<i><b>At the Intersection</i></b>Manterruption Redux

Stifle Yourself, Edith

By way of counterpoint, we also received responses awash in heated denial ' asserting, in effect, that we were slandering men, that either manterruption doesn't happen, doesn't happen much, or is simply a cost of doing business in a competitive, power-oriented professional environment (you know, the old “if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen” argument).

The “protesteth too much” tone of these responses suggests to us that they were probably written by inveterate manterrupters, rather than by lawyers with superior emotional intelligence, keen active listening skills, and the predilection to respect other people. In pleadings parlance, many of these responders issued a General Denial. We do not expect the resesarch or our comments to change their minds.

And Most Surprising of All

We were prepared to be told that we might be wrong about the whole manterrupter controversy. We were not prepared to be attacked personally, to be told that we lacked the standing and objectivity to write about compromised communication between genders.

“You guys are supposed to be experts on Legal Project Management, not diversity and gender issues,” came one response. “What qualifies you to play social scientist? Why don't you just stick to your own knitting?” Another wrote, “When did you become such feminists?”

Here's the Connection

For those folks who feel we should silo our expertise and our opinions, let us connect the dots between effective communication needed in Legal Project Management (LPM) with the research. We are indeed staunch advocates of LPM as a discipline that sharpens legal service delivery and aligns law firm-client relationships to produce better collaboration and better results for all concerned. As we so often assert, LPM is not simply a mechanistic system of procedures, methods and metrics. Done well, it also is a powerful communication engine, a common sense and intensely human approach to breaking down the walls that have traditionally put clients and their outside counsel at odds.

Any set of biases and attitudes that systematically stifles communication is profoundly counterproductive and erects a barrier to efficiency and productivity. It is vitally important to get sand out of the gears, wherever and however it may sift in; there is no benefit to driving efficiency into some areas of legal service delivery while tolerating inefficiency in others.

Editorial Board member Pamela Woldow is a Certified Master Coach. Reach her at [email protected]. Doug Richardson is President of The Richardson Group. He can be reached at [email protected].