FOCUS ON Coaching And Mentoring

Don Hutcheson

Many law firms apply coaching and mentoring principles to enhance professional development, job satisfaction and to improve attorney retention. Practitioners often use the two terms interchangeably. While they can share similar agendas the methodologies and outcomes of mentoring and coaching are quite different. Coaching and mentoring represent opposite ends of a learning continuum. Our point of view is that if you want to be maximally effective as a lawyer you need to distinguish between them and learn the skills and techniques of both. Importantly, while one approach comes naturally to lawyers, the other is an acquired skill.

In Greek mythology when Odysseus was setting out for Troy he entrusted his house and the education of his son, Telemachus, to his friend, Mentor. "Tell him all you know," Odysseus said. With this sentence he unwittingly set limits on the practice of mentoring. From that time on mentoring has meant one person's attempt to guide another by sharing his knowledge and experience of how specific tasks are done and how to navigate within an organization. The mentor "tells" what he knows to the mentee or protégé.

We are brought up with the "telling" model. Our parents, or most of them anyway, our schools and our colleges and universities are built predominantly around this approach to learning. Consequently, we are all very good at it. When the premium is on time and efficiency it gets the job done. The "telling" model has also been the mainstay of business. When you are assigning work, critiquing work, imparting information about your firm or organization, this mode of communication is appropriate and highly effective.

"Telling" is a clean transaction. But it is not effective for every interaction in a lawyer's life. For one thing we do not remember well something we are merely told. As the following chart demonstrates, when we are told something, then shown it and are then able to experience it for ourselves, our capacity to recall the task skyrockets.

The second shortcoming of the "telling" approach is that when used exclusively it does not foster trust nor does it build the lasting relationships that are the foundation for successful organizations including law firms. If mentoring is about teaching people the ropes of the organization, its culture and its values, coaching is about helping people unlock their potential so that they can maximize their performance within the organization and beyond. Coaching is about helping people to learn rather than teaching them.

Before this kind of learning can happen there must be an inordinately high degree of trust between the coach and the person being coached. Listening is the only approach that fosters this kind of trust. Few of us are good listeners. A tiny minority in fact.

Consultant Dorothy Leeds (Smart Questions - The Essential Strategy For Successful Managers, The Berkley Publishing Group, 2000) says:

"Even when we know better, impatience or nervousness or a need to get our point across pushes us into telling rather than asking, talking rather than listening. Ninety percent of us are talking 90 percent of the time."

Nancy Kline consults with clients such as British Telecom and Xerox Corporation. Her model, called a Thinking Environment, helps the people in these organizations produce better ideas in less time with better business outcomes. Her approach also increases the motivation and commitment of the workforce.

In her groundbreaking book, Time to Think, (Ward Lock, 1999) she makes this point about the profound impact that occurs when we give someone our undivided attention:

• Everything we do depends for its quality on the thinking we do first
• Our thinking depends on the quality of attention we give each other, i.e. How well we listen to one another
• The act of listening with palpable respect and fascination is the key to a Thinking Environment. Giving good attention to people makes them more intelligent. Your attention, your listening is that important

Each of the four attorneys writing in this issue brings a different perspective on coaching and mentoring. McKenna Long & Aldridge's corporate head, Tom Wardell, developed his early skills at a Boston law firm that actively practiced mentoring. For Tom, mentoring is about creating a high performing culture in which lawyers can "leverage" themselves more effectively.

When associate Russell Ford entered his third year he found himself questioning his decision to practice law. After self-help books, the Internet and the counsel of family and friends left him without any answers he turned to a career coach who was able to help him gain a clearer focus and new strategy for his law career.

Attorney, author and coach, M. Diane Vogt, believes that job satisfaction is essential to an attorney's effectiveness and tenure with a law firm. Without an emotional attachment to the firm a lawyer will have a difficult time finding reasons to stay involved and will likely leave. Effective mentors and coaches are the glue that keeps those relationships solid.

When Anne Whitaker and her brothers graduated from law school in the 1980's they each expected to receive the kind of close personal attention to their careers their father had received in his early law career in the 1950's. When it didn't happen Anne, like many other lawyers, had to find her own path by trial and error. Now a coach specializing in career development for lawyers, Anne talks about how to find the mentor and coach who can guide you to the career that works for you.

Since the pace and complexities of being a lawyer are unlikely to diminish any time soon, we believe that lawyers can benefit personally and professionally by learning the skills and techniques of coaching and mentoring.

Enjoy this first issue of The Complete Lawyer and let us hear from you.

Editor & Publisher