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Performance. As lawyers, it’s what we’re judged on—especially in trying economic times when job security is scarce, client competition is fierce and market forces are unpredictable. For most of us, our performance is measured in terms of business gained and clients retained.
Any top-performing athlete knows that a split second or single misread play separates a champion from the runner up. That’s why elite athletes strive to know themselves and their game inside and out. Most of the time, they don’t go it alone. To optimize their performance, great athletes and those aspiring to greatness work with performance trainers, or coaches. Solo players like Tiger Woods have at least one; professional sports teams have many.
Much has been written about the attributes of successful coaches and coaching methodologies. But what makes one a successful “coachee?”
Focus On The Flip Side Of The Coaching Relationship
My 7-year-old son Gabe plays Little League Baseball. He’s crazy about the game, and has memorized farm team stats for his beloved New York Mets. But by the end of his playing season this Fall, he started getting frustrated. His friend consistently hit the ball into the outfield. Gabe didn’t. He realized that he needed to work on his batting skills.
An avid baseball fan, he knows that players have coaches and work on their swing every day. He figured if he wanted to improve as a hitter, he needed a coach, too. Coincidently, one of our town’s Little League coordinators is a former pro. He saw Gabe play and offered to give him some private coaching in the off season.
So there we were a week later in the batting cage. Jimmy assessed Gabe’s swing and then gave him a handful of tips on how to hold the bat, stand, drop his head, rotate his wrists and end his swing with his back shoe laces and belly button facing the pitcher. Over the weeks, Gabe took in and practiced everything Jimmy told him and his hitting improved dramatically.
I was amazed at Gabe’s progress. I had played baseball, softball, whiffle ball—you name it—for years as a kid, but never had a clue about the mechanics of a good swing. “If I had known all this when I was little,” I told Gabe, “I would have been a professional baseball player.” Gabe laughed and said (with ample 7-year-old bravado) “No way, dad! You still wouldn’t have had the skill.” And, of course, he was right.
Master The Four Elements Of A Coachee’s Success
In considering the strides Gabe made through coaching, I realized that four key elements combine into a formula for coachee success: honesty, desire, knowledge and action.
Honesty
Whether we want to hit a baseball into the outfield or become a top business generator, we need to be honest about our performance strengths and weaknesses. We have to admit when there’s a problem.
Fortunately, law firms and clients are making it harder for us to remain ignorant or in denial. At work, we undergo regular performance reviews that address our business development record and related partnership prospects. For their part, clients are not letting us drop the ball: If our service is lacking, they let us know by telling us to do better or leaving for one of our competitors.
If our performance is poor, the signs are usually posted. It takes some candor—and at least a bit of humility—to read them. I know this well. Before the miraculous advent of the GPS, I just couldn’t bring myself to pull over and ask for directions while driving; I had to get good and lost first. The same goes for many lawyers, especially those who have achieved a measure of success. It’s difficult to admit that something is off track even when it’s staring us right in the face. This arrogance-fueled ignorance holds us back from our own success.
Desire
Large law firms hire me to help coach senior associates and partners on generating more business. Time and again, I quickly discern that some of my coachees are only there because they feel that they have no choice. Their efforts invariably fall flat because they’re totally disinterested and un-invested in the coach-coachee relationship.
As the poet-philosopher Kahlil Gibran observes, “Desire is half of life; indifference is half of death.” You can’t be a coachee by conscription or with apathy. To change your behavior and improve your performance, you must really want to change. Otherwise, you won’t have the determination and stamina to get to that next level.
Knowledge
With the requisite honesty and desire, look for a qualified coach who will help you to gain the knowledge you need to address and remedy your performance issues.
As with my son’s baseball swing, there are best practices that you must learn to make strides as a business developer and in other lawyering roles. An experienced coach will know how to teach you these practice essentials so you can learn and integrate them.
The knowledge you accrue in the coaching process comes as general and targeted information about the legal marketplace, client expectations and law firm culture. It also takes the form of a defined skill set for you to hone and apply. Depending on your particular needs, these skills include:
Speaking
Listening
Writing
Generating Leads
Marketing
Networking
Following Up
The key for any coachee is to be open to the learning process, which is challenging and time-consuming, but can—and should also be—fun and interesting.
Action
Many people are what I refer to as learning proficient but action resistant. They’re willing and able coachees in the sense that they’re aware that they have a problem that needs to be solved and they truly want to solve it. They’re also adept at gaining the requisite knowledge and skills. But they balk when it comes to acting on that knowledge base.
Although it’s part of a coach’s job to create an action plan that encourages you to get over this hurdle, you can’t be an actor by proxy. Eventually, you have to just do it. This can be scary and daunting, but it’s the reality of being a top-flight performer.
Beyond taking action, you need to be accountable for the actions you take. For this, you need a healthy dose of honesty. You must be willing to look at, and constructively critique, yourself and your business performance. Again, although your coach can help you devise an accountability plan, you have to do the work. To the extent that your success ultimately rises and falls with you, it’s a solo gig that can’t be outsourced. But, you can recruit some teammates. An assistant – onsite or virtual – can help you identify and review relevant statistics and other markers of your business success. If you’re at a firm, you can check with your marketing department or practice area leaders to see what kind of performance metrics you can adopt and adapt for your own use.
Top performers of all walks—elite athletes, lawyers with full books of business, even 7-year-old baseball enthusiasts—understand that they play an integral role in coaching success. They reap the rewards of their honesty and desire to be exceptional at their craft. They gain and sharpen the knowledge and skills they need and, most importantly, put their learning into action on their playing field. Through triumphs, stumbles and all-out failures, they stay accountable for their actions and use them as reference points as they continue to grow as performers and people.
