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Posted by Arnie Herz on December 19, 2009
The other day, I attended my son’s holiday celebration in his third-grade classroom. To capture the true spirit and meaning of the season, the kids took turns standing up in pairs and reading narratives about one another.
These weren’t fill-in-the-blank recitations. They were insightful and moving reflections. With their teacher’s guidance, the kids had taken the time to see and chronicle the world through their classmates’ eyes. This, of course, left nary a dry eye among us parents.
In my last post, I suggested that lawyers can benefit from seeing matters through our clients’ eyes. This requires us to set our own preconceptions aside. As John Baldoni notes in his recent post at (the just-revamped) Harvard Business Review, it also requires us to keep our egos in check.
Adding to the conversation, Seth Godin comments that gaining and keeping this other-focus can be tough when we’re so used to trying to get people to see things our way. (Lawyers are, after all, in the persuasion business.)
But, it can be done.
Pamela Slim offers us some pointers in a recent post on creating a client-centered, natural business model. Like Kathie Conway of Brains on Fire, you might also find that sharing personal stories is a direct route to learning about the people we work with and want to work with.
On the flip side, some suggest that you can’t really know others if you don’t have a strong sense of who you are. Those in need of some guided self-reflection can start with Seth Godin’s engaging 8 questions and a why.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 29, 2009
My introduction to Jason Mendelson came by way of a compelling how-to blog post he wrote titled: Quick Ways To Get Fired as a Lawyer. From the first read through, it's clear that Jason knows what he’s talking about. As a self-proclaimed “recovering lawyer” and successful VC with his own company, Foundry Group. he’s gained insight into the best and worst of legal service delivery from both sides of the fence.
Through the wonders of six-degrees-of-separation (many thanks to Debbie Huttner and Michael Huttner), I connected with Jason and had a lively discussion on the topic of re-designing legal services around the client experience.
AH: How many lawyers have you worked with over the years?
JM: 2,000-3,000.
AH: What percentage of these lawyers were excellent?
JM: 5%
AH: What makes a lawyer that pretty rare kind of advisor that inspires client evangelism – someone who provides such meaningful service that clients voluntarily shout his or her praises?
JM: I think it’s a combination of factors:
1. Team Feeling/Proactive Representation: You want to get the sense that your lawyer is part of your team and interested in your business. You want them to be there for you and thinking about you/your business when you need them to, and also thinking about you/your business even when you don’t need them for a particular matter. This sounds obvious but it rarely happens.
2. Consistency: This means not swapping out people. For example, in the initial meeting, you meet with certain lawyers, you build rapport and a connection with them and then you end up with different lawyers working on your deal.
3. Creativity: If you can think creatively and strategically on how to manage the legal issue in an efficient and effective way, you will get into the Lawyer Rock Star Hall of Fame.
AH: That gives us a good sense of the lawyer’s side of the coin. Are clients at all responsible for creating their own positive experiences with legal service consumption/delivery?
JM: The irony is that people who hire lawyers have no idea if the lawyer is any good. I give entrepreneurs 5-6 questions to ask potential lawyers when interviewing them. But the truth is that any lawyer can get past those questions. The best is to ask present or former clients of that lawyer/law firm and to ask other lawyers who have worked with the lawyer on opposite sides of a deal or dispute. Lots of lawyers can get a great reference, show up and woo you in a board meeting but then they don’t really know how to get the work done. They don’t do quality work.
So, yes, I think the client has some responsibility for ensuring their own positive service delivery experience. I riff on this in my Lawyer Bill of Rights. If a client doesn’t follow it, the client has no right to complain.
Thanks, Jason, for lending your insights into client experience design and helping us build legal sanity.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 16, 2009
Regular readers here know that I’m a big fan of author/right-brain-champion Daniel Pink and his take on our new Conceptual Economy that places a premium on creativity in business.
Lawyers aren’t known for being a creative lot. This is evidenced by the enduring nature of the billable hour over alternative fee structures, among other business practices. Some will undoubtedly say: “You can’t change our stripes. Creativity is best left to other professions.” But, I think this is a copout. There’s a wealth of creativity to be tapped in our ranks if we can just find the right inspiration and outlets.
On the inspiration side, you can take a look at a great series of Fast Company posts on the business of creativity, including one featuring the 10 Most Creative People in Sports and one on the Top 10 Most Creative People in Health Care. Imagine what a post on the Top 10 Most Creative People in the Law would include.
On the outlet side, maybe it’s about taking baby steps to tapping and expressing our creativity. Marketing is one area that’s creativity-friendly. Lawyers are already venturing into this creative realm via LinkedIn; Twitter and Facebook.
For more on the marketing front, there’s a great new book from legal marketing expert Paula Black titled: The Little Black Book: A Lawyer’s Guide to Creating a Marketing Habit in 21 Days. If you purchase the book in the next 48 hours, you’ll also receive The Smart Lawyer’s Toolkit, a compilation of advice from more than 30 sought-after experts in the legal arena (including yours truly). My advice comes by way of an interview I did with Gerry Riskin, author of The Successful Lawyer, about the challenges facing attorneys in today's economy. You can learn more about Paula’s book and complementary toolkit here.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 3, 2009
When she was little, my eldest daughter loved to watch Sesame Street. Sitting on the floor surrounded by stuffed versions of her favorite characters, she’d sing and comment away, all the while patiently waiting for the day when her age miraculously was the number of the day (it only happened a couple of times). It’s hard to believe that the show turned 40 this year. Many of its characters are truly ageless, like my personal favorite, Oscar the Grouch.
Cantankerous as can be, Oscar also has a some very endearing qualities, like the love and care he gives his pet worm, Slimey (BTW, if you haven’t heard/seen Tony Bennett sing Slimey to the Moon, you really must). Even as a toddler, my daughter could tell that Oscar has a good heart. He offers up a great lesson on seeing the whole of any person (or, monster) that we engage with as lawyers.
Echoing this lesson is a compelling post describing how one big firm associate very constructively dealt with an ornery senior partner. In my experience, the ability to look at a person in his or her entirety has a lot to do with empathy. As writer Katherine Bell posits, empathy is a not-so-soft skill that entails “an act of imagination in which you try to look at the world from the perspective of another person, a human being whose history and point of view are as complex as your own.” This kind of gestalt, or holistic, approach to relating is something that most lawyers could benefit from.
One organization dedicated to helping lawyers embrace this approach is the International Alliance of Holistic Lawyers (IAHL). This year, the IAHL is hosting its annual conference on June 11-14 in Chicago. The theme is: Voices of the “New” Lawyer: Finding and Expressing Your True Voice in Your Practice. The conference features a comprehensive, interdisciplinary training on collaborative family law practice. Near and dear to my heart, there’s also a dinner/tribute program honoring my friend, Steven Keeva, on the 10th anniversary of his groundbreaking book, Transforming Practices: Finding Joy and Satisfaction in Legal Life. You can register for the conference here.
Posted by Arnie Herz on May 23, 2009
Chrysler has let me down big time. I know, you’re probably thinking, “take a number and get in line, it’s a long one.” The company’s financial woes are already old news. But, that’s not what this is about.
This about the 2008 minivan that my kids practically live in. The subject of multiple recalls, it’s currently without A/C due to a defective hose. Chrysler knows about the problem and admits responsibility under its warranty. But, according to my dealership, the company just can’t keep up with the vast demand for replacement hoses. So, it’s been a waiting game. And, by some twist of coincidence, it’s been unseasonably hot on and off here in NY. The sizzling metal and glass box breeds major kid (and parent) crankiness, even with all the windows down. The summer months stretch out ahead.
Although the dealer claims that we’re next on the list when a hose shipment comes in, Chrysler has done some serious damage to a once solid customer relationship.
I can’t help but wonder how Chrysler would respond if it were a fly on the virtual wall that I post this on. Maybe it could take some guidance from Spike at Brains on Fire and embrace the upset it’s generated by producing a faulty A/C system and, then, not fixing the problem promptly. Or, maybe it’s a matter of fessing up to its own vulnerabilities as a company or asking whether it’s easy to deal with as a service provider (article courtesy of my business associate, Adrian Miller).
I’m sure there’s some room for making amends or, at least, stemming the tide of defecting customers. Come on Chrysler, take a look at yourself and ask, “where’s the love?”
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 28, 2009
Over the years, I’ve written several posts comparing the client service lawyers typically offer with the patient care doctors usually provide.
One of the first discussed the humanism in medicine movement and a related medical school curriculum that encourages a more holistic approach to treatment – body, mind and spirit.
It doesn’t take much experience in the law (maybe just a few months in law school) to realize that the legal profession doesn’t place a premium on “treating” the person behind the matters we take on. To the contrary. We’re encouraged as students and practitioners to reduce human issues to a dry set of rights, rules and responsibilities. It’s all about applying the law to the facts.
Plenty of us eschew this model of client care. We see and value the human-to-human connections we make with our clients. This kind of connection is the subject of a recent New York Times article that asks, How Connected Are You To Your Doctor? In it, Dr. Steven J. Atlas, co-director of primary care quality improvement at Massachusetts General Hospital, notes:
By focusing on new treatments, new technology and instant access, we have undermined the patient’s ability to have a longstanding relationship with a doctor, to have a doctor who knows him or her as a human being. If all your primary care doctor does is order tests and make referrals to specialists, he or she will miss the fact that you are stressed out because you lost your job or your health insurance.
I think a candid, comprehensive study of the quality of client care in the law would yield similar observations. The question remains whether the profession is ready, willing and able to respond with widespread reforms starting in law school and continuing in law firms and other practice settings.
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 6, 2009
I’ve been following coach/consultant Susan Cartier Liebel online since she launched her terrific blog, Build A Solo Practice, LLC. Susan’s been immersed in a new venture of late – a Web-based educational community and networking forum for lawyers and law students called Solo Practice University (SPU).
I’m very happy to announce that I have joined SPU’s faculty of working attorneys and other legal professionals and will be teaching a monthly course, Legal Sanity Career Strategies: Work Smart and Live Fully. Here’s a snippet from the course description:
Legal Sanity Career Strategies: How to Work Smart and Live Fully is a highly interactive course in teleseminar format, designed to help solo lawyers embrace the unprecedented change, challenge and opportunity impacting the legal profession today. Arnie will facilitate a dynamic learning process centered around participants’ actual challenges. The course will be real, relevant and practical. Arnie will draw upon the wisdom of other participants and guest speakers, offer practical advice and tools for managing each scenario, and provide the inspiration and support for translating knowledge into action. The course will enable each participant to build their knowledge, skills and confidence as a solo practitioner.
If you have any questions about the course, feel free to contact me.
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 29, 2008
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:
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 19, 2008
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:
- 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.”
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 3, 2008
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
Posted by Arnie Herz on October 3, 2007
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 20, 2007
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:
This inter-connectedness is the foundation of any successful business network.
Posted by Arnie Herz on April 26, 2007
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 10, 2007
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:
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 30, 2007
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 25, 2007
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 16, 2007
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 8, 2007
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on November 21, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on October 22, 2006
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:
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 20, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on July 24, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 21, 2006
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.”
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 8, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 4, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on May 27, 2006
Posted by Arnie Herz on May 3, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on April 27, 2006
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."
Posted by Arnie Herz on April 21, 2006
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."
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 20, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 13, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 27, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 23, 2006
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."
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 13, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 6, 2006
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."
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 26, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 23, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 18, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 13, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 9, 2006
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.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 3, 2006
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."
Posted by Arnie Herz on December 21, 2005
As lawyers, we need to be deft communicators. Whether we're in front of a fact finder, client or other business associate, we survive and thrive on our ability to get our message across to people. In this post, blogger Kathy Sierra discusses the anatomy of memorable communication. Specifically, she explains, our brains more readily "convert a memory from short-term to long-term storage" when the message we're receiving evokes our emotions or passions. Sierra cautions, however, that certain emotions work against memory retention because they make us feel uncomfortable or inept. Among the memory-averse emotions are stress, anxiety and worry. Unfortunately, these often are the very emotions elicited by the typical lawyer communiqué. But, we're not without recourse here. According to Sierra, we can boost our message and its memorability factor by linking (or infusing) it with "things the brain finds interesting," like beauty, story, surprise, music or humor.
Posted by Arnie Herz on December 15, 2005
About a year ago, I read and really enjoyed David Maister's book, The Trusted Advisor. So, I was happy to see Gerry Riskin's recent post linking to Maister's article Do You Really Want Relationships? In that piece, Maister details the differences between business transactions and business relationships, positing that most professionals (read lawyers) embrace the latter approach to client interaction. In transaction-based affiliations, the professional acts as an expert by taking the reins from the client and declaring: "Leave this to me, I'll get you the result you want." The expert wants "the client to cede authority to the warrior to do battle as she or he sees fit." This stands in sharp contrast to the relationship-minded advisor who strives to add "guidance, input, and counseling to the client's own thought and decision-making processes. The client retains control and responsibility at all times; the advisor's role is subordinate to this, not that of a prime mover." Maister acknowledges the strong draw of the transaction, particularly for the many professionals who "find comfort in the rational, the logical, or the analytical." But, he says, most clients would "prefer to hire a true advisor if they could find someone skilled in taking that approach." He also asserts that, ultimately, transactions "are not in the best long-term interests of either professional or client." Maister then suggests ways to transition from client transactions to client relationships. However the transition is made, he concludes, we must "put the client's interest first and keep the faith that this relationship-building act will be repaid through future reciprocity." Maister makes many great points. Echoing his message is this post from Jim Calloway citing The Ten Commandments of Good Client Relationships (pdf).
Posted by Arnie Herz on December 9, 2005
I'll be offline for a bit as my sister, Debbie, is getting married this weekend. Debbie, who has a JD-MBA from New York University, is someone I admire a lot for her ability to follow her passion while sharing compassion with others. A few years ago, she left the long-familiar terrain of New York City and relocated to Colorado, where she knew only a couple of people. There, she stepped off the corporate track, became a yoga instructor, met her fiancée and (among other ventures) started a non-profit that aims to introduce yoga to disadvantaged kids. Just the ramblings of a proud sibling on the eve of a special day, you say. Well, maybe. But I also share this personal anecdote as a way of highlighting the nexus between our life's work, the passion with which we pursue it and our capacity for compassion. I've previously discussed the spokes of this network here, here and here. Over at his blog, a clear eye, Tom Asacker adds to the discussion with a great post built around a question he's pondered for a while: "Which attribute [is] more important to success in business: passion or compassion?" The question's answer came to Tom as he wandered the floors of Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: "Passion and compassion are simply opposite sides of a successful business coin. It works like this: when communicating one-to-many, passion rules! When communicating one-to-one, compassion rules! This rule applies to everything from advertising, selling, PR, speeches, customer service, employee communication, negotiation, etc." I think it's a terrific answer for all of us trying to build our skills, success and satisfaction in the law or any other vocation.
Posted by Arnie Herz on December 5, 2005
In this post, Larry Bodine offers a "scientific" answer to a key question: Should law firms spend time and money trying to teach business development skills to lawyers who "don't do any business development"? The proffered answer, by way of organizational psychologist Neil T. Witmer, is "No." According to Witmer, some lawyers simply "lack the essential personality elements [read - drive and confidence] to develop new business." Absent their innate draw to rainmaking, it's better to leave these practitioners "in the library or their offices, where they belong. No amount of coaching, training or individual business planning will ever work for them." If your mouth is agape with a big "wow," here's a fine rebuttal from Gerry Riskin of Amazing Firms Amazing Practices. Challenging Witmer's understanding "of lawyers, law firms or the legal profession," Riskin opines that encouragement and training can work wonders for many reluctant rainmakers. To this end, he states: "Almost all lawyers [ ] can be trained to dramatically improve their client-relations skills from Meeting Prospective Clients, Managing Client Expectations to Dealing with Complaints and Getting more Referrals (and much more)." The commentary rounds out with a Bodine/Witmer reply to Riskin and this thoughtful input from The Greatest American Lawyer blog. I've always looked at business development skills as synonymous with relationship-building skills. Networking is, in essence, about genuinely connecting with other people to foster valuable personal and professional relationships. It can be done anytime and anywhere we encounter other human beings. I think this message, and the skill set needed to apply it in the world, is something that all lawyers would benefit from learning on the firm's dime. Even if the firm's investment does not translate into new business via every lawyer taught, there's still a significant ROI in terms of a decided boost in the lawyer's ability to relate to others in the firm and beyond.
Posted by Arnie Herz on November 21, 2005
In growing my training and development business, I've spent a lot of time cultivating my presentation skills through books and programs on communication, listening and learning. I've sampled a variety of approaches to distill my personal presentation brand - the mode of presentation that reflects how I best convey my message and how my target audience best consumes it. It's been a great education process. And it's one that I think many lawyers would benefit from regardless of their public speaking aspirations simply because: (1) most of us rely on communication and interpersonal skills to connect with clients and build our book of business; and (2) in developing our presentation style, we gain a deeper sense of our personal and professional ideals and goals. If you want to learn more about honing presentation skills, there's some solid guidance given by blog here, here and here. You can also take a look at public speaking tips and tutorials offered by organizations like this one.
Posted by Arnie Herz on November 17, 2005
A few months back, I cobbled this post featuring rainmaking tips from several sources. The connection conversation continues with this new article compelling lawyers to cultivate a "network of endless referrals" by asking prospects "feel-good questions." This kind of questioning places the focus squarely on the prospective client instead of on ourselves and our "awesome services." The piece ends with a list of "feel-good" inquiries that includes the following:
How did you get started in your particular line of business?
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
What significant changes have you seen take place in your profession through the years?
What one sentence would you like people to use in describing the way you do business?
How can I know if someone I'm speaking to would be a good prospect for you?
I agree that a dialogue grounded in these kinds of questions can foster some great business opportunities. But, this approach presumes that the questioner is also a highly skilled listener. I've discussed listening as a key lawyering skill before. A similar refrain is sounded in this post on listening v. talking from Lisa Haneberg's great blog, Management Craft. For more rainmaking inspiration, you can check out the article roundup in this posting at The Job Blog. My posts here and here discuss the practical and insightful approach to business relationship building espoused by author, consultant and educator Keith Ferrazzi.You'll find a selection of his recent articles on networking and related topics here.
Posted by Arnie Herz on November 6, 2005
From passion catalyst Curt Rosengren comes this post offering a quick checklist (adapted from this ThirdAge article) for assessing whether we're successful in our chosen work. Among the checklist's contents are these provocative inquiries:
"Are you enjoying what you do?
Are your connections with friends, colleagues and family strengthened by your success?
Are you proud of your accomplishments thus far?
In the process of achieving your goals, are you developing the qualities of kindness, self-respect, courage, compassion, patience, love and hope?
Do you feel more in control of yourself and your life?"
In another post, Curt provides helpful companion tools for examining career success: goal mapping templates (pdf). These templates allow us to explore our business goals through a free flowing stream of consciousness. After completing the exercises, we'll have written guides for achieving key goals that we equate with professional and personal success and satisfaction.
Posted by Arnie Herz on October 15, 2005
I've discussed the role of emotions in mediation before. There's a new book out by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro of the Harvard Negotiation Project called: Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate. Fisher is well known for the cutting-edge negotiation theory he and William Ury set out in their seminal tome: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In. In their new book, Fisher and Shapiro expand on that theory by describing how we can harness emotions to get what we want in our everyday negotiations. At the heart of their paradigm is the recognition of five "core concerns" linked to our emotions during negotiations - "appreciation, affiliation, autonomy, status and role." By understanding and working with these core concerns, the authors assert, we can cultivate helpful emotions in ourselves and others and negotiate better results for mutual gain. You'll find commentaries on Beyond Reason here, here and here.
Posted by Arnie Herz on October 11, 2005
I recently cited an article questioning the power of conventional apology in legal negotiations. Here's a response piece asserting that sincere apology can be a vital and powerful recourse of "catalytic" proportion "in litigated or non-litigated cases where there is emotional or physical injury, or where there is a desire to continue a relationship." One of the central issues, the writer claims, is that there's no consensus on what constitutes a "full apology." And "we each have different needs that must be met before we can accept the apology and move on with our lives." The writer then depicts the continuum of apologies that people might find acceptable. These range from simple confessions (the "lowest level of apology") to open-ended offers to make things right (the "strongest level of apology").
Posted by Arnie Herz on October 6, 2005
The terrific 800-CEO-Read Blog recently offered a series of posts here, here, here and here on Moral Intelligence. A close relative of Emotional Intelligence (which I've discussed several times), Moral Intelligence is our "mental capacity to determine how to apply universal moral principles--such as integrity, responsibility, compassion and forgiveness--to our personal values, goals and actions." The "strong correlation" between Moral Intelligence and success in today's business world is the topic of this book and its companion Website where you can go to assess your "moral competencies and values." The book's premise is that "sustainable personal and organizational success requires moral competence, which is the active application of our moral intelligence." Although we come into the world with "moral hardwiring," we can enhance our moral competence throughout our lives in a fluid confluence of nature + nurture.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 22, 2005
In this post and this one, I discussed the role of apology in preventing and resolving legal disputes. Here's a recent article asserting that the conventional mea culpa brand of apology is actually a rarity in today's legal negotiations. Such apologies are scarce, it proposes, because people (1) "don't blame themselves for anything" and (2) believe that any apology will be disregarded or exploited by wary adversaries. Nonetheless, the piece continues, there's a "different type of apology" that "can become one of the negotiator's most effective tools." This unconventional apology doesn't convey liability or fault. Instead, it offers some genuine "recognition of the other side's human condition" that allows them to feel "important and appreciated." It acknowledges the human-to-human core of all legal conflicts. While such apology-making won't guarantee "successful resolution," the article concludes, it will open the door to that possibility by placing "everyone on a small tuft of common ground" and setting "the stage for tremendous progress in the conversation."
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 25, 2005
There's something in the air. My regular research excursion uncovered a host of recent articles offering advice on generating business. This one encourages us to ask prospects "open-ended questions" on the theory that "people want to feel as though speaking with you is a good investment of time, and the only way they will have that experience is if you do more listening than talking." This article discusses the art of the sale. Stating that selling "occurs when you match your services to a specific person's articulated needs," the piece walks us through the basics of the "sales pipeline." It closes on this familiar note: "In the end, the key to effective selling is in the art of asking questions and listening closely." Carolyn at My Shingle pointed me to this overview that compels us to take an honest look at the networking groups we belong to in order to ensure a proper (and lucrative) fit. Last, but certainly not least, comes this piece about vacation-time rainmaking. It tells us that, according to networking professionals,"relaxing on the beach, mingling at the bar, or traveling with a tour group opens the door for strangers to find common interests and oftentimes, the conversation leads to work, and making business deals and creating opportunities with new business partners." On that note, I'm heading off for some vacation time with my family. I'll resume blogging when I get back late next week. Until then, happy rainmaking!
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 24, 2005
I've talked about lawyering and emotional intelligence (EQ) in posts like this one and this one. There's a new book out called The Emotional Intelligence Quick Book: Everything You Need to Know to Put Your EQ to Work. In it, the authors provide a test for assessing our EQ and tips for improving it. Here's an interview with one of the book's authors, psychologist Travis Bradberry. Qualifying his finding that "CEOs as a group have very low EQ scores," he notes: "Within each profession, the best performers have the highest EQs. Even the best CEOs have the highest EQs. But CEOs are often promoted for being good financial managers, not good people managers." Bradberry also asserts that the "demand right now for emotional intelligence in business is huge." Judging from accounts of the public perception of lawyers (discussed here and here), the business of law could use a sizeable infusion of emotionally intelligent leaders.
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 8, 2005
I previously posted on different views of the lawyer's role in mediation. Here's an article offering yet another perspective on the topic. It posits that many lawyers come to the mediation table fearing that the "mediator will somehow usurp them and their role and have a disproportional influence on their client's attitude to resolution." The piece goes on to offer some tips on how mediators can address this concern and honor the attorney-client relationship. Among the helpful hints for mediators to consider: (1) acknowledge the lawyer's expertise; (2) treat counsel as co-mediators adept at negotiation; and (3) give lawyers credit where credit is due - make them "look good." I like the article's suggestions on how to ease mediator-advocate relations. But, vis-à-vis the lawyer-client relationship, I think the mediator's role goes well beyond allaying counsels' insecurities and satisfying their need for control. Indeed, success in mediation often rests on whether the mediator has taken the time to ensure that advocate and client have a common understanding of the matter and have worked together to set realistic goals that meet the client's real needs and interests.
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 5, 2005
This Christian Science Monitor story features the work of student advocates in Pace Law School's environmental law clinic. These second and third years build vital skills and confidence facing such sizable opponents as Exxon-Mobile and representing a local environmental group fighting pesticide use. Pace's prestigious program is part of a growing trend towards adding "real-world cases to law school classrooms." According to the article, law schools nationwide now offer clinics "in just about every legal field, from family law to securities arbitration, in keeping with the move toward specialization in legal training." My alma mater, Fordham Law School, was on the leading edge of this important trend. As a third year, I participated in a mediation clinic in small claims court that opened my eyes to the nature of the adversarial system and the enormous benefits of alternative dispute resolution. The insight I gained that semester about myself and my role as a conflict manager stayed with me as I launched my litigation career and informed my later decision to become a mediator.
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 3, 2005
A while back I wrote about law-firm sponsored leadership programs. Here's a new article on the same subject. It relates that many rapidly growing firms are "partnering with top universities to implement management training for their current leaders and younger attorneys who show management promise" in order to populate the "helm for the next generation of law firm workers." Duly acknowledging that these programs fill a void left by the typical law school curriculum, the piece notes that "whether a crash course in Management 101 can help turn a lawyer into a leader remains uncertain." Among the obstacles fueling this nature v. nurture uncertainty "may be the personality types of lawyers themselves." According to one authority quoted in the article, "the qualities that make good lawyers are not the same as those that make good leaders." Lawyers usually survive and thrive on traits like "skepticism; high cognitive thinking; urgency or impatience; autonomy; sensitivity or defensiveness; and a lack of sociability." By contrast, leaders "tend to be more sociable" than the average lawyer and "usually are less skeptical or distrustful of others. In addition, they have high urgency in their eagerness to reach closure on issues." This observation echoes the view of lawyer personality traits espoused by other researchers, as I previously discussed here. It may well be that practitioners with traits atypical of most lawyers - those most dissatisfied with the traditional, adversarial practice of law - are the very best candidates for becoming the effective and respected firm leaders of tomorrow.
Posted by Arnie Herz on July 20, 2005
I'm a huge fan of Thomas Friedman's book, The World Is Flat. For those of you who haven't read his insightful and engaging account of the new age of globalization, this article presents a nice overview of Friedman's ideas. In a nutshell, he asserts that "we are now in the process of connecting all the knowledge pools in the world together" and, as a result, "we are on the cusp of an incredible new era of innovation, an era that will be driven from left field and right field, from West and East and from North and South." Having read and re-read Friedman's book, I'm grateful that Anita Sharpe at the Worthwhile blog linked to this transcript of a commencement address he recently gave at Williams College. So, what advice did Friedman offer those entering the real world beyond the ivory tower? Among other bits of wisdom for the road ahead, he shared what he terms a "survival strategy" for a flat world: "Do what you love." Friedman's strategy rests on a simple fact of life in a flattened world: "The good jobs that will remain will be those that cannot be automated or outsourced; they will be the jobs that demand or encourage some uniquely human creative flair, passion and imagination. In other words, jobs that can only be done by people who love what they do." He calls such people "untouchables." I wonder how many of this year's law school graduates would rank themselves among this group.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 28, 2005
It seems that the legal sector is channeling the Ferrazzi spirit. As I previously posted, Keith Ferrazzi is the author of the new networking manifesto Never Eat Alone. He also writes a blog by the same name. According to the always informative Monica Bay of The Common Scold, Ferrazzi recently presented his rainmaking vision at a meeting of legal sales and marketing professionals "with great results." Echoing the theme of nurturing relationships to build business is this article discussing how law firm alumni programs provide golden opportunities to forge new business ties.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 15, 2005
First there was LexThink Chicago's lawyer forum on creating the optimal professional services firm. Soon after, I posted on nurturing passionate legal consumers in our emerging experience economy. Maybe there's something in the old lawyer water well. This new Small Firm Business article echo's the call for lawyers to chart a course to success and satisfaction through improved service delivery. Describing law firms as "customer service organization[s] whose work product happens to be legal documents," the author boldly states: "I'm here to tell you that creating client satisfaction -- or better yet, joy -- is your job." To generate the right customer experience, he suggests that firms come up with a "script" and set "protocols" that cover everything from office décor to decorum. While I'm all for fostering joyful clients, I think the author misses the mark by focusing solely on staging the positive consumer experience. Staging is important, but it's only a part of the process. Relying on staging alone is tantamount to pretending that you care. Firms need to augment their stage directions by encouraging and empowering lawyers to forge human-to-human connections that show our clients that we genuinely care about moving them on to greatness.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 8, 2005
I've talked about the interplay of lawyering and emotions a few times. This article deals with a related topic: how emotions play a leading role in business mediations. The author states that disputes between business partners often resist mediated outcomes for "four common reasons" related to "very recognizable human emotions and perceptions." Specifically, defying logic and practicality, one or both disputants may hold out for litigation because they: (1) fear making a mistake; (2) face bankruptcy and are willing to gamble on a slim chance of winning big; (3) fear that a "spouse or valued relationship will be angry or upset with [] a settlement;" and (4) "highly value negative emotions such as revenge or retribution." The article goes on to detail ways of clearing these emotional roadblocks to successful mediation. However, the salient point that the piece underscores is that dispute resolution of any sort is an exercise in human emotions and human relations. Whatever hat we're wearing (mediator, negotiator or lawyer), we can't expect to be effective or efficient conflict managers unless we're willing to address the human side of the matter at the outset. People come to the table with more than a dry set of facts and damage calculations. They bring their stories, and histories, of relationships gone bad - with all the fear, sadness and anger that naturally attend such dissolutions.
Posted by Arnie Herz on May 31, 2005
Because I work as a lawyer and mediator and write and speak on topics related to those pursuits, people often ask for my take on the role of advocates in mediation. I typically respond that success in the mediation process often turns on a much-ignored factor: whether lawyer and client have come to a common understanding of the matter and have worked together to set realistic goals that meet the client's real needs and interests. In my experience, the most debilitating fissure to navigate in mediation can be the one between a participant and his or her counsel. While it does not address this particular issue, this article offers interesting commentary on the role of lawyers in mediation. In Rashomon fashion, it considers the process through the eyes of two eyewitnesses: The first, a "group of attorneys selected for their hard-hitting style and experience; the second, experienced mediators, all with different backgrounds and styles." Both groups report on "what works for them" and "what hinders success" in mediation. The group responses are quite distinct. The advocates essentially see the process as a means of settling or, at least, learning more about a case. Some even concede that "their intent in mediation is to facilitate a win by using it to optimize their clients' position in the litigation." The mediation panelists, by contrast, state that "the purpose of mediation is to bring both sides together, not only to settle for a dollar value and dispose of the litigation, but also to address the needs of the parties, explore creative solutions to resolve the underlying dispute, and achieve a common objective." While the advocate team divides on the issue of "allowing their client to speak" during the mediation, the mediators all agree that mediation is "a place for clients to talk, vent, explain, express their values and feelings, and a place to repair relationships, if appropriate." The two groups do unite on some basic points, including "the crucial importance of building trust between the mediator and the parties." FYI, I will be speaking on the subject of aligning lawyer and client interests in mediation at the Association of Conflict Resolution's Annual Conference, September 28-October 1, 2005, in Minneapolis, MN. You can check out the conference offerings and register here.
Posted by Arnie Herz on May 18, 2005
Another book in my "to read" pile is Keith Ferrazzi's never eat alone, a guide to connecting with people in our social and business networks. You can read excerpts from the book here. In this article, Ferrazzi addresses a key component of networking - understanding the special values we bring to any relationship. Ferrazzi calls these values "currencies." Our currency is our "capacity to help somebody else fulfill their mission or vision of themselves in some way." Most of us have multiple currencies. Some are naturally stronger than others. Indeed, as Ferrazzi emphasizes, typically "our most valuable currencies are things we do that seem as natural as breathing -- natural to us, but to others, these skills are a real rarity!" To discover our currencies, Ferrazzi suggests that we consider these questions:
- "What things do you say about yourself and your interests that excite or intrigue people you meet?"
- "When did you help make someone else a success at something?"
- "Of the times you were able to give, which worked the best and which felt the best?"
- "How can you purposely incorporate those currencies into your sales and networking plans?"
Posted by Arnie Herz on May 6, 2005
I always enjoy reading the creating passionate users blog. It offers very fresh and interesting ideas about fostering optimal consumer experiences - ideas that apply to businesses across the board, including the business of legal service delivery. One of its recent posts highlights this basic tenet of our emerging experience economy: Potential consumers of our services really don't care how terrific we are or how many big awards we've won. They're an innately self-interested lot. So, if "we want to inspire our users," we need to show them that we genuinely "care about how fabulous they are. How fast they are. How many awards they might win as a result of using our products or services." We need to make that human-to-human connection and let them know that consuming our offerings will move them in a positive direction. But, as this article on speaking engagements for attorneys evinces, generating and sustaining consumer passion is not a key marketing objective of the legal industry. Indeed, in chronicling why "[s]peaking opportunities for attorneys represent a strong marketing, public relations, and business development tool," the piece nowhere suggests that they provide an unrivaled opportunity to convey what we do (to borrow wording from the above-cited post) "in terms of how it helps the user kick ass."
Posted by Arnie Herz on May 4, 2005
This post and another from Andy Havens' legal marketing blog got me thinking. They both discuss law firm marketing and branding, with "brand" defined by Andy as a "corporate personality." When contemplating their business brand, Andy challenges firms to consider their "personality" and what sets them "apart from other firms" as a collective enterprise. He goes on to caution that a firm "can't [and shouldn't] be everything to everyone." Indeed, he says, brands evolve from a business commitment to stressing "the importance of certain values over others." This is very good advice that applies equally well to solo practitioners. As I've discussed before, it's difficult, if not impossible, to forge and sustain solid attorney-client relationships unless we first take time to pinpoint our core values - the fusion of personal beliefs and business philosophies that's unique to us. This core valuation is like our fingerprints or DNA. It reflects who we are and provides a reliable way for others to identify us. If we don't know, publicize and promote our own core values, consumers seeking the right client-lawyer fit can't readily distinguish our legal services from the rest of the pack.
Posted by Arnie Herz on April 23, 2005
As I previously mentioned, I'm very interested in the discussion about optimal business operation in the new millennium. This article suggests that our world of work is in a constant state of flux, requiring a new paradigm for organizational and individual success. Businesses can no longer survive and thrive by "establishing an efficient organizational structure and then hiring individuals to meet the needs of the structure." Instead, to meet the realities of the evolving marketplace, they must "have flexible professionals, ready to change as the needs of the organization and the economic climate changes." What does this mean for lawyers? According to the piece, the new paradigm calls for workers who are "aware of their vision, the best role that they play in achieving productivity and success." The problem is, most legal professionals are not educated or otherwise trained to identify work roles best suited to our individual talents and abilities. As the article concludes, finding this fit takes a good measure of self-effort. We need to learn how "to operate from a sense of our strengths and bring our strengths to our work world at every endeavor."
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 31, 2005
The March 2005 edition of the ABA's Law Practice Today is devoted to helping lawyers as they start their careers. Although their aim is true, the articles are somewhat redundant. But, there are a few standouts. The always informative Dennis Kennedy offers a nice roundup of vital "lessons" for beginners. Among other things, he highlights the importance of understanding firm culture and hierarchy, finding a mentor and ensuring a proper lawyer-firm fit. Scheherazade Fowler shares some snapshots of her life as a fledging lawyer using the honest, engaging and amusing writing style that makes her blog one of my favorites. I particularly like her recollection of a conversation she had with a bankruptcy client who didn't understand the difference between "real" and "personal" property. Showing compassion for her client and insight into a common communication pitfall, Fowler states that the use of such legal terminology is "just another way in which we lawyers make the regular people who want to use our services feel dumb when there's no reason they should." In her article on navigating the "road to success," Kathleen Brady reminds us that the career path is often "paved with detours, speed bumps and potholes." Our ability to negotiate these obstacles, she advises, hinges on our willingness to be proactive and decide for ourselves what we value most. Then, it's up to us to go out and find a job that aligns with our core values. Brady also encourages us to look at career management as an ongoing process and suggests that we "make a lifelong commitment to actively manage [our] career/life and develop strategies to adapt to the inevitable transitions [we] are destined to encounter." Backing up this advice, she outlines a methodology for meeting our "lifetime goals" by creating a "five-year plan" and then setting "annual goals." Although conveyed in broad strokes, Brady's goal-setting process helps re-focus us on a very "personal definition of success."
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 25, 2005
I really enjoy reading Andy Havens' legal marketing blog. He always gets me thinking about ways to connect with existing and prospective clients. In this recent post he remarks that lawyers are "often amazing relationship managers" which, he says, "makes them fantastic experiential marketers." For the uninitiated (like me), Andy states this basic tenet of experiential marketing: "people remember personal experiences much more strongly than broad-band media productions or celebrity sponsorships." He goes on to credit the ways lawyers forge the bonds that translate into long-term relationships with clients: "They know their clients' businesses inside and out. They understand their industries. They 'get it' when the business climate changes. They keep an eye out for their clients' competitive issues. They are proactive. They don't play 'yes man' games, but will sometimes risk losing business in order to do the right thing." I find these insights very interesting and somewhat perplexing. I regularly speak to groups of lawyers about optimizing their skills, success and satisfaction in the law. During the interactive presentations, I ask them to identify the biggest hurdles to achieving these three goals. Invariably, they rank the same impediment at or near the top of the list - an inability to engage clients or client referral sources. And by this they don't just mean an inability to go out and find such prospects. Rather, both veterans and newcomers admit that they have a hard time connecting with people as people. They're severely lacking in human relations skills. I venture that, without these core relational skills, it's simply impossible to create the client bonds, enduring relationships and positive consumer experience that Andy refers to.
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 21, 2005
People often ask me how they should go about learning the basics of mediation. I've received some formal mediation training, but have built much of my knowledge base on the job. Whether you'd like to be a mediator or just want to educate yourself about the process, this article provides some good pointers on how to choose a mediation training program. Here are three highlights: (1) "There is no uniform regulatory scheme governing the practice of mediation," so you'll need to "find out what requirements or qualifications standards for mediators are specified by the state you plan to practice in;" (2) There are several types of mediation, including facilitative, evaluative and transformative (you can learn more about them here). Because each comes with its own philosophical slant, rules and strategies, it's important to ascertain which mediation model a given program will teach participants;(3) Do your homework by researching the instructors' credentials and qualifications before you sign on. Ask questions: "What kind of work do they do in the mediation field? What types of cases do they mediate? How long have they been mediating? What kind of advanced training have they had? How long has the organization offering training been providing mediation and training services? How many individuals have they trained?" The piece goes on to overview the typical training curriculum and costs and gives some program locator tips.
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 14, 2005
In this post from Duct Tape Marketing, John Jantsch provides a nice coda to the conversation about must-have conversations for lawyers. He proffers a recipe for "much more fulfilling work, much more loyal clients and way more referrals." The key ingredient? Bravery. According to Jantsch, we need to shed our fear of showing we care and ask our clients "what their most important personal goals are." Then, we must take the time to figure out how we can help them achieve their goals. I think his advice is right on the mark.
Posted by Arnie Herz on March 2, 2005
My wife passed along this article profiling her fellow Vassar College alum Pauline Yeung, a New York attorney who works in a small elder law boutique. Yeung, whose parents are from Hong Kong, discusses how her background and life experiences infuse the counsel she offers her main clientele of elderly Chinese immigrants. Because her clients consider consulting a lawyer a line of last resort, Yeung works to forge "a "trust relationship" with them. She asks about their children, health and home and shares information on neighborhood resources. In this way, she says, she shows that she really cares. Although her clients are predisposed to seek the advice of older and male practitioners, Yeung has won their confidence by presenting her case "professionally and with respect." She's also gained their trust by respecting certain cultural boundaries. For instance, the Chinese consider it taboo to "speak of death and disability." So, Yeung refers instead to "protecting money and sheltering assets." While this may be a fairly unique example of lawyer-client symbiosis, I think it well highlights the importance of getting to know the human beings behind the legal matters we deal with every day. Trust is something earned and we can't possibly earn it without this kind of human(e) interaction with our clients.
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 28, 2005
Like many of you, I consider my work in the legal field very much a work in progress. I'm constantly thinking about how I can make it more interesting, fun, profitable and meaningful for me and my clients. Jennifer Rice at What's Your Brand Mantra has this interesting take on building your business "not on what you do, but how you do it." She asks us to consider how we distinguish ourselves from the pack: "Are you faster, better, cooler, more innovative? More connected with your customers? Or, asked another way, how do you inspire emotion in your customers? Do they feel liberated? Hip? Special? In control? Connected?" Although she's speaking the language of niche marketing and branding, Rice's queries logically extend to the hub and heart of our business - the attorney-client relationship. At this time when public opinion of lawyers is so low and client infidelity and practitioner attrition are riding high, we need to focus on the "hows" of our service delivery. As Rice points out, "Own a 'how' in your industry, and you'll have a path for future growth as the market and competitive set changes." I also venture that aligning how you work with who you are - with your core values and interests - goes a long way towards building a sustainable, successful and satisfying career in the law.
Posted by Arnie Herz on February 16, 2005
Conflict is a big part of everyday life, especially for lawyers. This article, raises the interesting point that understanding our own attitude about conflict is integral to building solid conflict management skills. Launching from the premise that people typically see conflict as "something undesirable," the piece asks us to view it through the metaphor of fire. Like fire, conflict has the potential for destruction, but also for creating great opportunity. If we approach conflict situations with knowledge of this duality, we're less likely to run from them or to immediately try to extinguish them. We realize that we have more options than that. And we also learn that, like fires, not all conflicts are sustained and snuffed out in the same way. Acknowledging these differences, we become more open and able to navigate conflicts through to optimal resolutions.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 31, 2005
Yes, it seems that Tony the Tiger was a trendsetter. Like many, many others, I'm in the midst of reading Jim Collins' latest bestseller Good to Great. The book theorizes that great companies all possess "a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner." As I've read along, I've thought a lot about how the book's blueprint for greatness applies to law firms. So, I was happy to come across this article discussing that very subject. The author makes many valid points, but I think the most salient is that law firms can't cultivate excellence unless they choose and train leaders based on outstanding people and business skills rather than seniority, billable quotas and rainmaking.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 29, 2005
Curt Rosengren posted a great question over at Worthwhile blog. After stating that he's witnessed a paradigm shift toward career decisions "made with an eye toward creating a rich, meaningful, fulfilling life," he asks us to let him know what shifts we see "out there" and what shifts we'd like to see. In the legal sector, I've heard an amplifying call to address public discontent with the profession and to remedy rising rates of lawyer attrition and burn out. Client demand for trusted counselors and alternative fee structures will propel a shift towards reinstating the law as a real service industry that deems its customers' long-term interests paramount.
Posted by Arnie Herz on January 26, 2005
Here's a little quiz to see if you possess "the power of nice," a/k/a those professional courtesy skills that make people want to interact with you. The test's preamble cautions: "While many professionals believe they have acquired the power of nice, the actions of many are turn-offs and even offensive to others." How do you think you'll rate?
Posted by Arnie Herz on December 1, 2004
I previously discussed the role of emotions in lawyering here and here. This article considers the same topic, opening with two interesting questions: "Should we allow our emotions to infiltrate our work lives?" and "Is it appropriate to counsel clients passionately?" According to the author, traditional law firms grab the baton from law schools in advocating "that emotional decisions potentially interfere with the problem-solving process" lawyers engage in every day. In heeding the call to emotionally distance themselves from their clients' problems, however, lawyers pay a steep price. The disconnect can cause "disproportionate levels of stress, substance abuse and depression." It also "may also hamper a lawyer's ability to recognize emotional influences in the adversarial process, limiting their negotiation skills or methods of resolution." The author believes that the current rise in female and minority clients and lawyers may "broaden the parameters of acceptable expressions of emotions and feelings." When compassion is an accepted counterpart to "analytical thought process," the piece concludes, we might see more effective and satisfied lawyers.
Posted by Arnie Herz on November 14, 2004
This post over at the Professional Marketing Blog highlights how lawyer listening skills are vital to attracting and keeping clients. The post refers to a listening continuum proffered by Troy Waugh of The Rainmaker Academy in Nashville. The following is his "top 5 list" of least to most desirable listening skills:
1. Ignoring the speaker
2. Pretend listening
3. Selective listening
4. Active listening
5. Empathetic listening
It's taken me some time to tune my ear so that I really can hear my clients. And, I admit, I still find some more difficult to listen to than others.
Posted by Arnie Herz on November 10, 2004
Continuing on the subject of lawyering and emotions, I recently came across EQ At Work, a blog providing "resources for the development and application of emotional intelligence" in the workplace and in the world. Although the posts are a bit sporadic, there's a lot of interesting material to read through and some innovative ideas for fostering our emotional competency.
Posted by Arnie Herz on November 8, 2004
This article and this one focus on the role of emotions in mediation, but their message also applies to the various conflicts and negotiations lawyers handle daily. According to the articles, our clients suffer when we disregard their emotions as inconsequential to the resolution of their legal matters. They also caution that lawyers "need to identify our own emotional barriers that undermine our effectiveness." The requisite emotional savvy arises from an awareness and understanding of our own emotional "footprints" - our historical patterns of handling emotions. It also rests on our ability to track and identify "footprints" belonging to our clients and adversaries. As I've transitioned from large firm to solo work, I've become increasingly aware of the interplay between the everyday practice of law and emotions. While I've received a terrific on-the-job education on this front, I believe that it's really the province of law schools and continuing education forums to sensitize practitioners to the emotional component of practicing law.
Posted by Arnie Herz on October 29, 2004
You can't sit through a courtroom motion day without noticing how some lawyers are incredibly clear and eloquent when they speak while others seem to stumble and fumble through a barely audible string of words. This article discusses how lawyers who are seemingly "oblivious to their crimes of the tongue" might benefit from a bit of professional coaching in speech "refinement." According to the piece, refinement is a matter of learning a set of simple skills or pointers, such as: ending a sentence with a strong word and slight uplift to keep listeners engaged; focusing less on breathing and more on "using your tongue;" and honoring the English language as a musical pattern by developing a "rolling rhythm" to your speech in formal presentations.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 30, 2004
Do business schools build better lawyers? This article suggests that they might. According to the piece, as "governance issues take center stage for corporate clients and deal-making gets more complex," more working and prospective lawyers are discovering the career-enhancing benefits of a B-school degree. Business people are coming to the table with more legal knowledge and they expect their legal advisors to be fluent in the workings of the business world. When steeped in business knowledge, the article states, lawyers see the legal issue from both sides and better serve their clients needs. This article brought back some law school memories for me. As a third year, I was allowed to take night school classes. I was always impressed with the way night students used their business savvy and real world understanding of human nature to address legal questions. As part of the labor force, they already knew in law school what it takes others years to understand as law firm associates working at arms length on business disputes and transactions. Will business school help you in your legal career? Perhaps. But, to my mind, my night school peers' on-the-job education gave them incomparable insight into the real interplay between the business and legal realms.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 28, 2004
One of the greatest things about starting my own practice is the freedom I've gained to address all facets of my clients' legal issues - which typically are amalgams of legal, emotional and interpersonal/relationship concerns. By taking a broader view of disputes and transactions and engaging my clients in the problem-solving process, we optimize the results obtained. This article delves into the subject of lawyers as creative problem solvers. It suggests that, while law schools often suck the creativity out of lawyers-to-be, that creative life force can be reclaimed. It may take some tweaking of the standard approach to client counseling, however. Creative problem solvers look first at "their client's goals rather than the legal rules." They also develop a "fuller repertoire for preventing and resolving problems" such as using ADR and accepting "alternative understandings of what might constitute 'success' in resolving a particular client matter. The article closes with this interesting, if not rhetorical, question: "Although working well with legal rules is a vital lawyerly skill, many human problems can be addressed without reference to them. If doing so would actually solve the problem more efficiently, effectively and humanely, then why not?"
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 15, 2004
As a professional mediator, I regularly visit mediate.com to catch up on dispute resolution reading. On my most recent visit, I came across this great article about the "close parallels between approaching and training a horse and mediating with people embroiled in a dispute." According to the author, lawyers and other conflict management professionals can learn a lot from horse trainers because the animal training "is little more than a form of negotiation." Just as savvy legal consumers are demanding that lawyers shed the mantle of authoritarian gospel dispensers ("we'll do this thing my way or the highway"), more sophisticated horse people and trainers are shifting away from spirit-breaking to a more gentle way of taming horses. Trainers using this approach - which is sometimes called gentling or horse whispering - carefully observe the "natural fears, rhythms and behaviors of an animal who is typically frightened and on unfamiliar ground, and [use their observations] to develop a rapport and trust." The author asserts that conflict managers dealing with anxious clients or their representatives can learn a lot from this approach since "managing conflict may be less about words, rational analysis and the use of logical argument, than it is about sensing and using the natural instincts and responses of the parties' constructively." In the author's opinion, conflict resolution is essentially all "about human 'whispering'." I couldn't agree more.
Posted by Arnie Herz on September 3, 2004
According to this recent article, a decline in jury trials "to less than 2 percent of all cases filed" has beget a notable gap in the skill set of law firm associates. To bridge this gap, firms are looking for "new ways to give their younger attorneys vital courtroom experience" so they'll be able to "convincingly bluff their opponents into believing a trial is imminent," adeptly present motions before a judge and ably handle the pressures of a jury trial should the rare opportunity arise. Some firms hire private consultants to take their associates through mock courtroom scenarios. Others encourage pro bono trial work or try to recruit seasoned lawyers from U.S. Attorneys' or district attorneys' offices. This pretty much covers the issue from the firms' perspective. When I was at a big firm, I witnessed how the reality of dwindling trial work impacted young associates looking to cut their litigator teeth. A number left for coveted positions with the U.S. Attorney or boutique operations. As for me, although I worked in my firm's litigation department, I never had a burning desire to be on the courtroom front line. I also felt, and still believe, that a lot of the skills lawyers use in litigating matters before juries are identical to those we employ in consulting with clients about legal issues and in endeavoring to settle matters pre-trial through negotiation or modes of alternate dispute resolution.
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 3, 2004
Steven Keeva has a thought-provoking piece today at ABAJournal.com on the evolving role of apology in the law. According to Keeva, several jurisdictions have enacted laws excluding a health care provider's apology from admissibility into evidence. These laws, and others like them, recognize that plaintiffs are often looking for something beyond monetary compensation in bringing a lawsuit. For real closure to result, there are "other things that must take place, such as being heard, finding out that someone truly does care and, in the appropriate case, a sincere and heartfelt apology." In addition to affecting the relationship between the parties, apology also impacts the legal process by influencing "whether compensation will be determined by a relatively cooperative and speedy settlement process or through more lengthy, costly and often unpredictable litigation."
Posted by Arnie Herz on August 2, 2004
This article encourages lawyers to use their face, and not just their words, to carry their message to clients, juries and other audiences. The piece advises: when "talking about something serious and somber, your face should 'sag' a bit and the whole head should come down some. When mentioning something positive and upbeat, make sure your face reflects that tone of voice. Smile, get that light in your eyes and lift your head up high." It also suggests that lawyers can master the art of giving good face by studying "skilled presenters and communicators" on television, in comedy clubs and on the big screen.
Posted by Arnie Herz on July 27, 2004
As I've mentioned, I enjoy reading Matt Homann's the [non]billable hour blog for its insight into reorienting the legal profession as a client service industry. This article from New York Lawyer addresses how "the constant emphasis on billables as indicia of success distracts many associates from the factors that spell true distinction in a law firm — learning leadership, service and a client-focused perspective." According to the piece, instead of being hours obsessed, young practitioners should "strive to be the Renaissance lawyer" in their associate class by dedicating at least 10 percent of working hours — billable, chargeable or not — towards improving their craft and adding value to their firm. This Renaissance tally can be composed of "bar association activities, professional writing and speaking, business development, recruiting, mentoring, pro bono and community service." All these activities, the article surmises, improve key lawyering skills and will help you distinguish yourself as a top professional.
Posted by Arnie Herz on July 22, 2004
My father-in-law has never been a demanding or overbearing guy. But he did compel my wife to take typing lessons and shorthand in her high school years and to attend law school during her post-graduate search for self. Why? Because he felt that the education would give her valuable skills that transported well into any professional or life endeavor. Along the same lines is this article asserting that aspiring VP and former trial lawyer John Edwards is putting the finesse and interpersonal skills he honed with juries to good use on the Democratic campaign trail.
Posted by Arnie Herz on July 20, 2004
Mediation and other modes of alternative dispute resolution ("ADR") now regularly complement and buoy the everyday practice of law. But lawyers often tell me that they feel a bit behind the 8 ball representing clients in ADR processes because they are unfamiliar with the fundamentals of, and differences between, the various dispute resolution forums. This article and this one from Mediate.com provide great overviews of ADR approaches commonly used today.
Posted by Arnie Herz on July 13, 2004
When I conduct seminars on the practice of law, new lawyers often share that they feel woefully under-schooled in the dos and don'ts of reaching out to potential clients and referral sources they meet in social or business settings. This article discusses how two big firms have addressed this issue by engaging consultants to teach associates the fine art of networking. In one firm, associates teamed on random assignments in which they drafted pitch letters and plotted presentation strategies over a two-week period before making a mock business bid to faux clients. The other firm gave its associates "wardrobe instruction, networking tips, and an intriguing behavioral study" on how lawyers' "sociability" scores fall well below the average obtained by the general public - with sociability defined as "a desire to interact with people, especially a comfort level in initiating new, intimate connections with others."
Posted by Arnie Herz on July 7, 2004
This article from the ABA's New Lawyer highlights an important client-relations skill that law schools don't teach: how to assess whether or not you should be handling a particular case. According to the piece, the right "fit" between lawyer and client is just as important a consideration as familiarity with the area of law involved. Only by making self-evaluation an integral part of the case assessment process, can lawyers learn "when to keep a case, when to refer it, and when to say I can't help you."
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 28, 2004
I often use humor to deescalate a stressful situation with opposing counsel or a client. Here's an article on humor etiquette for lawyers. I think it gives some sound advice, but I find something humorous in the very existence of an article that schools lawyers on how and when to be funny.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 22, 2004
This article (pdf) from the Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors posits that law schools miss the mark by focusing on training students to "think like lawyers" rather then equipping them to "transition from 'thinking' to 'doing' to 'being.'" The reality is, the article continues, that thinking like a lawyer only gets students so far. If they can't write, speak well, craft a cogent argument, work cooperatively or relate well to other human beings, "all the thinking like a lawyer in the world will not help them become good lawyers." After chronicling the fears that keep law schools from revising their curriculums to address the "full panoply of necessary skills" for today's lawyers, the article asks educators to consider the fundamental question "Who are our law schools run for?"
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 21, 2004
In this interview from Steven Keeva's Transforming Practices (see prior post here), the late professor Janeen Kerper of California Western School of Law remakes the tort class classic Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Company, 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928). The facts remain the same: Helen Palsgraf is waiting on a train platform in East New York when another passenger, running for the train, drops a package containing fireworks. The fireworks explode, causing a scale on the platform to fall, injuring Mrs. Palsgraf. Instead of considering the case's relevance to the laws of negligence, Kerper remarks: "When I first began teaching Palsgraf, I was struck by the fact that the appellate decision contains only the barest description of the facts. After reading the case, you do not know how old Mrs. Palsgraf was, what her hopes and dreams were, whether she had any family, nor even the precise nature of her injury. The factual record of the appellate decision is completely stripped of humanity." According to Kerper, Palsgraff presents a unique opportunity for law students to go beyond the four corners of an appellate decision to the realm of lawyers as creative problem solvers. In that capacity, lawyers look to "the client's underlying needs, goals and objectives" in order to come up with "a broad array of possible solutions" to the legal problem before them. So, sitting down to an initial consultation, Kerper's student-lawyers might ask Mrs. Palsgraf: "Why don't you tell me more about yourself? Where do you live? What do you do? What are your greatest concerns? How do you want your life to change? What kind of future do you want for yourself and your family?" A little humanity goes a long way towards meeting clients' real needs.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 15, 2004
This article and this one discuss how lawyers can cultivate emotional intelligence (EI) - a group of mental abilities that help us recognize and understand our own and others' feelings - and use it to better serve our clients and handle difficult opposing counsel. For more information on EI, I highly recommend Daniel Goleman's seminal book: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 10, 2004
This upcoming Mindfulness and Meditation Workshop presented by the Harvard Negotiation Insight Initiative will teach participants a "sophisticated method for working with people, resolving disputes, and enriching" themselves. The medical and corporate cultures have already tapped meditation as a professional resource and, according to Professor Leonard L. Riskin of the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Law, the legal establishment should follow suit. In this informative article, Riskin discusses mindfulness meditation's potential for countering lawyer unhappiness and optimizing the attorney-client relationship.
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 10, 2004
One of the major complaints about lawyers today is that they don't take the time to really listen to their clients. This article from the Michigan Bar Journal suggests that lawyers need to acquire a new skillset called active listening. Active listening (a/k/a reflective listening) "involves identifying a client's vaguely or inarticulately stated feelings and reflecting them back to the client to show understanding or to allow the client to correct a misunderstanding." According to the article, active listening facilitates rapport, respect and relationship, the three guiding principles for framing a conversation. "Rapport means the ability to talk and listen to clients and make them feel both understood and important. Respect means valuing clients as people and not snickering about the decisions they have made, no matter how ludicrous, stupid, or naïve these decisions may appear to be. Relationship means connecting with clients because they are human beings, and as such, are more than simply a source of income or an opportunity to further one's legal reputation." Along with building these three rs, lawyers should listen for emotional words like fear, loss, anger and pain. Clients use emotional words to give "clues about how they experience and understand what is happening, or has happened, to them." Recognizing that many lawyers might reject active listening as the touchy-feely stuff of psychotherapists, the piece aptly states: "the simple truth—no different than medicine, psychotherapy, or other professional endeavors—is that the law is about real people and the lives they live. In short, the law is a helping profession. In this regard, our work should have a sense of vocation about it, a sense of calling."
Posted by Arnie Herz on June 8, 2004
I've been reading Matthew Homann's the [non]billable hour for some time. His take on the importance of client service and relations fits nicely with the approach to lawyering espoused under the paradigm of Therapeutic Jurisprudence(TJ). TJ envisions lawyers as members of a healing profession who promote client wellbeing by addressing the emotional and psychological aspects of the legal process. TJ's teachings have found a mainstream audience of lawyers and law firms looking to better serve their clientele.
