Narrative 3 "i'm Growing and Capable"

• Library: Positive Professionals: Creating High-Performing Profitable Firms Through Engagement (ABA) (2017 Ed.)

Martial artist and actor Bruce Lee was a pop culture icon in the 1960s and 70s and one of the most influential martial artists of all time. What drove his success? A continual urge for growth. He said, "Ever since I was a child I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential." Lee's quote sums up decades of research and a multitude of theories of human motivation that reflect that people are drawn to the cycle of growth and mastery like moths to a flame. This basic urge for growth provides the basis for the third narrative: "I'm growing and capable."

The function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one's potential.

Among the many theories that encompass a mastery concept is SDT—especially the need for competence—flow, and self-efficacy, which are discussed below. Feeling both that we're challenged and that we're able to master those challenges form a growth process that fuels continued work engagement. The most meaningful tasks demand both routine and also new skills, which allows use to experience both competence and growth (Kahn, 1990).

Below, we'll focus on strategies to energize this process and boost engagement. To help create the experience that "I'm growing and capable," we'll explore three strategies:

1. Develop a Sense of Mastery: Build people's sense that they are capable and competent to succeed.
2. Build Psychological Safety: Cultivate a workplace in which people trust that they can speak up, make mistakes, and be themselves without devastating effects.
3. Develop Growth Mindsets: Foster mindsets and behaviors that reinforce that abilities aren't fixed and can grow.

These strategies are designed to enhance lawyers' skills and confidence and let them focus on learning and growth to, in turn, fuel engagement.

1. Develop a Sense of Mastery

Before my friend Martha was a litigation partner and then a General Counsel, she was a law firm associate eager to do real lawyer work. She was preparing to take her first deposition and knew the case record inside out. She had watched multiple depositions and had read countless transcripts. Still, she felt a little jittery because the deposition was important, she had never actually taken one herself, and it exposed her to possibly making a fool out of herself.

Before the deposition, Martha's supervising partner, whom we'll call Bill, took the time to verbally walk her through the process—giving her a play-byplay of what to expect. Bill knew the opposing party's lawyer and his tendency to be a total pain in the neck. Bill told Martha to expect him to continually interrupt her, potentially threaten to leave, and likely insult her. Bill suggested how to respond to these antics and reminded Martha that she was tough and talented. When all of those things, in fact, happened at the deposition, Martha felt confident, wasn't thrown off her game, and performed well. When the day ended, the opposing lawyer told Martha that she'd taken the worst deposition he'd ever seen. She walked out laughing rather than crying, as might have been the case if she hadn't been so prepared.

Our competence need under SDT drives us to seek mastery over our environment and develop new skills (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Bill supported Martha's competence need when he helped ensure her success by raising her skill and confidence levels through verbal coaching and the anticipatory play-by-play. Doubting our skills to perform deflates our self-confidence, which damages performance by impairing attention, memory, and judgment (Estes & Felker, 2012). On the other hand, successful mastery experiences build skills and confidence that trigger growth cycles of more skills, more confidence, and more success (Sitzmann & Yeo, 2013).

Our Inborn Impulse toward Growth

This impulse to interact successfully with our environment is inborn (South-wick et al., 2014). Consider my 4-year-old niece, Ivy (one of the loves of my life—I'd be happy to share photos). When she was a baby, she'd throw a spoon from her high chair and giggle hysterically. She got a kick out of making a concrete impact in her environment all by herself. After she mastered spoon-throwing, she sought out more complex tasks. She started trying to walk—which got her giggling again (I'd be happy to share videos). She liked to hold a parent's fingers for a while until she got the hang of it but eventually had to take some steps on her own. And if her parents had picked her up every time she had wobbled, she would've stopped trying. Instead, they coached and encouraged her until she mastered it. And now she's onto her next stretch goal—her first ballet recital all decked out in a pink tutu, tiny pink shoes, and fuzzy leg warmers (can't wait!).

This growth cycle is powered by the fun of affecting our environment and figuring out new things—it's powered by intrinsic motivation. For it to be fun, we need enough autonomy to feel like our own actions are making a difference. And we need enough success to avoid feeling helpless, which means that the right amount and kind of support is as important as autonomy.

This cycle of enjoying an experience of affecting our environment, getting bored once we've mastered it, and feeling enticed by the next challenge fuels the experience of flow and growth—and likely fueled human evolution (Csiksz-entmihalyi & Massimini, 1985). The things that I especially loved as a lawyer—solving hard legal problems by myself and crafting beautiful legal briefs—were just more complex forms of spoon-throwing. Making an Anne-shaped dent in the world was fun. This mastery motivation system is a powerful driver of learning and resilience (Southwick et al., 2014) and an important building block for our positive law firms.

Can Overconfidence Be a Problem?

The competence need depends on confidence in our ability. But is there a such thing as too much confidence? No doubt about it—and evidence suggests that men are prone to overconfidence, while women tend to lack it (Kay & Shipman, 2014). Overconfidence often results in less effort or misjudgments about time and other needed resources, which can both harm performance and cause us to persist toward unattainable goals (Halper & Vancouver, 2016). Overconfidence is especially prevalent when we lack feedback to accurately judge our skills or progress toward goals.

You may have observed this phenomenon in annual performance reviews. Have you had the experience of seeing lawyers' self-assessments that were dramatically out of sync with their supervising lawyers' critical reviews? This can result from ambiguous expectations and too little feedback over the course of the year. To optimize followers' levels of confidence and spur continued growth, leaders should provide regular and accurate feedback on progress and customize competence-boosting strategies to followers' situations.

Partners may be at an even higher risk for overconfidence because we so often are blind to our own weaknesses and seldom get good, honest feedback after we're promoted out of the associate ranks. Stagnant growth can undercut partners' competence need, engagement, and progress toward their full potential. I discuss this more in the next section.

Stimulating Continued Growth for Partners

Lawyers of all levels are at risk of stagnating without attention to their competence need that depends on a continuing cycle of learning and mastery. In Malcolm Gladwell's (2011) book Outliers and Angela Duckworth's (2016) book Grit, they both focus on the kind of sustained deliberate practice over many years needed to achieve optimal performance. They both rely on the work of Anders Ericsson (2004), who advises that experience alone will not fuel continued improvement. In other words, merely playing the piano for 10,000 hours will not be enough for me to become an expert-level pianist. Similarly, merely practicing law for decades will not ensure that we reach our potential as lawyers.

According to Ericsson, most professionals remain mediocre their entire careers because they stop growing and learning—they just keep doing the same thing they did yesterday. To grow, people must focus on improving a specific aspect of performance, receive prompt feedback, and have ample opportunity to gradually improve over time by practicing (Ericsson, 2004). This process very often is guided by coaches or teachers. Ericsson warns of multiple obstacles for professionals (he studied doctors) to achieve and maintain their best performance—including limited feedback as they progress in their careers.

Being isolated from feedback not only stalls improvement but can damage well-being. When lawyers feel stuck and don't know how to improve, feelings of isolation and burnout can creep in (Gawande, 2011). The process of growth itself is energizing and so is the attention received by others whom we care about and who care about our progress. Interpreting a famous social science study, one author concluded that, "What most stimulated workers to achieve higher productivity . . . was simply being noticed as human beings" (Sennett, 2008, p. 242). This observation aligns with research by Gallup on strengths-oriented management. Gallup found that, while 22 percent of employees were disengaged when managers focused on weaknesses, a whopping 40 percent were disengaged when managers ignored them (Sorenson, 2014).

I had an opportunity to speak to best-selling author Tom Rath, who worked at Gallup for years and who regularly speaks about strengths-based management. Curious about the implications of the Gallup research, I described the law firm model in which partners receive very limited attention and feedback from firm leaders unless something goes wrong. In his view, the model was likely to be engagement-crushing.

So what might law firms do to help fulfill partners' competence need? One possibility is to organize the...