The No [Censored] Rule
By Robert Sutton, Ph.D.
Note: To avoid triggering filters, I’m substituting the word “jerk” for the censored word in the title. You can see the original in the image.
Dr. Robert I. Sutton is a champion of the civilized workplace, created and maintained through careful enforcement of the no “jerk” rule. Expanding and deepending his 2004 Harvard Business Review article entitled “More Trouble Then They’re Worth,” Sutton’s 2007 book The No [Censored] Rule offers valuable tips for eliminating or avoiding nasty people in business. As its tag line promises, this truly is “the definitive guide to working with — and surviving — workplace bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, and egomaniacs.” (Read the rest of the entry…)
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When you talk, you want others to listen, right? Whether it’s a now-or-never event (making a key point in an oral argument, for instance) or one in a long stream of communications (talking with a colleague about some aspect of a representation), getting your point across and making some sort of advance in what you’re doing is probably at the top of your list every time you open your mouth.
How you present yourself, how you communicate, how you listen, how you connect, and how you respond to feedback you receive creates leadership presence. Think about stage presence, that indefinable something that makes magic as soon as an actor steps onto a stage. Leadership presence is the business version of stage presence. (Read the rest of the entry…)
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them And People Will Follow You
by John C. Maxwell
The subtitle of Maxwell’s book is “Follow Them, and People Will Follow You.” Each time I read that line, I hear a rejoinder in my head: “Don’t follow them, and people won’t follow you.” Revised and updated in 2007 for the 10th anniversary of The 21 Irrefutable Laws, this book is rightly regarded as a foundational piece of the leadership literature.
As the title indicates, Maxwell presents 21 laws of leadership, all of which are free-standing and yet buttressed by one another. You can learn quite a bit simply by reviewing the 21 laws with Maxwell’s brief explanation of each:
(Read the rest of the entry…)
I burn my candle at both ends
It will not last the night.
But ah my foes and oh my friends
It gives a lovely light.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
What do you think when you read this? If you’re like many lawyers, you felt a flutter of recognition — perhaps just before you recoiled at the idea that, perhaps your candle won’t “last the night.” It’s just the weak who can’t burn and burn and burn, right?
Sustainability isn’t an exciting word, and most of us don’t see it as something to aim for. After all, we tend to want bigger and better and more, not homeostasis. What does it mean, though, to have a “sustainable practice?” (Read the rest of the entry…)
Through years of school and various jobs and activities, we’ve learned how to persist even in the face of difficulties. Persistence is an important trait, since (in the words of one of my current favorite songs) “what’s worth the prize is always worth the fight.” No fight may mean no prize, and we’ve integrated that lesson in our professional lives. (Think back to law school, and I virtually guarantee you’ll remember at least one class that would have stopped you cold had you not been committed to fighting your way through.)
An opposing principle is the concept of diminishing returns, in which additional effort doesn’t produce additional results proportional to that effort. For example, when you draft a memorandum for a client, the first and second drafts are generally critical to the end result. By the time you get to the fifth or fifteenth or fiftieth draft (depending on the complexity of the matter at hand), you’re making only small changes and word-smithing. A single word can occasionally affect the impact of an entire document, so experience is often required to know when you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns. (Read the rest of the entry…)
Last year was incredibly busy for me, first with writing The Reluctant Rainmaker and then with designing programs like the Lawyers Business Development Bootcamp, plus working with many 1-on-1 clients. It was a great year, but toward the fall I started to notice that I’ve met very few of my clients and newsletter readers in person over the last year. That has to change. And so, as I’ve been hinting, I’ve been laying plans for something new.
While it would be great fun to meet you in a social setting, I know we’re often too busy to set aside time just to chat. So, I created a 1-day workshop that I’m calling Effective Business Development Made Simple. In this highly interactive program, you’ll learn my 7-step Legal Rainmaker System, which will show you the steps you need to take to bring in the new business you need, and you’ll work on creating your own plans so you’ll have a roadmap to take back to the office with you. And then we’ll close the day with good conversation and refreshments at a reception. Presto – an opportunity to learn something that has the power to transform your practice, plus an opportunity to meet!
And, I’ve heard those of you who’ve been telling me that this economy has put a crimp in your budget: the workshop will be priced under $100 for the entire day!
Finally, I realize that it would be difficult for many of you to travel all the way to my Atlanta home base. That means it’s time for one of my favorite activities… A road trip! Effective Business Development Made Simple will be coming to TEN cities across the country. Here’s the list:
- Atlanta
- Boston
- Chicago
- Dallas
- DC
- Ft. Lauderdale
- Los Angeles
- New York City
- Philadelphia
- Seattle
I’m excited beyond belief at the prospect of meeting many of you and sharing the step-by-step process that will make your rainmaking efforts simple and highly effective! I’ll be announcing all of the details, including dates and exact locations, next week… So keep your eyes open.
Do you ever feel that you’re just one lawyer in a large sea of others? New lawyers often begin their practices wondering how to distinguish themselves from the hundreds or thousands of other lawyers occupying the same niche. And lawyers who’ve been in practice for some time may have the same nagging question. Though the question may fade, it frequently re-emerges when a lawyer is preparing to grow her practice or is considering some shift in substantive areas.
Differentiation from other lawyers and law firms is useful in marketing and business development conversations. So, how can you differentiate yourself? (Read the rest of the entry…)
By Shel Holtz and John C. Havens
I recently noticed a new television commercial for Domino’s Pizza, in which the company lays bare the perception that its pizza is bland and then describes new changes to the recipe, closing with an invitation to try the new Domino’s. That’s some transparency. But in today’s world, dominated as it is by social media, no company could credibly pretend to be unaware of discussions about it.
We’ve probably all seen the emails, watched the videos, or heard the audios in which a clueless or uncaring company drives a customer to fury — fury that produces a social media backlash. In the old days, we’d have been limited to telling a few friends (studies show that on average we tell seven others about negative experiences and tell only three others about positive ones), and they’d tell a few friends, and the word would get out…Slowly, and in limited distribution. Today, though, as Tactical Transparency describes, feedback can spread like wildfire, and corporations’ only choice is how to handle that feedback. (Read the rest of the entry…)
One of the top concerns for most lawyers is time management. We all have so much to accomplish in so little time, and it often seems that we’re always trying to cram more activities (whether professional or personal) into the non-negotiable 168 hours we have each week. Most of my coaching clients bring time management issues to the table at some point, and time pressures are largely responsible for the high levels of stress that many lawyers face.
One distinction, “urgent” versus “important,” can form the basis for effective time management. Urgent vs. important is a simple distinction that applies equally to the substance of a lawyer’s work as well as to practice or career management. Stephen Covey has written about time use and devised a four-quadrant chart to help us judge where we spend most of our time: (Read the rest of the entry…)
Leaders are often depicted as resolute, visionary, motivational, intent on reminding followers to get with the program or get off the team. And we’ve all heard that it’s lonely at the top. No question that leaders may be called on to make difficult decisions and to demand compliance with those decisions. To fail to do so would, at times, be an unforgiveable dereliction of duty.
Servant-leadership, which may incorporate similar traits and approaches, operates from the perspective of leading for the best interest of the people or organization being led. Robert Greenleaf coined the term in a 1970 essay that drew a picture of a different kind of leader: (Read the rest of the entry…)
March 10, 2010 
