Contact the author, Douglas Richardson

Amongst lawyers, regardless of the quality of information or the integrity of the speaker, the chief cause of failure to establish credibility, create rapport and to build trust in meetings and presentations is poor eye communication.

If trust is the "sine qua non" of a successful lawyer/client relationship, then there are three issues for those who wish to learn to use eye contact as one of the powerful communication skills.

1. It's Not Your Fault. The majority of lawyers are less comfortable with eye contact than the general population. Decades of research show that most lawyers possess a prevalence of introversion, a lower level of sociability, and a strong preference to communicate in writing, compared to the general population. That said, many successful trial lawyers, mediators and negotiators are amongst the finest verbal communicators in our society - and they owe much of their success to their skilful use of eye contact. 

2. It's Not An Option. The evolution of the practice of law worldwide has dramatically changed the type of personal communication skills required to be a successful lawyer. Consumers are far more knowledgeable and have more bargaining power than ever before. When all is said and done, clients choose lawyers who they perceive as most trustworthy, and that means most lawyers looking for business have to step up their game when it comes to face-to-face communication.

3. There Is No Time to Waste. Eye contact is the most powerful dynamic of human interaction and communication. You can begin to utilize and develop this skill immediately. There are three levels of eye contact: none at all, "scanning" (artificially making contact with listeners) and authentic, fully functioning eye communication (remarkably rare). Strive for the third one.

Transformational Practice: The Five Secrets.

1. Silence Is Your Friend.

Remember that all verbal communication begins in silence. The entire atmosphere of your meeting or presentation will change when you make sincere eye contact with everyone before you begin. Never pause for effect; pause only while you are diligently reading your listeners' responses and quickly finding just the right thought to share. 

2. It's Got to Be Real.

Do not follow the advice of "experts" who recommend that you look at individuals for two or three seconds and then move on to another listener. This is "pretend eye contact" - audiences can tell - and chances are that you will feel even more self-conscious. Do not settle for anything less than your natural ability to pay very close attention to people.

3. Attitude Can Change Everything.

You may not feel comfortable with eye contact in a professional setting. But the fact is, most speakers, most "good" speakers addressing more than 8 or 10 people, seldom use authentic eye contact. Even a slight improvement will make you better than average. Start thinking about using eye communication as an amazingly powerful tool, which immediately will make you a far better speaker. 

4. You Were Born with This Skill.

The reason that you will be able to master eye communication so quickly - and why it will transform your speaking skills - is that authentic eye communication is something that you have been doing since before you could speak! "Reading" your listeners' responses from moment to moment is a skill that every child is born with, and which precedes verbal communication.

5. The Master Technique.

Share your first thought with an individual in the group - and look at their face for a reaction - and then move on to the next thought, and share it with another listener. After an important statement, look at several people, one at a time, in silence. It emphasizes your point more effectively than speaking loudly. When speakers do that - when they are truly in the moment and making continuous eye contact, in order to read our response - the effect is transformational.

I hope you will experiment with this, beginning in "safe" presentations. When you fully experience the benefits, your use of eye contact will make you a more comfortable, more effective and trustworthy speaker. 

Many law firm retreats and workshops include breakout groups for the purpose of acting as brain trusts for the firm, and conceiving options and alternatives that are actionable. The Achilles' heel for many such breakout groups is that they may be led by a lawyer who has no idea as to the subtleties of facilitation.  

In meetings that I convene, I like to have a 20 minutes to train the breakout leaders, but for those of you with whom I do not have the privilege of interacting, here's a checklist of useful points:

• The facilitator should not impart his or her own views and ideas, but rather should manage the process and track the outcomes
• The facilitator therefore need not be the most senior or prominent member of the group; one of the upcoming members may be better positioned to do a great job
• The facilitator can capture ideas by making his or her own notes, preferably on a flipchart; when the notes are his or her own, the facilitator is typically in a stronger position to report with confidence than if he or she is reading the notes of someone else
• The breakout groups should be of a manageable size, let us say no more than 12, and the facilitator should ensure maximum participation by as many of the individuals present as possible. One approach I frequently use is to ask each member of the breakout group to answer a simple question in a phrase or sentence on a piece of paper. Depending on the sensitivity of the topic, I may simply ask people to read their responses, or gather up the papers, shuffle to redistribute them, and have each read by someone else. This only takes a few moments and ensures diversity of opinion rather than the domination of a few
• Another way to get more people involved is simply to say something like, "John, you haven't said much. What do you think about...?" This is especially helpful for those who may be quite introverted or who simply typically yield the floor to more senior or dominant members of the breakout group
• The most critical part of the facilitator's role is to ensure that people describe options and alternatives that are specific enough that they could be delegated as actions should the firm endorse them. For example, discussions about abstract thoughts like, "We should get closer to our clients," are meaningless compared to ones like, "We should create a hierarchy of our most important clients and prioritize our efforts with them. We should start that process by taking our top ten percent and dividing them into three categories, A, B and C based on the following criteria..."
•  Reports back to the plenary from the facilitator should be strictly time-limited. Allowed to meander, the report can go on endlessly and the reporters sometimes ramble. I strongly favor an enforced time-limited process, perhaps four minutes per reporter, with a timer in the audience who taps the table 30 seconds before time is up and then continuously taps when the time is up. The role of timekeeper is typically regarded as fun and the participants will enjoy it. In rare cases, you can give someone permission to go on for a couple of extra moments if that is your wisdom, but I have rarely found extensions of time to be useful.

I hope your next event which includes breakout groups will be more productive based on these ideas. As always, if you have questions or would like to discuss your event (off the meter) I would be delighted to speak with you.