Leadership for Lawyers

Power of Gratitude

"All we are is a result of what we have thought" - Budda

Harrison Barnes penned a spot-on article on how we can change our circumstance by changing how we think, specifically, on being more grateful:

"In order to be happier, to do better in your current position, and to find new positions effectively, it is essential you learn to be grateful. Gratitude has to do with the sort of emotional energy on which you choose to focus. People who focus on negative emotions and are ungrateful will likely attract more unsatisfactory outcomes. Whether you feel you do not make enough money, resent others, or are dissatisfied with your work, negative emotions will not take you forward. In fact, these emotions will build upon themselves as they attract more of the same negativity over and over again."

Read the entire article on JobsJournal.com

Two tech stories with cultural implications

1. Law Technology News reports that law firm associates suffer from low morale because firms are spending less on technology upgrades and gadgets.  For some, it is a matter of high expectations, for others it is a matter of loss of productivity.  Some firms recognize that technology improvements are not just a function of hardware and software, but of cultural change,

"Michael Chung, Boies, Schiller's director of information technology, says that the firm is in the midst of a document management testing phase in two of its 12 offices and is trying to determine the best vendor for the rest of the firm's offices. But he says that revamping a document management system is easier said than done. "Installing the software is probably the easiest part," he says, noting that teaching work flow changes to attorneys swamped with casework takes time. "It's like asking them to change the way they practice law," he says."

As firms consider how to keep and engage attorneys - not just associates - they need to consider a wide range of technology and productivity factors.  Attorneys increasingly ask, "Can I be more productive, efficient, effective and happy at another firm?"  Their answers are reflected in the increased migration of laterals.

2.  Luis Suarez, blogger of www.elsua.net, gives advice on how to reduce the time we waste on email in this article.  To summarize, he recommends:

1.  Don't reply to everything.  Break the chain. 

2.  Analyze your in-box.  Find ways to reduce redundancy.  For example, if you are replying to inquiries with the same response 40 times a week, set up a blog and post a single complete answer, and refer people to the blog in the future.

3.  Tackle one area a week. Identify time-wasters like e-mail newsletters and alerts that you don't read, and unsubscribe, or send them to an Outlook folder to read when you have downtime.  Or, set up a RSS Feed reader to that type of information.

What are you doing to reduce your inbox?

 

Management Insights by a Master Storyteller

I first heard of Steve Denning when I read his book, "The Leader's Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative", which led me to read his other books on leadership and storytelling.  Steve is coming out with a new book,Leader's Guide to Radical Management: Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century,  which is based on his observations and ideas of how high performing teams work in organizations.   Some of the content is reflected in his new blog, which is chock-full of interesting stories, book reviews and insights on teamwork, engagement and what he calls "radical management".  Check it out here:  "The Leaders Guide to Radical Management".

Peter Schram, The Communicator

When speaking to the LMA Chapter in Toronto this spring, I met a very articulate, leadership-savvy PR guru named Peter Schram.  He is President of Communications Unlimited, a PR consultancy focues primarily on professional service firms.   He also writes a terrific blog on PR and Marketing called The Communicator.  This week's entry is terrific, focusing on helping thought leaders think:

"Here are a few best practices for the design and structure of a strong thought leadership program: 

• Be selective: Creating thought leadership is difficult business. It takes dedication, creative thought and long-term commitment. Unfortunately, in many organizations, ‘thought leaders’ are often nominated – not on their ability to think big thoughts – but rather based on the individual’s availability, profile and need for greater ‘learning experiences’. Consequently, professional communicators should treat their prospective thought leaders as job applicants, matching individual skills against a list of job requirements and writing samples in order to identify the best candidates.
• Formalize creativity: Once you’ve identified your best thought leaders, set a formal schedule for the team that puts the emphasis on collaboration and creativity, but also creates some rigour around deliverables, milestones and expectations. Sadly, thought leadership is often low on the priority list, so make sure that these deadlines and meetings are being kept, and that they are as effective as possible. 
     
• Grow thought leaders: Very few professional communicators are lucky enough to get a fully-formed thought leader right out of the box. Indeed, it usually takes training, reinforcement and plenty of hand-holding to turn a fledgling ‘ideas guy’ into a full-grown thought leader. Professional communicators should always keep an eye open for raw talent within their organization, and work to find projects that can help those candidates grow and acclimatize to the process. 
• Prime the pump: Ideas are usually generated incrementally. This means that the more ‘inspiration’ that a thought leader is exposed to, the more valuable and insightful their ‘Big Ideas’ will be. Professional communicators will find that by circulating related articles, news stories and competitor pieces, the quality of the insight found within their thought leadership will increase exponentially. "

Good stuff.  Subscribe.  Read more here.

Peter Schram, The Communicator

When speaking to the LMA Chapter in Toronto this spring, I met a very articulate, leadership-savvy PR guru named Peter Schram.  He is President of Communications Unlimited, a PR consultancy focues primarily on professional service firms.   He also writes a terrific blog on PR and Marketing called The Communicator.  This week's entry is terrific, focusing on helping thought leaders think:

"Here are a few best practices for the design and structure of a strong thought leadership program: 

• Be selective: Creating thought leadership is difficult business. It takes dedication, creative thought and long-term commitment. Unfortunately, in many organizations, ‘thought leaders’ are often nominated – not on their ability to think big thoughts – but rather based on the individual’s availability, profile and need for greater ‘learning experiences’. Consequently, professional communicators should treat their prospective thought leaders as job applicants, matching individual skills against a list of job requirements and writing samples in order to identify the best candidates.
• Formalize creativity: Once you’ve identified your best thought leaders, set a formal schedule for the team that puts the emphasis on collaboration and creativity, but also creates some rigour around deliverables, milestones and expectations. Sadly, thought leadership is often low on the priority list, so make sure that these deadlines and meetings are being kept, and that they are as effective as possible. 
     
• Grow thought leaders: Very few professional communicators are lucky enough to get a fully-formed thought leader right out of the box. Indeed, it usually takes training, reinforcement and plenty of hand-holding to turn a fledgling ‘ideas guy’ into a full-grown thought leader. Professional communicators should always keep an eye open for raw talent within their organization, and work to find projects that can help those candidates grow and acclimatize to the process. 
• Prime the pump: Ideas are usually generated incrementally. This means that the more ‘inspiration’ that a thought leader is exposed to, the more valuable and insightful their ‘Big Ideas’ will be. Professional communicators will find that by circulating related articles, news stories and competitor pieces, the quality of the insight found within their thought leadership will increase exponentially. "

Good stuff.  Subscribe.  Read more here.

New Handbook on Law Firm Competitive Intelligence

 Ann Lee Gibson's new book on Competitive Intelligence for law firms has just come out.  Published by the Ark Group,  Competitive Intelligence: Improving Law Firm Strategy and Decision-Making is a comprehensive guide to using CI to win work and develop strategy.  Dr. Gibson is THE authority on CI in law firms. 

The pre-release promotional email says,

"Competitive Intelligence: Improving Law Firm Strategy and Decision-Making will allow firms and CI departments/teams of all sizes and levels of sophistication to: 

- Understand what CI is, its benefits and limitations;
- Appreciate how law firm CI differs from that in other businesses (and therefore be able to counter skepticism among lawyers about deploying this discipline in the legal context);
- Understand the phases of the CI cycle, avoid the common pitfalls and identify opportunities for improvement;
- Relate the resulting intelligence to strategy and decision-making in the firm – after all, if you don’t do anything with the information, what’s the point in having it?
- Understand scenario planning, which can help firms to build future plans that are sufficiently flexible to accommodate future unknowns.

Featuring case studies, insight and contributions from a wide range of high-profile firms and respected industry experts, this report covers key topics including:

- An overview of CI as it is applied in current legal profession; 
- The common CI challenges and how to overcome them;
- Ethical considerations that must be satisfied when developing or using CI;
- Developing more useful intelligence for clients (law firm partners);
- Information gathering—the types and sources of information (both primary and secondary) available to CI practitioners;
- Organizing and preparing intelligence to make analysis easier and more revelatory; 
- The reliability of information and ethical considerations related to information collected from social media and human sources; 
- Ensuring analysis is correctly converted into intelligence;
- Effectively disseminating intelligence to decision makers;
- Improving CI processes and their influence on a firm’s decision-making processes;
- The evolution of law firm CI structures, functions, and staffing models;
- Imminent expansion areas for law firm CI;
- Utilizing CI to improve firm-wide and practice/industry group strategies;
- Collaboration between a CI and business intelligence (BI) units; 
- The identification, sources and use of human intelligence; and 
- The ethical techniques firms should use to elicit that intelligence."

For more information on the book, click here.  

To order the book with a $200 discount, call  +1 309 495 2853 and give the code ME-CI3.