“I told her that,” he exclaimed. “I told all of them that,” he went on. I could hear the frustration, the exasperation. He was reaching his limit.
I saw that as an opportunity to push harder. Could his head actually explode? This was getting interesting.
He’s making changes in his law firm. He’s changing to remote work, he’s updating his compensation system, he’s changing his billing model, and that’s not all. He’s targeting a different group of clients, and he’s doing some aggressive marketing to bring those folks in. He’s got a lot going on. It’s chaos—organized chaos—but chaos nonetheless.
He told his team what he’s doing at their last quarterly meeting. He explained the plan.
“They aren’t getting it!” burst out of his mouth. He was getting loud. I think this might actually be my chance to see a real head explode (as distinguished from the “fake” movie version). He was red-faced, and his neck was all blotchy. I’d never noticed how big his hands are until he started slapping them on the top of his beet red head.
I went in the opposite direction. I got very quiet. I breathed in and out deeply. I relaxed. It was like my failure to reflect his emotion increased his ire. He was apoplectic.
I nearly whispered in my most soothing voice, “It’s not what you say; it’s what they hear.”
That did it. Head exploded. It was ugly. No worries; I can always find another client for my consulting services.
I cleaned myself up, moved away from the scene, and reflected upon the wisdom of my words. I was right. Yes, I’d made a valid point. It’s sad when someone has to explode, but it happens. It’s all for the best. Thankfully, I’d been paid in advance.
How to Get Through to Your People
It’s not what you say; it’s what they hear. This was one of the hardest lessons I’ve ever learned. Truth be told, I’m still learning it. I’m stunned sometimes at what people tell me I said. It barely resembles what I meant for them to hear.
If there’s one thing of which I’m certain now—and it’s not simply because I’m an inadequate communicator—it’s that it takes many, many repetitions of information for it to sink in for the listener. It’s not extraordinary for a message about change to require months and months of repetition before it sinks in.
If you’re not sick of saying it, then you’re nowhere near having it heard. Repeat, repeat, repeat is the mantra. You’ve got to say it over and over and over. My rule for myself is that change in our law firm takes nearly two years before it takes hold. Of course, I have no idea whether change is harder in law firms than in the rest of the world, but I suspect it is. We move slowly.
If you want to reverse course on any issue after two years, you’d have to restart the process of change management. I’m not sure when lawyers fully embrace any change, but after two years, they seem to forget the way it was done in the past.
Law firm leaders desperately want to believe that they can say it once (maybe twice) and have the team adopt the change. They’re wrong. The first few times you say it are like the wind blowing. It doesn’t even begin to sink in at the outset. It takes months of repeating yourself at every event and function and in every one-to-one meeting. You’ve got to say it over and over and over.
The One Process You Must Follow to Effect Change
So what’s the process for implementing change in the law firm? It’s simple:
- Announce it, and
- Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, and repeat.
Got it?
