Mark Murphy: Why Law Firms Keep Hiring the Wrong People

In this episode, Steve Fretzin and Mark Murphy discuss:

• The challenges and nuances of hiring the right talent for law firms
• The critical distinction between attitude and skills in recruitment
• How leadership traits can hinder effective hiring decisions
• Practical strategies for improving the legal hiring and interview process

Key Takeaways:

• Eighty-nine percent of new hires fail due to attitude issues like entitlement or resistance to feedback, not because of technical skill gaps, showing why firms must prioritize attitude in hiring.
• Top-performing teams rely on five key roles—director, trailblazer, harmonizer, achiever, and stabilizer—each providing distinct behavioral strengths that drive success.
• Interviewers can quickly spot problem solvers by asking about a past mistake and seeing if the candidate naturally explains how they resolved it without prompting.
• High performers use first-person and past-tense language when describing real experiences, while weaker candidates rely on vague, hypothetical answers using second-person phrasing.

“I always tell leaders this: ironically, the better the leader you are, often the worse hirer you are, because you have to dial down your natural optimism and desire to see everybody be great.” —  Mark Murphy

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Episode References: 

Think Again by Adam Grant: https://www.amazon.com/Think-Again-Power-Knowing-What/dp/1984878107

About Mark Murphy: Mark Murphy is a New York Times bestselling author whose groundbreaking book Hiring for Attitude has transformed the way companies hire and build high-performing teams. His pioneering research revealed that nearly half of new hires fail within 18 months — and a staggering 89% of those failures result from attitude, not a lack of skills. His insights have reshaped hiring strategies for Fortune 500 companies, fast-growing startups, and government agencies worldwide.

Connect with Mark Murphy:  

Website: https://www.leadershipiq.com/

Book: Hiring for Attitude: https://www.amazon.com/Hiring-Attitude-Revolutionary-Recruiting-Tremendous/dp/1259860906

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markamurphy/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadership-iq/

Connect with Steve Fretzin:

LinkedIn: Steve Fretzin

Twitter: @stevefretzin

Instagram: @fretzinsteve

Facebook: Fretzin, Inc.

Website: Fretzin.com

Email: Steve@Fretzin.com

Book: Legal Business Development Isn’t Rocket Science and more!

YouTube: Steve Fretzin

Call Steve directly at 847-602-6911

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You’re the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

Steve Fretzin: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Steve Fretzin here, and this isn’t the time to wait and see what’s gonna happen in the world. It is time to take action. If you’re ready to build a book, a business of your dreams that you can be proud of, you’re gonna wanna start off by buying my new book. Be That Lawyer 101 Top, Rainmaker Secrets to Growing a Successful Law Practice.

That’s the next move you need to make. It’s real advice, proven results. 101 experts. All in one place. It’s now available on Amazon. Grab a copy and you can be that lawyer

Narrator: You are listening to be that lawyer, life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Each episode, your host, author, and lawyer coach Steve Fretzin, will take a deeper dive helping you grow your law practice in less time with greater results. Now, here’s your host, Steve.

Steve Fretzin: Hey everybody.

Welcome back. It is Steve Fretzin and you are listening to the Be That Lawyer [00:01:00] podcast. This show is all about helping you be that lawyer, confident, organized, and a skilled rainmaker. And this doesn’t happen as an isolated thing. This happens as a community. This happens as a village, and it happens by taking advice from people that know more about stuff than you do.

And there’s things that you know more about than I know. And so I’m listening to lawyers talk about the law all the time, and now you have to listen to us talk about. How to grow and scale your law practice suck it. That’s just the way it is. But we’re gonna do a great job for you today.

I got Mark Whiting in the wings. How’s it going my friend?

Mark Murphy: Excellent. Thanks so much for having me, Steve.

Steve Fretzin: Hey, man. Awesome. And I loved your quote. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen this quote before, and right away when I saw it, I started smiling. And here’s why. The quote is, you can’t teach employees to smile.

They have to smile before you hire them. And that’s already Nathan, CHRO of Steve Wynn’s gaming company. I didn’t really think about that, but the power of smiling and the power of that attitude and that feeling you get from someone when they smile at you, I don’t, yeah, that can’t be taught, I don’t think.

Mark Murphy: It’s, the thing is [00:02:00] skills are easy to teach. If you want to teach somebody legal skills, where do you send them? You send them to law school? No, you send ’em to me. No. Law business development skills. All right. Yeah. Business development, growing the legal practice you send. You wanna learn the basics of, tort law, whatever.

You go to law school. And the interesting thing though is that attitude is so much harder to teach than the skills are. And yeah, is it theoretically possible with enough time and intervention? Perhaps, but it is, that is one where the juice is not worth the squeeze. It’s so much easier to hire the per, if you need people who can smile so much easier to hire the people who can, who are already smiling.

Yeah. And then you know, you can fill in skills if you need to.

Steve Fretzin: That’s awesome. I absolutely love that. I, people don’t know this, but I ran a recruiting firm for five years and we were really trying to teach people, not just to hire on the resume and then [00:03:00] the skills, but really looking at, their behaviors and their attitudes and their, and the what does your gut tell you, and all these different feat factors that are outside of what you would find in a traditional resume or an interview.

So I love that, and we’re gonna get deep into it today. Mark Murphy, you are the founder of Leadership iq and how do you get into, writing books and running a business on leadership and helping people recruit and hire the right way?

Mark Murphy: So for me, it all started doing research and I, I was younger, I was in my twenties and I was working on in consulting and organizations going through turnarounds, and I just started doing research and I figured, if I uncover something in the research, it’s not dependent on.

Me being younger up and coming. It’s not dependent on my personal gravitas and how much gravitas do we have when we’re 23 or whatever or as they call it. Riz.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, Riz. Exactly. My teenager, just my teenager’s not listening, but he just made a face at me. If he was listening [00:04:00]

Mark Murphy: to his dad saying the word riz.

My son turns 18 tomorrow, so mine is as well. And with things like hiring for attitude, all my work began with just doing a study and just asking, how many new hires actually work out? How many new hires fail? Okay let’s just go look at that. And then, I don’t know, let’s, for all the new hires that fail, and it’s about 46% of ’em, why do they fail? And then, we went and discovered that and got to the, it’s 89% of the time it’s attitudinal stuff. But once we had the data, it became hard to contest because that’s when people started to say, oh yeah, no, actually this does sync up with what I’m seeing in real life. But.

For me, all of my projects have always begun with some kind of a study because I hate the idea of being wrong and I figure if I have enough data, it may change by a percent or two, but we’re gonna be a lot closer to the truth than if I were just pulling stuff out of thin air and taking a wild guess.

Steve Fretzin: [00:05:00] Yeah, and it’s so interesting the. Most of the law firms that hire don’t have any professional or management training to do it in a way that’s gonna drive results. They, a lot of them make mistakes even years in, and we know like the rules slow to hire, quick to fire, but many of them, like they.

Feel good about some, like I’m one of these people that made mistakes hiring because I just love everybody. And I just believe that everybody can be what I think or want them to be. And that’s just absolutely not the case, is what I found out. Unfortunately, the hard way.

Mark Murphy: It’s funny, one of the.

Qualities that make somebody a great leader. What you just talked about, having that belief that this person can succeed and I can help them succeed and my gosh, no way are you gonna fail on my watch. That is an amazing leadership characteristic. It is also, ironically, one of the absolute salute worst cat.

I knew you were gonna go there, dammit. Oh man when you’re [00:06:00] hiring, it’s, I always tell leaders this, ironically, the better the leader you are, often the worse hirer you are because you have to dial down your natural optimism and desire to see everybody be great. You have to take that, tuck it away, and willing to watch them fail.

Yeah. In an interview and just, it’s like watching a car wreck that you know, you could prevent, but you can’t prevent it.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. You

Mark Murphy: have to stop yourself for these 30 minutes. Ugh. Let it happen.

Steve Fretzin: I also think it might be the difference between a, what makes a great, or what makes a leader different than a manager.

I think they’re different skill sets like I am. I think I’m a great leader. I also believe that I’m a pretty terrible manager, also a great coach, but not, but I don’t think they’re, all three of those are like different skill sets and mindsets.

Mark Murphy: It’s funny, when we look at the composition of a team, for example, the best performing teams are really made up of [00:07:00] five distinct roles.

There’s somebody on that team who’s a director. This is somebody who is. Able to make tough decisions and over, even if nobody likes ’em, that’s okay. I make the tough decisions. There’s a trailblazer, somebody who’s coming up with those big out of the box ideas. There’s a harmonizer, somebody who is concerned with growth and making sure that the team’s feeling good and there’s a psychological safety.

Then there’s an achiever, somebody who’s listen, I don’t need to be in charge. Just let me roll up my sleeves and get my work done. And then there’s. Stabilizer, and this is like the dot the i’s cross the T’s. I’ll get the trains to run on time. But when we think about the A leader versus a manager, for example, leaders will often be in more of that director role, sometimes the harmonizer role, whereas a manager is often gonna be more on that stabilizer role.

But the interesting thing is if you’re talking about a team, for example. You actually do need all of those, because if you have a leader and there’s nobody making the [00:08:00] trains run on time.

I’m not gonna get anything done. At the same time, if the trains are running on time, but nobody can make a decision or craft a vision for where we’re going well, and it feels terrible.

Great. Then it’s getting, yeah, you got the trains to run on time, but it’s more of a death march than it is anything else and it really is those, it’s that balance. But that’s part of hiring too, is to recognize what are you, what do you need, what do you have? And then what is the person that you are interviewing supposed to come in and fill for you?

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. So then what are the biggest mistakes that you see hiring managers make? That could be in the recruiting process, the interview process, or the onboarding process, or by the way, lack of onboarding process.

Mark Murphy: So we see. Pretty major mistakes. Everything every, it really is there are. So let’s take a couple of specific things.

So in the interviewing process, I’ll give you one insanely tactical, simple mistake that’s [00:09:00] easy to correct.

Steve Fretzin: Okay.

Mark Murphy: Imagine that we’re interviewing somebody and we want to know how resilient this person is. So we might ask ’em a question like, could you tell me about a time you made a mistake at work?

Alright, so we wanna know in a way, in a high pressure law firm, we wanna know everybody’s gonna make a mistake. Everybody’s gonna screw up at some point, but how well does this person bounce back? How quickly do they bounce back? Now, one major mistake that people make. They take a question like that, and what they do is, could you tell me about a time you made a mistake at work and how you overcame that?

Now, here’s the thing. If you imagine that there’s two kinds of people in the world, problem bringers and problem solvers, if you ask a problem bringer about the problem, they will tell you about a problem and nothing else. That’s it. That’s all they will tell you. Here’s what went wrong. If you ask a problem solver about a problem.

They’ll tell you about the problem, but then automatically, with no further prompting required, they [00:10:00] will automatically tell you how you solved it. So for example, my rule is never ask somebody in an interview. I. How would they solve the problem? Ask ’em about a problem. Could you tell me about a time you made a mistake at work?

And then Yeah, zip it up. Exactly. And because that candidate will reveal to you instantly the kind of personality they have. Oh yeah, I made mistakes, but it’s because my boss stunk and the senior partner didn’t tell me a darn thing. What was I supposed to do? Yeah. Whereas somebody who’s a problem solver is gonna say, yeah, I made a mistake.

Let me tell you about one specific time, and then here’s what I did to overcome it. And I tell you, I’ve never made that mistake again. Yeah. It’s amazing the differences that, and so there are simple things like that, that are insanely powerful that just instantly clue you in. Another thing still in the interview is that if you listen to how candidates speak, interviewers often get [00:11:00] fooled by really nice sounding, but somewhat hypothetical answers.

Could you tell me about a time you made a mistake at work? Sure. What I find is when you make a mistake, really what you have to do is do a bit of self-reflection. You really have to take a deep look at yourself and figure out. Where can you do a little bit better? And so I always pride myself on if a mistake gets made, I’m always gonna be the hardest critic of my own self.

Now. Sounds lovely ish. Didn’t answer my question in the least. It’s a purely hypothetical. So we’ve actually analyzed over 20,000 candidate answers and without. Boring your listeners with all of the nitty gritty. What I can tell you is that if you listen for words like first person pronouns versus second person pronouns or past tense verbs versus future present tense verbs, high performer candidates use a lot more first person pronouns and past tense verbs.

So they say things like, I did. [00:12:00] I had a time last month where I faced the following problem, whereas a low performer is a lot more likely to use second person pronouns, present future tense verbs. So they’ll say things like, what you should do when you have a problem like that is, or I will look into the records and then what I like to do is, or what you should do, or what you could do in a case like that.

So I always think of, I did versus you should. And it’s not that every I did answer is still gonna be good, but at least you know that they are telling you an accurate portrayal of what actually happened. Whereas a lot of interviewers get fooled by answers that sound nice, but don’t actually tell you a darn thing.

Steve Fretzin: And it’s also in the subtleties of what you’re listening for in the language that you’re hearing that gives you a lot of the answers about who takes ownership and responsibility. And who may have the right attitude or the solution mentality [00:13:00] versus the problem mentality, which you mentioned.

So I love all of that. Let me ask you this. There’s, your research showed that 89% of hiring failures are due to attitude rather than technical skills. And obviously in the law there, you need technical skills, right? You don’t wanna hire someone that have to teach ’em everything if you’re gonna pay ’em the top dollar.

So why do. Firms then focus on experiencing qualifications versus other attributes like attitude.

Mark Murphy: The short answer is because it’s easy.

Steve Fretzin: Okay. Laziness. Thank you. Yeah.

Mark Murphy: Really it is. Hey, lawyers, you’re lazy. It’s so easy to test for skills. Yeah. And I mean it’s we do have things like, I don’t know.

Bar exams, for example. Yeah. They, give us some kind of a baseline assessment of how well does this person actually know the law. What that does not tell us is whether they are gonna be any good at bringing in or retaining clients, whether they’re gonna be a nightmare to work with, if they’re working with paralegals [00:14:00] or a senior partner or whatever, and.

The interesting thing is that companies still to this day, focus so much on the hiring of skills is just, it’s just easy to do. And so it really is part of it, it’s lazy. Part of it is they often don’t have the training to hire for the attitudinal piece and. What they often don’t do as well, and this is a thing that I encourage everybody to do, is take a look at every failed hire that you’ve had in your company in the past three months, six months, 12 months.

Pick a timeframe, doesn’t matter, and do an honest to goodness. Look at a real, heart and soul. Deep look and go, why did this person fail? What was it? Did they lack the skills? Were they stupid or was there something. Attitudinal was that they were a colossal pain in the rear to deal with.

They were narcissistic every day was drama with them. I always tell leaders, if you’ve ever uttered the phrase, they’re a high performer with a bad [00:15:00] attitude. That’s like your classic red flag. And if you do an honest to goodness, look at why people tend to fail in your own organization, in your firm.

Yeah, most of the time what you’re going to find is they were driving in bananas. It’s not that they, couldn’t figure out how to turn the computer on, or they couldn’t write a brief or whatever it is, but it’s that they were just so difficult or they couldn’t bond with the clients, or they couldn’t bond with the colleagues, or whatever it is.

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Hey everybody, it’s Steve Fretzin as the, I’m the host of the Be That Lawyer Podcast, and if you’re serious about growing your law practice, let’s talk. [00:16:00] I’ve coached hundreds of attorneys to build bigger books of business without selling, chasing, or wasting time. This isn’t a sales pitch, it’s a real 30 minute.

Strategy session to explore what’s possible for you in your practice. Just head over to Fretzin.com and grab a time that works for you and let’s make this your breakout year. So then what are the good questions to ask or the ways to identify someone that has, whether it’s like a go for it attitude or a teamwork attitude, or an attitude that’s gonna breed success in a firm.

Mark Murphy: So a couple of things. Number one is that the attitudes that you want in your firm are gonna vary. They’re gonna be different from every organization. And so let’s imagine for example, that a big priority at your firm is you want your attorneys to really build deep emotional connections with the clients.

Like one of your selling points is you connect with your clients like they. [00:17:00] Trust you. Okay. So maybe one of the things you’re trying to assess in that case is how well do you build an emotional bond with your clients? So I might ask something like, could you tell me about a time one of your clients felt overwhelmed by their legal challenges?

And what I’m looking for here is how well did you handle that? If you said something like most of my clients tend to feel overwhelmed. This is part of the job. I just, tell ’em, listen, sit back, relax, let me do my job. You just sit there and. Okay, that’s telling me very clearly you are not a fit.

Yeah. For my firm that is predicated on building deep emotional bonds with our clients. Yeah. I. Or if, for example, I need somebody who is more of a go-getter and somebody that is they’re gonna be good in, in more of a hunter mode, I might ask ’em something like listen, could you tell me about a [00:18:00] time you struggled to meet your billing requirements?

Now if they start telling me yeah, I, it just seemed like all the business at the firm was slow and so I, it didn’t phase me too much. I just chalked it up to being a seasonal thing. I. That’s a lot different than the person who says, yeah, you know what? I had a month where I was struggling a bit.

So what I did is I have a couple areas of expertise. So I went to all the senior partners in the firm and said, Hey, what can I do to start helping you on some of your cases? Where can I lend some of my help, some expertise. I have some time in my schedule. And, one of those is much more of a go-getter answer than the other one.

And again, depending on the attitudes I’m really looking for, if I want that, somebody who can emotionally connect. If I want somebody who’s more of a go-getter, if I want somebody who’s can bounce back, I might ask about, could you tell me about a time you made a mistake? Or could you tell me about a time a client didn’t take your advice?

Or could you tell me about a time your idea or opinion was [00:19:00] rejected? Okay. And, but those would be, if I were just making a stock list of starting places, those would be some of the places I would start.

Steve Fretzin: Those are some fantastic questions and suggestions that you’re making to help people interview more effectively.

The I think the thing that, that. Lawyers may not be doing enough of is thinking about what the attitude of that role of that job is. I’m looking for a rainmaker that’s gonna have a, I can’t quit attitude versus someone that’s gonna have a deep trust attitude and realizing there are different types of attitudes versus just a positive attitude, which is what we associate.

Attitude. Do you have a positive attitude or a negative attitude? You’re suggesting there’s multiple varieties of good attitudes that you might wanna identify for particular roles, which I think is brilliant. Yeah, it’s like you wrote, it’s like you wrote a book or something about this.

Mark Murphy: Yeah, exactly.

Steve Fretzin: Alright, I’ve got something for you. All right, mark, I’m gonna throw something I’ve been doing for 20 plus years and I just want to get your take on it because one of the challenges I [00:20:00] have. In dealing with the word sales and lawyers, dealing with the word business, development, marketing, whatever the heck we want to call it, it’s not what they signed up for, but they recognize now that I have, they have to do it.

We have to do it. It’s a part of the job. If you want to have independence, freedom your own. Decision to run your life the way you want it versus having everyone else be your boss. And so I’ve brought it down to three main attributes that dictate results or success. Attitude is one of ’em.

Positive attitude. Number two is belief. Belief in oneself. And number three is behaviors having positive behaviors? And do you have a feeling about which of those would drive results more than others? I wanna share my 2 cents about it, but I want to get your take on what you think about it.

Mark Murphy: So there’s a couple of things.

One is that we know when we look at some of the attitudes that drive sales success, and so some of those [00:21:00] attitudes will turn into behaviors. Okay. That, for example, I. Discipline is in a lot of sales environments now, it’s not true for all, but in a lot of sales environments, discipline, being able to maintain the right number of outreaches.

A little bit on your sales model, but the right number of outreaches, making the right number of calls may have the right. Number of touches. At some point it just becomes math, right? That you can’t, you’re not going to get the, a sufficient revenue in without a sufficient amount of activity.

And there is an attitude that helps drive that. And because some people are more. Disciplined in that way than others. You have people that are gonna be more of the, creative types, brainstormy types and it’s gonna be a lot, it’s more freeform, a lot less linear. But oftentimes salespeople, the successful ones, it is, they are able to just stick and grind it out and pound it [00:22:00] through.

That’s one characteristic. Another characteristic that we see, and this tie, it’s very related to that, is persistence. Most sales requires persistence. Again, there are, you can come up with examples where it’s not persistent, but most in this day and age, a lot, especially for professional services and legal is gonna fall under that.

It’s gonna be longer sales cycles, it’s gonna be multiple touches. It’s not gonna be a poof one shot. And I land the big client. It’s not like it is on suits, right? And it’s it’s a lot less sexy than that in real life. And so the attitude of persistence, somebody who does not give up and can stick to the plan, and it’s just gonna work that thing every single day, those are the people that.

Typically, again, on average are going to end up being more successful in sales. And that’s, those become key attitudes that drive behaviors that if you’re hiring [00:23:00] salespeople become important. Yeah.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, and I agree with that a hundred percent. And I think when you’re hiring, and my background is sales all the years, from selling shoes when I was 16 all the way through selling franchises into my thirties, and it, you had to have.

Thick skin and you had to be persistent and have a discipline and more than in, in maybe any other kind of environment. I’m dealing with people who have that in the legal space and billable hours and in learning their craft and all that. But when you have to take that and then address it into something you’re not, I.

A hundred percent bought into. What I have found is that I have to start from wherever we are. Some people come in with a great attitude and dedication and all the things that they need to go after it. Then you get other people that, they’re pissed off that they have to do it and they’re not happy.

What I try to do then is I try to have them start. Working on some of the behaviors, whether it’s making five calls a week, emailing, posting on LinkedIn, just get comfortable with some of the behaviors. They start to see that over time they get [00:24:00] results, proof, evidence that this is thing that we’re doing together is working.

And what I have found that starts off a positive. Cycle of their attitude starts to get better. The negative feeling about it and the feeling about the word sale starts to improve and then their belief in themself goes up and then everything kind of spirals in a positive direction. And but again, I’m, am I always happier with a client that comes in with a great attitude day one?

Of course. Like we’re not starting from a negative, we’re starting from, ground zero. But I feel like there are ways to improve attitudes. Now this is all a lead in to. Can someone hire someone with technical skills that maybe doesn’t have quite the best trusting attitude or the most persistent attitude or whatever and work with them on that?

Or is that a very tough thing to accomplish? I.

Mark Murphy: It depends on how much that ad, that particular attitude resembles the attitudes of the people that have failed in your firm. Okay. So for example, I like to do, I call it the three, three, three exercise. Take the three best [00:25:00] people and the three worst people in your firm over the past three months and look at what are the commonalities of the three best people.

What are the commonalities of the three worst people? So for example, you may find that your. One of the major attitudes of your three worst people is a kind of negativity and defeatism like that’s not gonna work. That’s never gonna work out. But maybe what you find is that you hire somebody that doesn’t have much in the way of discipline.

They’re an unmade bed and scattered all over the place, but they. So that’s not great. But they don’t have that negativity, defeatist attitude. And so you look and go yeah. Is that the ideal? No, but it’s not a deal breaker. Yeah. And as long as they have one of those deal breaker attitudes that I know just, and maybe it only is a deal breaker because I personally can’t live with it like it’s my firm.

And if I have to listen to that [00:26:00] defeatist attitude. I’m gonna fire you inside of four months. ’cause I just, it will make my head crack happen.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Yeah.

Mark Murphy: I can work with attitudes that might not be the perfect ideal attitude as long as it’s not one of my deal

Steve Fretzin: breaker attitudes. Core, the core of what you’re trying, like what’s your why?

What is your firm’s culture and what are you all about? You wanna bring in people? That are, have a similar mindset and not, are not gonna pose in, by the way, like a messy bed, a disorganized office that, I used to be, one of the most disorganized people that I knew, and you come to my office, I have no paper and people are tired of hearing me brag up, by the way.

But I’m like the most organized person I know and that’s not how I’m built. So there are ways, getting things done with the David Allen and other things like tools you can help people to improve. Some things and my teenager has the messy room. I used to have a messy room too.

Guess what? Now I’m needed as a pimp. So you just, sometimes it just, it’s time and it’s maybe getting some mentorship, coaching. Hey man, [00:27:00] this is so great. Before we wrap up, I just want to mention your book, hiring for Attitude. Can you just tell a little bit about what that is? ’cause I think everything you’ve shared here today.

These are critical skills and critical components of what successful law firms need to do to hire. So just take a moment on your book.

Mark Murphy: Yeah. So the book is essentially a guide as to how do you find the right attitudes at your firm. That drives your firm, that makes you unique. Secondly, how do you then build interview questions around those attitudes?

Third, how do you then actually assess candidates answers, like learning how to listen, like all those word choices and stuff I mentioned, and then how do you recruit people? That have those attitudes. ’cause if you can fill your pipeline with people that have more of the right attitudes to begin with, it just cuts down on the amount of work that you have to do in the interview process.

Just one less thing you have to grapple with. Yeah.

Steve Fretzin: I love it. Marks. Thank you so [00:28:00] much, man. 30 minutes came and went. That was your book. But let’s also talk about a game changing book that you pointed out to me, which is Think Again by Adam Grant. Can you take a minute on that?

Mark Murphy: The, one of the things I love about that book is that it’s, you’re really going to rethink what it means to be wrong.

So we talked about, could you tell me about a time you made a mistake at work? One of the things think again, will do for you is help you think about, it’s okay to be wrong. That. Real intelligence is not always being right. Real intelligence is the ability to rethink, to unlearn things, relearn new things, and stay mentally flexible.

So it’s, those are, we call it coachability, like in hiring for attitude. It’s coachability and Adam Grant it’s thinking again. But it’s, I love it ’cause it’ll give you a different take on it. Not related to hiring, but it is such an absolutely critical skill that, listen, none of us are gonna be right all the time.

So learning how to bounce and rethink and unlearn and reform, have more [00:29:00] fluid intelligence, not just, I memorized something once. The fluid part of it is really absolutely critical.

Steve Fretzin: Awesome. Everybody check out two books. Check out Hiring for Attitude. By Mark Murphy, who’s with us right now.

And then also check out, think Again by Adam. Grant, I wanna take a moment to thank our sponsors. We’ve got PIM Con coming up in October and you’re gonna wanna check that off. You’re a PI attorney. It’s the best experience you’ll have at a conference all year. I. We’ve got Law, her podcast with Sonya Palmer, doing a great job lifting all women up and helping them to be their best selves.

And I also wanna plug in the Be That Lawyer Program. If you’re interested in growing your law practice to an entirely different level, and you’re tired of taking orders from everybody else and you wanna own your own book of business, take 30 minutes with me. Go to my website, Fretzin.com book a time we’ll talk.

I can tell you if we’re a fit. We’ll keep talking if we’re not a fit. I will be a good resource for you. I’ll try to push you to other people that may be a better fit. I’m not I’m not opposed to that, and I enjoy doing that. So [00:30:00] all good there. Mark, if people wanna get in touch with you, they want to learn more about Leadership iq, what are the best digits for them to reach you?

Mark Murphy: Best way is to go to leadership iq.com and you’ll find, you can find the books there, the courses we have and there’s, if you go to our research tab, there’s all of the studies related to if you wanna nerd out and go data. And then if you want to take some tests, leadership tests, go to the quizzes section and there’s a dozen different free leadership assessments there as well.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah. Fantastic. And hey folks, you hear me say this all the time, but there’s things that you can hear on this show that may be useful to you now, like you have a team and you’re hiring and you need to use what Mark is sharing. You may also consider that you might help your firm or you might end up going out on your own and then scaling up something and whether you’re buying his book or you’re taking notes on the show and in the different questions and the different things we brought up.

This is all the kind of things that you’re gonna continue to get from be that lawyer. I’m not saying you have to have a pen and paper out every time you’re listening, I listen to [00:31:00] it again and really, think about how this can help you in your career and help you scale and build a practice of your own.

Mark, thank you so much, man, is, I’m just so impressed by you. And one of the, by far, one of the, in 500 episodes, one of the best interviews we’ve had on not only leadership and attitude, but in hiring and just giving a lot of very tactical, actionable takeaways from my audience. I appreciate you, man. I.

Mark Murphy: Hey Steve. Thank you so much for having me. It was all pleasures all mine.

Steve Fretzin: Yeah, I would argue with that and say the pleasures all mine, but let’s not fight. Let’s just say it was pleasurable. Thank you everybody for hanging out with Mark and I for half an hour. Great way to hang out in your car and walk your dog and listen while you’re working, whatever you gotta do.

And again, just really appreciate you if you’re. Longtime listener, new listener, please tell other lawyers about us. Don’t be afraid to give us a nice review on Apple or Spotify, wherever you’re listening to your podcast. And check us out on YouTube and on Above the Law. We’ve got many of our podcast videos and clips coming up on above the law.

If you’re a fan of that website, hopefully you are. Thank you everybody. Take care. Be safe, be well. We will talk again soon.[00:32:00]

Narrator: Thanks for listening to be that lawyer, life-changing strategies and resources for growing a successful law practice. Visit Steve’s website Fretzin.com for additional information and to stay up to date on the latest legal business development and marketing trends. For more information and important links about today’s episode, check out today’s show notes.