Unlocking the power of coaching

I was General Manager of a large boutique firm when COVID struck. The Great Resignation followed in its wake. Attrition rates were up. Hybrid work expectations had grown. Salary demands were getting wild. The zeitgeist shifted towards therapy-speak and self-fulfillment. It seemed like everyone wanted to “be seen” and deplete my caretaker fuel tank. I also had to manage client flare-ups, keep an eye on firm KPIs, keep my legal reflexes sharp, and help junior associates develop, no matter what might be going on in my personal life. Fear and doubt dominated my thinking. I was tunneling towards burnout.

I shared my struggles with a former client, a savvy business owner. She suggested I hire a professional coach. She said she even offered it as a service benefit to her staff. She swore it helped her “overcome her fears” and “bust plateaus.” In my head, I thought: “A coach, like Tony Robbins? The firewalking self-help confidence man? No way.”

The next day, she emailed me a Tony Robbins video. The video had some life-affirming, market-researched tagline like “Let Go of Your Limiting Beliefs.” The thumbnail featured the grinning, big-faced Robbins, head cocked, looking at me like his next coachee meal.

My brain is built for doubt and skepticism. I am, after all, a litigation lawyer by training and temperament. There was no way I would devote time to a televangelist confidence man, especially if no CLE credits were attached. Tapping into mystical inner force is for different crowds, maybe the down and out, the confused, the woo-woo set. I am a lawyer trying to run a firm.

My cursor hovered over the archive button, but a hesitating thought emerged: am I that closed-minded? Maybe I do have untapped inner power to unleash? Maybe I do have self-limiting beliefs? Maybe Robbins' philosophy is relevant to the pragmatic, rational world of law? Investigative reflexes kicked in, and I decided to research “coaching” like I might a legal memo.

***

Statistics and data wore down my skepticism. Businesses have long reported high satisfaction, nearly six times return on investment. Since 2019, the coaching industry itself has grown an unprecedented 54%. No doubt, the pandemic has been an accelerant for this kind of service, much like it was for me to look into the topic more seriously.

Indeed, the pandemic has helped create the boom. The Great Resignation meant more people in career transition, increased mental health awareness, and HR departments on overdrive trying to solve the problem of high worker disengagement rates.

But what about lawyers and the legal industry? What value could coaches bring to this finicky tribe? I had trouble seeing a lawyer take a coach seriously. We are sharks, not dolphins, right? We have “voir dire” reflexes (i.e., debating the validity of expert witnesses). We’re practically designed to see coaches as hucksters and not serious professionals. After all, it is not a regulated profession.

Turns out I was the lawyer curmudgeon behind the curve. My fellow legal professionals have been embracing the trend for some time. In 2016, The Law Society of Ontario launched a Coach and Advisor Network (CAN), recognizing “that lawyers and paralegals need different types of support at different times.” Many law firms have invested in offering full-time internal coach services to staff beyond the c-suite and partner levels.

***

Coaching is the practice of listening, supporting, and empowering a person to achieve specific personal or professional goals through non-directive training and guidance. They help people better define their goals, provide strategies to obtain them, challenge biases, and check in regularly to keep them accountable. Unequivocal personal support, open-ended questioning, and active and empathic listening are the essential core skills.

There are “internal” coaches (i.e., in-office coaches on company payroll) and “external” coaches (i.e., third-party contracting coaches who do not enter the office). The benefits of internal ones are they might have a better understanding of the organizational culture, a built-in rapport, fewer barriers to adoption given proximity, and increased availability. However, they may also have preconceived ideas about the organizational or industry culture; there might be a real or perceived lack of confidentiality, competing firm responsibilities, and limited exposure to other organizational and industry practices. External coaches have greater objectivity and independence but have inverse pros and cons to internal ones.

There are many flavours of coaching—life coaches, executive coaches, wellness coaches, couples' coaches, etc. Many have associated degrees and certifications (i.e., social work, psychology). Many do not.

Coaching is a skill anyone can develop. Many folks within an organization might get coaching training (i.e., para-professionals in HR, C-Suite executives). It is a useful skill for managers and executives to have. It helps develop leadership because it helps team members feel listened to and provides them with a sense of growth. It can help a leader get “buy-in” from stakeholders. It’s a soft skill booster.

***

So, your next thought might be, “how are coaches different from mentors, managers, psychologists, or even friends and colleagues?” Isn’t there enough already out there?

Yes, but they all have their limits.

People in my firm have their own agendas. Being open and vulnerable with them has a cost or could potentially be held against me. Image management concerns might get in the way. Friends and family cannot be as invested in your issues and have their own needs. Psychologists are there to diagnose mental pathologies and dive into mommy-and-daddy stuff.

What about mentors? A major reason for associate departure is the lack of mentoring in firms. Mentoring helps, but it too has its limits. A mentor tells you what to do, whereas a coach helps you guide yourself to your own conclusions.

The reality is senior associates and partners often do not have the time or skill set to mentor associates. What it takes to become a senior partner might not be what it takes to be a good mentor. They might also impose a worldview that can taint and constrict associate growth.

For example, I was lucky to have a great mentor from a national law firm. He helped me hone my professional reflexes and provide career intel. He brought his professional experience and legal acumen.

But he was also tainted by the same presumptions of those within the wider legal culture. The former head of a commercial litigation department, he once made a prescient warning when I moved into a management role: “Be careful. Lawyers are unmanageable people. They’re smart, calculating, skeptical, and good at keeping secrets. Their full-time job is manipulating power.”

Bleak or unfair or just plainly true, it was a value statement that reflected his worldview. It imposed a belief on me that I had trouble shaking. Were he a coach, he might have prodded me to summon my own philosophy about managing lawyers, one that might’ve been more liberating and that I could own.

***

To be sure, coaching isn't a panacea for all the challenges within the legal profession. Those who overstep boundaries and give expert advice on matters they’re not experts in can be detrimental. In an unregulated profession, there are always those who will prey on vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. They can thus get caught up in exploitative and cultish coaching groups, shiny Instagram-like life coach influencers, and pyramid-scheming organizations. The Federal Trade Commission has a page warning about them.

But the mental health crisis among lawyers is nothing new and might not be letting up. We suffer from anxiety at nearly three times the general population. Law firm attrition rates are around 50% higher than the norm. Lawyers also experience alcohol and other substance abuse problems at a rate considerably higher than the general population. Having a safe, third-party external coach where associates could regularly decompress and feel safe might de-risk firm lawyers going gaga.

We may not need firewalks from Tony Robbins ¾ his style just doesn’t resonate with me. But I have my own coach, who also happens to be a lawyer, which no doubt helped me with buy-in. He is worth his weight in gold.

It took me nearly a year and, yes, a burnout, to bite the coach bullet, even though I had been using clinical therapeutic services for decades. He helped me realize the self-limiting elements of my deeply ingrained skepticism and my exhausting reflex for self-reliant perfectionism. He keeps tabs on me and keeps me on track. Though a fellow member of the lawyer tribe, he doesn’t tell me what to do. He helps me push through ambiguous feelings and keeps me accountable for things I said I would do.

Over 30% of lawyers don’t feel their firm supports their well-being. They’re leaving a lot on the table if they think coaches aren’t a valuable investment.

As the demand for coaching grows within the legal industry, the nature of coaching itself will likely evolve. We might witness specialized coaching services tailored specifically for lawyers, focusing on areas such as resilience building, leadership development, stress management, and even business development for private practitioners. It might be a valuable tool in counteracting burnout and mental health troubles, help firms increase associate retention, and help them provide more effective services and stakeholder experience.

I am certainly better able to weather daily storms, and I feel more directed and clear-minded in my day-to-day life. I came to understand that I do have a mystical inner power. Somewhere, Tony Robbins is laughing.