A few weeks back, I wrote about the importance of creating a connection culture in the law . One of the best ways for law firms to create connecting points for their lawyers is to gain insight into points of disconnection. As I’ve previously noted, two frequently cited causes of lawyer disconnect are the competitive nature of the business and long working hours.
According to a post from Chris Bailey at the always-interesting Bailey Workplay blog, another major cause is invisibility. Bailey attributes this problem to incompetent leadership. Specifically, he asserts that managers can do a lot of damage when they ignore employees. Ignoring actions, in turn, can take different forms, including:
Not acknowledging contributions
Not recognizing expertise
Not seeing the individual worth
As this post from Matt Homann suggests, anxiety can also promote lawyer disconnection. Homann points to a Harvard Business article that tells us How to Deal with Anxious People. The piece leads with an anatomical fact: When we’re anxious, our minds constrict and we’re more apt to cut off our rationality and act impulsively. Consequently, law firm leaders looking to alleviate anxiety – and the disconnection it can foster – need to talk to or with anxious lawyers rather than at or over them.
The article goes on to instruct that the best way to navigate these challenging talks is to observe the anxious person’s body language. People who feel that they’re being talked over will “leave the conversation at the earliest opportunity.” When they’re talked at, people tend to tuck their chin down or stick it out to show that they’re intimidated or ticked off, respectively. By contrast, when you talk to an anxious person, they’ll “nod from the neck up.” Similarly, someone who senses that they’re being talked with will usually relax their shoulders and neck, “as if you've told them: ‘It'll be okay. We can work this out.’”
In past posts, I’ve discussed the broken windows theory as it relates to the practice of law and, more specifically, to the creation and cure of client service problems. In a nutshell, the theory holds that firms should focus on identifying and quickly repairing their broken windows – those aspects of their operation that signal an indifference to client satisfaction.
As this Small Firm Business article conveys, law firms looking to stem client dissatisfaction - and the attrition it can compel – often conduct client surveys. The surveys are drafted and administered to obtain feedback about:
Clients' satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the attorneys and staff who served them
The timeliness, responsiveness and value of work performed
The need for additional services and greater cost or quality control
The need for greater lawyer specialization
Whether clients would use the firm again and refer the firm to friends and associates
As the article suggests, it’s a fairly futile and wasteful for firms to undertake these surveys if they don’t follow-up and redress the client service issues brought to light.
To bridge this gap between intelligence gathering and action, some firms are “creating specific positions to facilitate and organize communication between major firm clients and the attorneys representing them.” That’s the message in a recent article from The Recorder featured at law.com.
Led by client service executives with titles like Chief of Practice Excellence; law firm client relations teams “provide attorneys with news on the clients' activities and goals, serve as point people for clients with questions or issues and help attorneys maintain regular contact with clients.”
It would be interesting to compare the client opinion on firms embracing this team approach with the client perception of firms that do little or nothing to inspect and repair their broken windows.
One of the resonant complaints I hear from lawyers is that they feel very disconnected from their colleagues and firms. They attribute their sense of isolation to, among other things, the competitive nature of the business and long working hours. These kinds of complaints inspired me to write posts like:
“[W]e are humans, not machines. We have emotions. We have hopes and dreams. We have a conscience. We have deeply felt human needs to be respected, to be recognized for our talents, to belong. [ ] When we work in an environment that recognizes these realities of our human nature, we thrive. [ ] When we work in an environment that fails to recognize this, it is damaging to our mental and physical health.”
He then explains and explores the core elements of a workplace Connection Culture:
Vision (“everyone in an organization is motivated by the organization’s mission, united by its values, and proud of its reputation”)
Value (“everyone in an organization understands the universal nature of people, appreciates the unique contribution of each person, and helps them achieve their potential”)
Voice (“everyone in an organization participates in an open, honest and safe environment where people share their opinions in order to understand one another and seek the best ideas”)
Stallard aids our understanding, and amplifies his message, by giving examples of businesses and business leaders who have successfully embraced these core components.
Service professionals often find it challenging to connect with clients on a human-to-human level. That’s because we’ve been trained to cultivate a business persona that’s distinct from the person we are in our down time with family and friends. The business face we put on typically reflects just how seriously we take our role as an advisor and advocate to people who don’t know as much as we do …. about the law.
I’ve written a number of posts on the importance of bringing ourselves to our work, including these:
So, I was very happy to read the practical wisdom and guidance that communication skills coach Joey Asher offers in an article titled Faking the ‘Real You.’ Although he’s writing about public speaking, Asher’s advice applies just as well to any kind of live or written communication. His premise is that people who tend to come off as stiff, formal and standoffish when they communicate have to learn how to “fake [their] own authentic communication style.”
In presenting this “authenticity paradox,” Asher states: “Great speakers know how to fake their own "natural style" even when they don't feel natural at all. It's learning how to act like your real self.” So, instead of being formal, cool and distant when communicating with clients and other business contacts, we need to mimic our “natural personality” – the friendly cadence, rhythm and energy of the communications we have with people that we feel close to and comfortable with.
There’s no doubt that lawyers and other service providers can use Asher’s approach to foster successful business connections. I’ll be sure to incorporate his advice into learning programs I present on the building blocks of successful business relationships. My next offering on this front, a program called the Key to Workplace Success: Building Critical Relationships, will take place on March 12, 2008 at Harvard Law School. You can learn more about it here.
My vacation presented me with another opportunity to inventory the contents of my blog hopper. I found that much of it pertained to the ins and outs of lawyering. So, I decided to offer it to you here as a chain of related topics:
The chain continues with information geared to helping young associates build their book of business. Pam Slim explains the business benefits of being a matchmaker and offers some concrete ways to take on that role, such as:
Introducing like-minded people
Forwarding information and resources to people who can use them
Connecting people who have complementary interests, products or services
Jim Hassett rounds off the roundup links with a post profiling one firm’s efforts to help associates hone their relationship-building and business development skills. Noting the win-win nature of these initiatives, the article states: “business development training produces greater associate satisfaction, more satisfied clients and more interesting business opportunities.”
Back to Main News
Page
