Legal Research

"What REALLY Motivates Your Associates?"

This post was written by Cordell Parvin: "In my post yesterday, I shared that a carrot and stick approach with bonuses based on hours billed is not a great motivator. An associate wrote me and said she agreed, but also asked that I share with senior lawyers what actually does motivate associates and how to tap into it. As you will see below, there is a lot of consistency on what motivates people and it isn't money or bonuses. The real challenge is to figure out how a law firm can provide it.

I blogged about motivation a few weeks ago and in 5th Key to Career Success and Life Fulfillment: How to Motivate Yourself I talked about three points Dan Pink made in his book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. He believes that intrinsic motivation comes from autonomy, mastery and purpose.

Those are not new concepts. Several years ago I read Selling with Emotional Intelligence . Chapter 14 of that book is titled: "Finding Motivators that Last." The essence of the chapter is that successful people are intrinsically motivated because extrinsic material motivation loses its power over time.

So, what would motivate you to develop, build and expand relationships with clients?

Mitch Anthony lists six categories of lasting intrinsic motivation..."

Continue reading this interesting post and reach the active links by clicking on the author's name.

Source: Law Consulting Blog, 20 April 2010. © 2010, Cordell Parvin LLC. Reproduced with permission of the author.

Full post as published by Stark County Law Library Blawg on April 21, 2010 (boomark / email).