CLE Leadership & Management
Ideas, Resources, and Techniques for CLE Professionals
A periodic e-newsletter

By Chuck Bingaman - www.chuckbingaman.com

#4 February, 2003

"Sometimes you give the world the best you've got, and you get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway." -Ted Nugent

Moving to Walpole, New Hampshire last fall meant learning how a different culture works.  Our building contractor offered to take a “few thousand dollars” off the price if that would help us get going.  Our heating oil dealer (currently the recipient of about 60% of our household income!) said he did not offer a “senior citizens’” discount this year, but he gave me the name of another nearby dealer who DID!  In a nearby town, the proprietor of a small stationery and office supply store that didn’t have the exact HP ink cartridge I needed suggested that I should “check with Nancy” at the office supply store across the street “because I think she carries them too.”  Did I—would I—exploit these tantalizing opportunities?  No.  How could I?  With people this candid, this straight, how could I remain anything but a loyal, appreciative customer—and advocate— of  theirs for a long time?  Wow!  Can we—are we—treating our CLE customers this well?

Leadership    Leaders need to make things happen, to change minds and hearts.  Returning to a book noted in last month’s CLE L&M issue—because I think this is SO important—John Kotter stressed in The Heart of Change: Real-Life Stories of How People Change Their Organizations (Harvard Business School Press, 2002) that we most readily change our views or behavior when we have the opportunity to SEE a problem or solution in a way that makes us FEEL an emotional impact.  This contrasts with the more common approach where we seek to effect change by marshaling arguments, trying to induce rational analysis, and hoping that that will do it.  (Kotter’s book is built around 34 vignettes showing how leaders induced change by helping people SEE problems in ways that made emotional impacts.)  Really effective spiritual leaders have long tried to make us “see” a situation through parables or other descriptions of life situations that strike emotional chords.  Helping practitioners to change and improve their practices—one of the key roles of CLE—might also benefit by our making greater efforts to help them SEE how newer, better approaches might work in ways that grab them emotionally and thereby motivate them to change.  E.g. live demonstrations, videos, even a drafted documents that can evoke emotional responses.  See, feel, change.

Management    Top managers shape and build their organizations by being passionate about their mission and by expressing that passion in open and consistent ways.  And by bringing in impressive outsiders who share their passions as well.  Talk to your employees about the VALUE of CLE to your lawyers, and once or twice each year invite a practitioner or a respected judge that you know is enthusiastic about CLE to speak to all of your employees—maybe your governing Board as well—about the value of CLE in general and your organization’s work in particular.  We as CLE leaders get the chance to meet and hear these people regularly, but our staffs do not unless we make it happen.   What are you testing these days?  Particularly in direct mail advertising, but also in other parts of our operations, we should always be thinking about what might work better than our current approach.  What we knew for sure a few years ago may have changed.  Often the only way to know is to test.  Color v. B/W.  Large v. small.  Glossy v. newsprint.  8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. v. 9:00 to 4:00 p.m.  $159 v. $195.  Ask your customers in every way you know how.  Keep asking because there is so much to learn.  And re-learn.  Are there ways in which we can expand and enrich the experience our customers have with our services?  Are there ways in which new approaches can help us differentiate ourselves from competitors?  Maybe by mailed follow-up memos from faculties, maybe by 30- or 60 day post-course call-in conferences for those who wish to participate, or maybe with scheduled semi-annual conference calls with publication authors.  The customer experience that we create is what makes or breaks our reputations.

Resources & Strategies    I recently found a new book on the future that is arresting, haunting and very valuable.  Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years by Bruce Sterling (Random House,  2002) lays out his vision of the future covering common aspects of our lives:  childhood, courtship and marriage, vocation, aging, death.  His major conclusion:  The most important business skill in the next 50 years will be knowing how to manage relationships.   Considering the chasms between generations, races, genders, ethnic and national groups and the rates of cultural change, managing human relationships—and learning the skills to do so in the 21^st century—truly deserves the attention of career long learning.  But assuming Sterling is correct in his conclusion, I doubt whether many practitioners could, today, be enticed to instruction in the field.  We need to think about helping lawyers see the value of such skills in ways that engage their emotions.  Let’s think about ways to do that and share them.    Are you thinking about telecommuting, using telecommuters, or other flexible work formats in your CLE enterprise?  Since becoming a “work at home” professional, I’ve experienced first-hand the ups and owns, problems and rewards of it.  And I’ve discovered some web sites with valuable tips on how to propose telecommuting arrangements (including detailed and inexpensive templates for writing your proposal), how to plan for them, how to manage them, and how to prosper in them.  Check out www.workoptions.com, www.workfamily.com, www.gilgordon.com, and www.joannepratt.com.  These sites are also interesting examples of how businesses offer their services with attractive pieces designed to lead you to the fee-paid parts!  Having returned from the Scottsdale ACLEA meeting I am, as usual, re-impressed and re-energized by the openness, brains and creativity of our CLE peers.  Did you know that the materials many of them prepared for the meeting—and several past meetings—are now on www.aclea.org in searchable form?  It’s a MAJOR contribution to our profession courtesy of a team of dedicated ACLEA members including Linda Rainaldi, Mark Carroll, Mary Conibear, Yvette Harms and Donna Passons and her terrific staff.  Thanks!

Following an award-winning 20 years as Executive Director of Illinois Institute for Continuing Legal Education, Chuck now consults full-time on business opportunities and management challenges with CLE organizations, legal publishers, and law firms. Chuck also teaches a course on law practice marketing and writes a monthly marketing column for lawyers. You can contact him at chuck@chuckbingaman.com, at 603-756-9268, or at P.O. Box 390, Walpole, NH 03068 where, incidentally, he has recently been invited to join the Walpole Society of Pursuers of Horse Thieves and Pilferers of Hen Roosts and Clothelines. (Really!)