Friday, March 30th, 2007
One of the highlights of the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference in Atlanta last week was the screamingly funny ”mocumentary” presented at the opening session. This exposé of the real world of legal marketing had conference participants in side-splitting laughter and tears.
Great news - the video is now available for viewing on You Tube!
Entilted “Truth Justice & Credibility” the video was developed for the conference by Jeff Reade of Cole Valley Software - in just two weeks time!
Reade appears in the firm in the role of the proto-typical Managing Partner. The Marketing Director is played by a member of the LMA, Michele Golivesky, the Marketing Director for the firm Swift Currie in Atlanta.
While satirical, the video underlines some of the universal truths of legal marketing. Take a minute out of your busy schedule and have a look today!
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Sunday, March 25th, 2007
I just returned from the LMA (Legal Marketing Association) Annual Conference in Atlanta where I had the good fortune to present “Coaching the Alpha Lawyer” with Heather Gray-Grant the Marketing and Business Development Director from the firm Alexander Holburn LLP. I’d like to thank the members of the audience who attended the presentation for their warm welcome, active participation, and great questions. As promised, here is a list of my favorite coaching books:
1. Hargrove, Robert. Masterful Coaching, Revised Edition. John Wiley & Sons; 2002. I can’t recommend this book enough. His materials on the seven hat coaching system, winning strategies, and river/rut stories, are valuable tools for coaching in the law firm. If I could only own two coaching books this would be one of them.
2. Flaherty, James. Coaching, Evoking the Excellence in Others, Second Edition. Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005.
This is the second book I think is absolutely vital reading for anyone interested in coaching. The word for Flaherty is RIGOROUS. His bibliography reads like it belongs in a PHD dissertation. Where some coaches like to work exclusively with leaders who are motivated high-performers up for a challenge, Flaherty’s approach to coaching works with a much broader group of individuals.
In the introduction to the second edition Flaherty writes:
How do I contribute to someone’s competence in a respectful, dignified, and effective way? If you find yourself asking these or similar questions, then this book definitely has something to say to you. (p. xxiii)
In late April I will be taking part in an advanced coaching program with Flaherty in San Francisco, and I’ll be sure to report on the experience in this blog when I return!
Other great coaching books if you are interested in further reading:
3. O’Neil, Mary Beth. Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart, A Systems Approach to Engaging Leaders with Their Challenges. John Wiley & Sons, 2000.
4. Crane, Thomas G. The Heart of Coaching, Using Transformational Coaching To Create a High-Performance Culture. Second Edition. FTA Press, 2002.
5. Coaching for Leadership, How the World’s Greatest Coaches Help Leaders Learn. Edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Laurence Lyons, Alyssa Freas. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000.
Posted in Leadership, Executive Coaching | Permalink | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
You are faced with a tough decision to make about a complex real estate transaction. Should you purchase the property, or give it a miss? To get the best answer should you:
A. Go with your gut instinct.
B. Take the time to carefully consider all angles, discuss it with your friends, and weigh the pros and cons.
C. Sleep on it.
This question was the example used in the February edition of the Harvard Business Review’s list of Breakthrough Ideas for 2007.
And the answer is:
C. Sleep on it.
The breakthrough idea for 2007 is that our much valued and vaunted conscious mind is really just a wind-up toy on top of a super computer - our unconscious mind. It turns out that there is a real limit to the analytic powers of our conscious mind. The result is that when we try to analyze complex problems the longer we try to think it through, the more likely we are to take into account random and unimportant bits of information and stray farther and farther from the best answer.
While this is the breakthrough idea for 2007, one of the definitive books on the subject was actually published in 2002 - Strangers to Ourselves, Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious by Timothy D. Wilson.
I remember first learning in practice about how the unconscious mind can be put to work when I was an undergraduate at McGill. At essay time, I would read a pile of books, but when I sat down at the computer to write I would find that I wasn’t ready. The ideas wouldn’t come, but doing more research wasn’t the answer. Instead I found that putting the essay on my mental backburner and heading out to the pool hall with some friends did the trick. After some time off, and a sleep, the next morning I was ready to write. And the ideas and arguments were all there and ready to be typed out.
I’m sure you have experienced this yourself in numerous ways. Being able to take a complex issue, send it to the powerful unconscious mind to do the heavy lifting while you take some time out for fun and relaxation, and pick up the answer later in the day or the next morning has got to be one of the great advantages of our human minds.
One Managing Partner was known to take her thorniest issues with her on the Grouse Grind. Two hours later, and at the top of the mountain, she would have her answer.
So why don’t you try an experiment? Next time you have something complex you are struggling to figure out, take a moment to consciously place it on the mental back burner and then take the night off. The next morning find out if you have your answer.
Sleep your way to success!
Posted in Thought provoking ideas | Permalink | No Comments »
