The Power of the Pivot
Many years ago, when I was about fifteen years at the bar and working for a large company as Senior Corporate Counsel with about eight years in my role, I received a piece of feedback from our General Counsel in the context of a performance evaluation. Most of my evaluation was positive, but one piece of constructive criticism stuck in my craw. My GC said that I was resistant to change.
My reaction to this piece of feedback was that it was pure bunk. I told myself that I excelled in my role and that he must have been mistaken—defensiveness set in and I fumed about this comment to my friends and colleagues for several days. Until I started considering what he may have meant—but in the context of how I was going to refute this nonsensical statement.
As I pondered my response, I began looking for examples I could use to show him how adaptive and responsive I was. And…. There wasn’t much. I thought that things had been better before certain corporate changes had occurred, and I was hanging on to the way things had been done before.
I still thought that my employer’s approach had been better from a legal point of view, and I disagreed with what I viewed as compromising our mission and values statements. And I felt that a reallocation of responsibilities to local sites from my realm in Corporate undermined me and my influence, which is important when you oversee company-wide programs and initiatives. But I had to accept that the “the way we were” ship had sailed, and that I either needed to get with the program or move on.
I often think of myself in this situation when I see statistics about lawyers’ low scores on resilience testing. Obviously, resilience in the psychological context is about our ability to bounce back emotionally, but it also has a component of pivoting successfully.
As lawyers, pivoting is an important skill. Say you are running a trial (and my experience extends to all of one small claims court trial) and a witness says something unexpected under questioning that undermines your theory of the case. You need to build this new information into your plan, which may include attacking this witness’s credibility, you may need a new strategy that includes the new fact, or you may have to urge your client to settle or plead guilty. What you cannot do is ignore the change and merely pretend that the damaging testimony had not occurred.
My resistance to change was not limited to particular aspects of my work responsibilities. Once I realized that I was resisting change, I began to find evidence of it in my personal life as well. Some of my resistance was caused by fear and some of it related to personal preference—but I had to learn to identify situations which were changing and to develop strategies other than hoping things would go back to the way they were.
I didn’t do this alone—I worked with a wonderful counsellor. I made the decision to leave the safe harbour of my long-term employment to set up a business with two former colleagues who shared my values, and I haven’t looked back since.
So, I regained my resilience and I learned to pivot again—key skills for lawyers.
This week, I needed my pivoting skills. Assist is running four Walks for Wellness in Alberta cities. Walks were held in Lethbridge and Grande Prairie last week, and Edmonton’s Walk will be on September 19th—see our Upcoming Events for more information.
Calgary’s Walk was set for yesterday. While I wrote last week about being overcome by the heat while at a law school event, I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of rain crashing against the siding of my house. Not just the roof—that is a different sound. There was enough wind that the external wall where the headboard of my bed sits echoed with rain both hitting the wall and the pouring down in a rush. I quickly checked my Weather app and saw heavy rains predicted all morning, followed by steady rain.
This year, we had planned something different for our Calgary Walk for Wellness to shake things up a bit (see: I am embracing change!). Rather than walking together as a group (which can necessitate a permit from the City as our Walk can count as a parade and the paperwork is exhausting), I wanted to divide our walkers into small groups (surely four or five people don’t make a parade….) So, we developed a photo scavenger hunt where teams would have to take selfies at locations where our Blue Buddy was featured. We chose our locations, timed it out, and had a cool plan that included looping in a law firm from the other side of downtown. It looked great, if I may say so myself.
But the rain meant we had to do one of three things:
- Reschedule the Walk—but what if next week was just as miserable?
- Run the Walk anyway—but what if no one came?
- Pivot and create an indoor walk, in less than three hours.
While I drove to the office, I developed a route using Calgary’s extensive Plus 15 indoor walkways in my head. Eileen and I walked through the proposed route taking photos of spots that were interesting where we would ask teams to take selfies, coming back with about 12 possibilities. Twelve was too many stops, so we selected seven spots which the Walkers would encounter on their route to the end point—and we created a clue for the location of the end point: an iconic Calgary building that used to house a Unicorn.
We social media’d that the Walk was moving indoors, and we had a group of about fourteen stalwart Walkers who came anyway. We had a brief chat about well-being in the legal profession and took a group photo by my favourite trifold. We sent three teams out to complete the photo challenge and end up in the right spot, and I hurried over to the end point, outside with a large umbrella, so that I could be in place at the endpoint before any teams arrived.
All three teams arrived safely, and people had had fun finding our easter egg spots and taking team selfies. And then one lawyer pointed out that I had essentially made them walk from our new office building to our old office building—and he was right, but I didn’t consciously realize that this was what I had done. I tried to think of a spot where we could gather and that would lend itself to a fun clue without stopping to think about the fact that an endpoint I had chosen was the lobby of the Lancaster Building, where JSS Barristers graciously hosted our offices for more than nine years.
I guess I still cling to the past. The clue about the end spot, a building that had housed a Unicorn, was a
reference to the Unicorn Pub which was in the Lancaster Building until it was gentrified and renovated more than ten years ago. But the last photo led teams to the building so we didn’t lose anyone from my archaic clue.
Was the Walk perfect? Not remotely—but everyone had fun and logged about 2500 steps. We recognized the importance of well-being in law, we got some exercise, we met new people, we cooperated as teams, and we have some great photos that we will be sharing.
Do you struggle with accepting change and innovating? I did, and counselling was my path to overcoming resistance. If this is a life-issue that you want to work on, you can work with an Assist counsellor.
You can use our program proactively, so call at an early point in your realization that your life (or work) is suffering due to resistance to change, or any other obstacle. But we are here for you as the issue becomes distressing or critical. Call 1-877-498-6898 to book an appointment.
And each year we make many peer support matches for lawyers and articling students (more so than law students although they are welcome to use our program) who are considering making a change in their practice. We hear from articling students who did not enjoy the practice areas at the firm where they articled. They want to know how to go about finding a practice area that works for them.
We talk to lawyers who are considering leaving private practice for inhouse or government roles—or less typical law-adjacent roles. We connect them with lawyers who have made that transition who can provide information and their own experiences navigating change.
Let’s hope that the weather this year is beautiful in Edmonton for the Walk for Wellness on September 19th. I have travelled to Edmonton twice in the last three weeks and will be back in Edmonton for Assist’s Hand to Hand event on October 3rd, so I will not be coming to the Edmonton Walk. But Edmonton Walkers, you are in good hands! If you have a day like Calgary had yesterday—we will find a way to make the Walk work by being open to new ways of walking.
If you like the idea of a photo scavenger hunt in your community next year, please call us. It is hard for us to personalize Walks when we don’t know the lay of your land. But we are here to help you make it happen.
Loraine
PS - Thank you to our new volunteer, Amelia, who is starting her path towards law school. We needed an extra set of hands, and those hands came with a new friend - we couldn't have done it without you. |
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