Orchestrate Your Future

Rethink Hiring

I just finished reading The War for Talent.  If you've ever had any hiring or staffing problems, I would highly recommend that you read this book.  OK, so I'm recommending that everyone reading this post should read it. 

Aside from numerous references to Enron – it was written before Enron's collapse – it’s full of so much great stuff, I know I'll be blogging about it again in the near future.  But for today, chew on this quote from the founder of Visa.

"Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind.  Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to use by people with all the other qualities."
- Dee Hock, founder and CEO emeritus of Visa

The Death of the Billable Hour

In the August issue of the ABA Journal, Scott Turrow makes a passionate argument for why The Billable Hour Must Die.  He’s not alone in thinking that the future of the legal profession cannot be dependent upon the zero sum game of time x dollars.  (See the April 4, 2007 post to this blog.)  But Turrow asks a new question: Is the billable hour ethical?  Turrow cites Rule 1.7 of the ABA Model Rules which provides that "a lawyer shall not represent a client if the representation reflects a concurrent conflict of interest," which the rule defines as "a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by . . . a personal interest of the lawyer."  Isn't there a clear conflict of interest whenever a lawyer's economic interests favor prolonging representation and the client's favor shortening the same?

Click here to read Turrow's entire article at ABAJournal.com

Plan Your Day and Know Your Commander's Intent

There is a saying in the military:  "No plan survives contact with the enemy."  In your law practice, the "enemy" may show up in a number of disguises: a member of your staff, opposing counsel, a client emergency.   The "enemy" is anyone or anything that “blows up” your plan for the day or the week.

In the 1980s, the Army created a planning process inventing a concept called Commander's Intent.  Commander's Intent (CI) is a plain-talk statement specifying the plan’s goal or desired end-state.  For example, at the tactical level the CI might be: My intent is to have the third battalion on Hill 43, to have the hill cleared of the enemy, so we can protect the Third Flank as they pass through the lines. The CI never specifies so much detail as that it risks being rendered obsolete by unpredictable events.  (See Made to Stick, p. 26, for this example.) When you know your CI, you might lose the ability to execute your plan, but you never lose the responsibility for executing the intent. 

Weekly and daily planning are essential, but you need to know your CI so that you can adjust your plans accordingly.  To arrive at your CI for the day or the week, get in the habit of asking yourself questions similar to those that officers ask themselves to arrive at their commander's CI.

If we do nothing else tomorrow, we must ______________.
The single most important thing we must do this week is _________________.

"Laser Talk" or "Elevator Pitch" - Why You Need to Have One

One of the most important conversational strategies in the Atticus marketing tool kit is the Laser Talk.  Simply put, the Laser Talk allows you to inform your listener about what you do.  Hint: If someone asks you, "So what do you do?" "I'm an attorney," is not only not a Laser Talk, it's not a good answer.  Period.

According to David Yewman, co-owner of Elevator Speech, a consulting firm that specializes in helping clients craft 30-second descriptions of their companies, "Executives who can't, in a half a minute, explain what they do and why anyone should care miss out – on sales, funding, partnerships and more opportunities."  Attorneys who can’t explain who they help, how they help them, and what's unique about their practice in 30 seconds miss out on referrals.  It's that simple.

In the July issue of Inc. magazine, Yewman works with a home security company to help them craft their what Yewman refers to as their "Elevator Pitch."  After a lot of talk about "virtual connectivity," "redundancy," and "a web portal to monitor events," they hit upon: "We are bringing home security out of the closet."  (There's a pretty funny "back story" to this line, too.)

"You've got to cut right to it, hit them over the head with it.  The magic comes when you can talk like a human being about your business, and when you can really deliver a punch on why this is important," says Yewman.

You can learn to talk like a human being [read: non-lawyer] about what you do.  Attorneys are in the business of changing lives, transforming lives.  Don't be afraid to speak genuinely about how you help people!

• Visit Inc. magazine online to read the entire "Elevator Pitch" article.
• Visit www.elevatorspeech.net to see a video of a really, really bad elevator speech.  It's hilarious.

Take a Vacation – It May Save Your Life

It's the first day of summer!  Remember when you were a kid, and the first day of summer meant summer vacation was not far away?  Well it's time to find your "inner kid," and take a vacation.  Here’s why.

As part of a study done in the '70s and early '80s called the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, 12,866 men between the ages of 35 and 57 were asked annually for 5 years whether they had taken a vacation in the last years. The results showed that men taking annual vacations were nearly 20 percent less likely to die during the next 9 years compared to men skipping annual vacations.  (Women were not included in this study, but there is no reason to believe the results would differ for them.)

The study found that a reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease deaths was most strongly associated with taking regular annual vacations.   

Bottom line: Vacations are good for your health!  Heck, vacations may save your life.  Now, go take one.

Are You Creating Your Team by Design or Default?

OK.  I admit it.  I’m a total Starbucks addict.  I'm sipping a grande bold as I write this.  And I know that my last post was also about Starbucks.  But I just bought The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary, by Joseph A. Michelli.  (By the way, did you know that if you’d invested $10,000 in the Starbucks IPO in 1992, your investment would be worth about $650,000 today?)

As I read the book last night, I reflected on attorneys I’ve known over the years, and the ongoing staffing issues they've faced.   Here's what Starbucks International President Martin Coles has to say about creating a positive, team-oriented workforce:  It doesn’t happen by accident.

"We've spent a lot of time with our partners (all employees are referred to as 'partners'), both in the selection process and in helping them understand what we stand for as individuals, and what the company stands for as a whole, and the difference we intend to make,” says Coles.

According to Michelli:  "It is by design, not by default, that Starbucks leadership creates a powerful experience for its partners.  It is expected that partners will pass on the dignity and respect that they are afforded into interactions with their customers."

Are you creating your team by design or by default?

You Better Be Better Than Starbucks

I had dinner recently with Cary Singletary, a friend and mentor, who is also a well-respected attorney and tremendously effective mediator.  One of the reasons Cary's mediation practice is so successful (in addition to his skill at the process) is his office.  Cary cares about his clients and knows how to create a wonderful experience for them from the moment they arrive until they leave.  Cary knows what makes Starbucks great, and he delivers a similar experience to his clients.  What’s the secret?

Starbucks doesn’t sell coffee.  Starbucks sells "the Starbucks experience." Everything about their stores is designed to make their customers feel welcome and at home. Starbucks knows the value of creating an experience for their customers.  So does Cary.

In their book, The Experience Economy, Joe Pine and James Gilmore, discuss economic evolution from commodity based - coffee as beans, selling at a few cents to a dollar a pound -  though experience – coffee as a hazelnut latte with free wi-fi and comfy chairs – five dollars a cup!   Pine and Gilmore argue that if businesses in the 21st Century are not delivering "experiences" to their customers, they are losing.  (Beyond the Experience Economy is the Transformational Economy, but that's for another post.)

Here's the Cary Singletary experience: 1) Impeccably decorated office; 2) A secretary who treats everyone who enters with warmth and kindness; 3) Spacious conference rooms with comfortable chairs; 4) Free Wi-Fi; 5) Freshly baked cookies (He has an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie baking machine in his office!) and refreshments throughout the day.   There’s more . . . but you get the idea.

So, what are you doing to be better than Starbucks?

Emulate Success

One of my favorite authors on business development and leadership is D.A. Benton.  In her book, Lions Don't Need to Roar, she discusses the importance or emulating success as a means to become more successful.  As you continue to grow your practice and strive toward greater success, keep this advice in mind:

Keep a keen eye trained on those who are successful.  See how they operate.  Discern their good traits from the bad.  Tuck away and remember what you've learned by watching and listening.  Then use it when you are in a similar situation yourself.

Emulating the skills and traits of those who are where you want to be is one of the most effective ways of getting there faster.  Watch and learn from those lawyers who are successful, happy and living balanced lives.  Emulate the good.  Discard the bad.

Don’t Let Your Email Take Over Your Life

"Easier said than done," you’re probably thinking. How to deal with email overload is one of the most consistent questions I’m asked with respect to increasing productivity. The truth is there are no easy answers. The key is to find the strategies that work for you and implement them.

If you’d like some ideas on how to better manage your email, check out The Hamster Revolution. The book contains some simple tips for creating more effective emails and managing email glut. For a quick lesson on organizing your inbox with folders and rules for incoming email, click here to visit The Hamster Revolution web site.  Harvard Business Review online also provides some excellent tips on managing email.

Finally, if you’re addicted to the ping of a new email hitting your inbox, check to see how often your email server is set to perform a send and receive. I’m willing to bet it’s every minute or two. Stop the madness! For starters, set your email to perform a send and receive only once per hour. That will guarantee you two productive outcomes: 1) You won’t be constantly interrupted, and 2) You will have created a built-in, hourly break for yourself.

What Made IBM Great?

In his book The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber tells a story of asking Tom Watson to what he attributed the phenomenal success of IBM.  Watson replied that “IBM is what it is for three special reasons.”

1) Watson said he had a very clear picture of what the company would look like when it was “done” – a model of what it would look like when his vision was in place.
2) Once he had that “picture,” he created a picture of how IBM would “act” when the vision was in place.
3) Then he said, “I realized that unless we began to act that way from the very beginning, we would never get there.”

As Gerber says: To the Entrepreneur, the present-day-world is modeled after his vision.  To the Technician, the future is modeled after his present-day-world.

Dare to be great!  Create your vision, then live it.  Starting now.  Just like IBM.