Law Consulting Blog : Cordell Parvin's Law Consulting Blog : Coach & Consultant For Lawyers & Law Firms : Business Development, Career Planning

On Monday I suggested that giving bonuses based on billable hours is counterproductive and is actually a de-motivator. You get what you reward. When you reward billable hours you get more billable hours and you give a direct message that associates should focus on billable hours.

I received a comment from Anon that shows how lawyers who are rewarded for billable hours think. The comment makes my point, or at the very least makes the point Daniel Pink made in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. When I reviewed the comment, I struggled with which came first: How Anon views being a lawyer, or how her law firm views its associates. Here is what Anon said:

How about this scenario:  An associate is ahead in hours, such that if she billed the monthly-minimum she would be 300 hours ahead at the end of the billing year (which ends in four months).  Her backlog could support working more than the minimum. Her firm does not pay hours-based bonuses.  

Why should she work even the minimum?  Doesn't it benefit the firm greatly for her to keep working at the rate her backlog will allow?  An hours bonus may not motivate her, but it would keep her from feeling like she has wasted a significant amount of time on work for which she will never be paid.

I want to thank Anon for a very thoughtful comment. It should give law firm leaders great insight into the thinking of lawyers who are rewarded for hours. The associate she writes about is focused on her pay, not on the work she is doing for clients. She is focused on her pay, not focused on becoming the best lawyer she can become. She is focused on the short term not focused on the long term. Her way of taking control of her career is to go home when she reaches her desired number of hours. It is the same mindset as a seamstress who is paid based on piecework basis.

If you don't have time to read Drive, at least read this review: Motivating Employees: How to Spark Creativity Without Boosting Pay. To take a point Pink makes in the book and apply it to lawyers: Bonuses for hours may be effective when a lawyer is doing boring, repetitive work that she hates getting up each day to do. Law firms who base bonuses on hours billed send the message to their associates that the law firm values them only for the hours they bill--not for their creativity, their problem solving skills, their efficiency or their innovation.

Ask your clients how they feel about your firm rewarding associates for more billable hours. Your clients don't want more hours. They want lawyers who are creative, innovative, know how to analyze their problems and they want it done efficiently, with fewer hours.

Associates paid for hours billed respond like Anon. They will bill the required hours and go home. Over time, they will resent firm platitudes about teamwork and a commitment to excellence in client service, because they will see that while the firm talks about those values, it lives by very different values. 

In the best of all worlds, Anon would recognize that she could get greater satisfaction by finding ways to bring great skill and creativity into her work because it will help her firm's clients.  In fact, older attorneys who have "made it" in her law firm probably did just that. Yet, for a young associate rewarded for hours, it becomes increasingly difficult to find satisfaction that way.

I don't believe associates come out of law school thinking their career will be focused on "getting their hours." I believe they begin their career focusing on helping clients succeed. How quickly they change in the face of pressure to get their hours.  For that reason, law firms should consider restructuring how they compensate their associates in a way that shows associates that they are valued for a lot more than their ability to churn out billable hours.

If you don't have ideas on how your firm could do this, read Drive. Daniel Pink discusses how to bring out the best using better approaches. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

In my post yesterday, I shared that a carrot and stick approach with bonuses based on hours billed is not a great motivator. An associate wrote me and said she agreed, but also asked that I share with senior lawyers what actually does motivate associates and how to tap into it. As you will see below, there is a lot of consistency on what motivates people and it isn't money or bonuses. The real challenge is to figure out how a law firm can provide it.

I blogged about motivation a few weeks ago and in 5th Key to Career Success and Life Fulfillment: How to Motivate Yourself I talked about three points Dan Pink made in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.   He believes that intrinsic motivation comes from autonomy, mastery and purpose. 

Those are not new concepts. Several years ago I read Selling with Emotional Intelligence. Chapter 14 of that book is titled: “Finding Motivators that Last.” The essence of the chapter is that successful people are intrinsically motivated because extrinsic material motivation loses its power over time.

So, what would motivate you to develop, build and expand relationships with clients? Mitch Anthony lists six categories of lasting intrinsic motivation:

1. Competitive nature-it is the desire to become better than competitors.
2. Desire for excellence-it is the desire to become the best you can be. 
3. Curiosity and desire to grow-it is the lifelong desire to continuously learn and become a better lawyer 
4. An attitude of gratitude-it is appreciating the opportunities we have been given rather than complaining about our circumstances
5. Desire for building relationships-it is spending a lifetime doing work and helping people we like.
6. Noble purpose and goal-it is the feeling that what you are doing to help clients is noble and helpful. 

These concepts have even been discussed in the context of professional services firms. Jay Lorsch and Thomas Tierney in their book, Aligning the Stars: How to Succeed When Professionals Drive Results, say that most young professionals want:

•  to learn;
• career options;
• affiliation and teamwork;
•  autonomy; and'
• flexibility to better balance their professional and personal lives.

Ok, I think you probably can agree that there is clarity on what motivates younger lawyers. The more difficult question is how a firm, and its more senior lawyers can provide it. We will be brainstorming creative ways a law firm can tap into their associates' intrinsic motivation If you are interested, send me your ideas.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Yesterday I wrote about inner motivation and made the point that no one can motivate you for a significant time. You have to motivate yourself.

You might have wondered why motivation is even important. Put simply, to become more successful and more fulfilled, you have to continue growing as a lawyer and a person. That involves change and the problem is that change is incredibly difficult. 

A few years ago Fast Company magazine published a fascinating article Change or Die. Please click and read it to better understand why changing is so difficult. You will learn that fear of dying is not a motivator. Heart patients know exactly what lifestyle changes they need to make to avoid dying, yet they do not make them. On the other hand the joy of living can be a powerful motivator.

Let's see how the joy of living type of motivation might apply to practicing law. I recently listened to  Daniel Pink's new  book titled: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. If you search you will find that some have criticized the conclusions Pink reaches. I happen to agree with Pink's main points. You can find my similar thoughts in my book Prepare to Win: A Lawyer's Guide to Rainmaking, Career Success and Life Fulfillment. 

One of Pink's main points is that the carrot-stick (change or die) approach only works in limited situations when the work is so boring or lacking creativity that it is about the only tool to motivate the workers. I suppose it might work for the lawyer who is stuck in a warehouse reviewing 1000s of emails a day to determine whether they are relevant and whether they are privileged. Almost nothing a lawyer does could be more boring. So, rewarding the lawyer by the number of hours he or she puts in might be an appropriate incentive.

Pink believes that intrinsic motivation (joy of living) is what is needed in every other circumstance. He believes that intrinsic motivation comes from autonomy, mastery and purpose. When you have autonomy you feel like you can direct your own life. To have autonomy you must take responsibility for your career success and life fulfillment. Mastery means you are constantly striving to become a better lawyer knowing you will never achieve total mastery. Purpose means you are working on client matters that are meaningful, doing them well and doing your work for a purpose greater than yourself.

Pink tells a story about finding purpose.  In 1962, Clare Booth Luce met with President Kennedy about his diffuse priorities. “A great man,” she advised him, “is one sentence.” President Lincoln’s sentence was obvious: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.” So was FDR’s: “He lifted us out of a great depression and helped us win a world war.” What, Luce challenged President Kennedy, was to be his sentence? 

• Take responsibility for your career,
• Work every day to become a better lawyer and find ways to better serve clients and
• Focus on the journey, not the destination. In other words, focus on the joy that helping clients achieve their goals bring you rather than focusing on pay, bonuses or promotion,
• Finally, decide what is your sentence.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link