Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about the tendency to want to slip back into old pre-COVID ways of life and what some of our barriers to change might be (here and here). In fact, Law.com recently posted an article about “As COVID Fears Ease, Remote Work Is Slowly Losing Popularity,” [subscription may be required], in which they said,
The number of law firm leaders, attorneys and staff who expect to work from home frequently dropped significantly between 2020 and 2021, according to the The 2021 National Legal Sector Benchmark Survey Results published by Cushman & Wakefield in conjunction with ALM Intelligence and Law.com.
Roughly 70% of respondents, which include 336 firm leaders, attorneys and staff from various law firms, said that they expect to regularly work remotely when asked in the second quarter of last year. Asked again earlier this year, just half responded the same way.”
I can hear some of you saying, “okay, so what? Why does it really matter if we go back to our pre-COVID way of working? Wasn’t that working for most of us?”
Was it?
Continue Reading Motivating Change in a Post-COVID World
We’re slowly, slowly easing back into a post-COVID world (maybe? Delta variants, anyone?) and with that brings a lot of stress and a lot of change. Potentially.
Last week, we talked about the 
The last eighteen months have been…a lot.
A conversation I had earlier today got me thinking about what it means to be a leader.
A pandemic is a strange time to be a leader. It’s both terrifying, because you, as much as everyone else, have no idea what’s going to happen, but you have to put on a brave face to instill confidence and it’s, in some ways, exciting, because you get to test your skill set in a way you never have (although, let me be absolutely clear – every leader I know would hand it back over in a heartbeat). I talked to a law firm leader recently who said she regularly presents a calm and collected front to her shareholders and then hangs up the phone to cry. We laughed about it, because that is EXACTLY how it is – like ducks, we are serene above water while paddling like maniacs below. 
Bear with me as I tell you a short story, of a baby blogger named Lindsay. She was four years into her career in the legal industry, still learning by doing, and didn’t think she had much, if anything, to say. A new social media platform called Twitter had launched in 2006, and she joined two years later, finding it a fun community to engage with other legal professionals around the world. It was also a fantastic way to learn – they shared articles and news and had in-depth conversations around them. Almost like sitting together in a room discussing them, only behind a computer screen.