Robin Hood and Appealing to an Employer’s Noble Motives

I grew up in a suburb of Detroit and went to school with several kids whose parents were in the Detroit Mafia. I would name them but to be completely honest I am afraid that if I did I might turn up dead. I do not want to upset these people with any slight–no matter how insignificant. I know they were legitimate members of a mafia family not just because when I was growing up everyone talked about it, but because years later when I started working for the Federal Government I met a US Marshal who told me all [Read more]

The Power of Gratitude in Your Job Search

Many people who order their lives rightly in all other ways are kept in poverty by their lack of gratitude. -Wallace Wattles After years of counseling attorneys in their searches for new employment, I’ve realized most attorneys do not appreciate what they have, and are, for the most part, ungrateful. I think there is an epidemic of sorts of ingratitude among attorneys. Most do not appreciate their jobs and are enormously critical of themselves and others, regardless of whether they are earning $30,000 or $2 million per year. This lack of appreciation holds most attorneys back from reaching their full potential and results in a great deal of dissatisfaction within the practice of law. Most attorneys are extremely aware of what they do not have and what others do have. They are aware of where they are working and what their employers pay compared to other employers. They are aware of what other attorneys in their offices are working on, how many hours they have billed, and what sorts of cars they are driving. Because attorneys continually obsess over these sorts of things, few of them are able to find happiness in their careers. Compared to most professionals, attorneys are more aware of what they are lacking. This awareness probably has its roots in the way attorneys are taught to think and the way their arguments are constantly attacked and critiqued. A constant awareness of weakness, a constant need to be on guard, and a constant need to cover all shortcomings does not necessarily make for a happy person. In order for attorneys to be effective in their existing positions and to successfully obtain new ones, they need to express gratitude and appreciate what they have achieved, and what they are becoming. In this profession there is very little time spent on learning to appreciate the good, and a great deal spent on comparing and cutting down. Attorneys can use the power of gratitude to become more effective in their current jobs, job searches, and careers. As part of my job, I often find myself having conversations with colleagues regarding attorneys’ states of mind. Invariably, much of this conversation turns to issues such as how depressed many attorneys are, the prevalence of suicide in law compared to its prevalence in other professions, the fact the average litigator dies in his or her 50s, and the higher incidence of divorce among attorneys. The list of maladies goes on and on, and I frequently learn about new problems and pitfalls that appear within this particular career path. I cannot judge the specific origins of these problems. However, I can definitely say they exist, most likely because attorneys are simply too hard on themselves. Attorneys often inflict their critical views of the world – which they need in order to be good at their jobs – on themselves. Negative thinking does little good. There is a quote attributed to Buddha: “All we are is a result of what we have thought.” This is very true in the practice of law. By constantly focusing on what is negative about their jobs or careers, most attorneys attract more negativity to their lives and careers. When you focus on the negative in your career, you attract further negativity. For example, if you believe there are no opportunities in your law firm, your working environment will remain a place with limited opportunities – for you. When you see your world in a certain way, you perceive everything around you as something that supports your particular belief system. If you do not get a good assignment, you will believe there are no opportunities. If you see someone leave your firm, you will believe there are no opportunities. If you hear something negative about your firm from a co-worker, you will believe there are no opportunities. In 1957, Leon Festinger wrote A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. This book has generated thousands of studies and has offered an extremely influential theory of social psychology. According to Festinger, if two cognitions are relevant to one another, they are constant when one follows from the other, and they are dissonant when the obverse (opposite) of one cognition follows from the other. Because dissonance is uncomfortable for people on a cognitive level, people are motivated to reduce dissonance and avoid information likely to increase the dissonance. In Eddie Harmon-Jones and Judson Mills’ Cognitive Dissonance: Progress on a Pivotal Theory in Social Psychology, the authors write:

Dissonance can be reduced by removing dissonant cognitions, adding new consonant cognitions, reducing the importance of dissonant cognitions, or increasing the importance of consonant cognitions. The likelihood that a particular cognition will change to reduce dissonance is determined by the resistance to change of the cognition. Cognitions that are less resistant to change will change more readily than cognitions that are more resistant to change. Resistance to change is based on the responsiveness of the cognition to reality and on the extent to which the cognition is consonant with many other cognitions. Resistance to change of a behavioral cognitive element depends on the extent of pain or loss that must be endured and the satisfaction obtained from the behavior. An example used by Festinger (1957) may assist in illustrating the theory. A habitual smoker who learns smoking is bad for his or her health will experience dissonance because the knowledge that smoking is bad for his or her health is dissonant with the cognition that he continues to smoke. He can reduce the dissonance by changing his behavior. That is, he could stop smoking, which would be consonant with the cognition that smoking is bad for health. Alternatively, the smoker could reduce dissonance by changing his cognition about the effect of smoking on health and believe that smoking does not have a harmful effect on health (eliminating the dissonant cognition). He might look for positive effects of smoking and believe that smoking reduces tension and keeps him from gaining weight (adding consonant cognitions). Or he might believe that the risk to health from smoking is negligible compared with the danger of automobile accidents (reducing the importance of the dissonant cognition). In addition, he might consider the enjoyment he gets from smoking to be a very important part of his life (increasing the importance of consonant cognitions).

If you [Read more]