Fabulous Finds for February

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Here are three resources that have made my life easier this month.  I hope at least one will be helpful for you.

  1. Last week, I needed to schedule a quick teleconference with five ABA contacts to plan a program.  Just imagining the back-and-forth emails that could generate made my head hurt.  So I used a simple, intuitive, free service called Doodle.com that allowed me to set up several options and send a link to each participant so they could mark their availability.  Within four hours, we had a time set — and best of all, I’d sent only one email and received none in response.  Win!  Doodle.com
  2. Planning to start an email newsletter or to send client alerts?  Check out this webinar that reveals the Science of Email Marketing.  You’ll pick up some good tips.  And be sure to read this post if you’re considering sending client alerts — because I agree that way too many lawyers send useless “me too” case analyses that don’t advance business development (but do create the illusion of useful bizdev activity, which is the worse sin).
  3. I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter (and the ‘net in general), and part of the “hate” side comes from the fact that I can wreck an entire day by checking out all the sites and resources that get tweeted.  I tried bookmarking pages, but that got unwieldy pretty quickly.  And then I found Pocket, which allows you to mark a page for later reading, even offline.  All it takes is a click (once you’ve installed the application into your browser), and you’re good to go.  You can read your saves pages offline, and there are apps for the iPhone, iPad, Droid, Blackberry — you get the idea.

Before the next conversation…

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Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time Paperback
January 6, 2004
by Susan Scott

Have you ever been in one of those deadly conversations in which a lot of words fly about and yet nothing happens? Or when decisions are made and strategies are crafted, but everyone sitting around the table knows that nothing will actually change because everyone is talking around the real problem?  What a waste of time!

What’s even worse is when the dead-end conversation is one going on inside your own head. We can spend hours and years dancing around an issue, solving symptoms or even just pretending that we’re addressing the right question when in fact we’re skipping what matters most.  When you’re dwelling in the land of the unreal, even a minute is too long to spend.

Fierce Conversations revolves around the “Mineral Rights conversation.” This simple 7-step process can be used to get to the truth of a situation, create understanding about it, tackle the challenges in the situation, and enrich relationships in the process.  The seven steps (with some sample questions) are:

  1. Identify the most pressing issue.
    What issue doe we most need to resolve?
  2. Clarify the issue.
    What is going on?
    How long has it been going on?
  3. Determine the current impact.
    How is this situation impact me and others?
    What do I feel about this impact?
  4. Determine the future implications.
    What’s likely to happen if nothing changes?
    What’s at stake in this situation, for myself and others?
  5. Examine your contribution to this issue.
    How have I contributed to this problem?
  6. Describe the ideal outcome.
    What difference will it make to resolve this problem?
    What results will resolution create, for myself and others?
  7. Commit to action.
    What’s the most potent step I could take to move this issue toward resolution?
    What’s going to attempt to get in my way, and how will I get past it?
    When will I take this step?

The critical tactic to make a Mineral Rights conversation a success is to ask questions and not to comment on the answers until you’ve completed step 7. The reason is simple:  your goal is to interrogate (gently but fiercely — meaning powerfully, robustly, eagerly), to understand, and to assist in finding a solution.  This is your opportunity to listen and to provide uninterrupted attention, not to speak.  If your input is needed, you can provide it later.

And, as the author writes, allow silence to do the heavy lifting. We’re often quick to fill a gap in conversation, whether from desire to show how much we know or to avoid uncomfortable silence.  Don’t do it.  Silence creates the opportunity to reflect on the situation — on the cause rather than the effect — and to appreciate its scope.  Reflection often yields new understanding that leads to action.

Incidentally, from the perspective of business development, silence can be one of the most effective tools you can use. Of course you need to bring information and ideas to the table, but after you speak, allow them to hang long enough for your potential client to have the space to consider what you’ve said.

Imagine having a Mineral Rights conversation with a client, or having a modified version of it with a potential client. Imagine having it with colleagues representing a client with you, with staff, or even with your family.  Take a step today and answer this question:  What’s the most pressing challenge you need to resolve?  If it’s a situation that requires input from others, with whom should you have the conversation?

Fierce Conversations also includes other tools, including an exceptionally useful model for determining decision-making authority, which I previously described on the Life at the Bar Blog.  Please click here to read that post.

What’s Your Problem?

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We all face challenges in the business of a law practice. We were taught in law school that we have to ask the right questions in practice to get the necessary answers for our clients.  (Litigators, you especially know what I mean!)  But somehow, we forget what that means for our own businesses.

I recently spoke with a lawyer who was looking for help in landing new business, who told me that she needed to improve the way she asked for business. That’s hardly unusual, but I wanted to be sure that she was presenting the right problem, so I asked about her sales conversations.  When we dug into it, I discovered that a very high percentage of would-be clients she met actually hired her.  The diagnosis of her sales problem?  None.  She needed to have more sales conversations, not better ones.

Another client once told me that he just didn’t have time to get everything done. After checking into his daily activities, I realized that lots of little tasks were eating up his time and he wasn’t effectively using the resources at his disposal.  His problem wasn’t a lack of time.  His problem was a lack of focus on his top priorities.

Sometimes seeing the right question is as simple as shifting from “why won’t those cheapskates pay my fees?” to “how can I make my fees more affordable and still deliver value?” Or it can be as murky as recognizing that the problem isn’t your elevator pitch but rather that you hate networking so much that you unintentionally send out signals that you want to be somewhere, anywhere else — or perhaps even that you would prefer to practice a different kind of law or to do something else altogether.

What challenges are you facing right now? What have you told yourself about those problems?  What are you missing?  And, more specifically, who can help you see the truth of your challenges?

And if you’ve been trying to solve a problem, remember Einstein’s observation that “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Just like it’s difficult to scratch your own back, it’s difficult to step outside a situation in which you’re intimately involved.  It’s critical to have a trusted colleague, a mentor, or a coach (ideally, a full “board of directors”) who can help you to examine your challenges so you know you’re working to answer the right questions.

Need another head to look at the obstacles ahead of you? I offer a limited number of complimentary consultations each month and would be happy to discuss whether I can help.  Email my team to arrange an appointment.

Quit it!

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The Dip: A Little Book That Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)
by Seth Godin

Seth Godin is a brilliant thinker who packs a lot in just a few words. Read his blog posts, and I almost guarantee he’ll reveal something fresh as a return on just a couple minutes of your time.  The Dip is no different:  in 76 pages — small pages, at that — he delivers insight that can change how you approach your goals

The idea behind The Dip is that there’s an initial reward for most anything you start.  You could call it excitement, beginner’s luck, or just the early, steep part of the learning curve.  But then there’s a long slog between beginning and mastery.  This is the dip, and most people never see the other side of it.  The few who persevere through the dip reach mastery, and our world rewards mystery because mastery is scarce.

Godin also describes the Cul-de-Sac, which represents the dead end projects, jobs, relationships, and so on.  You may make sideways moves or small advances, but no breakthrough is possible.  Instead of a blow-out success, the pinnacle of a cul-de-sac is mediocrity. Things won’t get much better or much worse.  If you’re in a cul-de-sac, you’re stuck.  No matter how diligently you work at it, there’s no significant upside.  Hello, status quo.

Godin argues that you must quit when you’re in a cul-de-sac so that you have sufficient resources to power through the dip. While we often regard diversification as a sensible approach, we become mediocre in a number of areas and excellent in none.  But mediocrity will never deliver the results you want.

So, how do you distinguish the cul-de-sac from the dip, and how do you know when to quit? When you consider quitting, ask yourself these three questions:

  1. Are you panicking? If so, wait.  Don’t allow your panic to prompt you to quit.  If you quit, you must decide to quit.
  2. Who are you trying to influence? If you’re trying to influence a single person, you have only a few opportunities to succeed.  If you’re trying to influence a market, Godin argues, you can build your success slowly, since every success gets you more traction.
  3. What sort of measurable progress are you making? Look for milestones that show forward progress.  If you see none, or if you see that you’re actually backsliding, then it may be time to quit.

What’s in The Dip for lawyers? If you’ve ever heard me talk about business development tactics, you may have heard me urge you to identify your strengths and to improve those.  If you’re a natural speaker, speak.  If you’re a natural at building one-on-one relationships, do that.  That’s because you can put in energy in areas of natural skill (get through the dip, in other words) and become excellent at that skill, whereas putting in the same energy to shore up a weak skill will get you only to mediocrity.  That’s only one application, but it’s a critical one.

Since reading The Dip, I’ve taken a look at where I’m spending my time. Quitting isn’t easy  (especially for those of us who’ve always been encouraged to persist no matter what) but the payoff in energy to invest elsewhere makes that discomfort worthwhile.

Pick up a copy of The Dip.  It’ll take about an hour to read, but that hour can save you many hours that you would otherwise invest in activity that lacks the payoff.  It’s great investment.

Listen Up!

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Business is the greatest personal development tool that exists. The moment you take responsibility for your work and for generating and serving clients, you become your own best asset.  That’s why you must invest in yourself.  If you don’t grow, your business won’t grow.  Give that some thought the next time you’re faced with an opportunity that will move you forward and you decide to let it pass because you “can’t afford” it.

To thrive in business you must master many different skills and attitudes, one of which is the ability to relate well with others. Communication skills are especially important in business development as well, because without knowing what a client is thinking about and what the client’s objectives are, it’s impossible to know whether and how your professional skills can help that client.  Rather than focusing on what you seek to communicate to that client, though, begin by letting the client speak.

Expansive questions allow the client to guide the conversation as she prefers, and asking follow-up questions will draw out the necessary information. Depending on the context, the following questions serve as good conversation-starting questions:

  • What are your ultimate objectives here?
  • How does this matter fit into the broader business context?
  • What are you most concerned about here?
  • How long has this problem been going on?
  • What do you need from this situation, and what would you like?
  • What are the biggest obstacles you see?
  • How will it impact your life and your business to solve this problem?

Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in asking a “brilliant” question or a question that reveals how much you know. Aim instead for open-ended questions that focus on the matter at hand and provide space for a client to move into broader business concerns.

Follow-up questions can be as simple as:

  • Tell me more?
  • What else should I know?
  • What’s an example of _______?

Your goal is to get the facts and concerns that the client holds and to draw out as much information as possible. Simple questions are usually best.

But asking simple, open-ended questions isn’t enough.

It’s human nature, especially when we want to appear knowledgeable, to listen, with half-attention while planning the next thing we might say. Half-listening is almost more dangerous than not asking questions, because if information is conveyed and you ignore it, the client will feel disregarded — poor grounding for any relationship.

Instead, listen deeply to your client. What is he really saying?  Do his words, tone of voice, and body language match?  If not, what question can you ask to clear up the conflict without putting the client on the defensive?  It’s important too to listen beyond what’s said, to gain an appreciation for what’s unsaid and what context is being shared.

Two exercises to strengthen client communications

Start by noticing how much you talk in a conversation. The goal when you talk with a potential client or are deepening your relationship with a current client is to talk for only 20-40% of a conversation.  To draw out your client, ask questions only for the first part of the conversation, until you understand the client’s concerns and goals.

To strengthen your listening skills, insert a few seconds’ pause before you speak. The pause shows that you are absorbing what’s been said, and it allows you just to listen without needing to plan a response until you’ve heard everything the other person intends to say.

Incidentally, although these skills are critical for client service, you can also use them to strengthen relationships with your colleagues and in your personal life. Once you start to notice the pattern of conversational give and take, you’ll probably notice how eager many people are to talk rather than to listen.  Notice the effect when you listen deeply and probe gently to find out what really matters to your conversational partner.

Your assignment this week: Listen to your clients and potential clients.  Deeply.  If you know listening without interrupting is a challenge for you, you might even train yourself by holding a pen between your lips while you’re on the telephone.  (I wouldn’t recommend this in a face-to-face meeting!)  When you go to remove the pen, be sure it’s time for you to speak.  If not, pat yourself on the back, and keep on listenin’.

What will it take for you?

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I saw The King’s Speech on New Year’s Day. You’ll probably see the movie (about the efforts by King George VI, informally known as Bertie, to overcome a stutter around the time he ascended the throne following the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, who left to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson) described as one about stuttering, about royalty, about friendship, about conflicting and social status.  It’s all of that and, to this Anglophile, more besides — a must-see that’s apparently the front runner for multiple Oscars.

But beneath all of that, deeper lessons become apparent. Here are the top three that struck me.

Masks tend to reveal as much as they cover. In other words, if you pretend to be that which you aren’t, cracks will show.  Perhaps the real you won’t leak through the cracks, but fault lines will reveal all that is not as it appears to be.  Bertie’s speech therapist Lionel Logue opined that no child is born with a stutter and that a left-handed child forced to write with his right hand will never find that motion to be natural.

From the business angle… so what? I’ve had the opportunity to coach professionals who feel they must wear a mask to work with colleagues or to attract clients.  The “lucky” ones are unsuccessful, which prompts then to re-evaluate; lucky and unlucky alike are miserable.


Who are you in your business, or in your practice? As Bob Burg has written, “All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.”  People are sensitive to hints of in-authenticity and tend not to trust those who wear masks.  So, really, it’s often your choice:  would you prefer to lose some business because people sense you are not the person you’re pretending to be, or would you prefer to lose some business because you are who you are, knowing full well that others will be drawn to you because you are that person?

Breaking the rules may be precisely the thing that propels you forward. In The King’s Speech, one of Bertie’s breakthroughs comes with the freedom granted when Logue urges him to curse.  Bertie, a straight-laced royal, soon lets the expletives rip.  I won’t spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it, but letting loose plays a role later in the movie in an amusing way.

Some rules must not be broken – but those who are successful often find certain rules that don’t work for them, and shattering those restrictions also shatters the glass ceiling. What rules are holding you back?  Are they truly non-negotiable?  If you could break them, how would you do it?  And, most importantly, for the sake of what?  Don’t go breaking rules just to break them.

Opportunities may arise in the form of problems or defeat.  Take them anyway. Bertie was never supposed to be king.  His wife (the woman most of us knew as the Queen Mother) never wanted to be queen.  And yet, when King Edward VIII abdicated, Bertie and Queen Elizabeth stepped up at a crucial time in British history.  Bertie found his voice because he had to work for it.  England would likely have come through World War II and the Blitz regardless, but to hear English citizens of those years talk, the leadership shown by the “shouldn’t-have-been-royals” shaped the courage and determination of a generation.  Bertie did what was necessary to stand as a leader; his country modeled what he did.

What opportunities are in front of you?  Which have come in the guise of defeat? Perhaps you made a proposal to a potential client and lost.  What will you do?  One of my clients asked why, received valuable feedback, and proceeded to convert the prospect into a client within a matter of days for a parallel project created solely because the prospect wanted to work with her.  Perhaps you launched a program or a product and no one bought.  What opportunity can you spy when you take your eye off the failure?