Speaking of China, while touring a job fair in Tianjin last week, China’s President Xi Jiping answered his own question to a local official as to what the critical ingredients of good Communist leaders are. “Intelligence quotient and emotional quotient – which is more important?” the president evidently asked. When the official answered “both,” it was reported that … Continue Reading
The Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at Georgetown University Law Center and TAGLaw recently published a survey showing the value of their culture to the growth strategies of mid-sized law firms. First, these high-culture awareness firms view culture as a key factor in attracting laterals, with 70% of the firms ranking it … Continue Reading
Above the Law columnist Susan Moon, an in-house lawyer at Wyndham Worldwide, gave our The Unique Psychological World of Lawyers a nice plug last week, just hours after much of the data in it was discussed at a presentation at Yale Law School. An older article (since updated) and a "bit on the dry side," … Continue Reading
Speaking of doctors in white coats, one has identified an attribute that may not rub off onto you when you don your own white coat. According to Peter Ubel, a physician and behavioral scientist at Duke University, Starbucks employees have better training and are more effective in acting emotionally intelligent than doctors are. In his book Critical … Continue Reading
Here is the third and final installment on some of the highlights from this year’s Futures Conference of the College of Law Practice Management held at Georgetown Law School at the end of last month: What General Counsel Want From Their Outside Law Firms The panel’s top considerations reflected the same ones outlined in the ACC’s GC Value Insights, prepared in cooperation with a number of … Continue Reading
The following is a second installment about some of the highlights from this year’s Futures Conference of the College of Law Practice Management held at Georgetown Law School the end of October: Hiring and Training Successful Lawyers Georgetown Law School reported on two research projects they are undertaking–“Integration and Fragmentation in the Modern Law Firm” and “Developing Attorneys … Continue Reading
Most of us have very high standards for the work we deliver our clients. We demand from ourselves and those on our team the best possible product. "Performance at whatever price" might be our mantra, even if it requires nagging and criticizing or even bullying. Yet confrontational environments feel uncomfortable to most people and over the long run are in fact not conducive … Continue Reading
A series of articles in the Wall Street Journal last week discussed the trend in corporate America toward using analysis of data obtained through personality and other questionnaires from employees to guide better long-term hiring. The information obtained from employees coupled with their work histories gives employers, particularly of large workforces with potentially large turnover rates, a better predictive … Continue Reading
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Recent reporting happened to recount within days of each other three instances of fraud in the legal world that bear some reflection. In New York in late July, after a short deliberation by the jury, two attorneys were convicted of 10 felony counts of perpetuating for over almost a decade mortgage fraud, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud … Continue Reading
Ronda Muir of Law People Management LLC, Randall Kiser of DecisionSet, and Daniel S. Bowling III of Duke Law School will be co-presenting a Center for Competitive Management audio presentation on Wednesday, June 13, 2012 at 2pm EDT entitled "Lawyering with Emotional Intelligence." The presentation will cover the relatively new science of emotional intelligence, its relationship to … Continue Reading
Are women really worth a damn as leaders? Or is the diversification effort–from those cozy women’s initiatives to the hard-headed firm strategies to avoid sexual harassment suits–simply political correctness writ large? There’s been a lot said from both sides of the aisle recently. And from some surprising corners. The Hay Group recently announced that, from a series of in-depth interviews … Continue Reading
Speaking of hospitality, during the 6th Annual HR in Hospitality Conference & Expo in San Francisco last month,Chip Conley, the founder of the hotel chain Joie de Vivre, said that most leaders have strong IQs, but far fewer have EQs—emotional intelligence—to match, and that can be detrimental to business. Why? 1) Emotions are more contagious than viruses, so … Continue Reading
The American Lawyer has just issued its Report on Laterals 2012, in which it found that in the 12 months ending September 30, 2011, 2,454 partners left or joined Am Law 200 firms, for a 22% increase over 2010, when there was the lowest number of moves since 2000. "This year’s figure was consistent with the annual average of 2,458 partner moves … Continue Reading
Perhaps the only players in the legal world getting a harsher strafing these days than law firms are law schools. The biggest complaints are 1) financial: that they unfairly entice students into their folds on promises of big payday legal jobs that most will never have a shot at and that the law schools do so at tuition rates that impose mortgage-sized … Continue Reading
In honor of the endings and beginnings at this time of the year and the personal and professional resolutions that each of us aspire to for the future, it is fascinating to look to the life of the founder of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud. A recent entry in "The People’s Therapist," a blog by a … Continue Reading
Goleman Clarifies In the emotional intelligence ring, there have long been two theories—those who think that EI counts for 80% of success and those who don’t. Daniel Goleman’s 1995 blockbuster book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ is the source of much of this scrapping—he asserted in the original edition that IQ … Continue Reading
One of the more challenging skills lawyers need to master is the ability to delegate–to younger partners, associates, and non-lawyer staff, and in this marketplace, to third party providers, like document reviewers and e-discovery firms. And even to clients. But there is a lot of internal resistance in many lawyers to mastering that skill. Perfectionism, wanting to stay in control and … Continue Reading
In a new CareerBuilder survey of more than 2600 hiring managers and human resource professionals nationwide, 71% said they value emotional intelligence in an employee more than IQ and 34% said they are placing even greater emphasis on emotional intelligence when hiring and promoting employees post-recession. And 59% said they would not hire someone who has a high IQ … Continue Reading
One of the more interesting findings in emotional intelligence research is that people who read emotional cues in others are generally good at reading their own emotional states and vice-verse—those who read themselves well are likely to read others well also. Conversely, an inability to read either oneself or others signals the corresponding inability. These findings are … Continue Reading
The words being thrown around were trust, intimacy, empathy, vulnerability, honesty, transparency, communication, emotional intelligence, teamwork, forgiveness, feedback, collaboration, connectedness, courage, relationship-building. It would be understandable if you thought that you had walked into a marital counseling conference or some new-age event. In fact, the setting was Georgetown University Law Center’s March 9th conference entitled "Welcome to the … Continue Reading
In order to achieve bottom line results that are more and more hard-fought, firms are frequently turning (some quite belatedly) to business management principles used in other industries–organization around teams, commodities work outsourcing, Six Sigma quality control, process and knowledge management efficiencies, and, in response to client pressure, estimating, budgeting and budget management systems. Embedded in this trend has come … Continue Reading
Muir will speak on Law Practice in the 21st Century: What It Means for You at the Women Lawyers Alliance annual meeting in Chicago on Friday, May 20. Muir will review the massive changes that law practice is undergoing globally in this new century and what it means to individual lawyers and their law departments and firms in … Continue Reading
The Value Advisory issued a press release today announcing the formation of a veteran group of advisors to provide law firms with strategies and resources that align firm offerings and operations with their clients’ objectives. At a time of increasing client demands for value at a reduced cost, The Value Advisory works with firms to assess their clients’ … Continue Reading
