Canadian Lawyer

22 A U G U S T 2 0 1 8 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m To influence and persuade is to move others on their opinion, to part with their money or alter someone's behaviour. As parents, we might be pleading with our kids to (please!) eat their peas or finish their homework. As friends, we might be persuading our circle to sponsor us on another one of our but-it's-for-a- great-cause bike rides. Similarly, lawyers spend much of their day persuading clients to heed their advice, negotiating with opposing parties to accept their client's terms or advocating their client's position in front of a judge. In fact, reading any law firm website and the expert bios they list shows just how much selling is a part of a lawyer's life. Pink takes the "Always Be Closing" adage of sales ABCs (cue the brilliant clip of Alec Baldwin "motivating" the sales team in the film Glengarry Glen Ross) and proposes a new ABC: Attunement, Buoyancy and Clarity. The Top 25 list is about identifying those who have the ability to influence public opinion, who have shaped the laws of Canada or who hold positions that impact Canadian society in some way. As I read the nominations (or pitches) for each of the categories in which I voted, I was struck by how often these three qualities popped up as evidence. Attunement This trait can be described as the "ability to bring oneself into harmony with individuals, groups and contexts." The descriptions focused on how the person they were nominating had worked tirelessly for and within the communities on behalf of which they were advocating. Attunement is about empathy and getting into sync with your audiences to create connections, especially with those you're trying to persuade. This seems to be about bridge making between communities or parties. Every lawyer knows how important it is, whether in negotiation or advocacy, to be inside their client's head to understand what their position is and where their priorities lie. At the same time, the core value that a lawyer brings to their client is to also be attuned to the lawyers on the other side or the judge or arbitrator on the case. Lawyers act as the bridge between conflicting parties or as the @k8simpson L E G A L I N N O VAT I O N N O W O P I N I O N e're all in sales now . . . Or so says Daniel Pink in his book To Sell is Human. He calls it "non-sales selling" and refers to it as "persuading, influencing and convincing others in ways that don't involve anyone making a purchase." The book is a timely read this month as Canadian Lawyer celebrates the "Top 25 Most Influential" in the legal profession. Sales has a bad name, though. Pink conducts a survey into the perceptions that people have of sales and salespeople. The results illustrate oh so clearly why law firms shy away from using these terms. When asked what words come to mind when people think of "sales" or "selling," the overwhelming responses were negative: "pushy," "aggressive" and "sleazy." Respondents to the survey overwhelmingly pictured used-car salesmen when they thought of sales. Pink spends the rest of the book upending the myth that "sales is distasteful because it's deceitful." He shows how "each of us — because we're human — has a selling instinct, which means anyone can master the basics of moving others." This must be true for lawyers, too, (as humans) and as evidenced by the huge number of nominations for this Top 25 Most Influential. We're all in sales now Lawyers hate the word sales, but effective selling requires the same traits shared by truly influential lawyers By Kate Simpson W

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