The Power of Falling Forward

It may seem odd to speak of falling at a time of calling. But someday, sometime, in the not-too-distant future, when the chips are down and setbacks set in during work, this message could be just the tonic you need.

Yes, this aims to serve as a sobering, sombre reality check. You see, the truth is that none of us can soar from success to success all the time although try to attain and achieve we must. No one has gone on a smooth trajectory of upward growth to upward growth year upon year, month upon month in their career life all the time. There will be blips, bumps and everything in between.

I did not call this message “The Power of Failing Forward”. Failing has a different connotation and few of us like to think of ourselves as failures or having failed in anything. Failing implies a certain finality; an end pronouncement of what could have been and what should have been. But when one falls, you pick yourself up. It’s only a temporary stumble in the journey.

We cannot underestimate extraordinary work pressures and the job stresses in Singapore that may lead to these falls. The legal world is not exempt from the same. This is a different world from what you’ve been accustomed to in your school life or undergrad days. It’s a world you may be ill-equipped to survive; let alone, thrive. Welcome to the working world.

UK research earlier this year from the Junior Lawyers division of the UK Law Society suggests that more than 90% of young lawyers have felt under “too much emotional or mental pressure” at work. No similar wide scale research results for Singaporean junior lawyers are available. Perhaps, we will wisely not go there! But on a serious note, reflecting on our Young Lawyers Forum held last month, it was clear to me that extraordinary emotional or mental stress at work are not just the plight of British junior lawyers.

There are anecdotes aplenty that I can share with you about falls. I remember a junior lawyer who was traumatized after a disastrous first case in the High Court. Her client was cross-examined in Court over a legal phrase inserted in his AEIC. His answer was (yes, you guessed it), “my lawyer put it there”. The client lost the case, the firm was sued in negligence and the junior lawyer went from counsel to witness. I interviewed her. There are some scenes in life you do not forget. Her speech, demeanour and body language wise was precisely how she felt and what she experienced. Some of these terrible, traumatic career experiences leave a lasting, lingering impact on life for life. They are sufficient to spook any lawyer to stop practice.

In my first High Court trial as a first year lawyer, my cross-examination skills left a lot to be desired. (I am sure that am much better nowadays!) After five days of getting nowhere, when I wanted to ask a few sweep up questions and informed the Judge, the hitherto self-controlled Judge snapped and essentially rebuked me as being one of the slowest sweepers he had seen.

Today, I know of young lawyers having good outings in Court. Many Judges are patient when juniors appear before them. The judiciary gives as much latitude as they reasonably can. Sometimes, this balances the asymmetry with more senior lawyers on the other side. But this is no free pass on ethical transgressions. It behoves junior litigators to start off right. With right work and profession habits. To learn the ethics and etiquette involved in practising their court craft and in the right way. Yet sometimes the line is crossed inadvertently and you end up with a fall from grace.

Who will catch you when you are falling? Everyone has a coping and catching mechanism. Faith, family and friends rank right up there for many. Coaches and mentors are invaluable in such moments. We already have a long standing Prac Mentor programme (which is a practice-based mentorship). In the near future, the Law Society will introduce a scheme to source for a mentor for every junior who requests. This is over and above the efforts of Council and the Young Lawyers Committee to engage with the youngest stakeholders of our legal profession.

This is precisely what resilience is. The ability to bounce back as George Patton famously quipped. As an inventor, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked: “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

The hardest step is always the first one. Fear of failing is something all of us must contend with. However, successful people don’t allow the fear to become an excuse. They feel the fear and proceed in spite of it.

In Sandberg’s and Grant’s chapter “Failing and Learning at Work” in their bestselling book Option B – Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, Finding Joy (2017), the writers share a powerful illustration on how a successful rocket launch takes place. Data from more than 4,000 launches show that the more times a government or company failed, the more likely they were to put a rocket into orbit successfully on the next try. Also, their chances of success increased after a rocket exploded compared to a smaller failure. The authors make the point that “Not only do we learn more from failure than success, we learn more from bigger failures because we scrutinize them more closely”. This is true of rocket science. It’s also true of law. Speaking for myself and a number of litigators too, I recall my case defeats far more painfully and in gory detail than my litigation victories. The losses are a source of reflection, not self-flagellation, for future improvement.

But to maximize the learning experience, it requires a positive mindset about criticism. Critique is not easy to dole out. But if given a choice, most of us prefer to be on the giving end rather than the receiving end.

No matter how brilliant your grades were in law school, the adventure of legal practice involves a different (and frankly, difficult) terrain. There is much to learn about law in practice, ethics, client care skill, strategy and so on. A right attitude (not just the right aptitude) is needed. That also means being able to swallow the bitter pill of accepting criticism.

Sandberg and Grant’s advice in their book Option B is that accepting feedback is easier when you don’t take it personally. Being open to criticism means you get even more feedback which makes us better. They quote two law professors who give a fascinating practical self-application of this (at 151):

One way to lessen the sting of criticism is to evaluate how well you handle it. “After every low score you receive,” law professors Doug Stone and Sheila Heen advise, you should “give yourself a second score” based on how you handle the first score … . Even when you get an F for the situation itself, you can still earn an A+ for how you deal with it.

It’s about having a forward outlook not a backward look. The world will then truly be your oyster. Because you can absorb the irritant of falling during your work life. And watch it slowly but surely transform …. into a pearl of wisdom for your life and others.