Dinner with the family is an obvious anchor that provides work life quality. There’s lots of research to say that a meal together everyday is an important family building block.

Two things can happen with a scheduled dinner. It can go ahead as planned or it can be missed because some urgency comes up. There are all types of urgencies at various levels of importance that can and do get in the way.

The key to achieving work life quality is to have every dinner when no urgency arises. People have a tendency to come up with an excuse when a planned activity is difficult [going to the gym to workout, for example] or can easily be put off until another time [another relationship solidifying dinner, for example].

So while it is easy to specify the anchors it’s a little harder to take part in all of them even when no emergency gets in the way. Watch out for a tendency to say “I can miss this one.” That’s a tendency that can become repetitive.

A question I use at the beginning of every coaching relationship is to ask ‘What will be different in three years when you’ve achieved satisfaction?’ While the goal of the coaching is to create the differences the answers to the question really help me to know a great deal about where my client is now and what their mission is.

Questions aimed at building rapport are open ended. That is, they can’t be answer with yes or no and all include the word ‘you’.

Can you unpack that idea for me?
Why did you do that?
What makes that upsetting for you?
How did you arrive at that conclusion?
What was that like for you?

The ROI [Return on Investment] when you build rapport is time. The time you earn when you have deeper relationships can be used to gain more satisfaction or make more money with the people you know.

‘Being whisked through the tunnels more than twenty yards below the surface of the capital at fifty miles per hour was a great source of pride for the detective - as it was for most Delhiites, some of whom, he suspected, ventured underground just for the thrill of it. The construction of the Metro was a phenomenal success story. The first section had been completed to international standards within budget and ahead of schedule. The secret of the system’s success lay in the fact that it was not run by politicians and bureaucrats - as was the case the Calcutta underground, which was a disgrace - but an autonomous, for-profit entity.’ This is from The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing by Tarquin Hall.

Food for thought for Torontonians who agonize over our beloved TTC every day.

Another aspect of a leader’s work is politics. By this I mean building their team of supporters. If you think about what politics means it’s really what a politician does to get elected and re-elected, they build a team of fundraisers, canvassers and other supporters, i.e. the team that works on their behalf to win the election.

A leader to be effective must do the same thing. Their supportive team can come from people who work for them, peers who have similar jobs, their own leaders or people outside the organization. It’s a wise thing for a leader to be conscious of building a supportive team and keeping the relationships healthy. Many great managers and leaders have failed because they didn’t work to create a political team to support them.

It was a bit of an expensive lesson. I stopped making the swing mistake but replacing the club will take time and money.

The bigger lesson is that if you learn something from a failure experience find some way to ingrain your learning so that it can be valuable into the future. This might be a note to yourself, a mnemonic like a rubber band or a painful commitment like I had. Once I replace the club I expect the new one will be a constant reminder to focus on swinging right.

Law firms are very concerned with integrating newly minted lawyers into the organization. But do those new lawyers know what they need to do to succeed in the organization? In most cases, the answer is no.

I asked 11 senior lawyers to tell me what they’re looking for in order to feel comfortable enough to involve new lawyers in their best files. In other words, what traits separate the best junior practitioners from the herd?

• Park your ego at the door. Don’t go crazy trying to be a winner or a hero or show your genius. David Levy, a partner at Howie Sacks & Henry LLP, suggests young lawyers “get to be known for completing your work on time, with a little more than is asked for, every time.”

• Get into a practice area you’re passionate about. It’s so much easier to be enthusiastic when you’re not swimming uphill. “Enthusiasm in a young lawyer is contagious and will be noted by others and rewarded with the best files,” says Harvey Haber, a senior partner at Goldman Sloan Nash & Haber LLP.

• Learn how to talk to clients in meetings and social situations. Marshall Green, a founding partner at Graham Partners LLP in Barrie, Ont., admires young lawyers who can “bring the knowledge and keenness they have at the office to the client arena.”

Have a look at this wonderful book, The Knack of Selling Yourself, by James T. Mangan. Originally published in 1938, it’s still relevant today.

• Learn how to connect by phone. Bill McCullough, a partner at McCarthy Tétrault LLP, sees an opportunity for young lawyers to use the appropriate technology for different situations.

“It’s fine to focus on e-mail and [instant messaging] with your own cohort, but clients and partners from other generations may want to establish a more personal relationship, which needs the phone.”

(I suppose if I had written this article 20 years ago, the lesson would have been about learning how to connect with a handwritten note.)

• Know what your boss knows and why. “When I was young, I read my mentor’s files like a book and tried to get into his head,” says Michael Henry, a founding partner at Howie Sacks & Henry. “When I knew why he did what he did, I was way ahead of the game.”

• Find your target market. “Identify the lawyers in your practice group that you need to become your clients and then rise to the occasion when you have a chance to do work for any one of them,” says Georges Dubé, a partner at Fasken Martineau
DuMoulin LLP.

Rising to the occasion requires making the sacrifice to do your very best at this particular time. It’s also about seeing a situation as a unique opportunity and figuring out how to go the extra mile.

• Learn what you’re talking about. According to Renée Vinett, a partner at Howie Sacks & Henry, “Associates need to spend less time talking to impress and more time listening to learn.”

She also believes learning the law is the easy part and notes it’s “developing advocacy skills that takes time and experience.

The greatest teachers are those who have gone before you. Don’t discount the value of senior counsel’s expertise. Observe them in action and listen carefully. They will teach you the art of lawyering.”

• Choose an area of the law and write articles about it. Doing so builds your public profile. At the same time, it “gives you a great reason to collaborate with a senior lawyer in a way that will show you in the best light,” says Shari Elliott, a partner at Graham Partners.

• Get it done on time and without drama. “Don’t make work for me,” says John Willms, senior partner at Willms & Shier Environmental Lawyers LLP. By that, he means, “Don’t be a lawyer that needs lots of oversight to get delegated work done correctly and on time.”

It’s OK to ask questions as a way to stay in touch on the file; but it’s not OK to rely on partners to give you answers you can find on your own elsewhere.

You also shouldn’t rely on partners to edit your first draft. Bring them your version of a finished product. As you learn more by researching information elsewhere, the experience will serve you well.

• As much as is reasonably possible, say yes to work assignments and ask for a briefing. Be willing to fit any new assignment into your work plan and save lots of time by asking at the outset for a briefing about the file and the tasks you are to do.

This will help you as you avoid unrelated tangents. Marc McAree, a partner at Willms & Shier, suggests young lawyers remember “that when partners pile on the work, it’s because they’ve got their own pile to get done, and getting it all done to meet the clients’ timing is the business we’re in — the client service business.”

• See things in shades of grey. Adam Wagman, managing partner at Howie Sacks & Henry, wants associates to tell him how he might be able to win his case, not why he’s going to lose.

“It’s the search for novel solutions to difficult problems with imagination and creativity that moves the law ahead.” In fact, I suppose that prevailing in a case that didn’t look too winnable is the greatest pleasure of law.
Jerome Shore is the managing partner of the Coaching Clinic. You can reach him at or coach@coachingclinic.com. This article appeared in the Law Times July 12, 2010

So for example, if for people in career transition the most usual option is to simply find another job that replaces the one that was lost.

But taking a new look at goals can produces some new desirable differences and then more of the same old same old won’t be good enough.

I’ve been meeting recently with some people in career transition. Our look at their three year goals produced a wide variety of strategic changes; a] those who will gear down to part time work and invest the extra time in family or a new skill building, b] those who will go back to school full time to help them qualify for a different kind of work, c] those who saw a totally new future, three years out, and could strategize to evolve into it by using their work and learning time differently, d] those who saw new goals for themselves but were unsure how to proceed to reach them, so far and e] those who need to and want to replace the full time job that’s ending, I was surprised there were so many differences among a small number of people.

So what about you. Have you had any inflection points recently that should be seen as a time to review your goals and life strategies? Here are some possibilities other than career transition that might stimulate a new look: an inheritance, a change in your work situation [e.g. new boss], a change in your partner’s career situation, a long illness, the kids go off the payroll [even if only temporarily], a new kid joins the payroll, you get married, you separate, you decide that you’re in a rut.

The one inflection point that I’ve written about previously is when someone identifies some ill use of their time that can be applied elsewhere; for example, deciding to quit an unproductive networking group. This is actually something that applies to almost everyone I coach. There’s always something that can be eliminated in favour of a better option.

So I suggest that you take a few minutes to look for an inflection point in your life or maybe invent one. And then a whole new strategy can be invented. Take a chance.

It’s equally complicated with interpersonal communications at work. Think about what’s happening when were having a complex conversation, say presenting an idea. We’re thinking about what we’re saying, what the other person is thinking, what we might be saying soon, what they might say or think soon, body language for both and progress towards the result we want. That’s a lot to compute and not everyone can do it all.

There’s one other factor in play with something like communication. People have a natural inclination to protect themselves psychologically. The ego does this for us. For example, the ego gets in the way of salespeople contacting more prospects. Hearing “no” is painful so the ego concocts reasons to avoid it. The result is less follow up calls, for example.

The ego also generally protects us from truthful self analysis. Why would we evolve as beings that encourage painful self criticism. Some people can do it honestly, but most not.

So one solution is to get an objective outside point of view. After a meeting you could ask someone who was there to discuss what they saw. You don’t have to believe their analysis unequivocally, but having the data is good. It’s also good to make notes of the meeting, as honestly as you can. An analysis later might be better after the heat of the moment dies away.

Another solution is to get a coach to help you analyze your meeting notes, to help consider and implement new ways of doing things and to give you that objective outside point of view. One thing we do at The Coaching Clinic is help develop script ideas for upcoming conversations.

I have other goals that I should focus on every day. So let’s see what that means.

I want to make more money so maybe I should be checking my bank balance every morning.

I’d have more money if I had more coaching clients so I should probably count up how clients I have now and check the number every day. I could do the same with prospects and referral sources. That would focus me a little more on marketing myself.

I’d like my friendships to be hardier. Maybe I should keep a tab on the number of touches for the past seven days. That could include lunches, coffees, calls, emails etc.

The idea is that all we need to do is decide what our goals are, invent a metric to measure progress and check that metric every day. That’s focus.

1. If change is in the works plan to tell people well in advance what is planned. Then when it’s happening let people know exactly what’s going on step by step – respect their desire to know and ability to handle that knowledge. And then after the change is in place remind people what happened – to ensure they get it and buy in.

2. At each stage of the process search out and work with people who are uncomfortable or resistant. Grasp nettles. Don’t let these people grow into negative influences.

3. When you’re dealing with people who are resistant try these three tips. a. Never assume that you know what the other person is thinking. Ask open ended questions to gauge their thoughts. b. Take into consideration that another person’s view of reality may be as real as your own. Find out what their view is. c. Check out assumptions. What are those that you’re using. How might they differ from the person who is resistant. Get on the same page where possible.