THE RAINMAKING COACH
PROOF POSITIVE: RAINMAKERS CAN BE MADE  - Second in the Series

Last month, in the first of a series of articles on this important subject, we asked you a direct question: Do you believe that partners can be trained to make rain?

3,800 readers responded. 20% said: NO: Most personalities were too ingrained to change, or, if elephants could fly, birds would have big ears; 3.3% said MAYBE: If the firm applies enough pressure, they'll change; and 76.7% said: YES. If the person has enough motivation. 

Last month we recorded two online broadcasts on Overcoming Rainmaking Obstacles. We were pleased when more than 2,100 people took the time to listen to these two programs which, in total, took less than 10 minutes. It indicates to us that today many people are motivated to find help in overcoming a variety of personal obstacles that prevent them from making rain. The first obstacle is always understanding what part of your interpersonal skills prevents clients from hiring you. Improving these interpersonal skills which are known as your Emotional Intelligence (EI) or your people skills are the key to the changes needed on the path to becoming a better rainmaker.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE TESTS MEASURE YOUR PEOPLE SKILLS. Since most studies show that clients hire people not law firms, the more time you spend understanding and improving your EI, the more apt you are to be able to overcome your primary obstacles to rainmaking.

MAKING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE (EI) WORK IN THE LAW

EI is about understanding how your interpersonal (or people) skills effect others. In applying that to the practice of law we are focusing it on knowing what your impediments are to getting client work. We're suggesting how you can start that process today.

We're going to narrow EI down to a single starting useable technique in the practice of law. It is to start with the last of the four EI criteria - social skills. This is based on our practical attorney recruiting experience.  This is an entirely different approach than most EI studies, all of which give a recital of the same four challenging and difficult ideal goals. Those four ideals are: 1. Be self-aware; 2. Self-manage your emotions; 3. Be socially aware; and 4. Have great social skills.

Integrating these four skills is a wonderful theoretical goal, but a formidable one. Our experience is that EI can be done, one step at a time.  That's "doable".  Our extensive experience in the one to one real world of making rain, is to focus first on social skills. Social skills can be changed much more quickly than core beliefs. The other three require changing our belief system, which takes time. In short, don't act like a jerk, no matter what you believe. It sounds small, but it's a big step forward.  There's time enough to learn the rest, if we just behave ourselves in the meantime. EI is like every other truism. Its challenge isn't in its truth, which is absolute. It's in applying it.

We could, in theory, change our beliefs about goals 1 through 3 above.  But, as a realistic matter, it's difficult to impossible to do while continuing to turn people off because of poor social skills.  This is even more of a challenge in the practice of law, while being so busy: meeting client needs, billing hours and keeping a family and colleagues happy. Trying to do them all at the same time can be so self defeating and discouraging that many attorneys don't make much progress. Indeed, that's why EI remains a great unapplied theory, particularly in the law, entirely a personal service business.

Almost all studies agree - a person's success is most dependent on his ability to understand and work well with others.  Understanding the complex human mind takes time, but working better with people can be improved today.  All it takes is an interim decision to the extent possible, in law practice - a judgemental profession, to 1. restrain reaction; 2. withhold showing negative judgement; and 3. be positive.  Take a look at our second pre-recorded program on Overcoming Rainmaking Obstacles, the 'fake it until you make it' presentation and apply it - today. 

For those of you who want to see the bigger picture, we've included the following links.

1. "Emotional Competence Inventory" published by Hay Group and McClelland Center for Research and Innovation 
http://www.eiconsortium.org/research/ECI_Tech_Manual.pdf
2. Emotions and Emotional Intelligence
http://ei.haygroup.com
3. EQ International
http://eqi.org
4. EQ Directory
http://www.eq.org

TEST YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE ONLINE
By typing 'emotional intelligence' into any good seach engine hundreds of thousands of sites appear. Many of you thanked us for the Emotional IntelligenceI Test that we shared with you last month at: http://www.ihhp.com/quiz.htm. This month we found two more sites that offer fee-based tests at http://www.talentsmart.com and http://www.myskillsprofile.com. If you find others and would like to share them with us, we'll publish them next month.

YOU BE THE JUDGE
This survey is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those readers who have chosen to participate.  The results cannot be assumed to represent opinions of readers in general, nor the profession as a whole. Check back next month to see the compiled results.

1. Within your firm, in addition to being a lawyer, you may be a manager, leader, role model, colleague, mentor or an enforcer. Do you believe that your success in each role depends on your EI?
Yes
No
Maybe. I don't know enough about EI.