In her legal career Charlene had never encountered a challenge that stoic hard work and determination couldn’t beat. After severe abdominal pain forced her to the hospital’s emergency ward she returned to her office to finish an assignment despite the blindingly brutal pain. Months later she discovers that during this time the partner she reports to had found numerous flaws, typos and weaknesses in her work and had told her colleagues that she had grave concerns about Charlene’s legal abilities.

Sound familiar? As a coach I have come across numerous cases of lawyers facing health challenges and choosing to continue to work while keep their secret under wraps. These professionals are not workaholics. They are simply choosing to stick with a success strategy that has served them well throughout their lives but under these new circumstances leads them to failure.

The fact is, when we are under severe stress, high levels of pain, or suffering a head injury, our cognitive functioning is likely impaired. Working under these conditions is often a mistake and a disservice to our health, professional reputation, client relationships and relationships with our colleagues.

All of the individuals I know who have attempted to work through a major health or other crisis have told me that in retrospect it was a mistake.

I am writing this article to urge lawyers, male and female, to take some time off when the going gets tough.

To read this article in full click here.

This  past Sunday, the New York Times featured an article by David Allen, the author of the essential book about organization: “Getting Things Done”.  Here’s a link to the article.  It’s a great reminder of the four essential steps for upping your productivity and achieving a sense of calm amidst the multitude of pressures that we all face every day.

The most important step in my view is holding the weekly meeting with yourself to review your goals, download your to-do list from your head, and plan the week ahead.  Allen suggests we all take two hours for this each week.  Realistically, I think if you can simply carve out 15 to 30 minutes once a week to review goals and plan then you have made a good start. 

This weekly meeting is a chance to reflect on your personal and professional goals and to plan how you can advance these in some small way during the days ahead.  This weekly meeting is what I also call “the success habit” because it help moves you from a place of overwhelm to a place of thinking, planning and action.

Try it!

John is bored. His firm just hasn’t been busy this month and instead of the usual big transaction work all he has are small bits and pieces of corporate matters. Even though none of it is complicated he just can’t get down to doing any of it and is wasting time surfing the net instead. 

Terry is deadline driven. Every day is about putting out fires and meeting last minute deadlines. He knows he should plan ahead and get to his projects done before the last minute but he has gotten use to the adrenaline rush and just can’t get motivated to do anything without the pressure of a short deadline. 

What do John and Terry have in common? They are both procrastinators.   This month in my slaw column I tackle procrastination, how to identify which of three kinds you have, and what to do about it.  Please post a comment here about any additional procrastination-beating tips you can recommend.  

For further reading on the subject try Dr. Piers Steel’s book “The Procrastination Equation.” Dr. Steel’s book offers an unflinching look at why people procrastinate, types of procrastinators and easily actionable tips for reducing procrastination in your professional and personal life.

What does it take to be a great business developer? What does it take to attract clients? In law firms I find there is often this image floating around of the rainmaker as a smooth talking, assertive and maybe even aggressive promoter. In my personal experience the great rainmakers are quite different from this. As I write this post I have one rainmaker in mind. He is the consummate professional. He is a quiet, soft spoken man of a few words. He has a sharp business mind that his clients appreciate. Although mentorship may not be his favorite thing he has become very good at it, and he delegates a great deal of work to his team, not because he enjoys supervising but because it is good for the lawyers under him and opens up room in his practice for more work to flow in.

To all you lawyers reading this post let me tell you, you just might have what it takes to be a good if not excellent rainmaker. Last year a Harvard Business Review’s blog by Steve W. Martin listed the top characteristics of the best salespeople and they read like a description of the many lawyers I have the pleasure of working with:

Modesty: Top sales people score medium to high for modesty and humility and are team players. I have worked with so many lawyers who have told me they didn’t go to law school to become a salesperson, and that they hate promoting themselves. Well here is the surprising news – that sentiment is shared by some of the best sales people out there.

Conscientiousness: Top sales people are highly conscientious about their work and are strongly motivated by duty and responsibility. Again, doesn’t this sound like most of the lawyers you know?

Achievement Orientation: Top sales people are very goal oriented and track their performance against their goals. The legal profession is full of modest and conscientious professionals but far fewer are achievement oriented. I have seen how the drive for accuracy and perfection, coupled with an aversion to risk can override the focus on achieving outcomes. The good news is that by developing a process for goal setting and progress tracking in your legal practice you acquire the benefits of this ‘achievement orientation”.

Reader take note: I point out these traits because it is helpful to remember that the myth of the rainmaker often obscures the reality about what it takes to be a trusted professional and have the capacity to bring in business for yourself and your colleagues. In many cases I find that simply working to develop new habits such as setting goals and tracking performance can get you from mediocre performance to good in a short period of time. The key is that the values of hard work, discipline, humility and duty are assets as much for business development as they are for your legal practice.

The gift of thanks is precious.  This morning I had the opportunity to listen in on a thank you voicemail message from a client to a lawyer I know.  The lawyer had sent over a holiday gift basket to the company and a senior member of the executive called to express his thanks.  His voicemail message was truly inspiring and reminded me about how an adeptly delivered thank you takes little time to give and can bring great happiness to the recipient.  Here’s what he did:

• He picked up the phone and made a call.
• He spoke slowly and told a story about how the gift basket was received and how everyone on the team appreciated it.
• He expressed sincere thanks.

The lawyer was delighted by the message.

In these pre-Christmas days many of us working in the legal sector are sending and receiving gifts.  Often times in the interest of expediency we will send a quick email of thanks and certainly that is sufficient to check the proper etiquette box.  I encourage you though to take just an extra moment and make a phone call instead.  Happiness is contagious.

Anne is a good fit for her corporate legal practice and could really enjoy the work and her colleagues but she is constantly in fear of making an error.  Joanne is at the office long hours and yet her billings are low because she under rates her value as a lawyer.  Sue is a smart and talented mid-level associate who lacks confidence in her abilities.  There are many challenges for women in legal practice and one important one is an internal challenge: lack of self-confidence.

In their blog post for the Harvard Business Review,  Four Ways Women Stunt Their Careers Unintentionally, Jill Flynn, Kathryn Heath, and Mary Davis Holt discuss the small shifts in thinking and perspective that can help women professionals:

“What we’ve found in our work is that career momentum for women is not about adding job skills but about changing everyday thinking and behaviors. We don’t think the majority of high-performing women need to make major changes. Small adjustments in how they think and act can improve not only how confident they seem, but how confident they feel.”

I couldn’t agree more.  Coaching is an effective tool for surfacing confidence challenges and addressing them.  Lack of confidence is not something women just have to “live with”.  If you lack confidence then I urge you to work with a coach or other related professional to help you grow your appreciation for your strengths and attributes.