A leader’s development tends to proceed through three stages. The first stage is self-management.  The second is individual achievement.  The third is leading others.  Although these three stages are distinct from one another, they may coexist and a leader may move back and forth through these stages at various times.

Today’s discussion focuses on the first stage:  self-management or leadership of oneself. Executive coach Sharon Keys Seal, founder of Coaching Concepts Inc., refers to this stage as “leader in the mirror”.  John Maxwell has written, “[h]e who thinks he leads, but has no followers, is only taking a walk.”  One of the quickest ways to walk alone is to neglect the importance of self-management.  In contrast, leaders who have a solid grounding in self-leadership tend to inspire confidence in those whom they seek to lead.

We all have the opportunity to be the “leader in the mirror,” and those who seek to excel individually or to lead others must manage that first leadership challenge. Self-management underlies individual achievement as well as leadership of others because the two later stages can’t exist (at least not in a mature, lasting form) without some measure of self-leadership.

Think about a talented but undisciplined athlete.  Raw talent and some measure of discipline often allows him to succeed to a point, perhaps through high school or college.  But at some point, the athlete goes down in flames despite his talent and despite a coach or manager or family urging him to do better, thanks to involvement in crime or violence or immature stupidity.  Some of those athletes reform their behavior through self-management, and others become the stereotypical “has been” who revels in past glory but never achieves what he might have.  The road an athlete walks depends not only on his physical talent, but also on the self-discipline he musters when he’s no longer subject to the control of a parent or coach.

Is the same true for lawyers and other professionals whose talent lies in intellectual capacity?  You bet.

One who has mastered self-management has developed a strong capacity to manage his or her beneficial and destructive tendencies. Self-discipline refers to the ability and willingness to buckle down and do what must be done even (perhaps especially) when one would prefer to do something else.  Self-management is a similar attribute, though it also calls for recognition of what must be done in a variety of contexts.

Self-management prompts a professional to recognize that he or she will be more effective if well-rested, properly nourished, and revitalized with physical activity even though he or she might prefer to eat junk food and watch bad TV to “relax” after work.  Self-discipline is what prompts that lawyer to eat a balanced dinner and to go to bed early enough to get adequate rest, and then to get up early enough to take a walk.

A lawyer who knows what research must be done for a client and who completes that research meticulously exhibits self-management. One who relies on doing just enough or on doing it at the 11th hour has room to grow.

Self-leadership also impacts your clients and business development. Some lawyers routinely fail to get work product to clients with enough time for their review and input.  That’s a failure in self-management.  It’s also a leadership failure, because it subtly undermines a client’s confidence in the lawyer’s professionalism and abilities.

The fruit of self-management lies in creating the freedom to achieve to the extent of natural and developed ability, not being held back by a self-sabotaging tendency to cut corners, delay, or burn out.

Must a lawyer exhibit flawless self-management to be an effective leader?  No.  The more developed a leader’s capacity for self-management and self-discipline, the more effective a leader is likely to be. However, each individual is likely to be better in managing certain areas than others.  A leader may be strong in self-management in the use of working hours, but be deficient in setting aside time for his or her own renewal.

How does your self-management rate this week? (What would those whom you seek to lead say?)  What can you do to improve it, thereby improving your productivity and practice?

The Start-Up of You:  Invest In Yourself And Transform Your Career
By Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha

Styled as a career development book, the central thesis of The Start-Up of You is that a successful career requires an entrepreneurial approach.

Authors Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn, and Ben Casnocha, a young serial entrepreneur, assert that career advancement worked like an escalator in years past: you got an entry-level job, you were mentored and groomed, and as long as you did well enough and weren’t unlucky, you could expect steady advancement until roughly age 65, when you’d move off the escalator to enjoy a comfortable retirement funded by a pension and Social Security.

But now, “that elevator is jammed at every level.” Employers now expect their new hires to be ready to do the job right away. No more employer-guided professional development; employees today must train and invest in themselves. If this doesn’t sound familiar in the law firm context, you must have spent the last few years living under a rock. Some firms will train, even train well, but finding real mentors? That’s up to you. You must set your goals, and you must be prepared to invest your own time and money to position yourself to reach them.

Adaptation is the name of the game in this environment, and the entrepreneurial approach is the only one suitably flexible to thrive in today’s economy. As the authors explain,

Entrepreneurs…take stock of their assets, aspirations, and the market realities to develop a competitive advantage. They craft flexible, iterative plans. They build a network of relationships throughout their industry that outlives their start-up. They aggressively seek and create breakout opportunities that involve focused risk, and actively manage that risk. They tap their network for the business intelligence to navigate through tough challenges. And, they do these things from the moment they hatch that nascent idea to every day after that — even as the companies go from being run out of a garage to occupying floors of office space. To succeed professionally in today’s world, you need to adopt these same entrepreneurial strategies.

Follow the ideas, and you’ll likely be quite successful — using the incremental improvements of your Plan A until you can pivot to a more appealing Plan B, if both fall apart, you’ll have a predefined Plan Z that offers a failsafe backup tailored to your needs. The Start-Up of You is a good book for career development.

What I found exciting, though, is the degree to which the strategies for career advancement dovetail with strong approaches for business development. The authors urge you to balance your strengths, your goals, and market realities to develop a brand that sets your apart from your competitors. When you can give a satisfactory answer to the question why someone should retain you rather than others who practice in your field, you’ll have a competitive advantage over the others. This is true whether you’re being hired for a job or hired to represent a client.

The chapter It Takes a Network offers valuable tips on how to build a series of professional relationships that include close allies as well as weaker ties, all designed for mutual benefit. The authors offer tips and observations such as:

• “Relationship builders, on the other hand, try to help other people first. They don’t keep score. They’re aware that many good deeds get reciprocated, but they’re not calculated about it. And they think about their relationships all the time, not just when they need something.”
• “Relationship builders start by understanding how their existing relationships constitute a social network, and they meet new people through people they already know.”
• “[A]s you meet your friends and new people, shift from asking yourself the very natural questions of ‘What’s in it for me?’ and ask instead, ‘What’s in it for us?’”

Not surprisingly, given that Hoffman is the co-founder of LinkedIn, he emphasizes the usefulness of a broad network composed of close allies and weak ties. Hoffman describes the research that led to the theory that we are all connected by six degrees of separation, the offers that it’s important to stick within three degrees of separation so that all introductions are brokered by intermediaries who know at least one of the two individuals being introduced. He makes persuasive points that may have you looking afresh at your LinkedIn account.

While the book’s themes aren’t truly fresh or groundbreaking, their applications may be, and their examples are instructive. If you doubt that your career success is entirely up to you, Hoffman and Casnocha will give you food for thought. If you’re ready to take on an entrepreneurial approach even if you work in a megafirm, the book will offer some useful pointers.

Ultimately, the value of the book depends on your starting point. If you already understand that you need to act as an entrepreneur no matter your professional setting, you’ll pick up some pointers and reminders that will be helpful. If this is a new concept to you, you need to buy the book right away.

There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys, how’s the water?”  And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”

I read that little anecdote in a Wall Street Journal adaptation of the commencement speech David Foster Wallace made at Kenyon College. It struck me as amusing at first, but then it struck me as a great teaching story.

Are you living in an environment that you’re not really aware of, just because you don’t know anything could be different? Environment is critical to success, whether it’s success in business or in life.  Want to lose weight?  You’ll have better odds if your pantry is packed with water and oatmeal than if it’s jammed with sugary sodas and potato chips.  Want to know what’s going on in politics?  You might prefer to hang around others who care about politics and read the Wall Street Journal than to spend your time watching E! and talking about Snookie.

When it comes to business development, environment is often an unappreciated factor for success. Let’s look at three examples.

1. How do your systems support business development activity? Those systems might include where you put business cards you’ve been handed by new contacts — can you find them so that you can follow up?  Do you have a system in place for following up, or is it catch-as-catch can, sometimes great and sometimes nonexistent?  Do you have a system for tracking your business development activity, both so you can see whether you’re keeping the commitments you’ve made and also so that you can track the outcome of your actions?

   Systems create your personal operating environment. If your systems aren’t strong, you need to realize that and correct it.

   Example: I noticed recently that I’d been swallowed whole by paper at my desk now that I’m managing my own business and personal life along with three other businesses.  I’d always had fairly good systems, but the influx of paper and the associated tasks had overwhelmed those systems.  My office looked as if the post office had thrown up on it, and finding anything in less than ten minutes was unlikely.  And between the busy-ness and the renovations I’ve been doing, my home didn’t look much better.  So I hired a concierge service (for those of you in Atlanta, check out Luxe Arrangements) and a home and office organization specialist (Atlanta folks, see Barbara Mays).  The difference in my physical and mental space is enormous.

2. How does your leadership support business development activity? What you say and do about business development can have far greater impact than you might realize.

   What do you do and say about business development? Do your actions reflect what you’d like those you lead to do — especially yourself?  I once worked with a lawyer who encouraged every person he led to take on a variety of business development activities, but he didn’t like to network, was too busy to meet people one-on-one on a regular basis, didn’t consider himself to be a great writer or speaker, and — in short — didn’t do anything he encouraged his team to do.  Guess how their business development worked out?

3. How does the way you spend money support business development activity? You can certainly build a solid book of business without spending a lot of money, but if you think you can do so without spending any money, you’re kidding yourself.  It’s important to make smart investments in growing your business, whether that means joining appropriate groups, getting subscriptions to key publications, getting marketing training, or retaining a coach or consultant to help you see how to address your obstacles and to build opportunities.  If you’re unwilling to invest in growing your business, you’ll stunt any opportunity that comes your way rather than being able to take advantage of it.

Check yourself on these examples of environment and see what you notice about the environment you’ve created. What do you notice?  And, even more importantly, who serves as your “older fish” to point out the environment that you can’t see?

“When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.”
~Confucious

“Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.”
~Henry Ford

“Have a bias toward action — let’s see something happen now.  You can break that big plan into small steps and take the first step right away.”
~Indira Gandhi

Every single one of my clients faces the need to build new habits at some point. Whether it’s replacing an unhelpful old habit or building a new one from scratch, the process of illuminating automatic behavior and changing it can be quite difficult.  At the same time, building a habit that operates without conscious thought and that supports desired outcomes is a marker for success.

You have to have the right habits.

Especially when it comes to business development, I’m a proponent of building strong habits. Why? Because habits build a structure that takes over in the face of challenges.  Habits are behaviors that we perform without thoughts.  They just happen.  And when they don’t, we feel so uncomfortable that, for better or worse, we usually revert to the habit.  There’s a lot of power in a habit.

But it isn’t easy to establish a new habit, and it’s often even harder to break an old one. We’ve all heard the “do it for 28 days and you’ll have a habit” advice.  That doesn’t match my experience, though, and too often it doesn’t match my clients’ experience.

Several recently published books explore habit, but Duhigg’s The Power of Habit captured my attention. In an Amazon Q&A, Duhigg shares what sparked his interest in habit:

What sparked your interest in habits?

I first became interested in the science of habits eight years ago, as a newspaper reporter in Baghdad, when I heard about an army major conducting an experiment in a small town named Kufa.

The major had analyzed videotapes of riots and had found that violence was often preceded by a crowd of Iraqis gathering in a plaza and, over the course of hours, growing in size.  Food vendors would show up, as well as spectators.  Then, someone would throw a rock or a bottle.

When the major met with Kufa’s mayor, he made an odd request:  Could they keep the food vendors out of the plazas?  Sure, the mayor said.  A few weeks later, a small crowd gathered near the Great Mosque of Kufa.  It grew in size.  Some people started chanting angry slogans.  At dusk, the crowd started getting restless and hungry.  People looked for the kebab sellers normally filling the plaza, but there were none to be found.  The spectators left.  The chanters became dispirited.  By 8 PM, everyone was gone.

I asked the major how he had figured out that removing food vendors would change peoples’ behavior.

The U.S. military, he told me, is one of the biggest habit-formation experiments in history.  “Understanding habits is the most important thing I’ve learned in the army,” he said.  By the time I got back to the U.S., I was hooked on the topic.

Duhigg’s book is divided into three parts:  The Habits of Individuals, which explores how habit works and how to create and change them, The Habit of Successful Organizations, which describes how various businesses use (and perhaps abuse) habit formation, and The Habit of Societies, which investigates societal habits and related ethical questions. Filled with stories, anecdotes, and tweetable insights, the book is a quick read that seems to be well-grounded in research and experience.

I was surprised to learn that, according to cited Duke University research, more than 40% of actions are habits rather than action motivated by conscious decision. Duhigg defines habits as “the choices that all of us deliberately make at some point, and then stop thinking about but continue doing, often every day.”  That’s when I began to pay close attention to the book.

Habits are based on a three-step process:  a cue that triggers the action, the action itself, and the reward. Using examples such as the habit of checking email (routine) in response to a message waiting alert (cue) to relieve boredom (reward), Duhigg explains why habits are so difficult to change.  When a cue triggers us, we crave a reward, and the habit occurs automatically.

To change a habit, Duhigg teaches, choose a cue and a reward, then focus on the reward until you crave it, and preferably join a group composed of others who believe that change is possible. It sounds easy enough, and Duhigg offers plenty of examples, but he also acknowledges that habits become deeply and often unconsciously engrained, making change difficult.

I was particularly intrigued by Duhigg’s recitation of research that demonstrates the success of those who make specific plans for action well in advance and know how they’ll work around obstacles. We’ve all watched carefully cultivated habits fall apart when work gets unusually busy or a child gets sick, and Duhigg’s recitation of finding after finding serves as a strong prompt to anticipate obstacles.

What’s in it for lawyers?

The Power of Habit offers both conceptual and concrete tips on how to make habit-building more conscious and more successful. As noted above, every single client I’ve worked with in the last six years has bumped into habits at some point.  Bad habits (such as returning to the office with intentions to follow up with a new prospect only to watch days slip by without any movement) have to go, and new ones take their place.  Implementing Duhigg’s suggestions will help.

I wish The Power of Habit had offered more discussion around identifying harmful habits that are not obvious, such as the realization that Iraqi riots wouldn’t occur without food vendors’ presence.  It’s one thing to know what habits are getting in the way, and it’s another entirely to see a pattern of blockages without being able to identify the linchpin that’s creating problems.  (Very often, an outside observer is the best way to spot that habit.)  Once you’ve identified the deleterious habit, Duhigg can help you to change it.

I’m studying The Power of Habit to help my clients find more effective ways to build automatic behaviors. If time is limited, I’d strongly recommend that you read at least the first four chapters.  You’ll get a good grounding in how to create and change habits, and you’ll likely find yourself at least skimming the rest of the book.

In the meantime, ask yourself:  what do I do with little or no thought that’s getting in my way? What reward am I craving?  How can I get that reward without the harmful behavior?  What should I substitute?  Even if your study of habit remains on that relatively surface level, you and your practice will benefit.

I occasionally find an article or resource that’s so helpful I wish I’d written it.

Twenty Marketing Maxims is probably the best summary of business development best practices that I’ve ever seen. As I wrote when I tweeted the resource:  Print it.  Laminate it.  Read it daily.  Use it.  Get business.

Start now.

There’s an old maxim that 50% of marketing efforts are a complete waste of time.

I’m quick to climb up on a soapbox and start to rant when a client or a prospective client (or, for that matter, anyone within earshot) bemoans the “fact” that they just can’t bring in new business. Woe is me, it’s hard, the skills don’t come naturally, I may as well quit. I try to quell my irritation (and remember that I once felt similarly), but it’s easy for me to jump into conversation with a prickly request that’s designed to catch the bemoaning would-be rainmaker short:

What’s your ROI on each market effort?

If you don’t know the ROI at least in qualitative terms, you’re operating in the dark. (You really should know or be able to get quantitative information, as well, but let’s focus on basics for now.)  The truth about marketing is that some of it will fail gloriously, some will succeed wildly, and most of it will just kind of tick along with nothing special resulting.

ROI matters because, in the words of Lord Kelvin, “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”

Two key factors help to determine your ROI.

1. Objective-defined measurement. While it’s great to build relationships through networking, if all of those relationships remain friendly or personal in nature and never cross over into business, your ROI is zero.  (Of course, ROI depends on your objectives:  if your goal is simply to meet colleagues and build professional relationships, your ROI could be stratospheric without your landing a single client.  That isn’t a business development objective.)
2. Conversion rate. If you’re looking at ROI for business development purposes, conversion and ROI are almost synonymous.  A conversion rate, at its most basic, describes the ratio of new clients (or new business) to consultations with the potential client.  You must know your conversion rate.  Why?  If you don’t have enough business, a conversion rate of 20% suggests one avenue for improvement whereas a 90% conversion rate means that your problem is somewhere upstream of a sales conversation.  Diagnosis leads to solution.

Depending on what kind of marketing activities you’re doing, you should also know conversion rates for your newsletter sign-ups, your follow-ups after making a call to action in the course of a presentation, and for your direct mail marketing, for example. At the very most basic, do you know how each of your clients found you?  And do you keep records over time so that you can track effectiveness?

It’s important that you know your ROI “number” so that you can guide future activity. One of the most dangerous mistakes I see comes to light when someone really, really believes that a marketing effort will succeed and when he maintains that belief despite evidence to the contrary.

If you’re reluctant to evaluate your ROI, consider the possibility that you may be making a conscious decision to engage in unproductive activity. Maybe what you’re doing is comfortable.  Perhaps it pleases someone else.  There’s no sin in continuing unproductive activity when the lack of results is acknowledged, but I see too many people who are willfully blind to the lack of results, and that only keeps them stuck.

If you aren’t tracking your ROI, start today. Ask yourself how ROI should be measured for the activity you’re undertaking.  For example, is new business the right metric, or is it building strong relationships with a particular group?  In some cases, if you’re building your credentials, you can get tremendous ROI simply by writing an article, having it published, and then using the basis of the article for a presentation.

Once you’ve defined the right measurement, track your activity and results and perform an ongoing analysis. After three to six months, you should have enough ROI information to determine whether the activity is producing results.  If you don’t have solid qualitative data, at a minimum, within six months, guess what?  The activity probably isn’t producing.

If you’re one of those who’s very busy with business development activity but unhappy about the outcome, and if you aren’t tracking your ROI, we should talk.  Please contact me to set an appointment for a complimentary consultation.

Last fall, I shared that I’d joined a gym, and I drew some parallels between getting into the regular gym-going habit and regularly engaging in business development.

I haven’t written about the gym since last September, partly because when things went a bit haywire in my personal life and got frantic with business, I quit going. Isn’t that the story?  I worked out on my regular schedule while I was away on vacation, but when I got back to “real life” in November, real life crowded out my goals.  (At least, that was my story.  The truth, of course, is that I allowed that crowding out to happen.)

The lessons I’ve learned from this experience apply equally to business development.

1. Take full responsibility for your choices. I would love to blame circumstances for my gym interruption.  And, in fairness, I could — life threw several big curveballs that boomeranged around over and over.  But if I blame circumstance, that puts circumstance in the driver’s seat and I can only play along.  Thanks, but no.  I’d rather take responsibility for my choices because doing so creates an easy-to-see opportunity for change.
2. Do what you can even when things fall apart. Even though I wasn’t able to stick with the workout schedule I’d planned, my fitness goals remained important and so I focused on eating well rather than using my “inability” to go to the gym as license to abandon the goal completely.  Results?  I’m down almost 30 pounds since I started going to the gym, despite the 3 months of not working out.  And my first day back to the gym was much easier than it would have been had I used the lack of workouts as an excuse to spend time with my pals Ben and Jerry.
3. Get back to your plan as soon as you can. The more fully you observe the first point, the quicker “as soon as you can” is likely to occur.  But even when you lose sight that the timing is largely within your control, keep a sharp eye for the first opportunity.  As soon as you see it, seize it.
4. Consider whether the disruption reveals the need to revise your plan. I was going to the gym for an hour a day four or five days a week.  That pace isn’t realistic for my life right now.  However, I can revise my plan and go two or three times a week and supplement with neighborhood walks.  That change takes account of my own changed circumstances and makes it much more likely that I’ll stick to the plan.

Let’s face it:  sometimes we let life or business get in the way of our goals. If you keep these tips front-of-mind, however, you’ll find a lot more success even when you might be tempted to throw in the towel and wait for things to settle down.

What suggestions do you have for staying on track under adverse circumstances? I’d love to hear.  Just click here to email me directly.

I’m in the middle of two renovation projects.

The messier renovation by far is taking place in my home and my home office. It’s been loud, with lots of dust and people dashing through the house, often needing answers to questions I hadn’t even thought to contemplate.  My mantra has become, It will be worth it when it’s done!

My contractor is terrific. He’s creative, thoughtful, thrifty, and careful, and I’ve recommended him to several friends.  When I told him yesterday that I’d passed on his name again, he looked somber for a moment and then said, “Tell them that I’ll be with you until the job is done.  If they’re in a hurry, they’ll need to call someone else.  I won’t shortchange you just to get another job, and they have to understand that.”

I’m not his only customer, but really?  I feel as if I am. He’s doing a few other small jobs along with mine, and he’s renovating other houses he owns and plans to sell.  He always has time for me, he answers all of my questions (annoying though they must be, since I know nothing about renovations), and he’s always thinking about what would make my job come out the best it can possibly be.  He’s even made some suggestions that are not related to the renovation, and they’ve been right on point.  I am absolutely thrilled to be working with him.

I feel as if my job is the most important job he’s handling. No matter what comes up (and in a house built in the mid-1920s, there’s lots that does come up), I know he’s on top of it and he has it handled.  He’s on the job, so I can breathe easy.

Can you inspire that kind of trust?  Can you treat all of your clients as if they’re your only client? It’s a challenge I’ve assigned myself.  Not easy, but certainly worthwhile.

“Action expresses priorities.”
~Mahatma Gandhi

Two blog posts that got me thinking about how I start and spend my days:

Tim Miles, “How Do You Keep Up With All This Writing”

Tim is the author of Your Customers Like This: The Whats, Whos, Hows, & Whys of Shareworthy Customer Service, which I reviewed earlier this month.  As I noted then, I’m a fan of Tim’s blog and so I’ve been delighted that he’s posted every single day this year.  And I’ve wondered how he managed that, since generating that much good content is no easy feat.  His post is helpful for those of you who write articles and blog posts (as most everyone should do) and his emphasis on ritual is worth noting and considering.  (See, for example, the discussion of ritual in The Power of Full Engagement.)

Erika Napoletano is Redhead Writing

Erika is a brash, opinionated writer who has merciless views about time management and priorities.

I’ve chosen not to include the title of this post or any of the subheadings because they include multiple expletives.  If cursing bothers you, please don’t click through to this post!

Her wake-up call is so persuasive and the directives offered are so blindingly obvious and yet easy to overlook that I’m suggesting you check it out if you’re not faint of heart.  Not all will work for lawyers or for those who aren’t sole practitioners, but the overall thrust is worth a skim.