legal sanity

I’ve previously written about lawyers weighing fit over prestige when deciding where to work. I’ve also noted how law firms are taking steps to screen out would-be associates  who don’t mesh with their culture and business model. The launch of multiple initiatives evinces that law students are also focused on finding fitness, or mutuality, in the lawyer-law firm relationship.

A couple of months ago, I posted about  Ms. JD, an online community “serving women in law school and the legal profession.” More recently, a dialog has generated around a group of students from top tier law schools who have banded together as Law Students Building a Better Legal Profession. The group states that it’s concerned about the legal profession’s future and recognizes “that law students have become part of the problem by focusing on paychecks and bonuses, while avoiding the tough questions about the conditions of working lives and associate satisfaction.” Willing to sacrifice higher pay for a better work life, the group’s members seek law firm reforms to ensure that “practicing law does not mean giving up a commitment to family, community, and dedicated service to clients.”

That group and its objectives have met with some scrutiny and criticism, as evidenced by the comments thread following this WSJ.com story titled You Say You Want a Big-Law Revolution. Calling the group Pontificating Outside Observers (or POOs), Blogger Stephanie West Allen questions whether its members have the right or reason to challenge the state of the legal profession when they have yet to experience it first hand.

But law students aren’t the only “outsiders” or eyewitnesses questioning the profession’s status quo. According to a recent post at the Legal Writing Prof Blog, the Association of American Law Schools has added a new section called Balance in Legal Education to its roster. Championed by Professor Larry Krieger of Florida State University School of Law, the group is dedicated to “advocating for a more balanced approach to both legal education and law practice."

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

In recent posts, I’ve questioned what will drive change in law firm culture and whether law firms can change to meet lawyer-user demand. With the imminent wave of Baby Boomer retirements, it’s time for law firms to innovate – to adapt their business environment, model and practices to meet the needs and demands of the young associates who support firm leaders today and who will (hopefully) become firm leaders in the future.

When I consider the word innovation, I usually think of change, adaptation and invention. These three words are definitely hallmarks of entrepreneurship and the kind of business savvy detailed in this article on the new fleet of New York City taxi cabs. They also connote the sense of spirit, resilience and open opportunity captured in this inspiring video clip flagged by Kevin Eikenberry.

Most practitioners and outside observers wouldn’t connect these words or the related sense of spirit with the mainstream legal profession. But, there’s a lot of innovation afoot in the law. As I announced a few months ago, the College of Law Practice Management is an organization dedicated to highlighting change, adaptation and invention in law practices around the world. It sponsors the InnovAction Awards as part of its “worldwide search for lawyers, law firms, and other deliverers of legal services who are currently engaged in some extraordinary innovative efforts.”

The award application deadline is June 1, 2007. The winners will be presented on September 8, 2007 at the College’s annual meeting in Philadelphia, PA. For more information on the award and entry requirements, visit InnovAction here.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Last week, Jonathan D. Frieden, Jim Hassett, Peter Marx and I presented a panel on blogs for the Law Firm Growth Management Conference held at New York’s Harvard Club. Over at his blog, Jonathan has a very nice synopsis of the points we covered . One topic that really struck a chord with me was how blogging might benefit large law firms. I suggested that there are many benefits to practice group blogs written by younger associates and supervised by partners, such as:

• Creating visibility for the group and establishing its expertise
• Keeping group members current on recent developments in their practice area
• Fostering group camaraderie and communication
• Giving young attorneys an avenue for sharing their voice, skills and wisdom (a nice counterpoint to trudging away anonymously on research, document review, contract drafting and the like)

Looking at this list, it’s fair to say that practice group blogs can do a lot to nurture the partner-associate business relationship and to foster meaningful connections between young – and often marginalized and disengaged – lawyers and their firms. By giving their associates (and, perhaps, summer associates) group blogging responsibilities, firms send a strong and clear message that they recognize the importance of keeping new lawyers engaged and challenged. The young lawyers, in turn, feel valuable and more integral to their practice group’s and firm’s successes.

For more insight into the topic of law firm blogging, check out these posts from Ron Friedmann, Steve Matthews and Kevin O’Keefe here and here.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

Last week, over at the motto blog, contributor Curt Rosengren wrote about a new, albeit small, study addressing what people are looking for in their next job. The survey found that the respondents didn’t consider a “move up the career ladder” a top priority. Instead, they put a premium on finding work that “challenges and stimulates them," satisfies their personal values and fits their lifestyle.

The survey’s findings aren’t surprising. They’re likely a sampling of a larger trend that’s emerging with the rise of the dual-centric workforce. As I’ve discussed here before, more and more lawyers are hungry for work that inspires, energizes and fulfills them. To sate that hunger, they’re willing to leave the security of law firm life and ride the job circuit to find a place and position that’s the right fit for them.

There are some law firms and businesses that have put themselves on the leading edge of legal service innovation by recognizing the trend depicted in the survey’s results.

One of these innovators is Axiom Legal, a law firm that’s built a thriving business and earned a stellar reputation by hiring top-notch big firm alumni and matching them with corporate clients on an as-needed basis. I had the pleasure of meeting with Axiom CEO Mark Harris a few weeks ago and came away very impressed with his business model and clear vision of what it means to be a happy, healthy and satisfied lawyer.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks

My recent posts about narcissism and self-awareness in the practice of law prompted a friend of mine to question the boundary between the two concepts.

This is a great question.

I’m not a therapist, won’t pose as one and certainly can’t give a clinical definition. But, I’ll share my layman’s take on the answer.

As I’ve noted here before, many people resist the notion of self-reflection and self-expression as vital business skills because it raises the specter of the robber barons of yesterday (and today) – people often pejoratively described as Self-Absorbed; Selfish; Self-Centered; and Self–Aggrandizing. While I understand why they make this connection, I believe it’s a faulty one. There’s a big difference between being a complete narcissist and infusing a healthy sense of self (an amalgam of our needs, wants, interests and values) into our work and workplace relationships.

People certainly can take self-awareness and self-expression to an unhealthy extreme such as narcissism. When they do, there’s no room for anyone else. There’s no give and take. So, there’s little to no chance of creating mutually rewarding and lasting relationships in business or elsewhere. But, the same poor odds hold when we try to cultivate business connections without putting our self into the mix. As I’ve also previously asserted, business relationships are as much about valuing and evincing our selves as they are about reaching and helping others. Both aspects (self and other) need to be expressed and honored to foster lasting connections for business success and satisfaction.

Highlighting this last point is a mediate.com article by Trime Persinger titled What Do You Want? In it, Persinger looks at self-expression as an important, but unsung, relationship skill. Noting that our “parents, our peers, and our culture have taught us that it is selfish to ask for what we want,” she discusses why we shouldn't heed that lesson and offers guidance on asking for what we want from others.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In my last post, I noted that self-knowledge is one aspect of the emotional intelligence (EQ) that’s integral to our success in the law. I’ve previously discussed why I consider self-awareness and self-expression elemental to effective lawyering. To forge lasting and rewarding relationships with others – clients, prospects or coworkers – we first have to meaningfully connect (or re-connect) with ourselves.

Through posts from Stephanie West Allen and Susan Cartier Liebel, I learned that a recent Harvard Business Review article on authentic leadership (order page) identifies self-awareness as “the most important capability for leaders to develop.”

Although she doesn't dispute this finding, West Allen does suggest that self-awareness may be a lofty goal because it's "elusive of definition and difficult to achieve."

I agree that self-knowledge is not easy to come by. It takes time to undertake this kind of inquiry. But, with persistence and some guidance, I think that self-awareness is something that most of us can gain to the benefit of ourselves and our business and personal relationships.

For people who resist the idea of isolated introspection, it’s reassuring to know that we can learn a lot about ourselves by interacting with people (clients, coworkers, friends and family) and engaging in activities (work assignments, business development, recreation and community events). By noting who and what regularly makes us feel energized and positive as opposed to depleted and negative, we get a solid idea of what we need from the practice of law and in life. Identifying our own needs in this way is a core component of self-awareness.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

During the summer, I wrote a post about affinity groups – workplace groups typically formed as part of larger diversity efforts to connect lawyers around such common denominators as race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. I suggested that firms seeking to curb lawyer attrition and build esprit de corps could take the concept a bit further and sponsor affinity groups around a host of shared interests like books, sports, travel and music.

By acknowledging and fostering these connecting points between employees of all levels, firms would send the potent message that they see and care about the humans behind the titles and roles they play at work. And lawyers would gain a sense of visibility and value that comes from being able to express and explore their outside interests on-the-job.

Firms could also import the affinity group concept into their organizational learning initiatives. Lawyers in need of better business development, communication and leadership skills might respond more quickly and favorably to a learning system that reflects and draws on their shared interests.

To spark the formation of interest-oriented affinity groups, firms could create an online and/or offline space where lawyers could access and share content akin to this Fast Company article on 12 must-listen-to podcasts for creative knowledge workers. The podcast coverage includes art history, blues music, museum artifacts and culinary arts.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Over the years, I’ve regularly posted on three related topics:

• Employee Engagement
• Employee Evangelists
• Lawyer Experience Management

All three distill down to a core element of mutually-beneficial relationships. Regardless of the nature of the relationship -- co-workers; employer-employee; leader-team member; or service provider-client – this mutuality derives from identifying, openly acknowledging and acting on our own, and one another’s, needs, interests and strengths.

Over at her excellent blog, Management Craft, Lisa Haneberg points us to her recent fireside chat (a/k/a podcast) with speaker and best-selling author Marcus Buckingham. As I’ve noted before, Buckingham is an authority on how people can play to their strengths in the workplace. In this podcast, he “shares several stories and suggestions that can help everyone enjoy their work more fully while benefiting the organization in a deeper way.”

As I listened to it, what stood out for me was Buckingham’s finding that, today, less than 2 out of 10 Americans believe they employ their strengths in the workplace most of the time. This is despite the popular company refrain that “our people are our greatest asset.”

Buckingham proposes a solution. He says that it all boils down to you and me (that is, the onus is not on the organization or its leaders). We are the experts on our own strengths and weaknesses. Strengths are activities that invigorate us and weaknesses are activities that deplete us. According to Buckingham -- and it makes total sense -- we can be really good at lots of different activities; but we need to be honest about how they make us feel before declaring them strengths.

So, if we want to work in strengths-based businesses, teams and relationships; each of us needs to discover our strengths and then see if and how we can engage them through our work. Buckingham has a new book coming out in March that will help us identify or strengths and put them to work.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Over the summer, I wrote a post about lawyers as user-innovators. Reiterating my beliefs about the genesis of law firm evangelism, I noted that, in many ways, lawyers are the first-line consumers of their firm’s brand and business cultures. I then asked: What would law firms look like if they considered their lawyers a potential community of user-innovators and actively nurtured that potential? What positive shifts in the firm’s environment, service model, and employee commitment and morale would result?

Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users helps answer this question in a post titled Don’t ask employees to be passionate about the company! Sierra suggests that firms don’t need lawyers who are passionate about the firms they work for. They need lawyers “with a passion for the work they’re doing.” Accordingly, firms should “act like a good user interface (UI)”: They should make it easy for people to do the work that they’re passionate about and then let them run without interference.

As for client relationships, Sierra points out that “caring about the user” and their positive experience is part and parcel of being passionate about our work. So, employees are happy and engaged. Clients are happy and engaged. And the firms? According to Sierra, it’s a win-win-win proposition because, by “letting employees express the passion they have for their work [firms] end up with employees who'd never consider going elsewhere.”

For more insight into tapping the lawyer evangelist in you and your firm, join me and eight other presenters (including bloggers Larry Bodine, Ed Poll and Gerry Riskin) live on the afternoons of March 26 – 30, 2007 for The First Annual Lawyer Mastery World Wide Tele-Summit. During the 5-day, 10-hour event, you’ll learn breakthrough ideas, innovations and discoveries that will help you get the most out of your career, your business and your life in the law.

I’m giving a program on XE Factor: Relationship Skills for Success. The Summit kicks off with a powerful 90-minute panel session during which all nine program presenters will discuss their vision of the legal profession and law firm of the future. I hope you’ll join us.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

I recently read a pair of interesting posts by Michelle Golden and Charles H. Green outlining why they object to the use of the terms “trust” and “trusted advisor” in professional firm marketing materials.

Green - who co-authored the terrific book, The Trusted Advisor, and runs seminars on the same subject – got the discussion rolling by remarking that professionals shouldn’t affirmatively proclaim their status as, or intent to be, trusted advisors to clients. Why? Because trust is “an outcome, not a come-on.” Echoing Green’s suggestion that it’s really up to clients to pronounce us trust-worthy, Golden adds that “trusted advisor” is used so often in promotional channels that “it’s now cliché.”

Green and Golden make valid points. But, I have a slightly different take.

Trust has become a key concept - and key word - in the service professions for very good reasons. We live in a world where people often don’t live up to their promises. Most legal disputes, in essence, concern a breakdown in trust. So, as professionals, we need to be vigilant about the role of trust in legal matters and be sensitive to not setting up false client expectations of our services.

That said, if we’re sincere and determined in our desire to foster trust-based client connections (really, the only kind of client connections there should be), there’s nothing wrong with letting the world in on our authentic intention. People seeking legal counsel – most likely operating under a trust deficit  - will only benefit from our candor about placing a premium on trust.

To be sure, we don’t need to use the words “trust” or “trusted advisor” to convey our offerings (although I see nothing wrong with using them). There’s lots of ways to let clients and prospects know that we’re committed to cultivating trust-filled, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with them.

Regardless of the words we choose to state our commitment to trust, as Golden and Green suggest, this can’t be an empty promise. We have to team our public words with consistent, professional and personal action. As the very cliché phrase goes: We need to walk our talk.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In a post about the new legal marketplace, I said that a “quest for meaning – in the form of feeling valued, valuable, important and visible – fuels a client’s decision to retain or relinquish a legal service provider.” Our clients are seeking meaningful connection to the experiences, goods and services they consume. Lawyers are no different. We’re engaging the emerging culture of meaning as service providers and as consumers. And, on the consumer side, more and more of us are looking for meaningful jobs and work assignments.

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

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

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

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

About six months ago, I discussed the new rules of engagement in the law. The post culled insights into the importance of looking beyond the mantle of people’s titles and roles at work to connect with the humans – and human needs, concerns and hopes – underneath.

Fostering this human-to-human skill set is a key part of any successful law firm employee engagement campaign.

I just came across a couple of blog posts mirroring this point. The first, titled See the Person Not the Role describes how Anna Farmery discovered the “awesome” skills and ambition of some of her former co-workers during an off-the-clock birthday party. Her experience led to this observation: talent often goes undiscovered and unacknowledged in a firm because leaders “do not ask, do not listen, [and] do not see past the tag of the job title.”

The second post, called Benefits, hails from the always-interesting Brains on Fire blog and represents the flip side of the engagement coin – how companies find “unique and authentic ways to appreciate their employees.” Citing an article about notable benefits some businesses offer their workers, the post concludes by stating: “taking the extra step to show your appreciation in a way that is true to the values that the company hopes to foster and share with its employees… that’s when you create authentic internal advocates [a/k/a employee evangelists] … and something truly special can be built.”

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

One of the topics I really enjoy covering here and in my training + development programs (now offered under the moniker Legal Sanity Learning Programs) is employee engagement.

Firms coming to grips with the prevalent issues of lawyer attrition, retention, succession and leadership deficits are waking up to this important topic and taking steps to discern to what extent, if any, their employees experience a meaningful connection to the firm’s culture and values.

I recently discovered a blog called The Engaging Brand from UK-based consultant Anna Farmery. I toured its archives and discovered much practical guidance on improving “company performance through the engagement of people.”

Farmery captures some of the basics of employee engagement in a series of recent posts outlining 4 Steps to Engagement. The steps, taken in turn, are:

• Attract (Part 1) and (Part 2)
• Motivate
• Inspire
• Engage

Farmery’s points are well made and she provides some excellent reference tools for law firms looking to create employee evangelists.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

There’s been an evolution in consumer ethos. There’s a new market culture that lawyers can no longer afford to opt out of. It’s been called by different names: the experience economy, the conceptual age, the creative age and the culture of meaning (among others).

But, the given name is largely irrelevant. It’s the market’s core message that matters to lawyers and other service professionals.

And that message has been beautifully captured by blogger Hugh MacLeod in his now-classic commentary, The Hughtrain. For those of us needing the quick-fix version, MacLeod gives voice to the new legal consumer in this memorable quote: “We are hungry. Meaning is the prey.”

I believe that their quest for meaning – in the form of feeling valued, valuable, important and visible – fuels a client’s decision to retain or relinquish a legal service provider. So, as lawyers wanting to meet our clients primary needs and build our book of business, we can’t ignore the power and pull of this quest. We need to be open to the two-way conversations and continuous connections that allow our clients to co-create their legal representation experiences. 

The essence of this approach is conveyed in a thoughtful Customer Experience Crossroads post in which Susan Abbott reflects on market trends driven by the desire of people to be the producers and creators of their own lives.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

It’s common thought that fear is a primary motivator and deterrent of human action. It can spark our most basic fight-or-flight response or stop us dead in our tracks. It’s also become the go-to emotion for media outlets like the network news (which my kids affectionately call “the bad news”) and other television programs.

A great example of fear as a mainstay of our culture’s entertainment diet is the popular show Fear Factor. In each episode, contestants submit to fear (if not sheer terror) inducing stunts in order to advance in a competition for prize money. The show is engaging, first, because it’s hard to imagine why anyone would voluntarily submit to such torment and, second, because we all know what fear feels like and want to witness how other people confront – or run from - it. I suppose, viewed in their best light, shows like Fear Factor enable us to access this basic emotion and see it as a common denominator of human experience.

Taking this subject-matter to the business world, it’s also important to understand the fear factor in the practice of law. In most dispute scenarios and transactional matters, the parties experience fear to some degree. There’s fear of monetary or property loss. Fear of being denied rights and justice. Fear of being taking advantage of or disempowered. Fear of not being seen or heard. Then there’s the lawyers’ own fears concerning win, loss, monetary gain, reputation, recognition and billable hours. The list goes on and on. So, it’s fair and honest to say that fear is a big factor when it comes to the delivery and consumption of legal services.

Just acknowledging the role of fear in our professional lives is a productive step. Blogger Kathy Sierra of Creating Passionate Users takes this productivity a step or two further in a terrific post explaining just why - in business as in life - Reducing fear is the killer app. Recounting her experiences in a dental office and hospital setting, Sierra observes: “Our users [read clients] might be more afraid of us and our products than we think. And those who can reduce or eliminate that fear have a huge advantage. Not to mention a passionately loyal following.” So, as lawyers looking to optimize our business, we’d do well to consider how fear is factoring in to our clients' perception of their legal issues and their legal representation.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

Sometimes you run across a written piece that makes a point so simply and elegantly that there’s not much to add. And so I offer you Lisa Haneberg’s recent post on The Awesome Power of Thanks.

Haneberg opens with this apt observation: “Few of us feel truly appreciated. During those moments we do feel valued, it feels great - like a mental high.” She then encourages us to dig down deep and foster connection by genuinely acknowledging the good deeds and intentions of our co-workers and clients. As Haneberg instructs: “When someone is amazing (we are all amazing at sometime), let's let him or her know. You are amazing” (or some similar accolade like “you rock;” “you’re outstanding;” “you blow my mind”). Just saying those kinds of words – letting them roll off the tongue and into the air – makes me feel good. It’s filling, uplifting and energizing. It lifts us in part because it’s what we want and need for ourselves. In giving kudos freely to others, we naturally absorb some, too.

Acknowledgement’s companion in the lawyering toolkit is apology. It’s a subject I’ve touched on here before.

Now, in an insightful post titled Nobody’s Perfect, blogger Spike Jones considers apology’s business value. Recognizing that firms often concoct a series of lame excuses in lieu of taking responsibility for their client service missteps, Jones issues this wake up call: “People don’t want to hear your excuses. They want an apology. When you apologize, there’s an opportunity for forgiveness. When we expose our imperfections, we allow people to get closer to us.” The resulting authentic, organic communication and conversation is the heart and hub of healthy lawyer-client relationships.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

In my house, you’ll often here the rousing cry “Go Blue” on a football Saturday. Yup, although my wife threw away my beloved plastic Wolverine helmet years ago, I’m still a faithful fan of the Maize and Blue. So, it’s not surprising that my attention was grabbed by Debbie Weil’s terrific blog post connecting word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) and passionate UM sports fans.

Titled Michigan vs. Wisconsin: rock concert meets WOMM, the post relates Weil’s experience of a recent Big House contest attended by a “record 111,000-plus fans.” Marveling at the call to action that inspired the fans to all wear the same, newly issued shirt; perform well-choreographed waves; and cheer, chant and groan in unison, Weil ends with this great marketing query:

“Now how do you get 111,000-plus people together and create that same kind of energy, enthusiasm, and cooperation (there was no pushing or shoving) for your own cause? How do you harness the kind of passion Michigan Wolverine fans exhibit? To persuade and inform whether it's a political campaign or a new product?”

I’ve previously discussed my views on creating passionate legal service providers and consumers. As with the Big House fanfare, this kind of passion arises organically from the larger cultural milieu. It’s not the byproduct of some directive from on high stating “now get out there and act passionate, people.”

Some additional insight into the organic nature of passion, inspiration and motivation is offered by Kathy Sierra in a post called Motivating others: why "it's good for you" doesn't work . She points to studies and other support for the proposition that joy, fun and meaning are much more powerful motivators than fear (including the oft-cited fear of death).

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks

In previous posts on Working with Meaning and Lawyers in the Conceptual Age, I discussed a recurring theme in business and marketing forums these days: how can people infuse their work, product or service with meaning? The theme has a broad reach. I’ve seen it thread through expert commentary on creating meaningful customer experiences, employee engagement and work-life synergy, among other topics.

I recently came across another interesting take on this theme in a Brains on Fire blog post called Marketing that’s Meaningful. Highlighting winds of change in the marketing and advertising worlds, the post notes that people today are looking “to be a part of something bigger than themselves.” So, when trying to connect with consumers or clients, service providers need to shift their perspective and strive to make their company meaningful. And, according to the post, forging this kind of consumer-meaning nexus is all “about empowerment. Ownership. Starting a real, honest conversation. Making friends instead of customers. And making your company or product relevant.”

David Maister and co-author Lois Kelly also pick up on this theme in a Law Practice Today article titled Marketing is a Conversation. Maister suggests that it’s high time “we stopped thinking of marketing as a one-way propaganda campaign.” Instead, marketing is best viewed as a conversation in which we openly invite our business prospects or clients to share their “ideas, beliefs and perspectives” with us person-to-person. In terms of existing clients, Maister doesn’t see this as a one-shot proposition. Rather, there needs to be an ongoing exchange that compels clients to regularly share their core “concerns, issues and needs.” Maister notes, however, that this person-to-person dialoguing doesn’t have to be face-to-face. It can be promoted and nurtured through company-sponsored online client communities, interactive Web sites and blogs.

Meaningfully connecting to clients in these ways helps businesses stand apart from the competition; competition that blogger John Jantsch attributes to a marketplace tendency to see all businesses as indistinguishable commodity providers. In a thoughtful post from Duct Tape Marketing called The Business You Are Really In, Jantsch asks us to step out of the commodity-provider mindset and reclassify our business offerings in terms of four key values: “information, community building, experience and transformation” – values all driven by our clients’ and employees’ hunger for meaning in their lives.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

A couple of months ago, I discussed an emergent business trend called Customer Experience Management (CEM). Evolving in tandem with the new experience economy, the CEM model considers a customer’s relationship with a product or service from the vantage point of the user experience. It asks providers to glean how customers’ lives are enhanced or depleted as a result of consuming their goods or services.

Another way to look at CEM is through the lens of storytelling. People often translate their consumer experiences into stories they readily share with others. A great example of this comes by way of a recent Fast Company article in which some “customer service champions” convey their own “stellar customer experiences.” Here, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy describes his monthly outings to a local junk store where the proprietor understands that his customers thrill at hunting for buried treasure. There’s also the anecdote about exceptional book store service relayed by Build-A-Bear Workshop founder Maxine Clark. In sharing her story, Clark refers to something she calls the “Cheers facor." She says, “People don't have to know your name, but there has to be that connection and recognition of your value as a customer and a person.”

These stories on peak customer experience reminded me of the importance of creating passionate legal consumers – or client evangelists. But, as Patrick Lamb underscores in a thoughtful post from In Search Of Perfect Client Service, many lawyers and law firms seem to lack the connection to, and recognition of, their consumers that’s prerequisite to fostering such an evangelical clientele.

Those of us interested in turning our clients into raving fans should check out the ongoing series of posts on the subject offered by Jim Hassett of the Legal Business Development blog.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A couple of months ago, I wrote about the nexus between leading and serving in the law. Contemplating “how many law firm leaders and managers think that – and act like - they’re in the business of serving the attorneys they lead and manage,” I concluded that, to “really embrace the role of a servant, they would also have to embrace the kind of business intimacy that lawyers typically eschew.”

Addressing a related topic in a recent post titled You Gotta Serve Someone, David Maister stresses the importance of cultivating a server mentality when you work for a customer or client. Noting that human beings “look for relationships, even in minor transactions,” Maister observes that the “more you focus on serving others, the more they want to be with you and give you what you want.” In a post expanding on Maister’s insights, Michelle Golden of Golden Practices notes that “service types” are often the “real stars in firms.” They’re carried to the top, in her estimation, by a potent fusion of “great attitude” and skill.

From the above commentary, it seems that law firms would be wise to consider how serving others - clients, client prospects and their own lawyers – factors into their firm culture and business philosophy. To help them along, Dick Richards of Come Gather Round shares an article he wrote on Creating A Mythology Of Customer Service.

Richards posits that, in addition to the “physical, mental, emotional and spiritual;” there’s a fifth dimension of human energy that leaders looking to optimize customer service must understand and harness. It’s the dimension that poet Robert Bly calls mythic energy. As Richards interprets it, we might “better understand customer service by examining myths about people serving other people.” Unfortunately, he continues, our culture’s “mythologies do contain tales about serving a country or god, but not serving one another.”

Given this dearth of mythic reference points about “service to others,” Richards suggests that business leaders “practice the art of leadership by creating” them. They can accomplish this by: (1) culling and sharing stories of extraordinary service from “their organization’s past and present;” and (2) encouraging employees to engage in dialogue about exceptional customer service they’ve received.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks

I’ve been happily immersed in a flurry of articles on user innovation. My regular visits to Harvard Business School’s Working Knowledge lead me to a great Q & A piece titled How Kayak Users Built a New Industry. In it, Harvard professor Carliss Baldwin discusses her recent study of the rodeo kayak industry that showed how user innovations become commercial products (pdf). According to Baldwin, many product innovations originate with a user who “opens up a new ‘design space’” by doing something different with a product that’s “exciting to other users.” This initial change compels those other users to “look for ways to improve on the original innovation.” In this way, the design space grows to include a community of co-innovators in which “improvements to the basic innovation are freely shared, tested, and pushed forward.”

The business wisdom of embracing and encouraging the citizen-innovator is conveyed in a Wired Magazine article called Geeks in Toyland [tipped by The Power of Influence blog]. The piece chronicles a decision by the Lego Group to enlist the aid of its user community in upgrading the popular Mindstorms robot kit. The main user-innovators worked in secrecy on the project for 11 months, compensated only by their love of the product and “a few Lego crane sets and Mindstorms NXT prototypes.” Notably, the article winds down with a reference to MIT professor Eric von Hippel, a scholar who worked with Carliss Baldwin on the rodeo kayak study and wrote the book Democratizing Innovation.

After consuming this information, I asked myself who are law firm users? Clients, to be sure. But, lawyers are users, too. In fact, in many ways, they’re the first-line consumers of the firm’s brand and business cultures. This is a belief I’ve expressed before in posts on law firm evangelism. And it begets a related query: what would law firms look like if they considered their lawyers a potential community of user-innovators and actively nurtured that potential? What positive shifts in the firm’s environment, service model, and employee commitment and morale would result? Stated differently: to what extent do law firms damage themselves by ignoring or supressing their resident lawyer-mods?

It seems that, even without their firms’ nod, many lawyers are embracing the role of the citizen-innovator and are coming together in communities – such as the blogosphere - in which they openly share their inspiring ideas on legal service innovation. Eventually, some of these innovators will leave their firms to market their ideas as solutions to the legal profession’s long-standing problems. They might even become industry leaders in the not-too-distant future. One such innovator to watch is Exemplar Law Partners, LLC, which offers us a glimpse of its cutting-edge work at the blog, inside the firm of the future.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

A topic I’ve regularly visited here is the power of apology as an aid to dispute resolution; legal service delivery; and business assessment.

The National Law Journal (by way of law.com) provides us with updated coverage on the subject in an article called Emerging Med-Mal Strategy: ‘I’m Sorry.' The piece reacquaints us with the full disclosure/early offer policies that are taking a foothold in the medical liability world. Grounded in the efforts of The Sorry Works! Coalition, these policies - and the programs they beget in hospitals across the country – aim to facilitate communication and early settlement in cases of medical mistake.

Under the program model, affected families come away with an understanding of “what happened to them or a family member while in a health provider's care." In some instances, they receive a doctor’s apology for the error.

Lawyers praise the programs for fostering an “open exchange of information, particularly between experienced counsel, that enables the early settlement of meritorious claims.” Other proponents point out that, in practice, the policies tend to elicit more transparent, honest and open exchange than up front apologies. They also stress that, in institutions enforcing such policy programs, “straight talk about mistakes and compensation offers” coexists with an equally “vigorous defense of cases in which [the institution] believes no mistake” was made.

The potential reach of these kinds of conflict resolution initiatives – favoring open and honest exchange between would-be litigants – is enormous. It will be interesting to see how the model evolves in the medical dispute context and is adapted to serve the larger legal industry.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

In my recent post on fueling lawyer happiness, I discussed the XE Factor - a teaching model of human energy exchange I devised to help lawyers and other service professionals I work with better understand how a particular person, issue, interaction or job impacts them on an energetic level. I believe that much of the work-related conflict, stress and discontent we experience stems from our inability to gauge, protect and renew our personal energy stores.

As he’s done before, blogger and passion catalyst Curt Rosengren again highlights the importance of understanding this dynamic of human energy depletion, conservation and generation. In a post on Energy catalysts he observes: “People who feel vibrant and alive because they're doing what they're meant to be doing are inherently energizing to be around.” Rosengren dubs these people energy catalysts. On the flipside are the energy sappers [also known as energy vampires]. These “people who are dissatisfied with where their lives are taking them can be a drain, sucking the energy out of their surroundings” and the folks they interact with.

Most of us go through the day without considering our own energy state. We know that we’re feeling put off, tired, overwhelmed and disheartened, but we don’t attribute those feelings to impaired energy. In a new Fast Company article called Is Your Boss Killing You? we learn more about the great havoc wreaked by workplace energy sappers. The piece leads off by citing study findings suggesting that “caustic, abrasive, and overbearing bosses just might be taking years off their employees' lives.” It goes on to offer expert views on ways people can avoid or re-route this energetic drain, such as “looking at pictures of their families, visualizing a beautiful vacation spot, or even trying to imagine a problematic situation as comical rather than stressful.”

Additional insight into personal energy management comes from an article in the July 2006 Law Practice Today titled Meet the Most Powerful Stress Manager: Your Heart. In it, Kim Allen and Bruce Cryer of HeartMath LLC outline the heart’s role in creating and maintaining a positive energy flow in the human mind and body.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (3)
• Trackbacks

I’ve previously set out my views on self-expression as a vital business skill. I recently came across a post by Ernie the Attorney that touched on this topic. In it, Ernest Svenson takes a frank look at his penchant for self-revelation as a blogger (although I suspect that penchant carries over to other sectors of his life). Among the reasons he proffers for his openness is this one: “I believe that if you are open with people they are more likely to open up too.”

The mutual understanding and connection that Svenson seeks to cultivate via his self-reflection and revelation is something I also strive to forge in my business relationships. That’s because I’ve seen time and again how people engage and energize one another through this dual exchange of self-currency.

A great example of self-expression as a powerful connector can be found in an inspiring post from Dan Hull celebrating the 20th anniversary of the day he quit drinking. Now, Dan always has something interesting to say through his blog, What About Clients? But, imbued with the power of story and self-reflection, this post proves particularly impactful and memorable. We take a heart-felt ride as Dan recounts how “lots of people, including adventuresome fire-breathing trial lawyers with one dash of the wrong DNA, do finally give up booze so they can tap into and use the gifts they have, and grow.”

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

It’s widely reported that a workforce favoring idealism and work-life synergy (pdf) is taking up residence in the legal profession and affiliated industries. Because of this population shift, law firms with an authentic culture in which employees feel connected to the larger organization and to each other by deeply held values, standards and principles will likely gain a competitive edge with workers and clients alike.

While the task of fostering a genuinely engaging business culture may seem daunting to some firms, there’s ample empirical evidence that it’s a smart and effective business strategy. As blogger-author John Moore observes in a recent post on competitors’ ill-fated attempts at Mimicking Whole Foods Market: “It’s the people that matter more in creating a brand than do products or programs.” Moore then states: “WFM understands the power of a knowledgeable, caring, and passionate workforce in creating highly satisfied customers. They’ve created a company culture which connects with their team members (employees) and they in turn, pass that connection onto WFM shoppers.”

Similar proof is offered in a post on the ROI of Employee Engagement from the Be Excellent blog. It cites a recent study evincing that “a well-substantiated relationship exists between employee engagement - the extent to which employees are committed, believe in the values of the company, feel pride in working for their employer, and are motivated to go the extra mile - and business results.” Among the statistics the post culls from the study is this impactful one: “High engagement companies improved 19.2 per cent while low engagement companies declined 32.7 per cent in operating income over the study period.”

Beyond reasoning by anaology from the outside business world, law firms can look to one of their own to glean the importance of enhancing the lawyer experience [what I refer to as Lawyer Experience Management (LEM)]. In a candid article featured at lawjobs.com, midsize firm Steefel shares the remedial steps it's taking in the face of marked lawyer turnover. Notably, a “renewed emphasis on mentoring” is central to its efforts to make the firm “more attractive to lawyers and clients at a time when both are gravitating toward national firms.”

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks

When I consider An Inconvenient Truth - the new documentary account of the dangers of global warming - and the current energy deficit in our country, it strikes me that the depleted state of the natural world mirrors the depletion and need for renewal that many lawyers experience today. 

In my work, I often talk to clients about their energy state. I ask them to consider how a particular dispute, issue, interaction or job impacts them on an energetic level. Is it filling or depleting their energy stores? Does it make them feel upbeat, positive and excited or bring them stress, anger, resentment or even physical illness? When we gauge situations and people we encounter at work and elsewhere by this yardstick – which I call the XE [energy exchange] Factor – we close in on a better understanding of why we come away from exchanges feeling fueled or exhausted. 

Over at The Occupational Adventure, Curt Rosengren has written a great post along these lines called Feed the positive & eliminate the toxic. He says: “Every day we’re surrounded by inputs that either feed our energy or drain it. And for the most part we don’t spend all that much time managing those inputs.’’ To help us become better energy conservationists and builders, Rosengren makes the following suggestion: “Sit down and make a three-columned list. In the first column, make a list of all the things in your life that feed your positive energy. In the second column, make a list of the things that drain it. In the third, make a list of things you could build into your life to ‘feed your mind with material of hope and possibility.’" 

For some insight into how other practitioners have (re)energized their lives in the law, you can read a 2001 ABA Journal article by Jenny B. Davis titled Life In Question: How Five Lawyers Worked Out Answers of Their Own and its 2006 follow-up, Life In Question … Continued. The articles profile lawyers who reached personal and professional turning points that compelled them to “question their own choices or the direction of their own lives.” 

The important message that we’re our own first line of defense in protecting our personal energy level is embedded in a csmonitor.com commentary by Jeffrey Shaffer called July 4 is for fireworks; every day is ‘personal independence’ day. In it, Shaffer points out that “challenges to our personal independence” – to those values, concepts and rules of self-conduct that inform our integrity – often arise during exchanges “with friends and fellow citizens.” 

Finally, you’ll find more inspiration on fueling personal happiness at The Happiness Project [hat tip Curt Rosengren] a blog by author and former lawyer Gretchen Rubin. And this week’s Coast to Coast podcast by bloggers J. Craig Williams and Robert Ambrogi features The Fun Side of Lawyers.

• Send To A Friend
• Print This Article
• Comments
• Trackbacks

This has been a great time of transition in my family. My son had his pre-k “gradulation” last week and my eldest daughter officially moves up from elementary to middle school tomorrow. Both kids are understandably nervous about the changes that await them. They similarly express that they hope they’ll be able to find and befriend other children who share their interests. This interest-based camaraderie seems key to their sense of security and happiness in their new school life.

A conversation I recently had with a lawyer acquaintance of mine reminded me that adults also thrive on such interest-based connections. He asked me what I thought of affinity groups like the ones his Biglaw firm has formed and promoted to connect lawyers around such common denominators as race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.

In the ensuing conversation, I explained that lawyers regularly tell me that they feel isolated and lonely although they’re surrounded by hundreds of co-workers every day. They attribute their sense of isolation to, among other things, the competitive nature of the business and long working hours. This loneliness – this lack of esprit de corps – is one of the primary causes of the rampant lawyer attrition plaguing firms today.

While many firms embrace affinity groups as a key component of their diversity initiatives, such groups can be formed around a multitude of shared interests – like books, sports, travel and music. Regardless of their focus, they hold great potential for fostering the kind of employee bonds that compel career contentment and thwart attrition.

For an interesting look at how businesses can avert disintegration and sustain themselves by recognizing and promoting shared interests, check out this fascinating New Yorker article by Malcolm Gladwell called The Cellular Church.