When I have more time available to be at my desk, I find that it’s easy to get pulled into non-essential busywork. Email is a terrific example. When I’m on the road, I’m ruthless about clearing out my email. I read, act, and delete as quickly as possible. But if I’m not attentive, that pattern slips when I’m in the office. Decisions get delayed (no time to read it now, but I’ll save and read it later… really!) and email piles up.

I’ve also noticed that a long stretch of time in the office increases the risk of scheduling my work around others’ priorities. When traveling, my flexibility is naturally limited. When I’m in the office, my scheduled is less fixed – if I don’t have a client meeting, it’s easy to reschedule blocks of time I’d intended to dedicate to long-term projects.

A friend often reminds me, “the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.”And so I ask myself each morning, what’s the main thing for today? Whether I’m in the office or on business travel, asking that question gives me immediate focus.

In this week’s post…“I’m sharing a few favorite quotes about focus. We all talk about it.

What’s your main thing?

Quotations of the Month

“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.”

– Alexander Graham Bell

“An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.”

– Edward de Bono

“Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.”

– Aesop

By: David Maister

As the title of David Maister’s book Strategy and the Fat Smoker suggests, the problem isn’t that we don’t know what to do: it’s that we do know and yet we choose to ignore that knowledge. Maister promises a dose of “real” strategy: “Real strategy lies not in figuring out what to do, but in devising ways to ensure that, compared top others, we actually do more of what everybody knows they should do.” In other words, it’s all about implementation, and that’s the focus of the book.

Organized in sections pertaining to how organizations should think about strategy itself, clients (including marketing and selling), and management, Strategy and the Fat Smoker speaks to those who understand that knowing without doing brings little value. This can be a trap for lawyers, because we like to find the best answer and so we can research and think and plan well past the point of diminished returns. But “best” can sound like “perfect,” and perfect is unattainable.

Maister’s introductory chapters on strategy include several gems, including:

If you truly want to succeed (and many people do not want it badly enough to make it happen) then you must never settle, never give up, never coast, never just accept what is, even if you are currently performing at a high level.

and

[T]he primary outcome of strategic planning should not be analytical insight or smart choices, but a superior resolve to accomplish something.

and

The best way to approach this re-evaluation [of the organization's purpose, mission, vision and values] is to begin with a very small inner circle of top management leaders, who can look each other in the eyes and ask: “Are these really the decision rules we as leaders are prepared to stick with?”

Maister invites readers to plunge in with any chapter, and Chapter 17, titled The Trouble with Lawyers, invites study. Maister’s preface to this chapter indicates that he originally wrote it to explain, “Why lawyers and law firms are different from other professions.” He then notes that others in consulting and the financial services industry identify with the culture and behavior that Maister ascribes to the legal profession, but almost any lawyer who reads this chapter will recognize that Maister is indeed speaking to us.

Maister highlights four problems that prevent “lawyers from effectively functioning in groups:”

• problems with trust;
• difficulties with ideology, values, and principles;
• professional detachment; and
• unusual approaches to decision making (referring to lawyers’ propensity to attack any idea presented to locate and highlight its weaknesses, with the result that “within a short time, most ideas, no matter who initiates them, will be destroyed, dismissed, or postponed for future examination.”)

Having identified and explained these peculiarities, Maister asks why lawyers do so well financially if the profession is riddled with these problems. His answer?

The greatest advantage lawyers have is that they compete only with other lawyers. If everyone else does things equally poorly, and clients and recruits find little variation between firms, even the most egregious behavior will not lead to a competitive disadvantage.

Writing in 2007, Maister suggests that only client pressure is likely to compel firms to begin to act “as firms — delivering seamless service, practice areas that have depth (and not just a collection of individualistic stars), and true, cross-boundary teamwork.” The last few years have demonstrated exactly that client pressure, and some firms have prospered while others have self-destructed. Maister’s books (including the classics The Trusted Advisor and Managing the Professional Service Firm) offer numerous insights into how lawyers and firms may shift with (or even in advance of) client pressure.

Other chapters of Strategy and the Fat Smoker have application to lawyers and firms as well. (See, for example, a chapter on client relationships that asks the key question, Do You Really Want Relationships? and the chapter titled Strategy Means Saying “No”.) The book does an excellent job of delivering its subtitled promise of teaching organizations and individuals to do “what’s obvious but not easy.” It’s readable, practical, and insightful. Buy it, read it, and apply it.

I love college football.

Football also offers lessons for business development, as I noticed recently. A few of my favorites:

1. Play to win, not to avoid losing. In 2010, Auburn was the #1 team. Cam Newton (and other strong players) graduated, and Auburn’s ranking plummeted. The team suspended one of its strongest players who violated team rules at the tail end of the season. It would be hard to blame Auburn for coming to the Chik-fil-A Bowl against Virginia with a plan to play it safe and to make a strong enough showing NOT to lose, and better luck next year.

Instead, Auburn played full-out, even making the unusual play of an onside kick in the second quarter while leading. (Onside kicks are usually reserved for near-desperation moves late in a game.) That play has been marked as the game’s turning point, but it’s simply one example of Auburn’s “all in” play.

In business development, you may find yourself tempted to play it safe or to avoid making a risky move for fear of failure. Calculated risk that reflects your full commitment will always pay off. Sometimes it will result in a glorious failure first, but playing to win succeeds far more often than playing not to lose.Which are you doing now?

2. Watch your timing. Jittery players get penalized for anticipating the snap, or for delaying the snap and thus the game. Knowing when to take a time-out and how to control the tempo of the game is a key aspect of football strategy. Each play calls for careful timing, in knowing when to hold and release a pass, when to power through opponents and when to run out of bounds, and much more.

Timing is less precise in business development, but it matters. Consider the stereotypical bad networker who hands out business cards reflexively and doesn’t understand why no one calls. Promoting oneself before understanding a potential client’s needs rarely succeeds. (That goes for online and website strategy as well.) Especially if you’re eager or uncomfortable, it’s easy to jump directly into how you can help a potential client. Instead, start by exploring the client’s concerns. In other words, don’t lead with your experience or your skills. Remember, we all want to know what’s in it for me?

By the same token, timing comes into play in knowing when to ask for the business. Too soon, and it may come across as pushy; too late, and you may miss the opportunity.

What’s your rainmaking rhythm? If you don’t have a system or at least markers that guide your steps, you may be missing important aspects of timing.

3. Build a team and treat members with respect. Although we tend to herald individual players in football, it’s the team that wins or loses. And while the stars are usually a key force, the best player ever will be ineffective without the support and help of other team members. A brilliant pass is nothing without a receiver, and no play can succeed without blockers.

That’s true in business as well. Your team may include other firm attorneys and staff; sole practitioners may count business allies and centers of influence as part of the team. However you define your team, know that you cannot succeed alone.

Remember that (depending on your area of practice) your former clients may be one of your most important team members. Happy clients will help your practice expand by referring others and perhaps by bringing you repeat business. Client service matters deeply.

Who’s on your team now, and what positions must you fill to support your business development effort?

Those are just three of the reminders I picked up while watching bowl games this week. For you football fans, think about what else you can learn. How do you respond to “penalties” (setbacks), fair or unfair? How do you handle it when one of your “players” makes a mistake? Who helps you to see the big picture, to better coordinate your efforts? Who pushes you to deliver more than you thought you could? How many “plays” can you run? Do you know which are most effective?

But what do clients mean? That’s the question that really matters. Approval from colleagues only goes so far toward building a successful practice. If clients hold different views as to what matters, there’s a disconnect in perspective. That disconnect can slowly hollow out the practice, without the satisfied clientele necessary for practice growth – and perhaps without that support necessary even for survival.

James Durham has done the groundwork to discover and summarize what clients want and published the results in one of my all-time favorite books, The Essential Little Book of Great Lawyering. The book is aptly named: at just 52 pages (including the title page, copyright, and table of contents), you’ll need less than an hour to discover the essential skills of great lawyering.

According to Durham’s client interviews, a great lawyer is one who knows the law and has “become a lawyer that people trust above all others, and . . . to whom they turn when they (or people they know) have any kind of problem.” In other words, a great lawyer is one who knows and responds to her client’s needs, desires, and preferences. Durham’s research revealed that 90% of clients say that they like lawyers who are responsive and who really know their client’s business, but they seek even more. Great lawyers also communicate clearly, build relationships with their clients, provide remarkable value, and are loyal to their clients.

The Essential Little Book manages to go beyond those generic words to offer specific examples of what lawyers must do to succeed fully in practice. Durham suggests, for example, that a lawyer must know what his client wants to happen throughout the engagement. I would take that suggestion a step further and offer that a great lawyer would ask what specifically his client wants through the representation. (Examples would include determining how much communication is helpful and in what form, how advice might be presented most usefully, etc.) Nevertheless, Durham’s point is well-taken: great lawyers pay attention to what their clients want and need, perhaps even more than the clients do.

One of the key mistakes I see lawyers make is believing that “being a great lawyer” (as measured by technical expertise) is all that’s necessary to build a successful practice. Durham addresses this same problem and offers that being a great lawyer (as defined by clients) is the foundation of a successful practice. I couldn’t agree more.

The Essential Little Book should be required reading for lawyers. Before the end of the year, set aside an hour to read the book. (If you’ve read the book before, read it again. This is one of those books that meets you wherever you are in your practice.) Take another half-hour to set some goals to implement what you learn. You’ll build a much stronger practice as a result.

But he doesn’t really use any of the platforms. He’ll start with one, then the next becomes the latest and greatest and so he shifts, but a new latest and greatest pops up, so he shifts to that one. And it isn’t social media: he’s jumping around with face-to-face networking groups and even types of activity, always believing that his jump will get him to something easier and more effective.

But here’s the truth: Chasing the silver bullet, in social media or anywhere else, will undermine your rainmaking efforts and trash your confidence.

Innovations will come up over and over. Some will be complete game-changers (the advent of the Internet and websites), many will be a quick flash and then gone (SixDegrees.com), and some will be slow-growers that prove useful over the long-term (LinkedIn, apparently). Jumping to the hottest new thing will leave you tired and frustrated. But you can’t overlook all the great new stuff that’s coming out. What to do?

When you spot the next new thing, here’s what you must consider before jumping in.

Is this really new? Is there some advantage in being an early adopter?

If not, what spot does it fill? For example, Google+ fills a social media activity spot, and more broadly, it’s a type of networking. Are you already active in that spot?

Are you consistently doing all of the activity that you’ve planned to do as a part of your business development approach?

If your answer to question 3 is no, STOP. Absent a compelling reason, you’re chasing a silver bullet that’s just as likely to be made of tinfoil. Stick a toe in if you answer both parts of question 1 with yes OR if your answer to question 2 is no, but don’t go deep unless the new thing fits into your fully implemented plan.

For example, I’ve advised my clients to create a Google+ profile even though they’re already active on LinkedIn because there’s an advantage in being an early adopter in a Google-sponsored social media platform that’s hit a tipping point. I have not advised them to be active because, in most cases, there’s more work to be done on their business development plan. They’re just sticking a toe in. Get the easy benefit (and add a +1 to your website and blog, for extra “dipping” benefit) but concentrate on what’s proven to work well.

Back to the potential client I mentioned. When we talked about his taking on new activity, he was clear that he’s of a “newer is better” mindset. He was unwilling to take my suggestion of focusing in on a handful of proven approaches, and so I was unwilling to take him on as a client. I hope he’ll prosper and prove me wrong. Unfortunately, my hunch is that he’ll conclude at some point that business development just won’t work for him. And that’s the worst outcome of all. Don’t make his mistake.

I’ve been working on my 2012 goals – how about you? (Hint: if you haven’t, you’d better get moving!) I’m using a new tool this year to help me get clear on what I most want to accomplish after seeing a broad field of possibility: SimpleMind. Many options exist for computer-assisted mindmapping, but I like SimpleMind because it’s inexpensive, free for the iPhone, and it allows for level-based coloring and for branches that extend in any direction you’d like. It’s great for viewing options and setting goals, and it also helped me to put together a complicated program proposal in record time.

I don’t encourage failure… Mostly. As I suggested last week, it’s helpful to assess and mitigate the risks of failure when you’re stepping out with a new activity. There’s no glory in the “ready, fire, aim” approach when you have the time and the ability to do some (but not too much) preparatory work that increases the odds of success.

BUT.

If you’re not failing despite doing some prep work, you’re probably not taking big enough steps. Please, don’t fail because of laziness, intellectual or otherwise. But recognize that if everything is going so swimmingly that you’re not failing at all, you’re leaving something on the table.

As I wrote last week, you cannot succeed unless you’re willing to fail. Be willing to take a risk. The more you do, the higher the risk of failure – and the higher the chances of success.

This video (which happens to be an advertisement for Nike) brings it all home. Take 31 seconds to watch. Yes, now.

By nature and by nurture, we’ve been trained to avoid taking risks. Sure, it’s safer to do only what you know will work (even though sometimes you’ll be wrong about that, too, especially where people are concerned) but you’ll also miss a lot of opportunity.

An example for your consideration. Referrals and introductions often come by email – “Bob, meet Susan, I think she may be able to help with your blah blah blah question.” If you’re Susan, an email is the safe response to that introduction. But a telephone call is often a more engaging and helpful response. There’s risk involved: what if Bob doesn’t want the introduction or the help? What if Bob is too busy and a call is an interruption? That’s a risk I’d suggest you take almost every single time. Sometimes you’ll fail, but (if you handle the calls well) the successes will outweigh the failures.

So, this week, ask yourself where you’re stopping yourself because you might fail even if you prepare as well as you can. Specifically with business development and client service, what might you do differently if you were willing to fail?

Don’t aim to fail. Do take some risks and accept that you may fail before you succeed.

Failure is often a difficult topic for high performers.After all, those who achieve much do so by making it a habit to avoid failure. More than a few times, when I’ve talked with my own coach, the conversation has ended up with me saying, “Well, that’s fine, but failure just isn’t an option for me. I don’t do that.” How ridiculous – and also, perhaps, how familiar.

I’ve failed plenty of times. When it comes to business, my goal is to fail quickly if I’m going to fail. When a task is important, failure often leads to a better-informed next attempt, which usually leads (directly or not) to success. So, when failure is inevitable, fast failure is the way to go.

And yet, failure is still unpalatable to me. Is it to you, as well?

A few weeks ago, I was talking with a client and out popped what I believe to be a truism: You cannot succeed unless you’re willing to fail. This was reinforced in a story I read recently about a ne’er-do-well door-to-door salesman. He’d march up to someone’s doorstep; extend his finger to press the doorbell, and then pull back, muttering, “She won’t buy anything.” And he’d turn around, guaranteeing his failure on that potential sale. No wonder he was a ne’er-do-well.

Now, most of us don’t do door-to-door sales, but the principle is just the same.You must take a risk to have any chance of success. Whether it’s reaching out to a potential client, asking a current client how they think things are going, or stepping onto a stage (literal or figurative) to make a presentation to some of your ideal clients, if you don’t risk, you don’t get.

Where is your aversion to risk causing you to stop? After I talked with my client, I challenged myself to write down all of the things I’m holding back on doing because I realistically think I might fail, and then to come up with a way to mitigate that risk. I quickly produced a fresh to-do list. Even though I might fail, I also may succeed on my first shot with those items, thanks to this five-minute exercise.

Today, I invite you to do this quick exercise yourself, specifically in the realm of business development:

1. What are you avoiding for fear of failure? List three to five items, both general (attending a networking luncheon) and specific (calling the promising contact you met last week who promised to call you but didn’t).

2. What are the consequences if you do fail? Consider the financial, professional, reputational, and emotional risks. Don’t overstate them; despite your first response, chances are good that you won’t actually die. However, if a misstep could constitute professional suicide (with an ethics violation, for example), you need to get absolute clarity before you move forward.

3. How might you mitigate the risks? Consider steps such as running a limited test, having a conversation to try out your idea on clients and/or former clients, or launching your idea in phases. If you’re not sure what to do, seek help from a mentor or consultant.

4. Choose one or two actions to take, with the modifications you made in step three.

I don’t encourage failure. However, as hockey great Wayne Gretzky said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Take some calculated risks. If you fail (as sometimes you will), make it your practice to just get back into action quickly, with a better appreciation of what you might do differently so that each attempt increases your chances of success.

“I’ve learned that though people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
–Maya Angelou

Five of the most useful articles I’ve read this month.

1. Five Secrets to Successful Rainmaking. In addition to five great tips, this article briefly explores why rainmaking matters especially for woman and those interested in working flex-time. (Gentlemen, this article is good for you, too.)

2. How to Adopt a Sales Mindset. A short article with 13 reasonably obvious (but easy-to-forget) tips; qualifies as one of the week’s best reads because of the final sentence: “A salesperson tells, a good salesperson explains… and a sales superstar demonstrates.”

3. Rituals – how leaders can get things done(Leadership Frame #2) I frequently talk with clients about creating systems, and this article hit home with this passage: “[I]t is wrong to think that to get things done we must constantly or consciously think about them. The opposite is true – we should instead increase the number of things we do without thinking about them. So the counter-intuitive secret to getting things done is to make them more automatic, so they require less energy. Develop rituals — highly specific behaviors, done at precise times, so they eventually become automatic and no longer require conscious will or discipline.“ Read and apply.

4. Communicating with Clients through Invoices. I’ve yet to talk to anyone who enjoys timesheets. This article, which explains how invoicing is actually a written conversation about what you’re doing for your clients, might just change your mind.

5. Finally, from my “to watch” list, a short video from my friend and colleague Carolyn Herfurth on how to handle that moment when you recognize that the potential client you’re talking with isn’t your ideal client.

I discovered Little Bets through an Amazon announcement, and as soon as I read the promotional copy, I hurried to purchase the book:

What do Apple CEO Steve Jobs, comedian Chris Rock, prize-winning architect Frank Gehry, the story developers at Pixar films, and the Army Chief of Strategic Plans all have in common? Bestselling author Peter Sims found that all of them have achieved breakthrough results by methodically taking small, experimental steps in order to discover and develop new ideas. Rather than believing they have to start with a big idea or plan a whole project out in advance, trying to foresee the final outcome, they make a series of little bets about what might be a good direction, learning from lots of little failures and from small but highly significant wins that allow them to happen upon unexpected avenues and arrive at extraordinary outcomes.

The good news? Little Bets absolutely delivers on that tantalizing introduction.

Peter Sims has identified two types of innovators: conceptual innovators, who make the big, bold leaps with groundbreaking new ideas (and, according to Sims, often achieve their success early) and experimental innovators, who “use experimental, iterative, trial-and-error approaches to gradually build up to breakthroughs.” Experimental innovators are persistent and willing to accept failure and setbacks because they understand that those events are learning opportunities. Rather than perceiving failure to reflect self-worth, experimental innovators use failure as feedback.

One example of experimental innovation comes through Starbucks. Sims recounts Howard Schultz’s initial ideas: bow-tied baristas dispensing coffee from a menu written in Italian with a background of opera music. This did not work.Rather than declaring failure and moving on to a new project (or simply getting a job implementing others’ ideas), Schultz began to make adjustments, tweaking aspects of Starbucks over time. And now, the Starbucks concept has come to define not just how we order, purchase, and drink coffee, but it’s come to represent (to some extent) where and how we gather in community. Whether you like or detest Starbucks, it is innovation in action.

Through examples drawn from a wide variety of industries, Little Betsexplains the characteristics of experimental innovators, who

• Experiment. These innovators “[l]earn by doing [and] [f]ail quickly to learn fast.”
• Play. Improvisation and a light, humorous approach quiets inhibitions and allows innovation to flourish. Compare a brainstorming session in which every idea, no matter how objectively ridiculous, is considered with one that includes the naysayer who punctuates every idea with “that won’t work!”
• Always seek new input. Experimental innovators leave their workspace in search of fresh ideas and insights, and they aim to understand people’s motivations and desires. Consider the feedback on Siri, the new voice assistant built into the iPhone 4S, which answers voice commands and questions with human-like responses. Wouldn’t you imagine that Siri came about in response to the desire to have a pocket genie?
• Redefine. Experimental innovators use the insights they gather to define problems and needs before seeking to create a solution. Compare the Segway with smartphones. We needed a way to be connected on the go (and the level of connection has continued to evolve), but most of us didn’t really need a new way to get around.
• Reorient. Experimental innovators keep their larger goals in view while remaining flexible so that they can make good use of each small win that occurs.
• Iterate. Experimental innovators “[r]epeat, refine, and test frequently armed with better insights, information, and assumptions as time goes on[.]“

Why should you consider the Little Bets approach? No one wants to fail, and there’s no credible way to redefine failure itself as a positive. However, I’ve often observed lawyers and business owners who fail, take that failure as a reflection not of a faulty plan or faulty efforts but rather as an indicator that they cannot succeed. (This is especially prevalent with the would-be rainmaker who makes a few attempts, doesn’t get any business, and concludes that they just don’t have what it takes.)

And yet, we all fail. The question is what we do with that failure. Using the Little Bets approach recognizes that failure isn’t fatal when it’s a step toward success.Determine what you can afford to lose (a key lesson taught through Steve Jobs’ experience in growing Pixar) and then get to testing. Don’t lose more than you can afford, and find ways to grow from each failure.

Finally, experimental innovation is not an all-or-nothing proposition. “To be sure, experimental innovation should not entirely replace linear thinking in our regular work processes. Engaging in discovery and making little bets is a way to complement more linear, procedural thinking.” Use experimental innovation to guide your approach, to road-test the ideas and assumptions that come through rational, strategic thinking.