My law school teaching in Paris -- “Risk Management and Decision-Making” -- is wrapping up for the spring semester. Classes at ZOOM distance are finished – final papers and grade submission await. To my regret, on-going lock-down means I will miss the students’ graduation, unable to deliver my appreciation in person.
Here is a message of congratulations and encouragement I would have offered:
“Our course sought to be a testing ground – a gathering of professionals with a performance bar as it would be in the real world. It’s now your opportunity to stand tall out there and deliver, with the same focus, energy and confidence you showed to me.”
I assume and expect excellence from students – as would a supervisor, a manager or a client. In the worlds of business and the professions, there is neither time nor tolerance for less. Just as it is not acceptable for an employee to turn in a report or a project with the preface, “I’m not sure if this is what you wanted….” – I want students to ask, if a discussion topic has been obscure or they see an ambiguity in an assignment or a test.
Clarifying questions show both curiosity and interest, and a shared commitment to the efficient use of time and energy. In both contexts: understand what’s expected – do the necessary research – draft and edit until the result is your best work.
And bring best efforts – the classroom should be preparation for the workplace. So it was, back when I was among the eighty law students who filled the old-style amphitheater of my largest first-year class. There we were obliged to recite on our feet, knees knocking, in response to the professor’s intimidating summons and pointed finger: “You – stand up and make a noise like a lawyer.”
For a professional to do any less is to detract from stature, credibility and effectiveness. Examples abound:
Take the attempted ploy, “I’m just a small-town lawyer” and its distasteful equivalent in other fields. No perceptive adversary needs to be told. If truly the case, a real yokel will be revealed immediately. If not, the rule not to under-estimate an opponent means that while competence will be apparent, an attempt to be disarming but obviously disingenuous will be seen as insincere and untrustworthy.
Related was my experience with a newly arrived corporate general counsel – by his admission from a transactional background and unfamiliar with disputes and litigation. His self-effacing introduction was along the lines, “I’m new here, and you know this is not my background.” He did himself no favors. Instead he invited the assessment of his peers that he had not done his work, was indeed not qualified, and never had his views given the weight and credibility he thought he deserved.
Not to suggest that there is anything wrong with an appropriate degree of restraint and humility. Boastfulness will be revealed all too soon as well, when results have spoken; as baseball legend Dizzy Dean said, “it ain’t bragging, if you can do it.” Or as the story goes of ancient Greece, you never asked a man if he was from Sparta – if he was, you’d have known it, and if not, you’d hurt his feelings by asking.
In these days of physical isolation and distance communication there’s a new form of avoidable self-inflicted wound: the footer on the message or the e-mail – “please excuse my typos” or “kindly forgive the orthography and erroneous auto-corrects.”
Don’t do it. True there are no virtue points for an error-free message – because that’s what’s expected from a professional anyway. But neither is there a license for sub-standard work. An advance disclaimer only draws attention and closer scrutiny. Put attention instead into extra editing – fix the weaknesses in logic and presentation, over-ride the errant auto-corrects, and catch the typos rather than apologize for them.
To my smart and appealing students, then, with regret we have not been on campus together:
“Godspeed – keep it up -- all success to you, out there where a world of opportunity awaits.”
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