legal sanity

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

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

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

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

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

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In the last several years, I’ve logged a lot of online and offline hours learning, thinking and teaching about work-life synergy for lawyers (pdf). Although different issues converge under this umbrella, one topic that garners a lot of attention is flexible work options. It’s something I’ve addressed in posts on:

• Becoming more flexible

• Flexible work for lawyers 
  

• The flexible law firm: reality or pipe dream?

About a month ago, I came across a boston.com article on workplace trends for 2008. In it, columnist Maggie Jackson declares: “Fluidity is in. Piecemeal flexing is out.” She’s referring to a movement in corporate America to retrain the focus away from flexible work programs and towards the more fluid “Mass Career Customization" (MCC).

Championed by Cathleen Benko of Deloitte & Touche, MCC presumes that, today, more and more employees want to tailor their careers by “periodically adjusting their work pace, job setting and schedule, workload, and company role.”

After reading the article, I went over to Deloitte’s website and continued my MCC studies through a podcast that explores how MCC is not just a women’s initiative. Given the emergence of a dual-centric workforce, career customization serves the needs of men and women alike. I also vetted this series of in-house articles on Building a Lattice Organization. (The MCC model can be visualized as a career lattice - with numerous paths leading to different kinds of success – as opposed to a career ladder.)

In the wake of this education, I started considering the ways MCC might play out in the legal profession. Law firms aren't known for being early adopters of new workplace trends. That’s why it was so interesting to read a recent New York Times article – aptly titled Who’s Cuddly Now? Law Firms – that profiles a new proposal to bring customized career tracks to the law.

The proposal, called FACTS, is the brainchild of work-life consultant Deborah Epstein Henry. Henry doesn’t propose that firms do away with the billable hour. Rather, she suggests that they move from a liner to a more fluid billable hour model that recognizes how lawyers’ work-life needs may change at different stages of their careers. The acronym FACTS reflects the variety of work hour modes that Henry envisions:

• Fixed

• Annualized

• Core

• Targeted

• Shared

To learn more about the FACTS, you can read Henry’s article outlining her methodology (pdf). Those of you in the New York area can join in the conversation when Henry presents her program on Monday, March 3, 2008. To learn more about the program and register for it, visit Flex-Time Lawyers.

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It’s probably no mere coincidence that at a time of political challenge and economic uncertainty in the United States, there’s been a flurry of coverage on the subject of … happiness.

For some time now, I’ve been intrigued by the science and study of happiness, as evidenced in this post on the road to lawyer happiness and this one that puts lawyer happiness under the microscope.

So, I eagerly read a pair of recent Christian Science Monitor articles on the subject.

The first piece - titled Actually, Happiness Isn’t Within - challenges the “firmly held and particularly American belief that happiness” is an internal quality; a state of being, or wellbeing, that we cultivate from the inside out. Citing new findings by social scientists, the article asserts that our happiness is a byproduct of external factors. Topping the list of those outside influences “is the quantity and the quality of our relationships.” (Journalist Penelope Trunk echoes this point in a post that offers a few tests for discerning what we need to be happier.)

Given this new happiness formula and the amount of time most of us spend on-the-job, it stands to reason that our happiness must be strongly linked to the quality of our work environment and business relationships. If we’re routinely unhappy doing what we do for a living, it’s a sure sign that these external components are unhealthy and stacked against us.

This is the underlying message of Alexander Kjerulf’s CSM commentary on cultivating happiness at work.

According to Kjerulf, it’s the norm for U.S. workers to be dissatisfied with their jobs. That’s because managers and employees alike fail to make workplace happiness a priority. This isn’t a gosh, well, I guess that’s too bad fact of life. As Kjerulf puts it: “Hating your job is not an inconvenience, it's a serious problem. It can cause stress and depression. Ultimately, it can kill you.”

Lawyers should be acutely aware of the seriousness of this issue. As Sue Shellenbarger (pdf) writes in an article on Lawyers Opening Up About Depression, studies have found that about “19% of lawyers suffer depression at any given time, compared with 6.7% of the population as a whole.” While some might question the exact correlation between career stresses and depression, it seems that it’s well accepted that the “practice of law, with constant conflict and billing pressures, can take a toll.”

Attorney Daniel Lukasik contacted me last week to let me know about a website he’s launched to support himself and other lawyers who are living and coping with the day-to-day realities of depression. I checked it out and it presents as a terrific and much-needed resource.

For another perspective on lawyers and depression, Stephanie West Allen points us to a new book exploring the “benefits of negative emotions” and “how we might view depression in a more constructive way.”

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Kevin O’Keefe and Carolyn Elefant , among other bloggers, recently posted about this New York Times piece on the diminishing lure of the law. I read the article when it first ran and liked it a lot. But, the news it imparted was not earth shattering by any stretch.

For years, theorists, academics and others have been decoding and commenting on the root causes of lawyer discontent and attrition. When legal sanity launched in 2004, one of its main objectives was to highlight their work and related efforts to remedy an ailing legal profession. Since then, coverage here has included posts on:

• the antidote for lawyer discontent
• the economics of lawyer depletion 
• connecting points for employee engagement 
• wake up calls for lawyers and law firms 
• toxic law firms
  

Threading through the broader conversation about life in the law today – and echoed in the New York Times article - is the realization that the legal profession is out of step with larger social-cultural-generational shifts towards creative personal and business pursuits. You can sample some of the discussion on the new “Creative Age” through these posts:

• working with meaning
• lawyers in the conceptual age 
• the brave new world of law 
• are you untouchable?
  

The lingering question for law firms and practitioners alike is how to bring more creativity to the everyday practice of law. The first step, of course, is to acknowledge the creativity deficit and the problems deriving from it. From there, firms could take it to the people and ask their lawyers what kind of creative outlets and opportunities they’d like to have on the job. Beyond getting this direct input, firms could demonstrate their commitment to creativity through policy and marketing initiatives.

For some inspiration, firms can look to resources like this article on creativity and success (emphasizing the “simple and wonderful truth that all people have the capacity to be creative”) and this terrific marketing-lateral recruiting campaign from Chicago’s Ungaretti & Harris.

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My friend and business associate Keith Ferrazzi emailed me about his goals for 2008. He shared his belief that, “to be a successful goal-getter,” we need to take a few preliminary steps.

First, we have to define our goals. Keith believes that goals usually fall into one of seven categories (he calls them the “seven aspects” of our “personal success wheel”):

• health + wellness

• spirituality

• job + career

• intellectual + cultural

• financial

• deep relationships

• giving back

Step two is to make sure that the goals we define are SMART, which stands for:

• specific

• measurable

• attainable

• relevant

• time-bound

The third step in Keith’s goal-getting approach is a crucial one. We need to get some positive reinforcement by asking three friends to be our “accountability buddies.” The idea is to create a vibrant support network so that no one has to go it alone and everyone stays accountable.

To help us take these steps, Keith and his team have created an application called Goal Post that’s housed at Facebook, the social networking site. According to Keith, Goal Post is “an easy and visual way to set your goals, choose your accountability buddies and keep track of your progress.”

If 2007 found you questioning your job or career path, you can find some guidance and inspiration for the coming year in Curt Rosengren’s new book, 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work.

I was fortunate enough to receive and review an advance copy of the book. Curt offers a lot of practical insight and action points for reenergizing our current work or reorienting towards a different job or career that rewards us on many levels – financial, emotional, intellectual and spiritual. There’s a hefty helping of material here. But, Curt makes it very easy to consume by breaking it down into bite-sized tips, ideas and inspirational perspectives.

I wish you all a happy, healthy and meaningful 2008.

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The other night, my kids turned on one of the made-for-T.V. movies that abound this time of year. It featured siblings who live in a beautiful home filled with all the latest toys and gadgets. Despite the material bounty around them, these T.V. sisters were enormously unhappy because they lived with a disinterested dad and an ogress of a step-mom.

On the one hand, this was a predictable and contrived storyline. On the other hand, it carried an important message: it's the people, and not the things, around us that usually determine our longer-term happiness and fulfillment.

This was the message underlying a post I wrote on toxic law firms. It also runs through this Be Excellent synopsis of a Gallup survey that explored how the employee-manager relationship affects employee engagement.

This same message came to mind when I read a recent New York Times article titled:  For Lawyers, Perks to Fit a Lifestyle (also vetted by Gerry Riskin at Amazing Firms, Amazing Practices). Noting that associates are “routinely jumping ship to go elsewhere,” the piece describes the material perks some firms are offering to “create a workplace that caters to their young recruits’ wants and needs, while freeing them to bill 60 hours or more a week.”

Among the perks cited are:

• Milkshakes

• Extended Sabbaticals

• Mortgage Assistance

• Wine Tastings

• Yoga Classes

• Nap Rooms

• Nanny Services

All these offerings can reduce stress and overwhelm to some degree. But, I wonder if they make any real difference in firms where associates work long, grueling hours for abrasive partners who give them little to no acknowledgment or constructive feedback.

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Work and life have kept me out of the blogging groove of late. Vetting the feeds and alerts I use to keep pace in the blogosphere, I found several great posts and articles revolving around the theme of the workplace.

Here’s a roundup of my favorites:

Addressing the popular topics of employee attrition and retention, a CareerJournal.com article offers Six Reasons Top Performers Seek Out Greener Pastures. The first reason cited is a lack of rewards for good behavior. This is not about some childish need. People – mature, intelligent, responsible adult people – want to be visible and acknowledged for their efforts; especially when those efforts “promote the success of the whole company.” As the article suggests, giving monetary rewards like bonuses are just one of a number of ways that firms can recognize and honor their stellar performers.

As much as some top performers need to be honored, others need to be reeled in or shown the door. That’s the message conveyed in this lawjobs.com piece about firms with strict no-jerks rules. Recognizing the deleterious effect that bullies and abusive egomaniacs can have on the work environment, some law firms are “reforming their hiring and firing policies to follow one simple guiding tenet: no jerks allowed.” Notably, rule breakers aren’t excused because they bill a lot of hours or generate substantial business. The damage they do to morale and their firm’s business bottom line far outweighs any of their personal contributions to the practice.

If given the choice, most of us would prefer to work in a jerk-free environment. According to a survey profiled in another CareerJournal.com piece, we’d also like to have creative outlets on the job. Although 88% of the survey participants responded that they have creative personalities, only 63% deemed their job a creative position. Tacitly acknowledging this “creativity gap,” 22% of the respondents said that they would leave their job for more creative, but lower-paying work. According to one quoted source, the kind of workplace creativity people likely have in mind is “an aspect of the job that allows [them] to express their personalities or challenge their intellects.”

Our drive for creative outlet in the workplace mirrors larger cultural and economic movements towards valuing creativity . These trends have been chronicled by economist Richard Florida in his seminal book, The Rise of the Creative Class, and in writer Dan Pink’s excellent book, A Whole New Mind.

On a final and more personal note, Curt Rosengren profiles my e-book on cultivating work-life synergy at his new blog, The M.A.P. Maker. Curt offers insights and commentary on creating a life of meaning, abundance and passion (hence, M.A.P.). I encourage you to add his blog to your feeds. Thanks, Curt, for the acknowledgement and another thanks to Judy Martin for bringing my work to Curt’s attention.

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"We want employees to have an experience that revitalizes them and changes their thinking – that brings them back with brand-new ideas and perspectives. If they're not growing as people, we're not growing as a company."

When you read and re-read this quote, what does it trigger for you? What kind of business leader do you attribute it to? Most likely, you can envision the statement coming from the top tier of a progressive, worker-centric company like Apple or Yahoo.

But, these words were spoken by lawyer Lee S. Rosen, CEO of the Rosen Law Firm. Rosen is one of the employers featured in a recent Christian Science Monitor article on the benefits of employee sabbaticals.

Borrowing a custom from academia, some corporate employers are offering these paid and unpaid time outs as part of their employee recruitment and retention efforts.

Rosen encourages his employees to use the time to “do something that’s meaningful to them” (the link is mine). Lisa Angel, a Rosen lawyer who’s profiled in the piece, says that she “needed a change from the rigors and emotions” of her work in divorce law. She spent her 3-month sabbatical traveling solo in China and Southeast Asia. The time away, she asserts, changed her “perspective about the balance of work and life and “enabled her to continue practicing law.”

Offering sabbaticals is one way that law firms can foster a culture of meaning and nurturing. Complementary avenues of cultural change in the legal profession will be explored at Touro Law Center’s upcoming conference on Law as a Healing Profession.

The conference takes place on November 4-5, 2007 at Touro’s campus in Central Islip, New York. I will be there as a keynote speaker and panelist. To see the roster of other presenters and for more information, you can view the event brochure here (pdf).

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One of the inroads to creating work-life synergy in the law (pdf) is flextime work. I’ve covered this topic before, particularly in connection to the challenges faced by women lawyers. Lately, I’ve come across a number of articles and other commentary on the feasibility of these alternative work arrangements. Here’s a sampling of them for you:

• How to Ask About Flexible Hours
• Women Executives Discuss Flex Schedules
• Flexibility As a Key Talent Management Strategy (via the Job Blog)

I think these pieces team well with this set of compelling articles and posts on women engaging life in and out of the full-time paid workforce.

• The Job Without Benefits

 • Don’t tell me about admirable moms

• Hiding behind data about extreme jobs

• This One’s For All Of You Neglectful Moms

Through Lisa Solomon at Legal Research and Writing Pro, I learned of an interesting new effort called Ms. JD. Still in beta version, this is an online community started by a group of female law students concerned about “the rates at which women opt out of the legal profession, the lack of representation of women in the highest courts and echelons of the legal community, and the role of gender in the progression of many women’s legal careers.”

In addition to providing a cyber forum for dialoguing and networking, Ms. JD will formally launch at Legally Female, a national conference to be held at Yale Law School on March 31, 2007. You’ll find registration information here .

Endnote: After writing this post, I checked my feeds and saw that Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle published a post today on work-life balance that mentions Ms. JD and asks readers: “Have you found the elusive work life balance or do you feel that you're burning the candle at both ends?”

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I went off the blog track for a bit to be with my family during the kids’ school break. In that time, I was invited to give programs on work-life synergy at the University of Michigan (my undergrad alma mater) and on business relationships at Harvard Law School and New York Law School. The latter two programs are geared towards helping students navigate the often challenging transition from academia to life as practitioners.

I’m excited about this opportunity because law students are very interested in exploring the idea that work can be financially rewarding and meaningful.  As I’ve noted before, meaningful work and work relationships are energetically filling rather than depleting. They uplift us and gives us a sense of wellbeing and contentment.

These bright and motivated students likely know the statistics on lawyer attrition. But, they may not be aware of the steps some firms are taking to address this problem through lawyer engagement and experience management.

This law.com article on upward reviews sheds light on one of these initiatives. Upward reviews give associates an opportunity to “provide input on the management and leadership performance of partners with whom they regularly work.” In turn, partners learn how they can “improve their management skills and retain top talent.” It’s a win-win proposition.

Dan Hull adds to this conversation at his blog, What About Clients? He suggests that everyone – firms, clients and lawyers – benefits when firms compel junior associates to regularly share their thought processes with the senior attorneys they work with.

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I've covered the topic of happiness here from a few different angles:

• happiness is happening
• to your happiness!
• the money-happiness connection
• setting boundaries to avoid lawyer unhappiness

Over at his always-engaging (and nicely redesigned) blog bailey workplay, Chris Bailey points to a BBC article titled Why are Dutch children so happy? The piece investigates what earned the Netherlands the top spot on a roster of 21 industrialized countries featured in a recent UNICEF Child Wellbeing Report (pdf).

One factor cited is the Dutch parent-child relationship. Apparently, parents in the Netherlands are “very open and communicative” and “go out of their way to please” their children. So much so, that “there can be a lack of balance between the happiness of the child and that of the parent."

Reflecting on the article’s findings about happy Dutch kids, Bailey asks: “How much is our own happiness tied to having things go our way? Can there be happiness in our challenges and struggles?”

Cluing us in on how he’d answer his own questions, Bailey says: “Ask whether the pain of quitting your job might not be the first step toward finding your own soulful work. Remember that happiness sometimes means taking the hard and painful path.”

I think that there’s something to Bailey’s struggle-happiness connection. It often takes a jolt for us to see that we’ve been stagnant and unhappy in our work life and elsewhere. When that jolt comes – in the form of unexpected bad news, a business defeat or a financial downturn -- we realize that we’ve been stuck and need to make (and struggle through) a change for our own happiness and wellbeing.

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What lawyers say and do while handling a legal issue often doesn’t reflect how they really feel about the matter or the client behind it.

Aligning all three aspects of practicing law – our words, feelings and actions – can be a tall order. Even when we “walk our talk” as tough negotiators or savvy client advisors, our emotions might not support this public persona. As much as we try to keep our feelings out of the mix, over time, this misfit tends to compromise our comfort and contentment with work.

My own desire for greater fit compelled me to start my own law firm and learning programs venture. This blog is also an avenue for exploring ways to connect words, feelings and actions. I’ve discussed that nexus in posts on ensuring law firm-associate fit and choosing fit over prestige; and I’ve alluded to the role it plays in spurring or curbing lawyer discontent and depletion.

Another opportunity for aligning words, feelings and actions recently knocked on my door.

Like so many other people, I’m committed to making a positive contribution to the world. I talk and think a lot about what I can do to act on my sincere intention. I’ve driven an Audi for years. It’s a great looking car. When I’m at the wheel, I feel important, hip and successful. With my lease term nearing an end, I started looking into my options.

Driving around town, I kept seeing hybrid cars. The bulb went on. After doing some research, I calculated that I’d save about 250 gallons of gas a year if I traded my Audi for a Toyota Prius. Taking this opportunity to reduce the size of my eco-footprint, I bought the Prius two days ago.

I’m very happy I did. I had a wonderful purchasing experience and it’s a great car all around (I’ll do a follow-up post on the customer-centric service model that’s made me an evangelist of Joni and the sales team at Penn Toyota in New York). Buying the Prius made sense on many fronts. But, most importantly, it’s given me a chance to edit my personal storyline to better align my words, feelings and actions.

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Although there’s little likelihood of anyone confusing the practice of law with the adrenaline-infused, on-the-edge activities highlighted in X Games coverage; it’s well-known that Americans can take just about anything to an extreme, including our work habits.

A little while back, I looked at the topic of lawyer depletion as it relates to the problem of over-work in the legal profession. The post included a few different takes on forfeiting vacations in favor of more time on-the-job.

Refreshing the issue for us is a new article by lawyer and writer Michael P. Maslanka titled: A Plea for Sanity: How GCs Can Help Stop the Culture of Extreme Work. In it, Maslanka notes that “there's no return on investment on exhausted employees” and chronicles the fallout from work-induced sleep deprivation. Among other remedial initiatives, Maslanka discusses mandatory vacations and training GCs (read firm leaders) to decipher the telltale signs of “an extreme worker” who needs an intervention.

But, it’s not only the extremists who need to understand the value of downtime. All of us benefit from a healthy life outside the law. Then, of course, there are the hybrid activities that join the worlds of work and leisure time.

Last night, my wife (and legal sanity co-producer), Lori, and I attended the NYC pre-launch party for BlawgWorld 2007, a TechnoLawyer publication that we contributed to along with a number of other law bloggers.

Among the folks we met and chatted with were hosts Neil Squillante and Sara Skiff; and attendees Tom Collins; Allison Shields; Josh Fruchter; Bruce Marcus; Bruce MacEwen; the Wired GC; Matt Homann; Walter Olson; Ron Friedman; and Tom Mighell (in order of connecting as we made our way from the front to the back of the restaurant). It was a lot of fun.

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Following up on my last post on work-life issues in the law, I came across a couple of new resources you can mine for insight into this important topic. The first is Lisa Haneberg’s “fireside chat” with Passion Catalyst Curt Rosengren. In this half-hour podcast (part of Haneberg’s terrific, ongoing series) the two discuss how we can “spend more of our work hours in ways that enliven our passions.” Understanding and exploring this work-passion connection is key to deciphering what fills and depletes us in the everyday practice of law.

Next on the resource roster is another podcast, this one from David Maister. In it, Maister talks about the importance of developing our friendship skills - which he considers prerequisite to earning and deserving others’ trust. Trust is the foundation of any genuine and enduring relationship – including the lawyer-client relationship. Career success and satisfaction typically grow as we cultivate the ability to regularly build and sustain trust-based business relationships.

To round out these work-life offerings, on January 23, 2007, I’m giving a free 90-minute teleseminar on XE Factor: Creating Work-Life Synergy. The program is hosted by Lisa Solomon’s Legal Research and Writing Pro. I hope you’ll join me. You can register and get additional information here.

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New Year’s resolutions have a definite allure. But, they’re often so grand and sweeping that we fail to keep them and then feel really guilty about it.

Why should we limit ourselves to making resolutions one day a year?

After all, each day offers us an unspoiled opportunity to reflect on our personal pursuits and our work. If there’s something we want to change, we have at least 365 distinct chances to set our intention to do so. We also have at least 365 chances to take our intentions from the realm of possibility to reality.

A while back, I wrote a post on how we handle change. In it, I mentioned a very interesting Fast Company article by Alan Deutschman called Change or Die. The article contends that we aren’t wired to change via appeals to our intellect alone. We need to be convinced of the need for change on an emotional level.

Just in time for our new year of baby steps to change, Deutschman has expanded his article into a new book titled Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life. Fast Company offers us a glimpse at the book’s premise and content in this piece called Three Keys to Change. One of the book’s key offerings is a new model for compelling change based on three new “Rs” – “relate, repeat, and reframe.”

You may have noticed some changes around here of late. Posting has been light and sporadic. No worries, it’s all for good reason.

I’ve been busy traveling for my training + development business (now called Legal Sanity Learning Programs). I’m also putting the finishing touches on an eGuide to one of my favorite topics, work-life synergy for lawyers. The Guide is initially being offered as a companion to my upcoming, free teleseminar on the same subject.

I’ll resume a more frequent and regular post schedule next week. Until then, here’s to a year of positive changes for us all!

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Just a post-on-the-fly here as I make my way home to watch the New York Mets in playoff action. I’m a lifelong Mets fan and now I’m thrilled to share my passion with my kids. Our time watching the games and building our baseball card collection connects us in a meaningful way. It de-stresses me after my work day and recharges my personal energy stores. 

There’s much cyber commentary on recognizing and relieving workplace stressors. Ultimately, it’s up to each of us to find and walk our personal path to career sanity. But, we can all use a little helpful guidance along the way. 

For some telling empirical data on our society’s workforce, we can peruse the statistics dispensed in a csmonitor.com article called Backstory: Office hours by the numbers. This statistical overview pairs very well with a CareerJournal.com piece profiling the Top 14 Reasons We’re Stressed Out. 

Moving on to some preventive measures we can take to counter job stress and refuel; Carl Honore – an advocate for living well by slowing down – offers us a view into what some companies, towns and parents are doing In Praise of Slowness. 

And those of us who don’t equate de-stressing with slowing down can take heart and inspiration from a set of articles on people exploring work-life synergy through sport. I particularly enjoyed this look at women lawyers who take out their workplace frustrations in the roller derby rink.

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It’s been a hectic but rewarding few weeks in the office. The matter I’ve been working on has given me ample opportunity to consider and do what I most enjoy in my legal practice. It’s great to have the chance to reflect on why we do what we do. So, I was glad to come across a few articles that team to provide some nice fodder for those reflective times.

The first of the trio is a commentary piece by Jenner & Block lawyer Gregory Gallopoulos. Asking Why Do We Work?, Gallopoulos responds that lawyers do indeed work for money, but we also work for “sanity.” And that sanity derives from compensation in “psychic gratification.” These gratifiers take different forms, but Gallopoulos identifies several of them. They are: ongoing opportunities for intellectual growth; autonomy of professional judgment; celebrating a “superlative work product;” and supporting public service efforts.

The next article, sub-titled An Essay on Money and Happiness, questions What Is Success, Anyway? About midway through, it states: “No matter how fancy the title or how big the paycheck, we soon learn that it isn't worth joining an organization full of jerks, morons or crooks.” The piece also recognizes that our career desires and definition of success change as we age. In midlife, we tend to place more importance on “intangibles like autonomy and personal expression” as well as “freedom and fulfillment.” Yet, in some professions – and the law is cited among them – honoring that call for fulfillment comes at a very real price since “the highest-paying opportunities are likely to gouge deepest into people's hopes of enjoying a balanced life.”

Rounding out the triad of reflections on this topic is a blog post called Who Really Matters? penned by Thom Singer of Some Assembly Required. In it, Singer shares a little self-test based on the wisdom of famed cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. The exercise brings home the very important point that the “people who make a difference in your life are not the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They are the ones that care.”

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The latest issue of my alma mater’s quarterly magazine, Michigan Alumnus, provides some interesting commentary on a topic I've covered here a few times before: happiness. Giving the graduation 2006 highlights, one piece recounts how commencement speaker Christiane Amanpour - the respected journalist and correspondent – advised graduates to “find something that sets you on fire, that gives you passion and joy, something that you love and believe in so much that it makes you want to work all day and all night, something that will make you willing to sacrifice, something that instills in you a deep sense of commitment and a sense of mission.”

Another of the magazine’s articles briefly discusses a recent study examining people’s ability to remember or predict happiness over their lifespan. The study showed that young and older people alike believe that “young people are happier than older people, when in fact research has shown the opposite.” Fuller coverage of the study can be found in a press release leading with the familiar lyrical line Hope I die Before I Get Old.

Our ability to predict and find what makes us happy is also explored in a new group of CareerJournal.com articles. The one that really grabbed my attention comes from blogger and former lawyer Gretchen Rubin. Considering the money-happiness connection, Rubin proposes that, when spent the right way, money does help buy happiness. And what’s the right kind of spending? According to Rubin, people should spend on things “that promote the components of happiness. The hedonic treadmill means that loading up on stuff, though gratifying for a moment, isn't a lasting source of happiness. Instead, spend money on your relationships, your health, and your experiences.”

If you want to read more on the subject, Fast Company's blog offers a happiness self-assessment tool for those of us who look at our legal careers and larger lives as an "If only _____, then I'd be happy” proposition. According to the piece, this is a misguided way of pursuing happiness because it takes us out of the present moment. With this point in mind, we're advised that, “if we want to be happy, we must come to grips with an important fact. That we've been fooling ourselves. Contentment, it turns out, is not a destination. Rather, it's a manner of traveling. And if we can't feel it today, we won't find it tomorrow.”

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I spent the weekend with my extended family celebrating my brother Steven’s wedding. I had the great honor of being the rehearsal dinner’s master of ceremonies as person after person stood up to share an anecdote or two about Steven as a man, successful entrepreneur and imminent husband to a fantastic, strong, funny and very patient and giving woman.

Steven is a special guy and one of the common threads weaving through the toasts in his honor was the recognition of his extraordinary ability to befriend, relate to and interconnect people he’s met throughout his life. His social intelligence is simply outstanding and he brings this aptitude to his work at the broadcasting and marketing representation firm he founded in 1996. By all accounts, the empathy, genuine interest and humor Steven infuses into his leadership have cultivated a true sense of community and family within his firm that naturally extends out to his many clients.

So, for Steven, work in the world has really become a reflection of who is in his larger life. There’s none of the misfit or dissonance between self and career that throws so many people into a tailspin. It was very inspiring to see, hear and otherwise experience just how much has come from his efforts to put himself wholly into his career.

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I’m back from my travels and gearing up for a return to my regular blogging schedule. It was a great two weeks. I saw many historical sites I’ve wanted to visit for some time. I also had the chance to spend time with my extended family and reflect on different aspects of my life to date.

As I wound my way back through New York, I stopped at the Chautauqua Institution for an overnight with my cousins. Chautauqua is a very special community where people gather to take in the arts, learn and discuss important issues of the day in a beautiful, natural setting. Families and individuals return year after year to find “intellectual and spiritual growth and renewal.” Through the unique activities and environment it offers, Chautauqua fosters great inter-generational dialogue and understanding.

Having just been steeped in this generational exchange, I was happy to come across a recent Fast Company article touching on the topic. Titled The Future’s So Bright…, the piece captures a conversation between John Seely Brown, former chief scientist at Xerox Corporation, and high school senior Shannon O’Brien.

At the outset, Brown refers to the innovation explosion happening today and shares his “belief that we will see a new form of education emerge--not one based on being taught but one more oriented to passion-based learning within niche communities of interest.” With this new type of community-based learning, he sees the “rise of the pro-amateur class--serious explorations and creations we do for the love of doing it.”

Responding to Brown, O’Brien passes along the teenager’s perspective that “the future is a giant leap into the hopeful unknown.” Acknowledging the innovation and technological advances Brown cites, she observes that they can have the detrimental side effect of keeping people from “communicating and bonding like they used to.” She hopes that “the people of the world” will take note of this fissure and “learn to find balance between the real world of people and relationships and the cyber world, [that can be] time consuming and overpowering.”

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Executive coach Doug Sundheim has written a great post for FC Now on the Gift of Risk. In it, he relates how his coaching work has lead him to conclude that people feel “most alive” at times when they’ve “pushed themselves out of their comfort zone” and taken risks. And he’s found this to be the case regardless of the outcome of the risk-taking opportunities. Based on his conclusion, he offers this bit of wisdom: “The gift of risk-taking doesn't lie in what you achieve by risking - it lies in who you become as a result of the process. Confident. Engaged. Alive.”

Sundheim’s obeservations very much resonate for me. A couple of days ago, my vacation travels took me back to my college alma mater, the University of Michigan. When I left home for UM, it was a big leap outside the comfort zone I experienced as a sheltered suburban New York kid. But, the next four years proved to be some of the most engaging and energizing of my life. Walking the campus this week, I reconnected with the feelings of freedom, growth, learning, fun and higher purpose that I so often felt during college. Although I went to UM in the year 5 BCCE (Before Computers, Cell Phones and Emails), it seemed like I’d never left; that no time had passed since I was a student there.

Those of you who went to UM will appreciate my journey up and down South University, through the diag (stepped on the block M), to the graduate library reading room, up to the Michigan League, Bell Tower, Rackham’s grand reading room, down to State Street passing by Angel Hall, into the Michigan Union, to the Law School Quad, then to Ulrich’s. Of course, I went to the Big House and, even though it was empty, I could feel the palpable energy of 110,000 enthusiastic fans on football Saturday. I ventured to North Campus and to the Gerald Ford Presidential Library. Afterwards, I had a great dinner at Zingerman’s. The next morning, I took in Angelo’s for breakfast and then went to the incomparable arb for an amazing one-hour walk to the river, prairie, woods, open spaces and beyond.

By embracing that first opportunity UM afforded me to move outside my zone of safety, I opened myself to the many business and personal ventures that have since taught me to appreciate the gift of risk.

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At his blog, Dan Pink points us to a synopsis of a Gallup Panel poll finding that “American workers most often say they like that their jobs offer them a sense of fulfillment, provide opportunities to help people, and give them autonomy in how they accomplish their tasks.” It’s notable that personal fulfillment and altruism rank at the top of the favored job attributes. I think that many of us left law school firmly believing that we would experience both as part and parcel of life in the law.

On the road this week, I’ve thought a lot about the ways fulfillment and helping others have featured in my own career and in our country’s history. Thus far, among other places, my travels have taken me to the National Constitution Center; the Supreme Court building; Arlington National Cemetery; and to the site of Flight 93’s crash on 9/11.

This last location was particularly significant for me since my good friend, Alan Beaven, was one of Flight 93’s heroic passengers. As I’ve set out on this blog’s dedication page, Alan was a very talented environmental lawyer who saw the law’s great potential as a healing profession. He inspired me to the same vision of my profession and it’s that inspiration that continually motivates me to help others and find personal fulfillment through my work.

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I’m preparing to embark on an extended business-pleasure trip that will take me to Philadelphia; Washington, D.C.; Gettysburg; Pittsburgh; Cincinnati; Springfield; Chicago; Ann Arbor; and Cleveland. It will be a time for me to refresh and enjoy new sites and experiences. It will also afford me some space and opportunity to hone the latest addition to my Training + Development curriculum - the XE Factor.

My trip is just one in a series of steps I've taken in recent years to augment fulfillment and eliminate depletion in my professional and personal life. The concepts of fulfillment and depletion play out in real time via my energy states. Something's fulfilling to me when it literally fills me up with positive energy. Something's depleting when it leaves me drained, stressed, stifled or angry. The key has been learning to recognize my personal depletion zone and how I can move myself out of it.

It’s been a pretty big learning curve. I initially resisted acknowledging the depletion I experienced in – and beyond – the law. Even when all the signs evinced that I was running on empty, I pushed myself to work harder and do more for my clients and others. Once I became acquainted with the signs and symptoms of my depletion, I still had to do some trial and error to figure out how to reclaim my energy stores. Now, when I find myself energetically depleted at work, I know that there’s remedial power in an uplifting change of pace like a quick nature walk or bike ride; playing with my kids; watching a good ball game; or going on vacation.

I’ve previously noted the connection between taking time off and personal energy renewal. The topic is addressed from a slightly broader perspective in a CareerJounal.com article addressing how Sabbaticals Can Offer Dividends for Employers.

The piece focuses on company-sponsored sabbaticals that allow employees to work with nonprofit groups. The sponsoring businesses see sabbatical assignments (also called community engagement programs) as means of recruiting and retaining top talent. They’re also recognized as conduits for leadership building and for identifying “potential markets.” Acknowledging the revitalizing aspect of the programs, one sabbatical provider quoted for the piece states: “The goal is ‘to get employees re-energized and re-engaged, give them a broader sense of themselves, the company and the community.’”

If there’s a familiar ring to the sabbatical concept, it’s interesting to note that the article likens such programs to law firm pro bono initiatives. Both, it says, “appeal to strong performers who ‘seek more than a paycheck; they seek significance.’” Significance and renewed energy is a very potent combination.

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Much buzz has been stirred by longtime blogger Denise Howell’s poignant, powerful and candid post titled Have Aeron, Will Travel. In it, Howell shares her thoughts and observations concerning her recent, forced departure from a Biglaw firm. Although she never cites the reasons for the “separation,” Howell devotes a sizeable chunk of post space to reflecting on the importance and “business realities” of work-life balance programs in the law.

In the spirit of res ipsa loquitur, I’m going to let Howell’s excellent commentary speak for itself. But, to do it proper justice, I want to highlight some of the links in the chain of conversation her sharing has generated. Ernie the Attorney remarks on Howell’s desire to funnel any prospective professional endeavors through a “stringent ‘how much do I really love that?’ filter.” Also noting the filter metaphor, Gerry Riskin observes: “A firm cannot prosper without keeping its best people and the best people will always have choices which they will exercise based on their drive for self actualization.”

Taking a slightly different approach, David Maister seizes the opportunity Howell creates for him to explore if it’s really possible for a law firm to offer “a wide variety of personal choices on work intensity.” After reviewing some of his earlier work on the issue, Maister says: “I would love to believe that a single business entity could offer choice of intensity - but I'm not sure it can if it is aiming to be among the best in its field.” What Maister seems to be saying here is that lawyers ultimately need to ensure that their firm’s culture syncs with their deeply held values and work-life needs or preferences. To expect that law firms will sacrifice their greatness for our individual good might be a very unrealistic and unreasonable expectation.

Whatever position we take on this very important topic; Howell has done us all a great service by being so open with her opinions and feelings at this pivotal point in her personal and professional evolution. We’re all looking to grow and we’re all seeking happiness that can be elusive at times. We gain vital perspective, strenghth and mutual understanding when people, like Howell, are brave enough to share their struggles and triumphs with us. The insight gained on a personal and collective level can only benefit us, the firms we work for and the legal profession.

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Inspiration is a great motivator in business and other arenas that derives from a number of sources. When I need to clear my head and gain perspective on a work or personal matter, I often go for a walk in a local nature preserve to enjoy its inspiring calm and beauty. If I’m in a foul mood because of stress, horsing around with my kids provides a healthy dose of inspiration in the form of laughter and lightness. In this spirit of inspiration, I offer a trio of articles I came across in my recent Web wanderings.

Blogger Dick Richards of Come Gather Round points us to his terrific article on The Anatomy of Empathy. Profiling the empathic ways of “three accomplished leaders,” Richards inspires us to access and refine our own ability to empathize with our clients and colleagues by (1) stepping into their emotional world without losing ourselves in it and (2) communicating that we understand and accept their emotions.

In his Wired Magazine article What Kind of Genius Are You?, author and blogger Dan Pink introduces us to economist David Galenson's theory about creative genius. According to Galenson, genius comes in “two very different forms, embodied by two very different types of people.” The first type he calls conceptual innovators. These people “make bold, dramatic leaps in their disciplines. They do their breakthrough work when they are young.” On the other end of the creative genius continuum are experimental innovators who, “like Auguste Rodin, Mark Twain, and Alfred Hitchcock proceed by a lifetime of trial and error and thus do their important work much later in their careers.”

Pink has a way with words and ends his piece with this insightful remark about Galenson’s theory of late-blooming genius: “It’s no justification for laziness or procrastination or indifference. But it might bolster the resolve of the relentlessly curious, the constantly tinkering, the dedicated tortoises undaunted by the blur of the hares.”

Last, but not least, is a csmonitor.com story called Out of the Elevator. It discusses the work and mission of Muzak, a marketing company that provides audio arcitecture and branding services. Recognizing that music’s inspirational force is an “emotional power that can be harnessed,” the company helps clients create a musical atmosphere that gives customers a “warm feeling that ultimately cements loyalty.”

This certainly inspires me to ponder what kind of “aural environment” (aka soundtrack) would best complement the lawyers, law firms and other businesses I work with. 

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Becoming a solo practitioner was a natural progression for me. I’d grown up in a family that valued solo work and it seemed part of my destiny. When I opened my own firm, I relished the independence it afforded me. But, I quickly learned that, to maintain that independence, I needed to cultivate a network of business mentors and associates to help me along my path. Thus was born my understanding that, in the world of solo law practice, our independence requires connection to, and camaraderie with, others. 

With the July 4th holiday upon us here in the U.S., many of us find ourselves contemplating what being independent really means, both on a national and personal scale. Weighing in on this front is a New York Times article by Henry Fountain titled The Lonely American Just Got a Bit Lonelier. It cites new findings that Americans are now “lacking in people to tell their deepest, darkest secrets. They've hunkered down even more, their inner circle often contracting until it includes only family, only a spouse or, at worst, no one.” We’re depriving ourselves of varied deep and significant interpersonal relationships. According to the piece, this relationship atrophy is attributable, in part, to extended work hours and longer commutes. 

As I’ve previously discussed, lawyers I talk to frequently share how lonely and isolated they feel. This lawyer loneliness is a major force behind attrition in the legal profession. It’s a pervasive condition that merits open conversation and concerted remedial efforts among law firms, practitioners and professional groups.

So, especially on this important day, I'm thankful for my network of family members, friends, business associates and fellow bloggers who help me stay allied and rooted in my independence.

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I’m taking some time away from legal sanity over this week to spend some time with my family while the kids are off from school. I’ll leave you with this article on lawyer efforts to balance work and family via flexible work programs and other law firm initiatives. More food for thought on work-life synergy can be found in a companion article featuring the Balanced Hours program recently launched at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham. Taking the topic of equilibrium to task is this post on Work/Life Balance in the Law Firm. In it, blogger Tom Collins bluntly asserts: “If you don’t want to work nights and weekends, don’t go in the restaurant business. If you can’t stand the sight of blood, don’t become a surgeon. If your aren’t prepared to earn your professional spurs and build your book of business through long hours and putting clients’ interests and deadlines first, stay away from joining a law firm.” While I take issue with this assertion, I think it well states the opinion of many seasoned lawyers and fuels the ongoing dialogue on a very important issue.

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The latest issue of Law Practice magazine is out and features articles relevant to Legal Sanity. Writing In Praise of Slowness, journalist, author and admitted “former speedaholic” Carl Honore discusses the emergent “slow revolution” that’s compelling people “across the world” to downshift “both on the job and off.” Honore highlights how some businesses are facilitating this slow-down by providing “chill out rooms” and encouraging nap breaks. The revolution’s long-arm can also be seen in the soaring popularity of yoga, the construction of “walkable neighborhoods,” and in concerted efforts to counter the hurried child syndrome. The article includes sidebar profiles on lawyers who’ve embraced slowness and a list of tips on reducing the speed of our lives. In case our prescription for slowing down includes lightening our client load, consultant Susan Saltonstall Duncan shares “exercises and how-tos” on finding and keeping the clients we like. Janet Ellen Raasch - a writer/ghostwriter who works closely with lawyers and other professional services providers - continues the theme of cultivating relaxed lawyers in an article exploring some new twists on law firm retreats.

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I opened the month with this post discussing Dick Richards’ book on connecting with our genius to foster success and satisfaction in business and beyond. With the holiday season and New Year upon us, it’s a great time to contemplate how lawyering honors, translates and transmits our genius in the world. This post from the Self-Development Network offers some assistance on this front. It links to an interesting podcast in which Richards previews his approach and provides tips on decoding, or “naming,” our genius and expressing it in the workplace. For another perspective on the road to meaningful and fulfilling work, take a look at this Alchemy of Soulful Work post entitled You Get What You Give. In it, Chris Bailey discusses what might happen if we stopped focusing on quid pro quo and ROI and, instead, shared our knowledge and expertise with others freely, fully and without expectation of return. I wish you all a wonderful holiday time and a very happy New Year.

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This ThirdAge blog post from Lisa Haneberg pairs nicely with my recent musings on “reorienting our career compass towards more meaningful and fulfilling work.” Lisa introduces us to Dick Richards new book, Is Your Genius at Work? According to her synopsis, Richards theorizes that we each have a genius, one genius, that’s been with us our whole life. That genius – which is what it is, not what we wish it to be - is the root of success and satisfaction in our work. His book aims to help us identify and engage our genius for career and larger life fulfillment. Lisa continues her review in this companion post. Outlining Richards’ peeling-the-onion approach to recognizing genius, she quotes his book as follows: “Imagine an onion in which the outer layers represent your skills, talents, behavior, accomplishments, interests, and creations. You have developed the talents and skills you most enjoy because they allow expression of your genius. They are the means by which your genius comes alive.” I know many lawyers come to a critical point in their career when they question whether the work they’re doing really syncs up with who they are – with their heart-felt talents and interests. This book seems to offer some great guidance on answering this very important question. For more on this subject, you can follow the comment threads following Lisa’s posts. Per Lisa, you might also want to check out Richards’ blog, Come Gather Round.

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As the holidays and New Year approach, many of us find ourselves considering where we are in our personal and professional lives. We take stock of our steps forward and back and try to envision our path for the upcoming year. In this article (pdf) from the premiere issue of Worthwhile magazine, Passion Catalyst Curt Rosengren offers us some great tips for reorienting our career compass towards more meaningful and fulfilling work. According to Rosengren, the process builds around (1) identifying our Passion Core – who we are and what “lights [our] fire at a core level;” and (2) making career choices based on that. The remainder of the piece addresses how to measure the fit between our current job and our Passion Core. If the fit is off, it might be time to move on and Rosengren guides us on identifying career options, mapping out an action plan and navigating obstacles in our way. Career transition is also the subject of this insightful post from Chris Bailey at the Alchemy of Soulful Work. In it, Chris discusses how “[t]oday’s career reality makes it both easier to make the leap to another profession and harder at the same time.”

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I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving festivities. In addition to family, health and wellbeing; I’m very grateful for the people, experiences and ventures (including this blog) that have helped me create a multi-faceted business that honors and furthers my larger life interests and goals. Looking back at my law student self, I see how much my perception of lawyer life and the business of law has changed over time. In that same spirit, this