Throughout the week, we've posted warning signs attorneys should consider in order to see "it" coming. Here are the next two:
6. “We can't change course now. We have too much invested.” This is false-dichotomy territory. How can a lawyer break through this either/or mindset? Mary C. Gentile offers advice in her book, “Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What's Right.” She suggests changing the frame. Reject “We did not get what we wanted.” Embrace “What did we learn from this experience?”
Failing to do so conjures up, for me, lines from W. H. Auden's “The Age of Anxiety”: “We would rather be ruined than changed/We would rather die in our dread/than climb the cross of the moment/and let our illusions die.” Change course. It’s the smart play.
7. "Another pair of eyes on the project? You’re joking, right? What a waste." True, projects are overlawyered and overanalyzed. But active resistance to advice is a telling sign that something maybe seriously amiss. Take it as a warning to press all the more for that other set of eyes.
An ostrich-like attitude of self-delusion can lead to disaster. Listen to Proverbs 1:30-31: “They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. Therefore shall they eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.”
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