Personal and Career Coaching for Women Lawyers
Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D. (301) 578-8686

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Issue # 39 -- Part 2
HOW EFFECTIVE ARE YOUR DELEGATING SKILLS?

Ellen Ostrow, Ph.D., Editor: Ellen is the founder of LawyersLifeCoach.com™ Personal and Career Coaching for Lawyers Determined to Achieve Extraordinary Professional Success AND a Fulfilling Life

OUR PERSPECTIVE

Most attorneys -- especially women -- live impossibly busy lives. Finding a balance between work and life without sacrificing professional success, deciding on the best practice area or work setting, and making career transitions can be a daunting task, even for the most gifted and accomplished lawyer.

Just as every person deserves the best possible legal counsel, every attorney deserves professional, dedicated support in accomplishing her most important goals. You know how hard you've worked to get where you are -- you serve others, both personally and professionally. You've earned the right to both career success and a fulfilling life.

This newsletter is intended to help you create a satisfying life -- within, or outside of -- legal practice.

NOTE: Issue # 39 contains two parts. This is Part 2. Part 1 contained information and announcements about coaching groups, position openings for attorneys, virtual legal assistants and what you can do to help people whose lives have been profoundly changed by Hurricane Katrina.

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE YOUR DELEGATING SKILLS?

“The most difficult change for [new] managers to make…involves values. Specifically, they need to learn to value managerial work rather than just tolerate it. They must believe that making time for others, planning, coaching and the like are necessary tasks and are their responsibility. More than that, they must view this other-directed work as mission-critical to their success.”

Ram Charan, Stepphen Drotter & James Noel
The Leadership Pipeline, p. 18 [1]

HAVE YOU MASTERED THE ART OF DELEGATION?

1. What percentage of your professional work time is spent doing things that a more junior person could do if s/he was trained to handle it well?
2. Do you view questions from your direct reports as interruptions?
3. When you receive a work product from a junior lawyer, do you tend to fix the mistakes rather than teaching the new attorney how to do it properly?
4. Do you tend to blame your subordinates for their mistakes and failures?
5. Do you take genuine ownership for the success of junior lawyers who work for you?
6. Do you define delegation as task assignment?

I was asked to provide a seminar/workshop for about a dozen new practice group leaders in a large law firm. The topic I was asked to address was, "How to Coach Your Team." During the half-day we spent together, I demonstrated how to use delegated work to help younger lawyers develop their professional skills. In particular, we reviewed and role-played how to coach young attorneys to learn from their mistakes and optimize their performance.

The group of partners was polite but not really engaged. I shared my observation and asked for reactions. My favorite response was, "You've got to be kidding! Do you know how many hours we're expected to bill? There's no way any of us would ever have the time to do what you're suggesting. Besides, do you know what we pay our associates? At that kind of salary, they'd better produce a good product."

Regardless of the size of your firm or other organization, you've probably grappled with questions about how best to delegate work.

This is especially challenging for lawyers new to management/leadership roles.

There are several good reasons for this:

1. Your law school curriculum probably didn't include courses on delegation or other aspects of managing other people.
2. You were probably promoted to partnership or another leadership role because you were a top performer. You demonstrated technical excellence and were rewarded for your individual contribution. It would be natural for you to want to keep doing what made you successful.
   
   But as a manager/leader, you have a new responsibility: you must get work done through others rather than doing it all yourself.


3. Getting others to accomplish your goals requires a very different skill set. Many lawyers don't fully realize that effective delegation involves much more than assigning work. These include:
• project planning
• assigning work to individuals based on their current skills and professional development needs
• setting priorities for your team
• monitoring performance
• excellent communication about expectations and success criteria
• building relationships with the members of your team
• motivating others and creating a sense of ownership
• coaching and feedback
• developing a system for monitoring progress
• performance measurement
• making yourself available to subordinates to answer questions and provide needed assistance
• creating an environment that encourages two-way communication
• allowing subordinates to learn from their mistakes
• managing your own emotions under pressure
  
4. It's an unfortunate reality that most lawyers in law firms are faced with the same demands that the partners in my workshop viewed as obstacles to effective delegation. How can you meet billable hours expectations and also take the time to develop junior lawyers - and your own leadership skills?
   
   Since your responsibilities have expanded, it's impossible to handle everything yourself. In order to be successful, you must learn how to reallocate your time so that you can complete your own work AND help others perform effectively - even though it seems like finding the time to do both is impossible.
   
5. Delegating appears to be most difficult when business in your practice area is slow. During a business slump a partner's time is actually best spent generating new work - and this requires pushing work down to junior lawyers. But billable hour pressures combined with insecurity about business development more often lead to partners hoarding, rather than delegating, work.
   
6. Becoming an effective delegator requires more than developing new skills; it also demands a shift in your attitudes and values. This is no easy feat.
   If there are no immediate, tangible rewards for effective delegating in your workplace - that is, if you're only paid for the work you do yourself and not the work you do through others, you'll need to learn to value effective delegation in spite of the organizational culture. Without it, you'll never build your team, you'll have no succession plan, and you'll be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work you'll have to do yourself.
   
7. It's easy to get frustrated with the work products of junior people. Even if you're not a perfectionist, you probably believe you can do the work better and more quickly yourself. And, of course in the short-run, this is undoubtedly the case. Effective delegation requires sacrificing time in the short-run in order to accomplish essential long-term goals. When you're under deadline pressure, it's easy to lose sight of the potential pay off and see no options except to hunker down and do everything yourself.
   
8. Independence and self-reliance are traits about which many attorneys are proud. If you're very self-sufficient it may not even occur to you to delegate work to others.
   
9. Perceiving that it's still your job to do everything yourself in spite of your promotion is common among women attorneys. And for women lawyers, delegating work at home can be even more difficult than it is at work. If you believe it's your role to perform certain duties or that it's unfair to ask others to do them, delegation will not seem like an option.
   
10. Lawyers new to management roles often experience working through others as giving up control. This can be very anxiety producing. It takes repeated experience effectively delegating to demonstrate to you that you actually gain control over your practice and your life by working through others rather than doing it all yourself.

There are many reasons:

1. The attorney who cannot effectively delegate is likely to find herself overloaded and overwhelmed while her top priorities go unaddressed.


2. Unless you plan to remain an individual contributor working on projects small enough for one person to complete, you have no choice. In order to take on leadership roles and to challenge yourself professionally, you'll need the help of others to accomplish your goals. And the most effective way to get the assistance you need is through effective delegation.


3. Delegation skills apply throughout your life. If you're a parent using childcare, you have to delegate - and the better you are at it, the less stress you'll experience while you're away from your children.


4. Women continue to carry the bulk of household tasks. Trying to carry this load on top of your work load can be crushing. Delegating is essentially contracting with someone to share responsibility for accomplishing your goal. Women lawyers who can share household work with partners and others are freer to put their time and energy where it's most needed.


5. Mastering delegation reduces your stress, decreases the likelihood that you'll burn out, and enables you to devote more time to your priorities and to the tasks that utilize your strengths and that you love to do.


6. Delegation frees your time to engage in activities that increase firm profitability like business development and strengthening relationships with clients.


7. Delegating gives you access to creative solutions from subordinates. You'll improve your communication skills and increase your credibility as a leader.


8. Younger attorneys are interested in working at places where they can develop their skills. The opportunity for skill development requires that you delegate work to them. Failure to receive good work assignments is a leading cause of associate attrition.


9. When young associates do not receive good work assignments their motivation and morale deteriorate. Delegating challenging work allows associates to learn by doing, to take risks and to build confidence.


10. Failure to delegate effectively reduces the profitability of your firm or organization. Doing all of the work yourself creates a high cost system of service delivery that's likely to reduce your competitiveness in the market and alienate clients.


11. Delegation is succession planning. Your firm's future depends on it.


12. Delegation allows you to build your team, train others and expand your sphere of influence. It's a win-win solution.

Unfortunately, many attorneys who recognize the value of delegating work see it as little more than handing out assignments. In reality, effective delegation is a far more complex activity. If you want to reap the benefits, you'll need to master these skills:

1. Adjust Your Attitude
   Get out of your individual contributor mindset. Remember that it's now your job to get work done through others.
   
   Think long- vs. short-term. Masterful delegation requires front-loading your time and effort for long-term benefits. Make mastering delegation a top priority career goal for yourself. Schedule the time you need to do it well. If you're persistent you'll soon find yourself free to focus on your priorities.
   
   Stop telling yourself that you don't have time to spend on effective delegating. You can't afford not to. Career success - especially leadership - requires that you delegate. If you don't master these skills you're either going to burn out - or your entire career will be spent grinding out someone else's work.


2. Decide What Categories of Work You Should Be Delegating
   According to the Pareto (a 19th century economist) Principle, 80% of an enterprise's revenue comes from 20% of its customer. As applied to your responsibilities, this means that 20% of your activity produces 80% of your success. Focus your efforts on the 20% that produces the greatest benefit.
   
   Try making a list of all the activities that occupy your time. Select those that use your unique strengths, that you love to do, and that only you can do - and plan to delegate the rest.
   Apply this to home as well as work. In my experience as a lawyers' coach, women lawyers frequently neglect to consider delegating household tasks, other than childcare. Unless you're the only adult in your household, try making the assumption that everyone should be contributing to making your shared lives run smoothly.


3. Develop Relationships with Your Team Members
   In order to be a masterful delegator, you need to value and invest time in developing relationships with those to whom you want to delegate tasks. It's essential to build relationships of trust, respect, mutual support and common purpose. Junior lawyers will be far more committed to doing their best for a trusted leader who has demonstrated an interest in them. Fostering bi-directional communication will facilitate the dialogues you'll need to have to make the delegation process run smoothly. Understanding your associates' professional goals will enable you to align their goals with your own. Having a clear sense of their strengths and professional development needs allows you to assign tasks well suited to individuals.


4. Plan Thoughtfully
   Don't just divide up the tasks required to complete your project and hand them out. Think about who is ready to take on each task. Consider the urgency of deadlines. If you have little time to train someone about how to get a particular job done then you'll need to delegate it to someone who can do it with a minimum of direction. Similarly, avoid assigning work to someone whose skills fall far short of what's required to effectively complete the task. Giving an associate work that is too far beyond his reach simply sets him up for failure and you for disappointment.
   
   Consider everyone on your team. All too often, work is delegated to the first associate you run into that day. Instead, remember the skills of your associates working balanced hours schedules. You may not happen to run into them on the day you need to assign the work but you know how to reach them. Ignoring them deprives them of professional development opportunities, increases the likelihood of their attrition and deprives you of the talent you need to make your own job easier.


5. Delegate Ownership
   You'll get an associate's best work if she feels a sense of shared equity in the success of the project and the practice. Don't just assign a task - give the junior attorney "response-ability" for the product. Associates who have had the opportunity to have input in developing plans are far more likely to be committed to the outcome.
   
   When delegating a task, make sure the associate can see where her contribution fits in the big picture.Don't micromanage - give subordinates room to decide how to get the job done - this increases their sense of ownership.


6. Motivate
   Good managers can make the people who work for them feel positively about their work assignments and want to do their best. Express your confidence in the associate when you give her a task to complete. Delegate work that will challenge the associate to grow without overwhelming him. Provide the person to whom you've delegated a task with a sense of its purpose and importance.


7. Plan and Contract Together
   Don't just tell the associate what to do. Explain the objectives and elicit the associate's input about ways to get the job done and estimates of how long it should take to complete the task. Mutually agree on critical requirements for doing the job, what the outcome will look like, benchmarks and goals. Ask the associate what she needs in order to complete the work well and by the deadline.


8. Communicate and Confirm
   Work to make your expectations crystal clear. Explain the results you expect in ways that are specific and measurable. Share your thinking about the assignment. Discuss deadlines and ask the associate if they seem realistic. Clarify how you will know if the junior attorney needs help. Make clear to the associate how much authority you're delegating. When a decision about his assignment needs to be made, should he use his own best judgment or come to you for an answer? Check on your subordinate's understanding of your expectations. Prevent problems by clearing up miscommunications at the outset.


9. Monitor Performance
   The last thing you need is to receive an inadequate work product at the 11th hour. Plan a communication protocol at the time you make the assignment. Make sure you give yourself enough time to provide feedback and for the associate to make the necessary revisions. With a less experienced associate you may ask for a plan for completing the task as the first step. Decide whether daily status reports are necessary. Agree on times for you to provide feedback, both via email and in person. For long-term assignments, decide together about benchmarks and schedule appointments for progress reviews.
   
   While being kept up to date about the status of an assignment is essential, be careful not to micromanage the work. You'll need to find the right balance between interest and support and interference. Micromanagement undermines motivation and the junior attorney's ownership of the task.


10. Be Approachable
    It's crucial that your team perceive you to be available to respond to questions, concerns and requests for assistance. Even if you're traveling, you can provide your team with information about how to reach you and when you'd prefer to be contacted. Being approachable allows for the bi-directional communication and trust so essential for effective leadership. Although this may take more time, your range of influence will increase appreciably.
    
    Remember that being availability requires more than just being in your office or at the receiving end of an email. It also means managing your own stress well enough to remain emotionally available to the attorneys you're trying to train.


11. Coach
    Taking the time to coach junior attorneys is the best way to develop their skills. Provide accurate, honest and timely feedback. It may be difficult for you to give negative feedback. Try remembering how hard it is to receive it. No one's interests are served if you wait until evaluation time to deliver bad news.
    
    If you receive a poor work product encourage the associate to tell you what's interfering with his performance. Problem solve together and encourage the junior attorney to generate her own plan for resolving difficulties.


12. How to Deal with Mistakes
    Junior attorneys need to have the room to make mistakes in order to learn and develop professionally. If an associate is afraid to take risks or appear "stupid" she will not ask the questions you need her to ask and will avoid accepting assignments.
    
    Consider giving feedback in a sandwich: point out something positive; focus on the problem; and end with something the attorney has done well or encouragement about his ability to correct the mistake.
    
    Address mistakes by looking forward. Elicit the associates ideas about how improvements could be made. Brainstorm new approaches and ask what additional resources might be helpful.
    
    Save the "what went wrong" discussion for later. Once the associate has brought the work product up to par you can review together why the result failed to meet expectations. Consider the possibility that your directions were less clear than you thought or that you overestimated the junior attorney's skill. Encourage the associate to share her approach to the project so you can assess whether her focus was where it needed to be. Remember, if you're coaching, the purpose of the discussion is learning, not blame.
    
    Don't give into your impulse to fix mistakes yourself. If your follow-up protocol allowed for sufficient time you should have been able to identify the problem early enough for necessary revisions.
    
    This will be especially challenging when you're under pressure from a client. If you've decided to try to develop your leadership skills, then commit yourself to preventing your anxiety from driving your decisions. Associates become very demoralized when you communicate that their work is inadequate and simply fix it yourself.


13. Accountability
    Give your subordinates the room to say they don't know how to do something and hold them accountable for work they've promised, but failed to complete. Overcome any tendency toward conflict avoidance. You're training young lawyers to be responsive to clients. Harshness is unnecessary. Sometimes leadership requires saying things others would prefer not to hear.
    
    This can be particularly difficult for women partners/managers who often have to tread a very fine line between being seen as "cold" or "ineffectual." Often people expect nurturance from you and can seem wounded when you hold them accountable. It's possible to be stern and supportive. Coaching is often helpful in finding the right balance for you.


14. Recognize Contributions
    Gallup's research [2] consistently indicates that people who receive regular recognition and praise at work are more engaged, productive and likely to stay with their organization. Furthermore, employee engagement is strongly tied to firm profitability.
    
    Get out of the "no news is good news" habit. Remember to provide meaningful and specific praise and recognition to your subordinates.


15. Get Your Own Coach
    It's easier to coach your subordinates if you have your own coach helping you to accomplish your leadership-development goals. If you make a commitment to your coach to delegate, you're far more likely to take the risk - and to make delegating work effectively for you.

Notes:

1. Charan, R., Drotter, S. & Noel, J. (2001) The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership-Powered Company. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

2. Rath, R. & Clifton, Donald O.(2004) How Full Is Your Bucket? New York: Gallup Press.

NOTE: BEYOND THE BILLABLE HOUR ™ is intended for informational and educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for a personal consultation with a mental health professional and should not be construed as a form of, or substitute for, counseling, psychotherapy, or other psychological service.

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