Are you playing to win?

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Last night, I was watching the men’s gymnastics Olympic competition.  I was struck with the approaches, at least as described by the know-it-all knowledgeable commentators.  (I admit to some impatience with the Olympic commentators, who magnify every misstep and cluck over the athletes’ failings, but that’s another story.)  Some gymnasts played all out, trying their most difficult moves and performing brilliantly — or not.  Others seemed to play it safe, preferring to execute flawlessly what they knew they could do well rather than to stretch for a more difficult series of moves.

Recently, I asked this question: Are you playing to win, or are you playing not to lose?  One astute commentor asked whether I intended the question to be answered with regard to litigation or personal life.  One reason I like asking this question is because it can apply in professional life (in general or in some particular aspect) or in personal life (again, broadly or narrowly).   Let’s look at some examples.

1.  There’s an almost palpable fear among some associates (and some partners), especially given the current economic situation and the layoffs at some law firm.  Some associates take the approach of doing their best work, making suggestions and volunteering to assume responsibility, looking for every opportunity to prove themselves rising stars.  That’s playing to win.  Others do their best work but don’t reach out.  Instead, they play the law firm version of the “Whack a Mole” game: “if I raise my head too high, I may get whacked, so I’ll just stay under the radar and work hard and hope that’s good enough to avoid any problems.”  This is a classic version of playing not to lose.

2.  Or imagine a lawyer who feels the crush of time.  Too much client work, followed by too many business development or networking commitments, followed by too many personal commitments, followed by not enough time for relaxation or renewing personal time.  A lawyer who plays to win might look at her commitments, choose which provide the highest return, and eliminate or delegate the others.  Painful choices, perhaps, but the end result is likely to be less stress and more time available for the high-return activities.

A lawyer who is playing not to lose would likely try to maintain the load, perhaps giving each commitment “just enough” (she hopes) to get by, with every good intention of changing things next week but feeling constrained by others’ expectations (and her own) to keep all the balls in the air.  If you’ve ever lived like that over a long period of time, or if you’ve observed someone who has, you know that all too often, some of those balls go crashing to the ground with consequences that range from inconvenient to catastrophic.

3.  Consider a lawyer who would like to leave the practice.  I had an opportunity a few days ago to spend time with the fabulous Monica Parker, author of the recently-released book The Unhappy Lawyer: A Roadmap to Finding Meaningful Work Outside of the Law, and we were talking about the challenges that lawyers face when they start thinking about leaving practice.  Money was one of the first ones we hit on: not only has the lawyer often become accustomed to a particular income and lifestyle, but he or she may be facing a family who’s come to rely on that income and lifestyle.

Perhaps for a lawyer in this situation, playing to win would include a hard look at the budget, a searching look at alternatives that might feed both the soul and the bank account, and exploring the relative importance of professional happiness and money.  Playing to win might even include considering what this lawyer likes about the practice and how to get more of that and less or what he or she dislikes.  I suspect that playing not to lose would involve a more fear-based, narrow look at how to avoid giving up (that is, losing) anything.  I also suspect that playing not to lose would result in no career change.

So, with those examples, I’ll ask again: are you playing to win?  Or are you playing not to lose?

A question to consider

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I’ll write more about this in a future post, but here’s a question for you to consider:

Are you playing to win?  Or are you playing not to lose?

Set ’em so you can reach ’em

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When “Carl,” a 4th year associate in a large firm, contacted me about lawyer coaching, he was dreading an upcoming evaluation.  The office rumor was that associates were being asked to explain what they’d done to meet the goals they’d set in the previous year’s review, and Carl was nervous.  He explained that although he’d been working toward the targets he’d set a year ago, he wasn’t sure that his efforts would be viewed as meeting his goals, which he’d written as follows:

  • Improve skill in taking and defending depositions.
  • Improve written work product.
  • Get more experience in advising clients.

Do you see the problem that Carl recognized only in retrospect?  None of these goals can be quantified.  Had he improved his deposition skills?  Well, he could point to the depositions he’d taken and defended over the past year, but he couldn’t prove in any quantifiable way that volume equals improvement.  Same held true for his other goals.  After talking about Carl’s year, we found ways to suggest that he’d met his goals, but he vowed never to make the mistake of setting fuzzy objectives.

 

Unfortunately, lawyers at every stage of practice can set vague goals.  Have you ever said you’d like to “bring in more business” or “increase your billable hours” or “get more exposure to your target clients”?  These ambitions count as little more than wishes, because they’re not concrete and measurable.

How do effective leaders frame their intentions?  They set SMART goals, and they write down those goals.  A SMART objective is:

Specific: define what you intend to accomplish with sufficient detail to be meaningful.  Instead of planning to improve his deposition skills, Carl might have decided he wanted to get comfortable with the “funnel method” of questioning witnesses.

Measurable: a quantifiable definition of what you intend to accomplish.  (As Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets managed.”)  Carl might have said that he’d like to take 8 depositions over the course of the year and rate his comfort and skill in using the “funnel method” on a scale of 1 to 10.

Achievable: design a goal that’s a stretch, but a stretch within your reach.  Carl might realize that he’d be unlikely to take 8 depositions over the next year, and so he’d scale back to 4 depositions.

Realistic: create a sensible plan to attain your goal, considering your abilities and limitations.  Carl might approach the partner with whom he worked the most to share the goal he’d set and to get the partner’s buy-in, which would include agreement that the goal was realistic.

Time-based: define the time in which you’ll measure your efforts to determine whether you hit your objective. 

When you know what you want, you’re much more likely to seek out and accept opportunities to reach your goals.  Take a moment to recast your #1 objective as a SMART goal and write it down somewhere, perhaps in your calendar.  And then notice what happens over the next few days and weeks.  Chances are good that you’ll take steps toward your goal that you wouldn’t have taken without being concrete and clear and what you wanted to happen.

 

Financial freedom

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An anonymous email I received shortly after I began coaching haunts me.  This person (I don’t know whether male or female, but I’ll assume male here) wanted desperately to leave the practice.  He was responding to something I’d written, and he explained that he’d practiced law for nearly 20 years and hated it.  He never liked it, even in the beginning.  And yet, he wrote, he had no other choice, due to financial constraints, geography, and family expectations/requirements.

He felt destined to toil until his dying day, expecting that his stress level would keep him from living to retirement.  When I wrote to ask if he’d be open to a conversation, free of charge, to see if he might have some alternatives, he thanked me but declined: his children were in college and someone had to pay those bills, he had to finance retirement on the off chance that he’d live to see it, and he had no choice other than to continue plugging away and hoping for some unknown change to make things better.  It was, at the risk of being melodramatic, like a suicide note from the soul.

Fortunately, most of my clients are relatively happy in their careers and are seeking a tweak or to develop a strategy to improve their professional success and satisfaction.  Even those who consider leaving the practice are upbeat about their options, though challenges do pop up along the route.  I’ve noticed that some of the happiest lawyers are those who have created reasonable financial stability that allows options — in other words, financial freedom.

Is it possible to be financially free with as much as $100K in student loans, nevermind the other costs of living?  Yes. It’s not only possible, it’s necessary for a sustainable career.  And freedom absolutely does not require millions in the bank and no debt.  It requires careful choices and attention.

One of the biggest mistakes I see in new lawyers, especially those pulling down the $160K “big firm” salaries, is living the lifestyle full out.  The new BMW, the gorgeous condo, all of those nice accoutrements that seem like a fair reward for the hard work required to reach that earning level — if not purchased carefully, they turn into the proverbial golden handcuffs.

Some of the most disappointed professionals I know (this isn’t at all limited to lawyers) are those who literally bought into the lifestyle and then found it impossible to leave.  Others work as hard as they can, not to advance their careers, but because they fear that if they let up even a little bit they’ll be fired.  Sometimes that fear is realistic, especially in the current economy.  Handling it comes through taking an objective look at the likelihood of getting fired and working to create value.  Creating a contingency plan with a cushion of savings and a good network (in case a new job is in order) often helps as much or more.

Now, let’s be honest: anyone who knows me knows that I enjoy travel and impulse buys as much as the next person.  I’m not urging an ascetic lifestyle, nor am I recommending the kinds of budget cuts that reduce reasonable day-to-day comfort.  What I do recommend is living with enough of a financial cushion that a brief period of unemployment, whether voluntary or otherwise, wouldn’t be a catastrophe.  Living the $160K (or $100K or $250K or whatever the figure may be) lifestyle requires you stay at that level of income and eliminates a host of choices that would otherwise exist.

Are you wearing golden handcuffs?  What changes can you implement today to begin to build your financial freedom?  And remember not to look at this question just from the perspective of what you might eliminate: business development activity may create a book of business that will give you a measure of security worthy of the investment required to get it.

Freedom of Expression

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While describing an assessment I often use to a lawyer-client, I mentioned that it provides feedback about one’s natural tendencies and those tendencies as adapted to work, explaining that almost everyone wears a “mask” of some sort at work.

“You got that right,” my client chuckled wryly.

We went on to discuss the discomfort this client feels in the workplace.  She chooses not to be herself in the office, to rein in the zany and hilarious side of herself in an effort to show up as the cool, calm professional whose judgment is above reproach.  And, frankly, it’s hard to blame her or any of the others who make a similar decision.  Especially in a competitive world in which reputation may be built on first impressions and damaged in a moment, playing it safe may be an appealing choice.

That said, when there’s too much of a gap between one’s “real” self and one’s “work” self, going to work may become unbearably stressful.  A great deal of energy can be consumed by molding oneself to expectations, and everyone I’ve known to be in such a situation gets worn down by maintaining a false persona.  Even more troublesome, authenticity is generally regarded as a key leadership attribute.  People often sense inauthenticity, and when authenticity is lacking, it’s tough to build or maintain relationships.

I’ve always enjoyed the quote, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”  (Attributed, variously, to Walt Disney, Dr. Seuss, and Bernard Baruch.)  Of course, those who employ or retain you do matter.  So, what if you feel required to present yourself as someone you aren’t?  The question is much too big for a single blog post, but I’ll throw out a few ideas.  If it generates sufficient interest, I’ll elaborate on another day.

1.  Change positions.  Sometimes it’s a “fit” issue.  A firm’s “culture” will define what is and isn’t acceptable, and a baseline fit between lawyer and firm is important.  While it’s unlikely that you’ll find a firm that allows you to be exactly who you are at home on a weekend morning among family or close friends, it is possible to find a firm where you can be more or less the same person.  If the “fit” is wrong, you’ll likely have the metaphorical sense of wearing a suit that’s too tight: constriction at work followed by the renewed ability to breathe when you’re elsewhere.  If you’re happy with your professional self, then the suit has to go.  Just be sure to note the areas of constriction so you’ll know what atmosphere would be a better fit.

2.  Practice allowing your personality to show.  Sometimes the issue is one of comfort: personality might be welcome, but you need to develop a certain comfort level to believe that’s true.  Try cracking a few jokes, mentioning your interest in feng shui, or hanging that unusual painting in your office.  And measure the reaction you get.  Assuming a reasonably good fit, you’ll probably begin to relax a bit (when the situation is appropriate for relaxing) and allow your slightly quirky self to show.  Treading slowly is probably a good idea: no one appreciates the colleague who lets the freak flag fly a little too high.  But personality is part of what will draw other lawyers and clients to you.  No one wants to work with an automaton.

3.  Express yourself in covert ways.  One of my good friends (not a lawyer) served as a consultant for several years for one of the big companies that functioned remarkably like a law firm.  She bought a toe ring that reminded her of her “outside” life and the trip to the Bahamas where she bought the ring.  I’ve known lawyers who relished having a navel piercing, living in an unusual part of town, or playing in a rock band on the weekends — none completely secret, really, just private enough to share with a select few.

4.  Act in integrity with your values.  On occasion, I’ve known lawyers who felt they were required to conform in distasteful ways.  Choosing to laugh at jokes that conflict with deeply held beliefs, for instance, puts a higher value on conformity than on the deeply held belief.  Integrity requires finding some way to reconcile belief and action, whether it’s ignoring or challenging the distasteful view.  Sometimes it’s an opportunity to educate, and sometimes it’s a sign that the firm/lawyer fit is wrong.

How closely do your home and work personas match?  Do you want or need to make a change?

Freedom to choose

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It’s been a busy weekend at the Fleming-Brown household.  One of my dogs, Jake, is the most cowardly animal I’ve ever met when it comes to thunderstorms — and the most wily.  Both dogs sleep downstairs in crates, mostly because my cat would become a canape if they were allowed free reign at night.  We’ve been having thunderstorms in Atlanta lately, and Jake has become an escape artist extraordinaire.  Despite latches at the top and bottom of the door and reinforcements added on a daily basis, Jake has learned to escape his crate.  (Had I been his first family, with naming privileges, I would have named him Houdini, since the Crate Escape is just the latest in a long line of breaks.)  I don’t know why he wants to escape, and my guess is that he doesn’t either.  He hears a clap of thunder, and his reaction is, I gotta get out of here!

I’d decided to write on the theme of freedom this week, in honor of July 4, and today’s post is particularly motivated by Jake.

Stephen Covey, perhaps best known as the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, said this about freedom: “Between stimulus and response is our greatest power – the freedom to choose.”

How often do you react, and how often do you respond?

Reaction imples knee-jerk action, with little or no thought — perhaps when you discover that something has gone wrong with a case, that there’s a deadline looming and you’ll have to work all night, or that a client was irritated by a sloppy error, and you react by shooting the messenger?  At the risk of comparing a lawyer with my dog, Jake lives in reaction mode.  Thunder = run for him, period.

Responding suggests allowing enough space to consider the consequences and implications of action and then choosing: given the same bad news, you might respond by swinging into problem-solving mode rather than anger.

Just about everyone is more likely to react when stressed, tired, or otherwise not operating at peak levels.  Fortunately, there’s a single action that you can take to build in a pause and an opportunity to respond, almost regardless of the provocation.  (I’m excluding physical provocation here.)

Take a deep breath.

Just breathing will create a break between action and reaction/response.  During that break, you can choose whether fight/flight/argument/acquiesence and you can consider what response will be likely to move you toward your goal.  You might shoot the messenger anyway, of course: we all make choices we regret even after thinking them through.  But you will have created the opportunity to make a conscious decision, increasing the chances of a response you won’t regret. ◊

Three Obstacles to Rainmaking Success

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I’ve been doing a lot of speaking and coaching lately on business development, and someone asked a great question: what are the top obstacles to rainmaking success?

I’ve identified three universal challenges.  Do any of these sound uncomfortably familiar to you?

1.  “I don’t know what to do.”  There’s so much information out there about how to bring in new cases and clients and, even more importantly, how to ensure that your current clients are satisfied — no, delighted — with the service you provide.  Sometimes, having lots of good information is overwhelming.  When I work with someone on rainmaking, one of the first things we focus on (after clearly identifying the goal at hand) is to simplify tasks, according to a targeted plan.  Don’t flail around and try “the latest thing.”  Figure out what works well for you and do it consistently.

2.  Mindset challenges.  The challenges that we create up for ourselves (and please note that I am including myself here!) vary dramatically.  I’ve heard all of the following:

  • Rainmaking is easier for them (men, women, lawyers in big firms, lawyers in small firms, litigators, transactional lawyers, and on and on and on).
  • Everything I do has to be perfect, and I’m busy getting ready to get out there.  (This crops up a lot with lawyers who see speaking, writing, and holding leadership positions in an organization as a good route for business development.)
  • I have to do it all myself, so I’m going to clear the decks and then get started.
  • I’m too young.
  • I’m too old.
  • I tried [insert an activity here] and it didn’t work, so why should I bother?
  • My technical skills are so good, I don’t need to market.

There may be at least a grain of truth to each of these rationalizations (and the infinite variations that exist), but buying into these statements is a huge red flag.  These “reasons” justify a lack of success and perhaps even a lack of effort.  Neither leads to great results.

3.  “I don’t have enough time to get my work done and live, and now I should add on business development activities?  You’ve got to be kidding me.”  This obstacle is the most valid and therefore the most insidious.  It also plays into the mindset obstacles, because very often a lawyer who holds a negative belief about client development will sink more and more time into fruitless rainmaking activity.  Imagine, for instance, a lawyer who polishes an article to the point of “perfection,” only to find that it’s no longer newsworthy.  Fortunately, you can implement three steps to create time for business development: prioritization, systemization, and delegation.

What blocks your rainmaking efforts?

Is it what you thought it would be?

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My home office in Atlanta is on a two-lane primary road just a few blocks from Emory University’s law school.  Today is graduation, and since about 6:30 AM, I’ve been watching cars full of well-dressed people, taxis, chartered buses, and even limos drive by.  It’s quite the parade!  And in fact, today marks the 15th anniversary of my own law school graduation at Emory.  And so, I’m wondering.

Is your life as a lawyer what you expected? Perhaps not in the details of where you’re working or even what kind of law you’re practicing, but in the larger picture of how you spend your days, whether you enjoy what you’re doing (at least, most of most days), whether you can see yourself continuing on this path for the foreseeable future.  Is your career successful (as you define successful), satisfying, and sustainable?

If not, what’s falling short?  If your practice isn’t sufficiently successful, do you need to work on business development or leadership skills?  What would it take for you to feel satisfied?

I work with lawyers who want to find more success and satisfaction in a sustainable practice.  Perhaps we should get acquainted?

Present!

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Think back to elementary school.  My guess is (depending on your generation), when the teacher called roll most students responded by saying, “Here!”  And usually, especially by 5th grade or so, one wise guy (were there gunners in elementary school?!) would respond by answering, “Present!”  The other kids would snicker and the teacher might look up with that slightly annoyed look.  But, you know what?  That kid was onto something, as an email I received recently reminded me.

A group I belong to has been trying to arrange a telephone meeting, and one colleague recently responded to a tentative date by saying, “I’ll be there, and I’ll do my best to be present.”  Present implies being focused on matters at hand, not distracted by what went on before the meeting began or what’s coming up next, not thinking about what’s for dinner or how to get in the CLE before the deadline, or any of the myriad of things that may zip through at any given moment.  It’s paying attention, being dialed in to what’s really happening at both the surface and underlying levels.

“Present” versus “Here” is the point of meditation and centering practices, at least to this beginner.  It’s choosing to focus the mind on one thing, whether that’s breath or a word or phrase, and choosing gently to push away other thoughts that intrude.  And those practices train the mind to remain present at other times.

Now, imagine a large-scale negotiation, case status meeting, or the like.  A big conference table with lots of lawyers seated around it, or (perhaps more challengingly) a telephone conference, with people dialing in from different offices arond the country or around the world.  Imagine someone taking roll midway through the meeting.  How can you ensure you’d respond with “Present”?

What’s your strategy?

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Following on last week’s post examining the roles of strategy and opportunity in career planning and business development, today considers strategy vs. tactics.  Assuming that you find value in applying strategy to your own efforts rather than drifting along and hoping for the best, step one is to set the strategy.   Obvious, right?  Well…

We tend to use the words “strategy” and “tactics” more or less interchangeably.  Litigators refer to trial strategy or the tactical approach, for example, to mean roughly the same thing.  However, using those words more precisely would generate “tactics” that are short-term  or intermediate steps designed to implement the “strategy,” meaning the long-term plan.

Pop quiz: grab a pen and paper and take no more than 60 seconds to list all of the tactics you’re using for business development, professional development, or career planning.  You might list things like speaking at a CLE conference, attending a NITA workshop, or being active with a local bar association.  List as many as you can in the 60 seconds, and include the tactics you’d like to implement, even if you haven’t done so already.

Done?  Great!  Now, take 60 seconds and list all of the strategies you have in the same endeavor.  Taking client development as an example, maybe your strategy is to be the premier immigration lawyer for the Hispanic community in your region.  What strategies are you working on?

If you’re like many lawyers, your tactics list will be long, and your strategies list short or nonexistent.  Why does it matter?  Because no matter how terrific your tactics may be, if your strategy isn’t clearly defined, you may not get the results you’re seeking.  However well you may climb on the “ladder of success,” you’ll end up where you want to be only if your ladder is propped against the right wall, to use Stephen Covey’s terrific analogy.

So, make it a point to pause and set your strategy… And then to identify the tactics you’ll use to get there.