Make a Tech Leap with the 4 Cs to Confidence
What do you feel you can accomplish when you are confident?
Duh – anything, right?
On the flip side, what do you feel you can accomplish when you are NOT confident?
Very little.
My mentor, Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, teaches a process called the 4 C’s Formula.
A recurring problem I have seen over the past 15 years supporting lawyers with technology is a lack of leverage of their technology and apps.
Most of our readers are not in BigLaw but are working either as solos or in small firms. Law school didn’t prepare them to run a business, and it certainly didn’t prepare them for the technological needs required of them today.
A significant factor that stalls the adoption and embracement of technology is a lack of confidence.
Now, this is not saying that you are not confident. When I was younger, I remember being confident in my work, but as shy as you could get when it came to asking a girl out on a date.
So we can have confidence in certain areas and lack it in others.
My topic today is how to develop your confidence in technology.
If you’re confident with technology, you’ll be much more likely to grow and learn more about how to use it to your benefit. To make you more productive so you can help more clients, finish your work early and get home in time for dinner.
A bonus or strategic by-product to today’s post is that the 4 C’s Formula applies to not only technology but ALL areas of your life.
When it comes to developing confidence, most people have it backward.
They think they need to wait to be confident, and only then will they take action. The 4 Cs Formula addresses this and covers 4 steps to building confidence.
To grow, you need to work through the 4 Cs:
Commitment > Courage > Capability > Confidence
Commitment
The first step is to make a commitment. This means you have a clarity of vision and are sold on the importance and payoff of the desired result. To make progress with increasing the leverage on your technology, you first need to get clear on the end goal.
Get clear of what the benefit will be. This gets you in a state where you are fully motivated and willing to create the teamwork required to activate this idea.
Commitment leads to…
Courage
This is the uncomfortable stage, yet it is the catalyst for growth and innovation.
Once you commit to learning a piece of software, you need the courage to act. Learn it. Study it. Set it up.
Courage means having the strength and the willpower to dive in and venture into the unknown. Put in the time to work with and learn how to use your apps.
It does not matter where your current skillset lies.
Once you’ve decided to implement a specific feature – say time-tracking in real-time – courage is taking the time to watch videos, attend a webinar, reach out to support, hire a tech consultant.
All the italicized words are action verbs.
Do.
As a result, courage leads to…
Capability
Only by doing do you develop new capabilities. Growing your capabilities sets you up for new learning opportunities that provide the foundation for future growth.
For example, Steven Berger, estate planning and administration attorney in Severna Park, MD, had used WealthCounsel for many years. He was aware of the document automation feature but had never gotten around to setting it up.
Once he committed to setting up document automation, he invested 5 hours to dive in, learn how to use it, and set it up. He took the courage to do so, and once he was done, he had a new capability.
His payoff was saving over 220 hours per year of work previously done manually, in addition to creating a better client experience via faster turnaround to his clients and fewer chances of oversights and mistakes. Happier clients lead to more referrals so that the ROI will be far more than the 220 hours.
And when you develop new capabilities, this leads to…
Confidence
Confidence is a by-product of gaining a new capability.
When Steven set the document automation and got a 44X ROI per hour invested – do you think that built his confidence?
You betcha! :)
Now your first tech leap doesn’t need to be that massive.
It could be as simple as learning one new feature you have put off learning.
Maybe spending 30 minuted to learn how to use it will net you 30 minutes saved per week > 2 hours a month > 3 full workdays per year.
These little wins stack up.
Remember the 4Cs Formula: Commitment > Courage > Capability > Confidence
Rinse. Lather. Repeat.
Developing your confidence in using the tools available to you does not have to be daunting, and I believe it is within everyone’s reach, regardless of current skill level.
Building Self-Confidence is Critical for a Successful Career
Whether you consider yourself a super techie or a novice, the 4Cs formula is an excellent hack for building your confidence.
Confidence is one of the key attributes that set top lawyers apart from the rest. A good lawyer can write persuasively, think critically, and speak eloquently. They’re dedicated, creative, and persistent.
But that is no longer enough. Any lawyer who thinks they don’t need to master the ‘tech stuff’ is at a significant disadvantage. While the one who embraces it wholeheartedly and looks at it in the face and embraces it will have many advantages over the former.
Master the 4Cs, and you’ll be unstoppable at achieving virtually anything you set your mind on.
