#the progress principle

The doom and gloom, it just keeps a-coming:

We took a look at more than 65,000 reviews submitted by employees in 2012 to determine the happiest and unhappiest jobs in America. In reviews, workers rate several factors that contribute to job happiness, such as company culture, compensation and the work they do. [...]

The least happy job? Associate attorney (which has the highest average salary of all the jobs included). [See P.S. below!]

'Associate attorneys stated they felt most unhappy with their company culture,' [Heidi] Golledge [CEO and co-founder of Career Bliss] said in the Forbes piece. 'In many cases, law firms are conducted in a structured environment that is heavily centered on billable hours. It may take several years for an associate to rise to the rank of partner.'

-Career Bliss, Happiest and Unhappiest Jobs in America

So I'm taking this in right after finishing my latest 52-in-52 book, Steven Kramer and Theresa Amabile's The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. I'll admit that I was reading this book for myself — and not necessarily from the perspective of how our profession could use the data and tools Kramer and Amabile present.

But as I read the book (and take in this unhappiest statistic), it's shocking how clear it is that the general structure of our profession needs to remake itself. And I'm saying this for completely different reasons than most of the well-known prognosticators on the topic. I'm saying it because the way our profession treats its own SUCKS. I could care less about what happens to the financial structure of BigLaw. What do I care about? That smart, compassionate, creative people are leaving our profession in droves (if they even got a chance to enter in the first place) OR they are avoiding it at all costs.

Money can't buy a happy work life.

And for good reason. All of those things that are most likely to make us happy in our work — those things that create a positive inner work life (borrowing Kramer and Amabile's language)? For the most part they're nonexistent in the work life of many lawyers. Which is exactly why associate attorneys ranked #1 in unhappiest on CareerBliss's list. Even though they took home the biggest paychecks.

We can talk all we want about reinventing the practice of law through technology, alternative billing methods, innovation or pick another trendy word. But the only way we're going to really change things? By focusing on the PEOPLE who ARE THE PRACTICE.

Until lawyers at all levels (solo, small, big, virtual, etc.) understand that there are proven ways to make work BETTER and ways to be HAPPIER in your work, and that the change is hard but necessary — nothing is going to change. We'll just keep talking about technology and alternative billing methods - oh, and let's not forget legal project management — as the magic bullets.

We may have way cooler tools for doing our work, and perhaps we're more efficient and thus more productive so we have happier clients paying more fair rates or we may even work fewer hours. But are we HAPPY? Are we doing the things that make our work life meaningful? Are we being treated in a way that supports a happy inner work life? We are not. See reference to the unhappiest job, above.

Lawyers are not special snowflakes.

The case studies offered by Kramer and Amabile (from 20+ years of research) clearly show that it's possible to be happy doing the kind of work lawyers do — stressful, deadline-driven, sophisticated, demanding. They studied knowledge workers who spent their days doing work very similar to a lawyer's daily grind. The bottom line: there are GOOD WAYS to work, and to manage and lead people. And their are bad ways. The work lawyers do is not special. It is WORK. And we appear stuck doing our work in a bad way.

Until we wake up and smell the coffee collectively, our profession is going to continue to lose those very people who have the most to give. We've got to end our fear of acknowledging lawyers as PEOPLE first - emotional beings with real and important needs. And we must acknowledge that these needs must be met, through our work. Because if it's not, then those with the most to give are going to go somewhere where they can be happy.

There is a bright spot.

The bright spot? Our needs can be met. But not if we continue to ignore them and instead focus on all that is outside of the personal. And even brighter yet: If we create a way to work that does these things? I guarantee that those we serve through our work will benefit directly.

Interested in being a happy lawyer, with a fulfilling inner work life? Then read The Progress Principle. And Drive by Daniel Pink, which I write about here. These books are a great place to start.

"People want to make a valuable contribution, and feel great when they make progress toward doing so. Knowing this progress principle is the first step to knowing how to destroy an employee’s work life. Many leaders, from team managers to CEOs, are already surprisingly expert at smothering employee engagement. In fact, on one-third of those 12,000 days, the person writing the diary was either unhappy at work, demotivated by the work, or both. That’s pretty efficient work-life demolition..."

Want to make employees happy? Simply let them do their jobs.