Fast Company’s post about having “Fun at Work” raises some interesting thoughts about how unhappy some lawyers are with their practices and their lives. FCN’s article reports on a CEO who told his industry group that his top three priorities are in the following order:
-Having fun,
-Ensuring your employees are having fun, and
-That their families are as well.
He went on to say that he never knew a company to go bankrupt while it was having fun. I’m sure he didn’t mean a laugh-a-minute fun, but if you enjoy what you are doing, it is more likely that your staff, and in turn their families will be happy as well. This will correlate into a more successful practice. In the legal industry it starts with the lawyers.
What does having fun have to do with marketing? In an earlier post I mentioned the book True Professionalism by David Maister, the former Harvard professor who reported that too many lawyers merely tolerate or don’t like what they do, nor the clients they do it for. Accordingly, lawyers should be undertaking marketing that will lead them to the clients they want to represent, doing the kind of work they enjoy. Then, the practice of law will be fun and successful.
