Imposter syndrome Part 3 - A basic toolkit for addressing imposter feelings in senior IP attorneys

In parts 1 and 2 (found here and here), we looked at what imposterism is, why it occurs at such high frequencies for senior IP attorneys, and some of the wider and all too real impacts it has on IP firm profitability, culture and succession planning. In this third and final part we are going to look at some practical approaches that both the individual experiencing imposterism and IP firms at an organisational level can take to address the impact of this psychological overhead on the individual and the firm.

A few options for the individual

Overcoming imposterism is not simply a matter of snap out of it, or following abstract self-help techniques. Instead, it can be tackled using structured processes that can be followed and are repeatable.  Here are three such protocols.

Create an “Ability Evidence Record"

IP attorneys are trained to analyse large amounts of information and draft legal and technical arguments based on that evidence. That same level of rigorous analysis and argumentation can be applied when considering your own abilities and competence.

When the internal voice claims you are out of your depth; stop. And, consider the evidence supporting the internal voice and the evidence against.  You will find that the internal voice telling you you’re not good enough is simply making a mere assertion and wouldn’t pass the red face test in front of an external arbiter.

It’s easy to say stop and consider the evidence, but to make the approach as effective as possible, don’t just rely on your memory, let’s face it the internal voice making allegations of incompetence is in your mind, so it can hijack your memory and hide the evidence you need to consider from you.

Instead, every time something positive happens keep a note or copy of it in an “Ability Evidence Record”.  This becomes your private collection of evidence, in whatever form (digital or physical) that suits you. Some ideas of things to include in it:

• Hard data: Allowed cases and wins at oral proceedings; the times you have met monthly/quarterly/annual KPIs, new portfolios for existing clients, and new client wins.

• External validation: Feedback from clients and colleagues, written testimonials, recommendations/ratings in the ranking publications such as IP Stars and Legal 500.

• A “case work” archive: Keep short notes on or copies of work that: read well, had creative arguments, persuaded an examiner, led to allowance, on particularly difficult cases, completed based on rubbish or really late client instructions, saved someone else’s bacon.

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When you are hit with the inner impostor voice telling you that you aren’t good enough or will get found out, review your ability evidence record and challenge the imposter voice to produce evidence that would persuade an Examiner over your record. And remember, feelings and generalised statements of “I always …” don’t count as objective evidence.

De-risk delegation

For those who struggle to delegate or find themselves micromanaging as a way of avoiding imposterism, you can de-risk the process of delegation by following a structured approach that reduces opportunities for you to take over and just do it all yourself or micromanaging every step taken by the trainee. Here’s some tips to do that.

1. Establish the scope of the task

Don’t just give the junior attorney a piece of work to do from scratch without first discussing the task you are delegating and to upfront define the steps of the delegation process that you’ll be following (the milestones when you want to discuss progress or see a draft, what level of feedback or edits you will or won’t provide, the autonomy you are willing to give them and where they have no latitude to be creative).

2. Commit to the diary times to discuss progress and check drafts

Knowing the milestones at which point you want to discuss further, set times aside to discuss.  You can then get on with other work without wondering when a draft will land on your desk. Don’t chase before the agreed time as it slows the junior down and creates anxiety for them and yourself.

3. Separate the technical review from stylistic preference

Each time that you want to edit a draft, ask yourself: "Is this legally/technically correct? Does it meet the client commercial needs?" If the answer is yes to both, don’t rewrite it simply to match your exact personal style, as it is not serving to improve quality. Even better, don’t edit anything, even if the answer to one of those questions is no.  Instead, make notes (rather than providing edits) and discuss the areas where the work fall short.  The junior learns by going away and thinking it through and re-drafting, and you save time.

Normalise the unknown

A core driver of imposterism is the belief that a senior attorney should know everything and be able to do any task that comes in front of them. When something outside of the day-to-day practice arises, the immediate instinct is to panic.

Instead, spend some time explicitly defining the boundaries of your current knowledge and skills, then when something outside of your explicitly defined wheelhouse comes along, you can expect not to know everything about it or how to deal with it.  As a bonus, when you define your knowledge and skill boundaries, identify who has skills and knowledge in the areas around your boundaries and why that is where their expertise lies.  Then when opportunities or issues arise you can quickly identify who you can collaborate with or refer the task onto, from a position of strength as a team.

By not needing to do that thinking when the thing happens, the anxiety about not being able to do everything, or not knowing who is best placed to take on the task, is reduced because a plan is in place. Plus, in practice, having these boundaries pre-set and knowing who else to turn to for expertise beyond your boundaries help position you both externally and internally as a collaborative expert that puts the outcome first.

Systemic interventions that IP firms can take

While individual attorneys have to take responsibility for their own thoughts and actions, IP firms must acknowledge that imposterism is aggravated by the environment and responsibility for addressing systemic flaws in IP firms is not the responsibility of the attorney experiencing imposterism. Not only does the responsibility to fix these issues lie with the firm itself, doing so is a commercially savvy approach that will protect and improve profitability, employee engagement and retain the most talented attorneys.

There are countless ways in which the environmental triggers of IP firms can be tackled, here are 3 practical suggestions.

Practice continual feedback loops

Most IP firms provide feedback to junior employees in the form of annual or biannual formal appraisal meetings, with the most enlightened providing feedback continually as and when something worth saying arises.

Yet, even in the most advanced feedback systems, the most senior attorneys, the partners and owners of the business, often receive no appraisal meeting at all, or at best an annual business plan review that doesn’t include feedback on their actual performance. Instead, feedback on performance only occurs when something goes wrong. Unsurprisingly, when an attorney only hears from leadership when something has gone wrong, their brain becomes wired for hyper-vigilance and fear.

To tackle this culture of fear of failure, IP firms need to normalise continual feedback on what has gone well, what has gone poorly and provide support and development to push the best to be even better. Continual feedback doesn’t even need to be the responsibility of senior leadership (a fear that it becomes a drain on the time of the managing partner and board), as a combination of upwards, peer, and downwards feedback provides vital data to the individual as to how to improve or where to continue doing what is already going well. With continual feedback, the occasions when difficult feedback must be given is then not a shock to the system and less likely to create anxiety or fear of the meeting with the managing partner.

Role modelling of the provision of feedback can be done in regular team or firm-wide meetings in the form of both “Success Audits”, where wins and good practice are discussed, and "Failure Forums", where the most senior leaders openly share professional mistakes and how they were resolved.

Reward and mandate collaborative working

It is commonplace to find senior attorneys working in silos, not collaborating with other seniuor attorneys, delegating very little or only to a small number of junior people, often because of imposterism.  From a risk management perspective, having more than one senior attorney visible to clients provides resilience should a key partner be indisposed unexpectedly, and so it is not unreasonable for docketing systems to require the naming of a second senior attorney for each client/case. 

Collaborative working at the highest level can be encouraged by implementing a sabbatical system where the senior attorney is not able to practice for an extended period of time (e.g. 3 months), their clients therefore must have an alternative point of contact and the attorney receives an opportunity to rest and recharge in an otherwise long and gruelling career.

Collaborative working through wider and more delegation can also be encouraged by rewarding those behaviours through bonuses, performance-related profit shares, making it part of the requirements for progression to and through the lockstep of equity partnership, events and prizes for successful team-working and providing opportunities that wouldn’t otherwise be available without having worked collaboratively.

Transition metrics from individual to team KPIs

Many IP firms inadvertently trigger imposterism by continuing to evaluate senior attorneys on the exact same metric they tracked as junior attorneys, raw personal billable hours and income/profit. Naturally, the more senior the attorney, the more they have other responsibilities both externally in managing client relationships and winning new work; and internally in managing junior team members and departments, and being responsible for running and leading the strategy of a business. When their personal billable metrics drop, they feel like they are failing, even when providing huge amounts of value in other business areas.

IP firms can update performance assessment of senior attorneys by accounting for their individual contribution as a holistic measure – what beyond billable metrics do they contribute?  And, in relation to billable metrics convert assessment to team-based metrics such as group profitability, their utilisation of junior attorneys (volume and breadth of distribution), collaborative working with other senior attorneys, the gifting of key client relationships to others, team progression to qualification (and beyond) and team retention.

Structurally rewarding senior attorneys for all the activities they are required to undertake, rather than tracking how many hours the partner has personally billed, or how much their individual client portfolio is worth reduces the fear of failure and encourages behaviours that grow profitability.

Imposterism need not damage IP firms

Individual technical competence is a baseline requirement in the UK intellectual property sector. Consistently feeling like a failure or a fraud caps personal career satisfaction and artificially limits the commercial viability of firms.

Senior attorneys individually and IP firms at an organisational level can work together to make small changes that improve personal and organisational resilience and generate commercial benefits: increased profitability, client growth, engaged employees and a high-performance supportive culture.

Ready to stop imposterism hindering your IP career?

Even taking the options highlighted above can be tricky on your own. Sometimes having a supportive and independent person can help you commit to the actions that help to tackle imposterism. If you find it difficult to take the step, or it feels a bit daunting - that's completely normal. Facing up to the things that scare us is hard. If you want that supportive person to help you take the first step towards tackling imposterism, working with a coach can really help. That could be me, after all I get the reality of IP firms. But even if it's not me, there are tons of great coaches out there - and i'll happily recommend some if i'm not the right fit for you. Just drop me a line using the contact form.

Or do you need to work on how your firm can tackle imposterism in your senior attorneys and stop it impacting firm culture and profitability?

Supporting those who may be experiencing imposterism, but not yet comfortable in reaching out for help themselves, can be tricky, but it is possible to shape the structure and culture they are working within to benefit them and encourage them to seek the support they need.

Drop me a message through the contact form to find out more about my confidential, 1:1 executive coaching and leadership development work for groups that is tailored specifically to help senior patent and trade mark attorneys to move from a place of fear of failure to confident leaders of a even more profitable IP business.