Why do lawyers resist change?

As a lifelong learner, I was pleased to find research on the unexpected benefits of learning.

According to research by the Oxford Review of Education, learning –

• Improves short and long-term memory
• Protects the brain against ageing
• Improves brain neuroplasticity
• Increases resilience and mental wellbeing
• Increases happiness
• Boosts confidence and self-esteem
• Improves energy and immunity
• Engages mind and body
• Keeps you healthy
• Increases social connectedness

Hammond, Cathie(2004) 'Impacts of lifelong learning upon emotional resilience, psychological and mental health: fieldwork evidence'

I’ve found that many lawyers I work with are similarly interested in mastery and certification. One critical element often holds them back. Often, they lack a growth mindset and sufficient resilience to keep going through the learning ups and downs.

I figure this is because lawyers have to work so hard at school and then at university to excel that they’ve sometimes run out of energy. This is where developing a growth mindset and seeking coaching from an expert can really assist. It’s one of the reasons I developed The POSITIVE Lawyer ® program.

Lawyer Personality

Let’s look at the specific context of the legal profession and the characteristics that present challenges to improving the flexibility, adaptability, and resilience of lawyers. All of which support change and growth.

The ability to be adaptable and resilient is more critical than ever as the legal profession is undergoing revolutionary change. Lawyers are working in vastly different conditions and subject to vastly different expectations than ever before.

The last decade has seen unprecedented change in the legal profession including –

• Less demand for lawyers – fewer jobs
• Move back towards in-house counsel
• Tiering of legal services
• Outsourcing of commoditised legal services
• New ways of working – legal project management
• Pressure to be more efficient and reduce costs – legal process improvement
• Virtual teams and flexible working arrangements
• Push back against unreasonable working conditions

Summing this up, there is lots of change and lots of pressure!

Negative trends in the profession

Lawyers have amongst the highest rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction of all the professions and, sadly, one of the highest rates of suicide. Competition and an adversarial approach to everything inhibit positive working relationships with peers and make teamwork challenging.

One in two female lawyers, and one in three male lawyers, say they experience bullying or harassment at work. Within five years of starting work as a lawyer, 70% of new lawyers will quit for good, much higher than other members of the workforce who will often change roles although not leave their profession

Lawyers suffer from deliberating mental illness at rates much higher than other members of the workforce. Hearing about and seeing the distress of others contributes to the distress of lawyers in certain practice areas. It’s known as Vicarious Trauma - as humans, we are vulnerable to the pain and suffering of others.

Why do lawyers resist change?

Richard Susskind has written much on the topic of change with respect to the practice of law and the structure of legal firms in the future. He alludes to the general change resistance of lawyers. This is backed up by several studies undertaken into the personality preferences and characteristics of lawyers, including -

• Herding Cats; The Lawyer Personality Revealed, Richards 2002
• The ’Lawyer Personality’ and the five-factor model; implications from personality neuroscience, Deveson 2012
• Rethinking the nature of legal services, Sweet & Maxwell, 2005

These studies reveal that lawyers have certain personality traits and preferences that make them more highly change-resistant (and thus less resilient) than the general public, including –

1. Higher tendency towards introversion
2. Much higher preference for autonomy, inhibiting teamwork
3. A tendency towards perfectionism and self-doubt
4. More excitable, self-critical, and moody than the general population
5. Can struggle to learn new competencies due to anxiety around not being perfect and not doing it right the first time
6. An extremely high tendency to be sceptical
7. A high degree of urgency

Observations from practice

There are many common resistance behaviours evident in the legal profession that present challenges to introducing new ways of working. Here is a summary based on my extensive observations over the last decade, and remember that I’ve worked with thousands of lawyers –

• Self-confidence and high intelligence – this can make it difficult for lawyers to accept the expertise of others and learn from others as they think of themselves as the smartest person in the room.
• Lack of Experience – often have no concept of how they can adopt practices and skills from other professions or experts to provide better client outcomes, manage teams more effectively and reduce stress.
• Introversion – when combined with a high preference for autonomy it makes it challenging for lawyers to work in teams and to appreciate the needs of others. This is a particular challenge as the majority of project-based work requires strong teamwork and collaboration.
• Perfectionism – manifests itself as a high need for mastery which can block their willingness to try new things and to develop new skills as they will not be able to master them as quickly as they would like. This can result in avoiding change.
• Poor Role Models – people tend to manage others in the way they have been managed and lawyers seem particularly unaware of alternative approaches that promote better outcomes and more fulfilled people.

Growth Mindset

“In a growth mindset, challenges are exciting rather than threatening. So rather than thinking, oh, I'm going to reveal my weaknesses, you say, wow, here's a chance to grow.” Carol S. Dweck

Carol S. Dweck is a researcher, author, and prominent psychologist at Stanford. She pioneered mindset and motivational research that led to the concept of Growth Mindsets versus Fixed Mindsets. Her work is widely adopted and applied in the early education sector and is now being more widely applied in business to support professionals going through change. It is generally applicable across a wide range of settings and circumstances.

Growth versus fixed mindsets

A growth mindset is the belief that a person's capacities and talents can be improved over time, and it can unlock reserves of resilience, learning, adaptability, and improvement.

A fixed mindset is characterised by the limiting belief that the capacity to learn and improve cannot be meaningfully developed.

People with a growth mindset will be more oriented toward self-improvement and more likely to persist in the face of challenges and failures. They will treat obstacles as opportunities to grow rather than signs of their abilities being inadequate.

People with growth mindsets -

• Reframe challenges and obstacles as opportunities
• Give constructive feedback and encourage acceptance of feedback
• Encourage persistence and practice
• Encourage failure as a part of the learning process
• Encourage a positive attitude
• Have a purpose and goals

When we have a growth mindset, we see failure and obstacles as opportunities to learn. There is an innate belief that we can always grow and do better.

People with a growth mindset believe they can –

• always improve my skills and abilities
• embrace challenges as opportunities to grow
• expend effort as an essential path to mastery
• use feedback as it identifies areas of improvement
• use setbacks to indicate how to adjust their approach and do better in the future

Those with a more fixed mindset tend to see –

• failure as indicating the limit of their abilities
• their talents are fixed and determined at birth
• difficulty as a sign they should give up because they don’t have the skills
• effort as something you put in when you aren’t good enough, it should be easy
• feedback as destructive as it makes them feel like they aren’t good enough
• themselves as victims of the behaviour of other people or circumstances

Changing your perception of failure

“You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.” Barack Obama

Failure is only a problem if it makes you give up. You can use it as a learning opportunity and a source of feedback. It can help adjust your approach or even change your entire direction so you can achieve your purpose and reach your goals more effectively. Even traumatic setbacks can be seen as sources of learning and opportunities for growth.

There is no failure, only learning!

This has been one of my empowering beliefs for a very long time. I can’t even remember when it became embedded. Perhaps around 20 years ago when I had a thriving boutique consulting business and my business partner decided she wanted to be bought out of the business so she could move to London for a few years. I was able to continue the business for a few years although I would have preferred a business partner and then I went through a divorce and things became overwhelming for me.

I made an effort to find a new business partner or merge with a similar consulting business. It was taking too long so I gradually wound it all up and took on interesting senior project delivery roles and worked in academia for the next decade. I found fulfilment in the challenges of new roles, ground-breaking projects, and finding my true vocation – to share knowledge and create change.

Growth Beliefs

Take some time to reflect on each of the statements below. They provide the opportunity for reflection. You can select some of them to replace limiting beliefs you may have about your capability and capacity for growth and learning.

“It’s never too late to learn.” If you have a growth mindset, you never think you’re too old to learn something new. Doing and learning new things increases happiness and positivity.

“There is no failure, only learning” Failure is often frowned upon by people with a fixed mindset. However, failing is one of the best ways to learn. Having a fear of failure can be limiting because it can hold you back from learning and improving. Adopting a growth mindset is all about figuring out how to fail well and realizing that learning from your mistakes is what eventually leads to success.

“I appreciate constructive criticism.” A lot of people have a hard time handling negative feedback. Criticism, even when it’s meant to be helpful, can feel like an attack, which puts people on the defence. Look for ways to provide constructive feedback and use it to improve your approach. Talk to yourself and your colleagues as if you are a teacher or coach, NOT a critic.

“I can always improve at something if I practice” With a growth mindset, you don’t give up at the first sign of poor results. You believe that the more effort you put into something, the better you will become. Many successful people attribute their success to their failures along the way.

“I model my work after others who have been successful in the past.” People who have a fixed mindset view others who have achieved success as a threat. They wonder if their limited potential can measure up to people who are considered to be leaders in their industry. However, there are endless examples of people who model others as a way to learn new skills. Mastery is quicker when you learn from a master.

“What can I do differently next time to make this work?” A part of learning from your failures is being able to analyse where you went wrong and identify how you could do things differently next time.  It involves a willingness to critique your own work and the ability to recognise areas for potential improvement.

“As long as I have determination, I can do anything.” Having determination helps successful people stick to their goals and remain focused in the face of adversity. With a growth mindset, you won’t give up if you have to find a new way to do something, you will refine your approach until you succeed. There are limits, for example, someone who is 160 cm tall is unlikely to break a world record for high jumping.

“I am a lifelong learner.” People who have a growth mindset don’t walk across the stage at graduation and think they have it all figured out. They remain disciplined and focused on their endeavours so they can build a habit of continuous improvement and accomplish more.

“My results don’t define me.” If you only focus on your test scores, your grades, your weight, and your salary, then you’re making yourself the victim of a fixed mindset. However, if you can dedicate yourself to showing up every day to focus on your positive habits that will accumulate to eventually form a better identity, that's when you start to grow and develop.

“I am at the starting point of my potential.” With a growth mindset, you know that the only place you have to go from where you are now is up. You recognize that everyone starts at the beginning and there is a learning curve to every new skill.

“I’m comfortable with being uncomfortable.” Embarking on a new challenge can be intimidating because of the unknowns and the potential for failure. This may result in avoiding challenges and holding onto excuses so you can remain in your comfort zone. If you can accept that there will be bumps in the road and learn to be at peace with that, you will be more likely to pursue the path, despite the inherent obstacles.

“This challenge is a good opportunity for me to learn.” We are constantly faced with choices that can impact our future. Choosing to take on a new challenge makes a huge impact on how you develop as a person. The more you challenge yourself, the more opportunities you will have to learn because each new challenge presents a new opportunity to gain experience and knowledge.

“I’m not looking for other people’s approval.” When you have a growth mindset, your motivation for improving yourself is solely for your own benefit. When you prioritise learning for your own wellbeing, you’re able to let go of the need for approval from others and recognise that there is ample room for growth, development, and success. Once you can detach yourself from needing other people’s validation, you’re giving yourself the potential to grow.

“I can see the bigger picture.” It’s easy to rationalise doing mediocre work when you lose sight of the bigger picture. However, if you have a constant reminder of the purpose of the work that you’re doing, you will maintain the motivation that is required to improve.

“I am patient.” Nothing worth doing comes quickly. You have to be realistic when thinking about how long it will take for you to achieve your goals. We often struggle with making time for new things, so we settle for the status quo.

“Effort makes me stronger.” Any effort you put toward improving yourself will make you stronger.

“I believe in myself.” Having the confidence that you can grow despite any challenges that are out of your control puts you back in control. If you believe in yourself, you will be more likely to stick with something and be resilient if you hit a setback.

“I’m going to try a new approach.” Having a growth mindset is about working smarter. Understanding that there are different styles of learning is a critical element to working smarter because it allows you to be willing to take various approaches to acquire new skills, which ultimately puts you in control. If you believe that you can achieve something by taking a new approach, it will trigger action, which will diversify your learning opportunities and lead to growth.

“I can’t do that…yet.” Having a growth mindset means believing that you can eventually learn to do anything. There is unlimited potential for your future and with practice and effort, anything is possible.

“I am committed to the process.” People with a growth mindset appreciate the process and the journey they experience on the way to meeting their goals. Having a growth mindset means you’re less focused on the result and more concerned with forming the right habits along the way to ultimately make you successful. By having process goals, you’re setting yourself up for success through your everyday habits, which ultimately make your success more sustainable.

Find out more…

Growth mindset is covered in detail in Module 4 of The POSITIVE Lawyer program.

Take the first step and book in for a FREE 30-minute coaching session.

My aim is to inspire you to transform your working life and achieve great things!