Path to Well-Being in Law - Episode 23: Manor Morales

 

CHRIS:

Hello, wellbeing friends. Welcome to the Path To Well-Being in Law podcast, an initiative of the Institute for Well-Being in Law. I’m your co-host Chris Newbold, executive vice president of ALPS Malpractice Insurance. As most of you know, this is the place that we are welcoming advocates and activists in the wellbeing space, all intent on building and nurturing and national network of folks intent on creating a culture shift within the profession. Very exciting that we are about to wrap up our third installment of kind of a mini series on the interconnectedness of diversity, equity and inclusion and wellbeing. And I’m always thrilled to introduce my co-host Bree. Bree, how’s it going?

BREE:

It’s going great, Chris. So glad to be here with you as all always. And I’m going to go ahead and start off with our introduction of our guests today. So Manar Morales is a national expert on women’s leadership diversity and workplace flexibility. She serves as president and CEO of the Diversity and Flexibility Alliance. She’s a frequent speaker on workplace topics, such as flexibility, diversity, inclusion, women’s leadership and individual strategies for success. Prior to founding this Alliance, she served as the ED for the project for attorney retention. And in that position, she led all of their initiatives, programs and operations. And we certainly know that attorney retention is a huge issue right now.

BREE:

She played an integral role in forming the diversity and flexibility connection, a series of discussions between prominent general counsel and law firm chairs, leading to best practices for the retention of diverse attorneys, including those working on flex schedules. She began her career as an employment litigator, representing clients in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, and has experienced litigation experience in federal courts and agencies as well as an arbitration. She’s also served as an adjunct faculty member of Georgetown University has taught classes in labor, employment law and entrepreneurship. So Manar, welcome today. We’re so glad to have you with us.

MANAR MORALES:

Thank you Bree. Thank you, Chris. I’m excited to be in conversation with both of you today.

BREE:

Absolutely. And so Manar, I’m going to start you off with a question that we asked just about everybody that comes on our podcast. And if you could talk about, what are some of the experiences in your life that are drivers behind your very evident passion for work in this space and the work and looking at the diversity, flexibility and its intersection with wellbeing?

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. I would say that my work with flexibility really came out both of a personal, a very personal story with it as well as then a professional passion for it. I started when I was an employment litigator 21 years ago, almost 21 years ago that I had my first son and started to think about wanting to go on a reduced hour schedule at that time, which wasn’t really prevalent at that time. And the experience that I had where it wasn’t really thought that I could continue to be a litigator and continue to go reduced hours. And so it really came out of this experience of having to create my own path where I could continue to do what I was passionate about, which at the time was litigation and continue to do what I wanted to do in my personal life.

MANAR MORALES:

So over time I developed that career for myself and that path for myself, where I could do things like I could teach and I could… I found a firm where I could continue to litigate and also be reduced hours. And what happened over time was that women then would come up to me and say, well, if I could have done it the way that you did it, I wouldn’t have left. And it really began me down this path of why can’t we create an environment where more people could do that. And I really felt like for me, it was out of necessity to pull together what I wanted and what I viewed and what I called a 360 life for myself. And then starting down that path of, well, why can’t we create organizations where more people have those opportunities?

BREE:

Absolutely.

CHRIS:

I’m guessing you’re professionally satisfied at this point?

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. Two more children later, I now have three boys. Three boys and a husband, maybe four boys. But yeah. So I think that really right now it is… I’ve hit my sweet spot of what I really do enjoy doing.

CHRIS:

Nice.

BREE:

That’s wonderful.

CHRIS:

Hey, Manar, tell us a bit about the Diversity and Flexibility Alliance, how did it get started and what, as you, conceive the concept, what were you hoping to change in the legal profession?

MANAR MORALES:

I founded it in 2012, so we’re at our 10 year anniversary this year, which is exciting. And really it was about, I think it was about bringing together… So for us, our sort of three pillars of the Alliance are community collaboration and content. And it really, it was bringing together a community of organizations that were really committed to wanting to have the conversations around diversity and flexibility and create real change, and each one at its own pace. So what’s exciting for us, I think, in working with organizations, we certainly have some of our members who are the innovators and say, come to us and tell us what nobody else is doing and we want to do that. And so it’s an exciting opportunity for us that we are thinking about, what would we like to see happen in the legal profession, in the corporate?

MANAR MORALES:

We’re not just limited to legal, but that’s a majority of our members. What do we want to see happening? And how can we create that change? And really partner with our members to say, look, I want to make sure you’re having the right conversation, because I think so much of this gets derailed by not having the right conversation within your organizations. And so a lot of the work that we’re doing is, let’s make sure everybody’s having the right conversation. And we have a set of best practices. We have a set of things that we believe should be happening. And for some of those best practices, it’s what nobody is doing. And some are really things that we’re looking at, the trends. So sometimes it’s exciting for us because we can be creating trends and we’re also monitoring the trends and looking at what’s happening, and being able to share that with our community.

MANAR MORALES:

So like I said, I think, some of our members are the ones who are innovators and I can really see the change happening and we can introduce something and they’re willing to run with it. And then what often happens in the legal profession is, we have some members who are what we would call those proven results, where they’re going to look to what… Look to their left, look to their right and say, come to me when you have a trend here and then we’re going to do that. And then there are others who really just want to be on the forefront of knowing what’s happening and their culture will catch up over time. I think for us to be able to see those changes and to be at the heart of those conversations at the center of those conversations in organizations has been really something very exciting for us.

CHRIS:

And I got to think for a variety of reasons that business has been pretty good of late.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. So it is interesting. I think right before the pandemic, I was giving a presentation to a managing partner, round table, where I had about two hours. And it was probably about maybe 10 days before everything happened, where everything really did shut down and everybody went virtual. And I spent most of my time in those two hours really building the business case for flexibility. And then the pandemic happened and suddenly all of our conversations were around well, okay, well, how do we make this happen? We don’t need to talk about the why right now, because we just really need to know, how do we make this happen?

MANAR MORALES:

How do we actually work in ways that nobody ever imagined. I couldn’t would not have imagined that all of a sudden everybody is going to be dealing with a 100% virtual organizations. And so we very early on with our membership base put on presentations, how do you lead in a virtual environment? How do you succeed in a virtual environment? What should organizations be doing right now and really help to rally all our members and talk to them about, here are the strategies, here’s what you should do, here [inaudible 00:08:39].

BREE:

That’s just amazing. To talk about having the right message at the right time and just being there on the spot. I mean, that’s amazing timing, Manar and congratulations for that.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah,

BREE:

We’ve definitely seen that with the institute. All the trauma and tragedy with the pandemic and the highlight around wellbeing and it’s just made it for us so much of an easier conversation to have.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. And I think with our members that we’re already doing some of… The members that are already really invested in flexibility and understood it and, telecommuting policy certainly existed long before the pandemic, they were better situated. They were better situated to be able to handle it, but certainly nobody considered or thought that flexibility would be part of their business continuity plans. That was never something considered as part of that conversation.

BREE:

Just reading the studies across the board, we’re really starting to see how the effects of the pandemic and the isolation and just how long it has gone on has rained down so much harder on people of color and especially women of color. Based on the research and your observations, could you talk a little bit about why that is?

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. I mean, I think that all of the experiences and all of the things that people have had to bear and thinking about the impact on women and women of color and what the role that they play in family situations and the burdens that they carry as being either the primary or the sole caregiver in families showed how much when all of the social systems collapsed too, it’s not just that we all went home. I mean, I keep talking about the fact that we have to remember that we were in a pandemic, this wasn’t just about a grand experiment with work from home. This was about the fact that we were in a pandemic and people had a lot of things going on. And so if you look at who was impacted the most and where the research shows, what the burdens that people were carrying and all of what’s been impacted by the great resignation and who was leaving.

MANAR MORALES:

I think the interesting thing is to look at what the percentage is when we look at flexibility moving forward that you look at people of color wanting to continue flexible work arrangements at higher percentages than white people, that also women at higher percentages than men. And I think that it was this… I think that during the pandemic, what we saw was, people of color and the data bears out too, to look at who experienced a greater sense of belonging, that actually increased for people of color-

BREE:

Really?

MANAR MORALES:

… During the pandemic, because for the first time they got to be experiencing working in a situation where they felt greater sense of psychological safety. They didn’t have to code switch as much. They didn’t have to deal with micro inequities as much if they were working from home during this time. they got a break from that.

BREE:

Wow.

MANAR MORALES:

Constant pressure of it when you’re in an office environment. Not to say that doesn’t happen on Zoom calls, it absolutely does, but the, I can then be at home for a period of time while I’m working and get a break from that. It’s an important thing to look at that intersection between diversity, equity and inclusion, and look at our path forward. We’ve always said it has a huge link with diversity, but I think what the pandemic did was reinforce what that link is.

CHRIS:

That’s interesting, because that’s… As you think about it makes logical sense, but I’m not sure that a lot of us have kind of thought about that perspective and that ability to be kind of reset and… That’s really interesting. Manar, how are you advising legal employers as you think about the stress effects of the pandemic? What I really enjoy about your work is your ambition to create inclusive cultures. And so I’m curious on, how you’re advising legal employers and what type of support the Alliance is providing to be able to effectuate that vision?

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. I think in terms of the support that we’re providing is, a lot of it is around… So we were very much intentional when I built the Alliance around, I want this to be about partnering and collaborating. So when I talk about the three Cs of the Alliance being community, which was important for us to bring organizations together to have those conversations, and the content piece of it, which is the research that we’re able to provide and the best practices. The third C is that collaboration, is that I really wanted us to have this organization where we partnered intentionally with every firm.

MANAR MORALES:

We are social mission, so our interest is to make sure that we are helping elevate and take organizations to the next level. So going in… And part of the way that we do that is looking at things like policy reviews and having advisory hours and things like that we’re looking at really, what are you doing? And are you having the right conversation? Can we frame this in such a way that executive committees see the path forward as something that is a win for the organization if we take something as flexibility? Is a really is a business imperative for the organization to be doing.

MANAR MORALES:

That helps advance and push forward engagement. It helps drive inclusion. It helps drive purpose within an organization. It helps drive productivity. It helps drive all of the things that one looks at for the health of the organization, so that you’re creating a culture where people want to, not only be excited to be a part of and want to stay, but they feel that they are fully engaged in that culture where everybody feels like they can be valued. And so a lot of the work that we do is centered around flexibility and then it’s tied to diversity, equity and inclusion. And we do that through frameworks, we do that really through building what we think is a good process for organizations to walk through to be able to create that flexible work environment.

BREE:

Manar, I just heard you talk in that answer about policies for legal employers. And obviously that’s going to differ based on what they do and number of offices, et cetera, et cetera. But could you give people some examples of some basic principles or things that you would suggest to be contained in a policy if they’re looking at how do we… Okay. We want to improve our flexibility experience for our staff and our people here, how can… Some concrete items around how to do that.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. It’s so interesting because we mentioned policies and so much of the conversation in hybrid and the future of work does center around policies. And I will say that, our advice is, let’s start… Policies isn’t where we want to start the conversation, really, it’s about how do we think first about establishing that compelling purpose for what we want it to accomplish. So really thinking about, what does the future of work look like for us as an organization? Why does it matter for us? What opportunities does it provide for us? And then start to create that shared vision of, okay, regardless…

MANAR MORALES:

One of the exercises I walk executive committees through or an organization that’s trying to decide for themselves where they should go is to say, regardless of how the future of work changes for us as an organization, what needs to stay the same? What do we need to hold on to? What do we need to make sure that we bring into the future? What do we want our people to be saying about us? What do we want our clients to be saying about us? What do we want the market to be saying about us? Because if you walk people through that exercise, it helps them start to really shape the.. To be really macro clear on what they’re hoping to accomplish. And then we can be micro, you say, macro clear, micro easy. Then we can talk about a policy, but I think…

MANAR MORALES:

And how do we design that initiative? So we have this 5R framework that I’m walking you through right now that recalibrate pieces that designing the initiative. The recommit pieces, how do we integrate flexibility into the culture? I think the biggest mistake that we’re seeing is organizations who are creating policies than creating hybrid if you will right now. And they are dropping it into a co-location model and hoping it’s going to work. And I keep saying, it’s not going to work. And it’s not going to work, not because of a failure of flexibility, it’s not going to work for you because of a failure of execution.

MANAR MORALES:

And that there are really key strategies for how do you integrate flexibility into the culture. And then finally, how do you reinforce it? How do you measure the impact of, if we started with the reflect on what your compelling purpose is, we’re going to end with reinforce and it’s going to be an iterative process that loops back to that compelling purpose. Are we meeting the purpose that we said, are we looking at this as a talent recruitment retention? That was our reasoning for doing this. Are we hitting the mark on that? And now oftentimes in that measuring, you can start to see where this is an organization that really just offered false flexibility, which is not what people are looking for today.

BREE:

Interesting were there, the false flexibility.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah.

BREE:

Yeah.

MANAR MORALES:

And that’s the biggest danger, I think. Because law firms all know that they have to do something, but what our interest is, is getting you to stand behind what you’re saying you’re going to do. I’m not interested in working with a firm to say, just tell us what our policy should look like without having done all of the groundwork and the integration part, and the building of it to say that, this is so much more than a policy change. What the future of work calls for is a culture change, and hybrid is a culture and systems change, it is not a policy change. And to really getting people to understand what that means and what that requires. And all of the behavioral changes that’s going to require is important, but well worth it.

BREE:

Yeah. I love that. And that sort of paradigm for analysis that you lead the firms through. That’s just wonderful. And yeah, seems like it would make all the difference in the world. It’s not about policies just about that. That’s sort of the end game here. What do you do to get to that decision? Manar, when we had our pre-call, a week or two ago, we started talking about… And didn’t have opportunity to really finish this idea around return on experience.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah.

BREE:

Return on experience and how that’s a new paradigm around work today. Could you talk a little bit about return on experience?

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. So return on experience is a term that we kept telling our members, look, what people are looking for is an ROE, that return on experience. And we’re seeing that today, which is, I’ve always said, policies don’t bring your people back, experiences will. And we’re seeing that with a lot of, whether it’s in the news, when you’re looking at some of these stories of companies that have demanded people back yet still don’t see them coming back. Or even with law firms, looking at their numbers and saying, we don’t have the percentages coming back that we expected to have. That’s really because the emphasis does have to be on experiences. That what people are looking for is, if you’re telling me to come back into the office, that is going to be a different experience than what I can just do at home.

MANAR MORALES:

I think that ROE is a two way street. So when we’re talking to our members about it, from an organizational standpoint, you should be thinking about what is your ROE. What are you asking your people to do when they come back into the office. Because if we just talk about FaceTime, then we’ve all had that experience where we know people who have come into the office, they shut the door, they do their work, but they’re not mentoring, they’re not [inaudible 00:21:21], they’re not collaborating. They’re doing what I call telecommuting from the office. And that’s not the experience that you want your people to do. I feel like when firms are just talking about, oh, we just need people back in the office, like, to do what? Like, stop…

MANAR MORALES:

We don’t need to be talking about, do we need people back into the office? We should be talking about what are the behaviors that you’re driving for, which is, we want to see connection, we want to see collaboration. We want to see all of those things, but that doesn’t only happen in the office. And so a lot of the things that we’ve been talking about is, around the fear… Built around the fears of what people think they’re going to lose out on in this new environment.

MANAR MORALES:

Most firms or leaders will tell me, I’m fearful of losing what we call the 5Cs, loss of connection, loss of culture, loss of collaboration, loss of control, loss of contribution. And so, you say, the problem is, you can’t… You’re right, you have to be intentional about designing a hybrid world that will continue to enhance all of those things. But if you only talk about connection in terms of the office, then you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Because what we have to say is, yes, we build connection and there’s value to it in person, but yes, we also build connection online. And so we need to be intentional about the behaviors to not just say, people build connection in the office, and when you’re working from home you’re siloed and separate. It’s, how do we build connection a 100% of the time? And that’s going to look different in each of those environments. So we need to shift our behavior accordingly.

CHRIS:

All right. I think that’s a good place to take a break. I’m excited after the break to really get into, Manar, your thought leadership in the area of the future of work, because… I got to imagine that when you were consulting pre pandemic and then urging flexibility and then wham, we all got that and got a feel for how that was, that that… It’s been a game changer. And we talk about where that’s going to go from here. So let’s take a quick break and we’ll come right back,

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CHRIS:

Welcome back. We are here with MANAR MORALES, the president and CEO of the Diversity and Flexibility Alliance, and a really interesting discussion about the creation of inclusive cultures, flexibility. Manar, I’m really curious as, we all work in our own work environments and just where you’re seeing the future of work, some real interesting dynamics in play for our profession right now. And just curious about your sense of both trends, obstacles, and the role that flexibility is going to play as we look ahead.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. In terms of where the future is headed, I do believe that the future is hybrid. I’m asked all the time by leaders, are we just going to go back? That’s the number one question I’m asked by leaders. And I would say that I’m asked by those leaders with different motivations behind that question. For some, they do actually want to get back into the office and have everybody get back and think, if we just tell everybody they’ll follow. And then others are saying, well, we’ve been really productive. We’ve seen impacts on our productivity in positive ways, maybe we don’t ever want to go back into the office. And then others who are buying into that hybrid. And there are variations of both that might.

MANAR MORALES:

So the answer to that question, I always say, look, I think that the way that 911 forever changed how we travel, that COVID will forever change how we work. And really thinking about that there is… In all of the years I’ve been studying flexibility, we’ve never gone backwards. We’ve always… It’s always been a question of, not if you’re going to do this, it’s always been a question of when you’re going to do this. And we’ve really looked at the trends since been looking at flexibility since 2006, and I can see, and even if I look at it in terms of leave practices too, since 2006, we’ve not gone backwards in that.

MANAR MORALES:

So I really do think that the future of work is hybrid for a legal. I don’t think that the 100% virtual is where the legal profession is at at the moment. It really will be, how do we make some version of hybrid work if there’s a lot of work to be done to make that happen, and it’s going to take time. And the organizations that I think are getting this right are the ones who are spending a lot of time figuring out how to, and having… And we’re working with them on how to integrate it into the culture.

BREE:

You talked about rules of engagement and how do we really show up within the hybrid workspace. Can you talk about that a little bit? How will that shift or change? How will that look different?

MANAR MORALES:

So I think that is something that if we think about what it took to just survive during the pandemic is very different from what it’s going to take to thrive in a post pandemic world. And so there have been a lot of things that during that time, for example, on, how do we show up to an online meeting? And during the pandemic and we are… And I want to recognize that we are still in a pandemic, we’re not out of it yet. And so organizations still as they’re continuing to the next level of these conversations, I always remind them, we are still in a pandemic and we still have to have empathy towards the fact that a lot of people are in a different set of situations. And so we have to think about that whenever we’re making new rules of engagement up.

MANAR MORALES:

But one of the things is during the pandemic, we got so used to sort of cameras on cameras off, your choice, which was right to do during the pandemic. We got used to showing up to online meetings being very distracted that we got showed up with our emails up. We were doing multiple things, we were engaging and maybe chatting there. There were all things that were happening and we weren’t fully present in terms of the meeting. And we got used to sort of this multitasking that was happening, and I’m guilty of it too. Especially if your camera’s off, then you’re definitely… There’s a lot of things that might be going on that. You are doing other work in the background and tending to listen and maybe not be fully engaged in the conversations that are happening. And I think in a post pandemic world, and I think I know those rules of engagement have to change. That if we want to create connection and high levels of collaboration and say that, online is a vehicle to do that, then the way that people show up to meetings has to change.

MANAR MORALES:

It means that, when we’re in an online meeting, we’re fully present, we’re recreating what it looks like to be in the room together. We are cameras on, we’re seeing each other, again, barring the fact that people are still dealing with some things in the pandemic. And obviously having empathy towards that. But generally saying, look, we want to be engaged, we want to be fully present, we want to pretend as if you’re sitting in front of me. Now, part what goes along with that is, we also have to reclaim how often we’re meeting. So yes, we want to be fully engaged and fully present during meetings. And if it’s in an online meeting, we want to make sure that’s happening. But I also think we have to reclaim how much we’re meeting, because during the pandemic, everything became a meeting. And everything became a video meeting and that’s exhausting.

MANAR MORALES:

And so going back to thinking about, Hey, what’s appropriate for us to meet on? What’s appropriate to be a phone call? And what’s appropriate for it to be an asynchronous form of communication? Whenever I’m presenting to audiences I always say, raise your hand if you’ve ever sat through a meeting and you thought this could have been an email. And of course, everybody is hand goes up. We’ve all had experienced that. And so I think if we want those rules of engagement to change, then we also have to honor the fact that not everything has to be a meeting.

BREE:

Yeah. Can you give us some examples without naming names of legal employers who are getting it right right now. What are some programming programs that you’re seeing around work flexibility and things that promote wellbeing?

MANAR MORALES:

So I think the ones that are getting it right are doing a few things. One, they are having in depth conversations around why this matters to their firm. They’re creating the shared vision, they’re really building out that business case. And then, whatever their policy is, they are then spending time on actually integrating the policy and flexibility into the culture. So they are not looking at this as a policy change, they are looking at it as a culture change. And they’re really being intentional about giving their people the practices in order to succeed in that. When we talk about, you have to integrate flexibility into the culture of your firm or your organization, it’s about, you have to align five things. The five Ps.

MANAR MORALES:

The first one is, you have to align your purpose. We started with purpose first, whenever we have these conversations. So you need to bring that in, make sure everybody in the firm is aware of what the purpose is. And then you have to align it with a set of principles. And those principles are really the mindset shifts that need to happen in order for flexibility to succeed. So some things of the mindset shifts. Some of those principles that I talk about are, flexibility is not a trade off for performance. If we see people who are not performing well, they’re not available, their work product has gone down, they’re not responsive.

MANAR MORALES:

All of those things are performance issues, those are not flexibility issues. So we need to really be clear about what flexibility is and what it isn’t. FaceTime is not an indicator of commitment, people really want the autonomy to decide where they work, within guardrails, and those guardrails are the policies of the firm, but that not one size fits all and that work is not a place and culture is not dependent upon location. Lots of things that… There are key principles. And the firms doing this well, spend the time to educate their people on what those principles are.

MANAR MORALES:

And then you have to align with your policies, whatever that policy looks, if we have lots of recommendations around some of those things to be thinking about. And then, what are the practices? So those are the tangible things that, if we think about what are we most afraid of, we’re afraid of losing connection, we’re afraid of losing out on collaboration, communication, the ability for people to contribute. Then we always say, there are best practices to make that work. And so we spend a lot of time with members doing trainings and conversations and experiences with their people to really hone what those best practices are. And then, finally align your people, make sure that your people are aware of, how do I thrive in this environment? How do I lead in this environment? Because it is different. And we need to make sure that we are telling our people that.

MANAR MORALES:

And so really spending all of that time on all of the work that it takes. I think a lot we spend so much time on what the policy is. And I say, that’s actually not the most important piece. Policy is important and we can get there, but your most important piece is taking that policy and making sure you’re actually integrating it into the culture and you’re teeing your people up for success on this. Firms that are getting this right, are the ones that are investing all of their time to do that, and their resources. And resources behind all of the implications of these policies as well, not just sort of the paper change that’s going to have to happen.

CHRIS:

Make it seems so simple and straightforward and comprehendible in the way that you’ve characterized that. I’m being honest in that. Again, I feel like there’s a push pull between employers and employees that, again, as the way that you articulated it, which is if we can move ourselves toward a collective shared vision based upon a set of core piece, in this case, purpose, principles, policies, practices and people, there’s a pathway that engages the workforce and positive ways enhances productivity and ultimately builds the culture that you aspire to build.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. That benefits both you and your people. Yeah. exactly.

CHRIS:

Yeah.

MANAR MORALES:

It comes with win-win. That is our role to play. Is to make sure that it looks, that this is something that does benefit both you as well as your people within your organization.

CHRIS:

Because again, I feel like there’s a sense that there’s just so many trade offs, that, if you have flexibility you don’t have culture. And again, I think what you’re saying is, no, let’s hit the pause button here, there is definitive ways to be able to meet both ends of the spectrum in a way that actually launches us, one plus one can actually equal three in this case.

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. I mean, that culture piece is so important. People talk about culture all of the time. And I think it’s so interesting because I think sometimes it gets thrown around without being defined. So oftentimes when somebody says, well, we’re afraid we’re going to lose our culture. I’m like, okay, well, how do you define your culture? And I don’t always get a good answer to that. We’re afraid we’re going to lose our culture. Okay, but tell me what your culture is. Tell me how you define that. Let’s be clear first on what that is. And then I say, culture is about a set of values that you hold as an organization. It’s about a set of behaviors that people exhibit within your organization. It’s the relationships that you have in your organization.

MANAR MORALES:

So culture is really can be enhanced and culture should be present, not because of your four… Your four walls don’t create culture, it’s the values, the behaviors, the relationships, how people interact with each other that creates your culture. So flexibility should really be enhancing it. And that should be present in all of your… In whatever mode you’re in. If you’re online, culture should be present there. Those things should be present there. Your four walls might enhance it, but it certainly doesn’t just drive it. It’s the behaviors of your people that are driving that. That is something that’s really important.

MANAR MORALES:

And then the hybrid, you bring up, Chris, that idea of like, are we missing out on something? And I say, our hybrid equation, the definition of hybrid that the Alliance has for our members is, I want you to be thinking about the best of who you were in person. If we think about, how do we leverage the power of hybrid? It’s taking the best of who you were in person. What about being in person was really, really good and what you enjoyed and where all of culture perhaps was enhanced.

MANAR MORALES:

And then think about the best of who you’ve been online. Because the past two years there were things that were exposed that you would’ve never realized was a crack in the system or something that was wrong in your systems. That because we were forced to operate in this way, we were forced to change in ways that we never were before. And so we really discovered some value, some things that were really working really well or things that actually got enhanced online when we work together online. So if we take the best of who we were in person, and we add that to the best of who we’ve been online, that will equal the best of who you’ll be in hybrid, but we have to be intentional about thinking about it that way and look at, Hey, in terms of connection, what was really good about when we connected in person? Let’s bring that into the hybrid world.

MANAR MORALES:

Let’s think about connection where perhaps more people felt a greater sense of belonging, more people felt like they could be connected and participated, more people interacted in firms than before because of Zoom. And in some ways Zoom became the great equalizer and enhanced some opportunities for connection. Let’s bring that in too, because that’s what the advantage of hybrid is. We’re going to be able to do the best of both of those. For us, it’s a lot of reframing around how people are thinking about this new environment in order to really create a more successful environment.

BREE:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

CHRIS NEWBOLD:

I think you mentioned earlier in the podcast, which is you monitor trends, in some respects, you create trends. So let’s look at onto the horizon, if we’re looking forward a decade, so you’re celebrating your 20th anniversary there at the Alliance. And if we’re doing a good job about changing attitudes and intentionality and hearts and minds, how do you visualize the legal profession being different or frankly better?

MANAR MORALES:

Yeah. I mean, I think that if we’re no longer having conversations on why this matters, but really having conversations around, seeing that we’ve created this sort of best of everything that really does benefit everybody, that becomes a really holistic approach of looking at work that I hope that from 20 years from now, I’m still not talking about the business case about this, but we really are seeing organizations that are thriving with people at their center, with that understanding that need to be people first. I think one of the things that we saw from the pandemic is, we had to lead with empathy in ways that we were not used to. And at that we could no longer see that people didn’t have a life, and that people really did, the personal became the professional, the professional became the personal. And I hope that we create this environment and certainly 10 years from now, that we are continuing to see people at the center of our firms rather than anything else at the center of our firms.

BREE:

I know. I just think about all the images of people’s kids, heads popping into screens and dogs and everything. And it is, it makes us much more human in this experience. Manar, this has been just incredible. And I feel so lucky to have such an amazing thought leader in this space share with us today. And I know that our listeners are going to be interested in learning more. Could you share your web address so people can reach out to you and find more?

MANAR MORALES:

Sure you can reach out to us at http://www.dfalliance.com and happy for people to email me at manardfalliance.com, and always happy to hear from people.

CHRIS:

Well, Manar, again, thank you so much for joining the podcast and the work that you do. Because again, there are conventional wisdom and then there’s evolution and progress in thinking. And you’re right in the middle of challenging historical norms, yet opening up more opportunities. And we know that this move toward flexibility, Bree, you, and I know more than anyone just how integral this is to the wellness and the element of providing people the platform to one live their best life in a way that’s healthy.

CHRIS:

I think everyone agrees that, 90 minutes of commuting time, while it can be therapeutic in some ways is not always where you’re looking to be on your own individual wellness journey, which obviously adds to professional satisfaction engagement and some of the things that we’re seeing that give us cause for concern about where the profession is at. Again, Manar, thank you for joining the podcast, and we’ll be back in just a couple weeks as we continue our journey around the country. Just talking to awesome people doing great work in the wellbeing space. Thanks for joining us.

MANAR MORALES:

Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Bree.