When I first studied mediation, it was from the “win-win” camp. I was encouraged to look for ways to build relationships in a dispute by finding common ground, and actively looking for ways to accommodate interests on both sides. Often, this results in more positive outcomes that can, going forward, actually strengthen the relationship between the disputing parties.
Then I attended a few mediation courses for lawyers and I learned they are taught a different way of resolving disputes – a method that I could best describe as “I win, you die”. These lawyers were taught to fight for their clients’ positions only, ideally leaving the other party feeling broken.
The law doesn’t require that one side wins and the other is pulverized. In some instances, that might not serve the larger interests of the client. Take, for example, a family law matter – a divorce involving children. The parents might hate each other, but they’ll likely need to work together for some years until the children are old enough to make their own decisions. The parents don’t need to like each other, but for the sake of the children, they would ideally have a workable relationship.
The same is true for how law firms run. Lawyers can tend to bring their fighting spirit into decision making in their firms, but in my experience, a collaborative management style is usually more positive and successful.
I recently listened to a podcast that described the value of collaboration in nature by focusing on bird flying patterns. When birds are in groups of ten or 20, they will automatically form a V shape. The bird in the front will take the brunt of breaking the wind, and will eventually move to that back while another bird takes on that task for a while. This is a low but effective method of collaborating – sharing the burden. Now let’s expand it.
When you see 10,000 birds flying together, they no long move in a V shape. Instead, they do geometries in a swirling motion, often called a murmuration. I’m sure you’ve been just as mesmerized as I have from watching birds move through the air from pattern to pattern to pattern. The intelligence required for them to do this is called quorum sensing, and it teaches us that with enough different inputs, a group can accomplish so much more than can the individuals within it.
Compare this to having the focus only on ourselves, on being a consumer instead of a contributor. In this instance, we’re only interested in having our own goals accomplished and we care little for the goals of those around us. This forces a belief system around scarcity: that only so many goals can be accomplished and that being the case, I only care about my goals being accomplished. What I learned in win-win mediation training is that scarcity is a self-imposed limitation. Seldom are positions truly polarized. When you move your focus down to the interests underlying both positions, you often find that there are commonalities, and that differences won’t necessarily be in opposition to the other person’s interests.
Now, imagine a firm where everyone communicated, collaborated, and believed that the firm is better off when everyone works together to accomplish (or at least not get in the way of) everyone’s goals. This is not fiction: I’m describing some of my clients. More often than not, these are firms run by women but they don’t have to be. Law firms are facing enormous changes in the coming decade. To survive, firms will need to significantly increase their emotional intelligence, and to work together closely in order to adjust on the fly as needed. Most strategists can’t predict the technical skills that will be needed in the future, but they all agree that we’ll need soft skills like the ability to collaborate. It’s time law firms started to build more of it into their cultures.
Heather Gray-Grant is a business strategist, marketing expert and executive coach for law firms, lawyers and administrators. She can be reached at heather@heathergraygrant.com