![The [non]billable hour](http://www.nonbillablehour.com/images/headway/header-uploads/xNonbillable,P20Hour,P20442.png.pagespeed.ic.sJ1SiCvIT_.png)
I’ve written before about the value of an apology and how an authentic “I’m sorry,” can strengthen the attorney-client relationship after a mistake or slip up. However, if a phone call or face-to-face meeting is too hard, consider sending one of these instead:
(from Hugh MacLeod’s new series of “Business Greeting Cards“)
Kevin Kelly thinks about thinking the unthinkable:
The futurist Herman Khan introduced the idea of “thinking the unthinkable” as a way to loosen up the imagination in trying to forecast the future. Most time we are unable to guess the future because we are inhibited by conventional wisdom – something that everyone knows is true. For instance everyone (including me) knew that an encyclopedia written by amateurs that could be changed by anyone at anytime was simply a silly, impossible idea. That prevented anyone from forecasting wikipedia. Herman Khan stressed that we should assume what we know is wrong and begin to imagine how the unthinkable might happen.
Looking back even ten years, who would have predicted the legal present we’re experiencing now? Services like Facebook, LinkedIn, Avvo, LegalZoom weren’t around, and the biggest technology decisions most lawyers had to make was between Wordperfect and Word.
Looking forward to 2020, what is “unthinkable” for law practice? What things are we absolutely certain won’t happen in the next nine years? Here are a few of mine:
Leave your unthinkable 2020 predictions in the comments, or tag them on twitter with #2020Unthinkables. I’d love to hear what you think won’t happen in 2020, too.
If you’re looking for some creative design inspiration for your practice, check out The Dieline, a website that showcases the most innovative packaging design for the kinds of things you’d find on your grocer’s shelf.
Why packaging? Because packaging professionals take generic, non-differentiated products (like milk or motor oil) and convince picky consumers — solely through packaging — to pay a premium for the items that are identical in every way to other products on the shelf.
Sounds a bit like the legal marketing business, doesn’t it?
In A Manager’s Primer on Asking Better Questions, Marty Baker at Creativity Central shares several dozen open-ended questions designed for various situations like Anticipation, Assessment and Clarification that serve as a valuable reminder that “yes” or “no” questions don’t always get you the information you need.
Here’s the suggested questions on “Exploration” from the post:
Exploration
May we explore that some more?
Can we take a closer look at that?
What other angles can you think of that?
What are some more possibilities?
What’s another way of looking at it?
While many seem quite obvious, making a conscious effort to ask your clients questions differently may just prompt them to give better answers.