Foundation Skills for the New Culture

by David J Bilinsky

Challenges for associates and partners alike…
Catch a wave and you'll be sittin' on top of the world…
Words and music by Brian Wilson, recorded by The Beach Boys.

A new associate comes into your office and poses a question on a file on which both you and she are working. In answering her question, you realize that you are drawing upon the skill sets that you have acquired that have served you well over a few decades of practising law. Reflecting on how society has changed since you first entered into practice, you start to consider what skills must be acquired by this new associate to carry them over their legal career. In this the start of the second decade of this column, I thought it fitting to look at the challenges the up and coming lawyers will be facing and what tips are available to assist them in their careers.

Morrie Shechtman, the author of Fifth Wave Leadership – The Internal Frontier has stated that information (principally the internet) in the hands of consumers has placed the professions under siege. Consumers no longer believe a lawyer (or any other professional) is smarter or better informed than they are. As a result, there is little value in simply having information. Morrie believes the only real competitive edge left today is the unique relationships that lawyers can forge with your clients. Why? Because legal consumers nowadays desire to be treated with personal parity by their legal professional. This dictates that lawyers form personal relationships as never before. Furthermore, as he has found, there is no price resistance where a professional held on personal parity with their client has advanced the client's interests and their life.

This places a heavy burden on senior partners, who must move from managing files (or tasks) to becoming leaders in human capital development. It is relatively easy to manage tasks – conversely one of the hardest things is to be a people developer. But as leaders, a senior partner's top job is to help associates acquire their own foundation skills in order that these young lawyers can forge the real personal relationships with their clients required to move upward and continue the success of the firm. No longer can firms afford to just adopt the 'sink or swim' approach to associate development.

This dictates that senior partners learn how to effect change in their associates. The generational differences alone reflected in the range of lawyers starting from those who have been called in the 50's and 60's to lawyers who have been called in this century is simply unprecedented in history. This difference is perhaps most apparent when it comes to technology – young lawyers inherently understand and use technology with effectiveness while older ones view it as just costly perks. What is hard to reconcile is that both these points of view are correct – when viewed from the perspective of the speaker. If you don't 'think' technology, you are not likely to see a Treo 600 smartphone as anything but an expensive toy. Conversely if you are accustomed to living and breathing the Internet, then being offered a plain-jane cell phone without web access can leave you feeling like your needs and ways of working are not being understood.

So what is the bridge that partners can use to reach out and teach their associates the required management training and client-handling skills that they will require to "fit in" and excel in meeting their client's needs? I recently read an article from a major legal consulting firm that mentioned a number of different incentives and rewards being offered to associates – such as meal replacements, laundry service and car maintenance services. However effective these rewards may be, in Morrie's view, the most effective change agent in relationships is the simple expression of disappointment when results fall short combined with the giving of positive feedback when results are good. No one wants to be disappointing. Everyone wants feedback on their progress. The power of simple communication exercised often and truthfully, can move mountains. It is all about managing relationships – whether those are between senior lawyer and associate or between lawyer and client.

Morrie mentioned the power that lies in the communication method known as 'active listening'. This technique allows a person to truly engage with the person with whom they are speaking. It is both a habit that can be acquired as well as the foundation to effective communication. Active listening at its most basic level uses three "I" statements in succession. These are: "I've experienced/noticed…"; "The way it makes me feel is…"; and "The impact that it has on me is…"

Needless to say, there is much more to being a skilled active listener, but since all our relationships, particularly those with clients, will have higher expectations than ever before, it behooves senior partners as well as young associates to become skilled in active listening techniques. Morrie believes that we are moving to a high-risk culture where relationships must be forged early and lawyers must learn to inject trust early into a relationship. Accordingly, acquiring active listening techniques will stand any professional in good stead.

The other foundation skill Morrie believes is necessary for a professional to have is the ability to make decisions. As an example, he challenges organizations to determine their values (not their goals) and to cut loose those people who do not share those values. In Morrie's view, people will follow you to the ends of the earth if you articulate with clarity your values and are prepared to stand by your boundaries and not allow those values to be compromised. In the professions, clients are looking for leadership. The most effective leaders are transparent. People do not follow people who are opaque as opaque people form low-trust relationships. To become an effective leader you must learn to be transparent, as that leads to reciprocity and that in turn leads to high-trust relationships.

Accordingly, the two foundation shills for the new culture are: Decision Making and Relationship Building. Senior Partners (Human Capital Developers) need to learn how to reward people for acquiring these two key skills. Partners need to become skilled in active listening techniques and in turn, they can pass these skills along to their associates. In all cases learning how to be a transparent leader can be a major step towards learning how to build high-trust relationships. The wave of the future is fast upon each of us – the challenge to each of us is to acquire those skills required to catch that wave in order that you'll be sitting on the top of the world.

David J Bilinsky is the Practice Management Advisor at the Law Society of BC. 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 October 2004 issue of BarTalk and is reproduced here with permission of both the author and the Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch.