Archive for year: 2011

What does “great lawyering” mean? To many attorneys, great lawyering means possessing enormous technical expertise, good judgment, and years of experience in which to develop those attributes. That’s what we all seek to develop, and it’s usually what we admire in others.

But what do clients mean? That’s the question that really matters. Approval from colleagues only goes so far toward building a successful practice. If clients hold different views as to what matters, there’s a disconnect in perspective. That disconnect can slowly hollow out the practice, without the satisfied clientele necessary for practice growth – and perhaps without that support necessary even for survival.

James Durham has done the groundwork to discover and summarize what clients want and published the results in one of my all-time favorite books, The Essential Little Book of Great Lawyering. The book is aptly named: at just 52 pages (including the title page, copyright, and table of contents), you’ll need less than an hour to discover the essential skills of great lawyering.

According to Durham’s client interviews, a great lawyer is one who knows the law and has “become a lawyer that people trust above all others, and . . . to whom they turn when they (or people they know) have any kind of problem.” In other words, a great lawyer is one who knows and responds to her client’s needs, desires, and preferences. Durham’s research revealed that 90% of clients say that they like lawyers who are responsive and who really know their client’s business, but they seek even more. Great lawyers also communicate clearly, build relationships with their clients, provide remarkable value, and are loyal to their clients.

The Essential Little Book manages to go beyond those generic words to offer specific examples of what lawyers must do to succeed fully in practice. Durham suggests, for example, that a lawyer must know what his client wants to happen throughout the engagement. I would take that suggestion a step further and offer that a great lawyer would ask what specifically his client wants through the representation. (Examples would include determining how much communication is helpful and in what form, how advice might be presented most usefully, etc.) Nevertheless, Durham’s point is well-taken: great lawyers pay attention to what their clients want and need, perhaps even more than the clients do.

One of the key mistakes I see lawyers make is believing that “being a great lawyer” (as measured by technical expertise) is all that’s necessary to build a successful practice. Durham addresses this same problem and offers that being a great lawyer (as defined by clients) is the foundation of a successful practice. I couldn’t agree more.

The Essential Little Book should be required reading for lawyers. Before the end of the year, set aside an hour to read the book. (If you’ve read the book before, read it again. This is one of those books that meets you wherever you are in your practice.) Take another half-hour to set some goals to implement what you learn. You’ll build a much stronger practice as a result.

Time is speeding up. I never quite understood the theory of relativity on a visceral level until I thought about it with reference to time a few years ago. Here we are at the end of 2011, and yet it feels like the year has hardly begun.

I’ve been working on my 2012 goals – how about you? (Hint: if you haven’t, you’d better get moving!) I’m using a new tool this year to help me get clear on what I most want to accomplish after seeing a broad field of possibility: SimpleMind. Many options exist for computer-assisted mindmapping, but I like SimpleMind because it’s inexpensive, free for the iPhone, and it allows for level-based coloring and for branches that extend in any direction you’d like. It’s great for viewing options and setting goals, and it also helped me to put together a complicated program proposal in record time.

I don’t encourage failure… Mostly. As I suggested last week, it’s helpful to assess and mitigate the risks of failure when you’re stepping out with a new activity. There’s no glory in the “ready, fire, aim” approach when you have the time and the ability to do some (but not too much) preparatory work that increases the odds of success.

BUT.

If you’re not failing despite doing some prep work, you’re probably not taking big enough steps. Please, don’t fail because of laziness, intellectual or otherwise. But recognize that if everything is going so swimmingly that you’re not failing at all, you’re leaving something on the table.

As I wrote last week, you cannot succeed unless you’re willing to fail. Be willing to take a risk. The more you do, the higher the risk of failure – and the higher the chances of success.

This video (which happens to be an advertisement for Nike) brings it all home. Take 31 seconds to watch. Yes, now.

By nature and by nurture, we’ve been trained to avoid taking risks. Sure, it’s safer to do only what you know will work (even though sometimes you’ll be wrong about that, too, especially where people are concerned) but you’ll also miss a lot of opportunity.

An example for your consideration. Referrals and introductions often come by email – “Bob, meet Susan, I think she may be able to help with your blah blah blah question.” If you’re Susan, an email is the safe response to that introduction. But a telephone call is often a more engaging and helpful response. There’s risk involved: what if Bob doesn’t want the introduction or the help? What if Bob is too busy and a call is an interruption? That’s a risk I’d suggest you take almost every single time. Sometimes you’ll fail, but (if you handle the calls well) the successes will outweigh the failures.

So, this week, ask yourself where you’re stopping yourself because you might fail even if you prepare as well as you can. Specifically with business development and client service, what might you do differently if you were willing to fail?

Don’t aim to fail. Do take some risks and accept that you may fail before you succeed.

Although gratitude is a “soft” topic, always remember that everyone likes to be appreciated: clients, staff, and colleagues especially included. Have you said thank you recently?

As for me, I’m grateful for the opportunity to “talk with” you every week via this newsletter. I don’t take the privilege for granted. Is there a topic you’d like me to address in a future issue?  Leave a comment and let me know!

“I’ve learned that though people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
–Maya Angelou

Book Review: Little Bets by Peter Sims

I discovered Little Bets through an Amazon announcement, and as soon as I read the promotional copy, I hurried to purchase the book:

What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Bestselling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas. Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan a whole project out in advance, trying to foresee the final outcome, they make a series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning from lots of little failures and from small but highly significant wins that allow them to happen upon unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes.

The good news? Little Bets absolutely delivers on that tantalizing introduction.

Peter Sims has identified two types of innovators: conceptual innovators, who make the big, bold leaps with groundbreaking new ideas (and, according to Sims, often achieve their success early) and experimental innovators, who “use experimental, iterative, trial-and-error approaches to gradually build up to breakthroughs.” Experimental innovators are persistent and willing to accept failure and setbacks because they understand that those events are learning opportunities. Rather than perceiving failure to reflect self-worth, experimental innovators use failure as feedback.

One example of experimental innovation comes through Starbucks. Sims recounts Howard Schultz’s initial ideas: bow-tied baristas dispensing coffee from a menu written in Italian with a background of opera music. This did not work.Rather than declaring failure and moving on to a new project (or simply getting a job implementing others’ ideas), Schultz began to make adjustments, tweaking aspects of Starbucks over time. And now, the Starbucks concept has come to define not just how we order, purchase, and drink coffee, but it’s come to represent (to some extent) where and how we gather in community. Whether you like or detest Starbucks, it is innovation in action.

Through examples drawn from a wide variety of industries, Little Betsexplains the characteristics of experimental innovators, who

• Experiment. These innovators “[l]earn by doing [and] [f]ail quickly to learn fast.”
• Play. Improvisation and a light, humorous approach quiets inhibitions and allows innovation to flourish. Compare a brainstorming session in which every idea, no matter how objectively ridiculous, is considered with one that includes the naysayer who punctuates every idea with “that won’t work!”
• Always seek new input. Experimental innovators leave their workspace in search of fresh ideas and insights, and they aim to understand people’s motivations and desires. Consider the feedback on Siri, the new voice assistant built into the iPhone 4S, which answers voice commands and questions with human-like responses. Wouldn’t you imagine that Siri came about in response to the desire to have a pocket genie?
• Redefine. Experimental innovators use the insights they gather to define problems and needs before seeking to create a solution. Compare the Segway with smartphones. We needed a way to be connected on the go (and the level of connection has continued to evolve), but most of us didn’t really need a new way to get around.
• Reorient. Experimental innovators keep their larger goals in view while remaining flexible so that they can make good use of each small win that occurs.
• Iterate. Experimental innovators “[r]epeat, refine, and test frequently armed with better insights, information, and assumptions as time goes on[.]”

Why should you consider the Little Bets approach? No one wants to fail, and there’s no credible way to redefine failure itself as a positive. However, I’ve often observed lawyers and business owners who fail, take that failure as a reflection not of a faulty plan or faulty efforts but rather as an indicator that they cannot succeed. (This is especially prevalent with the would-be rainmaker who makes a few attempts, doesn’t get any business, and concludes that they just don’t have what it takes.)

And yet, we all fail. The question is what we do with that failure. Using the Little Bets approach recognizes that failure isn’t fatal when it’s a step toward success.Determine what you can afford to lose (a key lesson taught through Steve Jobs’ experience in growing Pixar) and then get to testing. Don’t lose more than you can afford, and find ways to grow from each failure.

Finally, experimental innovation is not an all-or-nothing proposition. “To be sure, experimental innovation should not entirely replace linear thinking in our regular work processes. Engaging in discovery and making little bets is a way to complement more linear, procedural thinking.” Use experimental innovation to guide your approach, to road-test the ideas and assumptions that come through rational, strategic thinking.

I hadn’t taken the time to pull back from the work I’ve been doing to check on how effectively I was navigating toward my goals in the last few months. Life has been very busy, both professionally and personally.  I’d put my head down, my nose to the grindstone, and I focused on the client work piled in front of me.  I was surprised by what I found:  in some areas, I was right on track to meet my goals, but in others, I’d slowly drifted far afield.

During my mastermind meeting last week, my colleagues and I discussed the tough balancing act of current work vs. future goals. It’s easy to let things slide, especially when there’s plenty of current billable work to do.  (Can I get an amen?)  But focusing on the present is a passive and ultimately fruitless way to build a future.  Growth requires relentless determination and focus on meaningful and clearly articulated “stretch” goals.

So I revisited and revised my goals, and then I designed consequences for failing to reach them. Should I miss, I’ll be making a hefty charitable contribution in some colleagues’ names — enough of a donation that
I won’t get the warm fuzzies of doing something nice but instead the pain of a real financial hit.  My colleagues all set their own goals and consequences, and when we meet again in February, we’ll see the results.  I’m predicting a huge celebration of remarkable successes.

All of this leads me to ask, how are YOUR goals? Whether you’d like to accomplish something big by the end of the year (creating and hosting that seminar you’ve been thinking about, perhaps) or whether you’d prefer to think ahead into the first quarter of next year, there’s no time like the present to get clear on what you want to accomplish or to set up some accountability and consequences to get yourself moving.  If you need a guide on effective goal-setting, check out this blog post I wrote in 2008.

I’d love to hear what goals you’ve set, and what consequences you’ve created to motivate yourself. (And if you’re more motivated by the carrot of a reward than the stick of a consequence, I’d like to hear that, too.)  Just click here to share, and I’ll even set a reminder to check in with you as an added layer of accountability.

Quotes of the Month:

“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective.  Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods.  Third, adjust all your means to that end.”
~Aristotle

“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal.  My strength lies solely in my tenacity.”
~Louis Pasteur