To Improve Your Firm, Look in the Mirror
I attended a managing partner roundtable recently. In the course of the discussion I asked how many had ever used 360 degree feedback in their law firm. A couple of hands went up. One brave soul said, “What is 360 degree feedback?” Several nodded their heads or murmured that they were wondering that, too.
What Is 360 Degree Feedback?
360 degree feedback is a skills development tool which involves surveying the people above, below and around you to get their perceptions about your behavior and the impact of your behavior. The process may also be called multi-rater assessment, multi-source feedback or full circle appraisal.
It usually involves the supervising attorneys, practice group leader, and team or project leader, as well as colleagues, partners or peers within the firm who work with you or otherwise have ample opportunity to observe your behavior and your work product. The associates and staff who report to you or otherwise work with you also rate your behaviors and competencies, and feedback from clients might also be sought. The process usually seeks feedback on a confidential, anonymous basis.
The Purpose of Feedback
Several of you may be feeling a chill run down your spine just reading about this. You may be thinking, “Ask my clients what they think of me? Give associates a chance to mouth off about me? Set myself up for potshots from my partners? Let my staff give me a performance review? Are you crazy?” Most of us, however, secretly wish to know how others see us. This is a development tool that will help you become more proficient at the behaviors that lead to the results you want. Stated another way, this process can help you learn how to get out of your own way, while providing encouragement to continue doing what really works.
The corporate world has been using 360 degree feedback for decades. Jack Welch, the legendary former CEO of General Electric Company, was quoted as saying, “Any company that’s going to make it …has got to find a way to engage the mind of every single employee. If you’re not thinking all the time about making every person more valuable, you don’t have a chance. What’s the alternative? Wasted minds? Uninvolved people? A labor force that’s angry or bored? That doesn’t make sense.” Making any lawyer or staff member more valuable requires feedback to them. Giving them the opportunity to provide feedback to others (especially upwards) helps to keep the workforce engaged.
Research on the Critical Role of Managers
Many law firms now suffer from costly attrition among their young attorneys and staff, as well as partners. “People leave managers, not companies,” say Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, authors of First, Break all the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. Their conclusion is based on research studies conducted by the Gallup Organization involving over a million employees and eighty thousand managers in a broad range of industries. “How long that employee stays and how productive he is while he is there is determined by his relationship with his immediate supervisor,” assert Buckingham and Coffman. They discovered that managers, not pay, benefits or perks, are the critical factor in building a strong workplace.
If you give work assignments to anyone, you are a manager to that person. Are you willing to consider the possibility that you may be contributing to the problems your law firm experiences? Are you getting the results you want, including the retention of talented lawyers and staff? If not, how can you make the right shifts, if you are unclear about the impact of your current choices and behaviors? Candid feedback can provide the guidance you need.
Benefits to the Law Firm
The firm as a whole will benefit from a properly conducted 360 degree feedback program. Some of the benefits reported include:
1. provides individuals a broader perspective on how they are perceived by others and how they positively and negatively impact others
2. reinforces the desired competencies in the law firm
3. increases awareness by senior management that they also have areas for development and improvement
4. identifies key development areas for individuals, practice groups, support arenas and the firm as a whole
5. multiple raters enhance the recipient’s perception that feedback is valid and objective, leading to more willingness to accept and act upon the feedback
6. fosters a climate of continual improvement in management and other skills
7. identifies strengths in individuals for optimal benefit to the firm
8. highlights the responsibility of an individual for his/her own career development
9. reveals training needs in the organization
10. may reduce discrimination risk by getting feedback from multiple raters in varied job functions
Ultimately, the long term benefits of feedback from multiple sources can be increased productivity, improved talent retention, reduced conflict, more effective management, and progress towards the law firm’s larger goals. The success of the feedback program depends on what the firm and the recipients do with that feedback, however. If poorly implemented, a feedback program can produce negative results.
In a future article we’ll go into more detail about what a 360 degree feedback program looks like, and discuss tips on implementing such a program. In the meantime, you can still employ the old-fashioned way. Consider asking those around you, including peers, direct reports and supervisors, questions like “What suggestions do you have for me?” and “How can I help you be your most effective?”
© Debra Bruce 2008
Post Date: July 15, 2008
Implementing a 360 Degree Feedback Program
Recently two different clients came to their coaching calls upset. They worked for very different organizations, but both had received the results of feedback surveys without any support or private debriefing session. Both were discouraged. They shared their reports with me and asked for help.
A Client That Saw the Glass Half Empty
One client’s report actually indicated a lot of improvement and some very good results in developing teamwork in his group. However, he focused in on the responses to questions that called for negative information, such as frustrations on the job.
He seemed to disregard the responses to the question “What is working well in your group?” He also failed to notice that when asked the neutral question “Is there anything else you would like to share?” quite a few respondents volunteered comments like “I love my job,” “This is a wonderful place to work,” and “They are doing a great job and it’s appreciated.”
With that client, I simply read out loud about half of the positive comments in the survey. As he listened, he began to relax, and realized that perhaps he should review the responses again, with a different focus.
A Client Who Didn’t Know What to Do
The other client received some pretty consistent feedback indicating that she had some issues to work on. She knew she had challenges with a couple of “difficult” employees, but the consistency of responses gave her a wake up call. She began to consider that she might play a larger role in the problems than she realized.
This client felt discouraged because she just didn’t know how to improve the situation, especially in so many different areas. As a very conscientious employee, she had already been doing the best she knew how.
I pointed out to her three skills that we could work on together. I shared my reasoned opinion that, as she mastered those three skills, most of the other areas for improvement would naturally resolve themselves because they were related. The work ahead still daunts her, but she regained hope as we discussed a plan.
These two stories illustrate some of the risks involved in conducting a feedback survey without adequate advance preparation or post-results support for the participants.
Guidelines for Successful 360 Degree Feedback
Here are some guidelines for instituting a successful feedback program.
1. Explain the purpose of the survey in advance, and provide opportunities for questions and reassurances. A couple of appropriate purposes might be (i) to identify individual strengths to capitalize on and individual areas for further development, and (ii) to identify subject areas that warrant additional firm training.
2. To minimize participant anxiety and maximize cooperation, avoid administering the survey near performance review or bonus time or during predictable periods of high workload.
3. Design the survey to measure the important competencies and behaviors that lead to the achievement of the firm’s goals. Research-based surveys are already commercially available to measure certain competencies, such as the behaviors that result in effective leadership. Multiple choice questions are easiest to score, but include a few open-ended questions, as well. They allow raters to give specific examples or raise issues not otherwise addressed.
4. Tying survey results directly to compensation or other rewards can “put teeth into” the firm’s initiative on improving leadership, management, mentorship, communication or other “soft skills.” Such efforts can backfire in the highly competitive environment of a law firm, however. Supervisors may subtly (or not so subtly) pressure subordinates to give good reviews, or friends may collude to rate each other highly. When the firm frames the process as a self-development tool only, it may encourage more candid feedback.
5. Implement mechanisms to assure that the feedback benefits the participants as a professional development tool. Give careful thought to who should have access to the results. Widespread results sharing could cause embarrassment and defensiveness, which would hinder development efforts. For maximum safety for participants, the responses could be gathered confidentially by an external provider, with each participant seeing only his own report. For mid-level security, the responses might be shared only with the human resources professional or practice group leader, and the respective individual recipient.
6. Help the participant recognize and understand differences between his self-perception (based on his self-rating in the survey) and the perceptions of others. Also provide benchmarking data, such as the average score for all other participants in the survey, or national averages for this industry.
7. Repeat the process (perhaps six months or one year later) after implementing training or other development programs. This gives the participants the opportunity to demonstrate progress. This is especially important for those who were disappointed by their first round results.
8. Don’t just focus on negative results. Capitalize on the strengths revealed in the survey by assigning important duties to those who exhibit capability in that arena, rather than on the basis of seniority, revenues produced, or other measures not specifically tied to the necessary competencies.
Examples of Survey Questions
If you have never participated in a 360 degree feedback survey, you may be wondering what kind of questions are involved. Typically the survey will describe a behavior or competency (or group of competencies), then allow the rater to rate how frequently the subject engages in the described behavior (never, seldom, frequently, always) or how accurately the trait describes the subject (strongly disagree, slightly disagree, slightly agree, strongly agree).
Here are a few sample measurement questions gleaned from different surveys:
1. Keeps focus on fixing problems rather than finding someone to blame
2. Places a premium on collaboration, cooperation, and contributing to other’s success
3. Considers the impact of actions and decisions on others before implementing
4. Actions and behaviors are consistent with words
5. Deals on a timely basis with issues that need to be addressed
6. Encourages open and candid expression of ideas and opinions
7. Is flexible in dealing with changing or new circumstances
8. Effectively uses available technology to increase efficiency
9. Analyzes data to determine the root causes of work process and procedure problems
10. Clearly communicates critical job task expectations and measurement standards
Would 360 Degree Feedback Benefit Your Firm?
Do the above rating statements describe behaviors that would improve the productivity and morale of your firm? Would it be valuable for people in your firm to see how their behavior is perceived by others on such standards? If so, a 360 degree feedback survey may be useful for your firm. If, however, members of management and other leaders do not acknowledge the feedback they receive, and take some public steps to improve on any poor scores, the survey may cause more problems than it solves. Don’t ask unless you are prepared to listen!
© 2008 Debra Bruce
Post Date: July 7, 2008
The Trouble with Email
“I send out this simple, straight-forward email, then I get all this negative reaction. I don’t get it.”
Misconstrued Emails
Lawyers and law firm administrators that I coach report this to me a lot. Emails are informal and easy to send quickly, so we often zip them off without rereading them to see how they might sound to the reader. The recipients of the email then supply the tone of voice, cadence and volume to it, which can dramatically affect the tenor of the message.
We send out something like “Don’t forget to sign up by Tuesday!” In our minds we hear the polite, encouraging voice of a flight attendant on the intercom reminding us to keep our seatbelts fastened during the flight. Our reader, however, hears the edgy voice of an eighth grade math teacher admonishing an unruly class. If there is any history of friction or conflict between sender and reader (as frequently happens with opposing counsel, subordinates who have been “counseled” or partners in competition for firm resources), the reader may hear the threatening bark of a drill sergeant.
Why is that? Most of us can’t type as fast as we can speak, so we tend toward brevity and directness in our emails. Brevity in conversation often comes across as curt, disinterested, rude or commanding, unless we soften it with a cheery or concerned tone. In email, the reader inserts the tone themselves, and they often don’t supply the most cordial tone.
Tips for Avoiding Misunderstandings
To establish the intended tone in an email, we can either sacrifice brevity and become more formal, or adopt the extreme brevity and informality that teenagers use in text messaging. “When are you going to send the documents?” might sound abrasive and nagging in some circumstances. You can soften that by substituting “It would be helpful to know when we might expect to receive the documents.” Alternatively, a message that says “When r u sending docs?” is so abbreviated that the reader is now more likely to understand that the sender is just saving time, and not being curt. Readers are particularly likely to grant that extra bit of grace when the email obviously comes from a Blackberry or other PDA.
By the way, just in case you are not already aware of the little rules of email etiquette, upper case typing in email is the equivalent of raising the voice in person. In some circumstances colored fonts or bold face can also be interpreted that way. If you are a poor typist, it is better to type in all lower case than all upper case. That’s an accepted way to manage the challenge of sending messages using the little buttons on a PDA or when typing rapid fire to keep the conversation flowing in an online chat.
Please Don’t Make This Mistake
Some writers think their readers are unreasonably sensitive and just looking for something to complain about. “I said ‘Please’ for Pete’s sake!” they grumble. Unfortunately, however, in many circumstances the word “please” has become the signal that a command will follow, such as “Please keep off the grass” or “Please don’t touch.”
To avoid that implication, instead of “Please respond by Friday,” try going a little more formal as in one of the following:
“Kindly respond by Friday.”
“We would greatly appreciate a response by Friday.”
“Would you be so kind as to let us know your intentions by Friday?”
Email is No Substitute
I can’t talk about avoiding misunderstandings in emails without addressing one other issue. Today co-workers officing next door to each other often communicate by email. With email we can talk without having to make a real-time connection between two busy people. Such written correspondence also serves the valuable purpose of making it easy to track the communication and document agreements and instructions for future reference.
Unfortunately, however, people also use email to avoid direct confrontation in sticky situations. I coached a lawyer who was having difficulties with a co-worker in another department. My client was a likeable guy and his requests seemed reasonable in the situation, yet he experienced friction and resistance for weeks. I asked whether he had tried having a conversation with his co-worker to figure out the problem.
“I sent him an email,” he said.
“Is he in your building?” I asked, incredulous.
“Yes, he’s down one floor.”
“Are your legs broken?” I chided.
He held a face to face conversation that day and got the issue resolved.
When things are already testy, email communication has a high risk of exacerbating the situation. Save time and conflict by picking up the phone or meeting in person. If you need documentation of the understanding reached or the information communicated, you can send a confirming email afterwards.
Use More Personal Touch in Touchy Situations
In summary, email is a great time-saver in day-to-day situations. When communication has the potential to get touchy, however, we need to slow down and pay attention to the possible ways that our language might be misconstrued. We can save ourselves a lot of time in the long run by taking the extra steps necessary to make sure that the positive intent of our message comes through, whether by adjusting our language or picking up the phone.
Post Date: June 10, 2008
Clues You Can Use to Soothe Clashes
We all have someone we have to deal with who is somehow blocking us from getting what we want. It may be opposing counsel, but it may just as likely be our own partner or a staff member who isn’t performing to our expectations. In those situations our frustration levels mount, and some of us sneer or explode. We go from dealing with a difficult person to being a difficult person.
Many such problems can be solved or prevented if we can improve our communication skills. Here are some “clues you can use” to improve your communication and reduce the conflict in your office.
1. Deal with annoyances while they are small.
This concept particularly applies to people we interact with frequently. Sometimes someone does something that annoys us, inconveniences us or hurts us, but because it is a small matter, we think it would be too petty to bring up. By the time it (or something like it) happens the tenth time, we have a big stack of grievances to address, and our emotions run high. We appear to react out of proportion to the incident, but actually we are reacting to ten incidents. Ambrose Bierce, an American author and newspaper columnist, said, “Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.” If we simply address the issue the first or second time it occurs, we usually can discuss it calmly, casually and without a lot of emotional investment.
2. Find some common ground or mutual goal to set as the framework for your discussion.
Your listener will be more willing to listen when he knows you care about his goals and interests. For example, if a lawyer in the office talks too loudly, affecting your concentration, you might start with, “This is a small, but busy office. I know you want everyone to be productive, with a minimum of distractions and interruptions, right? And I assume you want to safeguard client confidences, too.”
Be sure you find some truly mutual goals so he knows the WIIFM (what’s in it for me). It must be motivating for him. Once you identify a goal that you both share, then address the behavior that interferes with the goal and that you would like to see changed.
3. Describe his behavior and its impact, not him.
Be specific and let him know how his behavior impacts you or others, without inserting barbs or judgments or characterizing him negatively. Instead of “You’re too loud and inconsiderate,” try “Voices carry pretty far in here. I can hear your conversations on the phone, especially when you use the conference feature. I find it difficult to concentrate on my work, and I worry that client confidences may be revealed to anyone who happens to be in our offices.” This would also be a good time to check to find out what impact you are having on him. It shows your concern and respect for his needs. “Do you have a similar problem with my voice?”
4. Be open to solutions you hadn’t considered.
“Could we brainstorm some solutions?” That shows respect and caring for his interests by inviting him to suggest solutions, instead of trying to impose yours. People are much more willing to comply with a plan that they helped create. They may even volunteer something that you would have been afraid to suggest, like “Gee, I didn’t realize I was so loud that others could hear me. Maybe I should get my hearing checked.”
5. Clarify your intention by expressly stating that you don’t intend something negative, and state your positive intention.
Sometimes the discussion will create defensiveness or avoidance in others. We can help prevent that, or successfully deal with it when it occurs by creating safety for them. Two tools for creating safety are treating them with respect and clarifying our intention. Think about what they might be afraid of, or what negative intention they might assume. You might say, “I’m not trying to suggest that my work is more important than yours, or that you have to tip-toe around me. I just want to maintain client confidences and keep productivity levels up in the office.”
6. Maintain respect for others by (a) noticing the story you are making up about them, and (b) checking your assumptions.
When we tell ourselves he is a loudmouth boor with no consideration for others, it doesn’t help us maintain a respectful attitude and tone in our conversation with him. Try to imagine some reasonable motivation for his behavior before starting the conversation, to calm your emotions. Perhaps he is not aware that you can hear him. Or maybe he has a sinus condition that plugs his ears sometimes. Then ask questions to check out your assumptions, or even state them and ask if you are on target. You could say, “We could hear the weaknesses of Mr. Coleman’s case as you described them on the phone today. I’m wondering if you knew how far your voice carries.”
7. Rinse and repeat if necessary.
If during the conversation the other person starts getting defensive, becomes angry or clams up, he is feeling unsafe. He doesn’t believe that you care about or have respect for him or his interests. Acknowledge his interests, go back to finding a common goal, clarify your intention or check your assumptions until you have reestablished safety. Then proceed with the meat of the discussion. You might say, “I notice that you are not saying much about this. I hope you are not getting the impression that I am judging you negatively for something you aren’t sure how to control. I value you, and believe there must be a solution that works for all of us. Can we keep talking until we find it?”
You may notice that these recommendations can be time consuming to implement. They involve a lot more words than, “Pipe down in there!” I endorse what Stephen Covey says in The 8th Habit: From Effectiveness to Greatness. He points out that when it comes to dealing with people, fast is slow, and slow is fast. Take your time now so that you won’t have to spend twice as much time later patching up the new problems created by your haste.
I chose an annoying, but fairly innocuous example for this article. Many office problems start out with fairly innocuous issues that tend to grow and multiply if left unaddressed. Even if a monster issue arises in your office, however, these tools can help you tame it.
Debra Bruce (www.lawyer-coach.com) practiced law for 18 years, before becoming a professionally trained Executive Coach for lawyers. She is Vice Chair of the Law Practice Management Committee of the State Bar of Texas, and board member and past leader of Houston Coaches Network, the Houston Chapter of the International Coach Federation. She can be contacted for questions or comments at 713-682-4353 or debra@lawyer-coach.com.
Post Date: April 21, 2008