The Stars We Forget to Count: Towards a more Optimistic and Purposeful Leadership

I never cease to be amazed of how much the lawyer DNA works against organizational objectives and goals. One of those aspects deals with the traditionally skeptical and risk-averse nature of lawyers. A doubtful and skeptical mind often helps to do a good legal work; clients expect lawyers to cover their backs on risks and contingencies. But it is difficult to lead projects and people with a skeptical mind. People need to be excited and motivated about what they do. If you put risks before goals and purpose you will only get fear and cautiousness. No great firm has been made on that basis.

In an interesting article. Annie McKee (“Happiness Traps: How we sabotage ourselves at work”, Harvard Business Review, Sept-Oct 2017) describes three traps in which we might get caught in our work life (the Ambition Trap, the “Should” Trap and the Overwork Trap). Ambition of course is good and necessary; we would hardly get anything accomplished without a good amount of ambition. But when we become hypercompetitive and single-minded on winning, we can get into trouble, says McKee. We loose sense of other people and the impact of our actions; relationships suffer and collaboration is affected. Work begins to loose its meaning.

The “Should” Trap deals with doing more what we “should do” rather than what we “want to do”. It´s obvious that rules have to be followed, but the deep meaning is: to what extend we are doing what we really like and how identified we feel with the project we are working for? If the main reason for working in a certain job is because we “should” do it (in whichever way we justify the “should”), then our inner motivation will be heavily affected.

The Overwork Trap is probably the one that might resonate more strongly in the law firm environment. The traditional culture of law firms assigns a high value to hard work (which in many instances turn into overwork). Probably the business model of law firms so much tied up to the hourly billing has helped in giving tremendous importance to long working hours. McKee suggests that “overwork creates a negative spiral because more work causes more stress; increase stress causes our brain to slow down and compromises our emotional intelligence; and less creativity and poor people skills harm our ability to get things done”.

But perhaps I am more interested in mentioning today the suggestions that McKee proposes to avoid the Happiness Traps in the workplace: meaning and purpose, hope and friendship.

Meaning and purpose: Passion for a cause fuels energy, creativity and intelligence. Science has proved –and we have seen it a thousand times in our work- that enthusiasm makes us smarter and more creative. Each person has its own way of becoming engaged with work, but in general people like to fight for a cause they care about, they like to create an innovate, and like to fix problems and improve their workplaces.
The skeptical and rational lawyer tends to think that meaning and purpose should be covered by a nice paycheck and a career, but younger generations are asking more and more for purpose and meaning. And what would that be in the context of a law firm? Purpose conveys the idea of something larger than ourselves and our individual interest. We don´t need to save the world (a law firm can hardly aspire to do so) but serving clients with high quality and commitment to their needs, aspiring to higher levels of performance, and contributing to build an organization that will last for future generations could be excellent drivers to give meaning and value to the lawyers work in the law firm. To give purpose and meaning to our work in the firm could be the difference between simply fulfilling the job and achieving excellence in what we do. In this way we come out of our limited view of individual professionals working in a more or less aggressive environment to our own needs, to a collective and exciting project where we share views an objectives with other professionals.
Hope: This is a difficult call for conservative and risk-averse lawyers. Hope suggests a certain level of naivety and superficiality. Things need to be planned and calculated in advance, not just hoped for. That is true of course when actual work is involved, but at a more general level hope in a project or in the future is an important element of wellbeing. Hope makes it possible to navigate complexity, and handle stress, fear and frustration. Hope also affects positively our brain chemistry, preparing us for better thinking and action. When we become too skeptical and conservative we run the risk of loosing sight of the many advantages and benefits that we enjoy. Great leaders in all areas of life (politics, religion, business and professions, to name a few) have been insanely hopeful of something they believe in (purpose and meaning) and went far enough to convince their followers that their cause were good enough to have faith and hope for it. The professional environment has become too complex to be able to ascertain the future with any level of reasonable assurance. Hope is not an irrational disposition towards the future but an optimistic attitude towards the task we have decided to pursue, and where our values and expectations are also being fulfilled.
Friendship: Some of you are already thinking, what does friendship have to do with working in the law firm? I mean, it´s nice to have friends but we don´t need those to achieve our professional goals. McKee is referring to warm and positive relationships at work and how much those improve our satisfaction and happiness. The concept of friendship, as applied to the workplace, refers to understanding that nice personal relationships makes an important difference in creating a healthy and stimulating environment.

When we prioritize in excess the rational and intelligent side of our brain we become more pessimistic and aloof. Borrowing the beautiful image of Tom Jobim in his song Wave, we forget to count our stars in the sky (“ as estrelas que esquecemos de contar”) and the blessings we have received. The legal profession in Latin America has given and will continue to give great opportunities to many lawyers, but changing and uncertain times like the ones we live, call for a more optimistic and purposeful leadership that can give meaning and hope to many young professionals that are hoping for more exciting and attractive projects for their law careers. It should be the aim of leaders of existing firms to provide that permanent psychological incentive in the years ahead.

I wish you all very Happy Holidays and a wonderful 2018!