Goal-setting and The Last Quarter

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Saturday is the first day of fall.  Days are getting shorter, football is in full swing, and we’ll be in the holidays before we know it.  Realistically, we have about 3 months left for 2006.

Today, I encourage you to pause and think about what you’d like to do with the last quarter of your year.  What kinds of goals did you set back in January?  This is a good time to reconnect with those goals, whether they’re personal or professional, and to put in some focused time to move forward on them.  Even those of us who don’t adhere to the practice of setting new year’s resolutions (and I am firmly in that camp) benefit from starting a new year better off than we started the previous year.  If you didn’t set goals in January, or if you haven’t been setting goals, consider identifying steps you can take between now and the end of the year that will advance you in some way.

If you’re setting goals, making them SMART goals will increase the chances that you will accomplish what you aim to do.  SMART goals are:

* Specific
* Measurable
* Achievable
* Realistic
* Time-based

Setting goals in this way allows you to be very clear about how you will engineer your approach and how you’ll know when you have achieved the goals.  It’s also a built-in check system, because nothing is quite so discouraging as “deciding” to do something — say, to go from being a couch potato to running an end-of-year marathon — when, realistically, the goal in’t achievable.  Don’t set yourself up to fail.  Instead, aim to go from couch potato to walking a 5K on new year’s eve; that’s a SMART goal, and if you end up running part or all of the goal (and you want to be a runner) then you will have reached and exceeded your goal.

For further help on setting these goals, check out Jack Canfield’s book The Success Principles.  It’s a big book, but a quick read with some good reminders.  Check out the Achiever’s Focusing System, available on to The Success Principles website (click on the first link on that page, keyed to Principle 8 ), a planning sheet developed by Canfield to help you set 90-day goals.

And please contact me if you need help in setting and reaching your goals.

Tomorrow — it’s always a day away.

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What word holds the most promise for both positive change and hopeless atrophy?  Tomorrow.

Lawyers are, by nature, planners.  We also tend to be pessimistic and, therefore, risk-averse.  Those tendencies conspire to incline us to create great plans for career or business development — and then to let them sit on the shelf, unexecuted.  Whether that’s because we don’t believe the plan will work, because we want to perfect it before putting it into practice, or just because we get busy with other things, the end result is the same: nothing.

Although this is similar to garden-variety procrastination, there’s a difference.  I suppose everyone has procrastinated at one time or another on a work-related task, but generally those tasks either reach a point when they become critical or unnecessary.  Procrastinating on professional development (and here I use that phrase broadly to refer to both career development and client development) rarely becomes critical, and it never becomes unnecessary.  Instead, professional development plans hover in the background, waiting, waiting, waiting….

This phenomenon goes back to Stephen Covey’s quadrant-based time management concept.  I’ve discussed this previously here. Clearly, the professional development tasks under consideration are Quadrant II activities.

A few tips to get your plan into action:

1.  Set a weekly time to review and revise your plan.  Though it’s counter-intuitive in some ways (aren’t we talking about action here, not reviewing and revising?), setting a dedicated time that you’ll spend on your plan sets you up for success.  This is your time to work on your plan and to select the tasks that you want to implement during the week.

2.  Put one professional development task on your “to do” list every day or so.  This doesn’t have to be difficult.  Choose a small task, whether it’s attending a networking event, drafting an outline of an article, or reviewing advance sheets.  Urgent, important tasks may knock these off your list on some days, but if that’s a daily occurrence ask yourself why.  Are you procrastinating, or are you genuinely focused on more pressing matters?  What do you need to do to ensure that you’re moving toward your ultimate professional development goals?

3.  Schedule a quarterly review of your overall goals.  Keep your eye on what you want to accomplish.  A quarterly review will allow you to track your progress and make any needed corrections.

4.  Create accountability.  Whether you ask your spouse to help you stay on track, join a mastermind group, or hire a coach, it’s important that you have a person who will hold you accountable.  The ideal partner will be able to cheer your successes, help you to learn from your failures, and assist you in holding your professional development plan as a dynamic plan that changes as your goals and opportunities change.

If you think you don’t need an accountability partner, review these statistics from the American Society for Training and Development, measuring the likelihood that a person will reach a goal at different points of commitment:

Hear an idea: 10%

Consciously decide to adopt an idea: 25%

Decide when to do it: 40%

Plan how to do it: 50%

Commit to someone else that you’ll do it: 65%

Have a specific accountability appointment with the person you committed to: 95%

5.  Be rigorous in your expectations of and commitments to yourself.  Lawyers generally exhibit high levels of self-discipline, though less so when the target of the discipline is self-improvement.  (We’re not alone in that, by the way; I’d suggest that many professionals exhibit the same behavior.)  I’m not suggesting perfectionism; everyone will fail at some point, and there’s often more learning in failure than in success.  This is about being committed to yourself and your career.  Erase the word “try” from your vocabulary: as Yoda said, “Do, or do not.  There is no try.”

Associates’ Pounding Fear: How to Cope

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One of the emotions that marks new associates (and, in some firm cultures, all associates) is fear.  Law demands excellence, and clients — whether internal or external — require perfection.  That isn’t unreasonable.  But those expectations can cause enormous stress, followed quickly by a lawyer’s fear of what details he may have overlooked.

I’ll never forget the time when I was working on a large case with over twenty depositions taking place in one month.  I would wake up at night with the sudden fear that maybe, just maybe, I’d forgotten to send out a transcript for a witness’s review, that perhaps I overlooked a critical error in the witness’s testimony that we’d need to deal with, that I might have neglected to arrange a court reporter for one of the many depositions.  I never made any of those mistakes (and I did have a system to ensure that I didn’t) but the fear was real.

I don’t think it’s possible to avoid these fears completely.  But it is possible to take certain steps to allay them.

First, if it’s detail-oriented fear as I describe above, develop your system to keep track of all the details for which you’re responsible.  That can be anything from a chart for deposition-related tasks (a favorite of mine) to a running “to do” list maintained on your computer that you clear on a daily basis so it’s always current.

If your fear is performance anxiety, take a radical step and ask for feedback.  Most firms have formal feedback programs in which your work is reviewed on an annual basis.  Although the programs are important, they’re not helpful for addressing problems (or feared problems) as they arise — and who wants to wait months to find out whether the fears are real?  Asking for feedback throughout the year will allow you to know where you stand and what corrections you may need to make.  To request feedback, ask a single, focused, open-ended question: “How did I do on the So-and-So brief?”  And then, wait.  It’s easy to rapid-fire questions, but it’s important to allow some time for the lawyer to reflect on the question and form his answer.  Alternatively, if you have several specific questions, you might consider sending an email asking for feedback and outlining your questions.  (Downside to this, though, is that it “formalizes” the request.)  Once you’ve asked and get some response, clarify as needed or ask for advice on how to improve, and then move on.  This typically won’t be a 30-minute process, but instead a 5- or 10-minute conversation that’s neither formal nor structured.

Peer mentors can be invaluable in addressing your fears, because they have the experience to tell you whether someone’s reaction is meaningful or random.  For instance, you’ll work with some partners who blow up at the drop of a hat and others who have a slow fuse.  Of course, the short-tempered partner will get angry more often than her more equanimous colleague, and her reactions will likely carry less import.  That isn’t to say you can ignore them, but finding a peer mentor who can help you recognize when she’s just blowing off steam will save you hours of worry.

Do a reality check.  Although fears may have a basis in reality, they may not.  Know yourself.  Although it’s no guarantee, chances are good that if you tend to be detail-oriented, you’re going to have internalized the systems to make sure you don’t overlook details.  Once you’ve developed systems to manage your work, rely on those systems.

Finally, know when your fear is too much.  Fear can be paralyzing.  Don’t allow yourself to get so caught up in fear that it controls your life.  The steps above will help minimize the cause of your fears and will help you to recognize when you should and shouldn’t worry.  If these steps don’t help, if you’re having persistent stomach aches or waking up bathed in sweat every night with a fear list zipping through your brain, get help.  Your firm may offer resources, or you might consult a coach (to help you strategize work management systems) or a counselor (to help you deal with the roots of your fear).  Fear is a common feature in a legal life, but it doesn’t have to be pervasive.

How do lawyers learn to become rainmakers?

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So often, people talk about “rainmakers” as if rainmakers are born, not made.  Not true.  I’ve never seen a survey of great rainmakers to see whether they believe they were born to develop business, but every one I’ve asked asked tells me that, although there may be some personality traits that they were able to develop to help them land clients, the skills themselves were learned.

So, how do rainmakers learn their skills?

1.  Mentoring.  If there’s a lawyer you know who excels at client development, talk with her.  Ask what she did to learn how to approach potential clients.  What attributes does she consider important for business development?  Which activities work well, and which don’t?  Most lawyers are willing to share their knowledge and experience, but you have to ask.

2.  Develop your own marketing plan and work it.  What steps can you take to market yourself to your existing clients and to broaden your network/external exposure?  If you need ideas, ask your mentor or check any of the many rainmaking skills books that are on the market.  Think strategically and plan your networking events (formal and informal), writing and speaking opportunities, and whatever else may be a part of your plan.

It isn’t easy to balance work and personal life, and adding in marketing may seem like it’s too much.  But planning your efforts, and considering how you might fold in personal interests with networking opportunities, will help you to find time to hit all of the bases.  Don’t over-extend yourself.  Instead, break down the larger tasks (like writing an article) into pieces that you can accomplish each day.  That will help you maintain forward momentum and it’ll also prevent overwhelm.  Be sure to share your plan with your mentor, a coach, or someone who can help you stay on track.  That action alone will significantly raise the chances that you’ll keep up with your plan and see results.

3.  Tune up your attitude.  Two beliefs about rainmaking present challenges: that it’s somehow rude, and that it’s unnecessary.

Some people conceive of client development as the task of getting out, meeting people, and self-promoting.  One image of networking is that of an opportunity to foist a business card on any warm body and a soapbox to tell unsuspecting contacts about how great a lawyer the networking genius is.  ICK!  I don’t know of anyone who would like to interact with someone who behaves that way.  That isn’t what client development is about.  Instead, it’s an opportunity to learn about other people and to develop a relationship.  It’s often repeated that clients hire people, not firms, and it’s human nature to prefer to hire a known entity.  (I take some issue with that, but clients certainly interact with particular lawyers and there’s no question that those interactions can facilitate or retard the decision to retain the firm.)  So, the short-term view is that marketing is a way to become that known entity and to develop relationships; the long-term view is that it’s an opportunity to help potential clients solve legal problems they’re facing.  Focus on that attitude.

Although some lawyers would prefer to focus on doing top-quality and top-volume work, and not on bringing work in the door, that’s probably an unrealistic desire.  As a junior associate, it’s easy to expect to be fed work.  But someone has to bring the work in.  A lawyer’s success requires a stream of incoming work, as does a firm’s success.  Firm “grinders” (who grind out the work but do nothing to bring it in) are in a rather tenuous position because strong legal abilities and good client service are the minimum requirements for practice, and those who have nothing more to offer are weak when times get tight.  This is even more true in today’s highly competitive environment.  As a result, client development skills are critical.

Finally, consider the career satisfaction that will likely result from bringing clients into your practice.  You’re building in the ability to work with clients you enjoy, on the kind of work you prefer, and you’re creating your own success.  That’s hard to beat.

4.  Think creatively.  As noted above, the market is flooded with books that promise great tips on marketing.  Some of those books deliver, some don’t… But you can bet that your competition is reading them as well.  Spend some time thinking about what you can do that’s outside the norm for client development.  Instead of serving as a speaker at a CLE event, can you organize an event?  Can you get involved in a professional association to which your target clients belong?  Can you put together some kind of program that offers tangible benefits to your target audience?  This kind of activity requires planning time and will likely require support from your firm, but if carefully executed, it can pay off.

5.  Never forget your existing clients.  While you’re working on how to bring in new clients, be sure you attend to your current clients.  Always provide excellent service and legal work.  Clients are often willing to sing the praises of good attorneys, and they are always quick to criticize those who fall short.  Whether you serve individuals or large corporations, your clients will talk about your service if a friend or close colleague asks.  Keep in mind what you’d like them to say, and let that guide your practice.

Suicide prevention hotline 1-800-273-8255

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As I’ve mentioned before, one of the tools I access with WordPress allows me to see the searches that lead people to my blog.  I continue to be surprised and concerned by the number of searches on attorneys and depression, and even more so by searches on some derivative of attorneys and suicide.

Lawyers have among the highest rates of depression and suicide of any profession.  I have known one lawyer who killed himself and I’ve known of several more.  And now, suicide is now showing up as a search that leads to my blog almost daily.  I could follow that with a funny, self-deprecating line to lighten the mood, but I’m not going to do it.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, or if you’re concerned that someone in your life is, please seek help.  In the United States, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.  That number will route your call to the closest crisis center.  The call is free and confidential.  For more information, visit the Lifeline website.

Introducing the “magic wand” for communicating: the DISC

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As I wrote on Monday, the DISC assessment helps people to understand their own behavioral and communications styles, to identify the styles of other people, and to learn how to make that knowledge work for them.  Today, let’s look at what each of the dominant styles tells you about how a person is likely to act and how best to communicate with that person.

What creates communication?  Body language (55% of the message), tone of voice (38% of the message), words (only 7% of the message), and the pace or rate of speech.  The DISC takes account of all of these factors and teaches you how to use each for maximum effectiveness.  Drawing on behavioral insights that date back to 400 B.C., the DISC measures observable behavior to categorize how people act.  Each of the DISC styles brings its own strengths and weaknesses, and none is “better” than the others.

Dominance: If someone is a “high D,” they’ll probably be rather impatient, demanding, competitive, goal-oriented, and quick to anger.  In communicating with a D, you want to focus on the task at hand and present what you need to communicate almost as an executive summary.  If the D needs more, she’ll ask — but don’t hold your breath waiting for that.  And when the D communicates with you, she’ll probably be blunt, forceful, and directive.

Influence:  A “high I” style is a persuasive, enthusiastic, creative person who likes people and is well-liked.  Communicating with an I calls for creativity, flexibility, and energy.  Use lots of examples, analogies, and pictures, and don’t hesitate to let the I know what other people think.  It’s helpful to be informal with an I and to be ready for lots of spontaneity, but be prepared to cope with the I’s dislike of rigid organization.

Steadiness:  The “high S” is loyal, supportive, a team player, someone who doesn’t like confrontation or change.  His pace will be slower and low-key, and communicating with an S requires reflection of that in your own behavior.  The S wants to hear about how a plan of action will create stability and predictability, and he’s unlikely to act without examining all of the options and working to minimize risks.  The S likes personal attention and being part of a team.

Compliance:  Someone with a “high C” style is organized, detail-oriented, and focused on quality.  Communicating with a C calls for lots of data, a thorough presentation, plenty of material that supports what you’re saying, and precision in the communication.  Think of the C as someone who likes graphs, data, and accuracy.  The C will be rather formal, not a “touchy-feely” kind of person, and she won’t be in a hurry to make a decision.

As these brief introductions to the styles indicates, knowing a person’s dominant style of behavior will allow you to tailor your approach to that person and to understand better what’s going on when that person reacts.  For example, the meaning is radically different between a D who’s angry and an S who is; the D will be quick to get angry, whereas anger in an S likely reveals a much deeper issue because the S doesn’t have a short fuse and dislikes confrontation — so you’ll want to take an S’s anger as a much stronger signal than a D’s anger.  Similarly, you can plan an approach based on behavioral style: think brainstorming with an I and PowerPoint with lots of data for a C.

Once you understand your own behavioral style and learn to recognize others, you will have an inside track to clear communication.  Imagine being able to plan your pitch to a potential client already knowing what kind of information will help him decide that you and your firm have the skills and the savvy to provide the services he needs.  Visualize being able to stop acting as a referee between your colleagues or support staff and instead being able to help them understand where the team members are coming from so they can work together more effectively.  Consider how knowing your own style can help you understand how others are likely to see you, what your strengths and weaknesses are likely to be, and how to adapt your own behavior to communicate better with others.  Knowing more about your style could even help you improve your golf game.

This is just a brief introduction to the DISC and to the attributes and communications styles of each DISC-identified behavioral style.  If you’re interested in learning more, please contact me.

Avoid myopic communication

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Attorneys are communicators.  Regardless of our practice area, essentially what we do all day is to communicate, or to prepare to do so.  Whether it’s working directly with a client, attempting to persuade a judge or jury, negotiating a business deal, or coordinating with colleagues or staff, one of the key components of an attorney’s skill set is communication.

Plenty of sources exist to help with the mechanics of communication.  Most large firms have someone either in-house or on retainer who functions as a writing coach, and training programs for oral and written legal communication abound.  But what about the skill of knowing how to approach others to maximize communication?

An example.  Suppose a co-worker knocks on your office door and comes in to talk with you.  Let’s assume for this conversation that you’re both third year associates in the same practice field, so the power dynamic is fairly neutral, and let’s assume that you’re having an ordinary day with no particular pressure.  Consider what your reaction would be if he chats for a few seconds (“How was your weekend?  Did you see the Notre Dame-Tech game Saturday?”) before getting down to the business of his visit.  Would you feel that he was wasting time?  Impatient for him to get to the point?  Or would you consider that normal behavior, a more or less necessary introduction to business conversation?  Would you be turned off if he went immediately to the reason for his visit?  And, turning to the business at hand, would you prefer that he would speak in bullet points or that he’d be more expansive, perhaps with examples?  Would you be irritated that he had come to your office rather than emailing to set a time, or would you welcome the change of pace?  Would you be skeptical about what he was saying, or would you take it at face value?

What if you’re an associate and you need to talk to a partner for whom you’re doing some work… You’ll be prepared to discuss the situation at hand, along with any background information or legal research that will bear on it.  But how should you approach the partner?  Again, should you ask about her weekend or just charge into the meat of the conversation?  How quickly should you talk, and what tone of voice should you use to best relate to the partner?  If she asks a question and you need to look at your notes for the answer, will your communication be dismissed as disorganized or incomplete?

It’s easy to assume the answers to these questions — in part, because lawyers tend to be so sensitive to time pressures that chit-chat and interruptions are often unwelcome.  However, each of us has a different communication style, and attention to those differences will permit more effective conversation.  We all have a different natural rhythm, a more active or passive approach to things, more or less desire for social interaction, an inclination to making faster or slower decisions, a tendency to listen more than speak or vice versa.  Failure to recognize these differences leads to myopic communication, in which we assume that everyone  to communicate in the same way we do… And that leads to less effective communication.

The easy tactic to avoid the trap of assuming that everyone communicates in the same way is simply to recognize that we aren’t all the same and to take that into account when you’re preparing to communicate.  Pay attention to the reactions you get.  Does she always seem impatient, eager to take charge?  Does he need a lot of information?  Does she do well hopping from topic to topic?  Does he flinch if you touch him?  These hints will help you modify your approach so that your style doesn’t hinder your message.  But trial and error, fortunately, isn’t the only way to accomplish this.

I use the DISC(r) assessment to assist lawyers in identifying their communication styles.  The DISC(r) assessment measures the degree of Dominance (how one responds to challenges), Influence (how one interacts with and attempts to influence people), Steadiness (how one responds to change and the pace of his environment), and Compliance (how one responds to procedures and rules set by others) that a person tends to exhibit.  Learning about the DISC(r) facilitates better communication because it increases understanding of our natural tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses.  In addition, learning some of the basic attributes of each of the DISC(r) styles allows us to make an educated guess about the communication style of colleagues, clients and potential clients, etc., which in turn permits us to make modifications to our own communication style to attain the greatest impact.  This knowledge enhances communication and provides a tool for conflict resolution.

Stay tuned for a brief introduction of each of the primary styles.

Pardon the interruption, but…

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How many emails do you receive each day that begin with, “Pardon the interruption, but…”?  That’s become jargon in many law firms, an apology that means nothing but is the accepted entry point for a firmwide (or office-wide, or practice group-wide) request of some sort.  Everyone will need to send out requests from time to time, but let’s pause today and think about how to make those requests in an effective and unobtrusive way.

First, think before you send the request!  Is the request you’re about to make something that you should know or be able to find out reasonably quickly?  For instance, some poor associate at my former firm achieved instant (and unwelcome) notoriety when he circulated an office-wide email asking whether laches is an affirmative defense.  At least one partner replied (to all, of course) by asking whether the associate was at all familiar with legal research using either Lexis or the office’s well-appointed library on the XXth floor.  Ouch.  None of us knows the answer to every practice question that comes up in a given day, but it’s important to know when to go find the answer versus when to ask.

Next, consider how to phrase your request.  Please, don’t begin your email with “Pardon the interruption.”  Formulaic expressions of contrition are useless.  Just get to your request.  By the same token, don’t begin your question with anything like, “Does anyone know off the top of their head definitively whether….”  It just doesn’t look good.

Instead, begin with the question.  “I need information on the admissibility of an interview summary that is arguably subject to attorney-client privilege but was produced to the opposing side in discovery.”  Provide sufficient information to allow someone to answer.  In this example, you’d want to communicate whether the producing party requested return of the document, and if so, when and how.  If it’s an unfamiliar area of the law, you may not be certain of the scope of information you need to provide, but at least make an effort.  And make sure your question is crystal clear, so no one wastes her time answering the question she thought you were asking when in fact you were looking at another issue altogether.

Decide to whom your request should be sent.  If you’re trying to find local counsel in a particular city, that’s probably appropriate for firm-wide (or office-wide) distribution.  If you’re looking for an answer to a substantive question, make sure to limit the request to lawyers who practice in the area of interest.  And consider whether a quick phone call or email to a handful of lawyers might yield better results.  Not everyone reads requests for help.

Finally, respond appropriately to those who offer help.  No one likes it when he works to answer a colleague’s question and the colleague doesn’t take the time to respond to the help extended.  There’s no need for anything extraordinary, but most people appreciate both the thanks and a quick update on how/whether the information offered was useful.

If you follow these steps and exercise good judgment, you can send out email requests without fear of ending up on the wrong end of a pointed response.  It’s often helpful to ask questions of colleagues, so don’t be skittish about it… But do be careful.

Retreating for professional reflection

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As soon as I finish typing this post, I am going on retreat for the weekend.  I’ve checked into a hotel that has a nice view, a good desk, 24-hour room service, and oodles of peace and quiet.  The high-speed ‘net connection is working here — unlike at my office — and I am preparing to retreat to do some evaluation and business planning.

One of the problems lawyers have with their practices is that we rarely take time to reflect on our goals and our progress toward them.  Instead, we tend to be in fast forward motion, moving forward all the time, but not pausing to ask whether our motion is getting us toward what we desire.  Michael Gerber, author of E-Myth Mastery and related books, argues that entrepreneurs must work on their businesses as well as in them.  It’s the same for lawyers, because even those lawyers who are working at mega-firms are, in a sense, leading their own businesses.  We too must stop and reflect on how our business, our practice, is running.

A retreat is the ideal way to do this evaluation.  Not the typical law firm retreat, replete with meetings and cocktails and chatter, but a private retreat.  A retreat can be enormously useful in as little as 3 hours, though a longer retreat is restorative as well as better suited for deep reflection.  Depending on what you need, both personally and professionally, you might consider retreating at home, at the office, or to a hotel/retreat center.  Consider what you need, both in terms of what creature comforts will facilitate your turning inward and also in terms of what support you need.

What questions should you ask yourself on retreat?  The list is truly endless, but here are some good ones:

1.  How well am I functioning in the office?  What changes do I need to make either in the office environment or in how I prepare myself for my workdays?

2.  What is my business vision?  What kind of practice do I want, and how well am I developing that practice?

3.  Who are my clients?  How is client development working for me, and what changes do I need to make?  What new activities do I need to undertake?

4.  How satisfied are my current clients?  How can I better serve them?

5.  Am I an active member of the legal community?  Am I meeting my own expectations for pro bono work?

6.  Am I maximizing my energy through good self-care?

7.  How is my work/life balance?

8.  What one change can I make in my life or my practice that will create greater satisfaction for me?

As we move into fall and the end of the year, it’s an ideal time for review and revision.  Give yourself — and your practice — the gift of a retreat.  Please contact me if you’d like support in designing a retreat or in helping with strategizing to help you reach your goals.

“Law practice the way it should be.”

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David Maister recently profiled Christopher Marston, a 29-year old Boston attorney who founded a 9-person law firm known as Exemplar Law Partners immediately after he graduated from law school.  The firm bills exclusively on a fixed price model, offering more budget-friendly services to its clients and a good work environment for its lawyers.  The firm touts its practice as follows: “No hourly bill.  No hourly bull.  Law practice the way it should be.”  Marston is blogging about his experiment, and his comments are truly fascinating.  I particularly commend his post titled, “The Dirty Little Secret About Hourly Billing and Low Professional Satisfaction!”

It will be interesting to follow the firm’s success.