers. In it, blogger Tom Collins highlights a sales theory of psychiatrist and anthropologist G. Clotaire Rapaille.

According to Collins, Rapaille posits that it’s “not the attorneys’ sales successes that drive them, but the value placed on the struggle” to bring in new business. So, law firms looking to motivate their lawyer sales force - including those practitioners who typically avoid rainmaking at all costs – should celebrate and acknowledge rainmaking failures as well as successes. As Collins sums it up: “You can motivate existing rainmakers and encourage others to become rainmakers by creating a culture where it is not a failure to come home empty-handed if you hunted well.”

Adding some valuable insight into energizing existing and prospective rainmakers, Worthwhile Magazine has come out with a list of the Top 50 Songs to Fire You Up. You’ll find the song roll here.

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You’ve likely heard of the theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) first articulated by Harvard educator Howard Gardner. He proposes that there are multiple dimensions to human intelligence, including logical-mathematical, verbal-linguistic, spatial-visual, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, naturalist, intrapersonal and interpersonal aspects. According to Gardner and other proponents of MI, almost all of us can access and develop these different, but closely related, intelligences.

I’ve been interested in human intelligence and affiliated topics for some time, as evidenced by my various posts on the interplay of lawyering and emotional intelligence, moral intelligence, positive psychology and appreciative inquiry.

Always keen on continuing my education in this arena, I was very happy to come across a post from idealawg containing blogger Stephanie West Allen’s interview with Carol Metzker, the co-author of a new book called Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn.

I’d received an introduction to this newly-minted type of intelligence through an article Metzker and Tojo Thatchenkery (the book’s other author) wrote for Ode Magazine on The secret to highly successful people. The deft blog interview adds much to this piece because it highlights how Appreciative Intelligence – the abilty “to see what is positive, generative and possible” in situations and people – can be harnessed and honed by professionals (aka lawyers) who are trained, employed and otherwise inclined to "search for past, present, and future problems.”

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Through my training and development work, I’ve met many, many practitioners who feel thoroughly depleted by their lives in the law. I’ve previously discussed possible causes of this widespread lawyer discontent and delved into the economics of lawyer depletion.

In a recent post at his blog Adam Smith, Esq., Bruce MacEwen tips us to one possible cure for what’s ailing lawyers today. The post revolves around this question: Can You Say “No?”  MacEwen poses the query to emphasize how some major law firms have learned that defining and honoring the boundaries of their business is key to their profitability and sustainability. As MacEwen sums it up: “Strategy means saying no” [original emphasis].

The same holds true for the individual lawyers who populate these firms and others. We need to know, clearly establish and honor our personal and professional boundaries to avoid the slippery slope to depletion and career dissatisfaction. This means saying “no” to a continuous stream of work that doesn’t lend meaning to our lives; that doesn’t fill us up. It also requires saying "no" to working and interacting with people who are constantly in taking mode – whether they’re colleagues or clients.

In taking MacEwen's observation to the micro level, we can see that, ultimately, it’s up to us to embrace the power of “no” as a vital and viable strategy for optimizing our lives in the law.

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The other day, some friends and I were discussing our personal histories of taking risks in our business lives. By risks, we all meant those voluntary - and sometimes involuntary - moves we’ve made into the unknown in order to fulfill our dreams of the day and survive and thrive professionally.

Over the last 15 years, my personal journey has taken me from the relative comfort and security of big firm work to launching my own practice and a training and development business. I’ve learned a lot about myself as a person, lawyer and entrepreneur during this risk-to-change process. There have been successes and stumbles, but they’ve all moved me in a positive direction.

Passion catalyst Curt Rosengren of The Occupational Adventure has a terrific post on the mechanics of risk-taking. Drawing from an article on risk by life coach Laurie R. Geary, Rosengren describes how the risk-taking realm is made up of three zones - the comfort zone, the learning zone, and the anxiety zone.

According to Geary, when we risk a change, we pass through the leading edge of our comfort zone into the learning zone. These two zones co-exist in a symbiotic circuit of sorts. As we leap into the unknown and learn something new, that acquired knowledge or skill set gets assimilated into our comfort zone, expanding it.

The key in this risk-growth exchange is to avoid venturing beyond the learning zone into our anxiety zone where, Geary says, no learning takes place because we’re too busy channeling all our energy into managing our angst.

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As you know, I’m a big fan of Garr Reynolds’ Presentation Zen. In one of his latest posts, Garr poses a question about presentations that applies equally well to everyday business and personal communications. He asks: “What can you do to consciously reduce the nonessential?” In other words, how can we pare down our language and messages so that they’re “simple yet not watered down, trivialized, or compromised?”

Garr gives us a taste of this “elimination of the superfluous” by sharing the story of a fish monger who pares down the words on his store’s sign until he realizes that they’re entirely unnecessary - the store, by its very nature (and odor), speaks for itself. I really like this post and the accompanying comments because they highlight why story + simplicity can be powerful allies in our effort to make our communications memorable.

The importance of storytelling as a business tool is also the subject of a recent post at Mark Beese’s blog, Leadership for Lawyers. Beese cites a terrific Forbes.com article by leadership expert John Kotter titled The Power Of Stories. Kotter builds his piece around the central point that business leaders who understand the profound impact stories have on people and who “use this knowledge to make their organizations great” are the leaders “we admire and wish others would emulate.”

For more insight into storytelling for business success, check out Seth Godin’s blog post (and related Ode article) on How to tell a great story.

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I’ve posted before on the dawning Conceptual Age and the lawyering skills we need to survive and thrive in this era that puts a premium on empathy, meaning and human-to-human connection.

There’s always a dark hour before the dawn and, for lawyers, the shift into this new age has been marked by widespread discontent, depletion and attrition cycling through our ranks.

It’s also been marked by the call of practitioners wanting to break this vicious cycle, like the one sounded in this recent boston.com article on Getting lawyers to reset moral compass [flagged at lexisOne]. It discusses the work of law professor and author David Hall, who believes that the legal profession “is in depression and must openly reclaim spiritual values to reconnect with its noble mission.” According to the piece, Hall defines spirituality as "the intentional decision to search for a deeper meaning in life and to actualize in one's life the highest values that can be humanly obtained."

Hall’s vision for reclaiming meaning in our work as service providers teams well with the idea that more and more consumers are looking for goods and services that offer something meaningful to them. This is the message of a book called Making Meaning: How Successful Businesses Deliver Meaningful Consumer Experiences that was recently reviewed at Harvard Business School’s working Knowledge. It’s now on my reading list. The part of the review that really grabs my attention is its rendition of the book’s take on the experiences people find most meaningful: “accomplishment, beauty, creation, community, duty, enlightenment, freedom, harmony, justice, oneness, redemption, security, truth, validation, and wonder.”

As with any transition, there will be those who embrace the organizational changes the Conceptual Age heralds and those who resist them despite all the warning signs that change is so desperately needed.

An article I read today – titled Got Kids? These Clients Don’t Care - sharply reminds us that it can be tough to shake the old status quo; especially in a profession that, for years, has put a premium on paying our dues and encouraged us to value transactions over relationships.

Confirming that old habits die hard, the article shares how a panel of female corporate counsel recently advised a gathering of women lawyers to “keep their personal lives out of the equation.” One panelist put it even more bluntly, stating: "You are a commodity to us." She then explained that when “she hires outside counsel, she cares about the work [ ] not the relationship.”

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I’m back from hiatus and shifting into work mode. I’ll resume regular posting next week. In the interim, I’ll pass along two great articles from Mediate.com.

In the first piece, conflict resolution expert Julie Denny offers insights and tips on constructive confrontation. Launching from the premise that “conflict can be an opportunity for personal growth, improved communications, better relationships and even untapped creativity,” Denny gives us a few “simple tools” to use in conflict situations, including these: understand what’s really going on; hang on to your goal; listen; and, validate the other person’s point of view.

In the second article, conflict and communication skills trainer Judy Ringer extracts and distills core concepts from the plethora of books on the subject into a handy checklist for handling difficult conversations. According to Ringer, the list’s common thread is this: you have more power than you think. That’s because the “majority of the work in any conflict conversation is work you do on yourself. No matter how well the conversation begins, you’ll need to stay in charge of yourself, your purpose and your emotional energy.” This may be a stunning revelation for many lawyers since we tend to focus our energies on the others we converse with – a/k/a/ client, adversary, judge or colleague.

The article ends with some conversation openers for us to sample. Among them are:

“I think we have different perceptions about _____________________. I’d like to hear your thinking on this."

"I’d like to see if we might reach a better understanding about ___________. I really want to hear your feelings about this and share my perspective as well."

"I have something I’d like to discuss with you that I think will help us work together more effectively.”

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I’ve written about the ways lawyers can benefit from engaging in reflective practice and boosting our listening skills. I’ve been a student and practitioner of active listening for much of my legal career and I’ve found it pivotal to connecting with people and building authentic, rewarding and lasting business relationships. Ron McDaniel of Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing (flagged by blogger Dave Lorenzo) echoes my belief and experience in a recent post captioned Your next conversation: 6 Things that will make it different. Ron challenges us to make the following “minor changes” the next time we converse with someone we know:

1) Listen 50% more
2) Ask twice as many questions
3) Hold eye contact 50% more
4) Make slight contact, or hold contact slightly longer
5) Show sincere sympathy or enthusiasm for something they say
6) Ask them if there is anything you could help out with

These are practical and sound active listening tips that we all can follow. But I would recommend that lawyers take the challenge even further and employ Ron’s advice each and every time we converse with current or prospective clients. Since most of his tips - like many aspects of active listening - are readily adaptable to different modes of conversation, it doesn’t matter if we’re connecting in-person or by e-mail, blackberry or telephone.

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Since writing this post about the making of law firm evangelists, I’ve thought a lot about what it takes to create a corps of lawyers and non-lawyer staff stirred to voluntarily shout a firm’s praises from the rafters. I know that this corps might form by way of an organic, grassroots rally around a beloved firm. But, it’s more likely that employee evangelists are cultivated over time by an inspired and inspiring law firm leader. This conclusion has (re)kindled my interest in the subject of lawyer leadership. So, I was happy to come across a new article by Hildebrandt consultants Dr. Larry Richard and Susan Raridon Lambreth called What Does It Take to Develop Effective Law Firm Leaders? In it, the authors stress that the need for law firm leadership is “greater than ever” and that leaders are more ‘made’ than ‘born.’” After clarifying the differences between management (“depends on analytical, rational, data-based, cognitive strategies to be effective”) and leadership (“much more people-focused, inspirational, emotional, non-linear and visceral”), the article sets out the characteristics of effective leaders - Honest, Competent, Forward-looking, and Inspiring – along with related competencies and behaviors. The first of these characteristics – Honesty – caught my attention because of another article I’d recently read on Corporate Values and Employee Cynicism. That article consists of an interview with professors Sandra Cha and Amy Edmondson, who’ve studied what happens, and what can be done, when employees view a charismatic business leader (one who motivates “people by creating a vision that revolves around some set of meaningful higher ideals or values”) as hypocritical; that is, as acting contrary to corporate values employees hold dear. Their insights confirm that identification with company values may spark employee evangelism; but it’s up to law firm leaders to fan the spark into a flame. If you’re interested, you can read the larger scholarly work this interview draws from: When values backfire: Leadership, attribute and disenchantment in a values-driven organization (pdf). The Be Excellent blog also has some interesting things to say about Defining Leadership and the Qualities of a Leader.

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In January, I wrote about conflict management and the business of law. Conflict manifests in our daily lives in many ways. And we tend to tend to it differently, depending on the context in which it arises. A dispute with a life partner or child usually triggers a different response mechanism than one with a business partner, client or adversary. However conflict germinates and plays out for us, it’s important to get a handle on how to optimize the opportunities it offers for our positive growth and transformation. One resource to help us on this path is conflict coaching, a process that professional conflict coach Cinnie Noble writes about in this recent Mediate.com article. Focusing on distinguishing it from the likes of therapy, mentoring and mediation, Noble defines conflict coaching as “an individualized method for helping people effectively engage in conflict.” She also points out that the goals of conflict coaching participants “may not only be about resolving conflict.” Instead, people engaging the process “may want to work on ways to prevent a dispute from unnecessarily escalating, to improve their competency in conflict management, to develop stronger communication skills for a difficult conversation and other objectives, that are often more about managing, than resolving.” While I appreciate the distinction Noble makes, I’ve come to see lawyer conflict management and conflict resolution skills as complementary parts of a larger skill set – problem solving. As lawyers, and human beings, we need to hone our aptitude for identifying and resolving problems. Business consultant and coach Dick Richards offers us the gift of his genius in the form of this terrific article on The Human Dimension of Problem Solving (pdf). In it, he vividly details how conscious shifts in “the four dimensions of human energy” – Physical Energy, Mental Energy, Emotional Energy and Spiritual Energy - can positively infuse and shape the problem solving process.

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I’ve previously posted on the emerging Conceptual Age and Dan Pink’s terrific book on the subject, A Whole New Mind. The book gives Pink’s take on the essential right-brain-based skills we need to own and hone to thrive in this new era - Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning. Now, over at his blog, Pink directs us to a great mind map synopsis of the book by fellow blogger Steve Richards. Richards’ overview works especially well for the visual learners among us. Picking up on a key Conceptual Age lawyering skill – Empathy – is a recent article by my friend Steve Keeva called What Tears May Tell. In it, Steve offers some anecdotes and insights about the importance of connecting with our clients on an emotional level. He sums it up well by stating: “The fact is, allowing yourself to show genuine emotion in others’ presence is to communicate in a special way, one that acknowledges your humanity and opens the door to deeper connections.”

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A few weeks ago, I offered this roundup on bettering communication skills. Adding to the chorus of how-tos is this article from Stewart Levine on the Essentials of Effective Communication. Among other helpful tips for forging “the verbal links that join you with the object of the influence you want to have,” Levine shares this compelling insight: “The Chinese Character for communication consists of three separate symbols: Eyes, Ears and Heart.” That communication involves all three of these human dimensions is evident in this post on The Art of Schmoozing from Guy Kawasaki. While intended as a primer on relationship-building, the post contains a strong undercurrent of communication dos and don’ts, including these: understand the goal (a/k/a discover what you can do for the other person); unveil your passions; and ask good questions, then shut up. Since effective negotiation is all about effective communication, Lee Miller’s article on the Eleven Commandments for Smart Negotiating provides several valuable pointers on getting our point across.

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One of my favorite blogs is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. His tips on presentation design and delivery are excellent and have informed my work as a speaker and trainer in the professional services sector. In a recent post, Reynolds offers several presentation imperatives derived from his reading of The Cluetrain Manifesto - the acclaimed book on the nature of business in a digital world. Cluetrain declares that markets are two-way conversations between company (widget maker, service provider, presenter…) and consumer (customer, client, audience member…). And, Reynolds opines, what folks on the consumer side of the conversation stream “yearn for [ ] is authenticity and transparency, simplicity, and a real human, emotion-without-the-BS approach to communicating.” With this in mind, he adapts 10 items from Cluetrain’s 95 Theses that “can serve as good advice or reminders for how we [lawyer-presenters] need to connect and engage with our audiences today.” Among Reynolds’ gems are (1) Audiences are not abstractions. They consist of human beings “worthy of our full attention and respect.” (2) “Your speaking does not have to be perfect. In fact, perfect speech and too much polish may alienate a crowd. It's not real.” (3) We can create the best presentations simply by seeing them as opportunities to converse with others about something we care about from the gut, heart and soul. (4) “A good presentation is like a good blog: it's transparent, unique, fresh, honest, authentic, and accurate even if not perfect.”

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Here’s the next installment in my series of roundups on rainmaking for lawyers: Larry Bodine continues the nature v. nurture networking debate with a post and related Law Marketing Portal article about lawyers as natural-born marketers. Bodine cites a study by Dr. Larry Richard of Hildebrandt International finding that, due to certain personality traits, “only 20% of lawyers are natural born marketers.” Of the remainder, “55% of lawyers can learn to be rainmakers” while “25% are hopeless at marketing and should be ignored.” I’ve commented on this notion of the hopeless lawyer rainmaker before. Blogger JD Hull expresses sentiments similar to my own when he states that we lawyers are teachable creatures and that law firms should work hard to cultivate an inclusive “marketing culture.” The Law Practice Management blog adds to the conversation on whether lawyers can be taught to market by offering “five tips to build a solid foundation in networking.” To round out this installment of the rainmaking roundup, I’d like to join in the rousing cyber welcome extended to professional service firm management expert David Maister and his new blog.

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I noticed an advisory theme afoot in my recent RSS readings - a flurry of how-tos for bettering our communication skills. This is popular fodder for building legal sanity, as demonstrated here; here and here (among others). The roundup this time offers us practical pointers on optimizing public speaking gigs; road rules for kicking butt on conference panels (thanks to Matt Homann for the tip); and insights into making business meetings worthwhile. While we’re on the theme of themed commentary; I want to highlight two more related posts. While not directly on point for building communication skills, this post from Curt Rosengren and this article via Evelyn Rodriguez both help us get to what’s behind any form of genuine self-expression: being in touch with what we love to do in the world. Rounding out the roundup is a terrific post from Presentation Zen that compels us all to approach our efforts with a fresh eye and a beginner's mind.

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I was roving the Web for commentary on Dale Carnegie’s classic relationship tome How to Win Friends and Influence People and was delighted to find this convenient guide from Notes of Intelligence. Depending on your time constraints or your fancy, you can choose from two convenient summary sizes: the basic (@ 5 minutes read time) or the comprehensive (@ 14 minutes read time). The text of both summaries is in outline form, presented under the main themes of Business Relationships; Selling Your Ideas; and Leadership. As an interesting aside, the guide’s author tracks the online traffic this summary effort generated.

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In a recent post, Tom Kane of thelegalmarketingblog.com offered some insight into what our clients want from us, their legal service providers. His overview reminded me of a related question that lawyers often raise during my programs on optimizing the attorney-client relationship. Although worded in a variety of ways, the question remains the same in hub and heart and goes something like this: What do I need to know about my clients to best serve them? While there’s no one “right answer” to this question, this post from morepartnerincome and this one from lawjobs.com suggest that lawyers must become intimately acquainted with the nature and nuances of their clients’ day-to-day business operations. As a baseline deliverable, clients expect services and solutions that reflect their corporate culture and aspirations. This kind of intimacy takes us beyond monitoring industry trends. Among other things, it requires us to regularly connect with our clients in person, walk their halls and factory floors and speak their business language instead of legal-talk. I think this ongoing dialogue about gauging and meeting our clients’ real needs and interests is a vital one for lawyers to engage. A congruent conversation about monitoring client satisfaction is blazing through the law blog world right now. Here are some bits of it, loosely joined by me: Allison Shields at Legal Ease comments in three different posts here, here and here. James Hassett also gives his opinion in three-part harmony at his blog, Law Firm Business Development (tip by JD Hull of What About Clients?). And Patrick Lamb adds his thoughts at In Search of Perfect Client Service.

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The other day, I watched my young son build an orb-like structure out of Tinkertoys. For those of you needing an introduction, this is a great spoke-and-wheel based construction set that’s been around for several generations (my son plays with my old sets). As I watched him piece his creation together spoke to hub and hub to spoke, I couldn’t help but think about the importance of connectedness and inter-connectedness as we work and play. It’s been a while since I last posted a roundup of current thoughts on networking. This post from the Milestone Group discusses “relationships as currency” and offers bites from a (subscription-only) article from the December 2005 Harvard Business review entitled How to Build Your Network. This article and this one offer lawyers some helpful business development tips. For the introverts among us, tips for the networking-phobic flow in the collaborative text of this post from the Never Work Alone blog. That same post mentions Keith Ferrazzi’s terrific business relationship book Never Eat Alone and tips us to this great bit of networking wisdom from the genius of Dick Richards at Come Gather Round.

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Speaking engagements have become a big part of my business doings. As I discussed here, I’ve spent a lot of time working and re-working my content, delivery style and deliverables to ensure that my programs channel what I call my personal presentation brand – the mode of presentation that reflects how I best convey my message and how my target audience best consumes it. In weighing the latter part of this branding equation – how to optimize audience, or consumer, experience – I’ve culled information on learning styles from various sources, like the ones I reference in this post and this one. I’ve also benefited from the guidance of Dr. Roger Greenaway. A proponent of experienced-based (or active) learning , Greenaway writes and speaks extensively about this education approach that melds the “worlds of talk and action.” You’ll find a comprehensive archive of his work here. As a big believer in the power of active learning, I was happy to come across this post from Bert Decker’s communications blog. In it, Decker points out that a lack of audience involvement can render any business presentation unmemorable. Citing a survey finding that 90% of people remember “what they see, are told, respond to and do [emphasis added],” Decker aptly concludes that the “secret to having your listeners learn and remember something is to take their involvement up the steps from Seeing to Responding, and Responding to Doing."

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