Regaining a professional edge

by David J Bilinsky

The first cut is the deepest Baby I know,
the first cut is the deepest
Words and Music by Cat Stevens. Recorded by Rod Stewart.

You are running on empty – and have been for so long that you can’t recall when it was any different. Looking down you see the time on the clock and turn to see your pile of work yet to be done. You don’t even bother looking at the e-mail and snail mail that has been piling up in your inboxes or your unreturned telephone calls. When you were younger and fresher you could attack problems with energy and vigour – but these days it seems that you have lost your cutting edge. Problem is, you are so busy working that you don’t have the time or energy to stop and regain that edge.

Steven R. Covey in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People calls “Sharpening the Saw” the one habit that surrounds all of the other habits and makes all of them possible. Let’s look at the components that go into this habit and the tips we can take home to sharpen our own saws:

Mental
Renewing our mental resources takes on many aspects. Certainly the foremost as lawyers is continuing our legal education and keeping up to date with current developments. There are many ways to do this:

• CLE courses: Besides the obvious benefits of seeing and hearing presentations of new developments by practitioners in a particular field of study, there are secondary reasons for attending CLE programs. One of the major ones is making contact with fellow lawyers in that field – the networking, social exchange and establishment of a group that can share ideas, lunches and commentary. Since fewer and fewer cases are going to trial barristers and solicitors both are becoming much more isolated than in days past. Furthermore, we all have to fight the continual time pressures that work against leaving our desks. So honing the mind in formal education classes is a classic way of sharpening your saw.
• Online learning: CLE has built a wonderful new web site (www.cle.bc.ca) with a special “Stay Current” area in the upper right-hand portion of their main page. This is a great “newsy” way to gain an appreciation of what is happening in the law. Furthermore, there is a tab called “Analysis” that takes an in-depth look at recent developments by way of articles written by leading practitioners. Both of these features cost only your time.
• Traditional reading and study: To expand and sharpen our minds we need to expose ourselves to challenging material. In university this was done for us – using a force-fed diet. Now we need to change our literary habits to intentionally include this material. Book clubs, lists of best-selling fiction and non-fiction, other formal (non-legal) courses of study – are all ways to expose ourselves to new information – particularly that written by great minds.

Plan
As the immortal Yogi Berra said: “You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.” Create your own “To Do Someday” list – and regularly spend time going over your objectives and how you are going to reach them. Build a bridge to tomorrow.

Social/Emotional
The theme of the recent National Spring Conference of the Canadian Corporate Counsel Association meeting held in Victoria was “Corporate Counsel – The Corporation’s Moral Compass”. Noordin S.K. Nanji, General Counsel to Ballard Power Systems, in his plenary address, stated that the corporate value set was the “soul” of Ballard and is composed of three parts:

• Our behaviour and our decisions must be conducted in a legal, ethical and credible manner.
• “The golden rule”: The golden rule states that we all have a right to be treated with dignity and respect and have a responsibility to treat others the same way.
• The six C’s: The six C’s require that each of us is caring, committed, creative, careful, courageous and customer focused.

There is no better way to sharpen your own emotional saw than by living your life in accordance with values that transcend the letter of the law and reflect the integrity of spirit that resides in each of us.

Physical
Covey states that one of the greatest benefits of taking up a regular exercise program is the development of the muscles of proactivity – acting based on the values of physical well-being rather than reacting to the forces that keep you from exercising. Running in the rain – taking the time in a busy day for a game of squash – setting longer-term objectives ahead of shorter-term demands – builds resiliency and determination of purpose. Once you have taken the time for that run or game of squash you realize that you actually can fit it into your busy day – despite all the pressures to forgo it.

• Take up swimming, running, squash, bike riding, weight lifting – something that will build up endurance, strength and flexibility – and cardiovascular strength as well. Build it into your schedule and do it even if you feel like it is the last thing you want or need to do. Sooner rather than later you will notice positive change – and that will help reinforce that decision to run in the rain – and you will find out that it really wasn’t all that bad after all.

Spiritual
This is the last dimension to Covey’s habit of sharpening the saw – and certainly the most inward looking. It involves giving leadership to your life and to giving an ear to the sources that inspire you. It is closely related to your personal value statement and mission in life and seeking to carry with you at all times a sense of serenity and peace. It does involve examining your motives and asking yourself if you are acting to serve the needs of others or rather in helping yourself. There are many ways that we can identify and get in touch with our spiritual selves:

• Meditation and yoga;
• Walking, especially in parks or less-urban terrain;
• Read the Chicken Soup for the Soul books or subscribe to inspirational email (www.chickensoup.com); and
• Traditional spiritual activities.

Reach inside of ourselves and into our core to live out our lives in harmony and with the values and principles that we hold dear.

With practice and patience we can take ourselves out of the daily hustle and bustle and renew our sense of inner peace, our mental tools and our physical selves and take the whetstone to our own saws in order that we are being as effective and as efficient lawyers and individuals as we can be.

David J Bilinsky is the Practice Management Advisor at the Law Society of British Columbia. He can be reached on the Internet at dbilinsky@lsbc.org. The views expressed herein are strictly those of the author and may not be shared by the Law Society of British Columbia.

This article originally appeared in the June 2001 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch.