A Lawyer Illustrates How a Good First Impression May Defy Logic

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A Lawyer Illustrates How a Good First Impression May Defy Logic

Posted Jul 15, 2008, 07:11 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

A lawyer’s idea for creating lasting goodwill with his supervisors is being cited by the authors of a new book, Sway, about the psychological impulses that cause people—and hiring managers—to disregard logic.

Authors Ori and Rom Brafman say psychological research shows that first impressions stay with people despite evidence that later contradicts their initial assessments. Ori Brafman explains in a New York Times interview with this example:

“I have this friend who is a lawyer, and in the first two to three weeks of his job, he made sure to create the impression that he was a hard worker. He was the first in and the last to leave. He would not get up from his desk and didn’t take personal calls. He barely got up to use the bathroom. By the end of the first month, he started to relax, took longer lunches and what’s interesting is that no one noticed. They always attributed that initial value—hard worker—to him. He’s going on seven years and still has that reputation.”

The authors say the lawyer’s supervisors—and managers everywhere—need to look at the evidence rather than first impressions. They also contend that job interviews are poor predictors of future performance because the interviewers tend to hire people they think are similar to them. “When psychologists started looking at hiring—in corporations and in the military—what they learned is that managers’ assessments are about as good as pure chance,” Rom Brafman told the Times.

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Posted by Hadley V. Baxendale - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 14 hours, 49 minutes ago

First, let me say that employing and retaining people in a service industry is not driven by “logic.” Personality and charisma can have as much to do with success as quantifiable skills. Attorneys complain about being treated as “fungible billing units” yet also complain when someone who is popular and attractive, comfortable to be around, and fits a professional image succeeds eventhough their “numbers” are lower, including hiring criteria. OUr clients don’t see our work as assembly line so why do some demand it be so?
Posted by Older and Wiser Guy - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 13 hours, 22 minutes ago

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Many partners, I found, could not be swayed from first impressions based on little if any evidence if you hit them in the head with a two-by-four.
Posted by barbara res - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 13 hours, 15 minutes ago

I totally agre. Once a person is hired, the management wants her to do well. The person who hired her wants to show how smart the choice was. So as long as the new employee doesn’t do anything to change the impression, all is good. Now, if the new employee goes over and above, the management is going to spend so much time congradulating itself, it is going to take a lot to have them admit they were wrong.
Brilliant strategy, employed by obsequious conscripts everywhere.
BR
Posted by NCLawyer - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 12 hours, 55 minutes ago

I’m guessing that the lawyer in question, however, continued to give a competent performance, even if not a workaholic one. “Personable” counts for a lot when you have to sit with a client for 14 hours at a mediation. Geeks who are still bitter that they aren’t the popular kids either need to learn how to “play a popular kid on tv” (like I did) or accept the fact that the personable atty is going to bring in the work that will keep the not personable attorney from the bread line.

Meanwhile, when it comes to hiring staff people, they lie about the kinds of cases they handled in other firms, they wear inappropriate clothes to work (and by “inappropiate,” I mean tight jeans and see-through lace tops at a firm where tight jeans and see-through lace tops are not the dress code), they make sure they hand you their work as they walk out the door at 5pm so that you can’t give them feedback when it would be helpful, they ask you a million questions “I’m not sure how you want me to do this” under the guise of wanting to do well, and generally stop being the person you interviewed a week after they’re hired. And the only thing that keeps you from firing them for their poor performance is the fear that the next person in the door will be worse ...
Posted by bob - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 12 hours, 52 minutes ago

I thought this concept of busting your ass then first few weeks or even months then beginning to settle in was common sense. Aside from that, resumes and interviews are one thing, but I believe past employer recommendations speak louder than then both put together. Lucky for me I have all 3 areas covered fairly well. Except my law school GPA =/
Posted by Begonia - 2 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, 9 hours, 6 minutes ago

I have long noticed that hiring partners are more open to applicants who remind them of themselves, but I was astounded at my old firm when 2 new partners were put in charge of hiring and they just happened to hire 2 new lawyers--who physically looked astonishingly like themselves! It was actually comical, but it has a terrible impact on diversity!
Posted by gforceforever - 2 months, 3 weeks, 1 day, 35 minutes ago

People are people. They are creatures of habit, as well as “first impression”; they are the latter because the make unreasonable associations within the first minutes of contact with another human. These initial impressions must be maintained by the one who has formed them, else they will be at odds psychologically. If their beliefs/impressions prove incorrect, and they consciously acknowledge that fact, they must change their beliefs to match the reality of the other’s behaviors, and this is very difficult to reconcile within one’s ego and id.
Posted by Eric - 2 months, 2 weeks, 6 days, 4 hours, 46 minutes ago

As John Mitchell once said (before he went to jail for his Watergate shenanigans), “A man who gets a reputation for rising early can sleep ‘til noon.”

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