Mastering Change: How Dynamic Capabilities Drive Organizational Success

In human systems, culture arises from the interplay of all elements within the system, influencing individual and organizational behavior. Systems thinkers agree that systems are inherently complex, dynamic, and transformational.

Donella Meadows defines a system as "an interconnected set of elements that is coherently organized in a way that achieves something." She states that a system consists of elements, interconnections, and a function or purpose. However, the term "purpose" implies intentionality, which isn't always present. Many systems emerge from chance rather than deliberate intent. This notion of an initial "cause" is more rooted in belief than fact.

Margaret Wheatly introduced the idea of "fields," or invisible forces that shape space and behavior. She describes these fields as conscious entities capable of generating and absorbing information, providing feedback, and self-regulating. Wheatly emphasizes "information" as vital for an organization’s survival. Without accurate information, rumors spread and chaos ensues due to a lack of facts.

Danny Burns, contemporaneous with Meadows, valued systems for their ability to help us understand and address complex issues. He focused on intentional action and transformation. Like Meadows, Burns emphasized interconnections, but he also highlighted the importance of the complex relationships between individuals and groups. Additionally, he echoed Wheatly’s focus on reconfiguring "fields'' to address complex issues, rather than relying on individual actions.

Considering these perspectives, it's clear that understanding and managing systems requires a multifaceted approach that balances intentional actions with an awareness of the emergent properties and interconnections within the system. Dynamic Capabilities (DCs) help organizations do that. (1)

Dynamic Capabilities (DCs): Enabling Organizational Adaptation

DCs enable organizations to adapt and thrive in changing environments. They act as ecosystems that interact with external and internal elements to foster adaptation and maintain competitiveness. Unlike ordinary capabilities, which handle static administrative and technical activities, DCs interact with the external environment. They help organizations develop, integrate, and reconfigure resources and processes for a competitive advantage.

DCs combine individual and group capabilities with processes and resources. This combination allows organizations to build, integrate, and reconfigure their resources and competencies, providing a competitive edge. When two or more DCs intentionally recombine, they create internal strength. This strength offers alternative approaches for renewing capabilities, helping organizations respond to external threats and seize opportunities.

Creating a DC System

To create a DC system, organizations need essential inputs: resources, processes, operational capabilities, and environmental factors.

Resources

Organizations must be able to alter, access, and deploy essential resources to sense and seize opportunities and manage threats. Essential resources include:

• People capacity and capabilities

• Finances

• Knowledge

• Technology

• Time

• Social capital

Processes

Processes direct the strategic use of resources. This includes:

• Resource allocation

• Integration processes that connect a process to a resource

• Coordination processes that infuse timing and planning into the use of a resource

• Resource development, which involves using resources to develop new resources

Operational Capabilities

Operational capabilities enable the strategic coordination of processes, tasks, people, and resources to achieve specific results, such as creating a DC or a DC system. Examples of DC-relevant operational capabilities include:

• Shifting to respond to changes in external or internal environments

• Process improvement to create new knowledge and use it strategically

Environmental Factors

Organizations that survive and thrive collect, process, and use knowledge about environmental factors affecting individual and group behaviors and the organization’s ability to achieve its core purpose. They manage risks when noticing threats or weaknesses and seize opportunities when they arise. Key environmental factors include:

• Economic changes affecting talent cycles or customers

• New entrants and changes in marketplace competitors

• New technology that could streamline processes

• Internal culture changes that could strengthen or undermine capabilities and operations

Maintaining and Adjusting DC Systems

Organizations must continuously monitor and adjust their DC systems through effective feedback mechanisms and the collective ability to reflect, learn, and adjust strategy, structures, processes, resources, and DCs. Constant monitoring and adjusting ensure a quick response to any changes, maintaining the organization's adaptability and competitiveness.

(1) Vijaya Sunder M & L S Ganesh (2021) Identification of the Dynamic Capabilities Ecosystem—A Systems Thinking Perspective Group & Organization Management Vol. 46(5) 893–930. DOI: 10.1177/1059601120963636journals.sagepub.com/home/gom

Is Your Short-Term Problem Solving Undermining Long-Term Resilience?

A true crises erupts unexpectedly and for many people that means an inability to respond quickly and effectively. A true crisis is existential. A law firm dissolves because of a split of opinion along power lines. A series of key personnel departures leaves a business division empty of visionary leadership and it loses its competitive marketplace position. Too often a culture of focusing on short-term problems and assigning blame creates a blindspot to noticing the absence and critical need for focusing on long-terms resilience and innovation.

A series of smaller problems—revenue drops, key stakeholders leave, internal conflict goes unresolved—can cause leaders to assume a singular focus on on short-term solutions, which often hide instead of solve the problem. Solutions grounded in avoidance and appeasement responses tend to have little lasting effect. When this happens, the level of organizational vulnerability escalates and even a minor disruption can turn into a significant crisis, from which it becomes impossible to regain stability and get back on course.

It may seem as though there is no alternative to prioritizing short-term fixes, but this is a consequence of binary thinking. Although at the start, it takes time to develop a set of leadership competencies to shift the normative patterns of a stable, but unhelpful culture, the mistake of neglecting the broader strategic vision needed for future stability can lead to a cycle where immediate issues mistakenly seem to be addressed, but underlying vulnerabilities remain.

Long-term resilience involves investing in leadership development. It means paying attention to the drivers of stability and developing people with the competencies of resilient and innovative problem-solvers. It means building a culture that can adapt and thrive despite challenges. Organizations that focus on resilience are better equipped to sustain performance and adapt to new threats and the quickest path to creating a culture of a resilient organization is starting with the people leading that organization.

Best Practices for Running Effective Meetings: A Strategic Approach

In today's fast-paced business environment, effective meetings are crucial for driving progress and fostering collaboration. Yet, many organizations struggle with meetings that feel unproductive, repetitive, or even toxic. To address these challenges, design and run your meetings with best practices that promote clarity, engagement, and respectful debate. Drawing insights from Phillip G. Clampitt's recent article on post-meeting dynamics in the MIT Sloan Management Review and combining it with the advice we’ve given our clients for years, here are some key approaches to enhance your meeting effectiveness.

1. Establish Clear Objectives

Successful meetings are built on a foundation of clear objectives. Before scheduling a meeting, define its purpose: What do you aim to achieve? Clear objectives help participants understand the meeting's importance and stay focused on the desired outcomes. Communicate the purpose in advance to ensure attendees come prepared and engaged. This approach aligns with Clampitt's emphasis on improving meeting choreography to minimize post-meeting misunderstandings and speculations.

2. Curate the Attendee List

Invite only those who can contribute meaningfully to the discussion. In line with Clampitt’s overarching theme of avoiding the unproductive and unhelpful after meeting meeting, he notes that larger meetings increase the likelihood of divisive after-meetings. Keeping the attendee list concise ensures the meeting remains focused and productive. If you want everyone to feel engaged and included, invite only those who have something important to contribute to the meeting's purpose and outcomes.

3. Encourage Respectful Debate

Fostering an environment where respectful debate is encouraged can significantly reduce the need for post-meeting discussions by clarifying uncertainties and building a supportive workplace climate. Leaders should actively solicit diverse perspectives and create a safe space for employees to voice their opinions. Building strong relationships among participants can further enhance the quality of discussions and decisions.

4. Use Effective Communication Strategies

During the meeting, leaders should aim to connect the dots for participants, helping them make sense of the information presented. Provide clear explanations and encourage questions. The meeting leader is responsible for creating a detailed agenda that provides direction and sets expectations, including the purpose, outcomes, and necessary advance preparation.

5. Address Emotional and Personal Concerns

Meetings can sometimes evoke strong emotions and personal concerns. Skilled leaders should acknowledge these feelings and depersonalize concerns to maintain a collaborative atmosphere. As Clampitt suggests, addressing vague or unhelpful sentiments during the meeting can prevent them from festering in post-meeting discussions.

6. Implement Routine Protocols for Communicating Change

Change announcements often spark post-meeting debates. Leaders can mitigate this by addressing key factors such as the decision's rationale, its alignment with organizational goals, and its impact on employees. By thoroughly explaining these aspects, leaders can reduce uncertainty and increase buy-in, as emphasized by Clampitt. Establishing clear roles and responsibilities during the meeting can also help ensure smooth implementation of decisions.

7. Enhancing Group Dynamics

Group dynamics play a crucial role in the success of any meeting. Effective leaders understand that building a culture of resilience and learning within the group is essential. This means fostering an environment where members feel empowered to act and adjust their actions as part of a continuous learning process. Encouraging critical and creative thinking, promoting emotional intelligence, and guiding how team members use their feelings strategically are vital to improving group dynamics. By integrating coaching techniques and emphasizing capacity building, leaders can help their teams navigate complex decisions and enhance productivity and innovation.

8. Virtual Meetings

Virtual meetings come with obstacles absent in face-to-face meetings, such as difficulties in forming strong relationships and maintaining attention. To counter these challenges, use names to keep people attentive and add more details to your written agenda to guide preparation and participation. Check for understanding throughout the meeting to ensure clarity and alignment.

Conclusion

By adopting these best practices, leaders can transform meetings into powerful tools for driving progress, fostering collaboration, and building a positive workplace culture. Effective meetings not only achieve their immediate goals but also lay the groundwork for long-term success and organizational resilience. Effective meetings require careful planning, clear objectives, and a focus on building strong relationships and effective communication.

By integrating these practices, your organization can create a meeting culture that drives success and minimizes the negative dynamics often associated with post-meeting discussions.

UnlockIng Organization Potential with Strategic Planning

Imagine having a clear, actionable roadmap that guides your organization’s efforts, aligns your team, and propels you towards your goals. Using a collaborative approach, LWC’s recent collaboration with the Massachusetts Flood Hazard Management Program (FHMP) to crafting strategic plans led to the first ever strategic plan for the Program.

Why Strategic Planning Matters

In 2024, the FHMP, led by Joy Duperault, CFM, Director/State NFIP Coordinator, partnered with LWC to develop their inaugural strategic plan. Over the course of three months, working closely with their team to leverage the LWC strategic planning model resulted in a comprehensive Strategic Plan for FY 2025 - FY 2027 that introduces a new Mission, Vision, Strategic Objectives, and Implementation Plans, setting a new standard in flood risk management for Massachusetts communities.

FHMP Outcomes

Using a customized, collaborative, expert-driven approach, in less than 3 months, FHPM accomplished:

A Clear Mission and Vision: FHMP articulated a mission that emphasizes proactive, community-centered approaches to flood risk management and a vision of resilient Massachusetts communities.

Strategic Objectives: FHPM identified key areas of focus, including enhanced community engagement, innovative risk assessment tools, capacity building and training, and policy advocacy.

Actionable Implementation Plans: FHPM created detailed implementation plans outlining specific actions and timelines, ensuring the FHMP can adapt and respond to emerging challenges and opportunities.

The Power of Strategic Planning

A well-crafted strategic plan is more than a document; it’s a tool that empowers your organization to achieve its goals, navigate challenges, and seize opportunities. Here’s what your organization can gain:

• Clarity and Focus: Define your mission, vision, and objectives, providing a clear direction for your efforts.

• Enhanced Team Alignment: Ensure everyone is working towards the same goals, fostering collaboration and unity.

• Proactive Adaptation: Equip your organization with the tools to adapt to changing circumstances and emerging challenges.

Laying the groundwork: DEI executives need institutional support in become true change agents

This article quotes Susan White, as an expert in helping clients attract and retain diverse, high-performing leaders.

Important points are:

• If the organizational context and environment isn't set up for success, no DEI leader has the magic want to fix things right away.

• Creating organizational inclusion requires having the authority and resources to change structures—how people are organized to do the work and how people are organized with respect to power. This means that DEI leaders are in a C-suite type role. The person in the role has to have the ability to impact those structures.

• A DEI change leader must understand the intricacies of the organization’s internal and external environment to develop strategies where the right changes are aimed at the right places to affect human behavior and decision-making.

• There is a three-pronged approach to effectively set up a DEI executive for success.

  • First, the DEI executive must be given a budget with appropriate resources (financial, time, space, technology, and people) to hire the right staff and launch and finish required inititives.

  • Second, organizations need to establish their own priorities and know what they are asking a new DEI executive to do. What is the DEI mission, vision, and prioritized goals for the next 5 years?

  • Third, top leadership, like the CEO and everyone else in the C-Suite and must model and prioritize DEI work even after a director is brought on. All organization and culture change project must be leader-led, from the top.

TOP 3 TIPS FOR DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS

Years ago, I mediated a conflict between two partners in a law firm. Peter was ten years senior to Jim. They had worked together as partners for five years and over that period, it had become extremely difficult for them to have a civil conversation about anything.  Once they looked back at their history working together, they identified a root of their conflict. 

The root was anchored in Peter’s exertion of seniority to block Jim’s desire to fire his assistant immediately. Both had good reasons for wanting what they wanted. The assistant had been gone from the firm for at least three years.  It seemed like a disagreement of three years earlier, over how best to manage a subordinate, was still alive and affecting the ability of Peter and Jim to work together. Over the years, Jim’s resentment grew as did Peter’s certainty in his decision and exercise of power. They avoided talking about their feelings and instead empowered them.

Why is it easier for professionals to give clear direction and bad news in the midst of of a time-sensitive, critical emergency than have an open and honest conversation about feelings? The words for conversations to resolve a conflict or misunderstanding between two lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, and consultants, making sense of an uncomfortable situation or finding the right words to say and knowing what do are blocked by emotions.

While some emotions, like excitement and anger can feel energizing and bring clarity, others, like humiliation, embarrassment, guilt and shame can be paralyzing. The latter feel so uncomfortable that they block, what Daniel Kahneman calls System 2 thinking – deliberate, logical, and analytical thinking. Instead, they nudge into play the easily accessible options - acting too quickly and paralysis in an attempt to escape these feelings. The end point is the same - unintended consequences.  

The triggers for difficult conversations that trigger System 2 thinking often involve the readjustment of roles and responsibilities or the resolution of conflicting values.  Succession planning, compensation, or the business model are often a source of agitation.  Conflict and misunderstanding are often consequences.

If you are facing a difficult conversation arising out of conflict or misunderstanding, keep these three tips in mind.

1.     Acknowledge emotions and thoughts.

It’s a mistake to ignore emotions.  Doing so, empowers emotions to cause blocks and missteps and impairs good decision-making. Instead of ignoring emotions, notice the signs – the knots in your stomach, a headache, a racing heartbeat, or an increase or decrease of sensation within your torso or limbs. Then ask yourself questions about what you are feeling. Name the emotion if you can. If not, google emotions to expand your vocabulary and your ability to name emotions. You may have heard the phrase with regard to emotions, “name them to tame them.” The power of emotions over thought processes and decision-making lessens with acknowledgement. Emotions are easier to spot than the hidden narratives and thoughts, but know that unconscious thinking also affects emotions.

What are you telling yourself about the difficult situation and conversation? Expand your self-awareness and expand your options for managing a difficult conversation effectively.

Why do you expect an upcoming difficult conversation to be difficult? What are you expecting to happen during the conversation? What emotions do you expect others to experience? What do you imagine they expect? 

After acknowledging your emotions and thoughts, consider the overall message and specific information you really want to convey and how best to do it, so that it will be heard and processed as you intend. Focus on your main message and a good outcome for the conversation so that collaboration for a solution becomes possible. Be clear about what you want, don’t want, need, expect, or prefer. Know your mind and then you’ll be better able to help others, who can’t read your mind, understand where you need help.  

Noticing isn’t just personal.  It’s about noticing the emotions of others and adjusting what you say and how you say it, to keep the conversation flowing productively. Emotions, just like the content of a conversation, provide important information.

2.     Listen.

When your stress level is too high, you may overlook important information and limit the meaning of what you notice and hidden opportunities.  Instead, slow down.  Take a breath. Do nothing other than listen carefully. Listen for content and emotion. What’s being said and how? It’s easy to assume that you understand another person’s position; however, conflict is often not about different positions as much as it is about emotions, interests, needs, and wants that go unnoticed and unacknowledged. The only way to understand another person is to listen to understand. Asking good, open-ended questions will give you content worth your time and effort to listen carefully.

It’s often easier to engage in a targeted listening.  Listening for information that supports or undermines an existing position is easier than listening to understand what matters most to the person communicating an idea or emotion. Instead, if your goal is to resolve a conflict productively, listen without judgment.  Listen to understand. Assume whatever you hear is true for the person saying it instead of trying to correct what you believe is a misunderstanding. 

If you listen to better understand the other person’s interests and concerns, you may find options to resolve a conflict without damaging relationships.  One of my clients put it this way, “R before T.” Relationship before task.  The team and organization falls apart if relationships are not built and solidified at every opportunities. Without relationships, the tasks that can be completed are extremely limited.

3.     Demonstrate that you care.

Even the best listener and the most astute observer and analyst conveys unintended messages by skipping over the opportunity to demonstrate understanding and compassion.   Digest what you hear and observe and share back your summary. Then, ask if you captured everything the other person wanted you to notice and understand. Include emotional tenor and not just content.

Active listening, empathic listening, or reflective listening all suggest the importance of being aware of the inadvertent messages you send by what you do and say during and after the other communicates. During any conversation, especially one with an element of conflict, the opportunity to convey intentional messages to improve relationships exists. If your goal is to strengthen the bonds of a business or personal relationship, take advantage of all such opportunities.

Demonstrate that you care about the other person by asking open-ended questions. Then, acknowledge their feelings, demonstrate concern, and summarize and paraphrase what you hear and then asking if you understood their meaning.

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What do you know about how people make decisions?

By Susan Letterman White

People make decisions based on a variety of factors, including their values, beliefs, and experiences. Decision-making is a complex process that involves weighing the potential costs and benefits of different options and choosing the one that is most likely to lead to a desired outcome.

There are many different models of decision-making, but some common factors that can influence the decision-making process include:

1. Information: The availability and quality of information can impact decision-making. People may rely on their own experiences, or they may seek out additional information from sources such as books, articles, or experts.

2. Emotions: Emotions can play a significant role in decision-making. For example, people may make decisions based on how they feel about a particular option or the potential consequences of their choices.

3. Personal values: Personal values are deeply held beliefs that guide an individual's actions and decisions. These values may include things like honesty, loyalty, or responsibility.

4. Social influences: People may be influenced by the opinions and behaviors of others, such as friends, family, or societal norms.

5. Time constraints: The amount of time available to make a decision can impact the process. In some cases, people may need to make a decision quickly, while in other situations, they may have more time to consider their options.

6. Risk tolerance: People's willingness to take risks can also influence their decision-making. Some individuals may be more risk-averse and prefer to choose options that are more predictable, while others may be more willing to take risks in pursuit of a greater reward.

What do you know about how people make decisions unconsciously?

People often make decisions unconsciously, meaning that they are not fully aware of the factors that are influencing their choices. This type of decision-making is known as unconscious or automatic decision-making. It occurs when people rely on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make decisions quickly and efficiently.

Some common examples of unconscious decision-making include:

1. Anchoring: This occurs when people rely on the first piece of information they receive to make a decision, even if that information may not be relevant or accurate.

2. Framing: This occurs when the way in which information is presented influences people's decisions. For example, people may be more likely to choose option A over option B if it is presented as a gain rather than a loss.

3. Confirmation bias: This occurs when people seek out information that confirms their preexisting beliefs or biases and ignore information that contradicts them.

4. Loss aversion: This occurs when people are more motivated to avoid losses than to seek gains. As a result, they may make decisions that minimize the potential for loss, even if it means forgoing a potentially larger reward.

Unconscious decision-making can be influenced by a variety of factors, including emotions, past experiences, and social influences. It can be helpful in certain situations, as it allows people to make decisions quickly and efficiently. However, it can also lead to biases and errors in judgment if people rely too heavily on heuristics and do not consider all of the relevant information.

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The Dollars and Sense of Leadership Excellence and Competency Modeling

By Susan Letterman White

There is a strong and consistent correlation between leadership effectiveness and the financial performance of all organizations.  How your organization performs matters greatly, regardless of whether it is for-profit, non-profit, private, public, or a governmental agency. Ensuring financial health is a responsibility of all leaders, which means managing processes that affect revenue generation and the costs associated with running the organization. 

Costs that are within the control of leaders relate to employee hiring, engagement, productivity, and retention and to customer/client satisfaction and retention.  Replacing employees or customers/clients is more costly than retaining them. Employees that are more engaged are more productive and efficient and generally do not intend to leave for a comparable job elsewhere. 

Effective leaders positively affect revenue generation, net profit, customer/client satisfaction and retention, employee engagement, commitment, and retention, reduced employee turnover, and increased organizational productivity, efficiency, and profitability. They drive these benefits when they model the right behaviors and help the people they lead and manage adopt similarly valuable behaviors.  Various research studies reported here show that:

• Leaders in the bottom 5% of effectiveness at a mortgage bank correlated with only 21% of employees feeling engaged; those in the middle 50% of effectiveness correlated with 48% employee engagement; and leaders in the top 5% of effectiveness correlated with 85% employee engagement. 

• At a mortgage bank, leaders in the bottom 30% of effectiveness correlated with a substantial net profit loss; those in the middle 30% generated 67.42% more profit than those at the bottom; and in the top 10% nearly doubled the profit of those in the middle. 

• Leaders in the bottom 10% of effectiveness at a retail company experience a 0.7% 5 year growth in sales and an 81% employee turnover rate, while those in 11-35 percentile of effectiveness saw a 2.6 increase, those in the 36-90 percentile experienced a 6.1% growth and those in the top 10% saw a 7.4% increase in sales. 

• Leaders in the bottom 30% of effectiveness, as assessed by their peers and those people they managed, experienced a 19% turnover rate at an insurance company, while those in top 10% had only a 9% turnover rate.

• In a study of more than 90,000 leaders from hundreds of different organizations, 53% of employees expressed an intention to leave when leadership effectiveness was only 5%, while turnover is typically around 25% and for those working under the top 10% of leaders, the rate was only 10%.

• At a high-tech communications company, the top 20% of leaders saw a customer satisfaction rate of 82%, while the bottom 30% saw customer satisfaction at 21%.

Additional empirical studies, reported by Korn Ferry include the following:

• Top-level executive performance was correlated with an estimated $3 million in annual profit per person in a large corporate environment.

• Employee job satisfaction in a study of 62 health care facilities was positively related to leadership competencies after a leadership feedback program

• In a case study that looked at the following specific competencies: Customer Focus, Interpersonal Savvy, Drive for Results, and Decision Quality; a leadership development program influenced leadership competencies among vice presidents in a sales and marketing organization and were positively correlated with increased profits and decreased turnover.

Competency modeling, where a group of 6-8  top Subject Matter Experts across the organization leads to selecting a universal set of competencies that are valuable across the organization to advance the organization’s purpose, vision, values, and strategy. This “forward-looking” approach is considered a best practice for avoiding chaos, driving organizational results, and creating an integrated approach with a common language to describe performance expectations. This process, when properly communicated within the organization, signals strategic intentions of the organization, influences employee behavior, and supports intentional culture development.

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Five Steps to Create a Growth Mindset Culture

By Susan Letterman White

1. Leaders set the stage. They learn and practice noticing who speaks up in meetings and who is quiet. They pay attention to who gets the stretch assignments that make a career and who is left out. They encourage people, who have been marginalized in the organization, to speak up, ask for what they want, and share their ideas. They manage meetings so that no one person takes up too much space and when they see microaggressions in the workplace, like talking over others or not acknowledging contributions to the discussion, they call out the behavior. They also demonstrate their humanity and vulnerability before asking others to share their mistakes.

2. Explain the link between having a growth mindset and becoming a better professional. We build intelligence when we are challenged with changing our behavior and then practice self-awareness and self-management. People cope more effectively with challenges and setbacks when they embody a growth theory of intelligence.

3. Make a growth mindset culture a priority action step for attracting the best and brightest talent to work for your organization and creating an attractive brand when it comes to recruiting, hiring, and retention. Research has demonstrated that more people are attracted to organizations with a growth theory of intelligence because it suggests to them that this is a workplace where they can succeed and be rewarded with hard work.

4. Make having a growth mindset a criteria for performance evaluation and integrate the skill into the organization’s leadership development program. Developing a DEI culture asks people to change how they think, what they feel, and their actions. It is challenging and there will be setbacks. A growth theory of intelligence means that people are willing, able, and expected to practice new behaviors and new communication styles and have new and different conversations. They need to know that it is okay if they are less than perfect and the only way to do that is make it part of their performance evaluation.

5. Developing a culture of equity and inclusion depends on people telling their stories of facing and overcoming personal hardships with the support of sponsors, mentors, coaches, and affinity groups. Reward people, who share these types of personal stories. Publicize those stories. If you want people to embrace a growth mindset culture, make sure to signal that efforts are underway to change the culture. Emphasize the link between a new growth mindset culture and well-being by emphasizing stories of overcoming personal hardships and improvement through resilience, tenacity, practice, and hard work.

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Contextual Leadership: New Roles and Options for Leading

By Susan Letterman White

The ability to lead change projects and influence individuals to change their behavior or follow a particular leader has never been more important than it is today. The world in which every organization operates has become increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. We live in a VUCA world. The term may have been coined by the US Army War College in 1987, but the need to adapt to this situation has never been more applicable than now.

Leadership development has focused on the leader with little thought about the variety of people the leader needs to engage or the context in which the leader must operate. Further, most models of leadership development assume that the leader will use power from the exercise of formal authority and expertise to lead willing followers. This is an outdated perspective for law firms and law departments in a world, whose future is uncertain and unclear, whose context is volatile and complex, and where formal authority and expertise aren’t as powerful as they once were.

Further, not all people are similarly motivated. Some are motivated by a desire to belong, others by a desire for power, and still others for a sense of achievement. The role of today’s leader is to know what motivates their people as individuals and how context influences their motivation and be able to influence behavior by adjusting context and selecting the right leadership style for the situation.

Today’s environmental context is rife with unpredictability and complexity, starting with the people a leader is tasked with leading. Many of the older leadership theories are based on a limited conceptual view of leaders and followers and a limited skill set related to directly influencing behavior through the leader’s ability to persuade or engage followers using the trust and/or fear that used to attach to formal authority and expertise. Today’s reality demands an expanded view of people - leaders and others. Others include quiet followers, vocal supporters, bystanders, outsiders, vocal obstructionists, silent obstructionists, hidden connectors for the flow of information, and hidden influencers of desired changes. Consequently, leadership today will be more effective when the leader identifies the hidden connectors and influencers through the use of social network analysis.

Complexity is also present in the organization’s internal contextual elements, its: (1) people; (2) resources, such as technology, available cash, and time; (3) structures that connect, group, and otherwise organize people for a particular purpose and connect with to power; (4) processes - how people execute the various tasks that must be accomplished to make an organization do whatever needs to be done to effectuate its purpose for existing; and (5) socially constructed narratives about values, identity, vision, and goals. The external context is the world in which the organization or group operates, from the macro forces, like politics and economics to the micro forces, like a single client or new technology.

Leading is a process of collecting and analyzing data about context and then creating the right internal context. For example, a leader, who intends to create leadership bench strength, will evaluate every structure, process, resource allocation, and socially constructive narrative for their effects or potential effects on what is needed to create leadership bench strength. For example, do organizational structures bring high potential leaders and high performing leaders together? Are high performing leaders engaged in modeling, mentoring, and sponsoring processes? If not, the leadership question is: Which structures and processes must change and how?

Contextual leaders are successful by including the right people, at the right time, in making and implementing the right decisions to adjust aspects of the organizational context and create the changes that define effective, resilient, and high-performance organizations. Rare is the leader with sufficient charisma to persuade or power to force into existence the context required for any high performing organization. Instead, contextual leaders begin with a vision and specific objectives. Then the focus shifts to adjusting elements of the context to encourage the right behaviors to emerge.

Context adjustment requires preparation, planning, and implementation of actions to create the desired changes. There are four steps to preparation: (1) define the problem to be solved; (2) describe the desired outcome; (3) collect data about the contextual elements that maintain the status quo; and (4) analyze the data to better understand what is maintaining the status quo and which contextual elements to change. Superimposed on the entire process is the participation of the right people at the right time.

The right people: (1) have data about the status quo; (2) are able to analyze and attach meaning to the data; (3) have the power to close the gap between the present and desired outcome or block efforts to do so; and (4) will be affected by or participate in the context changes. Including the right people builds collaboration, trust, and energy. It also overcomes multiple types of resistance to change, creates inclusion, and builds organizational cohesion.

Getting the right people involved is a function of the leaders’ network and influence ability. A good leader is always building their network of supporters, so that when help is needed, the right people with the right power are willing and able to help. What’s most important is to identify the people who are strongly in favor and will help drive the change forward; those who are neutral and won’t help or interfere; and those who are opposed and will use their influence and efforts to oppose the change. A significant force of resistance will come from people who are opposed and have the power to block your efforts. You must have a plan to overcome this type of obstacle by influencing them to take a more neutral position or removing them, if that is not possible. Additionally, the people strongly in favor and with the ability and willingness to help, your allies, need to know how they can help. Is it to influence someone who is neutral to change their perspective and actively help? Is it to use their formal power to make something happen?

Contextual Leadership is leading this multifaceted change process with a set of skills that affects how the leader thinks, feels, and behaves. Consider the difficulty in getting people to use a new CRM system, the benefit of which, to improve client relations management, is broadcast in the name. Rational argument does not persuade anyone to spend time and effort learning a new technology when the personal benefits are difficult to imagine and the costs much more obvious. Instead, including these people as participants in a collaborative preparation, planning, and implementation process to identify the contextual elements to change and how and when to change them, influences people to learn about and use the new technology.

Contextual leaders are only as effective as their foundation of knowledge in three core areas: organization dynamics that cause the persistence of the status quo; systemic and individual change dynamics; and self-awareness and use of self as an instrument of change. The associated skills fall into four categories as shown in the table below.

This set of skills is best developed through a combination of formal training, action learning (on-the-job learning or learning-by-doing combined with reflection) and coaching. Incorporating Contextual Leadership into your organization builds a foundation for success in all types of change projects.

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Coaching versus Advice

By Susan Letterman White

When a colleague or employee comes to us with a problem, our first instinct, the one we were taught as children by our parents, is to offer advice. “Let me tell you what I would do, if I were in your position.” Yet, positions are not automatically interchangeable.  People are complex. The situations in which a person’s problem arises is complex.  There is a lot of unknown and unpredictability baked into the situation and people involved. As a matter of truth, our belief about advice – that we can put ourselves into the position of someone else – is false.  We cannot. The very foundation on which advice is often based, is unsound.

Advice is also the problem-solving method in relationships of dependence.  When we ask or give advice, we perpetuate the relationship and roles of expert and dependent. Our colleagues and employees are the dependents. In a world where complexity, unknowns, volatile change, and ambiguous facts are the rule, we need our colleagues and employees to be empowered, not dependent. We need them to be able to act and adjust their actions as a process of learning and empowerment so as to strengthen our collective ability to survive and thrive in today’s world.

Your organization needs a culture of resilience and learning to be able to adapt and adjust to today’s complex world. You need a coaching culture first and an advice culture second. You need your colleagues and employees to solve their own problems, thinking critically and creatively as they make decisions, and learn to make increasingly complex decisions while being productive and innovative. This set of needs represents significant changes in behaviors, thought patterns, and emotional intelligence to guide how we feel and use our feelings strategically. 

Integrating coaching into your management and leadership techniques is a means to help your colleagues and employees change their behavior. Instead of trying to be the expert and provide perfect advice, be curious and driven by a desire to learn more about a problem situation and the person with the capacity to address that problem. Instead of advice, ask questions to promote your colleague or employee’s thought process and decision-making skills. These questions should focus on capacity building to think more broadly and holistically about a situation. What do we know about the situation and problem? What do we know about the people involved? What are possible solutions to try? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each? How can we prioritize risks and benefits? When can we learn from taking a risk and failing without causing an existential threat?

Are you operating in an advice culture or a coaching culture?

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Legal Innovation: The Biggest Myth or a Path Forward?

By Susan Letterman White

Faced with the discomforting threat of disruption to their business, many lawyers react with fear.  They struggle to innovate and instead end up seeking to sustain profitability by working harder instead of smarter.  Their anxiety reduces their cognitive ability and that leads to a reliance on the skill sets and mindsets that are comfortable instead of those that are useful. 

One example is the number of law schools that are responding to a shrinking applicant pool by cutting costs instead of tackling the problem that what they are selling isn’t delivering as expected. Too many students are not getting a chance at the career path they had expected. Another example is the array of law firms that seek out mergers (read acquisitions of partners and practice groups with very large books of business) instead of addressing a shrinking demand for services at the organization level. 

Most of my clients are leaders. They are leading themselves or others in efforts to innovate. They are solo practitioners or leaders at mid-size and smaller firms. In contrast to firms that can maintain their profitability by optimizing performance through project management, cost-cutting, restructuring their talent management system or any other process aimed to make incremental improvements (like being acquired), my clients need to innovate. They are seeking to attract new clients with new brands and value propositions. They are successful when they evaluate and improve the robustness of their business strategy functional disciplines instead of merely their business strategy.

There are four functional disciplines in a business strategy: (1) Inquiry; (2) Design; (3) Execution; and (4) Adjustment. I’ve named it the IDEA Strategy Model. Each has its own set of skill sets and mindsets that make it possible to carry out the function effectively. Inquiry and Design are closely aligned with innovation, while Execution and Adjustment are closely aligned with sustaining and increasing profitability. If an organization is experiencing an ongoing drop in demand for whatever it is supplying, sustaining profitability isn’t an option in the long-term.  Demand is the cyclical driver of revenue and profitability across a sales cycle and while it is dropping, no measure of cost-cutting and increased efficiencies will offset a dwindling demand. 

When marketplace disruptions threaten an industry, industry practitioners experience rising anxiety levels and react by falling back on the skills they already know.  These tend to be those in the functional disciplines of Execution and Adjustment.  This leads to the legal innovation myth, which goes something like this: 

If I work harder and longer, cut costs, and use existing technology to improve efficiency, my profitability will increase.

However, the reality is more like this:

If I work harder and longer, cut costs, and use existing technology to improve efficiencies, my profitability will initially increase even though I’m not innovating and growing my business. In reality, nothing will really change…except that I’ll be unhappy and exhausted.

Execution and Adjustment will not help you adjust to disruptive change with a new, competitive position in the marketplace. Inquiry and Design do that. A deep dive into these disciplines is the path forward.

The IDEA Strategy Model 

The IDEA strategy model distinguishes the functional disciplines related to innovation and a core focus on marketplace relevancy from those related to incremental adjustment and a core focus on sustaining and increasing profitability.  The model has a red-dotted line to separate the two vastly different skill sets, mindsets, and functions. Many lawyers are more comfortable with the skill sets and mindsets on the right side of the red-dotted line. 

IDEA is an acronym for the four functional disciplines:

• Inquiry

• Design

• Execution

• Adjustment

Each functional discipline has its own core questions a/k/a function, skillset, evaluation criteria, mindset, and role in marketing and business development. The skill sets and mindsets of most lawyers are better suited for sustaining and increasing profitability of an ongoing business endeavor rather than responding to the discomfort of a diminishing market for services with a new idea. The good news is that those left-side skills can be learned and developed through practice.

Inquiry 

The functional discipline of Inquiry is the creative, unconventional process of exploring and theorizing. The core question of this function is: 

What new and as yet unknown “thing” (X) could we create or do that an existing or new target market would want or need?

Unpacking this question reveals the challenge inherent in this discipline. 

1. What are “we” capable of creating or doing now or with practice in the future?

2. How are the boundaries of and criteria of our target market and its sub-segments defined?

3. What does our target market want, need, expect, or prefer today? 

4. What might our target market want, need, expect, or prefer in the future?

5. What might be the right “thing” to attract a new target market?

The skillset for this functional discipline is heavily steeped in curiosity, wandering-with-intent-to-notice, and leadership of self and others. These skills are often associated with resilience, mindfulness, strategic thinking and communication, changing when change is hard, personal development, and branding. They are frequently dismissed as less important by lawyers as they prioritize their use of time. That said, when the tipping point is reached - when the level of fear and frustration leads a lawyer to try something completely new and different –  most of my clients rise to the occasion. Formal training, followed by coaching is usually an integral part of the path forward. Evaluation of performance under this functional discipline is measured by the target market’s willingness, if not eagerness, to expend the time and money to buy the idea, product, or service that is being offered for sale.

For lawyers, the most challenging element of this functional discipline is the archetypal mindset of the creative, unconventional, explorer and theorist. It risks being overshadowed by the skeptical mindset that lawyers are trained to master. While there is a clear benefit for any start-up team to retain a lawyer in a supporting role; one, who will encourage a comprehensive risk-analysis by questioning assumptions and probing for more information and analysis before making any decision, there is a grave problem when the lawyer also owns the analysis and decision-making functions. The mindset overshadows the theorizing function that is central to Inquiry. It’s what moves the process forward. It’s not that lawyers can’t think and behave congruently with the Inquiry functional discipline; it’s that when under stress, it’s much harder for anyone to integrate less preferred ways of thinking and behaving into any strategy work. Therefore, it falls on the leader to include a plan and process to address this reality.

The functional discipline of Inquiry is the combination of brand exploration and development, target market analysis, and developing a value proposition. Much of the leg-work is consumer research discovered through curiosity, exploration, and keeping up with current events. The aim is to uncover an unmet need, tension, discomfort or problem among a target market that you, as a lawyer or law firm, could possibly resolve – an “X.”

Design 

The functional discipline of Design is the tenacious, persistent process of pioneering and experimenting. The core question of this function is:

What are possible ways we could create and/or deliver X to our target market?

This question is answered through trial and error.  This means that mistakes will be made and new lessons learned as a result. Often, it is mistakenly assumed that a lawyer’s natural aversion to making mistakes is the obstacle. The real obstacle is that innovation comes from a deep dive into purpose and learning new skills.  More often than not, my clients are more willing to experiment and less willing to ponder identity and purpose questions about who they are, what they do, and their purpose in the marketplace.

What is the purpose of a lawyer? Lawyers essentially contribute to creating, interpreting, and applying laws. They lobby for or against the creation, elimination, or application of laws. They interpret laws and advise clients or make decisions as a judge or arbitrator.  They use existing laws to advance their clients’ interests. 

With that purpose in mind and the fact that innovation is about adding something new; what new product, service or experience will you offer to resolve your target market’s X? Is there a new law that opens up a new area of practice for you? What are the different possibilities to create and deliver the X better, faster, and more tailored to the exact preferences of the sub-segments of your target market than anyone else? What new skills could you possibly need?

One skill for this functional discipline is the ability to imagine possibilities and experiment with new products, services, or experiences. Be a first class noticer.  Voraciously seek out and notice the novel - new laws, new technology, and new problems for people. Never forget that your business is a community of people serving a community of people. Be curious. How has the “new” created new problems and opportunities for people in their relationships, ability to achieve their goals, feel safe, and satisfy their basic needs for food, water, and shelter?

Another skill is the ability to design and test a hypothesis. When you come up with an idea for something new, design an experiment and test the marketplace interest in a small, cost-effective way. Publish an article about a new law and measure the level of interest in your target market. Try a new way of reaching your core consumer and measure engagement. Play with technology to enhance your speed for delivery and improve your design of X. Every time you experiment, you learn something new about your target market, about your brand, and about the possible ways the two fit together in a mutually beneficial way. Measure performance under this functional discipline by what you learn. What worked? What didn’t? Why? In this endeavor, two heads are better than one. This means that working in teams with the appropriate team leader and team member skills will make a positive difference in the outcome.

The archetypal mindset is of the tenacious, persistent pioneering experimentalist. Failure is to be expected.  Mistakes are to be expected. The struggle is not with resilience in the sense of fearing failure nearly as much as it is with managing frustration and persevering despite extreme conditions.  It’s the climber’s mentality of loving the challenge to get to the top in the face of extreme conditions because the opportunity to learn more about the context - route, mountain, weather, physical ability, and mental ability – feels almost as good as achieving the summit and most certainly reaps highly valued beta toward that end.  The drive to achieve is the hallmark of the Design mindset, while curiosity is the hallmark of the Inquiry mindset.

In this half of the model, you are discovering and testing your relevancy to the marketplace. The functional discipline of Inquiry is the combination of brand exploration and development, target market analysis, and developing a value proposition. Designing is all about testing options for the fit between your brand’s value proposition and the target market you’ve selected. 

Execution 

The functional discipline of Execution is the nurturing and building process of settling into a routine and refining it. It’s doing what you need to do after you have figured out what to do and how to do it. In this second half of the model, you take the X you created and often the associated production and delivery processes and make them better. What can you add to make X even better? What can you do to improve the client experience? What can you do to reduce costs and improve efficiencies? What can you do to reduce the cost of production? Improving a process that already works isn’t disruptive in the same way that changing a brand, value proposition, or target market is. What must you do to keep your clients happy and return your technical skills? 

The skillset and mindset is related to project management, including providing clear direction and coordination of efforts and managing the budget. The goal is to increase and sustain profitability. The measure of success is whether you are doing that.

Adjustment 

The functional discipline of Adjustment is the conventional, methodical process of surveying and measuring. It’s the analysis of outcomes and the decision of what to do next.  While always looking for improvement, the art and subtlety of this functional discipline is knowing the evaluation criteria to use.  If you use Execution evaluation criteria to measure the progress or success of Inquiry or Design efforts, you will always conclude the efforts were worthless and a waste of your precious resources – time, talent, and money. What’s worse, you’ll never learn that innovation is much more within your reach than you had thought it was.

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Four Steps to Successful Recruiting and Hiring

By Susan Letterman White

One of the milestones along the journey to a successful and profitable law firm is reaching the point where you need to hire employees. The need often arises quickly when the warning bell of too much work and too little time rings loudly. The biggest mistake is hiring the first person with a reasonable resume. The better course of action is to consider the processes of recruiting and hiring in the context of your business strategy. Talent strategies are used to attract and select the right people. Even if you are an organization of one person, you need a plan to recruit, hire, develop, and retain the right people.

Here are the four steps to developing such a plan. 

Step One: Identify your business strategy and then distill it into specific tasks.  

Every law firm business strategy can be broken into three parts: (1) The collection of tasks to get requests for the legal services you are offering; (2) Doing the legal work; and (3) Collecting revenue for your legal services. There are myriad tasks associated with each of these parts, including creating the conditions to make it possible to focus on these three core parts of the business.  All of these tasks require people with the right competencies to complete them. 

What’s your business strategy?  Specifically, what are the tasks that you need to be completed for your strategy to be effectively implemented? The answer to this question depends on what you can do and want to do and what you cannot do and would prefer to have someone else do. For example, perhaps you love the marketing aspect of your business in addition to doing the legal work. If that’s the case, then you may need only help with your legal work and the day-to-day firm management work. 

An easy way to think about this is to go back to your list of start-up costs or your annual budget and for each item, ask the question: What management, core work, or marketing tasks are associated with this item? Then, make a list of every task, the necessary capabilities to complete the task, the frequency of occurrence, and importance of the task to your business strategy.

Step Two: SWOT Yourself and Your Environment

SWOT is an acronym. A SWOT analysis is the collection and analysis of data concerning the Strengths and Weaknesses of you and your firm and the Opportunities and Threats in the external environment (everything else) in terms of capabilities to complete the specific tasks you have identified. Determine who is available to do which tasks. This means listing the people in your firm and their capabilities. Then take inventory of what you are missing. Make sure to ask yourself what you will do and what you want someone else to do? Consider the tasks that you enjoy and those you would prefer to delegate. Consider how the competencies related to the tasks you will delegate must be demonstrated and measured?

Step Three: Create your recruitment and candidate evaluation plan.

The way to attract the right candidates and evaluate the candidates you attract is by describing the tasks and competencies you are seeking in a job description. Be clear and specific with your description. You will use the same criteria to evaluate candidates, whose resumes you scan and those you interview.  Next, consider your budget and decide what you can afford to pay to attract the right person. Then, start recruiting and evaluating.

Step Four: Check your management skills. 

Expect to delegate. First, know your specific performance expectations. What will you be looking for when you informally and formally evaluate your new hire? Then, share those performance expectations. Many lawyers assume that anyone they decide to hire will know what is expected of them.  They may not. If you expect a certain style of writing, provide samples. If you want delivery of a project by a certain time and date, convey that. If you want to see the level of progress before the final product, provide a check-in date and time. 

Delegating with specificity, directing others, delivering feedback, and explaining to your new hire how their contributions fit into the bigger picture are all important skills.  Where do you need to improve your skills? How will you do that? Frequently, the need to direct and develop employees is higher than most lawyers expect. 

Expect to develop your employees. The best people present with the right technical and core leadership, communication, and strategy competencies and the opportunity to develop good competencies into great ones and to develop new competencies. You can offer mentoring, solid positive and constructive feedback, stretch assignments, and formal training. Don’t lose a good person because they could be better with developmental opportunities. Instead provide those opportunities.

Now that you know the four steps to getting the right people in the door and deploying them to help you out, you are ready to begin!

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Is fast thinking slowing you down?

By Susan Letterman White

In 2012, Facebook conducted an experiment to see whether it could influence the emotions and postings of its users by curating news feed content calculated to manipulate mood. The experiment worked.

If you had any doubt that your decision-making is affected by forces that fall below your radar, this should make it clear that even if you are not interested in knowing how you make decisions, other people are. Neuroscience has made its way into mainstream thinking and lawyers are catching up. We’re beginning to talk about the impact of neurochemistry on our decisions about whom to hire and how we apply objective standards in subjective ways to evaluate performance and allocate compensation and rewards.

Unconscious forces pervade our thinking, feelings and decision-making every day, yet there is little talk about this reality.

More important than discussing the exact neuroscience behind behavior is to acknowledge the possibility that your decision-making isn’t always as logical as you think it is. Do your actions always match up with your intentions and aim?

If you agree it’s possible that, on occasion, your decisions are flawed, then it makes sense to develop self-awareness of how you make decisions and a strategy to stop, evaluate and perhaps slow down your fast thinking when it happens.

Fast thinking and its impact

Nobel laurate and founder of behavioral economics Daniel Kahneman has explained fast thinking. There are two systems of thinking: System 1 is fast and based on a gut reaction, and system 2 is slower, conscious and deliberate. Fast thinking is the unconscious bias that affects our thinking, decisions and behaviors. It can, under certain circumstances, lead to unintended outcomes.

The phenomena that comprise fast thinking are pervasive. They affect how we feel and what we think. They affect our perception of events — what we notice and miss — and decisions about meaning and what to do. There are times when fast thinking creates the results we want. This column is about the times is creates results that do not match our intention.

Without you knowing it, your fast thinking may lead to miscommunication and misunderstanding. It may cause you to negotiate a less advantageous agreement or lose a prospect or client. It may create chaos in the workplace and interfere with good client relationships, colleague collaboration, and effective organization performance. Understanding when your tendency to think fast is triggered is the first step.

Psychologists have been talking about schemas, mental models, mindsets, heuristics and scripts for years. These refer to mental shortcuts to save time when making decisions.

For example, a captain of a sinking ship needs to think fast and lead in a directive way. It’s an emergency. There is no time to waste, and resorting to habits for responding to emergency situations is required to keep people safe. However, most situations are not emergencies.

Stressful situations trigger most people to behave as if there is an emergency and resort to fast thinking. Most people feel stress when they are tired, ill, angry, afraid, excited, joyous or under the influence of any strong emotion. Then, they fall back on mental shortcuts to save energy. Unfortunately, in many of these situations, fast thinking leads to more problems than it solves.Everyone has unconscious biases affecting decisions every day. These fast ways of thinking remain unconscious, without reminders to look for them. They exist to protect self-interest, even when slower, more deliberate decision-making is needed to make the right decision that is actually in one’s self-interest.

Sometimes, we cannot know what we don’t know and must rely on feedback from others for a fact-check to avoid jumping to the wrong conclusions. If a goal is to make evidence-based decisions, then knowing common mental shortcuts is a start. Here are a few.

Anchoring

The hidden process of anchoring makes the first piece of information you notice seem to be more important. It blocks thinking about possibilities. In a negotiation over money, the first number heard sets the tone and movement for the entire negotiation. This doesn’t mean that if you throw out an unreasonably high or low number, you’ll end up with a higher or lower result. The number must seem reasonable. If not, it could stall further discussions.

Availability

Availability refers to giving too much weight to personal information and not enough weight to the array of relevant information. Example: believing that success is based on hard work alone because of personal experience that minimizes the value of being born into a powerful network that has presented opportunities and affected performance evaluation or the resources to improve performance ability.

Representativeness

Representativeness refers to predicting that a certain person will have certain characteristics or abilities based on their similarity to a stereotype. One example: judging mathematical ability by the choice of attire — a pen in a shirt pocket with a pocket protector. Another: expecting that a parent who could not travel for work one week shouldn’t be offered a travel opportunity for a different week.Loss aversion

The desire to avoid feelings of loss. All change efforts involve the sense of loss of certainty and what is familiar even when change leads to a financial or other gain. For example: choosing to stay in a job that makes you unhappy instead of exploring other possibilities for fear that you’ll lose a safe situation.

Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to notice and accept only information that confirms your position, while not noticing or ignoring evidence that undermines it. One example: An expert witness examines evidence that is open to interpretation after seeing other evidence of an accused’s guilt and interprets it in strong support of guilt. Another: You have already decided that you do or don’t want to confront a co-worker on his behavior that was hurtful and unprofessional. When you consider your decision, all you notice are reasons that support it.

Compensating for fast thinking

Develop a habit of scanning your feelings — physical and emotional. Strong feelings can impact your ability to make reasoned decisions. Learn to notice when you are feeling stressed emotionally or physically. Learn to recognize your emotions. Stress, illness, tiredness, anger, fear, excitement, and other physical and emotional feelings play a role in your decision-making. Expect fast thinking any time you are trying to make a personal change or a change to the way you run your business.

1. If you are having strong feelings, stop and think about how they are affecting your decision-making ability.

2. If possible, postpone important decisions until you are feeling more neutral.

3. If postponing is not an option, use your emotional intelligence skills. Take a deep breath and manage your emotions.4. Schedule important decisions for a time when you have enough energy to contribute to the task. Don’t make important decisions when you are hungry or tired.

5. Take your time to make important decisions. Think about them overnight. Consider possible outcomes to your behavior, including your feelings.

6. Incorporate processes to avoid wasting energy on routine decisions or allowing your fast thinking to intervene when inappropriate. For example, read and respond to email at certain times of the day instead of allowing it to interrupt your work.

7. An effective way to counter your own confirmation biases is to ask others for their perspectives on the data behind your decision and the decision itself.

8. If you make a mistake, acknowledge and correct it as soon as possible. The risk of not doing so is piling on self-serving justifications for making the mistake.

9. If you gravitate toward the first suggestion or idea, gather more information about the purpose or goal for accepting the suggestion or idea and then re-evaluate whether the first one is the best.

10. Never assume how someone else is thinking and feeling. Never assume that you know what they are capable of doing. Our assumptions are often based on incomplete or irrelevant data. Force yourself to prove your assumptions are true before you take them as fact.

Conclusion

Fast thinking can interfere with communication with clients, colleagues and yourself. Ultimately, what matters is whether the ways you think, feel and act are moving you closer to your goals or farther from them. Managing or leveraging fast-thinking biases begins with self-awareness and self-management.

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4 Steps for Post-Merger Integration Strategy

By Susan Letterman White

Resistance to change is always a danger even in small projects and promising innovations. But when a whole company is about to change its shape, to transform itself into something entirely different through a merger, emotions can run rampant. Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Supercorps)

Perhaps there is something inherently wrong with most of the advice suggesting a merger as a sensible strategic move. ALM research suggests  that five years after a merger is announced, 30% of firms experience a drop in gross revenue, 73% of gains are actually less than peer firms experience, and 93% of firms see an increase in cost-per-lawyer despite the argument that mergers are a way to gain efficiencies and reduce expenses.  Or, maybe there is another reason for these strategy failures.

When the financial analysis supports a decision for a merger or acquisition and the ongoing financial plan enhances financial stability, there is no reason for a merger to fail, yet they do. The same research references above suggests that disruption is commonly experienced following a merger. Mergers at the organization, group, and interpersonal levels are vulnerable to failure without a plan to address the to-be-expected resistance to change. 

Recently, I worked with a large firm on a post-merger integration project aimed to reduce resistance at the group level.  The combination of two firms resulted in friction among teams at the Chiefs, Directors, and Managers level. The old ways of doing things were not working effectively in the new firm. This is a common experience in any organization after a merger. 

My sponsor within the firm and I worked together to design a program to reduce resistance. She recently reflected on that work and said, “teams are working more effectively than a couple of months ago.  Whenever you can have folks communicate effectively and candidly about integration and discuss the concerns that people have, it reduces the anxiety that many may feel when firms initially merge.” That was our goal for a two-part pre- and post-lunch program at a two-day retreat. 

In most combinations, success depended on people understanding what the combination means. How will the new puzzle pieces fit together to create a new firm? How will their piece of the puzzle fit? Are people at risk of losing their jobs? It is not an overstatement to say that a merger is a significant change process. During the early stages of any significant change processes, namely for the first year after the event, anxiety is high and confusion abounds.

In my client’s situation, each legacy firm had its own way of doing things – its own culture. Culture isn’t something people talk about. In fact, they usually do not notice it. Culture is the behavioral norms that results from shared, yet hidden and undiscussed assumptions and beliefs about how people should interact with each other and what is valued most and least. 

When two cultures merge into something new and different, it’s a bumpy transition for many reasons. Some of those reasons are about the logistics, the actual organization dynamics change. Other reasons fall under the category of psychology – how human beings think and feel about change. People need to figure out how to navigate their differences and work together effectively and efficiently in the midst of changes to the law firm’s structures, processes, and resource allocation. 

As is common in a merger, in my client’s situation, many people affected by the merger were on the same team and yet had never met. Even among those, who had communicated with each other, most did not know each other very well. They came from different organizations with different workplace cultures and had different work styles and processes.  Superimposed over that, they had different, undiscussed assumptions of how they should be working together until they met at a two-day retreat. Merging the organization dynamics was as important as merging the cultures. 

In a successful merger, different individuals, groups, and organizations with necessarily different identities and cultures are becoming a unified whole and if done correctly, the new organization develops into a fierce marketplace competitor. Done incorrectly, it’s may be a mistake from which the firm will never recover.  

Key integration steps include the following.

1. Select the right people, groups, and firms. The group selected for the initial project included, Chiefs, Directors, and Managers.  These individuals were responsible for working together and supporting the work of the overall firm and attorneys. The specific small working-groups were designed with the “right” people – people that needed to work together and solve their problems that were interfering with their ability to work together effectively and efficiently.

2. Demonstrate concern for people and respect for their feelings and situations. The two day-retreat created the time and space for people to talk about the merger and its effects. A significant component was a portion devoted to explaining the logistics and psychology of the merger and providing time to discuss individual experiences of these effects. 

3. Integrate while acknowledging different identities and by choosing inclusion. Encourage new ideas and ways of thinking. Encourage people to challenge old ways of doing things. The retreat was part of an ongoing effort to acknowledge the differences of the two legacy firms, while also developing shared ideals and co-creating a shared future. The retreat included time for these firm leaders to collaborate as problem-solvers. They learned about the different legacy cultures driving how work was done effectively and efficiently and then began co-creating a new culture of new ways to effectively and efficiently working together.

4. Provide the space and time. Busy people need reasons and scheduled time to get to know and develop trust for one another. The two-day retreat did this. They were given a shared task to figure out how to improve their experience of working together and were also given time for informal networking to get to know each other better.

Mergers and integrations have the potential to jumpstart a new growth cycle for your law firm when leaders plan in advance to address the resistance that inevitably follows. That means paying equal attention to the logistics and the people affected and their wants, needs, expectations, interests, and concerns, and responding effectively and innovatively.

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Everything You Need to Know About Unique Value Propositions

By Susan Letterman White

What is a value proposition?

A value proposition is what you are offering to provide in exchange for your fee.  Your value proposition is your service, product, and/or the experience of working with you. It’s not about your personal brand – your identity or values. It’s not about how able you are to create trusting relationships, where clients have confidence in your legal acumen and ability. It’s not even about how people feel when working with you, although that is important. 

Rather, it is about the perception held by a prospective client, client, or referral source of the unique value you offer to people – the meaningful difference you can make in their lives and in helping them with their problems and goals. It’s about their point of view, the problems they care about most, and whether you offer a different and better solution to those problems.

The operative word is value, from your client’s point of view. There are three categories of value from your client’s point of view. You can create new value, protect existing value, or restore value lost for clients. If you find ways for your clients to do what they want to do, then you create value.  If you find ways to help your clients preserve what matters to them most, then you maintain value.  If you find ways to make your client whole after being physically, emotionally, or financially limited or harmed, then you restore value. 

A good value proposition quickly tells clients the problems you will solve for them, the leverage you will provide to make attaining their goals easier, and the benefits that will make their lives easier and better.

Why are some value propositions better than others?

Let’s take a look at two service companies to see what works and what could use a little improvement. 

As a ride-sharing company, Uber appeals to drivers and riders with different and persuasive value propositions.  On its website home page, you will find this:

Very quickly, I know how Uber can be of value to me, whether I am a rider or a driver. 

Boston University is a private university. Its campus is the city of Boston. Its competition for undergraduates is stiff. There are many similar universities in similar locations – even within the city of Boston. On its website home page, you will find an old-fashioned landing page and center stage is a picture and story of neuroscientist Rahul Desikan, a “pioneering neuroscientist” who “was attacking ALS. Then, ALS attacked him.” This may be an interesting and moving story, but it doesn’t tell me anything obvious and persuasive about the value of attending Boston University as an undergraduate.

Underneath and in small font are four categories: headlines, research, community, and alumni. Each category offers more information.  Under headlines is news about BU today. There is an article on E-cigarettes, managing information overload, and getting to know Dorchester. BU is not in Dorchester, so I find this very confusing. The information under the other headings is similarly aimed at a narrow audience of people, who might find the specific topics of interest.  Nowhere on the homepage of this website does it tell a prospective student why BU is a better choice than any other university. There are thirteen information links at the top of the page, many with drop-down menus. Each menu has too many additional topics.

Even if I select “ABOUT,” I’m told that “Boston University is no small operation…our three campuses are always humming, always in high gear.” These clichés tell me nothing at all. I could choose to click on any of several additional links, including to “meet the people and places that keep the University running smoothly,” but it’s difficult to find meaningful information at first glance about why Boston University is unique and worth the tuition and estimated expenses of $69,668 per year.

Clarity in a succinct message of the unique value to your target market is what makes a value proposition good. 

Why create a value proposition?

To a client, your value proposition is the value they conclude they are receiving in exchange for what they give you? If they do not conclude that they are receiving more value as a result of hiring you, they will opt to live with a problem or attempt to solve it in other ways. Clients give you their time, money, and emotions. In exchange, they want a problem to disappear and a solution to move into its place. They have needs and interests, none of which are the details of how you will use your legal expertise. When you can convey precisely, which factors or aspects of the service or the experience you offer will solve which of their specific problems, you give your prospect the information they need to decide whether or not your unique value proposition is of sufficient value to them.

Some people say that your value proposition is the most important piece of your overall marketing messaging. It’s a catalyst for transforming prospects into clients when it tells them why they should hire you, rather than another lawyer. It clearly conveys the benefits of working with you. The most important element is that it connects to the conversation about a problem or desire already happening in your prospect’s mind. 

How to create your value proposition

Many value propositions are drenched in trite, meaningless, weak, and ambiguous words. An effective value proposition explains how your services address a specific need experienced by your ideal client. A value proposition is also called a unique selling proposition because by using the language of the prospect, not the lawyer, and talking about the prospect’s problems begging for solutions, you transform a prospect into a client. The way you speak about your services to other lawyers or legal staff or even your family should differ from how your clients describe your services and how you describe your services to them.

Creating your unique value proposition is a five-step process.

Step One: Describe your ideal client or prospect. Is your client an individual or an entity? If an entity, who is the decision-maker? What does that person care about most? What makes this client or prospect ideal?

In a for-profit corporation, your client cares about creating or preserving value – their profit or competitive advantage.  They may also care about restoring value that they feel has been unfairly taken or not paid when due. Individuals may care most about their family member’s health and well-being, what others think about them, or restoring value that they feel has unfairly been taken. Non-profit organizations care about creating value through fundraising and relevant acquisitions and actions, helping their stakeholders, growing their members, and keeping their existing members happy. 

Step Two: Do you create new value, maintain value, or restore value for your client? 

Step Three: Describe the value in detail from the prospect’s point of view. What unique experience and value are you offering?

Step Four: What problems do your prospects have that keep them awake at night? Come up with as many problems as possible. 

Step Five: For each problem you identify, which specific factors, qualities, characteristics, or defining features of your service, product, or the experience of working with you respond to each problem?

Step Six: Put this information together to write a short, easy-to-recall, value proposition in the language of your client. Make it persuasive and distinguishable from competitors. What problems will you solve, or situations will you improve? What specific benefits will you deliver? Why are you better than the lawyer down the hall? 

You may need to analyze your competition to discover where they fall short.  Their weaknesses are your opportunities to distinguish yourself. What do you do better than your competition? There are three ways to differentiate yourself. You might describe the features – the facts or characteristics of your service; the advantages – how a feature can help the prospect; or the benefits – how a feature or advantage meets a prospect’s explicit needs. Research shows that benefits are the most persuasive way to describe solutions.  

Your features are what you offer – notify of new lawsuits soon after they are filed, explain the risks of different strategies, file all documents related to a trademark request, etc.  Your benefits solve your prospect’s problems – early notification of lawsuits, sleep better at night, knowing someone is on the lookout for lawsuits against your company. Your advantage may be your price point or speed.

Start with one short sentence about the end-benefit of your legal services. Then in 2-3 sentences, specifically explain those services and why they are useful. List three key features, advantages, or benefits of your services with bullet points.

Conclusion

Your value proposition should be read and understood quickly in less than 30 seconds. As long as you are not trying to sell something that few people want to buy or trying to sell to someone who doesn’t have purchasing power, your value proposition will transform prospects into clients and clients into brand advocates.

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Resilience and your personal brand

By Susan Letterman White

The ability to anticipate and bounce back from setbacks quickly - is among the most valuable competencies. Like the ability to easily learn new skills, it catalyzes a person's ability to respond intentionally, intelligently and with an effective strategy to any surprising and significant change that the person faces. Resilience is what helps a person adapt to adversity, manage stress and even find hidden resources to meet goals that at first glance appear difficult to attain. It is never more important than when you are trying to discern and adjust your personal brand. You have a personal brand. Everyone does. It is the image you project and is a consequence of every single aspect of your identity and behavior. This part of your identity is expressed whenever you are communicating, i.e., whenever you are in the same physical or virtual space as another person. You can't really identify your brand with accuracy without information from other people about how they perceive you. You may have a few ideas, and your ideas may even be correct. However, personal brand is what other people notice about you. It's a particularly difficult challenge to discover that your personal brand isn't what you thought it was and perhaps not aligned with your goals. This twinge to one's self image is what has been called an "identity abrasion."1 It is easy for someone who is accustomed to excelling academically to have a self-image as a high performer, and interpret the information about his or her brand that doesn't match the person's self-images as a fatal mistake or failure. In truth, it is nothing more than data to evaluate and an opportunity to learn something about how other people, who have experienced you in a particular context, perceive you. An identity abrasion to someone with low resilience can cause shock and a sense of loss. When this happens, it takes time to psychologically process the feelings associated with shock and loss. Some people are so fearful of an identity abrasion that they will protect themselves by refusing to collect data about their brand from other people. Unfortunately all this strategy achieves is to keep those vulnerable and low resilient people blind to the most valuable gift - feedback about what others believe is true. People with higher levels of resilience approach challenges with optimism that they will succeed. They have more confidence, are more motivated to tenaciously plow through difficulties, and view themselves as problemsolvers, rather than victims of unfortunate circumstances. Having this attitude, which can be cultivated with training, coaching, and practice, is what directs them to want data on their brand and make sense of it through an analytical lens crafted by curiosity. For this reason alone, developing your brand with the help of a coach is invaluable.

Tips for developing resilience

Identify competencies associated with emotional intelligence and develop them. Learning to manage your strong emotions, such as the anxiety associated with an identity abrasion, is one element of emotional intelligence. Another aspect of emotional intelligence, the ability to affect the emotions of others, will help you develop a brand that will help you expand your network. After all, people like helping people that they like, and people like people who affect their feelings in a positive manner. Learn to reduce your anxiety with controlled breathing, relaxing your tensed muscles, and using positiveimagery. Learn more about your anxiety through close attention to the circumstances surrounding your anxiety and reflecting on the experience afterwards.

PBN: Pause. Take three deep Breaths. Notice what is happening around you according to your five senses, and to you - physiologically, emotionally and what you are thinking and saying to yourself.

Tips for identifying and developing your personal brand

First ask yourself about yourself: What matters most to you? Who are you? What do you do? How do you do it? How are you different from everyone else? What do you want people to remember about you after you leave? Second, ask your colleagues, friends, clients, supervisors and anyone else that knows you, what they notice and remember most about you. Not everyone will perceive you in the same way. Your personal brand may vary from one person and context to the next.  Third, given your vision for success, goals and the people with decision-making power that matter to you, how, if at all, do you want to change your brand? Fourth, what will you do first to change your brand from what it is today to what you want it to be? The overlap between brand and resilience is the last step for developing your personal brand. That step is when you identity the action steps you will take to notice and manage any identity twinge that might arise.

1. Martin Davidson, "The End of Diversity as We Know it: Why Diversity Efforts Fail and Why Leveraging Differences Can Succeed" (2011).

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Top 3 tips for difficult conversations

By Susan Letterman White

Years ago, I mediated a conflict between two partners in a law firm. Peter was ten years senior to Jim. They had worked together as partners for five years and over that period, it had become extremely difficult for them to have a civil conversation about anything.  Once they looked back at their history working together, they identified a root of their conflict. 

The root was anchored in Peter’s exertion of seniority to block Jim’s desire to fire his assistant immediately. Both had good reasons for wanting what they wanted. The assistant had been gone from the firm for at least three years.  It seemed like a disagreement of three years earlier, over how best to manage a subordinate, was still alive and affecting the ability of Peter and Jim to work together. Over the years, Jim’s resentment grew as did Peter’s certainty in his decision and exercise of power. They avoided talking about their feelings and instead empowered them.

Why is it easier for professionals to give clear direction and bad news in the midst of of a time-sensitive, critical emergency than to have an open and honest conversation about feelings? The words for conversations to resolve a conflict or misunderstanding between two lawyers, accountants, financial advisors, and consultants, making sense of an uncomfortable situation or finding the right words to say and knowing what do are blocked by emotions.

While some emotions, like excitement and anger can feel energizing and bring clarity, others, like humiliation, embarrassment, guilt and shame can be paralyzing. The latter feel so uncomfortable that they block, what Daniel Kahneman calls System 2 thinking – deliberate, logical, and analytical thinking. Instead, they nudge into play the easily accessible options - acting too quickly and paralysis in an attempt to escape these feelings. The end point is the same - unintended consequences.  

The triggers for difficult conversations that trigger System 2 thinking often involve the readjustment of roles and responsibilities or the resolution of conflicting values.  Succession planning, compensation, or the business model are often a source of agitation.  Conflict and misunderstanding are often consequences.

If you are facing a difficult conversation arising out of conflict or misunderstanding, keep these three tips in mind.

1. Acknowledge emotions and thoughts.

It’s a mistake to ignore emotions.  Doing so, empowers emotions to cause blocks and missteps and impairs good decision-making. Instead of ignoring emotions, notice the signs – the knots in your stomach, a headache, a racing heartbeat, or an increase or decrease of sensation within your torso or limbs. Then ask yourself questions about what you are feeling. Name the emotion if you can. If not, google emotions to expand your vocabulary and your ability to name emotions. You may have heard the phrase with regard to emotions, “name them to tame them.” The power of emotions over thought processes and decision-making lessens with acknowledgement. Emotions are easier to spot than the hidden narratives and thoughts, but know that unconscious thinking also affects emotions.

What are you telling yourself about the difficult situation and conversation? Expand your self-awareness and expand your options for managing a difficult conversation effectively.

Why do you expect an upcoming difficult conversation to be difficult? What are you expecting to happen during the conversation? What emotions do you expect others to experience? What do you imagine they expect? 

After acknowledging your emotions and thoughts, consider the overall message and specific information you really want to convey and how best to do it, so that it will be heard and processed as you intend. Focus on your main message and a good outcome for the conversation so that collaboration for a solution becomes possible. Be clear about what you want, don’t want, need, expect, or prefer. Know your mind and then you’ll be better able to help others, who can’t read your mind, understand where you need help.  

Noticing isn’t just personal.  It’s about noticing the emotions of others and adjusting what you say and how you say it, to keep the conversation flowing productively. Emotions, just like the content of a conversation, provide important information.

2. Listen.

When your stress level is too high, you may overlook important information and limit the meaning of what you notice and hidden opportunities.  Instead, slow down. Take a breath. Do nothing other than listen carefully. Listen for content and emotion. What’s being said and how? It’s easy to assume that you understand another person’s position; however, conflict is often not about different positions as much as it is about emotions, interests, needs, and wants that go unnoticed and unacknowledged. The only way to understand another person is to listen to understand. Asking good, open-ended questions will give you content worth your time and effort to listen carefully.

It’s often easier to engage in targeted listening.  Listening for information that supports or undermines an existing position is easier than listening to understand what matters most to the person communicating an idea or emotion. Instead, if your goal is to resolve a conflict productively, listen without judgment.  Listen to understand. Assume whatever you hear is true for the person saying it instead of trying to correct what you believe is a misunderstanding. 

If you listen to better understand the other person’s interests and concerns, you may find options to resolve a conflict without damaging relationships.  One of my clients put it this way, “R before T.” Relationship before task.  The team and organization falls apart if relationships are not built and solidified at every opportunities. Without relationships, the tasks that can be completed are extremely limited.

3. Demonstrate that you care.

Even the best listener and the most astute observer and analyst conveys unintended messages by skipping over the opportunity to demonstrate understanding and compassion.   Digest what you hear and observe and share back your summary. Then, ask if you captured everything the other person wanted you to notice and understand. Include emotional tenor and not just content.

Active listening, empathic listening, or reflective listening all suggest the importance of being aware of the inadvertent messages you send by what you do and say during and after the other communicates. During any conversation, especially one with an element of conflict, the opportunity to convey intentional messages to improve relationships exists. If your goal is to strengthen the bonds of a business or personal relationship, take advantage of all such opportunities.

Demonstrate that you care about the other person by asking open-ended questions. Then, acknowledge their feelings, demonstrate concern, summarize and paraphrase what you hear, and then ask if you understood their meaning.

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Find the marketing strategy that’s right for you

By Susan Letterman White

Marketing and business development begins with an answer to the question: Who are you trying to attract as future clients? Your answer should infuse every choice you make about your marketing methods and content. Marketing methods include both active and passive means, using the array of technology options available or no technology at all, and traditional modes of advertising like on billboards, the back of a bus, television advertising or print materials. Once you know where, when and how to connect with your target market, you can decide what to do to let them know the solutions you offer, what it is like to work with you and how you deliver those solutions. Your goal? Remain top of mind, so that when they need what you have to offer, they will know the way to get in touch with you.

Here are three examples of different marketing strategies. Which one is closest to what might work best for you?

Marketing without technology

Alex (real person, name changed) doesn't have a website, Twitter account or LinkedIn page. She isn't active on social media and doesn't write blog posts or print articles. She doesn't plan and deliver programs on her substantive area of law to potential clients or referral sources. She doesn't send out Christmas cards or newsletters to her clients. Her clients do not have email access to her. By all accounts, she isn't doing anything that the experts in law firm business development and retention say are necessary to sustain successful revenue generation for today's solo and small firm lawyers. Yet, she has a steady stream of clients asking for her representation. What's her secret?

Alex's law practice is focused on criminal law. Her potential clients and their referral sources are often where she is demonstrating what she can do for them - in court. In fact, her clients, potential clients and referral sources do not select their lawyers from their digital footprint; instead they select them by evaluating their performance f irst-hand. The upside is that Alex has more free time to practice law with a life outside of law. She also manages the client relationships by phone or in-person only. If they want to communicate, they must pick up the phone. If it's a true emergency, they will get an immediate response. If it's important to them, but not an emergency, they will get a return call within 24 hours.

Marketing has been explained as communicating to many people simultaneously in-person or digitally. Alex doesn't intentionally market her law practice. The upside is that she saves time, money and possible anxiety associated with that endeavor. She is, however, delivering content about what she does and how she does it for clients, by being in court regularly. She has no digital intermediary between herself and her potential clients and referral sources. She's always on display when in court and passively marketing without any buffer. Every day she is in court she interacts with the people who have the decision-power to build or stall her practice. For some lawyers, that would be the downside.

Perhaps an explanation for Alex's success is in this response to a discussion about websites and getting noticed on JDUnderground, "I don't think people much care when your source of referrals is word of mouth. Word of mouth is 10 times better than any other kind."

Regardless of your practice area, Maggie Watkins, chief marketing officer of Sedgwick, LLP says, "Nothing replaces a face-to-face meeting when developing new business. It is a relationship business after all, and prospects want to know you understand them and their businesses and that can only be demonstrated by speaking to them and discussing their issues and needs. Articles, speeches and social media are all designed toget that meeting with the prospect, but the selling begins once you are in front of them and have the conversation."

Content marketing through technology

Not all practices offer the opportunity for passive marketing, as do some areas of criminal law. In contrast, the market (potential clients) in family law is composed of different niches according to family finances. The Legal Services Corporation reports, "86 percent of the civil legal problems reported by low-income Americans in the past year received inadequate or no legal help." This represents a significant business opportunity for anyone who figures out a solution. Damian Turco, a Massachusetts divorce lawyer with a personal injury component of his practice based in Boston, explains: "Prospective clients want to understand the general extent of their legal rights, considering the facts and circumstances of their cases. A natural starting point is the internet. Browsing is anonymous and you can provide them the answers they so need. While doing so, some prospective clients will decide they need representation and, because you've already established yourself as a credible solution, some will call you, schedule a consultation, and become paying clients."

Create a digital presence that answers the questions that are on the minds of your prospective clients and the people who are trying to help them. Then, to further attract the right people further into your marketing funnel, provide the answers to their questions about cost. Turco Legal has designed a specific program for them - Justice for All, - that involves resource-based billing for family law clients.

Content is king for Turco Legal because it is the right content at the right time; however, not all digital marketing content meets this bar. Your digital content may not be as valuable as you think it is. Jayne Navarre recently wrote about the problem with content that isn't engaging the right people. She writes, "The "organic" social media produced by law firms - the stuff that was supposed to create conversation and conversion - appeared to be mostly seen and applauded by a handful of their own employees, lawyers and a few real-life friends and relatives." Create content that will serve as a bread-crumb trail from your next best client's concerns and interests to a virtual handshake with you.

Combine low-cost technology with traditional marketing for a cost-effective combination

Even the best content can get lost among similar content online or on tangible venues, like billboards, public transportation and television. You may need to amp up your efforts by focusing on a narrow niche and repeating your message in different venues at different times. Enter the Truck Accident Lawyers in Pennsylvania. Munley Law is a personal injury law practice with niche marketing aimed at clients who have been injured in truck accidents. This enables clear, concise messaging online and on television.

Of course, this costs money and time and you may face stiff competition for tangible space and the right to get noticed by the right people at the right time. If you are going to use tangible venues in your marketing efforts. Bernie Munley, Chief Marketing Officer of personal injury law firm Munley Law in Pennsylvania, says, "Integrate them with your social media and digital marketing efforts. Social media allows marketers to build brand awareness, engage with their audience, and even target potential clients - typically at a lower cost than traditional media. It would be a mistake to overlook this opportunity.

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