Ernie The Attorney

What we (usually) have is a failure to communicate

One thing about being a lawyer is you have plenty of chances to try your hand at communication.  Every aspect of the practice of law involves conveying ideas, arguments, observations.  This is done in writing, and orally (e.g. speaking), but always verbally (e.g. with 'words').

Good communicators know that there is a difference between the word 'orally' and 'verbally.'  

Still, there is a lot more to good communication than knowing usage rules and grammar.  A lot of people get into arguments or misunderstandings because they are trapped in a cycle of poor communication. I'm not about to claim that having a law degree makes you a better communicator, but as I said at the outset, it gives you the opportunity to communicate in a variety of settings.

And I'm not going to claim that my communication skills are finely honed. I don't know how my skills compare to others.  I only know that they can be improved and I keep trying to improve them.

The first step for me to improve my skills is to recognize when I fail to communicate effectively. And this has always been the hardest step. After all, it's not easy to admit that you might have done a less than optimal job of conveying your point. Like most people, I tend to believe that I am always being perfectly clear. And I tend to believe that I've made my point with the proper tone, and with the proper set up.

See, that's the thing: it's not just about being clear in what you say.  You also have take the right approach. If you use an angry tone when you say something perfectly rational it will come across the wrong way and your audience will not understand. I struggle often with this issue, and I know that other people do too.

So, if you want to communicate effectively you need to listen first. You need to see what folks want to hear, what they're capable of understanding.  You need to find a way to appeal to their sensibilities.  And then you need to make your point clearly, and succinctly. If you do all of that you might be understood.

But, if you simply want to unburden yourself of thoughts and emotions as pop into your head, you will not communicate. If you cannot bring yourself to reflect on how someone else might see things then you will only communicate with people who see the world exactly the way you do.  In other words, you will waste a lot of time going through a fruitless exercise.

Some people walk around and mutter to themselves. We tend to think those people are crazy, and they may well be. But there are a lot of seemingly rational people who are actually just as hopeless.

If you want to talk you should be ready to listen, and then have a strategy for making your point. Unless you only want to talk to yourself, that is.

Thanksgiving four years after Katrina

It's hard to believe that four years have passed since the Thanksgiving after Katrina.  I spent that one alone, but was very grateful and happy as evidenced by this blog post.  I learned a lot from Katrina, and I'm still learning.  But, hey, that's what life is for, right?

A funny sign of open-mindedness...

Think That You Might Be Wrong: New Orleans Mystery Art

My daughter's charity run

My daughter Charlotte is running a relay (the "My Reason Relay") to benefit the American Cancer Society.  She asked me if I'd put the word out on my blog in case anyone wanted to donate to help her team out.  So, here's a link to her page.  Her goal is $100, and so any amounts, even small amounts, are welcome.  Thanks!

Iceland, what made you think you were so special?

Michael Lewis' recent article in Vanity Fair is a must read on so many levels.  First, it's fascinating account of how Iceland, a quaint little country that has been isolated from the world of International finance for more than a millennium, suddenly became a careening high roller.  And then promptly became bankrupt. As in: 'the whole country became bankrupt.'

But there's another level (as their always is when Lewis looks at a situation) that I find more Interesting. How did a bunch of people who made their money for hundreds of years by fishing come to believe that they had an aptitude for high finance?  This short blurb, in which Lewis talks with an Icelandic fellow, kind of sums it up:

It took years of training for him to become a captain, and even then it happened only by a stroke of luck. When he was 23 and a first mate, the captain of his fishing boat up and quit. The boat owner went looking for a replacement and found an older fellow, retired, who was something of an Icelandic fishing legend, the wonderfully named Snorri Snorrasson. “I took two trips with this guy,” Stefan says. “I have never in my life slept so little, because I was so eager to learn. I slept two or three hours a night because I was sitting beside him, talking to him. I gave him all the respect in the world—it’s difficult to describe all he taught me. The reach of the trawler. The most efficient angle of the net. How do you act on the sea. If you have a bad day, what do you do? If you’re fishing at this depth, what do you do? If it’s not working, do you move in depth or space? In the end it’s just so much feel. In this time I learned infinitely more than I learned in school. Because how do you learn to fish in school?”

This marvelous training was as fresh in his mind as if he’d received it yesterday, and the thought of it makes his eyes mist.

“You spent seven years learning every little nuance of the fishing trade before you were granted the gift of learning from this great captain?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“And even then you had to sit at the feet of this great master for many months before you felt as if you knew what you were doing?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you think you could become a banker and speculate in financial markets, without a day of training?”

“That’s a very good question,” he says. He thinks for a minute. “For the first time this evening I lack a word.” As I often think I know exactly what I am doing even when I don’t, I find myself oddly sympathetic.

Funny how easy it is for us to believe that we suddenly understand something that common sense should tell us is not that easily known.  I suggest that this a human (as opposed to an Icelandic) phenomenon by the way.  But of course we already knew that, didn't we?

The perils of lambhood

P.T. Barnum had a side-show attraction where a lamb, a wolf, a leopard, and a lion had been trained to stay with each other in one cage. Asked if this was difficult Barnum said, "No. But every now and then we have to get a new lamb."

Obama on religion

From an interview given by Barack Obama four years ago, shortly after he'd be elected to the U.S. Senate:

"I retain from my childhood and my experiences growing up a suspicion of dogma. And I'm not somebody who is always comfortable with language that implies I've got a monopoly on the truth, or that my faith is automatically transferable to others."

Amen, brother.

How to prioritize ideas

Herb Kelleher, the founder and CEO of Southwest Airlines, was approached by a young woman in the marketing department about a proposal. She told him that surveys showed that passengers on the Houston to Las Vegas flight might enjoy a light entrée. "All we offer now is peanuts," she pointed out, "and a nice chicken Caesar salad would be popular..." Kelleher pondered her proposal for a few seconds before responding: "Tracy, will adding the chicken Caesar salad make us THE low-fare airline from Houston to Las Vegas? Because if it doesn't help us become the unchallenged low-fare airline, we're not serving any damn chicken salad."

This story is recounted in a highly-recommended book called Made to Stick. I don't know why it's taken me so long to read this book, as it has been recommended a dozen times and I knew it contained valuable information. So now that I'm reading it, what's so great about it?

Well, it offers a simple and concrete blueprint for finding core principles and then communicating them to other people. In the practice of law, at least the part that involves litigation, this is the most important thing you can learn. And, sadly, it's something that most lawyers have trouble with. Partly, it's because we don't teach this in law school. But mostly it's because nobody has offered us the blueprint. Made to Stick contains the blueprint.

You would think that finding the core idea is easy, and sometimes it is. But even when it is (and that's less common than most people think), communicating a core idea is extremely difficult. It requires persistent clarity, and relentless focus. Herb Kelleher gets up every day and reminds himself what the core idea of his business is: "Southwest is THE low fare airline." Then he struggles to remind everyone else as they doggedly pursue undiscovered ideas that are very good.

The core idea is 'core' not because it is a good idea. It's the best idea, but it doesn't stay in everyone's focus by that fact alone. Made to Stick explains why people drift away from the core idea, and why they have trouble communicating it. Lawyers who want to improve their powers of persuasion would do well to read this book. However, I don't recommend it to every lawyer. For example, I wouldn't recommend that my opponents read it. Ever.

The power of one

"Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in art, in music, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man."

—John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Subtlety & Fear

What if every day you showed up to work, eager to do something really good? Something meaningful.

What if you came up with ideas on how to do things better? Not at first, but only after you felt confident that you understood the point of the work and all of the subtle forces surrounding it.

What if, upon hearing your suggestions, your boss rejected them without much consideration? What if he made you feel small, suggesting that you were distracted? Your boss directs your attention to the goal: "do it this way," he says. The "goal" is to do it by a certain method. There is nothing subtle about the goal, or how to achieve it. Systems are never subtle.

Eventually you become demoralized. You wonder what the point of your work is. Why do you feel disloyal? Why doesn't your boss appreciate you?

Well, stop being so selfish. Get a grip.

Put yourself in your boss's shoes. He's worked in the system a long time; he know how things are supposed to be done. It's hard trying to get people to work within a system. Bosses don't have time for subtlety and novel ideas. They have to teach lots of people the old system, the one that they learned. Organizations like the one you work in need authority, and they need people to follow along without a lot of backtalk. What do you really want anyway?

Do you want something real?

What if every day you felt a sense of satisfaction about your work? What if you could try a new approach at the very moment you realized it was better? What if your boss completely supported this? What if you were the boss? What if you worked for yourself?

You would not be free of authority. But you would be free of institutional, corporate authority. Does that scare you? Then what are you afraid of?

You'll make mistakes, no doubt. But that's not what scares you, is it?